Will ministers please explain their infatuation with the criminal apartheid state?

By Stuart Littlewood

I hear from Defence for Children International that Israeli forces have been killing one Palestinian child every 10 minutes for the last three weeks while the British government eggs them on. Be truthful.

(1) Why don’t you come clean on how the Israeli state was founded on terror in 1948 and immediately set about massacring (at Deir Yassin, Lydda and elsewhere) and expelling at gunpoint 750,000 Palestinian civilians from their homes as part of its “Plan Dalet”, the Zionist blueprint for a bloody takeover of the Holy Land, which continues to this day?

(2) Why don’t you explain to us how Israel is not the liberal Western-style democracy it claims to be but a thoroughly nasty ethnocracy which practises apartheid policies through its racist Nation State laws?

(3) While you rightly agonise over the number of Israelis murdered by Hamas, why aren’t you showing equal concern for the slaughter of Palestinians when you know perfectly well that in the 23 years before the latest “escalation”, the Israelis had already killed 10,550 Palestinians while Palestinians had killed just 1,330 Israelis? As for the butchering of children, it’s 2,270 Palestinian young lives snuffed out versus 145 Israeli, a ratio of nearly 16:1 (Israeli figures – B’Tselem).

(4) And while you rightly agonise over the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas, why aren’t you also shocked about the 5,200 Palestinians, including 33 women and 170 children, currently rotting in Israeli jails and demanding their release? Child prisoners are usually snatched from their homes in night raids by the Israeli army. And there are 1,264 Palestinians under “administrative detention”, meaning they are held indefinitely behind bars without facing trial or any charges. Detention can be extended indefinitely based on “secret evidence”, meaning a detainee can spend months if not years in prison without being charged.

(5) Why do you bang on and on about Israel’s right to defend itself when Palestinians have a better right under international law as the victims of 75 years of Israeli terror, ethnic cleansing and illegal occupation by brutal military force?

Why don’t you make it clear that, as the aggressor and illegal occupier, Israel is in permanent breach of international law and its right to self-defence is therefore severely restricted by the laws of war and occupation; while the Palestinians’ right is enshrined in UN Resolution 37/43 in their struggle for “liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle”? And that Resolution 37/43 strongly condemns “the constant and deliberate violations of the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people, as well as the expansionist activities of Israel in the Middle East, which constitute an obstacle to the achievement of self-determination and independence by the Palestinian people and a threat to peace and stability in the region”?

(6) Instead of repeating the lie that Israel made painful sacrifices in 2005 by voluntarily withdrawing its troops and settlers from Gaza in the hope of renewing the peace process, why don’t you tell us the truth that, actually, Israel made no sacrifices at all? Gaza wasn’t theirs to keep and the settlers were committing a war crime by being there so staying was unsustainable. Furthermore, the Israelis have continued to occupy Gaza’s airspace, airwaves and coastal waters and control all entrances and exits, thus keeping the population bottled up and provoking acts of resistance that give Israel a bogus excuse to turn Gaza into a prison.

And, in case you have forgotten, international law regards Israel as still the occupier which imposes a duty to protect the indigenous population, not exterminate it.

(7) Why don’t you accept that Hamas was voted into power fair and square in elections scrutinised by independent observers and is the legitimate, democratic government in Gaza whatever you or anybody may think? Therefore, this is a war between Israel and Palestine, not Israel and Hamas. And why did you proscribe Hamas’s political wing as a terrorist organisation when anyone can see that the definition so perfectly fits Israel and the US?

(8) On the question of winning territory by conquest, why don’t you explain to us all that Article 2(4) of the UN Charter expressly prohibits aggressive war and Article 5(3) of General Assembly Resolution 3314 (XXIX) of 1975 (which includes the definition of Acts of Aggression) nullifies any legal title acquired in this way? And that. Article 5(3) says “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations“? In carrying through its genocidal assault on Gaza’s civilians and their homes, infrastructure and livelihoods, Israel cannot possibly claim to abide by international law.

The Israelis were generously “gifted” parts of Palestine in the UN Partition Plan of 1947 but that wasn’t enough to satisfy their greed and they set about committing dreadful acts of aggression to acquire even more territory – and are still doing so as you can surely see.

(9) Why haven’t you told us about Gaza’s huge marine gasfield, estimated at 30 billion cubic metres and worth billions of dollars, which Israel has been trying to steal for years? This is a likely reason for demolishing Gaza and annihilating its residents (or driving them into Sinai)?

(10) Why haven’t you told us that Israel has 200 (or is it 400?) nuclear warheads, is the only state in the region not to have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, hasn’t signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, and has signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, similarly the Chemical Weapons Convention? Why don’t you admit that Israel poses a serious threat to the region and beyond, especially given its demented leadership?

(11) Why don’t you admit – and apologise for – the British government’s serial foul-ups, beginning in 1915 with the Allied Powers’ promise of independence to the Arabs in return for their help in defeating Turkey (Sir Henry McMahon’s correspondence with Sharif Hussein ibn Ali of Mecca), which was reneged in the following year when the Sykes-Picot Agreement between France and Britain redrew the map of the Middle East territories they had won? Then came the infamous “Declaration” in 1917 with Balfour saying “we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country [Palestine]”, followed by Britain, the mandated power, failing to grant Palestine provisional independence provided for under Article 22 of the 1923 League of Nations Mandate Agreement. Then in 1948 Britain walked away from its Mandate responsibilities, leaving the Palestinians at the mercy of Jewish terrorist militias carrying out their programme of murder, massacre, ethnic cleansing, illegal occupation and annexation, which continues to this day.

(12)  And why won’t you explain, please, why the UK hasn’t sanctioned Israel for its long record of crimes against humanity when you readily slap sanctions on other delinquent states, even Russia?

(13) As for the distressing rise in anti-Semitism, Israelis themselves have warned for decades that Jews all over the world will suffer for Israel’s crimes. Jewish community leaders here fail to condemn the apartheid regime’s atrocities against Palestinians over the last 75 years and even the genocide the world is now witnessing. Why is it so difficult for the government to see the cause of bad feeling?

(14) And why can’t you accept the basic truth that there will be no lasting peace without justice and that the solution was set out in international law and UN resolutions long ago. All it needs is for the international community, in good faith and with determination, to implement it using the tools available.

It is the responsibility of Britain, as the nation answerable for this catastrophe, to now make amends, do the decent thing and join the other 139 countries that already recognise Palestine as an independent state within internationally agreed borders and whose security is just as important as Israel’s. You will then be on the same page as Hamas in its 2017 Covenant and the rest of the world (outside the US-Israel bubble, that is).