Arabic version: وثائق بريطانية تكشف مخاوف ممتدة بشأن السلوك الإسرائيلي
According to Al Jazeera, declassified UK Foreign Office files show British diplomats condemned Israeli conduct in the occupied West Bank as a pattern of human rights abuses in 2002, 24 years before London adopted a tougher stance towards Israel this week.
The records were written during former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s administration, as then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon launched Operation Defensive Shield in March 2002 following attacks by Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas. Israeli forces killed 500 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and injured another 1,500 during a single month in the occupied West Bank.
A Foreign Office official described a “pattern” of “human rights abuses”, while an unnamed senior British army officer called the Israeli military a “second-rate, ill-disciplined, swaggering and bullying force”. The officer wrote that Israeli forces routinely used excessive force. Files also recorded Red Cross staff being threatened at gunpoint and ambulances being prevented from reaching wounded people.
Lord Michael Levy, Blair’s special envoy, warned Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer that there was no military solution and that the campaign would produce more suicide bombers. In 2002, the UK secretly halted arms exports to Israel for a time after confirming British equipment was being used in occupied territory in breach of guarantees.
Al Jazeera reported that subsequent UK governments took more limited steps during later Israeli military operations. This month, Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government and 11 other countries backed restrictions on trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
