Here’s British parliamentarian Sir Gerald Kaufman on Israel’s operation in Gaza against Hamas: “”We have had a fuss in our country about the inability of certain Israeli politicians to visit Britain for fear of being arrested…Anybody who uses white phosphorus should be arrested and should be tried for war crimes.”
Sounds like a bold interventionist on behalf of human rights, no?
Here’s what Gerald Kaufman, then the Shadow (opposition) Foreign Secretary, said at the onset of the Serb onslaught against Bosnia, in June 1992: “The situation is far too confused for forcible intervention from outside to do any positive good…The Foreign Secretary is equally right to make it clear that the Serbs are not the only guilty party - that others share the guilt.” (Quoted in Brendan Simms, Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia, Penguin 2001, pps. 297-98.)
And here he is again in early 1993, when the genocidal nature of the Serb campaign was becoming increasingly clear: “The European Community should have no military role in this conflict or indeed in any other. The need is not to extend the conflict but to maintain it [sic].” (See Brendan Simms, p. 298.)
To maintain it. To maintain, in other words, a state of affairs which enabled the punishing siege of Sarajevo, the concentration camps in which women were raped and men brutalized, the massacre at Srebrenica and myriad other atrocities.
Gerald Kaufman was perfectly content for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Bosnia to continue apace. So whenever you hear him delivering one of his inchoate, hateful rants against Israel, ask for the salt.
Somebody should ask Sir Gerald whether he approves of the British Royal Artillery using 155mm phosphorus shells in their own artillery. The British AS90 fires all standard NATO rounds, including the M825.
I’m sure that Britain has the M825 shell in it’s inventory.
So, erm, what’s your point?
Well, Jamie, it’s like this.
In 2009, Israel was pulled by ceaseless Hamas rocket attacks into a defensive military operation in Gaza. The IDF went to extraordinary lengths to minimize civilian casualties during that operation.
Gerald Kaufman denounces Israel for war crimes.
In 1992, the Bosnian Serb paramilitaries backed by Belgrade launched a genocidal war of aggression against Bosnia-Hercegovina which resulted in more than 100,000 deaths, unspeakable massacres in Srebrenica, Banja Luka, Zepa and many other towns and cities, and a coordinated campaign of rape and sexual assault against women.
That was the situation which Gerald Kaufman wanted to “maintain.”
Faced with that evidence, only a fool would conclude that Kaufman’s concern for the Palestinians is motivated by human rights considerations. He’s a demonizer, someone whose hatred of Israel overrides everything else. On this blog as on others, we expose such people as Kaufman, who camouflage their particularist bigotry in universalist language.
>>> In 2009, Israel was pulled by ceaseless Hamas rocket attacks into a defensive military operation in Gaza.
What rot. Did Britain bomb Dublin after ceaseless IRA bombings? Israel had a choice and its answer was a vile, cruel and bloodthirsty one that resulted in hundreds of unnecessary deaths.
Israel’s mistake in the long run. Its action alienated a lot of people and alerted many more to the true nature of the Israeli state and Zionism.
erm, why would Britain have done a stupid thing like that? The IRA in its various forms has been an illegal organization throughout the life of Ireland as an independent country and during the Troubles its jail were full of its members, many convicted solely on the word of senior police officers on the basis of special anti-Provo legislation.
In case you find this a little hard to understand, I’ll spell it out more clearly: London and Dublin were *allies* in the fight against Provosism.
In case it’s not quite obvious, it follows from Eamonn’s explanation that there was no possibility for the IRA to establish itself comfortably among the coastal towns and villages surrounding Dublin and facing Britain from which to lobe a barrage of 8,000+ rockets across the channel into Liverpool or Snowdon.
The devil is in the details, Hypocrisy Booster, which do not conform to the grand scheme you wish to impose upon them.
“What rot. Did Britain bomb Dublin after ceaseless IRA bombings? Israel had a choice and its answer was a vile, cruel and bloodthirsty one that resulted in hundreds of unnecessary deaths.”
What Eamonn and Noga said. Aside from the fact that London and Dublin were allies in the fight against the terrorists, I would also add that Britain was and is in control of Ulster. Hence there was no need to invade Northern Ireland.
Had Israel been in control of Gaza there wouldn’t have been any need for an invasion.
Hypocrisy Buster is the real hypcrite. He also reminds me of an Argentinian antisemitic poster who used to post under the sobriquet “Hasbara Buster” and who had been banned from Harry’s Place.