Opinion Editorials, November 2014

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The Dirty Dozen MPs who want to prolong the Palestinians’ misery: Where is their “common humanity”?

In the local newspaper where I used to live somebody wrote in demanding to know why local MP Jonathan Djanogly was one of the 12 who voted to deny Palestinians their statehood and right to self-determination in the recent House of Commons debate.

The answer, of course, is that Djanogly waves the flag for the illegal occupier, Israel. Earlier this year he attended the AIPAC/US-Europe-Israel National Security Forum in Washington.

AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) is an immensely powerful lobby group that aggressively promotes Israel’s interests in the US Congress using methods that don’t bear examination. The US-Europe-Israel National Security Forum is concerned with locking Israel into US and British military know-how and ensuring Israel’s military superiority over its neighbours – a collaboration guaranteed to keep the Middle East in turmoil and Britain a target for reprisals.

“We mustn’t let law and justice get in the way of a shameless stitch-up”

On its website AIPAC

"urges all members of Congress to support Israel through… the promotion of a negotiated two-state solution… A Jewish state of Israel living in peace with a demilitarised Palestinian state – with an end to all claims is the clear path to resolving this generations-old conflict."

Only direct talks between the parties can lead to a real and lasting peace. The Palestinians must not attempt to achieve their goals by attempting to use international organisations such as the United Nations to impose their will on Israel.

In other words, we mustn’t let law and justice get in the way of a shameless stitch-up. And the Palestine state, when it’s allowed to emerge, must be unarmed and helpless to defend itself, as if any self-respecting nation would agree to such nonsense.

Djanogly’s visit was paid for by the Henry Jackson Society which, along with AIPAC, is populated by the sort of people who brought us the Iraq war, for which Djanogly voted “very strongly” (according to www.theyworkforyou.com).

Britain, as the mandated occupying power in Palestine from the end of World War I up to 1948 (when we walked away), is largely responsible for the plight of Christians and Muslims of the Holy Land today. A few years ago I went to see Djanogly after returning from Palestine sickened by Israel’s human rights abuses. No need to tell you how the meeting went.

The Foreign Office says “we will recognise a Palestinian state at a time of our choosing, when we think it can best bring about peace” and, just like AIPAC, insists that a negotiated end to the occupation is the only way forward. They know full well there’s no shred of evidence from the last 50 years that Israel has ever intended to reach a peaceful negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.

Justice would be best served by a solution based on international law and the umpteen UN resolutions waiting to be enforced, not by a resumption of the “peace talks” charade with a gun to the Palestinians’ head, brokered by corrupt US politicians, while Israel continues to steal more Palestinian land and water and create enough “facts on the ground” to make the occupation permanent. A respected Israeli source (B’Tselem) puts the killings since the first Intifada (September 2000) at 8.588 Palestinians and 593 Israelis dead, a ratio of 14 to 1. The slaughter includes 2,289 Palestinian women and children compared with 106 Israeli women and children. Add to these the tens of thousands of Palestinians horribly injured and the hundreds of thousands made homeless.

Rewarding crime with subsidies and trading privileges

Meanwhile, we taxpayers continue to subsidise – directly and through the European Union – Israel’s brutal occupation and pay for the wanton destruction inflicted by its military, while our government stupidly rewards the criminal regime with trading privileges.

Djanogly’s parliamentary colleague, Edward Leigh, was surely speaking for the entire British nation when he said in the debate: “We are part of a common humanity, whether we are Christian, Jew or Arab. When we vote tonight – and I will vote for the motion [to recognise Palestine as an independent state] – we will be making a gesture in favour of that common humanity, and we should be proud of that.”

Djanogly was parachuted from London into the ultra-safe Conservative seat vacated by former Prime Minister John Major. He has enjoyed a very soft ride so far. But by voting the way he did, he effectively condemns more Palestinian children to die in their parents’ endless struggle for freedom and creates the distinct impression that he is not in tune with British values of decency and compassion.

Israel “a vicious racist construct”

Meanwhile, the Israeli economics minister, Naftali Bennett, was reported in theGuardian as proclaiming Binyamin Netanyahu the leader of the Jewish state and the whole Jewish world. “Really?” replied Craig Murray in his blog, adding:

"Netanyahu is the leader of all the Jews in London, or California, or Ethiopia, who may never have set foot in his state? This extraordinary remark by Bennett lays bare the fundamental flaw in the very concept of Israel. It is not a modern state, defined as a territory and comprising all the various citizens of whatever descent who live within it. It is rather a vicious racist construct, defined absolutely by race, refusing territorial limits, and with an aggressive theocratic overlay that claims tribal superiority over the entire rest of the world… By their increasingly hardline racialist approach, their unceasing encroachment on Palestinian land and their rigorous adoption of all the racist mechanisms of an apartheid state internally, I fear that the window of opportunity for a peaceful future for those Jewish people living in what is currently Israel is closing fast."

That’s as good a summation as I’ve heard. Craig Murray is the straight-talking former British ambassador to Uzbekistan.

But as spooky Halloween draws near Netanyahu, far from resembling the leader of the Jewish world, looks to me increasingly like one of the Undead, and loving it. Is it my imagination, or is “Nosferatu” Netanyahu – sounds like the title for a new rap song – actually a corpse re-animated by the life forces of a steady local supply of dead and dying?

Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah & ccun.org.

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