OPINION
As I reported for the BFD last week, the UK parliament gave a subtle middle finger to Beijing when it adopted a cross-party report that described Taiwan as “an independent country”. The Sunak government has lent its support to another besieged democracy, with a timely visit to Israel.
The British foreign secretary, James Cleverly, arrived in Israel on Monday for a three-day visit to a country in turmoil, facing its biggest protest movement in history and heightened violence in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen hailed Cleverly’s trip as important for deepening Israel’s ties with Britain, which he said “are currently at their peak.”
Cleverly also pointedly criticised one of the region’s prime troublemakers.
The British Foreign Office said Cleverly would use his first visit to the country to condemn Iran’s support for regional militant groups sworn to Israel’s destruction […]
The foreign ministry said the two also conferred about Iran’s fast accelerating nuclear program and the importance of halting Iranian support for regional proxies such as the Islamist militant group Hamas that rules the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Both groups have been behind an uptick in attacks on Israelis in the West Bank and in Israel this year that have claimed 31 lives so far.
Japan Today
In stark contrast, the Biden administration chose 9/11, of all days, to announce that it was handing over $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets and freeing Iranians held in American jails, in a ransom-cum-prisoner swap.
Cleverly, of course, paid lip-service to Britain’s “commitment” to a Palestinian state.
Elsewhere, though, Palestinians were too busy killing each other to take much notice.
An “immediate and lasting ceasefire” was declared on Monday at the Ain Al-Hilweh “Palestinian refugee camp” in Lebanon following renewed clashes which left several people dead and dozens wounded, The Associated Press reported.
The declaration came after a top Lebanese general met with officials from rival Palestinian Arab factions.
The announcement was made in Beirut by the General Security Directorate. The new ceasefire failed to halt the fighting, however. It was the latest in a series of ceasefires that only lasted for hours before fighting erupted again.
They really can’t help themselves, it seems.
The latest fighting has left six people dead and more than 50 wounded according to medical officials and state media.
Israel National News
This begs the question, as one online wag asked: Who does Mahmoud Abbas cut the cheque to when Palestinians kill each other? And does Allah give both of them 72 virgins? Or do they have to split them, 50-50?