Israel’s response to October 7
Western leaders should have known that giving Netanyahu unqualified support after the October 7 attack by Hamas was giving the green light for a disproportionate Israeli response, but they couldn’t have suspected that 100,000 Palestinians would be killed or injured by the beginning of March, and that vast areas of Gaza would have been reduced to rubble.
When those promises of support were given, retribution on such a scale would have been thought beyond the pale, but Netanyahu is firmly in charge of deciding what is acceptable, and for him 30,000 deaths is fine, and he hasn’t even finished yet. The killing of so many Palestinians has been justified by Israel on the grounds that they “only target Hamas fighters”, and the civilians killed, injured, orphaned, made homeless, or traumatised by constant bombardment, are a legitimate consequence of Israel’s “right to defend itself”. Compelling arguments have been advanced that Israel’s actions amount to genocide. While lawyers ponder Israel’s attempt to exonerate itself from the charge, people are still being killed in Gaza and the West Bank.
Western leaders may wish they hadn’t made such open-ended promises to Netanyahu, but they haven’t revoked them, and the ordinary people of the US and Europe have said in their millions that they are doing too little to bring Netanyahu to heel. In the UK, the Prime Minister’s feeble response has been to call protest “anti-democratic” and claim that listening to the will of the British people marching for justice would be acceding to “mob rule”.
There can be no doubt that the failure of President Biden or our own government to take tough action against Israel has been a major factor in the current catastrophe in Gaza and the rest of occupied Palestine, but the war has now entered a chilling new phase, and one in which manufactured excuses can longer justify inaction by the British government.
Famine
The Israeli war cabinet will know that people in Gaza are not just hungry or malnourished, they are dying of starvation, the result of months of restrictions imposed by the Israeli military, and that children and babies are the first victims. In this context it is implausible to argue that these actions are aimed at Hamas rather than civilians, given the scale of the catastrophe.
The deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war is a war crime. Israel has claimed today that it’s “flooding” Gaza with desperately needed food and clean water, and cited the entry of six food lorries at a new entry point. The pre-war level was 500 lorries a day.
Israel’s leaders have badly miscalculated the impact on world opinion. No-one is going to be able to excuse what is now unequivocally the collective punishment of Gazans. The Israeli Government knows it is imposing a lingering death on civilians, mostly innocent babies and children. Our politicians need to wake up to the new reality of Israel’s assault on Gaza, and take Desmond Tutu’s words to heart;
“if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
Sadly, our government is seen around the world as having chosen the side of the oppressor.
Changing that is the job of every single one of the 647 Members of Parliament, for the sake of our credibility in the world, and more importantly by far, for the sake of the people of Gaza. You can play your part but keeping up pressure on your MP.
Spring Conference
We are expecting an important speech about the conflict in Gaza from Layla Moran on Saturday afternoon. If you’re coming to the Spring Conference, make sure you are in the main auditorium at 3.45pm.
The LDFP is holding a Fringe Meeting in room three at the Novotel York (a few minutes walk from the conference centre), also on Saturday, at 6.15pm. Our speakers will be Lord John Alderdice, the Liberal Democrat peer who helped steer the Good Friday Agreement to its conclusion, and Marwan Yaghi, from the Palestinian Embassy in London. We will be looking beyond the current conflict at the impact the war has had on prospects for the end of the Occupation and recognition of the state of Palestine.
