Time to boycott Israel.
There were around 60 air-strikes on the Strip on Monday night/Tuesday morning, not all probably of the same horrifying, shocking power as that one but undoubtedly more than enough to utterly destroy countless buildings and the humans that may well have been inside them. One such strike targeted a Christian Aid health clinic that contained hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of medical equipment, desperately needed in Gaza. The attack was not a mistake, but completely deliberate: the owners were telephoned 15 minutes before and told to get out, along with the family that lived above it. Why an ordinary home and clinic were methodically chosen and given the OK to be destroyed is a question that will probably never be answered.
What is becoming clear is that as Israel repeatedly ignores calls for a ceasefire, the anger and reaction to the offensive in Gaza continues to grow. Perhaps most indicative of the realisation by many that first isolating a population, starving them and then finally subjecting them to a "shock and awe" style bombing for over two weeks is not how civilised democracies behave is that even the mainstream US press is beginning, however cautiously, to give space to those criticising Israel. The Wall Street Journal, owned by Rupert Murdoch, even gave over column space in its notoriously right-wing comment pages to a piece by George Bisharat which had the headline "Israel is committing war crimes". In a session only an hour-long after a statement by David Miliband, in which he seemed to have mixed up Hamas and Israel, having said that "Hamas have shown themselves over a number of years to be murderous in word and deed", whilst Israel was "a thriving democratic state with an independent judiciary", apparently having missed that two of the three Arab political parties were banned yesterday, while under the cover of the war on Gaza hundreds of protesters have been arrested and many of them indicted for expressing their views, MPs beyond the usual suspects spoke out against the attacks, with Sir Patrick Cormack declaring himself "ashamed of Israel" after previously being one of its friends, while Ming Campbell asked if "any other democratic state were behaving in that way, would we not by now be considering what other economic and diplomatic steps were available to us?"
Previously, the talk of boycotts, arms embargoes and other measures were made either by trade unions that wanted academic boycotts, boycotts I would have opposed as counter-productive and unlikely to have any real effect, or by left-wing groups that likewise have been repeatedly condemned and ignored. These are though, and now should be start to be considered as real, legitimate options that can be used against what is incredibly close to becoming a rogue state, completely unconcerned by and apparently beyond international opinion. Let's be clear: it is only by an absolute miracle and the almost unbelievable work of the otherwise collapsing health infrastructure in Gaza that only around 970 have been killed so far, with over 4,000 injured. Of that 4,000, hundreds if not more are going to have suffered amputations and other horrific injuries, to the extent where they will be disabled for the rest of their lives, if indeed they manage to survive. The boy in the top image was blinded, apparently by white phosphorus. 40% of the 970 are women and children, with a good percentage of the rest non-fighters or police officers who were deliberately targeted in the first couple of days of attacks. As Gerald Kaufman said in parliament, if Hamas had killed 970 Israelis in just over two weeks, the response of the international community and our own government would have been rather more damning that it has been up till now, even considering that our response has been more biting and quicker than it was during the Lebanon war when we openly colluded with the US and Israel in delaying talks for a ceasefire.
Tomorrow's Guardian leader considers the issue head on, another sign of just how seriously thoughts of potential boycotts and other direct action are being considered by the mainstream. Its main suggestion is that Israel's ambassador's presence should be requested by David Miliband, to show just how high feeling is running within government vis-a-vis his country's Gaza policy. It concludes by mentioning the other options, describing them as "not all appealing, nor should they be yet necessary", which is far from suggesting that they should be immediately dismissed. We know of course that hardly any of these things, even a request to see Ron Prosor, are likely to be taken. After all, if what Israel is doing in Gaza constitute war crimes, or a crime of aggression, where would that leave what we ourselves, in partnership with the United States, have visited on Iraq for what's now approaching 6 years, a war which Miliband and Brown both voted for? We don't even have the justification that Iraq had been firing rudimentary rockets into our territory; the best we could come up with, ignoring the fatuous argument regarding the prior UN resolutions, would be that Iraq did have some missiles that breached their agreements regarding weapons, but which were being destroyed by the UN weapons inspectors. That is almost certainly partly the reason why the criticism of Israel has not been as harsh as it was towards Russia over last summer's war with Georgia, where it was apparently felt we had more of a free ride, regarding Russia's authoritarian turn and rigged elections.
If however the government is unwilling to act, not even for instance imposing an arms embargo on Israel as suggested by Nick Clegg at the very least temporarily, then individually we should be prepared to either boycott Israeli produce or repeatedly demonstrate against what is being done by a supposed democratic state against a people as a whole. We need to be clear that Israel is not an apartheid state, although it is certainly approaching it, that it is not yet instituting a genocide on Gaza, and that comparing Israel to the Nazis is both ahistorical and deeply insulting, even if understandable in the circumstances. We should however be equally clear that as a country its treatment of the Palestinians is now so unbearable that it has placed itself outside the boundaries of civilised nations, and that until it changes its behaviour, we will impose personal sanctions upon it. Israel needs to know that even if other governments are not turning away from it as a result of such murderous cynicism, individuals and their businesses will.
Labels: Gaza, Gaza blockade, Gaza December 2008 raids, Hamas, Israel, Israel boycott, Israel-Palestine
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What can I say buy agree with you 100%.
Posted by
Robert |
Wednesday, January 14, 2009 9:09:00 am
Neither the Israeli or Arab people are deserving of the leaders they have elected into power, both sets are bent on the destruction of the opposing government with little care or interest in the people they represent.
I'm all for an Israeli boycott but how do I boycott Hamas?
Posted by
Daniel Hoffmann-Gill |
Wednesday, January 14, 2009 10:59:00 am
Daniel: You already are. We have been since they were elected.
Posted by
septicisle |
Wednesday, January 14, 2009 8:24:00 pm
Good.
Posted by
Daniel Hoffmann-Gill |
Wednesday, January 14, 2009 8:50:00 pm
And in the meantime 45,000 die every month in the Congo ... approx 50% being children.
War still continues in the Congo with rape and murder of children commonplace.
Whilst the pics you post about Gaza are upsetting, the pics from the Congo make one physically sick.
Who speaks for them? Unlike Gaza, these children of the Congo are specifically chosen for rape and murder by the most dispicable ways one could ever imagine.The ones lucky enough to escape this fate die of disease and starvation.
But hey, we can all feel good about ourselves whilst we bring to the fore the plight of the Gaza children.
Posted by
Spartan |
Friday, January 16, 2009 2:56:00 am
Spartan: would you like to link to some of these pictures? I haven't seen any of them. The difference between the two is obvious: a peace settlement in Israel/Palestine is more than achievable, as is putting pressure on Israel to stop the killing. We're engaging in whataboutery; you can pick on any conflict and say why aren't you talking about that one instead. It achieves nothing except deflecting attention, which is what you seem to be attempting to do.
Posted by
septicisle |
Friday, January 16, 2009 4:36:00 am
THIS IS SPAAAARTAAAA!
(Sorry couldn't resist)
There are terrible things happening all over the world and where I will agree with SPARTA is that Africa gets very little in the way of attention of focus, both news wise and political.
Having said that, Septicisle is free to blog on whatever he wants and comapring tragedy is not his job or anyone elses for that matter.
Posted by
Daniel Hoffmann-Gill |
Friday, January 16, 2009 10:36:00 am
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