“The war will end, and the rulers will shake hands. The old lady will however be still waiting for her martyred son; this girl will be waiting for her beloved husband and these kids waiting for their heroic father. I don’t know who sold the country but I saw who paid the price.”
Mahmoud Darwish
Sir Keir Starmer recently said that October 7th was the worst atrocity to strike Israel since the Holocaust. It seems concerning to me that the leader of the opposition has such scant knowledge of the history of the conflict as to think the most significant and shameful event in human history happened in the Middle East rather than Western Europe.
The British public deserves to know how much our ‘leaders’ understand the history of the conflict, the legitimate claims of the Palestinians and for how long this country is planning on supporting Israeli war crimes without condemnation. For how long can we continue to justify these actions, horrific beyond any imagination, on the grounds of self-defence?
And for how many more years can Israel continue to use the justification of self-defence without Western leaders calling for greater scrutiny of what this entails?
It was self-defence in 1946 when Irgun, its military wing later to be absorbed into the IDF, and its political faction to become the Likud Party, carried out terror attack after terror attack in the British Mandate of Palestine, under the leadership of Menachem Begin, later to become Prime Minister of Israel.
It was self-defence in 1948 when Israel was drawing up battle plans before the War of Independence and the heinous war crimes committed in the Nakba - a time during which my late father-in-law was expelled from Haifa without compensation, alongside 700,000 Palestinians who continue to live as refugees to this day.
It was self-defence in 1956 when Israel, along with the British and the French, invaded the Sinai after Abdel Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal; a decision condemned by the US & the UN, which almost collapsed the British economy, brought down Anthony Eden’s government and marked the end of Britain as a global power.
It was self-defence in 1956, again, when the IDF entered Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip, gathered all the men aged between 16 and 50, amongst them teachers, bank clerks, shopkeepers, tradesmen and farmers, led them in single file and lined them up in the town’s main square before slaughtering up to 1,200 Palestinians in a barrage of machine gun fire, described by eyewitnesses as ‘an orchestra of hell.’
It was self-defence in 1967 when Israel preemptively invaded Egypt because they were now the ones drawing up battle plans, and illegally annexed the West Bank, the Sinai and the Golan, and occupied Gaza within the space of six days - suggesting not quite as much planning on the Egyptian side as one might expect.
It was self-defence in 1973 when the Egyptian and Syrian armies launched an invasion on Yom Kippur to reclaim land illegally taken after the 1967 conflict and were defeated by the Israeli army.
It was self-defence in 1982 when Israel invaded Southern Lebanon, besieged Beirut and was complicit in the slaughter of 3,500 civilians in Sabra & Shatila, a crime for which Ariel Sharon, later to become Prime Minister of Israel, was found responsible.
It was self-defence in 1987 during the first intifada (a grassroots movement involving mass mobilisation against Israeli military presence and governance, which included economic and cultural boycotts, refusal to pay taxes, demonstrations, barricades and some acts of civil resistance) when Israeli forces killed 1,500 Palestinians, the vast majority civilians, versus 160 Israelis.
It was self-defence in 1994 when, during protests after Baruch Goldstein, a settler from New York illegally squatting in the West Bank who opened fire on 800 Muslims praying during the holy month of Ramadan, killing 29 of them, the IDF increased that death toll to over 50. Goldstein’s portrait hung in the sitting room of Ben Gvir, Israeli Minister of National Defence, and both his and Bezalel Smotrich’s rabbi, Dov Lior, described him as ‘holier than all the martyrs of the Holocaust.’ On his grave, it reads that he ‘gave his life for the people of Israel, its Torah, and its land.’
It was self-defence in 2006 when 1,200 Lebanese civilians were killed in response to the deaths of three Israeli soldiers and two kidnapped for prisoner exchanges, a conflict during which both the UK & the US stood alone in the international community in not calling for a ceasefire.
It was self-defence in 2008 when the IDF launched Operation Cast Lead, ostensibly to stop rocket fire from Gaza, destroying much of the area’s infrastructure and killing 1,417 Palestinians, the vast majority civilians, against 14 Israelis, 10 of whom were soldiers, four of those killed in friendly fire.
It was self-defence in 2014 when, in response to the kidnapping of three Israelis hitchhiking in the West Bank, the Israeli government launched Operation Black Edge in the Gaza Strip, razing the occupied territory and killing over 2,300 Palestinians, again the vast majority civilians.
It was self-defence in 2018 during the Great March of Return when a peaceful protest was met with live ammunition, resulting in 200 Palestinians slaughtered, a large number children, against not a single Israeli death.
It was self-defence during all the pogroms and settler land grabs in the West Bank over the last 75 years, actions consistently found to have been in contravention of international law and actions which even Israeli scholars have described as massacres of innocent civilians.
It is self-defence now, as Israel continues to bomb hospitals, schools, refugee camps, ambulances and safe routes, killing over 10,000 Palestinians, 4,000 of them children, targets journalists and continues to displace over a million people, while cutting off food, water, energy and access to communication.
And it was self-defence all of the other times in between in a 75-year conflict, which has seen 87% of the death toll amongst Palestinians. As one activist in Gaza said today, when asked where are the peaceful protestors now? They are buried under all the rubble.
It behoves every leader not at this moment calling explicitly for a ceasefire to stand up and ask themselves at what point self-defence becomes an excuse, rather than a justification, for a political party that has never hidden its desire to expand the state of Israel far beyond its current borders.
There is a time for politics. This is not one of them. It is a time to stand up for common humanity and to tell the Palestinians we stand with you too; we believe in your right to self-determination, and we believe in your right to live in peace and prosperity. Otherwise, there is blood on all our hands.
If the UN is still to be considered an international regulating body, they will be judged and will have to pay reparations for the people they killed. And they will have to rebuild what they destroyed.
Qui casse paye.
There are no statutes of limitations on war crimes.