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Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar has raised eyebrows with a late-night tweet mocking England’s defeat in the World Cup semifinals. Even if we allow for the fact that Sa’ar’s father was from Argentina, his taunting X post is unlikely to be taught as an example of best practice on any training courses for diplomats. ‘How does the song go?’ he began. ‘It’s coming home. Yes it is. It’s coming home to Argentina. Vamos Argentina!’ This slur on England’s honour will be avenged. The next time Israel is knocked out of a World Cup, our great-great-grandchildren will troll them with something awful.
While Sa’ar’s family background probably plays a part, his comments reflect a new diplomatic froideur between Jerusalem and London. Israel was happy to bite its tongue across decades of British governments, Tory and Labour alike, scolding the Jewish state for building Israeli towns in the Israeli-controlled parts of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), erecting checkpoints and a security barrier, and otherwise inconveniencing the people sworn to murder their children. This was just the price of doing business with a country far too civilised to stoop to anything as vulgar as self-preservation.
