Britain looks on while Israel's amoral thugs wallow in Gaza blood By Stuart Littlewood

Britain looks on while Israel's amoral thugs wallow in Gaza blood

By Stuart Littlewood

Redress, March 8, 2008

Stuart Littlewood shows how Israel’s stooges in Britain’s Parliament and at the core of the British government are disseminating disinformation in order to provide false excuses for Israeli crimes in the Palestinian territories and to influence UK policy in the interest of Israel.

The Israel lobby is now deeply embedded at the heart of British politics. Israel’s stooges keep up an endless flow of misinformation calculated to corrupt Parliament, blind MPs to the truth and bend decisions to suit the foreign regime’s interests.

We saw it in the run-up to the Iraq war. The public were well aware of the lies but politicians in their hundreds let themselves be persuaded to vote for an illegal, unjustifiable military adventure that was bound to cost countless thousands of innocent lives and ruin our reputation abroad.

The other day there was a House of Commons debate on settlements and closures in Palestine. Here's the kind of nonsense those stooges expect us to swallow.

Mrs Louise Ellman (Labour/Cooperative, Liverpool, Riverside):

Does the Hon. Gentleman recollect that Israelis left all the settlements in Gaza? Indeed, the settlements were demolished and 8,000 settlers were removed, many forcibly, by the Israeli army. However, the consequence was that last year alone 2,000 rockets were fired from Gaza deliberately on civilian targets in Negev.

This idea that Gazans repay the removal of Israeli squatters with rockets is trotted out with monotonous regularity. If Mrs Ellman doesn't know the reasons for the Qassams, any Gazan will be happy to explain.

Mr Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield): "Since 2000, more than 1,000 people in the region have been killed by suicide bombers and other terrorist attacks."

The occupation of Palestine is illegal so only Israelis killed while minding their own business in Israel can be considered terrorist victims. These total 595, according to the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem. Mr Fabricant doesn’t mention that in the same period 4,472 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli state terrorists operating in Palestine. When it comes to kids the Israelis have achieved a kill rate of at least 10 to 1, slaughtering 875 while 80 Israeli children were killed by Palestinians.

In Gaza specifically the Israeli military has killed 800 and wounded over 1,000 Palestinians since Hamas took control of the strip in the summer of 2007, and has imposed a blockade aimed at starving the entire 1.4 million population in the hope of goading them into overthrowing their elected government.

As I write, Israeli air strikes have blasted one baby and nine children into oblivion along with 20 other victims in 34 hours! While struggling to come to terms with this horror, I see news of four children killed playing football. Suicide bombers weren't involved (the explosives being delivered impersonally by high technology) and these appalling casualties weren’t Israeli, I doubt if they’ll be reported in the British or US media.

The very latest figures (from B’Tselem) on Israel’s killing spree in January and February show 146 Palestinians dead – 132 in the Gaza Strip and 14 in the West Bank. At least 42 were non-combatants and 11 were children. On the other side of the score-sheet two Israeli civilians and one soldier were killed.

Mr Fabricant is reported to have said on another occasion that terrorism against Israel and terrorism against Britain “are actually closely interlinked”, and he called for the West to ally itself with Israel in view of the shared ideals of freedom and democracy. What common ground could Britain possibly have with a regime that practices apartheid, confiscates and plunders other people's lands, slaughters children and inflicts slow genocide on defenceless civilians, sends snatch squads to abduct citizens in the dead of night, demolishes homes, tortures and assassinates, uses prohibited weapons in civilian areas (e.g. thermobaric projectiles) and ceaselessly breaches the rules of civilized conduct?

To be allied with such people is hardly in our best interests. And why on earth would a mainly Christian nation wish to cuddle up to a regime that persecutes the Holy Land’s Christian communities?

Mrs Ellman again: "Is not the nub of the Israeli-Palestinian problem that peace has been thwarted by Palestinian terrorists determined to kill as many Israelis as they can, with the deliberate objective of ruining peace initiatives?"

If Mrs Ellman paid attention she'd know that peace is off Israel's agenda until they have grabbed all the land and resources they want and established enough irreversible “facts on the ground” to ensure they keep their ill-gotten gains or can use them as bargaining chips. They are still expanding illegal settlements in defiance of earlier peace initiatives, so clearly aren’t through yet with their criminal activities.

Mr Douglas Carswell (Conservative, Harwich):

Israel is often criticized for its policy on settlements and the closure of territories. It is easy to make those criticisms, but I believe that they are unfair and that the UK government must not join in with them. What else is Israel supposed to do? Her actions are essentially defensive, not aggressive. Israel has dismantled settlements in trying to seek a two-state solution, limited the growth of settlements and removed illegal posts. In Gaza Israel went so far as to remove posts, despite considerable criticism within Israel for doing so, and has been paid for that with numerous rocket attacks.

As for the closure of territories, it is easy to portray the erection of the security barrier as a hostile act ... but again I believe that Israel’s actions are essentially those of a defensive liberal democracy. It built the security barrier to prevent suicide bombings and sniper attacks.

Don’t you know, Mr Carswell, that the route of the Wall encloses strategic water resources and prime agricultural land? Some 875,000 Palestinians are believed to be directly affected, amounting to 38 per cent of the West Bank population. The wall is an evil device for changing the facts on the ground in order to expand Israeli territory and greatly reduce the viability of a future Palestinian state. Many rightly say it is a barrier against peace rather than a barrier against terrorists.

In any event, the International Court of Justice ruled 15 to 1 that the wall is illegal and must come down, and compensation paid to Palestinians whose lands have been confiscated.

Mr Carswell again:

I am not a great fan of that institution. As for the idea that remote international judges should make the decisions for a democracy, I think that it is democratic governments and national judiciaries that should make decisions, and should be accountable to the people. When Hamas abides by all the decisions of international bodies I shall be happy to put pressure on democratic governments to abide by them, but it is slightly unfair to expect one side to conform to international law when another so clearly violates its principles.

Mr Jeremy Corbyn (Labour, Islington North) shot him down in flames:

I am utterly astonished by the contribution that we have just heard: it seems that if we are not fans of international institutions and treaties we are free to break those treaties. The reality is that Israel is in breach of international law by the construction of the wall... This is not a struggle of equals, but a war of occupation by Israel of the Palestinian territories.

Mr Carswell again:

Israel is a liberal democracy. The UK government’s policy should be to support it against those who want to destroy it. Where there are stable and responsible governments, Israel has made peace. Israel is unable yet to find a lasting peace in the West Bank, or with Gaza or south Lebanon. That tells us more about the tyrants who run those territories.

It tells us, Mr Carswell, that there can be no peace under occupation, no peace with a gun to your head or a jackboot on your throat. Israel is an ethnocracy, racist to the core, driven by the territorial ambitions of a Zionist doctrine.

Mr Brooks Newmark (Conservative, Braintree):

There should be no mistaking that Israel is prepared to live in peace with its neighbours and to go the extra mile to achieve that peace. The Palestinian people face a similar choice, as they have all along – whatever else they do, they must first renounce terrorism in order to secure peace.

It is not helpful for Hon. Members, or indeed anyone else, to huff and puff about apartheid, or to use similar analogies, which are neither accurate nor warranted, given that 20 per cent of full Israeli citizens are Arabs and that the country has the benefit of both a free press and an independent judiciary.

So what are we to make of Israel's Chief Rabbi, who argues for an ethnic cleansing programme to transfer Gazans out and dump them in the Sinai Desert? He even calls for Britain, the European Union and the United States to assist in the construction of a Palestinian state in the middle of nowhere. He also has the cheek to claim that Muslims “have no connection to Jerusalem” and must recognize that Jerusalem belongs to the Jews. This is the same rabbi who thanked Bush for waging war against Iraq.

You are sadly misinformed about the status of non-Jews in Israel, Mr Newmark. And when did Israel’s military courts (which most abducted Palestinian civilians are dragged in front of) become independent? They have been condemned by an Israel human rights group for producing "automatic convictions". And you surely know about “administrative detention”, a farcical procedure used by Israel to arrest, torture and imprison people without cause, without trial and without conviction. It’s something you won't find in any civilized country. Some 800 Palestinians have been held for 15 years or more under this system. And let’s not forget the 36 Hamas MPs kidnapped and still languishing in prison for no good reason except to disable Palestine’s democratically elected government.

Mr Newmark again:

At the current rate of fire, by the end of 2008, 4,500 rockets and mortar shells will have been fired by terrorist organizations from Gaza alone. Given those statistics, it is hardly surprising that Israel’s current guiding principle in deciding upon further withdrawals is “once bitten, twice shy”. Another certainty is that Israeli citizens have the right to live without fear of attack. Already this year, 31 Israelis have been killed or wounded and the daily strike rate reached its highest ever level in January.

Your statistics are commendable, as far as they go. Have you also kept count of the bombs, rockets, tank shells and other ordnance delivered by Israel’s F-16s, armed drones, helicopter gunships, tanks and naval vessels into Gaza, Mr Newmark, and the Palestinian deaths resulting from the bombardment and siege?

The minister for the Middle East (Dr Kim Howells):

Suicide bombings ... it is the most foolish thing that any defender of the Palestinian cause can do. A few years ago, I heard an Hon. Member say, “If I were Palestinian, I’d be a suicide bomber.” That is not what a responsible representative in a democracy should say; such a statement contains elements of the insanity that drives people to do that.

Dr Howells fails to understand the hopelessness and despair felt by people under brutal military occupation who have seen their economy strangled, home destroyed and loved ones murdered. Given that the good doctor is a former chairman of Labour Friends of Israel, it was surely an act of folly to put him in charge of Middle East affairs. The person he misquoted is Jenny Tonge, who was sacked from the Liberal Democrat team by the then leader, Charles Kennedy, for saying about Palestinian suicide bombers: "If I had to live in that situation ... I might just consider becoming one myself."

Kennedy said the remark was "completely unacceptable". Mrs Ellman, another Labour Friend of Israel and eager to put the knife in, welcomed Kennedy's decision. "It recognizes that her statement was irresponsible and gave the green light to terrorism," she said.

Dr Howells again:

... We have not mentioned today the outside powers that are meddling in the situation, fighting wars of their own by proxy. The influence of Damascus and Tehran is not positive. Nor is the way in which money is given to terrorist organizations when it is known that they will use it to kill innocent Israeli civilians. That cannot help the situation... There must be concessions on both sides, particularly on the issue of settlement, which must be taken seriously.

He might almost have been talking about that mega-meddler America, which defends, arms and gives mega-bucks to fund Israeli extremism. Who exactly are the "terrorists" in this scenario? If terrorism is the inflicting of fear on a population for political ends, Israel is guilty of state terrorism. Dr Howells seems to forget that the State of Israel was founded by terror gangs such as the one that blew up the British mandate government in the King David Hotel in 1946, killing 90. And what’s this about concessions? The International Court and the UN have ruled and spoken. All that's needed is enforcement. And sanctions, no doubt.

Dr Howells, why not take yourself and fellow Friends of Israel off to Gaza? No Israeli ministerial “briefings” and hospitality this trip... Sit down and have coffee with Hamas. Drop in on the Christian community. Tour the hospitals with their exhausted stocks of drugs and broken-down equipment and watch the chronically sick dying in agony. Inspect the overloaded sewage system but on no account taste the water, now that the disinfectants have run out. Check the fuel-starved electricity power station and the disintegrating infrastructure. Talk to the 3,000 fishermen who cannot put to sea without being shelled by Israeli gunboats. Dodge the air raids and hide from the snooping drones. Meet the so-called militants and ask them what drives them to do what they do. Shiver through the long dark cold nights without power. Share the meagre rations of the 85 per cent living in abject poverty. Experience the humiliation and frustration of being “processed” through the Erez border crossing.

Perhaps you would like to meet the children who have been horribly maimed by Israel’s military, like the one my journalist friend Mohammed Omer wrote to me about this morning.

… I met with two children who survived Wednesday’s Jabalyia soccer bombing: the other four kids were, as you likely know, killed. One of the children I saw had no flesh on their legs, had burns all over their bodies from the tank shelling. This was one of the scariest things I have seen yet, and I have seen a lot more than that.

I asked one boy to give me details of what happened that Thursday afternoon. The nine-year-old boy cried while he told that he’d seen the decapitated head of his cousin strewn far from his body, arms and legs, far away from where they were all playing soccer. His mother added that there wasn’t any electricity when her son was admitted to the hospital.

He was crying as he told the story, his tears hurting him even more than his psychological pain, as he has burns in his eyes. His mother uncovered his wounded leg where I could only see bones without flesh in places.

Reuters reports that Israel is now threatening Gazans with a “shoah” – a holocaust or disaster – as if they haven’t been tormented and terrorized enough. A ceasefire petition organized by Gush Shalom has just arrived in my in-tray. It says:

The siege of Gaza and the collective punishment of its population are totally unacceptable. It is a medieval form of war which is in utter contradiction to the present norms of human rights and international law – which Israel, as an occupying power, is bound to respect. There should be an immediate end to the siege, unconnected with any other issue, and the Gaza Strip must have free access to the outside world, for the free passage of persons and goods.

It is regrettable, but no longer surprising, that our own government couldn’t have come to the same conclusion. Prolonging the awful suffering of Gaza’s civilians – and lately increasing the murderous atrocities – is beyond reason and beyond excuse. We are watching a replay of the shameful British thumb-twiddling that went on while our “friends” continued with impunity their merciless pounding of Lebanese civilians in 2006.

The British government, whose prime minister is a patron of the Jewish National Fund, regularly mouths off about freedom and democracy but is terrified to speak out on behalf of the oppressed, let alone suit action to words, in case it upsets the bully-boy axis – Israel and the US. Every half-starved Gazan who picks up a Kalashnikov rifle and stands up for freedom against the most powerful and destructive army in the Middle East has more raw courage in his little finger than the whole shabby British government put together.

British-Jewish MP Sir Gerald Kaufman recently branded the Israeli government a gang of amoral thugs. Whatever they are, they’re out of control and not worthy of anyone’s friendship.

*Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation.

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