Gilad Atzmon views Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s offer to lend British naval assistance to Israel and argues that Brown should be offering defensive weapons to the Palestinians, not aiding and abetting Israeli war criminals.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on 17 January managed to come up with one of his most immoral and irresponsible announcements so far. In a desperate attempt to appease the notorious Israeli war criminal leadership, Brown pledged to redeploy the British navy in the region. “We'll send the Royal Navy to help fight [weapon] smuggling,” he said.
Mr Prime Minister, can’t you see for yourself the total carnage inflicted on the innocent Palestinian civilians by the Israeli armed forces? Didn’t you follow, like the rest of us, the horrendous, indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians perpetrated by the Israeli army while being fully supported by the Israeli Jewish population? Did you also manage to miss the repeated Israeli usage of unconventional weapons against innocent civilians? Did you fail to learn about the repeating reports of Israeli bombardments of UN refugee centres?
Prime Minister Brown, in case you do not realize, the Palestinian people urgently need weapons to defend themselves against one of the strongest armies in the world. It is the Palestinian people who need protection against one of the most immoral military powers in the history of humanity. For the past three weeks the Palestinian people needed the Royal Navy to intervene and protect them from indiscriminate shelling by the Israeli navy. The Palestinian people needed the Royal Navy to impose a siege on the ports of Haifa, Ashdod and Eilat to make it impossible for America to supply Israel with weapon through the sea. The Palestinian people needed the British aircraft carriers to be deployed in the region so they could deter the Israeli air force from dropping one-tonne bombs on innocent civilians.
Prime Minister Brown, may I remind you that just a few weeks before the Israeli armed forces launched their genocidal war against the Palestinian people, your foreign minister, David Miliband, visited Sderot to show solidarity with the Israeli people. Here is what he had to say: "It's very important that countries like mine and others show their solidarity with the people of Sderot.” This idiotic statement made by a senior minister in your cabinet was obviously interpreted by the Israelis as a green light to reduce Gaza to a pile of rubble.
Prime Minister Brown, I can imagine how busy you are, I do realize that once a day you have to bail out a UK bank. I also know that you are aware of what we all know: that you do not really mean what you say about the redeployment of the Royal Navy. But I will try to help you here. If you really want to promote a chance for peace in the Middle East, the only thing you can do is to make sure that the Palestinian people can defend themselves. You have to offer the Palestinian people the most sophisticated defensive weapons available in the British military arsenal.
As the longest serving British chancellor, you must grasp that such an initiative would help to boost the crumbling British industry. It will save Palestinian lives and it will also prevent the Israelis from celebrating their proven murderous inclinations in the near future.
Mr Prime Minister, in order not to waste too much of your time, I will present you with a short and basic list of some essential defensive weapons that the Palestinian people need urgently just to defend themselves:
3,000 shor- and medium-range anti-aircraft missiles so Palestinians can defend their skies from Israeli jets.
1,000 anti-aircraft guns so Palestinians can defend their sky from Israeli assault helicopters and surveillance planes.
750 radar-guided ground-to-sea missiles so Palestinians can defend their cities from the Israeli navy’s indiscriminate killing.
10,000 anti-tank missiles so Palestinians can prevent Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles from driving over Palestinian neighbourhoods and refugee camps.
2,000 ambulances. We need plenty because the Israeli army regards ambulances and emergency rescuers as an easy military target.
2,500 cruise missiles, just to make sure that Palestinian combatants can target Israeli decision makers and strategic military centres instead of the habitants of Sderot, Ashkelon and Ashdod.
You may note that the list above is largely a defensive one. Unlike Israel, the Palestinians do not need tanks, destroyers, jet fighters, cluster bombs, white phosphorus shells or nuclear submarines. All they need is a fair chance to defend themselves from Israeli barbarism. But it is not only the Palestinians who need a saviour here. The truth of the matter is simple. The Jewish state needs the Palestinian military to be strong because this is the only thing that may stop Israelis from exercising their proven genocidal inclinations.
Gilad Atzmon is an Israeli-born musician, writer and anti-racism campaigner. A version of this article appeared in Palestine Think Tank.
