‘What will it take for him to back a permanent, bilateral ceasefire?’
Rishi Sunak faced MPs in parliament today at the latest Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs). He fielded questions from the Labour leader Keir Starmer on the Rwanda scheme and the SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn on the cost of living crisis.
But one of the most dramatic moments in the exchanges came as a result of a question from Green Party MP Caroline Lucas. She asked Sunak “what will it take for him to back a permanent, bilateral ceasefire?”
Speaking in the House of Commons, Lucas said: “Until the UK government calls for an immediate ceasefire, it is complicit in Gaza. Not my words, but those of the head of Oxfam, who like every single agency trying to operate on the ground is clear: that aid can’t be effectively delivered while fighting continues. More UK aid is, of course, welcome, but even when it does get through, it can result in what one Palestinian aid worker calls ‘bombing us on full stomachs’.
“24,000 people have already been killed. So can he tell us what will it take for him to back a permanent, bilateral ceasefire?”
Hundreds of thousands marched in Washington, DC to demand an immediate ceasefire and protest Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza
Hundreds of thousands marched in Washington DC to protest Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. Photo: Adrian Antonioli / ANSWER Coalition
On January 13, a crowd of 400,000 gathered in Washington, DC’s Freedom Plaza to take the Palestine solidarity movement straight to Biden’s doorstep. Hundreds of thousands then marched, holding Palestinian, Yemeni, South African, and Puerto Rican flags, through DC and straight to the gates of the White House.
The mobilization was organized by the American Muslim Task Force on Palestine, which includes American Muslims for Palestine, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Islamic Circle of North America, Muslim American Society, Muslim Student Association-National, Muslim Legal Fund of America, Muslim Ummah of North America, and Young Muslims, and the ANSWER Coalition.
Frustrated with Biden’s support and bankrolling of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, protesters surrounded the President’s residence and chanted “Hands off Yemen!” and “Yemen, Yemen, make us proud, turn this invasion around!” in reference to the US-UK bombing campaign against Yemen in response to the country’s blockade of Israel-bound ships. Protesters also left bloody baby dolls at the gates of the White House to condemn the genocide in Gaza and the over 10,000 children that have been killed to date. As the crowd demonstrated, several snipers were seen on the roof of the White House.
The hundreds of thousands who showed up in DC were joined by millions across the world who participated in a global day of action in solidarity with Palestine to mark nearly 100 days of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Rallies, strikes, and mass mobilizations were held in major cities of South Africa, Japan, Turkey, the UK, South Korea, Indonesia, Ireland, New Zealand, Ivory Coast, Sweden, Italy, Germany, Austria, Australia, Finland, as well as throughout the United States. Thousands shut down the Port of Oakland in California at 5 am on Saturday morning.
Before marching, the crowd of hundreds of thousands in Freedom Plaza heard from a diverse array of speakers from the US Muslim community and anti-imperialist organizations. “So long as the genocide in Gaza is being funded by this administration,” said Ismahan Abdullahi of the Muslim American Society, “we will not relent in our efforts to demand justice and the liberation of the Palestinian people.”
“Just as South Africa courageously rose to rightfully charge Israel with genocide, we the people of the United States of America will rise and continue these efforts,” she continued.
“You Genocide Joe, you Blinken the butcher, and your Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. You will be haunted by the screams of the children in Gaza,” said Taher Herzallah of American Muslims for Palestine, who, like many other speakers, placed the blame for the ongoing Gaza genocide directly onto the United States government. “You will be haunted by the prayers, the agonizing prayers of the elderly and the women of Gaza. And we, this new generation, will be the answer to their prayers.”
Protesters demanded an end to all US funding of Israel. Photo: Wyatt Souers / ANSWER Coalition
2024 is an election year, and Biden, who is running for reelection, has been hounded by Pro-Palestine demonstrators at several campaign events already. Mainstream media outlets openly worry about Biden’s chances in 2024, with the aging President losing key demographics of Democratic Party support such as young people and Arab-Americans.
“Instead of focusing on the American people, our tax money is being used to spread hatred, to spread warfare, to support criminal activity, frankly speaking, to support a genocide,” Mohamed Sabri, who traveled from Chicago to attend the march in DC, told Peoples Dispatch about why he will not be voting for Biden.
As a result of Biden’s unpopularity, third party candidates running for president in 2024 have gained new prominence. Both Jill Stein and Cornel West, running platforms to the left of the ruling Democratic Party, spoke at the March for Gaza.
Peoples Dispatch spoke to presidential and vice presidential candidates Claudia De La Cruz and Karina Garcia, who were on the ground, marching among the crowd of hundreds of thousands, and are running jointly on an explicitly socialist platform. “We know it’s significantly important for any presidential candidate running for the 2024 election to prioritize the freedom, liberation of Palestine. Anyone who does not do that is standing in support of genocide,” said De La Cruz, the presidential candidate for the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
“Democratic politicians, they like to pay a lot of lip service during the year, especially around domestic issues, and they never want to talk about imperialism, which is at the center, it’s the core of all of the problems faced by the entire world,” added Garcia.
The PSL presidential ticket of Claudia de la Cruz and Karina Garcia participating in the March for Gaza in Washington DC. Photo: Craig Birchfield / ANSWER Coalition
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.
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.”
