BY STEWART SLATER
Most battles in the Ancient World follow the same pattern. One side starts with the high ground and, about half way through, finds itself on the low ground. The reason for this is surprisingly simple – most people are right-handed. They hold their sword in their right hands, and their shield in the left. By taking a step to the right, therefore, soldiers with a less than complete desire to be run through by a burly bloke with a sharply-pointed metal thing could shelter behind their neighbour’s shield. To avoid this problem and the ensuing drift in the battle line, the strongest troops were placed at the extreme right to stand firm and anchor it. When the fighting started, strong faced weak and having punched through the enemy line, the remnant of both forces had to about turn to face each other.
The niceties of hoplite warfare may be abstruse, but as an analogy, it works with depressing frequency in modern politics as both sides adapt their principles to their feelings rather than the other way round. In recent days, the Left (generally quick to equate speech with violence as in Labour’s plans to criminalise misgendering) has been remarkably relaxed about calls to eradicate Israel from the map being heard on the streets of London, while the Right, generally quick to point out that “facts don’t care about your feelings, snowflake” is happy to use the intimidation felt by the Jewish community as a reason for mass arrests and the banning of future protests.
In the middle find themselves the police, seemingly content to arrest people silently praying outside abortion clinics but unwilling to take action over public calls for the extinction of a foreign country, resorting instead to nuanced arguments over the exact meaning of the term “jihad”. If you think that the postage stamp has yet been produced small enough to contain the average plod’s knowledge of Islamic theology, well, you’re a better man than me (not, to be fair, the highest of bars).
With polling showing a split between Left and Right over the situation in the Middle East (9% of Labour voters are “Team Israel” compared to 39% of Tories), it would be reasonable to assume that views on protests are downstream of views on the conflict – both sides are adopting the position most favourable to their team. But free speech is free speech, irrespective of who says it.
I am a free speech maximalist. I think there are few, if any, circumstances in which people should not be allowed to say exactly what they want, no matter how unpleasant. Voltaire may never have said, “I disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it”, but looking at protests being allowed in London but banned in Paris, he would, no doubt, feel his famous Anglophilia was fully justified as both countries have reverted to their traditional approaches. And, I think, he would have been right.
The usual exceptions to free speech are incitement to violence, and threats to public order. According to the BBC (and yes, I know the last week has not been the Beeb’s finest hour although I struggle to remember exactly when that was, so numerous have been the missteps and scandals of recent years), there were 100,000 participants in the London march and 10 arrests. Now, it may be that the police were unduly lenient, but even so, these numbers do not suggest that there was any real threat to public order.
As for incitement to violence, there must surely be nuance. Were I to stand on a street corner urging people to join my proposed invasion of France (the sort of unifying national project I feel we can all get behind in these dark days), I would certainly be promoting violent conduct, but I would be unlikely to gain many followers and, even if I did, Paris would be unlikely to end up in flames. Chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” might be interpreted as a call to war on Israel, but it is radically different to pointing to an individual and urging the mob to punch them. Very few, if any, will take themselves to the Middle East, and those who do will not last long against the Israeli Army. It is akin to a four year-old announcing their intention to leave home – it makes do difference to the facts on the ground, but makes the speaker feel better about their palpable powerlessness.
If then, neither of the thresholds for restricting speech is met by the marches, the answer is not, as many on the Right sadly seem to believe, to adopt the Left’s definition of harm and insist that the police act in accordance with their previous use of it, but to use the constabulary’s correct behaviour in this instance and insist that it act consistently in the future. By all means prosecute those who commit actual violence or vandalism to the full extent of the law, but if the feelings of the Jewish community are not sufficient to prompt action today, then neither should be the emotions of members of the transgender community, users of abortion clinics etc. in the future. Once you have accepted your opponent’s core assumption, you have already lost.
If the Left has, almost certainly by accident rather than design, stumbled on the correct position on the protests, it is far from clear that they have applied this new found insight to the situation on the ground. There has been little outright condemnation of Hamas and, if we include the media in that part of the political spectrum, a curious unwillingness to call the perpetrators of terrorist offences “terrorists” and an odd keenness to accept their statements at face value. We have seen a focus on the residents of Gaza and demands that their safety be the guiding light of Israel’s future actions but little interest in the citizens of Israel receiving continuing rocket fire from North and South.
There has been much talk that targeting non-combatants is against the laws of war, but little mention that the use of human shields and placing weapons in civilian areas is too. There is no mention of Israel’s right to self defence and to take action proportionate to the threat it faces. As Lords Macdonald and Pannick argue in a recent letter to the Times, Hamas’ aim is the destruction of “Israel and all Jews living within her borders” and the law allows Israel to take the necessary steps to prevent that outcome – someone who has lost an eye is not restricted to visiting the same injury on their foe if they reasonably believe the first attack is a prelude to a murder attempt.
There is, of course, an irony that those who are so quick to denounce “cultural imperialism” and “settler colonialism”, also insist that a Jewish state and Muslim terrorists fight according to rules derived from Christian Just War theology, but if lawful conduct of the war were truly their prime consideration, we would expect to see more calls from the Left for Hamas to release the hostages, leave the urban areas and fight Israel on open ground to avoid collateral damage but that would, of course, result in their side losing.
For it is hard not to conclude that if much of the Right’s adherence to freedom of speech depends on who is doing the speaking, the Left’s position on war depends on who is doing the fighting. Often, it seems to me, the political outgrowth of a pathological need to feel sorry for someone, left-wing thought sees the Palestinians’ poverty as evidence of victimhood (rather than, say, poor choices by their political leaders) and has decided to support them come what may, ignoring their violations of international law while deploying it to constrain Israel’s right to protect its citizens. If that means that the country has to suck up the greatest loss of Jewish life since the holocaust, and live under the threat of future attacks, then so be it.
Nor is this merely the position of the Corbynite Loony-Left. Keir Starmer has, to be fair to him, been on the right of his party over the issue (and it would be fascinating to know what the Starmer of 2023 thinks of the guy the Starmer of 2019 tried to put into Downing Street) but in a recent tweet, he called for “all hostages to be released [fair enough-author’s comment], more humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, for the water and power to be switched back on, and a renewed focus on the two state solution.” Conspicuous by its absence is any mention of consequences for Hamas and those who perpetrated the recent atrocity and any suggestion that Israel has a right to take action to defend its citizens and territory. The contrast with his calls, during a visit to Kyiv in February, for “justice in The Hague and proper reparation” and assurances of ongoing British “defence, training and technological support” for Ukraine is stark. In the Middle East, Sir Keir may, according to his tweet, be tough on the causes of war crimes, but he does not appear very tough on the crimes or the criminals themselves nor very supportive of their victims’ desire to to take action to avoid a repeat.
If the Right have, in recent days, not exactly shot the lights out when it comes to standing for their principles, the Left should ask themselves whether, if oppression really is their main concern, supporting the righteous destruction of those whose own videos show them engaged in “torture, sexual violence, violence against children and the molestation of bodies” might not be quite a good place to start.
Stewart Slater works in Finance. He invites you to join him at his website.