Well, that hasn’t taken long. Britain’s supposed firm and unambiguous support for Israel’s right to defend itself lasted around six weeks, before collapsing into the usual Foreign Office moral equivalence and implicit demonisation of Israel. So much for resolution and moral clarity.
We can date precisely when Britain decided that Israel’s “right to defend itself” after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust meant, in reality, that it had little right to actually do anything: 13 November. Which is the day on which David Cameron was appointed foreign secretary.
Lord Cameron was in Israel last week, and he seemed determined to make the Israelis appreciate that his title meant he could Lord it over them. While other official visitors have used their time in Israel to express their full support for their hosts – including Lord Cameron’s predecessor as foreign secretary, James Cleverly – our new face on the world stage had other ideas.
It is indeed appalling that so many have been killed. But that is a consequence of Hamas’s policy of using civilians as human shields, and deliberately seeking their death so as to be able to lure the likes of Lord Cameron into blaming Israel.
