The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 0171-405
1706; Fax 0171-242 0603
ISRAEL AND BRITAIN
Anglo-Zionist relations are usually written up as only having started with the 1917 Balfour Declaration. On Israel's 50th anniversary, someone should point out that they are a lot deeper than that; deeper in time, but also deeper in feeling. Of that same Declaration, it is also said that it was just British realpolitik. Britain just wanted American Jews to get America into the war against Germany. But who is to say? In so much of politics, and human affairs, how do we know which actions are self-interested, which interest- ed? Often, when politicians act cynically, they do so in order to win the support or approval of the idealistic. Idealism is there- fore as much to do with the act as cynicism.
Far from dating only from the Balfour Declaration, British approval of a Jewish homeland in Palestine goes back to the Protestant Reformation and the translation of the Bible into English. The Jewish return to the Biblical homeland was seen as one of the Biblical prophecies. Early in the first World war, the early Zionist Chaim Weiz- mann discussed places in Palestine with Lloyd George, then minister of munitions, later prime minister at the time of the Bal- four Declaration. Weizmann said they sounded more familiar to Lloyd George than places on the western front.
Mid-Victorian evangelicanism favoured a Jewish national home in Palestine. Also, Palmerston, as foreign secretary, urged it on the Ottomans. He told his ambassador in Constantinople: 'There exists at present among the Jews dispersed over Europe a strong notion that the time is approaching when their nation is to return to Pales- tme• • . . ' Since then, Anglo-Zionist rela- tions have had their ups and downs. British foreign secretaries have tended to be less sympathetic to Zionist and Israeli feelings; Mr Cook being but the latest. In this, how- ever, they have not much differed from the American State Department. But British prime ministers, like Ameri- can presidents (though not all), have tend- ed to be more sympathetic. This is unsur- prising. Foreign ministers are concerned With their countries' narrower self-interest. Heads of government must take account of their countries' sentiment. British senti- ment is sympathetic to Israel because Israel is recognisable as a state sharing British val- ues of freedom and the rule of law. We may become angry with Mr Netanyahu's appar- ent authoritarianism. But we, too, have had prime ministers whom the world's liberals have considered authoritarian. Few Britons believe that Israel is an authoritarian state, since Mr Netanyahu's authority can, and is, questioned in press and Parliament.
Today's democratic Britain therefore has an affinity with Israel, just as Protestant England once did. We may become disap- pointed or angry with her politicians but not with herself. On this 50th anniversary, and before we next become angry with one of her governments, it is as well to remem- ber that so long as Israel shares Britain's aws, Britain will share Israel's hopes. he vocabulary of command and con- trol comes easily to the unelected Brussels nomenklatura. This week, the European Commissioner Yves Thibault de Silguy told a delegation of MPs that Britain would be `punished for life' for failing to join mone- tary union in the first wave.
And yet, as Nigel Lawson tells Christo- pher Fildes in this issue, the economic case against joining is stronger than ever. The former chancellor is no Eurosceptic, and fell out with Mrs Thatcher and her adviser, Alan Walters, over his determination to take Britain into the exchange rate mecha- nism. Today, however, he describes EMU as 'an entirely political venture which will cause more economic problems than it will solve'. He is right, but in the rest of Europe the single currency is being judged in politi- cal, not economic, terms. Only a powerful political argument could persuade Ger- many and France to hesitate at this late stage.
So far, it has been mere speculation to claim that EMU will cause political prob- lems. Those 'peddling' this theory have been dismissed as scaremongers. Now, in Germany, Europe has been given a pre- view of its future as a single-currency zone. Chancellor Kohl's Christian Democrats were badly beaten in last weekend's elec- tions in the east German state of Saxony- Anhalt. The xenophobic and extreme right- wing German People's Party won 13 per cent of the vote; the best result by such a group since Hitler came to power. The electorate were motivated by unemploy- ment rates of over 20 per cent and, as Herr Kohl himself admitted, their dislike of the euro and the power it will give to foreign- ers to dictate German economic policy.
Their concerns are understandable. After monetary union, European politicians will have to tell their electorates that they no longer control the key levers of national economic policy. This democratic deficit will give the forces of unbridled nationalism the chance to make a populist appeal for votes. The message from Saxony-Anhalt, for Mr Blair as much as Herr Kohl, is that all of Europe may yet be punished for embarking on this irresponsible political and economic experiment.
Previous page
