Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Sir Keir Stammer, December 27, 2023
2024 is almost certainly a general election year. Westminster rumours of a May poll are rife, but the autumn remains the more likely option for beleaguered premier Rishi Sunak.
An essential function of a democratic election is to offer the possibility of a change of government. The forthcoming contest, however, seems to offer little more than a shift in administrators of the same anti-popular policy.
The problem facing voters wanting significant change — the majority of the electorate one can assume — is the state of the Labour Party. On the most pressing international issues — Palestine and Ukraine — its policy is identical with the Tories: war and more war, as Washington directs.
Domestically its priority is sticking within the narrow parameters of Treasury orthodoxy. Anything involving spending public money is, even after 13 years of austerity, ruled out. So too tax rises on the rich.
The Green New Deal is diluted further by the day, and privatisation looks like extending its tentacles into the NHS.
Even more positive Labour policies, like extending trade union rights, are clouded by a scepticism as to Keir Starmer’s sincerity, given his well-earned reputation for dissimulation and double-dealing.
Smoke rises as Israeli artillery units and howitzers stationed in the military zone launch attacks near the Gaza border in Nahal Oz, Israel on December 10, 2023. (Photo: Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“As global resistance to war and apartheid grows, it is important that the public know exactly who is making this violence possible.”
As of Wednesday, a U.S.-based Quaker group’s online database listed over two dozen companies profiting from the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli forces have spent the last 10 weeks waging what experts call a “genocidal” war that sent defense stocks soaring.
Backed by $3.8 billion in annual military aid from the United States, Israel declared war on October 7 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack that killed over 1,100 people. Since then, Israeli forces have killed over 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza—sparking massive protests demanding a cease-fire around the world, including many led by Jewish people.
“War and attacks on civilians will never bring safety or peace to Israelis or Palestinians.”
The growing death toll, displacement, destruction of civilian infrastructure, and difficulties in delivering humanitarian aid to the besieged enclave have also increased scrutiny of a $14.3 billion package for the war that the Biden administration requested from Congress as well as criticism of the U.S. weapon-makers and billionaire donors who are arming and enabling the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“The scale of destruction and war crimes in Gaza would not be possible without massive weapon transfers from the U.S.,” said Noam Perry of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the group behind the tool, in a statement Wednesday. “As global resistance to war and apartheid grows, it is important that the public know exactly who is making this violence possible.”
As the AFSC webpage details:
Shortly after October 7, the U.S. government started transferring to Israel massive amounts of weapons. Among these weapons, Israel received more than 15,000 bombs and 50,000 artillery shells within just the first month-and-a-half. These transfers have been deliberately shrouded in secrecy to avoid public scrutiny and prevent Congress from exercising any meaningful oversight.
Some of these weapons were purchased using U.S. taxpayers’ money through the Foreign Military Sales program; some were direct commercial sales purchased through Israel’s own budget; and some were replenished U.S. military stockpiles in Israel, which the Israeli military may also use. A list of known U.S. arms transfers is maintained by the Forum on the Arms Trade.
The webpage notes that the list is based on reporting, social media, and other open sources, and “focuses on weapons used by Israel because all Palestinian militant groups are already sanctioned and receive no support from Western governments or corporations.”
For example, Boeing, the world’s fifth-largest weapon manufacturer, makes F-15 fighter jets and Apache AH-64 attack helicopters used by the Israeli forces, as well as “multiple types of unguided small diameter bombs (SDBs) and Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits” that have been used “extensively” during the war, including in a bombing of Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp.
After decades of Israeli occupation forces using Caterpillar’s armored D9 bulldozers to “demolish Palestinian homes and civilian infrastructure in the occupied West Bank and to enforce the blockade of the Gaza Strip,” the machines “have been crucial in the Israeli military’s ground invasion” of the enclave, according to AFSC.
Israeli forces are invading the Nour Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem, bringing a bulldozer to destroy infrastructure belonging to the refugees there. This is on the same day that Israeli forces bulldozed and murdered displaced people and their tents in Kamal Adwan hospital, Gaza. pic.twitter.com/CH3gdoe1Zd
While both of those war profiteers are based in the United States, the list isn’t limited to U.S. firms, also calling out the world’s seventh-largest weapon manufacturer, the U.K.’s BAE Systems, and Israel’s largest weapon manufacturer, Elbit Systems, “one of the primary suppliers of weapons and surveillance systems to the Israeli military.”
Other companies on the list include weapons giants such as General Dynamics, General Electric, L3Harris Technologies, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and RTX—formerly Raytheon—as well as vehicle companies AM General, Ford, Oshkosh, Toyota, and drone manufacturers AeroVironment, Skydio, and XTEND.
The list also targets U.S.-based Colt’s Manufacturing Company, which makes firearms including the M16, and Emtan Karmiel, an Israeli firm that “delivered some 12,000 rifles” to the country’s forces within a week of October 7. It also includes Israel Aerospace Industries, a state-owned manufacturer that “makes multiple weapons systems specifically for the Israeli military.”
Other Israeli firms listed include Plasan, which makes the SandCat light armored vehicle, and MDT Armor, which is owned by the Israeli company Shladot and makes the David Urban Light Armored Vehicle used by the military for patrols and reconnaissance.
The other foreign firms on the list are ThyssenKrupp, the German company that built four warships for Israel, and Nordic Ammunition Company, which makes the M141 Bunker Defeat Munition, a shoulder-fired “bunker-buster” rocket.
“As a Quaker organization with a long history of work in Palestine and Israel, including in Gaza, we support a full arms embargo to both Israeli and Palestinian militant groups,” Perry stressed Wednesday. “War and attacks on civilians will never bring safety or peace to Israelis or Palestinians. We need a permanent cease-fire and to work toward a just and lasting peace in the region.”
Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Israel continued to battle Hamas fighters on October 10 and massed tens of thousands of troops and heavy armour around the Gaza Strip after vowing a massive blow over the Palestinian militants’ surprise attack. Photo by Naaman Omar apaimages. licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
It has been 15 days since Israeli Occupation Forces started their continuous bombings of Gaza following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, threatening a complete genocide of Palestinians living there
In what has been described as the most intensive bombing of the besieged Palestinian territory since October 7, at least 400 more people were killed in Israel’s indiscriminate strikes in Gaza strip on Sunday October 22.
Israel bombings inside Gaza continued on Monday as well with over 60 people killed in overnight attacks alone.
The Israeli military claimed on Monday that it bombed over 300 targets in Gaza on Sunday. Their aircrafts continued to target residential areas in Khan Younis, Al-Fallujah, and other localities killing civilians including children, on the 15th day since the Palestinian resistance movements launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
Israeli warplanes targeted densely populated Jabalia refugee camp where at least 30 people were killed, as well as other localities close to the Al-Shifa and Al-Quds hospitals.
Footage released by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) on Monday clearly shows Israeli bombing in the vicinity of the Al-Quds hospital.
October 22nd- a video showing Israeli airstrikes in the vicinity of Al_Quds hospital while a delegation from the ICRC was visiting. These bombardments caused fear and panic among internally displaced civilians and the medical staff at the hospital. #Gaza#NotATargetpic.twitter.com/AN6xu6YzMX
These hospitals are overcrowded with wounded and in danger of being bombed like Al-Ahli Arab hospital last week. Close to 500 Palestinians were killed when Israel bombed it on October 17.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health more than 5,000 Gazans have been killed in the Israeli bombings so far, of those over 2,000 were children. More than 15,000 people have been wounded in these attacks and over a million have been displaced.
Israel has also killed over 95 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and wounded over 1,600 of them in the last 15 days. Israeli occupation forces arrested hundreds of Palestinians in different raids in the occupied West Bank on Sunday as well.
The Israeli blockade on food, fuel and medicine supplies to Gaza continued on its 15th day and despite the small number of humanitarian aid trucks reaching the territory through Egypt’s Rafah border since Saturday there is an urgent need for the full resumption of the free transit of these supplies.
Lack of fuel and medical supplies have made around 10 hospitals in Gaza go out of service, increasing pressures on the remaining hospitals and endangering hundreds of lives including newborn babies.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) warned on Monday that, “in three days UNRWA will run out of fuel, critical for our humanitarian response across the Gaza strip.”
Lazzarini stated that without fuel it will be difficult to run the hospitals and supply basic amenities including food to the affected people. UNRWA runs several hospitals and also shelters over 500,000 Palestinians displaced due to Israeli bombings in Gaza.
51 health workers have also been killed in airstrikes since October 7 and over 87 others have been injured.
Meanwhile, China’s special envoy to the Middle East, who is currently touring the region, said on Monday that his country is willing to do whatever it takes to start a dialogue to explore an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. He stated that the situation in Gaza is very serious and if no steps were taken to achieve a ceasefire now there is a possibility of a region-wide escalation.
In the meanwhile, Israel is already bombing Lebanon targeting Hezbollah, which has supported the actions of the Palestinian resistance during Al-Aqsa Flood and targeted positions of the Israeli army near the Lebanese border.
Residents seek safety amid destroyed buildings and debris around the Palestinian Telecommunications Company in the Gaza Strip on October 10, 2023. (Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“The ongoing and imminent Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip are being conducted with potentially genocidal intent.”
More than 800 scholars of international law and genocide have signed a public statement arguing that the Israeli military may be committing genocidal acts against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as the total siege and relentless airstrikes continue to inflict devastation on the occupied territory.
“As scholars and practitioners of international law, conflict studies, and genocide studies, we are compelled to sound the alarm about the possibility of the crime of genocide being perpetrated by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” reads the statement. “We do not do so lightly, recognizing the weight of this crime, but the gravity of the current situation demands it.”
The scholars noted that Israel’s yearslong blockade on Gaza—which has left much of the territory’s population impoverished and without access to basic necessities—had previously been described as “slow-motion genocide” and cited a United Nations warning about Israelis’ use of dehumanizing language, which is often a prelude to mass atrocities.
But the new statement contends that Israel’s current assault on Gaza, launched in the wake of a deadly Hamas attack on October 7, is “unprecedented in scale and severity.”
“The Gaza Strip has been subjected to incessant and indiscriminate bombardment by Israeli forces,” the scholars wrote. “Israel’s defense minister ordered a ‘complete siege’ of the Gaza Strip prohibiting the supply of fuel, electricity, water, and other essential necessities. This terminology itself indicates an intensification of an already illegal, potentially genocidal siege to an outright destructive assault.”
The scholars also pointed to Israel’s evacuation order aimed at the entire population of northern Gaza—roughly 1.1 million people—and subsequent Israeli attacks on civilian convoys fleeing to the south.
“Statements of Israeli officials since 7 October 2023 suggest that beyond the killings and restriction of basic conditions for life perpetrated against Palestinians in Gaza, there are also indications that the ongoing and imminent Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip are being conducted with potentially genocidal intent,” the scholars wrote.
They continued:
Language used by Israeli political and military figures appears to reproduce rhetoric and tropes associated with genocide and incitement to genocide. Dehumanising descriptions of Palestinians have been prevalent. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared on 9 October that “we are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.” He subsequently announced that Israel was moving to “a full-scale response” and that he had “removed every restriction” on Israeli forces, as well as stating: “Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything.”
On 10 October, the head of the Israeli army’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, addressed a message directly to Gaza residents: “Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water, there will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell.” The same day, Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari acknowledged the wanton and intentionally destructive nature of Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza: “The emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.”
Under international law, a party is guilty of genocide if it kills or severely harms members of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group with the “intent to destroy” that group.
Raz Segal—an Israeli historian, associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University, and signatory of the new statement—argued in Jewish Currents last week that Israel’s actions in Gaza since October 7 constitute “a textbook case of genocide.”
“Indeed, Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza is quite explicit, open, and unashamed,” Segal wrote. “Israel’s goal is to destroy the Palestinians of Gaza. And those of us watching around the world are derelict in our responsibility to prevent them from doing so.”
Israeli historian and genocide scholar Raz Segal says Israeli leaders' dehumanizing language about Palestinians in Gaza and the IDF's conduct are cause for alarm. "We're seeing the combination of genocidal acts with special intent. This is indeed a textbook case of genocide." pic.twitter.com/y9PaaViaHn
Segal and the 800 other statement signatories implored nations around the world to swiftly “take concrete and meaningful steps to individually and collectively prevent genocidal acts, in line with their legal duty to prevent the crime of genocide.”
“We call on all relevant U.N. bodies, including the Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, as well as the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to immediately intervene, to carry out the necessary investigations, and invoke the necessary warning procedures to protect the Palestinian population from genocide,” they added.
Jewish Americans and allies are lined up after being arrested during an October 18, 2023 protest calling for a cease-fire in Gaza at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Ariel Gold/X)
“Cease-fire is the first step to stop the ongoing genocide by the Israeli military of the over 2 million Palestinians in besieged Gaza,” asserted Jewish Voice for Peace.
Hundreds of Jewish Americans and allies were arrested at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday during a protest demanding members of Congress push Israel for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, where nearly 3,500 Palestinians have been killed over 12 days of relentless Israeli bombardment.
Thousands of protesters led by members of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), IfNotNow, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), and other groups rallied on the Capitol grounds and inside the building, where hundreds of people took part in a sit-in.
Their chanted slogans—including “not in our name” and “cease-fire now”—resounded thunderously under the Capitol Rotunda, while at other times they clapped their hands and sang with solemn determination in Hebrew.
“We’re here to say: not in our names, and never again,” JVP declared. “And we’ll continue our civil disobedience until Congress calls for a cease-fire in Gaza, or until they force us to leave.”
Thank you to our Jewish allies from across the country who joined in solidarity to call for a #CeasefireNOW.
“Cease-fire is the first step to stop the ongoing genocide by the Israeli military of the over 2 million Palestinians in besieged Gaza, unable to leave,” the group continued. “In the past week, over 3,000 Palestinians, including 1,000 children, were murdered by Israeli and U.S. bombs. Over 1 million people are displaced. We have the power to stop this violence.”
“What we know from past Israeli state atrocities against Palestinians is that the bombs only stop once there is a sufficient mass outcry from the international community,” JVP added. “It’s on us to build that outcry—as fast as we possibly can.”
Speaking outside the Capitol, U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.)—the only Palestinian American in Congress—said that “the majority of Americans are literally against oppression.”
“They are,” she insisted. “They are against occupation. They are against human rights violations. If you just tell them the truth, they will be on our side. So we have to speak the truth.”
BREAKING: One of the most powerful speeches ever heard on the Washington Mall by @RashidaTlaib warning President Biden and Democrats about their rejection of Palestinian lives and calling for a ceasefire with @jvplive and @IfNotNowOrg. pic.twitter.com/IjePzvNTur
Tlaib had a message for President Joe Biden, who has declared his “rock-solid and unwavering support” for Israel, which he visited Wednesday and receives nearly $4 billion in annual U.S. military aid.
“I want him to know, as a Palestinian American and also as someone of the Muslim faith: I’m not gonna forget this,” she vowed. “And I think a lot of people are not gonna forget this.”
At the UN, the US objected to a resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. Think about that.
Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), who led a resolution with Tlaib and 14 progressive co-sponsors calling on Biden to push for a cease-fire, also spoke at the rally.
“We thank our Jewish community for being out here saying ‘Never Again’,” she said.
Author and activist Naomi Kleintold the demonstrators that “it’s crucial that we become huge, become unignorable, and throw all our support behind this brave legislation.”
JVP, IfNotNow, and peace activist Ariel Gold—who was at the event—said hundreds of protesters were arrested.
Hundreds of American Jews and allies are being arrested at Congress while demanding a ceasefire and end to the genocide in Gaza. @jvplivepic.twitter.com/3bZUAuwNSg
Wednesday’s protest and arrests followed a string of Jewish-led peace demonstrations across the nation, including two major rallies in Washington, D.C. IfNotNow’s website lists many events planned in cities around the country in the coming days.
“The Israeli military is preparing for a massive ground invasion of Gaza. Israeli and American leaders are dehumanizing Palestinians with vitriolic rhetoric that calls to mind the most hysterical days of… [the] War on Terror,” JVP said Wednesday. “We know where this will lead: genocide.”
For 75 years, the Israeli government has illegally occupied Palestinian land and ethnically cleansed their communities.
Now, Gaza is facing genocide with full support from the U.S. and we're here as Jews to refuse complicity and say never again, for anyone. pic.twitter.com/i7kpr4L0ek
“Many of us are mourning our Israeli and Palestinian friends and loved ones,” the group continued. “We are in pain and grief, trying to process a week of horrific violence that has left so many that we know injured, traumatized, kidnapped, or killed.”
“But we refuse to let our grief be weaponized to justify the murder of more Palestinians,” JVP added. “As American Jews, we demand a cease-fire now. No genocide in our name.”
