By Iqbal Suleman
The Prime Minister of Britain, the President of France and the Chief of the European Union have in recent days criticised the actions of the Israeli Government. Hooray! At last. After more than fifty five thousand Gazans were slaughtered and bodies of starved skeletal children haunt your screens. Tens of thousands of Palestinians lie rotting under the rubble for more than a year. Now you finally muster up some courage to criticize Israel with mild words.
Okay so there is a slight change in tone from European leaders but no action whatsoever to immediately stop the Genocide and starvation.
After October 7th, when Israel in very clear and concise language expressed its intention to commit Genocide in Gaza, the Israeli war criminals were not called out, let alone sanctioned.
Immediately after October 7th, Israeli Minister of Defence expressed the genocidal intent of the Israeli Regime.
“I have ordered a complete siege of the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly” Israeli Defence Minister. Yoav Gallant. The Israeli Defence Minister made it crystal clear that Palestinians are not human, they are animals.
Every human being has the right to food, water and electricity. These are fundamental human rights that have been denied to Palestinians after October 7th till today and the Western World (Europe and America) are complicit in these war crimes.
The President of Israel, Isaac Hertzog said after 7th October “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it’s absolutely not true”. The Israeli Prime Minister was honest and clear that there are no civilians in Gaza and all of Gaza’s 2.4 million people were fair game for slaughter. To Hertzog and the state of Israel, all of the people of Gaza are responsible for the 7th October attack and this is exactly how Israel has prosecuted this war on the people of Gaza.
Ariel Kallner, a member of the Israeli Parliament from Netanyahu’s Likud Party said after October 7th, “Right now, one goal, Nakba, a Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 1948”.
What we have witnessed about Palestinian suffering after October 7th, survivors of the Nakba tell us is much be worse than the Nakba. Western complicity has encouraged Israeli leaders to now openly talk about ethnically cleansing and expelling Palestinians from Gaza.
The world had a moral and legal duty to stop the war in October 2023 but it elected not to. Western leaders who profess to be the champions of international law and human rights were parroting the genocidal speech of the Israeli Regime.
When asked by the interviewer: “A siege is appropriate? Cutting off power, cutting off water? Keir Starmer responded “I think that Israel does have that right”. The leader of the Labour Party in Britain, a devoted Zionist could not conceal his racism when he advocated for starvation and the collective punishment of the more than two million Muslims of Gaza. For many months when the British public were calling for a ceasefire, Starmer refused to call for an immediate ceasefire. Labours Lisa Nandy another devout Zionist was given a chance to clean up Starmers mess by the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire who bluntly asked Nandy “Let’s see if you can be clear about Labours position then. Do you think that Israel breaks international law by cutting off water and power supplies? On four occasions she was asked this question, Nandy was evasive in her response and could not clearly answer and confirm that Israel is in contravention of international law. She danced and dallied around the question and went as far as to reply “Israel has a right to self-defence and it has a duty to secure the release of its hostages”. Instead of being committed to International Law and Human Rights, Starmer and Nandy were aiding and abetting Israeli war crimes.
Labour is in Government now and Starmer is the Prime Minister of Britain. He speaks with a cadenced tongue feigning concern for the life of Palestinians but his actions demonstrate his support for the Zionist Regime. Britain still provides intelligence and weapons to Israel.
Like the Prime Minister of Britain, the Chief of the European Union, Ursula Von Der Leyen is also a devout supporter of the Israeli Regime. In the immediate aftermath of October 7th, Von der Leyen said “The European Union stands with Israel, today, tomorrow and in the days to come and in the next few weeks”. As she warmly shook hands with Netanyahu, he said “This is the frontline of civilisation and barbarism”. They stood next to each other, the Israeli Zionist Chief and the European Chief and made the world believe that this is a war between the Civilized Israeli Jews and barbaric Palestinian Muslims. This outrageous racism and settler colonial speak inspired no rebuke from Von der Leyen and the world was made to believe that Israeli Jews are civilised and Palestinian Muslims are barbaric. The conflict was presented as being between the civilised Jew and the uncivilised Muslim.
To understand Von Der Leyens racism, have a peak at her words one year before October 7th where the victims of a siege were white Europeans with blond hair and green eyes from her tribe. Von Der Leyen on the 19th October 2022 in relation to Ukraine said”. Targeted attacks on civilian infrastructure with the clear aim to cut off men, women and children from electricity and with the winter coming, these are acts of pure terror and we have to call it as such”. Von der Layen also said that “Russian missiles and drone attacks on power stations and other civilian infrastructure are acts of terror that amount to war crimes”. The Israeli attack on the civilian infrastructure of Gaza pale in comparison to the attacks on Ukraine. Israel has turned all of Gaza into rubble, banned water purification supplies, food and medicine from entering Gaza. Almost every hospital in Gaza has been bombed and its infrastructure completely destroyed. Every rights organisation from Amnesty, to Human Rights Watch to the United Nations have documented the Israeli war crimes and the fact that Israel has used starvation as a weapon of war but Von Der Leyen has not once described the actions of Israel as “pure terror” or “war crimes”.
And herein lies the problem, the structural racism and deep rooted Islamophobia of Western leaders propels them to align with the settler colonial state of Israel. The Israeli Government under Benjamin Netanyahu has committed every conceivable act of terror and war crime after October the 7th but the West has not on any occasion described these actions as terrorism. Terrorism according to Imperialism and Zionism is a label for Muslims and Muslims alone.
If they had some respect for international law, the European Union and all its member states should have released a statement making clear that they respect the ruling of the International Criminal Court and will enforce the arrest warrants issued against Israeli leaders within their territorial jurisdiction.
They should have issued sanctions against the Zionist regime. They should have provided equipment to Gaza to dig out the children from the rubble instead of leaving them to rot and putrefy. They should have broken the siege and prevented starvation. They should have condemned the bombing of hospitals, schools, mosques, shelters, ambulances and the killing of Palestinian civilians. They should have recalled their ambassadors. This is the least that they could and should have done and they still haven’t done it. Now children in Gaza are dying from starvation under the watch of Von Der Leyen, Starmer and most of the European leaders,
On the 27th May, we saw the poorest people of Gaza, treated like humiliated slaves caged in fences and running like animals at the Israeli “Aid” distribution in Gaza where some of the starving Palestinians were even shot and killed while they attempted to collect food and thousands of other malnourished, dehydrated and starved Palestinians who were forced to walk many kilometres to collect food returned empty handed.
And you still wonder why Palestinians are treated like animals?
When you hear White Western leaders expressing sympathy for Palestinians, it behoves you to remember the words of the Native Americans who suffered genocide at the hands of White Settlers. “The White Man speaks with a forked tongue”.
Iqbal Suleman
Suleman is a social justice lawyer and former head of the law clinic for Lawyers for Human Rights in Pretoria and Research Associate: Media Review Network