I got this in my email from the B'nai Brith. While I am no fan of this organization (I signed up for their mailer years ago, before I knew any better), their assessment of Britain's prime minister's speech at the knesset was accurate, I think.
Quote:
‘Britain should look at the lessons of history and the realities of today,’
says B’nai Brith following PM Brown’s speech to Israel’s Knesset
TORONTO, July 21, 2008 – B’nai Brith Canada has characterized the remarks by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown relating to Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem as an “abdication of Britain’s historical responsibility”.
“British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called for Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the State of Israel, to also serve as the capital of a future Palestinian State. This completely ignores the national, cultural, and religious bond between the Jewish People and their holiest city,” said Frank Dimant, Executive Vice President of B’nai Brith Canada. “Jerusalem has only been the capital of the Jewish State, never of any Arab country.
“Prime Minister Brown has also called on Israel to cease ‘settlement’ building in Judea and Samaria. Such remarks ignore historical realities.
“It seems Prime Minister Brown has forgotten Britain’s historical role, in which Lord Balfour viewed with favour the establishment in then-Palestine of a ‘national home for the Jewish people’. One must also recall that under the British Mandate the original borders of the Jewish homeland were redrawn, with more than three-quarters of this original territory apportioned to the newly-formed Transjordan, made up of a predominantly Palestinian population. The Jews accepted, albeit with strong reservation, this markedly shrunken territory because at least it represented the rebirth of the Jewish State in their ancestral homeland.
“This historical lesson ought to be foremost on the mind of the British Prime Minister as he proposes further areas that Jews should vacate and employs terminology such as ‘settlements’ that disguise the ancestral presence of Jews in Judea and Samaria.
“The Prime Minister should also take his cue from more recent history in which we see the de facto terrorist State in Gaza that has been established in areas from which Israel withdrew a mere three years ago. It is time that Britain and the entire world community held the Palestinians to account for the terrorism perpetrated by groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, rather than reward them by pressing Israel to make still more territorial concessions that will erase a Jewish presence from these areas.”
endquote.
