Streeting attempts to rewrite history over Gaza

Wes Streeting appears to be attempting to rewrite history over his position on Gaza, after supporting Israel’s genocide for years.

You spent two years supporting genocide and now pretend you didn’t? Just staggering dishonesty from
these human pieces of excrement. https://t.co/Vz7iEYsHIW

— Bog Standard Marxist 🇵🇸 (@muskeatsbogeys) June 2, 2026

Recently published conversations between Streeting and Peter Mandelson, a friend of Epstein and a former government advisor, show Mandelson calling Streeting “hysterical” and “pathetic,” saying:

I think Wes is experiencing an early mid-life crisis.

Previously, Streeting released some messages between himself and Mandelson to clarify the nature of their relationship. In them, he described Israel as a “rogue state” and admitted that:

Israel Is Committing War Crimes Before Our Eyes.

Now, Streeting has told the Guardian that he was “horrified by the war in Gaza”. He stated that he “did everything I could” to get the government to act with the “moral urgency the conflict demands”. Supposedly, he shared eyewitness testimonies from doctors on the ground in Gaza, to ensure what was happening “wasn’t a war without witnesses”.

He added:

I’ve always supported Israel’s right to defend itself and Palestinians’ right to a state of their own. I’ve met survivors of October 7th and was the first shadow cabinet minister to visit Israel. I visited the West Bank a decade ago, I called for sanctions on Israeli settlements when I was a backbencher – this wasn’t some emotional or one-sided reaction; it is what I and other ministers believe.

I was proud to be part of the government that eventually recognised a Palestinian state, but we took far too long to get there.

Streeting and Israel’s ‘right’ to self-defence

Streeting has publicly supported Israel for the entirety of his career, since his days at the National Union of Students. He has been a member of Labour Friends of Israel for over twenty years, and was Starmer’s first shadow minister to visit Israel. Labour Friends of Israel – a highly secretive Israeli lobby group- paid for the visit.

According to Declassified UK, as of June 2024, Streeting had taken nearly £30,000 from Britain’s powerful pro-Israel lobby. This included donations from Sir Trevor Chinn, Lord Mendelsohn, and David Menton.

Streeting has previously criticised specific Israeli policies. This included illegal settlements and denying British MPs access to the Occupied West Bank. However, he has also regularly made comments about Israel’s ‘right to self-defence’ – despite that right not actually existing under international law.

Yet Streeting is a member of the same government that walked back comments from David Lammy, in which he claimed Israel had violated international law.

You were part of a cabinet that armed and supported a genocidal apartheid Israeli state.

Spare us the crocodile tears.

No amount of revisionism erases your role in that. You’re complicit, whether you like it or not. https://t.co/ctF6YX630H

— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) June 2, 2026

Streeting was also caught on camera saying “persuade Hamas” in response to a question about Israel’s war crimes and “why can’t we have a ceasefire?”

This is despite armed resistance being legal under international law when living in an occupied territory.

Last year, after Israel had already destroyed a number of hospitals and attacked ambulances, Wes was asked what his party would do to force a ceasefire, he arrogantly shrugged and said his constituent should “persuade hamas” https://t.co/ETY0HzV5vM pic.twitter.com/cxCJP9k9f1

— Chłoddy (@OfSymbols) July 24, 2025

Complete contradiction

Additionally, Streeting doesn’t seem to realise that Israel’s right to self-defence completely contradicts the ‘two-state solution‘. Which, of course, he is also in favour of.

Aside from the fact that the two-state solution is a colonialist idea that legitimises the displacement of indigenous Palestinians, the two ideas completely clash in both international law and politics. No state can claim self-defence against a territory it occupies and exercises control over. Yet a two-state solution means recognising Palestine as a sovereign and, therefore, independent state.

As long as Israel claims “self-defence” to justify illegal occupation, bombing, and blockades, Palestine cannot function as an independent state. This would be required for the two-state solution, which Streeting is so keen on.

If Streeting truly believes his texts to Mandelson, why on earth has he accepted so much money from Labour Friends of Israel? And why has it taken him until now to say these things publicly?

Streeting has no backbone. If he truly cared about Gaza, he’d have spoken out and publicly condemned Israel’s war crimes. He would not have just done it via text to Epstein’s pal. He also wouldn’t wait until now, when there is a potential leadership contest in the not-so-distant future. It’s pretty convenient that he’s suddenly taking a hardline stance against a genocidal terrorist state. What good are your faux morals if they only appear to benefit your potential run as party leader?

Featured image via Leon Neal/Getty Images