We shamelessly allow the real agents of terror to run loose in the corridors of power

Stuart Littlewood writes:

This year I decided, for the first time in my adult life, not to attend our local Remembrance parade. Why? The hypocrisy of Establishment poseurs at the Cenotaph was too much. For them the key message “Never Again” seems to mean nothing. I felt their continued encouragement – even approval – of Israel’s genocide in Gaza debased the whole event.

Armistice Day is when we give thanks for our freedom and remember the brave souls who gave their lives to defend it. It’s the same sort of freedom we promised the Palestinians 108 years ago and still haven’t delivered.

We made that pledge in 1915 for Arab help in defeating the Turks; and we should have granted Palestine provisional independence in 1923 in accordance with the League of Nations Mandate Agreement, but didn’t. Then in 1947 the UN Partition allocated the Palestinians a measly portion of their own homeland while giving away the lion’s share to incomer Jews, with Jerusalem a ‘corpus separatum’ under international control, but none of that came to pass because in 1948 Britain walked away from its mandate responsibilities leaving Palestinians at the mercy of greedy Israel’s murderous rampage aimed at expelling the natives, seizing their lands and resources and establishing the illegal, brutal occupation we see today.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak, in his speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet at the Guildhall, London this week said the only answer that comes close to creating peace is a two-state solution. “The UK wrote the original UN resolutions setting this out. We’ve argued the case for decades. But now we must help make it a reality… I pledge to redouble efforts to this end.

“That means providing the serious, practical and enduring support needed to bolster the Palestinian Authority because they are the best route to sweep away the terrible scourge of Hamas… As hard as it may be, no matter the obstacles, we must put the region on the path to a genuine peace.”

No mention of justice, no mention of Israel’s long crime sheet and horrific cruelty. But there never is. And as everyone else knows, these fine words come too late. Britain and her Western allies have dithered for decades in what looks like a deliberate effort to buy time for Israel to steal more and more territory and resources, drive out local residents and establish irreversible ‘facts on the ground’ to make sure the Zionist dream of conquering the Holy Land comes true.

‘Agent’ Cameron returns

So what is Sunak’s latest promise really worth? Even less than usual now that he’s appointed former prime minister David Cameron (hurriedly created Lord Cameron) the new foreign secretary.

Cameron has been absent from Parliament for seven years and is unelected. His first act in his new role is to slap sanctions not on insane, genocidal Israel but on Hamas’s leaders and financiers, saying: “We will continue to use every tool at our disposal to disrupt the abhorrent activity of this terrorist organisation… The Palestinian people are victims of Hamas too.”  Oh, has he asked them? After all, they did democratically elect Hamas.

“And,” he burbled, “we will continue to support humanitarian pauses to allow significantly more lifesaving aid to reach Gaza.” Well that’s been a huge success, hasn’t it? Some MPs are concerned (as they should be) that they’ll be unable to hold this ‘bloke from the House of Lords’ properly to account.

Readers will remember that Cameron is a rabid Zionist with unswerving loyalty to Israel. “I am a passionate friend of Israel – and that’s the way it’s going to stay,” he told a Conservative Friends of Israel lunch. Addressing Israel’s Knesset he pledged to defeat any boycotting of Israel. “Britain opposes boycotts,” he said without having consulted the British people on the matter and ignoring the rapid growth of the BDS movement.

Continuing his speech to the Knesset, Cameron took diplomatic daftness to a new level: “Let me say to you very clearly: with me, you have a British Prime Minister whose belief in Israel is unbreakable and whose commitment to Israel’s security will always be rock solid. I will always stand up for the right of Israel to defend its citizens. A right enshrined in international law, in natural justice and fundamental morality…” I haven’t heard him acknowledge Palestine’s somewhat superior right as the victim of Israel’s 75-year occupation by armed force.

Cameron was among those who stupidly voted for war with Iraq, which brought wholesale death and destruction, shredded the lives of everyone there and wrecked their ancient civilisation. He went on the prod in Libya with generally disastrous consequences for its people. He was itching to bomb Syria but, mercifully, Parliament stopped him. And he inflicted vicious sanctions on the Iranians, with the intention of ruining their economy, for no better reason than Israel and America wished it.

Particularly shameful was his eagerness to shelter Israel’s vile war criminals such as former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who was largely responsible for the terror that brought death and destruction to Gaza’s civilians during the blitzkrieg known as Operation Cast Lead over Christmas and New Year 2008/9. Showing no remorse, and with the blood of 1,400 dead Gazans (including 320 children and 109 women) on her hands and thousands more horribly maimed, Livni’s office issued a statement saying she was proud of it. Speaking later at a conference at Tel Aviv’s Institute for Security Studies, she said: “I would today take the same decisions.”

Cameron was prepared to undermine our justice system in order to make the UK a safe haven for the likes of her. “When I was in Opposition I spoke out when — because of the law on Universal Jurisdiction — senior Israelis could not safely come to my country without fear of ideologically motivated court cases and legal stunts. When I became Prime Minister I legislated to change it. My country is open to you. And you are welcome to visit anytime,” he told those psychopaths.

So much for Britain’s solemn obligation (which he dismissed as a ‘legal stunt’) under the Geneva Conventions to bring to book those suspected of war crimes. And so much for his duties under international law to “fight impunity for grave international crimes wherever they occur”. So an all-round dumb-ass performance in foreign affairs by this Old Etonian toff and insufferable Bullingdon Club brat-pack member.

I read that Cameron’s comeback was brokered by former foreign secretary William (now Lord) Hague, who has been a member of Conservative Friends of Israel since he was 15 and very silly with it.

And the Government’s response to the petition “Seek a ceasefire and  end Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip” is unhelpful. It includes the usual drivel about the UK’s longstanding commitment to a two-state solution and a negotiated settlement leading to “a safe and secure Israel living alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state” – as if Israel’s security is more important than Palestine’s. And it adds this gem: “We are focused on conflict resolution… As the Prime Minister has said: following Hamas’ horrific terrorist attacks on 7 October, there is no scenario where Hamas can be allowed to control Gaza again. That is why we are not at this stage calling for a general ceasefire, which would potentially allow Hamas to regroup and entrench its position.”

So even more children must die because the UK Government doesn’t happen to like the Palestinians’ democratically elected and legitimate government, Hamas, exercising its lawful right to defend its territory and citizens from occupation, illegal blockade and murderous incursions by Israeli forces and armed squatters. Somebody at Westminster must have forgotten what the inalienable right to self-determination means. Read the words. As Jeremy Corbyn correctly points out, “it is not for us to decide” who runs Gaza, whatever ‘Agent’ Cameron says.

It was a clever wheeze to proscribe Hamas’s political wing as a terrorist organisation because it makes it so much easier for Israel stooges like Cameron to avoid having to explain Israel’s much worse war crimes and crimes against humanity. It was Priti Patel, the International Development Secretary, who engineered it.

She is so off her head that she had 14 meetings with Israeli politicians (including prime minister Netanyahu and his security minister) during a family holiday in Israel without telling the Foreign Office, her civil servants or her boss Theresa May, and without government officials present. This was not only a middle finger to the Ministerial Code of Conduct but a gross breach of security.

She was accused of freelancing in foreign policy and is said to have tried persuading colleagues to send British taxpayers’ money as aid for an Israeli forces project in the Golan Heights… like we didn’t need the money here, what with 300,000 homeless and sleeping rough. And she actually visited the Golan. Everyone and his dog knows – except Patel, apparently – that the Golan Heights is Syrian territory stolen in 1967 by the Israelis who have illegally occupied it ever since. Touring it with the thieving occupation army was another serious diplomatic blunder.

Patel’s meetings are said to have been arranged by Lord Polak. This individual was an official of the Board of Deputies of British Jews in the 1980s, joined the Conservative Friends of Israel in 1989, and served as its director for 26 years until appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for political service and made a life peer. It’s hard to see what political service Polak performed for anyone except the Israeli regime.

The enemy within

The Palestinians’ enemies are not only embedded in the Government’s woodwork. At its Annual General Meeting in 2016 the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) threw out a proposal to seek Israel’s expulsion from the United Nations. A motion was put for the PSC’s Executive Committee to “request the Government of the United Kingdom, enforced by a petition and lobbying, to submit a motion to the Security Council recommending that the General Assembly expel Israel from the UN in compliance with the UN Charter, Article 6.”

Unbelievably the motion failed – 76 in favour, 116 against. A statement by its main sponsor, Blake Alcott, said that an identical motion to the AGM the previous year was likewise opposed by the PSC leadership who felt “the time is not yet right”. His reaction to this latest rejection was to say: “Pro-Palestinians must wonder how much worse Israel’s crimes must be before the international community takes disciplinary action.” The time is not yet right is a frequent reply of Government ministers when asked why they haven’t recognised Palestinian statehood.

There are several good reasons for calling for Israel’s expulsion from the UN. It chimes with the ‘Sanctions’ element of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). It’s a good fit with the kind of measures that ought to be imposed until Israel (a) meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and (b) fully complies with the precepts of international law. And Israel has never complied with it obligations under the UN Charter.

Now, just as pro-Palestine sentiment surges and brings countless thousands into the streets in revulsion to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, PSC’s leadership has chosen to disable and shut down one of its most effective campaigning groups – Manchester – for no apparent reason. I have long suspected its HQ has been infiltrated and ‘managed’. It would be surprising if there’d been no attempt to do so.

How could any self-respecting person be a Friend of Israel?

The claim by Conservative Friends of Israel that 80 percent of the party’s MPs are members shows how lacking in integrity the UK is at the heart of government. It puts us almost on a par with US Congress which is controlled by the Israel lobby through AIPAC.

Being a Friend of Israel means embracing the whole rotten can of worms, including the terror and racism on which the state of Israel was built. It means embracing the dispossession and oppression of innocent Palestinians. It means embracing the discriminatory, apartheid laws against those who refuse to be pushed out off their homeland. It means embracing the jackboot thuggery that abducts civilians – including children – and imprisons and tortures them without trial. It means embracing the theft and annexation of Palestinian lands and water resources, the imposition of hundreds of military checkpoints, severe restrictions on the movement of people and goods, and maximum interference in Palestinian life at every level.

It means approving the bloodbaths inflicted by Israel on Gaza and feeling comfortable with blowing thousands of children to smithereens, maiming many thousands more, trashing vital infrastructure such as hospitals, schools, power plants and clean water supplies, and causing devastation that will take 20 years to rebuild. By the way, where is the money for that coming from?

It means embracing the strangulation of the West Bank’s economy and the vicious 17-year blockade on Gaza. It means embracing the denial of Palestinians’ right to self-determination and to return to their homes. It means embracing the religious war that has destroyed churches and mosques, humiliates Muslims and Christians and prevents them from visiting their holy places. It means endorsing a situation in which hard-pressed American and British taxpayers are having to subsidise Israel’s illegal occupation of the Holy Land and its wrecking-ball tactics.

And if, after all that, you are still Israel’s special friend, where is your self-respect?

Everyone outside the Westminster/Washington bubble knows perfectly well that there can be no peace in the Holy Land without justice. In other words no peace until the military occupation ends – completely. Everyone knows that international law and countless UN resolutions still wait to be implemented. Everyone knows that Israel won’t comply unless forced to by sanctions.

What’s more, everyone now knows that the US is not an honest broker and justice won’t come from yet more sham ‘negotiations’. Nor will peace. Everyone knows who is the real cause of turmoil in the Middle East. And everyone knows that His Majesty’s Government’s hand-wringing and empty words serve no purpose except to prolong the daily misery for Palestinians and buy time for Israel to complete its criminal scheme to make the occupation permanent.

This may be a good moment to reflect on George Washington’s wise words: “The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave… a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils.”

The first really sensible step towards peace

Best news yet is this message just received from Brad Parker, Defense for Children International – Palestine:

Yesterday, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a historic federal lawsuit against President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Austin for failing to prevent and aiding and abetting the genocide of the Palestinian people…

Under both international and U.S. law, the Biden administration has the legal obligation to stop US support for the genocide that Israeli forces are unleashing against the Palestinian people. Instead, they have repeatedly pledged unwavering support for Israel as Israeli forces target civilian infrastructure like hospitals, schools, bakeries, and water stations. At least 4,650 Palestinian children have been killed, and an additional 1,755 children are missing—most of whom are presumed dead under the rubble. The Biden administration must stop encouraging this genocide immediately. Elected officials must answer the question: Are you with the genocide-supporting Biden administration, or against?

He urges Americans to contact their member of Congress today to say that “they too must abide by their legal and moral obligation to stop US support for the genocide of the Palestinian people”. Same goes for our MPs of course.

So, dare we hope for a similar action to be launched against our sick-minded administration at Westminster?