Straw angered Israel by reminding the world of its UN resolutions violations

LONDON, March 28 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Britain's Foreign Office sought Friday, March 28, to "soothe" Israeli anger after Britain’s Ambassador in Tel Aviv was summoned to the Foreign Ministry to receive a formal protest over remarks made by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in which he said the West had been guilty of hypocrisy by taking action against Iraq for not implementing UN resolutions and not Israel.

"Of course, we are not suggesting the two situations are "analogous". The Foreign Secretary was making the point that all United Nations Security Council resolutions should be implemented, not just those relating to Iraq," a Foreign Office spokesman told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"We are not singling out Israel. The Foreign Secretary made clear in his interview (with the BBC) his outrage at the "terror" under which the Israelis have had to live.

"The resolutions relating to the Middle East peace process placed obligations not only on Israel, but also on the Palestinians and neighboring Arab countries," the spokesman said.

"We continue to have good relations with Israel."

Straw had told the BBC on Tuesday, March 26: "There is a real concern too that the West has been guilty of double standards - on the one hand saying the United Nations Security Council resolutions on Iraq must be implemented; on the other hand, sometimes appearing rather quixotic over the implementation of resolutions about Israel and Palestine."

Asked if Britain was guilty of such double standards, Straw said: "To a degree yes... and we're going to deal with it." He also said that he understood Arab concern about injustice against the Palestinians.

The Security Council, in Resolution 242 after Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip following the 1967 Middle East war, called for the "withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict."

Israeli forces are still in the Palestinian territories and successive Israeli governments have ignored many UN resolutions since 242 calling on it to withdraw.

The Israeli army almost entirely reoccupied the West Bank in June 2003.

Soothing Israel

Israeli officials said that summoning the Britain’s Ambassador in Tel Aviv to the Foreign Ministry is to protest the BBC interview in which Straw had equated Israel with Iraq by saying that double standards existed in the West’s demands about their relative implementation of United Nations resolutions, The Times reported.

Israeli newspapers expressed outrage Thursday, March 27, over Straw's comments to the BBC.

The Times added that the remarks prompted an immediate furor in Israel. One government official said that the British must stop “kicking Israel every time they are criticized for their involvement in the (Iraq) war. We have to remind them that the Mandate is over, and that Israel is on the side of the good”.

Ha’aretz carried a critical article claiming: “The comparison drawn by Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, between Iraq and Israel with respect to the violation of UN resolutions was contemptible.”

Supporters of Straw said the Israelis appeared not to have read the transcript of his interview. They also argued that Tony Blair had made similar comments last October, when he told the Labor Party conference that UN Security Council resolutions had to be respected whether they applied to Iraq or the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, The Times said.

In diplomatic circles it was claimed that the dispute could be traced back to resolutions dealing with the need for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, land occupied in the 1967 war.

Meanwhile, two Palestinian policemen were killed Thursday by missiles fired from an Israeli helicopter as Israeli army raided the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.