This article appears in the Jerusalem Report, issue dated January 23, 2023
It was on 14 May 1948 that David Ben-Gurion, then head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the birth of the State of Israel. That date in the Jewish calendar was 5 Iyar. So Israel’s Yom Ha’Atzmaut is celebrated annually on 5 Iyar, which rarely coincides with 14 May in the civil calendar. In fact the two dates have come together only twice in the 75 years since 1948. In 2023 Iyar 5 falls on 26 April, and 14 May is nearly three weeks away. So it looks as though Israel is in for an extended period of celebration this year – which will be highly appropriate, since 2023 marks Israel’s 75th birthday.
Speaking
at a high-powered luncheon in London on 12 December 2022, Rishi Sunak,
Britain’s prime minister, announced that he intends to visit Israel to join in the
celebrations. The luncheon, an annual
event sponsored by the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), was attended by
three former UK prime ministers – Theresa May, Boris Johnson, and Liz Truss –
as well as Israel’s ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, Britain’s Chief Rabbi
and a host of eminent figures in the political and Anglo-Jewish worlds.
Sunak took the opportunity to make another announcement of equal
significance. The UK, he declared, would
be voting against a certain forthcoming resolution in the UN General Assembly.
On 11 November a UN Special Committee voted in favour of requesting the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) to provide a judicial opinion about
whether Israel’s 55-year occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem
constitutes de facto annexation. He was as good as his word when the
resolution came before the General Assembly on 30 December. The UK joined the other 25 nations which
voted against it, including the US, Canada, Australia and eight of the27 EU
countries. Although 53 nations
abstained and 27 were absent, it passed with the support of 87 nations, and
will move to the ICJ in The Hague.
Palestinian factions,
including Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,
condemned Sunak's position. But his
decision to move the UK from abstaining in the vote to positive opposition is
entirely in line with his declared position in general regarding Israel and its
interests.
In a letter to the CFI
on 30 November Sunak reiterated his “dedication to Israel as the homeland of
the Jewish people… As a proud friend of Israel,” he continued, “I will fight
very hard for the security of people in Israel, and to continue the UK’s
determined efforts to end the bias against Israel. This includes standing up to
Iranian hostility and their pursuit of nuclear weapons. Iran’s nuclear
escalation is threatening international security and undermining the global non-proliferation
system. The UK will continue working with Israel and all our allies to prevent
Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.”
Regarding the Abraham
Accords, which he regards as “one of the greatest achievements in the history
of diplomacy in the Middle East”, he made a positive commitment so far
unmatched by any other world statesman. The UK, he said, “will continue to do
all it can to leverage our strong ties with other Gulf states to expand the
number of signatories to the agreement and enhance the already blossoming
opportunities opened up by these ground-breaking agreements.”
A new opportunity-rich
UK-Israel Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is also in the offing.
Back in November 2021, when Yair Lapid was Israel’s foreign minister, he went over to the UK and met Liz Truss, then UK foreign secretary. They got along famously, and jointly signed a UK-Israel agreement intended to lead the way to a new FTA.
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Trade relations between
the UK and Israel had been blossoming ever since David Cameron became prime
minister in 2010. Under Cameron’s
auspices, and with willing cooperation from then prime minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, the highly innovative UK-Israel Tech Hub was set up. Based in the British Embassy in Tel Aviv, it
was intended to be a proactive partnership, fostering hi-tech cooperation
between the two nations. Nothing of the
kind had ever been attempted before by the British government.
Meanwhile with a new UK-Israel FTA in mind, Britain’s then International Trade Secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, visited Israel early in 2022, and followed this up by meeting with Israel’s ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, to launch negotiations for the new “innovation focused” FTA.
To accompany the
initiative, the government issued a 40-page document explaining the strategic
approach to the proposed new FTA. “The
UK is proud of its deep and historic relationship with Israel,” it
declares. “As open, innovative and thriving economies, the UK and
Israel are close allies and strategic partners... But there is scope to go
further.”
It goes on to explain:
“Israel’s economy is growing rapidly, with its service sector growing by 45%
over the last 10 years. A new FTA will allow us to take advantage of this
growth, generating ever more opportunities for UK firms to export their goods
and services. Upgrading our trade deal with Israel will help unlock a stronger,
more advanced partnership. The new deal will play to our strengths, reflecting
the realities of trading in the 21st century and allowing us to take advantage
of future innovations.”
The benefits to Israel
are equally real. As well as encouraging
mutual investments, the new FTA will provide Israeli companies with access to
UK government and public projects.
In his letter to the
members of the CFI, Rishi Sunak committed himself to seeing the FTA to its
conclusion. “I am determined to further
strengthen the breadth and depth of our bilateral relationship by championing a
UK Israel Free Trade Agreement,” he wrote, continuing: “This includes my
commitment to the 2019 Conservative manifesto pledge to combat Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) policies with legislation.“
He made one final
commitment. The proposal to build a
major Holocaust Memorial and Learning Center in central London was approved by
Parliament in 2015. Several public
inquiries later, objections to its proposed location were finally put to rest
early in 2021. Even so, the project continued
to languish because of planning delays, and finally members of parliament
approached the National Audit Office (NAO) requesting an in-depth examination
of how effectively the enterprise would be managed. In its report, delivered in July 2022, the
NAO pinpointed certain weaknesses in the proposed management arrangements and
indicated how the government department concerned was proposing to deal with
them.
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In his letter to the CFI
Sunak stood firmly behind seeing the project completed. He wrote: “As Chancellor I committed to
making the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre free to visit in perpetuity,
and it is important that the Memorial is built in Victoria Tower Gardens as
soon as possible – a fitting memorial that will send a powerful signal of the
importance that we attach to remembering the Holocaust and learning the lessons
of the past.”
Sunak’s many remarks in
support of Israel – and also of the UK’s Jewish community – are so clear and
unequivocal that he must be accounted a true friend. There is, though, possibly a cloud on the
horizon. Sunak himself, as well as his
Conservative predecessors over the past thirteen years, base their warm
feelings toward Israel on their dealings with the center-right coalition
administrations led by Netanyahu, and those of the center-left headed by
Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid.
Netanyahu’s incoming coalition administration incorporates elements of
the extreme right. Would the current
close UK-Israel relationship survive the introduction of such policies by new
ministers?
On 15 December Netanyahu
gave a wide-ranging interview to a group of media journalists at Al Arabiya,
the Arabic news channel based in Dubai.
When queried about the possible impact his coalition partners might have
on his government’s policies, he responded: “I will govern and I will lead, and
I will navigate this government. The other
parties are joining me; I’m not joining them.
Remember Likud is one half of this coalition. The other parties are, some of them,
one-quarter, one-fifth the size of Likud.
They’re joining us. They will
follow my policy.”
If Netanyahu is truly able to restrain his ministers from implementing the sort of extremist policies that some of them espouse, then the close UK-Israeli relationship built up over the years should be safe.
Published on the Jerusalem Post website, 13 January 2023:https://www.jpost.com/jerusalem-report/article-728330
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