Keir Starmer's continued commitment to selling UK arms to Israel following the deadly attacks on Lebanon shows there is no red line, argues Daniel Lindley.
Perspectives
Daniel Lindley
16 Oct, 2024
In the UK, Keir Starmer’s Labour government have conducted themselves exactly how they behaved in opposition, following the US' line, writes Daniel Lindley. [GETTY]
Shortly after the end of World War One, the Zionist leaders Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion presented a map to the Paris Peace Conference laying out the borders they wanted for their Jewish State in Palestine. The northern borders were defined as “starting on the North at a point on the Mediterranean Sea in the vicinity south of Sidon and following the watersheds of the foothills of the Lebanon as far as Jisr El-Karaon thence to El-Bire…”. For those unfamiliar with the geography, this would place the borders of the Jewish State some 15-30 miles north of Israel’s current internationally recognised borders. It would also include most of the Litani River basis, the biggest source of water in the area. Indeed, the border proposals were based on the work of the Zionist botanist Aaron Aaronsohn, who insisted that control of the Litani River would fulfill the Jewish State’s need for irrigation water in the north.
Although they failed to convince the British and French to change the boundaries of Palestine to include the Litani River, securing these lands continued to be a long-term Zionist goal after the founding of the State of Israel. In 1978, Israel launched ‘Operation Litani’ where most of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River was placed under Israeli occupation until 2000, when Israel withdrew following a Lebanese resistance campaign led by Hezbollah. In 2006, Israel again invaded Lebanon, during which the Israeli Army bombed “open water channels and underground water diversion pipes”, “a pumping station”, “the Litani water reservoir, the Litani dam.”
Again in 2024, Israel has declared its goal is to force Hezbollah north of the Litani.
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This retorts the refrains that Israel’s more recent invasions of Lebanon are caused by the presence of Hezbollah, when Israel has been invading and occupying parts of Lebanon long before that organisation even existed. The one constant in the last 100 years of this conflict is that southern Lebanon has the best water resource in the area and the Zionist movement/Israel want more water for their state.
Undermining international law
The complete impunity Israel has committed its genocidal rampage in Gaza has set the stage for even more atrocities in Lebanon. Netanyahu has explicitly threatened the “people of Lebanon” that if they don’t stop Hezbollah, they will face “destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza,” making a mockery of any claims that Israel only harms civilians inadvertently.
At this point, whenever a US or British leader says they don’t want Israel to do something, it’s best to assume that Israel is about to do just that very thing. As was pointed out in a Politico article recently, contrary to its public statement, the Biden administration is very much on board with Israel’s terrorist campaigns. They see this as a “history-defining moment” that will “reshape the Middle East… for years to come.”
In the UK, Keir Starmer’s Labour government have conducted themselves exactly how they behaved in opposition, following the US' line. Last year Sky News political editor Beth Rigby bluntly described the situation as “task for Starmer is align to US” when it was pointed out that 76% of the British public support a ceasefire in Gaza. They fundamentally do not regard it as the UK’s role to even have a policy of its own, but to act as a loyal vassal.
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We’ve reached a new paradigm where any kind of pretence to respect international law, norms or basic morality have been thrown entirely out the window when it comes to Israel. All that matters is an Israeli victory.
It barely seems believable now, but when Israel assassinated the then leader of Hamas Ahmed Yassin in 2004, it was condemned by then Prime Minister Tony Blair, and the Foreign Secretary referred to it as an ‘unlawful killing’. Particular outrage was aimed at the fact that the assassination had been carried out by a bombing which also killed several nearby civilians. There was still some sense that it wasn’t legitimate to excuse civilian deaths by just saying you were trying to kill an enemy in the area. In fact, in 2009 then Israeli Minister Moshe Yaalon cancelled a visit to the UK for fear he’d be arrested for ordering the killing of a Hamas leader by dropping a one-ton bomb in a densely populated area of Gaza, killing 14 other civilians.
Civilian deaths
Being outraged about that seems rather quaint these days, when Israel drops 80 tons of bombs that levelled an entire city block in Beirut just to assassinate one man. There’s been much speculation about the potential intelligence failure that caused Nasrallah’s assassination, however, accounts shared in the media seem unconvincing with little basis in fact, as why would Israeli officials be publicising their methods to the press?
Certainly, what has been considerably overlooked in the media, is the sheer escalation in the scale of civilian death Israel is now allowed to inflict due to Western governments not even pretending to care anymore.
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Israel has attempted to assassinate Nasrallah before, famously in 2006 he only narrowly escaped when Israel bombed his office. From the description of events, it seems likely that if Israel used 80 tons of bombs back then to destroy the entire area, they would have succeeded. The real difference is the removal of any limits on Israel by its American backers, despite Israel’s own leaders admitting their military couldn’t function without their material support.
After all the live-streamed atrocities of this past year - and a new UN report accusing Israel of ‘crime of extermination’ through deliberate destruction of Gaza’s health care system - Starmer stated this week that his government “will never stop selling weapons to Israel.” It doesn’t get much clearer than that. There is absolutely no line that Israel can cross, no atrocity it can commit, for it to become too much for this utterly immoral government.
Daniel Lindley is a trade union activist in the UK.
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