No Peace without Liberation

The tentative ceasefire agreement, currently, at the time of writing being ‘ratified’ by the Israeli cabinet, is a fragile thing, with hope for hundreds of thousands of people – and millions of displaced Palestinians – hanging in the balance.

Though peace after such utter devastation is something everyone longs for, there’s little to celebrate after the death of a disputed but seemingly massively underestimated amount of people. The ‘peace deal’ such as it is, bears remarkable similarity to the previous one, many months ago, and the Biden administration and the Israeli government have to answer the question why it was not brokered back then. Now we are being told by that, even by the Israeli’s own terms, this whole travesty has been a failure.

The Israeli’s stated war aim was to ‘destroy Hamas’. Yet the US Secretary of State Blinken admitted that “we assess that Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost.” This was, of course, the inevitable outcome of the atrocities that have radicalised a new generation of Palestinians. Who could not be radicalised by the indiscriminate campaign of aerial bombardment unprecedented this century, the precision killings, the specific massacres, the destruction of hospitals, schools and places of worship and the abominable behaviour of the IDF?

The only rational explanation is that the aim was never the destruction of Hamas but the destruction of a people.

Huge areas of Palestine lay under thousands of tons of rubble, and a whole land lies destroyed. Any fragment of support for the Israeli state also lies in tatters, with the International Court of Justice ruling their behavior genocide and calling for the arrest for war crimes for their leaders. In the court of human opinion, Israel is a pariah state. And this is what we know before journalists have even been allowed into the occupied territory, god alone knows what will be uncovered when the media is allowed in.

The conflict, if that’s even the right word, has been covered largely by social media, with few journalists on the ground, and with a complete failure by the mainstream media in reporting what’s been going on. The aftermath of these terrible events, should they actually cease, will not just be a post-mortem into the actions of the Israeli’s but into the conduct and complicity of the media, particularly the British media.

Sam Husseini and Client Journalism

At, possibly, the last US press conference before a settlement is agreed, the brave journalist Sam Husseini was physically dragged from Blinken’s briefing room for daring to ask questions that the US won’t answer about their role in genocide. Other journalists sat and stared.

But if this moment was a snapshot of western complicity it was hardly isolated.

The media don’t operate in isolation and to a large extent can’t be distinguished from the political elite. They are one.

Back in November 2023 Andrew Marr, writing in the New Statesman as he pondered the cost of ‘mass civilian deaths’ on Labour’s electoral success (‘The Labour revolt over the Gaza war’): “Two things must be said straight away. One, he is personally against a ceasefire until Hamas has been defanged; this is not the background whisperings of old Blairites but what he really thinks. Two, he badly misspoke in an 11 October LBC interview by saying Israel had the right to withhold power and water from Gazans, and was too slow to correct himself. This is political inexperience, flat-footedness – not heartlessness.”

Flat-footedness.

This sort of apologism for what is a disgusting comment to make, from an adult man, a seasoned politician and a human rights lawyer doesn’t happen by mistake, nor is it credible to excuse.

The context for Marr’s explanation is the aftermath of Corbyn’s defeat and the complete hollowing out and takeover of the Labour party, a political entity already eviscerated by decades of shifting ever rightwards, and whose entire constitution had been re-made under consecutive leaders to have lost any real meaning. That there were elements of the left under Corbyn who were guilty of anti-semitism is without doubt, but what happened under the guise of removing such elements was the complete reconstruction of the Labour party beyond recognition.

By July last year it was disclosed by Declassified UK that pro-Israel lobbyists had donated to 13 out of Labour’s 25 cabinet members since they were first elected to parliament.

The list of recipients included Prime Minister Keir Starmer, his deputy Angela Rayner,  Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.

Jonathan Reynolds, who oversees arms exports to Israel as UK Trade Secretary, is another beneficiary, alongside Labour’s election mastermind Pat McFadden, whose responsibilities now include national security.

Some of the donations were provided by Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), a lobby group which takes MPs on “fact-finding” missions to the region.

All of this is on the public record.

The previous February, the House of Commons descended into chaos as an opposition day debate tabled by the Scottish National Party (SNP) calling for a ceasefire in Gaza was thwarted by the Speaker of the House, Lynsday Hoyle.

The charade of democratic scrutiny of British state interaction with Israel has been exposed, and if there is anything positive in terms of domestic politics it is that the power relations at play have been brutally exposed. This is the context in which the media played put it’s often disgraceful coverage of the atrocities.

A study by the New Arab found “consistent and profound bias against Palestinians from the country’s major conservative-leaning newspapers.” Teir study through a quantitative and qualitative analysis, examined hundreds of headlines from The Times, The Telegraph, The Sun and the Daily Mail, four of the most widely read newspapers in the UK, which play a significant role in shaping public opinion. The study found: “The results show that all four newspapers disproportionately favour Israeli lives and government narratives over Palestinian ones. More specifically, in their headlines, all four sources exhibit bias against Palestinians in the following three ways: uniquely deploying a vast amount of emotive language when describing Israeli suffering, amplifying Israeli justifications for violence, and qualifying Palestinian deaths.”

“This case study confirms a widespread and systematic bias across much of the UK’s mainstream media, an issue Palestinians have asserted for years as dehumanising and negligent journalism towards them– and a trend that is consistent with other analyses into Western media coverage of Israel-Palestine.”

Perhaps this is not surprising. The BBC’s coverage was also exposed in this period. Alan Rusbridger, the former editor of the Guardian wrote in Prospect magazine a piece explaining how the board which oversees impartiality for the BBC (the Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee) is manned by none other than (Sir) Robbie Gibb, who owns the, now completely discredited Jewish Chronicle. The Jewish Chronicle is itself an implacable critic of the BBC. You couldn’t make this stuff up.

In November hundreds of BBC staff and independent journalists sent an open letter to the broadcaster’s director general, Tim Davie, and CEO Deborah Turness on Friday saying: “Basic journalistic tenets have been lacking when it comes to holding Israel to account for its actions.”

“The consequences of inadequate coverage are significant. Every television report, article and radio interview that has failed to robustly challenge Israeli claims has systematically dehumanised Palestinians,” the letter said.

Other media outlets faced accusations of bias and a pro-Israeli stance. This went from complaints that the media took Israeli claims at face value, without questioning; to the continued claim that the ‘conflict’ started on October 7 2023; to the consistent dehumanising of Palestinian people.

This matters because adjacent to the Starmer government’s refusal to stop selling arms to Israel was a wider narrative being propagated by almost every media outlet in Britain. At the heart of this was the idea that “Israel had a right to defend itself” that was then extended to cover almost any act imaginable, the massacre of innocent civilians, indiscriminate aerial bombings, attacks on hospitals and schools and mosques, and invasion of other countries. Red lines, once announced by Washington and London were ignored with no consequence. Israel acted with impunity as the much talked about ‘rules based order’ collapsed before our eyes.

No Peace without Liberation

Something called ‘peace’ we’re now told is going to break out at 8.30 am on Sunday, with the beginning of a hostage release by Hamas.

The BBC are reporting that a senior Palestinian official involved in the Doha negotiations has shared previously undisclosed details about a security protocol, agreed as part of the ceasefire deal.

According to the BBC’s report, under this arrangement and once the ceasefire takes effect, Israel will permit Hamas police wearing their official blue uniforms to operate within designated areas of the Gaza Strip.

The senior Palestinian official, who has not been named, told the BBC that Hamas police will then manage the movement of displaced individuals from southern Gaza to the north. This would be while avoiding proximity to Israeli forces, which will maintain a security presence along the eastern and northern borders of the Gaza Strip, said the source.

So many questions remain unanswered about this ceasefire deal, agreed and orchestrated by the Israeli cabinet after talks hosted by Qatar and Egypt.

Where will the Israeli forces withdraw to, and how will Palestine rebuild itself?

How can any lasting ‘peace’ be sustained after such a barbaric and sustained campaign of aggression?

Who will hold Israel to account for their atrocities? What does it mean to live in a world without any international law?

What was the role of the British army operating out of ‘the Sovereign Base Areas’ in Cyprus?

What has been the role of the British state and arms companies in enabling war crimes? In particular the sale of F-35 parts and the role of Lockheed Martin.

Over 15 percent of the components for the F-35 are made in the UK, including the rear fuselage, electronics, and ejection seats.

It has been described as the “most lethal” fighter jet in the world, with over 100 UK-based companies contributing to the supply chain.

How can this supply chain be dismantled?

What is the extent of influence and funding of MPs by the Israeli lobby?

These are just some of the pertinent questions as the hopes grow for a ceasefire and a people begin to emerge from the rubble and carnage of Israel’s war. In the post-mortem, and in the understandable desperation for a ceasefire, the wider question remains: how can there be any credible peace settlement while Israel remains in place without any consequences for its actions and now propped up by a belligerent and wildly unpredictable Trump 2.0?

In a world of grotesque absurdity, Donald Trump and his supporters are already laying claim to having brought about this supposed peace settlement. But we already know that Trump and his wider family are even more bloodthirsty supporters of the Israeli regime than the outcoming Biden government. Who knows what post-war settlements will have been agreed on the side?

What needs to happen now, though it remains unlikely, is for the UN to be emboldened to act as a peace-broker in the region allowing for reconstruction and pushing the Israeli’s back to behind their own borders, for the legitimisation and recognition of the Palestinian state and for the defence of its already encroached and invaded borders. The defence of the West Bank from settler-colonisers is a key post-war action that needs to be prioritised alongside reconstrution in a devastated Gaza.

No Justice No Peace

In late November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant. The announcement came as the official death toll from Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip surpassed 44,000.

Benjamin Netanyahu has become the first leader of a “western-style” democracy to have an arrest warrant issued in his name by the international criminal court.

A panel of ICC judges said there are “reasonable grounds to believe” Israel’s prime minister and former defense minister are guilty of “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare” and other “crimes against humanity.”

“The Chamber issued warrants of arrest for two individuals, Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu and Mr. Yoav Gallant, for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024, the day the Prosecution filed the applications for warrants of arrest,” the panel said, specifically alleging “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare” and “the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”

The ICC judges said they “found reasonable grounds to believe” that Netanyahu and Gallant “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity.” The panel also said it “found reasonable grounds to believe that no clear military need or other justification under international humanitarian law could be identified for the restrictions placed on access for humanitarian relief operations.”

“Finally, the Chamber assessed that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population of Gaza,” the judges added.

The response was indicative.

Israel’s key allies within Britain went on the defensive. Priti Patel came out saying: “In issuing these warrants, the ICC are drawing a moral equivalence with the actions of the terrorist leadership of Hamas, which it is wrong to do. The Conservative Government did not believe the ICC has jurisdiction in this area, as Israel is not a signatory to the Rome statute, and because Palestine is not recognised as a state. The Labour Government must condemn and challenge the ICC’s decision.”

Well yes, they were drawing a moral equivalence between state terrorism and non-state terrorism.

In contrast, former FM Humza Yousaf said: “The ICC has made it clear that international law applies equally to us all. No one should be above the law. This is the moment we find out who believes in the equal application of international law versus those who pay lip service to it.”

Similarly, Jeremy Corbyn, called the ICC arrest warrants “long overdue” and urged the government of Keir Starmer to “immediately endorse this decision.”

“That is the bare minimum,” Corbyn wrote on social media. “Will the U.K. government now, finally, honor its international obligations to prevent genocide and end all arms sales to Israel?”

Again Britain, now under a Labour government is an outlier, unable to even comply with international agreements it is a signatory to.

The response to ‘peace’ is as important as the response to ‘war’. Britain’s complicity and direct involvement must be exposed and the forces that have tried to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people now have a new task, to help in rebuilding a devastated land and to put pressure on creating a credible peace. That will require holding to account those responsible for such barbarsim.

 

Comments (6)

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  1. Statan says:

    Absolutely no-one is asking for Israel to help pay for the reconstruction of Gaza. Why? It’s a lot more important than arresting Nyetanyahoo.

  2. Leslie Cunningham says:

    An excellent article.

  3. Ritchie Hunter says:

    Yes, an excellent article Mike. Except: “That there were elements of the left under Corbyn who were guilty of anti-semitism is without doubt…”

    I have friends and comrades (some of them Jewish) who were expelled and vilified during this time (see The Labour Files: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DTMF0MSXng ), so it saddens me that you should repeat this statement.
    RH
    Liverpool

    1. Hi Ritchie, I’m aware of the Labour Files and I’m aware of the stitch-up. This doesn’t mean that there was no anti-semitism on the left, there was.

      1. Ritchie Hunter says:

        Yes, but less than in the rest of society…

  4. James Mills says:

    ”They make a desert and call it Peace ( Gaza ) .” Tacitus /Calgacus

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