Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar has raised eyebrows with a late-night tweet mocking England’s defeat in the World Cup semifinals. Even if we allow for the fact that Sa’ar’s father was from Argentina, his taunting X post is unlikely to be taught as an example of best practice on any training courses for diplomats. ‘How does the song go?’ he began. ‘It’s coming home. Yes it is. It’s coming home to Argentina. Vamos Argentina!’ This slur on England’s honour will be avenged. The next time Israel is knocked out of a World Cup, our great-great-grandchildren will troll them with something awful.
While Sa’ar’s family background probably plays a part, his comments reflect a new diplomatic froideur between Jerusalem and London. Israel was happy to bite its tongue across decades of British governments, Tory and Labour alike, scolding the Jewish state for building Israeli towns in the Israeli-controlled parts of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), erecting checkpoints and a security barrier, and otherwise inconveniencing the people sworn to murder their children. This was just the price of doing business with a country far too civilised to stoop to anything as vulgar as self-preservation.
What has changed is Britain’s leftwards lurch and its shift from ‘critical acquaintance’ of Israel to something approaching the all-consuming and obsessive hatred seen in Ireland, Spain, and other nations of yesteryear. The partial suspension of arms sales during Israel’s defensive military operations against Hamas. The banning of Israeli politicians from Britain even as the government allows dangerous men to arrive by the boatful and pays for them to remain here. The touted crackdown on commercial and charitable activities with Israeli organisations not only in the West Bank but in the eastern sections of its capital city, Jerusalem.
And Britain’s incoming prime minister hasn’t even been to see the King and already he’s apologising for the UK having been ‘too slow to call for a ceasefire’ in Gaza. (The time to call for a ceasefire is when Israel begins firing back.)
After constant provocation, it was inevitable that Israel would lose its patience with Britain
The Israelis are well aware, incidentally, that this is about Labour trying to shore up its electoral support among certain voters who take a rather dim view of the Bloodthirsty Zionist Entity and make their views known in various manners on Britain’s streets. Britain’s determined decline baffles the Israelis, who until recently still thought of the UK as the homeland of Churchill and Thatcher, and can’t fathom why it would volunteer to become Lebanon with more political instability. They clearly haven’t heard about our great multicultural success story and need to be educated on the real threats facing Britain. Does anyone know the Hebrew for Adolescence?
After constant provocation, it was inevitable that Israel would lose its patience with Britain, and if the summit of their retaliation is football banter, we’ll have got off pretty lightly. This is, after all, a country which has previously volunteered intelligence to help foil terrorist cells in London and has unmatched expertise in policing an ethnically fractured – and fractious – society, something we definitely won’t be in the market for in the coming decades. The Israelis’ patter might be cringe but at least they get to have a country.
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