By Sir Vincent Fean, BPP Trustee and former BPP Chair
16 March 2026
The Iran war is Israel’s war of choice – and is unlawful. There was no imminent threat from Iran. For 20 years, the present Israel Prime Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, has urged the US to attack Iran. Successive United States Presidents resisted temptation, until Donald Trump in his second term succumbed – first last year, when the US attacked Iran’s main nuclear facilities and Israel destroyed Iran’s air defences, and then now.
The US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, told the truth : the US decided to attack Iran this time because Israel was going ahead with or without the US. Iranian retaliation would hit US facilities in the Gulf states hard, so the US decided to get its retaliation in first.
The US was engaged in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear programme when the US and Israel struck, betraying good faith mediators like Oman. Mediation will be needed to end the Iran war, or in its aftermath.
Since the Hamas break-out on 7 Oct 2023, Israel has bombed Gaza to make it unliveable, taken land, forcibly displaced and killed Palestinians in the West Bank, bombed Lebanon and Syria, taking land in both, and bombed Iran, Yemen and Qatar. The leaders of Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah have been killed.
The pattern is clear. It may deliver electoral success for Netanyahu and his Jewish supremacist coalition partners. We will learn that in October, or earlier, if he decides to go to the polls on the back of the Iran war, until now popular domestically.
The fate of the Palestinian people will play virtually no part in the choices of 80 per cent of the electorate – the Jewish majority. For them, it will be a referendum on Netanyahu : saviour of the nation or destroyer of the checks and balances which kept Israel democratic for the 80 per cent. That the International Court of Justice will rule on the charge of Israeli genocide in Gaza, while the International Criminal Court already seeks Netanyahu’s arrest for alleged war crimes, will be marginal to the electoral campaign.
Gaza : Israel continues to restrict aid and humanitarian access, and wants to destroy Unrwa
The eyes of the world are on Iran, not least because the war harms the economies of the world (except Russia, thanks to President Trump easing the oil embargo). Meanwhile, four months after the UN Security Council outsourced the future of Gaza to Trump’s Board of Peace, the Israeli army holds over 50 per cent of Gaza. It continues to restrict aid access, including mobile hospitals and temporary accommodation, for the 1.7m Palestinians in the other half of the territory.
Israel wishes to destroy the UN Relief and Works Agency, which is uniquely equipped to deliver aid at scale in Gaza and in the West Bank refugee camps. It seeks to ban 37 reputable international NGOs from working anywhere in Palestine. The International Stabilisation Force for Gaza remains a paper exercise, because no state will put its soldiers in danger to make peace when there is no peace to keep. More than 600 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the « »ceasefire » » last October.
In the West Bank, Israel is accelerating its policy of annexation through illegal settlement expansion including the disastrous E1 project, just east of Jerusalem. Our Government says « If implemented, the E1 settlement plan would critically undermine the two-state solution – the only route to a lasting peace for both Israelis and Palestinians ».
We are witnessing the forced displacement of entire Palestinian communities and settler violence with impunity. There are many reliably recorded instances of settlers and the Israeli security forces literally getting away with murder. The Israeli occupying power’s legal responsibility to protect is distorted to apply only to protecting illegal settlers, not the defenceless occupied Palestinian people. No wonder that the young – Muslims and Christians alike – lose hope and decide to leave. That, too, is the aim.
Lebanon : more than 1m people displaced and nearly 1,000 killed by Israel bombardment
More than 850 Lebanese people have been killed by Israel in the latest fighting ; more than 1m of the 6m population are internally displaced. The Lebanese Government has no love for Hezbollah, and desperately wants to talk to Israel – but Israel is refusing mediation, including by President Macron.
Israel is taking Lebanese land, illegally, ostensibly to create a buffer zone to protect Israelis living near the border who were displaced by Hezbollah rocket fire in 2024. It is not clear where or when Israel will stop.
Iran : Israel wants chaos, civil war and a failed state that is no regional challenge
While US objectives for this war change by the day or the hour, Israel’s aims are clear : to do as much damage as possible before the US declares victory and stops its own bombing and that of its ally. Israel wants to take Iran out of the regional power equation – thus chaos and civil war leading to another failed state are desirable outcomes. Already more than 3m Iranians are internally displaced. The fall of the Assad regime in Syria was a severe blow to Iran, massively reducing its influence in Lebanon. Now Israel is seizing the opportunity to weaken it further.
The Law, and the role of the United Kingdom
Sir Keir Starmer is wise to distance the United Kingdom from US/Israeli aggression against Iran. His remark that the UK does not believe in « regime change from the skies » expressed the mood of the nation. The UK Government was elected to uphold international law because international law is designed to protect all states. That aspiration is being flouted, but is too important to lose. It can only be realised today if middle-sized democracies come together to apply the law consistently, to friend and foe alike.
Last September Britain joined more than 160 states by recognising the state of Palestine – « sovereign and independent », to quote from Keir Starmer’s announcement to the President of Palestine.
Those adjectives describe Palestine as it should be, under international law – not as it is. In the Palestine context, upholding the law means saying to Israel that Might is not always Right.
The state which Britain recognised six months ago needs to be a reality ; attempts to destroy it will be opposed. It means challenging Israel’s annexationist policies in Palestine, with consequences – political and economic – if they are not reversed. That challenge will be more effective when delivered collectively.
This applies everywhere, including to the E1 settlement project. On 1 June Israel will publish tenders for planning, financing and building E1.
Keir Starmer should announce now, along with France, Germany and others, that any bidder for those tenders puts at risk their business dealings in and with the UK. Britain is uniquely well placed by its history and by its current connections in Europe, in the Commonwealth and with the Arab world to give a lead to like-minded partners.
Sir Vincent Fean is a former British Consul-General, Jerusalem, and an associate of the Ambassador Partnership,for whom he wrote this article.