Israel and Palestine

My analysis of yesterday’s General Election in the UK, which, after 14 years, swept aside the Tories, and ushered in a Labour government under Keir Starmer, with a huge but disproportionate majority that didn’t reflect the number of votes received (less than Jeremy Corbyn in 2017 and 2019), but rather the collapse of the Tories, finally undone after years of cruelty, incompetence and corruption, and facilitated by the sudden rise of Nigel Farage’s far-right Reform UK Party, which helpfully split the right-wing vote. Wonderful though it is to see the back of the Tories, and also to see noticeable successes for the Green Party, the Liberal Democrats, and a number of independents including Jeremy Corbyn, power is now in the hands of Starmer and his cabinet, including his Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who secured victory despite having almost no policies that distinguish them from the Tories. I discuss my many concerns, criticising Labour’s adherence to neoliberalism, and urging it to be bold on re-nationalisation (especially of water), and expressing my shock that Starmer has so openly declared his opposition to any kind of rapprochement with the EU, even though Brexit has done more to damage the UK than anything else over the last eight years, wrecking trade, and leading to a disgraceful rise in racism, which, in the hands of the Tories’ parade of leaders in the years since, led to a morally repugnant fixation on making it illegal to be a refugee, and seeking to send asylum seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda. I hope this anti-immigrant hostility will be abandoned, and I also hope that other draconian Tory innovations — in particular, an attempt to ban all meaningful protest, through the criminalisation of climate activism — will be ditched, although on this particular point I fear that Starmer, as the former Director of Public Prosecutions, has troubling authoritarian impulses that may not augur well for civil liberties. I also urge boldness — true boldness — on climate collapse, and end by expressing my fears for foreign policy under Starmer, most noticeably because of his uncritical support for Israel and its ongoing and unforgivable genocide in Gaza.

My thoughts on Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the Labour Party and the forthcoming General Election in the UK, in response to some commentators stating that Labour should be boycotted in its entirety, because of the unconditional support for Israel demonstrated by Keir Starmer and other members of the shadow cabinet. In response, I’ve compiled a list of around 60 Labour MPs who are worth voting for, based largely on the rebels who defied the whip and voted for an SNP amendment in November calling for an immediate ceasefire, and who include all of the remaining left wingers in Starmer’s centre-right pro-Israel Party. I’ve also compiled a second list of around 60 MPs who don’t deserve your vote. These include Starmer himself and, mostly, members of the shadow cabinet, shadow junior ministers, whips and other members of the Party machinery who are all members of Labour Friends of Israel, and who have not shown any signs of dissent from the Party’s overall support for Israel, despite the International Court of Justice, in January, issuing “provisional measures” against the State of Israel on the basis that it was engaged in a “plausible genocide”, and, more recently, Karim Khan KC, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, announcing his intention to seek arrest warrants — for war crimes and crimes against humanity — for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders.

My latest long read marking eight months of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, focusing on a warning, by two UN agencies, that “over one million people — half the population of Gaza — are expected to face death and starvation by mid-July.” I also discuss how Israel’s initial rationale for monstrous colonial aggression and murder — the Holocaust, through the lens of which Israel has relentlessly portrayed itself as the only victim in world history, who, as a result, can do no wrong — has been joined, since the attacks by Hamas and other militants on October 7, by an updated version of the victim scenario, in which murdering at least 40,000 Palestinian civilians (the true number may be much higher) is not even acknowledged by either Israel or its supporters in the west, for whom the lives of Palestinian civilians seem to have absolutely no value at all. I also examine the seemingly insurmountable obstacles to a ceasefire, caused primarily by Benjamin Netanyahu’s obsession with endlessly continuing the genocide, and placating his fanatical far-right ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, at least in part simply to keep himself in power, and conclude with an appeal for hostilities to end, not only to prevent imminent starvation on an unthinkable scale, but to prevent the “extermination” — to use ICC prosecutor Karim Khan’s words — of the entire Palestinian population of Gaza, which would be, as I describe it, “the most monstrous crime — the elimination of an entire people — that any of us have ever seen.”

Linking to and discussing my latest appearance on Gorilla Radio, the weekly radio show from western Canada run by Chris Cook, who has been interviewing me on a regular basis for many years, in which, for 30 minutes, we discussed various aspects of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, following up on my recent article, ‘Ending Israel’s Impunity for Genocide in Gaza, and the Threat to Those, Like Joe Biden, Who Are Most Complicit’, and also following up on recent reports about conditions in Israel’s brutal and fundamentally lawless prisons for Palestinians.

My latest long read about Israel’s seemingly unstoppable genocide in Gaza, as displaced civilians are bombed and burnt alive in makeshift tents in Rafah, in an area they were told was a “safe zone,” in which I revisit the lies told by Israel and its western backers in an attempt to justify its actions, and provide a summary of the almost innumerable ways in which, in contrast, Israel, with western support, has, completely unjustifiably, murdered 40,000 civilians and destroyed almost the whole of the Gaza Strip. I also examine the efforts to hold Israel accountable through the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which, on May 24, delivered its third, and most strongly worded ruling this year, but I note how the UN is hobbled by the veto wielded by the five permanent members of the Security Council, including, most notably, the US, and how, problematically, the court has no enforcement mechanism. I also examine the recent, and unexpected announcement by Karim Khan, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), that he intends to issue arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, as well as three Hamas leaders, and conclude that international humanitarian law, established after the Second World War, is now being tested as never before, as those who set it up, and, crucially, included Israel in its group of ‘western’ countries who never thought that the rules would apply to them, are now exposing their colonial supremacist mindset more shockingly than ever before, defending and supporting the most barbaric and inexcusable genocide on behalf of another country, which, they believe, should be above the law. My hope, in conclusion, is that, because so many people are so implacably opposed to allowing Israel’s crimes to go unpunished, Israel itself, and the countries that support it, led by the US, can no longer get away with putting Israel’s demands — reinforced through powerful lobbying groups — before their own citizens’ wishes, and that meaningful change, via the collapse of Zionism, the liberation of Palestine, and the collapse of the western power structures that prioritize Israel over themselves, will have to prevail.

In my latest article about Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, I reflect on the latest death toll and the scale of the destruction, and invite western readers to reflect on what this scale of death and destruction would mean if over 100,000 bombs had been dropped on comparable areas in the west — half of New York, or a quarter of London — in a seven-month period. I also examine the ceasefire proposal recently agreed to by Hamas, but turned down by Israel, and assess Benjamin Netanyahu’s obsession with invading Rafah as the continuation of what has now become Israel’s sole purpose: the continued eradication of the whole of the Gaza Strip, and the murder of as many Palestinians as possible. I also look at the few hopeful signs that an end could possibly be in sight — increasing anger within Israel that the hostages in Gaza are being sacrificed for Netanyahu’s quenchless thirst for genocide, alarm in military circles in both Israel and the US about the risks of Israel’s actions in Gaza turning into an endless, pointless quagmire, alarm within the Democratic Party that they will lose to Donald Trump in November unless the conflict is brought to an end, and the emerging awareness of what “the day after” would mean in practice — reconstruction efforts that, as the UN Development Programme has estimated, will take until 2040 and cost at least $40bn (£32bn), even if an end to hostilities takes place soon. The alternative, as I point out, is the completely unacceptable realization of the darkest wish of Netanyahu and his ministers — a truly alarming “forever genocide.”

My review of, and photos from ‘Palestine Vision’, an extraordinary evening of Palestinian music at the Tabernacle in Notting Hill on May 7, taking place to protest against Israel’s inclusion in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, which included an electrifying appearance by Palestinian hip-hop legend Tamer Nafar, and a moving set by rising pop star Bashar Murad, who set to music ‘If I Must Die’ by the much-loved poet and academic Refaat Alareer, who was targeted and murdered by Israel in Gaza in December. My video of Bashar’s musical version of Refaat’s poem is included.

In my latest article about Israel’s genocide in Gaza, I provide a re-cap on the last seven months of horror in Gaza, in which over 42,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been murdered by Israel. I also condemn the Israeli regime and the western governments providing unconditional support, but note how unparalleled numbers of people have switched off from largely uncritical mainstream media (with the brave exception of Al Jazeera), and are refusing to conform, through their engagement with what, globally, must be the largest protest movement in human history. I also celebrate the student protests on US campuses, deplore the violent response by many university administrators and the police, and express my hope that, not only will the protests continue, but that students’ call for their universities to divest from organizations complicit in Israel’s genocide will expand to recognize that the genocidal war machine is just part of the capitalist death cult of the third decade of the 21st century, and that what is also needed is wholesale divestment from every aspect of this sick system, which is not only erasing Gaza, but is also committed to making the prospect of life on earth untenable for all of us.

In my latest article about Israel’s genocide in Gaza, I examine a little-discussed aspect of Israel’s actions — the lack of an exit strategy. With no prospect of any other countries accepting the population of the Gaza Strip as refugees, I conclude that Israel’s genocidal actions are actually a “final solution” to the Palestinian “problem”, and that President Biden, who leads the west’s largely unconditional support for Israel, also endorses this approach. Criticizing western leaders for the emptiness of their support of Israel’s “right to defend itself”, I also condemn their refusal to recognize that Israel’s two stated aims — to “destroy” Hamas and to free the hostages seized on October 7 — are either unworkable or self-defeating, and conclude my analysis by comparing how the west’s position on Israel is as dangerous and irresponsible as its failure to take climate collapse seriously, and warn that, by allowing Israel to so blatantly shred international humanitarian law, and by using fake antisemitism claims to suppress dissent and to further stifle protest, they are ensuring that, not only is nowhere in Gaza safe, but nowhere in the west is safe either — not from any external “terrorist” threat, but from our own governments.

In my latest article about Israel’s still-ongoing genocide in Gaza, I reflect on the latest death toll of 41,496 Palestinians, compiled by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, which also indicates that 90% of those killed were civilians, and discuss the latest investigation by +972 Magazine, exposing the existence of an AI program, codenamed “Lavender,” which auto-generated bombing targets with little or no human oversight, contributing immensely to the devastating civilian death toll. I note, however, that the existence of the AI program shouldn’t distract us from the reality that Israel’s aim has always been genocide, as evidenced by bombing raids in which no military target is discernible, through the complete destruction of Gaza’s entire infrastructure, its war on hospitals, its summary executions and enforced disappearances, its incessant use of snipers and quadcopters (often deliberately targeting children), and its use of starvation. I end by noting that unconditional western support for Israel finally seems to be waning, particularly as a result of outrage generated by the killing of six western aid workers (and a Palestinian), which, of course, only demonstrates a fundamental racism in the west. Despite the hypocrisy, however, I conclude that it is worth exerting as much pressure as possible on western politicians and the media to permanently shift their positions and to begin the necessary moves towards finally ending Israel’s 76-year impunity, and, by whatever means, ending its current, and unprecedented genocidal slaughter.