By Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 23 June 2021 Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) is about to establish a second fighter squadron with Qatar, an authoritarian Gulf state accused of supporting extremist groups across the Middle East which the UK itself opposes and says promote terrorism. UK/Qatar squadron will be established in September in Yorkshire, northern […]
Topic: Palestine
By Matt Kennard, Mark Curtis and Phil Miller, Declassified UK, 20 May 2021 British aid projects supporting Palestinian security forces appear to be as much about helping to stop threats to Israel, the occupying power, as they are about enhancing Palestinian state-building. Declassified reveals the UK has seven army and air force personnel in the West […]
by Mark Curtis Published in Middle East Eye, 25 June 2019 The contest to become the leader of Britain’s ruling Conservative Party, and the country’s next prime minister, has failed so far to involve media scrutiny of the candidates’ views on British foreign policy. With the focus on Brexit and media attention on the personal life of Boris […]
by Mark Curtis Published in Middle East Eye, 17 November 2018 One hundred years ago this month, the guns of the European powers may well have fallen silent after four years of war. But in the Middle East, many of those same powers were creating the conditions for a century of further conflict. Decisions taken […]
These UK files/articles on Israel/Palestine highlight UK help for Israel’s nuclear weapons, concerns for Israel’s security during the Iraq invasion war planning, and the UK’s role in the 1948 war, among other policies. Documents MI6, ‘Palestinian Security Plan’, 2004 (See ‘Palestine papers reveal MI6 drew up plan for crackdown on Hamas’ (Guardian, 25 […]
This is an edited extract from Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam by Mark Curtis While British planners were using Muslim forces to further their interests in India, they were confronted by the outbreak of a Jewish uprising against British rule in their Palestine ‘mandate’. This led to a series of momentous events that […]
Foreign Office Planning Committee, “Future British Policy Towards the Arab/Israel Dispute”, 14 September 1970 “Neither [a pro-Arab nor a pro-Israel policy]…is practicable. A pro-Arab policy would be unacceptable to British public opinion and opposed by the US government. A pro-Israeli policy would destroy all hopes of preserving British economic and political interests in the Arab […]