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An Open Letter To Tony Blair
Patrick Seale Al-Hayat 2004/01/23
Dear Prime Minister,
It is often rumored, in your favor, that you agreed to join George W. Bush's war on Iraq in return for a commitment from the American President to work to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, once and for all. If there was such a trade off then it has not been honored, leaving you and Britain very much dishonored.
You have seen fit to make the country pay a heavy price for your untempered allegiance to the Americans. You personally have been called a liar, your credibility battered; you have exposed British interests to terrorism (remember Istanbul), and for no political reward at all. The only movement on the question of Palestine has been a backward one. The Roadmap is stone dead. Nothing positive can be expected from this U.S. administration, especially in an election year. Israeli settlement expansion and road building continue defiantly in the occupied territories. Over the next few months, Ariel Sharon's iron wall will rob the Palestinians of all hope of viable statehood, which is the Israeli Prime Minister's evident intention.
The future looks increasingly grim. Arab and Muslim anger has reached an all-time high, terrorism will be fuelled further still, and Israel will be guaranteed nothing but insecurity. Britain, because of its Blairite policies, is unlikely to be spared.
As a disconsolate Labour voter, I am within my rights to be blunt. There is just one way you can recover the political and moral authority squandered on the catastrophic adventure in Iraq. It is to do something quickly about Palestine.
Your relations with France and Germany have slowly improved. A powerful triumvirate leadership is now emerging in Europe. Together with Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder, you have the power to impose a peace settlement on the parties. If you were to summon an international conference with this aim in view, you would have the support of the Arab world, of liberal Jews everywhere - disgusted by the machinations of Sharon and Bush - of Russia, the UN and world opinion. A European force could monitor the implementation of an agreement and provide security for an Israeli public, truly traumatized by suicide bombings. President Bush, expediently, might suddenly find that peace in the Middle East could boost his campaign for re-election!
Many of your pressing problems - the Hutton enquiry, top-up tuition fees, rebellion in the Labour Party - might become less damaging issues to your premiership if you were boldly to seize the initiative in the Middle East. Critics of your Iraq policy might well be silenced. The insulting charge of being nothing better than an American poodle would be quickly dropped. Your leadership, now in tatters, would be reaffirmed and your political credibility restored.
On Iraq, you appear to have been seriously misled by intelligence over two crucial issues. You seem to have been convinced that Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction posed an imminent threat. Either your services deceived you or, worse still, you chose to deceive the rest of us! You do not appear to have taken on board the real agenda of the war-mongering Washington conspirators. They were determined to overthrow Saddam Hussein and occupy Iraq, whatever the evidence and irrespective of the Security Council and the world, a determination predating your premiership, as it now transpires.
They were in thrall to a science-fiction fantasy that capturing Iraq would change the geopolitics of the entire Middle East to the benefit of the U.S. and Israel. It would be illuminating to know what you were told in this connection and what you yourself actually believe.
You and your foreign secretary, Jack Straw, have repeatedly said that you favor the emergence of an independent Palestinian state, living side-by- side with Israel in peace and security. Yet, in waging war on Iraq, you allied yourself with American neo-conservatives, totally opposed to any and all Palestinian self-determination, and therefore highly dangerous to Israel's future prospects. This is the glaring contradiction at the heart of your reckless Middle East policy.
You must disentangle yourself from such dubious connections by promoting a fair and balanced settlement of the Middle East conflict. Seeking warm relations with the U.S. and Israel, as you seem adamant to want to do, does not require you to be in thick with the criminal Israeli far right and its arrogant and over-reaching American supporters.
As you are doubtless aware, a tragic incident is at present straining Anglo-Israeli relations: the murder in Gaza of Tom Hurndall, a member of the International Solidarity Movement. When he was shot in the head by the Israeli army, Hurndall was seeking to protect civilian Palestinians, mainly young children, from house demolitions and other illegal collective punishments. You have behaved cravenly on the subject of this murder of a British citizen, taking no stand, failing to insist that Israel grant the British Metropolitan Police access to an enquiry that greatly concerns the British public. This is but one reflection of your government's dismal failure to address a problem for which Britain bears grave historic responsibility.
The Arab-Israeli conflict is the main reason for today's terrorist violence. It is a prime cause of the dangerous tensions between the West and the Islamic world. The parties to the conflict are patently unable to solve the problem on their own. Lancing this abscess would make the world a safer place, as has been said again and again by those who know.
You must seize the initiative and not allow Britain to be frog-marched to America's martial tune, which will ring in defeat and nothing else. You must not hide behind the tired old excuse that America alone can influence Israel. You must rally your major EU partners, affirming that Europe has a central role to play in order to bring peace to a region vital to Europe's own security and prosperity.
Above all, you must act now to stop Sharon's wall. You have declared it 'illegal' but done nothing further about it. Once it is built, the problem may well become insoluble without unimaginable future violence and you, personally, will have to bear responsibility for the apocalyptic consequences of the mess into which the Americans have plunged the Arab world with your enthusiastic help.
Mr. Prime Minister, you are duty-bound to act now, before it is too late for Britain.
Yours sincerely,
Patrick Seale
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