Israel were warned over ‘out of control’ troops
TONY Blair’s government accused Israel of allowing its troops to run “out of control” during a major military incursion into the occupied West Bank, newly released official files show.
Papers released by the National Archives at Kew, west London, show the the exasperation of western allies at the mounting Palestinian death toll as the Israel Defence Forces laid siege to the headquarters of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
In one heated meeting, the British ambassador in Tel Aviv told a senior Israeli adviser that the IDF’s conduct “was more worthy of the Russian army than of that of a supposedly civilised country”.
US president George Bush complained privately to Mr Blair that the policies of hardline Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon were turning Mr Arafat into a martyr akin to al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks in the US.
One senior British Army officer said the IDF was “a second-rate, illdisciplined, swaggering and bullying force” with troops regularly using “excessive force” against stonethrowing Palestinian youths.
The comments foreshadow concerns expressed by some western allies over current Israeli operations in the Gaza Strip.
Mr Sharon launched Operation
Defensive Shield at the end of March 2002, calling up 20,000 reservists, after a wave of suicide attacks claimed scores of Israeli lives.
IDF tanks surrounded Mr Arafat’s compound in Ramallah, cutting off phone lines and power supplies, while intense street-to-street fighting raged for eight days in the sprawling Jenin refugee camp.
At a tense meeting with Mr Sharon’s foreign policy adviser, Danny Ayalon, British ambassador Sherard Cowper-Coles warned the offensive was a “major strategic mistake” which was undermining support for Israel among its allies.
“If some of the reports we were receiving were credible, the IDF’s behaviour was more worthy of the Russian army than that of a supposedly civilised country,” Mr CowperColes told the adviser, according to his report of the meeting.
Mr Bush, who was engaged in his own “war on terror” after the September 11 attacks the previous year, was equally frustrated by the Israeli actions, letting off steam in a private call with Mr Blair.
“While Arafat had effectively been marginalising himself, Sharon had succeeded in making a martyr of him – building him up to the point where he was becoming the new bin Laden,” the president complained, according to a No 10 note of the call.