Blair government told Israel it was not acting like a ‘civilised nation’, archives reveal
Sir Tony Blair’s government told Israeli ministers that their troops did not act in a manner befitting a “civilised nation”, newly released papers have revealed.
Cabinet Office documents from the period of Israel’s 2002 incursion into the West bank have been made public.
The papers reveal heated exchanges between Israel’s defence minister and Britain’s ambassador in Tel Aviv, who accused IDF troops of being “out of control”.
Sherard Cowper-Coles spoke with Israel’s foreign policy adviser Danny Ayalon, telling him that some soldiers were “outraging international opinion” through their actions in the West Bank.
He added that the IDF’s conduct “was more worthy of the Russian army that of a supposedly civilised country”.
The comments were made during an Israeli incursion into the West Bank, named Operation Defensive Shield, during which IDF forces besieged Yasser Arafat in his compound in Ramallah.
Cabinet Office papers show that US President George Bush complained to Sir Tony about how this action would turn Arafat into a “martyr”. British diplomats expressed to Israeli officials the “folly” of attempting to force Arafat out of the West Bank.
UK officials on the ground also compiled a report on the character of the IDF, which claims Israeli troops “routinely use excessive force such as firing at the ‘legs’ of stone throwers or at ‘car tyres’ with the inevitable steady stream of ambulances ferrying youths to hospital with fatal bullet wounds to the head and body”.
It added: “They look down on the Arabs and despise them. It needs to be said that the average Israeli does not value an Arab life as equal to a Jewish one.
“Combine the proud IDF ethos with a situation where the enemy are lesser mortals and you will get the results we now see.”
The operation in the West Bank happened during the Second Intifada – the Palestinian uprising that took place between 2000 and 2005 – and was launched in response to the Passover massacre, in which a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 30 civilians at a hotel in the city of Netanya.
Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack, in which a bomber walked into a dining room where 250 guests were celebrating Passover seder, and detonated his explosive device.