Keir Starmer’s Partial Israeli Arms Embargo Has Pleased Nobody

There is an old fable about a man and his son, who attempt to take their donkey to market, only to be constantly interrupted by passers by who criticise the manner in which they do so.

In the story, the first person to stop them mocks their foolishness for walking alongside the animal when they could be using it to carry themselves along the road instead. 

Stung by their criticism, the man orders his son to climb upon its back. However, upon doing so they are immediately stopped by another passer-by who criticises the boy for failing to offer the seat to his father instead.

Yet after swapping roles, they are again stopped by another woman who criticises the old man for sitting while his son walks. 

In order to solve this conundrum, the man tells the boy to climb up alongside him. Yet far from ending the criticism, as they expect, they are once again halted with questions about the now wearisome load they have placed upon their donkey’s back. 

Vexed by these constant attacks, the man finally decides to tie the ass to a stick and attempt to carry it upon their shoulders instead. 

Yet so ludicrous is the site of this attempted compromise that they are soon met by howls of laughter and mockery from passers by, the noise of which upsets the animal into breaking its binds and tumbling from a bridge into the rocky waters below.

So by trying to please everybody, the man has ended up pleasing nobody, and losing his animal besides.

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Appeasing the Unappeasable

I was reminded of this story upon watching the reaction to Keir Starmer’s decision on Monday to suspend some arms sales to Israel.

Announcing the move, the Foreign Secretary David Lammy told MPs that their review had found there to be a “clear risk [the exports] may be used to commit, or facilitate, a serious violation of international humanitarian law”.

On the face of it you may have expected the announcement to have been warmly welcomed by Israel’s critics. Yet anticipating the likely criticism from Israel’s supporters the Foreign Secretary insisted that the suspensions would be limited to less than 10% of all arms exports, with exclusions including some of the parts used for the planes which target Gaza.

As a result, the Government has achieved the impressive feat of annoying pretty much everyone with an opinion about events in the region.

For Israel’s critics, this is a less than half measure, which will do little to prevent the further massacre of those living in Gaza.

Yet for Israel’s supporters, it is a brutal betrayal, at a time when the country is mourning the killing of six more Israeli hostages.

In outraged comments, the chief rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis said the move “beggars belief” and “feeds the falsehood that Israel is in breach of International Humanitarian Law”. Similar condemnation came from the Board of Deputies, and Netanyahu himself.

Meanwhile, the Chief executive of Amnesty International UK, Sacha Deshmukh, described the suspensions as “too limited and riddled with loopholes”.

“Today’s decision means that while ministers apparently accept that Israel may be committing war crimes in Gaza, [the Government] is nevertheless continuing to risk complicity in war crimes, apartheid – and possible genocide – by Israeli forces in Gaza”.

So by trying to please both sides, Starmer’s Government has ended up pleasing neither, while angering even more people than were angry in the first place.

The result is that the merits of the decision itself, and the potentially powerful symbolism of breaking with the US and other allies over support for Israel, has been obscured.

This is not the first time Labour has managed to get itself into trouble on the issue.

Starmer’s initial largely unquestioning support for Israel last year quickly prompted outrage from the country’s critics after he suggested that Netanyahu had a right to deny water and aid to Gaza. His subsequent attempt to walk back his comments only further angered the very people whose support he had first attempted to gain, while failing to appease those who refused to believe his claims to have misspoken in the first place.

Starmer’s apparent inability to take a clear position on the conflict and stick to it is symptomatic of a broader problem for his fledgling government.

On issue after issue – from workers rights, to green policy, to public spending – Starmer and his Government have allowed themselves to be pressured into watering down their positions in order to stem real and even imagined criticism.

The result has been that genuinely welcome decisions, such as scrapping the Rwanda scheme, increasing workers rights and expanding green power, have all been obscured and neutered by attempts to balance them out with rhetoric and policies designed to appease those who these decisions may have angered. 

This obsessive focus on appeasing critics who will never be appeased, while disappointing potential supporters into the bargain, has led to Starmer’s spin operation repeatedly angering supportive publications by instead placing big stories in outlets, like the Daily Telegraph, which are both little read by their own voters, and openly hostile to them.

The strategy does not appear to be working, with recent polling showing a heavy fall in support for his Government.

Like an old man struggling to carry a donkey on a stick,  Starmer has ended up pleasing nobody, while losing his ass besides.

It is an approach he would be well advised to abandon.