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With Friends Like This, Who Needs Enemies?

(Spectator-UK) Melanie Phillips - With the Arab world convulsed by the unrest in Tunisia and Egypt and with the acute danger that such instability will result in the region lurching even further into Islamic theocratic tyranny, the British Foreign Secretary's response is - to bash Israel. Never mind that the uproar in Egypt and Tunisia, along with the nervousness in Jordan and Saudi Arabia that their regimes may also be swept away by rising extremism, demonstrates the utter absurdity of the claim that regional tranquility depends on resolving the issue of "Palestine." As the Times reports: "Mr. Hague responded to increasingly militaristic pronouncements by Mr. Netanyahu, who has been urging his nation to prepare for 'any outcome' and vowing to 'reinforce the might of the State of Israel.' The Foreign Secretary said: 'This should not be a time for belligerent language. It's a time to inject greater urgency into the Middle East peace process.'" Belligerent? Israel is currently petrified that, if Islamists come to power in Egypt and tear up its 30-year-old peace treaty as the Muslim Brothers have said they will do, it will face the nightmare of a renewed threat of war from the south as well as from Iran/Hizbullah in the north and Iran/Hamas in Gaza. It will be thus encircled by truly "belligerent" enemies. For William Hague to represent the warnings by Israel's prime minister that his country must now prepare itself for this terrifying eventuality as "belligerency" is simply obscene.
2011-02-09 00:00:00
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