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Comment by Jenk | Hacker News Reader

The current home secretary, Priti Patel, was forced to resign from her previous (lesser) role as Minister for International Development for secretly (and thus illegally) meeting with Israeli diplomats.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41923007

It is completely unsurprising that there is little care shown by our government.

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Israel was also behind many of the efforts to smear the former opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn - https://www.middleeasteye.net/fr/news/israeli-diplomat-sough...

The current government is a huge ally of Israel.

Every British government has been an ally of Israel. You don't turn down a relationship with a country with Israel's military, technical and intelligence capabilities, and worth $5bn in bilateral trade for nothing if you have any sense.

We did with Europe and the trade is worth way more than $5bn

And we're allies with the EU to this day. What's your point?

We threw away billions in trade with the EU over not really that much, why would not throw away a far smaller sum when it comes to another country that was spying on us?

How much the UK and EU are allies remains to be seen too

UK bilateral trade with Russia was ~$17 billion in 2021 (i assume that's imports plus exports right?).

Russia was a very close friend twenty years ago, Iraq was a very close ally in the 1980s. I'm sure Israel realises how quickly the west can turn on friends and allies when it suits us and that this is why they spend tens of millions a year wooing US and UK politicians.

Russia became a pariah over night and the moment it becomes politically convenient to diplomatically recognise Israel as an apartheid state the trade won't count for anything (not least because most of it is the direct consequence of billions in annual US subsidies)

Russia's been a pain in the arse continuously. 20 years ago they were up to their eyeballs in the Iranian nuclear programme, carpet bombing Chechnya, blowing up their own apartment blocks and blaming it on terrorists, destabilising Georgia and goodness knows what else. That's all just from memory. But they have a lot of oil and gas so we let it all slide. More fool us.

You are aware that the Israely government does similar things, right?

Yup, so does the US and the UK.

Most European governments look at the simultaneous invasion of Israel by three Arab states in 1948, and statements made about the aims of that invasion, and think "what would we be prepared to do to defend against such determined, implacable hostility?". They look at what Israel does to defend itself and think, yeah, pretty much we'd do that.

They look at Israel and see a democratic, technologically advanced state with a liberal economy much like their own. They look at the repressive, autocratic extraction economies in the Arab world and recoil in horror.

I'm not making any judgement on this, or whether they're right or wrong, but that's just how many Europeans see the situation.

I mean wow, they really don't.

And some other Europeans see human rights abusers and boycott them.

And some other Europeans see the Israeli government as human rights abusers and boycott them.

The sad reality is that we've not really had truly independent foreign policy since WW2. The US military never left our soil, and we've been in lock step with Washington on everything serious since then.

We're a vassal state, there's no Brexit on the special relationship.

> You don't turn down a relationship with a country with Israel's military, technical and intelligence capabilities, and worth $5bn in bilateral trade

Well, that's certainly one angle.

The other angle is, let's face it, Israel is good at playing the Jewish card and portraying that if you're not pro-Israel you must be some sort of antisemite.

There are all sorts of political ties along those lines, e.g. "Conservative Friends of Israel"[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Friends_of_Israel

Also unsurprising in view of even more egregious incidents from the past: Shai Masot, the Israeli embassy official at London, caught on camera in 2017 talking about 'hitlist' of members of parliament, including Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan, a vocal supporter of Palestinian state [0]. And that led to a slap on the wrist. A comparison of reactions to related incidents involving different parties is revealing [1].

[0] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israeli-embassy-rep-caug...

[1] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220214-espionage-is-a-di...

Doesn't the fact that she had to resign point to the opposite conclusion, namely that these governments are distinct entities with sometimes conflicting interests?

She is now Home Secretary of the UK. She got fired upwards.

I too hope I will be fired some day (upwards)

The current Cabinet is suffering from a serious lack of talent in my opinion; several political purges related to Brexit has meant the only real qualifying characteristic for some of the highest offices in the land is being a yes-man for Johnson.

Now that you are saying this.. take a look everywhere, it's all like this.. every country turned into the worst versions of themselves, but even the worst of UK its kind of not bad in my opinion, compared to other countries.

At least from an outside view, it's the UK now that is showing a good leadership in the current worldwide crises. While the US, France and Germany are completely lost, especially on how to deal with a "strong-man".

(Meanwhile nobody remembers Cameron or that guy that was a pure puppet of the US in the forced Iraq war, and they were the posh gentleman everyone was expecting)

It points to there being some pressure, probably from the public. But like police officers who get fired only to be rehired the next town over she now has a even more prestigious position in government. So there is no actual accountability here, just theater.

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