Israeli soldiers drive a tank near the Gaza Strip border, in southern Israel, February 19, 2024
WEDNESDAY is a fresh moment of truth for British politicians. For the second time, they will have the opportunity to vote in the House of Commons for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Since they backed the Israeli aggression by a majority last November, the genocidal assault on the Palestinians has only intensified.
More than 100,000 people have now been killed or wounded, nearly 5 per cent of Gaza’s total population. Of the dead, more than a third are children.
To date, the British government has not just acquiesced in this. It has enabled it — with arms supplies, logistical support, diplomatic backing and political indulgence.
It is complicit in genocide. So too is the Labour Party, which under Keir Starmer’s pro-imperialist leadership — it is the only issue on which he never wavers or changes course — has been hard line in its backing for the British and Israeli governments alike.
Labour amendments betray Gaza’s murdered and oppressed civilians and uses classic asymmetric language to value Palestinian life less than Israeli
Keir Starmer – after days of posing to try to bring Muslim and other decent voters onside by mouthing ceasefire language – has yet again betrayed the two million people in Gaza suffering violence and starvation and the more than 100,000 people murdered and maimed by Israel.
While the ‘mainstream’ media speculated whether Starmer would order MPs to support the SNP’s motion demanding a ceasefire, which is being debated in Parliament tomorrow, more realistic observers knew it was inevitable that Starmer would do the minimum he hopes will fool voters opposed to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, while protecting the interests of the pro-Israel right.
And so he did: Labour has tabled amendments to the original motion that gut it of its impact and has gone as far as making the motion more about Hamas’s supposed guilt and the feelings of Israel and its supporters. And the amendment uses the classic tactics of politicians and ‘mainstream’ media to present Israeli lives and suffering as more valuable than Palestinian.
In Starmer’s worldview, Palestinians are not being murdered by Israel – their lives are just ‘lost’, as if to a natural disaster and not to a campaign of mechanised mass murder. The sheer number of their deaths is presented as ‘intolerable’, but the loss of Israeli lives to Palestinian resistance is ‘horror’. Israelis have the ‘right to assurance’ against attack, but there is no mention of a Palestinian right not to be murdered by the occupation regime. Israel ‘cannot be expected’ to stop fighting if Hamas does not stop – but there is no acknowledgement that Hamas’s violence takes place against a backdrop of decades of wanton violence and oppression by the occupiers. Israel must be ‘safe and secure’ – but a Palestinian state only merits ‘viable’.
The SNP motion is an exemplar of directness and simplicity and rightly focuses on the many tens of thousands of civilians slaughtered by Israel, as well as on the forced displacement of 1.5 million Palestinians into Rafah, where they remain under constant bombardment and the threat of an all-out ground assault:
Labour’s lickspittle version calls resistance ‘terrorism’ but does not mention the Israeli terror state’s genocide and other war crimes, or the fact that so many are dying in Rafah because they were forced to cram there under bomb and bullet – and clearly hasn’t even been proofread, calling for ‘the UN Security Council to be meet urgently’:
Starmer is trying to mask his support for Israel’s war crimes and hoping that the millions in this country disgusted by that support will be fooled. His disregard for the true plight of Palestinians and his complicity in the war crimes being perpetrated against them by Israel is beyond contemptible.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva addresses the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on February 17, 2024. (Photo: Ricardo Stuckert via Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva/Facebook)
The Brazilian president’s move comes after the leftist leader was declared persona non grata in Israel for comparing its genocidal war on Gaza to Hitler’s extermination of Jews.
Brazil recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv for talks on Monday after Israel’s foreign minister declared Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva persona non grata for condemning the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Israeli state broadcaster Kan reported that Lula recalled Brazilian Ambassador Frederico Meyer amid the escalating row over comments the leftist leader made over the weekend in Ethiopia. The Brazilian news site Carta Capital reported that Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieria called Israeli Ambassador Daniel Zonshine for a meeting on Monday.
This, after Lula told attendees at the African Union (A.U.) summit in Addis Ababa on Sunday that “what’s happening in the Gaza Strip isn’t a war, it’s a genocide.”
“It’s not a war of soldiers against soldiers,” Lula continued. “It’s a war between a highly prepared army and women and children.”
“It is important to remember that in 2010 Brazil was the first country to recognize the Palestinian state,” he said. “What is happening in the Gaza Strip and with the Palestinian people did not exist at any other historical moment. In fact, it existed when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.”
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip:
“What is happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people hasn’t happened at any other moment in history. Actually, it has happened: when Hitler… pic.twitter.com/npJVAMO9FQ
Lula asked: “Who will help rebuild those houses that were destroyed? Who will repay the lives of 30,000 people who have died, 70,000 who are injured? Who will return the lives of the children who died without knowing why they were dying?”
According to Palestinian officials, at least 29,092 Palestinians—mostly women and children—have been killed, 69,028 wounded, and more than 7,000 others left missing and presumed dead under the rubble as a result of Israel’s 136-day assault on the besieged coastal enclave of 2.3 million people, around 90% of whom have been forcibly displaced.
Lula’s remarks were well received by A.U. summit attendees, who issued a statement condemning Israel’s “brutal” war on Gaza.
“Gaza is being completely annihilated and its people are deprived of all of their rights,” declared A.U. Commission Chair Moussa Faki Mahamat, who added that he “condemns the Israeli operation, which is unparalleled in the history of humanity.”
Mahamat underscored his support for South Africa as it leads a Gaza genocide case at the International Court of Justice, which found in a provisional ruling last month that Israel is “plausibly” committing genocide against the Palestinian people.
Israeli leaders were incensed by Lula’s remarks. Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said da Silva had “crossed a line.”
“The words of the president of Brazil are shameful and alarming,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “This is a trivialization of the Holocaust and an attempt to harm the Jewish people and Israel’s right to defend itself.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz called Lula’s comments “shameful and grave.”
Katz summoned Meyer for a reprimand at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, where the Jewish Brazilian diplomat—whose country sent 20,000 troops to fight the Nazis in World War II—was paraded before a list of Jews killed by the Third Reich.
“We will not forget and we will not forgive,” Katz told Meyer. “In my name, and in the name of all Israeli citizens, tell President Lula that he is persona non grata in Israel until he retracts his statements.”
Persona non grata is Latin for “unwelcome person.” Legally, “it refers to the practice of a state prohibiting a diplomat from entering the country as a diplomat, or censuring a diplomat already resident in the country for conduct unbecoming of the status of a diplomat,” according to the U.S. State Department.
Celso Amorim, a former foreign and defense minister who now serves as Lula’s chief adviser for international affairs, called Katz’s declaration “absurd.”
“It only increases Israel’s isolation,” Amorim told Brazilian journalist Andréia Sadi. “Lula is sought all over the world and at the moment, Israel is persona non grata.”
Palestine defenders in Brazil and beyond embraced Israel’s rebuke of Lula. The Arab Palestinian Federation of Brazil said on social media that it’s “an honor for Lula’s biography” to be “persona non grata in the colonial occupation that calls itself a country.”
Protesters outside the Israeli military technology company Elbit Systems’ Bristol HQPhoto: Cymru Peace Coalition
MORE than 100 Palestine supporters have laid siege to an arms company providing Israel with weapons being used to attack Gaza.
Israeli-owned Elbit Systems supplies Israel with 85 per cent of the military drones being used to attack Gaza and 85 per cent of the Israeli Defence Force’s land-based military equipment.
The weapons are produced at four Elbit factories in Britain. The company also has its headquarters offices in Bristol.
Activists mounted “peace pickets” today at Elbit’s Bristol headquarters and its factory at Aztec West in Bristol.
The action was organised by Cymru Peace Coalition.
Palestinian children hold placards during a march demanding an end to the war and their right to live, education, and play on February 14, 2024 in Rafah, Gaza. (Photo: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images.
A South African leader welcomed the court’s affirmation that “the perilous situation demands immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measures” from its earlier ruling.
As Israeli forces plan a full-scale assault on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, the International Court of Justice on Friday forcefully reminded Israel that it must comply with a January order to meet its obligations under the Genocide Convention.
South Africa—which is leading the genocide case against Israel that led to six provisional measures from the ICJ last month—asked the World Court for emergency action on Tuesday in light of the Israeli plan to attack Rafah, whose population has surged to roughly 1.5 million as Palestinians have fled bombings and raids in northern Gaza.
The ICJ, which is part of the United Nations, weighed in just a day after Israel submitted its response to South Africa’s request.
“The court notes that the most recent developments in the Gaza Strip, and in Rafah in particular, ‘would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences,'” the ICJ said Friday, quoting United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the U.N. General Assembly last week.
“This perilous situation demands immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measures indicated by the court in its order of 26 January 2024, which are applicable throughout the Gaza Strip, including in Rafah, and does not demand the indication of additional provisional measures,” the World Court continued.
“The court emphasizes that the state of Israel remains bound to fully comply with its obligations under the Genocide Convention and with the said order, including by ensuring the safety and security of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” the ICJ added.
ICJ says no new measures but mind the old ones, in rather strong language for the court. https://t.co/42AWnu7vU4
Clayson Monyela of South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation said on social media that his country welcomes the development.
“The court has affirmed our view that the perilous situation demands immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measures indicated by the court in its order of 26 January 2024 which are applicable throughout the Gaza Strip and has clarified that this includes Rafah,” he said.
The ICJ’s decision comes as countries including South Africa prepare to participate in hearings before the Hague-based court next week about Israel’s 57-year occupation of Palestine. South African representatives are set to present second, after the Palestinians.
