Remembering Gaza and more on Remembrance Day
JVL Introduction
Most areas held their armistice day events on Sunday 10th November. Far from the near glorification of militarism that we sadly see at the Cenotaph, many more reflective events were held round the country. JVL Executive and Environmental Officer, Tony Booth spoke at one such event in Cambridge. Here is his short speech linking struggles across the world, especially the dominace of the oil and the arms industries.
LL
Armistice Day for Gaza 2024.
We are here today to speak up about the horrors of war. We open our eyes to what is happening around the world.
We do not limit our tears to the victims of one tragic war. Even as the dirty bombs target Gazan families, we are aware of other conflicts: in the Ukraine, Sudan, Yemen, Myanmar, the Congo and on and on.
We also pay attention to the victims of the war waged on nature by the oil corporations and their client governments. The sham, greenwashing, Cop 29 in Azerbaijan, starts tomorrow. Its chief executive is on the board of the state oil company and busies himself selling licences to develop Azerbaijani gas fields. Azerbaijan supplies 28% of the oil used by Israel’s military facilitated by British Petroleum.
The effects of war spread around the globe. The destruction of Gaza with its mass emissions from jet fuel and munitions plays its part in extreme weather events like the deluge which killed 200 people in Valencia last month. This is the tip of the iceberg, with which life on earth will collide, inevitably, unless we halt the war on nature.
We have seen how Israel promotes the pretence that its only aim in Gaza is the destruction of Hamas, to pursue ethnic cleansing and continuing genocide of Palestinians through indiscriminate slaughter. Hamas is being used by Israel and its allies as a human shield, a smokescreen, to obscure their war crimes.
They hide behind false accusations of antisemitism at those who stand up for justice for Palestinians and expose what is happening in Gaza and the continuing murders in the West Bank and Lebanon.
In the recent events in Amsterdam, it was the violent racist actions and chants of the Maccabi football supporters which sparked the disturbances – but a focus on the reaction to this abuse has been used by the racist Dutch government to obscure the true sequence of events, to cry antisemitism and promote Islamophobia. It has been seized on by Keir Starmer to hide his government’s genocidal complicity.
I speak as a Jew when I ask: how can any Jew support genocide? Israel does not act in my name. Like all Jews, like all humans, I carry in my history the knowledge of what happens when one group treats another as less than human. When this becomes a principle within a political and military system as in Myanmar and to a greater extent, in Israel, it leads, inexorably, to apartheid and to genocide. We must learn the lessons of our histories, not just to protect ourselves but to stop this process happening to anyone anywhere.
Every life and every death are of equal value. Today we cry for tragic losses in Gaza, in the Middle East, in wars everywhere.
Tony Booth 10th November
Thank you for uniting the struggles.
The 11th of November is to remember all those who lost their lives in wars and that should include the Palastinian People and the Israeli People
In fact all those who have lost their lives in conflicts
All lives Matter and the Pro Palastinian Groups have every right to attend the rememberence service Just like any Israeli Groups have the right as well to attend
The ones who shouldn’t attend are those leaders who support Genoside and support the government carrying out that Genoside And those leaders who are responsible for starting wars
Because it’s those leaders who cause these wars through their gread and lust for power and dont mind who dies as long its not them
Those same leaders who stood by and watched stood by and watched innocent men women and children being bombed and blown to pieces Knowing full well they could have voted to stop it by voting for a ceasefire and putting pressure on the ones that were carrying out those bombings But chose not to which can only be because their political beliefs mean more than innocent peoples lives
On the origins of World War, I would recommend for serious consideration a book called “Hidden History: The Secret History of the First World War” by Gerry Docherty and Jim MacGregor.
I found the book to be rather plausible. Its basic argument is that an elite in Britain, initially headed by Cecil Rhodes, decided that Germany was becoming a serious economic and commercial rival to Britain and that it should thus be hit by a ruinous war.
A moving speech summing up what remembrance day is about.
“Telling truth to power” takes enormous courage when those in power refuse to listen and make life very difficult for the truth-tellers. Here in the UK and elsewhere there appears to be an extensive conspiracy between the government and the media to prevent awkward truths being heard.
“Haaretz” has been brave enough today to publish an article asking whether Israel is committing genocide. Israel now has laws and a culture that can make expressing such views unsafe and economically disadvantageous. “Al Jazeera” has already suffered expulsion from Israel for its coverage of unwelcome topics – “Haaretz” may now face different but equally draconian penalties. Kudos to both media for bravely continuing to “publish and be damned”.