On Wednesday 21 February, while British justice was in action figuring out how best to break all its own rules so as to accede to the wishes of US imperialism and extradite the persecuted journalist Julian Assange, the Mother of all Parliaments was making a mockery of another pillar of our hallowed British democracy by tying itself up in knots over the question of the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
This heinous crime, unfolding in front of the eyes of a horrified humanity, is one with which almost all our parliamentarians and parliamentary parties are complicit, but over which they are coming under increasing pressure from an irate and disgusted public.
As a result, and as a safely marginal section of the Commons, the Scottish National party (SNP) asked for a parliamentary debate on whether the British government should ‘call for a ceasefire’ in Gaza (whether British imperialism should stop sending weapons is a whole other question, of course).
When the debate should have kicked off, a Labour party MP spent 10 minutes filibustering to delay the proceedings (just one of many time-honoured democratic practices on display in the chamber during that session) while the Labour leader negotiated behind the scenes to have the wording of the resolution changed.
Tick. Tock.
The nub of the matter stems from the fact that the great human rights lawyer Sir Keir Starmer won’t allow his MPs to agree to the proposition that Israel’s bombing campaign is “collective punishment”, although it clearly is, since that has implications under international law that the law-fearing zionist-faithful Labour party doesn’t want to have to deal with.
And so Parliament descended into a ridiculous and chaotic drama as the circus clowns ran around pretending that they really are the nation’s decision-makers, expressing shock and outrage at the perversion of their hallowed ‘procedures’ – a set of arcane rituals whose collective effect is to ensure the total lack of any meaningful discussion and to close down the possibility of unexpected outcomes.
Tick. Tock.
What actually happened? The Speaker of the House broke with the rules he’s supposed to be enforcing and allowed Labour to introduce its own amendment so that Labour MPs could vote in favour of a very watered down and meaningless ‘demand’. Which they duly did. Box ticked. Look: we want peace; we support both sides; don’t blame us.
Tory and SNP MPs stormed out at this blatant favouritism. The Speaker left, then came back and apologised. And his apology was duly accepted.
In the end, of course, all the outraged parties will be perfectly happy with the outcome, which has saved all concerned from difficult conversations with their constituents, allowed all concerned to blame everyone else, and ensured nothing was actually done that might impede British imperialist support for Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people.
Tick. Tock.
Meanwhile facts on the ground continue to be made, and the hollow calls for a ‘ceasefire’ or ‘temporary humanitarian pause’, are ignored and even mocked by the zionist forces, who know they can continue to act with the same impunity that has for 75 years fed the monumental arrogance and supremacism we see today.
Bombs are delivered from the USA and Britain. British and US special forces continue to covertly assist on the ground. Aid trucks are blockaded by rabid settler militia without consequence. Israeli politicians announce that any baby over the age of four is a legitimate target. Palestinians are rounded up and interned. Homes and land on the West Bank are seized.
Gazans freeze. And starve. And suffer continual bombardment. Every vestige of their culture and civilization is razed to the ground. Rabid politicians openly declare their intention of settling the land that has been ‘cleared’.
And, as the author of a Times article pointed out, while the Palestinian representative at the ICJ still clings desperately to the ‘internationally recognised’ viability of the ‘two-state solution’ and expresses his faith in a future in which Palestinians and Israelis live side by side in two separate ethnostates (‘democracies’), the Israeli Knesset has voted that it will never recognise a Palestinian state.
Tick. Tock.
The truth that is gradually making its way into the heads of more and more people is that only a complete defeat for zionist Israel, which means an end to its financial, military, political, media and diplomatic backing by the USA and Britain and the dissolution of the supremacist, apartheid occupation and zionist ethnostate, can lead to a lasting peace – not only for Palestinians but for all the peoples of the middle east.
This is what all the resistance forces of the region have worked out. This is why they are increasingly coordinated with one another, and why they all consider Palestine to be central to their own liberation struggle, which is in essence a struggle to remove the dead hand of US imperialist control from the middle east.
That is why the Yemeni army has been begging the Arab states to allow its forces to pass, so that it can send a contingent to join its Palestinian brothers and sisters and fight by their side in Gaza.
In making their demand, just as in carrying out their blockade of the Red Sea, the Yemeni people have exposed the treachery and complicity of every Arab regime that claims to be on the side of Palestine in words but which looks the other way and even cooperates and normalises with Israel and imperialism in deeds.
Meanwhile, the genocide is continuing every hour and in the broad glare of publicity. From every direction, the pressure is building.
The position of those in power looks stable until suddenly it doesn’t. The status quo appears to be eternal until suddenly it isn’t.
Tick. Tock.
