The Hollow Words of Sir Keir Starmer

The dramatization of Churchill’s leadership in World War II in “Into the Storm” features a scene in which the British air chief marshal, Sir Arthur Harris, zooms up to a headquarters in his sports car. He tells a fellow officer that he was on his way home the other evening when he got stopped for speeding. “‘You might’ve killed someone,’” Harris quotes the copper as chastising him. “My dear young man,” Harris retorts, “I kill thousands of people every night.”He was referring to the British and American strategic bombing campaign over German cities like Dresden, where in February 1945 as many as 25,000 persons died under Allied bombs. We don’t want to make an inapt comparison between the war against the Germans in Europe between 1939 and 1945 and the war against Hamas taking place at Gaza. We do want to suggest that it takes some brass for the British to lecture the Israelis on the morality of war.All this comes to mind with the latest pusillanimity from Britain’s Labor government. Prime Minister Starmer says he will support recognition by the UN of a Palestinian Arab state if Israel fails to bring the war in Gaza to a conclusion by September. What a feckless threat. We’d hazard that in the centuries since we’ve known the good and bad sides of Britain it hasn’t once maintained the care in warfare taken by the Israelis in the current combat.For us it’s a sad moment — and a particular shame in respect of Sir Keir. He assumed the leadership of the Labor Party after Jeremy Corbyn, under whom the party had become infected with rampant antisemitism. He eventually expelled Mr. Corbyn from Labor. Sir Keir also gave a noble speech denouncing the oldest hatred, and we issued a warm expression of appreciation for Sir Keir’s sentiments. What’s become clear since then is that Sir Keir didn’t mean it.We get that he has taken some important and no doubt difficult steps, expelling some of the worst offenders in the party. His government, though, has turned on Israel’s elected leadership in the thick of the current war. He named, in David Lammy, a hostile foreign minister. The tone and substance of his government policies have led to such a surge in antisemitism in his country that it’s no longer safe for religious Jews to walk the streets of London.So virulent is the hostility in Britain that allies of the Palestinian Arabs filmed one of their number using a knife and spray paint to destroy a portrait of Lord Balfour — by Philip Alexius de László, no less. It had hung prominently at Cambridge University. We don’t suggest the police failed to look into it. After a year of investigation, though, the case was closed without, as far as we can determine, charges having been brought.Britain’s capitulation to Hamas — President Trump on Tuesday called it a “reward” — is particularly galling given the declaration to which Balfour put his name. That démarche put Britain behind the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people.” Now, Israel is being warned that unless it relents in the defense of that duly established home, London will join Paris in rewarding the perpetrators of October 7.In any event, it is folly for Britain’s Labor government to suggest that it has standing to lecture Israel in respect of antisemitism or in respect of how to conduct war. Sir Keir did offer a few sentences today to denounce “the terrorists of Hamas” and to suggest that they “must” immediately release “all” of the hostages and accept that they play no part in the government in Gaza. His words and his actions just fail to compute.Which brings us back to “Bomber” Harris and World War II. During the war, the air raids on German cities were adopted as a tactic, despite concerns over civilian casualties, because it was seen as the fastest, most effective way to bring the war to a victorious conclusion. Britain and America understood that the necessity of destroying Nazi Germany’s ability to wage war took precedence, a prioritization that Israel’s allies comprehend in today’s fight.

The Hollow Words of Sir Keir Starmer

The Hollow Words of Sir Keir Starmer

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