Despite Foreign Secretary Lammy sanctioning two ultra right Israeli ministers Labour’s response has been lamentable says Bryn Jones
Why the disappointment at the Labour government’s reluctance to act on the genocide in Gaza? For campaigners and, probably, most of the general public, Labour’s inertia and minuscule penalties against quasi-fascist Israeli ministers is shocking. As is the token banning of a mere 5% of UK arms exports to Israel. This tokenism is further highlighted when compared to the scale of war crimes that have killed at least 58,000 civilians, created a desolate wasteland without basic health, education and water and degraded Palestinian lives to the level of caged animals. Labour still trains Israeli air force pilots, supplies Israel with lethal weaponry, and intelligence information used for air strikes. If the eternal promise of the “two state solution” is to materialise politically, why is Labour not recognising Palestine as a state?
The 2021 Labour Party conference voted for recognition and the 2024 election manifesto promised “recognising a Palestinian state [for] . . .a renewed peace process which results in a two-state solution”. However, as with many such commitments, Labour ministers in power have ignored them. The sheer horror of Gaza does alarm back-benchers in all parties. This is instanced by some cross-party support (excepting Tories and Reform) for Jeremy Corbyn’s recent motion for a public enquiry into government arms supplies to Israel. How does Labour’s top brass reconcile the UK’s patent complicity in such ongoing atrocities with professed ethical responsibilities? Online forums blame psychological deviance. “Psychopaths” and “spineless tools of the pro-genocide lobby” are some of the more measured diagnoses. Legalised bribery from Israel’s supporters in the form of “hundreds of thousands of pounds” of political donations may partly explain Labour’s reluctance <https://www.declassifieduk.org/israel-lobby-funded-half-of-keir-starmers-cabinet/
However, the more potent factor lies in broader and more deeply rooted relationships between the UK political establishment and the Israeli state’s different incarnations. That state has never been an isolated beacon/blot on the Middle East landscape. NATO is the perennial bogeyman for Left critics of UK foreign policy. Yet Israel has never been a NATO member. Indeed, its client state relationship with the USA, beginning in Harry S. Truman’s post-WWII presidency, excludes it from the kind of public scrutiny that could apply to NATO members. Let’s examine President Biden’s remark: “If there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one.”
Israel’s role as the West’s attack dog against Arab and Muslim regimes that challenge its hegemony stretches back to 1956, when Britain and France encouraged an Israeli invasion of Egypt following its nationalisation of the Suez Canal. The UK’s diplomatic regime has perennially equated that hegemony with the UK’s “security’. Thus guaranteeing blanket support for all but the most atrocious actions. Support that is rooted in trade and investment. In 2021 the Department of International Trade declared that: “The UK is proud of its deep and historic relationship with Israel. As close allies and strategic partners.”
This alliance includes the UK-Israel military co-operation agreement of December 2020 that strengthened collaboration in defence medical training, organisational design concepts, and defence education. This preceded a 10-year trade and defence pact signed in November 2021. Followed in 2023 by a “2030 Roadmap for UK-Israeli Bilateral Relations”, pledging deeper cooperation in sectors such as security, trade, cybernetics, science and technology, research and development, health, climate, and gender. Military goods sales increased to £126 million during the 2024 bombardment of Gaza (Private Eye, #1650).
Obsessed with foreign deals to pursue its totemic “growth” agenda, Labour will think twice about jeopardising such tight-knit cooperation. Annual bilateral trade exceeds £6.1 billion involving over 300 known Israeli companies operating in Britain. Yet this was dwarfed by the roughly £59 billion trade with the more pro-Palestine Gulf States. So why privilege Israel? Political clout is one explanation.
The Israeli government’s influence in Westminster extends into Labour’s core, as shown by exposés like the Al Jazeera film “The Lobby”. The revitalised MPs’ group Labour Friends of Israel has increased from 65 MPs in 2016 to 75 today. Prominent members include Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Foreign Secretary David Lammy, and 15 other front-benchers, and its opposition to Israeli policies is minimal. LFI espouses the panacea of a “two-state solution” but has also said it “totally opposes imposing sanctions on Israel. This wall of Israeli support, together with the politico-economic ties, sits at the heart of government. It explains why Labour’s leadership cling to the politicians’ mantra of ignoring humanitarian evil “in the national interest”. But with the Israeli attack dog going feral and attacking well beyond its claimed borders into Lebanon, Yemen, and now Iran, continued support for its belligerence looks absurd. Voices within Israel itself are now calling for sanctions against Netanyahu’s tyranny. More Labour MPs should demand the same of Starmer.