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| Britain |
| The Great British Foreign Office Fantasy |
| 2018-07-26 |
| h/t Gates of Vienna [GatestoneInstitute] According to the British Foreign Office, the Golan Heights are 'occupied'. They have been 'occupied' -- according to the logic of the UK Foreign Office -- since 1967, when Israel took the land from the invading forces of Syria. Ever since then, the Israelis have had the benefit of this strategic position and the Syrian regime has not. This fact, half a century on, still strikes the British Foreign Office as regrettable, and a wrong to be righted in due course. ...Over the weekend, it emerged that the British government was among foreign governments to have made a dramatic request of the Israelis. As the war in Syria appears to be clarifying towards its end-point, a group of around 800 members of the 'White Helmets' and their families had reportedly become trapped near the southwestern border near the Golan Heights. The White Helmets only operate in 'rebel areas' and are despised by the Assad regime. With Syrian government forces moving in, a massacre may well have been about to occur. ...As it is, the area is in the control of Britain's most reliable ally in the region. An ally which -- even as it is lectured by Britain -- agrees to requests from the British government that takes advantage of a strategic reality, one which the British government still refuses to accept. The Israeli government has given the British government what it wanted. Perhaps now would be a good time for the British government to reciprocate in some way? There could be no better means of doing so than by admitting that the British policy of the last half a century has been a Foreign Office fantasy and a wholesale dud of 'realist' regional thinking. The Foreign Office will have to back out of its self-imposed corner regarding the Golan at some point and accept the reality on the ground. How much better it would be if it did so now in a spirit of goodwill and reciprocity, rather than later on in a spirit of inevitable and grudging defeat. I pray of your reverence [Prior Aymer] to remember that I force my monies upon no one. But when churchman and layman, prince and prior, knight and priest, come knocking to Isaac's door, they borrow not his shekels with these uncivil terms. It is then, Friend Isaac, will you pleasure us in this matter, and our day shall be truly kept, so God sa' me? [...] And when the day comes, and I ask my own, then what hear I but Damned Jew! (33.40) |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #5 France helped draw that border. Syria and Lebanon were French. |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2018-07-26 21:25 |
| #4 So the Brits arbitrarily draw a border line All borders are arbitrarily drawn, typically at a point that a given side's armies can advance no further. In the case of post-colonial borders, the question wasn't just the composition of the people living in a given area, mixed as they tended to be since all ethnicities and sects were allowed to intermingle within the empire, but whether the borders drawn would immediately lead to war. Arab borders have remained more or less stable since Europe's withdrawal, demonstrating that the borders drawn weren't particularly haphazard. Israel's problems with Muslims have to do with the fact that it exists on what Muslims consider both holy and Arab land, thanks to Muhammad's hallucinations re Jerusalem, not the decisions of British colonial officials from a while back. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2018-07-26 13:11 |
| #3 The Syrians were bad neighbors, allowing people to snipe at Israelis in the low grounds below and did nothing to stop it. Think of it as a penalty for attacking Israel in 1973 and losing. Actions meet Consequences. |
| Posted by: magpie 2018-07-26 12:23 |
| #2 So the Brits arbitrarily draw a border line and then get their knickers in a bunch when reality contradicts their fantasy. What do they think Assad and his Iranian friends would do with this strategic position if they had access to it? |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2018-07-26 12:00 |
| #1 With Syrian government forces moving in, a massacre may well have been about to occur. Almost the entire Near East is one big massacre, in progress for decades if not centuries. Only the cast of characters, both victims and perpetrators, seems to change from one day to the next. That impression gets reinforced every day I read the first bloc of times on the 'Burg. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2018-07-26 11:59 |