Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is an infuriating
character. Just when you think you have got him neatly categorized
as a pretentious, self-seeking political wrecker, he does something
right and brave.
Maybe he has acted for no more noble a motive than
consideration for his American royalties and lecture fees, but
anyway he has stood up and unequivocally opposed Mahmoud Abbas’s
bid for full recognition of a Palestinian state at the
UN.
“You can pass whatever resolution you like at the United
Nations or the Security Council, it doesn’t actually deliver you a
state on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza, and if you don’t
have a negotiation, whatever you do at the UN is going to be deeply
confrontational,” Blair, who is the international community’s
official Middle East representative, was
quoted as saying.
He can expect a storm of attacks not only from a huge
Third World voting bloc, but from the British Left, where
anti-Zionism, a.k.a. Jew-hatred, is deeply entrenched. Count how
many times the phrases “America’s poodle” or “Zionist” come
up.
It all seems reminiscent of the British politicians in
G.K. Chesterton’s book, The Man
Who Knew Too Much, in which the narrator, after listing
their many sins, says in a curiously moving climax, “and they are
standing firm for all that.”
Blair has supported the US and Israeli position that a
real peace settlement can only come about from face-to-face
negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Given the whole
history of the conflict, this seems the only feasible position. A
UN resolution recognizing a Palestinian state, as matters are at
present, would have only one point: it would contribute to the
delegitimization of Israel.
This is in some contrast to British Tory Prime Minister
David Cameron, who at the time of writing has not made his
government’s position clear.
A crucial question may be the extent to which Cameron is
prepared to stand up to his left-wing partners, the Liberal
Democrats, who, though they command less than 10 percent of the
vote, have just been indulging in an orgy of Tory-bashing at their
annual conference, some of their senior speakers openly referring
to their coalition partners as “the enemy.” The British Foreign
Office also has a reputation for being traditionally
Arabist.
The Liberal Democrats apparently subscribe to more-or-less
the whole left-wing package deal. Although Cabinet meetings are of
course secret, there is no reason to believe the Liberal-Democrats
will not support the Palestinians. Attitudes to the Palestinian
question in the face of this may be a critical test of Tory moral
fiber.
Cameron has said: “We support Palestine having its own
state next to a secure Israel. In the end we have to recognize we
will get a Palestinian state alongside an Israeli state by the
Palestinians and the Israelis sitting down and talking to each
other.…We don’t yet know what resolution is going to be put
forward, what it is going to say, what its terms are. There will
only be one test for British policy, which is: Will this help to
bring about the establishment of a state for the Palestinians next
to a secure state for Israel?” This, taken at its face value, is
simply political double-speak and could mean anything. What
“secure” Israel borders are the Palestinians — or rather the
Palestinian leaders — likely to agree to?
The 1967 boarders of Israel, which leave its main airport
within easy range of attack and would allow the country to be, in
theory, cut in two by a tank-attack in minutes, have been described
by some Israelis as “Auschwitz Mark II.”
Palestinian rhetoric is in the direction of Israel’s total
elimination, and it is hard to see how any Palestinian leadership
could control this, or indeed that any possible leaders have any
desire to, especially if the Palestinians believe they can now get
support from Egypt and/or Turkey.
Yet Cameron, too, displayed
what was, for me, surprising firmness and courage when Russia
threatened Georgia and he flew to offer it support and
encouragement.
Whatever can be said against Blair — which is quite a bit
— he has stood by the U.S. when the chips are down, and he appears
to appreciate how disastrous for the West throwing Israel under a
bus would be. It seems he really does recognize that the Atlantic
Alliance, or the Anglosphere — call it what you will — is, as it
was in the 20th century, the best hope for civilization in a
chaotic and danger-filled world, and that there are times when a
stand must be taken without equivocation. It is a pity, to say the
least, that his Prime Ministership left Britain an economic and
social shambles, and hardly able even to defend itself, but it
seems that he retains at least some tattered rags of
valor.
