What does it take for the British government to express genuine outrage over the conduct of Israel? The extermination of tens of thousands of civilians, many of them children, did not cross that particular threshold. What Donald Trump flippantly summarised as “a civilisation has been wiped out in Gaza” did not qualify either: to be specific, the obliteration of almost all civilian infrastructure, such as homes, hospitals, schools, libraries, mosques and universities. Deliberate starvation; repeated forced displacements; the butchery of medics, aid workers, journalists; overwhelming evidence of industrialised torture and sexual violence – none of this merited much more than our foreign secretary issuing a tweet or, at best, penning a letter to “urge” Israel’s government to do something he knows it will not do.
So what has finally driven David Lammy to direct real, righteous anger towards Israel – to describe its actions as “unacceptable, counterproductive and deeply concerning”? Two Labour MPs, Yuan Yang and Abtisam Mohamed, being denied entry to Israel and deported.
