By midnight on the 10th October, the anxiously awaited ceasefire deal between Hamas and the Israeli government had taken effect. The bombs, bullets, and blockades ruthlessly imposed on the Gazan population have, for now, come to a halt; and the genocide – to use a term employed and verified by the United Nations, Amnesty International and the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) – is seemingly over. Questions now abound as to what the future holds for the state of Palestine – a land that has been comprehensively annihilated by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) over the course of the past two years.
These undeniably-welcome developments have generated profound uncertainty in many respects, yet they have also delivered points of clarity beyond the shores of the Levant with lessons to learn for all states involved. For the British state in particular, the most challenging but imperative one to accept will undoubtedly be the changed nature of modern diplomacy, and Britain’s newfound role within it.
These differences were revealed most starkly on the 21st September, as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced that the UK, along with France, Canada, and Australia, would finally recognise a Palestinian state based on its 1967 borders. Such a move was as unexpected as it was unprecedented, with Starmer defying diplomatic resistance from both Israel and the United States, neither of which have ever recognised a Palestinian state, for the very first time.
But what did it actually mean to recognise a state whose borders have been repeatedly redrawn by its neighbours, whose capital city has been occupied for more than five decades, who boasts no army, and has no legitimate or centralised political organisation at its helm? For those who are pro-Israel, it meant a ‘reward’ for Hamas terrorists; for those still in support of a two-state solution, including ostensibly Starmer himself, it marked a foundational step towards reaching that panacea.
Amidst the great fanfare and frustration on both sides of the political aisle, amplified and hyperbolised in the press to intoxicating effect, a less flattering truth for the nation’s establishment also began to reveal itself: the United Kingdom recognising Palestine actually meant very little – perhaps nothing at all. In fact, despite the overwhelming nature of the domestic controversy, this policy shift merely aligned Britain with a near-unanimous global consensus to which almost 80% of the international community already subscribed. The UK became one of 157 United Nations member states to recognise the national sovereignty of Palestine, dwarfing the ever-dwindling minority of just 36 that still do not. The scale of that unanimity should matter, especially for Starmer, a man who has often been saddled, or perhaps complimented, with the epithet ‘Mr. Rules’.
The bleaker truth, however, is that symbolic and democratic diplomacy of this kind no longer does matter, at least not to any meaningful extent. Neither the 66,000 Palestinians killed by the IDF in Gaza, four in five of whom have been civilians and almost half women and children, nor the remaining Israeli hostages were protected in any way by the internal machinations of the Foreign Office, Australian Parliament, or Assemblée nationale. Meanwhile, the obligations of the international community to the Geneva Convention, Rome Statute, and International Criminal Court (ICC) did not prove sufficiently binding or effective to prevent a genocide from taking place. At the same time, alarming reports by human rights organisations, who cited incontrovertible evidence of international law violations often recorded and posted to social media by their own Israeli perpetrators, repeatedly went unheeded, rendering them futile as a consequence.
Only the words of Donald Trump and the actions of the United States have moved the needle in the direction of peace. A typically vain, last-ditch effort to secure the Nobel Peace Prize has been the single effective bulwark against mass displacement, death, and starvation mere hundreds of miles away from Europe. No endeavour to recognise or negotiate by Starmer or Macron can change that unfortunate fact.
Just a quick glance at the President’s peace proposals, which include Tony Blair taking on a role akin to ‘Viceroy of Gaza’, will tell you that the game of global politics has fundamentally changed. On this new field of play, a hierarchy of the fittest and strongest is evident, dominated by the likes of Trump, Netanyahu, and Putin – a group of global antagonists free to circumvent international laws and dismiss outright the will of 81% of the international community, all-the-while appointing new viceroys and crowning new kings.
It is with this altered game in mind that Starmer’s continued exaltation of a rules-based international order ‘underpinned by respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity’ rings particularly hollow.
Turning to the world of fiction for answers, it would be remiss of anyone acquainted with George Orwell’s novel 1984 to not notice the eerie resemblance between communications from the Labour cabinet concerning Gaza and the final, most essential command of ‘The Party’. Much like the authoritarian ruling body which presides over Great Britain in 1984, led by the dictatorial ‘Big Brother’ whose Ministry of Truth serves to weaponise and distort the perceptions of its citizens, Starmer’s government has repeatedly told us to ‘reject the evidence of our eyes and ears’ in favour of the more sanguine and palatable reality of old.
At the Foreign Office for example, former Foreign Secretary David Lammy has been frequently heard to condemn the ‘abominable’ human rights abuses of the IDF in the Commons. Elsewhere, at the Ministry of Defence, Defence Secretary John Healey has insisted on the British army’s commitment to International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in his letters to the House. Even Chancellor Rachel Reeves, whose role typically does not extend beyond the economic sphere, has claimed to ‘understand’ the cause of pro-Palestinian activists protesting her keynote speech at Labour Party Conference. They have delivered their words with meaning, leading many to believe that the voice of the British state can still make an impact on the world.
In Orwellian terms, however, this administration has embraced ‘doublethink’ – the act of holding two contradictory beliefs as true simultaneously – as its central disposition. The aforementioned Lammy has actively supervised the maintenance of 320 of Britain’s 350 arms licenses to Israel, many of which were exported under the ‘munitions of war’ category, whilst refusing to withdraw from the F-35 fighter jet programme. That same John Healey has neglected to end the RAF’s spy flight programme over Gaza, which has collected ‘real time’ intelligence for the benefit of the Israeli military every day since October 2023, in spite of information that such intelligence was not being used for ‘hostage rescue’ but rather to coordinate offensive airstrikes. Reeves too, at that same party conference, took time to reassure members of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) that she will ‘always be a friend of Israel’ in alarmingly unconditional terms.
Israel has the right, the Prime Minister himself said to listeners of LBC in October 2023, to cut off water and electricity to Gaza. Such a right does not, however, belong to the rules-based order of old that he has so steadfastly defended in public. A system in which condemnations, conventions, and recognition of sovereignty have more than mere symbolic meaning would prohibit attempts to manufacture mass starvation. Instead, the right to destroy a population and its infrastructure, whilst publicly referring to its civilians as ‘human animals’ as former Israeli Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant did in October 2023, is a feature of a new system where bullying strongmen are able to bulldoze and exploit their zones of influence without the slightest appreciation for laws or ethics.
In this novel lawless world, ‘Mr. Rules’ was always going to be the first to lose out, and perhaps, he only has himself to blame.
For too long, like members of ‘The Party’ in Orwell’s prophetic novel, Starmer has keenly proclaimed that ‘2 + 2 = 5’. He has maintained that the sum of his verbal commitment to international order, in addition to his government’s furtive violation of that very same order in practice, could somehow equal harmony on the global stage. Instead, his doublethink has set a harmful precedent which will soon see Tony Blair crowned Lord of Gaza.
If Starmer, and the British state at large, have any sense, they should concern themselves less with symbolic attempts to convince the public that nothing has changed, that – to cite the official slogan of ‘The Party’ – ‘war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength’. Rather, they should redirect their focus to preparing for the future and, more precisely, the UK’s increasingly enfeebled role within it. In contrast to 1984 however, it is unlikely that Britain’s epilogue will also contain a happy ending.
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