As has been my habit in recent days, I put up a Twitter poll yesterday. In the light of developments in Gazza, the question that I ask was unsurprising, as was the reaction.
That being said, neither of the Conservative or Labour Parties are providing any real lead on this issue.
Rumour has it that legal opinion has been given to the government saying that arms exports should end, but they still have not acted.
But was legal opinion really needed to determine that?
And does Labour need to hide behind the fig leaf of demanding this opinion before saying that it thinks that all export licenses should be banned?
Is it beyond the wit of our politicians to make up their own minds without having to find excuses for their action? Seemingly, it is.
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I wrote to my MP on the issue. I said that it was more than likely that calling for a ceasefire would be ignored, it would just be a gesture, but one they seemed unable to make. To call for an end to the killing of children was a fundamental and basic moral position. One reply was that bandying around words like genocide was not helpful. After the ICJ had ruled it was plausible. This is not an unusual position for any of our MPs.
The inevitable conclusion you come to is that we are in a position where the vast majority of MPs we have elected are devoid of basic fundamental moral principals. In short we’ve elected a chamber full of people who are cowards, literal psychopaths, or monsters, many of whom remain “friends” of a genocidal entity.
The major parties have all stained themselves indelibly. To my mind that means all of them must go.
You’re proposing to lift such a ban as soon as the current campaign stops, so the IDF can then stock up for their next atrocity? Surely such a ban should be maintained for at least a decade?
That is an issue to decide upon later
It seems to me that the government has no idea what to do with all the clawed-back sovereignty and freedom to act that they proudly boast about. It could also be due to the fact that neither they nor the “opposition” have enough moral fibre to do the right thing.
Britain is a trade and free market obsessed country, but with a mammoth balance of trade deficit (and a serious demographics problem) it has no idea how to fix; and now it has found out that the Brexit damage is overwhelming at home; and has both damaged Europe, and given Putin confidence that Europe is weak. We are governed by fools, and the electorate must also carry responsibility for the mess; a mistake which they are now paying for in all kinds of ways: in the appropriate slang – ‘Big Time’.
“The British government has received advice from its own lawyers stating that Israel has breached international humanitarian law in Gaza but has failed to make it public, according to a leaked recording obtained by the Observer.” Source below.
The analysis by Owen Jones is interesting, claiming that only until the Government acknowledges their own lawyers, will the Government have to withhold their support. It reminds me of that philosophical thought experiment: “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”. Clearly the government are putting their heads up their arses, and claiming that they can’t hear any screams.
Jones has a second video released only yesterday that is also worth a listen, in which he frames the onslaught from point of the view of the mainstream media, who do not appear to come out well.
Sources
UK government lawyers say Israel is breaking international law, claims top Tory in leaked recording, The Observer, Toby Helm Political editor
Sat 30 Mar 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/30/uk-government-lawyers-say-israel-is-breaking-international-law-claims-top-tory-in-leaked-recording
If a tree falls in a forest, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_a_tree_falls_in_a_forest
Israeli War Crimes COVERED UP By UK Government, Owen Jones, 31 Mar, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnoLqtI0iV8
Why Israel Slaughters Aid Workers – And How Media Outlets Covered It Up, Owen Jones, 3 April, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXXVGj05oIk
Thanks for the links. Collectively, they beg the question: how can a country which claims to be civilised and democratic commit genocide?
It is a lesson for all states: how institutions can be subverted/deformed & how people in another country (or those helping them) can be sacrificed on the altar of political survival.
Or indeed, gaining political power (the 1968 elections in the USA – Nixon subverting the peace process in Vietnam & casting the democrats in a poor light – a good example).
Pundits keep saying we don’t sell many weapons to Israel. However, we seem to be facilitating the delivery of weapons and parts from the US via our bases, so should this not also be stopped? And assisting Israel with surveillance?
I see the latest Israeli crime has had the required effect – aid is effectively ended as it is too dangerous to deliver it. Who would have thought that murdering 6 non-Palestinian aid workers would be such an effective weapon of genocide?
Apparently those deaths are worth more than those of 30,000 Palestinians, with many more to come.
How can that be?
I think it is important to consider the effect of the Israel lobby in relation to Conservative and Labour MPs. Two references from Declassified UK:-
https://www.declassifieduk.org/tory-lobby-group-secretly-funded-by-israeli-state-affiliated-institute/
https://www.declassifieduk.org/labour-mps-have-accepted-over-280000-from-israel-lobby/
Do you know anything about British based lobby funding?
I see that Alan Duncan spoke out about Israeli influence just before noon and by the afternoon he was facing disciplinary action.
There is a pile here to be unpicked and we wait to see if the media will do that or cover up.
600 lawyers including including ex supreme high court judges have said Israel breaching international law. How will Lammy and Starmer worm and wriggle their putrid way out of this?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/former-supreme-court-judges-say-uk-arming-israel-breaches-international-law
Watching the rise of the Nazis on BBC4 and a new sound production of 1984 makes us realise what we are living through right now.
“Watching the rise of the Nazis on BBC4 and a new sound production of 1984 makes us realise what we are living through right now”
Really?? The world is messed up
for sure but it always has been throughout mankind. But i don’t think you can compare the 1930s /early 40s in Germany with the U.K. For a start we will have a democratic election process sometime this year that will almost certainly change the Government. A sense of realism and balance is needed.
Open your eyes and see the perilous state of democracy – and even question whether we really have it
I think you are being staggeringly naive
Starmer is of course lying low! He’ll not be coming out and calling for a UK ban on offensive weapons supply to Israel or facilitating the Americans in their delivery to Israel. Such a moral coward!
Suella Bravermann is constantly looking over Sunak’s shoulder as he chooses what to say on any given day. His equivalence on this issue is understandable in light of his personal priorities, namely, his political survival.
The Guardian reports today:
Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, insisted that Israel was “absolutely not” in breach of international humanitarian law.
Braverman, who is on a visit to the country, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The suggestion itself is absurd and, frankly, an insult to Israel, who have been going above and beyond the necessary requirements to ensure that civilian casualties are limited, to ensure that aid is received on to the Gaza Strip and distributed.
“I have seen evidence myself, in terms of very up-to-date photographic evidence, of plentiful food packages and trucks of food, water and medicines getting to the people of Gaza.”
Such wilful blindness is jaw droppingly offensive. Yet she represents a streak of support for Israel that will condemn nothing it does. And in terms of Tory infighting, she’s a threat to the current lot.
Her Wikipedia entry explains why she might be such an avid denier of Israeli atrocities.
Braverman’s claims are so absurd they are beyond lying. There are just total bullshit
Braverman trots out three of Israeli spokesmen’s regular lies:
– that they seek to minimise civilian casualties
– that there is no famine in Gaza
– that Israel is not restricting supplies of food, water and electricity.
I get the sense that most of the world has seen through the lying. Recent interviews on R4 and Ch4 have been much more challenging. If Western countries continue to let Israel get away with this, they will deeply alienate the rest of the world and lose whatever moral high ground they have left.
Meanwhile Putin’s Russia continues with its imperial, colonial ambitions and the West starves Ukraine of the resources it desperately needs to defend itself.
Agreed
The lies have been rumbled
We export very little ordnance to Israel, but the symbolic gesture is still worth making.
I had not realised that Germany exports 30% of Israeli ‘defence’ acquisitions, with the USA at over 60% as reported by ITN.
However, there was a detailed analysis of UK importing large quantities of Israeli defence industry materiel, on R4 WatO yesterday, with the comment that most of the Israeli weapons industry was state owned.
The suggestion was that banning weapons and ‘defence’ imports from Israel would be much more effective as a means of exerting pressure, and in disconnecting from the Israeli state.
Labour MP Pat McFadden (Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Labour National Campaign Coordinator since September 2023) admitting it’s the Starmer Party’s policy for the UK to continue selling weapons to Israel:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W4DCERrQGA
“… the official Labour stance: David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, has said UK arms sales should be halted only if government lawyers conclude there is a risk the weapons could be used to commit serious breaches of international law.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/04/sadiq-khan-arms-sales-israel-got-to-stop
Weasel words Lammy doing his morals free boss’s bidding!
Pathetic
Yes. Essentially sociopathic. Nothing much further can be said about Starmer and the people he has chosen for his team. No point having any expectations they’ll view life through a moral lens.
Important point about our Imports from Israel being much greater than our arms exports: stopping the latter would have limited material effect (but should have been done already, but for our spineless, amoral politicians). Stopping imports (at least from state/IDF-owned companies) would have more real effects.
Right now I think we should be doing that
We imposed import sanctions on South Africa when it had a profoundly unacceptable government that promoted apartheid
We should do the same now for Israel until it rids itself of its fascist, genocidal government. The argument is not with Israel and has nothing whatsoever to do with Jews. It has everything to do with far-right state thuggery. It is anti-Semitic to claim otherwise.
Interesting comment from the Anti-Apartheid Movement that both Israel and West Germany were helping the South African Apartheid regime to develop nuclear weapons:-
“From the late 1970s South Africa developed its own nuclear weapons with help from West Germany and Israel. It ended its nuclear programme in 1989, just before the release of Nelson Mandela and the opening of negotiations for a democratic constitution.”
https://www.aamarchives.org/campaigns/arms-embargo.html
So it’s looking like Israel’s lacked a moral lens for a long time!
Starmer’s two-faced nature is revealed in the Gaza/Israel conflict by the following Guardian article in which Patrick Wintour right at the end of the article says the following:-
“Starmer’s call for the advice to be published also acts as a convenient unifying position for his divided party, since it allows him not to come to a definitive view himself on whether Israel has breached international law.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/04/legal-assessment-of-israels-actions-in-gaza-risks-being-subsumed-in-tory-row
Contrast with Harold Wilson’s government which was very quickly able to take up a moral position and ban the vast majority of arms sales to the Apartheid South African government.
Precisely….
We should stop exports of arms to Israel and send the weapons to Ukraine instead.