International

Another Good Dispatches Show?

Why does Oliver Miles – ex-Ambassador and now Arab Lobbyist – think that the ethnicity of two Jews is relevant to their suitability as participants in an inquiry into the war in Iraq?

Who knows.

However, Judy at Adloyada has some interesting background on Oliver Miles:

Oliver Miles is Chairman of MEC International, a lobbying group which is mainly focused on lobbying on behalf of Arab and other Middle Eastern regimes and of companies which seek to do business with them. Inter alia it offers the services of a group of ambassadors.

As one example of this “ambassadorial service”, Miles organized the well remembered letter to Tony Blair signed by 52 ex-ambassadors, urging him to change his policies on Palestine and Iraq. In other words, Oliver Miles is the leader of the “Camel Corps” of bought and paid for former Foreign Office Arab lobbyists. What’s the betting that he and his lobbying group gave substantial help to Peter Oborne for the recent Channel 4 Dispatches programme that UK politicians and media were bullied and controlled by a secretive lobby of Israeli government and associated British zionist businessmen?

Just for starters, that programme starred Sir Richard Dalton, the former Director General, now Director of the Libyan British Business Council. The Deputy Chairman of the Libyan British Business Council is none other than Oliver Miles whose MEC has played a major role in setting up and developing the lucrative business contracts that were finally put on offer once Britain agreed to release Abdelbasset El Megrahi to the Libyan regime.

There is loads more, including this:

What all this suggests is not so much that Miles is an anti-semite, but that he is a paid lobbyist mouthpiece for regimes which subscribe to and propagate anti-semitic conspiracy theories. And that the British government and the EU are partners with the Libyan dictatorship regime, whilst publicly taking a sniffy high moral stance about human rights and the like. In other words, it’s evidence for a much more rational and low key version of the grossly exaggerated Eurabia thesis. It’s not that Europe is becoming Islamised, as that the EU and member states like the UK trim their morals and their stances on Middle East issues to ensure that lucrative trade deals stay onside.

Meanwhile, both the Independent and the Guardian regularly publish this Arab regime lobbyist’s articles, including those which express hostility to Jews, Israel and zionists, as if they were entirely bona fide disinterested analyses written by a man whose only interests have been representing the UK government.

It is a curious thing, is it not? The supernaturally powerful Israel/Jewish Lobby isn’t even able to achieve a ‘no’ vote in the United Nations in relation to the Goldstone-lynching. By contrast, Saudi Arabia is able to prevent the Serious Fraud Office from investigating the allegation that BAE Systems plc paid bribes to the Saudi royal family, as part of the Al Yamamah arms deal.

Moreover, the Israel/Jewish Lobby seems to have shown little interest in preventing former President Katzav from being indicted for rape, or former Prime Minister Olmert from being indicted for bribery and corruption.