Keir Starmer gives a keynote speech marking the four-year anniversary of the 2019 election, at Silverstone Technology Park, near Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, December 12, 2023
LABOUR will recognise a Palestinian state when it gets permission from Israel to do so, Sir Keir Starmer has announced in his latest abandonment of progressive international commitments.
Ditching a policy dating back a decade to Ed Miliband’s leadership, the Labour leader has announced that the party in government will no longer join nearly 140 other countries around the world in recognising the state of Palestine.
According to a report in the Jewish Chronicle, Sir Keir said at the weekend that “recognition has to be part of a process, and an appropriate part of the process.”
What that meant was spelt out by shadow foreign office minister Wayne David, who said Labour would “recognise the state of Palestine at a point which will help the peace process once negotiations between Israel and Palestine and the others are taking place.”
Calling Labour’s previous position of recognition of Palestine independently of any supposed peace process “T-shirt politics,” Mr David elaborated that recognition had to come to “fruition in a way which is acceptable to the state of Israel.
People demonstrate outside the constituency office of Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, in north west London, during a Palestine Day of Action demonstration, November 18, 2023
THAT there is a sense of inevitability about Keir Starmer’s abandonment of Labour’s commitment to recognise a Palestinian state should not diminish outrage at the move.
Ditching the pledge, first made under Ed Miliband’s leadership of Labour, is all of a piece with the party’s unequivocal support for imperialism under Starmer’s leadership.
It comes as other policies — to stop arms sales to Saudi Arabia or to give MPs a vote before Britain undertakes military action — are also junked in a bonfire of progressive demands.
But the abandonment of a commitment to join 139 other countries around the world in recognising the state of Palestine is particularly brutal and cynical.
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In this situation to abandon a policy Labour has championed for a decade is not to assist the cause of peace, it is to green-light Israeli aggression.
Demonstrators take part in a ‘Kill The Bill’ protest against The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, on College Green, Westminster, January 17, 2022
RIGHTS advocates have launched a campaign to overturn Tory legislation attacking the right to protest.
Liberty, formerly the National Council for Civil Liberties has condemned the government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 as part of a clear pattern in which the right to strike and the right to vote had also been attacked.
It has launched an online petition and is gathering signatures for a letter to Home Secretary James Cleverly calling on him to scrap the legislation.
Liberty director Akiko Hart said: “No matter where we live, our backgrounds, or who we vote for, we all want people in power to listen to our concerns and work to build a brighter future for us and our loved ones.
“But this government is clamping down on the ways we speak up on important issues. Most recently it has given the police dangerously broad powers to crack down on protests and arrest demonstrators.”
Ms Hart said Britain’s leaders are “criminalising protesters to hide from their own failings.”
“This is part of a clear pattern of shutting down the ways we can all hold them accountable for their actions,” she said.
“They have also created laws that stop workers from striking and block countless people from voting.”
Individuals, including 4 government ministers, 9 UK citizens fighting for IDF and others, accused in criminal complaint of complicity in war crimes against Gaza
The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) has announced that it has presented the Metropolitan Police with a dossier of evidence against UK citizens accused of collusion in Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. The ICJP announced in October that it would be prosecuting both Tory ministers and Labour MPs who have supported Israel’s genocide, or incited war crimes, against Palestinians. Israel has so far killed almost thirty-three thousand Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children.
One of a number of outstanding Irish MEPs, Clare Daly tells Biden to take the name of Ireland out of his mouth
Clare Daly, an outspoken and courageous left-wing Irish MEP, has an outstanding track record of taking the right side of global issues – and she has let US president Joe Biden and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen have both truth-barrels for their complicity in Israel’s genocide and array of other war crimes against the innocent Palestinian civilians of Gaza.
Redbridge Community Action Group (RCAG) has selected local Palestinian woman Leanne Mohamad to stand against arch-Labour right-winger Wes Streeting in Ilford North at the next parliamentary election. Ms Mohamad won selection among three potential candidates, by a vote of RACG members.
A man mourns as he holds the wrapped body of a Palestinian child who was killed overnight by Israeli bombing at a hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on December 19, 2023. (Photo: Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images)
Israel’s bombardment and invasion of Gaza have also killed more than 10,000 children in nearly 100 days, or 1% of the 1.1 million children in the besieged enclave.
Israel has killed more people per day in its attack on Gaza than were killed daily in any other major conflict during the 21st century.
Oxfam reported Thursday that Israel has killed an average of 250 Palestinians in Gaza each day since October 7, compared to 96.5 killed daily in Syria, 51.6 in Sudan, 50.8 in Iraq, 43.9 in Ukraine, 23.8 in Afghanistan, and 15.8 in Yemen.
“The scale and atrocities that Israel is visiting upon Gaza are truly shocking,” Oxfam Middle East director Sally Abi Khalil said in a statement. “For 100 days the people of Gaza have endured a living hell. Nowhere is safe, and the entire population is at risk of famine.”
“The situation in Gaza is monstrous and a blight on our common humanity.”
Also on Thursday, Save the Children reported that Israel’s bombardment and invasion of Gaza had killed more than 10,000 children in nearly 100 days, or 1% of the 1.1 million children living in Gaza before the war began. More than 40% of the total number killed in Gaza were children.
“There can never be any justification for killing children,” Jason Lee, Save the Children’s country director for the occupied Palestinian territory, said in a statement. “The situation in Gaza is monstrous and a blight on our common humanity.”
More than 10K children have been killed by Israeli airstrikes and ground operations with thousands more missing, presumed buried under rubble.
On October 7, Hamas launched an attack on southern Israel that killed around 1,100 people and took around 240 hostages. Israel then launched its assault on Gaza in retaliation. Before Hamas’ attack, however, Israel had blockaded Gaza for 16 years and occupied the Palestinian West Bank for 56 years. Since October 7, Israel has killed 330 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to Oxfam.
Both Oxfam and Save the Children’s statements came the same day that a South African legal team appeared before the International Court of Justice to argue that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. It is asking the court to take “provisional measures” to stop the violence. Several other countries, including Brazil, Bolivia, and Pakistan, have supported South Africa’s efforts, but the United States dismissed its case as “meritless.”
Oxfam and Save the Children criticized the wider international community for failing to stop the bloodshed.
“It is unimaginable that the international community is watching the deadliest rate of conflict of the 21st century unfold, while continuously blocking calls for a cease-fire,” Khalil said.
Lee stated: “Despite the record number of children killed and maimed, the international community has failed to act again and again. One grave violation committed against children is one too many. For the last three months, children in Gaza have faced grave violations every day, while conditions to provide them with the humanitarian assistance they need are simply not there. All parties must agree to a definitive cease-fire now.”
— Oxfam International Media Team (@newsfromoxfam) January 11, 2024
The two non-governmental organizations also emphasized the danger civilians in Gaza now face not only from military action, but also from hunger and disease. Israel only allows 10% of the necessary food aid to enter Gaza’s borders, according to Oxfam. The colder weather increases the risk of illness, especially as people displaced by the conflict are forced to shelter in smaller and smaller spaces. More than 1 million people are now crowded together in Rafah, and Oxfam partner Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees said conditions for people living in tents was “worse than anything you could imagine.”
“The rain was going down from all sides of the tent,” displaced engineer named Mutaz told Oxfam. “We had to sleep lying over the bag of flour to protect it from the rain. My wife and three of my daughters use one blanket at night. There are only enough blankets for four people to share. We have nothing.”
Save the Children pointed out that these hardships took a toll on children especially.
“For children who have survived, the mental harm inflicted and the utter devastation of infrastructure including homes, schools, and hospitals has decimated their futures,” Lee said.
The organization counted a record number of violations against children by both Israel and Hamas, including the destruction or damaging of 370 schools in Gaza, the attacking of 94 hospitals and healthcare facilities, the denial of humanitarian aid to all of Gaza’s 1.1 million children, and Hamas’ taking of children as hostages and killing of 33 children in Israel.
“The war has affected us so badly,” Lana, an 11-year-old girl living in Rafah, told Save the Children. “We had to leave our homes and couldn’t do anything. We learned many things during the war, like how important it is to save water. I hope the war ends, and we live in peace and safety.”
In a statement on Sunday, Save the Children said that, each day of the conflict, more than 10 children in Gaza had lost one or both of their legs. Amputations are also often performed without anesthetic, as Gaza’s hospitals and healthcare system are overwhelmed by the violence, with a shortage of doctors and nurses and only 13 out of 36 hospitals partially functioning.
“Unless action is taken by the international community to uphold their responsibilities under international humanitarian law and prevent the most serious crimes of international concern, history will and should judge us all,” Lee said Sunday. “We must heed the lessons from the past and must prevent ‘atrocity crimes’ from unfolding.”
Keir “I support Zionism without qualification” Starmer and other Labour party support of Israel’s genocide. We can’t elect these complicit in genocide cnuts.
