Israel Is off the Leash

Des Freedman on the dramatic change that a plethora of editorials in the broadsheet U.K. press have taken on Israel’s assault on Gaza.

By Des Freedman
Declassified UK

After 19 months of supporting Israel’s “right to self-defence,” gently criticising its actions (mostly when Israeli soldiers have killed aid workers and medics) and avoiding references to ethnic cleansing and genocide, leading U.K. news outlets appear to have turned a corner.

A plethora of editorials in the broadsheet press this month have vociferously condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu and called for the restoration of aid deliveries and an immediate ceasefire. They have referred repeatedly to the “suffering” of the people of Gaza and the urgent need to rein in Israeli forces.

Astonishingly for a sector that has been widely accused of dehumanising Palestinians and of failing to hold the British government to account for its overall support for Israel’s war aims, a very different tone is now evident. 

A prominent editorial in the Financial Times on May 6 raged against “the West’s shameful silence on Gaza” while, on May 20, The Guardian spluttered that “Palestinians need deeds, not words.”

“End the deafening silence on Gaza,” screamed the Independent on May 10 while even the vehemently pro-Israel Times opined that “Israel’s friends cannot remain blind to the suffering being inflicted on Palestinians” on May 21.

What is going on? Has the U.K. media, so often cowed when it comes to issuing any criticism of Israel, suddenly discovered a conscience? Have editorial teams suddenly turned into dedicated supporters of Palestinian sovereignty and advocates of anti-Zionism? 

Cracked Consensus

Not at all. Yet this dramatic change in tone is a genuinely significant development that reveals two things. 

First, it shows that Israel’s escalation of its murderous campaign and plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza of its residents has severely tested the patience of its allies who now worry that the status quo on Israel is profoundly at risk. 

Second, it shows that 19 months of resistance and protest —including some of the largest marches in U.K. history — has cracked apart whatever consensus there might have been about Israel’s role as a reliable policeman in the Middle East.

The statement by the governments of the U.K., France and Canada in which they strongly criticised Israel’s military plans followed heartbreaking images of starving children and signs that Netanhayu’s government has no intention of de-escalating the assault on Gaza.

This was not a brave political action on the part of complicit governments but a clear sign that, after consistently paving the way for Israel’s genocidal actions, Western political leaders are now worried that Israel is off the leash and massively undermining regional stability.

Israel’s Reputation

And the broadsheet section of the U.K. news media is reflecting this anxiety. An analysis for Declassified UK shows that there have been eight editorials between May 1-25 in The Guardian, Times, FT and Independent — all of which have been overwhelmingly critical of Netanhayu’s actions. 

In this period, there hasn’t been a single editorial on the topic in The Telegraph — though it found time to run four leaders on what it claimed was U.K. government capitulation to the EU — and none in the online newspaper.

The editorials reveal both the splits in elite opinion on Israel and its underlying support for the geopolitical role of Israel in the Middle East. The depth of the criticism might be new, but much of the language remains consistent.

For example, the FT’s criticism of the West’s silence condemned Israel’s plan to clear Gaza of its residents but made no reference to ethnic cleansing or genocide.

It was concerned about Palestinian lives but particularly worried about Israel’s reputation, arguing that the expanded offensive would “further undermine Israel’s tarnished standing and deepen domestic divisions.”

The Independent Wakes Up

The Independent seems to think that the issue is mostly a matter of “speaking out.” On May 10, its call to end the “deafening silence on Gaza” was predicated on the idea that the “initial moral justification” for the war had been lost. 

Staggeringly, ignoring the millions of people who have marched and taken solidarity action to highlight the genocide, it argued that, “It is time for the world to wake up to what is happening and to demand an end to the suffering of the Palestinians trapped in the enclave.”

On May 17, the newspaper once again insisted that, “The world must speak out against Israel’s brutal war and Gaza’s suffering” and urged Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a staunch supporter of Israel’s military objectives, “to find his voice” (even though his voice had spent the last year and a half defending Israel’s right to defend itself).

By May 22, when the joint U.K./France/Canada statement had been issued, The Independent called for further action, but clarified why this was necessary: because anything else would undermine Donald Trump’s ability to extend the Abraham Accords (recognition of Israel by the Gulf states). 

The leader then goes on to argue that “more assertive economic pressure on the Netanhayu government is also an option, though never to be deployed in a manner that would endanger Israel’s right to exist” [my italics].

Israel’s Friends

The Times takes up a similar position on May 21. “Israel’s friends cannot remain blind to the suffering being inflicted on Palestinians” but mostly because of the impact of Israel’s actions on geopolitical stability. 

What seems to preoccupy Times leader writers is simply Israel’s lack of an “exit strategy” and the counter-productive nature of Israel’s brutal assault: “By demonising itself, it plays into the hands of Hamas.” The rights of ordinary Palestinians hardly seem to matter.

The Guardian is the title that has shifted the most. Its three editorials so far this month have sharply criticised the use of “hunger as a weapon of war” and referred to the “grotesque suffering and ministers’ explicit calls for ethnic cleansing.” 

Most remarkably, for the first time that I can see in an editorial, The Guardian explicitly describes the situation as a genocide: “Now it plans a Gaza without Palestinians. What is this, if not genocidal?”

This is clearly different to previous editorials that skirted around the subject. In its Nov. 18, 2024, editorial on Pope Francis’ call to investigate allegations of genocide, it singularly refused to take a stance. 

Its Jan. 11, 2024, leader on the International Court of Justice investigation into allegations of genocide was equally ambivalent, concluding that ‘‘whatever the judges decide, the civilian death toll and human suffering in Gaza and the words of Israeli ministers are unconscionable.”

Legitimising Atrocities

None of the leaders — from The Guardian’s reference to genocide to the Financial Times’ condemnation of “silence” show any degree of self-criticism. 

Nowhere do the newspapers reflect on their own roles — since Oct. 7, 2023, and indeed well before that — in amplifying Israeli propaganda and failing to ask tough questions of British politicians, for example in relation to the U.K.’s military collaboration with Israel and the sale of deadly weapons to Israeli forces. 

Nowhere do they show even the tiniest bit of humility for what their own role has been in legitimising the atrocities.

It is perhaps too simplistic to say that the crocodile tears of erstwhile uncritical friends of Israel and their new-found “courage” to condemn silence is all “too little, too late” (even though it is). 

The cracks in both the U.K. media and U.K. government’s support for Israel are not superficial but represent a genuine dilemma for Western imperialist interests.

News outlets with strong links to government and weak resistance to Israeli pressure can never be relied on to tell the truth about Palestine but that doesn’t mean that the new tone in their editorials isn’t significant.

Instead, the lesson to be drawn from these recent editorials is the increasing fragility of Israel’s position and the vulnerability of Western governments for their traditionally unflinching support for Israel’s right to defend itself. 

This should be an incentive to step up solidarity with the people of Gaza, both on the streets and in the independent media.

Des Freedman is a professor of media and communications at Goldsmiths, University of London and a founding member of the Media Reform Coalition.

This article is from Declassified UK.

Views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.