They just had a vote in the US Senate that is frankly a damning indictment of America.
Some French lawyers are taking extraordinary steps against their government. And Israeli public figures are now doing something previously unimaginable.
And the UK… the UK is a little confused.
We’ll get to each of those things, including the US Senate vote.
But when it comes to the crisis in Gaza, foreign governments appear to be like rabbits in headlights. They condemn it, they support it. They’re against it, they’re actively assisting it. It appears to be a permanent state of confusion.
What else can we call it but confused?
When a government ‘threatens’ to recognise a Palestinian state if Israel continues its genocidal programme… but continues supplying arms, logistical support and intelligence to that same regime?
That’s confused.
When Kier Starmer and David Lammy threaten to recognise Palestine at the UN, but the same government proscribes a peaceful pro-Palestine group as terrorists and sends its members to prison?
That’s confused. That’s really confused.
Yes, recognising Palestinian statehood is significant, at least symbolically: especially from the country that signed the Balfour Declaration in the first place and essentially created the State of Israel in Palestine.
But why is the Prime Minister wielding the proposed recognition of Palestine as a conditional threat – instead of just declaring Britain’s recognition outright?
Why is he giving the Israeli government the option to derail that recognition by agreeing to a ceasefire?
Is this declaration by Starmer born from a genuine conviction or not? If so, then why make it a half measure, with a built-in escape clause?
And what happens in the unlikely event that Netanyahu’s government agrees to Britain’s requests before September?
At that point, having announced the UK was about to recognise Palestinian statehood, will the Prime Minister back down and say ‘actually, no, we’re not doing that after all’…?
That would be really confused. And it would make Kier Starmer and the UK look pathetic too.
So, are we going to recognise a Palestinian state or not? Unfortunately, the Prime Minister’s language leaves the matter somewhat ambiguous.
Maybe I’m missing a trick and that’s actually a good thing: maybe it keeps the Israelis on their toes and keeps Netanyahu guessing.
But I doubt that’s the game here.
We’ve reached a point now where actual Israeli public figures are calling for severe sanctions to be placed on Israel by foreign governments. Israelis are seeking foreign governments to take harsher action against their own state.
And yet the foreign governments themselves are still prevaricating and engaging in gestures.
In broader terms, it remains extraordinary how slow various governments have been to react to what’s been happening in Gaza and the West Bank.
For example, contrast this to when the Serbs were suspected of genocidal operations in the late nineties. Blair and Clinton cited the ‘Responsibility to Protect’: and NATO was swiftly in action.
In 2011, when Gaddafi’s forces were accused (falsely, as it happens) of being about to massacre Libyan citizens, Western governments mobilised and NATO was on the scene. Again, the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ was cited: civilians were about to be massacred, they said.
In Gaza, openly documented war crimes and plainly telegraphed ethnic cleansing has been going on for almost two years: and only now are we getting some speeches and gestures from some governments.
No action. No ‘Responsibility to Protect’. Just speeches.
Not even sanctions. Remember how everyone unanimously sanctioned Russia when it invaded Ukraine? Even McDonald’s stopped doing business in Russia.
Where has that been with Israel? How is Israel still open for business at this point? Not just open for business – but flourishing in its international business arrangements and corporate relationships (as has been recently documented).
All kinds of corporate entities are entangled with Israel’s operations in Gaza: including Google, Amazon, IBM and Microsoft, BlackRock, Vanguard, Barclays bank, Allianz, and many others.
And billions of dollars of American weapons continue to arrive. And the UK isn’t any less complicit than the AIPAC puppets across the pond.
And the best the British Prime Minister can do is threaten to maybe recognise a Palestinian state in a few months’ time? Where’s the sense of urgency?
Again, remember how urgently and immediately NATO decided to act against Gaddafi – because civilian lives were allegedly in danger? Putting aside the fact that that was all cynical manipulation rather than real danger, the point is how quickly everything happened when Western leaders decided civilians had to be protected.
With Gaza, by contrast, there’s been no sense of urgency at all.
How about cutting off the military supplies to a state that is actively engaged in war crimes? Why not start with that – instead of telegraphing a gesture you may or may not make in September?
Extraordinarily – especially for this late in the game – the US Senate just voted against stopping additional weapons supplies to the Israelis.
The two resolutions, which had been proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders, were voted down by 27-70 and 24-73 respectively. The resolutions would’ve halted the sale of ‘201 MK 83 1,000-pound bombs; 4,799 BLU-110A/B General Purpose 1,000-pound bombs; 1,500 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kits for MK 83 bombs; 3,500 JDAM guidance kits for MK 83 bombs; and related logistics and technical support services…’
If any further evidence were needed of the absolute and wilful complicity of various foreign governments, the Americans just demonstrated it clearly. They’re all for this, even now.
The United States has provided in excess of $22 billion in military aid to Israel since the campaign in Gaza began.
In France, lawyers are actively pursuing war crimes charges against their own government for its complicity in the Israeli operations. 114 French lawyers have called on the ICC to investigate the French government’s role in enabling genocide.
As I argued before, what’s motivating the likes of Starmer, Macron and the Canadian Prime Minister right now is not real moral outrage but fear of complicity.
But the complicity is clearly demonstrable: not just from governments but from all those aforementioned corporate entities wilfully participating in ongoing war crimes.
And half-heartedly implying recognition of a Palestinian state isn’t entirely meaningless: but it’s also doing nothing to stop the real-time mass murder or cleansing operation.
Again, no sense of urgency.
A number of these foreign government officials and leaders are trying to be like Pontius Pilate: washing their hands of the blood and shrugging off accountability.
‘Well, we tried to stop it’: is what they’ll say later. Did they? Did they really? The vast majority of people are not stupid: they can see what the truth is.
