https://nationalinterest.org/feature/if-britain-opts-corbyn-then-new-prime-minister-will-clash-trump-over-israel-31132
The signs of breakdown in the liberal international order are mounting, and they’re coming from disparate directions: Washington battles its closest allies on trade, Beijing and Moscow come together more closely militarily in an anti-U.S. alliance, and Beijing seeks to make its territorial expansion a fait accompli in the Pacific.
But the liberal order is as much about values as about alliances and power plays. In that sense, the most striking recent manifestation of its breakdown involves Washington and London – the long-standing partners in the “special relationship” – and their point of contention is, of all things, Israel.
At the moment, the United States is upending decades of conventional wisdom about how to approach the “Middle East peace process” by aligning itself more tightly with its ally in Jerusalem. Great Britain, meanwhile, faces the prospect that, under Jeremy Corbyn, its Labour Party will seize power and bring an ugly anti-Zionism – rooted in an undeniable anti-Semitism – to 10 Downing Street and the halls of Parliament.
That would put Washington and London, which (with a few notable exceptions) have cooperated for decades on global matters, on a collision course over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and larger Arab-Israeli peace – reflecting a clash of values and a decline in esprit de corps across the Western alliance.
The Trump administration announced this week that it will close the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) office in Washington, and administration officials tied the move to the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to negotiate seriously with Israel and to its threats to take the Jewish state to the International Criminal Court over its settlement policy and recent violent clashes along its border with Gaza.