With the recent joint statement alongside France and Canada, Great Britain is once again compromising its moral commitment towards the Jewish state. By yielding to Arab pressure, Britain has initiated a reversal that echoes its betrayal in the 1939 White Paper – a moral stain on British policy and a mistake with fatal consequences that must not be repeated.
In this new stance, the three nations demand that Israel stop its military campaign immediately and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. They have suspended trade negotiations and threatened “concrete actions” and sanctions, including revising the EU-Israel free trade agreement.
They called on Israel to cease Jewish development in Judea and Samaria while expressing their readiness to recognize a Palestinian state.
It should be noted that even as this declaration was being made, humanitarian aid was on its way to Gaza. This posturing buys into the false but popular narrative that Israel is creating and weaponizing famine. By embracing these distortions and threatening sanctions, Britain is turning its back once again on its only democratic ally in the region, just like it did in 1939.
The UK's shifting policy on Israel
Like the White Paper, this new position reflects a policy shift driven by pragmatic concerns, including security and commercial interests. The Balfour Declaration, which served as the main guidelines for the mandate, embodied a moment of moral clarity for the British.
This commitment to “civilizational justice” was, however, sold out by the 1939 White Paper, which Winston Churchill himself strongly condemned as “a breach of faith.” In April 2024, when UK premier Rishi Sunak stood with Israel and its allies in the face of Iran’s unprecedented missile attack, we were reminded of that moral clarity and of the fact that Britain can act with principle when it chooses to.
In 1939, by appeasing its Arab partners, Britain sought to maintain its influence in the region (especially in Iraq, Kuwait, and Transjordan) and protect its local interests, which included oil, of course, but also trade routes to its Asian colonies (through the Suez Canal) and military positioning, which would come in handy to face Nazi expansion. However, that appeasement came at a terrible cost.
By limiting Jewish immigration and land purchases, the White Paper – denounced by David Ben-Gurion as the “greatest betrayal perpetrated by the government of a civilized people in our generation” – signed what Chaim Weizmann called a “death sentence for the Jewish people.”
Had Britain not shut the door to Jewish immigration at the most crucial moment, the outcome of the Holocaust would have been different. With the White Paper, the Arabs knew that Britain was willing to sacrifice Jewish survival to appease its opposition and secure regional alliances. The White Paper also opened the door to the idea of a “binational state,” which, due to demographic restrictions on Jews, would have meant a de facto Arab state instead of a Jewish homeland.
Today, this idea is resurfacing among the enemies of Zionism, particularly within far-left circles. As for those calling for the recognition of a Palestinian state, they are, in effect, rewarding October 7 terror. That day was not only a massacre; it was part of Hamas’s proclaimed raison d’être – its intent to eradicate Israel.
Across the British Channel, with his stated intention of recognizing a Palestinian state as soon as June, French President Emmanuel Macron has already crossed a dangerous line. His erratic foreign policy has turned France into an unreliable and questionable ally.
This decision is not just reckless; it is the expression of weakness and disloyalty – the opposite of what it pretends to be. With such a move, Macron aims to position France as a global diplomatic power and a balancing force in the Middle East, and position himself as the leader of a larger European diplomatic initiative.
It also allows him to address domestic pressure from the largely pro-Palestinian – and increasingly radicalized – Muslim population and to conveniently divert attention from widespread criticism of his government. Britain must not follow suit. It must not allow internal demographics or political opportunism to set its moral compass.
This time, in Britain, internal pressure is as decisive as geopolitical interest. There, too, the rise of politically active and vocal pro-Palestinian organizations among the growing Muslim population (many spearheaded by Palestinian expats) is impacting foreign policy. According to a Channel 12 report published last week, over 25% of Hamas’s funding originates in the UK, including contributions from both governmental and nongovernmental actors.
Allegations of financial links between UK-based charities and Hamas are raising red flags and further illustrate the blurred lines between domestic pressure and foreign concessions. Britain must not make the same mistake and prioritize Arab appeasement over the Jewish state’s survival.
In 1947, after the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis, Britain handed over the Palestine issue to the United Nations, thereby admitting failure. The UN’s ensuing Partition Plan – based on the Peel Commission’s earlier proposal – was rejected outright by the Arab world, which continues to deny any Jewish claim to sovereignty.
The White Paper of 1939 was the price for Arab pogroms and unrest. Will Britain now offer sanctions and statehood as the price for the Hamas pogrom of October 7 and give in to radicalized movements that are changing the face of its nation? Or will it remain faithful to the Balfour Declaration, not only out of historical obligation, but in strong opposition to those who deny Jewish rights, reward terror, and seek to erase history?
Britain must reaffirm its alliance with the Jewish state not only by reiterating Israel’s right to self-defense, but by investigating and putting an end to UK-Hamas ties and supporting diplomatically (and literally) the US plan for aid distribution and for a Gaza free of Hamas.
The writer is author of a PhD thesis on French post-Holocaust literature.