It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved . . . We will fight until we’ll break their backbone.
—Israeli President Isaac Herzog, October 12, 2023

The President of Israel, President Herzog, has made it clear that his country will abide by international humanitarian law.
—UK Deputy Foreign Secretary Andrew Mitchell, November 14, 2023

Sunak in Tel Aviv

BRITAIN REACTED to the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7 with horror and repugnance, along with immense sympathy for Israel. The number of dead, reported at first as 1,400, was unimaginable. Adjusted as a percentage of population it was the equivalent of fourteen thousand people in Britain, or more than seventy thousand in the United States. Almost every Israeli knew or was related to someone who had been killed or been taken hostage: many knew scores of the dead. It is impossible to underestimate the scale of the grief. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak flew into Tel Aviv twelve days later. His visit recalled the journey made by Tony Blair to Washington in the aftermath of the Al Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers. Indeed, the events of October 7 were more traumatic for most Israelis than 9/11 in all its horror had been for most Americans.

But events were moving at a terrifying pace. Thanks to an authoritative report from Airwars, which documents the human cost of war, we now know that hundreds of Palestinian civilians were being killed daily by Israeli strikes throughout most of this period. On the most lethal day of the bombing, some 420 civilians were slaughtered. By the end of the month, the number of recorded Palestinian civilian deaths would stand at more than five thousand.

Sunak may or may not have known the exact numbers. But as prime minister he would have been briefed by British security experts. Well connected with the Israeli and United States military, they would have had a shrewd idea of the magnitude of the bloodletting.

Members of the most senior Israeli political echelon made no secret about what lay ahead. They spelt out their view that there were no innocents in Gaza; that everyone was a target. The scale of the Hamas atrocities liberated Israel from any constraint of war. The frankly articulated assumption in Tel Aviv was that Israel now had a free hand to destroy, maim, and slaughter. The torrent of genocidal statements from senior Israeli ministers and commanders, later compiled into voluminous dossiers by South Africa in support of its historic submissions to the International Court of Justice, were already on the record, and being acted upon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had invoked the prophet Samuel’s biblical instruction to “go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” Israel was set on a bloodthirsty mission of revenge that would smash every rule of war.

Any British prime minister would have felt obliged to offer sympathy and aid to an ally mourning its dead. But with Israel unleashing unprecedent murder and mayhem upon an occupied and besieged civilian population, Sunak ought also to have warned Netanyahu not to advance further down a path that would bring death to countless Palestinians as well as disgrace on Israel. Britain repeatedly claims to be a close ally of Israel. It is the task of a true friend to give candid advice.

Sunak did not rise to the challenge. Even before his arrival, he had sent the message to Netanyahu—by now consolidating his deserved reputation as a butcher—that Israel could rely on Britain’s “unequivocal” support. This amounted to carte blanche for the Israeli authorities to commit, with Britain’s blessing, whatever crimes they wanted. Sunak had leverage. Britain had already deployed a Royal Navy task force to the Eastern Mediterranean, including a company of Royal Marines, two ships, and three helicopters. British surveillance aircraft also began to patrol the region.

There has never been any hint that the British prime minister imposed conditions on this military aid. Although Sunak did assert Israel must act “in line with international humanitarian law” and “take every possible precaution to avoid harming civilians,” these pro forma caveats were not serious demands for restraint. The Conservative government never took the necessary measures to deter or punish Israel’s violations, even as the crimes became massive and undeniable.

Britain’s military support for Israel was never put to a vote in Parliament. It always took the form of executive action, which saved MPs from having to take a clear position. The Labour Party seemed to be content with this: Her Majesty’s Official Opposition never called for such a vote. Indeed, as the two parties converged, opposition seemed to be Labour’s smallest concern.

Starmer in London

THERE COMES a moment in many people’s lives when we adopt a course of action that defines us. Such a moment came to Labour leader and future prime minister Sir Keir Starmer when he joined LBC presenter Nick Ferrari in the studio a few days after October 7. At this point an unknown future stretched ahead. If Israeli politicians were to be believed it would assuredly include one of the most monstrous crimes of the twenty-first century. Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant had just issued his grim announcement of a “complete siege” on Gaza: “there will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed." The Starmer moment can still be witnessed on YouTube. It unfolds when Ferrari asks whether cutting off water and electricity supplies is an appropriate response to the Hamas attacks. It should have been an easy question. Before entering politics Starmer was an acknowledged expert on international law. He would have known for certain that Israel did not have the right to cut off water and electricity supplies. Collective punishment of a civilian population is a war crime. There is no ambiguity.

But when Ferrari pressed: “A siege is appropriate? Cutting off power? Cutting off water?” Starmer tried to have it both ways by simultaneously standing up for Israel and international law. “I think Israel does have that right,” he affirmed. “It is an ongoing situation. Obviously, everything should be done within international law but I don’t want to step away from the core principles that Israel has a right to defend herself and Hamas bears responsibility.”

Sir Keir’s attempt to argue that Israel had the right to deny water and fuel to Palestinians in Gaza while respecting international law made mockery of the law and of his own professional standing. Gallant’s openly stated plan amounted to a grave breach of international as well as domestic British law. The leader of the Labour Party was giving the green light to a crime against humanity, as set out in the Rome Statute, and enabling whatever atrocities Israel cared to inflict on Gaza’s two million inhabitants, one half of whom were children.

By the end of October 2023, the Conservative prime minister and leader of the Labour opposition had together established the political foundation that would make Britain complicit in massacres, indiscriminate bombing, torture, ethnic cleansing, and in the settled opinion of a growing number of experts the crime of crimes itself.