Andy Gregg finds equivocation in Labours response to Palestinian statehood and Trump’s Gaza Golf Course
The extraordinary and bizarre statements by Donald Trump about ethnically cleansing Gaza and turning it into a new Mar-a-Lago luxury resort and golf course are a gift to the Israeli far right as well as the legion of Christian Zionists who are driving US policy. The second phase of the ceasefire looks increasingly unlikely to be agreed as the talks on this stage are already falling behind. They were due to start on the 3rd February and Netanyahu is under huge pressure from his right wing to refuse to discuss stage two and instead to recommence the war – a view that has been bolstered by the hugely irresponsible utterings of the US President. At the same time the pressure on the Palestinian population across the occupied West Bank continues to grow with increasing numbers of Palestinians killed in Israeli Defence Force raids or attacks by Israeli settlers for whom there are no controls or consequences. There is a real danger of a third Intifada (uprising) breaking out spontaneously against Israeli oppression across the Occupied Territories.
All of the Israeli government’s recent decisions are designed to continue to make any chance of a two state solution to the conflict impossible. The longstanding US policy of half-hearted commitment to this version of a settlement for the Middle East has now been comprehensively overturned by Trump’s stated commitment to ethnically cleanse Gaza and build a luxury resort on the mass graves of so many thousands of Gazans. Netanyahu has of course praised Trump’s “bold vision” of a US takeover of Gaza and says he wants to “ensure that this future becomes a reality”. He has vowed to “ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel” during talks with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Hamas as well as Arab leaders have comprehensively rejected any proposal to ethnically cleanse or “relocate” Palestinians from Gaza to Jordan and Egypt and redevelop the territory under US control.
It might be thought that this set of new circumstances might force the British Labour Government to stop equivocating about its commitment to the two state solution and finally set out its position and recognise the Palestine state alongside 146 UN member states who have done so that include the Irish, Spanish and Norwegians. However, the constantly equivocal Foreign Secretary Lammy refuses to condemn Trump’s appalling approach to the conflict. Predictably, Lammy stopped short of condemning Trump’s bizarre declaration that the US will “own Gaza” and that Palestinians will have no alternative but to leave without the prospect of return. He has even failed to roundly condemn the renewed supplies of Israel of MK-84 bombs from the US, following a decision by Trump to lift a block imposed by Biden because of the danger they might have been used in Gaza. The first instalment of the 2,000-pound unguided bombs arrived at Israel’s Ashdod port on February 15th. If they were to be used against Gaza (as would be highly likely if the conflict breaks out again) it would make the Israeli denial of its genocidal intentions in Gaza even more absurd.
The British Government is increasingly hedged in by its desire to placate the US so as to develop a role as an interlocutor between the US and the European Union especially as it prioritises the threat of Russian expansionism. It is clear that it considers this role in relation to the Ukraine conflict as more important than any attempt at even-handedness in the Israel/Palestine conflict that might alienate the Trump regime. It is unlikely that Lammy would be prepared to speak out against US Foreign Policy on both of the two separate issues of Ukraine and Palestine. It is also of course the case that the Labour Party is still dominated by the pro-zionist Labour Friends of Israel and the even more extreme Labour Against Antisemitism. For all these reasons we cannot expect any even-handedness by Lammy towards the situation in Gaza and for some of us this has meant that we have finally cut our ties with the Labour Party and are looking to develop campaigns outside the Party that oppose Labour’s gutless and deluded policies of support for the increasingly fascist settler/colonial designs of Israel.