Britain’s foreign policy seen failing in Arab world

Updated 25 September 2017
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Britain’s foreign policy seen failing in Arab world

LONDON: The majority of Britons believe the UK’s foreign policy in the Arab world has been a failure, an exclusive poll by YouGov and this newspaper has revealed.
That has long been the view from the Arab street, influenced by events ranging from the Balfour Declaration of 1917 to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The “UK attitudes toward the Arab world” poll, conducted in August, indicates that at least some of those views are echoed in the streets of the UK, with 83 percent of those polled saying Britain was wrong to go to war in Iraq.
The consequences of the 2003 invasion by US and British forces can still be felt today, with some blaming the rise of Daesh on that fatal foreign foray.
Tellingly, the Arab News/YouGov poll found that 58 percent of Brits disagreed with the notion that the UK has been a stabilizing force in the Arab world.  
Fawaz Gerges, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, said this finding indicates a chasm between the government and public opinion.
“These results speak to the British public being ahead of the elite on these issues,” Gerges told Arab News.
“I think people in the Middle East would be surprised by these findings. There’s a kind of misunderstanding that there’s no distance between public opinion in the West and the views of governments and politicians. There is.”
Jane Kinninmont, deputy head of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House, said the invasion of Iraq under former Prime Minister Tony Blair still looms large in public perceptions of British foreign policy.
“There was a major breakdown of trust over Iraq. All the arguments used at the time to persuade the country to go to war have been debunked and Blair is now perceived as having lied, even though the inquests relating to the invasion haven’t said he lied,” Kinninmont said.
“Most of the British public would say Iraq is worse off now than before the invasion.”
Gerges said he was not surprised that most Brits believe the Iraq war was a mistake.
“Even at the time there was widespread opposition to the invasion, we saw that with the huge demonstrations and even then Tony Blair was in a minority position,” he said.
While the public is unequivocal about the issue of the Iraq invasion, 53 percent were found to support military action against Daesh, the poll found.
Gerges said he believes that is partly due to the level of media coverage about Daesh.
“They get too much coverage, which only serves to increase the spectacle of violence, brutality and savagery the group wants to display.
“The media has a key role to play. Ever since June 2014 the coverage of (Daesh) has influenced public opinion. Before then I am sure the idea of military intervention in the Middle East would not have been entertained, even in Washington DC.”
Kinninmont said there is a difference between the Iraq war and military strikes against Daesh, and that the British public recognizes this.
“There’s a sense (that Daesh) ‘started it’, that the terror attacks directed at the UK require some response,” she said.
“Iraq was about regime change, and the arguments and context (were) different to what we’re seeing today. People see that difference. There’s not complete opposition to military intervention, it’s just that people are more weary of grand political strategies, going to war to change regimes.”
While the Iraq invasion and its fallout is recent history, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a long-running sore which, many believe, is one of the main underlying causes of instability in the Middle East.

That seemingly has not gone unappreciated by the British public, with 53 percent wanting the UK government to recognize Palestine as a state, with only 14 percent against the idea, and 33 percent neutral on the issue.
Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, said that public opinion has been shifting over the last few years and support for a Palestinian state will continue growing.
“I have been here for 11 years and have noticed dramatic changes in the British public’s views on Palestine,” Hassassian said.
“That only 14 percent say they wouldn’t want the Palestinian state to receive recognition is an indication of the … Palestinian cause worldwide being accepted.”
According to Yossi Mekelberg, professor of international relations at Regent’s University London, such a finding will not go unnoticed in Israel. However, he claimed it will not make Benjamin Netanyahu’s government change course and actively seek a two-state settlement.
“There is a Palestinian president, a Palestinian delegation in London, so although there isn’t a state there is a lot of visibility,” Mekelberg said.
“Israel shouldn’t be surprised. It’s clear the majority of the international community would like to see a Palestinian state and a two-state solution.
“These figures won’t make Israel change its policies, but it does take notice of polls like these. It doesn’t want to lose the battle for public opinion.
“The figures will only go up and up, the more they build settlements the more the perception will be that Israel is blocking the peace process.”
One finding that perhaps contradicts the fact that the majority of Britons want the government to recognize the state of Palestine is that 32 percent think the Balfour Declaration — the first time the British announced support for the establishment of a “national home” for the Jewish people in Palestine — was something to be proud of.
“The Balfour Declaration is a badge of dishonour to the British colonial system and the government today shoulders a lot of the moral and historical responsibility,” Hassassian said.
“I have spoke to two government ministers who have told me that the Balfour Declaration won’t be complete until the UK recognizes the Palestinian state.
“So I think the figures show a lack of awareness among the British public about the Balfour Declaration. We are starting a campaign to raise awareness.”
Representatives of the UK government’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office did not respond to requests for comment when contacted by Arab News.

• For full report and related articles please visit: How Brits view Arab world


Hamas military arm releases new video of Israeli hostage in Gaza

Updated 55 min 51 sec ago
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Hamas military arm releases new video of Israeli hostage in Gaza

  • The man identified himself as an Israeli hostage held in Gaza

JERUSALEM: The military arm of the Palestinian militant group Hamas released a video Saturday of a man identifying himself as an Israeli hostage held in Gaza since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
In the video, whose date cannot be verified, a man addresses US President-elect Donald Trump in English and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Hebrew.


Gaza rescuers say 3 aid workers killed in Israel strike

Updated 30 November 2024
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Gaza rescuers say 3 aid workers killed in Israel strike

  • The agency said the aid workers killed were Palestinian employees of World Central Kitchen
  • The US aid group did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment

GAZA: Gaza’s civil defense agency said three aid workers were killed in an Israeli air strike in the Hamas-run territory on Saturday but the Israeli army said it killed a “terrorist.”
The agency said the aid workers killed were Palestinian employees of World Central Kitchen. The US aid group did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment.
The Israeli army said it had “struck a vehicle with a terrorist that took part in the murderous October 7 massacre,” referring to militant group Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel last year.
“The claim that the terrorist was simultaneously a WCK worker is being examined,” it added in a statement.
Civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the bodies of “at least five dead were transported (to hospital), including (those of) the three employees of World Central Kitchen.”
“All three men worked for WCK and they were hit while driving in a WCK jeep in Khan Yunis,” Bassal said, adding that the vehicle had been “marked with its logo clearly visible.”
The Israeli army insisted its strike in the main southern city hit “a civilian unmarked vehicle and its movement on the route was not coordinated for transporting of aid.”
In April, an Israeli air strike killed seven WCK staff — an Australian, three Britons, a North American, a Palestinian and a Pole.
Israel said it had been targeting a “Hamas gunman” in that strike but the military admitted a series of “grave mistakes” and violations of its own rules of engagement.
The October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,207 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed 44,382 people in Gaza, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.


Several wounded in two Israeli strikes in south Lebanon, health ministry says

Updated 30 November 2024
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Several wounded in two Israeli strikes in south Lebanon, health ministry says

  • Later on Saturday, another person was injured in a separate Israeli strike on Al Bisariya
  • The Israeli military said it had attacked a Hezbollah facility

CAIRO: An Israeli strike on a car wounded three people, including a seven-year-old child, on Saturday in the south Lebanon village of Majdal Zoun, the Lebanese Health Ministry said in a statement.
Later on Saturday, another person was injured in a separate Israeli strike on Al Bisariya, which lies near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, the ministry said.
The Israeli military said it had attacked a Hezbollah facility in Sidon that housed rocket launchers for the armed group.
It added that it had also hit a vehicle in southern Lebanon loaded with rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and military equipment as part of its actions against ceasefire violations.
A truce came into effect on Wednesday, but both sides have accused each other of breaching a ceasefire that aims to halt over a year of fighting.


West faces ‘reckoning’ over Middle East radicalization: UK spy chief

Updated 30 November 2024
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West faces ‘reckoning’ over Middle East radicalization: UK spy chief

  • MI6 head Richard Moore cites ‘terrible loss of innocent life’
  • ‘In 37 years in the intelligence profession, I’ve never seen the world in a more dangerous state’

LONDON: The West has “yet to have a full reckoning with the radicalizing impact of the fighting, the terrible loss of innocent life in the Middle East and the horrors of Oct. 7,” the head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service MI6 has warned.

Richard Moore made the comments in a speech delivered to the British Embassy in Paris, and was joined by his French counterpart Nicolas Lerner.

Moore said: “In 37 years in the intelligence profession, I’ve never seen the world in a more dangerous state. And the impact on Europe, our shared European home, could hardly be more serious.”

Daesh is expanding its reach and staging deadly attacks in Iran and Russia despite suffering significant territorial setbacks, he added, warning that “the menace of terrorism has not gone away.”

In October last year, Ken McCallum, the head of Britain’s domestic intelligence service MI5, said his agency was monitoring for increased terror risks in the UK due to the Gaza war. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in over a year of fighting.

In Lebanon, a 60-day truce agreed this week between Hezbollah and Israel brought an end to a conflict that has killed thousands of Lebanese civilians.


Israel military strikes kill 32 Palestinians in Gaza, medics say

Updated 30 November 2024
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Israel military strikes kill 32 Palestinians in Gaza, medics say

  • Among the 32 killed, at least seven died in an Israeli strike on a house in central Gaza City

The Israeli military said it killed a Palestinian it accused of involvement in Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel in a vehicle strike in Gaza, and is investigating claims that the individual was an employee of aid group World Central Kitchen.
At least 32 Palestinians were killed in Israeli military strikes across Gaza overnight and into Saturday, with most casualties reported in northern areas, medics told Reuters.
Later on Saturday medics said seven people were killed when an Israeli air strike targeted a vehicle near a gathering of Palestinians receiving aid in the southern area of Khan Younis south of the enclave.
According to residents and a Hamas source, the vehicle targeted near a crowd receiving flour belonged to security personnel responsible for overseeing the delivery of aid shipments into Gaza.
Among the 32 killed, at least seven died in an Israeli strike on a house in central Gaza City, according to a statement from the Gaza Civil Defense and the official Palestinian news agency WAFA early on Saturday.
The Gaza Civil Defense also reported that one of its officers was killed in attacks in northern Gaza’s Jabalia, bringing the total number of civil defense workers killed since October 7, 2023, to 88.
Earlier on Saturday, WAFA reported that three employees of the World Central Kitchen, a US-based, non-governmental humanitarian agency, were killed when a civilian vehicle was targeted in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
The World Central Kitchen has not yet commented on the incident.