Suspend Labour Friends of Israel

This, from Emily Thornberry, is a powerful statement.

“We condemn unreservedly the Israeli government for their brutal, lethal and utterly unjustified actions on the Gaza border, and our thoughts are with all those Palestinians in Gaza whose loved ones have been killed or injured as a result.

“These actions are made all the worse because they come not as the result of a disproportionate over-reaction to one day’s protests, but as the culmination of six weeks of an apparently systemic and deliberate policy of killing and maiming unarmed protestors and bystanders who pose no threat to the forces at the Gaza border, many of them shot in the back, many of them shot hundreds of metres from the border, and many of them children.

“Throughout that six-week period, the UN’s Secretary General has been calling for an independent investigation into these incidents, one that should urgently determine whether international law has been broken, and hold the Netanyahu government to account for their actions. The UK should lead calls for the UN Security Council to order such an investigation today.

“These incidents must also be the catalyst for urgent and concerted international pressure on the Netanyahu government to lift the blockade on Gaza, and end Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories. No longer can Netanyahu act as a law unto himself, under the protection of the Trump administration, whose decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem today has further inflamed the situation.

“In the meantime, we urge the Israeli forces serving on the Gaza border to show some long-overdue responsibility to their fellow human beings, and stop this vicious and utterly avoidable slaughter of peaceful protesters demanding the right to return to their homes.”

 This, from Labour Friends of Israel, is disgusting:

Tragic events on the Gazan border; all civilian deaths are regrettable. Hamas must accept responsibility for these events. Their successful attempt to hijack peaceful protest as cover to attack Israeli border communities must be condemned by all who seek peace in the Middle East.

What a despicable bout of victim-blaming. Taking its line straight from the spin put out by Tel Aviv, it lays responsibility at the hands of Hamas and not the people giving the orders and firing the guns. Was it Hamas, for example, that shot Palestinian journalists from the Israeli side of the fence while they covered the protests of recent weeks? Is it Hamas who invited Israeli army snipers to take potshots at passersbys walking hundreds of feet away from the so-called IDF's positions? Was it Hamas who shot hundreds of fleeing demonstrators in the back? Our LFI "comrades" know full well this isn't the case, but are nevertheless happy to go along with the Netanyahu line. As far as they're concerned, Palestinians aren't full, conscious proper human beings like you and me. They are dangerous automatons manipulated by Hamas and Iran, and so meeting stones and burning tires with automatic weapons fire, armoured personnel carriers, and white phosphorous is no biggie.

Let us be clear, this is not routine behaviour, even when a democratic state - a term that should be used advisedly in Israel's case - is an occupying power and locked into a low intensity but long-running conflict. For all of its stupid brutalities, the British army did not routinely massacre dozens of protesters in Northern Ireland. Even now, despite the crimes committed by India in Kashmir, including soldiers firing on civilians, nothing there in recent times approaches the deaths Israel have inflicted today and over the course of the last month. Funnily enough, they are exceeded only by the death factory Syria has become under Assad, and the Britain-backed bombing of Yemen by Saudi Arabia, both of which are full blooded and exceedingly bloody conflicts.

Clearly, Netanyahu and his gang, officers of the IDF and the soldiers pulling the triggers are committing appalling crimes and deserve to be tried. For their part, in soft soaping this criminal action LFI are beyond the pale and bring the Labour Party into disrepute. Their denial of basic humanity to today's victims, their slandering of the dozens dead, and the alibiing of a massacre calls for the immediate suspension of the organisation and its office holders.