British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, was yesterday due to recall the Holocaust as he delivered a blunt warning to Iran to end its “totally abhorrent” threat to destroy Israel, calling on Tehran to abandon plans to develop nuclear weapons.
In the first speech by a British prime minister to the Israeli parliament, Brown was to declare that Britain will stand by the country when its “very right to exist” is under threat.
Brown’s remarks will be seen as a signal that Britain could be prepared to support a military strike against Iran if all other diplomatic routes fail, including a tightening of sanctions.
The prime minister was due to tell Israeli MPs: “Britain is your true friend. A friend in difficult times as well as in good times, a friend who will stand beside you whenever your peace, your stability and your existence are under threat.”
Brown was to single out Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has said that Israel should be wiped from the map. The prime minister was to say: “To those who question Israel’s very right to exist, and threaten the lives of its citizens through terror, we say: The people of Israel have a right to live here, to live freely and to live in security. And to those who believe that threatening statements fall upon indifferent ears we say in one voice: that it is totally abhorrent for the president of Iran to call for Israel to be wiped from the map of the world.”
Brown will stop short of endorsing the comparisons made by many Israeli politicians between Ahmadinejad and Hitler.
The prime minister’s speech yesterday, his toughest to date on Tehran, followed an inconclusive meeting with Iran’s negotiators on Saturday in Geneva. Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, has given Iran two weeks to sign up to a package of economic and political support in return for halting the enrichment of uranium.
Brown was to make it clear yesterday that the EU will intensify sanctions if Iran does not comply.
“Iran now has a clear choice to make: suspend its nuclear program and accept our offer of negotiations or face growing isolation and the collective response not of one nation but of many nations,” the prime minister was due to say.
Brown’s speech marked the end of a two-day visit to Israel and the West Bank, following a one-day visit to Iraq, that was carefully balanced to appeal to both sides in the conflict.
In a visit to Bethlehem, which he reached by passing through Israel’s controversial separation barrier, Brown announced an extra US$60 million emergency funding to the Palestinian Authority. This is on top of US$500 million pledged by Britain over three years until 2011.
Speaking at a press conference with Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, Brown said: “While security is key, Palestinians also need to see real change in their daily lives and that means jobs, housing and basic services.”
Brown chose his language with care as he said Palestinians needed to do more to ensure Israel can live in peace. But he indicated that the Israeli security barrier is depriving Palestinians of human rights and he called on Israel to stop building settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are illegal under international law.
Brown said: “As a child I learned about Bethlehem from the Bible as a symbol of peace and a symbol of hope. But today the wall here is graphic evidence of the urgent need for justice for the Palestinian people, the end to the occupation and the need for a viable Palestinian state ... There are undoubted problems, the freezing of settlements, stopping of the violence.”
The prime minister balanced his visit to the West Bank by symbolically starting the day with a visit to Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial museum. He spent an hour with his wife Sarah touring the museum, which chronicles the Nazi extermination program in which 6 million European Jews perished.
Brown put on a skull cap to rekindle the eternal flame in the Hall of Remembrance and to lay a wreath over the ashes of victims of the six Nazi extermination camps. He wrote in the visitors’ book: “Nothing prepares one for the story that is told here — of the atrocities that should never have happened and the truth that everyone who loves humanity should know.”
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS