Should the UK warn Israel about its response to the Hamas attack? The Prime Minister was very pointed as he told the Commons that people ‘should call [the 7 October attack] what it was: a pogrom’. His statement was grave and included full support for Israel and for Jewish people in Britain. He repeatedly told MPs that ‘we will continue to stand with Israel… not just today, not just tomorrow, but always’. He continued: ‘This atrocity was an existential strike at the very idea of Israel as a safe homeland for the Jewish people. I understand why it has shaken you to your core.’
Keir Starmer was similarly unequivocal in his support for Israel
The Prime Minister told the House of the UK’s three main responses: the sending of RAF and Royal Navy craft to stop the supply of further arms to Palestine and help with the humanitarian effort; increasing humanitarian aid by £10 million; and deploying British diplomats ‘to sustain the prospects of peace and stability in the region’.
Throughout the statement, he repeatedly told MPs that he was trying to talk to leaders in the region. There were two common themes: the first was whether the UK would continue to support Israel in the face of some very difficult news. The second was whether the UK was warning Israel about international law. On that second question, a number of Labour MPs and the Lib Dem leader Ed Davey raised concerns that some of the actions so far had breached international humanitarian law, including cutting off food, water and power, and a forced evacuation of a hospital in Gaza. Most of them used measured language, though Labour MP Richard Burgon, who tends to pour lighter fluid over most of his Commons interventions, attracted shouts of ‘shame’ and ‘disgraceful’ as he claimed that the ‘collective punishment’ of the Palestinian people was ‘a war crime under the Geneva Conventions’.
Sunak continued to insist that Israel had a right to defend itself, but told Labour’s Tony Lloyd that the UK would be encouraging precautions: ‘It is not right for us to prescribe for another country how best they can exercise their lawful right and indeed duty to self-defence, but as a friend we will continue to call on Israel to take every precaution to avoid harming civilians.’
A number of MPs also pressed Sunak on why the government hadn’t yet proscribed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps given the alleged involvement of Iran in the attack. The Prime Minister’s response will have disappointed them: he said merely that the government never commented on which groups it was considering for proscription.
Keir Starmer was similarly unequivocal in his support for Israel. It was striking that he did not ask a single question of Rishi Sunak, instead making his entire response to Sunak a statement of support. He made clear at the start of his speech that ‘it is crucial that this House speaks with one voice in condemnation of terror and in support for Israel in its hour of agony’. He too insisted that the defence ‘must be conducted in accordance with international law, civilians must not be targeted, innocent lives must be protected’. He called for humanitarian corridors and access to food, water and medicines. He insisted that this attack must not undermine efforts to reach a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, arguing that that is precisely what Hamas wants. And he also expressed concern about the rise of anti-Semitism in the UK following the attack, saying ‘I do not want Britain to be a place where Jewish schools are closed’.The Commons has largely worked together today to send a message of condemnation of Hamas and support for Israel. But as many MPs said, there are some very difficult days ahead, and we saw today how many of them are anxious about what they will hold.
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