Face The Nation, Breaking Points

Tom Jones writes:

What is the first and chief principle of British foreign policy?

It must, surely, be that of British interests; after all, as Palmerston argued, England has no permanent allies, only permanent interests: “if I might be allowed to express in one sentence the principle which I think ought to guide an English Minister, I would adopt the expression of Canning, and say that with every British Minister the interests of England ought to be the shibboleth of his policy.”

The main interest of Britain then was, as has recently been argued by Andrew Lambert in his new book No More Napoleons, was the separation of France from the Scheldt ports, “the only location from which a full-scale invasion of England might be attempted”.

With the threat of invasion a threat long since faded, what is in Britain’s interests now is less clear; particularly in the Middle East. It is now approaching two years since the horrific 7th October attacks. Those attacks — and the resulting war — have left Britain at a crossroads.

Although debates rage about who is doing the counting, what is clear is that thousands have died. Throughout, Israel has been able to count on much support from the British right. As Sam Bidwell has written in these most august pages:

For many Western conservatives, support for Israel is grounded in a “West versus the rest” narrative which sees the democratic Judeo-Christian world as locked into existential conflict with oriental despotism, encapsulated by Islamist terrorism. Israel, we are told, is an outpost of Western culture in the barbarous Middle East, the first line of defence against an ideology ready to land on Europe’s shores. Should this plucky liberal outpost fall to the Mohammedan tide, our own countries will surely be next.

As a result, Israel has received what has all too often amounted to a blank cheque from many on the right including, in May, Kemi Badenoch; when asked on Sky News if she supported Israel’s actions, Kemi Badenoch denied it vociferously, and countered by stating that that Israel was fighting “a proxy war on Britain’s behalf”. Further, she said it was “not for me to police how Israel are doing that [fighting the war in Gaza].”

But perhaps it is time we did. As Rod Liddle has recently written, “If any other country in the Middle East had behaved as monstrously as Israel has in recent weeks, the jets would be lined up on our runways ready to do a bit of performative bombing.”

Since he wrote that column, a famine has officially been confirmed in Gaza by the UN; “Israel has unequivocal obligations under international law — including the duty of ensuring food and medical supplies of the population”, said UN Secretary General António Guterres. The report finds that by late September, over 640,000 individuals across the Gaza Strip are projected to experience “catastrophic” food insecurity, designated as IPC Phase 5 — the most severe classification. A further 1.14 million people are expected to fall into Phase 4, while an additional 396,000 will face Phase 3 “crisis” conditions. Of course the UN is less than even handed when it comes to Israel and of course Hamas loots aid convoys. But starvation in the Strip “is present and rapidly spreading”, and when a state controls the borders, the airspace, and the flow of humanitarian aid, it cannot plausibly disclaim the consequences of its blockade. 

In her interview, Badenoch said that what she really wants to see “is Keir Starmer making sure that he is on the right side of Britain’s national interest.” But if that phrase is to mean anything, it cannot simply be a euphemism for uncritical alignment with Israeli policy.

How long can the right remain comfortable handing Israel a blank cheque to do what it wants? Let us, for the sake of argument, leave aside the sheer inhumanity of what is happening in Gaza for another article and deal with Kemi’s question on its own terms, how does what is happening in Gaza serve Britain’s interests?

Many on the right, in their vociferous and morally blinkered assertion that Israeli actions cannot be criticised, seem not only indifferent to the humanitarian catastrophe but wilfully blind to its consequences for British interests. Chief among them: the destabilisation of neighbouring regions and the potential displacement of millions — refugees who will not be absorbed by Israel, but by Europe. Britain included.

Neighbouring Arab nations have made it clear they will not take Palestinian refugees. Israel is in discussions with Libya, Indonesia, Somaliland, Uganda and South Sudan to resettle Palestinian refugees there, although nothing has been agreed. Such talks are reportedly linked to a broader Israeli push to encourage mass emigration from Gaza during the ongoing war with Hamas.

It’s clear that Israel doesn’t really care where they go. Recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “All those who are concerned for the Palestinians and say they want to help the Palestinians should open their doors to them. What are you preaching to us for? We’re not pushing them out — we’re enabling them to leave … first of all, [leaving] combat zones, and also the Strip itself, if they want to.”

Others have been more clear; Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza following the war, suggesting that such relocation would help Israel reclaim former settlements and permanently eliminate the prospect of a Palestinian state. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir echoed this sentiment, proposing that Israel should “encourage the migration of Gaza residents” to other countries, including European ones, to make way for Israeli resettlement. Defence Minister Israel Katz, meanwhile, has perhaps been the most explicit, saying that; “Countries like Spain, Ireland, Norway, and others, which have levelled accusations and false claims against Israel over its actions in Gaza, are legally obligated to allow any Gaza resident to enter their territories.”

What this amounts to is forced replacement of the Palestinian people, which it appears some in the Israeli government are seeking to use as a form of punishment against those who criticise Israel’s actions. Europe is staring down the barrel of a deliberately engineered replication of the Syrian migration crisis. This is not the action of an ally.

We are not, in fact, bound to them by the fact they are the region’s only democracy. Democracy is not a talisman that absolves a state of its actions, nor a shield behind which any behaviour may be justified; it is just a system of government. Nor are we bound to them by “shared Judeo-Christian values’. I invite anyone who believes this argument to name one, and then name one Israel has not violated in its conduct of this war. So, in the right-wing political equivalent of reaching for a policeman’s gun, it’s time to say that Israel’s interests and Britain’s are not the same.

And Kelley Beaucar Vlahos writes:

As he said the words, young conservatives sat pie-eyed in their seats.

“There’s never been a nation like the United States, ever. It begins with the principles of our founding documents, principles that recognize that our rights come from God, not from our government—principles that recognize that because all of us are equal in the eyes of our creator, all life is sacred at every stage of life.”

That was Marco Rubio, then a senator, speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) 15 years ago. This week we found out how he envisions the uniqueness of America and whose lives are actually sacred in the eyes of the U.S. government.

Rubio, now secretary of state, sat on Face the Nation on August 17 and attempted to justify his department’s decision over the weekend to stop giving temporary medical visas to a small number of Palestinian children from Gaza (mostly amputees and burn victims) coming into the States to receive specialized and urgent care paid for by the generosity of private donors—that is, free to the U.S. taxpayer—primarily through one non-profit organization called HEAL Palestine.

Rubio said he had “evidence that some of the organizations bragging about, and involved in, acquiring these visas have strong links to terrorist groups like Hamas.”

“And so we are not going to be in partnership with groups that are friendly with Hamas. So we need to—we’re going to pause those visas” pending a full and thorough assessment of them, he added.

Which means, in government speak, there will be no more visas today, or likely any day for these children, most of whom are victims of American-made bombs and other explosives that have torn through their homes, shelters, hospitals and makeshift tents over the last 22 months in Gaza. Why would we want to help them?

Why indeed, said rightwing influencer and MAGA activist Laura Loomer, who is boasting today that Rubio stopped all visas for the children because of her urgent August 15 posts on X warning of an “Islamic invasion” of the U.S., demanding that these visas be revoked. She also claims to have spoken to him personally. She also wants “to know who issued these visas so they can be fired.”

Congressmen Chip Roy (R-TX) and Randy Fine (R-FL), thanked Loomer hours after her posts. During his Face the Nation interview, Rubio claimed his “evidence” of a Hamas connection came from concerned members of Congress. (Who?) Rubio never presented it, nor did he mention on Face the Nation that those obtaining the visas go through extensive security checks at the U.S. embassies in Amman, Jerusalem or Cairo, before even setting foot on American soil.

The State Department has not responded to inquiries from The American Conservative asking what that evidence is, what offices contacted him, or whether the State Department’s sudden decision to halt the visas was a direct response to Loomer’s hyperbolic postings about a refugee “invasion.” (Just to make it crystal clear, these are not “refugees” but individuals coming into the country to get treatment and then flown back to Egypt afterwards, according to HEAL Palestine.)

Having claimed that the U.S. does not support the collective punishment of innocent Gazans for the crimes of Hamas, Washington is collectively punishing them all over again by denying the meekest and weakest a modicum of kindness—a prosthetic limb, or plastic surgery to fix a smile literally torn from a face.

“Denying visas to children in need of medical care is inhumane,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) told TAC, adding that “the care of Palestinian children is a matter of conscience.”

According to the New York Times, quoting HEAL Palestine, to date the group helped to evacuate 63 injured children to hospitals in nine U.S. cities this month, for treatment.

“Despite what any right-wing conspiracists may say, America has treated young medical evacuees from Gaza throughout this conflict without compromising our national security,” Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) told TAC, calling the visa restrictions for the children “unconscionable.”

“It is truly despicable that the Secretary of State has suspended this program,” said Van Hollen. “We must continue these lifesaving efforts—and we can do so while protecting our national security.”

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who had a falling out with Loomer in 2022, said in a recent interview that “[Loomer] attacks some of the most loyal people to the president, people that are unapologetically America first.” Greene’s vision of America First has certainly diverged from Loomer’s, particularly on the issue of Israel and Gaza. Greene has been more critical of unconditional support of Israel than most members on either side of the aisle on Capitol Hill, and has invoked her own Christian conservatism to oppose what she has called a genocide against Palestinians in the Strip.

Her disgust with Rubio’s decision to halt the visas and Loomer’s involvement was clear in her X post on Tuesday.

“I’m not saying bring in refugees or use tax payer dollars, not at all, but when did America’s heart grow so cold to refuse innocent children privately funded surgeries and then they return home after they recover?” she charged. “Wouldn’t we allow Israeli children if they were the ones needing surgery?”

Even after the notional end of the War on Terror, people like Loomer are still able to wield the extreme Islamophobia fashionable in the post-9/11 era to manipulate American policy and bully Washington officials in the manner we are witnessing today—and not just Rubio.

By August 5, ABC News counted 15 Trump officials who have fallen victim to Loomer’s “pressure campaigns” for various reasons, “through either direct firings or the withdrawal of senior political nominations, across six different federal agencies.”

“I don’t keep count anymore,” Loomer told ABC News when asked how many officials she had helped force out. “There’s too many to keep track of.”

Attacking amputee children as tools of Hamas and preventing their medical care could be her lowest blow, but it has some competition for the title. Loomer has called Islam “a cancer on society” and openly identifies as a proud Islamophobe who is preventing the takeover of the U.S. government of the Muslim Brotherhood.

No surprise she at one time worked under Pamela Geller, the doyenne of Islamophobia, who believes all Muslims are terrorists and to achieve true national security, Islam and everyone who practices it must be banned from the country.

Loomer has a particular bee in her bonnet about Somali-American Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), whom Loomer once referred to as an “inbred” “black dog” and said was the reason we should not allow Muslims to hold office in the United States (because they want to install a caliphate and Sharia law in the U.S.). In 2019 her coconspirator Jacob Wohl was barred by CPAC from presenting their purported evidence that Omar was married to her brother.

Funnily, Loomer’s mentor Geller was forced out of CPAC in 2010 for accusing CPAC board member Grover Norquist (and his wife) of “ties to Islamic supremacists and jihadists.” Geller’s spiel then was eerily like Loomer’s today, that Islamists “have infiltrated at every level of society and every level of government” in the United States.

If they have, they certainly aren’t capable of doing anything about the absolute deference and billions of dollars in support the U.S. gives annually to Israel, which has been used to kill and maim and starve hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Gaza since October 7. That would include 18,885 Gazans under the age of 18 killed (as of this writing), more than 50,000 wounded (as of May), and 40,000 who have lost one or both parents (as of April).

The conservative Saagar Enjeti, co-host of Breaking Points, criticized the State Department for caving to Loomer’s demands. He also noted that wounded Israeli soldiers have come here for medical treatment with no problem.

“I mean, I think with Loomer, really, what you're watching is kind of this, like weaponized hysteria over Palestinians and others, where, if they actually cared about not wanting Palestinians to have to go anywhere—which, of course, they don’t,” said Enjeti. “They support it. They actually support the mass ethnic cleansing, really—then you would support basically telling Israel no.

“Our federal government basically, you know, rolls out the red carpet for former IDF soldiers who are coming here, who are responsible, in some cases, for creating much of this. But then, you know, the victims of it are then treated with contempt.”