The horrific pictures of starvation and despair now coming out of Gaza are creating even greater waves of sympathy for those suffering, and among workers and youth around the world there is growing anger and hatred towards the Israeli government. It is hard to look at the pictures coming out of Gaza. So much so, that they are beginning to cause disquiet even among erstwhile supporters of Israel.
Over a hundred different international aid organisations and rights groups, including MSF and Oxfam, warned yesterday, that the world was watching as “mass starvation spreads across Gaza”.
Government leaders in Britain have – we would say, at long last, and only after well over 60,000 deaths (the ‘official’ figures are an underestimate) and the obliteration of Gaza – expressed some muted criticism of Israel’s policies. They have called for an end the Israeli blockade of humanitarian aid.
The war in Gaza has been over for weeks – if such an utterly one-sided conflict could be called a ‘war’ – and what we have now is the slow and deliberate starvation of hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians. That is not to say that they are safe from bullets and bombs. On the contrary, Palestinians in Gaza are still liable to be killed for queueing in the wrong place or at the wrong time.
Israel is still bombing at will, killing dozens a day and not Hamas fighters, but aid administrators, medical staff and journalists as well as random women and children. Yesterday’s Haaretz reported that 113 Palestinians were killed in the last 24 hours.
Now, after Israel has been exposed by the International Court of Justice and other global legal and humanitarian bodies, but, above all, after the evidence is emerging of starvation in Gaza, that Labour ministers are wringing their hands in pretended concern for the welfare of Palestinians’
No words for the depth of hypocrisy
There is no word strong enough in the English language for the depths of hypocrisy to which British and western politicians have stooped over the suffering in Gaza. Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, has criticised Israeli actions for undermining a “two-state” solution, knowing full well that Israel has been undermining a two-state solution, and making the lives of Palestinian worse year on year, for decades. Yet British policy – and his policy – has still been to support Israel. The current Israeli plan for Gaza is part of a worked-out project of ethnic cleansing, conceived long ago, and also currently ramping up in the West Bank.
Does David Lammy’s concern for Palestine extend to stopping trade and arms sales to Israel? No. Does British government concern extend to ending overflights by the RAF and putting RAF Akrotiri at the disposal of the Israeli airforce? No. Does British government concern extend to stopping the training of IDF soldier on UK army bases? No.
By actively supporting the Israeli economy and its military for the past year since it was elected, this so-called ‘Labour’ government is complicit in the genocide and in the war crimes that have been perpetrated in Gaza. No amount of weasel words about humanitarian aid can change that now.
Even today, ‘Labour’ ministers cannot bring themselves to utter the words used by every humanitarian and aid organisation with any knowledge of Gaza: “genocide”, “war crimes” and “ethnic-cleansing”. They are so desperate to stifle attention being given to Gaza that they banned Palestine Action as a ‘terrorist’ group, and are now having to arrest pensioners who object to the banning. People like David Lammy and Keir Starmer are a disgrace and not fit to be Labour representatives.
“Almost half of Labour MPs are members of Labour Friends of Israel”
Some years ago, Al Jazeera broadcast a series of exposés of the baleful influence of the Israeli state in British politics and specifically in the Labour Party. That influence is still powerful today and it is what has led the right wing of the party to stand as loyal defenders of Israel, and to stand aside as a genocide takes place.
A Facebook post by the Daily Politik in May of last year suggested that many Labour MPs are members of Labour friends of Israel and this included most of Starmer’s then front bench…”. Given that this was based on a much smaller Parliamentary Labour Party, the influence of LFI today is likely to be a lot higher, especially given that so many Labour candidates were not selected by local members, but parachuted in by a small cabal of right-wing Labour officials.
The register of MPs interests shows that the Labour Friends of Israel has supported overseas visits to Israel and Palestine (and sometimes elsewhere, like to the USA) for twenty Labour MPs in the recent past. One has had four paid trips, and for all twenty MPs, their expenses were paid and recorded in the register. The total for these (not counting the many more visits over previous years), comes to around £45,000.
Directly or indirectly from the Israeli government
Where does this money come from? Labour Friends of Israel does not disclose where it gets its funds. Labour members will be left with the inevitable conclusion that the money comes directly or indirectly from the Israeli government.
As well as LFI, the website of Declassified UK lists dozens of MPs supported financially by individuals who just happen to be supporters of Israel. Such support is quite common. David Lammy, for example, has had donations from many individuals for his private office – not for the Labour Party, we should emphasise, but for Lammy’s private office. He has had donations, including over £67,000 from the right-wing (and also secretly-funded) group ‘Labour Together’, amounting to £180,000.
Does David Lammy reveal to the voters of Tottenham why he gets all this cash for his private office from private individuals? Probably not, so inevitably those few voters who are aware of them will wonder If there a quid pro quo for the financial support.
One of the very prominent ‘private individuals’ giving money to right-wing Labour MPs is Sir Trevor Chinn. He dishes out tens of thousands of pounds, in varying amounts to right-wing Labour MPs and, surprise, surprise, he is a staunch supporter of Israel. The total of his donations in the current register of MPs interests comes to over £180,000.
Labour ‘private’ donor has access to Foreign Office officials
Is Trevor Chinn, therefore, merely a philanthropist? We think not. An article in The National newspaper reported that Chinn has access to top Foreign Office officials, to discuss, among other things, arms sales to Israel. Last September, an announcement was made in the Commons that the UK was reviewing a few items licensed to be exported to Israel, on the grounds of International Humanitarian Law.
The National, basing itself of Freedom of Information data, reported that Trevor Chinn’s conversation with Foreign Office officials “focused on ‘the 2 September IHL decision’, referring to Labour’s decision on that date to suspend some arms sales”, adding that, “a significant carve out was given in the form of an exemption for parts of F-35 bomber planes, which have been instrumental in Israel’s devastation of Palestine.”
Chinn, The National continued, “offered ‘recommendations’ on the issue of weapon sales, while the Foreign Office official asked whether other British diplomats might also try ‘reaching out’ to him and ‘hearing’ his views”.
The Labour leadership have moved Heaven and Earth in the past year to limit, stop or deny criticism of Israel. They have been assisted by a craven BBC, with pro-Israel lobbyists high up in its management, and most of the mainstream media. While a genocide was gathering pace in Gaza, over many, many months, what we got from them was a deafening silence and the mantra that Israel “has a right to self-defence”.
Ground is beginning to shift
The policy of deliberate starvation is now a global story, across all social media and news organisations. Incredibly, some pro-Israeli spokesperson still claim there is no food shortage in Gaza. The problem, they claim, is that Hamas is hoarding food to create a crisis. No-one believes this. Not the UN, not aid agencies, and not even a growing number of people in Israel.
The ground is beginning to shift under the leadership of the Labour Party. At some point, although we cannot say when or how, Starmer will be ditched and there will be a resurgence of the left in the labour movement. It is too late for the tens of thousands of Gazans who have lost their lives and perhaps thousands more who will die from malnutrition or associated illnesses, but there will be a reckoning.
Today the former Labour leader, Tony Blair, has a toxic reputation for tail-ending George Bush in a criminal attack on Iraq in 2003. He lied to the House of Commons about “weapons of mass destruction” to justify an unnecessary war. But the contempt and opprobrium heaped on Blair – all of it deserved – is nothing to the reckoning that will come for Keir Starmer and David Lammy over Gaza.
[All photographs here were sent directely from Gaza to Mohammed Ajaz, who forwarded them to Left Horizons. See letter here]
