Photo Credit: ELNET

Below are the concluding remarks I delivered at ELNET’s eight strategic dialogue between the UK and Israel on 17 September 2024 in Jerusalem.

Eighty-five years ago on that day, the Soviet Union invaded Poland as a result of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. Britain had declared war on Germany two weeks before to defend Poland’s sovereignty. The invasion of Poland by Germany and Russia spelled disaster for the Jewish people. Britain was now at war with a country, Nazi Germany, that was bent on eradicating the Jewish people.

But Britain was also preventing Jewish national self-determination in its Palestine mandate. Three months before the war, the British government has adopted the infamous “White Paper” which drastically limited Jewish immigration and land purchase. David Ben-Gurion summarized this paradox when he said: “We must fight with Britain as if there were no White Paper, and we must fight the White Paper as if there were no war.”

Paradox characterizes to that day relations between Britain and Israel.

Britain enabled Palestinian Jews (this is how Israelis were called at the time) to fight alongside the Allies in Italy when it established the Jewish Brigade in 1944. But Britain also maintained the White Paper after the war and continued to prevent Jewish immigration despite the Holocaust. Britain tried to prevent Israel’s independence in 1948, but it fought alongside Israel against Egypt in 1956.

Britain played a key role at the UN Security Council in 1967 to block a resolution that would have demanded a total and unconditional Israeli withdrawal to the armistice lines of 1949. But Britain also added its voice in 1980 to the Venice Declaration, which endorsed the PLO and its demands. Margaret Thatcher imposed a military embargo on Israel while selling tanks to Jordan and military aircraft to Saudi Arabia, but she was also the first British prime minister to pay an official visit to Israel.

The list goes on, and the question is: “What’s the paradox today?”

It is the fact that Britain officially supports Israel’s right to defend itself but undermines that right by suspending military export licenses. Among allies, criticism and frank dialogue are welcome and necessary. Israel is not, and should not, be above criticism. But neither should it be held by impossible standards which NATO forces did not apply to themselves in Iraq and Syria.

Two weeks ago, ELNET hosted a delegation of former senior commanders, most of them from the UK. Among them was General Sir John McColl, former deputy senior allied commander of NATO. He came away from the trip, he said, “satisfied that the IDF’s operations and rules of engagement were rigorous compared to the British Army and our Western allies.”

Israel might be able to do better still to protect civilians while fighting a terrorist organization in urban areas and in underground tunnels. But imposing a partial arms embargo on Israel sends the wrong message to our common enemies: not only to Hamas, but also to the Russia-Iran axis that supports it.

The free world cannot afford to be divided in the current global conflict that has been imposed on us. When our two countries went to war against Egypt in 1956, tensions between the US and the UK played into the hands of the Soviets. Let us not repeat that mistake and let us settle our differences in private.

Abba Eban wrote the following about British politics: “It became a Zionist truism that our friends were former minsters, while incumbent ministers were our former friends.” May this dialogue, and the work of ELNET in general, relegate this truism to history.

Photo Credit: ELNET

As a scholar and practitioner of diplomacy, I regularly engage with counterparts whose views differ from mine. I very much value being exposed to contradictory viewpoints and debating both factually and respectfully. In recent weeks, I have heard more than once that many Europeans ask themselves the following question: “How can we justify to the Global South condemning Russia while supporting Israel?” To most Israelis, including myself, this is a jaw-dropping question. But since it is being asked, let me answer it.

I shall start with the question’s least controversial part: the so-called “Global South.” This misleading expression was coined during the Vietnam War by far-left American activist Carl Oglesby, who used typical Marxist terminology to depict an alleged divide between “exploiters” and “exploited.” The “Global South” expression made a comeback in the early 21^st century, and it has progressively imposed itself by way of herd behavior – thus replacing the “Third World” idiom conceived by French geographer Alfred Sauvy in 1952.

The widespread and uncritical adoption of the “Global South” expression has absurd, though at times amusing, consequences. According to the UN Agency for Trade and Development (UNCTAD), North Korea belongs to the “Global South” while South Korea belongs to the “Global North.” China, with a GDP of 18 trillion, the world’s largest navy, and technological leadership from electric cars to 5G, is classified as “Global South.” But Russia, with a GDP of 2 trillion, a dysfunctional army whose supplies depend on North Korea, and a rentier economy that mostly lives off energy exports, is classified as “Global North.”

Besides this list of absurdities (which is longer), there is nothing in common between the right-wing and pro-American governments of Argentina and India, and the left-wing and pro-Russia governments of Chile and Venezuela; or between the anti-Iran thriving economies of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and the Iran-controlled failed states of Syria and Lebanon. The “Global South,” in other words, is a scam.

Now for the real controversy.

Russia is the largest country in the world. It is a violent autocracy and a revanchist empire that tries to retake control of former Soviet republics. Russia also tries to undermine –in cooperation with other autocracies such as China, Iran, and North Korea– the US-led rule-based order that was established after World War Two and that expanded with the end of the Cold War. Russia started the war in Ukraine by aggressing and conquering its neighbor. It knowingly commits war crimes there by intentionally bombarding civilian targets that are not used by the Ukrainian army.

Israel is one of the smallest countries in the world. It is a democracy surrounded by autocracies and by a ring of failed states – Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza – that have been taken over and armed by Iran with the declared purpose of destroying Israel with a coordinated strike. Israel was the one attacked by Hamas on October 7, and it did what every country would have done after such a barbaric attack by using force in self-defense (in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter).

As in every war, the war in Gaza is making civilian victims (the number of victims is unverifiable, and the figures provided by Hamas are unreliable). The armies of NATO made large numbers of civilian victims while fighting the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (the Battles of Mosul and Raqqa in 2016-2017 were especially lethal). Israel must be judged by the same standards applied to other Western democracies, not by higher and unachievable ones. And Israel is taking greater precautions than Western armies in its battle against Jihadists. As explained by US military expert John Spencer: “Israel has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history – above and beyond what international law requires.”

Iran, which aggressed Israel via Hamas on 7 October 2023, and Russia, which aggressed Ukraine on 22 February 2022, are allies. Israel is fighting not only for its survival against Iran’s genocidal program but also for the free world. If Israel and Ukraine fall, the Russia-Iran axis supported by China will declare victory. Taiwan will be next. So will the Baltic States and the rest of Europe. As President Biden said on 19 October 2023: “Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common: They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy.”

It is as simple, and as true, as that. So not only can Europe condemn Russia while supporting Israel. It also should.