Sunak accused of having "blood on his hands"!

 

Rishi Sunak

In a heated intervention in the House of Commons, Tair Ali, the Labour MP for Birmingham Hall Green, accused the UK's unelected Conservative Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, of "having the blood of thousands of innocent people on his hands" over his stance during the Israel-Gaza conflict. He told the House of Commons that while Sunak had spoken of Israel's respect for international law, recently released documents showed that the "Foreign Office had serious concerns with Israel's compliance with international humanitarian law and its ongoing assault on Gaza." The Labour MP said this assessment had been hidden from parliament. He called on Sunak to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and to end the British arms trade with Israel. Sunak's rather pathetic response was to declare "That's the changed face of the Labour Party."

In a tweet on X, Bella Wallersteiner, called this an "Utterly appalling intervention from an elected representative." While Israeli indiscriminate carpet bombing and Israeli military intervention in Gaza have led to the deaths of over 26,000 people with more than 64,000 wounded, many of whom, are innocent women and children, Wallersteiner has the gall and effrontery to say that Israel is fighting for the values we hold dearest in the UK and that this country will continue to stand by Israel. 

More than 10,000 innocent children have been killed by Israeli airstrikes and ground operations in Gaza since the 7th of October. According to a press release issued by Save the Children on 30 November 2023, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 63 children in the West Bank since the 7th October and yet we're expected to believe, that racist apartheid Israel, is fighting for the values we hold dear in Britain.

How Sunak can talk of Israel's respect for international law and keep his face straight at the same time, is mind boggling. Israel's military occupation of the West Bank since 1967, is illegal under international law and so are the Israeli settlements built in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Apart from the Americans, the rest of the international community considers the Golan Heights to be Syrian territory held under Israeli military occupation.

In total some 450,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank in contravention of international law along with 220,000 settlers in East Jerusalem and 25,000 in the Golan Heights. They are considered to be Israeli occupied territories and in violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The recent ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) restraining Israel from committing potentially genocidal acts in Gaza, is rather embarrassing for the U.K. and U.S. governments, who belittled South Africa's case that Israel was guilty of "genocidal intent." Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state called South Africa's case meritless and Britain's Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, warned South Africa not to bandy around with words such as genocide.