(Reprinted from Church and State 2025)

British Premier Sir Keir Starmer took part in mid-December, in his official capacity as British Prime Minister, in the Jewish celebration of the festival of Hanukkah.  A segment of his speech played by the media suggested that Hanukkah was about meditation conducive to peace, rather like what Christmas has become in Christian sentiment.

From a Judaic standpoint, Christmas does not signify peace and reconciliation.  It marked the appearance of a rogue Jew who originated a movement that played a central part in turning the Western world against them.

Sir Keir served in Jeremy Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet.  When Corbyn retired, he posed as a Corbynite for the purpose of becoming his successor as Labour Leader.  When he became Leader he immediately set about branding Corbyn as an Anti-Semite and expelled him from the Parliamentary Party.  And Corbyn was prevented from standing in the last General Election.

Starmer was assisted in this by the Jewish Board of Deputies, and the Israeli Government supplied him with an agent to help him purge the Party of members who might become critical of Israel in a difficult situation.  (This was before the Hamas event of 7th October 2023.)

Corbyn was a well-known campaigner against Anti-Semitism.  He accepted the definition of Anti-Semitism constructed by the Jewish authorities, but pointed out that the definition did not forbid political criticism of the Jewish State.

On this matter the Chief Rabbi laid it down that, while it may be possible theoretically to criticise the Jewish State without being Anti-Semitic, it was not possible in practice.

The official Jewish response to Corbyn’s qualification of his acceptance of the official Jewish definition of Anti-Semitism—that it did not rule out criticism of the political conduct of the Israeli Government—was that it negated his acceptance of the definition and made him an Anti-Semite.

To have theoretical freedom to criticise the Israeli Government but to be an Anti-Semite if you do criticise it, is to be in a tricky position.  But the context of things changed rapidly.  When Sir Keir came to Office, Israel was engaged in destructive bombing of the population of Gaza, citing as its precedents the British destruction of Dresden after Russia had destroyed the substance of the German Army on the battlefield, and the American nuclear bombing of two Japanese cities, far from the battlefield, after Japan had been defeated and was only haggling over surrender terms.

South Africa brought a case against Israel to the judicial system which the United Nations had established to accompany its body of international law.  Sir Keir opposed the South African action as a “distraction”.  But the International Court of Justice accepted the case, and after long consideration concluded that Israel had a case to answer on the charge of genocide.  The International Criminal Court also took up the case and issued a warrant for the arrest of the Israeli Prime Minister for a breach of International Law.

Sir Keir is described as having been a Human Rights lawyer before he entered politics.  When Israel, at the start of its area bombing of Gaza, announced that it would stop the entry of food, water, medicine, and fuel to Gaza, Sir Keir (as Opposition Leader) was asked for his opinion and he said it seemed OK to him.

Emily Thornbury

Emily Thornbury, who was in the Labour Shadow Cabinet, and had taken part in the defaming of Corbyn, was equivocal on the matter of starving the population of Gaza to death.

After the two International Courts took the case against Israel and found it had a case to answer, she admitted she had got it wrong, because the Labour leadership had been misled by Israel about what it intended to do in Gaza.

The following exchange is from BBC’s Newsnight of October 18^th 2024:

“Question:  When you came on last year, it was very soon after October 7th and you were unwilling to describe Israel cutting off food and water as breaking international law.  Forty-two thousand people have died in Gaza.  Are you still of that opinion?

“Thornbury:  So, I can speak a bit more freely now than I was able to last time, because we had conversations, and we had been led to believe that the Israelis were about to go in to Gaza to get the hostages back, and for that reason they were, as we understood it, in the short term going to be cutting off water and they’d be cutting off electricity, and they were going to close the borders, and then they were going in and there was going to be a sort of Entebbe-type raid.  That’s what we understood.

…

I’m after that.  And what can I do?  I came across as tongue-tied, but it was for that reason.

Q:     Now, what would you say?

A:   Clearly, we know what international law says.  And clearly the forced movement of the population from one place to another is a breach of international law.  The starvation of individuals for war purposes is, deliberate starvation of people, is a war crime, etc. etc.

Q:     So are you saying Israel has broken international law?

A:   I’m saying there will be a reckoning for all sides, and they will go before an International Court, and they will be tried in the appropriate place.  I’m not trying people one way or the other.  I would certainly expect that a number of people from all sides ending up before the Courts, and they should be because there must be accountability for breaches of international law”.

This was not the Party line.  The Party line was evasiveness.  Pointed questions were met with generalised answers.  And Thornberry, the most substantial political figure in the Party—not excluding the Leader—did not become Foreign Secretary as expected.

Meanwhile Sir Keir is in a bit of a pickle— what with the Israeli Prime Minister wanted on a war crimes charge.  He has to allow members to say things which would have led to expulsion for Anti-Semitism if said two years ago.  But for himself he remains silent and takes part in Hanukkah as a kind of Jewish Christmas.

Hanukkah was established by Judas Maccabeus, leader of the Maccabee assault on the Greek civilisation of the Middle East.

Judas conquered Jerusalem, made a thorough purge of Jews who had compromised with Greek humanism, and set about annexing adjacent territory to the fundamentalist Jewish State which he was establishing.

Starmer’s Hanukkah message from Downing Street

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer addressed the Jewish community’s leaders with a Hanukkah message at this year’s pre-Hanukkah event held at 10 Downing Street.  He explained how he had the Jewish people in mind when making political decisions:

“It’s about the teaching of the children about the Hanukkah story, remembering the resilience of the Jewish people and the values of justice, of freedom and dignity, that we learn about in Hanukkah.

And those values: justice, freedom and dignity, they are not just words, they are values, that means they inform how we behave, they inform our decisions, but they are values that I share, and the values of the Government, and that is important because in the end of course government is about individual policies, are you going to do this, are you going to do that.

But what matters just as much in my view is who do you have in your mind’s eye when you make your decisions and what are the values that, in the end, are going to guide you between decision A and decision B and underpin and provide the anchors for everything that they do and that we do.

And so these values will inspire us and inspire our work as we turn the corner into next year, deliver the change across the country which people desperately need and I want to recognise and thank you and value your role in that task.”