Kemi Badenoch's position on Israel is discrediting the Conservative Party
While there, accompanied by the peer Stuart Polak of the Conservative Friends of Israel, she met the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu without UK government officials or the British ambassador. Afterwards, she advocated a change in UK policy which, in breach of long-established humanitarian practice, would have included the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in its aid delivery.
This episode could not have been a starker example of impropriety. It merited her dismissal but Theresa May was too weak to wield the axe. Instead, Patel was allowed to resign. And yet, Badenoch saw fit to appoint her to the shadow cabinet.
Patel is now in a position to perpetuate her views at a critical moment in world events. Badenoch has shown no indication of knowing anything about Israel and Palestine, and has not made any profound statements on this, the one foreign issue, other than Ukraine, that has dominated global news since she was elected. All she utters is uncritical support for Israel.
The Conservative Party used to have a world-view. It supported enlightened international cooperation, and institutions such as the UN along with its accompanying treaties, rules and conventions. More broadly, it was the UK that pledged to support a homeland for the Jewish people, and a future for the Palestinians next door. To their shame, while successive governments have forever delayed implementing that commitment, the Israelis each and every day have violently stolen ever more Palestinian land.
Palestine is the only populous legally undisputed land in the world not allowed to call itself a state. It does not belong to Israel, and Israel's determination to annex it does not mean it is disputed. The illegality of Israeli encroachment is cast-iron in international law, a belief that has been the policy of Conservative and Labour governments for decades.
Badenoch, however, seems to share the view of those like Patel who do not believe in their own policy. They can never bring themselves to say explicitly that settlements are illegal. The charge sheet against Israel is growing every day: disproportionate force, indiscriminate bombing, mass displacement, food deprivation, the replacement of the Palestinian relief agency UNRWA with mercenaries, the killing of tens of Palestinians each day as they desperately scramble for food, state-backed support for settler terrorists, and the banning of journalists from Gaza. Badenoch and her front bench have done nothing to condemn any of it.
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[See also: Jonathan Sumption on Israel and Gaza: A question of intent]
Amid all this, Priti Patel has refused in the Commons to condemn settler violence – all she would say was that settlers are a barrier to a two-state solution. And when extremist Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir were sanctioned in June, she declined in her response even to mention their names. The likes of Suella Braverman, meanwhile, have branded pro-Palestine demonstrations 'hate marches'.
Contemptibly, any pro-Palestinian voice within the Conservative Party is almost systematically accused of anti-Semitism and put into its complaints procedure, which silences and bullies. And as Michael Gove increases his hold on appointments to the leader's office, what could be more warped than his recent recommendation that the IDF be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize?
It has now reached the point where Conservative comment has become so extreme it has discredited their entire foreign policy and is making them despised more widely. The party is increasingly becoming defined by its lack of humanity. The world is watching the extermination of an entire country. Palestine is being annihilated. Meanwhile the Conservative Party is covering itself in shame, and will stand no chance of re-election unless it states a clear policy based on international law, and promotes the UK's historic understanding of the region.
This issue is and always has been about land. Israel's extremist government has only one objective, and that is to make all of Palestine theirs. All other talk, horrendous though the facts may be, is second to that. As leader, Kemi Badenoch could redeem herself speedily by stating loudly what all should be saying to Israel: 'Get out of Palestine, it isn't your country.'
[See also: Keir Starmer alienates left and right on Gaza]
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