Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip recently made a trip to the UAE, where the Queen doffed a hijab and walked barefoot through her first official visit to the Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi.
The mosque was named for the former ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Zayed, who hosted the British Royal Family on its previous visit in 1979.
While she was involved with that, the UK's Foreign Secretary, William Hague put together the new strategic and economic alliance with Britain as set forth by in the Abu Dhabi Declaration, which was signed in the presence of the Queen.
The Brits themselves are quite forthright about the price of this new agreement and what it means:
Whitehall officials said Foreign Secretary William Hague's decision to reach out to Gulf states in an effort to secure better diplomatic and trade ties meant Britain had to ‘take on board’ Arab foreign policy goals. Requesting better ties would be a two-way street, not just plea for more defence contracts and exports, they said. ‘It will be a six lane highway with movement in both directions,’ said one diplomat. ‘We have to respond to what Gulf States want. If we want a long-term partnership on foreign policy, then changes in our stance have to be part of it.’
... Officials in both Abu Dhabi and London make no bones about stressing the significance of the defence relationship as the West and its regional allies gear up to a possible confrontation with Iran. That may mean yet further withdrawal of traditional British support for Israel, with criticism of its government already more marked under Mr Hague than it was under New Labour government.
In another indication of the Foreign Office's new sensitivity to Arab opinion, officials admitted to The Daily Telegraph that policies on the Israel-Lebanon war of 2006, Israel's invasion of Gaza in 2008-9, and its occupation of the West Bank and settlements policy were ‘motivators’ for the Islamic radicalism that they confronted daily in the Gulf.
I would question that phrase 'traditional British support for Israel' in view of the fact that the Brits were quite happy back in 1948 to arm, train and in the case of Jordan officer the same Arab armies who made no secret of their intention to launch a second Holocaust among the Jews of Israel...less than three years after the liberation of Auschwitz. And that is far from the only hostile actions the UK has taken against Israel since its birth.
But this is something new in that it's an official recognition that the UK has bought into the same perverse nonsense the Obama Administration has when it comes to Israel..
Britain's latest move plays into a wide spread campaign to make Israel illegitimate and isolated, just as the Jews were made illegitimate and isolated before the Holocaust.
According to this logic, if the West forces the Jews of Israel into indefensible borders or even if Israel conveniently disappears, all the Islamic radicalism and the jihad directed against the West will go away with it.
Yes, Hezbollah, Hizb al Tarir, al-Qaeda, Hamas and all their similar organizations will go out of business, Iran will give up its nukes and cease its war against the West, an Islamist Turkey will no longer be a concern and Pakistan will cease to be a haven for Islamist terrorism. According to the underlying,almost never openly expressed narrative, all the West needs to do is give the Muslims the Jews, behave like good dhimmis and the West will be left in peace.
The absurdity and danger of this kind of appeasement mindset ought to be self-evident to any thinking person, but Britain appears hell bent on proving that it has learned nothing from history.
The UK has been anti-Israel for quite some time, and it's no secret. In fact, most Israelis can't even enter the UK safely any more. This just makes Britain's anti-Israel stance official.
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