#Gaza – Avanti Populo

Stop Arming Israel

12^th July 2025

The persistence of the genocide carried out on behalf of the Israeli government by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) continues at a staggering level. The IDF show no remorse for the killing of innocent civilians, 15 of whom died queueing to access food this week. The IDF claim to have been targeting a Hamas ‘terrorist’ so the loss of civilian life was simply collateral damage.

This weekend has seen a further 50 deaths including 10 at a water collection point which saw 6 children killed. This follows the killing of 110 people on Saturday including 34 at a food collection point in Rafah. Since 7th October 2023 the IDF has killed at least 57,882 people and wounded 138,095, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

According to the United Nations an estimated 800 Palestinians, many children, have died while seeking food at the so called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution points. The GHF is run by the United States, using American mercenaries, and backed by Israel. GHF has four distribution points, compared to the 400 previously operated by the UN, which Israel will no longer permit to operate.

Random killing was also the approach applied by the IDF in the recent Israeli bombing of Iran, which resulted in the assassination of a number of leading figures in the Iranian armed forces as well as key nuclear scientists. Western media reports played down the fact that in many instances it was not only the military and scientific targets who were murdered but many of their families, innocent of any ‘crime’ as deemed by the Israelis.

Such atrocities are often mis-reported, under reported or not reported at all by the media, keen to play down the extent of Israel’s flouting of international law but also uncomfortable covering any British government complicity in the genocide.

Palestinian deaths certainly don’t warrant the attention any criticism of the IDF does for the British media. Punk rap act Bob Vylan became the all round media villain recently when his Glastonbury set included him chanting “Death to the IDF”. The Mail on Sunday saw fit the following day to go with the banner headline “NOW ARREST PUNK BAND WHO LED ‘DEATH TO ISRAELIS’ CHANTS AT GLASTONBURY”.

The bandwagon rolled on into Monday with the Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and the Daily Express weighing in and Kier Starmer proclaiming the comments “appalling hate speech”, stronger language than he uses when mentioning IDF atrocities.

Quite apart from the inaccuracy of the original Mail on Sunday headline, the claim made by the paper, that this was “antisemitic chanting”, was simply not true. The IDF, being the military wing of the Israeli state, does not represent all Israelis, any more than the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, which continues to face internal criticism for its policy and actions in relation to Gaza and the West Bank. Criticism of the IDF or the Israeli government is not antisemitic, it is a perfectly legitimate political stand to take in the face of their ongoing actions against the Palestinian population.

That Kier Starmer, as Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party, should join in such baying for blood along with the right wing media is a disgrace. Starmer and the government’s complicity in crimes against the Palestinian people is underlined by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) which, in relation to British arms sales to Israel,

“…estimates that between October 2023 and May 2024, over 100 new licences were issued, with a total estimated value of at least £100 million in military equipment since October 7th, 2023. These sales include components for F-35 combat aircraft, which CAAT estimates account for approximately 15% of the value of each F-35 and are used in ongoing conflicts, including those in Gaza.”

The government defends its position by claiming that “no evidence has been seen that Israel is deliberately targeting civilian women or children”. It further claims that “there is also evidence of Israel making efforts to limit incidental harm to civilians”.

The actual evidence, coming back from the UN, Médecins Sans Frontieres and Palestinian people themselves suggests that the British government is either being extremely naïve, or is simply lying.

The latest Israeli proposal, to create a concentration camp for Palestinians on the ruins of Rafah in the south of Gaza, would be a further crime against humanity.

The latest National March for Palestine, organised by Palestine Solidarity Campaign and its allies takes place on 19 July in London. The pressure on the British government to stop arming Israel and stop the starvation in Gaza must continue.

US and Israel complicit in war crimes

5^th June 2025

Out on a limb – the US once again vetoes a ceasefire in Gaza at the United Nations

The so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is nothing more than a trojan horse created by the United States and Israel to facilitate the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza. The BBC and international media continue to report on its activities as if it had some credibility when in reality it has none.

Established two weeks ago, the GHF was set up to bypass the work of the United Nations and other international aid agencies, who have tried and tested methods of delivering international aid through well established local networks.

The Israelis claim that aid through these routes is being hi-jacked by Hamas and is not reaching the people who need it. They have produced no evidence whatsoever to back up such claims. The GHF, which is not run by experienced aid workers, but is staffed by private US security agencies, lacks local knowledge, local networks and has only four centres from which aid can be accessed.

The UN and international aid agencies have 400 sites across Gaza from which aid could be accessed should the Israeli military allow. The GHF have a limited number of sites in the south of Gaza, where the Israelis are attempting to drive the Palestinian population, and they are only accessible by civilians going through known combat zones. Nearly one hundred civilians have been killed by Israeli troops and hundreds more wounded in the past two weeks, attempting to access aid at GHF hubs.

The hubs are located in Israeli military zones, where journalists have no access.

To reach the sites in Rafah, Palestinians must walk for miles along a designated route where GHF says the Israeli military keeps security. In statements to the public, GHF has warned people to stay on the road, saying leaving it “represents a great danger.”

Distribution usually starts at 5 a.m. each day but thousands of Palestinians start walking hours earlier, desperate not to miss out on food. That means large crowds passing by Israeli troops in the dark.

Israel admitted on Tuesday for the first time that its forces shot at Palestinians. In a statement, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said troops fired shots near a food distribution complex after noticing “a number of suspects moving towards them”.

This was the third time civilians had been killed by the IDF in three days.

Mirjana Spoljaric, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told the BBC on Wednesday that conditions in Gaza had become “worse than hell on earth” and that states are not doing enough to end the war, end the suffering of Palestinians and secure the release of Israeli hostages.

The recent killings has resulted in at least one of the GHF hubs being closed temporarily.

That Israel is pursuing a policy of starvation, ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza, in addition to approving more illegal West Bank settlements, is clear to the world. The British government’s continued complicity in the war crimes carried out by the Israeli regime was challenged in the House of Commons this week, in a Bill presented by Independent MP, Jeremy Corbyn, calling for a public inquiry into Britain’s “military, economic, or political co-operation with Israel since October 2023.” The Bill was endorsed but has little chance of being translated into action without government backing.

This week the United States, for the fifth time, vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza. All other 14 countries on the security council voted in favour, including Russia, China, France and Britain. The resolution also called for the “immediate and unconditional lifting of all restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza and its safe and unhindered distribution at scale, including by the UN and humanitarian partners”.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio said in a statement after the vote,

“The United States will continue to stand with Israel at the UN.”

Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gideon Saar, thanked the US “for standing shoulder to shoulder with Israel and vetoing this one-sided resolution in the UN Security Council.”

Both countries are clearly guilty of direct engagement and active support for war crimes and international pressure must continue to be brought to bear, in order to bring them to justice for their actions.

Recognising the Stranger

On Palestine and Narrative

by Isabella Hammad

Book Review

A sense of timing and an eye for synchronicity are common concepts deployed by authors in the construction of a narrative. On 28 September 2023 the British-Palestinian novelist, Isabella Hammad, gave the Edward W Said Memorial Lecture at Columbia University, now published as Recognising the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative.

Hammad could not have foreseen that only a week later, on 7 October 2023, the Qassam Brigades of Hamas would, in response to the ongoing Israeli occupation and blockade of Gaza, launch a military attack upon Israeli military bases and kibbutzim. The attack resulted in over 1,000 deaths and the taking of over 200 hostages, to be held until the 5,000 Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails were released.

Hammad’s lecture would have been relevant and a percipient insight into the situation of the Palestinian people had the events of 7 October and their aftermath, not have happened. However, given the Israeli response to the Hamas attack, Hammad’s lecture and subsequent Afterword: On Gaza, written in January 2024, take on added relevance.

In her original lecture Hammad is concerned with considering turning points, ostensibly in literature but also in the personal and political spheres. Those points in a fictional narrative when characters have moments of recognition, when an aspect of the plot, which may have been clear to the reader, is revealed to the characters and what has been, up until then, a mystery falls into place.

Hammad suggests that in the personal and political spheres the concept of a turning point is “a human construction, something we identify in retrospect” (p.2) but that the moment in which we now live “feels like one of chronic ‘crisis’” (p.2).

Hammad explores the role and function of the novel in the contemporary world, competing against the wide range of other ‘entertainments’ on offer, yet still powerful and relevant enough to find a mass audience and speak to the need for narrative, storytelling and a search for meaning.

Hammad links the concept of turning points in literature to those in real life through the example of writers visiting the Palestine Festival of Literature and experiencing for themselves the reality of life for the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation.

“They visited Hebron, and saw the soldiers patrolling, guarding settlers; they visited the destroyed town of al-Lydd; they navigated checkpoints; they travelled through Jerusalem and crossed in and out of the West Bank; they listened to statistics of killings and imprisonments and night time raids and asked careful questions.” (p.21)

Hammad goes on to analyse the wider international debate regarding the position of the Palestinian people, the incremental retreat from insistence upon a two state solution, with Palestinians having a right to their own state, while the international community in the Global North, largely accept and reinforce the state propaganda and Zionist supremacist ideology of the Israeli regime.

Hammad does recognise that there is a shift in awareness amongst many ordinary people across the world, including amongst Israelis, a recognition that Palestinians have human rights. She cites what co-founder of the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, Omar Barghouti, calls an aha moment,

“…talking specifically about the moment when an Israeli realises, in a turning point of action, that a Palestinian is a human being, just like him or her.” (p.25)

While Hammad’s lecture inevitably focuses upon the work of Edward Said, as a prominent Palestinian intellectual, his literary criticism and her own practice as a writer, she does not shy away from exploring the reality of the stateless position in which Palestinians are forced to exist and the implications of this for their culture.

In her Afterword: On Gaza Hammad is clear that the action of 7 October in itself represents a turning point, comparing it to “an incredibly violent jailbreak” and asserting that,

“It also signified a paradigm shift: it showed that a system in which one population is afforded rights that the other population is denied will be safe for neither.” (p.61)

Hammad robustly condemns the Israeli response to 7 October stating starkly that,

“Ten thousand dead children is not self defence.” (p.62)

A figure which has escalated significantly in the year since her afterword was written. Hammad condemns the extent to which the Western powers, the United States in particular, have supplied Israel with weapons to continue the bombardment of Gaza and the role of the US in vetoing ceasefire arrangements. This position may have changed for the moment but there is no guarantee that Israel will maintain it.

As Hammad states, as she moves towards a conclusion,

“The possibilities faced by the Israeli state for at least twenty years have been: maintain apartheid and forfeit the claim to being a democracy; return to the pre-1967 state borders and allow for the creation of a Palestinian state; break down the system of apartheid and enfranchise the Palestinians in a one-state reality; or conduct large scale ethnic cleansing. They are choosing the last option.” (p.75)

Just over a year since that Afterword was written, it is clear that this is precisely the path that the Israeli regime has taken and that solidarity with the Palestinian people is more vital now than ever.

Isabella Hammad is the award winning author of ‘The Parisian’ and ‘Enter Ghost’. In 2023, she was included as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists.

Towers of Ivory and Steel

13th February 2025

Review by Steve Bishop

Maya Wind’s detailed and incisive study, Towers of Ivory and Steel, charts the role of Israeli universities in systematically denying Palestinian freedom. It should be a wake up call for any British university engaged in collaboration with Israeli counterparts, urging them to address distortions of academic practice and acknowledge the internationally recognised rights of Palestinians to equality of access to education.

British universities will not see themselves as colluding in the settler colonialism of the apartheid Israeli state. They will rationalise any joint work as being on a purely academic basis, not part of a systemic exclusion of Palestinians from access to intellectual expression and freedom.

Maya Wind’s analysis debunks such liberalism and demonstrates how the Israeli university system is an embedded part of the apartheid state of Israel, actively supporting the settler colonial narrative of Zionist supremacy, and denying any Palestinian historical agency in land they have farmed, worked and lived on for generations.

Since October 2023 the world has once again seen the sheer scale of Israeli brutality towards the Palestinian population through the genocide in Gaza, backed by support from the United States, Britain and the European Union, culminating in the proposal of US President Donald Trump to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians.

This is the undeniably savage side of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), the consequences of its actions filling news broadcasts around the world. However, as Wind demonstrates, behind the smokescreen of liberalism in Israel’s universities there lies an ongoing and pervasive denial of access for Palestinians, a denial of study of their history, suppression of any student activism and an active collusion with the Israeli military and state by the university authorities.

In disciplines which under any circumstances should require objectivity and academic rigour, Wind shows how Palestinian dimensions are excluded. Archaeological excavations led by Israeli academics at a site in Susiya, for example, revealed evidence of a synagogue and a mosque, illustrating both Jewish and Muslim heritage, yet as Wind notes,

“Ruins of a mosque were also found on the very same site as the synagogue, yet these were swiftly erased from the historical record; there is no mention of them in the official documentation or at the site itself.” (p.26)

Wind demonstrates how legal studies are skewed to justify the actions of the IDF and the Israeli government in the international arena, “constructing interpretations that justify Israeli state and military policies” (p.40) while routinely processing arrested Palestinians under the Israeli military court system, rather than a civilian legal process.

In the field of Middle East Studies, Israeli universities actively collaborate with the state and the military, to reinforce a particular version of history. The forced exclusion of over 700,000 Palestinians from their land, in the Nakba in 1948, is not covered for example. As Wind indicates,

“What began as repression of academic research on the Nakba and Israel’s founding has since expanded into public scrutiny of syllibi addressing Israel’s military occupation and apartheid and, most recently, into a broader purge of any critical discourse on the military and the racial violence of the Israeli state.” (p128)

Any attempt by Palestinian students to commemorate the events of 1948 are violently shut down. Such actions are facilitated by having uniformed soldiers on campus, as part of their training in military and intelligence work. This presence is inevitably intimidating for the few Palestinian students tolerated at Israeli universities and reinforces the close links between university hierarchies and the military.

Wind provides detailed evidence of how Palestinian students are subject to arrest, incarceration, and torture for engaging in what would be regarded in most parts of the world as routine student activism. For the Israeli state any degree of activism or expression of support for Palestinian statehood is treated with suspicion.

Launched in 2004 the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has worked to raise awareness of the role of Israeli universities in the repression of Palestinians and to call on “international scholars to initiate a boycott of Israeli academic institutions”.

Closely allied is the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) Campaign launched in 2005 to exert pressure on Israel to meet its obligations under international law to, “first, end the colonization of Arab lands and dismantle the military occupation and the wall; second, recognise the right to full equality of Palestinian citizens of Israel; and third, respect and promote the right of Palestinian refugees to return.” (p.5)

Maya Wind is clear that support for the PACBI and BDS campaigns is a necessary step on the road to justice for the Palestinian people. The research and analysis provided in Towers of Ivory and Steel is an important contribution to moving forward on that journey.

Towers of Ivory and Steel book review

Peace the Middle East priority

12^th October 2024

A Palestinian girl carries a child through the rubble of houses destroyed by Israeli bombardment in Gaza City

The extent to which Israel is prepared to go it alone in a threatened strike against Iran was made clear this week in reported discussions between the Israelis and the United States. US President, Joe Biden, and Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, discussed issues relating to Israel’s expected provocation against Iran in their first call in over a month last week. The White House has said that Biden emphasised the need for “a diplomatic arrangement” to allow Israeli and Lebanese civilians displaced by fighting to return to their homes; urged Israel to minimise civilian casualties in airstrikes against Beirut; and discussed “the urgent need to renew diplomacy” on achieving a cease-fire in Gaza.

Clearly Biden’s words have had little impact with the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) carrying out its heaviest bombing raids so far on Thursday night, just over 24 hours after the Biden/Netanyahu conversation. The strikes included attacks upon United Nations peacekeeping positions, reinforcing the rogue status of Israel in the Middle East.

It is apparent that the US is frustrated by being repeatedly caught off guard by Israel’s military actions in Gaza and Lebanon, but appears incapable of summoning the political will to head off further escalation. There was some hope that the US would learn more about what Israel was contemplating when Israeli Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, and US Defence Secretary, Lloyd Austin, were scheduled to meet at the Pentagon last week. However, Netanyahu blocked Gallant from going to the US as Israel continued planning its Iran operation. As it stands the US claims not to know either the timing of the strike or what Israel might target.

It is known that Army Gen. Erik Kurilla, who heads US Central Command, with responsibility for US military operations in the Middle East, has met with Gallant and top Israeli military commanders, to warn against striking Iran’s nuclear sites or oil facilities.

Gallant is widely seen in the West as the Israeli leader most responsive to the US concerns about Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza, especially regarding increasing humanitarian aid and creating a plan for postwar governance. However, it is evident that Netanyahu’s desire to cling to office, and take advantage of the hiatus which the pre-election period in the US represents, outweighs any wider strategic concerns for him and the religious fundamentalist backers in his government.

US failure to act decisively is frustrating the international community as it is clearly the major supplier of arms to the IDF. Israel, can only continue to prosecute the wars it has initiated on multiple fronts, because of its dependence on the US military. Over the past year, it has not only relied on supplies of American munitions, but benefited from US help in shooting down missiles and drones, as well as the rapid deployment of American naval and air forces to deter more substantial Iranian attacks.

In turn the US has had to modify its strategic priorities, which were focussed on ramping up conflicts with China and Russia, to adapt. Struggling to head off an all-out Middle East war, the Pentagon has deployed two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region for much of the year.

Against this background the threat of further escalation once the IDF attack Iran is significant, for the region, for world peace and for the people of Iran themselves.

Inside Iran the theocratic leadership of the Islamic Republic is walking a political tightrope having seen its adventurist foreign policy in the region at least temporarily crushed, following the overkill of the Israeli response to the Hamas attack of the 7th October last year. Leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah have been assassinated, key targets have been hit, disrupting operations, and the Israelis have even reached into Tehran itself to undermine the Islamic dictatorship’s reliability on its own security apparatus.

Evidence in both Gaza and Lebanon would suggest that the Israelis are not inclined towards acting with restraint, as the death toll on both fronts mounts, along with the increasing unrest in the occupied West Bank. Iran’s response to the strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon have so far not inflicted significant damage upon the IDF but have been sufficient to give the Israelis justification, in their eyes, to strike back.

It is clear from the evidence of the past year, the years of illegal Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and the repeated incursions into Lebanon by the IDF over the years, that there is not a military solution to the issues in the Middle East. The only solution can be a diplomatic one, starting with the right of the Palestinian people to self determination and a state of their own.

The failure of the international community, primarily the United States and Britain, to enforce United Nations resolutions, which would compel Israel to negotiate, and to continue to supply weapons to sustain the IDF, are the key drivers of the current situation. Until peace is at the top of the strategic objectives of all players the people of Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, will continue to suffer.

Turning Points

29^th September 2024

Thousands flee Lebanon to escape Israeli air strikes

The assassination of Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has been described by Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as a ’turning point’, describing Nasrallah as “the axis of the axis, the central engine of Iran’s axis of evil”.

The killing and the ongoing bombing of civilian areas of Beirut may well prove to be a turning point but not necessarily in the way that Netanyahu means. Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called for five days of mourning following Nasrallah’s death and vowed that his ”blood will not go unavenged.”

Lebanon’s Health Ministry has estimated that 800 are dead so far as a result of the actions of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), while 50,000 people are estimated to have fled to Syria and an estimate 1 million are displaced, many having to sleep on the streets.

The bombings follow on from the indiscriminate attacks, not denied by the Israelis, upon Lebanese citizens by planting explosives in electronic communication devices, which killed 37 and injured thousands. This action has been widely condemned as a war crime precisely due to its indiscriminate nature.

While the IDF claim that the current bombing campaign consists of precision strikes, the reduction to rubble of buildings in clearly civilian areas gives the lie to this claim, costing the lives of non-combatant women and children in the process.

The latest strikes have even seen surprise expressed by the United States, Israel’s staunchest ally, with President Joe Biden claiming that the US had no prior knowledge of the attacks. Efforts by US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to engage Israel in the search for a diplomatic solution have so far abjectly failed.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Israeli government, under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, is out of control and driven by its own religious fundamentalist agenda. Devastating strikes on Beirut followed on almost immediately from Netanyahu’s widely boycotted speech at the UN General Assembly in New York and flew in the face of widespread calls for a negotiated settlement and ceasefire to be discussed.

Israel’s contempt for the will of the international community, as articulated by the UN, has been evident for decades in its illegal treatment of the Palestinian people and their just demand for national self determination and a fully sovereign state of their own. It is evident in its recent action in Gaza and the West Bank and is becoming more flagrant in its attacks upon the Lebanese capital.

Such actions increase the threat of widening the conflagration in the region, with escalation beyond the Middle East into a global war within the realms of possibility.

With the presidential election in the United States looming Netanyahu is clearly taking advantage of the hiatus this represents to press home his fundamentalist agenda, to the detriment of the people of the region and in spite of the opposition from many of his own citizens. Parliamentary elections in Israel are not scheduled until October 2026 and Netanyahu is gambling that he can hold together his right wing fundamentalist coalition at least that long, to present himself as a victor in the fight against both Hamas and Hezbollah.

The fate of the Palestinian people and the people of the Middle East generally should not rest upon the political survival and opportunism of one man.

Pressure upon Israel to come to the negotiating table must be increased through concrete actions. The British government must immediately cease all arms sales to Israel. Trade union and cultural organisations should support the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign to isolate Israel internationally, until it is prepared to negotiate meaningfully on a way forward.

The US, as Israel’s major ally, must take a stronger line in bringing the IDF to heel and opening the way for negotiations. The turning point in the current conflict has to be to turn back. The coming days could well be crucial in determining the future of the Middle East and whether or not the world is plunged into a wider conflict.

More Casualties in a Series of Israeli Attacks Across Gaza

(report from the Communist Party of Israel)

Israeli occupation forces continued their airstrikes and artillery shelling across the Gaza Strip on Friday, April 5, resulting in numerous casualties among Palestinian its 182nd day in a row. In a preliminary toll, the ongoing Israeli onslaught on Gaza since October 7 of last year has resulted in 33,037 documented Palestinian fatalities, mostly children and women, while the number of injuries has reached 75,668.

Grieving Palestinian father Ashraf Abu Daraa bids a farewell for his two kids and pregnant wife who were killed last night in an Israeli airstrike targeting their home in Rafah (Photo: WAFA)

WAFA correspondents reported that Israeli artillery shelling targeted the central and western parts of Khan Yunis province, as well as the eastern part of Rafah city in southern Gaza. Additionally, a fierce airstrike hit the vicinity of Sheikh Zayed City in northern Gaza, while several areas in the central governorate of the Strip were subjected to Israeli artillery fire.

Simultaneously, local sources reported that Israeli warplanes targeted Tal al-Hawa west of Gaza before midnight, while artillery and aerial bombardments hit the southwestern and southeastern neighborhoods of Khan Yunis city, and the eastern part of Al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza. Earlier, Israeli artillery fire targeted the Qleibo and Sheikh Zayed areas in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, coinciding with the ongoing destruction of residential homes in central and western Khan Yunis by the occupation forces.

According UN reports, since October 7 and as of April 1, 428 Palestinians, including 110 children, have been killed by Israeli forces across the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, of whom 131 were killed since the start of 2024. In addition, nine were killed by Israeli settlers and three by either Israeli forces or settlers. Four additional Palestinians from the West Bank have been killed while perpetrating attacks in Israel. During the same period, some 4,760 Palestinians have been injured, including at least 739 children, the majority by Israeli forces. According to the Palestinian Prisoners Club, 11 Palestinians have additionally died in Israeli prisons since 7 October 2023, mainly due to reported medical negligence or abuse.

Pledges and priorities

23^rd February 2020

palestine-psc-demo.-jpg Pro-Palestine but against antisemitism – perfectly compatible

Voting for the Labour Party leadership will get underway this week, with the top job now narrowed down to three candidates; Kier Starmer, Lisa Nandy and Rebecca Long Bailey. To some extent all three are compromised, by supporting the Ten Pledges to End the Antisemitism Crisis diktat, by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which seeks to impose external controls on how the Labour Party addresses allegations of antisemitism, stating that,

“An independent provider should be used to process all complaints, to eradicate any risk of partisanship and factionalism.”

The pledges include handing responsibility for training on antisemitism to one group in the Jewish community, the Jewish Labour Movement, and for Labour to,

“…engage with the Jewish community via its main representative groups, and not through fringe organisations and individuals.”

This latter being code for the Board of Deputies or groups it approves as being ‘representative.’

This presumably excludes Jewish Voice for Labour, for example, which has supported a rejection of the Ten Pledges by the leadership candidates.

Even Rebecca Long Bailey, the most progressive of the leadership candidates, has fallen victim to the antisemitism smear campaign, suggesting in Jewish News that,

“Unfortunately, some people who regard themselves as anti-racist may nevertheless, when talking about the legacy of colonialism or the distribution of power within our capitalist society, use some of the negative stereotypical ideas or images that have become embedded within our culture over time.”

Long Bailey could have more usefully made the point that conflating criticism of the Israeli government’s failure to respect UN resolutions and international law with antisemitism, is the most dangerous of the “negative stereotypical ideas or images” being systematically embedded within our culture.

In the Deputy Leadership race only Richard Burgon and Dawn Butler have not agreed to the demands of the Ten Pledges, a position which has brought on predictable vitriol from the Board of Deputies and its mouthpiece the Jewish Chronicle, which quoted Board president Marie van der Zyl saying it “beggars belief” that Shadow Justice Secretary Richard Burgon and Shadow Equalities Minister Dawn Butler had withheld their endorsement.

Butler, in a statement as to why she would not sign the Ten Pledges made clear,

“If I thought that signing these 10 pledges would help solve the problem, I would do it. It would no doubt be the easy thing for me to do and I know the attention not doing so will bring. I endure racism on a daily basis. I know what it feels like. I have dedicated my career and life to doing just that, including in my current role as Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities.

That’s how I know that the easy route is not always the best route and I must do what I think is best. I fear that signing the pledges without further discussion will result in no positive change and I fear it will just be a token gesture.”

Her full statement is here:-

https://www.dawnbutler.org.uk/news/statement-regarding-the-ten-pledges-for-labour-leadership-and-deputy-leadership-candidates-by-the-board-of-deputies-of-british-jews/

The Ten Pledges from the Board of Deputies has received far greater profile that the Ten Key Pledges to Support Muslim Communities, released by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) during the General Election campaign, and to which all leadership candidates have also signed up.

More information is here:-

https://mcb.org.uk/press-releases/all-labour-leadership-candidates-sign-up-to-mcbs-ten-key-pledges/

It is interesting to note pledge 10 on the subject of Ethical Foreign Policy which states,

“Support a binding recognition of Palestine as an independent and sovereign state, and address human rights abuses abroad, including in Kashmir, Xinjiang and Myanmar.”

The Board of Deputies will no doubt have a view on the Palestinian question. It will be interesting to see how much time the successful candidate devotes to this MCB pledge, compared to those in the Board of Deputies set of pledges. There can be little doubt which will receive the most scrutiny from the media and which organisation has the strongest lobby, both inside and outside of the Labour Party.

One thing is certain, real leadership will come from the candidate who is not only vociferous in their condemnation of antisemitism but who calls out racism in any form. That will mean being prepared to make the case for the rights of Palestinians, in accordance with international law, however strong the pressure may be not to do so.

Antisemitism smokescreen for the right wing

12^th August 2018

Israeli Defence Force tackle Palestinian militancy in Gaza

If the Israeli secret service, Mossad, are not behind the current antisemitism smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, they ought to be ashamed of themselves. More than that, they ought to be paying whoever is behind it for doing their job for them, as the ongoing slurs against Corbyn and his allies continue to give the UK media an excuse not to report on the real chaos in the country and the economy.

If Mossad wanted to take attention away from the atrocities committed by the Israeli Defence Force for decades in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, they could not be doing a better job. If they wanted to cover up the ongoing illegal land grab by Israeli occupiers, euphemistically referred to as settlers, who steal land from the Palestinian people, they could not wish for more. If Mossad wanted to bury the fact that the actions of Israel in the occupied territories are illegal, and in contravention of international law and countless United Nations resolutions for over fifty years, they could not hope for a better smokescreen.

Racist action against Palestinians, it would appear, is not racism at all. It would appear that it is especially not racism if perpetrated by those whose parents and grandparents have been victims of the racist atrocity of the Holocaust, carried out by the Nazis in Europe in the 1930s and 40s.

Inside the Labour Party it would appear that any family tie with victims of Nazism is enough to give your words a vicarious authenticity in the eyes of the UK media. Dame Margaret Hodge is a case in point. Her Jewish roots, in spite of a limited record in fighting racism at home, appear to give her more credibility than lifelong anti-racist campaigner Jeremy Corbyn, to the extent that Hodge gets away with calling Corbyn an antisemite and racist.

Deputy Labour Leader, Tom Watson, added fuel to the fire this week by suggesting that without tacking the issues of antisemitism Labour would be facing ‘eternal shame’ over the issue. Watson had clearly failed to read the articles published by Jeremy Corbyn or the video he released last weekend, which were absolutely categorical in their opposition to antisemitism and all forms of racism, in the Labour Party and in society in general.

No such statement in defence of Palestinian rights, as endorsed by almost the entire international community in accordance with international law, has been forthcoming from any of those critical of Corbyn in recent weeks.

Instead the focus has been upon the Labour National Executive Committee not adopting the exact wording of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism when debating the issue and how to address it recently. Unlike the Israeli government’s ignoring of the resolution of the United Nations regarding its occupation of Palestine, the IHRA definition has no legal standing.

In fact the author of the definition, Kenneth Stern, regards it as a working proposal, not a legal or disciplinary definition.

This weekend twenty four Constituency Labour Party activists have put their names to a letter to The Observer (12/08/18) in an attempt to redress the balance of debate within the Labour Party. They focus fire upon Watson in particular for laying the grounds for a further leadership coup against Corbyn stating,

“Is this another attempted coup against the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn gathering force and is the issue of antisemitism being weaponised to that end? Watson seems oblivious to the many organisations such as Jews for Justice for Palestinians and Jewish Voice for Labour, which believe that the IHRA definition needs further work to ensure defence of free speech.”

The signatories go on to point out that there is a “wider and worrying under reporting of the growing threat from the racist far right”, while the media choose to focus upon manufactured divisions within the Labour Party.

With the Tories in disarray over Brexit, facing the possibility of a leadership challenge and the possibility of being forced into a General Election, there is the distinct prospect of a UK government led by Jeremy Corbyn. The anti-Corbyn right wing in the Labour Party would not like that, the ruling class in the UK would be unnerved by an actual socialist, who may event try to translate policies into action, with the keys to 10, Downing Street.

You can be sure that the conservative Israeli lobby and Mossad would not like it either.

A one-sided massacre by Israeli troops on the Gaza border

15^th May 2018

palestinian

Israeli troops’ wanton slaughter of unarmed protesters serves as a fitting reminder of the inhuman treatment meted out to Palestinians since being driven off their land to facilitate Israel’s establishment 70 years ago.

International disregard for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees scattered to the four winds by the zionists’ superior armed forces is again mirrored in bourgeois media coverage of today’s killing.

The New York Times recounted that “dozens of Palestinians have died in protests” near the border fence, giving the impression of a unforeseen accident or genetic weakness suddenly taking hold of them.

A similar headline on the BBC website, “Dozens die as US opens Jerusalem embassy” was changed after protests to “Dozens killed as US opens Jerusalem embassy.”

The BBC One O’Clock TV news informed viewers in a judgement-free observation that “violence erupted” on the Gaza border as though two sides had collided and resorted to fighting.

The Times of Israel reported “dozens killed in Gaza clashes,” once again suggesting head-to-head fierce combat.

In contrast, Israeli daily Haaretz headlined in the early afternoon: “Jerusalem Embassy and Gaza Protests. 41 Palestinians Reported Killed by Israeli Gunfire at Border. Over 1,600 wounded, 772 from live gunfire.”

This lays bare the reality of a one-sided massacre, in which one Israeli soldier was slightly hurt by a stone while soldiers of “the most moral army in the world” fired live rounds freely against civilians because political and military leaders would back them regardless.

What chance is there of Israeli civil society or the judiciary curbing the blood lust of politicians from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu down after the Shin Bet security service issued a wild weekend warning?

It forecast: “On May 14, the Hamas terrorist organisation plans to send armed terrorists among 250,000 violent rioters to swarm and breach Israel’s border with Gaza and enter Israeli communities.”

Israel’s government purports to believe that, if it warns Palestinians that they could be “jeopardising” their lives by protesting, they and their troops are legally vindicated.

They must know that this attempt to flout international law is wrong and unfounded.

As human rights group Amnesty International commented, “we are witnessing an abhorrent violation of international law and human rights in Gaza … This must end immediately.”

Unarmed Palestinians are fully entitled to demonstrate for the right of refugees to return to the homes they were driven from in 1948 and several times since. This right is enshrined in United Nations resolution 194.

Every single Palestinian casualty shot by live rounds, wounded by rubber-coated steel bullets or disabled by gas grenades incurred their injuries in Gaza. Not a single one had crossed into Israel, despite the hysteria of zionist politicians, security service and military top brass.

While Israeli soldiers conducted their unrestrained butchery across the border, displaying their moral superiority by killing unarmed children, women and men, government ministers boasted of their achievement in having the Trump administration further display its contempt for international law by shifting the US embassy to Jerusalem.

As with the massacre of at least 52 civilians yesterday and over 1,200 wounded by gunfire, US recognition of occupied East Jerusalem as part of Israel’s capital city doesn’t make it lawful.

Nor does Trump’s plan to impose, alongside Israel, a “peace” settlement on the Palestinians.

Political and media toleration of Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people should spur even greater efforts by civil society in Britain to reject our government’s shameful stance and win yet more support for the peaceful boycott, disinvestment, sanctions (BDS) campaign to isolate apartheid Israel.

This article appeared in the Morning Star 15^th May 2018