The Palestinians have been betrayed by successive British governments, from Balfour to Blair, despite Britain's historic responsibility arising from the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the 1922 Sykes-Picot Agreement. Any hope of a new approach to the Middle East crisis when New Labour swept the Tories aside in 1997 was in vain. The grinning face of Stephen Twigg as Michael Portillo bit the dust on election night was a televisual moment replayed endlessly for our amusement, but it was Portillo's grimace which the camera focused on. Now we see Twigg in a different light, as chair of New Labour Friends of Israel.
"MPs such as Gapes, Stephen Twigg, Barry Gardiner and Andrew Dismore play a crucial propaganda role, carrying the flag for Israel in parliament, and lobbying editors to toe the Israeli line." (Faisal Bodi, Guardian, 21. May 2001)
New Labour went all the way, completely embracing the Zionist
perspective, much as Hillary Clinton later did in her desperation
to become a New York senator. Blair's election landslide was partly
attributed to the good offices of the Murdoch press. The pro-Israeli
Sun, The Times and the Sunday Times were
besotted, and despite some cooling of their ardour, still prefer
Blair to the alternative. Although the Middle East conflict is
not a left-right issue, many on the "left" seem confused
by the deliberate conflation of Judaism with Zionism and find
it hard to differentiate between anti-Semitism of the kind practised
by David Duke and his KKK or the British National Party, and legitimate
criticism of Israel for its human rights abuses and brutal military
occupation of Palestinian land.
Not all Labour's new intake of Members of Parliament are pro-Israeli.
Signatories to an Early Day Motion on a "viable Palestinian
State" sponsored by Richard Burden MP include a clutch of
new names (see the Palestine Solidarity Campaign website).
On the other hand, some "Old" Labour hacks, such as
Gwyneth Dunwoody, president of Labour Friends of Israel, have
been around since the sixties. Mrs Dunwoody's former research
assistant and electoral agent, David Mencer, was appointed director
of the Labour Friends of Israel in 1998. Mrs Dunwoody presides
over the Transport Select Committee.
The parliamentary register of Members' interests shows that recent visitors who have had flights and accommodation paid by Labour Friends of Israel include Ivor Caplin, Paul Clark, Oona King, Ashok Kumar, Ivan Lewis, Anne McGuire, Rosemary McKenna, Margaret Moran, Jim Murphy, Sandra Osborne, Gareth Thomas, Frank Roy, Joan Ryan, Angela Smith, Graham Stringer, Rudi Vis, David Watts, Gillian Merron, Peter Pike, Lorna Fitzsimons, Louise Ellman, Caroline Flint, Linda Perham, Douglas Alexander, Fabian Hamilton, Anthony Colman, and Dan Norris, in addition to Gapes, Twigg and Dismore.
An electioneering advertisement placed by Labour Friends of Israel in the Jewish Chronicle dated 1 June 2001 and signed by Tony Blair spelled out the special relationship which New Labour has cultivated with Israel.
Since 1997 a record 57 Labour MPs have visited Israel, mostly with the Labour Friends of Israel, swelling the numbers of MPs willing to ensure balance on the Middle East in the House of Commons. More Labour MPs have visited Israel than from any other party.
And,
Trade between Britain and Israel has grown incredibly by 20 per cent, while there have been 34 official trade missions to Israel from the UK since 1997. The unique BRITECH agreement signed by Trade Secretary Stephen Byers means there is now a 15.5 million pounds sterling joint fund to encourage co-operation between British and Israeli hi-tech industries in research and development for their own benefit.
The Labour Friends of Israel election blurb failed to mention that Britain also backs Israel militarily, with sales of components and armaments which are used against unarmed civilians in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Amnesty International confirms that "some spare parts come from the UK" for the Apache helicopters used "to commit human rights violations". Amnesty concluded: "The only safe course for our government is to suspend immediately licenses for export of any equipment from this country used to keep Israeli attack helicopters in the air."
As Neil Sammonds points out in Palestinian Blood on British Hands (a Palestine Solidarity Campaign fact sheet, available at the campaign's website).
Britain accepts assurances that its equipment is not used against civilians. In 1982 the USA accepted assurances that Israel would not invade Beirut: days later Sharon's forces invaded the city and thousands of civilians were massacred in Sabra and Shatila...
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign is calling for an immediate arms embargo on Israel until it abides by international law; recommending that a new parliamentary committee should be set up to check that the executive's arms sales abide by national, European and International criteria; and that arms companies found accountable for human rights violations in the Palestinian territories should pay compensation to victims and their families for injury, death and loss of income.
Nine Labour Members of Parliament have signed Early Day Motion No 321:
That this government calls upon Her Majesty's Government to suspend arms trading with Israel in the light of the continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, the intensified repression by Ariel Sharon's government, the increased illegal settlement activitity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Israel's continuing violations of UN resolutions; notes that British police forces including the Metropolitan Police are buying Israeli bullets, the Ministry of Defence is about to buy Israeli anti-tank missiles and has purchased grenades, shells and military avionics; and further notes that British military hardware continues to be sold to Israel and used against Palestinians in defiance of UK exports criteria.
For a fleeting moment, post-11 September, George Bush, whose theft of the US presidency made him New Labour's new senior partner, and Tony Blair, were heard to utter the words "Palestinian state". Blair posed with Yasser Arafat on the doorstep of No 10. Sharon was at first rebuffed for rolling tanks into Jenin on 12 September and then trying to identify Israel as part of the "Coalition Against Terror". But when the daisy-cutters started falling it was Sharon who was received in No 10 and Arafat was quickly holed up in Ramallah, under virtual house arrest, without a word from Bush or Blair. When the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, visited the region in February he was apparently oblivious to the Israeli roadblocks and lines of tanks and debris which he had to cross to deliver his government's message to the Palestinians: give up your resistance to Israeli occupation. End the intifadah.
Straw wrote in The Guardian on 26 February 2002:
Any attempt to push for a solution without American support would be short-sighted and self-defeating. If we in the EU allowed ourselves to be played off against our US ally, then we would weaken efforts to help move the peace process forward and reduce our influence.
This was the standard British government response to an effort by European Union member states to broker a cease-fire without first getting approval, which everyone knows would not be forthcoming, from the USA. Britain has blocked every European effort and meekly abstained on United Nations resolutions calling for observers to be sent to the region.
The Guardian of 4 March 2002 noted in its leading article,
"War without end":
The US, seen as the most influential mediator,
continues to hold back. One explanation is that it is preoccupied
with its "war against terrorism"; but suspicions persist
that the Bush administration is content to watch the conflict
simmer (although not explode) while, shamefully egged on by Tony,
the little trumpet boy, it plots war in Iraq.
On the same day, Sharon was quoted on Israeli prime-time First Channel TV news as declaring that the number of Palestinian casualties should be increased. He was also shown telling the Knesset: "We first have to give the Palestinians a very heavy blow, before we can talk peace."
The little trumpet boy has sounded The Last Post for the Palestinians but they refuse to lie down. Meanwhile, public opinion in Britain is becoming more sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinian people and increasingly less easy to hoodwink about the facts on the ground. Yet it seems there is no limit to Tony's toadying. Any friend of the United States of America is a friend of New Labour and New Labour is prepared to drop bombs anywhere "East of Suez" - Iraq, Iran, North Korea? - while Israel gets away with murder.
But when did the Labour Party ever support a national liberation movement? Perhaps during the movement for Indian independence?
The "democratic freedoms" of Western imperialism have been built on the foundation of colonial slavery; as was strikingly demonstrated when the Labour Government, the champion of "democracy", brought in a reign of terror to maintain despotism in India and jailed sixty thousand for the crime of asking for democratic rights. (R. Palme Dutt, Fascism and Social Revolution: How and Why Fascism Came to Power in Europe, 1934)
It is worth remembering that in the Spring of 1931 a party styling itself the "New Party" was formed, consisting of six Labour Members of Parliament and one Tory, the nucleus of Oswald Moseley's Black Shirts. (Fascism and Social Revolution, page 287)
Digging back further we find:
From 1906 to 1914, in a time of great and increasing class conflicts, the Labour Party was content to form a mere radical appendage to Liberalism, mildly critical of details but never venturing upon an independent policy or dreaming of taking any action which might endanger the life of the Government. One occasion on which they did become really angry was when Edward VII neglected to invite some of their leading members to an official reception at Buckingham Palace. (A.L. Morton, A People's History of England, Lawrence and Wishart, 1938.)
Not even a "radical appendage" these days, New Labour's
stubborn, ill-informed support for Israel is one of the significant
contributing factors to the conflict, giving Sharon the green
light to proceed with "ethnic cleansing", apartheid
and war crimes. Blair and Straw like to throw their hands up in
horror and make out the two parties are equally culpable, engaged
in an intractable dispute over the same piece of land to which
both have legitimate claim. But there is another direction which
the British Government could take in partnership with other European
Union countries which would contribute towards a just peace in
the Middle East. Even the reviled, slippery old Harold Wilson
was able to withstand pressure from LBJ to send British troops
to Vietnam.
The European Union and other governments, acting together, could
bring Israel to the negotiating table by imposing economic sanctions
and an arms embargo backed up by cultural and academic sanctions.
The EU, perhaps joined by regional governments, could facilitate
negotiations, ensuring that the process is not dominated by the
imbalance in power between Israel and the Palestinians. At present,
it is pathetic that nothing is being done on an official level
about the products of territories occupied by Israel being imported
into the EU labelled "Made in Israel" under EU tariff
preferences. Under Article 83 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement,
products from the occupied territories are excluded, yet Britain
along with other member states continues to allow huge quantities
of flowers and agricultural products as well as manufactured items
to flout Customs and Excise rules, thus themselves breaching international
humanitarian law.
As a High Contracting Party to the Geneva Convention, which is breached by the building of settlements on occupied land (Article 47), Britain has a duty (under Article 1) to act when the Convention is breached.
But if governments won't act, the people must. Of course, the Blair "Labour" government has introduced "anti-terror" laws in an attempt to subdue dissent, similar to those supported by successive "Labour" governments to crush opposition to British military occupation of Ireland. However, we must step up our pressure on the government, telephoning, writing, faxing and e-mailing as well as demonstrating and holding public meetings. There is a natural alliance against New Labour's rejection of justice for the Palestinians which has coalesced around the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the peace movement, civil rights, anti-racist and ethical consumer organisations. A boycott of Israeli goods and tourism provides a practical way for people to show that it's not business as usual with Israel. We have to build the broadest possible international solidarity movement with the Palestinians which will drown out Tony's trumpet with our own sound and fury.
*Diane Langford is a member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign