In Britain, the solidarity campaign for Palestinian rights clashes directly with empire mythology

The statements made and opinions expressed in this article are solely the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Security in Context network, its partner organisations, or its funders.

By Mandy Turner

Abstract: In many Western societies there is a very visible disjuncture in political attitudes between entrenched elite support for Israel and growing public support for Palestinian rights, which is highlighting a severe democratic deficit. This article maps this trend in Britain, the country responsible for erasing Palestine from the map during its colonial mandate rule. It argues that British Establishment support for Israel is rooted in its pride in the history of the British Empire; this drives its role now as a facilitator of Israeli apartheid and genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. But this is not the same for the British public, which has shown a marked decrease in favourable attitudes towards Israel over the past few decades – a process that has not faltered despite Hamas’s October 7 attack. This has driven the increase of solidarity activism in Britain, which has become a key hub in the global movement for Palestinian rights, despite attempts to intimidate and criminalise it.

The Prime Minister said 

that people in Gaza “lost their lives”.

That was careless of them.

They must have been careless

about where they were standing,

or sitting

or sleeping.

They didn't get out of the way …

Thousands and thousands of people

were careless.

The careless people of Gaza.

(An excerpt from “The Concerned Prime Minister of Great Britain” by Michael Rosen)

On 15 January 2025, British prime minister Sir Keir Starmer made a statement to mark the start of the short-lived ceasefire in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas. Starmer’s biased language – Israelis were “massacred” but Palestinians “lost their lives” – was criticised and provoked British poet Michael Rosen to pen a sarcastic poem, an excerpt from which I use as the epigraph to this article. 

Starmer’s choice of words and the British government’s unconditional support for Israel during its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza – despite a change in government from Conservative to Labour – should not be a surprise. British elites have always supported Zionism against Palestinian-Arab self-determination. This includes the statesmen who penned the 1917 Balfour Declaration which promised a “homeland” for Jewish people in “the Holy Land”, continuing with those who implemented this promise during Britain’s occupation and colonial Mandate over Palestine (1917-1948), and through British foreign policy after 1948. 

Support for Zionism amongst British elites happened well before the Nazis massacred six million Jews in Europe during the Holocaust. Nowadays, British elites invoke the Holocaust because it is the lingua franca that unites Israel and its supporters, but this is not the main reason for their support for Zionism and their anti-Palestinian stance. On occasions, there have been British elites critical of Zionism and then Israel, and some even tried to challenge the government’s approach, but these very few individuals were not successful in changing the overall direction of British foreign policy. This is because support for Zionism is deeply embedded in British elite cultural and political life and is rooted in its pride in the history of the British Empire. 

Palestinians are an afterthought, only ever considered when activism has catapulted their views and rights onto the radar of the British elite. Historically, the Palestinian right to self-determination was disregarded and brutally squashed by the British colonial authorities during its rule over Palestine that helped Zionism by incubating the future Israeli state. In the 21^st century, the language (of some) of the British elite has changed, but the policy remains the same: Israel’s rights as a Zionist state are primary, Palestinian-Arab rights are secondary if considered at all. 

Following British journalist Owen Jones, I regard British elites as constituting the “British Establishment”, which is made up of those who inhabit powerful positions in society: politicians, including elected members of parliament and unelected members of the House of Lords; media owners and senior media executives/editors; business elites, millionaires and billionaires; senior executives in leading sectors of British public life; and the repressive institutions of the state, particularly the security services. Jones rightly insists that the British Establishment is not “a conscious organised conspiracy” but exists as an “organic, dynamic system” of people “bound together by shared economic interests and common mentalities.”¹ This includes political interests and foreign policy positions. 

Supporting Palestinian rights in the UK requires acknowledging and criticising the colonial crimes of the British Empire, which is something the British Establishment is not prepared to do. Palestinians therefore continue to be another victim of British elite Orientalist views rooted in an imperialist mindset. 

This is not the same, however, for the British public. As I discuss in greater detail below, opinion polls show that support for Israel and pride in the British Empire have both declined in the past few decades. While there are no opinion polls that directly link these two issues, support for both have clearly shrunk, especially amongst young people (18-24 age group). 

I think these changes are interlinked and help to explain three things. First, why there is such a widening chasm between elite and public opinion over understandings of the Israel-Palestinian “conflict” in the UK.² Second, why the actions of the British Establishment against Palestinian solidarity actions in the UK have become so repressive that Amnesty International flagged them in its in 2024 report The State of the World’s Human Rights. And third, to anticipate future political responses, which is that the British Establishment will continue to support Israel, but that Israel will face a tsunami of boycott and divestment activism from the British public.   

British Establishment pride in the Balfour Declaration

British elites are extremely proud of their role in the creation of the state of Israel. No British prime minister has ever considered the Balfour Declaration to be a colonial crime. Neither has the British Establishment acknowledged or found it problematic that Britain relegated Palestinian-Arabs to being a “people without history”, i.e., denied recognition and representation during its colonial Mandate rule in the geographical space between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. British colonial rule quite simply erased Palestine from the map, making it one of the most shameful colonial policies of Perfidious Albion, although there are ample to choose from. It was a prime example of the colonialist practice of ignoring and trampling over the rights of indigenous populations in favour of settler colonies which were regarded as more loyal, strategic, and “civilising” parts of the British Empire.³

Few politicians have criticised Britain’s role in the dispossession of Palestinian-Arabs; those that have tend to remain on the “backbenches”, i.e., not in positions of power in the government able to influence foreign policy. The last senior politician that diverged from a pro-Israel perspective – Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour party 2015-2020 – was subjected to a vicious campaign that undermined him. A central plank of the attack on Corbyn and his supporters were multiple wrongful accusations of antisemitism. But support for Palestinian rights was not the only reason the British Establishment opposed Corbyn. Labour’s 2019 election manifesto also pledged that schools would teach about historical injustice, colonialism, slavery, and the British Empire; and there were plans to redistribute wealth to make Britain a more equitable nation. Yet this was a unique example. British parliamentary party leaders do not generally express criticism of the Empire or of Israel. Rather, they tend to be incredibly proud of both. The politics of the Israel-Palestine “conflict” in Britain is therefore also a struggle over what historian Robert Gildea has referred to as “empires of the mind” i.e., how empire is “imagined, mythologised, and contested.”⁴

In November 2017, during the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, Prime Minister Theresa May described it as “one of the most important letters in history” confirming that Britain is “proud of our pioneering role in the creation of the state of Israel.” Israel’s Ambassador to the UK, Mark Regev, stated: “The Balfour declaration was important as it recognised the right of the Jewish people to self-determination. We mark with pride the role that Britain played in helping the establishment of the only true democracy in the Middle East.” To mark the anniversary, May attended a celebratory dinner with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu organised by Lord Rothschild. 

Meanwhile in east Jerusalem, Oxford University professor Avi Shlaim gave the keynote speech in a half-day conference I co-organised on the date of the centenary, November 7, which was held in Al-Hakawati (the Palestinian National Theatre), despite attempts by the Israeli authorities to prevent the event taking place. Shlaim, one of the world’s leading historians of the period, told an audience of around four hundred people that the Balfour Declaration and its legacy was a “shameful and indefensible” colonial act committed by Britain. 

Imperial arrogance and the politics of denial

Palestinians universally consider that the Balfour Declaration was a colonial crime committed against it by the British state. This includes all political persuasions and contexts whether it be from Palestinians in the occupied territory, in Israel, in refugee camps in neighbouring states, or in the diaspora. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has demanded an apology from the British government and occasionally threatens lawsuits. But the British government, irrespective of its political persuasion, has repeatedly denied any suggestion that the Balfour Declaration or its colonial Mandate over Palestine caused any harm. This is another example of imperial arrogance: the colonisers know best, not the colonised. 

Yet historians such as Sherene Seikaly, Lauren Banko, Rashid Khalidi, and Jacob Norris (and many more) have documented how the British colonial Mandate authorities instituted a system of different rules and privileges (otherwise known by its modern name “apartheid”) that favoured Zionists and discriminated against Palestinian-Arabs in the realms of governance, the economy, citizenship, and immigration.⁵ British elites did not just issue the Balfour Declaration and then let Zionists get on with the job; the colonial authorities actively supported them and then used huge levels of violence to suppress Palestinian opposition, particularly during the Palestinian Revolt of 1936-39. The British (and the French) excelled at this type of “divide and rule” strategy and violent counterinsurgency practices to control their colonies. 

The historical record is clear; so, the only possible explanation for denying Britain’s responsibility for Palestinian disenfranchisement and the theft of their nation is that the British Establishment still agrees with its actions and the outcome. This is why the British solidarity campaign for Palestinian rights clashes directly with empire mythology.

Of course, another factor is the British Establishment’s insistence on slavishly following US foreign policy on most issues, earning it the derogatory moniker of being “Washington’s poodle”.  This has often provoked political opposition from the British public, particularly on the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But the impact of the “Anglo-American special relationship” on British foreign policy is a further layer that requires careful unpacking on its own which I will set aside for now because I do not consider it to be the only factor underpinning entrenched support for Israel amongst the British elite who have reasons beyond merely sucking up to America.

Defence of Israel goes hand in hand with defence of Empire

Defence of Israel has now become intertwined with defence of the British Empire. Opinions on the Israel-Palestinian “conflict” are now largely divided along political lines of right (defence of Israel and defence of empire) and left (critical of Israel and critical of empire), although this was not always the case and there are always exceptions.⁶

This is why the Israel-Palestinian “conflict” is a source of discord within the Labour party because parts of the left that are anti-imperialist recognise that Israel only exists because of the British Empire and that Palestinians are engaged in an anti-colonial struggle for self-determination. But Labour rarely has leaders with anti-imperialist politics (Corbyn being the glaring exception) and never while in government. The only difference between a Conservative government and a Labour government when it comes to support for empire and Israel is that the Labour leadership is constantly fighting with its own backbench MPs, whereas Conservative MPs are all largely singing from the same hymn sheet.  

The British Establishment has generally resisted calls to apologise for the exploitation, violence and oppression used during British colonial rule. This is despite pressure to do so from the 56 Commonwealth countries which were part of the British Empire. 

Within Britain, defence or criticism of empire has become a battleground with elites attacking what they derogatorily dismiss as “woke politics” to “decolonise” institutions such as museums, statues such as those of Cecil Rhodes, and the teaching of British history. 

But young people, particularly students, have been joining the dots: they have made the links between colonialism and the Israel-Palestinian “conflict” as indicated by their adoption of the phrase “decolonisation is not a metaphor”. While there is disagreement over what this phrase means, its use has incurred the wrath of some, including prominent British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, who called it “dangerous and false” and an invitation for the mass murder of Israeli-Jews. There is little to differentiate Montefiore’s angry diatribe in the pages of The Atlantic magazine in October 2023 to articles published around the same time by Mike Gonzales at the Trump think tank, the Heritage Foundation. 

Coincidentally, Montefiore is also dismissive of museums and other British institutions providing information on the legacy of colonialism and slavery in its exhibitions, considering this practice to be “humdrum”. In February 2025, Montefiore elaborated that: “Everyone who was around at the time who was in the establishment, who made money, who was in the aristocracy, had some connection [to transatlantic slavery]. Does that mean one has to mention it in every single caption in every single portrait?” Montefiore’s family is a billionaire banking dynasty who played a prominent role in the history of British colonialism; these facts may or may not be important to know or “humdrum” when considering his position on such issues. 

Of course, critics point out that recognition or apologies for colonial crimes are hollow unless they are coupled with reparative justice. In the case of Palestine, reparative justice is immeasurable because Britain facilitated the theft of a nation, but at the very least it would require the British state to end its support for Israel and insist that Palestinians can return to their homes and properties stolen during the Nakba and subsequently. In the current period of Israel’s genocidal apotheosis, the British state should impose sanctions and join the Hague Group of countries trying to defend Palestinian rights and hold Israel accountable using international law and diplomatic means. But this is not going to happen because the British Establishment is a solid supporter of Israel. This is not the same for the British public. 

The decline in public support for Israel

British public attitudes towards the Israel-Palestinian “conflict” have been more variable and are influenced by incidents of extreme Israeli violence against Palestinians, as well as the principles of justice and rights more recently harnessed by the solidarity movement. Most noticeably, support for Zionism and then Israel, which was at its height after the second world war, declined after 1967 (Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip) and 1982 (Israel’s attack on Lebanon and the massacres at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps), and continued to diminish thereafter. 

Opinion polls capture this change in opinion. Between June 1967 and July 1975, “sympathies with Israel” declined from 55 percent to 33 percent.⁷ In 1982, a poll asked about a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue and gave respondents three choices: i) they remain where they are (26 percent for, 54 percent against); ii) they be allowed to return and for the division of Mandate Palestine into two states (55 percent for, 21 percent against); or iii) they be allowed to return and for there to be one state where all citizens have equal rights (60 percent for, 22 percent against).⁸ Fast forward two decades to 2002 and 28 percent were expressing “sympathies with Palestinians” compared to 14 percent expressing “sympathies with Israel”. In 2005, in the aftermath of the Second Intifada, the British public ranked Israel second “most unfavourably viewed country” in the world, after North Korea. 

This downward trajectory in support for Israel continued so that by February 2022, 11 percent expressed “sympathies with Israel” and 27 percent expressed “sympathies with Palestinians”. But in the 18-24 age group, the divergences were even greater – six percent expressed “sympathies with Israel” and 36 percent expressed “sympathies with Palestinians”. 

These changes in public opinion are reflected in the growth in support for Palestinian rights and the expansion of membership in solidarity groups. This has translated into solidarity practices in different sectors of British public life, such as trade unions, political parties, the arts, universities, and local authorities.

While these changes are probably largely the result of Israel’s ever-escalating violence against Palestinians and a recognition that Israel is blocking Palestinian self-determination, it also reflects a wider trend in British society towards more critical views on the history of empire. In 2014, 59 percent expressed pride in the British Empire, by 2024 this had dropped to 33 percent. But as with the opinion polls related to Israel and Palestinians, these compound percentages in 2024 hide large differences between older (for the over 65s, pride was at 47 percent) and younger (for the 18-24s, pride dropped to 24 percent), and between right-wing (55 percent of Conservatives voters expressed pride) and left-wing/progressive (19 percent of those who voted Labour and 21 percent Liberal Democrats expressed pride). 

Returning to British public attitudes towards the Israel-Palestine “conflict”, according to July 2023 opinion polls, “sympathy for Palestinians” was higher at 24 percent than “sympathy for Israel” at 10 percent, but with 56 percent “don’t knows” and “neither” which were ripe for persuasion.

The problem with opinion polls, of course, is that the Establishment of any country rarely considers them, politicians only do so near elections, but generally even then not many people will change their voting behaviour purely on a foreign policy issue unless their country is at war (although there is evidence that Gaza was important to some voters in the 2024 election in Britain). However, what these opinion polls show is that the attitudes of the British public are not reflected in British foreign policy on this issue.

The British Establishment is undermining democratic rights to attack Palestinian solidarity 

The global Palestinian solidarity movement has been identified by Israel as constituting an existential threat. In 2010, the influential Tel Aviv think tank, the Reut Institute, issued a report “The Delegitimization Challenge: Creating a Political Firewall” in which it identified London as one of the key hubs of the Palestinian solidarity movement (along with Madrid, Toronto, and the San Francisco Bay area). This triggered several initiatives by Israel such as the creation of a formal hasbara (public diplomacy) ministry to coordinate and direct actions against Palestinian solidarity activism. 

In Britain, the clash between Palestinian solidarity activism and the Establishment accelerated. The government (regardless of the political party in power) changed laws, helped to weaponize antisemitism to silence critics of Israel, and tried to undermine support for the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

In December 2016, the British government endorsed the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism (IHRA); Britain was the first state to do so. The IHRA includes 11 illustrative examples, seven of which relate to Israel – and it has been mostly used to silence critics. The British government cajoled sectors of UK public life, such as universities, to adopt the IHRA, with hugely negative impacts on freedom of speech.

In response to growing support for the BDS movement, in December 2017 the government announced it would ban public institutions introducing boycotts or divestments on the basis that they have no right to interfere with British foreign policy and its relationship with Israel. The Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas) Bill was passed by the House of Commons in January 2024, but its further passage was stalled due to a general election and was not reintroduced by the Labour government after it came to power in July 2024. Please make a mental note that these British political elites voted to ban solidarity with a non-violent popular movement during Israel’s genocidal war on Palestinians in Gaza and just one day before the public hearings at the International Court of Justice in the Hague regarding South Africa’s attempt to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 

There are also numerous examples of how the UK has either abstained in votes at the UN Security Council and abstained or voted against resolutions at the UN General Assembly on Palestinian statehood or attempts at the UN Human Rights Council to hold Israel accountable for war crimes. The British state is rarely on the right side of history; it seldom supports the oppressed against the oppressor. Take, for instance, the fact that the UK has used its veto power in the UN Security Council 30 times since 1956; 24 of these were in defence of apartheid South Africa and other white minority regimes in Africa. So don’t hold your breath waiting for Starmer’s Labour government to be any different from the previous Conservative government, because despite some cosmetic adjustments it will continue to support Israel more than it will ever support Palestinian rights, even if its backbench MPs rebel against it and force it to recognise Palestinian statehood.

Not even October 7 reversed the decline in public support for Israel

Initial public sympathy was strong for Israel after 7 October 2023; in an opinion poll conducted on 16 October, it had doubled from a pre-war level of around 10 percent to around 21 percent, whereas sympathy for Palestinians had dropped from 24 percent to 17 percent. But as with previous opinion polls, there were big differences between the age groups. Amongst the 18-24 age group, 11 percent sympathised with Israel and 39 percent sympathised with Palestinians; whereas this was reversed for those over the age of 65 with 37 percent expressing sympathy with Israel compared to 11 percent expressing sympathy with Palestinians. 

Collectively an overwhelming majority of the public, 76 percent in the first week of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, supported a ceasefire. This level of support for a ceasefire continued throughout the war and genocide. But neither the British government nor the main opposition party were in favour of a ceasefire. The first ceasefire motion submitted to the House of Commons in November 2023 was defeated. The second vote in February 2024 ended in chaos due to a breach of parliamentary procedure, and although it was passed, it was not binding on the government, so it chose to ignore it. Ceasefire motions, however, were passed by the Scottish and Welsh devolved governments. The difference in political attitudes on the Israel-Palestinian “conflict” between the nations of the UK is an often-ignored aspect of British politics. Unsurprisingly, the Scots (19 percent) and the Welsh (27 percent) are also less proud than the English (34 percent) of the British Empire. 

In the past 18 months, the disconnect between British Establishment support for Israel and the British public has widened even further. Palestinian solidarity activism has been able to harness a British public horrified at the enormous number of Palestinian casualties, the utter devastation being wrecked on Gaza, and their own government’s partisan stance. This has been expressed through demonstrations, “sit-ins” of public spaces, “walk-outs” and “occupations” by school and university students, as well as petitions, trade union solidarity motions, boycott activities, and direct action activities. 

This increase in Palestinian solidarity sentiment and actions amongst the British public is the reason why the British government is undermining democratic rights through coercive measures and restrictions on freedom of speech, academic freedom, freedom of the press, and the right to protest. There has also been more aggressive policing at Palestinian solidarity actions, the arrest and detention of activists, and violent interventions to shut down meetings including at a Quakers’ place of worship in London in March 2025. 

The government’s partisan politics and policies have also set the tone for management practices in other sectors of British life. People expressing pro-Palestinian views have been experiencing disciplinary and punitive measures: investigations, censorship, suspension or termination of employment contracts, prosecutions under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and rescinding of UK visas for foreign nationals. These measures have impacted disproportionately on Palestinians, Muslims, and other people of colour in Britain. Quite simply, the British Establishment is undermining democratic rights in order to attack Palestinian solidarity. And yet despite all these punitive measures, Palestinian solidarity groups in Britain are reporting an increase in membership and active participation, particularly amongst young people.

Conclusion: The British Establishment actively supports Israel, but the public does not

The British Establishment is not only responsible for the colonial crime of wiping Palestine off the map, but it is a supporter and facilitator of Israeli apartheid and genocide now. While Israel has been carrying out its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and is moving towards annexation of the West Bank, Britain has been using its military bases in Cyprus to fly at least 500 spy planes over Gaza to aid Israeli intelligence and is allowing the United States to use RAF Akrotiri for special forces flights to Israel. These are not the actions of a casual bystander but of an active supporter. 

Despite British government attempts to keep its military involvement secret, including imposing an information blackout and blocking questions in parliament, opposition is growing amongst the public. On 26 February 2025, a coalition of organisations launched a campaign in both the UK and Cyprus against the use of British military bases in Cyprus to assist Israel’s genocide in Gaza. There are also groups trying to force the British government to impose an arms embargo and others undertaking disruptive direct action to shut down factories supplying weapons to Israel.

The epoch-defining crisis that started on 7 October 2023 with Hamas’s attack on Israel has accelerated the struggle over support for Palestinian rights in the UK because while the British Establishment overwhelmingly supports Israel, the British public increasingly does not. Solidarity with Palestinians will therefore continue to gather support but also continue to be criminalised; there are more difficult times ahead. Yet this is a watershed moment; it is a turning point. Palestinians have not been erased from history, despite experiencing British colonialism and Israeli settler colonialism. Solidarity actions in support of Palestinians’ right to self-determination and to have a life with dignity free of oppression will not come from British elites, but from the British public. 

Mandy Turner is a freelance writer affiliated with Security in Context as a senior researcher. She can be contacted on mandy@securityincontext.org 

Footnotes:

1: Owen Jones, The Establishment And How They Get Away With It (London: Penguin, 2014), p. xvii.

2: I am deliberately using quotation marks around the word “conflict” because the situation is best understood as a struggle for Palestinian rights and self-determination against the settler-colonial state of Israel which is employing brutal practices of counterinsurgency, military occupation, and apartheid to control, suppress, and dispossess Palestinians. Palestinians have long characterised their situation in this way. However, the tendency is still to refer to it as a “conflict” so I will do so here but in quotation marks.

3: Dan Freeman-Maloy, “The International Politics of Settler Self-governance: Reflections on Zionism and ‘Dominion’ Status within the British Empire,” Settler Colonial Studies, 8(1), 2018, pp.80-95.

4: Robert Gildea, Empires of the Mind: The Colonial Past and the Politics of the Present (Cambridge University Press, 2019) p.2

5: Sherene Seikaly, Men of Capital: Scarcity and Economy in Mandate Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2015). Lauren Banko, The Invention of Palestinian Citizenship, 1918-1947 (Edinburgh University Press, 2016). Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine; A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance (Profile Books, 2020). Jacob Norris, Land of Progress: Palestine in the Age of Colonial Development (Oxford University Press, 2013).

6: Baroness Sayeeda Warsi from the Conservative Party is a very strong supporter of Palestinian rights; whereas Sir Keir Starmer, prime minister of the Labour government, is a very strong supporter of Israel.

7: Connie de Boer. “The Polls: Attitudes Toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 47(1), 1983: pp.121–31.

8: de Boer, 1983, op cit, pp.121–31.