Shhh Don’t Mention The Terrorist Kidnapping

The UK Government, in the form of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, maintains two Facebook pages loosely related to Israel. I say loosely because they have UK in Israel and, strangely, UK in Jerusalem (because presumably they don’t feel that our capital and seat of government, Jerusalem, is also Israel).

UK Ambassador to Israel in Gay Pride march wrapped in rainbow flagClearly (from their use of languages) UK in Israel is directed at Jews and UK in Jerusalem is directed at Arabs. Does the term “apartheid” mean anything to them? How about running one combined page guys? Oh wait, that wouldn’t work, where would they put pictures of the UK Ambassador supporting gay rights in Tel Aviv, that wouldn’t sit well with the Arabs right.

Here’s where it gets fun. The first condemnation issued by the UK Foreign Secretary (yup, it’s still William Hague) was issued on June 15 (the kids were taken the night of June 12 and it became public knowledge during the afternoon of June 13). That statement is pretty good, does contains the inevitable call to avoid “further escalation” and even mentions the rocket fire from Gaza.

As you’d expect, nestling in amongst the Gay Pride posts including a nice picture of the UK Ambassador wrapped in a rainbow flag, the June 15 statement is carried on the UK in Israel Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/ukinisrael/posts/788230854542235

Over on UK in Jerusalem, however, just the place you’d think a call for the terrorist to release the kids (perhaps in Arabic) would actually serve a useful purpose we find the following:

errrr nothing.

Between June 12th and June 17 there are no posts.

In fact, the first mention of the terrorist kidnapping of our three children (Eyal, Gilad and Naftali) appears on June 23 with the following:

I’ll repeat the text here:

British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, expressed his concern over the deaths of Palestinians in the West Bank. The Foreign Secretary said:

“… I was therefore deeply concerned to hear of the death of two Palestinians in the West Bank over the weekend, in addition to three deaths last week, tragically including children…”

Click on the link below to read his full statement: link.

So, as usual, for the UK when talking to their Arabic fans, they lead with the deaths of rioting Arabs trying to hinder the IDF search and the terrorist kidnap didn’t happen until Israel “retaliated” (by searching for three kidnapped children).

I’ve made my dislike of William Hague and the entire UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office well known. They’ve just made me dislike them even more.

In a conversation between Michelle (who tipped me off to this) and the UK’s Consul General Alastair McPhall wrote the following:

The British Government has condemned the kidnapping more than once and so have I, including in my speech at last week’s Queen’s Birthday Party. If the news channel you read has not reported our position, that’s a lapse in their professionalism, not ours.

So if a UK diplomat says something but the press don’t report it, that’s a “lapse in their [the press’s] professionalism. But if the UK’s Consul General’s own Facebook page doesn’t post a report, that’s obviously not a lapse, right? That’s deliberate?

Oh, one more little gem. The UK did issue a statement about the Israeli killed by fire from Syria. This is shared by UK in Israel but, once again, despite the victim being an Israeli Arab, the UK in Jerusalem page fails to pass on this statement. Why?

h/t to Michelle on Facebook.

7 thoughts on “Shhh Don’t Mention The Terrorist Kidnapping”

  1. Good catch. I suppose the ‘Israel’ page is run by the embassy in Tel Aviv, while the ‘Jerusalem’ page is run by the consulate in Jerusalem. Of course, the consulate in Jerusalem thinks it should only address Arabs.

  2. ahad_ha_amoratsim

    If the UK thinks the kidnappings are wrong, wouldn’t their UK-Jerusalem Facebook page urge their followers to ignore the calls to erase security tapes to hinder the rescue efforts, and urge them to cooperate with the IDF?

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