The world changed on Saturday morning with Hamas’s attack on army bases and civilian communities in Israel. What began as a Palestinian military triumph became, within minutes, the greatest single atrocity of the entire conflict to date, by either party.
Every assumption of the status quo ante has been swept aside, including much of the international etiquette around calls for restraint: Israel appears to be hours away from launching the most overwhelming assault on a modern city since Vladimir Putin’s attack on Grozny, with unreserved Western blessing. This will likely unleash every rocket in Hamas’s arsenal onto Israeli cities, and might well drag other parties into the fray, from external actors like Hezbollah to Palestinian organisations in the West Bank and even hand-to-hand sectarian violence among Israelis and Palestinians sharing the same towns in Israel proper. But even if the war remains confined to the Gaza Strip – which seems unlikely – the number of casualties in the coming weeks is expected to dwarf what Israelis now refer to as the Black Sabbath.
Britain, in the meantime, has been left to play catch up with events – despite its longstanding, intimate involvement with the conflict. So far, its response has been far more hesitant and muted than any aspect of its involvement with, say, Ukraine.
Britain is no longer the great military power it once was
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly made a visit to the scene of the attacks in southern Israel. Rishi Sunak made a heartfelt speech, which no doubt reassured many Jewish Britons. Police forces doubled security around Jewish cultural and community centres, which doubtless had the same effect. And the government sent two warships to the Eastern Mediterranean, to no discernible purpose whatsoever.
It is hardly unpatriotic – merely factual – to observe that Britain is no longer the great military power it once was. Its early involvement in Ukraine has been crucial, and remains so; but it is unlikely to have the same effect in preventing, or fighting, a regional war in the Middle East. The dispatch of two warships underscores that, and makes Britain seem like an also-ran. There are, however, numerous avenues of action which Britain is perfectly positioned to undertake, and which can either have a significant impact on the conflict – or, at the very least, save countless, irreplaceable human lives.
Here are seven ways the UK can help.
Firstly, it should finish rescuing Brits caught up in this conflict. The dispatching of aircrafts to Israel to repatriate Britons is commendable, but there are hundreds of British citizens trapped in the Gaza Strip. Gaza has no airport, and the road to Egypt remains blocked; but access by sea remains. Britain can dispatch transport ships to rescue Britons and other foreign nationals from the Strip.
The UK should also rescue the families of Brits in Gaza, whether that be spouses, in-laws, parents or children. Britain should expedite the family reunification visas, much as it did for Ukrainians at the start of the war.
Britain shouldn’t only look to help its own citizens. With a stroke of a pen, Britain can welcome Gazan refugees – and Israeli ones. The Homes for Ukraine scheme can easily be expanded; there is no doubt many Britons – Muslim, Jewish and of all other persuasions – will throw open their homes. This would also help persuade Egypt to open up the Rafah Crossing, the only exit from the heavily bombarded Strip. This vital gateway is kept closed, at least in part, because Egypt doesn’t want to be counted on to host Gaza’s entire civilian population, whether temporarily or permanently. A Homes for Gaza scheme can ease Cairo’s mind.
If a humanitarian corridor into Egypt does materialise, Britain can throw up organised, functioning, safe tent cities with schools and hospitals practically overnight. This alone will have a decisive impact on the long-term fallout of the conflict. Britain has world-beating experience and resources in setting up aid in disaster areas; it should put this to use.
Moreover, Britain can move in not just at Rafah but in the Strip itself. Israel has ordered Gaza City’s 1.1 million residents to ‘go south’ within 24 hours or face the consequences. At first glance, this might seem like a humanitarian gesture. In practice, the geography of the densest city on earth makes it likely the consequences of sweeping, rushed evacuation will be almost as devastating as those of a carpet bombing.
Israel’s request is like asking the entire population of North London – including school children, elderly and disabled, and every patient in every hospital – to cross the Thames over one bridge, by Sunday, during a power cut. Once they get there, they will find towns with even poorer infrastructure than where they’ve come from, disconnected from electricity and already running out of water. Britain can offer to Israel and Hamas to set up its emergency tent cities there, rather than in Egypt – in exchange for a week’s reprieve and the release of British hostages. This will prevent the evacuation from turning into an unfathomable stampede, and offer refugees far greater protection than the UN compounds.
Outside the Gaza Strip, the most immediate risk – arguably a greater risk even than the opening up of a second front with Hezbollah in Lebanon – is that of a sectarian conflagration. Look at the map without the comforting fiction of the Green Line, and you’ll see Jewish and Palestinian communities sit cheek by jowl everywhere between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Zoom in, and you’ll see Arabs and Jews mingled street by street, house by house, often even in the same tower blocks; in many more places than the officially recognised ‘mixed cities’.
Britain has unique, irreplaceable experience in resolving a conflict every bit as entrenched as the Israeli-Palestinian one, in very similar geography: Northern Ireland. It can put this considerable experience to use in preventing a conflagration beyond Gaza, or, at the very least, providing backup, comfort and support for the community mediators already stretched to the limits in these areas. It can also train up cohorts of such mediators and conflict workers ahead of picking up the pieces in the aftermath of the war – assuming both communities still share the same land.
And finally, while we are perched on the very edge of the precipice, we haven’t walked off it yet. There remains one avenue, however far-fetched, to evade even more bloodshed. Britain can take the lead on mustering a wall-to-wall coalition of outside powers – from the US to China, via the Gulf and everywhere in between – to propose to Hamas the Tunis option: much like Yasser Arafat and the PLO’s evacuation from Beirut in the Lebanon War, Hamas can be offered the chance to take its leadership and its men out of Gaza, handing over control of the Strip to the UN. This proposal will not be immediately welcomed by anyone, least of all the Israelis. But it just about might prevent the worst war in the conflict’s history – and Britain can assume leadership as mediator and guarantor.
The tunnel vision of military conflict, where the might of states is judged exclusively by military force, does few favours to Britain. It can’t outgun the United States, and it can’t afford to be distracted from where its involvement already tips the scales – Ukraine. But there are multiple avenues where Britain can still make a difference – if it remembers the resourcefulness and capability it has in store beyond direct use of force.
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