Shalom. It's a very great pleasure to be with you at this wonderful university here in Herzeliya... professors of the Lauder school of Government, Minister of Public Diplomacy, sounds a challenge, MKs (members of parliament), and of course my friend Tzipi Livni (head of Kadima, and leader of the opposition in Israel) , its a great pleasure to be here with you also, we've shared many platforms together, when you were a foreign minister and I have always admired enormously the intelligence and elegance and good effect with which you spoke at those meetings and it is a pleasure to be here with you and also to say that she was always very gracious to me since the very first time she met me she informed me that I think in the old days that the British had arrested her father? Arrested her father and her mother right? So we didn't discriminate, so that's a positive, lets take a positive from that one. One of the problems in being a former British Prime Minister is that you find that anywhere you go in the world that there is a problem, at some point in the conversation its revealed as Britains' fault, which is a great unifying role to play in international diplomacy.
I know that, because I watched this:
The content of which is the topic for another blog.
But Tony, Tony.
Guess what? Noone cares that the fact that the British have either fought in a war against, or arrested EVERYONE IN THE WORLD'S grandparents makes your life as a retiree somewhat awkward. I should maybe make less of a sweeping generalization - replace grandparent with ancestor. There you go. The point is that your beloved country drew the borders that later become problems, split up, or made more important ethnic groups who now hate each other, took natural resources while building infrastructure only where British settlers lived, and now you are really very self righteous about your place as the most civilized nation in the world.
Just because they (we!) drink tea and play cricket, doesn't mean they're thankful.
So yes, its very funny and awkward for you that the British arrested Tzipi Livni's parents. Hilarious.
