By John Kelly | Wed 21st August 2024 – 7:53 am
The scale of the atrocities in Gaza, which we are seeing daily on our TV screens, has reached levels of horror which have left most of us stunned – both by Israel’s brutality, and by the audacity with which it is defying world opinion. The total Gaza death toll is over 40,000– with an estimated missing further 10,000 buried or blown to pieces. Many thousands more are expected to die from malnutrition, disease or neglect in the coming months. Sadly, each new outrage is no longer shocking, given the number of schools, hospitals, universities, churches, mosques, and water works which Israel has targeted over the last ten months.
Israeli actions have long since gone beyond any acceptable definition of ‘self-defence’ following the 7 October attacks. The ICC chief prosecutor believes there are reasonable grounds to believe Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant bear criminal responsibility for Israel’s use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war and has made comparable claims about Hamas leaders. The failure of the international community to react and impose consequences for this illegal conduct has led to Israel enjoying a climate of impunity far beyond what it has achieved in the past.
Months ago, the International Court of Justice said there was plausible evidence that Israel is conducting a genocide in Gaza. The ICJ made various demands on Israel to change its behaviour, but these were largely ignored. A state with any respect for international law ought to impose sanctions on sales of arms to Israel, and the UK has a legal obligation to do this, not merely to impose a ban on future licences. It will take time for the ICJ to determine if Israel’s bombardment of civilians does in fact constitute genocide, but the suffering of the Palestinian people is a present-day reality for millions in Gaza and the West Bank, and our duty to them cannot be parked until an indeterminate point in the distant future.
The ICJ advisory opinion on the illegality of the Occupation is also devastating; any governments facilitating the continuation of the Occupation, whether by supplying arms or by continuing to permit normal relations with those who benefit from it, are “complicit”, and therefore in breach of international law. Lib Dems must call not just for a two-state solution but for an immediate end to that occupation, and reparations to be paid to Palestinians, as required in the ICJ opinion.
We must ensure that our Government takes firm action to avoid complicity and to show where we stand. As yet, the Labour government has delayed decisions on the arms trade, and has even failed to publish the Foreign Office legal advice which it claimed parliament had a right to see when it was in opposition. The resignation of British diplomat Mark Smith, who was involved in monitoring arms export licences, brings the new Government’s slowness to act into sharp relief. He told Radio 4’s Today programme “that the state of Israel is perpetrating war crimes in plain sight.” A fuller account was printed in Monday’s Guardian.
A very disturbing trend is highlighted in detail in the latest B’Tselem report (B’Tselem is the leading Israeli human rights organisation), which produced compelling evidence that Israel’s detention centres have become torture camps. This was reinforced in a lengthy Channel 4 News Report on Monday this week. It is gruesome and sickening TV to watch – some of the most unpleasant I have ever seen, so be warned.
In summary, 60 Palestinians, 48 from Gaza, have died in Israeli detention centres or torture camps since last October. Israel has routinely tortured detainees in the past, as was detailed in the 2022 report by Amnesty International, but since Hamas’s October 7 th attacks has involved extraordinary levels of brutality. Palestinians detained in Israeli civil and military jails are routinely humiliated and abused by their guards, but some have reported being raped. The rape of Palestinian prisoners by serving IDF soldiers was openly discussed in the Knesset, with some serving MKs declaring it, and indeed anything guards wanted to do, permissible in the detention centres. There was a riot of Israeli citizens (including members of the Knesset) insisting that those soldiers accused of rape should be supported, not punished.
The Channel 4 programme also shows Israeli soldiers taking ‘selfies’ of themselves gloating as they humiliate half-naked men kneeling on the ground after being rounded up as suspected members of Hamas. This all sadly adds up to evidence that both the Israel cabinet and some parts of Israeli society are engaged in a dangerous level of dehumanisation of Palestinians.
As a bewildered aid worker said in an Al Jazeera report last week, the people of Gaza don’t understand why they have been abandoned by the world; the only way the Israelis are going to stop what they are doing is if somebody makes them.
The decision by Liberal Democrat MPs to call for a ceasefire before either the Conservative government or the Labour opposition was a bold move, welcomed by Liberal Democrat members and rightly applauded by many across the country. But now we need to do more. It is time for Britain, and the Lib Dem leadership to take a stronger stand. If International Law is going to have any meaning, such illegal conduct and atrocities have to lead to consequences, and we as Lib Dems should be saying so. Parliament may not be sitting, but the media is reporting daily on the latest atrocities as well as the slow progress towards a ceasefire agreement. There is plenty of opportunity for our spokespeople to be standing up for what is right.
* John Kelly is active in Warwick District local party, a member of the West Midlands regional executive and Secretary of Lib Dem Friends of Palestine.
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