COMMENTARY: By Craig Murray
Governments cannot take big decisions extremely quickly except in the most extreme of circumstances. There are mechanisms in all states that consider policy decisions, weigh them up, involve the various departments of the state whose activities are affected by that decision, and arrive at a conclusion, though not necessarily a good one.
The decision to stop aid funding to UNRWA was not taken by numerous Western states in a single day.
In the UK, several different government ministries had to coordinate. Even within only a single ministry, the FCDO, views would have to be coordinated through written submissions and interdepartmental meetings between the departments dealing with the Middle East, with the United Nations, with the United States, with Europe and then of course between the diplomatic and development wings of the ministry.
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That process would include seeking the views of British ambassadors to Tel Aviv, Doha, Cairo, Riyadh, Istanbul and Washington and to the United Nations in Geneva and in New York.
It is not necessarily a lengthy process but it is not a day’s work, and nor would it need to be. There was no practical impact to making the announcement of cutting UNRWA funding a day sooner or a day later.
Consider that the parallel process had to be completed in the United States, in Canada, in Germany, in Australia and in all the other Western powers that contributed to starvation in Gaza by cutting aid to UNRWA.
All of these countries had to go through their procedures, and it could only be by prior coordination — weeks in advance — between these states that they announced all on the same day the destruction of the life support system for Palestinians, then in absolute need.
No evidence pf UNRWA complicity
And then consider that we now know for certain that the Israelis had produced no evidence whatsoever of UNRWA complicity in Hamas resistance, on which these decisions in all those states were allegedly based.
I have no doubt at all that the Western political elite, paid tools of the Zionist machine, are complicit in the genocide of Palestinians and ethnic cleansing of Gaza at a much deeper level than the people have yet understood.
The refusal by Starmer and Sunak to contemplate ending arms sales and military support to Israel is not due to inertia or concern for the arms industry. It is that they actively support the destruction of the Palestinians.
The coordinated decision of the Western nations to fast track famine by stopping UNRWA funding was announced within an hour, following the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that Gazans were at immediate risk of genocide, and drove from the media headlines the adverse ruling against Israel.
This sent the clearest signal in response that the Western powers would not be stopped from the genocide by international law or institutions.
The Western powers give not a fig for 16,000 massacred Palestinian infants. No evidence of mass graves in hospitals will move them. They knew genocide was happening and continued actively to arm and abet it.
Genocide goal of the West
This genocide is the desired goal of the West. No other explanation is remotely plausible.
I have never believed the spin that Biden is trying to restrain Netanyahu, while simultaneously arming and funding Netanyahu and using US forces to fight alongside him.
Biden is making no effort to restrain Netanyahu. Biden fully supports the genocide.
My reading of this was reinforced when I was looking back at the Israeli murders on the Mavi Mamara in 2010, when they killed 10 unarmed aid workers attempting a Freedom Flotilla aid delivery to Gaza. Israel’s actions were clearly both murderous and in breach of international law.
Joe Biden as Vice-President defended Israel staunchly then. It is essential to understand that Genocide Joe has always been Genocide Joe.
Joe Biden took the lead in defending the raid to the US public. In an interview with PBS, he described the raid as “legitimate” and argued that the flotilla organisers could have disembarked elsewhere before transferring the aid to Gaza.
“So what’s the big deal here? What’s the big deal of insisting it go straight to Gaza?” Biden asked about the humanitarian mission. “Well, it’s legitimate for Israel to say, ‘I don’t know what’s on that ship. These guys are dropping eight — 3000 rockets on my people.’”
Actively abetting Netanyahu
Biden is not being outplayed by Netanyahu. He is actively abetting Netanyahu and shares with him the objective of full Israeli occupation of Gaza after the Palestinian people are killed or expelled into Sinai.
He also shares with Netanyahu the aim of a wider regional conflict in which the US and Gulf states ally with Israel against Iran, Syria, Yemen and Hezbollah. This is their joint vision of the Middle East — Greater Israel, and US hegemony operating through the Sunni monarchies.
If you believe all the spin from the White House about Biden trying to restrain Netanyahu, I suggest you look instead at the White House and State Department spokesmen refusing to accept any single instance of Israel atrocity and deferring to Israel on every single crime.
I am currently in Pakistan, and I must say it has been a great refreshment to be in a country where everybody understands why ISIS, Al Nusra etc never attacked Israeli interests, and sees precisely what Western governments are doing over Gaza.
What is understood by developing nations is thankfully understood by Gen Z in the West as well.
The Arab regimes of the Gulf and Jordan are dependent upon Israeli and US security services and surveillance for protection from their own people. The lack of really massive street protest against their own regimes by Arab peoples is a direct testimony to the effectiveness of that vicious repression, particularly when states like Jordan actually fight alongside Israel against Iranian weapons.
Anti-Iranian card a trick
The anti-Iranian card is of course the trick both Biden and Netanyahu have left to play. By promoting an escalation with Iran, Western politicians were able to default to a position of claiming the case for arming Israel was proven — and I think were genuinely perplexed to find the public did not buy it.
The political class, across the Western world and the Arab world, is utterly divorced from its people over Gaza. We are seeing worldwide repression, as peaceful conferences are stormed by police in Germany, students are beaten by police on American campuses, and in the UK old white people like me suffer the kind of continual harassment long suffered by young Muslim men.
This is not the work of Netanyahu operating as a rogue. It is the result of the machinations of a professional political class across the Western world welded to Zionism, with the supremacy of Israel as an article of fundamental belief.
Times are not this dark by accident. They were designed to be this dark.
Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and Rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010.
