Keir Starmer's support for the Gaza ceasefire is riddled with lies

Estimates are that it will take 80 years to rebuild Gaza. How is a 'sovereign and viable Palestinian state', or a 'better future', going to emerge out of ruins on that scale?

There are so many lies, deceptions and misdirections in Sir Keir Starmer’s statement on the ceasefire agreed between Israel and Hamas yesterday that they need to be picked apart line by line.

Starmer: After months of devastating bloodshed and countless lives lost, this is the long-overdue news that the Israeli and Palestinian people have desperately been waiting for. They have borne the brunt of this conflict - triggered by the brutal terrorists of Hamas, who committed the deadliest massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust on October 7th, 2023.

Under no reasonable definition can the last 15 months be described as a “conflict”. The slaughter and maiming of hundreds of thousands of civilians, as well as Israel’s programme to starve the rest of the population, should rightly be understood as a genocide, one the International Court of Justice began investigating a year ago, and one that has been attested to by every major international human rights group, as well as a growing number of Holocaust scholars.

Starmer does at least hint at the truth in conceding that the ceasefire is “long overdue”. The genocide in Gaza could have been brought to an end at any point by US pressure. Indeed, the outlines of the current ceasefire were advanced by the Biden administration back in May. It was Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who blocked progress. Israel’s western patrons, including Starmer, rewarded him with weapons, intelligence and diplomatic cover. If the ceasefire is “overdue”, Starmer is fully responsible for that delay.

Further, the “conflict” wasn’t “triggered” by Hamas’ attack of October 7, as Starmer claims. The “conflict” has been going on for more than three-quarters of a century, triggered by Israel’s continuous efforts to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their homeland, with western backing, in an explicitly colonial project. Israel wants us to believe the “conflict” clock started ticking on October 7. Only the ignorant, and contemptible politicians like Starmer, repeat that lie.

The killings on October 7 2023 weren’t “the deadliest massacre of Jewish people” since the Holocaust. That’s another cynical Israeli talking point repeated by Starmer whose sole purpose is to rationalise Israel’s genocide. The “deadliest massacre” for Jews since the Holocaust was, in fact, committed by the Argentinian junta, which disappeared and murdered thousands of Jews in the late 1970s. And unlike Hamas, whose victims were killed not because they were Jews but because they were Israelis and viewed as members of an oppressor nation, Argentina’s generals killed Jews specifically for being Jewish. Nonetheless, that massacre – inconvenient to the West – has been carefully memory-holed, including by Starmer.

Starmer: The hostages, who were brutally ripped from their homes on that day and held captive in unimaginable conditions ever since, can now finally return to their families. But we should also use this moment to pay tribute to those who won't make it home - including the British people who were murdered by Hamas. We will continue to mourn and remember them.

For the innocent Palestinians whose homes turned into a warzone overnight and the many who have lost their lives, this ceasefire must allow for a huge surge in humanitarian aid, which is so desperately needed to end the suffering in Gaza.

Notice Starmer’s sleight of hand here. He blames Hamas for everything that has happened over the past 15 months, including the mass slaughter of Palestinians carried out by Israel.

First, he correctly holds Hamas responsible for taking Israelis hostage – though, of course, like everyone else, Starmer fails to make the important legal distinction between the civilians who were taken hostage, a war crime, and occupying Israeli soldiers who were captured, not a war crime. But he then goes on to hold Hamas, not Israel, responsible for the genocide of the people of Gaza.

Presumably for that reason, the Israeli dead need to be “mourned”, “remembered” and paid “tribute”. But according to Starmer’s statement, the Palestinian dead need to be neither mourned nor remembered.

Whatever Starmer claims, Palestinian homes weren't “turned into a war zone”, with the implication – again echoing a favourite and mendacious Israeli talking point – that Hamas has used Palestinians as human shields, leaving Israel with little choice but to kill them by the tens of thousands. Rather, Palestinian homes were deliberately levelled in an Israeli campaign of bombing far more intense than anything inflicted on Dresden or Hamburg. We know from the Israeli media that the targets of these bombing campaigns were generated automatically by AI programmes that were given the widest possible licence. In most cases, buildings were bombed without reference to any Hamas activity in the vicinity.

Next, Starmer falsely makes a connection between the ceasefire and the ability of international agencies to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza. But it was not fighting that stopped humanitarian aid entering Gaza. It was Israel’s decision to impose a genocidal, Medieval-style aid blockade, with the stated goal of starving the population. A goal, let us never forget, that Starmer explicitly endorsed, stating that Israel had the right to deny the people of Gaza food, water and power. Let us note too that Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, are being sought by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity that relate specifically to the starvation policy Starmer supported.

Starmer: And then our attention must turn to how we secure a permanently better future for the Israeli and Palestinian people - grounded in a two-state solution that will guarantee security and stability for Israel, alongside a sovereign and viable Palestine state.

It is far, far too late, as Starmer knows, to be talking about a “better future” for Gaza now that its homes have been destroyed, its hospitals are in ruins, its schools and universities are levelled, it agricultural land devastated. Estimates are that it will likely take 80 years to rebuild the enclave. How are a “better future” and a “sovereign and viable Palestinian state” going to emerge out of Gaza’s ruins.

Had Starmer been serious about “a two-state solution”, he could have done many things to facilitate it as soon as he entered office. He could have imposed a real arms embargo on Israel, one that would have deprived it of the components it needs to keep its F-35s flying over Gaza, dropping bombs. He could have backed South Africa’s genocide case at the ICJ. He could have recognised a Palestinian state, as several European countries have done but Britain hasn’t. He could have refused to transport weapons to Israel and provide it with aerial intelligence from the UK’s air base in Cyprus. He could have promised to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant should they land in the UK. He could have refused to shelter the Israeli military’s chief of staff, General Herzi Halevi, in London in November by issuing him with special immunity from arrest and prosecution by the ICC. And Starmer’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, could have rejected an invitation to Israel this week to “deepen the partnership” between the UK and Israel in the midst of a genocide.

Starmer: The UK and its allies will continue to be at the forefront of these crucial efforts to break the cycle of violence and secure long-term peace in the Middle East.

All that the UK under Starmer will be at the forefront of doing is continuing to shill for Israel, perpetuating “the cycle of violence” – a colonial cycle of violence that the British initiated in Palestine with the Balfour Declaration in 1917 – and ensuring peace remains unachievable as instability spreads across the Middle East.

[Many thanks to Matthew Alford for the audio reading of this article.]

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