If Starmer knows what a genocide is then why is he quiet about Gaza?
The UK’s prime minister seems to be schizoid about mass murder. If Starmer knows what a genocide is then why is he quiet about Gaza?
This Site discussed his reluctance to call Israel’s mass murders in that territory a genocide in a previous article. A reader subsequently posted the following on X:
So the brighter than the Sun Snooze paper, ‘sir’ children Starver, wouldn’t call, “Genocide”, “Genocide” So ‘EXACTLY’ What would, ‘sir’children Starver ‘Pensions’pillager’s Starmer call, “Genocide”?
— William Hayden (@William15197371) November 16, 2024
A good question – and one that has been answered by our friends at The Canary:
In the past, Starmer:
- Voted in 2016 “to refer genocide of Yazidis & Christians by Daesh to UN and ICC to start process to bring perpetrators to justice”. Daesh (Isis/Isil) killed over 5,000 people in its mass slaughter of Yazidis.
- Wrote in 2021 about China’s treatment of its Uyghur community (for which there are no apparent reports of murder, except the roughly 200 deaths during the July 2009 riots). He said he’d be working “to ensure Britain never turns a blind eye to genocide”. Also in 2021, he insisted on sending a message to the Conservatives that “genocide can never be met with indifference, impunity or inaction”.
- Marked the 2022 “anniversary of the genocide at Srebrenica”, saying “we remember the 8,000 Muslim men and boys who lost their lives”. He marked the 2023 anniversary too. And in 2020, he called it an “inhuman genocide”.
So he knows that a genocide can be the deaths of as few as 8,000, or even 5,000, people.
In mentioning Srebrenica, he even agrees with the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, who raised it while denigrating Labour Foreign Secretary David Lammy for genocide denial:
“You’re still a genocide denier.”
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, criticised British Foreign Secretary David Lammy for refusing to label the Israeli war on Gaza as genocide during his address in the UK Parliament last month. pic.twitter.com/JSpBxHJ0Vm
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) November 14, 2024
Why does he not include Gaza, then, where “at least 43,712 people, including 16,765 children” have been killed?
The Canary reckons it’s because he knows the UK has been complicit in it:
Genocide expert Martin Shaw wrote recently that: “Political leaders themselves will avoid talking about genocide, to protect themselves not only from demands to stop it, but also from scrutiny of their complicity – Israel has been helped by RAF surveillance, British-made weapons and parts for its bombers, and diplomatic support, all of which the Starmer Government has continued.”
Indeed, British governments under Starmer and Sunak have participated in Israel’s genocide via RAF flights over Gaza, and US flights from the UK’s base on Cyprus. As UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese has stressed in the Tribune: “The UK is violating its obligations under international law not to aid and assist a state which is committing international wrongdoings.”
Albanese has reported on Israel’s “settler colonial genocide” in Gaza herself. And she explained Britain’s obligation to prevent that in more detail, saying in a video interview that: “In order not to violate the Genocide Convention, which contains an obligation to prevent genocide, member states need to comply with the obligation not to support a state that might be committing genocide… Member states have been put on notice that there is this risk, as of the 26th of January this year… Even if genocide had not been committed yet, because there is a risk, there is an obligation to prevent.”
Persuasive?
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (bottom right of the home page). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
5) Follow Vox Political writer Mike Sivier on BlueSky
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:
The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
ah stammer the spammer the cuckoo in the nest hmmm horrible man we have left another devil into our mits between him or the Tories are the same it’s diabolical how we has peasants of Britain allow these creatures reign we need a mass demonstration to rid us of these greedie devils