Love of the Land: Israel’s ambassador to the UK lays out a powerful home truth in the Guardian

Israel’s ambassador to the UK lays out a powerful home truth in the Guardian

Robin Shepherd
robinshepherdonline.com
20 April '10

Israeli ambassador to the UK, Ron Prosor, today has a piece in the Guardian setting out a simple but unassailable truth about the conflict in the Middle East: The key to peace is a recognition on the part of Israel’s enemies that Israel is the rightful homeland of the Jewish people.

“Jews have been indigenous to Israel for 3,000 years,” he writes. “Before 1948 the only independent sovereign state there had been the ancient Jewish kingdoms. Centuries of foreign imperial occupation followed, by Romans, the Muslim conquest, Crusaders, the Ottoman empire and the British mandate. It is fitting that as the colonial era drew to a close, Israel’s original inhabitants restored their independence.”

And so it is. Indeed, it is such a powerful message that I am surprised Israeli diplomats are not required to repeat this sort of thing as a mantra in front of the local press, morning, noon and night. For of all the most damaging pieces of ignorance surrounding Israel in Britain and Europe the notion that the Jews are imposters in the Middle East is surely the most dangerous and damaging.

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Love of the Land: Israel’s ambassador to the UK lays out a powerful home truth in the Guardian