Jonathan Powell’s flawed approach to Israel is more dangerous than his wife’s views

I’ve been writing about antisemitism for well over two decades. In all that time, I don’t think I’ve come across a more poisonous series of opinions than those of Sarah Helm, the journalist and writer. Among them are such as gems as this in 2023, in which she quote-posted a claim describing reporting of Hamas sexual violence on October 7 as "atrocity propaganda" and used the hashtag #DontBelieveIsrael. In her own text, she added: "It is certainly puzzling that not a single Israeli rape victim has given their own testimony on this."

And when a UN investigation in March 2024 reported "clear and convincing" evidence of rape and sexualized torture against hostages taken by Hamas, Helm described the UN's work as "botched," labelled the report "utterly meaningless," and asserted it "should never have been published." She has defended Hamas, compared Israel to the Nazis and called for western military action against Israel. She has also expressed for support for Palestine Action, writing earlier this month: "God help us authors who support Palestine and Palestine Action."

Helm’s view have been widely reported over the past week, not because they are worth hearing but because her husband, Jonathan Powell, is the UK’s national security adviser. There have been calls for Powell to resign. Those calls are understandable. But repellent as Helm’s views are, there is no evidence – yet – that Powell himself has done anything wrong. And having a spouse with vile opinions is surely not grounds for resignation. The demands for Powell to go because of his wife’s views miss the real point.

It’s not Sarah Helm who is the problem. It’s Jonathan Powell. This is not Powell’s first rodeo. He was Tony Blair’s chief of staff, and a very successful one at that. Indeed, as the lead British negotiator, he can claim much of the credit for the Good Friday Agreement. But that success has now become one of the main problems behind the government’s approach to the Middle East. Powell and others in and around Number 10 believe mistakenly that the lessons learned from the Good Friday agreement can be successfully applied to the entirely different existential conflict of the Middle East – a mindset that has shaped each wrong-headed decision of the UK over the past two years.

Powell became National Security Adviser in December 2024, so it would be wrong to attribute to him the disastrous early decisions of the government to resume funding Unrwa and to halt the UK’s attempt with Germany to overturn the International Crimimal Court’s arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. But – with the exception of Ed Miliband’s sanctions, which we will come to – Powell has been the driving force behind the rest.

In October last year, for example, Sir Keir Starmer told the Commons that our experience with the IRA and the Good Friday Agreement meant we could take a leading role in disarming Hamas. Britain “stand[s] ready to play a key role in the decommissioning of Hamas’ weapons and capability”. He added: “Of course, this is going to be difficult, but it’s vital.” In December 2024 Starmer pledged an Israeli-Palestinian peace fund modelled on the International Fund for Ireland.

Powell has called that fund the “great unsung hero of the Good Friday Agreement”. Starmer had seen it at work as a human rights adviser to the Northern Ireland Policing Board. Powell uses the Good Friday Agreement to buttress his view that the way to end conflicts is to talk to the other side. In 2008, for example (he left Number 10 in 2007) he said that Western governments should talk to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. His 2014 book is actually called Talking to Terrorists: How to End Armed Conflicts.

Powell’s approach is not merely naïve; it entirely misunderstands the nature of the Middle East conflict. The IRA were, like Hamas and Hezbollah, murderous terrorists. But the IRA wanted Northern Ireland’s status changed, not every Unionist dead. Meanwhile, Article 7 of Hamas’ covenant says that: "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.

Except for the Gharqad tree, for it is the tree of the Jews." Were it not for what Abba Eban famously called the Palestinians’ habit of never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity, it might have been that Powell’s penchant for negotiating with terrorists had worked: Oslo showed that the PLO could be negotiated with. But Hamas cannot. The two most significant acts over Israel since Labour took office have been recognition of a Palestinian state last September and then, a year later, the imposition of sanctions on Israel.

The former is classic Powell. Even if we take it at face value, and ignore the domestic political pressures driving Middle East policy (Labour’s fear of the sectarian Muslim vote), the idea is at best naïve, at worst pure folly. It is based on the notion that recognition without any quid pro quo arrangement is a statement of intent designed to build trust. In reality, all it did was give a propaganda win to Hamas, who could claim that decades of talking got nowhere and it took the October 7 massacre to force the UK and other Western nations to recognise a Palestinian state.

But while Powell’s approach may be misguided, even he could see that Miliband’s decision to sanction Israel could only be counter-productive, showing Israel that the UK can no longer be trusted or even counted as an ally. Sarah Helm may be a valid target for opprobrium, but her marital status is not what matters. It’s what her husband does that is important.