Article published in The Jewish Chronicle, 16 December 2015. © Richard Kemp

The High Level Military Group’s (HLMG) findings on the 2014 Gaza conflict were the diametric opposite of those of the UN Human Rights Council, human rights groups and the majority of Western media, all of whom believe Israel used disproportionate force and committed war crimes. Why?

Because, unlike the HLMG, these organisations lack any credible military expertise. This is a problem when you are assessing a military conflict. They also mostly hit this issue from a pre-determined position that they want to be right: Israel is the neighbourhood bully and Hamas are the hapless representatives of a bullied, down-trodden population. And they analyse the situation based on human rights law, not the laws of armed conflict. Human rights law is fine if you are dealing with a police arrest on the streets of London, but not when you’re looking at large-scale violent armed exchanges between warring factions – that is what the Geneva conventions are intended to regulate.

The upshot of this ignorant, distorted, malign and misjudged perspective is the widespread demonisation of the state of Israel. That, of course, is what Israel’s enemies, who have manipulated the UN, human rights groups and much of the media as well as many world governments, always intended.

If you are taken in by it, and you yourself condemn the Jewish state on the basis of what these organisations tell you, which to be fair is pretty much all you ever hear, then you too are an instrument of Israel’s enemies. If you are Jewish and you condemn Israel on the basis of this disinformation, then you are a doubly valuable enemy Continue reading →

We must recognize that Israel’s values are Britain’s values, Israel’s fight is Britain’s fight and Israel’s peril is Britain’s peril.

By Richard Kemp and Jasper Reid. Article published in The Jerusalem Post, 10 December 2015. 

Ninety-eight years ago tomorrow (December 11) General Sir Edmund Allenby entered the Holy City after defeating the Ottoman forces in the Battle of Jerusalem. This was one of Britain’s great victories in the First World War and a much-needed uplift for our national spirit, reeling from the 300,000 casualties sustained in the Battle of Passchendaele in Belgium that ended the previous month.

This anniversary reminds us of the shared history and values of Britain and the State of Israel; and, with the perils we face in the world today, of the need for the closest friendship between our two countries.

According to Lieutenant General Sir George Macdonogh, director of British military intelligence during the Great War, Allenby’s conquest of Palestine in 1917 and 1918 was made possible by the Jewish intelligence network, Nili. Led by the distinguished botanist Aaron Aaronsohn and his sister Sarah, Nili took tremendous risks to pass vital information on the Turks to Allenby’s forces. Some, including Sarah, sacrificed their lives to help the British. Continue reading →

Royals must honour the fallen of our forgotten Middle East war

Article published in The Times, 9 December 2015. © Richard Kemp

No fewer than 16,000 British and Commonwealth troops died during the Palestine campaign in the First World War and are buried in the land where they fell. Yet a long-standing Foreign Office ban on royal visits to Israel looks likely to deny these men the honour that has been afforded to British soldiers killed in Europe, Gallipoli and other theatres of war during the centenary years. This policy must be overturned now to ensure their sacrifice is properly recognised.

Ninety-eight years ago today, on December 9, 1917, the Ottoman governor of Jerusalem surrendered the Holy City to General Sir Edmund Allenby’s Egyptian Expeditionary Force at the end of a bloody battle against the Turks that began on November 17.

The Palestine campaign has received little attention during the First World War commemorations, but was the second largest British theatre of operations in terms of strength of forces, with troops from Britain, Australia, New Zealand and India. It achieved the first defeat of a central power in the war. Continue reading →

Article published in The Express, 3 December 2015. © Richard Kemp

THE RAF should bomb Syria without delay. We are at war with the Islamic State, a war they declared.

They have killed British citizens and intend to kill more. We must fight them relentlessly and with maximum effort.

Airstrikes alone cannot defeat an enemy that holds ground. There will have to be a major land campaign with American, British and Middle East boots in the sand.

But with effective targeting intelligence our Tornadoes can kill IS fighters and commanders with devastating precision. These will be replaced, but the intensive US drone campaign in Pakistan that decimated Al Qaeda shows what can be achieved.

Airstrikes can also destroy IS munitions and savage their economic infrastructure. Only last month in eastern Syria American tankbuster planes and ground attack gunships destroyed 116 petrol trucks that IS were using to smuggle the crude oil they depend on for funds. Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Mirror, 16 November 2015. © Richard Kemp

As they did in Paris on Friday , Islamic State terrorists could attack the UK at any time.

Are we ready?

Our intelligence services do a superb job and have disrupted many attacks planned against us by Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Many jihadists are in jail. But their challenge is enormous.

Andrew Parker, Director General of MI5, recently warned that there are over 3,000 Islamist extremists willing to carry out attacks in the UK.

Few attacks are conducted by terrorists who are completely unknown to our intelligence services. It appears some of those involved in the Paris attacks were on the radar screen of French intelligence.

Surveillance is hugely resource intensive, requiring perhaps a team of 15 to 20 to monitor a single target around the clock. So the thousands of terrorist suspects have to be prioritised and Continue reading →

Interview with Richard Kemp

By Michel Gurfinkiel

French Minister of Defense Jean-Yves Le Drian recently made an essential statement about the war against terror and the difficulties it involves for Western countries. In an interview with Europe 1 focusing on the French air strikes against the Islamic State, he remarked:

Daesh [ISIS] is organized in such a way that children, women, civilians are being put on front lines. Its leadership is hiding in schools, mosques, hospitals, making the action of the coalition in Iraq and the action of France and other partners in Syria difficult, because we don’t want civilian casualties. We pay as much attention to the targets we select as to the need to combat Daesh.

This is a frank admission of the human shield tactic practiced by Islamists and its crippling effect on Western fighting.

Undoubtedly, Le Drian is aware that the United States and other Western partners in the coalition against ISIS are facing the same challenge, and that Israel faces similar difficulties when counter-attacking organizations like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Fatah-affiliated terror groups.

What remains to be seen is whether he and the French government, now having this experience with human shields, will reconsider their foreign policy regarding Israel.

We asked Colonel Richard Kemp, the former British commander in Afghanistan and an expert about war ethics, to comment on Le Drian’s no-nonsense statement.

PJM: Do Le Drian’s remarks come as a surprise to you?

Kemp: Not in the least. The Islamic State (ISIS) is adept at using human shields and locations protected under the Geneva Conventions. They are war criminals. The comments by Jean-Yves Continue reading →