Today is an historic day, though with the term in almost hourly use by the media to describe events in Egypt, its significance has been given less coverage than it deserves. For the first time in many years the U.K Foreign Secretary has been openly critical of American foreign policy and put distance between London and Washington. At last we are getting somewhere and this blog congratulates William Hague for at last doing what should have been done years ago.
The issues are the joint performance of Israel in the Mid East Peace process, which is obdurate and impossible and the its patron, the United States, which has historically been weak in restraining the excesses of the Jewish State, to the point where Israel has lost almost all her friends in the world. The U.S. vacillates over pressurising its ally to see reason and behave reasonably. The outcome is that the future of Israel has a state can no longer be taken for granted and America looks, to the rest of the world, craven in its dealings with its hot headed friend. This is wholly counter-productive for both, as well as bad for the interests of Jewish people everywhere.
That Hague has now spoken out is very good. That he has done so publicly will cause a huge stir behind the scenes in Washington, where nobody living will be able to recall a precedent for such criticism from the other half of the special relationship, in which the U.K. is supposed to be entirely compliant. If the Foreign Secretary could now follow this up with a bold set of demands upon which peace in Palestine could be based, it would be even better.
Finally on a footnote. One of the biggest blunders of U.S policy in the middle east was when the Palestinians elected Hamas as their government and the U.S. refused to recognise it. The first rule of promoting democracy is that when it thorows up a result you don’t like, you have to accept it. That lesson may have to be relearned with Egypt.