As a fragile ceasefire holds in Lebanon, and Britain’s airports struggle with the latest security threat, the government is coming under increasing pressure to change its foreign policy in the Middle East. Over the weekend a letter signed by three Muslim MPs, three peers and 38 community groups, said the UK Government’s stance on the region is “putting civilians at increased risk both in the UK and abroad”.

 However Foreign Office minister Kim Howells rejected this idea and condemned the letter. But many people in the UK believe that British foreign policy now favours US interests above all else. At the height of the crisis between Israel and Hezbollah last month a public opinion poll found that nearly two-thirds of the British population believed that the relationship between the UK and US was too close, especially over the Middle East.

Howells said: “The destruction of the infrastructure, the death of so many children and so many people: these have not been surgical strikes. If they are chasing Hezbollah, then go for Hezbollah. You don't go for the entire Lebanese nation.”

It was a minor criticism that was not going to stop a bloody war. Howell’s words were too little, too late. By that stage Britain had already sided with the US and Israel against a French UN resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. Blair had allowed the conflict to continue. In the British Parliament, Blair had resisted calls from his own MPs to call for a halt to the hostilities.

He said: "Of course we all want violence to stop and stop immediately, but we recognise the only realistic way to achieve such a ceasefire is to address the underlying reasons why this violence has broken out.” A few days after Howells made his remarks, Blair said “We deeply regret the loss of innocent life in the Lebanon and Israel,” and hinted that a ceasefire was possible. But Israel was still given more time to bomb Lebanon into submission.

Blair has laid the blame for the crisis in the Middle East at the door of Syria and Iran, saying they were responsible for funding and assisting Hezbollah to insurgents in Iraq.  As if to reiterate the point, the Syrian and Iranian Ambassadors in London were called in to the Foreign Office to be rebuked.

The British government’s position has been the same as that of America. This has led the right-wing Daily Telegraph newspaper to comment that “Mr. Blair's analysis of the troubles in the Middle East is indistinguishable from that of US neo-conservatives”. So here we have a situation where a Labour Prime Minister of Britain has the same philosophy on the Middle East as the Neo-Conservatives in America. How has this happened?

The veteran investigative journalist, John Pilger, writing in his latest book, “Freedom Next Time”, gives us one clue: “A significant section of the British Labour Party once supported justice for the Palestinians”. But not anymore. Pilger recalls how in the nineties the Israelis sent a high-ranking official, Gideon Meyer to London to make friends with the new leader of the Labour party, Tony Blair.

Meyer invited Blair to diner with Michael levy, a London businessman with close links to the Israeli establishment. Levy, who made his fortune as a record producer, has very close ties to Israel. He has been described by The Jerusalem Post as “undoubtedly the notional leader of British Jewry”. His son is Daniel Levy, who worked in the office of Israel’s former Justice Minister Yossi Beilin.

“They got on extremely well,” recalls Pilger. “It was not long before Blair and his wife Cherie, were flying first-class to Israel, all expenses paid by the Israel establishment.” The two men are said to now be “like brothers”. The tacit agreement between the two men was that while Blair was leader, Labour would never take an anti-Israeli stance.

Although Levy is hardly impartial on the region, one of Blair’s first acts as Prime Minster was to reward Levy with a peerage – so he became Lord Levy - and made him his special envoy to the Middle East. So the arch-Israelite was in charge of how Blair would respond to the Palestinian crisis. He would be influential in how Blair responded to the current crisis in Lebanon.

Levy is also an important figure in the lobby organisation, Labour Friends of Israel (LFI). The lobby group admits that “it is one of the most active groups in the Labour Party” and draws its supports from Ministers, MPs, peers and activists.  LFI is one of the most prestigious groupings in the party and is seen as a stepping stone to ministerial ranks for Labour MPs. It includes some of Labour’s most influential funders apart from Levy, including Britain’s Science Minister Lord Sainsbury.

Tony Blair is also a member of LFI and is now said to routinely consult members of the group over Middle East policy. British Middle Eastern policy is now routinely pro-Israeli, no matter the consequences. John Pilger, one of the few British journalists to routinely question Britain’s Middle Eastern policy, especially towards Israel and the Palestinians, has also pointed out that “Under Blair, British support for Israeli repression has accelerated”.  In 2001, the Blair government approved 91 arms export licences to Israel, in categories that included ammunition, bombs, torpedoes, rockets, missiles, combat vessels, military electronic and imaging equipment and armoured vehicles. 

Indeed when Ariel Sharon was in power, Britain exported around $130 million worth of military equipment to Israel. In 2005, combat aircraft technology and components for surface-to-surface missiles were sent from the UK to Israel. The British government has tried to claim that there is “no evidence” that British equipment has been used against the Palestinians. However the government has no mechanisms to monitor whether British machine parts or vehicles are involved in human rights abuses.

According to Pilger, there is abundant evidence, “such as Amnesty's report that the Apache helicopters used to attack the Palestinians are kept flying with British parts”. We do not yet know if British weapons are also being used against innocent Lebanese civilians. But even if they are not, Britain is still complicit in human rights abuses in Lebanon because it refused to stand up and stop the violence.

The relationship between Tony Blair and Levy goes even deeper. Levy, one of the best political fund-raisers around, is now Blair’s chief raiser of money. He is known as “Lord Cash-Machine”. When Blair started to lead the Labour party in the nineties, the Labour party was still very dependent on the trade unions for money. This was causing severe problems for Blair politically as the unions were seen to be having too much power. Blair was desperate to reduce Labour’s dependency on the unions and get finance off businessmen.

So potential rich donors would be invited to play tennis with Blair at Levy’s palatial home. Levy would then proceed to ask the guests for donations after Blair had conveniently left. In this way Levy started raising millions of dollars for Blair and the Labour Party.

But now Blair’s one man solution could turn out to be a problem.  Last month, Lord Levy was arrested by British Police in connection with their criminal investigation into a controversy called “Cash for Peerages”. The Police are investigating whether anyone who gave financial loans to the Labour Party were later nominated for a peerage in the upper house of British politics called the House of Lords. The inference is simple: give us money and we give you a position of huge prestige and influence. 

The Labour party had been seeking loans rather than gifts as any amount of money over £5,000 had to be declared under new legislation introduced in order to clean up the murky business of political funding. But the rules did not include loans. Earlier this year it was revealed that a total of 12 businessmen had lent the Labour party nearly £14m in secret loans to help to fund Blair’s 2005 general election campaign. This had been organized by Levy. Although Levy was later released by the Police, their investigations are continuing.  Rumours are rife that Blair himself may have to be interviewed by the Police.

Some people are saying that the "Cash for Peerages" scandal could mean that Blair resigns sooner rather than later. However, his successor, Gordon Brown is also pro-Israeli and has attended as many LFI meetings as Blair. So, although Blair may be gone within a year, and Levy will stand aside when Blair goes, British policy in the Middle East is unlikely to change soon. Which is bad news for people in the region.