Conservatives and Palestine
In November, one Conservative Councillor wrote in response to an appeal to support twinning Edinburgh with Gaza City that “While I appreciate the humanitarian nature of the suggestion, in my opinion allowing our city to be linked at a civic level with Gaza would equate to a tacit endorsement of a terrorist regime which actively subjugates and exploits its own people. I would therefore actively oppose any proposal of this nature.” By taking this stance, he is refusing to acknowledge the suffering his Party has created and is supporting an isolationist policy that drives some extremists to violence.
[We asked Norman Finkelstein how we might respond to such criticisms and he gave us an excellent 4-minute reply “Why Twinning with Gaza has Nothing to do with Hamas”. See it at https://youtu.be/UmeraZ3SGh0 We’ve expanded upon it below.]
In 2010, the then UK Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron said “We should be saying to the Israelis that the blockade actually strengthens Hamas’s grip on the economy and on Gaza, and it’s in their own interests to lift it and allow these vital supplies to get through.” William Hague, current Foreign Secretary, said in a prepared speech to the House of Commons that the blockade of Gaza was “unacceptable and unsustainable”, and that it was “the view of the British government, including the previous government, that restrictions on Gaza should be lifted – a view confirmed in United Nations security council resolution 1860 which called for sustained delivery of humanitarian aid and which called on states to alleviate the humanitarian and economic situation”, and that “current Israeli restrictions are counterproductive for Israel’s long term security”.
The blockade has also been condemned by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and other human rights organizations. The isolation and collective punishment of the Palestinians drives them into the arms of extremists because it is clear that peaceful protest achieves nothing. Given the severity of the humanitarian crisis, Israel’s duties to “protected persons” as an occupier of the Gaza Strip under Article 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention require that it allows the passage of all aid, foodstuffs, and water. The blockade on Gaza has violated this provision of the law of occupation.
To reiterate: Israel instituted the blockade against the Gaza Strip not in response to a violent attack, but rather in response to Hamas’s ascension to exclusive authority in the Gaza Strip, and earlier in response to the Hamas victory in the 2006 Palestinian elections. Israel, in short, engaged in an act of war against an occupied people, and has thereby violated international human rights law.
The petition is to twin with Gaza Municipality, who deliver services to the Gazan people, irrespective of which political party is in power. Conservative Councillors who oppose supporting relief to Gaza are out of step with Conservative Government policy.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the guardian of international humanitarian law, the law applicable in situations of armed conflict, termed Israel’s blockade of Gaza “collective punishment” in violation of international humanitarian law. 70% of the population of Gaza are refugees from Israel’s illegal ethnic cleansing operations from 1947 onwards.
They elected Hamas because it campaigned for their right to return, as the UN called for in resolution 194. They cannot be collectively punished for so doing. In 2010 the ICRC also called the blockade a violation of the Geneva Conventions and called for its lifting. Israel’s blockade also violates international law under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention whereby: “No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism . . . against protected persons and their property are prohibited.” This article prohibits the use of collective punishment of protected persons, the breach of which constitutes war crimes. “Protected persons” are civilian individuals who find themselves, in case of an armed conflict or occupation, in the hands of a power of which they are not nationals. In this case, “protected persons” are the people of Gaza.
It was Balfour, a Conservative politician from the Lothians, whose 1917 ‘Balfour Declaration’ partitioned Palestine to provide ousted the Palestinian people to provide a “national home for the Jewish people”. Importantly, the Declaration also stipulated that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”.
However, the rights of the Palestinians have been prejudiced. The land left to them has been systematically “settled” by the Israelis, with now only the West Bank and the Gaza Strip left to them, with these areas termed “occupied Palestinian Territory” by the UN, the EU and the International Court of Justice. At the same time, the ordinary people of Gaza have been bombed, with numerous attacks on Gaza since 2000, the latest being a week ago when, along with 26 others, a family of eight were killed in their home, leaving just a baby alive.
The Conservatives, and all other political parties, must accept responsibility for the ongoing suffering and death of civilians in Gaza. The Israeli occupation and the blockade on Gaza are illegal. Edinburgh can lead the way in promoting the enforcement of UN resolutions and international law. The twinning of Edinburgh with Gaza can be a tiny step towards repaying the debt we owe the Palestinian people, while it will also show our respect for justice and the law.