Stuart Littlewood highlights the disinformation and lies of Israel’s stooges in the British Liberal Democratic Party – and the Labour and Conservative parties – who would not be shamed even by Israel’s mass murder of civilians in Gaza.
In January, while Israel's military was pulverizing Gaza for 22 days and nights and incinerating its women and children with phosphorus bombs, the Liberal Democrat Party in the UK published an article by its Friends of Israel wing, entitled “Israel has no option but to defend itself against Hamas and Iran”.
According to this, "Israel is fighting in Gaza to stop the firing of rockets at towns and cities well within Israel’s internationally recognized, pre-1967 borders. These rockets are not home-made fireworks; they are sophisticated weapons, which often kill innocent people. They are fired without precision..."
So sophisticated are the rockets, in fact, that only 1 in 400 actually kills somebody. But rockets never were the issue. There are no rockets coming out of the West Bank. Yet the illegal Israeli occupation there continues and so does the ethnic cleansing, the land theft, the illegal settlements, the colonization, the demolition of Palestinian homes, the throttling of the economy, the abduction and “administrative detention” of civilians and the massive block on freedom of movement. There is no let-up in the oppression of West Bank Palestinians who DO NOT fire rockets, and no sign of an end to their misery.
The bloody assault on Gaza therefore has more to do with Israel's ambition to expand its racial dominance in the Holy Land than crude and erratic rocket-fire. Stroppy Hamas and the unflinching Palestinians holed up in Gaza stand in the way of the Grand Plan and must be removed or totally subdued.
Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, said the Jewish state would stretch “from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates". At the UN Special Committee of Enquiry on 9 July 1947 Rabbi Fischmann, a member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, said in his testimony: "The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon." A map of “Greater Israel” presented by the Word Zionist Organization soon after World War II shows the geographical extent of Zionist greed. Gaza and the West Bank are totally engulfed by it.
"The harsh reality is that Israel has no option but to abort this Iranian-backed war machine (including missiles with an ever-longer range) in Gaza," the Liberal Democrat article continues. "Israel is targeting Hamas’s rocket-firing capacity and is seeking to limit Palestinian civilian casualties."
“War machine” is a fanciful description. One Israeli soldier dismissed it as a bunch of farmers with rifles who don't even take aim when shooting.
The article claims that Hamas has no interest in peace and no desire for the two-state solution, and is "pledged unequivocally in its 1988 charter to the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews".
Hamas's Charter, however correctly points out that “the Zionist invasion is a vicious invasion; it does not refrain from resorting to all methods, using all evil and contemptible ways to achieve its end". We have indeed been treated to many demonstrations of those evil methods. As for murder, Israeli Jews have been murdering Palestinians wholesale since 1948 and before. Has Israel ever worked for peace? Has Israel shown any inclination to end its land theft, ethnic cleansing, dispossession and colonization?
A Peace Now report based on data from Israeli government sources reveals that "the Ministry of Construction and Housing is planning to construct at least 73,000 more housing units in the West Bank... at least 15,000 housing units have already been approved and plans for an additional 58,000 housing units are yet to be approved".
Of the units already approved, nearly 9,000 have been built, the report says. "If all the plans are realized, the number of settlers in the territories will be doubled."
Why, you may ask, does a self-respecting political party allow it membership to support and wave the flag for a thuggish, racist entity like Israel, which repeatedly shows itself devoid of decency and lacking in respect for international law and human rights, and has a criminal disregard for everything the Liberal Democrats stand for?
In its constitution the Liberal Democratic Party sets a very high moral tone...
"Liberal Democrats believe that human rights represent fundamental standards of humanity and that all states have a duty to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms..."
"We are supporters of international law..."
"Liberal Democrats welcome the extension of international law to hold individuals to account for crimes against humanity." If governments engage in large-scale violations of human rights, or are unable or unwilling to protect their populations from catastrophes, then this responsibility must be fulfilled by the international community...”
"Liberal Democrats condemn all cases of prolonged detention without charge or trial, which undermines the rule of law and gives scope for the abuse of other human rights."
But the Liberal Democrats are not the worst hypocrites. The Conservative and Labour parties have far higher concentrations of Israel stooges spreading poison and besmirching the noble words and sentiments on which the parties were founded.
The ruling Labour Party says it is committed to peace, freedom, democracy, economic security and environmental protection for all. You wouldn’t think so, the way Gordon Brown (and Tony Blair before him) stood back and did nothing while Israel committed horrendous war crimes against Gaza and even now is blocking humanitarian aid to the smoking ruins and devastated population.
And while the ferocity of the Israeli blitz increased, William Hague, the Conservative shadow foreign secretary, was condemning Hamas’s rocket responses as “acts of terrorism”. He was careful not to use the T-word to describe Israel’s conduct and showed little regard for the plight of Gaza’s civilians, his main concern being that if Israel continued the slaughter for too long, Hamas might try to declare victory and there might be trouble on Israel’s border with Lebanon.
Two telephone calls to party headquarters failed to produce a copy of the constitution, so what the Conservatives actually stand for remains a mystery to me. However, as the killing spree continued over 90 Conservative MPs attended a jolly Friends of Israel reception on the House of Commons terrace.
I‘m writing this just as the Viva Palestina convoy threads its way into Gaza, breaking the evil siege. Bravo, everyone who took part! And bravo all those who supported and encouraged the convoy along the route! George Galloway told happy crowds at Rafah that Tony Blair doesn’t speak for the British people. ”WE DO!”
I would add that neither do Brown, Miliband, Cameron or the rest of the Zionist lackeys at Westminster. They spout their lies. We don’t need them. We have a voice of our own.
Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For further information please visit www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk.
