Democratic Unionist party (DUP) goes on junket to Israel
"The visit is being 'facilitated' by the Northern Ireland Friends of Israel supported by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs" ; states the Belfast Newsletter newspaper .
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/dup-visits-jerusalem-to-bolster-israeli-ties-1-8513372
This is how they get them in line.
The Newsletter doesn't allow for copying and pasting so you need to click the link for the complete story.
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Special Report: From Ulster with love, Israel’s unlikely ally
Who are the DUP? Following the 2017 General Election, we look at the pro-Israel party who may help prop up the next government
Unbeknownst
to most until last week’s parliamentary vote on Palestine, the
Westminster MPs of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) are a staunchly
pro-Israel lot.
While parliamentarians voted overwhelmingly in
favour of the motion to recognise Palestine alongside Israel, 12 voted
against the motion, and of this dozen, five were from the late Ian
Paisley’s DUP.
To London’s Jews, Northern Ireland can seem
off the political radar, but to those with an interest, the voting
preferences of MPs Nigel Dodds, William McCrea, Ian Paisley (the late
founder’s son), Jim Shannon and David Simpson should have come as no
surprise.
Indeed, the founding of the DUP Friends of
Israel group at Stormont in June was one of the veteran unionist’s last
political acts before his death in September. In terms of his
long-standing support for the Jewish state, however, it was merely the
latest.
Ian Paisley, Jr.
Photo by Aaron McCracken/Harrisons
Earlier this summer, the DUP pressed police
authorities on the legality of anti-Israel protests, while two years
earlier, it launched fierce criticism at the Co-operative Group for
banning Israeli products from the West Bank.
Why the support? Politically, culturally and
geographically, Northern Ireland is some distance from Israel, so why
such stringent views from Ulster’s Protestant community?
In part, it is because there is equally strong
support for the Palestinians from the unionists’ arch-enemy. Irish
Republicans have long associated themselves with the Palestinian cause,
and there has been co-operation and trading between the PLO and the IRA
dating back to the 1970s, including training and arms procurement.
That association is very much alive today,
with Palestinian flags flown in Republican areas of Northern Ireland and
murals proclaiming common cause with Palestine. This summer, Sinn Fein
President Gerry Adams even called for the Israeli ambassador to be
expelled from Ireland, while the Palestinian representative to Ireland
spoke at a Republican hunger strike commemoration.
Steven Jaffe, co-chair of the Northern Ireland Friends of Israel
But that’s not the whole story. Steven Jaffe,
co-chair of the Northern Ireland Friends of Israel, thinks it stems in
part from faith. “Many DUP MPs come from a Bible-believing Protestant
background,” he says. “They have a very sincere and positive attitude to
the Biblical roots of the Jewish people’s connection to the land.”
As well as sharing a book, unionists in
Northern Ireland say they also share common experiences with Israel,
given that both have waged a war against terrorism. So in political
terms, they can relate to Israel’s position, explains Jaffe. “They
identify with Israel fighting for its survival, and they feel the
international media is unfairly hostile to Israel just as they believe
it was hostile to their own cause,” he says.
David McIlveen, the North Antrim Assembly
Member who launched the DUP Friends of Israel group, says this
translates into a willingness to defend the Jewish state when it is
attacked. “Whenever we feel there is an unfair portrayal of Israel being
presented in social or mainstream media, we do our part to try and
argue against it,” he says.
Dr. William McCrea, a Free Presbyterian
minister and one of the five MPs to vote against the motion, agrees with
the others. “There’s a friendship there,” he says. “We know what it’s
like to be under attack for years on end. We fought terrorism here, from
the republicans, so we know what it’s like to face these things.”
Lessons
from the past were very much the theme of Paisley Junior’s address to
the Commons – his first since his father passed away.
“The conclusion of the negotiations [in
Northern Ireland] was not set in stone in advance of the negotiations or
during,” the MP for North Antrim said. “The participants in the process
must be allowed to find their own conclusions… to find their own way;
they cannot be told, lectured or dictated to on what is best.”
Paisley urged parliament “not to assume that
it has the right to tell people how to sort out their peace processes,”
before adding that a lesson from Northern Ireland was “not to pour fuel
on burning flames”.
He added: “To recognise the state of Palestine
when significant and strong elements in the Palestinian negotiating
process do not even recognise Israel and would not allow that state to
exist, would be to make an already difficult situation worse.”
And he should know.
NWN: What a piece of work was the late Ian Paisley . The hypocrite who shouted NEVER, NEVER,NEVER ! Then did a complete about turn and even getting extremely friendly with IRA leader Martin 'Machine gun' McGuinness.
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