Tony Blair’s heroic peacemaking is not as it seems. Take the Middle East. When Blair welcomed Yasser Arafat to Downing Street following 11 September, it was widely reported that Britain was backing justice for the Palestinians.
Editorialists drew a favourable comparison with the bellicose Bush administration. Indeed, the promotion of Blair as the steadying influence on Washington has been the main theme of Downing Street spin during the “war on terrorism”. The falsehood of his moderation is exemplified by his betrayal of the Palestinians.
The meeting with Arafat was no more than a public relations exercise designed to placate the Arab world. It served to disguise Blair’s support for the Zionist project and his role as Ariel Sharon’s closest ally in Europe. Little of this has been reported in the mainstream media.
Shortly after his election in 1997, Blair shamelessly appointed a friend, Michael Levy, a wealthy Jewish businessman who had fundraised for new Labour, as his “special envoy” in the Middle East, having first made him Lord Levy. This former chairman of the Jewish Appeal Board and former board member of the Jewish Agency, who has both a business and a house in Israel and had a son working for the Israeli justice minister, was the man assigned by Britain’s prime minister to negotiate impartially with Palestinians and Israelis.
Under Blair, British support for Israeli repression has accelerated. Last year alone, the government approved 91 arms export licences to Israel, in categories
— source johnpilger.com | john pilger | 14 Jan 2002