West must hold Israel to the law
Jan 22 2009 By Clare Short
In Victoria Square on Saturday thousands gathered to protest about Israel’s attack on Gaza. A man in the square told me he had never participated in such an event before but had to do something about Gaza. Having spoken to friends, there were many more who would have been there if they had known.
The question is what is to happen now the bombardment has stopped and Gazans are emerging to find piles of rubble and more dead bodies? The government has learned the lesson of the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon in 2006 when it enraged us all by refusing to call for a ceasefire until Israel completed the destruction it planned. This time it called for a ceasefire from the beginning. It supported an EU resolution calling the attack disproportionate. But it has not condemned the Israeli assault and plans no action to hold Israel to account.
The truth is the Hamas government in Gaza held to the ceasefire negotiated by Egypt from June to October and rocket attacks halted. But Israel continued to tighten the siege so Gazans lacked food, water, electricity and medicines. Then on November 4 Israel broke the siege with a bombing attack which killed six Hamas members. After this, the rocket attacks resumed. Hamas made clear it would agree another ceasefire if the siege were lifted. Israel responded by attacking Gaza on December 27. Just as with the Iraq war, a litany of lies has been used to justify the massacres. The truth is Israel could have stopped rocket attacks by agreeing to lift the siege of Gaza but refused.
I am afraid Israel is becoming a rogue state, drunk on its military power, endlessly expanding borders, bombing and killing those who get in its way. The Holocaust in Europe that killed six million Jews is, with the slave trade, the greatest evil in human history. Christendom’s history of persecuting Jews inflicted constant suffering on the Jewish. For this, western countries should be deeply ashamed. But this in no way justifies Israel’s persecution and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.
It is quite clear from Israel’s long record of expanding settlements and refusing to negotiate it will not agree to a peace settlement in line with international law. This would mean the Palestinians being given their state on their own lands occupied by Israel since 1967. Hamas has made clear it would agree to such a settlement, but the reality is Palestinians are confined to Bantustans around which Israel has built a wall and hundreds of check points so the Palestinian economy has been destroyed and Palestinian people are constantly arrested, humiliated and killed.
We are facing decades of bitterness, hatred and bloodshed unless western powers change their attitude to Israel. It can only behave in this way because the UK, EU and US refuse to hold Israel to international law. They breach the Geneva Convention with the settlements, wall and closures. The International Court of Justice ruled in 2004 the wall settlements and closures were grave breaches of international law, but nothing is done and Israel’s action in Gaza constitutes serious war crimes.
