The British government has changed its rhetoric on the Gaza genocide. The more it does so, the more its actual policy stands exposed as politically and morally bankrupt.
Ministers have deprecated Israel’s renewed offensive in Gaza, and express mounting concern at the criminal slaughter of aid workers in particular, as well as the unbridled terror and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. They urge an immediate restoration of the ceasefire.
In this it reflects the views of many in all parties, and most in all except perhaps the Tories. Israel’s outspoken defenders are a breed diminishing by the day in the Commons.
And yet this shift has not been accompanied by the slightest modification in policy.
Will Labour now recognise a Palestinian state, as it pledged to do immediately under Jeremy Corbyn? Ministers respond in the spirit of Saint Augustine they will be virtuous, but not yet.
Will Labour halt all arms sales to genocidal Israel? They have made their determinations on international law, the Foreign Office replies, and will not change them.
Will the assistance provided to the Israeli onslaught by RAF Akotiri, the base in Cyprus, be ended? On that, officialdom is struck entirely dumb.
Will they acknowledge that Israel is breaching international humanitarian law every single day? Ah, there is indeed a risk of such a breach, but judgement is reserved to the international courts, whose verdict cannot be anticipated, ministers intone a reservation never applied in the case of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, be it noted.
Will the far-right Israeli ambassador to Britain be sent packing? Tzipi Livni can, it seems, sleep undisturbed in her bed.
Will fascist ministers in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government like Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir be sanctioned? The matter is under review in Whitehall, as it has been for a year.
Is there, in fact, a genocide taking place in Gaza to which Britain has an obligation to respond? The word never escapes an official lip, despite the daily evidence before all our eyes, for fear of the implications.
All this policy is unchanged despite the tacit admission that the world is witnessing a crime for the ages unfolding against the Palestinian people.
Starmer is maintaining the traditional British imperial policy of support for zionism, however cruel to the point of derangement its actions may be. And should he be minded to wobble ever so slightly, fear of the response from the Trump administration will be more than enough to keep him and the wretched Foreign Secretary David Lammy in line.
Yet let it not be said that the government is entirely passive on this matter. It is acting with determination to crack down on the extraordinary mass movement of solidarity with the Palestinian people which has taken to the streets over the last 18 months.
It has hauled organisers in for police interrogation, charging some. It is preparing new legislation, ostensibly to protect places of worship under no threat whatsoever from this movement, which would have the effect of making demonstrations hard to legally organise.
And at the same time, they are sending the Metropolitan Police to kick down the doors of a Quaker meeting house to arrest six young women planning non-violent protest.
That is the real face of the Starmer government, not the new warm words tumbling from ministerial mouths.
The movement should not be fooled. Indeed, it must be strengthened by building links with all those concerned about vital democratic freedoms. These are, as ever, menaced in time of war, even proxy wars of the sort the British state is energetically waging in Gaza and Ukraine.
More than ever, fight for solidarity with the Palestinians.
Source: Morning Star