It’s a little too easy to dismiss the huge Labour rebellion on the Israel-Hamas war last night as ‘virtue signalling’. No one can deny that politicians were striking poses. A party, not in government, tearing itself apart about a conflict that does not involve the UK, over policy recommendations which all the combatants will ignore, in the unlikely event that they care enough about the British Labour party to even notice the vote in the first place.
In an interview that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas member, praised the massacre of Israeli civilians on October 7, and vowed that his forces would massacre again and again because Israel ‘must be finished’. There’s little hope of him listening to calls for peace.
Labour’s convulsions unintentionally reveal western weakness and tell us a great deal what our next government will look like
Meanwhile the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a ceasefire four days ago unless Hamas released all hostages, and has repeatedly vowed to press on until Israel has destroyed its enemies.
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