The First New Labour Government's Foreign Policy-Making Towards the Israeli–Palestinian Question: The Formative Years, 1997–1999
2014; Routledge; Volume: 28; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/13619462.2014.893408
ISSN1743-7997
Autores Tópico(s)Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts
ResumoAbstractThis article reconstructs the evolution of New Labour's foreign policy towards the Israeli–Palestinian question and the Middle East Peace Process. It argues that between 1997 and 1999 the approach became personalised when differences in substance and style emerged as Tony Blair (Prime Minister), and Robin Cook (Foreign Secretary), sought to define Britain's positions in a declining process. At the core of this divergence was Cook's preference for a greater Euro-centred multilateralist role in the trilateral negotiating template (bilateral Arab–Israeli talks overseen by the USA) and Blair's more pragmatic focus on Anglo-American relations. Yet the trigger for Blair's decision to control Middle East policy—Cook's Jerusalem visit during Britain's EU presidency—ran contrary to USA initiatives designed to augment peace efforts, and later formed a basis of contradiction between the criteria for humanitarian intervention in the Blair doctrine and his policy towards the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.Keywords:: New LabourForeign PolicyIsraeli–Palestinian QuestionMiddle East Peace ProcessInternational Affairs AcknowledgementsI would like to thank John Kampfner, Neil Kinnock, Michael Levy, David Mencer, David Mepham, and the late Robin Cook for their generosity in sharing their experiences and invaluable insights. I would also like to thank Matt Beech, June Edmunds, Robert Page, and Mark Wickham-Jones for their comments on earlier versions of this article.Notes [1]CitationBlair, New Britain, 58. [2]CitationCook, ‘Personal Statement’. [3] See, for example, the essays in CitationLittle and Wickham-Jones, New Labour's Foreign Policy; CitationWilliams, British Foreign Policy. [4] See, for example, CitationDunne and Wheeler, ‘Blair's Britain’. [5] See, for example, CitationHodder-Williams, ‘Reforging the “Special Relationship”’. [6]CitationEdmunds, ‘The Evolution’, 23; ‘The British Labour Party’. [7] See CitationGreene, Blair, Labour and Palestine. [8]CitationTaylor, The Trouble Makers, 12. [9]CitationVickers, The Labour Party, 12.[10] Within British party political discourse, the Palestinians were primarily seen as a refugee problem after 1947. Following the 1967 Arab–Israeli war, the concept of linking Palestinian national rights to resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict gained prominent support. In 1970, Alec Douglas-Home (Conservative Foreign Secretary) noted the ‘political aspirations of the Palestinian Arabs’; ‘CitationTwo Principles’, 19. In January 1974, CitationJames Callaghan (Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary) elevated an Israeli–Palestinian settlement to a prerequisite for regional stability by stating this goal should be pursued ‘as a priority issue before a real peace could ensue’. CitationCallaghan, Time and Chance, 290.[11]CitationVickers, The Labour Party, 72.[12]CitationHowe, Anticolonialism in British Politics, 148.[13]CitationEdmunds, ‘The Evolution’, 23.[14]CitationNeil Kinnock (Vice-President of the European Commission, September 1999–November 2004) interviewed by the author, European Commission Representation in the United Kingdom, Europe House, London, January 30, 2004.[15]CitationEdmunds, ‘The British Labour Party’.[16]CitationHill, ‘Foreign Policy’, 333.[17]CitationLiddle and Mandelson, TheBlairRevolution, 245.[18] Cook's interest in the Israeli–Palestinian question began as a new parliamentarian in the mid-1970s. He was introduced to the subject by the Dundee Labour Party, then a centre of pro-Palestinian activism emanating from Palestinian students at Dundee University. See CitationGraham, ‘The Long March’. Cook claimed that much of that activism ‘was organised and in many ways originating with Ernie Ross and George Galloway—who are both from Dundee’, and added that ‘in Scottish circles, there had long been links with the PLO and the Palestinian struggle’, and there ‘was quite a lot of Palestinian contact with the Scottish Labour Party’. CitationRobin Cook interviewed by the author, Portcullis House, Westminster, London, November 2, 2004.[19]CitationJohn Kampfner interviewed by the author, London, December 5, 2003.[20] ‘CitationRobin Cook's Speech on the Government's Ethical Foreign Policy’, The Guardian.[21]CitationIbid.[22]CitationIbid.[23] See, for example, CitationPundak, ‘From Oslo to Taba’.[24] ‘CitationRobin Cook Defends His Ethical Foreign Policy’, The Guardian.[25] Blair's introduction to the MEPP began at the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's assassinated Labor Prime Minister, in November 1995, where Blair found in the USA's President, Bill Clinton, a ‘soulmate’ and a ‘natural political ally’ for his growing interest in the peace process. As a result, Blair was ‘typically (…) determined to begin preparing himself to do whatever he could if he became prime minister to place Britain actively on the side of the peacemakers. And he was voracious in his appetite for first-hand knowledge’. CitationLevy, A Question of Honour, 150–1.[26]CitationBlair, ‘The Principles of Modern British Foreign Policy’.[27]CitationCoughlin, American Ally, 27.[28]CitationHollis, Britain and theMiddle East, 72.[29]CitationIbid., 73.[30]CitationDavid Mencer (Director, Labour Friends of Israel, 1998–2004) interviewed by author, House of Commons, London, June 3, 2004.[31]CitationBlair, ‘The Labour Friends of Israel’. Moshe Raviv (Ambassador of Israel to the UK, 1993–1998) retrospectively appraised Blair's speech as ‘the most authoritative policy statement on the peace process to date’, stating that while it ‘did not represent a change of British policy since the 1967 Six[-]Day War, it still (…) reflected friendship for Israel and understanding of its vulnerability’. CitationRaviv, Israel at Fifty, 270–1.[32]CitationBlair, ‘The Labour Friends of Israel’.[33] See CitationAsseburg, ‘The EU and the Middle East’.[34]CitationIbid., 175.[35] John Sawers interviewed by Anthony Seldon, January 13, 2007, in CitationSeldon, Snowdon and Collings, BlairUnbound, 64.[36]CitationBlair, ‘The Labour Friends of Israel’.[37]CitationJohn Kampfner interviewed by the author, London, December 5, 2003.[38]CitationStarkey, ‘EU-Israel Association Agreement’. For an analytical account of economic relations, see CitationArnon and Weinblatt, ‘Sovereignty and Economic Development’.[39]CitationGalloway, ‘Iraq’.[40]CitationCook, ‘Iraq’.[41]CitationKampfner, Robin Cook, 220.[42] ‘CitationCook's Middle East Tour’, BBC News.[43]CitationKampfner, Robin Cook, 220–21. See also CitationHollis, Britain and the Middle East, 73.[44]CitationCook, ‘Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs’.[45]CitationKampfner, Robin Cook, 221.[46]CitationHollis, ‘Europe and the Middle East’.[47]CitationKampfner, Robin Cook, 221.[48] According to Kampfner,Although the principle of the HarHoma visit had been completely cleared by number 10, Blair was exasperated by the images. Blair wanted to make the point but he didn't want the pictures to go with it. In a classic fashion it was “spun” by number 10 that Blair went to Israel a month or so later to sort out the Cook problem, whereas number 10 had been completely behind the organisation of the trip. (John Kampfner interviewed by the author, London, December 5, 2003)[49] ‘CitationMiddle East Peace Process – Conclusions’.[50]CitationRoss, ‘Israel’. As MP for Dundee West (1979–2005), Ross supported the twinning of Dundee with the West Bank city of Nablus. Citation‘Scots’ Farflung Twins', The Observer. He also chaired the Parliamentary Labour Party Foreign Affairs Committee (1987–2001).[51]CitationKaufman, ‘Middle East’. Kaufman (Shadow Foreign Secretary, 1987–1992), generally supportive of Israel, became increasingly critical of Likud and Israeli policy in the 1980s. CitationEdmunds, The Left and Israel, 92.[52]CitationLevy, A Question of Honour, 154.[53]CitationIbid., 156.[54]CitationRobin Cook interviewed by the author, November 2, 2004.[55]CitationIbid.[56]CitationIbid.[57]Citation‘London Set for Middle East Talks’, BBC News.[58]CitationMumford and Selck, ‘New Labour's Ethical Dimension’.[59]CitationPowell, The New Machiavelli, 278.[60]CitationCampbell, The Alistair Campbell Diaries, 360, 363.[61]CitationBlair, A Journey, 191.[62] Michael Binyon, ‘Row over Cook's Visit Revives Old Antagonism’, The Times, March 18, 1998, quoted in CitationKampfner, Robin Cook, 221. In transcribing the quote, Kampfner capitalised ‘cooks’ with an upper case ‘C’ to emphasise the allusion to the British Foreign Secretary.[63] Cook's optimism towards Barak extended to the defence of the Israeli Labor leader's claim that it was too late to prevent the building of HarHoma (conversely, the centrepiece of Cook's reproaches of Netanyahu): ‘In fairness to Mr. Barak, he can no more put back the clock to the start of the Netanyahu Government than this Government could put back the clock to 1979. He has to start from the point at which he inherits’. CitationCook, ‘Middle East’. Ernie Ross more critically urged Cook to ‘remind him [Barak] that if there is to be peace, it must be based on Security Council resolutions 242 and 338’, and that ‘resolutions cannot simply be pushed aside’. CitationRoss, ‘Foreign Affairs and Defence’.[64] The rift between Netanyahu and Cook may have been a key factor in Blair's decision to replace his Foreign Secretary in June 2001. Blair's retrospective assessment of Cook's standpoint on the peace process, given to Margaret Beckett (Foreign Secretary, 2006–2007) in 2006, appears to support this view: ‘Robin [Cook] (…) lost the confidence of the Israelis very early on (…) and never got it back’. Blair added, giving further insight into the basis of his own ideas of approach towards Israel: ‘If we are to have any real influence it's fundamental that you acquire their confidence and retain it’. Margaret Beckett interviewed by Anthony Seldon, 28 March, 2007, quoted in CitationSeldon, Snowdon and Collings, Blair Unbound, 471.[65]CitationSeldon et al.,Blair, 691.[66]CitationRiddell, The Unfulfilled Prime Minister, 133.[67]CitationRentoul, TonyBlair: Prime Minister, 423.[68] Barnaby Mason, the BBC journalist who accompanied Cook's Middle East tour throughout, claimed that a disagreement with Netanyahu was ‘probably unavoidable’. He added some criticism of Cook: ‘[he] seems to assume that simply being the undignified target of a hostile demonstration constitutes failure, hardly a tenable argument’, yet concluded: ‘[b]ut in taking a stand at HarHoma it's at least possible to argue, unfashionably, that he was right’. ‘CitationCook's Middle East Tour’, BBC News.[69]CitationBlair, ‘Doctrine of the International Community’. A defining distinction between the Kosovo and the Israeli–Palestinian conflicts in relation to Blair's doctrine was that while military intervention in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia raised the spectre of external interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state, the status of the Occupied Territories did not.[70]CitationHollis, ‘Europe and the Middle East’, 15.[71]CitationHollis, Britain and theMiddle East, 78.[72] ‘CitationPresidency Conclusions, Berlin European Council’.[73]CitationLevy, A Question of Honour, 149.[74]CitationHollis, Britain and theMiddle East, 79.[75] Levy's expanded role ‘only became apparent as he began a series of visits to the region’, when between ‘April 1999 and June 2000 he [Levy] visited Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Syria and Israel’. CitationHollis, Britain and theMiddle East, 79.[76]CitationBlair, A Journey, 223.[77]CitationRiddell, The Unfulfilled Prime Minister, 129.[78]CitationBlair, A Journey, 188.[79] Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), cited in CitationGartzke and Kroenig, ‘A Strategic Approach’, 156.[80]CitationWickham-Jones, ‘Labour Party Politics’, 109.[81] In relation to Blair's personal control of foreign policy-making for the MEPP, David Mepham (Blair's Policy Adviser, International Affairs, 1994–1997) has claimed:there were parallel foreign policies running for a while [1997–1999], but the reality of the New Labour government is that ultimately the Prime Minister is dominant, and so Cook's role on the Middle East, and on broader foreign policy issues, progressively weakened vis-a-vis the Downing Street operation (…). Blair basically made Middle Eastern policy (…). It was much more dominated by his own instincts, by a small group of advisors around him. (CitationDavid Mepham interviewed by the author, London, December 14, 2005)[82]CitationSeldon et al.,Blair, 398.[83]CitationBlair, ‘The Labour Friends of Israel’.[84]CitationShort, An Honourable Deception? 76.[85]CitationBlair, A Journey, 223.[86]CitationEdmunds, ‘The British Labour Party’, 111.[87]CitationIbid., 112.[88] See CitationHoon, ‘Palestine’.[89] A factor reducing internal party criticism was that some activists featured less prominently after becoming cabinet ministers. Peter Hain, as a Young Liberal, was ‘at the forefront of the (…) anti-Zionist campaign’ in the early 1970s. CitationEdmunds, The Left and Israel, 83. As a Labour Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (1999–2001), his support for Palestinian ‘prosperity’, and Israel's ‘lasting security’, and his validation of relevant UN resolutions, placed him firmly within the moderate spectrum of opinion. CitationHain, ‘Middle East Peace Process’.[90]CitationHill, ‘Foreign Policy’, 331.[91]CitationGordon, Conflict and Consensus; CitationEdmunds, ‘The British Labour Party’.[92]CitationEdmunds, ‘The British Labour Party’.[93]CitationBevir, ‘New Labour’, 287.[94] Christopher Hill has noted: ‘although Blair has always talked the language of multilateralism, his practice, like that of the United States, has been to exploit multilateral fora for unilateral purposes. (…) [T]he style is at odds with that advocated by senior colleagues like Robin Cook, Clare Short—and Peter Hain’. CitationHill, ‘Putting the World’ 395, note 12.
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