Britain’s West Bank gamble could help Netanyahu cling to power

ISRAEL

As Labour moves to fend off Zak Polanski’s Greens, its attempt to punish Israel may instead reunite the country’s fractured right ahead of October’s election.

BRITAIN’S attempt to punish Israel over the West Bank may inadvertently help Benjamin Netanyahu cling to power in October’s elections, analysts have warned.

The Israeli prime minister is expected to use Western sanctions to portray his country as isolated, under siege and dependent on his experienced leadership.

The measures are unlikely to convert Netanyahu’s opponents. But they could reunite Israel’s fragmented right, drawing voters back to Likud from harder-line coalition partners.

It would be the opposite of the outcome Labour intended from an intervention designed to restrain Israel’s right-wing administration, and perhaps to influence the election against it.

Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced a ban on imports from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank this week as part of a co-ordinated initiative with France and Canada.

The new approach will also prevent British companies from providing services linked to settlements and sanction individuals and organisations facilitating their expansion.

Arms and other export licences will be refused where goods could materially contribute to the occupation.

Miliband accused Israel of carrying out ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, an unprecedented charge from a British government.

The trade restrictions, however, will not take effect for up to nine months.

Sibylline analyst Megan Sutcliffe says the announcement marks a significant escalation from earlier British sanctions against individual extremist settlers and organisations.

It follows a steep rise in attacks on Palestinians, with estimates now suggesting six incidents a day.

But Sutcliffe says the settlement trade affected is likely to be limited, making Israel’s response more important than the immediate economic consequences.

“The real question here is: what does this do to British-Israeli relations?” she says.

Israel responded swiftly.

It ordered Britain to close its consulate in East Jerusalem within 30 days, barred 12 British politicians from the country, ended British training for Palestinian security forces and removed UK personnel from international co-ordination efforts in Gaza.

Trade involving settlements represents only a small fraction of the wider UK-Israel relationship, while opaque supply chains make it difficult to establish how many agricultural products entering Britain were grown in the West Bank.

But while the economic consequences may be limited, the political impact could prove far greater.

Israel goes to the polls on 27 October in an election that could remove Netanyahu from power.

So why did Britain not wait less than two months before taking action?

Dr Lynette Nusbacher, a former British Army intelligence officer and senior Cabinet Office intelligence adviser, believes the intervention may have strengthened the political case Netanyahu will present to Israeli voters.

“I think the UK government has reinforced the Israeli right-wing narrative that European governments … are all against us, and therefore Israel stands alone,” she says.

“The Israeli notion that it is in a forever war and needs to permanently militarise, like Russia and Iran and North Korea, is reinforced. Netanyahu is the avatar of permanent war.

“So the British government has given Netanyahu his best chance at staying in office.”

Sibylline principal Middle East analyst Noam Ostfeld says the measures play directly to Netanyahu’s established political strengths.

“There is this notion that only a strong leader can withstand international and external pressure,” he says.

“It plays to his base and his strength. It also helps him bring up this notion of persecution, external threats and isolation.”

Ostfeld does not expect opposition voters suddenly to embrace Netanyahu.

Instead, the dispute may draw support from other right-wing parties towards Likud, consolidating the bloc around the man already occupying the premiership.

Israel’s fast-moving news cycle means the immediate impact could fade, Ostfeld cautions. But Netanyahu will have repeated opportunities to revive the theme of international hostility before polling day.

“His position’s probably stronger this week than it would have been two weeks ago,” agrees Sibylline MENA lead Henry Dobson, while cautioning that much could still change before the election.

“His position’s probably stronger this week than it would have been two weeks ago,” agrees Sibylline MENA lead Henry Dobson. “But I can’t say how long that will last.”

Part of the explanation may lie at home.

Nusbacher describes a “greening of the Labour Party” as the government seeks to prevent disillusioned left-wing voters defecting to Zak Polanski’s increasingly socialist Greens.

With the Labour conference approaching, a confrontation with Israel allows ministers to demonstrate their willingness to confront settlement expansion and escalating violence against Palestinians.

“The Labour Party is currently doing its best to give voters no reason to vote Green in the next general election,” Nusbacher says.

“The UK has been fairly frantically signalling to the Americans that this is all fairly technical, fairly narrow and not going to cripple anybody’s economy.”

Dobson agrees that London has used back channels to reassure Washington that the measures are intended largely for domestic political consumption, rather than as the beginning of a wider rupture with Israel.

One external justification centres on E1, an undeveloped area east of Jerusalem where Israeli plans for thousands of homes could divide the northern and southern West Bank.

It is a serious concern for Britain, which recognised Palestine as a state last year, while Bezalel Smotrich, Netanyahu’s hard-right finance minister, has presented the development as a means of burying Palestinian statehood.

But Ostfeld says major construction is unlikely before the election and practical workarounds could mitigate its impact.

That leaves domestic politics, diplomatic signalling and perhaps a hope that international pressure would damage Netanyahu before polling day as the strongest explanations for acting now.

Nor are the sanctions expected to sever the deeper relationship.

Sutcliffe, Dobson and Ostfeld believe intelligence, cyber and defence co-operation will endure because it is discreet, professionally managed and mutually beneficial.

Britain has therefore tried to draw a narrow distinction between settlements and Israel itself.

Netanyahu has every reason to erase it.

The more he can present sanctions aimed at the West Bank as an assault on Israel, the more effectively he can turn Western condemnation into domestic strength.

“Netanyahu has the experience and knowledge of how to turn this to his advantage,” Ostfeld says.

“He has done it before.”