The UK Foreign Office can just F.O.

The Commentator reveals that:

'It has just been revealed that Matthew Offord MP asked Alistair Burt, Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East, the following formal question: “... what recent representations his Department has received on the honouring by the Palestinian Authority of Palestinian citizens that have participated in terrorist acts?"

This is the (extraordinary) response:

"The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has not received any recent representation on this issue. Our officials in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem have not had any discussions with the Palestinian Authority on this issue. As we do not have any direct contact with Hamas, we cannot make any representations about events taking place in the Gaza Strip.

“The Government deplore all incitement to violence. We have strongly supported the Palestinian Authority's programme of reform of its institutions of state, including the security sector. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has made considerable progress in this regard, meaning a more effective government and an improved security situation, with the Palestinian Authority meeting its core commitments under the Quartet Roadmap."

Let us start by dealing with the blatant contradiction between the two sentences we have highlighted in italics. The first is an admission that British officials in Israel have done precisely nothing to protest against the PA‘s incitement to terrorism which it conducts by routinely honouring terrorists.

The second statement highlighted in italics is therefore disproved by the first. By its own admission the British government does not “deplore all incitement to violence“ since it has failed (refused?) to deplore incitement by the Palestinian authority despite many opportunities to do so.

At best this should be a disciplinary offence for our senior diplomats in Israel. If they’re not making active representations to the Palestinians to stop inciting terrorism what on Earth are they doing? Do they think they’re out there on an anti-Israeli jolly in the sun, while they just turn a blind eye to Palestinian wrongdoing?

Sadly, we have little confidence that the British Foreign Office would do the morally correct thing where the Middle East is concerned. That said, we didn’t think it had descended this far. This refusal to even accept there is a problem amounts to an acceptance of what is happening on the ground – and this is a form of tacit endorsement of incitement. If the FCO are not making active representations to the Palestinians to stop inciting terrorism. Again, what on Earth are they doing?'

The British Foreign Office has long been full of Arabists and it seems that the death of a few Israeli Jews is of no real concern to them.