December 12, 2009
In
case you want to learn how to appeal to the Jews, British diplomat Matthew
Gould gives a free lesson.
Haaretz reported yesterday that
Gould, the newly appointed British Ambassador to Israel, wasn't too
connected to his Jewish roots until he served in Tehran. Seemingly, now he
knows where he belongs.
"Being posted in Iran made me go to shul more regularly",
says the new Ambassador. "I did it to reach out to the Jewish community in
Iran and to show that Western embassies were watching out for its welfare,"
Gould explains. "I was determined to go to shul to show both the Jewish
community and the Iranian authorities that I was Jewish and not embarrassed
of it."
Gould says that his two-year stint through 2005 in Tehran
as deputy head of mission has given him "a real expertise in an issue of
profound security importance to Israel."
The religious process that began in Tehran continued in
Britain. "I got more active [with Judaism] and over the last couple of years
I've spent a lot more time and a lot more thought on my Jewish identity and
what it means to be Jewish," says Gould.
Haaretz reports that Gould and his wife go to shul every
week at the West London Synagogue. As a child, Gould recalls going to
Middlesex New Synagogue in Harrow with his parents, who still live in London
as "proud but inactive" members of the Jewish community.
In Israel, Gould says he and his wife "will keep a Jewish
household," and "bring up their kids in the Jewish tradition, when those
children are born.” Gould knows some parts of Israel, from his visits there
as a child, when he would occasionally go to the Liberal Movement's Kadima
summer camps. He also has family - second and third cousins - in Jerusalem
and Tel Aviv. What can we say, he is not only a Jew but a product of a
typical Zionist upbringing.
Considering Israel's crimes against humanity in general
and Palestinians in particular, one would expect Britain to send an
impartial ambassador to the Jewish state. Judeo centric by admission and
Zionist by education, Gould is certainly not the man for the job. As Gould
himself admits, "the fact that I'm Jewish means I will come with a
particular insight and sympathy and understanding, because the story of my
family is in certain respects the story of the people of the State of
Israel.”
A month ago British TV
Channel 4 broadcasted an
exposè of the
UK Jewish Lobby. It revealed also that 50% of MPs in the shadow
cabinet are
Conservative Friends of Israel members. The Jews in Britain
or at least their rich are drifting away from the Labour party.
They
gamble on the Tories. Consequently David Miliband, the foreign minister is
doing whatever he can to bring the Jewish fund raisers back home to his
Labour party.
At the end of October Milliband accused the Conservative
Party over their new alliance with the far right in Europe and with a Polish
Politician with an Antisemitic past. Some prominent British Jews
were not impressed. They knew
exactly what Miliband was up to, they realised that Milliband, himself a
Jew, was attempting to destabilize the Jewish new alliance with the
Conservatives.
Fatigue is not exactly one of Milliband's characteristics.
As we learn from Ha'aretz, he is now sending the Jewish State a kosher
ambassador, one who ‘goes to the Shul every Sabbath’, one who vows to keep a
“Jewish household”. One who understands and is ‘sensitive to Israeli
security matters’.
Ambassador Gould maintains that he is going as “the
British ambassador, to pursue British policies and advance British
interests." So here are two simple questions to the new British Ambassador
to Israel. How are you going to act when the British interests and the
Jewish ones oppose each other? How will you act when you notice a clear
discrepancy between Israeli actions and humanism?
Republished with the permission of Gilad Atzmon
See also
these essays
by Gilad Atzmon
republished with the permission of Gilad Atzmon:
