Establishment unity around support for Israel’s genocide is at long last crumbling. Keir Starmer’s backing for Netanyahu is under increasing pressure as Israel presses on with killing, starving and displacing the Palestinian people in a crime for the ages.
Some of Israel’s strongest erstwhile supporters are now saying they have had enough. Rather little, and much too late of course. But that it is happening at all is testimony not just to the horrors being inflicted on the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank but to the sustained strength of the solidarity movement on the streets of Britain.
We have helped make support for Israel politically and morally unsustainable, something which now needs to be converted into a real break in government policy.
The new ruptures are on stark display in the Commons. While the Tory front bench remains uncritically supportive of the genocide, it speaks for fewer and fewer of its own back-benchers.
For example, the longest-serving MP in the Commons, Edward Leigh, asked the government this week “in the name of God, why can we not give the Palestinian people some hope? Why can we not give them the same right to self-determination and recognise a Palestinian state now?”
Fellow Tory Kit Malthouse said during the same exchanges “we are seeing the live-streamed starvation of an entire people…can he not see what the majority of the House can see, which is that he is facing a catastrophic failure of government policy.”
And Conservative diehard Mark Pritchard said: “I have supported Israel, pretty much at all costs, but today I say I got it wrong…I withdraw my support right now for the actions of Israel and what it is doing right now in Gaza.”
He called on the government to “stand up” to the US if needs be and “be on the right side of history.”
Some of these MPs were among the dozen Tory parliamentarians who wrote to Starmer urging a different policy on the crisis.
“For decades, the Palestinian people have endured occupation, displacement and systemic restrictions on their basic freedoms,” they wrote.
“Recognising Palestine would affirm our nation’s commitment to upholding the principles of justice, self-determination and equal rights. It would send a clear message that Britain stands against indefinite occupation and supports the Palestinian people’s legitimate aspirations.”
The letter continues:“Recognition should not be treated as a distant bargaining chip but as a necessary step to reinforce international law and diplomacy. Prime minister, we stand ready to offer our public support for this decision.
“This is an opportunity for Britain to show leadership, to be on the right side of history and to uphold the principles we claim to champion. More than 140 UN member states have already recognised Palestine – it is time for the United Kingdom to do the same.”
Many Labour MPs – albeit a minority – opposed Starmer’s pro-Israel line from the outset of the crisis. But now even Netanyahu’s backers in Labour are mainly struck dumb.
Even Jon Pearce, High Peak MP and new-minted Chair of the notorious Labour Friends of Israel group in parliament, now only pleads on behalf of the Israeli opposition to the Netanyahu government.
And the great majority of the party’s backbenchers are now pushing for an end to the war and to British government complicity in it. They also demand recognition of a Palestinian state, and many are unafraid to call what is happening by its proper names – genocide, ethnic cleansing and a rupture with international law, all phrases never to be heard on ministerial lips.
In another sign of establishment concerns, the Financial Times editorialised this week on “The west’s shameful silence on Gaza,” writing that “the US and European allies should do more to restrain Benjamin Netanyahu.”
It opined: “Each new offensive makes it harder not to suspect that the ultimate goal of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition is to ensure Gaza is uninhabitable and drive Palestinians from their land. For two months, Israel has blocked delivery of all aid into the strip. Child malnutrition rates are rising, the few functioning hospitals are running out of medicine, and warnings of starvation and disease are growing louder.
“Yet the US and European countries that tout Israel as an ally that shares their values have issued barely a word of condemnation. They should be ashamed of their silence, and stop enabling Netanyahu to act with impunity.”
The barbarity of the war has also impacted on the Board of Deputies of British Jews, a body constitutionally committed to advocating for Israel more-or-less regardless of its conduct.
Thirty-six deputies, more than 10 per cent of the total, have gone public denouncing Israel’s unilateral breach of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, and pointing out that it was driven by appeasement of the far right in Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition.
The deputies wrote they could no longer “turn a blind eye or remain silent” over what is happening in Gaza.“Israel’s soul is being ripped out,” they said, adding that “our Jewish values compel us to stand up and to speak out.”
Thirty rabbis have since publicly expressed their own support for the letter.
Of course, thousands of brave anti- or non-zionist Jewish men and women have been marching for justice in Palestine right from the start of the present war, and in many cases all their political lives. They sought no permission from the Board.
The Board’s claims to speak for all Jewish people has always been fraudulent, but the split in its ranks is nevertheless significant, bringing into open opposition a section of Zionist supporters themselves.
That the Board have responded to this dissent by launching a disciplinary probe into the signatories, and suspending one from her functions, is a sign that it is rattled.
Of course, it is right to be sceptical about some of these new-found advocates of justice, who have managed to look the other way as atrocity has piled on atrocity over the last eighteen months. They are not necessarily going to be our allies over the long haul.
But the movement should not be cynical. If some of Israel’s staunch supporters, watching the same footage from Gaza and the West Bank as the rest of the world, have now had enough that can only be welcomed, and their voices encouraged and amplified, rather than dismissed.
It should be recognised that these fissures are not due simply to the horrors being visited on Palestine by the depraved Netanyahu far-right coalition government, they are also a measure of the impact of our mass movement of solidarity, which impact is also reflected in the increasing police measurers to curb our right to protest.
Yet now is the time to redouble our campaigning efforts. The suffering in Gaza demands it, and the divisions in the elite encourage it.
Starmer is repeatedly told to “get on the right side of history”. That is a place he has no intention of even passing by, let alone taking up residence. The right side of history is going to have to pay him a visit instead.
That starts with next week’s Nakba Day demonstration in London. It should be built as the biggest ever. If our rulers can no longer hold the line, we owe it to the heroic Palestinians to widen the breach and force the government to change course.