This weekend US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been clocking up more air-miles visiting the Middle East. So far he has seemed a bystander at the destruction of Gaza, unable or unwilling to exert much influence. Israel has frequently said it will stop only when it sees fit to do so, and there is no good news for those who thought the Israeli public would balk at the level of violence unleashed on Gaza. Sources including Israeli journalist Gideon Levy say most Israelis think the Israeli army and air force are being too soft and favour the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuSPFuHSopo
The UN’s Office of Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Saturday that 22,600 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza since October 7, with undiscovered bodies still buried under rubble. Ongoing shortages of clean water, electricity, food, medical supplies, and baby formula have partly eased by the efforts of charity workers, but it’s a drop in the ocean, and OCHA continue to warn of serious famine and disease. Already there are 3,200 new cases of diarrhoea in children under five per day, 35 times the rate before October 7.
People from around the world, horrified by the humanitarian disaster unfolding in front of their eyes in Gaza, and increasing settler violence in the West Bank, come out in large numbers, week after week, to take part in peaceful demonstrations calling for an immediate ceasefire and an end to occupation. If the message is being received within Israel, it is competing with Israeli ministers’ assurances that western leaders have given Prime Minister Netanyahu “full backing” for their actions.
Sadly, the UK government, apparently led by the US, continues to support this narrative. Political leaders in the UK and elsewhere have done little to make it clear that words spoken a few days after the October 7 massacre no longer apply. The scale of destruction, displacement and the loss of life is vastly greater than perhaps any western leaders could have imagined, and many international lawyers are now calling it genocide. Twenty Palestinian lives have now been claimed for every Israeli killed or taken hostage on October 7. Many of the dead are children or babies.
South Africa has now formally accused Israel of genocide and filed a case with the International Court of Justice (the ICJ) seeking preliminary measures to prevent this. You can read John Mearsheiner’s informative article, https://scheerpost.com/2024/01/05/john-mearsheimer-genocide-in-gaza/ identifying the three main components of South Africa’s 84-page application. John Mearsheiner is a highly respected American political scientist and international relations scholar.
The March in London at 12.00 on Saturday 13th January
https://palestinecampaign.org/events/national-march-for-palestine-ceasefire-now-january-13/
Please join us from the LDFP, the Lib Dem Muslim Forum (LDMF), and other Liberal Democrats marching for a ceasefire next week. The march assembles at 12.00 noon at Bank Junction, EC3V 3LA and ends at Parliament Square, Westminster. If you would like to join email us at contact@ldfp.org and we will share our meeting point and contact for the day. We very much look forward to meeting you and marching with you if you can make it.
The weekly marches are being reported to some extent in Israel and Gaza, although communications in Gaza remain badly affected by what is happening. However, they send a powerful message to the members of our own parliament.
If you aren’t able to make it to London there are events happening every week throughout the country and PSC posts information about on their website https://palestinecampaign.org/events/
Speaking of members of our own parliament, LDFP sent a letter (see below) last Thursday to our Liberal Democrat parliamentarians which makes some serious proposals for the Party’s involvement in leading the political debate on the current turmoil.
Our Chair’s letter to Lib Dem parliamentarians (MPs and peers), sent by email last Friday
Dear Colleagues,
I am writing to you as parliamentarians and on behalf of Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine.
With Ed Davey’s Christmas message calling for a year of kindness and peace, many will be focusing on Israel’s war on Gaza and the settler violence in the other part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, namely the West Bank including East Jerusalem.
The intensity of Israel’s bombing of Gaza is unprecedented this century[1]. One child is killed every ten mins, and more than 20,000 Palestinians are known to have been killed, with several more thousands missing presumed dead. For those that remain alive, nowhere is safe. The UN, UNWRA, WHO and aid agencies are rightly describing the situation in Gaza as a humanitarian catastrophe and are reporting significant numbers killed among their own staff and among journalists. In addition, many doctors and healthcare workers have reportedly been imprisoned by Israel.
Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine are deeply concerned by statements made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers in the Israeli government using genocidal language and advocating for the ethnic cleansing and continued occupation of Gaza. In particular Israeli leaders are calling for Palestinians to leave Gaza, which would be ethnic cleansing.
Furthermore, in a report published on 28 December, the United Nations have called on Israel to end “unlawful killings” and settler violence in the occupied West Bank warning of the rapidly deteriorating human rights situation during intensified Israeli raids. Israeli forces killed more Palestinians in 2023 than in any year since the U.N first recorded such statistics in 2005.
As Liberal Democrats, with strong moral values, we cannot and should not be silent.
Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine fully support the Liberal Democrats’ call for an immediate bilateral ceasefire. It sets us clearly apart from the other two national parties and as Ed Davey outlined in his statement of 12 November 2023, our job – and the job of the whole international community – is to bring an end to this conflict, and stop the indiscriminate killing of civilians, while ensuring that we do not return to how things were before October 7th.
The party should be shouting this from the rooftops, providing the leadership that public opinion appears to favour and expect. The UK Government continues to fly in the face of public concern over the horrors seen daily on our TV screens and is effectively complicit in what is happening. It is encouraging to see growing public concern in the United States about the moral bankruptcy of the Biden support for Israel’s war and it would be welcomed by many if there was criticism from the UK in place of tacit support.
As Layla Moran has highlighted, the Liberal Democrats have policies on Israel/ Palestine passed by conference in 2021 (F39: Towards Lasting Peace in Israel and Palestine). This places us in a strong position to speak out, knowing that we have the support of the majority of our members to do so. These actions can include, but are not exhaustive:
- Repeatedly calling for an immediate bilateral ceasefire
- Calling for the release of hostages held by Hamas
- Calling for the release of Palestinians detained without trial in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (oPt)
- Condemning Israeli plans for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza
- Support ICC and ICJ investigations into alleged war crimes committed by Israel and Hamas
- Pressing harder for a settlement trade ban in the West Bank including East Jerusalem in line with Party policy
- Calling for a ban on military cooperation with Israel for so long as it continues its illegal occupation of the oPt
- Support a visa ban for Israeli extremists responsible for violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem
- Continue to call for UK recognition of the State of Palestine
We have listened carefully to the http://words of Gideon Levy on the present situation Gideon Levy is himself the son of Holocaust Survivors who served in the IDF and then became a journalist with the liberal newspaper Ha’aretz. Levy has become one of Israel’s leading journalists winning the prestigious Sokolov Award for Israeli journalism in 2021. He has spent much of his time in the West Bank covering and criticising the practices of settlers, the Israeli army and successive Israeli governments. It is well worth listening to this interview which sadly demonstrates how the dehumanisation of Palestinians has become accepted by the majority of Israeli citizens. Levy argues that only external pressure from abroad is likely to change Israel’s treatment of Palestinians (something quite explicitly recognised by our Party when it passed resolution F39 in 2021) and end its illegal occupation.
The Liberal Democrat Party recognises the State of Palestine. In recognising Israel’s right to defend itself the Party should be consistent and recognise that the Palestinians also have a right to life and to freedom from occupation. Israel’s right to self defence does not go so far as to justify the collective punishment of civilians. The party should strenuously encourage and support the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians to live without fear and with freedom, equality and justice.
Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine urge our Leader to follow the example of Charles Kennedy who played a leading role in a rally against the Iraq war in 2003 and to make a keynote speech at the next national rally in London on Saturday 13 January calling for an immediate ceasefire, emphasising the principles of international law, human rights and accountability as referenced above. We hope to see a strong presence of Lib Dems at the rally and would be glad if you are able to join us.
Best wishes,
Anne-Marie Simpson
Chair of LDFP