On Saturday, the UK’s Labor party announced that it had elected Keir Starmer as its new leader—signaling the defeat of the viciously anti-Israel, and often anti-Semitic, faction of the party led by the outgoing leader Jeremy Corbyn. In his victory speech, Starmer made a point of pledging to “tear out this poison [of anti-Semitism] by its roots and judge success by the return of Jewish members” to the party’s ranks. Luke Akehurst does not, however, expect Starmer to bring about a complete shift in the party’s attitudes toward the Jewish state:

It isn’t realistic to expect the reversal of the changes Corbyn brought to the Labor party’s platform, such as support for boycotts [of Jewish businesses in the West Bank] and an embargo on arms sales [to Israel], because Starmer will have other policy priorities; he won’t be looking for confrontation on foreign policy at party conferences as he will want to emphasize unity and carry the left-wing of his own support base with him. [Furthermore], he won’t have the votes to win any fights on these issues.

But we can expect a return to some kind of normalcy in terms of Labor’s relationship with Israel, and with . . . Labor’s sister parties there. We might expect Starmer to make a fairly early trip to Israel and the West Bank, once the coronavirus travel restrictions are lifted, to meet Israeli and Palestinian counterparts [and] to take up the invitation to visit Yad Vashem from the former leader of Israel’s Labor party, Isaac Herzog, that Corbyn ignored.

I don’t think we will see any of the inflammatory rhetoric of the Corbyn era, or tolerance of the waving of hundreds of Palestinian flags at party conferences—the new leadership will probably want to try to avoid ever debating the topic again.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.