David Herman is a freelance journalist. He has written for the Guardian, the New Statesman, The Article, Prospect and Standpoint, among others.
Recently, David Lammy announced that the British Government would be suspending 30 arms licences to Israel. He did so at almost exactly the same time that Hersh Goldberg-Polin, one of the six Israeli hostages just murdered by Hamas, was being buried. It is hard to know which was worse: the terrible timing; the fact that so few of the licences were being suspended, so that the action was trivial as well as cack-handed; or that this was a slap in the face to Britain’s only reliable ally in the Middle East. Perhaps worse than any of these, it showed that Britain’s new Foreign Secretary does not understand either the causes or the larger significance of the conflict between Hamas and Israel.
Let’s start with the timing of Mr. Lammy’s announcement in the House of Commons. It could not have been more offensive. As Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “Days after Hamas executed six Israeli hostages, the UK government suspended thirty arms licences to Israel.”
Or as Phil Rosenberg, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said on Radio 4, “On the day that those beautiful people were being buried, kidnapped from a music festival like Reading or Glastonbury, the UK decides to send a signal that it’s Israel that it wants to penalise, and that is a terrible, terrible message to be sending both to Israel in its hour of need, also to Hamas about the consequences – where consequences are for the horrific actions that Hamas has taken as a terrorist organisation, but also to other allies and adversaries around the world.”
Israelis and British Jews were dismayed by Lammy’s gesture. Yoav Gallant, Israeli’s Minister of Defence, but more significantly, no friend of Netanyahu, said that he was “Deeply disheartened to learn of the sanctions placed by the U.K. Government on export licenses to Israel’s defense establishment. This comes at a time when we fight a war on 7 different fronts — a war that was launched by a savage terrorist organisation, unprovoked. At a time when we mourn 6 hostages who were executed in cold blood by Hamas inside tunnels in Gaza. At a time when we fight to bring 101 hostages home. I stand by our troops and security agencies working with immense courage, professionalism and moral values. We remain committed to defending the State of Israel and her people.”
Every major Jewish organisation in Britain agreed with Netanyahu and Gallant. The Jewish Leadership Council said in a statement that, “Today’s decision to restrict the export of arms to Israel is deeply disappointing. Today, when the bodies of the six murdered hostages are still being buried, it is more important than ever for the UK to stand by its ally Israel. No one should forget the reason Israel is currently at war. 322 days ago, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel to murder, maim, torture, rape, and kidnap. On that day, Israeli civilians waited for the IDF to rescue them from this ordeal. In the 11 months since then, Israel has faced continued threats on its borders as Hamas continues to threaten from Gaza while Hezbollah struck from Lebanon and the Houthis sought to expand the conflict further from Yemen.”
A spokesperson for Labour Friends of Israel told the Jewish Chronicle that, “We do not believe that restrictions on UK arms sales will help bring the tragic conflict in Gaza to a close or help ensure the release of the hostages, six of whom Hamas brutally murdered just days ago. Moreover, we are deeply concerned by the signal this sends to Iran, the world’s leading sponsor of state terrorism and Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in Ukraine. We fear therefore that these restrictions risk encouraging Israel’s enemies, leading to greater escalation rather than de-escalation.”
The Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, said, “It beggars belief that the British Government, a close strategic ally of Israel, has announced a partial suspension of arms licences, at a time when Israel is fighting a war for its very survival… As Israel faces down the threat of Iran and its proxies, not just to its own people, but to all of us in the democratic west; this announcement feeds the falsehood that Israel is in breach of International Humanitarian Law, when in fact it is going to extraordinary lengths to uphold it. Sadly, this announcement will serve to encourage our shared enemies. It will not help to secure the release of the remaining 101 hostages, nor contribute to the peaceful future we wish and pray for, for all people in the region and beyond. Britain and Israel have so much to gain by standing together against our common enemies for the sake of a safer world. Surely that must be the way forward.”
They are not the only critics of David Lammy’s flawed response to the situation in Gaza. But there are two larger points.
First, Israel is not just an ally. It is the UK’s most important and loyal ally in the entire Middle East region. It therefore deserves to be treated with proper respect and, indeed, warmth. Certainly, Israel deserves better treatment than it has received from the new Labour government, especially from David Lammy, and from Joe Biden’s outgoing US government, especially from Biden himself.
Secondly, Lammy and Biden have both completely failed to grasp the larger significance of the conflict in Gaza. They are not alone in this. This failure is shared by much of the British and American mainstream media and by many academics and co-called “experts” in both countries. This is not some minor skirmish between Israel and two terrorist organisations (Hamas and Hezbollah). It is part of a larger war of civilizations between western liberalism and Islamic fundamentalism; hence the importance of Iran’s support for Palestinian Arab terrorism. If Israel loses this war, it will result in anti-Jewish genocide and will be a disaster for the liberal West.
Lammy’s weak response shows that he is completely out of his depth. He was a disastrous appointment as Foreign Secretary, yet another in a long line.
The same is true of Biden’s weak and yet self-righteous set of responses since the brutal massacre on October 7 last year. A TV reporter asked Biden, “Mr President, do you think it’s time for Mr Netanyahu to do more on this issue? Is he doing enough?” “No,”’said Biden. Again, remember the timing. Six Israeli hostages had just been brutally murdered by terrorists. And remember the context. Israel is a hugely important ally for the US and the UK. I appreciate that Biden has some cognitive difficulties, but these do not excuse his appalling lack of statesmanship.
One two-letter word. That’s all Israel deserves from America’s President? Has Biden himself done enough to get a Gaza hostage deal? More significantly, has he done enough to rescue American hostages held in the most appalling conditions by Islamic terrorists? (He may have asked himself, instead, if he is doing enough to gain the Muslim vote, ed.)
Soon after, in response to Netanyahu’s insistence on the Philadelphi Corridor in his latest statement, Biden said, “I’m not negotiating with Netanyahu, but with my counterparts in Qatar and Egypt.” Let’s be clear. Biden’s not negotiating with anyone. And to place Israel’s Prime Minister below two countries, which have played such a disastrous role in this conflict, above Israel’s Prime Minister, is shameful. Biden’s reputation will never recover from these comments.
One final question about both Lammy and Biden. Have they done enough to support Israel, or have they been too focused on the Muslim vote in election year in both countries? One of our best Anglo-Jewish journalists, Stephen Pollard, former editor of The Jewish Chronicle , is utterly damning about Lammy’s motives:
“It is, of course, an accident of timing that the government’s arms embargo to Israel — and yes, that is what it is, albeit not a full embargo — should be announced on the same day as the formation of the ‘Independent Alliance’ of Corbyn and the five independent Muslim MPs. But while the timing may be a coincidence, the politics behind them is most definitely not. Labour is well aware of the threat posed to it by sectarian Muslim voting. In 37 constituencies more than 20 per cent of the population are Muslim, and in a further 73 seats the Muslim population is between 10 and 20 per cent. There is an electorally significant Muslim population in 110 constituencies.
A pre-election poll showed that one in four British Muslims cited the Israel/Palestine conflict as their most important issue, compared to just 3 per cent of the public. These attitudes are what are behind government policy now, with Labour focusing on staving off further Muslim drift away from the party. More of this is on its way — expect legislation over ‘Islamophobia’ and other such policies.”
Melanie Phillips is just as scathing. She wrote about Lammy,
“He told MPs that a two-month review had found a ‘clear risk’ that UK arms might be used in serious violation of international humanitarian law.
This was absolute rubbish. There is no such risk and the Government knows it. It was choosing to defame and punish Israel, at a time of epidemic antisemitism and anti-Israel derangement, in order to feed the ravenous hatred of Israel that consumes a high proportion of Labour MPs and party supporters as well as Labour’s steadily increasing Muslim constituency.”
She wrote just before the July election,
“The question about a Starmer government is not whether it will be bad for the Jews. The only question is how bad.”
A few weeks later she writes, “Now we know.’
The same is true of Biden and now Harris. Both have had their opportunistic eyes on two sets of voters: the growing Muslim vote and the youth vote, both of which have been passionately anti-Israel since October 2023. They have thrown Jewish-American voters under the bus.
The moral to Britain and America’s closest allies is: don’t expect decency or principle from either country during election year and possibly not in any year from centre-left governments in both countries.
Reposted with permission from TheArticle , which aims to be "a website which helps you make sense of the news through free access to exchanges of ideas, rather than echo chambers of prejudice. We have no ideological agenda and we promise never to tell you what to think. Our aim is simply to preserve the integrity of the free press in this country by embracing nuance and complexity – and showing the world in all its shades of grey. To read /TheArticle is to see a story from every angle with no abuse, no extremism - and proper editing."