It IS genocide Mr Lammy – as you well know
JVL Introduction
On Monday (October 28th) David Lammy, The UK Foreign Secretary, in agreeing with a Conservative MP said that calling the Israeli operation in Gaza a genocide “undermines the seriousness” of the term and past genocides.
It took a Scottish Nationalist MP and not a Labour one to provide a clear response to this nonsense. Among other points, Chris Law MP writes: “Given that you have said in the past that the “Rohingya are facing genocide” (2017) , you have stated with reference to China and the Uyghurs that we “cannot turn a blind eye to genocide” (Dec 3032) and you have spoken at the commemoration reception for the 27th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, it is impossible that you are unaware of how genocide is defined in International Law, and that you specifically know that the term isn’t limited to describe situations where millions of people have been killed.
Here are the agreed Definitions of Genocide and Related Crimes, Article II which states that “genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
- Killing members of the group;
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
It is ever so obvious that the terrorist state of Israel is carrying out a vile genocide of the indigenous Palestinian people whose land it has taken.
I once had a high opinion of David Lammy. His falling in with bad company has sadly left him now as a stooge who acts as if he is a mindless dummy.
Of course he knows. He’s repeating what Starmer also said. I think the fear of being labelled anti-semitic, politically speaking, is far greater than the fear of being accused of denying the genocide. Clearly we need to do more to challenge the fear of accusations of anti-semitism. This is something that I fear is about serious disagreements between Jewish people with very different politics and a lot of influence regarding the consequences, not stupidity about genocide. But I am open to other opinions because it’s very hard to swallow.