Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine

In the aftermath of Khaled Meshaal’s emotional visit to Gaza in celebration of Hamas’ 25th anniversary, commentary in Israel and the West has focused on his remarks at a rally as “defiant” and confirming “the true face” of Hamas. Emphasis was particularly placed on his dramatic pledge to recover the whole of historic Palestine, from the Mediterranean to Jordan, “inch by inch”, no matter how long such a process might take. Meshaal also challenged the legitimacy of the Zionist project, and justified Palestinian resistance in whatever form it might assume, although disavowing the intention to attack civilians as such, and denying any complicity by Hamas in the recent November 21, 2012 incident in Israel when a bomb exploded in a Jerusalem bus.

These remarks certainly raise concerns for moderate Israelis who continue to advocate a two-state solution in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 242, but at the same time, it is important to listen to Hamas fully before reaching firm conclusions about their “true intentions”.

The thrice born ‘world leader’

What Meshaal said in Gaza was at a rally dedicated to reaffirming its fundamental struggle in the immediate aftermath of the recent eight day Israeli attack (code-named “Pillar of Defence”), and by a leader who for the first time in 45 years had openly dared to set foot in his occupied and oppressed homeland. Meshaal is a leader who has lived in exile in several countries throughout the region since he was eleven years old, having been born in the Selwad neighbourhood of Ramallah, then under Jordanian control. He is someone who in 1997 Israel had tried to murder in a notorious incident in Jordan in which only the immediate capture of the Mossad perpetrators induced Israel to supply a life-saving antidote for the poison that had been sprayed into Meshaal’s ear so as to secure the release of these agents from Jordanian captivity and the avoidance of likely criminal charges.

In Meshaal’s imagery, this return to Gaza was his “third birth”, the first being in 1956 when he was born, the second when he survived the Israeli assassination attempt, and the third when he was able to kiss the ground upon entering Gaza. These biographical details seem relevant for an assessment of his public remarks.

The context was also given a heightened reality by the Hamas/Gaza success in enduring the latest Israeli military onslaught that produced a ceasefire that contained some conditions favoring Gaza, including an Israeli commitment to refrain from targeted assassinations in the future. It also was a context shaped by a sequence of painful memories that included the main trigger of the upsurge of violence, which seemed to be the Hamas reaction to the assassination of its military leader and diplomat, Ahmed Jabari. Also, Meshaal made a point of visiting the surviving family member of the disabled spiritual founder of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was assassinate on May 22, 2003. It was as a direct consequence of Sheikh Yassin’s death that Meshaal was declared “world leader” of Hamas.

Talk to Al Jazeera
Khaled Meshaal
An evolving narrative

The most important element of context that needs to be taken into account is the seeming inconsistency between the fiery language used by Meshaal in Gaza and his far more moderate tone in the course of several interviews with Western journalists in recent weeks. In those interviews, Meshaal had clearly indicated a readiness for a long-term hudna (truce), provided that Israel ended its occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, and agreed to uphold Palestinian rights under international law. He made clear that these rights included the right of return belonging to the 4-5 million Palestinians living in refugee camps or exile, and contended that such a right was more deserving of recognition than is the Israeli grant of such a right of return to every Jew worldwide, including those without any prior connection to historic Palestine whatsoever.

Of course, this right asserted on behalf of Palestinian refugees is in its potentiality a threatening claim to Israel, and to Zionism, as it could, at least in theory, threaten the Jewish majority presence in Israel. Whether many Palestinians if given the choice would wish to return to live in Israel so as to reinhabit their ancestral homes seems highly questionable, but the right to do so unquestionably belongs to Palestinians under international law, at least to those who had previously resided in present Israel, and possibly to their direct descendants.

In these interviews, Meshaal consistently affirmed the readiness of Hamas to pursue these national goals nonviolently, without “weapons and blood” if Israel were to accept such a framework for peace. His words to CNN in a November 22 interview are notable in this respect: “We are ready to resort to a peaceful way, purely peaceful way without blood and weapons, as long as we obtain our Palestinian demands.” The extent of “Palestinian demands” was left unspecified, which does create an ambiguity as to whether this meant accommodation or some kind of rearticulation of a unified Palestinian entity. Also unclear as to whether the peaceful path could precede the end of occupation, or must be a sequel to the existence of a sovereign Palestinian state. In the other direction, Meshaal indicated that once Palestinian statehood was fully realised, then the issue of the acceptance of Israeli legitimacy could be placed on the political agenda.

Meshaal’s deputy, Mousa Abu Marzook, in a conversation in Cairo told me in a similar vein that the Hamas Charter pledge to destroy the Zionist state had become “a false issue”. This PhD from Louisiana Tech, an intelligent exponent of current Hamas thinking, echoed Meshaal’s moderate approach, and indicated that as with the US Constitution’s treatment of slavery, the Hamas Charter has evolved with changing circumstances, and its clauses were subject to modification by reinterpretation. Mr Marzook also gave me the impression that Hamas was ready to pursue a diplomatic approach to conflict resolution provided that Israel would send signals of its willingness to do the same, starting with a lifting of the blockade, an end to violent incursions, and an acceptance of Hamas as a political actor with governmental authority.

A wider context

Along similar lines, Meshaal has spoken about Hamas as “realistic” with respect to an appreciation of the balance of forces relative to the conflict, and referred to Arafat’s response of twenty years ago to those who insisted that Israel would be at mortal risk if a Palestinian state were to be established on the West Bank. The former PLO leader had pointed out that any Palestinian move to threaten Israel militarily in such circumstances was unthinkable. It would be sure to produce a devastating attack that would crush Palestinian hopes forever.

Hamas’ Meshaal vows to ‘continue resistance’
There is posed a fundamental question: Is the true voice of Hamas discernable at this point? There seems to be a sharp contrast between the sweeping language of Meshaal’s words spoken at the anniversary demonstration in Gaza and his far calmer, focused, and accommodating tone in interviews and other statements during the last several years.

The more hopeful understanding of the Hamas position would call attention to the gap between the emotional occasion of the speech and the more rational views consistently expressed elsewhere. Such an explanation is the opposite of the Western insistence that only the rally speech gave expression to the authentic outlook of Hama.

In contrast, I would accord greater weight being given to the moderate formulations, at least provisionally, for exploratory purposes. Put differently, in Gaza Meshaal was likely expressing a maximalist version of the Palestinian narrative relating to unchanging sense of the legitimacy of its challenge to the existence of a Zionist state in Palestine, while in more reflective arenas, ever since the entry of Hamas into electoral politics back in 2006, the dominant emphasis has been pragmatic, pursuing a political track that envisioned long-term peaceful co-existence with Israel, a sidestepping of legitimacy claim, at least once the occupation was definitively ended and the rights of Palestinian refugees were recognised in accordance with international law.

It can be asked, “How can Hamas dare to put forward such a claim in view of the steady rain of rockets that has made life treacherous and miserable for the more than a million Israelis living in the southern part of Israel ever since Israel ‘disengaged’ in 2005″? Such a rhetorical question repeated over and over again without reference to the siege or Israeli violence has distorted the Western image of the interaction, suggesting that when Israel massively attacks helpless Gaza it is only exercising its defensive rights, which is the most fundamental entitlement of every sovereign state.

Again the more accurate interpretation depends on a fuller appreciation of the wider context, which would include the revealed American plot to reverse the outcome of the 2006 electoral victory of Hamas by arming Fatah with heavy weapons, the Israeli punitive blockade since mid-2007, and many instances of provocative Israeli violence, including a steady stream of targeted assassinations, deliberate reliance on disproportionate and excessive force, and lethal over-reactions at the Gaza border.

Although not the whole story, the one-sided ratio of deaths as between Israel and Palestine is a good first approximation of comparative responsibility over the period of Hamas ascendancy in Gaza, and it is striking. For instance, between the ceasefire in 2009 and the Israeli attack in November 2012, 271 Palestinians were killed and not a single Israeli. The respected Ha’aretz columnist, Gideon Levy, has pointed out that since the first rockets were launched against Israel in 2001, 59 Israelis have died as compared to 4,717 Palestinians.

The Western media is stunningly oblivious to these complications of perception, almost never disclosing Israeli provocations in reporting on the timelines of the violence of the parties, and fails to acknowledge that it has been the Israelis, not the Palestinians, that have been most often responsible for ending periods of prolonged truce.

There are further confusing elements in the picture, including the presence of some extremist Palestinian militias that launch rockets in defiance of Hamas policy, which in recent years generally has confined rocket launches to retaliatory roles. Among the ironies of the Jabari assassination was that it was evidently his role to restrain these militias on behalf of Hamas, including disciplining those extremists who refused to abide by policies of restricting rocket attacks to retaliatory situations.

Fighting for freedom?

There is no doubt that Hamas’ reliance on rockets fired in the direction of Israeli civilian population centres are violations of international humanitarian law, and should be condemned as such, but even this condemnation is not without its problematic aspects. The Goldstone Report did condemn the reliance of these rockets in a typically decontextualised manner, that is, without reference to the unlawfulness of the occupation, including its pronounced reliance on collective punishment in the form of the blockade as well as frequent and arbitrary violent incursions, routine military overflights, and a terrifying regime of subjugation that imparts on Palestinians a sense of total vulnerability and helplessness.

Stonewalling the Goldstone Report
The Goldstone Report also was silent as to the nature and extent of a Palestinian right of resistance. Such unconditional condemnations of Hamas as “a terrorist organisation” are unreasonably one-sided to the extent that Palestinian moral, political, and legal rights of resistance are ignored and Israel’s unlawful policies are not considered. This issue also reveals a serious deficiency in international humanitarian law, especially, as here, in the context of a prolonged occupation that includes many violations of the most fundamental and inalienable rights of an occupied people. The prerogatives of states are upheld, while those of peoples are overlooked or treated as non-existent.

It is also relevant to take note of the absence of alternative means available to the Palestinians to uphold their rights under international law and to challenge the abuses embedded in Israeli occupation policies. Israel with its drones, Apache helicopters, F-16 fighter aircraft, Iron Dome, and so forth enjoys the luxury of choosing its targets and determining the level of violence at will, but Palestinians have no such option. For them it is either using the primitive and indiscriminate weaponry at their disposal or essentially giving in to an intolerable status quo.

To repeat, this does not make Hamas rockets lawful, but does it make such reliance wrong, given the overall context of violence that includes the absolute impunity of Israel for a pattern of flagrant violations of international criminal law? What are we to do with international law when it is invoked only to control the behaviour of the weaker party?

It gives perspective to imagine the situation being reversed as it was during the Nazi occupation of France or the Netherlands during World War II. Resistance fighters were uniformly perceived in the liberal West as unconditional heroes, and no critical attention was given as to whether the tactics used unduly imperiled innocent civilian lives. Those who lost their lives in such a resistance were honoured as martyrs. Meshaal and other Hamas leaders have made similar arguments on several occasions, in effect asking what are Palestinians supposed to do in the exercise of resistance given their circumstances, which have persisted for so long, given the failures of traditional diplomacy and the UN to secure their rights under international law.

The way forward

In effect, a sensitive appreciation of context is crucial for a proper understanding, which makes self-satisfied condemnations of the views and tactics of Hamas and Khaled Meshaal misleading and, if heeded, condemns the parties to a destiny of perpetual conflict. The Western mainstream media doesn’t help by presenting the rocket attacks as if taking place in a vacuum, and without relevant Israeli provocations. Of course, Israeli supporters will retort that it is easy to make such assessments from a safe distance, but what is a safe distance? “The risks are ours alone,” they will say with a somewhat understandable hostility. But what about the horrible Palestinian anxieties and outstanding grievances, are these not also entitled to redress?

Is there a way out of such tragic dilemmas? In my view, only when the stronger side militarily treats “the other” as having grievances and rights, and recognises that the security of ‘the self’ must be based on mutuality. Only then will sustainable peace have a chance.

In this conflict, the Israelis missed a huge opportunity to move in this direction when the weaker Palestinian side made a historic concession by authoritiatively limiting its political ambition to Occupied Palestine (22 percent of historic Palestine, less than half of what the UN partition plan proposed in 1947) in accordance with the consensus image of a solution embodied in Security Council Resolution 242. Instead of reciprocating, or at least welcoming such Palestinian minimalism, Israel has sought to encroach further and further on the Palestinian remnant of 22 percent by way of its settlements, separation wall, apartheid roads, and annexationist moves, offering the Palestinians no alternative to oppression than resistance.

It is no wonder that even the accommodationist Palestinian Authority supported the recent Hamas anniversary celebrations, and joined in proclaiming an intention to reconcile, reuniting Hamas and Fatah under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

It is tempting for Israeli supporters to treat the Gaza speech of Khaled Meshaal as the definitive expression of the Hamas creed, but it seems premature and unwise to do so. Instead, it is time to give a balanced diplomacy a belated chance if indeed there is any political space left for the implementation of the two-state consensus, and if there isn’t, then it is time to explore alternatives, including a return to a unified and secular Palestine that is governed in accordance with human rights standards and the rule of law, with respect accorded to international law.

If the two state solution is acknowledged to be a diplomatic dead end as of 2012, then it must be concluded that the overreaching by the Zionist leadership in Israel, especially its insistence on viewing the West Bank and East Jerusalem as integral to biblical Israel, referencing the former as “Judea and Samaria” and the latter as the eternal Jewish capital, has itself irreversibly undermined the political, moral, and legal viability of the Zionist Project.

These alternative options should long ago have been clarified, and now, by taking to heart “the peaceful alternative” depicted by Meshaal, especially in the aftermath of the November 29 General Assembly endorsement of Palestinian statehood and signs of an incipient Palestinian unity, there is one last opportunity to do so. By so doing peace-oriented perspectives on the conflict will be at last taken seriously, and despite prospect of a negotiated solution being now remote, and serve as a guide for our thinking, feelings, and actions.

Richard Falk is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.

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The media double standards in the West on the new and tragic Israeli escalation of violence directed at Gaza were epitomised by an absurdly partisan New York Times front page headline: “Rockets Target Jerusalem; Israel girds for Gaza Invasion” (NYT, Nov 16, 2012). Decoded somewhat, the message is this: Hamas is the aggressor, and Israel when and if it launches a ground attack on Gaza must expect itself to be further attacked by rockets. This is a stunningly Orwellian re-phrasing of reality.

The true situation is, of course, quite the opposite: Namely, that the defenseless population of Gaza can be assumed now to be acutely fearful of an all out imminent Israeli assault, while it is also true, without minimising the reality of a threat, that some rockets fired from Gaza fell harmlessly (although with admittedly menacing implications) on the outskirts of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. There is such a gross disproportion in the capacity of the two sides to inflict damage and suffering due to Israeli total military dominance as to make perverse this reversal of concerns to what might befall Israeli society if the attack on Gaza further intensifies.

The reliance by Hamas and the various Gaza militias on indiscriminate, even if wildly inaccurate and generally harmless, rockets is a criminal violation of international humanitarian law, but the low number of casualties caused and the minor damage caused, needs to be assessed in the overall context of massive violence inflicted on the Palestinians. The widespread non-Western perception of the new cycle of violence involving Gaza is that it looks like a repetition of Israeli aggression against Gaza in late 2008, early 2009, that similarly fell between the end of American presidential elections and scheduled Israeli parliamentary elections.

Pointing fingers

Inside Story Americas -
Gaza: How can the US manage the crisis?
There is the usual discussion over where to locate responsibility for the initial act in this renewed upsurge violence. Is it some shots fired from Gaza across the border and aimed at an armoured Israeli jeep or was it the targeted killing by an Israeli missile of Ahmed Jabari, leader of the military wing of Hamas, a few days later? Or some other act by one side or the other? Or is it the continuous violence against the people of Gaza arising from the blockade that has been imposed since mid-2007?

The assassination of Jabari came a few days after an informal truce that had been negotiated through the good offices of Egypt, and quite ironically agreed to by none other than Jabari acting on behalf of Hamas. Killing him was clearly intended as a major provocation, disrupting a carefully negotiated effort to avoid another tit-for-tat sequence of violence of the sort that has periodically taken place during the last several years.

An assassination of such a high profile Palestinian political figure as Jabari is not a spontaneous act. It is based on elaborate surveillance over a long period, and is obviously planned well in advance partly with the hope of avoiding collateral damage, and thus limiting unfavourable publicity. Such an extra-judicial killing, although also part and parcel of the new American ethos of drone warfare, remains an unlawful tactic of conflict, denying adversary political leaders separated from combat any opportunity to defend themselves against accusations, and implies a rejection of any disposition to seek a peaceful resolution of a political conflict. It amounts to the imposition of capital punishment without due process, a denial of elementary rights to confront an accuser.

Putting aside the niceties of law, the Israeli leadership knew exactly what it was doing when it broke the truce and assassinated such a prominent Hamas leader, someone generally thought to be second only to the Gaza prime minister, Ismail Haniya. There have been rumours, and veiled threats, for months that the Netanyahu government plans a major assault of Gaza, and the timing of the ongoing attacks seems to coincide with the dynamics of Israeli internal politics, especially the traditional Israeli practice of shoring up the image of toughness of the existing leadership in Tel Aviv as a way of inducing Israeli citizens to feel fearful, yet protected, before casting their ballots.

Under siege

Beneath the horrific violence, which exposes the utter vulnerability, of all those living as captives in Gaza, which is one of the most crowded and impoverished communities on the planet, is a frightful structure of human abuse that the international community continues to turn its back upon, while preaching elsewhere adherence to the norm of “responsibility to protect” whenever it suits NATO. More than half of the 1.6 million Gazans are refugees living in a total area of just over twice the size of the city of Washington, DC. The population has endured a punitive blockade since mid-2007 that makes daily life intolerable, and Gaza has been harshly occupied ever since 1967.

Israel has tried to fool the world by setting forth its narrative of a good faith withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, which was exploited by Palestinian militants at the time as an opportunity to launch deadly rocket attacks. The counter-narrative, accepted by most independent observers, is that the Israeli removal of troops and settlements was little more than a mere redeployment to the borders of Gaza, with absolute control over what goes in and what leaves, maintaining an open season of a license to kill at will, with no accountability and no adverse consequences, backed without question by the US government.

From an international law point of view, Israel’s purported “disengagement” from Gaza didn’t end its responsibility as an Occupying Power under the Geneva Conventions, and thus its master plan of subjecting the entire population of Gaza to severe forms of collective punishment amounts to a continuing crime against humanity, as well as a flagrant violation of Article 33 of Geneva IV. It is not surprising that so many who have observed the plight of Gaza at close range have described it as “the largest open air prison in the world”.

Israel pounds Gaza Strip from air and sea
The Netanyahu government pursues a policy that is best understood from the perspective of settler colonialism. What distinguishes settler colonialism from other forms of colonialism is the resolve of the colonialists not only to exploit and dominate, but to make the land their own and superimpose their own culture on that of indigenous population. In this respect, Israel is well served by the Hamas/Fatah split, and seeks to induce the oppressed Palestinian to give up their identity along with their resistance struggle even to the extent of asking Palestinians in Israel to take an oath of loyalty to Israel as “a Jewish state”.

Actually, unlike the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel has no long-term territorial ambitions in Gaza. Israel’s short-term solution to its so-called “demographic problem” (that is, worries about the increase in the population of Palestinians relative to Jews) could be greatly eased if Egypt would absorb Gaza, or if Gaza would become a permanently separate entity, provided it could be reliably demilitarised. What makes Gaza presently useful to the Israelis is their capacity to manage the level of violence, both as a distraction from other concerns (eg backing down in relation to Iran; accelerated expansion of the settlements) and as a way of convincing their own people that dangerous enemies remain and must be dealt with by the iron fist of Israeli militarism.

No peace

In the background, but not very far removed from the understanding of observers, are two closely related developments. The first is the degree to which the continuing expansion of Israeli settlements has made it unrealistic to suppose that a viable Palestinian state will ever emerge from direct negotiations. The second, underscored by the recent merger of Netanyahu and Lieberman forces, is the extent to which the Israeli governing process has indirectly itself irreversibly embraced the vision of Greater Israel encompassing all of Jerusalem and most of the West Bank.

The fact that world leaders in the West keep repeating the mantra of peace through direct negotiations is either an expression of the grossest incompetence or totally bad faith. At minimum, Washington and the others calling for the resumption of direct negotiations owe it to all of us to explain how it will be possible to establish a Palestinian state within 1967 borders when it means the displacement of most of the 600,000 armed settlers now defended by the Israeli army, and spread throughout occupied Palestine. Such an explanation would also have to show why Israel is being allowed to quietly legalise the 100 or so “outposts”, settlements spread around the West Bank that had been previously unlawful even under Israeli law. Such moves toward legalisation deserve the urgent attention of all those who continue to proclaim their faith in a two-state solution, but instead are ignored.

This brings us back to Gaza and Hamas. The top Hamas leaders have made it abundantly clear over and over again that they are open to permanent peace with Israel if there is a total withdrawal to the 1967 borders (22 percent of historic Palestine) and the arrangement is supported by a referendum of all Palestinians living under occupation.

Israel, with the backing of Washington, takes the position that Hamas as “a terrorist organisation” that must be permanently excluded from the procedures of diplomacy, except of course when it serves Israel’s purposes to negotiate with Hamas. It did this in 2011 when it negotiated the prisoner exchange in which several hundred Palestinians were released from Israeli prisons in exchange for the release of the Israel soldier captive, Gilad Shalit, or when it seems convenient to take advantage of Egyptian mediation to establish temporary ceasefires.

As the celebrated Israeli peace activist and former Knesset member, Uri Avnery, reminds us a cease-fire in Arab culture, hudna in Arabic, is considered to be sanctified by Allah, has tended to be in use and faithfully observed ever since the time of the Crusades. Avnery also reports that up to the time he was assassinated, Jabari was in contact with Gershon Baskin of Israel, seeking to explore prospects for a long-term ceasefire that was reported to Israeli leaders, who unsurprisingly showed no interest.

Waiting for justice

There is a further feature of this renewal of conflict involving attacks on Gaza. Israel sometimes insists that since it is no longer, according to its claims, an occupying power, it is in a state of war with a Hamas governed Gaza. But if this were to be taken as the proper legal description of the relationship between the two sides, then Gaza would have the rights of a combatant, including the option to use proportionate force against Israeli military targets. As earlier argued, such a legal description of the relationship between Israel and Gaza is unacceptable. Gaza remains occupied and essentially helpless, and Israel as occupier has no legal or ethical right to engage in war against the people and government of Gaza, which incidentally was elected in internationally monitored free elections in early 2006.

On the contrary, its overriding obligation as Occupier is to protect the civilian population of Gaza. Even if casualty figures in the present violence are so far low as compared with Operation Cast Lead, the intensity of air and sea strikes against the helpless people of Gaza strikes terror in the hearts and minds of every person living in the Strip, a form of indiscriminate violence against the spirit and mental health of an entire people that cannot be measured in blood and flesh, but by reference to the traumatising fear that has been generated.

We hear many claims in the West as to a supposed decline in international warfare since the collapse of the Soviet Union twenty years ago. Such claims are to some extent a welcome development, but the people of the Middle East have yet to benefit from this trend, least of all the people of Occupied Palestine, and of these, the people of Gaza are suffering the most acutely. This spectacle of one-sided war in which Israel decides how much violence to unleash, and Gaza waits to be struck, firing off militarily meaningless salvos of rockets as a gesture of resistance, represents a shameful breakdown of civilisation values. These rockets do spread fear and cause trauma among Israeli civilians even when no targets are struck, and represent an unacceptable tactic. Yet such unacceptability must be weighed against the unacceptable tactics of an Israel that holds all the cards in the conflict.

It is truly alarming that now even the holiest of cities, Jerusalem, is threatened with attacks, but the continuation of oppressive conditions for the people of Gaza, inevitably leads to increasing levels of frustration, in effect, cries of help that world has ignored at its peril for decades. These are survival screams! To realise this is not to exaggerate! To gain perspective, it is only necessary to read a recent UN Report that concludes that the deterioration of services and conditions will make Gaza uninhabitable by 2020.

Completely aside from the merits of the grievances on the two sides, one side is militarily omnipotent and the other side crouches helplessly in fear. Such a grotesque reality passes under the radar screens of world conscience because of the geopolitical shield behind which Israel is given a free pass to do whatever it wishes. Such a circumstance is morally unendurable, and should be politically unacceptable. It needs to be actively opposed globally by every person, government, and institution of good will.

Richard Falk is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/11/2012111874429224963.html

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GAZA CITY (IPS) – “From the coast to eight miles out, the sea is like a desert: it’s sandy and there are no fish,” said Mohammed al-Bakri, tracing a thick line on the wall map before him.

As the general manager of Gaza’s Union of Agricultural Work Committees, al-Bakri is well-versed in the woes of Gaza’s fishermen and farmers. “The Israeli navy attacks the fishermen, arrests them and takes their boats, even within three miles,” he said, referring to the limit the Israeli authorities have unilaterally imposed on Palestinian fishermen.

Under the Oslo accords, Palestinian fishermen are authorized to fish 20 nautical miles into Gaza’s sea. The Israeli authorities have illegally downsized Palestinian fishing waters, using lethal violence to enforce new restrictions on fishing. Palestinian fishermen are routinely attacked by the Israeli navy, using machine guns, water cannons and shells. Abductions of fishermen also occur.

“When the fishermen are arrested, they just have a boat and a net,” al-Bakri said. “No weapons; they are just trying to catch to sell at the market, to earn money for their families.”

“More than 500 fishermen have been arrested and at least 12 killed by the Israeli navy,” he added.

With more than 3,600 fishermen and 70,000 persons dependent on income from the sea, Gaza’s fishing industry has been devastated by such Israeli tactics and policies. “When there is no income, fishermen must depend on food aid from the United Nations,” said al-Bakri. “But there are a lot of other needs, like housing, clothing, medical care, education.

“If the situation continues like this, we won’t see any fishermen on the sea in the future.”

Farmers targeted

Farmers in Gaza face many problems, too.

Al-Bakri referred back to the red line on the UN map of Gaza marked “areas restricted for Palestinian access.” Imposed unilaterally by the Israeli authorities, the “buffer zone” bans Palestinian farmers and civilians from the 300 meters of land flanking the boundaries between Gaza and Israel.

In reality, the UN, international observers and Palestinian organizations have documented Israeli soldiers’ targeting of Palestinians even as far as nearly two kilometers from the boundary lines.

“Shooting at people accessing restricted areas is often carried out from remotely-controlled weapon stations … every several hundred meters along the fence, each containing machine guns protected by retractable armoured covers, whose fire can reach targets up to 1.5 km,” a UN report has stated.

As a result of machine gun fire, shelling, flechette (dart) bombs, drone attacks, land razing and setting crops on fire, the Israeli army has rendered one-third of Gaza’s agricultural land deadly and inaccessible.

Palestinian farmers continue to face Israeli attacks as they attempt to work on their land. For most farmers, the land is the sole source of income and food for their families.

“We need political support internationally, to pressure Israel into allowing farmers to work their land and fishermen to access their sea,” says al-Bakri.

Canadians heed call

Heeding his call, and hoping to build “connections of mutual solidarity between Canada and Palestinian farmers and fishers,” a Vancouver-based group aimed to broaden political support via their “Day of Action For the Fishers and Farmers of Gaza, Palestine.” The event was held on 30 September.

“This particular aspect of the siege is quite compelling because when a society is deprived of the ability to fish and to farm, it is deprived of its ability to sustain itself. It’s part of the ongoing Nakba [catastrophe; the systematic ethnic cleansing operations leading to the foundation of Israel], and part of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine,” said Charlotte Kates, a lawyer and one of the Day of Action coordinators.

Kates and a delegation travelled to the Gaza Strip earlier this year, meeting with Palestinian fishermen and farmers.

“We want to make it clear what is happening at the hands of the occupation, and how it is denying people’s right to live, to exist,” Kates said. “One of our translators could not attend our meetings: a cousin, in the ‘buffer zone’ had been murdered the same day by the Israeli military.”

Noting the close alliance of Canada with Israel, Kates said “the government of Stephen Harper has nothing but praise for the Israeli state that enforces this siege on Gaza. On 29 March 2006, Canada became the first country in the world to impose a siege on the Palestinian people living in Gaza and the West Bank, declaring cancellation of aid to Palestine.

“We want to build a movement that can challenge the Canadian government on these policies, policies which predate the Harper government.”

Canada is not alone in endorsing the illegal siege on Gaza — what Desmond Tutu, the retired South African bishop, and UN special rapporteurs on the West Bank and Gaza, John Dugard and Richard Falk, among many others, have called collective punishment.

“The European Union has recently decided to increase their support for Israel,” said Mohammed al-Bakri. He was referring to an agreement reached between the EU and Israel in July, which both sides undertook to increase their cooperation in 60 areas of policy.

The day of solidarity with Palestinian farmers and fishers has the backing of, among others, Independent Jewish Voices, the Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group, and former Vancouver city councillor Tim Louis.

“The UN is quite aware of the inhuman conditions that Palestinians are subjected to and yet there is no concrete action, except allowing humanitarian aid,” said Louis, calling for “the Canadian government to stop its indiscriminate support for Israel until such a time when Israel complies with international law.”

http://electronicintifada.net/content/canadians-stand-solidarity-gazas-besieged-farmers-fishermen/11723

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Spring Conference

• Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine will host ‘Talking to Hamas: the need for long-term regional security’ at the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference next weekend.
• Speaking will be Lord Alderdice and Gabrielle Rifkind, Oxford Research Group Director of the Human Security in the Middle East programme. Chairing the event will be Stephen Williams, MP for Bristol West and Treasurer of the Britain-Palestine All Party Parliamentary Group.
• The event will take place from 18.15 until 19.30 on Saturday 12th March at Suite 8 in Jurys Inn, Sheffield. Venue information can be found here.
• Please note that Conference passes will not be required for this venue: all are welcome.
• For any questions about the event, please contact info@ldfp.eu.
  

News Updates

• Israel has declined to renew a residency permit for Anglican Bishop Suheil Dawani of Jerusalem. William Hague, the US state department, and Rowan Williams have raised the matter with the Israeli government.
  
• Gaza banks shut in ‘Hamas theft’ protest. All banks in Gaza closed for a day in protest at seizure of cash by gunmen allegedly protected by Hamas police.
  
• More illegal Israeli settlements: The Jerusalem municipality has approved the construction of 14 apartments for Jewish settlers in an Arab neighbourhood of East Jerusalem.

In Parliament

• Julian Huppert, Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge, stands up for Human Rights in the Commons, arguing against changes to the law on Universal Jurisdiction. Read the full debate here.

• Debate in the Lords focusing on how the UK should work with the US ‘to ensure that Israel complies with United Nations resolutions and international law’, with important contributions by Lib Dems Lord Dykes, Baroness Tonge, Lord Palmer, Baroness Falkner and Lord Alderdice.
  Lord Dykes comments:
  “Once again the US refused to condemn behaviour which even President Reagan repeatedly described as totally illegal: the continued colonisation of the West Bank and, of course, East Jerusalem. Once again the Arab street sees the double standards of the US. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and was quite rightly expelled after a year. The UN, quite rightly, did not hesitate then. Israel invaded the West Bank 44 years ago, but it is still there. I warmly congratulate the UK Government as well as the EU on their much more decisive stand in contrast to the still lingering, miserable and self-inflicted humiliation which is further eroding America’s already tattered so-called leadership of the western world.”

• Alistair Burt comments on the UK’s diplomatic relationship with the Palestine General Delegation in London. Full answer here.
  “We are aware of the steps that some other EU states have taken to upgrade the status of the Palestinian Delegations in their capitals. The Palestinians have made the same request to the UK, which we are considering in accordance with our long standing support for Palestinian state building…”

Comment

• Harriet Sherwood discusses the Bedouin village of al-Arakib in the Negev:
  “The Israelis keep bulldozing their village, but still the Bedouin will not give up their land. The tiny village of al-Arakib has been torn down by the Israeli authorities 18 times in seven months, but each time the Bedouin rebuild their homes.”

• Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada, writes on Al-Jazeera that “the PA should dissolve itself“:
  “With the complete collapse of the “peace process” — the final push given by the Palestine Papers — it is time for the PA to have its Mubarak moment. When the Egyptian tyrant finally left office on February 11, he handed power over to the armed forces.
  The PA should dissolve itself in a similar manner by announcing that the responsibilities delegated to it by Israel are being handed back to the occupying power, which must fulfill its duties under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.”
  
• A strong and important letter from Arthur Goodman of Jews for Justice for Palestine to the Guardian, on the nuances between the state of Israel and the Jewish people.
  “…a chorus of some establishment Jewish organisations muddies the water by constantly telling the world that all Jews always support what Israel does. (The authors of the letter of 24 February represent three of them.) So it isn’t surprising if a few people fall into the trap of referring to a “Jewish lobby”. It doesn’t mean they are antisemitic, and it doesn’t mean the universities which host them tolerate antisemitism.
  There is a deep dishonesty in the chorus. Not only does it deliberately fail to acknowledge the wide range of attitudes within the Jewish community towards Israeli policy, it also tries to have it both ways. Having told the world how all Jews support Israeli policy, it cries foul when some people take them at their word.”

And finally…

• Human Rights Watch Film Festival is on in London, March 23 – April 1. Includes ‘This Is My Land… Hebron’. Read more about the festival here.

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• Feedback? Email info@ldfp.eu. We look forward to seeing you in Sheffield on the 12th!

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From Israel and Palestine

• The US vetoed a UN resolution condemning Israel’s settlement policy. For Gideon Levy this means ‘Obama has joined Likud’. Palestinians staged a protest in Ramallah, with participants wisely noting that this move ‘would harm Washington’s standing across the roiling Middle East’.
  
  
• Iran has sent ships through the Suez Canal, something Israel eyes with worry.
  
• Saeb Erekat, former chief Palestinian negotiator, resigned after the Palestinian Papers leak was traced to his office.
  
  
• More on the resignation of the Palestinian Authority cabinet.
  
  
• Considering the political upheaval in the Arab world, the Economist asks ‘What should the Palestinians do next?’, concluding that ‘Both Palestinian factions look as divided and power-hungry as ever. And, despite its problems in Gaza, Hamas looks the less unhappy of the two’.

• Lord Howell of Guildford on the wounding of six Palestinians in Qasra village:
  “We continue to underline to the Government of Israel that settlements are illegal and must stop. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary discussed these issues with the Israeli Foreign Minister during his visit to London on 24 January 2011. My honourable friend, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Alistair Burt, also discussed these points with the Israeli Government during his visit to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories on 18 January 2011.

  We understand that this specific incident took place after Israeli soldiers dismantled a settlement on Palestinian land. We will continue to underline the need for restraint to avoid needless casualties.”

• Foreign Minister William Hague on the issue of settlements:
  “The settlements are illegal under international law. We are clear about that, and the previous Government were clear about that. There is no question about it. The issue of the settlements can be finally resolved only with a settlement on borders, which in our view, as I said, should be based on 1967 borders, with land swaps. That would have implications for some of those settlements. The United States has made valiant efforts to bring the parties back together on the basis of a continued Israeli moratorium on settlements, but sadly did not succeed in doing so. We all feel strongly about the issue. The hon. Gentleman is right to feel strongly about it. What we now need to find is a practical way to get both parties talking again, and that requires both of them to be ready to make the compromises necessary to do so.”

• Lord Howell on the question of commemorating Nakba day in the UK:
  “We have not had any discussions on Palestinian Nakba day. However, we are concerned about the breakdown in negotiations on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and are working closely with the US and the EU to see a return to negotiations. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has made clear that the entire international community, including the US, should support 1967 borders as the basis for resumed negotiations.”

• Excerpt from Liberal Democrat Baroness Falkner of Margravine’s speech on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
  “What are the prospects for a peaceful transition to democracy in the Middle East? There will have to be a solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict. This will inevitably involve talking to Hamas; peace without that will be impossible. If we recoil in horror at the prospect, let us be clear that Hamas is not Islamist in conventional terms. It does not wish to see a theocratic state on a literalist interpretation of medieval Islam. It comprises doctors and engineers as well as mullahs. It is a pluralist party; 25 per cent of its ruling council comprise professionals educated in the West, with western notions of governance and administration. It is not a proxy for al-Qaeda; it fights al-Qaeda on the ground in Gaza. We should also recall that we do not need to make peace with friends; it is our enemies with whom we have to sit down at the table. We have held our noses and done so with former terrorists in Northern Ireland, and we have seen the fruits of bringing dissenters into the fold.”

  Remember, LDFP’s Spring Conference event is ‘Talking to Hamas: the need for long-term regional security’. This will take place from 18.15 until 19.30 on Saturday 12th March at Suite 8 in Jurys Inn, Sheffield.

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Israel/Palestine in British Politics

• British foreign policy is to reach out more to Gulf States in order to secure better diplomatic and trade ties. Whitehall officials say the implications of this mean that Britain had to ‘take on board’ Arab foreign policy goals, although William Hague later stated that the development will not be at ‘the expense of Israel or anyone else’.
• The Jewish Chronicle reported that one of British Jewry’s most senior leaders, Mick Davis, this week shattered a ‘longstanding taboo’ by publicly criticising Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the peace process.
• Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne gave a speech to the Board of Deputies of British Jews 250th anniversary dinner. As well as giving the standard Conservative line on Universal Jurisdiction, Osborne described the UK as ‘candid friend’ of Israel. The JC took this in a positive light, but neither MEMO nor Melanie Phillips were impressed, the latter deciding that ‘Britain is now a false friend of Israel — and stands as a result on the wrong side of history’.

Parliamentary Questions

• The House of Lords saw questions from Lord Hylton about the need to increase the number of patients from Gaza who are permitted to travel to the West Bank and Israel for medical treatment; the possibility of the full opening of the Karni crossing so as to reduce the chance of a shortage of wheat in Gaza; the lack of cement, aggregate, steel and glass reaching Gaza; and, the earliest possible elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council.
• Lord Hylton also asked what the UK is doing to protect the Bedouin living in 45 unrecognised villages in the Israeli Negev, to which Lord Howell (Minister of State, FCO) responded: ‘…we are concerned by the treatment of Arab minorities in Israel. Our ambassador to Israel has raised this with the Israeli authorities on several occasions; we will continue to do so as necessary’.
• Lib Dem Lord Dykes enquired about the release of Palestinian detainees held in detention without due process, when the Government next expect to meet Israeli officials about concessions on stopping settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and whether the Government will press the Israeli Government to develop financial packages to help settlers in the occupied territories to start up residence in Israel proper.
• Lib Dem MP Bob Russell asked after the human rights issues surrounding the EU-Israel Association Agreement, and further that ‘no further moves be made to develop closer political and economic ties with Israel until the terms of the agreement have been satisfied’.
• David Amess, Officer of CFOI Parliamentary Group, asked the Secretary of State about ensuring Hamas accepts the Quartet Principles.

Israel and Palestine

• Human Rights groups have responded to the outcome of the case in which Israeli soldiers who used a boy as a human shield escaped jail. Gerard Horton, a spokesman in the West Bank for Geneva-based rights group Defence for Children International (DCI), described the sentence as “unbelievable.”
• The Israeli parliament approved legislation that requires any peace deal involving withdrawal by Israel from annexed territory in East Jerusalem or the Golan Heights to be ratified by national referendum.
• Experts suggest that this development will initially make it more difficult to approve withdrawal from these occupied territories, but, given as the legislation necessarily involves the Israeli demos, it may also offer the BDS movement an additional catalyst for mobilisation.
• Ehud Olmert, former Israeli PM, said that Israel and the US have wasted 18 months on settlements talks rather than talks of ‘substance’.
• The Occupied Palestinian West Bank has seen the lowest IDF troop levels since the first intifada, although there has been no similar reduction in the scope of resources dedicated to surveillance, intelligence gathering and special operations.

Also of note…

• The ‘UN will be judged on whether it upholds Palestinian rights’, said Richard Falk in his final report to the UN General Assembly as Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. Read the full text of his presentation here.
• Watch the short film LDFP posted on how difficult economic and social development is within Gaza whilst under blockade here.
• And – subscribe to our excellent (if irregular!) podcast here.

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• What did we miss? Email us at: info@ldfp.eu. Links do not imply endorsement.
• Follow us on facebook and twitter!

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Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems

• Lib Dems and others have spoken out against Nick Clegg’s wavering stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
• Read Clegg’s speech in full here or watch the video here.
• Read our LDFP Comment Piece: “Mr Clegg, the Lib Dems, and the small case of international law…”
• Read MEMO’s open letter to the Deputy PM here.
• Elsewhere in the news this week: Lib Dems Jenny Tonge and Lord Phillips have resisted Clegg’s line.

In Parliament

• David Amess asks after the 505 Israeli road blocks in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank (down from 626 last year).
• Lord Hylton enquires after the demolitions of 315 Palestinian-owned structures in East Jerusalem and Area C this year. Lord Howell comments that “We do not recognise Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem. House demolitions or the eviction of Palestinians from their homes in east Jerusalem are deeply unhelpful.”
• Alistair Burt explains what the Secretary of State has been doing to achieve a two-state solution.
• Nick de Bois asks Ken Clarke some pertinent questions about Universal Jurisdiction.
• And Jenny Tonge makes a lengthy contribution to the Strategic Defence and Security Review. The Jerusalem Post scores a journalism fail in its headline misquotation of her remarks, as noted here.
• Don’t forget this Wednesday is the Annual Lobby of Parliament for Palestine. Read more about it on the PSC website.

Peace Talks

• The US has offered a large bribe (namely military hardware) for a three month freeze in the building of illegal colonies in the West Bank. Some settlers, deeply troubled with this dangerous proposal, are to pitch a protest tent outside the Israeli PM’s office.
• A senior Israeli official has warned that Hamas and Israeli terrorists will attempt to sabotage the ‘peace process’.

Gaza

• Gisha (Israeli human rights organisation) has obtained documents revealing that the Israeli state approved ‘a policy of deliberate reduction’ for basic goods in the Gaza Strip.
• Israel’s Ambassador to the UN filed an official complaint on Saturday regarding rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip. The Israeli Air Force has already struck back.

West Bank

• Israel has approved a $23m plan to develop the Western Wall plaza, which just so happens to be in the Occupied West Bank.
• Interesting piece in CSM: ‘Five Largest Israeli settlements: who lives there, and why’.

And elsewhere…

• Two Israeli soldiers convicted of using a Palestinian child as a human shield during an offensive in Gaza in 2009 have received suspended sentences and been demoted.
• MEMO has an interview with Ahdaf Soueif, an Egyptian novelist who initiated the first Palestinian festival of literature in 2008.
• The AIPAC espionage case in Washington takes a curious series of twists.

Events

• Comedian Mark Thomas has a new tour: ‘Extreme Rambling: Walking the Wall’, about his walk of the entire length of the Israeli Separation Barrier. See his website for more details.
• On Wednesday 1st December Professor Richard Falk (United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestinian Human Rights) will be giving a public lecture on the subject of “The Israeli assault on human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. See MEMO’s website for more details.

Finally:

• Follow us on facebook and twitter, and spread the word.
• Check out the new podcast on our website.
• Send us your thoughts and reports.

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1 November 2009 Paper on views expressed by Michael Gove MP on Iraq and Palestine by John McHugo

Introduction – a campaigning tool for fighting the Conservatives at the next election

Michael Gove is a key figure in Cameron’s Conservative Party to whom the party looks for intellectual guidance. He has a crucial role in “Project Cameron”, being an influential member of the Notting Hill set, and is currently the Conservative shadow secretary of state for education. But with Gove so prominent in their party, it will be a disaster for British relations with the Arab World and Muslims both at home and abroad if the Conservatives come to power. This paper is designed as a campaigning tool for the 2010 elections. It draws attention to some of the views Gove has expressed on Middle Eastern matters in his columns in The Times and in his book Celsius 7/7 (published in 2006).

Voters at whom the material contained in this paper is aimed

There will be many voters who will be appalled at some of the things Gove has written. This paper should be of particular use for campaigning in Labour marginals with a sizeable Muslim vote, but it is equally intended for voters who are church going Christians from the mainstream denominations (Anglicans, Catholics, Methodists etc), who are appalled at the environment created by Israel’s occupation in which Palestinian Christians have increasingly little choice but to emigrate. William Dalrymple, extracts from whose review of Gove’s book are given below, is a very popular figure among church goers because of his book From The Holy Mountain, which highlights the plight of Arab Christians – not least of those who live under Israeli occupation. Most fundamentally, however, this paper contains material which will help persuade any voter with a basic concept of justice why voting Tory is dangerous, and how Tories cannot claim that they were merely ‘misled’ by Blair over Iraq.

William Dalrymple on Gove’s book

To get a flavour of Gove’s views on “the war on terror”, consider the following extracts from William Dalrymple’s review of Gove’s Celsius 7/7 in the Sunday Times on 24 September 2006:

A prominent example of the sort of pundit who has spoon-fed neocon mythologies to the British public for the past few years is Michael Gove. Gove has never lived in the Middle East, indeed has barely set foot in a Muslim country. He has little knowledge of Islamic history, theology or culture – in Celsius 7/7 he just takes the line of Bernard Lewis on these matters; nor does he speak any Islamic language. None of this, however, has prevented his being billed, on his book’s dust jacket, “one of Britain’s leading writers and thinkers on terrorism

Gove’s book is a confused epic of simplistic incomprehension riddled with more factual errors and misconceptions than any book I have come across in two decades of reviewing books on this subject. Thus, we are solemnly told, for example, that during the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank from 1948 to 1967, the Palestinian population from Jenin to Hebron was “herded into, and kept penned up inside, refugee camps”, an idea as novel as it is comically ridiculous and ahistorical. During this period, towns such as Ramallah became sleepy backwaters, quite free from the land seizure and apartheid policies of Arab-free Israeli settlements and Arab-free road networks that followed the Israeli occupation – realities entirely at odds with what Gove calls Israel’s “culture of equality.

Gove rewrites history when he alleges that it was the “appeasement” of the Palestinians represented by the Oslo peace process that encouraged Al-Qaeda to launch the 9/11 attacks. In fact it was the violent repression that followed Israel’s unilateral ending of peace talks that formed the background to the attacks. Bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, has written that the repressive campaign waged against the second intifada by Sharon in Autumn 2002 provided Al-Qaeda’s opportunity: as the corpses of dead children piled up, Al-Zawahiri realised that here was the rallying cry that could unite the Muslim world…

Gove is also quite wrong that few Muslims and Islamists really mind what Israel does to the Palestinians and Lebanese, and that it is “what Israel is, rather than what Israel does” that really provokes resistance. Instead, Israeli violence is the principal cause of anti-American anger – Bin Laden has written that it was the sight of US support for the Israeli bombing of Beirut in 1982 that initially radicalised him: “I still remember the blood torn limbs, the women and children massacred. Houses were being destroyed and tower blocks collapsing…As I looked on those destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me to punish the oppressor in kind by destroying towers in America.

Throughout Gove’s book, neocon myths are reheated and served up, despite being discredited most recently by the 2005 CIA report…Saddam, believes Gove, “invited Islamists into Iraq”; “was determined to pursue his WMD programme”, and “dreamt of emulating” 9/11, strongly suggesting the central lie of Saddam’s non-existent links with 9/11…

All terrorist violence is contemptible. But just because we condemn does not mean that we should not strive to analyze accurately. It is exactly the sort of woolly elisions and linkages that Gove indulges in that have got us into the trouble we are now in. None of this would matter if Gove were still ring-fenced within his op-ed-page padded cell; horrifyingly, he now sits in the Conservative shadow cabinet and is credited with having influence on Conservative policy in the region. Worse still, this book was named as the one most taken by British MPs on their summer holidays. Blair was bad enough, the blind leading the blind; now it seems the madmen have taken over the asylum.

Iraq – Were the Conservatives misled by Blair, or did they follow Gove?

Gove is quite unrepentant over his support for the Iraq war. On 28 December 2008, he referred in The Times to the “liberation of Iraq” as “that rarest of things – a British foreign policy success.” It hard not to think that in the run up to the invasion Gove influenced the direction of Conservative party policy. He was not then an MP, but his prominence in the Conservative Party and status as one of the country’s leading right-wing columnists makes it hard indeed for Conservatives to argue that they were only duped by Blair into supporting the war. It is likley that, thanks to Gove’s efforts, the Tories led Blair from the front.

In early 2002, he was already showing himself as an advocate for the invasion. On 2 March, his column praised Iain Duncan Smith for his willingness to contemplate military action against Iraq. On 2 April, he followed this up with a piece in which he wrote:

…[T]he allies have failed to make a proper case for removing Saddam Hussein; the need to forestall Saddam’s development of weapons of mass destruction before he blackmails the West is compelling. The argument is not yet won, as it will be, because it has not yet been made as it should be.

He finally made the argument in his Times column on 28 August 2002, almost a month before the publication by the British Government of the infamous intelligence dossier on 24 September which some Conservatives would now like to claim misled them. “We have no alternative but to launch a pre-emptive war against Iraq to prevent Saddam completing his drive to acquire weapons of mass destruction”, wrote Gove. “Military force must be deployed to remove Saddam’s regime”. In the same column, he likened those who opposed it to appeasers in the 1930s (a recurrent theme in his writing – anyone who opposed the invasion or stands up for Palestinian rights is an “appeaser”).

Gove eulogises Blair

From the start of 2003, Gove banged the war drum vigorously, morally blackmailing the Conservative leadership to support the war with his admiration for Blair.

‘The Prime Minister told us yesterday that his job was “sometimes to say the things that people don’t want to hear”, he wrote on 14 January. “From a congenital people-pleaser, it was a telling statement, a demonstration that he realises statesmanship involves taking decisions in which there is no difference to split, no happy “third way” between undesirable options. The public, and the press, would very much like there to be a third way of dealing with Saddam which doesn’t leave us in danger or involve young men taking ships to a war zone. The uncomfortable truth is, there isn’t.”

On 4 February, he returned to a theme that pervades his thinking: “anti-Americanism” is the motivating force of the opposition to the Iraq war. He assumes this is what drove “Old Europe” to oppose it and praises Blair who was “understandably impatient with the juvenile and obstructive stance which France and Germany have taken towards dealing with Iraq”. He followed this up on 21 March with a piece captioned “Hand of Churchill weighs heavy on Blair’s shoulder”.

But it was on 25 March, five days after the invasion started, that his praise of Blair tips over into a gushing eulogy entitled “I can’t fight my feelings any more: I love Tony”. After the subheading “Blair’s outbreak of courage deserves the respect of natural conservatives”, the piece begins: “You could call it the Elizabeth Bennett moment. It’s what Isolde felt when she fell into Tristan’s arms. It’s the point you reach when you give up fighting your feelings, abandon the antipathy bred into your bones, and admit that you were wrong about the man. By God, it’s still hard to write this, but I’m afraid I’ve got to be honest. Tony Blair is proving an outstanding Prime Minister at the moment”. After a few paragraphs on other issues on which Blair is courting discontent within the Labour Party, Gove turns to Iraq and writes:

“It is over Iraq that he is in the greatest difficulty politically. All because, as a Labour Prime Minister, he’s behaving like a true Thatcherite. Indeed, he’s braver in some respects than Maggie was. The Falklands war took courage. But Thatcher had most of the country, and her party, behind her. In dealing with the Iraq crisis, Mr Blair has neither…Mr Blair’s policy…has the merit of genuine moral force….My admiration for the Prime Minister’s bravery in making the case is, I have to add, only increased when I listen to the sneering condescension with which broadcasters treat Government policy on Iraq…It may seem a trifle rich of me, as someone who’s enjoyed giving Mr Blair a good kicking, to object when the boot is being driven home on another foot. But there’s a difference between taking on a leader with a 93 per cent approval rating when he’s steering to the sound of applause, and piling in against a Prime Minister who’s grown into a conviction politician, risking public approval, party support and a cosy relationship with Europe in order to confront tyranny.”

Gove on Israel/Palestine

Glaringly absent from Gove’s writing on Israel/Palestine is any sense that the Palestinian people have a claim to justice, any rights under international law, or an entitlement to fair treatment by Israel. For Gove, Palestinian claims are “manufactured”. Consider the following which is taken from a piece on 2 April 2002 entitled “Spare us any more Middle East peace plans”. In this, he writes that:

men who live by violence and feast on weakness are testing the limits of our resolution. They prosecute their claims by force of arms, directed against the innocent in their sights, and solicit international pressure for a “peace plan” to satisfy their manufactured grievances. These plans, hybrids bred from the spores of aggression and watered by the sweat of fear, poison any contested ground in which they take root. They bind and weaken the innocent prey, confirm the calculation of the evil that democracy is too decadent to resist, and eventually embolden the wicked in their ambition for total conquest.

This was written at the time of the violence of the second Intifada, but Gove was not talking only about extremists who wish to wipe Israel from the map. A few paragraphs later he says, outrageously:

“The moral logic of self-defence, intuitively grasped across the West after September 11, licenses a nation under such attack to seek out, punish and disable those responsible. But the West today seeks to circumscribe, hedge around or deny morality in Israel’s hour of danger and put its faith in the discredited expediency of “peace plans”. Whether it is the Mitchell plan, the Tenet plan or the Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah’s Arab League-sponsored plan, there is a quack’s cabinet of patent salves always on offer to apply to the Middle East’s agony. But all such treatments, like the snake oil peddled by Al Haig in 1982 and the “clean” dismemberment which Chamberlain and Daladier administered to Czechoslovakia in 1938, can only cause the infection to take yet more virulent hold. For each of these “peace plans” rewards terror by ratifying the gains secured by violence and reinforcing the message that the West is too weak to resist aggression.”

Was Gove aware that the Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah’s Arab League peace plan offered Israel security within its 1949 borders, as well as recognition by all member states of the Arab League? This plan was (and is) intended to provide a framework for a comprehensive peace, and the statesmen and diplomats who drafted it deserve respect. President Obama described it as “an important beginning” in his Cairo speech in June 2009. To refer to it as ‘snake oil’ or analogous to the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia at Munich shows Gove to be a deeply unpleasant man. It is not the kind of comment that should be expected from a member of the Conservative front bench.

Gove’s denial of Palestinian rights and contempt for international law

Sadly, there is plenty of evidence that Gove believes Israel should be allowed to add to its territory at the expense of the Palestinians by retaining some of the land it occupied in 1967, something that shows clearly he is not a campaigner for peace. He asserts that in 1967 “the Israeli government sought to provide the Israeli state with more defensible frontiers, occupying land that belonged to its attackers, Syria, Egypt and Jordan, in order to cement its own borders”. Each of these states, says Gove, only lost “a sliver of its territory”. On the same page as this assertion, he gives a list of historical precedents of states acquiring sovereignty over territories they had acquired by war. Incredibly, this list includes “the initial German acquisition of Alsace-Lorraine in 1871″ (Celsius 7/7, p.54).

At the time of the 1967 war, many believed that Egypt was the party that commenced hostilities, not least because of President Nasser’s inflammatory rhetoric, but historians today have shown that this was not so. Even if Gove is not convinced by the historical record, he should at least have made himself aware that by 1967 customary international law forbade the acquisition of territory by war – irrespective of whether the war was one of aggression or defence. He has also equivocated about the legality of the Israeli settlements on occupied land, which he described as “still an open issue” on 3 May 2002, while on 9 November 2004 he wrote that Sharon’s “security barrier” was being erected “along Israel’s frontier”, mischievously ignoring the fact that it makes a land grab by slicing deep into occupied territory. One looks in vain in Gove’s writing for the slightest sign that he acknowledges that the people of the Occupied Palestinian Territory have the right to political self-determination.

All new members of the Conservative Friends of Israel receive a complimentary copy of Celsius 7/7 when they join up.

Other memorable quotes:

- On Guantanamo Bay, Europe and America
“From griping about Guantanamo Bay to deprecating the vulgarity of the axis of evil and sniping at US support for democracy against terrorism in the Middle East, Europe has never missed an opportunity to bite the hand which shields it”. (31 May, 2002)
- On Donald Rumsfeld
“As [Rumsfeld] said [in August 2002]: “It’s less important to have unanimity than it is to be making the right decisions and doing the right thing, even though at the outset it may seem lonesome.” There is something distinctively cowboyish about the use of that word lonesome. But if there is a cowboy that Donald Rumsfeld really resembles it is the Gary Cooper of High Noon. The sheriff who won’t allow the fears of others to prevent him doing what he knows to be right for their protection…Donald Rumsfeld may be on a lonesome road. But he won’t worry if it takes him quickly to Baghdad” (6 March, 2003).

John McHugo,
1 November 2009

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