The race to replace Boris Johnson as Conservative leader and Prime Minister has been marked by acrimony. Rishi Sunak has established himself as the candidate of the centre and his rival Liz Truss the figurehead of the right. On one issue, however, they are on the same platform.
Last night, Sunak spoke to Conservative Friends of Israel, a campaign group within the Conservative party that is popular with both MPs and grassroots activists. During the Q&A session, the former Chancellor was asked his position on moving the British embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, an issue that has sprung from relative obscurity in British politics to become a mainstream proposition.
According to Jewish Chronicle reporter Ben Bloch, who covered Monday night’s event, Sunak told the audience he considered Jerusalem ‘the undisputed capital’ of Israel and said there was ‘a very strong case for it to be recognised’. He cautioned that he had never been Foreign Secretary and so wasn’t fully up-to-speed on the ‘sensitivities’ of the issue but reiterated that the case was ‘very strong’.
Whatever happens, Conservative thinking about the Middle East has shifted in a measurably pro-Israel direction
These comments put Sunak in line with his opponent. As I wrote about earlier this month, Liz Truss has already written a letter to Conservative Friends of Israel recognising ‘the importance and sensitivity of the location of the British Embassy in Israel’ and undertaking to ‘review a move to ensure we are operating on the strongest footing within Israel’.
The Conservative party has become increasingly pro-Israel in recent years but the prominence of Israel in the leadership campaign, and especially the credence given to an embassy move, is noteworthy. I have been making the case for the UK to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital for a number of years now. When I had another go last month I didn’t imagine that a few weeks later both candidates for Prime Minister would be making encouraging noises in that direction. As someone overly familiar with the losing side of politics, I’m not quite sure what to do with myself now, so I’m just assuming a betrayal is coming and mentally preparing a righteous polemic in response.
A Prime Minister Sunak who tried to recognise Jerusalem or move our embassy there would face the same obstacles as a Prime Minister Truss. The parliamentary opposition and some malcontents on the Tory benches would be highly vocal. The media would be hysterical, forecasting violence and danger to British personnel and interests. Foreign Office civil servants and diplomats would do their utmost to scupper it.
This is only more reason to press on and make the policy change. A government that allows civil servants and BBC producers to determine its foreign policy is no government at all. As for the dire warnings that can be expected, the United States, Russia, Australia, Guatemala, Honduras, Taiwan, Kosovo and Nauru all recognise Jerusalem, wholly or in part, as Israel’s capital and the sky has yet to fall in.
Whatever happens, Conservative thinking about the Middle East has shifted in a measurably pro-Israel direction. There are probably four factors driving this. One, the coming-of-age of a generation of Conservative politicians who grew up under Margaret Thatcher and got into politics because of her. Thatcher stood out as a warm, though by no means uncomplicated, friend of Israel in a party of patrician Arabists, as stubbornly wedded to an outdated Middle East policy as they were to the Butskellite consensus.
Two is the migration of extreme anti-Zionism from the fringe left in the 1970s and 1980s to the mainstream soft-left in the last two decades or so. As their opponents have staked out a more hostile stance on Israel, the Tories have developed a more sympathetic position. Never underestimate the power of negative partisanship. Three, the increased visibility of domestic Islamism in the UK, and the antisemitism and anti-Zionism that go with it, has sharpened Tory thinking on Israel. Four, the experience of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party, and the tide of antisemitism and Israelophobia that came to the fore, probably had an impact too.
Support for Israel in the Conservative party was widespread before this leadership contest. In its wake, being pro-Israel might become a new litmus test for those aspiring to lead the party in the future.
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