UK Parliament's Vote Underlines Israel's Deepening Isolation
The world is no longer shutting its eyes to the Benjamin Netanyahu government's obstructionism and violence
By Matt Hill
4:21PM BST 14 Oct 2014
In the end, the result was emphatic. After three and a half hours of debate, MPs voted to recognise the state of Palestine by 274 votes to 12.
To be sure, the vote was non-binding and has no effect – for now – on government policy, as Israel’s dwindling number of hardcore supporters will point out. And Israeli officials will affect unconcern, claiming that the emoting of MPs in a second-rate ex-imperialist power with delusions of grandeur means nothing.
Don’t believe a word of it. As reports of last-minute lobbying from Jerusalem make clear, Israel knows it cannot afford to ignore this result – for two reasons. First, it provides a stark barometer reading of opinion in much of the Western world, where Israel craves respect and acceptance. Second, as a damning verdict on Israel’s recent policies from an influential global power, the vote will contribute to its deepening international isolation and prompt other countries to press against the occupation.
If you need proof of just how friendless Israel’s hard-Right government has become, consider the statements last night from MPs who would normally count themselves the country’s natural allies. Arch-Tories such as Nicholas Soames (whose grandfather Winston Churchill is Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political hero) spoke eloquently in favour of Palestinian statehood. And Richard Ottoway, chair of the foreign affairs select committee, said that despite having been “a friend of Israel long before I became a Tory”, its recent policies had “outraged me more than anything else in my political life”, concluding: “If Israel is losing the support of people like me, it is losing a lot of people.”
Not a single MP on either set of benches dared to express support for Israeli policies such as this summer’s devastating assault on Gaza or the ever-expanding settlement project (which experts warn may be about to destroy any chance of dividing Jerusalem between the two sides as part of a future peace deal). And Israel was criticised in terms that until recent years were considered taboo: Labour MP Andy Slaughter’s comparison of the West Bank occupation to South African apartheid drew only murmurs of assent around the chamber. Even most of those who expressed misgivings about the motion preferred to follow the Tory leadership and abstain rather than openly oppose it.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/11162134/Parliaments-vote-underlines-Israels-deepening-isolation.html