Israel, Palestine and the Labour party history that has made Keir Starmer's position so difficult

• I can’t think of any colony or mandate that was as demanding intellectually and emotionally as Palestine.
• I said: “I found the British still very emotional about Palestine.
• Why?” And he said: “It’s associated, don’t you think with partisanship with one side or the other.
• I can’t think of any colony or mandate that was as demanding intellectually and emotionally as Palestine.
• Mayhew, a staunch anti-communist, found himself out of sync with the zeitgeist and abandoned Labour for the Liberal Party.

Internal rivalries

• There has thus been a powerful tendency for the antagonisms of the Arab-Israeli conflict to map onto Labour’s own internal rivalries and the factional battle for control over the party.
• Between 1945 and 1967, this usually manifested itself as a clash between a pro-Zionist left and an anti-Zionist right.

Starmer’s predicament

• Keir Starmer’s political positioning on the 2023 Gaza conflict is shaped by his experience of the more recent chapters of that history.
• He has sought to rebuild trust with the British Jewish community and distance the party from what many see as the toxic image it acquired under Corbyn.
• These are all pressures and dangers that can be expected to grow as the Gaza conflict intensifies and its human costs mount.

James Vaughan is affiliated with the Jewish Labour Movement