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Performative and self-defeating outrage won’t create a Palestinian state
'Misrepresentations and outright lies' from our foreign secretary: the UK has become a hostile state that is actively trying to turn Israel into a pariah
Yesterday, the Foreign Secretary announced that the government would impose a ban on all Israeli settlement goods, as well as services from some specific companies in the West Bank. In doing so, he justified his punitive approach to Israel as a means of preserving the two state solution, the ‘North Star’ of his government’s policy in the region.
As if to emphasize this, he declared that there was a ‘deeply painful contrast between our professed commitment to a two state solution and the reality on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank’ and added that the government would not be ‘bystanders to further suffering’.
Miliband made clear that the failure to create two states was down to the decisions of the Israeli government. He spoke of the growth of the settlement population from 1993 to the present, the approval of new settlements, the recent eviction of 4,000 Palestinians and the E1 settlement project. In sum, this represented ‘the creation of a set of facts on the ground to make the two state solution unviable.’
To Israelis, consumed by their impending election, all this will seem not only absurdly myopic and historically illiterate but tone deaf following the horrors of October 7. They will surely be aghast that the UK, a once reliable ally and friend, has now become a hostile state that is actively trying to turn Israel into a pariah.
For what was galling was the one sided nature of this attack. There was no mention of Palestinian failure for the absence of a peace settlement. There was nothing about how the PLO and the PA walked away from a Palestinian state in 2000 and 2001, despite all the efforts of President Clinton, or how Abbas had rejected the Olmert offer of two states in 2008, as well as later offers that came under Obama and Trump. He said not a word about the PA’s ‘pay for slay’ policy which rewards terrorists for their murderous attacks on Israelis, about rampant incitement in the Palestinian education system and media or the appalling human rights abuses under Palestinian rule.
Miliband did call for the speeding up of Palestinian reform but that was it. Anyone listening to his speech would conclude that settlements alone were stifling the chance for peace. In which case, perhaps Miliband can explain why the removal of settlements from Gaza in 2005 did not herald a new age of peace and security, and why it led, instead, to the creation of an Islamist terror state on Israel’s borders.
It is this reason alone that will make even left wing Israelis cringe at the Foreign Secretary’s remarks. The demonic savagery of October 7 has shown that Palestinian statehood, in the absence of extensive deradicalization and disarmament, would create an existential nightmare for Israelis.
Were such a state to appear in the West Bank, and were Hamas to be its rulers, which polling suggests is inevitable, then most of Israel’s major population centres and its only international airport would be within range of deadly rockets and tunnels. It would be like inviting ISIS to create a state five miles from London and hoping that power would somehow diminish its appetite for destruction. Israelis cannot take that risk, nor will they.
It is true that there are legitimate concerns about violent behaviour from some radical settlers. Their criminality, violence and lawlessness is a threat, not just to innocent Palestinians, but also to the rule of law and the IDF. Israel must confront these individuals as a matter of urgency. There will also be a justified reckoning with the country’s far right ministers who have encouraged this extremism with some of their remarks.
But even here, the term ‘settler terrorism’ is both misleading and malign. The vast majority of settlers eschew violence and criminality and simply wish to live in peace and security. Many interact with the tens of thousands of Palestinians who come to work in the West Bank on a daily basis and welcome the chance for co-existence. Moreover, the reprehensible attacks from Jewish criminals are outweighed by the far greater violence from Arab terrorists, a factor that Miliband somehow forgot to mention in his parliamentary speech.
The vast majority of settlers eschew violence and criminality and simply wish to live in peace and security
Of course, Miliband’s misrepresentations and outright lies do not stop there. His video expressing deep concern at ‘stories’ of medical aid not reaching Palestinians is contradicted by COGAT figures which show that ‘22,500 tons of medical supplies have entered the Strip’ since the ceasefire, and that hospital bed capacity has increased by over 50% in that same period. The most likely reason for blockages inside Gaza is the continuing, and parasitical, presence of Hamas.
Then there was Miliband’s decision to use the figure of ‘over 70,000’ Palestinians killed in Gaza. Not only is this number taken from Hamas’s own statements but it suggests that all such deaths were of innocent people. Miliband failed to mention the likely number of terrorists among them (perhaps 20,000) and the fact that, as with any brutal urban war against an enemy that has embedded its assets in residential areas, there will always be extensive civilian casualties.
It is undeniable that Palestinian suffering from this war is real and the fate of innocents is tragic. Like Israelis, Palestinians deserve a better future where they can grow and prosper without fear. But that does not mean that the role played by Hamas in causing that suffering should be airbrushed from the record. That the Foreign Secretary and his government are so willing to do so is utterly shameful.
Of course, this policy is unlikely to change facts on the ground, especially now that the government has said that an export ban will remain in place ‘as long as the occupation persists.’ After all, if the emphasis is on removing Israel from its ‘illegal’ conquest of territory, what incentive does the PA have for making far-reaching compromises?
In that sense, the measure is as performative as it is self-defeating. But we do know that Labour faces a resurgent threat from the Green Party, both around the country and in the coming Holborn and St Pancras by-election. Announcing at the annual conference that the government has ‘got tough’ with Israel will win plaudits and may even win a parliamentary seat. In other words, it is about electoral advantage and cynical calculation at the expense of principled foreign policy. What a shameful indictment of this government.
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