Labour’s Israel arms ban is a shameful betrayal of a heroic ally

Israel is an oasis of democracy in a desert of tyranny – and our Foreign Secretary’s grandstanding appeases terrorists

Call me soppy and nostalgic, but I preferred it when Labour was controlled by the trade unions not the Gaza Party. At least the wily leaders of Aslef and the NUM merely wanted improved wages and conditions. They did not expect to dictate British foreign policy.
Unbelievably – although maybe all too believably, given this fledgling Government’s ability to do the most awful thing in any given situation – David Lammy announced that the UK was suspending some arms export licences to Israel. It would have been a controversial decision in normal times, but it came immediately after one of the most anguished days in Israel’s history. Six young hostages, who had been in a living hell in the tunnels under Gaza for 11 months, were executed with a bullet to the back of the head by their Hamas captors. But not before that genocidal group had recorded each hostage in order to have a gloating video to release on the day their parents buried them.
To hear Lammy say he was suspending 30 of 350 arms export licences because there was a risk such equipment “might be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law,” presented a bold challenge to the limits of satire. The only group which could possibly benefit from such a pause had literally just committed the most grievous possible violation of international humanitarian law: the mass murder of innocent civilians.
In opposition, Lammy, an overpromoted chump whose arrogance is in inverse proportion to his intelligence, specialised in embarrassing sixth-form politics. For instance, in 2018, he branded President Donald Trump a “neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath” because insulting the thin-skinned leader of the Free World never has any repercussions, does it? Now the Foreign Secretary, might Lammy surprise us and grow up, developing the maturity and tact that great office of state demands?
Unfortunately, the Muslim vote is far too valuable for Labour to allow foreign policy to get in the way of preserving it. Throwing our Israeli allies under the bus while they face an existential threat on all sides was clearly considered a small price to pay if it could appease sectarian extremists here in the UK who pose a demographic challenge in Labour strongholds, even knocking out prominent names like Jonathan Ashworth at the general election.
As if to confirm our worst suspicions, Lammy’s announcement came on the very same day that four new MPs, elected on a pro-Gaza ticket, and a former Labour leader, informed the Speaker they were founding a group known as the Independent Alliance that would sit together in the Commons – Jeremy Corbyn, long-time Hamas sympathiser; Ayoub Khan, MP for Birmingham Perry Bar; Adnan Hussain, MP for Blackburn; Shockat Adam, MP for Leicester South; and Iqbal Mohamed, MP for Dewsbury and Batley (where a teacher went into hiding with his family in fear of their lives after an angry Muslim mob objected to an RE lesson on blasphemy in which he showed a picture of the Prophet Mohammed). Nothing to worry about, ladies and gentlemen. Just an Islamic separatist caucus now sitting in our Parliament with the aim of influencing government policy towards views which are inimical to our values and traditions. (Can you get arrested for mentioning British “values and traditions”? Asking for 30 million non-brainwashed people.)
This arms embargo that isn’t an arms embargo is deeply odd. Only a few weeks ago, the RAF helped to defend Israel, shooting down Iranian drones. Israel is a hugely important partner, sharing vital military intelligence, selling us state-of-the-art weapons and a hefty dose of all medicines used by the NHS. Why would you do something designed to upset them? You might almost think the Government hasn’t got a blinking clue what it’s doing.
The UK actually provides less than one per cent of Israel’s armaments. So the cut Lammy announced was only ever crude gesture politics. The man is such a giant numpty he probably hoped he could earn himself a few brownie points with the Independent Alliance and far-Left, pro-Palestinian Jew-haters while still avoiding a diplomatic incident.
His timing was appalling. As Lammy revealed his shabby, treacherous plan to the Commons, I was watching Rachel, the mother of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, give an eulogy at the funeral of her “sweet boy”, who will forever be 23 years old. “It’s not that Hersh was perfect,” she began, “but he was a perfect son for me. I am full of gratitude to God for giving me the privilege of being Hersh’s mother. I wish I could have had more time with you…” At that thought, she almost broke down irrecoverably, but managed to continue: “Go now on your journey, because finally, finally…you are FREE!”
Rachel’s courage, eloquence and resolve in the face of the cruellest fate imaginable – her only son fallen among Islamist barbarians whose charter commits them to the extermination of the Jews – has been both astounding and humbling. If Rachel Goldberg-Polin is Joan of Arc, David Lammy is a child playing with a box of matches.
The Foreign Secretary badly underestimated the repugnance which his disrespect to a sorrowing Israel would provoke. Foreign minister Israel Katz left him in no doubt. “This step sends a very problematic message to the Hamas terrorist organisation and its backers in Iran,” Katz said. “Israel is disappointed by the British Government’s recent series of decisions… Israel is a law-abiding state that operates in accordance with international law… we expect friendly countries, such as the UK, to recognise this… especially just days after Hamas terrorists executed six Israeli hostages, and in light of recent threats by the Iranian regime to attack the State of Israel.”
Lammy even managed to earn himself a stinging rebuke from the Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis who has shown heroic reserves of patience with Sir Keir Starmer and his insistence that anti-Semitism has been purged from the Labour Party. (Don’t think for a moment the Prime Minister didn’t approve the decision to suspend those arms exports. It has emotionally-constipated robot written all over it.)
“Israel faces down the threat of Iran and its proxies not just to its own people, but to all of us in the democratic West,” tweeted the Chief Rabbi. “Britain and Israel have so much to gain by standing together against our common enemies for the sake of a safer world.”
Millions of us would agree with that sentiment. We know we owe Israel a huge debt of gratitude for sacrificing her people to hold the line against the erasure of our civilisation which, despite its problems, we still prefer to any other. It shouldn’t be complicated. Either you stand against a regime which arrests and kills young women who refuse to cover their hair and hangs men from cranes for being gay, or you give comfort to the devil.
It has only become complicated in this country since we had MPs who parrot the propaganda of a proscribed terrorist organisation. Too many now regard our “common enemies” as friends. I feel sick knowing there are men in our Parliament who think the fiends who abducted sweet Hersh and the others have a point. Every week, we see further disturbing evidence that there is a parallel society within the UK which abides by different civilisational norms to our own – most recently a man convicted for beating up three young women at a petrol station who dared to wear make-up and not dress in “conservative” fashion. Dismayingly, the Labour Government has just shown a willingness to promote the interests of that parallel society over and above the one we know and trust. So we end up with a nonsensical, two-tier foreign policy. 
What can be done? In a hugely impressive speech on Monday, launching her campaign to become Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch said: “When everyone was talking about the five new MPs from Reform, I was far, far more worried about the five new MPs elected on the back of sectarian Islamist politics – alien ideas that have no place here. That’s the sort of politics we need to defeat – and defeat quickly.” Identity politics, political laws, according to Badenoch, are “used by Left-wingers to protect certain groups above others”. Yes, and those groups don’t include Jews.
I am travelling to Israel very soon. I am steeling myself to meet the remarkable person whose job it was to prepare the bodies of the women murdered on October 7 for burial, who bore witness to the diabolical sexual violence the women and girls endured at the hands of Hamas and who restored to them some dignity, some final tenderness. I could cry thinking about it. The whole world should be crying. 
I will apologise to every Israeli I meet for the tawdry betrayal by the British Government. I will explain that Israel is still our valued ally, an oasis of democracy in a desert of tyranny, our Foreign Secretary is a grandstanding halfwit and Labour is just trying to appease groups with whom most decent people disagree. I will say that and I will hope, actually I will pray, that it’s true.  
Am Yisrael Chai.