Right across the globe there has been a tidal wave of opposition to the mass killing in Gaza and the attempted ethnic cleansing of its population by Israel. It has been this huge weight of public opinion – and nothing else – that is finally – finally – dragging western politicians, as it were, kicking and screaming, into acknowledging the genocide taking place.
The statements of Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary, David Lammy in the House of Commons this week were dripping with hypocrisy and insincerity. It is only now, after nearly 54,000 Palestinian deaths, overwhelmingly non-combatants and a third of them children, that Lammy talks about “a dark new phase of this conflict“. Even in saying this, we should note, he is clinging to the biased language of mainstream politicians, as if a grossly one-sided war on a mostly unarmed population, could be described as a “conflict”.
Keir Starmer the day before demanded that Israel “massively scale up” aid to Gaza, adding, “…that innocent children being bombed again is utterly intolerable.” Starmer is well aware that “innocent children” have been bombed and killed in their thousands for nineteen months. What is “utterly intolerable” is for a ‘Labour’ Prime Minister to refuse to utter any criticism of Israel for eighteen and a half of those months.
The statements of Lammy and Starmer are not borne out of a sudden revelation that Israel is committing war crimes on a daily basis – that has been obvious for over a year and a half (and before October 7) – but because world opinion has pushed events to a tipping point. What has got the pro-Israeli lobby choking with rage is not the terrible death toll in Gaza, but the realisation that they are an increasingly narrow and despised part of the population.
Still selling arms to Israel
The Damascene conversions of Lammy and Starmer will not wash away their complicity in the destruction of Gaza. They will be judged by history for having supported Israeli to the hilt for a year and a half while it has rained more high explosives on the Gaza strip than on most European cities during the Second World War. It has been two months since Israel blocked humanitarian aid going to Gaza and up until this week these two uttered barely a peep of protest.
Even now, behind all the words of ‘sympathy’, the UK government is still selling arms to Israel. According to The National newspaper, this ‘Labour’ government licensed more exports of military supplies to Israel in the last three months of last year than the Tories did for all of 2020-2023.
Lammy has announced ‘sanctions’ on a secondary and incidental leader of the Israeli settler movement. But sanctions on Netanyahu or the two most right wing members of his cabinet, Smotrich and Ben Gvir, who have cheered on the genocide? Not a chance.
Nonetheless, notwithstanding the nauseating hypocrisy of so many politicians, this week has been a significant turning point. More than fifty-thousand deaths, a deliberate policy of starvation, the murder of aid workers and medical personnel – and numerous other war crimes – have even left the Labour Friends of Netanyahu with nowhere to hide.
It is not that Starmer, Lammy and their ilk internationally have had a genuine change of heart. It is that as a result of the political pressure of hundreds of millions, the situation is now similar to that of apartheid South Africa – these people can no longer be seen to be supporting a genocidal regime.
Biggest political and diplomatic defeat in Israel’s history
As we have suggested, Israel’s overwhelming military superiority, has given it a military ‘victory’, but it has suffered the biggest political and diplomatic defeat in its whole history. The merciless Israeli assault on Gaza – particularly its recent denial of food aid to a starving population – has so roused public opinion that, at long last, western politicians have been forced to respond.
Both the EU and the UK have suspended trade talks with Israel this week. This follows a joint statement by the Canadian, French and British governments threatening further sanctions if the humanitarian blockade of Gaza were not lifted. Israeli ambassadors have been harangued by foreign ministers in one country after another. There has even been a change in Donald Trump’s attitude to Netanyahu, giving him the cold-shoulder, while visiting Arab states in the region.
The coverage of Gaza by the BBC has, remarkably, seen a shift after having appeared at times to have its ‘news’ written by the Israeli Ministry of Information. BBC coverage was so bad that over 600 well-know figures from the world the arts and media, signed an open letter two weeks ago criticising the BBC for withholding a documentary they produced on doctors working in Gaza.
The wall of silence is finally starting to crack
“We stand with the medics of Gaza whose voices are being silenced”, the open letter said. “Their urgent stories are being buried by bureaucracy and political censorship. This is not editorial caution. It’s political suppression. The BBC has provided no timeline, no transparency. Such decisions reinforce the systemic devaluation of Palestinian lives in our media.” But even the BBC is now allowing the voices of those suffering in Gaza to be heard. As journalist Jonathan Cook wrote, “the wall of silence on the Gaza genocide is finally starting to crack.”
Western media and politicians are still having the greatest difficulty calling out genocide for what it is. Even some Israeli politicians are more blunt. Yair Golan, the leader of the Israeli Democrats Party, recently accused Netanyahu on public radio of “endangering” the country’s existence. “Israel”, he said “is on the way to becoming a pariah state, like South Africa was…”
In one astonishing outburst, Golan accused Israel’s policy of being “insane”. “A sane country”, he said, “ does not fight against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby and does not give itself the aim of expelling populations.” The only thing wrong with these comments – which are far more honest and forthright than anything coming out of the mouths of Starmer or Lammy – is that Israel is already a pariah state.
The status of Israel as a universally-loathed and aggressive and Spartan state has affected its own population, outside of the political far right. More Israelis than ever before are questioning the nature of the state and its future. The liberal Israeli Haaretz newspaper reports (May 12) that “nearly 60,000 Israelis left the country last year and didn’t return – more than twice the number in 2023”. The same paper suggests that two fifths of the population are considering leaving.
Faux outrage in words, but little action
It is impossible to say where exactly this shift leaves the desperate population of Gaza, nor the Palestinians in the West Bank, who have suffered the greatest assault on their land, their property and their lives since 1948. Has the Zionist steamroller, which wants to ethnically cleanse the whole of Palestine, been temporarily stopped in its tracks? It is too early to tell, but politics in Israel and in the Middle East as a whole is irrevocably changed.
The weasel words of Lammy and Starmer are long on faux outrage but short on actions. We can put no trust whatsoever in the political representatives of capitalism, whether in the west, in Israel or for that matter, in the Arab states. The voice that is potentially the loudest, and which is without doubt the most feared, is that of the working class of the Arab states, especially Egypt. It is a voice yet to speak, but it is only a matter of time before it does, and when that happens it will join the crescendo of protests of workers and youth across the globe.
It is the international labour movement that is the best guarantor of the rights and aspirations of the Palestinian people, not mainstream media and politicians. The methods of international labour will not be just empty words, but will include boycotts and sanctions on any goods, particularly arms, going to Israel.
In the longer run, it would be possible for both Jews and Arabs to live together in the region, with security, economic development and peace. But that will happen only from the support and movements of workers internationally, not from the pretended concern of untrustworthy politicians.
[Feature picture: David Lammy making his statement in the House of Commons]
