Keir Starmer tried in a speech this week to ‘clarify’ his view about Israel waging its war on the people of Gaza. He tried by logical acrobatics to row back on his now infamous LBC interview, in which he said Israel had the “right” to cut off water, food and energy to the Palestinians in Gaza, despite that being a ‘war crime’ by any definition applied to the Ukraine conflict.
Social media is full of the most heart-rending videos of the pulverisation of Gaza and the maiming and murder of thousands of children. The hospitals there are now so severely depleted by the bombing and lack of energy and supplies that even the severely wounded are being treated on the floor. A former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a resignation letter, described the events in Gaza as “a textbook case of genocide.”
The International Criminal Court and various United Nations agencies have suggested that the withholding of life’s necessities and humanitarian aid, and the bombardment of civilians, constitute ‘war crimes’. All of this is clear, but not, apparently, to Keir Starmer, allegedly an expert in Human Rights law.
It is only as regards Israel’s “rights”, that Starmer is standing firm. The Labour Friends of Israel is a powerful lobby in the Parliamentary Labour Party, and Starmer’s stance coincides with their view. But nonetheless, as dozens of resolutions and open letters have shown – and more are reported every day – there is a groundswell of support for Palestinian rights. It is the denial of these rights – for decades – which is the root cause of the Hamas attack in early October and the subsequent bombardment of Gaza.
Starmer is one of those who have looked the other way
It was noticeable that at the end of Starmer’s speech, he made only a passing reference to the underlying cause of the conflict. He referred, as if as an afterthought, to a “complete renewal of a political process” to create a lasting peaceful settlement for a two-state solution. “Too many people”, he said, “have looked away and said it’s simply too difficult. We cannot justify that any longer.”
What Starmer did not say is that it has been the right wing of the Labour Party, including himself and the Labour Friends of Netanyahu, who have looked the other way while Israeli has strengthened its apartheid by taking Palestinian land for settlements and denying them their rights, year after year!
Those who looked away bear some responsibility for the conflagration that we are now witnessing. They said nothing when Gaza was kept as an open prison for over fifteen years, as Palestinian land was confiscated for Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank, as Palestinian deaths and injuries at the hands of the IDF and armed settlers mounted year after year.
In March, Margaret Hodge, Labour MP and chair of the right-wing Jewish Labour Movement, wrote in the Guardian, “the two-state solution seems a fantasy at this moment, with little prospect of it developing into a political reality”. Her article, typical of Labour’s right wing, was framed around the idea of Netanyahu bringing “Israel” to a dangerous moment, not bringing Gaza or West Bank Palestinians into danger.
Hodge did not even mention the blockade of Gaza in her article, or explain why the two-state solution had, in her view, become a “fantasy”. That has not happened overnight but over years of creeping apartheid, thanks in part to the silence of Labour’s right wing.
Starmer steadfastly refuses to support a cease-fire in Gaza
On this issue, Starmer is more isolated than he has been at any time in his nearly four years in office. He has doubled down on Israel’s “rights” being more important than anything else. He has called only for temporary cessations in the Gaza bombardment, to allow humanitarian relief into Gaza, and is against a full cease-fire because, he argues, it would undermine Israeli “rights”.
But against Starmer, thousands of Labour members have protested. Many Muslim members and councillors have resigned, many of the latter no doubt taking large sections their voters with them. Leaving the Party is not a policy we would support, but it is certainly understandable. Last week, over three hundred councillors signed an open letter protesting against Starmer’s stance.
So many councillors have resigned, that Labour has now lost control of at least one council. According to a Guardian report, “a senior Labour source”, seeing these resignations, disgracefully referred to the party as “shaking off the fleas”.
No fewer than twenty council Labour groups (so far) have passed resolutions calling for a cease-fire, as have some thirteen Shadow ministers, including Jess Phillips and Naz Shah. Shah criticised Israel’s “disproportionate attacks on a civilian population”, adding, quite correctly, and perhaps with a nod towards Starmer, “this is not defence”. Besides these front benchers, nearly a quarter of the Parliamentary Labour Party have called for a cease-fire.
Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, London mayor, Sadiq Khan, and Anas Sarwar, Scottish Labour leader, have called for a cease-fire. With each passing day, there are more reports of resolutions and open letters of protest against Starmer’s stand. The tide of opinion in the labour movement is in step with the crescendo of demonstrations and occupations taking place all over the country.
Attempts to bureaucratically stifle discussion are failing
Despite this, the Labour Party apparatus, in true Stalinist fashion, is trying to clamp down on any discussion of a cease-fire in Constituency Labour Parties. That has still not stopped some CLPs discussing and passing resolutions, in some cases unanimously. Outrage will not be stifled, whatever Keir Starmer and David Evans wish.
The most bizarre act of bureaucratic stupidity is the suspension of MP Andy McDonald, for using the phrase “from the river to the sea”. The reference is to the area of land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, what is now Israel and the West Bank. It is a phrase commonly used on the right wing of Israeli politics, where the whole of this area is claimed as Jewish territory. The expression Eretz Israel, when used by Zionists, means precisely the same thing: from the river to the sea and it implies the expulsion of Arabs.
Andy McDonald’s use of the phrase could in no sense be inferred as being antisemitic or even anti-Israeli. What he said was, “We will not rest until we have justice. Until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea, can live in peaceful liberty.” (BBC report). Labour spokespersons even admit that the expression is used in Israel and even recently by the Israeli ambassador in London. But what is important for them, is not what is said, but who says it and where.
Forde Report noted a “hierarchy of racism” in the Labour Party
The Forde Report, reported more than two years ago, that the Party was “in effect operating a hierarchy of racism or of discrimination with other forms of racism and discrimination being ignored”. The right-wing dominated leadership have quietly buried that report, but their suspension of Andy McDonald simply underscores that hierarchy.
In case pro-Israeli members might feel “uncomfortable” with a discussion on Gaza, such discussions are banned by David Evans. But when Muslim Labour members protest about Starmer’s stance, they are “fleas” to the right wing. What is this, but a hierarchy of discrimination?
It looks like this terrible war has some way yet to run, and the longer it does, the more profound will be the change it brings to the whole Middle East, not excluding Israel.
But the Gaza war has the potential to bring about unexpected earthquakes in the political landscape of Europe and the USA too, including in the British labour movement. Until recently, no-one would have expected that Keir Starmer would relinquish the Labour leadership this side of a general election.
But the longer he maintains his disgraceful support for a “genocidal” Israeli policy in Gaza, the more isolated he becomes in the entire labour and trade union movement, the more he is exposed to the voting public at large. He no longer has a shred of moral authority among the big majority of Labour Party members as it is. It is no consolation to the victims in Gaza at the moment, but the sooner Starmer is gone, the better.
[Photo top: demonstrators outside Labour Party dinner attended by Starmer in Newcastle on Friday November 2]
