Gordon Brown’s Turn

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown followed France’s Nicolas Sarkozy to the Knesset to talk about love of and defense of Israel. They both followed President Bush. Where Sarkozy quoted the Bible, Brown spoke of his father, a minister who served as Chairman of the Church of Scotland’s Israel Committee. “There was never a time as I was growing up that I did not hear about, read about or was not surrounded by stories of the struggles, sacrifices, tribulation and triumphs as the Israeli people built their new state.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown followed France’s Nicolas Sarkozy to the Knesset to talk about love of and defense of Israel. They both followed President Bush. Where Sarkozy quoted the Bible, Brown spoke of his father, a minister who served as Chairman of the Church of Scotland’s Israel Committee. “There was never a time as I was growing up that I did not hear about, read about or was not surrounded by stories of the struggles, sacrifices, tribulation and triumphs as the Israeli people built their new state. And I am proud to say that for the whole of my life, I have counted myself a friend of Israel.” He even brought an interesting gift with him. The Guardian reports that Brown signed an academic exchange program, The Britain-Israel Research and Academic Exchange (BIRAX) to award scientific research grants to junior academics from postdoctoral students to mid-career researchers and lecturers. It was a direct slap at those in Britain who have been agitating for an academic boycott of Israel. And for those concerned about the lessening of Holocaust education in Britain (there is a similar decline in teaching about Winston Churchill), Brown made the point that, “each year and every year two teenagers from every secondary school travel to Auschwitz. And when they return home and share their experiences – raw and direct and powerful – I have seen the profound effect their message has on their classmates: that discrimination, persecution, anti-Semitism and racism should be banished forever.”
There is no reason, certainly, to question Brown, or Sarkozy or President Bush for that matter, when they call themselves friends of Israel. We are pleased when they put Israel in its rightful place in the democratic firmament, appreciate its struggles and successes, and offer solidarity against Iranian threats.

Where they fall short is in their common belief that Israel holds the key to the creation of a democratic state of Palestine that will live as a happy neighbor. Western leaders believe that Israel should agree to the 1967 borders. Israel should “freeze – and withdraw from” (Brown’s words) settlements. Israel should “share” Jerusalem. Israel should make the Palestinians economically viable and politically moderate. Brown added, “Without compromising your needs for security, we need your help in easing the obstacles to Palestinian economic growth – including the reopening of the Chamber of Commerce in East Jerusalem. You – Israel – drawing upon your deep wells of hope and aspiration to give hope and aspiration to others.”

It seems not to have occurred to him, or the others, that Israeli hopes and aspirations are precisely what drive certain Palestinians into murderous (literally) rages. Israeli capabilities and successes and accomplishments do not inspire the Palestinian leadership – otherwise the greenhouses would still be exporting vegetables.

Palestinian leadership, Hamas and Fatah both, consider the independence and continued existence of that State of Israel – so much appreciated by Brown, Sarkozy and Bush – to be a mistake perpetrated on the Palestinian people – mainly by the British, the French and the Americans. It is the Palestinian leadership, not Israel’s leadership, that has to make the great leap of understanding, and the world’s democratic leaders should start there, not in the Knesset.