Kensington & Chelsea Council (RBKC) will honour Israel’s UK ambassador, Tzipi Hotovely, at a diplomatic reception even as the country she represents intensifies its campaign of genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip.
Hosted by the RBKC’s mayor Preety Hudd at Kensington Town Hall on Tuesday, February 20th, the event – an annual reception for ambassadors based in the borough – is a fixture in the council’s calendar although scant information about it is shared with the residents who pay for it. Continue reading →
Kensington Labour Party finally released a statement calling for a ceasefire in Palestine, over three weeks after local councillors wrote a first draft, and only after the criminal government of Binyamin Netanyahu had agreed to a temporary truce. Multiple Labour councillors have told Urban Dandy that interventions from local and regional Labour officials delayed the release of the statement and ensured the local party did not contradict and embarrass Labour leader Keir Starmer and Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy who have backed Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip. We have obtained the Kensington councillors’ original statement, which bears little resemblance to the published version, adding to the evidence of a crackdown on internal democracy and a prioritisation of Israeli government interests under Starmer.
Original Statement
The original statement drafted by the Kensington Labour councillors was ready for publication on 7th November. In contrast with the version published three weeks later, the original is clear that Israel is responsible for the genocide it is carrying out. This put the Kensington group of councillors in alignment with international law as Israel has no right to use violence against a population that it occupies.Continue reading →
Kensington & Bayswater Constituency Labour Party supports Israel’s genocidal military campaign in the Gaza Strip, reflecting the national Labour Party’s stance. But local Labour councillors are not obliged to support genocide and are free to resign from the party in protest or to speak out as a group. Why aren’t they?
Just one local Labour councillor, Mona Ahmed, has resigned in protest at Keir Starmer’s “endorsement of war crimes committed by Israel against civilians in Gaza.” Cllr Ahmed was Deputy Leader of the Labour Group in Kensington.
If other councillors want to oppose ethnic cleansing but not resign the whip, their other option is to speak out together to distance themselves from Starmer’s foreign policy. A source informed Urban Dandy that a statement to that effect was agreed between all Kensington Labour councillors on Monday 6th November.
But the statement, which calls for an immediate ceasefire, has remained unreleased. The issue was not that the statement was deemed too controversial. According to our source, some councillors pushed for a hard line against Israel and its crimes, while others were keen to appease national Labour officials and London Region officials who have effectively run the local party for the past 12 months.
The upshot is acquiescence from Labour in Kensington over Israel’s slaughter and a signal that Palestinian lives do not matter. At a vigil for Gaza and the victimes of the Grenfell Tower fire on Tuesday 14th November, several speakers called out the Labour Group’s silence.
Cllr Ali
The Leader of the Labour Group, Kasim Ali, is ultimately responsible for the non-publication of the statement. Last year, Ali’s candidacy to be Kensington’s next Member of Parliament was torpedoed by Labour officials who racially profiled British Somali party members to prevent them from voting for their preferred candidate. The same Labour officials also concocted an ‘antisemitism’ scandal to justify taking full control of the selection process, ensuring Ali could not win.
Despite this abusive treatment, Cllr Ali remained loyal to Labour and was elected Leader of the Kensington Group of councillors. Cllr Ali has not confirmed to us whether he is withholding the Gaza statement at the request of the London Region officials.
As we revealed last month, Kensington Labour Party was forced by London Region to disaffiliate from a raft of anti-war groups earlier this year. These included Stop the War Coalition; Peace & Justice Project; Jewish Voice for Labour and Palestine Solidarity Campaign, four organisations that have been prominent leaders in the huge protests against Israel’s killing in recent weeks.
For well over a month, Israel’s destruction of life in the Gaza Strip has been supported by much of the political elite in Britain using a new phrase in the war lexicon: “humanitarian pause.” It is the language of cowardice, propaganda, and fascism, used to buy time for Netanyahu’s slaughter of a defenceless population, and his ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
Kensington
A local Labour member recently sent Kensington & Bayswater Constituency Labour Party (CLP) a petition calling for an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s assault. In their email, which they also shared with Urban Dandy, the constituent pointed out that, in knowingly supporting Israel’s deliberate targeting of civilians, Britain is failing to meet its obligations under international law. But in her reply, CLP Chair Monica Press snubbed the call for a ceasefire, stating that “a humanitarian pause is more achievable”.
Press’s stated reason for rejecting the call was that “neither Hamas or Israel will consider” a ceasefire. This is false, as Hamas has offered the return of hostages to Israel in exchange for a ceasefire. Israel rejected Hamas’s proposal.
Press drew further false equivalence between the two, saying that both Hamas and Israel are “authoritarian and extreme” governments that “endanger their own populations.” Yet there is a consensus among Palestinians in favour of resistance to the occupation as a means of liberation after decades of one-sided Western diplomacy that served as a cover for Israel to steal more land and imprison millions of people in the Gaza concentration camp. Israel has endangered its population by choosing expansion over peace.
Charity
Instead of demanding political change and the upholding of international law, the leadership of Kensington Labour asked local party members to make charitable donations that can be delivered to Gaza, during a “pause” in the killing. Judging by the absence of any statement to the contrary, this preference for charity is supported by the Labour group of councillors at Kensington Town Hall.
The CLP’s charity appeal has apparently raised £150 for the Palestinians so far.
In her response to the party member, Monica Press stated that the CLP needs to “show and be seen to show our concerns.” But the CLP’s only real concern has been ingratiating itself to the Starmer regime, who in turn are busy doing likewise with the Israel lobby.
The CLP seems to have judged that Palestinian life is not worth the expenditure of any political capital. Like the leaders of the national Labour Party, the CLP will not oppose Israel’s industrial-scale murder. They would just like them to pause for a few hours so the victims can have something to eat before the genocide resumes.
Palestinian culture emphasises Sumud ( صمود) or steadfastness in the face of hardship and injustice, a quality that has enabled Palestinians to survive an existential assault by Israel for 75 years. Throughout this period, Britain has matched the Palestinians’ Sumud with its own steadfastness in enabling Israel’s domination over the Palestinian people and land. These two Sumuds are at odds with each other, meaning Britain, across its political spectrum, has a serious Palestine problem, albeit one that is easy to solve, should the country ever decide to take up the cause of justice.
Problem one – Refugees
The Palestinian refugee crisis is so extreme and so integral to current events in the Middle East that it requires a certain level of genius to miss it. Judging by their proclamations over recent weeks, the whole British media and political class possess this type of genius. They have managed to avoid the obvious fact that the refugee issue is the key to resolving the Middle East conflict.
It is useful to consider the refugee crisis in the context of the broader demographics of Palestine and Israel. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) estimated the worldwide Palestinian population to be just over 14 million in 2021.
The PCBS estimates that at least 5.3 million Palestinians live in the Occupied Territories (West Bank and Gaza Strip) constituting 38% of all Palestinians worldwide. Inside Israel, 1.7 million Palestinians reside, 12% of the global Palestinian population.
Over 50% of Palestinians, at least seven million people (possibly as high as nine million according to the PCBS), live in the Diaspora as refugees. Of these, Jordan hosts the largest number with 4.5 million, while 1.8 million are in other Arab countries, including Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and the Gulf states. Around 750,000 are estimated to live in non-Arab countries, with a particularly large number in Chile.
The total global Palestinian population is notoriously difficult to calculate, but 14 million is a good conservative estimate. If translated into a state population, it would make Palestine the 75thbiggest country in the world, and drop Israel one place to 99th in that list, with its population of 9.5 million (that figure includes the 1.7 million Palestinians living inside Israel who would probably claim their Palestinian citizenship given the option).
All Palestinian refugees have an inalienable right to return to their land, guaranteed under international law in UN General Assembly Resolution 194 of December 1948. Yet, with the help of Britain and other powerful allies, Israel continues to block the fulfilment of the refugees’ right of return and seeks to further diminish their presence in their homeland. As a result, many Palestinians live in appalling conditions with few rights. If the refugee crisis had started in 2023, rather than in 1948, it would shock the world and feature heavily in the news. Instead, it is largely unknown to Western news consumers.
In the Gaza Strip, most of the 2.2 million population are refugees and descendants of refugees (descendants have the same status and guaranteed right to return) from Israel’s initial ethnic cleansing of 1947-48 when Jewish terrorist gangs forced Palestinians into exile. Many in Gaza have been made refugees multiple times over by Israel’s wars against the Strip.
In the occupied West Bank, Palestinian refugees live in camps under strict military occupation, suffering daily humiliations. In Lebanon, conditions at some Palestinian camps are not fit for human habitation, and in every nearby country in which they have sought refuge, Palestinians have suffered further displacement, war, and oppression. This includes Jordan, Syria, Libya, and Iraq. Upheavals in countries across the region have frequently seen persecution of the Palestinian refugees with no state yet established to protect them.
Burj al-Barajneh Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut. Graffiti of the iconic Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, where these refugees are unable to visit
Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, near Tripoli, Lenanon, 2011. The camp was destroyed by the Lebanese army, displacing tens of thousands of refugees. The international community was not forthcoming with funds to reconstruct the camp
To resolve the Middle East conflict, Britain could support the fulfilment of the refugees’ right of return. This would provide justice, regional stability, and reduce the chances of regional conflict or nuclear war. With the return of the refugees, Israel’s Zionist project, which seeks to form an exclusively Jewish state in the holy land, would be defeated, and Israel would be forced to live in peace with its neighbours as a normal country instead of the garrison state it currently is. Resolving the refugee crisis would also go a long way to allaying the crisis faced by Muslims and Christians as their institutions and holy places would no longer be threatened by a colonial project that violates the sanctity of mosques and churches and abuses worshipers. Sunni Islam’s third and fourth holiest sites are in Palestine (Jerusalem and Hebron) as is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Jerusalem.) This barely scratches the surface of the religious significance of Palestine.
As an aside (!), it is another remarkable fact of the conflict that Britain, a Christian country with a large Muslim population, does nothing to defend the holy sites. Analysis, even passing mention, of Israel’s targeting of sacred religious places is largely absent from media and political commentary of the conflict. The day after Israel bombed a Christian hospital in Gaza, killing an estimated 500 peole, the leader of a Christian nation, US President Joe Biden, hugged Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and claimed the Palestinians had bombed themselves. Within two days, the leader of another Christian state, our own prime minister, did likewise, telling Netanyahu and the World, “We want you to win.”
If this “win” is even possible, can it be achieved without the destruction of both Islam and Christianity in Palestine? It certainly cannot be achieved without the continuation of an epic injustice against a stateless people.
Problem two – Democracy
The consensus across the political-media spectrum in Britain is that Palestine has no right to be a democracy. Like with the refugee issue, we see impressive discipline from politicians and journalists as they avoid mentioning the last Palestinian general election. Commentators incessantly tell the British people that the winner of that election, Hamas, is a terrorist group, plain and simple.
Ignorance and cowardice pervade parliament over the issue of Palestinian democracy. In 2006, Hamas won the right to form a government in the Occupied Territories. Realising that they would be sabotaged by the US and EU, Hamas formed a coalition with the defeated Fatah party. The US and EU, with Britain prominent, plotted to cancel Palestinian democracy, backing a Fatah-affiliated group to overthrow Hamas in a violent coup. Hamas, based in Gaza, but having won a higher percentage of the vote in the West Bank, got wind of the plot, pre-empted it and took control of Gaza’s institutions. This move sealed the current division of the Palestinians into two separated geographical areas. The Gaza Strip is de facto ruled by Hamas but maintained as a concentration camp by Israel. The West Bank has a Fatah government headed by Mahmoud Abbas, recognised as representative of the Palestinians by Western governments, but operating as an arm of the Israeli security forces in suppressing Palestinian dissent.
Britain, under a Labour government at the time of the election, simply pretended that Hamas hadn’t won, and continued to support Israel wholeheartedly as it repeatedly massacred Gazans and tightened its oppression and theft of land in the West Bank. Hamas generally maintained ceasefires and kept Gaza quiet, signing multiple reconciliation agreements with Fatah, but the geographical division combined with Fatah’s aversion to resistance made true unity impossible. In 2018, when Palestinian refugees marched bravely and peacefully in the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi to the Israeli border, they were massacred. Hundreds were killed and thousands injured. Britain’s support for Israel continued.
Britain and others’ refusal to deal with Hamas consigned the Palestinians to political impotence. By retaining two governments in two small, besieged territories, influential states that could potentially advocate for peace and justice are unable to do so with confidence. The result is Palestinian presence in the so-called Axis of Resistance to US domination (Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and perhaps Turkey and Qatar) and 17 years of political drift for the Palestinians.
The Left
Elite commentary in Britain during Israel’s current intensified ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip is revealing. As expected, the right generally backs Netanyahu’s violence. Parliament’s official opposition has done likewise, and the Labour Party now lacks backbenchers able to speak with conscience and clarity about Israel’s war crimes.
The British left more generally, needing to speak but with little to say about ending the conflict and providing justice to the Palestinians, has largely limited its response to calling for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza and calling out racist sentiment in the media. Part of Israel’s calculation in causing mass destruction is that Westerners will quickly fall into two chattering camps: Zionists and those appalled by the violence. Both camps are kept busy as, day after day, Israel – from a safe distance – pummels the refugees of Gaza.
Many on the left lack a real grasp of the issues and history outlined above – refugees and democracy – so they perpetuate a stale old routine. There’s no mention of the refugees, or the fact that the conflict could be quickly resolved based entirely on international law and UN resolutions that Britain is a signatory to. And no mention of democracy, because that risks validating Hamas, its political wing now proscribed by the Conservative governmentwithout protest from Labour. This also means silence over the Palestinians’ right to self-defence, including by violent means.
It is as if the conflict started on October 7th and is being fought between two equal sides. Both right and left advocate a return to the pre-October status quo, a living nightmare for the Palestinians. The British left seems to only support the Palestinians on condition that they remain victims, recipients of aid and pity.
This lack of political impetus risks leaving the Palestinians no further forward than they were before they briefly broke out of their prison. It risks condemning another generation of refugees to misery and dispossession. It leaves Israel as an anachronism, unable to move towards peace while the West encourages it to covet the destruction of the Palestinians, Islam, and Christianity in the holy land. And it leaves Britain adrift, a weakening state with a political-media class that lies relentlessly to sell us a Middle East policy that is devoid of hope, mere cover for ethnic cleansing, racism and dictatorships, alongside increasingly repressive domestic policies.
Urban Dandy London 