The FT neatly summarised the situation in Gaza this morning, using this headline:
Benjamin Netanyahu's dilemma: save the hostages or his government
The essence of the article is quite simple, and obviously true.
Hamas has offered Israel all the hostages it still holds back. The demand Netanyahu made that won him domestic support can be met now. There is no need for any more violence in Gaza, not that I think any of it could have been justified on the scale at which it has been waged, without the slightest consideration for innocent casualties.
But, if Netanyahu accepts this offer the extremists in his government will say that he has failed to defeat Hamas, and they will bring his government down. Then he might well have to finally face justice for so many of his actions, including war crimes. That, he does not want to do.
So, Netanyahu has revealed his real self. The hostages were only ever an excuse, however inappropriate and straightforwardly wrong the actions of Hamas were in seizing them. Instead, the destruction of the Palestinian state and the driving of millions from Gaza was his goal. This is now very obvious.
So, where is the condemnation of Israel's action now that Hamas has exposed the fact that Netanyahu is not pursuing a policy that anyone can remotely justify? I am not hearing it from our national and international leaders who should be calling Netanyahu's actions out now. And that is very troubling because they no longer have any credible claim left to make by saying that they are supporting Israel's right to defend itself. Instead they are now supporting genocide by a government, not a state. And that is always, unambiguously, a crime, which I think is taking place.
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I can’t get some current Labour Party members to discuss it. As someone who sporadically appears on a pro-Palestine info stall, I’ve even been told – by a Labour councillor – that I am a terrorist sympathiser. Cognitive dissonance!
Very much the same being said by Mehdi Hasan – who after being booted off MSM now has his own youtube channel – doing what the MSM won’t – telling it stright and speaking truth to power. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho1Ahu4BdMc
In the case of Netanyahu, I notice a dead silence on all the court cases that he faced/faces. No link by the MSM to the current actions. 100,000 dead and wounded, to stay in gov. Any other country and there would be heavy sanctions if not a blockage.
I like Mehdi
Thank you for the link to that video; very powerful and shames all Western Governments.
I think many of us have seen Netanyahu’s real intentions for some time and I cannot believe that leaders in the West were ignorant of this. The involvement of both the US and UK in current business developments within Gaza (construction, oil & gas exploration for example) speaks of something sinister and pre-planned.
BBC2 las night had a program “The Other War’ about experiences of people living in the West Bank under Israeli occupation. It will be on iplayer.
It showed what Amnesty and Human Rights watch have documented. Constant intimidation and harassment; the theft of land from Palestinians, wanton destruction of property, imprisonment without charge, murder of civilians especially young men with no accountability, settlers seeming to give orders to soldiers and so on.
One comment was the high percentage of people showing symptoms of PTSD. This can lead to outbursts of violent behaviour which will be used a justification for further repression.
We need to be concerned about how this goes down in the non-Western world. They know despite MSM censorship, who supplied the 40,000 and more bombs used. They know who voted against ceasefires. They know the US could have , almost certainly, restrained Isreal much earlier.
For al its faults, the West does have some better aspects than Russia, China and many other states. But when it tries, in future, to talk about the rule of law, international laws and so, I suspect it have little credibility in Africa, Asia or South America.
The silence of Sunak and Starmer is not, IMHO, moral or even in the national interest.
Thank you, Ian.
“But when it tries, in future, to talk about the rule of law, international laws and so, I suspect it have little credibility in Africa, Asia or South America. The silence of Sunak and Starmer is not, IMHO, moral or even in the national interest.”
Just one quibble with that. It’s not the future. Most, but not all, of those in or whose origins are from the global south have always been aware of western hypocrisy, understood that Israel was an imperial project, from not WW1 or WW2, but from the mid-19th century and the need to protect the passage to India and further afield, history led to 7 October, history did not begin on 7 October and do not accept that fighting an army of occupation is illegal or immoral.
Prefacing anything with Israel has a right to defend itself is another western phrase that few in the global south spout.
With regard to Russia and China and much of anything outside the west, western MSM coverage of them is little more than propaganda and rarely from people who know these places. Have you ever seen Tony Brenton or other officials or the likes of the Keswicks or Swires on UK airwaves. We just get a lot of neo cons and neo liberals, most of whom don’t speak Russian, Mandarin, Farsi, Arabic etc.
One of these charlatans taught me at university. From 9/11, he recycled himself from an EU to a Middle East expert. From this year, he’s a China expert. In addition to English, he speaks German and French and has never set foot in Asia.
Fair enough comment, Colonel. I was indicating the situation will get worse. I won’t quibble the date of the origin of Zionism but there are several threads for its creation, apart from the Jewish religious perspective. My school history book said to get the support of American Jews -in banking-for the war effort in WW1.
There is a view that with the pogroms more Jews were entering Europe and shoving them off to the Holy Land was a sort of Rwanda policy ! But there were Christian zionists too.
I have sometime speculated that Truman recognised Israel so that the many people in displaced persons camps would go there not the US. He was from the South and dislike of jews, Catholics and African-Americans was very open.
I used to read Robert Fisk who did live in the region and spoke the language. His early death was a loss.
As for western bias, we hear a lot about Iran as though they were plotting a war of aggression against the West and Isreal, just because they are nasty people or religious fanatics. Maybe not for this blog but if we look at recent history from their point of view, there is a very different perspective, their religious policies and repression not withstanding.
As a British General said at the end of BBC documentary about Soleimani, if we don’t want perpetual war we need to understand where they are coming from.
Much to agree with.
Somebody who does speak (& read) Russian is Timothy Snyder – and who also seems to “call it right”.
Wrt Russia, I am somewhat biased since I have a Ukrainian family staying with me – so one gets some info first hand, as it were.
I am not at all surprised by our fascist zeitgeist.
It is a fact that almost all our western leaders are financially supported by the Zionist lobby money and media on its multitude of groups – is there any reason to expect them to say or be reported as saying anything against the blatantly fascist rampage by the Apartheid imperialist colony in the Levant?
One major thing that is happening is that the young people are awakening – in this country and around the world, inspired by themselves through their communications on uncensored by social media algorithms platforms such as TikTok.
That is the only hope that we as part of the Collective Waste have for any salvation as our hegemonic unipolar rules based dogs dinner fascist imperialist ‘civilisation’ meets its nemesis.
Support the students and increase the protests – if our leaders are compromised by their backers , replace them with grass roots candidates; but that would be too much like actual democracy for some and be treated as populism! Worse, AS populism !! For standingo against stupefying xenophobic mass murder of indigenous natives of the Levant, the Palestinian peoples.
We need to name the Israeli military strategy.
It is the Dahiya doctrine which is an intensely disproportionate and punitive responses to any attack.
Dahiya involves the destruction of civilian infrastructure, housing and the entire urban fabric to seek to put pressure on militant Palestinian elements by civilian Palestinians, but also has a psyops purpose of totally demoralising populations through extreme levels of reprisals.
It was developed almost 20 years ago when the IDF was attacking (and destroying) the Dahieh area of Beirut and originally aimed at Hezbollah.
It defines all civilian areas as military bases and this assumption alone justifies targeting.
A UN report defined the Israeli strategy in Lebanon as: “designed to punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population”.
There is no doubt this has become the IDF’s goto strategy since 2006, and very probably before, though then unarticulated. It was certainly used in Gaza prior to October 2023.
It is a strategy of deliberate war crimes, through targeting civilians, aka “human animals”, and the entire fabric of their lives. Strangely enough, no major state actor seems to be referring to this Israeli strategy by name in 2023/4.
Richard Falk, a Jewish born American international lawyer, and an United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights, noted that….
When “the civilian infrastructure of adversaries such as Hamas or Hezbollah are treated as permissible military targets, which is not only an overt violation of the most elementary norms of the law of war and of universal morality, but (is) an avowal of a doctrine of violence (and) needs to be called by its proper name: state terrorism.”
I’ll settle for premeditated genocide.
Oddly, if I subsituted Russia for israel in your comment – it would apply almost perfectly.
& in fairness (?) to Russia it has a 100% record on genocide (Holodmor) wrt Ukraine.
Stating the “bleedin obvious”………..”Western” double standards clearly apply – one set for white Euros, another for arabs.
It seemed obvious after a few days following Oct 7th – that Netanyahu’s campaign would be one of vengeance visited on the whole Gaza population – the ‘destruction of Hamas’ being a parody echo of the ‘War on Terror’ after 9/11- justifying a forever war on whoever is deemed a ‘terrorist’ or ‘Hamas’.
How bombing civilians and the whole place into a desert wasteland was going to help free the hostages – seemed a contradiction from day one.
Netanyahu is quoted as saying that financing Hamas was a way of keeping Palestians divided and a two state solution impossible.
He has wanted to keep the ‘war’ going to avoid being indicted within Israel for corruption , and for diverting IDF away from guarding the Gaza border to the West Bank on 7 Oct . The release of the hostages has never been the priority for him and his ultra religious backers – as the large demonstrations of the hostage families and their supporters have shown.
It was a surpise that Hamas seems to have ‘accepted’ a limited ceasefire – seems a bit too subtle for them – given their long record of rocketing Israel – doing minimal damage while inviting destruction and death on their own population.
London Review of Books has had good contributions
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n21/adam-shatz/vengeful-pathologies
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n06/pankaj-mishra/the-shoah-after-gaza
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n23/jacqueline-rose/you-made-me-do-it
It is indeed chilling Richard that ‘our’ leaders are not condemning Netanyahu – but they should have been doing that months ago . UK and US are now in a tiny minority at the UN – and dont seem to realise the extent to which their hypocracy about a rules- bases international order is utterly exposed. ‘Netanhayu may be a monster – but he is at least our monster’
Why do you keep aligning yourself with a terrorist organisation.
Your anti-Semitic stance on this issue is troubling.
I condemned Hamas’s actions
I also condemn the terrorism of the current Iraeli government
Tghere is nothing remotely anti-Semitic abiut condemning a far-right government pursuing genocide anywhere
On Monday (6 May 2024), on a video on X, the former American presidential candidate Bernie Sanders who is a Jewish said:
“No, Mr Netanyahu it is not anti-Semitic or pro-Hammas to point out that, in a little over six months, your extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 78,000, 70% of whom are women and children.
It is not anti-Semitic to point out that your bombing has completely destroyed more than 221,000 housing units in Gaza, leaving more than a million people homeless, almost half the population.
It is not anti-Semitic to note that your government has obliterated Gaza’s civilian infrastructure – electricity, water and sewage.
It is not anti-Semitic to realise that your government has annihilated Gaza’s health care system, knocking 26 hospitals out of service, and killing more than 400 healthcare workers.
It is not anti-Semitic to condemn your government’s destruction of Gaza’s 12 universities and 56 of its schools with hundreds more damaged, leaving 625,000 students with no educational opportunities.
It is not anti-Semitic to agree with virtually every humanitarian organisation in saying that your government in violation of American law, has unreasonably blocked humanitarian aid coming into Gaza creating the conditions in which so many thousands of children face malnutrition and famine.
Mr Netanyahu, anti-Semitism is a vile and disgusting form of bigotry that has done unspeakable harm to many millions of people, but please do not insult the intelligence of the American people by attempting to distract us from the immoral and illegal war policies of your extremist and racist government.
Do not use anti-Semitism to deflect attention from the criminal indictment you are facing in the Israeli courts. It is not antisemitic to hold you accountable for your actions.”
Thank you
Condemn both? Then at least keep critiquing both sides, ideally in the same article! 🙂
Richard’s crime is that he takes a consistent moral position
I sent this letter to KS three days ago. No reply.
Dear Keir Starmer
I am a member of the Labour Party – first joining in the 1960s. I have written to you several times in the past 6 months about your failure to express any support, or even sympathy, for the Palestinians living in Gaza, many thousands of whom have been killed illegitimately by the Israeli Defence Forces, with thousands of others detained without charge. I have been campaigning hard for the Labour Party during the current local elections campaign in England – in particular for the London Mayor – in the knowledge of this failure on your part – and it has tormented me each time I have gone out to persuade voters to vote Labour.
I am now facing the dilemma of deciding whether I can support the Labour Party in any forthcoming General Election campaign when its Leader is someone who has never supported the Palestinan case for protection and redress from the Israeli government, or its rights to restoration of its lost lands – and has never expressed any criticism of the current Israeli government’s criminal rampage through Gaza, resulting in upwards of 40,000 deaths of civilians, mostly women and children (n.b. your Chatham House speech on 23 October 2023 – the only speech you have made that has directly focused on the war – clearly avoided any criticism of Israel and nothing has changed in subsequent speeches you have made) – and all this, despite widespread support among very many sections of the British electorate for the Palestinians.
Can you tell me how I can resolve this dilemma? Can you express any understanding of the Palestinian tragedy? Can you even begin to reconsider your position? And at a more mundane level, how can you passively accept the pain and distress that LP members like me are feeling – even though for you to do nothing will jeopardise the future opportunity of the British electorate to benefit from a change of government – because previously Labour-supporting voters will withhold their support? How can I continue to campaign for the party you now lead (but which belongs to us all) when you will not change your position on these matters?
Gillian Dalley
Thanks
Mr. Starmer is so terrified that his party will be tainted by Corbynism/Anti Semitism that he is afraid to speak out. Not a good sign in a potential leader. Seems like every politician everywhere is afraid to speak out to criticize the seemingly limitless rage of Israel using the opportunity to finally get rid of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. The moral bankruptcy of the “West” and the ineffectiveness of the supposed international humanitarian legal infrastructure is appalling.
It’s depressing to think that western politicians and pundits still bang on about the difficulties of overcoming ancient prejudices and conflicts. When there are clear ” roadmaps to peace ” that were established in overcoming apartheid in South Africa and Protestant supremacy in the north of Ireland. Leaving aside the miserable decades of death and destruction, the first step involved the major supporters of the perpetrators of discrimination ( the USA and UK in South Africa and the UK in northern Ireland) acknowledging that military violence and repression wasn’t working. Then , they forced themselves to negociate with people they had previously condemned as “murderers, terrorists etc”, finding that they were pushing at an open door when the ANC and the IRA were quite willing to talk compromise and (who knew?!) were not committed to the mass slaughter of white South Africans or Northern Irish Protestants. Then they made clear to the apartheid forces and the Protestant Unionists that the game was up and no further support, military or financial, would be forthcoming if they refused to hpnestly join in with compromises and negotiations. Faced with this, even PW Botha and Ian Paisley became willing to co operate with their previously hated enemies.
Since then, both societies have faced setbacks and challenges, but the progress is obvious and peace has become normal.
But right now, we still have Israel’s main backers continuing to support the mass murder with weapons finance and diplomatic excuses. We are still told that opposition to Israeli violence would lead to the destruction of Israel itself as well as its citizens. As if the end of aparthed led to the destruction of South Africa or the power- sharing initiative in Northern Ireland led to a mass slaughter of Irish Protestants. If PW Botha and Ian Paisley can be obliged to face reality , I can’t imagine that some Israelis can’t be found to co operate.
But we need the USA and UK states to take the initiative to admit the game is up and that they will withdraw support if the Israelis refuse to compromise.
Forget the obvious violent nastiness displayed by Hamas and the Israeli state, we have seen how this can be overcome in practical terms once the powerful sponsoring states threaten to pull the plug.
Biden and his clique, and Sunak/Starmer have the ability to end this horror by breaking with the established policy of supporting the discriminatory state of Israel. The responsibility lies with them. The “roadmap to peace” exists and has been proved successful very recently
There is, in it opinion, always a peace to be found by negotiation
Thank you to Ian for the reply to my reply.