Liam Fox was in a determined frame of mind at this morning’s
Conservative Friends of Israel briefing on yesterday’s elections which
– even by Knesset standards – have produced a messy outcome. (The joys
of proportional representation).
The Shadow Defence Secretary worried that paralysis might result from
the result and Israel could not afford uncertain leadership in a year
in which Iran is on the verge of becoming a nuclear power.
Dr Fox worried that Iran was absolutely determined to acquire nuclear
weapons. It has seen North Korea’s experience as proof that the world
will not enforce the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and they are
determined to join the ‘nuclear club’ of nations.
If Iran gets a nuclear weapon the risk is not just that they might use
it against Israel, he said, but that they might provide a dirty bomb to
one of Tehran’s terrorist surrogates; not least Hamas. A nuclear Iran
will also trigger an arms race across the region – provoking Turkey and
Saudi Arabia to seek nuclear weapons.
Also at the meeting David Lidington MP said that it was vital that the
EU matched the USA’s sanctions regime against Iran. He also said
Russia and China needed to be pressurised to pressurise Tehran. Mr
Lidington, a Shadow Foreign Minister, said the great problem facing
western policymakers was a lack of intelligence about thinking within
the Iranian regime.
> Liam Fox has also written for The Telegraph about the nature of Hamas:
"It is a general rule that those with nothing to lose
are likely to be willing to gamble with it. Give people a stake in
their own prosperity, security and freedom and they behave in a more
circumspect way. It follows that if you want people to be in a
perpetual state of anger, reconciled to terrorism and ripe for Jihad,
then the maxim of Marxism that less is best pertains. Having purged the
moderate Palestinians from their territory, Hamas have rocketed the
power station in the Israeli city of Ashqelon which provides
electricity to Gaza itself. The people of Gaza are sure to be the
losers but Hamas will not care."