Jack Straw stands up for Lebanon

[KashifAsrar]

Jack Straw stands up for Lebanon


Rashmee Roshan Lall | TNN



London: The 19-day-old West Asia crisis hit the British capital and Tony Blair’s cabinet on Sunday with his former foreign secretary leading a full ministerial revolt against the prime minister’s refusal to blame Israel for the “disproportionate” use of force.
In an eye-popping bold attack on Blair’s Americanled foreign policy of equidistance between Israeli attack and Lebanese suffering, former foreign secretary Jack Straw fired the first cabinet salvo on the prime minister.
Speaking to his mainly Indian Muslim constituents in Blackburn, north west England, Jack Straw said that he was speaking for several cabinet colleagues when he voiced concern over Israeli tactics in bombing Lebanese civilians.
“If you want to go for Hezbollah, go for Hezbollah, not the whole Lebanese nation,” Straw said, in the first sign that Blair’s fragile cabinet unity on the West Asian crisis may be splintering.
Straw’s comments became public in a Britain nervously watching the escalating violence in West Asia with an Israeli air strike on the southern Lebanese town of Qana leaving more than 40 people, including 20 children, dead.
Straw’s words were echoed by other leading members of Blair’s cabinet, including the youthful rising star of the government, environment secretary David Miliband and deputy prime minister John Prescott. According to British newspaper reports, Prescott has already pointed out that Blair’s equivocation on the West Asia conflict had prompted grave concerns within the governing Labour Party. Senior cabinet ministers have criticised Blair for refusing to condemn Israel’s disproportionate use of force and warned that Labour would lose British Muslim votes “hand over fist”.
Reports say that Blair was pressed by minister after minister at a recent cabinet meeting to break with the American view and publicly criticise Israel over the scale of death and destruction. But Blair still flew to Washington on Friday for a summit with President George Bush, after which the two men publicly told the world’s media they could not back calls for an immediate ceasefire in West Asia.
The British prime minister's troubles are understood to be spiralling because two US planes carrying “hazardous cargo” or bombs meant for delivery to Israel, touched down at a British airport on Saturday before continuing their journey to West Asia. MPs belonging to Blair's Labour Party said that the prime minister was to blame for allowing Britain to be the “in-flight fueller” for Israelbound bombs.
Straw’s broadside against Blair’s foreign policy comes nearly three months after his removal from the post of foreign secretary was celebrated by leading Israeli newspapers such as The Jerusalem Post. In a prescient piece after Straw was removed from the foreign office to make way for the Blair loyalist, foreign policy virgin Margaret Beckett, the Post predicted that “Israel may have come out the winner following Prime Minister Tony Blair’s cabinet shuffle on May 5.”
It said that “the demotion of Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and appointment of Blair loyalist Margaret Beckett to his post are likely to result in a more unified Anglo-American approach to Iran, Hamas and the Middle East.”
The paper said that Beckett's lack of “experience in Middle East affairs and a reputation as a capable manager and Blair loyalist” meant she would “back her political master and favor the American approach to conflict resolution in the Middle East over the initiatives favored by the European Union, with a tougher stance towards Hamas and terrorism”.
British foreign policy observers said Post’s prediction appeared to be coming true with respect to an uncritical UK backing for Tel Aviv, except that Blair was now in the firing line — from his cabinet and parliamentary party — for refusing to criticise Israel.

 

[Bull]

When will Leboneese stand up for them?

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

He has no options.

His constituency has an Islamic majority.

Speak for the constituency or perish.

So, he speaks.