Let the unspoken be spoken

The one thing I have learned from the Gaza conflict is that passions run high on both sides, this is just an open and honest opinion based on what I believe based on verifiable facts.

PART THREE OF A THREE PART SERIES

You can fine PART ONE HERE and PART TWO HERE

Before I begin, I had intended to add an original short clip to this post, but I have decided to post it separate, because it may stir up some controversy that would detract from what I want to say here. It will follow, but not until this post has had time to be read and digested in its own right.

This third and final post of this series, It is a long piece for which I make no apology. I didn’t want to divide it into two, because it would diminish the impact of what I believe to be a valuable contribution to the debate. I believe the Gaza conflict to be a defining moment in history when for the first time, governments considered unwavering advocates for the international rule of law, have abandoned the Palestinian people along with any semblance of moral integrity. I have included a comprehensive set of curated reference materials in support of my opinion.

It’s evident to me, the level of entrenched belief that ANY criticism of the Israeli government is simply not tolerated. It’s the age old refrain of ‘Get an education’, ‘This is disinformation’ or ‘a totally biased account’. I have said many times, if you read anything I write and disagree with me, I have no problem with that. I’m ALWAYS happy to correct anything perceived to be misleading or factually incorrect. My writing is based on my opinion and a careful assessment of the facts. My position reflects the lense through which I view the subjects I write about.

Before I begin, I think it wise we seek some broader context in terms of this decades old conflict. Israel has often been the victim of terrorism and its population lives under the constant fear of attack. It has on a number of occasions led incursions into Palestinian territory in response to such attacks. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) holds a database of casualties from both sides.

Between 24 January 2008 and 6 October 2023 the number of fatalities are as follows:

Israeli fatality total - 319

Palestinian fatality total 6343

You can see from the graphs the peaks are during Israeli incursions in 2008 and 2014. In each case, retribution was handed out in response to attacks on Israel. For the 53 Israelis killed in 2008/2009, Israel killed 1,932 Palestinians. In 2014, in retaliation for 88 Israelis killed, the IDF killed 2,327 Palestinians. In both the 2008 and 2014 conflicts, you can see clearly that neither represent a proportionate response.

It’s important never to forget the political dimensions to each of these incursions and what led to withdrawal. In October 2022 the Oxford Academic published a journal item that’s well worth a read if you get a moment. Entitled Security, Terrorism, and Territorial Withdrawal: Critically Reassessing the Lessons of Israel's “Unilateral Disengagement” from the Gaza Strip The paper is pretty clear:

It argues that domestic dynamics alone do not explain the withdrawal. Instead, Israel withdrew to mitigate its casualties, yield foreign policy gains, deter and deny terrorist groups, and avert a perceived demographic threat. The disengagement did not seek to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Instead, through a limited territorial exit, it sought to stabilize the conflict and stymie negotiations with the Palestinians.

The consistent outcome from every incursion is, despite pressure from around the world, there is little to no progress towards a two state solution. There are merely gestures towards it, in order to secure the critical supply of arms to maintain the subjugation of the Palestinian population. The ultimate goal has long been to expel them from Gaza and expand the state of Israel. Any claim to the contrary is in my view, at best disingenuous and at worse an outright lie .

With all that out of the way, let me begin by stating without ambiguity, I condemn the barbaric murderous attack by HAMAS and affiliated groups on innocent Israeli civilians on October 7th 2023. I unequivocally condemn this act of terrorism and agree with the findings of the International Criminal Court, this was a war crime. I fervently believe that Israel had every right to seek justice and deliver a proportionate response to the heinous attack on its citizens.

I wrote the following words below on X after the events of 10th October 2023 , accompanied by this heartbreaking rendition of ‘Fields of Gold’ by Ellie Goulding from the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. I listened to this and found it helped me articulate how I felt in that moment. I was trying to imagine the heartbreak of everyone who had lost a loved one and even worse, those that still had someone close to them missing, presumed to have been taken hostage. I want you to hold these words in your mind, lest you should think I value the lives of innocent Palestinians over the lives of innocent Israelis. EVERY LIFE IS PRECIOUS.

“In a world where social media dictates that owning the narrative is king, it’s easy to see hate through the distorted lens of political sound bites.

Trigger words like Holocaust, 9/11, murdered babies are inserted into carefully crafted public statements, designed to take public opinion hostage, in preparation to justify the brutal vengeance that will follow.

An eye for an eye takes precedence over self reflection. As a result, the cycle of violence continues as sure as day follows night.

There can be no excuse for the slaughter of the innocent, no more than there can be an excuse for oppression and apartheid.

As the perpetrators become the recipients of vengeance, there are no winners, just devastated families drowning in a sea of pain, as rivers of blood are diluted by the tears of those left wondering why?

The mightiest armies can rain down death and destruction, but when the dust settles and the news cameras move on, the age old words will echo from the broken landscape, ‘let my people go’, before once more, the cycle of hate is resurrected and played out yet again.

My heart breaks for those whose lives will never be the same. For the bedrooms that will be frozen in time, for the deafening silence that loss delivers. Loved ones who days ago were part of the fabric of daily family life, will become a fading circle drawn on a calendar each year.

There are no winners in war. No winners in the battle for ideological ambition. Just broken hearts and dying flowers littered in the graveyard that is history. So listen not to the false prophet politicians promising solutions. THEY ARE THE PROBLEM.

History teaches us that we are destined to repeat our mistakes, often at the hands of politicians who fail repeatedly to put people before power. It doesn’t have to be this way. As the distant voices of those lost, echo from fields of gold that represent memories of better times,

let’s honor them by rejecting the politics of mediocrity and open our minds to respecting others for who they are, NOT what tribe they belong to.

I knew what was coming, I just never imagined the unprecedented cruel form it would take. The response that followed was NOT an act of self defence, (which incidentally as an occupying force, Israel is unable to claim under international law). Neither was it even close to being a proportionate response. It was an unbridled act of pure vengeance and retribution which was perpetrated with contemptuous disregard for human life. I had expected it to be disproportionate, but never in my wildest dreams did I grasp just how the red mist would descend allowing pure bloodlust and unprecedented evil to take over.

In my opinion, Benjamin Netanyahu seized an opportunity to resolve the ‘Palestinian problem’ once and for all. From the very outset, a fine tuned propaganda machine went into overdrive with the story that 40 decapitated babies were allegedly found in the Kfar Aza kibbutz. This social media rumour was deliberately given oxygen by Netanyahu. He knew it to be a lie, but understood it was propaganda gold. It was so successful, even Joe Biden repeated the claim only to have to later row it back.

In the horror of the HAMAS massacre, 38 minors including two infants were killed, but there were never 40 decapitated babies. Not in Kfar Aza nor in any other kibbutz, the Israeli government press office confirmed much later once questions started to be asked. It is most important to acknowledge too, the heinous sexual crimes committed against the female victims of the attack. A matter that took far too long for the UN to recognise.

Netanyahu had no interest in the veracity of the decapitated baby story, it had served its purpose. It had whipped up western leaders into the desired frenzy of outrage, repulsion and anger. The objective was now clear, to carry out what Netanyahu and the hard right members of his cabinet had been waiting for the opportunity to do for decades.

His critical propaganda win created the permissive environment he needed to prosecute what he knew would send a message that Palestinians should leave Gaza. The boiling global outrage at events on October 7, ensured the Israelis secured weapons primarily from the US to execute the plan. And so the killing began. The Israeli government knew this would be a war of words and it was imperative that they controlled the narrative. International journalists were banned from the theatre of war, as were any international observers. They wanted to prosecute their retribution as much in the dark as possible.

There was just one obstacle, pesky citizen journalists. The bigger problem was, they could not disconnect the mobile networks. Without them, they couldn’t operate their drones, so it was a trade off. They still had the advantage that without international journalist on the ground, they were free to target the local journalists that remained.

Nemo Omer reported in The Guardian on 28 March 2025

“More than 170 journalists have been killed in Gaza since 2023, with some estimates putting the toll as high as 206. It is the deadliest conflict for media workers in recent history”

To add some context to this, The Freedom Forum database records 67 journalists killed during World War II, 63 were killed in Vietnam and a further 65 were killed in Afghanistan. This represents over half a century of conflict. Pause to think about that for a moment. The Israeli line is, they do not target journalists, but overwhelming evidence suggests they are lying.

In a piece written by Amelia Evans and Zoe Simbolon, they reported:

‘Less than a week into the Israel-Gaza war, at 6:02 p.m. on October 13, 2023, the Israeli military fired two tank shells 37 seconds apart into south Lebanon. The military’s target? Seven journalists standing on a hilltop around a mile from the closest hostilities, wearing clearly marked “Press” vests and reporting next to a car marked “TV.”

The Israeli attack instantly killed Reuters’ Issam Abdallah, a veteran video journalist with extensive experience covering conflict in his native Lebanon, as well as in Syria, Iraq, and Ukraine. Agence France-Presse (AFP) photojournalist Christina Assi, also from Lebanon, sustained injuries resulting in the amputation of her right leg. Five other journalists were also wounded: AFP’s Dylan Collins, from the United States; Al Jazeera’s Carmen Joukhadar and Elie Brakhya, also from Lebanon; and Reuters’ Thaer Al-Sudani and Maher Nazeh, from Iraq.’

Israelis have not just targeted journalists, they have targeted doctors, healthcare workers, first responders and humanitarian aid workers, including seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen who were in an aid convoy attacked on 1 April 2024. Time and time again, IDF spokespeople are sent out to lie when it comes to the drip, drip, drip of questionable actions. They lie in the knowledge that in the 24 hour news cycle, they merely have to wait for the outrage to dissipate and sadly they are right.

It would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to the selfless sacrifice of those dedicated to saving lives.

• Over 1000 doctors, nurses and healthcare workers have lost their lives.

• An estimated 408 aid workers have been killed too, including at least 280 UNRWA staff and 34 PRCS staff.

In a report in the Guardian on 25 February by Annie Kelly, Hoda Osman and Farah Jallad the systematic targeting of doctors is clear:

‘Dr Issam Abu Ajwa was in the middle of performing emergency surgery on a patient with a severe abdominal injury at al-Ahli Arab hospital in central Gaza when the soldiers came for him.

“I asked them what they were doing coming into the operating theatre,” he says. “One of the soldiers pointed at me and said: ‘Are you Dr Issam Abu Ajwa?’ I said: ‘Yes, that’s me.’ And then the beating began.”

Still in his surgeons’ scrubs, the 63-year-old Abu Ajwa says he was dragged from the operating room before being handcuffed, blindfolded and stripped.’

The devastating punishment meted out on those trying to deliver relief to a population under siege amidst constant bombardment, is an indictment on a government which demonstrates scant regard for human life or the rules of war, be it in Gaza or the West Bank. While few on the international stage have the courage to call it an act of genocide, I have absolutely no hesitation in doing so.

The following clip is from the ICC and is the case for the Palestinian people by Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh KC. It is 38 minutes long, but provides the full context of the case against the Israeli government from 7 days ago. It is delivered with the skill and gravity one would expect from such an eminent lawyer. I am including it as a definitive reference point for this piece. The clip includes the ability to follow the transcript for those who might find that useful.

One key objective has been to remove UNRWA (The United Nations Relief and Works Agency) from the theatre of war. Israel claimed that 19 members from a workforce of 13,000 (that’s 0.14% ), were in some way involved with the October 7 attack. Let me begin by saying even one member of staff being involved would be unacceptable, but in the real world where the population lives under the control of HAMAS, it is sadly to be expected. While there appears to be little evidence that any of the 19 participated directly in the attack itself on the day, the Israeli government knew the very implication there was an issue would hit their funding and so it did. I would say here, there have been far more members of the IDF sent home from the war, for crimes committed against Palestinian civilians. It should be noted, the US, Germany and the UK did not stop providing military aid to Israel as a result.

If you would like mor information of the investigation that resulted from the accusations made by Israel, you might want to check out this Guardian article from April 2024 by Julian Borger.

The persistent claim of the Israeli government is that every action is taken in defense of the Israeli people. Nobody not the UN or the ICC would argue that Israel has the right to defend itself. It has the most sophisticated missile shield in the world and the best equipped army in the Middle East. It has access to precision munitions to limit collateral damage, but it seems they simply don’t feel the need to use them because everything that moves appears to be a legitimate target.

The clip below is from Channel 4 News in the UK, it has an impeccable reputation for investigative journalism, so this is not some fringe media outlet. This account is from a soldier who served on the front line.

I believe that the events of October 7 were so devastating for so many people that revenge was the only acceptable response. I absolutely understand that and who would not want to see those guilty held to account? Many in the UK felt the same about bombs planted on the UK mainland that killed a total of 3,600 civilians over the course of the Northern Ireland conflict. The British Army was an also occupying force at the time, who were deployed to protect citizens and bring terrorists to justice. There were crimes committed by the army who many think were insufficiently prosecuted, but the army’s default position was NEVER to disregard the threat to civilians in pursuit of ANY military objective.

I’m sure someone will ask me to stop being a hypocrite given the British Army’s less than honorable role in Palestine and I’m certainly not here to defend the indefensible. But it has no real relevance to the current debate. A critic said to me The Palestinians could have had peace under the Clinton administration, which Clinton confirmed, but that would have meant the Palestinians ceding land to settlements that under international law were illegal.

In the words of Bill Clinton:

“I killed myself to give the Palestinians a state. I had a deal they turned down that would have given them all of Gaza,”

While we’re dealing with the elephant in the room, he also said in the same public meeting:

“Hamas is really smart. When they decide to rocket Israel, they insinuate themselves in the hospitals, in the schools, in the highly populous areas, and they are smart. They try to put the Israelis in a position of either not defending themselves or killing innocents. They’re good at it. They’re smart. They’ve been doing this a long time.”

Let’s be clear HAMAS are terrorists, they know how to play the game and they are a formidable adversary, not because they are an elite fighting force, but because they are prepared to retreat to spaces surrounded by civilians. The IRA did exactly the same in Northern Ireland. HAMAS has done exactly what Vietcong did in Vietnam, they have built a network of tunnels. Insurgent groups are almost impossible to defeat for a traditional army. They don’t play by the rules, but what’s even worse is, the offensive force by the very nature of this type of conflict will always be forced to kill more innocent civilians than in a traditional battlespace. The upside for the insurgents is, the killing of the innocent merely serves as a recruitment tool for your own cause. If you are in any doubt, go look at the US Army recruitment records after 9/11.

I would hazard a guess that there are now as many potential terrorists as there were before the conflict began. The only way Israel can win is to kill everybody, but even that would not be a win, because the entire Arab world would rise up. Nobody can win and Israel has lost 1,700 soldiers, for Israel to be ultimately no safer than they were on October 7.

I’ve read it in comments today from a post, ‘The war could be over today if HAMAS releases the hostages”. Utter nonsense. If that is your position, you need to seek urgent medical help. The actions of the IDF will have turbocharged insurgent recruitment amongst men who previously had no interest in fighting the Israelis. Once you kill their wives, mothers and children, you become their sworn enemy. It’s a never ending spiral of hate and retribution.

As discussed in PART ONE of this series, Netanyahu has kept HAMAS in power in Gaza by permitting their funding for over a decade. This was done with the sole intent of creating an environment in which there would be no discussion of a two state peace solution, because the US could not negotiate with a terrorist organisation. Prior to October 7, there was actually reduced support for HAMAS. It’s worth remembering, over half of the population weren’t even born when the last elections were held in 2006. The suggestion that the population could oust HAMAS is fanciful, they are a terrorist organisation funded with the direct approval of the Israeli Prime Minister, what hope do the population have of removing HAMAS if the best funded most powerful army in the Middle East can’t defeat them?

The reality is, the only solution that can be achieved just as in Northern Ireland, is a peace process. There is no military off ramp, it has to be a political solution. That brings us all the way back to where we started. HAMAS committed a war crime, of that there is no dispute. The Israeli response has been wholly disproportionate and that has unquestionably led to reciprocal war crimes. There is little doubt, the Israeli government want another nakba. They want rid of the Palestinians once and for all so they can clean up Gaza and hand it over to settlers. Never have they been so emboldened as they are today, now that Trump is in the White House.

Western powers are in this moment complicit in the commision of war crimes, but nobody cares. Even the millions of citizens who have taken to the streets have achieved little to nothing. So it is with the deepest of regret I have to inform you that the genocide will continue at pace because nobody is prepared to stand up to Israel. Now Netanyahu has informed the world, Israel is going to take and occupy Gaza. The screw is tightening on the Palestinians and they have nowhere to flee. They are now just rats in a barrell and the killing will proceed unchecked.

The losers as ever, will be innocent civilians. Israel is emboldened by the election of Trump and the Palestinian population is caught in the middle. There can be no question that the current withholding of food, water, power and medical aid is the textbook definition of a war crime, as determined already by the International Criminal Court. Benjamin Netanyahu will never be held to account for his crimes in this world and that is a devastating indictment on us as a global society.

I still to this day can’t get the image of a man dashing to the front door of a hospital in a state of shock, screaming for help as he carried the body parts of his young son in a supermarket carrier bag drenched in blood. In his shattered state of mind he believed that doctors could put his son back together again. I fear the same is true of Gaza, and that was the aim of the Israeli government from the outset.

I will close with this excerpt from the statement by Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh KC representing the state of Palestine.

‘Israeli officials have sought to discredit this court calling it quote an anti-semitic court comprising judges from Muslim dictatorships which has been manipulated and weaponized in the persecution of the Jewish people as stated by UNRWA's Commissioner General I quote "The international order is crumbling in a repetition of the horrors that led to the establishment of the United Nations and in violation of commitments to prevent their occurrence the attacks on UNRWA are an integral part of this this disintegration."

Not stopping at UNRWA, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations itself has demanded that the entire UN and “its corrupt courts the ICC and the ICJ must be defunded”.

In addition to seeking to destroy the protective application of international law to the Palestinian people Israel appears set on destroying the very international framework created to ensure compliance with international law and accountability for its breach with profound consequences that reverberate far beyond Palestine and Palestinians.

If these venerable institutions are to survive and if in the words of the UN relief chief quote "The basic principles of law still count the international community must act while it can to uphold them." Mr president, members of the court, the international community is so acting in seeking the court's advice on these matters having regard to the court's prior vital unwavering reaffirmation of international law in its 2024 advisory opinion, mindful of the former Secretary General's description of the United Nations as quote “the hope and home of all humankind with the charter at its compass “

The state of Palestine respectfully calls on this court to provide this further advisory opinion urgently to reset that compass in the continuing desperate hope that international law might finally prevail.’

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Martin-Niemöller