THE TABLET

THE INTERNATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY FOUNDED IN 1840

SOUTHERN LEBANON

ISRAEL NEEDS THE UNITED NATIONS

Benjamin Netanyahu’s behaviour towards the United Nations is becoming increasingly belligerent and intolerable. While many Israelis realise how dangerous this is to Israel’s own interests, most, it seems, do not – or not yet. Israel needs the UN; indeed, in the long run the support of the UN is its best hope of achieving peace and security. Israel as a pariah nation, totally isolated and friendless, would be insecure and precarious, and forced to live in a permanent state of war. If the United States were to withdraw its support, its very existence would be threatened. And public opinion in the US is volatile and unreliable.

Nearly 50 years ago, the UN Security Council authorised an international peacekeeping force, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), to patrol the border between Lebanon and Israel. The mandate was expanded in 2006. The purpose of the 10,000 troops stationed there was to keep the peace between Israel and any armed groups which wanted to harm it, which largely means Hezbollah, and to safeguard and serve the civilian population. Now the Israeli government finds Unifil standing in its way as it unleashes its military operation to neutralise Hezbollah. It has ordered Unifil to stand aside, indeed to withdraw from Lebanon altogether. But only the Security Council can give that order, and shows no sign of doing so. The 40 or so nations that contribute to Unifil, ranging from Ireland to Indonesia, insist on their troops staying put. So there is stalemate.

Meanwhile the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has embarked on a policy of threats and harassment, implying that if Unifil does not stand aside it will be pushed aside by force. Unifil’s mission to bring peace has failed, it says, which is largely true; but the local population needs it there as it offers them protection from Hezbollah on the one hand and the IDF on the other. It also gives the outside world eyes and ears with which to monitor the conflict. Given the ruthlessness which the IDF has displayed in Gaza, this is more necessary than ever. The world no longer trusts Israel to comply with international law.

Just as the defeat of Hamas in Gaza has proved elusive, so the same must apply to Hezbollah, only more so. They are both, to varying extents, proxies of Iran and they both stand for the same idea – a Middle East without Israel. Yet the most Israel can hope to do to Hezbollah is to make life difficult and dangerous; the most Hezbollah can do to Israel is the same.

Apart from that, it is a pointless conflict, which serves only to keep Israel in a state of war – and meanwhile to impose intolerable suffering on the innocent Lebanese people. The Irish army, incidentally, has suffered more fatal casualties than any other nation involved in the five decades since Unifil was created, and still has a battalion present on the ground. Its soldiers remain in harm’s way. Blessed are the peacemakers indeed, to take such risks in the name of common humanity.

STARMER’S FIRST 100 DAYS

WHERE’S THE VISION?

Sir Keir Starmer might yet become a great prime minister, but the jury is still out. At present, as his administration passes its first 100-day mark, his strengths are tending to be undermined by his weaknesses. It is not at all clear what he is in politics to achieve. Hence it is difficult to know against what standards his performance should be measured. Not being a Conservative, and hence not tainted by the obvious failures of the previous administration, has only limited appeal, declining as time passes. In any event, the holier than thou tone of his election campaign invites inevitable cries of “hypocrisy” as his own foibles become apparent. Starmer is still too much of a lawyer and civil servant.

The issue of his acceptance of gifts from his wealthy supporter Lord Alli, the total value of which is said to be more than £100,000, is a revealing case in point. Starmer was obliged by the rules to declare them, which, being a good lawyer, he duly did. But he failed to realise that compliance with the letter of the law was not enough. The rules exist for a purpose – not only to make plain to the public what gifts a politician has received and from where, but then to allow the public to approve or disapprove, as it thinks fit. And that is precisely what has happened. The public disapproves, especially when Starmer’s government has decided to withdraw help with their gas and electricity bills from millions of elderly people this winter. In other words, he complied with the letter of the law only to be ambushed by the foreseeable political consequences when he failed to take into account the spirit – the moral principle – behind it.

This narrowness of vision suggests a man who finds it difficult to handle the way people respond to him: a key political attribute. It turns his speeches into boring monologues, whereas the best speakers know how to feed off their audience’s reactions and in turn feed their emotions back to them. It requires poetry as well as prose, morality as well as legality. It needs an appeal to the heart as well as to the head. Starmer talks about restoring an ideal of public service without saying what that service is for. Without vision or purpose, it sounds purely managerial.

Yet this is a man who has performed a minor miracle, winning a massive majority for his party five years after an equally massive defeat, and, in the process, freeing the party from the hard left and anti-Zionist cabal that had taken control of it. Merely by providing an electable alternative to the worn-out Conservatives, he has performed an invaluable public service already. His programme for putting right the failures of Tory governments seems realistic, even ambitious – and desperately needed. But it begs the question: for what purpose? What is the fair and just society he wants to build, running on what principles? What is the spirit behind the laws he wants to see enacted? Until he can start to answer that, his chance of greatness will elude him.

2 | THE TABLET | 19 OCTOBER 2024

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