Wes Streeting, a prominent voice in UK politics, delivered a compelling speech to the Yachad Student Conference in London in 2019, outlining his views on the complex and often contentious Israel-Palestine conflict. Speaking to pro-peace Jewish student activists, Streeting’s address, titled ‘Avoiding the Path of Least Resistance: Standing Our Ground on the Territory Where Peace Can be Built,’ articulated a position that seeks to navigate the difficult terrain of this issue with both conviction and a commitment to dialogue. This speech offers a valuable insight into Streeting’s long-held beliefs and his approach to fostering a constructive conversation around one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.
Streeting’s engagement with the Israel-Palestine issue is not a recent development but rather one that has been shaped by years of personal experiences and political engagement. He recounted his early encounters with the complexities of the conflict during his time at Cambridge University. His initial introduction came through a motion for an academic boycott of Israel proposed at his students’ union council. Streeting, instinctively opposed to academic boycotts on principle, saw the proposition as antithetical to the spirit of academic freedom and collaboration. He questioned the practical implications, highlighting the potential exclusion of Israeli academics and students and the disruption of valuable research partnerships. Although the motion was ultimately defeated, it marked the beginning of Streeting’s deeper engagement with the discourse surrounding Israel and Palestine, particularly within the university environment.
Further solidifying his understanding of the conflict’s personal impact, Streeting shared a poignant anecdote from his time as students’ union president. A distressed phone call in the middle of the night from an executive member revealed the fear and anxiety caused by rocket attacks in Haifa, where the member’s parents resided. This personal connection brought home the very real human cost of the conflict and the immediate threats faced by Israeli families. These early experiences began to move Streeting beyond abstract political debates and towards a more nuanced appreciation of the human dimensions of the Israel-Palestine situation.
A pivotal moment in shaping Streeting’s perspective was the National Union of Students (NUS) conference in 2005. As a candidate for the NUS National Executive, he witnessed firsthand the troubling intersection of anti-Zionism and antisemitism. The conference was marred by the distribution of leaflets by the General Union of Palestinian Students that employed classic antisemitic tropes, including references to the fabricated “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and the false claim that Lenin was Jewish. Streeting observed with concern the inadequate response from the NUS to the legitimate concerns raised by the Union of Jewish Students (UJS). This failure led to the resignation of Jewish officials, including Luciana Berger, from the NUS, highlighting a significant issue of antisemitism within student politics.
These formative experiences in student politics, particularly his subsequent work with the Union of Jewish Students in combating antisemitism on campuses and opposing academic boycotts, provided Streeting with invaluable lessons about the intricacies of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the evolving manifestations of modern antisemitism, especially within leftist circles. He emphasized that these early lessons became surprisingly relevant and crucial for his later work in Parliament, demonstrating the enduring impact of these early engagements on his political career and his approach to this complex issue.
Streeting’s commitment to understanding the situation firsthand led him to visit Israel in 2005 as part of the UJS Young Political Leaders Programme. This visit, occurring in the aftermath of the Second Intifada, provided a stark and impactful introduction to the realities on the ground. Despite not being able to visit the Occupied Palestinian Territories on this occasion, the program facilitated meetings with a diverse range of individuals – Israelis and Palestinians, academics and politicians, students, and families who had tragically lost loved ones on both sides of the conflict. This exposure to diverse perspectives was instrumental in shaping Streeting’s understanding of the multifaceted nature of the conflict.
The complexity of the people, the history, and the conflict itself deeply impressed Streeting during his visit. This complexity stood in stark contrast to the simplistic narratives and slogans often encountered on British university campuses, which frequently depicted Israel as an apartheid state engaged in Western imperialism and reduced the conflict to a binary of oppressor versus oppressed. He vividly recalled meeting members of the Parents Circle Family Forum, an organization comprised of bereaved Israelis and Palestinians who had chosen reconciliation over hatred. This encounter highlighted the stark contrast between the possibility of peace and understanding demonstrated by those directly affected by the conflict and the often divisive and ill-informed debates prevalent in the UK, often driven by hard-left groups prioritizing political agendas over genuine peace-building.
Despite the grim realities he witnessed, Streeting also found a glimmer of hope during his visit. A Palestinian opinion pollster shared data indicating that a majority of both Israelis and Palestinians still believed in the two-state solution – the establishment of a State of Israel alongside a State of Palestine – as the ultimate path to resolving the seemingly intractable conflict. This insight reinforced Streeting’s own belief in the two-state solution and has remained a guiding principle in his approach to the issue ever since. He firmly believes in Israel’s right to exist, to thrive, and to defend itself, and in the right of Jewish people to self-determination, while also advocating for fair and consistent international standards to be applied to Israel, as to any other democratic nation. He underscored Israel’s significance as a key ally, acknowledging its remarkable achievements in science, technology, and education, rooted in its ancient history. Streeting explicitly stated his friendship with Israel and his connection to friends within the country.
His firsthand experience with the Palestinian perspective came shortly after his election as a Member of Parliament. In February 2016, Streeting visited the West Bank as part of a delegation of Labour MPs with Medical Aid for Palestinians and CAABU. This visit presented a starkly different picture from his earlier trip to Israel. He witnessed the harsh realities of the ongoing Israeli occupation, describing the situation as grim. He cited his visit to an Israeli Military Court, which he felt offered a questionable semblance of justice, and his experience in Khan al-Ahmar, a Bedouin village under threat of demolition and forced relocation, witnessing the detrimental impact on the local school and community. Streeting noted the significant expansion of Israeli settlements since his first visit in 2005, which had effectively fragmented the West Bank landscape. While unable to enter Gaza due to safety concerns, he acknowledged the severe humanitarian crisis there, emphasizing that international aid efforts were insufficient to address the scale of suffering.
Streeting emphasized that while peace negotiations are the ultimate path to ending the occupation, Israel bears responsibilities under international law as the occupying power in the interim. He acknowledged the legitimate security threats faced by Israelis, including rocket attacks and incitement to violence, but argued that these threats cannot justify the illegal expansion of settlements, the demolition of Palestinian homes, or the treatment of Palestinians, particularly children, within the military court system. He asserted that honest criticism is a hallmark of true friendship, suggesting that the Israeli occupation not only violates Palestinian human rights but also undermines the foundational principles upon which the State of Israel was established. Referencing the then-Prime Minister’s stated intention to annex parts of the West Bank, Streeting urged Israelis and their allies to consider the long-term consequences of such policies.
He further elaborated on the erosion of Israel’s democratic principles, pointing to measures like the Nation State Law and attacks on human rights organizations such as Breaking the Silence and B’Tselem. He argued that these actions undermine Israel’s democratic character and the social democratic values upon which it was founded. Streeting recounted telling the Deputy Ambassador that the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs should view these NGOs as assets, not obstacles, as their criticisms, while uncomfortable, ultimately showcase Israel’s democratic and pluralistic nature on the global stage. He contrasted the crackdown on human rights activists with the expectations of Israel as “the only democracy in the Middle East.”
Streeting then considered the potential ramifications of the collapse of the two-state solution, warning that a one-state solution would lead to the demise of Israel as either a democracy or a Jewish state. He cited demographic realities, predicting that the Arab population would eventually outnumber the Jewish population. He referenced concerning statements from Benjamin Netanyahu suggesting Israel is “not a state for all its citizens” and President Rivlin’s warning that legalizing illegal settlements could make Israel resemble an apartheid state. While Streeting himself has refrained from labeling Israel as an apartheid state, citing the legal protections afforded to Palestinians under occupation and the continued viability of the two-state solution, he acknowledged the inherent risks of a one-state reality potentially devolving into two unequal systems characterized by violence and bloodshed.
Streeting clarified that his criticisms of Israeli government policies are rooted in a desire to protect Israel as a democratic, inclusive, and pluralistic Jewish state. He extended his critique beyond the Israeli government to include Palestinian leadership as well, lamenting the overall lack of effective political leadership on both sides. While acknowledging the violence perpetrated against Israel, including rocket attacks, knife attacks, and tunnels, as unacceptable threats that no government should tolerate, he also cautioned against the application of double standards often directed at Israel. He emphasized the need for any lasting peace to involve dialogue with Hamas, while simultaneously recognizing the fundamental obstacle posed by Hamas’s charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel and promotes antisemitic hatred.
Expressing his dismay at the often simplistic and polarized nature of the Israel-Palestine debate in the UK, Streeting criticized the tendency to reduce the conflict to slogans and partisan divisions. He noted that this trend extends beyond student politics, citing examples of personal attacks and mischaracterizations he has faced for his balanced stance. He recounted criticism from Likud Herut UK, who labeled him an “Israel basher,” and accusations of being “Corbyn-lite” and a supporter of BDS for his criticisms of Israeli settlement policies and actions like Airbnb listings in illegal settlements. He also addressed the false accusation in the Jewish Chronicle that his chairing of a Labour Friends of Palestine meeting was incompatible with his role as chair of the APPG on British Jews, highlighting the often baseless and politically motivated nature of such attacks.
Streeting acknowledged that the criticism he receives, while sometimes harsh, pales in comparison to the abuse directed at Jewish women in the Parliamentary Labour Party, underscoring the severity of antisemitism within political spheres. This led him to address the deeply troubling issue of antisemitism within the Labour Party, acknowledging its historical roots on the left and the persistence of antisemitic conspiracy theories. He expressed concern over the normalization of these views, not only among those who actively promote them but also among those who passively witness or hear them without recognizing their antisemitic nature.
He argued that antisemitism within the pro-Palestinian movement is not only abhorrent in itself but also actively harms the Palestinian cause. While differentiating between legitimate criticism of Israel and antisemitism, he pointed out that the language, imagery, and tactics employed too often cross the line. Streeting emphasized the need to acknowledge the existence of a global movement seeking to delegitimize and destroy the State of Israel, while also affirming that principled criticism of the Israeli government is both possible and necessary without resorting to racism.
Streeting concluded by reiterating the UK’s historical responsibility towards the Palestinians and the unfulfilled promise of a Palestinian state. He stressed that a future Labour government’s ability to play a constructive role in the peace process hinges on its credibility with both Israelis and Palestinians, which has been significantly damaged by the Labour Party’s failure to effectively address antisemitism within its ranks. Despite the challenges and criticisms, Streeting affirmed his commitment to remaining engaged in the debate, driven by his personal connections to both Israelis and Palestinians and his belief in the possibility of peace. He pledged to use his platform to hold the UK government accountable, engage with leaders from both sides, amplify the voices of peace activists, and promote a more constructive and anti-racist discourse at home. He reiterated that while this path is not easy, it is essential for building a lasting peace.
