Israel’s Ferocious Intensification of Genocide in Gaza Finally Alienates Key Allies

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In international relations, when your “friend” treats you with arrogant condescension, you have to calibrate your response based on your power relationship with them. If that “friend” is the US, then rocking the boat too much might have serious repercussions, but when your “friend” is Israel, a country that wouldn’t even exist without your economic backing, and which has been demanding and receiving “ironclad” and unconditional support for a 19-month long genocidal assault on a territory it has illegally occupied for the last 58 years and is now threatening to exterminate completely, not responding, in the end, seems to be nothing more than succumbing to patterns of bullying and abuse.

Since its blood-soaked founding in 1948, when it killed 15,000 Palestinians and expelled 750,000 others, Israel  — with the support of the US and other countries in the west — has been allowed to carve out for itself an exceptionalism that has enabled it to consistently subvert international law without ever being held to account.

Despite illegally occupying the Palestinian territories of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967, imposing a horrendous system of apartheid, strangling Gaza and illegally colonizing the West Bank, repeatedly murdering Palestinians with impunity and establishing a prison system of exceptional brutality and lawlessness, its status as the world’s pre-eminent victim, because of the Holocaust, has allowed it to behave like an indulged sociopathic teenager, or as an entire nation of indulged sociopathic teenagers.

This has been more obvious than ever since October 7, 2023 — 19 and a half agonizingly long months ago — when Hamas and other militants broke out of the “open-air prison” of the Gaza Strip, killing hundreds of Israelis and some foreign nationals, and taking 251 people hostage, and, in response, the nations of the west, including the US, the 27 member states of the EU, the UK, Canada and Australia, declared their unconditional support for Israel’s “right to defend itself”, shamefully abdicating all their responsibilities  for the legal requirements regarding armed conflict, and for all notions of nuance and context, by giving Israel carte blanche to do what it wanted in response.

There was, for example, no mention of Israel’s illegal occupation of the Gaza Strip since 1967, or that, although it militarily withdrew in 2005, it has continued to exert almost total control over Gaza, leading to its designation as an “open-air prison”, noted above, through its complete stranglehold on the movement of all goods and people in and out of the territory.

There was also no mention that, as the occupying power, Israel has responsibilities under the Geneva Conventions “to administrate the territory for the benefit of the local population, while taking into account its own security needs”, or that, as an occupied people, the Palestinians are entitled to defend themselves against oppression, including through the use of force.

There was no mention either of the fact that, since 2007, when Hamas took over the government of the Gaza Strip, Israel has repeatedly undertaken military attacks on Gaza, killing around 6,000 Palestinians between 2008 and 2023, in contrast to around 300 Israeli deaths, or that these repeated attacks were shamefully described by Israeli officials as “mowing the lawn.”

Instead, after October 7, the west indulged in a deadly and irresponsible collective amnesia, endorsing Israeli claims that the events of October 7 took place in a vacuum, with no historical context whatsoever.

Western silence as a genocide unfolded

Having established unquestioning support for whatever Israel did, the west stayed silent as Israel’s military forces began bombing the Gaza Strip with an intensity unparalleled in modern history, using weapons supplied by western governments —  primarily the US and Germany, but with noticeable support from many other countries, including the UK.

The west also stayed silent as Israel imposed a “complete siege” on Gaza, preventing the delivery of food, water, medical supplies and fuel. This was clearly illegal, and a form of collective punishment, although it was endorsed by Keir Starmer, then the leader of the opposition in the UK, who, despite being a human rights lawyer, told LBC on October 11, 2023 that Israel had “the right” to withhold power and water from the civilian population in Gaza.

The west also stayed silent as Israel began the forced displacement of the Palestinian people, ordering almost half the population — over a million people — to evacuate to the south. In a startling and revelatory article in October 2024, Reuters secured access to US State Department and Pentagon emails revealing the extent to which, from October 11 to 14, 2023, officials tried to warn the Biden administration that it risked being complicit in war crimes relating to the “humanitarian catastrophe” that was inevitable if Israel was allowed to displace so many civilians. Their concerns, however, were ignored, and many officials later resigned.

Joe Biden, of course, was the driver of the west’s “ironclad” support for Israel, and, even as his mental faculties collapsed spectacularly, he clung, like a dying dog with lockjaw, to his overtly stated support for Zionism, with a visceral sympathy for Israel’s vengeance, fuelled by fantasies of 40 beheaded babies and mass rapes that all never happened, and were totally invented.

Other western leaders, though evidently less mentally challenged, also failed to dissent from their collective conviction that Israel had “the right to defend itself” — or “herself”, as Starmer shamefully described it — even as the destruction and the death toll rose uncontrollably, and Gaza was systematically erased from the north to the south, with almost everything destroyed, including its hospitals, which were a particularly grim example of Israel’s contempt for international humanitarian law, and an egregious example of its obsession with claiming that all hospitals concealed Hamas “command and control centers.” These were lies that were never substantiated, but that were accepted in western newsrooms, where rigid enforcement of pro-Israeli positions went almost unchallenged, even as doctors and medical staff were murdered, or abducted and taken to Israel’s torture programs, where some were killed, and where others are still held.

Nothing deterred Israel’s western supporters — not the interim measures issued by the International Court of Justice, in January 2024, which were designed to prevent a “plausible” genocide, not the opinion issued by the ICJ in July 2024, in which the Court ruled that Israel’s entire occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem was illegal, not even the arrest warrants for war crimes and crimes against humanity that were issued by the International Criminal Court against Benjamin Netanyahu and the defense minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024.

After crossing an illusory “red line” in May and June 2024, when the erasure of Gaza was largely completed with the destruction of Rafah, the west still stayed silent, as was the case when a clearly flailing Israel then resumed attacks throughout Gaza, accompanied by further evacuation orders, allegedly to target resurgent Hamas activity, or when, in October, it launched the truly diabolical “Generals’ Plan”, besieging the whole of northern Gaza, and declaring that everyone who failed to obey yet another evacuation order, even if they were physically unable to comply, because of age or illness or infirmity, would be regarded as “enemy combatants”, who could be summarily executed.

When a ceasefire deal finally emerged in January this year, there must have been a collective sign of relief — if not from western leaders themselves, then certainly from their legal advisers, who, it is reasonable to assume, had recognized throughout the previous 15 months that seeking to evade political accountability for complicity in a genocide by pretending that unfettered exterminatory vengeance against an entire people was justifiable was, at some point, going to lead to a legal and moral reckoning.

Unease finally arises in the west as Israel breaks the ceasefire deal – and also within Israel itself

However, when, six weeks later, Israel unilaterally broke the ceasefire deal with Hamas, once more imposing a “complete siege” on all supplies (on March 2), and then relaunching military attacks on a colossal scale (on March 18), it would be fair to say that a palpable sense of unease began permeating western governments’ previously “ironclad” and unconditional support for Israel’s “right to defend itself.”

This, in part, was because Israel’s justifications for its actions had quite clearly started to become seriously unhinged. It claimed, essentially, that starving two million people to death was justifiable to put pressure on Hamas to release all the remaining hostages, and then proceeded to make a similar claim about its resumption of the militarized slaughter of civilians.

Any sound objective analysis would have revealed that Israel’s repeated sieges since October 7, 2023 had been an unacceptable form of collective punishment, intended to indiscriminately increase the civilian death toll, and that its relentless bombing over the same period was also clearly aimed at killing as many civilians as possible, but after a year and a half of relentless destruction and killing — as well as the period of reflection afforded by the ceasefire — it was increasingly difficult for Netanyahu and his government to present the return of a maximal siege and slaughter policy as anything other than grotesque barbarism.

Those paying attention also noted that, within Israel, condemnation of Netanyahu and his government was increasing, especially from the hostages’ families, who were increasingly vocal about how, unlike the ceasefire, which had secured the safe return of hostages, the new plan was likely to do the opposite.

The hostages’ family members recognized that the new plan was being undertaken solely because Netanyahu needed to cling onto power to prevent his government collapsing, which would lead to the resumption of his trial on corruption charges that he could only keep at bay while Israel was “at war”, and that, as a result, he was appeasing the far-right ministers he relies on to maintain his coalition government — the vile and insatiably homicidal Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

Both of these men — each with terrorist histories — remain implacably opposed to doing anything that would impede their long-held ambition, shared by the rest of Israel’s rabid far-right settler community, for the total military conquest of Gaza, the erasure of its Palestinian population, either through extermination or the illusion of “voluntary migration”, and its colonization by Israeli settlers, ambitions that also extend to the West Bank, where Gaza-style tactics have also been increasing throughout the last 19 months.

Numerous high-ranking former military and intelligence officials also recognized and opposed Netanyahu’s plans, and were joined by thousands of serving and former military personnel.

However the key accelerator of opposition both at home and abroad came last week, as the impact of the enforced starvation policy became ever more severe, with aid agencies warning that nearly half a million Palestinians in Gaza were facing catastrophic hunger, and as Netanyahu and his Security Cabinet approved an even more provocative and deranged escalation of its attacks on Gaza.

Named “Operation Gideon’s Chariots” (after the Biblical example of Jews slaughtering 120,000 adversaries in the Book of Jacob), the new plan envisaged the total military occupation of Gaza, the destruction of all its remaining buildings, and the forced displacement of the whole of the remaining population to a tightly-controlled area in the south, essentially a concentration camp, where they will be provided with bare subsistence-level rations by US mercenaries working on behalf of a private organization that will restrict provisions to those who register their details and submit to facial recognition screening.

Israel launched “Operation Gideon’s Chariots” with some of the most severe bombing campaigns of the whole of the last 19 months, killing many, many hundreds of people — mostly women and children — over the last week, and once more targeting surviving hospitals, while outrageously claiming that all of its attacks were specifically aimed at 670 Hamas-related targets.

Outside pressure finally asserts itself — primarily over the prospect of imminent mass starvation

On Monday (May 19), outside pressure first manifested itself via a demand — from the US and other western countries — for the resumption of aid to prevent mass starvation.

Donald Trump has been a volatile ally for Israel. Although he repeatedly vowed to “open the gates of hell” in Gaza, if Hamas didn’t release all the remaining hostages, and has also repeatedly promoted the illusion that the remaining population should be ethnically cleansed, out of humanitarian concerns, both of which galvanized the Israeli far-right, he has also repeatedly suggested that the US should take over Gaza and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East” — or, more recently, a “freedom zone” — and on his recent trip to the Middle East, in which he failed to visit Israel, he expressed concern about the starvation crisis in Gaza, telling reports in Abu Dhabi, on the last day of his Gulf tour, “We’re looking at Gaza. And we’re going to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving.”

In response, Netanyahu released a video in which, after bullishly asserting, “We’re going to take control of all the Gaza Strip,” he also announced that Israel would begin delivering “minimal humanitarian aid: food and medicine only.”

As Drop Site News described it:

Netanyahu claimed that international pressure, including from pro-Israel Republican senators and the White House, required the appearance of humanitarian intervention. “Our best friends in the world — senators I know as strong supporters of Israel — have warned that they cannot support us if images of mass starvation emerge,” he said. “They come to me and say, ‘We’ll give you all the help you need to win the war… but we can’t be receiving pictures of famine.’” To continue the war of annihilation, he asserted, “We need to do it in a way that they won’t stop us.”

Drop Site News asserted that Netanyahu’s decision to allow “a minuscule amount of aid to enter Gaza” was “a tactical one aimed at quieting international condemnation of Israel’s forced starvation of Gaza and to clear the path [for] a final solution imposed on the Palestinians of Gaza.”

In the end, it took two days for the first arrival of aid to be delivered — on 100 trucks, containing deliveries including flour, baby food and medical equipment — which only finally arrived at UN distribution points on the evening of Wednesday May 21, although UN representatives pointed out that it was “nowhere near enough to meet the vast needs in Gaza.”

Aid groups have persistently pointed out that, prior to October 7, 500 to 600 trucks a day were allowed into Gaza, and were the bare minimum required, also noting that, although deliveries resumed during the ceasefire, tens of thousands of lorries of aid were required to make up for the debilitating effects of the 11-week siege.

The two-day delay in the resumption of aid deliveries was, according to the UN, “due to insecurity along the single access route which the Israeli military had approved”, although it was all too easy for observers to suspect that it was just another underhand Israeli trick.

Netanyahu has a history of lying to and deluding US politicians and the media, regarding them as gullible and easy to manipulate, but he remains, however infuriating it may be, a generally capable frontman. The same, however, cannot be said of the thuggish Itamar Ben-Gvir or Bezalel Smotrich, who is the epitome of a narcissistic serial killer.

As Netanyahu was trying to appease his western critics, Smotrich, who seems to be increasingly hogging the limelight — perhaps, delusionally, thinking that he will one day take his place — provided a far blunter and more brutal appraisal of the situation, stating that the aid scheme would allow “our friends in the world to continue to provide us with an international umbrella of protection against the Security Council and the Hague Tribunal, and for us to continue to fight, God willing, until victory.”

In a subsequent press conference, Smotrich revelled in the power the Israeli government wields over the life and death of the Palestinians, saying, “The aid that will enter Gaza in the coming days is the tiniest amount. A handful of bakeries that will hand out pita bread to people in public kitchens. People in Gaza will get a pita and a food plate, and that’s it. Exactly what we are seeing in the videos: people standing in line and waiting to have someone serve them, with some soup plate.”

He added, “Truth be told, until the last of the hostages returns, we should also not let water into the Gaza Strip. But the reality is that if we do that, the world will force us to halt the war immediately, and to lose. It would be winning the battle, and losing the war. I’m committed to winning the war.”

As he also said, “We are disassembling Gaza, and leaving it as piles of rubble, with total destruction”, which has “no precedent globally.”

“And”, he added gloatingly, “the world isn’t stopping us.”

Finally, addressing his hope for the Palestinians’ ethnic cleansing, he confirmed that the Israeli forces were initiating a campaign to force Palestinians into the south of Gaza “and from there, God willing, to third countries, as part of President Trump’s plan.”

“This is”, he added, in what he thought was a moment of great profundity, “a change of the course of history — nothing less.”

Opposition mounts, as 22 allies finally condemn Israel

As if in response, just as Smotrich relished what he though was his moment of glory, the leaders of the UK, France and Canada delivered a joint statement in which, for the first time, they openly condemned Israel’s actions on multiple fronts, declaring, “We strongly oppose the expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza”, and adding, “The level of human suffering in Gaza is intolerable.”

They added that the announcement that Israel “will allow a basic quantity of food into Gaza” was “wholly inadequate”, called on the Israeli government “to stop its military operations in Gaza”, and to “immediately allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza”, adding, in a rebuke of the private aid plan, “This must include engaging with the UN to ensure a return to delivery of aid in line with humanitarian principles.”

They also added, “The Israeli Government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable and risks breaching international humanitarian law”, and they also “condemn[ed] the abhorrent language used recently by members of the Israeli Government, threatening that, in their despair at the destruction of Gaza, civilians will start to relocate.” Pointedly, they added, “Permanent forced displacement is a breach of international humanitarian law.”

After declaring that they “have always supported Israel’s right to defend Israelis against terrorism”, they added that “this escalation is wholly disproportionate”, also stating, “We will not stand by while the Netanyahu Government pursues these egregious actions. If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response” — the first time, fundamentally, that “concrete actions” of any kind have been proposed.

They also dealt with the West Bank, stating, “We oppose any attempt to expand settlements in the West Bank. Israel must halt settlements which are illegal and undermine the viability of a Palestinian state and the security of both Israelis and Palestinians.” And again they issued a threat: “We will not hesitate to take further action, including targeted sanctions.”

As they also stated:

We strongly support the efforts led by the United States, Qatar and Egypt to secure an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. It is a ceasefire, the release of all remaining hostages and a long-term political solution that offer the best hope of ending the agony of the hostages and their families, alleviating the suffering of civilians in Gaza, ending Hamas’ control of Gaza and achieving a pathway to a two-state solution, consistent with the goals of the 18 June conference in New York co-chaired by Saudi Arabia and France. These negotiations need to succeed, and we must all work towards the implementation of a two-state solution, which is the only way to bring long-lasting peace and security that both Israelis and Palestinians deserve, and ensure long-term stability in the region.

We will continue to work with the Palestinian Authority, regional partners, Israel and the United States to finalise consensus on arrangements for Gaza’s future, building on the Arab plan. We affirm the important role of the High-level Two-State Solution Conference at the UN in June in building international consensus around this aim. And we are committed to recognising a Palestinian state as a contribution to achieving a two-state solution and are prepared to work with others to this end.

Although words mean nothing without actions, and the UK in particular is still mired in complicity, still supporting Israel via spy planes from Cyprus, and still sending weapons components for F-35 fighter planes, it may be that the British government in particular has been chilled by the realization that, facing a court challenge over its arms sales, its defence of its actions has been woefully inadequate, and legally indefensible.

That, however, doesn’t explain why France and Canada also chose this moment to agree to a strongly worded statement of condemnation, nor why, that same day, the foreign ministers of 22 countries — Australia, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK — plus three senior EU officials issued a “Joint donor statement on humanitarian aid to Gaza”, in which they issued “two straightforward messages for the Government of Israel: allow a full resumption of aid into Gaza immediately and enable the UN and humanitarian organizations to work independently and impartially to save lives, reduce suffering and maintain dignity.”

Noting that Israel has “blocked humanitarian aid entering Gaza for over two months”, the signatories stated, “Food, medicines and essential supplies are exhausted. The population faces starvation. Gaza’s people must receive the aid they desperately need.”

It was an astonishing volte-face from the situation in January 2024, when Israel responded to the ICJ’s provisional measures not by allowing aid into Gaza, as required, but by starting a witch hunt against UNWRA, the main supplier of aid to the Palestinians, in which, shamefully, western countries queued up to suspend their critical financial support for UNWRA, based on allegations regarding the organization’s involvement with Hamas that were never substantiated.

Now, many of these countries are, instead, praising the UN and humanitarian NGOs responsible for delivering aid into Gaza for “working with great courage, at the risk of their lives and in the face of major access challenges imposed by Israel”, adding, “These organizations subscribe to upholding humanitarian principles, operating independently, with neutrality, impartiality and humanity. They have the logistical capacity, expertise and operational coverage to deliver assistance across Gaza to those who need it most.”

In contrast, the signatories condemned the “new model for delivering aid into Gaza”, approved by Israel’s Security Cabinet, “which the UN and our humanitarian partners cannot support.”

As they added, “They are clear that they will not participate in any arrangement that does not fully respect the humanitarian principles”, which “matter for every conflict around the world and should be applied consistently in every war zone.”

As they also stated, “The UN has raised concerns that the proposed model cannot deliver aid effectively, at the speed and scale required. It places beneficiaries and aid workers at risk, undermines the role and independence of the UN and our trusted partners, and links humanitarian aid to political and military objectives. Humanitarian aid should never be politicized, and Palestinian territory must not be reduced nor subjected to any demographic change.”

Netanyahu’s hysterical response and further condemnation

Just before 10pm on May 19, Netanyahu responded to the great betrayal by the UK, France and Canada, berating his allies in a post on X that, unusually, reeked of desperation.

“By asking Israel to end a defensive war for our survival before Hamas terrorists on our border are destroyed and by demanding a Palestinian state”, he fulminated, “the leaders in London, Ottowa and Paris are offering a huge prize for the genocidal attack on Israel on October 7 while inviting more such atrocities.”

Still attempting to ignore 77 years of brutal Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, he added, “The war began on October 7 when Palestinian terrorists stormed our borders, murdered 1,200 innocent people and abducted over 250 more innocents to the dungeons of Gaza.” The war, of course, didn’t begin on October 7, and although, officially, 1,195 people were killed on October 7, including 79 foreign nationals, no one knows how many hundreds were killed by Israel itself under the Hannibal Directive, which authorizes Israel to kill its own, to prevent them being taken hostage, and whose use on October 7 was admitted by Yoav Gallant in an interview in February.

Netanyahu continued by stating that “Israel accepts President Trump’s vision” — for ethnic cleaning — “and urges all European leaders to do the same”, and proceeded to state, “The war can end tomorrow if the remaining hostages are released, Hamas lays down its arms, its murderous leaders are exiled and Gaza is demilitarized. No nation can be expected to accept anything less and Israel certainly won’t.”

“This”, he continued, “is a war of civilization over barbarism. Israel will continue to defend itself by just means until total victory is achieved.”

By now, the “civilization over barbarism” claim, so beloved by Netanyahu, seems finally to have exhausted its potency, in exactly the same way that mountains of corpses created by settlers during the European Christians’ many centuries of dehumanization and mass slaughter have, over time, fatally undermined their claims that they were the civilized people.

On Tuesday (May 20), the assault on Netanyahu and the far-right returned to Israel itself, when Yair Golan, the IDF’s former Deputy Chief of General Staff and the leader of the left-leaning Democrats, launched a blistering attack on the government, stating, “Israel is on the way to becoming a pariah state, like South Africa was, if we don’t return to acting like a sane country. And a sane country does not fight against civilians, does not kill children as a hobby and does not give itself the aim of expelling populations.”

He added, “This government is full of vengeful types with no morals and no ability to run a country in a time of crisis. This endangers our existence.”

This is the same Yair Golan, who, in December 2023, thought it appropriate for all the Palestinians in Gaza to be starved to death, so it is significant how much his opinions have changed — although, noticeably, they align with many other prominent individuals in Israel from the worlds of politics, the intelligence services and the military, as well as, of course, the hostages’ families.

On May 20, also, the UK government stepped up its actions, with the foreign secretary, David Lammy, delivering, for the first time, a blistering attack on Israel in the House of Commons, stating that Israel’s military escalation was “morally unjustifiable, it’s wholly disproportionate, it’s utterly, utterly counterproductive”, and adding that “whatever Israeli ministers claim, this is not the way to bring the hostages safely home.”

He also condemned as “abominable” the starvation of the Palestinians, and took particular aim at Bezalel Smotrich’s description of “Israeli forces ‘cleansing’ Gaza, ‘destroying what’s left’, of resident Palestinians ‘being relocated to third countries.’ We must call this what it is. It is extremism. It is dangerous. It is repellent. It is monstrous.”

Lammy also suspended negotiations over a new free trade deal with Israel, announced that the Israeli Ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, was being “summoned to hear British demands that the latest assault on Gaza be halted”, as the Guardian described it, and also imposed sanctions on Israeli settlers, including the fanatical settler extremist Daniella Weiss, most recently seen physically assaulting Louis Theroux in his documentary, ‘The Settlers.’

Also on May 20, as the Guardian added, “EU foreign ministers, meeting in Brussels, decided to review the bloc’s trade agreement with Israel after a request from the Dutch foreign minister, Caspar Veldkamp. Seventeen of the 27 states backed the move. The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner, accounting for 32% of Israel’s total trade in goods in 2024.”

Words, of course, mean nothing, but the extent of the revulsion with Israel, triggered by the prospect of mass starvation and the genuinely repellent messianic cruelty and bloodlust of “Operation Gideon’s Chariots”, would seem to represent a sea change, and not just because politicians across the west can now see clearly the extent of Israel’s genocide and how, if they do not speak up now, they will be held complicit.

Politics is a slippery game, full of untrustworthy characters, but, when tides turn, for whatever reasons, they can have a significant knock-on effect that can change what appeared to be settled and imperturbable outcomes.

Some commentators have regarded the change in western attitudes with suspicion, but yesterday Israel’s Ynet News reported that an Israeli Foreign Ministry official had told them that they were “facing a silent boycott and a diplomatic disaster”, as Fadi Quran, Avaaz’s Senior Director described it when he shared the information on X.

“We are facing a real tsunami that will only get worse”, the official said, adding, “We are in the worst situation we have ever been in. This is much worse than a catastrophe, the world is not with us.” As the official also said, “The world has seen on its television screens since November 2023 only dead Palestinian children and the razing of homes, and it is fed up. Israel offers no solution, no arrangement for the day after, no hope. Only death and destruction. The silent boycott was here before and it will only get stronger. We must not take this lightly. No one will want to be identified with Israel.”

The turning tides are, as yet, of absolutely no use to the Palestinians in Gaza, still starving, and still being bombed to death, but it may be that politicians who are finally discovering outrage on their behalf will end up decisively shifting the tide against Israel, making it, definitively, the pariah state that Yair Golan warned about on May 20, and that the Israeli Foreign Ministry official confirmed through his assessment that “No one will want to be identified with Israel.”

To help this happen, the western nations who are finally waking up need to, at the very least, ban all arms sales to Israel immediately, break off diplomatic relations, impose sanctions, and divest from all investments in Israel — and, moreover, they need to act quickly.

* * * * *

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer (of an ongoing photo-journalism project, ‘The State of London’), film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (see the ongoing photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo”, which you can watch on YouTube here.

In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of the documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June 2017 that killed over 70 people, and, in 2018, he was part of the occupation of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Deptford, to try to prevent its destruction — and that of 16 structurally sound council flats next door — by Lewisham Council and Peabody.

Since 2019, Andy has become increasingly involved in environmental activism, recognizing that climate change poses an unprecedented threat to life on earth, and that the window for change — requiring a severe reduction in the emission of all greenhouse gases, and the dismantling of our suicidal global capitalist system — is rapidly shrinking, as tipping points are reached that are occurring much quicker than even pessimistic climate scientists expected. You can read his articles about the climate crisis here. He has also, since, October 2023, been sickened and appalled by Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and you can read his detailed coverage here.

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s new Substack account, set up in November 2024, where he’ll be sending out a weekly newsletter, or his RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, The Complete Guantánamo Files, the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, and the full military commissions list.

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