Politics: poisoning the well

By Richard North - May 17, 2021

A lengthy article in Wikipedia on the causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus gives more than adequate testimony to the complexity of the situation which led to the displacement of an estimated 700,000 Palestinians from Israeli-held territory.

Many of the refugees from the 1948 war fled to the Gaza strip, then administered by Egypt, and many of those (but by no means all) ended up in formal refugee camps on the strip. By 2018, there were estimated to be 1,421,282 registered refugees on the strip, in eight official camps.

These, however, form only a proportion of the total number, recorded as 5,545,540, split between Jordon, the Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank, as well as the Gaza Strip. By far the greater number of refugees are registered in Jordan, accounting for 2,242,579 people.

The Gaza strip, a mere 25 miles long and 3.7 to 7.5 miles wide, now houses an estimated 2.1 million people and, since 1994 has been a self-governing territory under the Palestinian Authority, established under the Oslo Accords, bundled with the West Bank.

After the Palestinian legislative election 2006, the Islamic Resistance Movement, which goes under an acronym which has spawned the title Hamas, together with Fatah (formerly the Palestinian National Liberation Movement), formed the Palestinian authority national unity government.

But, in June 2007, in a series of bloody clashes, Hamas members seized several Fatah members and threw one of them, Mohammed Sweirki, an officer in the elite Palestinian Presidential Guard, off the top of the tallest building in Gaza, a 15-story apartment building.

Following intense fighting, during which the imam of Gaza city’s Great Mosque, Mohammed al-Rifati, was killed by Fatah militants, Hamas took control of the strip, seizing government institutions and replacing Fatah and other government officials with its own.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas responded by declaring a state of emergency, dissolving the unity government and forming a new government without Hamas participation. In late June 2008, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan declared the West Bank-based cabinet formed by Abbas as “the sole legitimate Palestinian government”. Egypt moved its embassy from Gaza to the West Bank.

Since 2006, there have been no further assembly or presidential elections in the Gaza strip and, with no internationally recognised government, the territory has been blockaded by both the Israeli and Egyptian government. Internally, the Hamas regime has steadily tightened its grip and is said to be imposing Islamic law in Gaza.

Sheik Abu Saqer, leader of Jihadia Salafiya, an Islamic “outreach” movement that recently announced the opening of a “military wing” to enforce Muslim law in Gaza, said: “I expect our Christian neighbours to understand the new Hamas rule means real changes. They must be ready for Islamic rule if they want to live in peace in Gaza”. The sole Christian bookstore in Gaza was attacked and the owner murdered.

From as early as 2001, so-called “militants” in the Gaza strip have been firing rockets and mortars at civilian targets in Israel, culminating in the current attacks where over 2,000 missiles – the highest number ever recorded – have been fired into Israeli territory by Hamas terrorists.

Although, at great expense, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) have intercepted the majority of the missiles, some have got through to cause a number of casualties. Given the continued rate of fire, the IDF has taken a series of additional measures, including precision air strikes and artillery fire, directed at Hamas military assets.

Inevitably, because Hamas deliberately use their own people as “human shields” to cover their military activities – in the past having been shown to use both mosques and hospitals to store weapons – there are civilian casualties. Some of these have been caused by Hamas’s own missiles, when they have misfired or fallen short.

The tactic now, of Hamas, as its missile stocks near depletion, is to talk up its civilian casualties, with the parade of children’s bodies harnessed to the propaganda war – a ghoulish strategy which has been previously used, and to great effect (see p. 122) – all with a view to pressuring Israel to agree to a ceasefire.

This is akin to the school bully squealing for the teacher to intervene when one of his victims takes a swipe at him. Having been there before all too often, Israeli prime minister Netanyahu is not disposed to oblige, pledging to take on Hamas “with full force” until the threat to his own citizens is neutralised.

In response to the Israeli action, we have seen the rent-a-mob crowds out in force, with violent demonstrations outside the Israeli embassy in London, organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Friends of Al-Aqsa, the Palestinian Forum in Britain, the Stop The War Coalition, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Muslim Association of Britain.

As they waved their “free Palestine” banners, however, I doubt whether many of the strident protesters had given any thought to the fact that their support for Hamas is somewhat misplaced.

Best characterised as a terrorist death cult, it does not in any official or legal sense represent the Palestinians, in Gaza or elsewhere, having seized power by force and held it for well over a decade without seeking democratic legitimacy, then attacking civilians in a neighbouring state in clear breach of international law.

Why then organisations such as the Stop The War Coalition and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament should then feel so impelled to intervene on behalf of an illegal regime engaged in murderous activities is something for them to answer.

Where indeed the Hamas death cult is exploiting its own people, and putting them in harm’s way, nor is this overtly a religious matter, which should raise serious questions about the involvement of the Muslim Association of Britain and what appears to be its support for a terrorist gang.

Elsewhere, former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, has been addressing a pro-Hamas rally, next to an inflatable figure portraying a Jewish caricature with devil horns. Demonstrators were chanting, “Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, the army of Muhammad is coming”, a reference to the 7th Century battle where the Jews of Khaybar were expelled from their lands.

Thus, what is now evident – as it has been all along – is that these demonstrations are giving succour to overt anti-Semitism, culminating yesterday in Palestinian flag-bedecked cars driving down the Finchley Road in North London, to the amplified strains of: “Fuck the Jews. Rape their daughters”.

In response, Johnson and assorted luvvies have been quick to condemn what have been euphemistically described as “anti-Semitic slurs”. And the torpid Metropolitan Police has stirred itself to make a number of arrests.

But, with demonstrations continuing last night, these formulaic disclaimers are by no means enough. What we are seeing is the politics of “diversity” melding with left-wing agitation to produce an unwholesome, thoroughly toxic mix.

None of this has any place in London or anywhere else in the UK – or civilised society. Labour, as a political party, is so irredeemably tainted by the actions of members that it refuses to disavow, that it can no longer function as the “loyal opposition” in any constitutional role.

The well of politics has been well and truly poisoned and, from the look of it, there is no turning back. The limit of tolerance has been reached.