by
craig on November 14, 2011 12:03 pm in Uncategorized
This is Matthew Gould, second from
right, British Ambassador to Israel, who was pictured speaking at a
meeting of the Leeds
Zionist Federation that was also the opening of the Leeds
Hasbarah Centre. The Leeds Zionist Federation is part of the
Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland, motto “Speaking Up
for Israel.” A collection was made at the meeting to send packages
to members of the Israeli Defence Force.
On 29 May 2011 The
Jerusalem Post reported: “British Ambassador Matthew Gould
declared his commitment to Israel and the principles of Zionism on
Thursday”.
Remember this background, it is
unusual behaviour for a diplomat, and it is important.
The six meetings between British
Ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould and Minister of Defence Liam Fox
and Adam Werritty together – only two of which were revealed by
Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell in his “investigation” into
Werritty’s unauthorised role in the Ministry of Defence – raise
vital concerns about a secret agenda for war at the core of
government, comparable to Blair’s determination to drive through a
war on Iraq..
This is a detective story. It
begins a few weeks ago, when the Fox-Werritty scandal was first
breaking in the media. I had a contact from an old friend from my
Foreign Office days. This friend had access to the Gus O’Donnell
investigation. He had given a message for me to a trusted third
party.
Whistleblowing in the surveillance
state is a difficult activity. I
left through a neighbour’s garden, not carrying a mobile phone,
puffed and panted by bicycle to an unmonitored but busy stretch of
road, hitched a lift much of the way, then ordered a minicab on a
payphone from a country pub to my final destination, a farm far
from CCTV. There the intermediary gave me the message: what really
was worrying senior civil servants in the Cabinet Office was that
the Fox-Werritty link related to plans involving Mossad and the
British Ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould.
Since I became a notorious
whistleblower, several of my ex-friends and contacts have used me
to get out information they wanted to leak, via my
blog. A
good recent example was a senior friend at the UN who
tipped me off in advance on the deal by which the US agreed to the
Saudi attack on pro-democracy demonstrators in Bahrain, in return
for Arab League support for the NATO attack on Libya. But this was
rather different, not least in the apparent implication that our
Ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould, was engaged in something with
Werritty which went beyond official FCO policy.
I was particularly concerned by
this because I knew slightly and liked Matthew Gould, from the time
he wrote speeches for Robin Cook. I hoped there was nothing much in
it. But then Gould’s
name started to come up as professional journalists dug
into the story, and reported Werritty’s funding by pro-Israeli
lobby groups.
I decided that the best approach
was for me to write to Matthew Gould. I did so, asking him when he
had first met Werritty, how many times he had met him, and how many
communications of every kind there had been between them. I
received the reply that these questions would be answered in Gus
O’Donnell’s report.
But Gus O’Donnell’s report in fact
answered none of these questions. It only mentioned two meetings at
which Fox, Gould and Werritty were all three present. It did not
mention Gould-Werritty bilateral meetings and contacts at all. To
an ex-Ambassador like me, there was also something very fishy about
the two trilateral meetings O’Donnell did mention and his
characterisation of them.
This led me to dig further, and I
was shocked to find that O’Donnell was, at the most charitable
interpretation, economical with the truth. In fact there were at
least six Fox-Werritty-Gould meetings, not the two given by
O’Donnell. Why did GOD lie? I now had no doubt that my informant
had pointed me towards something very real and very important
indeed.
Matthew Gould was the only British
Ambassador who Fox and Werrity met together. They met him six
times. Why?
The first meeting to which
O’Donnell admits, took place in September 2010. O’Donnell says this
was
“a general discussion of
international defence and security matters to enable Mr Gould
better to understand MOD’s perspective.”
O’Donnell says Werritty should not
have been present. An FCO spokesman told me on 21 October that
“Mr Gould’s meeting with the
Defence Secretary was arranged by his office as part of his
pre-posting briefing calls.”
All Ambassadors make pre-posting
briefing calls around Whitehall before taking up their job, as you
would expect. But even for our most senior Ambassadors, outside the
Foreign Office those calls are not at Secretary of State level.
Senior officials are quite capable of explaining policy to outgoing
Ambassadors; Secretaries of State have many other things to do.
For this meeting to happen at all
was not routine, and Werritty’s presence made it still more
strange. Why was this meeting happening? I dug further, and learnt
from a senior MOD source that there were two more very strange
things about this meeting, neither noted by O’Donnell. There was no
private secretary or MOD official present to take note of action
points, and the meeting took place not in Fox’s office, but in the
MOD dining room.
O’Donnell may have been able to fox
the media, but to a former Ambassador this whole meeting stunk. I
bombarded the FCO with more questions, and discovered an amazing
fact left out by O’Donnell. The FCO spokesman replied to me on 21
October 2011 that:
“Mr Werritty was also present at an
earlier meeting Mr Gould had with Dr Fox in the latter’s capacity
as shadow Defence Secretary.”
So Gould, Fox and Werritty had got
together before Gould was Ambassador, while Fox was still in
opposition and while Werritty was – what, exactly? This opened far
more questions than it answered. I put them to the FCO. When, where
and why had this meeting happened? We only knew it was before May
2010, when Fox took office. What was discussed? There are very
strict protocols for senior officials briefing opposition front
bench spokesman. Had they been followed?
The FCO refused point blank to
answer any further questions. I turned to an independent-minded MP,
Jeremy Corbyn, who put down a parliamentary question to William
Hague. The reply quite deliberately ignored almost all of Corbyn’s
question, but it did throw up an extraordinary bit of information –
yet another meeting between Fox, Werritty and Gould, which had not
been previously admitted.
Hague replied to Corbyn that:
“Our ambassador to Israel was also
invited by the former Defence Secretary to a private social
engagement in summer 2010 at which Adam Werritty was present.”
Getting to the truth was like
drawing teeth, but the picture was building. O’Donnell had
completely mischaracterised the “Briefing meeting” between Fox,
Werritty and O’Donnell by hiding the fact that the three had met up
at least twice before – once for a meeting when Fox was in
opposition, and once for “a social engagement.” The FCO did not
answer Corbyn’s question as to who else was present at this “social
engagement”.
This was also key because Gould’s
other meetings with Fox and Werritty were being characterised –
albeit falsely – as simply routine, something Gould had to do in
the course of his ambassadorial duties. But this attendance at “a
private social engagement” was a voluntary act by Gould,
indubitable proof that, at the least, the three were happy in each
other’s company, but given that all three were very active in
zionist causes, it was a definite indication of something more than
that.
That furtive meeting between Fox,
Werritty and Gould in the MOD dining room, deliberately held away
from Fox’s office where it should have taken place, and away from
the MOD officials who should have been there, now looks less like
briefing and more like plotting.
My existing doubts about the second
and only other meeting to which O’Donnell does admit make plain why
that question is very important.
O’Donnell had said that Gould, Fox
and Werritty had met on 6 February 2011:
“in Tel Aviv. This was a general
discussion of international affairs over a private dinner with
senior Israelis. The UK Ambassador was present.”
There was something very wrong
here. Any ex-Ambassador knows that any dinner with senior figures
from your host country, at which the British Ambassador to that
country and a British Secretary of State are both present, and at
which international affairs are discussed, can never be “private”.
You are always representing the UK government in that circumstance.
The only explanation I could think of for O’Donnell’s astonishing
description of this as a “private” dinner was that the discussion
was far from being official UK policy.
I therefore asked the FCO who was
at this dinner, what was discussed, and who was paying for it? I
viewed the last as my trump card – if either Gould or Fox was
receiving hospitality, they are obliged to declare it. To my
astonishment the FCO refused to say who was present or who paid.
Corbyn’s parliamentary question also covered the issue of who was
at this dinner, to which he received no reply.
Plainly something was very wrong. I
therefore again asked how often Gould had met or communicated with
Werritty without Fox being present. Again the FCO refused to reply.
But one piece of information that had been found
by other journalists was that, prior to the Tel Aviv
dinner, Fox, Gould and Werritty had together attended the Herzilya
conference in Israel. Theprogramme
of this is freely available. It is an unabashedly staunch
zionist annual conference on “Israel’s security”, which makes no
pretence at a balanced approach to Palestinian questions and
attracts a strong US neo-conservative following. Fox, Gould and
Werritty sat together at this event.
Yet again, the liar O’Donnell does
not mention it.
I then learnt of yet another, a
sixth meeting between Fox, Gould and Werritty. This time my
infomrant was another old friend, a jewish diplomat for another
country, based at an Embassy in London. They had met Gould, Fox and
Werritty together at the “We believe in Israel” conference in
London in May 2011. Here is a
photo of Gould and Fox together at that conference.
I had no doubt about the direction
this information was leading, but I now needed to go back to my
original source. Sometimes the best way to hide something is to put
it right under the noses of those looking for it, and on Wednesday
I picked up the information in
a tent at the Occupy London camp outside St Paul’s
cathedral.
This is the story I was given.
Matthew Gould was Deputy Head of Mission at the British
Embassy in Iran, a country which Werritty frequently visited, and
where Werritty claimed to have British government support
forplots
against Ahmadinejad. Gould worked at the British Embassy in
Washington; the Fox-Werritty Atlantic Bridge fake charity was
active in building links between British and American
neo-conservatives and particularly ultra-zionists. Gould’s
responsibilities at the Embassy included co-ordination on US policy
towards Iran. The first meeting of all three, which the FCO refuses
to date, probably stems from this period.
According to my source, there is a
long history of contact between Gould and Werritty. The FCO refuse
to give any information on Gould-Werritty meetings or
communications except those meetings where Fox was present – and
those have only been admitted gradually, one by one. We may not
have them all even yet.
My source says that co-ordinating
with Israel and the US on diplomatic preparation for an attack on
Iran was the subject of all these meetings. That absolutely fits
with the jobs Gould held at the relevant times. The FCO refuses to
say what was discussed. My source says that, most crucially, Iran
was discussed at the Tel Aviv dinner, and the others present
represented Mossad. The FCO again refuses to say who was present or
what was discussed.
On Wednesday 2 November it was
revealed in
the press that under Fox the MOD had prepared secret and
detailed contingency plans for British participation in an attack
on Iran.
There are very important questions
here. Was Gould really discussing neo-con plans for attacking Iran
with Werritty and eventually with Fox before the Conservatives were
even in government? Why did O’Donnell’s report so carefully mislead
on the Fox-Gould-Werritty axis? How far was the FCO aware of MOD
preparations for attacking Iran? Is there a neo-con cell of senior
ministers and officials, co-ordinating with Israel and the United
States, and keeping their designs hidden from the Conservative’s
coalition partners?
The government could clear up these
matters if it answered some of the questions it refuses to answer,
even when asked formally by a member of parliament. The media have
largely moved on from the Fox-Werritty affair, but have barely
skimmed the surface of the key questions it raises. They relate to
secrecy, democratic accountabilty and preparations to launch a war,
preparations which bypass the safeguards of good government. The
refusal to give straight answers to simple questions by a member of
perliament strikes at the very root of our democracy.
Is this not precisely the situation
we were in with Blair and Iraq? Have no lessons been learnt?
There is a further question which
arises. Ever since the creation of the state of Israel, the UK had
a policy of not appointing a jewish Briton as Ambassador, for fear
of conflict of interest. As a similar policy of not appointing a
catholic Ambassador to the Vatican. New Labour overturned both
longstanding policies as discriminatory. Matthew Gould is therefore
the first jewish British Ambassador to Israel.
Matthew Gould does not see his race
or religion as irrelevant. He has chosen to give numerous
interviews to both British and Israeli media on the subject of
being a jewish ambassador, and has been at pains to be photographed
by the Israeli media participating in jewish religious festivals.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz described
him as “Not just an ambassador who is jewish, but a jewish
ambassador”. That rather peculiar phrase appears directly to
indicate that the potential conflict of interest for a British
ambassador in Israel has indeed arisen.
It is thus most unfortunate that it
is Gould who is the only British Ambassador to have met Fox and
Werritty together, who met them six times, and who now stands
suspected of long term participation with them in a scheme to
forward war with Iran, in cooperation with Israel. This makes it
even more imperative that the FCO answers now the numerous
outstanding questions about the Gould/Werritty relationship and the
purpose of all those meetings with Fox.
There is no doubt that the
O’Donnell report’s deceitful non-reporting of so many
Fox-Gould-Werritty meetings, the FCO’s blunt refusal to list
Gould-Werritty, meetings and contacts without Fox, and the refusal
to say who else was present at any of these occasions, amounts to
irrefutable evidence that something very important is being hidden
right at the heart of government. I have no doubt that my informant
is telling the truth, and the secret is the plan to attack Iran. It
fits all the above facts. What else does?
Please feel free to re-use and
republish this article anywhere, commercially or
otherwise. It
has been blocked by the mainstream media. I write
regularly for the mainstream media and this is the first article of
mine I have ever been unable to publish. People have risked a huge
amount by leaking me information in an effort to stop the
government machinery from ramping up a war with Iran. There are
many good people in government who do not want to see another Iraq.
Please do all you can to publish and redistribute this
information.
UPDATE A commenter has already
pointed me to this bit of invaluable
evidence:
“My government absolutely agrees
with your conception of the Iranian threat and the importance of
your determination to battle it.” Dealing with the Iranian threat
will be a large part of my work here.” Gould said.
From Israel National News. It also
says that he will be trying to promote a positive atmosphere
between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority, but the
shallowest or the deepest search shows the same picture; an
entirely biased indeed fanatical zionist who must give no
confidence at all to the Palestinian Authority. He must be
recalled.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2011/11/matthew-gould-and-the-plot-to-attack-iran/