| | That an election is in the offing is clear from the interview given by the Leader of the Opposition, David Cameron (pictured), to the Jewish Chronicle this week.
The JC reports that Cameron’s Tory Party would act so that:
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‘…visitors to Britain such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the influential Egyptian cleric who supports suicide bombing against Israeli targets, and Ibrahim Moussawi, Hizbollah's "media relations officer", would never again be allowed into the country.’
And
‘…a Tory government would ban the virulently anti-Zionist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which has called for the creation of an Islamic state in Britain.’
The JC also reports Cameron’s stance on campus extremism:
‘…universities had a responsibility to root out extremism, even if this meant fingering individual students for their beliefs: "That means making clear to university authorities and student unions that they need to help identify those who are vulnerable to influence from extremists or show they are willing to promote hatred, just as they would in relation to any other suspected crime."
And of course, on universal jurisdiction, the JC states:
‘The Tory leader was scathing about Gordon Brown's pledge to change the law that allows senior Israelis to be arrested for alleged war crimes in Britain.
‘"I think the government's approach to this has been feeble," he claimed. "They said back in December that they would look at changing the law to stop political groups being able to issue private arrest warrants - but we're now just weeks away from an election, and still nothing has been done.
"It's a big problem. It means that while we're saying we want to get the peace process moving and that we want Britain to play a part in that, some of the key people we need to talk to in Israel are being deterred from coming here. It puts us in a really weak position. We will keep pressing the government to make this right - and if they don't, we will."
Would Cameron, in responding to Muslim newspaper requests for an interview setting out policy prescriptions, state that the party would also ban the likes of Benny Morris, the Israeli historian from Ben-Gurion university whose talk at Cambridge University was cancelled a few weeks back?
Comments that Morris has made in the past include this, from an interview in 2004:
"[Palestinians must be] contained so that they will not succeed in murdering us. Something like a cage has to be built for them. I know that sounds terrible. It is really cruel. But there is no choice. There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another."
Or Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who called for Arab Israelis who failed to celebrate Independence Day to be executed? Would Cameron insist on banning them too from entry into the UK?
As to the point on banning the ‘virulently anti-Zionist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir,’ is the Tory Party to make anti-Zionism a crime punishable by proscription? And the allegation that HT has called for an Islamic State in Britain is plain false.
Cameron’s views on eradicating campus extremism raise alarming questions on the Conservatives’ respect for the rights of individual students and casts suspicion on whether the Tories are likely to introduce a policy of universities spying on students.
But it is the comment on universal jurisdiction that is most alarming of all. Cameron defends a change to the law on universal jurisdiction on the premise that governments need to be able to talk to one another and that Israelis, those suspected of war crimes or otherwise, should be free to travel to the UK. But in a week when Israel announced 1,600 new settlements to be built in occupied East Jerusalem, and this at a time when the US Vice President, Joe Biden, hoped to restart the peace process, Cameron’s argument is not just distinctly weak in the face of facts on the ground, but an outright disgrace. Perhaps Cameron might answer how he expects to ‘get the peace process moving’ in light of developments this week rather than shield behind universal jurisdiction as the obstacle to peace negotiations?
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