The tide is changing on Gaza and Israel
The language and tone used by mainstream Politicians, media and other institutions has changed significantly in relation to Israel’s pummelling of Gaza. It is harsher and far more direct, indeed since Israel broke the ceasefire agreement in March, it has been rare to find politicians who agree with Netanyahu that it is the fault of Hamas that the ceasefire did not hold. This was such arrant nonsense that no one could report the claim without refuting it.
Those millions of us in Britain and possibly a billion or more throughout the world who have been watching what is happening with increasing dismay and also fury may say this is all too little and too late – and this may be true – but in the interests of marking every chink in the armour, here are just some examples of the shift; we expect to see more in the coming days and weeks.
Thirty six members of the Board of Deputies of British Jews wrote to the Financial Times arguing that only a ceasefire and negotiations would bring the release of the Israeli hostages and that the suffering of Palestinians needs to end (see report from Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
Over 400 synagogue attendees have written to the President of the Board of Deputies Write to the Board of Deputies! | Progressive Jews for Justice in Israel/Palestine in support of the 36 and more are signing. Their letter includes this:
“…you cannot hide the true situation: British Jews are deeply divided about the behaviour of the Netanyahu government, with many of us strongly opposed to the conduct of the Gaza war, believing with good reason that it is being prolonged for political reasons at incalculable cost to the lives of the Gazans, and also to the chances of the hostages being returned. We maintain that this is contrary both to Jewish and universal values, that the 36 deputies are speaking for us and for many other British Jews, and that our voices cannot be silenced any longer.”
Channel 4 carried a report by Lindsey Hilsum (International Editor) headed: ‘Not In My Name’ – among Israel’s anti-Gaza war protestors. The article opens with this statement: “Previous anti-government protests I’ve seen in Israel since the Hamas attacks of October 7th have been focussed on getting the hostages home, but this was different.”
The article also notes: “People were holding up pictures of hungry Gazan children. “I can’t bear to be part of what’s happening – starving people, murdering children,” said a woman in a purple baseball cap with long grey hair. “My heart and soul doesn’t let me rest for a minute.” Banners read: “Not In My Name”, “End The War For All Our Sakes” and “Resist Losing Your Compassion.”
After the October 7th attacks, the Israeli left struggled to respond – how could they advocate peace with the Palestinians after Hamas murdered so many Jews? But the ground is shifting. Many believe that the war was necessary to weaken Hamas but that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke the ceasefire in March simply to retain the support of his right-wing coalition partners. Now, they say, it’s just cruel and counter-productive.”
Today (27th May 2025) as we cover 800 UK lawyers have written to the British Prime Minister stating that the UK must impose sanctions on Israel to meet legal obligations
“The signatories, including the former supreme court justices Lord Sumption and Lord Wilson, court of appeal judges and more than 70 KCs, say that war crimes, crimes against humanity and serious violations of international humanitarian law are being committed in Palestine.
In the letter to the prime minister, they welcome Keir Starmer’s joint statement last week with the leaders of France and Canada warning that they were prepared to take “concrete actions” against Israel. But they urge him to act without delay as “urgent and decisive action is required to avert the destruction of the Palestinian people of Gaza”. (my emph Ed)
We hope you are right about the tide turning. In the meantime, huge thanks for your reports. In this house we used to listen to Radio 4’s PM and BBC2’s Newsnight. We now take more confidence from your daily postings, Electronic Intifada and Al Jazeera.
The question is whether this is all too little too late. There has to be a comprehensive refusal to sell arms to Israel coupled with financial sanctions. Our leaders are unwilling to translate their transient words into actions. Our task is both to build a wider and deeper solidarity movement with the Palestinians but also to ensure that Israel is no longer seen as a democracy but a vicious ethno nationalist state which cannot allowed to continue as such.
Unfortunately the main solidarity group PSC is politically feeble content to operate at the level of slogans. It has never thought of seriously challenging the police bans or using the marches to cause widespread disruption in London along the lines of the poll tax riots.
We have largely won the battle of public opinion but not translated it into political power thus enabling the elites who govern us to ignore us and even worse to turn to repress protests such as those at Swiss Cottage
Given the enthusiastic support for Israel – both verbally and materially – of the governments and organisations quoted over the last year and a half and the current dire, probably terminal situation in Gaza this really is too little too late. How about Starmer apologising for ever saying Israel had every right to cut off water and the lawyers apologise for not calling him out in the first place. Anyone with a minimum knowledge of Zionist history and the odd Al Jazhera news bulletin could have known where this was all going to end. They are all part of the problem, now trying to distance themselves from a situation they have helped create.
At Last! It seems that some who have been sleeping have been awoken by the continuous delivery of death and destruction of up to 2000 lb. bombs. and deliberate starvation of Gaza Palestinians using the reasoning that every Gazan is a Hamas Terrorist. The question now is will it be too late, not for the people of Palestine who were deliberately divided into two areas under the premise divide and conquer, but for the politicians who have turned aside, looked away, at every encroachment of Palestinian Territory every abuse of human rights, every tank resisting stone throwing child imprisoned not overnight as a sharp lesson, but for years. For it is already too late for the Palestinians, who have been bombed out of the houses and cities, their hospitals and schools, who have seen their Doctors, Reporters, Relatives, and Teachers massacred, everyone they respected either dismembered or turned to ashes, in the attempted Genocide of an ethnic people while the world watched in horror not only the live streamed events but their Politicians turn away. Worse, than this far worse, have the Protestors arrested to intimidate them into silence while children and adults, suffered operations to stem bleeding and infection, without anaesthetics of any kind because Israel in the misused name of defence prevented their use by a siege and continual bombardment. This situation is intolerable, especially as we hear year after year at Holocaust Memorials how people were abused by the Nazis starving the incarcerated and operating experimentally without anaesthetics in the Concentration Camps. Sanctions are not enough when we know that this is a deliberate attempt at annihilation of a people and it had been announced by those in power this is the aim Right from the beginning, not of this latest onslaught in supposed retaliation and “Defence.”
[cut to our limit of 300 words – admin]
While doing everything we CAN do IMMEDIATELY to prevent Israel completing its genocide, we need to think about how we – as a world – bring those responsible for it (through their actions and their deliberate failures to act) to account. It’ll be a difficult, expensive process lasting decades.
The international groups and coalitions which have tried so hard to stop the genocide MUST stay active to ensure the guilty (in Israel and elsewhere) are tried and punished for what they’ve done, in law courts across the world. After the last 19 months few of us trust our own governments to act as they should, of their own volition.
The coalitions will need to win popular support across the world for giving the world’s courts (ICJ and ICC) the power to ENFORCE their rulings, arrest warrants and reparation demands.
The coalitions of activists will hopefully make good use of the new tools developed by Ukraine to bring individual Russians to account for their war crimes and to provide legally valid means of obtaining financial compensation from the Russian state for the criminal acts against Ukrainians and Ukraine and for its destruction of their property and assets.
After all this horror, many are desperate for there to be justice for all the victims, the building of a better tomorrow for Palestine and Israel and full financial reparation – by Israel and its legally complicit allies – to the illegally occupied Palestinian territories and their inhabitants.