Would UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer have Benjamin Netanyahu arrested at the airport in London? It feels like forever since this was an active question, but it hasn’t even been half a year since the International Criminal Court issued its warrant for the Israeli prime minister. At the time, Starmer stammered when asked the question; he seemed to indicate that he would support Bibi’s arrest but then muddied the waters a bit and left everyone unsure.
It is an absurd proposition: The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel and, quite aside from the kangaroo court’s corruption and the illegitimate arguments made in favor of jailing Netanyahu, the warrant is therefore irrelevant. It is a make-pretend warrant.
But it’s worth revisiting this controversy. “The UK will always comply with its legal obligations as set out by domestic law and indeed international law,” Starmer’s spokesman said at the time. Rules are rules, after all, and they apply to everyone, even the prime minister. Right?
And yet, one can’t help but wonder. Over the weekend, as I wrote yesterday, two Labour Party MPs were refused entry to Israel. They claimed to be on a parliamentary delegation but were not. And they had advocated in the past for boycotting or otherwise sanctioning Israel, which is grounds to be denied entry.
Starmer threw a fit: “this is no way to treat British parliamentarians.” Foreign Secretary David Lammy compared Israel to China. Another Labour MP accused Israel of acting out of racism.
So the Telegraph asked Starmer’s office if the prime minister was aware of the fact that the UK’s own Foreign Office says the following about travel to Israel: “Foreign nationals can legally be refused entry if they: have publicly called for a boycott of Israel or Israeli settlements, [or] belong to an organisation which has called for a boycott.”
The prime minister was aware of the travel notice. The Telegraph then asked Starmer’s office whether the prime minister believed that such rules apply to everyone, or whether there is a “two-tier” system in which, say, MPs can disregard the rules by which everyone else must live.
Starmer’s spokesman responded: “The Foreign Office advice obviously applies to everyone. But as the Foreign Secretary said yesterday, our position is very clear. We think it is counterproductive for British MPs on a parliamentary delegation to be detained and refused entry.”
So it’s counterproductive for Israel to enforce a single standard? Just trying to keep track.
Starmer and Lammy are making a show of solidarity with their own parliamentarian, but they might want to consider how “productive” it is for their party’s anti-Zionist crackpots to lie, as they reportedly did, to Israeli officials when trying to enter that country, during wartime, as part of a stunt to collect propaganda for Israel’s enemies to use against it. The whole thing was childish and only magnifies the perception that Starmer has no control over his party and that Lammy is in over his head. It would be productive for everyone to grow up.
