Israel: reading the small print

By Richard North - October 24, 2023

Prime minister Sunak seems to have learnt some lessons from the recent past. After he and some his ministers have attracted the ire of the Speaker for making announcements outside the House, he seems to have taken care to report to the Commons on last week’s tour of certain parts of the Middle East, and certain matters related to the Gaza conflict.

This he did yesterday afternoon, making a formal statement to the House which, in the traditional manner, which opened the subject of “Israel and Gaza” to formal debate. For those who are in the least bit interested, this gave some insight into how some of our MPs are thinking (if one may use such a loaded word).

As to the broader debate out in the world, Sunak took the opportunity as part of his statement to say a word about the tone of that debate. “When things are so delicate”, he said, “we all have a responsibility to take additional care in the language we use, and to operate on the basis of facts alone”.

In what was to make headlines in several papers. He went on to say that the “reaction to the horrific explosion at the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital” was a case in point. And, in a nod to the sensibilities of the Speaker, he declared “we have taken care to look at all the evidence currently available, and I can now share our assessment with the House”.

Without conveying any sense of irony, given that the issues were clear within hours of the explosion, the prime minister declared that, “on the basis of the deep knowledge and analysis of our intelligence and weapons experts”, the British government “judge that the explosion was likely caused by a missile, or part of one, that was launched from within Gaza towards Israel”.

For all that, it was good to have that view officially on the record – as well as the sideswipe at the BBC (which he didn’t name), when he said: “The misreporting of that incident had a negative effect in the region, including on a vital US diplomatic effort, and on tensions here at home”.

“We need”, Sunak added, “to learn the lessons and ensure that in future there is no rush to judgment”, a sentiment which seemed to attract a low murmur of assent from the benches, most of which were well populated.

Interestingly, in the ensuing debate – including the response to the statement by Starmer – there was no further reference to the explosion, or its reporting. Sunak was not challenged and was not asked to elaborate on the evidence.

In fact, in the whole debate, there was only one reference to the BBC, which came from Sir Michael Ellis, Tory MP for Northampton North. He noted that a group of 100 journalists from around the world had just been shown some indescribable raw footage of the Hamas attacks in a private screening.

According to a BBC journalist, Ellis said, it features a father and two sons aged roughly seven and nine seen running into a shelter in their underwear. A terrorist throws a grenade into the shelter, killing the father and badly injuring the two boys, who run back into the house covered in blood.

The two children are screaming for their father and saying that they are going to die. The terrorist is seen calmly drinking water from the family’s fridge. That is just one of the videos that have been shown to 100 journalists from around the world in the last couple of hours.

Ellis concludes his intervention by asking Sunak to confirm that “any person in the United Kingdom supporting this vicious terrorism will be subject to the full force of the law?”

Given the events witnessed on the streets of London, he can hardly have been entirely happy by Sunak’s “reassurance” that, under the Terrorism Acts of 2000 and 2006, the glorification of terrorism, support for proscribed organisations and the encouraging of terrorism are all offences and will be met with the full force of law.

Not said at the time but headlined in The Times later was the report that “Sunak draws up plans for more arrests at ‘jihad’ pro-Palestinian rallies”, with the sub-heading that “No 10 will ‘clarify’ guidance to police after criticism”.

As with other ministers, Sunak has insisted that police officers already have the power to arrest those who incite violence or racial hatred and such power should be used to detain people who called for “jihad” against Israel at a recent rally.

With that, listening to the general debate, one is again struck by the low grade of the exchanges, and the ignorance of many of the MPs who evidently prefer to emote rather than debate, and seem more interested in virtue signalling than in dealing with the issues which confront them.

In particular, which was particularly striking were the multiple references to “international law”, starting with Starmer who made it a central part of his response to Sunak. The Israeli operation, he said, “can and must be done within international law”.

Warming to his theme, he asserted that, “We democracies know that all human life is equal. Innocent lives must be protected. Those are the principles that differentiate us from the terrorists who target Israel”, then going on to say, “International law is clear”.

In Starmer’s view, this meant that basic services, including water, electricity and the fuel needed for it, cannot be denied. Hamas, he said, might not care for the safety and security of the Palestinian people, but we do. We cannot and will not close our eyes to their suffering.

In all, “international law” was mentioned specifically 19 times, with a number of MPs setting out their views on where this mystical creature should apply. Mohammad Yasin, Bedford’s Labour MP, for instance, told us that over a million Palestinians had been displaced.

Many more were suffering without access to food, water, electricity, fuel and medicines, which, he said, “is inhumane and against international law”. And, in a refrain that was repeated by a number of MPs, he asked whether Sunak would call for a ceasefire, “to end this collective punishment?”.

Interestingly, there were no less than 20 references to a ceasefire. The useful idiots and the fellow travellers were out in force, working for the one outcome that Hamas is so keen to see.

Throughout, Sunak dead-batted such calls, emphasising that Israel had “the right the defend itself in line with international and humanitarian law”. But what neither he nor any other speaker in the debate did was challenge the received wisdom on “international law”, or even identify the particular law on which so many people seem to rely.

Without dwelling on this in detail – for this is neither the time nor the place – it is instructive to read the UN’s own explanatory document on “International legal protection of human rights in armed conflict”.

This in turn takes us to the UN International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, and the Geneva Convention relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war of 12 August 1949.

The one thing that leaps from the pages of these documents is an emphatic contradiction Starmer’s claim that “International law is clear”. This is very far from the case, as illustrated by the 126 pages of the UN guide.

In this document, what might come as a surprise to the serried ranks of MPs, is that many of the provisions on which they seem to rely have limitations built into them. There are derogations to parties engaged in conflicts and some requirements can be temporarily disapplied.

For a taste of the scope of what are termed “limitations”, we see the document tell us:

… States may limit their fulfilment or their protection of certain rights. These conditions frequently take place in armed conflict, even if they are not limited to such situations. Specifically, under international human rights law it is possible for States to derogate from certain human rights obligations and to impose limitations on the exercise of certain rights. To a lesser extent, derogations from rules protecting civilians are admissible in some circumstances in international humanitarian law, and several of its rules allow exceptions for reasons of military necessity or security.

The key read-out in the context of the current conflict is the “exceptions for reasons of military necessity or security”, further elaborated in some provisions where even the flow of food and medical supplies can be [legally] temporarily restricted, if that is “made necessary by imperative military requirements”.

Thus, where, for instance, Israel is blocking the supply of fuel to Gaza, on the grounds that Hamas will use it to sustain its operations, it might be hard to assert that there is a breach of international law.

That didn’t stop Green MP Caroline Lucas truculently demanding from Sunak whether he considered, “the withholding of fuel to be in line with the Government of Israel’s obligations to act within international law?”.

Sunak offered the bland repost that: “The government of Israel will manage their behaviour in line with international law”, which illustrates why, so often, following parliamentary debates is such a waste of time. Those bleating about “international law” really should be held to account if they haven’t read the small print.