Most of the victims at the Abu Oraiban school in the Nuseirat refugee camp are women and children (Eyad Baba/AFP)War, famine, genocide, and hotly contested elections. We think of Orwell’s novel 1984 as presaging a dystopian future, however it’s this year of 2024 which is delivering horror, unconscionable suffering, and threats from the authoritarians of the far-right. A bleak scenario, only faintly ameliorated by the election results in Britain and France. Whilst Gaza is being bombed day and night, people are being killed, maimed or wounded: the genocide continues unabated.
During A Genocide
You will find that during a genocide
most words lose their meaning
Some sound empty & others strange
Apart from unceasing prayer,
eloquence takes the form
of tears or kindness and solidarity
Even a quiet moan or sighing
is preferable to false words or worse:
a loud and wounding Silence…
Yahia Lababidi From the collection, Palestine Wail: Poems
In the meantime, Britain has a new Prime Minister, Sir Kier Starmer, a former lawyer. When he was in opposition he had been consistently pressured to call for a ceasefire and finally did so in February 2024. It’s encouraging to see that in his first call as Prime Minister to Benjamin Netanyahu Starmer stated “a clear and urgent need for a ceasefire, the return of hostages and an immediate increase in the volume of humanitarian aid reaching civilians.” None of us expect Netanyahu to accede to these demands given his dependence on the war to shore up his own political future, nevertheless it’s a layer of pressure to which other layers can be added. Perhaps the next layer could arise from the advice of Britain’s new Attorney General, Richard Hermer KC, lauded as a legal heavyweight:
“He is in a league of his own! He is approachable, user-friendly and a leader.” “He is an excellent strategic thinker and legal brain whose commitment to environmental and human rights work is second to none. His manner in court is rigorous, detailed and fluent.” CHAMBERS & PARTNERS, 2022, ENVIRONMENT
After the Hamas attack on 7th October 2023, Richard Hermer was one of a group of high profile Jewish lawyers who wrote an open letter to the Financial Times, asserting the importance of international law “as a guide to all.” The signatories included the former Supreme Court President Lord Neuberger, Philippe Sands KC, Anthony Metzer KC, and Sandra Fredman KC (hon) Faculty of Law, University of Oxford. The letter condemned the Hamas attack as “…a moral outrage but (also) an egregious violation of all norms of international law”, and accepted Israel’s right in international law to respond in self-defence and its duty to defend its citizens, proceeding to advise that any nation involved in the conduct of war was also bound by international law, no matter the provocation.
“To be clear, collective punishment is prohibited by the laws of war,” said the letter. “Equally, international law requires combatants to ensure minimum destruction to civilian life and infrastructure. An intent to cause indiscriminate damage, rather than behaving in a precise manner to minimise damage would, if established, constitute a grave violation of international law. … In the conduct of any military campaign, politicians and commanders alike must be careful to ensure that their words do not imply to their troops that the laws of war can be disregarded, nor employ language whose effect is to dehumanise a civilian population. … In these times of pain and terror the notion that there are laws that we must all live by is challenging but essential. Jewish history teaches us that we cannot give up on them.”
The rule of law must be the bedrock of all national and international relations, negotiations, and decision-making, allowing for extremists to be restrained and the vulnerable to be protected. The Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez,speaking at the recent NATO summit underlined that principle and argued it must be applied to Gaza as it is to Ukraine: “It is indeed very important for our citizens to understand that what we are defending in Gaza and in Ukraine are not only the international law but (that) we have a consistent position, a consistent political position. That we don’t have double standards.” Sanchez further reiterated the binding nature of UN resolutions, citing the one on Gaza calling for a permanent ceasefire “…to stop this terrible war and focus on the humanitarian catastrophe that we’re witnessing.”
“If the olive trees knew the hands that planted them, their oil would become tears,” Mahmoud Darwish
I hold no torch for Hamas, condemn its attack of 7th October 2023, and assert that Hamas must also be held accountable under international law. Whilst rejecting the actions of Hamas, many of us have commented on the racist and colonial underpinning of Israel’s disproportional and brutal war in Gaza (an Israeli soldier was filmed calling Palestinians ‘cockroaches’), and have highlighted the stark difference between the West’s support for Ukraine and their failure to condemn Netanyahu in any serious way. Claims that were echoed by a Turkish representative at the NATO summit, as reported in The Washington Post: “It is very clearly hypocrisy, a double standard. … It’s a kind of racism because if you don’t accept Palestinian victims as equal to the Ukrainian victims, it means you want to create a kind of hierarchy within humanity. It’s unacceptable.”
Extract: The poet spoke for Hala Alyan
“The poet spoke again, eloquently as she must and does, of dehumanization, of belonging to a people whom others forget are people like themselves, who get thirsty, who bleed, who love …….. And the host duly thanked her, and the poet, eloquently as she must and does, expressed gratitude for the opportunity to speak to the listeners, and then the host duly intoned: for more coverage, and for a different view…. and there it was, the killing moment, the outtake of breath when, the will to kill children becomes more coverage, a different view, that’s the moment that makes the children die and die and die and die forever… “ By: Anthony Alessandrini
Britain has just elected its most diverse parliament in terms of gender, social background and race. Its new cabinet is the most representative in history with 92% having attended comprehensive schools, 1 a grammar, and only 1 a private school (in contrast Rishi Sunak’s cabinet only contained 19% state educated members). The people whose votes put this representative government in power are those who care about social equality, values and an international order based on the rule of law, who’ve indicated in poll after poll they want a ceasefire in Gaza. A clear moral imperative now stands in front of the British government: just calling for a ceasefire isn’t enough, the sale of arms to Israel must be stopped.
In May (2024), to its credit Spain blocked a ship carrying arms for Israel, from calling at its port Cartagena. The ship had set sail from Chennai in India. Mr. Albares, Spain’s Foreign Minister said “This will be a consistent policy with any ship carrying arms to Israel that wants to call at Spanish ports. The Foreign Ministry will systematically reject such stopovers for one obvious reason: the Middle East does not need more weapons, it needs more peace.” Additionally, Spain has stopped granting licenses for the sale of arms to Israel, along with the Netherlands, Canada, Japan and Belgium.
In Britain Oxfam has called upon the government to stop its sale of arms to Israel immediately, as the “indiscriminate or deliberate killing of civilians is also a breach of international law, and may amount to a war crime.” Citing the International Court of Justice ruling, “Oxfam believes that Israel has undertaken, and is undertaking, specific actions that risk genocide.” Given that British supplied arms are being deployed in Israel’s actions, “Oxfam believes the UK is both morally and legally complicit in this crisis…”
It’s impossible for us to know the full extent of the horrors suffered by Palestinians in this war. Gaza now has the highest number of child amputees, estimated to be over 3000, most amputations being performed without anaesthetic. UNICEF estimates around 17,000 children have been orphaned. Famine stalks the land. Over 38,000 people have died, with thousands more buried under rubble. An article in The Lancet reports the death toll could rise to 186,000 when war related health issues are added. Palestinians are being subjected to structured, premeditated cruelty. The UN chief Antonio Guterres has accused Israel of issuing evacuation orders that force Palestinians “…to move like human pinballs across a landscape of destruction and death. But nowhere is safe…”
Extract: Despatch From Rafah
“Amid this turmoil, the sight of kites soaring high in the sky serves as a reminder that, even in this destruction, there is still light to be found that can heal our wounds. Each morning, as the first rays of sunlight pierce through the darkness, I find myself drawn to the window, searching for that familiar sight. And when I see them—those vibrant kites painted against the backdrop of the azure sky—my heart swells with a sense of hope that defies the despair that threatens to consume us.
“But there are days when the kites do not appear, when the sky remains empty and the weight of the last 143 days hangs heavy in the air. Those are the days when the horrors of the night before linger like a dark cloud, casting a shadow over our hopes and dreams. It means that the spirit of the kids—who still find the urge to live a childhood and play with kites between the rubble—was either scared to death that night, or faced death itself. It is on those days that we are reminded of the fragility of hope, how easily it can be extinguished by this cold-blooded world.” Huda Soboh. 2nd March 2024.
We’ve seen the tv images of destruction, death and unbearable grief. If further evidence is required by any government, including our own, of war crimes and violations of international law, all they have to do is look at the report produced by the UN Human Rights Council following its investigation into Israel’s military operations and attacks in Gaza from 7thOctober 2023. A short segment of the report is reproduced below:
“We conclude that Israeli authorities are responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and violations of international humanitarian and human rights law including extermination, intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects, murder or wilful killing using starvation as a method of war, forcible transfer, gender persecution targeting Palestinian men and boys, sexual and gender-based violence amounting to torture and cruel or inhuman treatment. Israel’s total siege of the Gaza Strip has weaponised the provision of life sustaining necessities for strategic and political gains include, through cutting off supplies of water, food, electricity, fuel and other essential supplies including humanitarian assistance. It constitutes collective punishment disproportionately impacting pregnant women and persons with disabilities and is causing grave harm to children including starvation related deaths. We found that the immense numbers of civilian casualties in Gaza and widespread destruction of civilian objects and infrastructure were the inevitable result of an intentional strategy to cause maximum damage disregarding the legal obligations of distinction proportionality and adequate precautions. Israel also forcibly transferred almost the entire population into small enclosure that are unsafe and uninhabitable. The deliberate use of heavy weapons with large destructive capacity in densely populated areas constitutes an intentional and direct attack on the civilian. We found that Israeli forces committed sexual and gender-based violence with the intent to humiliate and further subordinate the Palestinian community. Palestinian women were targeted and subjected to sexual violence and harassment online and in person. Men and boys experienced specific persecutory acts including sexual and gender-based violence amounting to torture and inhuman and cruel treatment. The commission concluded that specific forms of sexual and gender-based violence constitute part of Israeli security forces operating procedures. The commission will continue its investigations into all crimes under international law with the aim of achieving justice and accountability. The commission requested Israel to ensure the commission’s immediate access to the Gaza Strip in order to investigate and preserve evidence. And we ask for this in compliance with the order issued by the International Court of Justice on the 24th of May (2024). Specifically ordering access to this commission. Israel has ignored the request that we have submitted to them.”
“Justice denied anywhere, diminishes justice everywhere,” (Martin Luther King.Jr.) Palestinians are fellow human beings and deserve the same moral justice and the protection of international law as do the Ukrainians and everyone else on this planet. The UK government must stop sending arms, insist on a ceasefire, the return of hostages, and work actively to negotiate a two-state solution.
If I Must Die
If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze —
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself —
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above,
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love.
If I must die
let it bring hope,
let it be a story.
By Refaat Alareer, professor and poet; killed by an Israeli airstrike on 7th December 2023
*****
Note: The title of this blog post is from Two Treatises of Government, by John Locke, 1689.
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