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UK Policy Statements Archive :
2008 - July 21
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Gordon Brown, Prime Minister
No nation has achieved so much in so short a period of time. And to have accomplished all this in the face of the war, the terror, the violence, the threats, the intimidation, and the insecurity is truly monumental. The British people see the threat your people encounter every day when they climb aboard a bus, have a cup of coffee at the café, or buy a sandwich. In our homeland - two thousand miles from your streets - we too have learned the grief when lives are lost through terror on a bus or at the airport or on a crowded underground train on the way to work. So to those who question Israel's very right to exist, and threaten the lives of its citizens through terror we say: the people of Israel have a right to live here, to live freely and to live in security. And to those who believe that threatening statements fall upon indifferent ears we say in one voice: that it is totally abhorrent for the President of Iran to call for Israel to be wiped from the map of the world.
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2008 - May 27
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David Miliband, Foreign Secretary
The Director General of the IAEA, Dr El Baradei, has produced another thorough report on Iran's nuclear activities. Once again it confirms that Iran has failed to suspend enrichment-related activities, has made no progress on the transparency measures the UN Security Council and IAEA have long called for, and has failed to answer the IAEA's questions relating to studies with a possible military dimension. Dr El Baradei says that this is a "matter of serious concern". Iran needs to provide answers immediately, and come clean about its past activities. There is no justification for further delay. This is critical for international trust to be restored, as is suspension of enrichment-related activities.
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2008 - May 9
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Boris Johnson, Mayor of London
I am delighted that one of my first acts as Mayor of London is to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the creation of Israel… There is much of which the country can be extremely proud. Its development as a democracy, thriving economy and pioneering technological advances have all distinguished what is a beautiful country. The last six decades have seen a lot of pain as well as success, and I hope that Israel’s immediate and long-term future is altogether more peaceful.
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2008 - May 7
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Gordon Brown, Prime Minister
Since the moments of its birth, Israel has faced immense threats from its neighbours. Its people have borne burdens for peace in every generation. And I say to you today that Britain will continue to be a true and constant friend of Israel in good times and in bad. We will never reduce our efforts to secure for Israel, a future free from terror, a future where alongside a viable Palestinian state, children and the children of all your neighbours can believe in a brighter future.
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2008 - March 3
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David Cameron, Leader of the Opposition
“Let’s also be clear. Extremism is not confined to any particular religious or ethnic group. During protests against the conflict in Lebanon, we witnessed the nauseating sight of well-scrubbed, middle class English people marching through central London holding placards that read ‘We are all Hizbollah’. That is the extremist mindset in action. These are the same people who urge a boycott of Israeli goods and academics while saying nothing about China, Iran or Zimbabwe. Unless we challenge such attitudes and expose them for the morally-bankrupt nonsense they are they will spread through the body politic and become the received wisdom of millions.
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2007 - November 19
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David Milliband, Foreign Secretary
Israel has real security concerns. Any country that was suffering rocket attacks as it does, or terrorism as it did, would obviously put security at the top of the agenda.
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2007 - November 2
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William Hague, Shadow Foreign Secretary
We will always have strong economic and political ties with Israel. We will always be a friend of Israel.
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2007 - October 2
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David Lidington, MP
In the search for peace in the Middle East I think there could be no better gesture then the immediate release of the Israeli soldiers and the cessation of the rocket attacks from Gaza onto Israeli civilians. I can assure everyone here that as both David Cameron and William Hague have repeated the Conservative Party will remain a firm friend of Israel. We say to Hamas that if they want to be considered as a political player they have got to make really important moves to endorse and support the principles set out by the Quartet which our Government supported and which our Party in opposition insists must be adhered to.
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2007 - June 27
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Gordon Brown, Prime Minister
More than ever, as we all know here, there is an international agreement on the need for a two-state solution with Israel secure, with its borders recognized, alongside an independent and viable Palestinian state.
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2007 - June 5
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David Cameron, Leader of the Opposition
I am a Zionist. If what you mean by Zionist, is someone who believes that the Jews have a right to a homeland in Israel and a right to their country then, yes, I am a Zionist and I'm proud of the fact that Conservative politicians down the ages have played a huge role in helping to bring this about.
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2007 - January 24
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Margaret Beckett, Foreign Secretary
Long-term stability in the Middle East demands a truly comprehensive approach - what the Prime Minister has called 'a whole Middle East strategy'. That means resolving the big conflicts. But it also means helping economies in the region to modernise, create more jobs, attract more inward investment. It means giving the young people in the region - men and women alike - the tools and the education to embrace globalisation. And it means making progress towards more open politics, more accountable government and better respect for individual rights.
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2006 - November 9
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Margaret Beckett, Foreign Secretary
International terrorism today is different from, to take a previous UK example, Irish terrorism. It does not have that same connection to a single national cause or still more to an achievable political demand. Rather it seems to be based on a pseudo-religious vision of a transformed world. It is a cult that sells such a vision to impressionable young men and women. That is how it is able to persuade a young Briton, born into our tolerant, democratic society to blow himself up on a crowded commuter train or bus. We need to address that warped vision head-on.
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2006 - October 3
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David Cameron, Leader of the Opposition
The Conservative Party is a true friend of Israel because we look at Israel and we see a democracy, we see a democracy that has a right to exist and a right to defend itself and that is a force for good in the world, and I want to say that as clearly as I possibly can.
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2006 - October 3
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Liam Fox, Shadow Defence Secretary
The one message I have is that in the battle for liberal values, you cannot in any way, at any point establish a moral or a political equivalence between Israel, a State that is democratic with an independent rule of law, and a group like Hizbullah. Never, not at any point. All I would say is even in dealing with Israel we must remember that in the battle for the values that we stand for, for democracy against theocracy, for democratic liberal values against repression - Israel’s enemies are our enemies and this is a battle in which we all stand together or we will all fall divided.
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2006 - October 3
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Patrick McLoughlin, Chief Whip, Conservative Party
It is unfortunate or perhaps inevitable that with so many media and news stories, all we hear about is the negative. Israel has a lot to be proud of, despite these troubled times, despite the conflict with Hizbullah, Israel’s economy has shown an amazing amount of resilience and growth.
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2006 - September 11
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Tony Blair, Prime Minister
The state of Israel should be recognized by the entire Arab world, and the vile propaganda used to indoctrinate children, not just against Israel but against Jews, must cease. You cannot teach people hate and then ask them to practice peace. But neither can you teach people peace except by according them dignity and granting them hope.
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2006 - August 1
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Tony Blair, Prime Minister
Most contemporaneously, and in some ways most perniciously, a very large and, I fear, growing part of our opinion looks at Israel, and thinks we pay too great a price for supporting it and sympathises with Muslim opinion that condemns it. Absent from so much of the coverage, is any understanding of the Israeli predicament.
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2006 - July 24
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Kim Howells, Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
How, can you be proportionate when Hezbollah puts its missiles literally inside people's houses?
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2006 - July 19
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David Milliband, Foreign Secretary
We are very concerned about the role of Syria and Iran. Through their support for Hizbullah they are encouraging extremism, threatening the stability of the region, and putting peace in the Middle East further out of reach.
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2006 - June 20
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Karen Pierce, Chargé d'Affaires, UK Mission to the United Nations
It is important to remember that this crisis was precipitated by Hizbullah. Its militants crossed into Israel and killed eight Israeli soldiers and kidnapped two more. Hizbullah does not act alone. As other speakers have said, behind them, lending support and giving direction are Syria and Iran. Syria provides material support to Hizbullah and facilitates the transfer of weapons, including thousands of missiles, which appear to be supplied by Iran to Hizbullah.
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2005 - November 2
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Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary
Until the horrific attacks on 7 July, the British public had not lived with the danger of murderers prepared to take their own lives and determined to kill as many innocent people as possible. On that day we better understood the anxiety which Israelis have felt every day for years as they simply go about what is their daily business and travel on the bus or eat in a café.
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2005 - July 26
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Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary
The worldwide expressions of sympathy and of solidarity have meant a great deal to us, but the support of the Israeli public is especially significant because we are now facing something which you have long lived with, namely the threat of suicide bombing. There can be absolutely no excuses for terrorism whether it is in London, in Sharm El-Sheikh or in Natanya.
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2005 - June 23
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Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary
Let us be clear that it is a continuation of violent terror by groups operating from within the Occupied Territories from within Israel and from within the wider region that has the greatest potential to disrupt and undermine and abort this very important chance to create the beginnings of a separate and viable State of Palestine.
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2005 - March 10
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Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary
Change and reform in the Middle East will not happen overnight. And, as in Lebanon, they must be led from within. But progressives know better than anyone the power of democracy as an instrument of social justice, and as a tool for the realisation of human potential. And we know the Middle East’s importance to our foreign policy and to the international community as a whole. Supporting the emergence of democracy in the Middle East and around the world must be a central part of a progressive foreign policy, and a task for all of us. This is the time to re-affirm our commitment to that.
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2004 - November 4
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Charles Kennedy, Leader of the Liberal Democrats
Neither can it be claimed that all the poverty and injustice and inequity that we see in parts of the Middle East is a direct result of the existence of Israel the kind of grotesque linkages that Middle Eastern terrorist groups make. We believe in the Liberal values of equal human rights for all, regardless of gender, sexual orientation or faith. Only Israel, of all the countries in the Middle East, underwrites these values by law.
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2003 - July 18
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Tony Blair, Prime Minister
Here it is that the poison is incubated. Here it is that the extremist is able to confuse in the mind of a frighteningly large number of people the case for a Palestinian state and the destruction of Israel, and to translate this moreover into a battle between East and West, Muslim, Jew and Christian. May this never compromise the security of the state of Israel.
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2003 - March 3
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Margaret Thatcher, Former Prime Minister
Israel must never be expected to jeopardize her security: if she was ever foolish enough to do so, and then suffered for it, the backlash against both honest brokers and Palestinians would be immense - 'land for peace' must also bring peace.
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1998 - April 30
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Tony Blair, Prime Minister
The State of Israel has meant much, not only to Jews, but I would like to say to you, to all of civilisation. For it is a country, that in those fifty short years, despite all the problems, has maintained a vibrant democracy - in itself a remarkable feat - a country which has made swamps into orchards, barren lands into fields; a country which today, competes vigorously in the spheres of medicine, commerce, technological development and cultural achievement. This and so much more, makes this 50th anniversary truly an historic occasion.
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1967 - June 1
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Harold Wilson, Prime Minister
The characteristic of this situation is the declared aim of one side not to win concessions from the other. Their demand is that Israel should cease to exist - indeed has never existed. ...What had to be sought was not merely how to avoid war but to create the conditions of peace. One condition of a lasting peace must be the recognition that Israel has a right to live. Israel had been for nearly 20 years a member of the United Nations entitled to the respect and protection of the United Nations.
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1954 - June 8
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Winston Churchill, Prime Minister
I am a Zionist, let me make that clear. I was one of the original ones after the Balfour Declaration and I have worked faithfully for it. I think it is a most wonderful thing that this community should have established itself so effectively, turning the desert into fertile gardens and thriving townships, and should have afforded refuge to millions of their co-religionists who suffered so fearfully under Hitler, and not only under Hitler, persecution. I think it is a wonderful thing.
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