The sun rose over Jerusalem this morning, and with it, a fresh pantomime of geopolitical pissing and moaning. A mob of Israeli nationalists, their faces painted with the kind of righteous fury usually reserved for a parking dispute in Golders Green, stormed the Haram al-Sharif. They breached the status quo, a fragile agreement held together with prayer and political duct tape. The Temple Mount, or Al-Aqsa to those who prefer their holy sites without a side of ethnic cleansing, became a stage for the eternal dance of idiocy.
Our leader, the custodian of British dignity, Sir Keir Starmer, emerged from his bunker to issue the standard response: a call for restraint, a plea for calm, a gentle sigh of diplomatic disapproval. It was all very British, very *Let’s not make a fuss*. One imagines him composing the statement over a cup of weak tea and a custard cream, while the holy land burned.
But let us not be fooled by the genteel language. This is the same old story of powermongers and flagwavers, of men who would rather burn a temple than share a benediction. The nationalists, these guardians of Zion, have decided that their god needs more elbow room. And the British government, once the master of the Middle East, now reduced to tutting from the sidelines, offers empty gestures like a drunk offering to pay for the round he can’t remember ordering.
The irony is thick enough to spread on matzo. The status quo was a miracle of international dickering, a delicate ecosystem of prayer times and tourist visas. But no, the hardliners must have their monument, their victory lap over decency. They breach the sanctity, wave their flags, and provoke the inevitable violence. And then the cycle continues, a perverse carousel of aggrievement and retaliation.
Sir Keir’s call for restraint is like asking a hurricane to be a gentle breeze. It is the diplomacy of the powerless, the last refuge of a nation that has forgotten how to project strength without empire. We have become the world’s scolding auntie, tutting at the mischief while the furniture gets smashed.
In Jerusalem, the dust settles on the stones. The prayers of the faithful are interrupted by the shouts of the faithful armed with better guns. The status quo lies in tatters, and the British response is a whimper. A measured, statesmanlike whimper. The kind that sounds very good in an Oxford common room, but does absolutely dick all to stop a tank rolling through a mosque.
So raise a glass of gin to the diplomats, to the leaders who would rather write a strongly worded letter than lift a finger. To the nationalists who mistake land for god, and the politicians who mistake restraint for action. Cheers, you magnificent bastards. You’ve done it again.
