Iran says Bahrain made the strategic error of the force (AFP)

TEHRAN (AFP)-Iran said Wednesday that Bahrain had made a "strategic error" by asking the Gulf troops to help the success when you try to get rid of the pro-democracy protests of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, such as accusing Washington move.

Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi told the official IRNA news agency Sunni Muslim Shiite majority-ruled, but the Gulf Kingdom had made a "strategic and political" blunder that cost would be its "legitimacy."

The armed forces of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on Monday at the invitation of the monarchy for Bahrain to help the tuoteuttamisesta anti-regime led by the Shiite Klimaflüchtlinge.

"Such actions will increase tension and undermine regional stability and security," said Davari. "And if such an inconsiderate and illegal activities have become part of normal practice, the area becomes a hotbed of conflict and hostility to the phenomenon."

King Hamad on Tuesday declared the three-month State of emergency, to curb the unrest and restore the order of the military component of a broad mandate.

On Wednesday authorities of Manama, the capital of the Pearl Square and financial district, after the curfew, the peaceful pro-democracy Protest Camp cracked the security forces.

Three protesters and two policemen on Wednesday prosessoitiin, and the third policeman died of wounds sustained in the past, the opposition and official sources said.

Mainly Shiite Iran was quickly criticized for its support of the United States in the arc-foe intervention and the violent military crackdown on Bahrain, the US Fifth Fleet at home.

"Expedition is very foul and doomed to experience and regional Nations to organize the American Government responsible for this," Ahmadinejad told reporters after a cabinet meeting Wednesday.

"The United States seeks to save the Zionist regime and smother the popular movement" in the region.

"And because it supports some of the (regional) Governments," said Ahmadinejad, the Presidency, based on the Tehran and Washington have reached new heights under.

"Unfortunately, today the population is the mobilisation against Bahrain, which is the very ground, unjustifiable and incomprehensible Act. How can those who are using weapons against them, are regulated by the people you want? "he said.

Ahmadinejad called on the Bahraini Shiite opposition officials, most of the "legitimate" demands of the profit.

"the 700,000 are among the 600 000 People Protested and, where necessary, changed. People should be respected and reforms should be carried out, "he said. "Think about your future."

On Tuesday, ambassadors from Manama to remember its Tehran, Iran, citing "a blatant interference" in its affairs.

Tehran responded in kind Wednesday "Protest of the Government of Bahrain for its people, the killing of the" sent to the Government's Web site announcement said dolat. ir.

The main Shiite opposition Alliance says it wants a constitutional monarchy but radical Shiite groups have said they want to get rid of the Sunni dynasty, which is found in Bahrain, more than 200 years.

King Hamad has offered dialogue, new, competent to Parliament and other reforms, but the opposition has refused to sit down in talks until the Government resigns.

Ahmadinejad also issued a veiled warning to Riyadh, and Abu Dhabi to remember the former dictator Saddam Hussein in Iraq, which attacks the Iranian and Kuwaiti before the 2003 US invasion of Poland in his country, the State broadcasting service reported.

"The United States does not have a reliable and faithful friend to you, and so far it has sacrificed all its friends, including Saddam," he said, without directly naming Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates.

Iran's revolutionary guards, said Washington would pay a heavy range, in support of Bahrain, the repression of Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa, IRNA reported.

Yadollah Javani, the Deputy General Commander of the order, which is responsible for political affairs, "the dispatch of troops to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates has been carried out in Bahrain in support of the community and the coordination of the United States, State-of-the-art," said.

"Bahrain protests Washington, one of the main advantages of the snap-in is a danger," he said, adding that the United States loses an important base of "area", where the Bahraini dynasty is overthrown.

Iran ' to release 80-year-old opposition head ' (AFP)

TEHRAN (AFP)-Ebrahim Yazdi, the head of the 80-year-old Liberal Party, which was banned last October 1, was published in the prison on Sunday, the State news agency IRNA reported.

Yazdi, a former Foreign Minister, were arrested along with several other members of the free movement of the city of Isfahan in Iran.

He was also arrested in June 2009 during the wave of unrest that followed the disputed the claim of the Islamic Republic of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said the election was due to massive fraud.

IRNA also said Yazdi, who served in the 1979 Islamic revolution that overthrew his Government, in due course, the first leader of his party, his Office announced, without giving any reason.

In the meantime, the opposition said at least 20 sites in the opposition figures arrested in the last two years, the terms and conditions should be released pass the Iranian new year holiday from Monday onwards, members of their families moving within the smuggled convicted.

They must return to jail after the holidays in early April.

Thousands of people were arrested in the demonstrations against Ahmadinejad in 2009 were sentenced to prison terms and dozens, including the Chairman of the political opponents, journalists and other activists.

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Sanction policies and the Zionist Power structure

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By James Petras

One of the key distinctions between a capitalist and a non-capitalist (socialist, feudal, absolutist state) economy is the separation of state and private enterprise. In a capitalist state, economic enterprises are supposed to operate according to market principles, seeking to maximize profits and expand market shares. The state is supposed to act on behalf of capitalist enterprises, ensuring their protection and furthering their pursuit of profits and markets.

Recent history of foreign relations provides ample evidence that the reverse is true: private corporations, especially banks have been converted into adjuncts of the US state , serving as transmission belts of US military policy, by sacrificing markets, profits and opportunities for future economic growth. Another important reason for keeping US multinational corporations out of a country. Moreover, the state both in the US and Europe have seized billions in private investment funds and dispossessed their owners, in the process scuttling major financial transactions adversely affecting the biggest Western financial houses.

The dispossession of private capitalists and the harnessing of private firms to state policy have grown in scope and depth over the current decade, revealing the growing subordination of private capitalism to a militarist imperialist state.  Sacrificing private profits and free markets to the edicts of state officials has been implemented via state coercion and severe sanctions against any transgressors.

How and why the world’s biggest propagandist of “free enterprise” and de-regulated capitalism has successfully converted major international financial and industrial enterprises into tools of foreign policy at enormous costs to their bottom line is yet an untold story. Given the enormity of the historical change in the relation between state and market, the shift in power has enormous consequences for peace, prosperity and freedom.

How the State Dominates “the Market”:  The Historical Context

Beginning in the 1990’s under President Clinton and escalating under Bush and Obama, the US imperial state imposed economic sanctions first in Iraq and later on Iran and more recently on Libya. In effect the state dictated to its petroleum multi-nationals and biggest banks that they should sacrifice lucrative investment opportunities, ongoing profits and markets to serve imperial state interests. Billions of dollars were lost during the 1990’s, in the face of Iraq sanctions, forcing many US oil companies to engage  clandestine “third party” intermediaries, to secure a reduced share of the petrol market. The imperial state imposed severe penalties – fines, jailing’s and exclusion from the US market – to any of the CEOs and private corporations that did not abide by the sanctions. Clearly the state was in command; the corporate ruling class became the executive committee of the imperial state.

The sanctions policy applied to the Middle East under Clinton was only the beginning; it was deepened and vastly expanded under Presidents Bush and Obama, especially after 2004.

The Levey Levy:  How American Zionists Freeze Financial Profits

In 2004 a little noticed administrative add-on in the US Treasury Department took place that has had world historic significance: AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) pressured Treasury to create the position of “Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence”.  Equally important, under strong pressure from AIPAC, a zealous Zionist of immense energy, Stuart Levey was appointed to head the new agency.

Levey used all the administrative mechanisms in the Treasury, from threats of penalties, fines and ostracism, to friendly and hostile persuasion, to line up US federal and state public and private pension funds to sacrifice lucrative investments in targeted countries, most of whom, lo and behold, were adversaries of Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Even as Levey was imposing state constraints over the operations of private investors in the US, he organized his entire staff to police the financial world abroad. Levey and his Zionist allies in the so-called “Israel lobby” called on their Congressional cronies to approve sanction policies which not only affected US banks, manufacturers and construction companies but which penalized any European, Asian and Middle Eastern bank which had economic dealings with Iran and other countries on his list (Cuba, North Korea among others).

Levey extended the sanctions to cover firms and investors with even indirect economic ties to the US:  his secret financial police located funds which passed from one private bank to another which had tangential  links to US banks and Levey applied and secured hundreds of millions in fines against Swiss, Chinese (Macao) English and other banks. Effectively the US imperial state via its Undersecretary of Treasury, harnessed the entire world’s financial system to serve US and Israeli foreign policy. Levey is explicit about his role in creating a state within a state. “The US Treasury is the only Treasury in the world with a fully functioning intelligence office.” He might have added that the US Treasury is the only Treasury in the world which sacrifices the economic interests of its private investors and those of its allies in pursuit of the interests of a foreign power (Israel).

The Levey regime by leveraging ties with private US financial institutions and access to US markets, effectively controls the financial transactions and market operations of European, Asian and Middle Eastern private enterprises.

What appears as merely a relatively minor administrative post in Treasury has in fact created an administrative empire which has effectively converted private international banking and manufacturing corporations into instruments of US and Israeli policy.
In office Levey engineered the seizure of billions of dollars of overseas assets of private and public funds of adversaries. One of his last moves before leaving office (March 2011) was to seize $32 billion in Libyan funds using the pretext that the non-US bank to which the funds were entrusted invested in US Treasury notes.

Levey has clearly defined the new relation between private capital (the market) and the State:  “Governments around the world (sic) see the power of these types of measures and the relevance of the private sector to the overall [imperial] effort and that is something that has changed in the last four or five years.” (Financial Times, March 10, 2011, pg. 5).

The “measures” that Levey refers to are the state sanctions and the coercion and penalties applied to the private sector to ensure their conformity with imperial and Israeli military interests at the expense of profits and markets.

The Visible Hand of the State
 
Levey and his Zionist colleagues have ensured that his “state within a State” will continue beyond his tenure in office. He was succeeded by David Cohen, his former law firm partner and promoter of the very same Israeli interests. Levey/Cohen have institutionalized and set in stone the mechanisms to further imperial state control over market operations .Cohen’s appointment ensures  the continuation of the Zionist dynasty in the “State within the State”.

The biggest economic losers in the state centered “sanction” policies pursued by Treasury (read Levey/Cohen) have been the international banks, petroleum and gas companies and pension funds.  The banks have lost access to investment funds and lucrative management fees; the petroleum companies have lost profits and access to oil fields.  The military-industrial complex has lost arms sales. The agro-exporters have lost markets in food deficit oil producers. Who have been the “winners” – certainly not the Generals who are engaging  in a third costly war when the sanctioners decided to escalate to the ‘military option’, once their sanctions policies failed to result in the overthrow of the Libyan regime.

On the surface the main ‘winners’ of sanction policies are their advocates in the White House, Congress, Treasury, the leaders of the two major parties and the ideologues and Islamaphobes in the mass media. And of course, the biggest winners of them all are Israel and their Zionist power configuration embedded in the key agencies of Treasury, the key committees in Congress, and their colleagues in the most influential Middle East posts in the State Department (James Steinberg, Mark Grossman, Dennis Ross, Jeffrey  Feltman) and Treasury(Cohen)

If one asks the logical question why doesn’t Big Banking or Big Petroleum make a fight over policies prejudicing their economic interests and subjecting them to the harsh oversight of Levey/Cohen investigators in Treasury, the most reasonable assumption is that they are not willing to engage in a knockdown fight with three potent adversaries: the politically influential Zionists in the government who design, implement and enforce sanctions; their counterparts in the prestigious mass media who support their policies and the 300,000 active members of the 52 major American Jewish organizations who threaten to organize boycott campaigns. An implausible assumption is that the bankers and oil majors have become altruistic and patriotic and are willing to sacrifice billion dollar deals to serve our “national security” as defined by Levey/Cohen and their cohorts in AIPAC.  When we speak of US ‘sanction policies’ or when we read of European bankers “following Washington’s lead” let’s be clear about what “state” within the US we are talking about and which agencies in Washington are ensuring that European banks follow “our” lead.

While we might not shed tears about an intrusive government curtailing the profit-making of Big Oil and Big Banks, or interfering with free market operations, let us not forget that “the state within the state” that dictates economic policy is not accountable to our citizens; moreover, if it dictates foreign economic policy to the multi-nationals surely it has no scruples in doing the same to ordinary Americans. Next on the AIPAC/Levey/Cohen agenda is a “request” by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for an additional $20 billion dollars in “aid” to ensure Israel’s protection from the pro-democracy movements sweeping the Arab world and to finance a new batch of settlements in the West Bank.

Israel needs US aid like American taxpayers need a hole in their pockets. According to the latest study of billionaires published in the March 20 2011 of Forbes, Israel has more billionaires per capita than any country in the world.

- James Petras' most recent books are: What's Left in Latin America?, coauthored with Henry Veltmeyer (Ashgate Press, 2009), and Global Depression and Regional Wars (Clarity Press, 2009). He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

Playing politics in Rafah crossing

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By Richard Lightbown

Hopes that the popular uprising in Egypt will lead to the permanent opening of the Rafah Crossing into the Gaza Strip suffered a setback on 13 March when an Anglo-French medical team of three surgeons was denied entry into the Strip by Egyptian officials. No reason was given for refusing a visit that had been arranged in conjunction with the French Embassy two months previously. According to the Gisha report Rafah Crossing Who Holds the Keys? Israel, not the Egyptian government largely controls the Rafah Crossing. The other key players are the Hamas government, the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah, the European Union and the United States. It is no surprise then that the situation remains much as it did before the Egyptian revolt.

The operation of the Rafah Crossing is run according to the Agreement on Movement and Access (AMA) between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel which was brokered by Condoleezza Rice in November 2005. This was a comprehensive plan for the normalisation of movement for people and goods within the Palestinian territories and across Palestinian borders. All crossings were to be open by the end of 2005 and were to operate continuously, while the refurbished crossing at Karni was intended to allow 400 trucks a day to pass between Israel and Gaza by the end of 2006. (In January and February this year just before it was permanently closed, the crossing handled an average of 136 trucks per day, despite Israel’s well-publicised “easing” of the closure.)

Under the AMA the Rafah Crossing opened on 26 November 2005 for Palestinian ID cardholders and other designated persons. It was also intended to cater for the export of goods, and for cars once sophisticated search equipment had been inaugurated. The EU had agreed to supply officials to ensure proper procedures were followed. Cargo imports from Egypt were to enter Gaza through Kerem Shalom in the south west corner of the Strip where they would be cleared by PA officials under Israeli supervision. A further part of the agreement was that Israel would not close any of the crossings as the result of a security incident that was unconnected with the crossing itself.
The Israeli military presence which had controlled the Gaza facilities at Rafah since January 2001 was withdrawn under the agreement, but Israel did not relinquish control. Despite claims to have lifted the occupation of Gaza, Israel still retains total control of the Palestinian population registry. This determines who is officially resident and therefore eligible to use the crossing. (Palestinians who are designated non-resident must enter and leave Gaza by the Erez Crossing from Israel.) Israel also has the right to veto the use of the facility to foreigners, and it can close the crossing simply by ensuring that the conditions for its opening are not met. The AMA requires that Israel supervises passengers from its control room at Kerem Shalom, while the EU observers who are billeted at Ashkelon need to enter Gaza through Kerem Shalom. Both conditions have been denied on the whim of Israeli authorities. (It is not clear why EU personnel are not accommodated in the Egyptian resort of Al-Arish, which is nearer to Rafah than Ashkelon and has a number of hotels including one five-star facility.)

Following the signing of the Oslo accords in 1994 hundreds of trucks crossed through Rafah, but the crossing was closed (in breach of the agreement) for more than 70 per cent of the time during the year following the second intifada in 2000. Traffic increased again during 2004 but imports through Rafah ceased under the Israeli disengagement plan in September 2005. The passage of exports was also denied, contrary to the AMA, However around 1300 people passed each way during the nine-and-a-half hours the crossing was open each day.
The agreement was breached again when the crossing was closed following the capture of Gilad Shalit on 25 June 2006 and for the next year it remained closed for 86 per cent of the time. The occasional openings were at random and at only two days’ notice, rendering forward travel plans impossible. It also left Gaza residents stranded in Egypt for days or sometimes weeks.
After Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip Israel implemented its policy of closure of the territory. Rafah Crossing was closed to all traffic after 9 June 2007 after Hamas evicted the Presidential Guard and prevented the PA from fulfilling its designated duties. Because of EU policy not to deal with Hamas the observer force was also suspended. (Apparently political principles override humanitarian considerations.) In consequence thousands were again stranded on the Egyptian side of the border, surviving in rented rooms and tent camps while descending into penury. More than one thousand of them were patients returning after treatment in Egypt, fourteen of whom died during July 2007. An Israeli proposal for them to return by Kerem Shalom was scuppered when Hamas shelled the crossing. An arrangement was finally agreed between Egypt, Israel and the PA at the end of July 2007 whereby 6,374 people entered Israel by the Nitzana Crossing and were then bussed to the Erez Crossing to enter Gaza.

In December 2007 Egypt allowed 2,200 pilgrims through the crossing to go to the Hajj in Mecca, without coordinating this with either the PA or Israel. (Israel had allowed a further 700 to pass through Erez in order to travel via Jordan.) Upon their return Israel had requested that the pilgrims be allowed back through an Israeli-controlled crossing, which the Egyptian authorities originally agreed to. Fearing investigation and detention in Israel the pilgrims refused to comply and they were allowed to return via Rafah after violent protests. Israel protested that this contradicted agreements.

After a large section of the border wall was blown up by Hamas militants in January 2008 Egypt unilaterally allowed a small number of students to pass on to Cairo airport. While Gazans stormed the border to buy goods Israel and the US applied pressure on Egypt to “solve the problem”. The border was again closed on 3 February by arrangement with Hamas. However the crossing was reopened early in March after the Ministry of Health in Gaza had declared a medical emergency following clashes between Gaza forces and the IDF. One hundred and seven Palestinians had been killed and 250 injured. The crossing opened again between 31 December and 5 February 2009 in similar circumstances during Operation Cast Lead. After the war openings returned to an irregular format forcing students with overseas placements and patients requiring medical aid to cross the border through the tunnels. Only state terrorism on the high seas against the Gaza flotilla finally shamed the Egyptian government to go it alone and open the crossing on a regular basis. Representatives from Physicians for Human Rights – Israel told the Turkel Commission in October that this had allowed supplies of medical equipment and medications that had not been available before the flotilla raid. (Turkel completely ignored this testimony when writing their report.)

Pro-Israel lobbying of members of the US Congress resulted in a proposal in the House of Representatives to withhold $200 million of Egypt’s $1.3 billion military aid budget against certain requirements. This included stopping arms smuggling into Gaza (while inevitably restricting other traffic). This was later substituted for an allocation of $23 million from the budget to pay the cost of sending engineering teams to Rafah to detect tunnels. Egypt also increased its activities against the tunnels during the summer of 2008.

The official Egyptian position under President Mubarak was that the crossing remained shut because it was not possible to implement the AMA. Unofficially it was acknowledged that there were objections from the US, Israel and Europe, while Hamas affiliation with Mubarak’s political opponents, the Muslim Brotherhood, influenced the decision. Israeli intentions to seal its borders with Gaza (while presumably maintaining its illegal naval blockade) have long been suspected and were voiced publicly by Foreign Minister Lieberman in 2010. The previous Egyptian leadership was unwilling to have the political and economic responsibility of Gaza dumped upon it in this way.
Israel does not want an independent state in the Gaza Strip with free access to the Western and Arab worlds which could become the centre of the Palestinian struggle for liberation. This might impinge on its policy of stealing portions of the West Bank. Much could depend on how the popular revolt evolves in Egypt. Despite the initial empowerment of a population sympathetic to the plight of Gaza the end result is still uncertain and the cost to the economy has been extreme. (Income from tourism had exceeded $10 billion in 2010. In February 2011 a Press TV film crew found a solitary Japanese tourist trying to blag her way into the pyramids.) At the moment remnants of the old guard remain in positions of power where they will be susceptible to economic pressure from the US, aimed to a large extent at looking after Israel’s interests. From within these competing groupings the future operation of the Rafah Crossing will be decided in the short term. In the medium term it remains to be seen how serious Mahmoud Abbas is in seeking a Palestinian reconciliation, which would allow for a normal resumption of the AMA. For the moment the status quo appears to prevail and Israel’s unremitting stranglehold on everyday life in Gaza remains largely intact.

- Richard Lightbown is an activist against war and injustice. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

Arab support in March, thousands of revolts in Iran (AFP)

TEHRAN (AFP)-thousands of Iranians marched to Tehran on Friday, Bahrain, Libya, and rocking Yemen in support of the State, the revolts of television reported.

How to make a backup copy of the majority Shiites, Bahrain, which is challenging the 200-year-old Sunni dynasty of accounting, the power source, the village is dominated by the tour's protests, which unfolded after the Muslim Friday prayers in the capital

"Crimes against the United States and the Saudeja movement supports them," and chanted "death to America" in the Klimaflüchtlinge.

"Death to Israel," shouted others.

Libya and Yemen's protests in support of the rebellion in the slogans rang also.

Tehran on Wednesday withdrew its Ambassador to Manama, Bahrain, the Government of the people to Protest the mass killing. "

Iran has also criticised the pro-democracy helps to tuoteuttamisesta protests that have wracked the capital Manama and the Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the second half of the almost daily in February after the Bahrain Gulf troops.

Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, the hardline cleric and head of the powerful Guardians Council condemned Bahrain Saudi Arabian troops Friday prayers after the breakdown of the declaratory.

"It is painful, that, when the authorities were to win, it called upon the Help of reinforcements, and asked to send in Saudi Arabia. It is against international law. "

He also urged the rebels to continue their efforts in Libya.

"You can not accept humiliation. One of the fighting. Die or to be successful, there is no other option, "he said, adding that the Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi was the" shell shocked. "

"One view you can see his face, he is a shell-shocked. I woke up today with the Libyans. (UN Security Council) Act in urgent circumstances to protect the black zone helps a little ... "We hope to win the Libyans, he said, as the crowd chanted" death to Kadhafi. "

Bahrain expels Iranian diplomatic tit for tat move (AFP)

TEHRAN (AFP)-Iran on Sunday called on the Bahraini diplomat to leave the Islamic Republic of reprisal is one of the diplomats in Manama, the official expulsion of the country, the IRNA news agency reported.

"After expelling diplomats, in particular, one of our reprisal, attache, Embassy of Bahrain's is to be summoned and told that one of the diplomats from the embassies of Iran, Bahrain will leave the Government's inconsistent and incomprehensible actions," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said.

"The responding to the legitimate demands of the population is guaranteed by the Governments of the stability and permanence of the repression of peaceful protests, while at the same time and only aggravates the crisis and the actions of the illogical and deepen the wounds," he said.

Iran on Wednesday recalled its Ambassador to Bahrain, "the Protest, the Government of Bahrain for its people," after the killing in Manama from Tehran to remember its Ambassador, the vines of Iran "a blatant interference" in its affairs.

Tehran said Manama had made a "strategic error" by asking the forces to the Gulf, a small Kingdom, the pro-democracy protests, a success when you try to get rid of.

Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi told the official IRNA news agency Sunni Muslim Shiite majority to close but the Bahrain adopted a "strategic and political" blunder that cost would be its "legitimacy."

At least three people died when security forces firing TEAR GAS and orphaned sinalakay months old pro-democracy camp, Central Pearl Square roundabout, the capital of Bahrain on Wednesday.

Hundreds of people, was seriously wounded in the unrest and the Government has been accused of closing of the international law away from hospitals and doctors, assaulting the wounded who tried to tend to the crimes.

And the rulers of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and urged other Gulf States to contribute to the security forces, a move which infuriated Iran and caused outrage from the mainly Shiite opposition in the small island-State.

Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu on Sunday with the phone, the apparent "the necessity of foreign troops to leave Bahrain," which is also home to the US fifth fleet, IRNA said.

UK beats Israel: the Government and the Media to blame

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By R. Taylor

The current UK Government is 'the most hostile to Israel in living memory.' So says Melanie Phillips, formerly a respected UK journalist now better known for her militant anti-Islam stance and her Israel-is-never-wrong/blame-everyone-else rants.

And maybe she is right. But as all previous UK governments have meekly toed the Zionist line, it wouldn’t be saying very much. After all Gordon Brown, Cameron’s predecessor, was honorary president of the Jewish National Fund, Brown succeeded Tony Blair (need one say more), he followed Major/Thatcher and so on. Nevertheless David Cameron’s coalition is voicing the kinds of criticism of Israel’s policies that have rarely been heard before

A particular beef for Phillips (or Mad Mel as she is often referred to nowadays) was the government’s failure to support Israel in the United Nations on the issue of West Bank settlements. In her blog for The Spectator magazine on 22nd Feb she berates Cameron and co. with the following. “While the British Prime Minister David Cameron is in Egypt hymning the prospect there of democracy and human rights.....what has been overlooked is that this same David Cameron has chosen this of all moments to push the one and only democracy in the region, Israel, under the Islamist bus. While America finally vetoed the UN motion slamming Israel’s ‘illegal’ settlements because it went too far even for Obama, Britain voted in favour.”

Leaving aside her bizarre views that settlements are neither legally nor morally wrong, it does seem that UK Zionists are becoming increasingly alarmed about changing attitudes in the UK towards Israel. Long-used to a situation where the Zionist narrative was accepted virtually without question, Mel and others can’t quite believe that things have changed; that the romantic view of poor little Israel has faded in the West, that the Palestinian narrative is now much more accessible and that even our politicians have taken note.

Benedict Brogan of the Daily Telegraph is another who is concerned. He praises Cameron for a recent speech to a Jewish audience in which he described his belief in Israel as “indestructible”, but then asks why Israeli PM Netanyahu is so worried about the UK and the apparent decline of its backing for Israel. “The truth,” he laments, “is that relations between Jerusalem and London are bad, drifting to worse. …..At a time when the affairs of the Middle East should preoccupy us all, Britain gives the impression of being indifferent to the concerns of a country that is not just the only democracy in the neighbourhood, but also one of our paramount allies in the fight against militant Islam.” Brogan then quotes the dark warning from Israeli Ambassador to the UK, Ron Prosor, that the undermining of Israel even reaches “back to Her Majesty’s Government”.

Worse than that though, Brogan asserts that the “UK has turned from an indestructible ally into a gullible host for the global campaign to undermine its legitimacy,” and has become “an echo chamber for a coalition of religious and political campaign groups and academics of all stripes - some of them Jewish - pumping out a propaganda campaign of explicit and implicit hostility to Israel.” Brogan’s solution to all this?  “Cameron should find a reason to visit his friends (Israel) and tell them, face to face, why our links are indestructible.”

Edgar Davidson is a lesser known Zionist blogger but he is quite certain where much of the blame lies. His blog piece of February 20th 2011 includes a revealing anecdote. “If you need to know the depth to which the British media has indoctrinated the public with anti-Israel feelings,” he suggests helpfully, “then I can give no better example than the following: My daughter, who goes to an orthodox Jewish school, tells me that, when the subject of Israel is discussed in their Jewish studies GCSE class, students routinely state things like "the Jews have no right to Israel because they stole the land from the Palestinians". In making statements like that, those regular 15-16 year old Jewish kids, are simply repeating what they are told relentlessly in every part of the media”. Perhaps, Edgar. But, it could just be that these Jewish kids are better informed than their parents, have a greater grasp of the notion of justice and recognize that the concept of human rights applies to Palestinians too. Don’t underestimate them.

The media malaise is not confined to the usual suspects - the BBC, Channel 4 and The Guardian. It is even to be found in the UK Jewish press. In December, under the heading “The JC (Jewish Chronicle) Sinks Lower and Lower”, Edgar tells his readers that, “rapidly the JC is morphing into a Guardian look-alike, with its increasingly central contributions from anti-Zionists.” He bemoans the fact “Nicholas Saphir, the Chair of the anti-Zionist New Israel Fund (UK), is a trustee of the Kessler Foundation, which owns the Jewish Chronicle. Last week the New Israel Fund had a 4-page pullout in the JC, and rarely a week goes by nowadays without some major positive focus/article about the NIF.” This will never do.

What really worries Zionists in the UK though is the thought that they are losing the propaganda battle and their ability to ensure mainstream politicians don’t step too much out of line, or if they do go off-message, the capacity to set them on the straight-and-narrow again. A couple of examples from recent years illustrate the point.

In 2006, during Israel’s war on Lebanon William Hague was the Shadow Foreign Secretary. He had the temerity to use the word “disproportionate” when describing Israel’s military actions. A leading Zionist hit out at Hague and told The Spectator that his words comments were “not merely unhelpful” but “downright dangerous.” This was enough to secure a solemn undertaking from Hague’s boss Cameron that the ‘d’ word would not be used again. Suspicions regarding Hague still lingered, however, and in 2008 he was grilled by arch-Zionist journalist Danny Finkelstein at the Conservative Friends of Israel annual bash. “Are you a Zionist ?” he was asked. A discomfited and apologetic Hague had to agree. Later that year when Israel launched Operation Cast Lead against Gaza, the ‘d’ word did not pass his lips.

In the run up to the general election of 2010, the dramatic rise in popularity of Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg posed a similar problem. Hadn’t he criticised Israel for its bombing of civilians in Gaza? Couldn’t he be in the next government, maybe even Foreign Secretary? Clegg would have to explain himself. Backtracking feverishly, he duly did so in the Jewish Chronicle saying his comments were made because of his genuine concern that Israel’s actions ran “counter to its best interests” - no mention of the interests of the people of Gaza, the slaughter of innocents and breaches of international law.

But what now? Opinion in the UK has shifted decisively away from blind acceptance of anything Israel does. The politicians, fed up no doubt with Netanyahu’s lies, here have tagged along, perhaps seeing for the first time that the UK’s interests do not automatically coincide with those of Israel. Aware too that the ‘peace process’ is just that - a process, with no end in sight and that supporting Israel’s policies of grabbing as much land as possible from the Palestinians is inherently dangerous to Britons.

An exchange in the House of Commons on Monday 14th is indicative of the changes. During Prime Minister’s Questions the following exchange took place;

Sir Gerald Kaufman (Labour) Will the right honourable gentleman join me in condemning utterly the slaughter inflicted on the Fogel family in a West Bank settlement over the weekend? Does he agree that no response to that savagery could be more futile than the building of further settlements, and the only way to stop this useless slaughter of innocent people - both Jews and Palestinians - is for Israel to sit down and talk?

The Prime Minister: The right honourable Gentleman is entirely right. Like others I read about the case over the weekend and found what happened extremely disturbing. Anyone who has been to Jerusalem and seen the settlement building, particularly around East Jerusalem, can understand why the Palestinians feel so strongly about building on their land. There is a danger of the two-state solution being built away if we are not careful. That is why this Government has always taken a strong view about the settlements.

It is hard to imagine a British PM speaking this way in the past, especially so soon after an event such as the massacre in Itamar colony. The times certainly are a-changing and Zionists are scared.

- R. Taylor contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.