Herzog's UK visit should lead straight to The Hague
Herzog's UK visit should lead straight to The Hague
The UK Labour reshuffle last week was supposed to be a reset; a recognition and acknowledgment from party leadership that things needed to change.
The first, and perhaps biggest, test of whether leaders have learned the lessons of the past year will be the expected visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog to the UK this week.
Nothing has ripped the Labour Party apart, from the inside out, like our policy and positioning on Gaza over the past two years.
Voters have abandoned us, communities have been enraged by the statements made and actions taken (or more accurately, not taken), and our own members of parliament are increasingly angry and exasperated.
To now roll out the red carpet for Herzog, giving him access to our most senior ministers, would be a cast-iron signal that nothing has changed, no lessons have been learned, and no one has been listened to.
This Israeli president is not just another world leader.
He is an active member of an Israeli administration that has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including around 20,000 children. He has been an active cheerleader while Israeli forces have repeatedly broken international law, and as the world’s leading genocide scholars have concluded that his government is committing genocide in Gaza.
Crossing the line
Within days of the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack, Herzog publicly attributed collective responsibility to all Palestinians in Gaza, marking a clear violation of international humanitarian law: “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible,” he said. “This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved - it’s absolutely not true.”
This is not a question of standard diplomacy. Yes, we sometimes meet leaders and political figures with whom we disagree, but there is a line.
There should be no red carpet. There should be no ministerial meetings. Instead, there should be accountability
That line is international humanitarian law. That line is war crimes. That line is genocide.
It would be inconceivable for this government to ever welcome to the UK, and make ministers available to meet, Russian President Vladimir Putin. Why should Herzog be treated any differently?
Senior Labour leaders have ramped up condemnations of the Israeli government’s actions in recent months. The former foreign secretary, David Lammy, denounced Israel’s actions in Gaza and said Palestinians had been subjected to a “grotesque spectacle”.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has also described the actions of Herzog’s government as “appalling, counterproductive and intolerable”.
'What message are we sending?'
To say one thing in parliament about Israel’s actions, and then to roll out the red carpet for Herzog, would not only endorse the impunity granted to Tel Aviv over Israeli crimes in Gaza; it would also shred the credibility of Labour’s foreign policy and the reset touted last week.
Labour MPs from across the political spectrum have already made clear that they expect the government to avoid meeting with Herzog.
MP Sarah Champion, chair of the international development committee in parliament, noted on social media: “The UK’s recognised the ‘real risk’ of genocide perpetuated by Israel, so unless this meeting is about peace - what message are we sending?”
Clive Lewis, another prominent Labour MP, said “dialogue is one thing, but there are times when the act of meeting itself becomes a political statement”. He went on to warn that Herzog’s “own words have helped legitimise the collective punishment of Palestinians, language that international jurists have warned could fall foul of the genocide convention.”
Herzog’s visit to the UK will likely go ahead this week. That much seems all but certain. But for the Labour leadership, there is a more fundamental issue: if the party truly wants a reset and to acknowledge past mistakes, there should be no red carpet. There should be no ministerial meetings. Instead, there should be accountability.
The only reason to welcome this man into our country is to immediately facilitate his transfer to The Hague to be tried for war crimes.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
