07.11.2024
More than just complicity
With thousands of protestors once again taking to the streets, the escalation of Israeli warmongering now looks to be a certainty, as does British government backing, warns Ian Spencer
On November 2, the 107th anniversary of the Balfour declaration, tens of thousands of demonstrators took part in London’s latest mass protest against the genocide in Palestine and beyond. The twenty-first since October 2023.
As widely predicted at the start of the current slaughter, the potential for this to become a wider Middle Eastern war has come to pass, with the attacks on Lebanon, Iran and Yemen promising a regional bloodbath. Israel’s modus operandi in Gaza is being applied with equal vigour in Lebanon, with attacks on hospitals, vital civilian infrastructure and the widespread killing of civilians, forcing the ethnic cleansing of southern Lebanon up to the Awali River. Just as in Gaza, Israel portrays its invasion as a war against a ‘terrorist’ group - this time, Hezbollah - even though its vicious onslaught seems to be directed against the entire population. So far, the Israel Defence Forces have killed over 3,000 in Lebanon and driven 1.2 million from their homes. To take just one village as an example, 70% of the ancient settlement of Meiss El Jabal has been destroyed. While the eyes of the world focus on this and the bombing of Iran, the genocide in Gaza is being intensified, with starvation now the principal weapon.
The legislation passed in the Knesset on October 28, effectively banning United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) from operating in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, constitutes a deliberate policy of inducing famine among Palestinian refugees. It is a direct attack on even the pretence of an international rules-based order and a direct violation of the International Court of Justice injunction to ensure the delivery of aid to the civilian population of Gaza.
The usual muted response of the USA is typical. A State department representative said Washington was “deeply concerned”, because it could have “implications under US law”. The oft-heard assertion that the USA and UK are ‘complicit’ in genocide fails to stress that the imperialist countries are actually waging a war on the people of the Middle East, using the IDF as a proxy - just as in Ukraine war is waged on Russia using the Ukrainian people as a proxy.
Most of those on last Saturday’s demonstration seemed to understand this, although some on the left, such as the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, have yet to catch on. Neither war could be prosecuted without the direct participation of the USA and its allies, who supply the funding, logistical and intelligence support and the weapons, to the glee of the arms manufacturers.
The US presidential election has, of course, been won by Donald Trump, whose Republican Party is also likely to control both houses of Congress. Trump, has made his position clear: Israel should be allowed to ‘finish the job’. It was an election decided, in part, on ‘the economy’, in what is now a country fully enmeshed in war with tens of thousands of jobs linked to the arms industry.
As Saturday’s demonstration assembled in Whitehall, by a bizarre coincidence, there were a lot of Royal Navy personnel there to take part in a rehearsal for Remembrance Sunday. It was a stark reminder of Britain’s involvement in support for Israel, whether directly or under the guise of protecting shipping lanes around Yemen. The ever-present discipline and restraint of the anti-war demonstrators meant that there was not the slightest animosity shown towards the naval officers and ratings, many of whom will have colleagues currently serving on Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships in the Gulf and Mediterranean. How many of the sailors will be deployed in the drive towards World War III remains to be seen.
One of the features of the Palestine solidarity demonstrations over the last year is the number of marchers carrying what look like the bodies of children, wrapped in bloodied shrouds - symbolic of the 17,000‑plus children killed by Israel. The killing of children has been a feature of the genocide to such an extent that UN human rights expert Chris Sidoti recently pointed out that Israel’s killing and wounding of children in Gaza is the “greatest of any conflict in recorded warfare”. This was a theme taken up by distinguished children’s author Michael Rosen, who spoke at the demonstration’s rally at the US embassy, and included his poem, ‘Don’t mention the children’, which he wrote in response to an Israeli ban on naming killed or injured Palestinian children, when it was bombing Gaza in 2014.
By contrast, The Observer was happy to print an article by Howard Jacobson suggesting that focussing on the killing of children amounted to an anti-Semitic reference to the ancient ‘blood libel’ used to justify the murder of Jews in medieval England. The same ‘liberal’ paper refused to publish a letter by Michael Rosen who used irony to challenge the absurdity of Jacobson’s article. He subsequently published it on X:
Howard Jacobson writes, “I don’t accuse the BBC and other news outlets of wilfully stirring race-memory of the child-killing Jew of the Middle Ages, and yet, he suggests, this is indeed what these news outlets are doing by showing those who are, in his words, the ‘innocent victims of war’. Rich in suggestion as Jacobson’s article is, it’s short on suggestions as to what he thinks may be a way of solving this problem. Fortunately, the Israeli authorities have done all they can to help: they keep the world’s press photographers out of Gaza, but more work is needed. Surely, it should be to ban all images of dead and maimed Palestinian children, for only then can we western Jews be safe.”1
The censorship of The Observer is not an isolated incident. Retired Israeli academic Haim Bresheeth was arrested by the Metropolitan Police for the alleged support of a proscribed organisation, after he said that “Israel cannot win against Hamas”. Bresheeth, who grew up in Israel, and is a founder of the Jewish Network for Palestine, was arrested during a demonstration outside the residence of Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely in north London, under the Terrorism Act of 2000. He was released without charge after spending a night in custody, but is still under investigation.2 In October Asa Winstanley’s home was raided and equipment seized, again using the same sweeping powers under the ‘anti-terror’ legislation. Journalists Richard Medhurst and Sarah Wilkinson have also been targeted. If anyone had any illusions about a Labour government being less repressive than the Tories, their naivety now looks absurd.
Beyond that, Israel has done all it can to target journalists, medical personal and infrastructure. Clearly its leadership feels that this is not nearly enough. Benjamin Netanyahu has sacked Yoav Gallant and replaced him with Israel Katz, his long-time ally and one of the architects behind Israel’s push to get the international community to defund the Unrwa. In August, he called for the eviction of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and his appointment was marked by a promise of the “destruction of Hamas in Gaza, the defeat of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the containment of Iranian aggression”.3 The likelihood of a ‘forever war’ seems certain.
With well over 43,374 dead in Gaza and 102,261 wounded, seven out of 10 UN-run schools have been hit. More than 95% of them were being used as shelters for displaced Palestinians. Most of the hospitals have been damaged, many rendered unusable in the month-long intensified siege of northern Gaza, which has entailed the deliberate choking off of aid in food, water and medicines. The Kamal Adwan Hospital has been repeatedly attacked and at least 1,300 people have been killed. While British foreign secretary David Lammy, undoubtedly drawing on his legal expertise, provides an apologia for genocide by suggesting that using it in the context of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine “undermines the seriousness of the term”, which he would rather see reserved for millions losing their lives, such as in the holocaust. This does not give much hope that the Labour government will do anything other than retain its customary subservience to an increasingly rightwing and belligerent USA.
Even before the election of Trump, the US had increased its military presence in the Middle East. The outgoing defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, had increased the readiness levels of US forces and troop numbers are estimated to be around 43,000, including more than a dozen warships and additional F-22 fighter jets.4 It seems unlikely that Trump will be less aggressive towards Iran or the Palestinians, but it is certain that that, whatever the US does, the UK will support it.