PROTESTERS on Britain’s streets forced both Labour and the Conservatives, earlier this year, to profess support for a Gaza ceasefire rather than their previous uncritical endorsement of Israel’s invasion.
Protesters on the streets of Chicago are a key reason why Antony Blinken is pleading for a ceasefire in Israel now.
As the Democratic National Convention gets under way in the US, and their presidential nominee Kamala Harris polls 50-50 against Donald Trump across a swathe of swing states, the issue of Palestine is making itself felt, and no doubt the White House would prefer the daily horror of Israel’s school bombings and hospital massacres to have receded slightly in people’s memories by the time they go to vote.
If Blinken’s desire for a ceasefire is sincere in that respect, though, it is play-acted in others.
Feminist peace campaign Code Pink highlights a simple demand of delegates entering the Chicago conference: “Tell Kamala Harris, no weapons to Israel.”
The US’s dramatic appeals for a ceasefire, and Blinken’s poignant warning that this could be the last chance to see Israeli hostages held by Hamas sent home safely, have to be set against the fact that the US is applying no pressure on Israel to rein in its escalating aggression.
Like its cheerleaders in the sycophantic British and European Nato governments, it issues stern injunctions to Iran not to derail ceasefire talks — by retaliating for Israel having murdered the leader of its negotiating partner in the Iranian capital.
Lebanon is advised not to inflame matters, when Israeli bombers swoop low daily over its capital — causing sonic booms that spread panic and terror through its streets — and launch regular deadly rocket strikes on its territory.
Worse than the hypocrisy is the continued supply of arms. Blinken only last week authorised another $20 billion of weaponry for Israel, which is charged at the International Court of Justice with genocide. Britain, despite a supposed review, has neither halted arms sales itself nor prevented the US from using RAF bases on Cyprus to supply the Israeli military.
The protesters in Chicago, like the even more numerous protesters who rally weekly in Tel Aviv to demand Israel strike a deal, can see through this charade.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly acted to derail a ceasefire, and remains the most likely man to prevent one now.
His motive may be self-preservation, knowing how unpopular he is in Israel and that a cessation of hostilities will probably see him unseated and possibly jailed.
It may be fear of his fascist coalition partners Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who are even more brazen in their open opposition to any peace process and their determination to colonise and dispossess the whole of Palestine — a despoliation which, as the UN warned today, is accelerating in the West Bank as the Gaza war rages.
It may be simple hatred of the Palestinians and the desire to kill and destroy as much as possible before allowing a pause.
It may be all three. None constitutes a valid reason for other governments to sit by and watch the slaughter, or this rogue state’s reckless attacks throughout the region which, as even EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell worries, risk igniting a “war of unknown proportions.”
Our governments don’t care, so we must show them again that we do. British diplomat Mark Smith’s courageous resignation on the grounds that our Foreign Office may be complicit in Israel’s war crimes should inspire new pressure on Labour.
Not just to halt arms sales. But to revive its commitment, dropped by Keir Starmer, to recognise a Palestinian state and impose real costs on Israel for its relentless work to block that possibility.
Like Biden and now Harris, Starmer and David Lammy should be made to fear for their careers should they continue to facilitate mass murder.
