From JPost, 9 Feb 2011, by JONNY PAUL:
LONDON – British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned on Wednesday ...that the public protests which have swept the Arab world could put the Middle East peace process in jeopardy.
...“This should not be a time for belligerent language,” Hague argued when asked about Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu call to prepare for “any outcome” and comments that he would “reinforce the might of the State of Israel” should it prove necessary. “It is a time to inject greater urgency into the Middle East peace process,” the foreign secretary told the Times.
...In an analysis, Michael Weiss, executive director of Just Journalism, a London-based independent research and media monitor organization focused on how Israel and the Middle East are reported in the media, said that a sense of “urgency” has always been integral to the peace process.
“I’m not quite sure what the foreign secretary meant by “inject greater urgency” into the peace process,” Weiss said. “A sense of ‘urgency’ has run through 40 years of international diplomacy and has yet to produce any real results.”
If Israel had to increase defense spending, in the event that its peace treaty with Egypt was annulled, would the British consider this a “belligerent” act? Weiss asked.
“Hague doesn’t seem to understand the context of Netanyahu’s remark. After Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt was signed, Israel’s defense budget dropped from 30 percent of its gross national product to 7%. If that treaty is dissolved – as the Muslim Brotherhood have already made clear they’d like to see happen – then clearly Israel will have to re-up its defense spending. Now that might be interpreted as belligerence by a British government that can now afford to share its aircraft carriers with France. But for the Middle East’s only democracy, it’s called sanity,” Weiss said.
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