A bad day for public life in britain | thearticle

Yesterday, 20 February, was a bad day for public life in Britain. First, Labour has chosen to play politics with serious ethnic divisions in Britain. After the problems in Rochdale last

week, Starmer has pressed the panic button and has backtracked again, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Second, Prince William has chosen to make an ill-advised statement about the

conflict in Gaza, presumably with the approval of his advisers. Third, a leading British journalist has written an intemperate article, also about Gaza and Israel. According to the BBC News

website, “Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy said Labour had shifted [its view about a ceasefire in Gaza] because the situation in Gaza had ‘evolved’.” Curiously, neither Lammy nor BBC

News explained how the situation in Gaza has “evolved” over the past few days when there has been very little change. What is clear, though, is that the situation facing Labour in Rochdale

and other constituencies with large numbers of Muslim voters has evolved. In an excellent article in this week’s _New Statesman_ (16-22 February), Andrew Marr wrote, “Rochdale’s by-election

has descended into farce. But for Labour it’s deadly serious.” The story of Azhar Ali, wrote Marr, “has been a humiliating story of self-sabotage and fatal indecision that will cause the

party problems for a long time to come.” But Starmer dithered, worrying about further alienating the Muslim vote, sending out prominent members of the Shadow Cabinet to manage the affair on

the media, telling interviewers that Ali had apologised and so everything was OK. Then they were sent out again to say the situation had become far more serious with a second leak. But this

was never true. Ali’s first statement, saying that Israel’s government had deliberately allowed Hamas to rape, butcher, torture and abduct its own citizens in order to create a pretext for

attacking Gaza, was simply appalling. As Marr writes, “Had a Labour MP used Ali’s words, there wouldn’t have been a second’s hesitation before they were expelled.” It is astonishing that so

many prominent figures in the Shadow Cabinet should have trotted out this line about Azhar Ali’s apology and then when the story got worse, they said that this had changed everything. None

of this helped Starmer’s reputation for backtracking and being indecisive when news stories change. So the timing for Labour’s call for an immediate ceasefire is no accident. Just a few days

after the Rochdale disaster, with journalists talking about how Labour might lose numerous seats to independent Muslim candidates over Gaza, Labour suddenly decides to change its policy

over a ceasefire in Gaza. There are so many things wrong with this. First, it looks like panic. And when it looks like politicians are panicking, it’s usually because they are. Second,

Labour’s statement about an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” is a complete mess. They have tried to cobble together three seemingly decent ideas: a humanitarian ceasefire to save civilian

lives, a two-state solution and freeing the hostages from captivity in Gaza. But they fail to say what kind of Palestinian state they want? Who would run it? Hamas? The Palestinian

Authority? Some other Iranian stooge? And as for freeing the hostages, Hamas have shown on numerous occasions that they have no wish to release all the hostages, because that’s their only

bargaining chip. But if Hamas doesn’t release the hostages, what is left of Labour’s proposal? Nothing. And what will British Muslim voters say then? And this brings us to the most worrying

part of this whole story. Labour is playing politics with the ethnic vote. They are throwing Britain’s Jewish voters under a bus in order to win the far larger number of British Muslim

voters. Since Powell’s infamous “rivers of blood” speech, more than fifty years ago, there has been one hugely important principle in British politics: Don’t play around with ethnic

divisions for political gain. This latest twist not only shows that Starmer is indecisive and prone to panic and opportunism, but it confirms that David Lammy should never be our Foreign

Secretary. He should have thought all this through before he endorsed the idea of a ceasefire in Gaza, tied to the proposal for a two-state solution and freeing the hostages. Since Tony

Blair’s reputation was shredded over Iraq, you would think that Labour politicians and advisers would be careful about handling any crisis in the Middle East. Really, though, they have

learned nothing. Enter Prince William, with a well-intentioned statement about peace in Gaza. Again, the problems are legion. Why is he so much more concerned with peace in Gaza than

anywhere else — Ukraine, say, or Eritrea, or Yemen? He doesn’t say. To his advisers it is presumably obvious why Gaza matters so much more than any of these other conflicts. But it isn’t

obvious at all, because there is no objective reason why Gaza matters more than any of these other terrible conflicts. This leads some to wonder whether Gaza matters more to his advisers

because they are opposed to Israel. Prince William also forgot to mention how he will get Hamas to release the hostages or what will happen to his call for peace if they don’t release the

hostages. Like Lammy, he just hasn’t thought this through. I have never missed the late Queen so much. She and her advisers would never have got into this mess by so publicly choosing one

international conflict over many others for her attention. Again, in a multiethnic society, when there is a conflict which bitterly divides different ethnic and religious groups, it is

crucial that the King, Queen or Prince of Wales stand above the conflict and seem impartial, whether or not they privately are. Our mainstream broadcasters have failed to convey to listeners

and viewers the seriousness and intensity of these divisions. Labour and Prince William will doubtless soon be made fully aware of the consequences of these half-thought-out interventions.

So it is all the more important that experienced journalists, reporters and editors, past and present, give a thoughtful lead on these matters. Enter Alan Rusbridger, the former longtime

Editor of _The Guardian _and now Editor of _Prospect_, once one of our most interesting monthly magazines. Oddly, Rusbridger chose to write an op-ed article about Gaza in _The Independent,

_not in _The Guardian _or in _Prospect_. The problems begin, but do not end, with the title of his article on 17 February: _“_The horrors of 7 October did not happen in a vacuum – so why has

it become unsayable?_”_ When a leading journalist says what most people on the Left say about Israel and then calls it “unsayable”, readers know they are in trouble. Since when does

spouting Left-wing orthodoxies become saying the unsayable? The first sentence is even worse. _“_Have there been times in recent weeks when, in thinking of Israel_,_ you’ve wanted to swear?”

No prizes for guessing what makes Alan Rusbridger “swear” when he thinks of Israel. Is it the appalling fate of the hostages held in Gaza? Is it the appalling brutality of the attacks on

October 7 which traumatised Jews around the world? Is it the astonishing rise of antisemitism in Britain, or the hate marches in our capital city, which have all followed Israel’s response

to the slaughter on 7 October? Of course, it is none of these. It is the brutality of Israel’s military response: “Having killed as many as 28,000 people (around the population of

Chichester) in retaliation for the atrocities of 7 October, Israel is preparing to launch an assault on Rafah, an area of Gaza currently sheltering around 1.5 million men, women and

children.” One rule which has emerged from the conflict in Gaza is that all figures for Palestinian deaths come from the Palestinian Health Authority, a Hamas front, and while nearly

everyone in recent weeks has used their figure of 28,000 dead, very few have either questioned these figures or deducted the number of Hamas fatalities which according to the IDF are between

12,000 and 13,000. In other words, they have failed to make the obvious distinction between the deaths of combatants and noncombatants. Nor have they deducted the number of Palestinian

civilians killed by misfiring rockets. Rusbridger (and Marr) are no exception. If the figure sounds big and emotive enough they will use it, no questions asked. This may sound strange for a

distinguished former editor of one of Britain’s leading newspapers, but there we are. Then we get to Rusbridger’s central argument: “The Secretary General of the United Nations, António

Guterres, told the UN Security Council back in late October that the attacks by Hamas “DID NOT HAPPEN IN A VACUUM” – and was promptly told by Israel that he should resign. It was unsayable.

But does any reasonable person consider that you can begin to fathom the horrific events of 7 October without considering the 56 years of history that preceded it?” He goes on: “The current

Israeli government is one which includes criminals, lunatics, extremists and despots who have no interest in a peaceful solution to the Israel-Palestine question. The horrors of 7 October

most certainly did not happen in a vacuum. It’s not ‘anti-Israel’ to say so, nor is it ‘anti-Zionist’, let alone antisemitic – but how casually those three are sometimes elided.” Indeed,

“the horrors of 7 October most certainly did not happen in a vacuum.” Think of all the murderous pogroms by Palestinian Arabs against Jews before the state of Israel, their support for the

Nazis, numerous attacks by Arab nations against Israel and all the many murderous terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians. But that, of course, isn’t the context Rusbridger means. He means

the history of the Palestinians, as told by the British and international Left for decades, from the Soviet Union to the postcolonial academy and the British Left from Corbyn to _The

Guardian,_ to the UN and most NGOs working in Gaza. This is why Rusbridger’s words are not “unsayable”. They are one of the most conventional orthodoxies of our time. He must know this. He,

Starmer, Lammy and Prince William are swimming with the tide. None of them are thinking critically or even reflecting thoughtfully on their words. That’s why these past few days, and

yesterday in particular, have been such a dark moment in British public life. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an

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