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Isaac Herzog is a Knesset Member from the Labor Party. A lawyer by profession, he previously served as cabinet secretary in the Barak government.
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By Isaac Herzog
April 4, 2003
Originally published in the Jerusalem Post.
It seems as if Israel's leadership has found a new "enemy." As our leadership would have it, it is a particularly vicious enemy: Cynical and inconsiderate, it bends superpowers and views Israel as a mere nuisance.
It is not Saddam, nor Arafat, nor Nasrallah, but Tony Blair, prime minister of Britain. The reproachful briefings against him by the spin masters at the Prime Minister's Office show real panic. Finally Israel's true enemy has been revealed...
It all began when Blair, fighting these very days shoulder to shoulder with President Bush to oust Saddam Hussein, voiced a clear and very realistic opinion: The day after the war in Iraq it will be necessary to reach a political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, and for that purpose it is necessary and desirable to move toward issuing the road map as soon as possible.
Blair believes it is necessary to present a clear course in our region in order to pose a diplomatic horizon, and that further delays are in neither side's interest. This is also the prevailing view among many of the Israeli public, as well as in Western countries and among senior officials in the US administration.
Blair's great offense, at least in the eyes of the Prime Minister's Office, is the fact that he is rushing everyone and trying to lever the war in Iraq toward solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Our policy makers are notoriously in no hurry and Blair's buzzing just irritates them. This could have all remained nothing more than a legitimate dispute. But the government's panic actually throws out the baby with the bathwater. Again we are making the mistake of turning great friends into adversaries.
This reminds me a lot of the prime minister's famous Czechoslovakia speech aimed at President Bush; its damage took some time to repair. Soon Sharon might compare Blair, who is showing rare leadership in the fight against Saddam Hussein, to Chamberlain...
It is worth mentioning some facts. Tony Blair is a young, vigorous leader with a clear worldview. For years he has been considered one of the closest friends of Israel and the Jewish people.
He is committed to Israel's security and has supported it all the way in its fight against terrorism and its efforts to make peace. As a European leader he has been one of the Sharon government's leading supporters in the EU in the last two years, and diverted it from issuing reprimands and sanctions.
By doing so he gave Sharon an entree into the European arena. More than a few times he fiercely criticized Yasser Arafat and encouraged economic and security ties between Israel and Britain, which have a lot in common.
He consistently argues that Israel must take bold steps to ease Palestinian suffering and create a diplomatic horizon. That is a legitimate position of a close friend, and it would be a mistake to turn Blair into a target of attacks and accusations.
None of the above relates to Foreign Minister Jack Straw's comparison of UN resolutions relating to Iraq and to Israel, which should be condemned by Israel and abroad.
There is something emblematic about inflating the "Blair syndrome" in the same week that one of Israel's greatest friends in decades New York Democratic senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan passed away.
"Pat," as his friends called him, established his relationship with Israel when he was appointed as U.S. ambassador to the UN in the mid-1970s, after serving as ambassador to India, and a successful academic career as a Harvard professor. When he was appointed to the UN his academic, liberal background and experience in public service in the Kennedy and Nixon administrations aroused fear and doubt among Israel's friends as to his positions toward the conflict in our region, toward Israel in particular.
In his book A Dangerous Place he described his original attitude on the Israel issue as distant and uninvolved, almost unidentified. But eventually Moynihan emerged as one of Israel's most loyal friends. He fought right alongside my late father, Chaim Herzog, of blessed memory, then our UN ambassador, against the UN resolution that equating Zionism with racism.
My father considered him a true friend, not only because of their common Irish heritage but mainly because of Moynihan's fierce belief in Israel's moral and legal rectitude. In his long years of service in the Senate Moynihan supported Israel unequivocally and was considered a great friend. When he criticized us, his comments were always received in Israel attentively and respectfully, and nobody hurried to mark him as an enemy even when they disagreed with him.
In a world of "good guys" and "bad guys" Tony Blair and Pat Moynihan are in the same camp. They both deserve gratitude. Our policy makers had better remember that.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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