| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? 21:01 - Oct 15 with 7243 views | Blueastheycome |
I am struggling to get at least one clear and obvious answer online from a reputable source.
Can someone lay it out nice and easy for me please?
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| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 21:14 - Oct 15 with 4414 views | Keno |
I’m guessing a mix of reasons but possibly linked to our part in the formation of Isreal in the late 40’s and perhaps that in the Cold War they were seen as a bastion against the USSR |  |
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| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 21:16 - Oct 15 with 4400 views | DJR |
Its position has obviously changed since the time of Israel's creation according to this I came across, which accords with recollection of an exhibition I went to at university with some Jewish friends back in 1978 to mark the 30th anniversary of Israel's creation.
"Indeed, despite Theresa May’s declaration during the centenary of the Balfour Declaration of her ‘pride’ of Britain’s role in creating Israel, Britain on the other hand was in fact against the concept of partition, and despite US pressure and heavy wartime debts owed to it, abstained on the 1947 Partition plan vote. Indeed, the British ambassador to the United Nations at the time, Ernest Bevin, described the partition resolution (which granted 55% of Palestine to the Zionists, despite the Jewish population still being outnumbered by Arabs by two-to-one even after three decades of mass immigration) as “so manifestly unjust for the Arabs that it is difficult to see how we could reconcile it with our conscience”. Between 1948 and 1949, Britain would refuse to vote for Israel’s recognition at the UN on three separate occasions, before becoming the last state to do so in 1949 following the end of the first Arab-Israeli war." [Post edited 15 Oct 2023 21:20]
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| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 21:30 - Oct 15 with 4312 views | WeWereZombies |
DJR's post is very good but doesn't, perhaps, fit your nice and easy criteria. So I think we should also consider the growing consciousness about the holocaust that followed the Second World War as well as the fallout from the Suez Crisis when Egyptian independence knocked the interests of Britain and France for six although Israel had given military support to those o in an attempt to win back the canal. It also became clear as the Twentieth century drew to a close that many Arab and Islamic powers were not in favour of retaining an Israeli state in the the region despite the struggle to get it established. |  |
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| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 21:31 - Oct 15 with 4313 views | DJR |
This suggests relations with Israel only significantly improved around the turn of the century, and that in the 50s and 60s, the UK tended to be fairly pro-Arab, no doubt influenced by its interests in the area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93United_Kingdom_relations [Post edited 15 Oct 2023 21:33]
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| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 21:42 - Oct 15 with 4270 views | buoyant |
1. Guilt
2. Allegiance to a western nation in the middle east
3. To stay mates with the strongest bully in the playground
4. Strong ties in certain markets and media outlets
5. Skin colour |  |
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| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 21:48 - Oct 15 with 4224 views | jontysnut |
The British Minister for the Middle East was assassinated in 1944 by the Stern Gang, a Zionist group. How times change. |  | | |
| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 21:52 - Oct 15 with 4202 views | SuperKieranMcKenna |
Strategic Middle Eastern ally with a powerful military, western aligned, counter balance to Iran, and an advanced economy. Let’s be honest we don’t have many friends in the region… |  | | |
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| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 22:05 - Oct 15 with 4134 views | MisterBlue |
| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 21:42 - Oct 15 by buoyant |
1. Guilt
2. Allegiance to a western nation in the middle east
3. To stay mates with the strongest bully in the playground
4. Strong ties in certain markets and media outlets
5. Skin colour |
would you care to expand on point 5 ? |  | | |
| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 22:07 - Oct 15 with 4125 views | phillymark |
I would argue that the UKs "support of Israel" has actually been pretty neutral.
But maybe there's something in democracy and morality | | | |
| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 22:20 - Oct 15 with 4069 views | buoyant |
| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 22:05 - Oct 15 by MisterBlue |
would you care to expand on point 5 ? |
Certainly
Whether we like or choose or not to accept it, "we" have an unconscious bias toward people with visual similarities.
You only have to look at recent conflicts where Ukrainians were openly welcomed into households yet British national Sudanese families were denied access to the UK | |
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| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 22:28 - Oct 15 with 4012 views | GlasgowBlue |
| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 21:42 - Oct 15 by buoyant |
1. Guilt
2. Allegiance to a western nation in the middle east
3. To stay mates with the strongest bully in the playground
4. Strong ties in certain markets and media outlets
5. Skin colour |
Point 5.
Wow. |  |
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| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 22:32 - Oct 15 with 3989 views | buoyant |
| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 22:28 - Oct 15 by GlasgowBlue |
Point 5.
Wow. |
I don't like it either but have witnessed it on many many occasions and with people who I'd thought better of. | |
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| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 01:40 - Oct 16 with 3653 views | Ryorry |
I'd add to others already mentioned (but excluding Slump's pt. 5)
Supposedly liberal democracy (including support of LGBTQ rights).
Sadly appears to be taking increasingly illiberal nasty right turns. |  |
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| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 07:54 - Oct 16 with 3393 views | GlasgowBlue |
| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 22:32 - Oct 15 by buoyant |
I don't like it either but have witnessed it on many many occasions and with people who I'd thought better of. |
It’s an odd take to generalise Israelites as being “white”.
Only 30% of the Israel population are Ashkenazi. The majority of Israeli citizens share the same features as most people from that part of the middle east.
It’s long being an argument to dismiss racism against Jewish people, by classing them as white. How can white people suffer racism. And they are powerful. Powerful and white. Definitely can’t be victims did racism. No sir.
Whoopi Goldberg did this recently by claiming that the Holocaust was nothing to do with race, but was “white on white”.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/06/whoopi-goldberg-holocaust- | |
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| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 08:14 - Oct 16 with 3329 views | Darth_Koont |
Good answers for the historic reasons many of which will clearly feed into/normalise the current support.
But the current support is more and more demanded by the political and geo-political status quo. We’re taggers-on to the US and their one-sided support of Israel over Palestine as well as sharing the same overall strategic aims and partners in the Middle East. So it’s a self-interested and hypocritical support more than anything else.
It needs to be put in the same box as us currently arming and training the Saudi Air Force to bomb Yemeni children. |  |
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| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 08:50 - Oct 16 with 3228 views | SuperKieranMcKenna |
| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 01:40 - Oct 16 by Ryorry |
I'd add to others already mentioned (but excluding Slump's pt. 5)
Supposedly liberal democracy (including support of LGBTQ rights).
Sadly appears to be taking increasingly illiberal nasty right turns. |
Supposedly liberal democracy (including support of LGBTQ rights).
That is a very good point, there are very few countries in the region where LGBT, Christians, and Jews, and other minority groups can live safely, or without persecution. [Post edited 16 Oct 2023 9:02]
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| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 09:10 - Oct 16 with 3189 views | JohnTy |
The best account I have found, dated 2004, is by Jonathan Spyer, a British-Israeli who still writes on the Middle East.
https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/olj/meria/meria_jun04/meria04_spj01.pdf
Every PM we have had since Attlee, who was not interested in foreign affairs, has been very pro-Israel, esp Churchill, Wilson, Thatcher, Blair. The Foreign Office less so. [Post edited 16 Oct 2023 9:18]
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| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 09:11 - Oct 16 with 3184 views | buoyant |
| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 07:54 - Oct 16 by GlasgowBlue |
It’s an odd take to generalise Israelites as being “white”.
Only 30% of the Israel population are Ashkenazi. The majority of Israeli citizens share the same features as most people from that part of the middle east.
It’s long being an argument to dismiss racism against Jewish people, by classing them as white. How can white people suffer racism. And they are powerful. Powerful and white. Definitely can’t be victims did racism. No sir.
Whoopi Goldberg did this recently by claiming that the Holocaust was nothing to do with race, but was “white on white”.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/06/whoopi-goldberg-holocaust- |
I did hesitate before hitting send knowing that point 5 would be controversial and I agree with your response.
Sadly though how people physically appear does have an influence on who proportions of populations affiliate with. I still hear terms like rag head, p*** less than in decades gone but it's a long way from being eradicated. | |
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| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 09:13 - Oct 16 with 3171 views | WeWereZombies |
| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 08:50 - Oct 16 by SuperKieranMcKenna |
Supposedly liberal democracy (including support of LGBTQ rights).
That is a very good point, there are very few countries in the region where LGBT, Christians, and Jews, and other minority groups can live safely, or without persecution. [Post edited 16 Oct 2023 9:02]
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I think 'where...Christians...can live...without persecution' is stretching it a bit actually.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-65876162
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-65204037
'At the end of January, an extremist Jewish mob hurled chairs and damaged property in violent scenes at an Armenian-owned restaurant by New Gate in the Old City. There were cries of "Death to Arabs, Death to Christians".
The next month, a religious Jewish American tourist vandalised a statue of Christ with a hammer at the Church of the Flagellation on the Way of the Cross.
In a video shot at the scene, a Palestinian guard could be heard shouting "call the police" while the man he has wrestled to the floor calls out: "you're not allowed to have idols." He was said to be undergoing a psychiatric evaluation.
Over the years, cases of spitting, cursing and pushing priests in the Old City have become routine. However, church leaders say recently there has been more sectarian abuse.
"It's happening because there is hatred and fanaticism, radicalisation of a part of the Israeli society," says Bishop William Shomali of the Latin Patriarchate. "It's a minority of people."' | |
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| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 09:27 - Oct 16 with 3099 views | WeWereZombies |
| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 09:10 - Oct 16 by JohnTy |
The best account I have found, dated 2004, is by Jonathan Spyer, a British-Israeli who still writes on the Middle East.
https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/olj/meria/meria_jun04/meria04_spj01.pdf
Every PM we have had since Attlee, who was not interested in foreign affairs, has been very pro-Israel, esp Churchill, Wilson, Thatcher, Blair. The Foreign Office less so. [Post edited 16 Oct 2023 9:18]
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I've clicked on that link and think I will have to download it and read it later, I may come back to your post and give you an uppie if I like it...but this has to be peak TWTD forum - ask for a clear and simple answer and get a twenty two page overview from a research Fellow. | |
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| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 09:31 - Oct 16 with 3080 views | DJR |
| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 09:13 - Oct 16 by WeWereZombies |
I think 'where...Christians...can live...without persecution' is stretching it a bit actually.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-65876162
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-65204037
'At the end of January, an extremist Jewish mob hurled chairs and damaged property in violent scenes at an Armenian-owned restaurant by New Gate in the Old City. There were cries of "Death to Arabs, Death to Christians".
The next month, a religious Jewish American tourist vandalised a statue of Christ with a hammer at the Church of the Flagellation on the Way of the Cross.
In a video shot at the scene, a Palestinian guard could be heard shouting "call the police" while the man he has wrestled to the floor calls out: "you're not allowed to have idols." He was said to be undergoing a psychiatric evaluation.
Over the years, cases of spitting, cursing and pushing priests in the Old City have become routine. However, church leaders say recently there has been more sectarian abuse.
"It's happening because there is hatred and fanaticism, radicalisation of a part of the Israeli society," says Bishop William Shomali of the Latin Patriarchate. "It's a minority of people."' |
The current Government is also pretty hostile to LGBT+ people, if the following is anything to go by.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/22/israel-lgbtq-community-fear-future [Post edited 16 Oct 2023 9:32]
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| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 09:44 - Oct 16 with 3028 views | SuperKieranMcKenna |
Assumed you meant our Govt before I clicked the link..but that would be fairly accurate too! | | | |
| Why does the UK historically and currently support Israel ? on 09:45 - Oct 16 with 3026 views | ElephantintheRoom |
Not to do so would be considered antisemitic but Guardian readers
This is the same UK who put Jews behind barbed wire and watchtowers in Cyprus after WW2 whilst deciding how to make the biggest mess possible in n ‘British Palestine’ | |
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