Keir Starmer stands accused of having off-the-charts hypocrisy. Over 43,000 Palestinians and Lebanese have died, the great majority innocent civilians, in Israeli attacks since October 7th last year, none of which have elicited much in the way of sympathy or concern from him. Yet when Iran launched its missile attack on Israel last week, he took to a televised address to the nation quicker than you could say “here’s some free tickets to the football” in order to condemn Iran’s disregard for civilian life. Israel’s disregard for civilian life doesn’t count apparently. The world is waiting to see what happens when Israel retaliates, as it assuredly will. Iran has promised that if Israel does so, it will respond with a “crushing attack” second wave. And so the dismal spiral of death and destruction continues to ratchet up.
A ceasefire seems further away than ever, not least because Benjamin Netanyahu is widely suspected of having a personal reason for keeping the conflict going. He rejected overtures from his US allies to attempt to reach a ceasefire. That’s because the moment there is a ceasefire, he will be out of office and prosecuted for his rampant corruption. He will not baulk at committing war crimes in order to avoid that fate. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has said Israel’s action in Gaza could amount to genocide.
All attacks on innocent civilians are equally worthy of condemnation, but for all that Israel claims to be the victim, and it cannot be denied that Israeli civilians have suffered from some hideous attacks, this is a heavily asymmetric conflict. Many times more Palestinians die at the hands of the Israelis than the other way around. It is abundantly clear that despite the protestations of the Israeli authorities to the contrary, the Israeli armed forces don’t bother themselves too much with protecting civilians who might be caught in their cross-hairs. The evidence is there in plain sight for those who will see.
If a ceasefire seems impossible, a permanent solution to the world’s most intractable geopolitical problem is now the stuff of fantasy. Everyone says they want peace, but when the powerful men with guns and missiles and drones on both sides say they want peace, what they really mean is that they want victory.
But, for us here in the UK, it’s the hypocrisy of Keir Starmer which sticks most in the craw. He has uttered scarcely a word of criticism against Israel for its genocidal attack on Gaza, an attack whose devastation and death goes far beyond “Israel’s right to self-defence.” He has uttered not a single word about Israel’s apartheid policies against the Palestinians living in territories it controls nor the continuing and accelerating illegal land grabs taking place at the hands of the Israeli settler movement on the West Bank.
We hear a lot from Starmer about Israel’s right to defend itself, the right of the Palestinians to defend themselves, not so much. Even though they are being killed or wounded in far far greater numbers than Israelis and their homes, schools and hospitals destroyed in a way that Israelis don’t experience.
As Richard McNeil-Willson, who lectures in the Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies Department at Edinburgh University noted about Starmer’s recent address when he again stressed Israel’s right to defend itself: “Even as a politics lecturer in a Middle East department, I am lost. Israel has a right to self defence, but Lebanon does not? Israelis have the right to be safe, but Palestinians do not? Iran can’t launch missiles into civilian areas, but Israel can? None of this is coherent. Starmer is incoherent in his total hypocrisy.”
I'll admit that I expected better things of Keir and am extremely disappointed. I am not alone in this.
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