THE ISRAEL BOYCOTT IS WITH US NOW.FROM THE JEWISH CHRONICLE- Comment and Analysis.27th March edition
Two separate stories; one over-arching message. As we report today, the government is effectively sticking two fingers up to Israel-and, indeed, to Jews. The admission that it now refuses to pass legislation which will stop private prosecutions for war crimes without government assent-legislation which it has for years, promised that it was on the point of introducing- is a shocking piece of duplicity,double dealing and hypocrisy.
When, in 2005, IDF GEN. DORON ALMOG was forced to remain on his plane at Heathrow to avoid arrest, it presaged what now seems to be the certain prospect that any senior Israeli official will face arrest, instigated by hard core anti-Israel campaigners, if he or she sets foot on British soil.
The consequences of this are immense and deeply worrying. The government claims, that it is now powerless to act because, such is the anti-Israel feeling post- Gaza, it could not get the legislation through Parliament. Leave aside the sheer mendacity of such a claim; this is an active decision by the government, not a passive reaction to events. Worse is the bare faced hypocrisy of a government which one day tries to cosy up to Jewish voters with fine words about its commitment to fighting anti-semitism and next brazenly tells Israeli officials that they are no longer welcome in the UK.
Make no mistake; that is what the refusal to stop such private prosecutions really means. Couple that with a willingness to allow the likes of Ibrahim Moussawi( who would, were it not for a Hazel Blears and a last minute change of mind by the Home Secretary, be here now) and the latest such Hizbollah official, Dyab Abou Jahjah, into the U.K., and the message from Whitehall is pretty clear: Israelis are criminals and we dont want them here.
Do they really not see the link between such a message and the climate of opinion which engenders anti-semitism?
But as if that weren't bad enough, now comes the revelation that Gordon Brown has convened a meeting next week to discuss the implementation of a scheme designed to facilitate the boycott of goods produced on the West Bank- a meeting at which, conveniently and reprehensibly, there will be no single Israeli or even Jewish community representative present.
It does not take a genius to work out what will come next after the government sponsored boycott of Israeli goods and a de facto boycott of Israeli people: a wider boycott of Israel. The government talks a reasonable game. But it acts like a street thug.
These are worrying times for our community.
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