Matthew Gould and the Plot to Attack Iran 440


This is Matthew Gould, second from right, British Ambassador to Israel, who was pictured speaking at a meeting of the Leeds Zionist Federation that was also the opening of the Leeds Hasbarah Centre. The Leeds Zionist Federation is part of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland, motto “Speaking Up for Israel.” A collection was made at the meeting to send packages to members of the Israeli Defence Force.

On 29 May 2011 The Jerusalem Post reported: “British Ambassador Matthew Gould declared his commitment to Israel and the principles of Zionism on Thursday”.

Remember this background, it is unusual behaviour for a diplomat, and it is important.

The six meetings between British Ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould and Minister of Defence Liam Fox and Adam Werritty together – only two of which were revealed by Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell in his “investigation” into Werritty’s unauthorised role in the Ministry of Defence – raise vital concerns about a secret agenda for war at the core of government, comparable to Blair’s determination to drive through a war on Iraq..

This is a detective story. It begins a few weeks ago, when the Fox-Werritty scandal was first breaking in the media. I had a contact from an old friend from my Foreign Office days. This friend had access to the Gus O’Donnell investigation. He had given a message for me to a trusted third party.

Whistleblowing in the surveillance state is a difficult activity. I left through a neighbour’s garden, not carrying a mobile phone, puffed and panted by bicycle to an unmonitored but busy stretch of road, hitched a lift much of the way, then ordered a minicab on a payphone from a country pub to my final destination, a farm far from CCTV. There the intermediary gave me the message: what really was worrying senior civil servants in the Cabinet Office was that the Fox-Werritty link related to plans involving Mossad and the British Ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould.

Since I became a notorious whistleblower, several of my ex-friends and contacts have used me to get out information they wanted to leak, via my blog. A good recent example was a senior friend at the UN who tipped me off in advance on the deal by which the US agreed to the Saudi attack on pro-democracy demonstrators in Bahrain, in return for Arab League support for the NATO attack on Libya. But this was rather different, not least in the apparent implication that our Ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould, was engaged in something with Werritty which went beyond official FCO policy.

I was particularly concerned by this because I knew slightly and liked Matthew Gould, from the time he wrote speeches for Robin Cook. I hoped there was nothing much in it. But then Gould’s name started to come up as professional journalists dug into the story, and reported Werritty’s funding by pro-Israeli lobby groups.

I decided that the best approach was for me to write to Matthew Gould. I did so, asking him when he had first met Werritty, how many times he had met him, and how many communications of every kind there had been between them. I received the reply that these questions would be answered in Gus O’Donnell’s report.

But Gus O’Donnell’s report in fact answered none of these questions. It only mentioned two meetings at which Fox, Gould and Werritty were all three present. It did not mention Gould-Werritty bilateral meetings and contacts at all. To an ex-Ambassador like me, there was also something very fishy about the two trilateral meetings O’Donnell did mention and his characterisation of them.

This led me to dig further, and I was shocked to find that O’Donnell was, at the most charitable interpretation, economical with the truth. In fact there were at least six Fox-Werritty-Gould meetings, not the two given by O’Donnell. Why did GOD lie? I now had no doubt that my informant had pointed me towards something very real and very important indeed.

Matthew Gould was the only British Ambassador who Fox and Werrity met together. They met him six times. Why?

The first meeting to which O’Donnell admits, took place in September 2010. O’Donnell says this was

“a general discussion of international defence and security matters to enable Mr Gould better to understand MOD’s perspective.”

O’Donnell says Werritty should not have been present. An FCO spokesman told me on 21 October that

“Mr Gould’s meeting with the Defence Secretary was arranged by his office as part of his pre-posting briefing calls.”

All Ambassadors make pre-posting briefing calls around Whitehall before taking up their job, as you would expect. But even for our most senior Ambassadors, outside the Foreign Office those calls are not at Secretary of State level. Senior officials are quite capable of explaining policy to outgoing Ambassadors; Secretaries of State have many other things to do.

For this meeting to happen at all was not routine, and Werritty’s presence made it still more strange. Why was this meeting happening? I dug further, and learnt from a senior MOD source that there were two more very strange things about this meeting, neither noted by O’Donnell. There was no private secretary or MOD official present to take note of action points, and the meeting took place not in Fox’s office, but in the MOD dining room.

O’Donnell may have been able to fox the media, but to a former Ambassador this whole meeting stunk. I bombarded the FCO with more questions, and discovered an amazing fact left out by O’Donnell. The FCO spokesman replied to me on 21 October 2011 that:

“Mr Werritty was also present at an earlier meeting Mr Gould had with Dr Fox in the latter’s capacity as shadow Defence Secretary.”

So Gould, Fox and Werritty had got together before Gould was Ambassador, while Fox was still in opposition and while Werritty was – what, exactly? This opened far more questions than it answered. I put them to the FCO. When, where and why had this meeting happened? We only knew it was before May 2010, when Fox took office. What was discussed? There are very strict protocols for senior officials briefing opposition front bench spokesman. Had they been followed?

The FCO refused point blank to answer any further questions. I turned to an independent-minded MP, Jeremy Corbyn, who put down a parliamentary question to William Hague. The reply quite deliberately ignored almost all of Corbyn’s question, but it did throw up an extraordinary bit of information – yet another meeting between Fox, Werritty and Gould, which had not been previously admitted.

Hague replied to Corbyn that:

“Our ambassador to Israel was also invited by the former Defence Secretary to a private social engagement in summer 2010 at which Adam Werritty was present.”

Getting to the truth was like drawing teeth, but the picture was building. O’Donnell had completely mischaracterised the “Briefing meeting” between Fox, Werritty and O’Donnell by hiding the fact that the three had met up at least twice before – once for a meeting when Fox was in opposition, and once for “a social engagement.” The FCO did not answer Corbyn’s question as to who else was present at this “social engagement”.

This was also key because Gould’s other meetings with Fox and Werritty were being characterised – albeit falsely – as simply routine, something Gould had to do in the course of his ambassadorial duties. But this attendance at “a private social engagement” was a voluntary act by Gould, indubitable proof that, at the least, the three were happy in each other’s company, but given that all three were very active in zionist causes, it was a definite indication of something more than that.

That furtive meeting between Fox, Werritty and Gould in the MOD dining room, deliberately held away from Fox’s office where it should have taken place, and away from the MOD officials who should have been there, now looks less like briefing and more like plotting.

My existing doubts about the second and only other meeting to which O’Donnell does admit make plain why that question is very important.

O’Donnell had said that Gould, Fox and Werritty had met on 6 February 2011:

“in Tel Aviv. This was a general discussion of international affairs over a private dinner with senior Israelis. The UK Ambassador was present.”

There was something very wrong here. Any ex-Ambassador knows that any dinner with senior figures from your host country, at which the British Ambassador to that country and a British Secretary of State are both present, and at which international affairs are discussed, can never be “private”. You are always representing the UK government in that circumstance. The only explanation I could think of for O’Donnell’s astonishing description of this as a “private” dinner was that the discussion was far from being official UK policy.

I therefore asked the FCO who was at this dinner, what was discussed, and who was paying for it? I viewed the last as my trump card – if either Gould or Fox was receiving hospitality, they are obliged to declare it. To my astonishment the FCO refused to say who was present or who paid. Corbyn’s parliamentary question also covered the issue of who was at this dinner, to which he received no reply.

Plainly something was very wrong. I therefore again asked how often Gould had met or communicated with Werritty without Fox being present. Again the FCO refused to reply. But one piece of information that had been found by other journalists was that, prior to the Tel Aviv dinner, Fox, Gould and Werritty had together attended the Herzilya conference in Israel. The programme of this is freely available. It is an unabashedly staunch zionist annual conference on “Israel’s security”, which makes no pretence at a balanced approach to Palestinian questions and attracts a strong US neo-conservative following. Fox, Gould and Werritty sat together at this event.

Yet again, the liar O’Donnell does not mention it.

I then learnt of yet another, a sixth meeting between Fox, Gould and Werritty. This time my infomrant was another old friend, a jewish diplomat for another country, based at an Embassy in London. They had met Gould, Fox and Werritty together at the “We believe in Israel” conference in London in May 2011. Here is a photo of Gould and Fox together at that conference.

I had no doubt about the direction this information was leading, but I now needed to go back to my original source. Sometimes the best way to hide something is to put it right under the noses of those looking for it, and on Wednesday I picked up the information in a tent at the Occupy London camp outside St Paul’s cathedral.

This is the story I was given.

Matthew Gould was Deputy Head of Mission at the British Embassy in Iran, a country which Werritty frequently visited, and where Werritty claimed to have British government support for plots against Ahmadinejad. Gould worked at the British Embassy in Washington; the Fox-Werritty Atlantic Bridge fake charity was active in building links between British and American neo-conservatives and particularly ultra-zionists. Gould’s responsibilities at the Embassy included co-ordination on US policy towards Iran. The first meeting of all three, which the FCO refuses to date, probably stems from this period.

According to my source, there is a long history of contact between Gould and Werritty. The FCO refuse to give any information on Gould-Werritty meetings or communications except those meetings where Fox was present – and those have only been admitted gradually, one by one. We may not have them all even yet.

My source says that co-ordinating with Israel and the US on diplomatic preparation for an attack on Iran was the subject of all these meetings. That absolutely fits with the jobs Gould held at the relevant times. The FCO refuses to say what was discussed. My source says that, most crucially, Iran was discussed at the Tel Aviv dinner, and the others present represented Mossad. The FCO again refuses to say who was present or what was discussed.

On Wednesday 2 November it was revealed in the press that under Fox the MOD had prepared secret and detailed contingency plans for British participation in an attack on Iran.

There are very important questions here. Was Gould really discussing neo-con plans for attacking Iran with Werritty and eventually with Fox before the Conservatives were even in government? Why did O’Donnell’s report so carefully mislead on the Fox-Gould-Werritty axis? How far was the FCO aware of MOD preparations for attacking Iran? Is there a neo-con cell of senior ministers and officials, co-ordinating with Israel and the United States, and keeping their designs hidden from the Conservative’s coalition partners?

The government could clear up these matters if it answered some of the questions it refuses to answer, even when asked formally by a member of parliament. The media have largely moved on from the Fox-Werritty affair, but have barely skimmed the surface of the key questions it raises. They relate to secrecy, democratic accountabilty and preparations to launch a war, preparations which bypass the safeguards of good government. The refusal to give straight answers to simple questions by a member of perliament strikes at the very root of our democracy.

Is this not precisely the situation we were in with Blair and Iraq? Have no lessons been learnt?

There is a further question which arises. Ever since the creation of the state of Israel, the UK had a policy of not appointing a jewish Briton as Ambassador, for fear of conflict of interest. As a similar policy of not appointing a catholic Ambassador to the Vatican. New Labour overturned both longstanding policies as discriminatory. Matthew Gould is therefore the first jewish British Ambassador to Israel.

Matthew Gould does not see his race or religion as irrelevant. He has chosen to give numerous interviews to both British and Israeli media on the subject of being a jewish ambassador, and has been at pains to be photographed by the Israeli media participating in jewish religious festivals. Israeli newspaper Haaretz described him as “Not just an ambassador who is jewish, but a jewish ambassador”. That rather peculiar phrase appears directly to indicate that the potential conflict of interest for a British ambassador in Israel has indeed arisen.

It is thus most unfortunate that it is Gould who is the only British Ambassador to have met Fox and Werritty together, who met them six times, and who now stands suspected of long term participation with them in a scheme to forward war with Iran, in cooperation with Israel. This makes it even more imperative that the FCO answers now the numerous outstanding questions about the Gould/Werritty relationship and the purpose of all those meetings with Fox.

There is no doubt that the O’Donnell report’s deceitful non-reporting of so many Fox-Gould-Werritty meetings, the FCO’s blunt refusal to list Gould-Werritty, meetings and contacts without Fox, and the refusal to say who else was present at any of these occasions, amounts to irrefutable evidence that something very important is being hidden right at the heart of government. I have no doubt that my informant is telling the truth, and the secret is the plan to attack Iran. It fits all the above facts. What else does?

Please feel free to re-use and republish this article anywhere, commercially or otherwise. It has been blocked by the mainstream media. I write regularly for the mainstream media and this is the first article of mine I have ever been unable to publish. People have risked a huge amount by leaking me information in an effort to stop the government machinery from ramping up a war with Iran. There are many good people in government who do not want to see another Iraq. Please do all you can to publish and redistribute this information.

UPDATE A commenter has already pointed me to this bit of invaluable evidence:

“My government absolutely agrees with your conception of the Iranian threat and the importance of your determination to battle it.” Dealing with the Iranian threat will be a large part of my work here.” Gould said.

From Israel National News. It also says that he will be trying to promote a positive atmosphere between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority, but the shallowest or the deepest search shows the same picture; an entirely biased indeed fanatical zionist who must give no confidence at all to the Palestinian Authority. He must be recalled.


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440 thoughts on “Matthew Gould and the Plot to Attack Iran

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  • Stephen

    @Jon

    “I think you are being too accomodating towards our political class.”

    Au contraire Jon – I think my approach would cause rather more problems for the political class. The ruling classes could fairly easily dismiss much as what is being said here as defamatory, based upon preconceptions ridiculous extrapolations etc. Better to stick to what is actually known and then ask questions about it.

    The real question is whether you want to change what might happen or just rail against what you think is inevitable (e.g. see Dave H above)

    PS Dave H – if you want examples of Iran’s violence please look at the Amnesty International/HRW websites.

  • Komodo

    Stephen – all but the most docile citizens here know that it is very difficult to get questions answered at the centres of power. The only question asked, and only partially answered so far, has been “WTF were Fox and Werritty up to?” Hypothesis (0) is that there’s nothing to see, move along. Without an alternative hypothesis there is no basis for asking the right questions, or securing the attention of those in possession of the answers. Craig provides that.

  • Drogo

    This is probably the most important piece of journalism, I have seen in many years. I really salute your courage, Craig, but it makes me fear for your life given the ruthlessness of the people you are dealing with. I remember when staying with a previous senior Britsh diplomat in Israel a few years ago, being told that that they all worked on the assumption that all conversations in the embassy and in the embassy cars, were overheard by Mossad, and there was nothing they could do about it. However, I think, we really have a paradign shift now, where the Zionist lobby does not just influence Government and frighten those who oppose it, but is genuinely at the heart of government. With 80% of Tory MPs are ‘Friends of Israel’ and no doubt similar numbers of sympathisers in other parties, no one is going to expose this from the inside. However, frightened as many people are of the crossing the ‘lobby’ – and that includes almost all who work for the MSM – I expect those working FOR them fear what might happen to them far far more, were “the mob” to discover what is really going on. They know that most of those who support them only do so out of fear and fear is a weapon that can evaporate overnight – and we saw the results of that post 1989 in eastern Europe. It really is only a matter of time before enough people “in the know” put their heads above the parapet to make it simply impossible for the Lobby to control the situation any longer 9and they are anyway almost guaranteed to overplay their hand). Few people in positions of power may have your courage, but I am sure many more support you and will gradually emerge as they begin realise they are in the majority.

  • Antelope Grazer

    Craig
    Definitely no Wikipedia page for Gould. If there was one, do you remember when you last saw it? Nothing in the deletion logs back to 10 Nov (it’s slow going as you can imagine).

  • Daisy

    I have just written a covering letter and sent the whole thing to my local tory MP asking for answers.
    Has anyone else done this?

  • Komodo

    Sorry, Craig. Osborne born in May not August. Links in post in “pending” file, presumably.

  • Stephen

    “Stephen – all but the most docile citizens here know that it is very difficult to get questions answered at the centres of power.”

    That is perhaps why a little guile is needed. Might I suggest providing the answer to your own question hasn’t had much success historically. You also have to decide whether you aim is to push the govt in a certain direction or to confirm your own prejudices. A little examination of Woodward and Bernstein wouldn’t go amiss.

  • craig Post author

    Antelope Grazer

    Sorry, been a little fraught! On the Wikipedia page for Gould, a couple of people earlier in this thread mention posting to it. But now it has gone and like you I can’t find a deletion reference.

    Maybe someone with a little time on their hands might take this opportunity to create one now the ground has been so forutitously vacated for us?

  • Sophia

    Gould: “I’m proudly Jewish. I was brought up in a staunchly Jewish household, it was also a Zionist household.”
    http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=190369

    While demand for academic boycott of Israel was strong in UK, Gould was part of…”the BIRAX research and scientiric cooperation agreement between the two countries – an agreement which was promoted by successive British Ambassadors to Israel, Tom Philips and Matthew Gould, and which has been funded, amongst others by the Pears Foundation in London.”
    Academic boycott of Israel page at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_boycotts_of_Israel

    “According to UK ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould, there is close cooperation between the British and Israeli governments on matters relating to Iran.[7]”
    Wikipedia page of Birax: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIRAX

    An interview in Hadassah magazine:
    “Q. And your experiences as a Jewish diplomat in Iran?
    A. It’s an extraordinary place and the people are absolutely wonderful. The country has an ancient and extraordinary culture. But the people’s democratic and human rights aren’t respected. We take enormous issue with many of the things that the Iranian government does, and I came away with a serious sadness because the Iranian people deserve better.”
    http://www.hadassahmagazine.org/site/apps/nlnet/content.aspx?c=twI6LmN7IzF&b=5698175&ct=9038595

    There is no Wikipedia page for Gould anymore. His name, which appears in different articles related to UK and Israel, is not referenced

  • Sophia

    Interview in Hadassah magazine:

    “Q. And your experiences as a Jewish diplomat in Iran?
    A. It’s an extraordinary place and the people are absolutely wonderful. The country has an ancient and extraordinary culture. But the people’s democratic and human rights aren’t respected. We take enormous issue with many of the things that the Iranian government does, and I came away with a serious sadness because the Iranian people deserve better.”

    http://www.hadassahmagazine.org/site/apps/nlnet/content.aspx?c=twI6LmN7IzF&b=5698175&ct=9038595

  • Antelope Grazer

    I suspect there was never a Gould Wikipedia page – one person above suggested editing it but didn’t say he had. The other said he’d edited some other pages but not a Gould page.

  • Xi'ang

    Great to see the web being used to disseminate this type of real journalism. especially when the so-called ‘mainstream media’ has so utterly failed, as it does time and time again, especially on issues of western imperialism.

    Xiang, China

  • Xi'ang

    And I wonder how much of those ‘I’d watch your back if I was you, Craig’ comments are from desperate trolls?

  • Sophia

    Interview in the JC, sept 2010:

    “I wanted to do the meetings because the Jewish community in the UK is a large group of patriotic Brits who care deeply about Israel, its future, security and wellbeing. So it was entirely appropriate that as the person who is going out to be the guardian of that relationship, I should go and explain my plans and approach to them.

    “But because I come from the Jewish community, I felt that it was even more important that I showed myself, that they got a sense of where I was coming from. I said in every synagogue that I went to that they needed to know that I am and always will be a friend of Israel. But I am going out there as the British ambassador, and going to promote British policies.”

    There is a contradiction here between promoting British policies and being the guardian of the relationship between the Jewish community in the UK and Israel.

    http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/37963/interview-matthew-gould-ambassador-israel

  • Jon

    Stephen, thanks. I agree that we need to try the /change/ the situation, rather than regarding it as fixed and inevitable. I agree with you and Craig that Iran has an awful regime, but pointing at their sins when we’re discussing the (alleged) corruption of the British political elite is a distraction. If the political elite wish to beat the drum for war on Iran they need to do it out in the open, and within the bounds set by the British political process. They also need to be frank and candid when citizens, journalists and independent-minded MPs ask them about it.
    .
    You are within your rights to imply that Dave H is unquestionably pro-Iran, but the problem with the “guile” approach is that you *appear* to be apologising for, or minimising the importance of, the corrupt and secretive process that could lead to British violence abroad. One cannot condemn the hanging of gay men from lamp-posts in Iran if one will not also condemn the mechanisms of the military-industrial complex that spends our money on expensive bombs that will land on civilians abroad.
    .
    As to the suggestion of defamation, (British) politicians don’t usually sue even if political allegations are wholly wide of the mark. It is considered, I think, to be anti-democratic and anti-free speech, within the narrow confines of politics. One could posit that this encourages wild speculation, but I’m not of the view that Craig has done that, especially given the nature of Atlantic Bridge and the meetings with Mossad (and outside the context of a traditional conspiracy theory too)! In fact, I think Gould et al are on the back foot, and would have hit out immediately (with opinion columns rather than writs) if they were whiter-than-white.

  • Sophia

    At Facing tomorrow conference (Jewish conference) speaking on Iran and nuclear proliferation: Bashing Iran and Iranians (video 9′)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv1w1jKDy6Q

    Note how he is speaking on how sanctions are affecting Iranians in detail.

    Note: you cannot erase things quickly from the web but you can push the pages back. I found the youtube link on the 12th page. Can someone please copy the video?

  • Richard Morris

    Thank you Craig for this
    I have been trying to publish comments on the Guardian Comment is free site which have been rejected as have my letters questioning the Israeli’s Press Attache views. No other letters have been published in response to his remarks
    I will put your article on my blog
    Breaking The Israel/Palestine Silence http://wallsofdespair.blogspot.com
    Perhaps you would like to look at the blog which I spoke about on PressTv and which has had about 2 and a half thousand visitors, small beer I know but I keep plugging away
    Richard Morris Writer and Performer Bitter Fruit Of Palestine on YouTube and Vimeo.com

  • passerby

    These fecking ziobots crapping the thread. Gould’s Wikipedia page entailed a great many details, and worthwhile to have been frozen, and or lifted by anyone of the posters here, or elsewhere, we need to check and see why the damn thing has been pulled. This is in line with the zionist trash quickly making a disappearance act, and vacating the spot light, evidently exposure to truth, is like sunlight on Dracula, both kinds of the vampires get the hell out of the spot light.

  • Komodo

    Sophia: If it’s the one I saw, he’s merely outlining official government policy, with a little hint, right at the end, that if some Israeli F-16’s were accidentally to go and drop their US-supplied ordnance on Iranian deep facilities, Her Majesty’s Government would assist Israel in the ensuing conflagration. It must have kept the audience on tenterhooks, but they got their dog-whistle in the end. He’s been delivering the same crap up and down the country. Pity the UK public hasn’t a clue what’s going on.

  • Dave H

    I am not pro Iran , I’m anti bombing Iran for spurious reasons .
    I grew up thinking that Britain was a fair country led by decent human beings but over the last few years I can see that nothing is further than the truth .
    I am fed up with seeing war, death and destruction on tv like its entertainment .

    I have no idea how bad it is in Iran as I do not believe a word the UK media publishes so believe that the views we are given are hugely one sided .

    I would love to see the death toll figures for governments over the last few years , the US and the UK would at least top one international list .

  • Sophia

    Komodo,

    Yes the video of the statement is less interesting than the forst one I posted where he speaks at lenght before a Jewish conference on the effects of snactions on Iran. Look at the first one.

  • Jon

    I may be being a touch naive, but I sense that Cameron would not be as militarist as the Fox/Gould axis, and not just because the Lib Dems might try to sabotage the coalition if this were to happen. Presumably the neo-cons couldn’t beat the war drum without Cameron signing up to it? It would have to come out as stated policy eventually, unless as Komodo says, we give hidden support to an Israeli act of war that Iran would just have to tolerate.

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