Sunak gives Israel the green light to continue the siege and the carnage
JVL Introduction
Peter Oborne pulls no punches in his criticism of the British Prime Minister’s unequivocal support of how Israel has interpreted “self defence, leading to over 4,000 Palestinian deaths, many thousands more injured and still no aid getting in to the people trying to support each other and survive under constant bombardment. He notes that Sunak is more craven than Margaret Thatcher, a supporter of Israel who, nonetheless, condemned the massacre of Palestinian refugees in Sabra and Shatilla Refugee Camps, describing this as “an act of pure barbarism”.
Oborne has checked and states that “There has not been one mention, let alone condemnation, of Israel’s declared policy of collective punishment, as formally set out by Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, with his announcement of a “complete siege of the Gaza Strip” with “no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed”. Even though such action is illegal under international law.”
And while Starmer is trying to row back and clarify that he does want Israel to let humanitarian aid in, he has not said that failure to allow it in almost two weeks after the bombardments began, IS in violation of International Law.
We are grateful to Middle East Eye for permission to publish this article.
LL
This article was originally published by Middle East Eye on Thu 19 Oct 2023. Read the original here.
Sunak's message to Israel: Carry on with the slaughter
Sunak’s visit to Israel is a shaming day for Britain. It marks the moment that all those claims to represent fairness, decency and the rule of law have been abandoned
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What kind of new anti-semitism is this? There is no siege, no collective punishment. Since ceasing its occupation of Gaza in 2005 Israel has been providing water, power, aid and jobs to the inhabitants of Gaza who have repaid this by allowing Hamas to take all the billions of foreign aid that would have helped to make them independant and buy weapons to kill jews – as we saw in the holocaust of 7th October. So they cut off all aid to Gaza. Netanahu declared war so we really cannot expect warring parties to send aid to each other.
Israel is not stopping foreign emergency aid from reaching Gaza from Egypt – but what is Egypt doing to help? Very little as they do not want their enclave back and they fear the incursion of terrorists into Egypt itself.
Do you really expect the Israelis to shrug their shoulders and say “Never mind. You massacred 1400 men women and children, took 200 hostages but that’s ok” Do you really?
Is Adrian Stern really not aware of all the kinds of actions Israel has taken over the years to keep the Palestinians in a state of subjugation while eroding their ability to meaningfully resist that subjugation?
Has he no knowledge of how Israel has controlled the Gazans by controlling their basic services, placing limits on them which prevent them from creating a sustainable and independent community, with a weak economy and a weakened population, imprisoned in an Israeli ghetto, foreign aid, insufficient as it has been, notwithstanding?
Has he also not understood that Hamas does not represent the Gazan people as it claims to any more than, say, the Tory Party represents the whole British people, and that therefore making war on Hamas and making war on the whole Palestinian people are two different things, the one certainly not justifying the other?
And has he no idea at all of how the whole Palestinian population, in Gaza and the West Bank, has over seven decades suffered uncountable deaths, injuries, evictions, deprivations, abductions, exile, at the hands of the Israeli police and armed forces?
It’s a simple question: if what Hamas has done over the last weeks was wrong – and it undoubtedly is – how can what Israel has done for seventy years be right?
Not anti-semitism: there are too many decent Jews opposing Israel on humanitarian grounds for it to be anti-semitism.
Do you, Mr Stern, really expect Israel to get away for ever with its own murderous policies?
@Adrian Stern – Israel might have physically withdrawn from Gaza in 2005, but it continued to maintain effective control – since 2005, Israel maintains control of Gaza’s airspace, its territorial waters, no-go zones within the strip and even the population registry, meaning Israel even gets to determine who is a Palestinian and who isn’t inside the Gaza strip.
When you state “who have repaid this by allowing Hamas to take all the billions of foreign aid” it assumes Gazans have had all this agency. On the one hand we all acknowledge that Hamas are a violent religious group who would likely punish the population for going against them, but on the other, you’re implying the population has lots of choices – which is it ? The events of 7th October were horrific, but its reaching to refer to them as “a holocaust”. Killing hundreds, if not thousands of Palestinians, because of the actions of a few is indeed collective punishment.
I really don’t know where Adrian Stern gets his information from, in fact I’m shocked at the points he has made, they are so far away from reality. Sorry to say that Adrian but you are way off.
Peter Oborne has written many good articles and this one is no exception. The question is, why is Sunak being so supportive towards Netanyahu, well, it could well be the fact that the US is working with Israel and promising rich rewards, there is a massive Gas reserve under the eastern Mediterranean that stretches under Gaza and the US would love to control it and they will have sorted a deal with Netanyahu and told Sunak to support Israel and you can invest in the Gas Field.