‘Legal Peril’ For Ministers Supporting or Encouraging Israel’s War Crimes
You might think from Israeli propaganda that terror killings are mostly the work of Palestinian ‘militants’ like Hamas. The truth is very different.
By Stuart Littlewood
Veteran Today
To Whom It May Concern:
Rt Hon Alister Jack, MP for Dumfries & Galloway, Secretary of State for Scotland
Alister.Jack.MP@parliament.uk
Dear Mr Jack,
‘Legal peril’ for ministers supporting or encouraging Israel’s war crimes
You will know about yesterday’s letter from the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) which serves notice on prime minister Rishi Sunak concerning “the legal peril his apparent unqualified support to the policy of the Government of Israel placed him and his fellow ministers”. It says “We intend to bring legal proceedings against politicians in the UK and elsewhere where there is evidence that they have aided, abetted or in any other way supported, encouraged or provided material assistance in the commission of a war crime”.
This is hardly surprising given the large numbers in Britain who are exasperated with the Government’s stance. And the ICJP wants “each Government official that has encouraged war crimes in Gaza to rescind their statements in public”. In case this includes your good self I hope the following background reminder is of help.
First, here is a Jewish perspective from JVP (Jewish Voice for Peace):
For the past year, the most racist, fundamentalist, far-right government in Israeli history has ruthlessly escalated its military occupation of Palestinians in the name of Jewish supremacy with violent expulsions and home demolitions, mass killings, military raids on refugee camps, unrelenting siege and daily humiliation. In recent weeks, Israeli forces repeatedly stormed the holiest Muslim sites in Jerusalem.
For 16 years, the Israeli government has suffocated Palestinians in Gaza under a draconian air, sea, and land military blockade, imprisoning and starving two million people and denying them medical aid. The Israeli government routinely massacres Palestinians in Gaza; ten-year-olds who live in Gaza have already been traumatized by seven major bombing campaigns in their short lives.
For 75 years, the Israeli government has maintained a military occupation over Palestinians, operating an apartheid regime. Palestinian children are dragged from their beds in pre-dawn raids by Israeli soldiers and held without charge in Israeli military prisons. Palestinians’ homes are torched by mobs of Israeli settlers, or destroyed by the Israeli army. Entire Palestinian villages are forced to flee, abandoning the homes orchards, and land that were in their family for generations.
The bloodshed of today and the past 75 years traces back directly to U.S. complicity in the oppression and horror caused by Israel’s military occupation. The U.S. government consistently enables Israeli violence and bears blame for this moment. The unchecked military funding, diplomatic cover, and billions of dollars of private money flowing from the U.S. enables and empowers Israel’s apartheid regime.
You and I know that the problem goes back much further – to 1917 and Balfour’s arrogant Declaration, and to the dark maneuverings behind it.
What I would like to know please, from you as my MP, is why the UK continues to collaborate with Israel and reward its countless crimes with favoured-nation privileges.
Equally, I would like to know why the UK proscribed Hamas’s political wing as a terrorist organization when the violence it has used pales beside the horrific terrorism practiced by the apartheid regime against its Muslim and Christian neighbors in occupied Palestine, starting with the massacres and rampages in 1947/8 in pursuit of ‘Plan Dalet’, the Zionists’ blueprint for the bloody takeover of the Holy Land. As far as I’m aware fewer than 10 other countries have branded Hamas as terrorists so there isn’t wide agreement with the UK position.
On this point, you may have noticed that the definition of terrorism used by the US administration fits the US itself and Israel perfectly. Under Section 3 of Executive Order 13224 “Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions with Persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support Terrorism”, the term “terrorism” means an activity that
(i) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure; and
(ii) appears to be intended
- to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
• to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
• to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, or hostage-taking.
This instrument, signed on 23 September 2001 by George W Bush, is used to outlaw and crush any person, organization, or country the US doesn’t like. What definition of terrorism does the UK administration use, please, or is it a case of follow-my-leader?
And you might think from Israeli propaganda that terror killings are mostly the work of Palestinian ‘militants’ like Hamas. The truth is very different. Just look at the figures supplied by a reliable Israeli source, B’Tselem, covering the last 23 years running from 29 September 2000 (the start of the Second Intifada) to 27 September 2023 (before the present escalation).
Palestinians killed by Israeli forces 10,555
Palestinians killed by Israeli civilians 96
Palestinians Killed by unknowns 16
Total 10,667
Israeli forces killed by Palestinians 449
Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians 881
Total 1,330
So Israelis are far more proficient at slaughtering fellow humans and have been eliminating Palestinians at the rate of 8:1. Worse still is their butchery of children. The figures show 2,270 Palestinian children killed versus 145 Israeli children, a ratio of nearly 16:1. And when it comes to women it’s 656 Palestinians to 261 Israelis, about 2.5:1.
Let’s not go into the massacres, terror, ethnic cleansing, and other horrors on which the state of Israel was founded.
Israel, which refuses to declare its borders, has been formally recognized by the Palestinians and the Arab League within the internationally recognized ‘Green Line’ border. So it is not “fighting for its existence” as many of its supporters claim. Nor is it seriously threatened by Hamas whose revised 2017 Charter calls for a sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital, along the internationally-recognized 1967 borders, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, as per UN resolutions. So nothing controversial there either. Naturally, they would much prefer all of Palestine to be restored as would most other Palestinians.
Hamas emphasizes that its quarrel is with the Zionist project, not with the Jews because of their religion. It wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Hamas’s methods are shocking, and there’s no excuse if they constitute a war crime, but are far exceeded by Israel’s 7 decades of gratuitous terror and atrocities. Of course, if international law – and in particular the Fourth Geneva Convention – were enforced Israel’s occupation would collapse under the weight of its illegality and there would at last be a chance for peace.
But as things stand Israel has all but succeeded, with US and UK connivance, in creating enough ‘facts on the ground’ to make its occupation permanent. There is no sign that it is willing to hand back enough land and relinquish enough control for a truly viable Palestinian state to emerge.
What is the much-touted two-state solution supposed to look like? Nobody is saying, and so-called peace talks (i.e. one-sided ‘negotiations’ with a gun to the Palestinians’ head) which ignore relevant law inevitably lead nowhere.
So, what is the solution to the mess Britain created 106 years ago and helps perpetuate today? The simple fact is, that there can never be peace without justice. Therefore, abandon this misguided infatuation with Israel, quit providing that rogue regime with diplomatic cover for its crimes against humanity, stop rewarding its despicable behavior, and work to end its illegal military occupation of Palestinian lands. If the rule of law means anything at all, push hard to implement international humanitarian law and UN Resolutions 181 (the Partition Plan) and 194 (concerning, among other things, the status of Jerusalem and the return of Palestinian refugees) which Israel was bound to comply with as a condition of its membership but never did. Nothing less will do.
Meanwhile, we hear a lot about Israel’s right to self-defense but that is very restricted under international law and the laws of war and occupation. The Palestinians have a prior right to defend themselves, under international law and UN Resolution 37/43, in their struggle for “liberation from colonial domination, apartheid, and foreign occupation by all available means including armed struggle”.
Incidentally, I write as someone who has visited Palestine several times, including Gaza. Hamas governs after winning elections monitored by international observers. What surprised me, when I checked their CVs, was that Hamas’s ministers were, if anything, better qualified academically for government than run-of-the-mill ministers here.
Please recognize the fact that, like it or not, Hamas is the people’s democratic choice (for the time being) and the legitimate ruler, although confined to Gaza by the Occupation. If new elections were held they would likely win again. It is a shame the UK Government still fails in its diplomatic duty to know and understand them and learn about the Gaza folks’ awful situation first-hand.
Sincerely,
Stuart Littlewood