Is there no Israeli crime horrific enough to shatter UK Tory support?
In reviewing more than three and a half decades of work on British Middle East policy, the administration of former Conservative Prime Minister John Major stands out as one of the least hostile to Palestinians.
His view was markedly different to that of his predecessor, Margaret Thatcher, and among his ministers were a fair number of figures sympathetic to Palestinian rights. In general, the more pro-European Conservatives have tended to be more sympathetic to Palestinians than Brexiteer Eurosceptics.
Fast forward to the 2024-25 vintage under Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, with Priti Patel at the helm of the shadow foreign affairs team, and the contrast could not be greater.
In a televised interview on Sunday, Badenoch once again refused to criticise Israel or offer any sympathy for Palestinians.
The current Tory party’s position was highlighted during the extraordinary heated exchanges in parliament on 20 May, as Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced that the UK would be suspending all talks on a free trade agreement with Israel, and Patel refused to condemn Israel for its blockade of Gaza and the genocidal comments of its leaders.
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It was a strange choice for Patel, given that she was forced to step down in 2017 after taking an unauthorised trip to Israel to meet top officials, all arranged by the lobby group Conservative Friends of Israel. Patel should never have been allowed back into high office.
Her approach is nauseatingly repetitive. She blames Hamas and Iran for everything, while criticising Israel for nothing. I could not find one criticism she has made of the Israeli leadership in parliament in the six months since she became shadow foreign secretary, despite widespread condemnation of the state’s conduct during that period.
Callous assessment
Reviewing the entirety of Patel’s parliamentary interventions since she assumed her shadow role last November, there is not one expression of genuine sympathy for Palestinian civilians in Gaza. She never references their deaths, injuries or suffering.
She has never highlighted Israel’s 12-week blockade, referring only to the “current situation on aid access”. On one occasion, she merely remarked that in northern Gaza, “the situation is extremely difficult”.
One wonders: if Patel had had to endure the horrors that Palestinians have faced under siege and in northern Gaza, would she still speak about their suffering in such a callous fashion?
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In contrast, Patel routinely raises the plight of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza, as does her dutiful deputy, Wendy Morton. The hostages get floods of sympathy. They get named and humanised, all understandable - but somehow, such sentiments can never be applied to Palestinians.
Patel even lectures Lammy, saying that “the foreign secretary’s focus should be on securing the release of the 59 remaining hostages”.
Even more remarkable is Patel’s reluctance to use the word “Palestinian” in connection with anything positive or sympathetic. She has made one single reference in six months in the Commons to “innocent Palestinian civilians”, but only in terms of Hamas and Iran using them as human shields.
Patel thinks she knows better than experienced judges and a chief prosecutor who, unlike her, have seen the evidence
She has never once raised as shadow foreign secretary Israeli human rights abuses against Palestinians, or criticised illegal Israeli settlement-building.
As Labour MP Melanie Ward rightly upbraided Patel in a debate over the conflict in Gaza: “It is quite shocking that the shadow foreign secretary appears unable to say the word ‘Palestinian’.”
Patel raised a point of order, claiming that Ward had misrepresented her in saying “that I have not spoken about the Palestinian Authority in this House, because I have done so from the Dispatch Box on a number of occasions”. As the record shows, it was actually Patel misrepresenting Ward.
Patel puts the relationship with Israel above all other considerations: “We need Israel to continue seeing the UK as a trusted partner.” She is apparently not concerned as to whether the UK can trust Israel.
She continued: “If we undermine our relationship and influence with Israel, we also lose influence across the Middle East.” The reality is that the last 19 months have recklessly undermined Britain’s standing not just in the Middle East, but around the globe.
Flickers of hope
Patel does not wish to see Israel held to account, and has referred to “poorly judged decisions on arms exports designed to placate government backbenchers”. On social media, she slammed Prime Minister Keir Starmer for a “shocking betrayal of a key UK ally” after Britain suspended some arms licences to Israel. That government lawyers had determined there was a serious risk that British weapons could be used by Israel to violate international law was apparently not a concern at all.
Patel laid into Lammy in March after he was forced by Downing Street to withdraw his accurate charge that Israel had violated international law. Lammy reverted to the formulation that there was a risk Israel was breaking it. Patel was scathing: “Careless comments do not help, including the foreign secretary’s remarks in this House … for which he has been rebuked by the prime minister. Will he apologise to the House and to Israel?”
For Patel, it would seem Israel can do no wrong.
Patel castigated the International Criminal Court for issuing arrest warrants for war crimes against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, arguing somehow that the warrants “have no basis in international law”. Patel thinks she knows better than experienced judges and a chief prosecutor who, unlike her, have seen the evidence.
As for Badenoch, one of her most egregious contributions came in February. At Prime Minister’s Questions, she used one of her treasured six weekly questions to slam the judicial decision to allow a Palestinian family of six from Gaza to seek asylum in Britain under the Ukraine family scheme. She expressed zero sympathy with the plight of the Palestinians, but then again, neither did Starmer.
In contrast to the pro-Netanyahu line of the Conservative front bench, flickers of hope have emerged on the Tory backbenches. The overwhelming majority still assume a never-criticise-Israel posture, but increasingly, more are speaking out.
The latest was MP Mark Pritchard, who proclaimed that after 20 years of supporting Israel “pretty much at all costs”, he now had to admit: “I got it wrong.” He went on to condemn Israeli conduct. The father of the house, Sir Edward Leigh, has likewise been a sharp critic since a visit to the occupied West Bank in February.
The failings of the Conservative leadership do not excuse the failures of this Labour government. Starmer and Lammy have received plenty of justified criticism, and have done nothing to end the atrocities and criminal blockade of Gaza.
But this tragedy is compounded by having an official opposition whose leadership is even more complicit in Israeli crimes - and at times, blatantly and openly anti-Palestinian, offering not the slightest sympathy for the horrors that Israel is visiting upon the Palestinian people.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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