Keir Starmer's caution is complicity

Euan McColm (The Scotsman, Feb 21) says there are good reasons for Keir Starmer’s ‘caution’ over Gaza, but doesn’t give any. That’s because there’s no justification for Labour’s refusal to condemn Israel for committing what the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has said is most plausibly a genocide.

Last November, the UK submitted detailed legal arguments to the ICJ backing claims that Myanmar committed genocide against the Rohingya people by depriving them of homes and food and mistreating their children. The submission argued for a lower threshold for genocide when children are harmed and said that forced removal from homes, not providing medical services and imposing subsistence diets are genocidal acts.  

Have the children in Gaza, half the population, been harmed? Since October 7^th over 10k children have been slaughtered with thousands more under the rubble. UNICEF said Gaza is the most dangerous place on the planet to be child and Secretary General Guterres called Gaza “a graveyard for children.”

Have Palestinians been forced from their homes? 1.9 million people, 85% of the population, have been driven from their homes, the largest displacement of Palestinians since the 1948 Nakba. The FT reported that “the destruction of northern Gaza in less than 7 weeks has approached that caused by the years-long carpet-bombing of German cities during WWII.”

Have they been denied medical services? Israel has relentlessly attacked hospitals, clinics, and ambulances, leading to a total collapse of healthcare in Gaza. There are no more functioning hospitals. IDF soldiers disguised as doctors have executed patients in their beds.

Have their diets been restricted? Between 2007-10, Israel calculated the minimum number of calories needed to keep Gazans from malnutrition, limiting food imports to these levels. Two months ago, the WHO warned that 93% of the population is facing crisis levels of hunger while communicable diseases are spreading rapidly. Israel won’t allow aid trucks into Gaza. 1.2 million starving people are cowering in Rafah awaiting a ‘final solution’ onslaught by the IDF.

If this isn’t collective punishment, what is? Perhaps human rights lawyer Keir Starmer doesn’t think the Palestinians are human since he said Israel had the right to deprive them of water and power.

It’s notable that English Labour’s biggest corporate donor is Zionist businessman Gary Lubner, whose company profited from South African apartheid. Half of Starmer’s cabinet receive funding from pro-Israel groups like Labour Friends of Israel. Michael Shanks, English Labour’s 2^nd Scottish MP, just became a member.