Sarah Ingham is the author of The Military Covenant: its impact on civil-military relations in Britain.
After getting clobbered over his clobber for almost a fortnight, the Prime Minister scrambled to leave the country, swapping the Red Flag at the Labour Party Conference for the red carpet of an overseas trip.
This week’s opportunity to escape the churlish mood in Britain came thanks to the United Nations. This year’s General Assembly meeting has sought to re-boot the failing global 2015 Strategic Development Goals programme. It also gave some a global platform to put the boot into Israel.
The summit opened on Tuesday as Israel began airstrikes against the Iran-backed terrorist organisation Hezbollah in Lebanon. It came a week after thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies exploded in targeted action, injuring thousands of Hezbollah associates including the Iranian Ambassador. Not only did it demonstrate the use of intelligence and technology in modern warfare, it inspired hundreds of memes about sudden onset domestic appliance dread. Who was responsible remains a matter of conjecture.
As Israeli jets strafed the Bek’aa Valley on Tuesday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres declared Lebanon was “at the brink” and that the world cannot afford for it “to become another Gaza”.
Echoing both him and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, Brazil’s President Lula referenced the “collective punishment” of the Palestinian people, adding Israel’s “right to defence has become the right to vengeance.” Ramaphosa called for East Jerusalem to become the capital of a new state for Palestinians who have been “subjected to more than half a century of apartheid”.
Somehow, the Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel, which have continued for the best part of a year, seemed to have slipped the minds of the trio.
On 7th October, Iran-backed Hamas terrorists based in Gaza murdered 1,269 people in Israel and took 255 hostages. On 8th October, Hezbollah launched missile attacks in southern Lebanon. About 60,000 Israelis were evacuated from the northern border area and remain displaced.
Had the equivalent of 7th October occurred in the UK, about 9,000 British citizens would have been killed.
This far exceeds the 9/11 death toll. After that, the Blair government offered the United States unwavering support. Speaking to a Joint Session of Congress, President George Bush thanked Prime Minister Blair for his unity of purpose with the American people.
Back in 2001, Bush gave the world a simple choice: “Either you are with us. Or you’re with the terrorists.” British soldiers went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan to counter terrorism. Operation Banner, the longest in the British Army’s history, was partly to counter terrorism in Northern Ireland.
It must be asked why the Starmer government is happy to give the impression that the United Kingdom is with Hamas and Hezbollah, two Islamist terrorist groups, financed and armed by Iran.
Last week Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused No.10 of sending “mixed messages” over its support, in contrast to the Sunak regime. Its “misguided decisions” would “undermine” Israel’s right to defend itself.
The government has suspended 30 arms licenses to Israel and dropped opposition to an arrest warrant for alleged war crimes that could be issued by the International Criminal Court against PM Netanyahu and his Deputy.
As Opposition Leader, Keir Starmer was initially supportive of Israel’s response in Gaza. As the months passed, opposition grew more vociferous, with huge anti-Israel demonstrations most Saturdays in London. And thanks to Gaza, sectarianism became a factor in July’s General Election. The Moslem Vote, for example, encouraged tactical voting.
Four MPs of the Independent Alliance could well be reminding Labour where its interests lies.
Winning elections is a numbers game. You need not be a cynical party strategist to be aware that Moslems are estimated to be 6.5 per cent of population of England and Wales; Jewish people are 0.5 per cent. The BBC reports that more than 80 per cent of Moslems voted Labour in 2019.
The Blair government aspired to a foreign policy with an ethical dimension. In contrast, the Starmer Cabinet seems motivated by appeasing its domestic Moslem base. Few ministers or the Labour Mayor seem troubled by calls for jihad on the streets of the capital: “From London to Gaza, we’ll have an Intifada.”
Last Sunday, Robert Jenrick went for a run. The message on his hoodie was unambiguous: “Hamas are terrorists.” The smaller print stated “Terrorism Act 2000.”
In the troubled Middle East, Israel is a beacon of Western values. It has been under relentless bombardment by Iran’s proxies, which have misappropriated aid in Gaza, are a destabilising state-within-a-state in Lebanon and exploit the cause of the Palestinian people.
Israel Daily News reported that Wednesday was Day 355 of the war. The UN Security Council has been passing resolutions in connection with Lebanon since 1978. Demands for ceasefires, de-escalation and a viable two-state solution are meaningless.
Islamist terrorists are committed to the destruction of Israel and the genocide of the Jewish people: Israel is determined to resist them. War is usually waged in the interests of a better peace, but it is never casualty-free.
The Starmer government’s equivocation over Israel is not in the long-term interests of this country – or of the West.
As Israel’s President Herzog told Sky News “… We expect friends and allies to be there for us all the time as we are for them.”
Britain should be as supportive of Israel as it is of Ukraine.
Might the Johnson premiership be under review sooner than thought possible?
Boris was never one for best-clothes-for-representing-Britain prissiness: he always looks like an unmade bed. But he remains a hero in Ukraine, having led the West’s opposition to the Russian invasion.
Thanks to his stance, Britain’s foreign policy truly had an ethical dimension.
