West must hold Israel to the law
An edited version of this article appeared in The Birmingham Post
22nd January 2009
In Victoria Square last Saturday thousands of people gathered to protest about Israel’s attack on Gaza. A man in the square said to me that he had never participated in such an event before but had to do something about the terrible events in Gaza. Having spoken to friends since, there were many more who would have been there if they had known.
The question is what is to happen now the bombardment has stopped and Gazans are emerging to find massive piles of rubble and even more dead bodies. The Government has learned the lesson of the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon in 2006 when it enraged us all by refusing to call for a ceasefire until Israel had completed the destruction that it planned. This time it called for a ceasefire from the beginning. It also supported an EU resolution that called Israel’s attack disproportionate. But it has not condemned the Israeli assault and plans no action to hold Israel to account.
The truth is that the Hamas government in Gaza held to the ceasefire negotiated by Egypt from June to October 2008 and rocket attacks halted. But Israel continued to tighten the siege so that Gazans lacked food, water, electricity, medicines and other necessities.
Then on 4 November Israel broke the siege with a bombing attack which killed 6 Hamas members. After this, the rocket attacks resumed. Hamas made it clear that it would agree another ceasefire if the siege would be lifted. Israel responded by attacking Gaza on 27 December. Just as with the Iraq war, a litany of lies has been used to justify these massacres. The truth is that Israel could have stopped all rocket attacks by agreeing to lift the siege of Gaza but refused.
I am afraid that Israel is becoming a rogue state, drunk on its military power, endlessly expanding its borders, bombing and killing those who get in its way. The holocaust in Europe that killed 6 million Jews is alongside the slave trade, the greatest evil in human history. Christendom’s long history of persecuting Jews inflicted constant suffering on the Jewish people. For this, all western countries should be deeply ashamed. But this in no way justifies Israel’s persecution and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.
It is quite clear from Israel’s long record of expanding settlements and refusing to negotiate with representatives of the Palestinian people that it will not agree to a peace settlement in accordance with international law. This would mean the Palestinians being given their state on their own lands occupied by Israel since 1967.
Hamas has made it clear that it would agree to such a settlement, but the reality on the ground is that Palestinians are confined to a series of Bantustans around which Israel has built a wall and hundreds of check points so that the Palestinian economy has been destroyed and Palestinian people are constantly arrested, humiliated and killed.
We are facing decades of bitterness, hatred and bloodshed unless western powers change their attitude to Israel. It can only behave in this way because the UK, the EU and the US refuse to hold Israel to international law. They breach the Geneva Convention with the settlements, the wall and the closures. The International Court of Justice, the most authoritative Court in the international system, ruled in 2004 that the wall settlements and closures were grave breaches of international law, but nothing is done.
Israel’s action in Gaza constitutes serious war crimes according to authoritative bodies, but and unless there is a change of policy, nothing will be done. The UK government sells arms to Israel, supports its trade access to EU markets under a trade treaty that contains human rights conditions which are not invoked. It supports upgrading Israel’s relationship with the EU and it becoming a member of the OECD. The message is clear: Israel can do what it likes and will never be held to account in international law. Unless this changes, the future of the Middle East and the long term future of Israel is very gloomy.
Clare Short MP
