The Executive Director of the influential Henry Jackson Society has said the UK government “apparently help[ed] the Obama administration” push an anti-Israel United Nations (UN) resolution, possibly due to an “Arabist bent” in the Foreign Office.
Dr. Alan Mendoza, a founder of the foreign policy think tank, slammed the government for it’s “obsession” with settlements in the West Bank, and for “doing a favour” for the outgoing Obama administration.
He urged the Prime Minister to “rein in” the “Arabist bent” Foreign Office and support the state of Israel in the UN.
UN Security Council Resolution 2334 was adopted on 23 December, after President Obama broke with convention by not using the United State’s veto to block anti-Israel action.
The resolution is the most specific UN attack on Israel since the 1980s and it describes Jewish settlement as a “flagrant violation” of international law, which have “no legal validity”.
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Speaking to Breitbart London editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam, Dr. Mendoza explained how “the UK has [had] a position towards Israel for years that has been broadly… friendly, but not that friendly”, and characterised by an “obsession with settlements.”
The UK, he said, had behaved as if Jewish settlement are “the worst thing that has happened to the Middle East”, which was “of course” not true.
“We can point to the rising strife within in the Muslim world; we can look at the chaos in Syria; we can see what’s happening in Iraq – all these places we can see are much worse, and yet, the British government chooses this issue to hang it’s hat on”, he added, continuing: “The irony is, this move makes is much harder to achieve the solution that the British government says – and the U.S. government says – it would like to see, which is a two-state solution.
“Because, how will you get to a two-state solution when only one party is being attacked; only one party is being told it must do things?
“Last time I looked it wasn’t the Israelis who failed to sign peace agreements – it was the Palestinians. Surely if we were serious about getting peace we would be applying pressure to the Palestinians and not the Israelis?”
Resolution 2334 was initially prepared by Egypt until President-elect Donald Trump pressured Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to withdraw the proposal
David Keyes, a spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister, later claimed that President Obama was behind the resolution and had helped with both “formulating and pushing” it.
Addressing why the UK chose to back the UN’s assault on its ally in the Middle East, Dr. Mendoza placed the blame on the Foreign Office and a misled desire to please the outgoing Obama administration.
“I find it very hard to believe that Theresa May was told the full story of what was going on here, in terms of the back room dealings”, he claimed.
“It seems to me a classic Foreign Office ploy”, he said, saying he “wonder[ed] if the Foreign Office presented the full options” and made it clear to the Prime Minister that the Trump administration would be so against the resolution.
“It seems to me a bit of an own goal” he continued, as Britain had “apparently help[ed] the Obama administration ring people up, get support for a motion – that in a sense [the U.S.] didn’t even want to support themselves, but abstain on.”
Dr. Mendoza questioned why the UK would “do a favour for an administration that is leaving in two weeks time” after that very administration “told us that we would be [at the] back of the queue for Brexit free trade talks and all the rest of it.”
If the Foreign Offices had indeed been “twisting things and putting them before the Prime Minister” he suggested Mrs. May “took a grip” on the Foreign Office “much like Mrs. Thatcher once did”.
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