Israel has form when it comes to greeting visiting British ministers. As he stepped off his plane in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, William Hague cannot but have recalled the experience of his predecessor, Robin Cook, in 1998.

Within hours of his arrival, Mr Cook visited a Palestinian official at the disputed Har Homa settlement in East Jerusalem. The meeting so angered the Israeli prime minister – then, as now, one Benjamin Netanyahu – that he cancelled their main set-piece dinner. For the rest of his time as foreign secretary, Mr Cook was treated with contempt by the Israelis.

And the latest Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has developed a habit of being brutally frank to guests’ faces. Over dinner last month, he told the French and Spanish foreign ministers to “solve your own problems in Europe before you come to us with complaints. Maybe then I will be open to accepting your suggestions.” He added, for good measure, that “Israel will not be the Czechoslovakia of 2010”.

In the context of the rumpus in March over the cloning of British passports, and the expulsion of the head of Mossad’s London station, the omens for Mr Hague’s visit were hardly propitious.

The Foreign Secretary is regarded by many as an Arabist, at home in a Foreign Office dominated by the “camel corps”. That impression seemed to be confirmed on his first official trip to Washington in May. At a private breakfast at the British embassy, Mr Hague was asked by a guest about a phrase he used a lot during the election, when he said that the UK should have “solid but not slavish” ties with the US. How would Mr Hague have acted differently from Tony Blair and Gordon Brown?

“Israel,” he replied, before elaborating: “The Lebanon war.”

There was a pregnant pause as the guests realised what Mr Hague was saying. He was using US and UK support for Israel as a stick with which to attack the US-UK special relationship.

So there was much talk in advance of the frosty reception he would receive this week. As if to guarantee it, on Monday Dan Meridor, the Israeli deputy prime minister, had to cancel a visit to speak at a large Jewish community dinner in London when Israeli law officers told him he could not travel. The word was that the Turks were seeking to arraign him for his role in the storming of the Mavi Marmara flotilla. As the visit was not on official business, there was concern he would not have diplomatic immunity and, because the Government has still not changed the universal jurisdiction law, could be arrested.

On cue, as Mr Hague touched down in Israel, foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor announced that the government would be suspending the annual strategic dialogue with the UK until the law was changed. Things looked set for a disastrous visit.

But then Mr Lieberman himself corrected the statement from what a British source described as a “rogue briefer”: “We are only delaying the dialogue, not cancelling or suspending it in any way.” Far from wanting to put Mr Hague and the UK in their place, Israel sees the UK as a source of sanity within the EU.

Impressive advance work from the new British ambassador, Matthew Gould, and the Foreign Secretary’s own abilities have led the Israelis to decide that Mr Hague is a player. So he got the full treatment, meeting prime minister Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres, defence minister Ehud Barak and opposition leader Tzipi Livni.

The Israelis have one preoccupation: Iran. The rest of the world is focused on the negotiations with the Palestinians, but for the Israelis the existential threat posed by an Iranian bomb dwarfs all else. Britain is seen as being onside and a rare voice for clarity within the EU.

Mr Hague might not be a natural friend of Israel. But if he is an enemy of Iran, that will do.

Stephen Pollard is Editor of
‘The Jewish Chronicle’