Mail on Sunday commentator Dan Hodges – who left the Labour Party over Jeremy Corbyn winning the leadership – referred to banning UK arms sales to Israel as “student politics” on X:
Labour’s seriously floating the idea of suspending arms sales to Israel, one of our most significant allies? I thought this sort of student politics was a thing of the past. https://t.co/mCwHeGeLhX
— (((Dan Hodges))) (@DPJHodges) April 3, 2024
Arming a genocidal regime
How is withholding arms from a regime that is under International Court of Justice (ICJ) investigation for a plausible genocide “student politics”? It’s the first step in responsible statecraft with regards to Israel.
The thing is, Labour are in fact no better than Dan Hodges on the matter, having not even pressured the government to simply ban arms sales to Israel six months into a genocide.
Instead, they offer belated and downright deliberately confusing words about only the ‘possibility’ Israel is breaking international law.
A week after the violence escalated on 7 October, over 800 international law scholars and practitioners warned Palestinians were at risk of genocide at the hands of the occupying Israeli forces.
Surely such a weight of opinion should have compelled a UK arms embargo then and there – given its own law states a ban if there’s a risk the recipient will break international law.
Instead, Israel is now using UK-made drones to assassinate UK military veteran food aid workers, who now stand among the 33,000 Palestinians Israel has killed.
Hodges repeated Israeli military propaganda that the triple drone strike was a “tragic incident” and added that acting against it is “ridiculously immature”.
In other words, he’s saying ‘bow down to Israel, or shut up’. But the murder of white World Central Kitchen workers caused a stir even among some in the UK establishment.
For example, Lib Dem leader Ed Davey called for an arms embargo, while the Independent published a front page saying “enough” to Israel’s assault on Gaza.
The attacks on aid workers are a part of Israel’s wider campaign of starvation against Palestinians. It’s also blocking sufficient aid from reaching Gaza through its longstanding occupation.
Dan Hodges is part of a wider mainstream media problem
The mainstream media Dan Hodges is a part of has been facilitating Israel’s in-motion genocide. That means publishing headlines suggesting Israel’s starvation of Palestinians is some kind of natural disaster.
For instance, the Financial Times, which reported starvation “stalks” the children of Gaza. Or the Telegraph, which simply refers to an “imminent” famine in its headline. That removes culpability from the occupying power.
It also means allowing genocidal language to go unchallenged. Multiple times on BBC Newsnight the presenter enabled Israeli officials to brand Palestinians collectively “animals” during the first month of Israel’s assault.
And in late November 2023, the BBC‘s own journalists wrote a letter that said:
The BBC has failed to accurately tell this story – through omission and lack of critical engagement with Israel’s claims – and it has therefore failed to help the public engage with and understand the human rights abuses unfolding in Gaza
Hodges and the mainstream media are complicit in the crimes of Israel. We need the media to face an independent complaints regulator so it doesn’t provide cover for genocide.
And, despite the propaganda, the majority of the UK public support withholding arms sales to Israel. Such an embargo is a no-brainer.
Featured image via GB News – YouTube
By James Wright
This post was originally published on Canary.
