Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has just accused UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney of “siding with Hamas” following the shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC. This, despite all three leaders, along with many others, publicly condemning the attack.
The context is telling. Just days earlier, Starmer’s Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, delivered a blistering rebuke of Israel’s actions in Gaza. Though he stopped short of formally labelling it genocide or announcing sanctions, Lammy’s language was unambiguous: “Palestinian children are being bombed, burned, and starved to death,” he told the House of Commons, adding that “millions have been displaced in what many view as ethnic cleansing.” He condemned not only Israel’s starvation policy and aid blockade, but also what he called the “vile, genocidal language” of Israeli politicians and media commentators. (gov.uk source)
There was strong cross-party support for this position, including calls for recognition of the State of Palestine and growing use of the word genocide by sitting MPs. Earlier that week, Starmer, Macron and Carney had issued a joint statement demanding an immediate ceasefire and the full restoration of humanitarian aid to Gaza — warning that if Israel failed to comply, “concrete actions” would follow.
Netanyahu now claims that such statements not only embolden Hamas, but have also incited antisemitism and contributed to the Washington shooting. This is extraordinary: a sitting Israeli prime minister accusing his strongest international allies — who continue to supply arms, intelligence, and diplomatic cover — of siding with “mass murderers, rapists and baby killers”. It would seem an act of political self-sabotage, unless one of two things is true: either Netanyahu has some form of leverage over these leaders, or the entire spectacle is theatre — a bruising battle of words designed to create the illusion of real confrontation while allowing Israel to complete its work unimpeded.
And so, amid this performance of condemnation, the ethnic cleansing proceeds — not just of Gaza, but quite possibly of the West Bank. The West can later say it tried, that it voiced concern, that it raised alarms. Israel, for its part, will continue to deny any crimes were committed. And the world, ultimately, will move on. Voters will be herded back to domestic issues. The threat of electoral reckoning will vanish. And Israel will have solved its “Palestinian existence” problem.
Far-fetched? Maybe. But history suggests otherwise. The fact that Israel has been able to violate international law, comprehensively and with impunity, for 58 years since 1967 — and arguably since 1948 — strongly implies it can continue to do so. And with increasing confidence.
Because ultimately, as nearly all serious analysts agree, the scaffold holding up this artificial island of faux democracy is the United States — with its unblinking veto power, military lifeline, and deluded conviction that it somehow profits from all this. For Israel, condemnation from anyone but Washington is just water off a very slippery duck’s back.
Until the U.S. wakes up and realises that its costly loyalty to a single rogue state brings far less benefit than friendship with dozens of Arab nations — nations it does not need to prop up with weapons, and whose collective wealth dwarfs America’s — then nothing will change. Until Americans realise they are materially poorer because of their blind support for Israel, the apartheid will continue, and so will the bloodshed.
Donald Trump, of all people, may have an opening here. Should he choose to break the Zionist spell and sever the cord, he might actually earn that Nobel Peace Prize he keeps fantasising about. He could be remembered as the president who finally set America free — and opened the door to a new era of non-interventionist diplomacy, unchained from the toxic legacy of Israel-first foreign policy.
Israel would then face a choice. Either join the international community of mostly law-abiding states — including, notably, the State of Palestine — or become a pariah, starved of capital and attention, as global diplomacy and finance pivot away toward 400 million Arabs who, as economist Jeffrey Sachs puts it, the West will no longer need to sanction, bomb, or occupy on Israel’s behalf. (Sachs article and video below.)