Frank

‘Israel orders some British soldiers to leave the country’ In interview Ed Miliband said he had carefully ‘weighed up the cost’s’ of imposing sanctions on Israel but that claim is looking shaky now. According to the Telegraph “Israel has ordered British soldiers tracking settler violence in the West Bank to leave the country just as they were about to expand their mission. The team’s primary role is to advise and help train Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces, which provide policing and security for parts of the West Bank under the Oslo Accords” The team were about to quadruple in size. Not now - Netanyahu has kicked them out. “The Brits had actually  become the West’s “eyes and ears” in the occupied territory, sending back detailed reports of escalating settler violence to both London and Washington” What that really means is Miliband has played into the hands of the Israelis.  So when Miliband claimed he “weighed up the costs,” he has essentially traded concrete, real-time intelligence leverage for a purely symbolic trade ban. It gets worse. Israel is also closing the British Consulate in East Jerusalem - it coordinates directly with the Palestinian Authority. So in his haste to please Palestinians Miliband has successfully evicted his own observers, shut down his own consulate, and left the UK blind in the West Bank.  If that isn’t a textbook definition of shooting oneself in the foot - I don’t know what is.  Politicians in the West need to stop trying to police the Middle East.