Middle-East crisis causing rebellion in British Government

The continuing hostilities in Israel and Lebanon along with Tony Blair's refusal to call for a ceasefire are causing serious tension within the Labour Party. While many backbench MPs were already openly critical of Blair's stance and Foreign Minister Kim Howells had spoken out about the issue on a trip to Beirut, it has now emerged that even the Prime Minister's cabinet have been desperately urging him to break from President Bush and criticise Israeli actions or at least call for an end to the current aggression.

Yesterday, Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary until May and still a senior member of the cabinet, condemned Israel's 'disproportionate' attack on Lebanon and its 'innocent civilians'. Another anonymous critic within Blair's circle revealed that at a cabinet meeting the PM was confronted with 'the outrage felt by so many over the disproportionate suffering' and was urged to 'place distance' between himself and Bush. However, during his current trip to the US, Blair has faithfully followed the American line, joining Bush in jointly calling for a UN resolution to send a peace-keeping force to Lebanon but refusing to condemn Israeli actions or to demand an immediate ceasefire. The use of a British airport to transfer US military equipment to the Israelis has also caused unpopularity for Blair, particularly after he undermined Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, by allowing the flights to continue despite her criticism of them.

For his part Blair claims he wants to 'achieve a basis for a ceasefire that will allow Israel's security to be protected...It cannot be that Israel stops taking the action its taking but Hezbollah continue to kill, kidnap, and launch rockets into the north of Israel'. This basically translates as permission for Israel to continue their actions in Lebanon for the moment in the hope that they can wipe out the Hezbollah threat and then come to some kind of peaceful settlement.

However, the longer the conflict goes on, the more popular Hezbollah and its leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah are becoming in the Muslim world and the more unpopular Israeli actions are becoming in the West. This will surely just make a peace settlement all the more difficult to come by. Perhaps if Hezbollah are incapacitated and the Americans manage to help find a peaceful, long-term settlement in the region then Blair will have been proved right in his actions. But he is currently becoming increasingly unpopular at home and has created near-rebellion within his own party, with one insider admitting that this crisis 'could be the end of him'.

Sources for quotes: The Times, The Observer and the BBC