Wes Streeting is playing politics with Britain’s national security

Before he’d worked his way through the contents of his first red dispatch box, Britain’s newly appointed Secretary of State for Defence , Wes Streeting, decided he was qualified to lecture one of the world’s most experienced fighting forces on the conduct of war.

Streeting, acknowledges that he has no military experience, but states that he is “surrounded people with exemplary records of military service, expertise and insight.” All well and good, that is, if the good minister actually consults with said experts. A military background should not be a prerequisite for a defence secretary, but it is crucial he or she understand what they do not know, and that they ask the right questions and seek the best possible advice from those who do know.

Just forty-eight hours into a job, which by his own admissions, he knows little about, speaking at the Farnborough Airshow, Streeting declared, “I hold Israel as a friend and ally to the same standard that we hold ourselves to. That is the standard that I think they have fallen short of.”

A remarkable statement, which perhaps reveals considerably more about Defence Secretary Wes Streeting, than it does about the IDF.

Not because Israel is beyond criticism. It is not. Every democratic military can and should be scrutinised, particularly in a war as brutal as Gaza. It is remarkable because a supposedly intelligent individual who knows little or nothing and understands even less about military matters felt able to pass judgement on a military campaign unlike anything Britain has fought in modern times, without explaining what standards Israel had supposedly fallen short of, what evidence he relied upon, what advice, if any,  he had taken on the matter or what expertise qualified him to reach that conclusion.

As the Minister is no doubt aware, or maybe not, military conduct is judged against the Law of Armed Conflict, or as it is referred to today, International Humanitarian Law, which comprises the following: Military necessity, precautions taken to minimise civilian casualties, and proportionality, which is the scale of a given operation in relation to the anticipated military advantage.

Civilian casualties, however tragic, are not, in themselves, evidence of wrongdoing, war crimes or a lack of professional military standards. That is particularly true when the enemy, in this case Hamas, deliberately seeks to maximise its own civilian casualties.

Hamas has conducted this war from civilian infrastructure, schools, hospitals, mosques, private homes and all. It stores weapons beneath civilian neighbourhoods, builds command centres beneath humanitarian infrastructure and has spent years preparing for this war, constructing hundreds of kilometres of tunnels beneath one of the most densely populated places on earth. Every civilian death strengthens its propaganda. Every destroyed building becomes another weapon in its information war.

That is not an unfortunate consequence of war. That is an integral part of Hamas strategy.

Military experts tend to agree that Gaza is a unique battlefield, that no military, let alone Britain’s, has ever fought such a war.

Yet Streeting simply announces that the IDF had failed the British test. The obvious question is therefore, what test exactly?

Which experts has he consulted in his first two days in office? Which commanders has he spoken to? Which military assessments has he relied upon? Which operations has he examined? Which rules of engagement has he compared? Which targeting decisions has he reviewed?

It sound like a busy two days, but he doesn’t say.

Others however, those with the necessary knowledge, experience and expertise have in fact investigated facts on the ground.

General Sir John McColl, Britain’s former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, joined a delegation of retired senior Western military commanders organised by The High-Level Military Group to examine Israel’s conduct of the war. After meeting commanders and reviewing operational procedures, he concluded that the IDF’s operations and rules of engagement were “rigorous compared to the British Army and our Western allies.”

He is not alone in his findings.

Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin, Australia’s former Chief of the Defence Force, reached a similarly measured conclusion after independently reviewing Israel’s investigation into the tragic World Central Kitchen strike. While identifying serious operational failures, he concluded that the IDF’s rules of engagement, targeting controls and investigative procedures were comparable to those of the Australian Defence Force.

General David Petraeus, former commander of coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, has repeatedly argued that Israel faces an operational challenge unlike any confronted by recent Western armies and has praised the extensive measures taken to reduce civilian casualties while fighting an enemy embedded within the civilian population.

John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point’s Modern War Institute, has likewise concluded that the IDF has taken more extensive measures to mitigate civilian harm than any military in comparable urban warfare.

It is perfectly legitimate and reasonable for people to disagree with those conclusions. They should do so, however, from a position of knowledge.

Streeting is perfectly entitled to explain why these experienced commanders are wrong, as well as both how and why the IDF’s procedures fall below British standards. He may choose to set out how the British Army would have acted to defeat an enemy operating within this unique battlefield and set of circumstances.

He preferred simply to pronounce judgement. On his second day in office.

This is not about defending every Israeli decision or suggesting the IDF is beyond reproach. No professional military is. Mistakes are made. Intelligence fails. Operational errors occur. Individual soldiers commit crimes. Democratic armies investigate those failures and hold those responsible to account, as does the IDF.

There is a world of difference between scrutinising individual operations and dismissing the professionalism of an entire military.

Britain has never fought a war remotely comparable to the one Israel is fighting in Gaza. British forces in Iraq and Afghanistan operated as part of an overwhelming international coalition, with secure rear bases, uncontested air superiority and without an enemy deliberately embedding itself beneath its own civilian population or holding hundreds of hostages underground.

Since WW2, Britain has never fought a war on its own doorstep, where failure to neutralize an imminent threat means rockets falling on it towns, villages and civilian population.

Britain has never faced the unique legal, moral and operational dilemmas confronting Israel in Gaza. Lecturing Israel on how Britain would have behaved under comparable circumstances is not merely speculative. It’s nonsensical.

Britain’s armed forces are rightly respected around the world. They are professional, disciplined and shaped by a military tradition of which the country can be proud. They are also, like every other military, imperfect.

Streeting’s moral certainty is as ignorant as it is arrogant.

Britain does not have to look far into its own recent history to be reminded that war is rarely as clean as politicians later pretend. Baha Mousa died in British military custody after suffering ninety-three separate external injuries. Camp Breadbasket, a British military base near Basra, became synonymous with the abuse and humiliation of Iraqi detainees by British soldiers. The statutory public inquiry into alleged unlawful killings of civilian and detainees by British Special Forces in Afghanistan continues.

None of these episodes defines the British Army. They are grave failures within a professional military, investigated because democratic armies are expected to confront uncomfortable truths.

That is precisely the point. Those incidents were recognised for what they were, as serious crimes requiring accountability, not as evidence that the British army  itself lacked professionalism. For Streeting however, the same principal is not to be applied to Israel.

One may ask why it was so important to the new Defence Minister and why he was in such a hurry to make a public statement condemning Israel, clearly before doing his homework or taking any advice on the matter?

Well, his own published WhatsApp messages may provide at least part of the answer. Long before arriving at the Ministry of Defence, Streeting was privately telling Peter Mandelson that Israel was “committing war crimes before our eyes” and engaging in “rogue state behaviour”. He warned that Labour’s stance on Gaza was inflicting serious political damage and lamented that he was “toast at the next election” if the party failed to change course. He also argued that sanctions should be directed against the Israeli state itself, not merely individual ministers.

And so, a politician who has publicly worried about the electoral consequences of Gaza arrives at the Ministry of Defence and, within just forty-eight hours, declares that Israel has fallen below British military standards. Of course, it could just be coincidence, but people are entitled to ask whether they are hearing the considered judgement of Britain’s Defence Secretary or a politically motivated piece of electioneering.

The Defence Secretary is not simply another cabinet minister commenting on foreign affairs. His first responsibility is the defence of the United Kingdom and the protection of British security interests. His words carry weight with allies, adversaries and Britain’s own armed forces. They should be based on facts, informed military judgement and a clear understanding of the strategic consequences they carry.

Over the past three years, Israel has become a political football, the one country judged by standards not be applied to any other democracy, indeed any other country. Allegation replaces evidence. Accusations are treated as proven fact. Military expertise is dismissed whenever it challenges the prevailing narrative, while activists, influencers and political campaigners are treated as authorities on the conduct of modern warfare. The complexities of urban combat are reduced to slogans. Casualty figures are presented as criminality. War crimes are repeated as established fact long before any independent investigation has reached any conclusion.

Britain’s Defence Secretary should be challenging that culture, not legitimising it. He should pay more than lip service to the fact that Britain and Israel cooperate closely on intelligence, counter-terrorism, cyber security and defence, where both countries recognize the strategic value of that relationship.

The Defence Secretary is responsible for Britain’s security, not his own parliamentary seat. Every British citizen, whatever their political views, has cause for concern if electoral calculations, constituency politics or ideological conviction are influencing a Cabinet Minister’s judgement on matters of defence. The office demands decisions rooted in security, military expertise and Britain’s national interest. You cannot play politics with the defence of the nation.

More important than what Wes Streeting thinks of Israel is whether Britain’s new Defence Secretary truly understands the threats Britain faces today, who the real enemies are, who its allies are and what it takes to defend a nation in an increasingly unstable and dangerous geopolitical climate.

After all, that’s the job; to ensure Britain is ready and able to defend itself, come what may.

Gary Cohen is a writer and filmmaker. His substack can be found here: