Israel ‘not an ally’, says former British ambassador

“Israel is not an ally” of Britain, former UK ambassador Sir Richard Dalton has told Declassified in a wide-ranging interview.

He also warns that Britain’s Israel lobby is getting “stronger” and exerts “a very powerful force in our society” including over politicians and political parties.

In a discussion on the current conflicts in the Middle East, Dalton, who served as Britain’s top official in Tehran from 2003-06, said that the United States and Israel together constituted “a greater threat to the stability of the region than Iran”.

He added that prime minister Keir Starmer’s backing of Israeli and American air strikes on Iran this month does “a disservice to Britain, and a disservice to the cause of preserving international law as guidance for nations in their interactions with each other”.

Dalton told Declassified that the contention that Iran was on the verge of developing nuclear arms is “false” and that “no such threat existed”.

Watch our interview with Sir Richard Dalton

The seasoned diplomat, who served as Britain’s Consul-General in Jerusalem from 1993-7, observed, “I think that Israel cannot be regarded as an ally because their objectives in resolving the central problems of the Near East are so different from ours”.

“We believe in the self-determination of the Palestinian people. The Israelis do not. We believe in a two state solution. The Israelis, not all of them, but the dominant ones, do not.

“We believe that the state of Israel should be based on its 1948 borders. The Israelis do not. We believe that settlements across the Green Line are illegal and an obstacle to peace, the Israelis are bent on expanding them and, we believe that the Palestinians have a right to a peaceful existence on their own land”.

Dalton acknowledged that Israel does provide intelligence cooperation with Britain about extremist movements.

But he felt the idea that Israel is an ally because it is “the only democracy in the Middle East” is undermined since it “constantly oppresses its neighbouring people and subjects them to inhuman circumstances” such as in Gaza.

“It’s forfeited its right to be regarded as an ally just because it has an internal democracy”, Dalton said.

Condemning the “appalling and grossly illegal” Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023, the former ambassador added that “the balance indicates that this [Israel] is not a country with a similar set of values to us”.

Dalton meets Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Hasan Rouhani in 2004 with fellow ambassadors from France and Germany. (Photo: AP / Alamy)

‘Pro-Israel lobby in British foreign policy making’

Dalton, who held a range of positions in the Foreign Office until leaving in 2006, believes the UK has not taken a clear position on international legal issues over Gaza due to “the desire not to open up a wide gulf with the United States as a matter of principle”.

“I find it shocking”, he says. “There are European countries that have taken a much more robust and intelligent and humane and legal stance.”

Dalton added: “The reason we have never developed an independent policy on the turmoils and travails of the Middle East is because we are always looking over our shoulders at what the Americans want, what the Americans are saying”.

The second reason explaining UK support for Israel over Gaza is the Israel lobby, the former ambassador reasoned.

The “balance of opinion in parliament” is such that “those willing to uphold the Palestinian right to self-determination and to be free from gross human rights abuses are relatively weak”.

There’s also “the effect of intense Israeli lobbying and the linkage of Israeli lobbying to financial interests. It is a very powerful force in our society. Those who support the Israeli government through thick and thin, have traditionally been very influential”, Dalton added.

‘Powerful allies’

The Israel lobby has “powerful political allies in some political parties, and in some sections of the media. So a desire for a quiet life and a good career, means that many politicians swallow potential dislike of aspects of Israeli policy in order to toe the Israeli line”.

Asked if he sees evidence of the strength of the pro-Israel lobby in Britain’s Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence, Dalton replied: “Oh, yes. There’s no doubt that the Israeli public have a right to be proud of their diplomatic service and the ability of the State of Israel to leverage sources of influence within British society”.

“I remember at the time of one of Israel’s invasions of Lebanon, David Cameron mentioning an encounter he’d had on the steps of a railway carriage with a prominent supporter of the State of Israel, who was also a very prominent, powerful British businessman.

“And, he had had to say, I think this is 2010, as far as I remember, that no, there were limits to what we were prepared to support. We didn’t consider it right that Israel had the right to smash up civil facilities in Lebanon. But since those days, Israeli influence and the influence of supporters of the government of Israel has got stronger.”

Asked if Israeli influence raises questions about democratic decision-making in Britain, Dalton replied: “Yes it does. And opinion polls in Britain show that the stances the British government has taken are not in accordance with majority opinion in Britain who increasingly see through Israeli claims to be conducting a moral war”.

‘Ridiculous Western mantra’

Shortly after Dalton’s tenure as ambassador in Tehran, Britain’s GCHQ intelligence agency said in a top secret document: “The Israelis remain a real threat to the stability of the region, in particular because of the position of this country with respect to [Iran]”.

Commenting on that assessment, Dalton told Declassified: “I’ve always believed that the United States and Israel together constituted a greater threat to the stability of the region than Iran”.

“Iran’s activities against Israel were wrong and destabilising”, Dalton added, but there is “a ridiculous Western mantra that Iran is the source of all evil, when all the states of the region, from Saudi Arabia to Turkey and from the United States to Israel to Iran, have been involving themselves in the conflicts in the region”.

Iran’s rhetoric about threats to Israel is “real and represents beliefs at the heart of the supreme leader that Israel shouldn’t be there”, Dalton says. “But Iran has never had the capability of putting those threats into action. And it was not developing the capability to attack Israel with nuclear weapons”.

Asked by Declassified why the UK has refused to openly recognise Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons, Dalton speculated: “I suspect it’s a commitment they have given to the Israeli government and the United States”.

“If it is such a thing, I’m not aware of its details but maybe they feel bound by such a commitment. Personally, I can’t see it serving any useful purpose. I think openness and a proper discussion is what is needed.”

Dalton also laments that UK ministers have “ignored the proper application of international law, both with respect to Gaza and to Iran”.

Keir Starmer’s government has been “facing two ways”, he says, discouraging the use of UK facilities in helping the US to attack Iran “but at the same time wishing to show full support for Israel and the United States”.

Scuppering talks

As for an imminent nuclear threat from Iran to justify the recent Israeli and American attacks on the country, Dalton said such threats have been claimed by Israel for over two decades and that “no such threat existed”.

“You can be sure that if such a threat was able to be documented, we would have heard about it”, he added.

The attacks scuppered international talks to restrict Iran’s nuclear programme while “Iran remained open to further negotiations”, Dalton remarked. The seventh round of such talks was due to be held but was aborted by Israel’s attacks on 13 June.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu “acted to avoid any such discussion”, Dalton suggested. “In so doing and in aborting a potentially fruitful diplomatic outcome, which President Trump had said was possible, shortly before the attack, he did the world a grave disservice”.

More dangerous world

Dalton, who served in Tehran in the aftermath of the US/UK invasion of Iraq in 2003, said that Trump “has potentially made the Middle East more prone to nuclear proliferation than before he conducted the attack” on Iran.

“By every standard, this was not a legal preemptive attack and its consequences, though shortened now by the ceasefire, if it holds, could turn out to be a more unstable and potentially nuclear armed Middle East than before the attacks”.

“There will be, I believe, majority support amongst Iranian people” for Iran acquiring nuclear weapons in the future to prevent further attacks.

The strikes have also made nuclear inspections harder, Dalton said, with Iran’s parliament voting this week to suspend cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

“I suspect that the nuclear materials that had been in the sites that have been bombed, which will not have required many trucks to remove them, have been removed and that it is now much harder for the International Atomic Energy Agency to carry out the job, which we all want it to do, to continue tracing nuclear materials to account for them”.

Threats to the UK?

The UK government has taken steps in recent months to crack down on what it says are increasing “state threats from Iran” against dissidents and journalists in Britain.

MI5 says that since the start of 2022 the UK has responded to 20 Iran-backed plots “presenting potentially lethal threats to British citizens and UK residents”.

Dalton says these threats are “wrong and repulsive. The activities of a section of the Iranian external security service are repugnant and must be stopped. But it’s easy to exaggerate the impact. No one’s been killed, thank goodness. I think the Iranian policy is to throw scares into people”.

He added: “But it’s not a threat to our democracy or a threat to the stability of our society because it’s targeted at particular enemies of the Iranian state, as the Iranians see it.”

Dalton, who served in the British embassy in Oman as head of chancery in the early 1980s, also responded to our questioning about Britain’s secret GCHQ spy base in Oman.

“It was put there originally because of the existential threat to Britain and Western Europe and the Atlantic Alliance from Russia. I have no way of knowing what, if any, role the station in Oman now has”.

“Every potential technique of electronic surveillance will be being used against Iran”, Dalton added.