By IRNA,
London : A Jewish author believes the recent report by British MPs on UK-US relations indicates that the “poodle-time is over” and Britain might have to change its policies with regards to US and Israel.
Uri Avnery told IRNA that the Israeli-Palestinian issue plays an important role in determining the level of relations between the United States and Britain.
“The US [policy] is undergoing a basic change in the Middle East. It understands now the close interaction between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the problems of Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran’s nuclear issue,” he said.
Referring to last week’s report by the British parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee which said the “special relationship” between Britain and US is “over”, Avnery hoped the British government would follow the new line of the United States with regards to the Zionist regime.
“I am no expert on US-UK relations…but [former British prime minister] Tony Blair has been a poodle of the US administration for a long time; Lately he has also been a poodle of the Israeli government. Perhaps poodle-time is over and the British will now follow suit.”
In its latest report dubbed “Global Security: UK-US Relations”, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House Commons concluded that the use of the phrase “the special relationship” to describe UK-US relationship is “potentially misleading”.
“We recommend that its use should be avoided. The overuse of the phrase by some politicians and many in the media serves simultaneously to de-value its meaning and to raise unrealistic expectations about the benefits the relationship can deliver to the UK.”
John Charmley, professor of Modern History at the University of East Anglia, welcomed the report, saying “Only in the UK would it take 60-odd years for MPs to realise that our relationship with the US is no longer particularly special”.
In a comment in the Times, he also referred to some areas of activities which led the Foreign Affairs Committee to conclude that no special relationship could be defined between Britain and the US.
“Of course Britain benefits, we are told, from sharing intelligence with the US; we’ll have to take that on trust as the rest of us can’t see how. But to be associated, as we have been, with American “extraordinary rendition” (aka kidnapping for torture) through the British base of Diego Garcia, and to put our soldiers’ lives on the line for the ill-thought through adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan suggests that the time has come for a revision of attitudes.”