November 2014
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NOVEMBER 2014 ANGLO ISRAEL ASSOCIATION There is no question that this has been a very difficult year. The increasing Nimrod Capital LLP destabilisation of the Middle East in general 3 St Helen’s Place and the upsurge in violence between London EC3A 6AB Israel and Hamas have helped to make it Switchboard: 020 7382 4565 so. There is also a disturbing increase in anti Semitic attacks throughout Europe. www.nimrodcapital.com As your chairman, who happens to live in Northern Ireland, I have been particularly disturbed by events both in the North and in the South. Belfast now has a very small Jewish community and it was alarming to see attacks on the synagogue and the house associated with Chaim Herzog. It was With best wishes from perhaps even more alarming to hear of the tweet of an Irish sportsman that if one was lucky enough to know a Jew, the thing to do was to hit him in the face. All of this points up the important role of the Anglo Israel Association in ensuring the maximum possible understanding between the United Kingdom and Israel. One might agree or disagree with Hugo Rifkind that the government of Israel is less close to the West than it once was. One might agree or disagree with Douglas Nimrod Capital LLP is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority Murray that the West is less close to its own values than it once was. The point is that the role of the Anglo Israel Association has never been more central. Whether in the rarefied atmosphere of the chamber of the House of Lords or the boisterous playing field of Ireland , sentiments are now being expressed which would not have been expressed some years ago. It is therefore my duty to ask our friends once again to renew their loyal support. Lord Bew Chairman of the Executive Committee 3 WHO WE ARE CONTENTS FOUNDER The Late Brigadier General 3. MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN Sir Wyndham Deedes, CMG, DSO 6. THE UNRAVELLING OF THE MIDDLE EAST STATE SYSTEM HON PRESIDENT COUNCIL HE The Ambassador of Israel Lady Sainsbury (Chairwoman) 10. EUROPE AND OTHER WESTERN DONORS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE Lady Anderson FAILED PEACE PROCESS HON VICE-PRESIDENTS Sir Andrew Burns, KCMG 14. MIDDLE EAST WAR ON CHRISTIANS Mr M Green The Earl of Balfour Mrs L Hochhauser Mrs E Corob 16. PRIME MINISTER CAMERON’S SPEECH IN THE KNESSET Mr J Marshall Dame Vivien Duffield, DBE Mr GR Pinto Mr JM Greenwood 22. THE TRUTH BEHIND PALESTINIAN WATER ISSUES Lady Sainsbury Mrs M Park The Marquess of Reading 26. 10TH AIA COLLOQUIUM EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE (TRUSTEES) Mr D Sumberg 28. PANAMA HATS AND KHAKI SHORTS: VICARS IN THE HOLY LAND The Lord Bew (Chairman) The Lord Weidenfeld Mrs J Atkin The Rt Hon The Lord Woolf, PC 31. TIME FOR ALL ISRAELIS TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY Mr R Bolchover (Co-Deputy Chairman) Mr A Yablon Miss B Dingle 32. AIA CLERGY TOUR Professor D Hochhauser (Co-Deputy Chairman) DINNER COMMITTEE 34. 5TH AMBASSADORS’ ROUND TABLE Mr D Kessler Mr A Reeve (Chairman) Mr H Lewis FCA (Hon Treasurer) Lady Baker 36. WATER TECHNOLOGY Ms O Polizzi Ms L Diamond Mr A Reeve Mr B Streather 40. CATCH SOME ZZZ’S Dr A Sher Mrs E Tarling Mr B Streather 42. ISRAEL TECHNOLOGY POWERS AFRICAN VILLAGE Mrs E Tarling EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 44. DOGS FOR PEOPLE Mr T Vince Mrs Ruth Saunders 46. INNOVATIONS FROM ISRAEL 56. THE AIA EDUCATIONAL TRUSTS 62. TECHNION LAUNCH 64. PROTECTING THE MIGRATING PELICANS IN ISRAEL 66. MASKIT ANGLO-ISRAEL ASSOCIATION 68. BEVERLEY-JANE STEWART PO Box 47819, London NW11 7WD 72. CERAMICS IN JAFFA T: 020 8458 1284 F. 020 8458 3484 E: [email protected] www.angloisraelassociation.com 74. COOK THIS NOW: POLENTA MACHNEYUDA WITH MUSHROOM RAGU Registered Charity No. 313523 77. SINGLE MALT WHISKEY FROM ISRAEL The articles in this magazine reflect the views of the authors and not necessarily those of the Anglo-Israel Association. If you have a comment on any of the articles or on the magazine in general, we would be pleased to hear from you. Letters or emails should be addressed to the Editor and sent to email: [email protected] or The AIA, PO Box 47819, London NW11 7WD Editorial Team: Ruth Saunders (editor), Linda Diamond, Grace Reginiano hile the great hopes associated with the Arab Spring have until now failed to bring about an overall process of democratization, something else has been happening in the region. The horror stories coming now out of northern Iraq, as well as the continuing slaughter in Syria’s civil war, point to a tectonic shift of the very state system in the Middle East: Walmost one hundred years after World War I, the regional state system established after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire is unravelling. The map of the Middle East, with which we have been acquainted, was set up by the victorious Western imperial powers Britain and France during and after World War I, when they conquered and divided between them the defeated Ottoman Empire. While the war was still going on, they signed an agreement drafted by their diplomats François George-Picot and Sir Mark Sykes dividing their respective spheres of influence in the Levant and delineating their borders. Referred to as the Sykes-Picot Agreement, its details were changed several times and were ultimately confirmed in the 1920 San Remo conference. It was this set of imperial agreements which set up – under the League of Nations mandate system - the separate entities of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. The borders – sometimes drawn as straight lines in the sand – reflected only the interests of the two Western powers, overlooking ethnic, religious and historical divisions. Nor were the local populations ever asked for their views or consent. The modern states of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon thus arose as separate entities: their borders were arbitrary and artificial and – moreover – they never existed in such form as separate, independent entities in the past (the case of Palestine was even more complicated due to the conflicting THE British promises both to Arabs and Jews). Eventually, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon became independent states, modeled on the Westphalian idea of the modern nation-state. Again with the exception of Palestine, this state system – and its borders - was maintained by the UNRAVELLING leaders of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon as the best available status quo: it was in the interests of all rulers, especially the authoritarian ones emerging after independence – not to rock the boat. It is this system which is now unravelling. It is clear that OF THE MIDDLE the Westphalian system of nation-states, imposed on the region by Western imperial powers, cannot be sustained when it does not reflect the wishes of its population. The American-led invasion of Iraq put an end not only to Saddam’s rule, but also to the hegemony of the Sunni minority which had been installed in power by the British. EAST STATE Reflecting its power through elections, the Shiite majority viewed democratic elections as a vehicle of imposing a harsh majoritarian Shiite hegemony. Iraq today is not the unitary Arab nation-state it has been in the past, and it is doubtful whether it could be put together again. SYSTEM The Kurdish Regional Government in the north, granted 7 nominal autonomy, is a de facto state: it has its own army, There is, of course, one exception to this regional controls its territory to the exclusion of the Baghdad development: Egypt. For all its internal tribulations, there government, controls it own borders and up to a point its is no doubt that Egypt is a coherent entity, deeply anchored national resources. Foreign consulates in its capital, Irbil, in history and the consciousness of its population. With all function as embassies for all practical purposes, and so the problems confronting the Coptic Christian community, do its own representative offices abroad. no one doubts that they are as Egyptian as the Moslem majority. Egypt’s road towards modernization as a nation- In Syria, what started as a peaceful set of pro-democracy state goes back to its early 19th-century ruler Mohhamed demonstrations, deteriorated very quickly into an armed Ali. And its army is a symbol of national unity and cohesion insurrection of the Sunni majority against the hegemony – not like the Iraq or Syrian armies, which were always of the Alawite sect, led by the Assad family. It is difficult identified as the enforcement arm of the ruling sect. to see how Syria can be reconstituted again as a unitary Arab nation-state. A final comment: while secularism and the West was connected with the emergence of liberal and democratic These developments which led to a de facto forces inspired by the Enlightenment, in the Moslem dismemberment of central state authorities in both Middle East, secularism has always been imposed from countries, have now given rise to the emergence of a above by authoritarian rulers: the Shah in Iran, Atatürk in totally new player – ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Turkey, Saddam in Iraq, Assad in Syria, in a more gentle Syria, which has renamed itself as the Islamic State way Nasser and Mubarak in Egypt. This explains why in and announced the establishment of a caliphate. ISIS is the current situation in Syria, the Christian and Druze not just an off-shoot of Al Qaida: its very name and by minorities support Assad, and in Egypt the Copts support announcing a caliphate straddling the borders of Syria the military-backed rule of Sisi: democratic majoritarian and Iraq, it is not merely imposing a harsh and murderous rule means Moslem hegemony.