Michael Gove calls for IDF to be nominated for Nobel Peace Prize (Image: Lucy North/PA Wire)
MICHAEL Gove has called for the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
In a column for the Jewish Chronicle, the former Tory MP and minister said “maybe it’s time” for US president Joe Biden and his Foreign Secretary Antony Blinken to “make amends” with Benjamin Netanyahu before they leave office.
The BBC host and editor of The Spectator wrote: “Words are all very well, but what about something more tangible? Why not nominate the men and women of the IDF for the Nobel Peace Prize?”
JEREMY CORBYN has demanded ministers come clean about the RAF’s use of Cyprus bases to aid Israel.
The former Labour leader, now an independent MP, has written to the Foreign Office urging it to tell the truth about RAF Akrotiri’s role in the continuing genocide in Gaza.
He asked it to confirm if the base in Cyprus was being used to ship weapons to Israel and how many US air force flights had been made from it to assist the onslaught against the Palestinians.
“We deserve to know the full scale of our government’s complicity and participation in genocide,” Mr Corbyn said in the letter.
His intervention follows a Christmas visit by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to the base, where he boasted that it was not possible to talk publicly about the vital work being carried out there.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
Newborn, baby and child patients are deprived of necessary treatment due to power crisis and lack of medicines as Israeli forces cutting off electricity, preventing the entry of fuel and various supplies disrupted the functioning of all hospitals in the region, at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, Gaza on July 04, 2024. (Photo: Hani Alshaer/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“It’s an impossible situation, because even if we prioritize the little fuel that is left to the most urgent departments, we know that they won’t last more than 36 to 48 hours,” said Julie Faucon, MSF medical team leader in Gaza.
The international humanitarian group Médecins Sans Frontières, also kno wn as Doctors Without Borders or MSF, warned in a Wednesday statement that newborn babies and other patients are at dire risk as southern Gaza’s Nasser Hospital runs out of fuel.
The group warned that electricity for the MSF-supported Nasser Hospital, where MSF members are providing emergency, maternity, pediatric, burn, and trauma care, may be cut off for some hospital departments leaving patients without “lifesaving care.” The hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit is currently treating children and newborns who are reliant on mechanical ventilation and incubators. All of these young patients are dependent on electricity from fuel generators, MSF wrote.
Nasser Hospital, as well as two other facilities in the Gaza Strip, Al-Aqsa Hospital and European Gaza Hospital, are nearing the need to close due to lack of fuel, the group reported Wednesday.
“It’s an impossible situation, because even if we prioritize the little fuel that is left to the most urgent departments, we know that they won’t last more than 36 to 48 hours,” said Julie Faucon, MSF medical team leader in Gaza, according to the statement. “While some patients are hanging on by a thread, the lack of sustained electricity is impacting the level of care we can provide to those with burns and trauma.”
Pascale Coissard, MSF emergency coordinator, said that the situation is “a consequence of Israel’s ongoing blockade and continuous criminal looting of lifesaving supplies.”
In mid-July, the United Nations reported that “Israeli authorities continue to tightly control allocations of incoming fuel, thereby limiting humanitarian operations, especially by local partners,” and just last week the body noted that only 16 of the region’s 36 hospitals remained partially in operation.
Pointing to lack of medical supplies, equipment, and personnel, Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization representative for the West Bank and Gaza, told a recent U.N. Security Council meeting that “the health sector is being systematically dismantled.”
Attacks by the Israeli military have left northern Gaza’s three hospitals—the Kamal Adwan Hospital, al-Awda Hospital, and the Indonesian Hospital—either entirely out of service or barely functioning.
Hussam Abu Safia, the head of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, was detained by Israeli forces during their raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital in late December.
Human rights defenders and the medical community have called for his release, it’s believed that he is being held in an Israeli detention center, though the Israeli officials had given news media and human rights groups conflicting messages about his whereabouts.
The New York Times headquarters in New York, US, on 4 February, 2024 [Shelby Knowles/Bloomberg via Getty Images]
A prominent American Quaker organisation has cancelled its advertising with the New York Times (NYT) after the newspaper refused to allow an advertisement referring to Israel’s aggression in Gaza as genocide.
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a century-old peace and justice organisation, had proposed an advertisement reading: “Tell Congress to stop arming Israel’s genocide in Gaza now! As a Quaker organization, we work for peace. Join us. Tell the President and Congress to stop the killing and starvation in Gaza.”
Commenting on the newspaper’s decision not to run the advertisement, AFSC General Secretary Joyce Ajlouny said: “The refusal of The New York Times to run paid digital ads that call for an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza is an outrageous attempt to sidestep the truth. Palestinians and allies have been silenced and marginalised in the media for decades as these institutions choose silence over accountability. It is only by challenging this reality that we can hope to forge a path toward a more just and equitable world.”
US media reported that the NYT’s advertising team suggested AFSC replace the word “genocide” with “war” – a term with fundamentally different implications both colloquially and under international law. When AFSC rejected this proposal, the Times’ Ad Acceptability Team responded that “various international bodies, human rights organisations, and governments have differing views on the situation,” citing a need for “factual accuracy and adherence to legal standards.”
Ajlouny highlighted the organisation’s direct experience of the situation: “Our courageous staff members in Gaza witness daily horrors and continue to provide vital support despite Israel’s relentless attacks on their homes and families. Our ad campaign aims to shed light on these atrocities while urging people in the U.S. to pressure the President and Congress to halt weapons shipments to Israel and advocate for an end to the genocide.”
AFSC, which has operated in Gaza since 1948, currently maintains staff in the besieged Strip, Israeli occupied Ramallah and Jerusalem. Since October 2023, their Gaza team has distributed 1.5 million meals, hygiene kits and other humanitarian aid to displaced people.
The controversy comes after the International Court of Justice’s provisional ruling in January 2024 that Israel’s actions in Gaza were “plausibly genocidal” in the case brought by South Africa, now supported by 14 countries. Notably, the Washington Post has run advertisements from Amnesty International using genocide terminology.
“The suggestion that the New York Times couldn’t run an ad against Israel’s genocide in Gaza because there are ‘differing views’ is absurd,” said Layne Mullett, AFSC’s director of media relations. “The New York Times advertises a wide variety of products and advocacy messages on which there are differing views. Why is it not acceptable to publicise the meticulously documented atrocities committed by Israel and paid for by the United States?”
There is growing consensus among major human rights organisations, legal scholars and international experts that Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza amounts to genocide. This includes assessments from prominent organisations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Centre for Constitutional Rights, and the University Network for Human Rights, along with numerous Palestinian human rights groups and genocide scholars. Many of these organisations are regularly cited as authoritative sources in the New York Times’ own reporting on other matters.
The UK’s Guardian newspaper pointed out that the NYT has previously run advertisements using the term genocide. In 2016, it published an ad from the Armenian Educational Foundation thanking Kim Kardashian for opposing denial of the Armenian genocide. In 2008, presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain co-signed a letter advertisement in the New York Times calling out the genocide in Sudan’s Darfur.
It also highlighted that the Times’ advertising guidelines state that its “advertising space is open to all points of view” and that submissions may be subjected to factchecking. It reserves the right to reject an ad if it is found to be deceptive or inaccurate.
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Susan Moffat, a British musician and theatre artist [Susan Moffat/linkedin]
British musician and theatre artist Susan Moffat has declined an OBE in this year’s Honours List, citing Britain’s colonial legacy and its response to what she describes as the “horrific war” being waged against Palestinians in Gaza.
Moffat, who was nominated for her services to the British community, penned a powerful letter explaining her decision, drawing parallels between her work with Bosnian genocide survivors and the current situation in Gaza.
“I remember screaming at the television during the Bosnian genocide, asking why nobody was stopping it. Now I find myself asking the same question about Gaza,” Moffat told MEMO.
Our leaders have placed value on one set of lives over another, while nations play games with which people get to live and which don’t.
Moffat, who has worked extensively with survivors of the Srebrenica genocide, drew powerful parallels between past and present atrocities. The artist cited the message from the Mothers of Srebrenica: “We must not remain silent, nor stand on the side. We must raise our voice, we must act for all those whose voice cannot be heard but who suffer injustice, especially if those are children, women, civilians.”
In her letter declining the OBE, Moffat addressed the ongoing impact of colonialism and its modern manifestations, particularly in Palestine. “Without acknowledging this legacy, would for me, feel discordant with the work I strive to do,” she wrote, questioning the appropriateness of accepting an honour tied to Britain’s imperial past while similar injustices continue.
Moffat also reflected on the broader implications of colonialism and its enduring impact: “The devastation wrought by empire is not a distant historical footnote but a profound reality that continues to shape our world. The structures of colonialism, its extraction of wealth, and the human suffering it inflicted have left enduring scars. Communities in the Global South are still recovering from the looting of resources and the imposition of arbitrary borders that fuel conflicts today.”
The artist went on to stress that “to accept an honour tied to the ‘Order of the British Empire’ without acknowledging this legacy, would for me, feel discordant with the work I strive to do.” Moffat explained that her decision is a response to the broader cultural context. “Conversations about history, accountability, and justice are often reduced to soundbites about so-called ‘cancel culture’,” Moffat said. “In truth, what is often dismissed as cancel culture is a growing demand for a more honest reckoning with our past,” Moffat went on to warn that the far-right seeks to “sanitise history” and “do a disservice to the potential for growth and reconciliation.”
Speaking to MEMO, Moffat emphasised the role of artists and musicians in combating injustice. “For our kids to understand their true legacy, both good and bad, we must be honest about our past and present actions,” Moffat explained.
When discussing what might have influenced her decision differently, Moffat outlined specific actions the UK government could have taken regarding Gaza, where more than 46,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed. “We should have upheld international law and stopped the bombing of schools and hospitals. We should have ended the blockade and used our diplomatic leverage to ensure Israeli forces didn’t target civilians. We should have issued a stronger condemnation of illegal settlements and taken a more decisive stance against the targeting of civilian infrastructure and demonstrated that we as a nation truly stand against injustice.”
Moffat went on to add that “the British government has failed to play its moral role,” stressing: “If our nation had shown the courage to prioritise humanitarian concerns over political expediency, to stand firmly against civilian casualties, and to be a genuine voice for peace and justice – that would have given me reason to reconsider accepting this honour.”
Reflecting on the ongoing devastation, Moffat emphasised the urgency of immediate action: “We keep saying ceasefire now and all wars end, so let’s put the end at the beginning. Why wait for more suffering when we know peace negotiations are inevitable?”
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Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
