“Israel’s actions are causing cracks in the dam of the pro-Israel establishment.”
By Hugh Lanning, Labour & Palestine
In recent months, (before his departure as Foreign Secretary) David Lammy had finally appeared to have harsher words for Israel – but arms sales have still continued in ever-increasing volumes due to the failure to ban the continuing supply of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel from the global supply pool.
As Israel deliberately starved Gaza and bombed those seeking food, many party members and affiliates recognised that it has taken 18 months for Labour to even start raising what are, globally, mainstream criticisms.
Israel has turned Gaza into its own ‘killing field’ – now threatening to erase Gaza City ‘Dresden style’ with no regard to the one million civilians living there, ethnic cleansing on a scale that can only be judged as part of a planned and ruthless genocide.
If justice for Palestine is to be a reality, the UK Government needs to recognise that Israel has never accepted that there should be a state of Palestine.
They are not looking for a solution based on a division of land – they are determined to have control of it all. The objective is the elimination of the majority of – if not all – Palestinians, from what remains of their land. The strategy is now transparent for even the most blinkered to see; it is the mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians through forced population transfer.
The problem with all the Western solutions to ‘the question of Palestine’ is that they don’t start from the premise of equality of all the peoples living in historic Palestine. As a consequence, any solution will always be stillborn. For a lasting and just solution, it will be necessary for the newly formed coalition for a two-state peace – the UK, France and Canada – to recognise that any alleged solution using previous assumptions about Israel’s “rights” and vetoes are not viable as a basis for a peace process. Those assumptions have collapsed under the weight of Israel’s totalitarian regime.
The rules of Israel’s game plan have changed or, at least, become clearer and louder for those who care to watch and listen. If over 60,000 deaths are not enough to make it clear, an analysis of the tactics and war objectives of Israel should remove all doubt.
Prior to the latest military offensives, Israel had systematically expanded their ‘spatial control’ – blocked and divided Gaza into parts, expanded buffer and border zones, built military pathways and structures. Not content with this, they destroyed all agricultural land, attacked or contaminated water resources, and destroyed most of the medical services – targeting hospitals. This was coupled with the destruction of civilian buildings – including shelters, utilities, schools and universities, government and religious buildings and cultural sites. Finally, if that wasn’t enough, prior to the total blockade, they targeted food aid – bakeries, trucks, markets, aid personnel and warehouses.
Yet, history has proved that military might is not enough to defeat a people. This is resistance Israel can never defeat. Labour needs to listen and understand this. To do so, it needs to try to stand in Palestinian shoes, not just Israeli ones.
There is now an unprecedented mass movement in support of Palestine. Israel’s actions are causing cracks in the dam of the pro-Israel establishment.
Labour will not be forgiven for waiting for so long to call for a ceasefire – this Government had all the evidence, it knew what Israel was doing, and then collaborated with it. History will not absolve our government’s failure to act. That can never be put right, but to achieve a just peace, there is a mountain to climb.
This means not just a permanent ceasefire, or the reconstruction of Gaza, but forcing Israel to accept the self-determination of the Palestinian people, which entails the decolonising of the apartheid regime it has built.
There is only one way this can be achieved, as South Africa demonstrated, by Government sanctions, by removing the lifeline of military support, ending trade and the financial underwriting of Israel’s settler colonial crimes.
- LIVERPOOL EVENT: Palestine – the Defining Issue of Our Time. Saturday 27th September 4:30 pm. Register here.
- PETITION: Expel Israel’s Ambassador. To Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper. Sign here.
- This article is from CLPD’s annual briefing, which you can read here.
- Hugh Lanning is an officer of Labour and Palestine, former Chair of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and former Deputy General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union.
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