We are nearly two months into the latest Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip.
I have written a few posts about the topic recently but none since November 2023.
I thought then that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip was appalling.
For those who question why I am not criticising Hamas I previously described them as a rag tag bunch of young men who have effectively lived their lives under oppression in the open air prison known as the Gaza Strip. But when you think about the conditions that many of them have grown up in at one level their response is not surprising.
They have watched their friends being killed by sniper fire for taking part in protests. They have seen repeated attacks on Gaza by Israeli forces over a number of years. And more recently they have witnessed repeated attacks on their schools and hospitals under the pretext that there are Hamas insurgents present.
This makes a perfect incubator for terrorists.
Back then the only word I could use for what was happening was “genocide”. Subsequently things have become much worse and the justification for the use of the word is reinforced.
How else do you describe the levelling of large parts of Gaza? What other word can be used to describe the deaths of 22,000 people or the killing of over 100 journalists?
At a more personal level how more indiscriminate can an attack be than an Isreali air strike which killed Issam Al Mughrabi who was a United Nations official along with more than 70 members of his extended family.
Or how about the continued bombing of hospitals and schools? Or the destruction or damaging of 70% of Palestinian homes?
Imagine an attack that destroyed every house in the North Island. How could any word other than genocide be used?
And in terms of intent how about repeated suggestions that the Gaza based Palestinians should be moved to the Sinai?
South Africa has applied to the International Court of Justice under the 1948 Genocide Convention for an order preventing further Israeli attacks on Gaza. I hope they succeed.
Over in England Labour leader Keir Starmer has not resiled from his earlier position that Israel was justified in its attacks on Gaza because it was acting in self defence.
From the Guardian:
Keir Starmer set out his thinking in a speech on 31 October when he said it was legitimate for Israel to seek to eliminate Hamas and that he opposed a ceasefire “for now” because Hamas would still be capable of carrying out a 7 October-style attack. He earlier thought that holding back food and water for Gaza was justified. Despite an internal rebellion, Labour has not in essence altered that view even as the death toll and destruction in Gaza has mounted.
This is despite the views of a large number of Labour members and also its supporters. Fifty six MPs defied the whip and voted to call for a cease fire. A number of Labour Councillors have resigned because of Starmer’s position. And the stance may be having electoral repercussions.
From Umar Lateef Misgar at Al Jazeera:
In a survey involving 30,000 Muslim participants conducted in late October by the Muslim Census, an organisation based in the UK, only 5 percent of the respondents said they would vote for Labour in the next general elections. That is much lower compared with 71 percent of British Muslims who voted for the party in 2019. The Conservative Party, which drew 9 percent of the Muslim vote in 2019, would get less than 1 percent of the votes of those sampled in that survey.
In another survey of 1,032 Muslims across the UK, more than two-thirds expressed dissatisfaction with the British government’s response to the Israeli assault on Gaza. Nearly half of the respondents conveyed similar sentiments regarding Starmer’s approach to the crisis, though a majority still backed the Labour Party.
And it is not just Muslims in the UK. In a YouGov poll of overall public sentiments published on November 15, a third of the participants said the UK government should oppose Israel’s war and push for a ceasefire. Another quarter of those who participated called for a limited ceasefire. Only 9 percent opposed any kind of a ceasefire while backing Israel’s military aims.
Starmer’s problem is that he and elements within the party weaponised earlier claims of antisemitism to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn from the Parliamentary Labour Party. Recent events have confirmed Corbyn’s principled position being the right one and exposed Starmer to claims of being a Blairite clone or worse.
Following a report into anti-semitism in the UK Labour party, Corbyn said anti-semitism exists in the Party but it is over-stated and the campaign against it is politically-motivated by opponents inside and outside the Party. He was instantly suspended from the party and had the whip removed by leader Sir Keir Starmer, which seems excessive and will cause further discord. Corbyn is not an anti-Semite.
The issue of anti-semitism in Labour in my opinion has been a very successful psyop, running over several years since Corbyn became leader and most likely originating in the Israeli state. When Corbyn was riding high, his support for Palestinian rights would have been seen by Israel as a threat. As a long-time human rights activist, Corbyn’s past statements were productive fodder for his opponents, and provided much grist for UK media mills.
If you want justification for Mike Smith’s claim then this post by Nick Kelly describing the leaking of a draft report into the party’s handling of anti semitism claims is well worth a read. In it he said:
The leaked draft report essentially said that UK Labour’s ability to deal with the antisemitism issue was “an abnormal intensity of factional opposition to the party leader” which had “inhibited the proper function of the Labour party bureaucracy.” In other words, for the party apparatchik undermining Jeremy Corbyn was a higher priority than stopping racism.
The many transcripts show that while there were many antisemitism complaints in 2019, the majority of these were from one individual and upon investigation, these were dropped due to lack of substance. Many of the earlier antisemitism investigations were delayed, by senior Party HQ officials and not by Corbyn or his team. The report also makes it clear that these senior Party HQ officials were working very closely with Deputy Leader Tom Watson, who was very outspoken in the media about Labour’s handling of antisemitism. It is likely he a) knew or had some idea that early antisemitism complaints had been delayed by his friends in Party HQ, rather than Corbyn’s office and b) that the many complaints in 2019 were originating from one vexatious litigant in the party rather than there being hundreds of genuine complaints.
Opposition to the Corbyn project by party HQ was at fever pitch. The leaked WhatsApp messages show that these senior officials became despondent when Labour’s support increased during the 2017 General Election. These texts confirm that party funds were funnelled to their friends and allies in safe seats, specifically Tom Watson. For candidates in marginal constituencies who were seen as too supportive of the Corbyn project, Party HQ starved these campaigns of resources.
More recently Starmer indicated that Corbyn would never again be a Labour MP after Corbyn refused to describe Hamas as a terrorist group. Corbyn replied that he “deplore[d] the targeting of all civilians”, including Hamas’s killing of about 1,200 people in Israel on 7 October. He added:
If we understand terrorism to describe the indiscriminate killing of civilians, in breach of international law, then of course Hamas is a terrorist group.
I suspect that Starmer will not change his position and hope that Corbyn disappears from view.
Meanwhile Corbyn continues with the struggle, and continues to oppose what is happening in Palestine as he has for a number of decades.
These events provide a stark comparison of a principle based approach to politics and an approach based on the perception that sufficiently accurate triangulation of a position provides the best political response. Give me a principle based approach every time.
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