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UK No Longer Honest Peace Broker: Experts
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"The
essence of the agreement was the protection of the Palestinians and the
understanding that they would not end up in Israeli hands," said Crooke.
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LONDON,
March 15, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Britain can
no longer be considered as an honest peace broker in the eyes of the
Palestinians and has suffered a serious blow to its shaky reputation
among Arabs by pulling monitors out of the Jericho prison before an
Israeli siege, bolstering perceptions of collusion, analysts said
Wednesday, March 15.
"In
Palestinian eyes we can no longer be considered an honest
broker," Alastair Crooke, a former British intelligence officer,
told Britain's the Times newspaper.
"The
essence of the agreement was the protection of the Palestinians and
the understanding that they would not end up in Israeli hands,"
he said referring to the Jericho agreement which saw six Palestinian
prisoners, accused of being involved in the assassination of Israeli
tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi, placed under foreign watch in the West
Bank town of Jericho.
British
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw Tuesday denied colluding with Israel over
the withdrawal from Jericho Prison, instead citing safety fears and
insufficient guarantees from the Palestinian Authority to ensure
security.
But
like many Palestinians, who viewed with suspicion the rapid Israeli
assault after the monitors' withdrawal, British-based Middle East
analysts considered it far-fetched that Tel Aviv had not been tipped
off in advance.
US
and UK officials have unveiled a letter they sent on March 8 to
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas threatening to withdraw their
monitors "unless security was improved."
Two
Palestinian security guards were killed and 26 others wounded, five of
them critically, in the Israeli assault of the Jericho jail in a bid
to capture the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP) Ahmad Saadat, four other PFLP members and Fatah
member Fuad Shubaki.
The
PFLP claimed the assassination of Zeevi, saying it was to avenge the
assassination of Saadat's predecessor in October 2001.
Saadat
surrendered to the occupation troops after the day-long siege, which
began just minutes after British and US monitors at the jail withdrew.
Support
for Occupation
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"It's betrayal, it's almost confirmation of collusion with the Israelis," said
Shehadi.
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Nadim
Shehadi, from London-based foreign policy think-tank Chatham House,
agreed that the British stand reflected London's unquestionable
support for the Israeli occupation.
"It's
betrayal, it's almost confirmation of collusion with the Israelis. We
don't know all the details, but you don't withdraw from a prison and
the Israelis come in half-an-hour later," Shehadi told Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
The
British government seemed unaware of the effect on the ground of its
actions, which "confirmed" its support for the Israeli
occupation, he added.
"When
a government is being formed, when the international community is
giving hostile signals to the whole Palestinian people, it's almost
like a punishment for having elections," he said, referring to
the landslide win of Hamas in the January 25 parliamentary elections.
Chris
Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU),
said: "The reputation of Britain in the Arab world is at an
all-time low."
"This
severely undermines the British national interest. Whatever the truth
of the situation is, to most Arabs it looks like Britain has been
complicit in a Suez-like pact to facilitate an Israeli attack on
Jericho," he said, referring to the British role in the 1956
tripartite aggression on Egypt.
Doyle
called for Straw to give full details of the security risks to
monitors and explain why he did not make any statements expressing
concern before Tuesday.
Incoherent
Policy
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"They're
not exactly following the Americans but what the Americans are doing is
the determinant of what the British do," said Hollis.
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Rosemary
Hollis, also from Chatham House's Middle East Program, believes that
perception has been reinforced by events in Jericho and highlighted
Britain's lack of coherent policy towards the region.
Hollis
said events in Jericho confirmed that Britain was "number
two" to the Americans, "constantly calculating" what
Washington's policy might be.
"They're
not exactly following the Americans but what the Americans are doing
is the determinant of what the British do. It doesn't matter what kind
of (expert) analysis we all come up with on the likely effect on the
ground," she told AFP.
"The
policy is not being made with the effects on the ground as the first
consideration, which is alarming."
Britain's
influence in the Middle East has already suffered for its military
backing of the US-led invasion of Iraq.
At
home, critics have accused Blair of slavishly doing President George
W. Bush's bidding.
That
lack of strategy was highlighted in a
damning open letter by
52 senior former British diplomats to Blair in 2004 in which they said
they viewed his policies to the Arab-Israeli situation and Iraq with
"deepening concern".
For
Laleh Khalili, lecturer in Middle East politics at the School of
Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, Britain has to build
bridges to repair the damage.
"Britain
is going to have to make some gestures independent of the US towards
the Palestinian Authority to restore some faith in the UK
government," she told AFP.
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