Even in these sad days of being held in near-total contempt by our own Government, they excel themselves. Take the recent announcement that the Israeli delegation will not be invited to the forthcoming Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) show in London that will run 9-12 September. This my friends is our country’s ‘flagship defence event‘ of the year, i.e. where arms dealers make each other richer.
Though never able to resist an opportunity to register their outrage, on this particular occasion the Israeli government disappointed me, merely exclaiming this was ‘a regrettable act of discrimination.’ Even the pro-government Times of Israel only mustered up the verb ‘fumes‘ as a reaction to being barred from the DSEI arms fair.
But – and this is a big full-fat but – I imagine they are heartily encouraged by our government’s insidious hypocrisy; you see, Israeli arms dealers themselves are still warmly invited to the DSEI party. Delegation or no delegation, Elbit systems, Rafael, AIA and other Israeli weapons’ merchants will still be there, flogging their missiles, tanks & autonomous systems.
Elbit (ES) is Israel’s biggest weapons dealer; the UK Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) says the Israel’s military is currently using ES drones in the war on Gaza. And now they are coming to London to sell their clearly very effective weapons.
At this point I could talk about ‘the death toll’ in Gaza. But that frankly is a very clinical way of describing what is happening right now. Civilians inside Gaza are starved, bombed, deliberately deprived of food, water, medicines, shelter, toilets and any kind of sanctuary from relentless Israeli bombing, drones and snipers. As I’ve said before, this is not a conflict nor a humanitarian crises: we are witnessing Benjamin Netanyahu erasing the people of Gaza.
We know these appalling truths Because Palestinian journalists inside Gaza live-stream every aspect of this war, despite being targeted by the Israeli military. Assassinations are now so insidiously common that when I google ‘Palestinian journalists’, the first reference that pops up is ‘Palestinian journalists killed’. Another six journalists died on 25 August, (alongside eight other Palestinians) during a deadly IDf ‘double tap’ in Gaza city. The UN Human Rights Office says 249 lie dead inside Gaza since October 2023.
You can read a new Guardian report of the deadly toll on Palestinian journalists here. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) who compiled the figures says, ‘Palestinian journalists are being threatened, directly targeted and murdered by Israeli forces, and are arbitrarily detained and tortured in retaliation for their work’.
These continuing human rights violations may be one reason increasing numbers of Israeli reservists do not now show up for duty; while clearly not all do so out of protest (many are exhausted, and military suicides tragically increasing) this trajectory also speaks to more women and men refusing to fight a war they no longer support.
As it crushes peoples’ capacity to survive inside Gaza, the state of Israel is also tearing itself apart. The trauma of the horrific events of 7 October 2023, when some 12,000 Israelis were murdered by Hamas, cannot be healed by these levels of vengeful retaliatory violence.
In light of numerous legal experts considering the Israeli state is committing genocide in Gaza, we need to acknowledge the cold hypocrisy of this Labour government. Keir Starmer and David Lammy can do more – a lot more. They could begin by immediately recognising Palestine as a nation state, unconditionally, and Netanyahu as the international war criminal that he is. They could be clear in their support of tough sanctions to confront Israeli settlers and their champions, namely ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
And, to quote Ofer Cassif, member of the Israeli Knesset, they could ‘recognise the people of Gaza as victims of a continuing genocide, and act accordingly. [If not, they] remain complicit in this devastating, human-made catastrophe.’
To which I I would just add, they could, even now, cancel registration of Israeli arms dealers to the DSEI arms fair.
