Looking the other way while Israel massacres Gazans

The UN Relief Chief Tom Fletcher has asked the UN Security Council to do something about Israel’s genocide in Gaza. These are a few extracts of his remarks:

Before starting, I ask you to reflect – for a moment – on what action we will tell future generations we each took to stop the 21st century atrocity to which we bear daily witness in Gaza.

It is a question we will hear, sometimes incredulous, sometimes furious – but always there – for the rest of our lives.

We will surely all claim to have been against it? Maybe we will say we issued a statement? Or that we trusted that private pressure might work, despite so much evidence to the contrary?

Israel is deliberately and unashamedly imposing inhumane conditions on civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

For more than 10 weeks, nothing has entered Gaza – no food, medicine, water or tents.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have, again, been forcibly displaced and confined into ever-shrinking spaces, as 70 per cent of Gaza’s territory is either within Israeli-militarized zones or under displacement orders.

As my colleague from the FAO will explain, every single one of the 2.1 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip face the risk of famine. One in five face starvation.

Despite the fact that you have funded the food that could save them. [1]

Full text at the link below.

Let’s turn now to Sir Kier Starmer, a former lawyer:

[the situation in Gaza is] intolerable and getting worse

We are working with other leaders urgently to bring about rapid and unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza which is desperately needed.

I still fundamentally believe that however remote it may seem at the moment, the pathway to a two-state solution is the only way for settled and lasting peace in the Middle East, and we will continue with our allies to pursue that path. [2]

I think that Starmer is one of those people whom Tom Fletcher, the Aid Chief, is referring to when he says “We will surely all claim to have been against it? Maybe we will say we issued a statement?”.

Just today, media is reporting, dozens more massacred in Gaza. Two more hospitals hit. Many children killed. [3] And this is just today. Not an exception. I doubt that more than a fraction of the 80, (according to Al Jazeera), dead were Hamas fighters. But this is all explained:

In court the UK government is claiming that there is no evidence of genocide. Israel’s killing of civilians is acceptable collateral damage. [4] The various genocidal statements by Israeli Ministers [5] should be balanced by positive ones and thus do not represent the policy of Israel.

I can’t find the reference now but I was reading a statement by Israeli spokesman David Mencer to UK media explaining that Israel faces a moral choice in Gaza. Israeli wants to kill terrorists but the terrorists are “hiding” amongst civilians. I doubt the interviewer responded with the only possible comment; “so, you have made your choice – kill all the civilians in Gaza, in order to kill all Hamas?”. (The prepared “moral choice” line is part of the propaganda about Israel. It is reminiscent of the Roman Empire where there was a narrative of the ordered and just Romans against barbarians. This sort of language accompanied Caesar’s genocide of “barbarians” in Gaul, which was also in part motivated by ‘legitimate’ revenge for an ambush). [6]

I am willing to believe that most of the targets that Israeli strikes may have a possible connection to Hamas. It is even possible, for example, that some of the paramedics slaughtered in the ambulance massacre war crime, in April, had a Hamas connection. [7] What they are doing is stretching the “law of war” which justifies some degree of civilian casualties when going after a military target. They know that if they go after any and every possible target with even a remote connection to Hamas in the crowded Gaza strip they will kill a significant proportion of the total population. It may be genocide as a by-product.

I’m not quite sure how Starmer justifies to himself or his lawyers will to the UK court hearing a case about arms licenses [4] the policy of mass starvation of civilians in Gaza – an indisputable war crime. (And the Human Rights Watch statement is from 2023 [8] – before images of starving children started becoming the norm). There is no ambiguity here. Fighting does not permit the deliberate mass starvation of a civilian population.

For the record; I can understand the logic. Hamas launched an operation on 7 October 2023 which killed hundreds of Israeli citizens and soldiers. It was a bitter blow. They want to stop it happening again. So far; I understand. But the way that “civilised” countries solve problems with “terrorist” movements is, in the end, to seek a political solution. What would the world have said if the UK had used its superior firepower to kill everyone in Ireland with a connection to the IRA? How many civilians would have died? Would the IRA have lined up in fields to be shot, or would they have “hidden” amongst the population? The British government, faced with a “moral choice” – realised that, short of mass murder, the only option was a political solution, however unpalatable that was, (and it was to many people). They chose the political solution. Israel should look for a political solution. Hamas has offered a cessation of armed hostilities in the event of the two state solution, a proposal made before October 7 2023. [9] That is nearly akin to the Irish Republican movement moving to a political track. Unfortunately Hamas cannot bring themselves, it seems, to use the word “forever” – the ceasefire offered is long-term. Hamas is indeed not without blame. As long as they threaten the existence of the state of Israel one can see how Israel cannot accept a Palestinian state in which Hamas could be part of the government. Hamas could take a leap in the future and fully accept the two state solution. (Even if the end solution is the single-state solution, this would still be an important symbolic step. For either solution the enmity must be brought under control).

It is the case. I cannot see a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nonetheless, despite Hamas’s intransigence – I am pretty sure that Israel’s committing genocide and starving children is not going to fix the problem – for Israel.

Update – Israeli UN Ambassador responds to UN Aid Chief

Israel’s ambassador to the UN has responded to Tom Fletcher’s comments:

You had the audacity, in your capacity as a senior UN official, to stand before the Security Council and invoke the charge of genocide without evidence, mandate, or restraint… To weaponise the word ‘genocide’ against Israel is not just distortion – it is the desecration and subversion of a term with unique force and weight [10]

I’m not interested in the usual, and highly characteristic Israeli attack lines on neutral UN officials – “audacity”, “no mandate” etc. I’m interested in the ambassador’s claim that the only genocide in history was the Nazi genocide against the Jews. The formulation of genocide as a specific crime in International Law did indeed take place after the Nazi holocaust against the Jewish people. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide became part of ‘international law’ in 1948. [11] I’ve just read it. Nothing there about how genocide can only be committed against Jewish people. (Or against Russian POWs, disabled people, gypsies, or homosexuals, for that matter). The crime of genocide is not “unique” either in terms of International Law or in terms of common parlance. Genocide is genocide. Danny Danon is plain wrong. Israel does not have a patent on the term genocide, legally or in common parlance.

It is interesting that Danny Danon makes this claim. Once again, what we see is this idea that Israel is unique. The law of genocide cannot be applied to Israel, on principle, he is arguing. It is “sacred”. But this is a big mistake. The holocaust, terrible as it was, (for Jews certainly, and not just for Jews), does not give the state of Israel carte blanche to commit their genocide.

Update – and the UN again

The UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk:

“This latest barrage of bombs … and the denial of humanitarian assistance underline that there appears to be a push for a permanent demographic shift in Gaza that is in defiance of international law and is tantamount to ethnic cleansing,” he said. [12]

Notes

Looking the other way while Israel massacres Gazans

Related Posts

Oxford University and the changing timesOxford University and the changing times

Propaganda Watch – weekly roundupPropaganda Watch – weekly roundup

An extraordinary litany of errors – UK gov and CovidAn extraordinary litany of errors – UK gov and Covid