By IRNA,
London : A British peer has returned from Gaza warning that there will be no relief for the Palestinians from another pulverisation while Israel enjoys impunity for its continuing war crimes.
“Israel – cradle of lawyers – is in cavalier breach of International Law, the United Nations Charter, its Conventions and Resolutions, and yet is protected from the consequences which should follow,” said Liberal Democrat peer Lord Phillips.
“Israel, effectively unhindered by the US or ourselves, is deluded by the ‘triumph’ of its Machiavellian diplomacy into believing that the tactics of divide and rule, obfuscation and procrastination, will forever enable it to frustrate justice for the Palestinians,” Phillips said.
The former shadow home office minister warned that Israel’s continual defiance of the UN “steadily undermines its own legitimacy, given the UN was its only begetter and may yet be needed as its main guarantor.”
Phillips, who is also a lawyer, took part in the recent EU delegation of over 60 parliamentarians to visit Gaza to express solidarity with the 1.5 million people living under more than two years of Israeli siege.
”To visit Gaza for a third time in five years still induces a gut reaction of pity, depression and anger – pity at the hopeless, helpless plight of the Palestinians; depression about their future and, ironically, that of Israel too,” he said.
“As we saw, their already poor infrastructure, most factories, many schools and public buildings and thousands of houses were obliterated or severely damaged,” the peer said.
In an article for the Independent Monday, he urged the west to end Israel’s impunity and “look to the imposition of escalating cultural and economic sanctions.”
“Nothing else has worked and time may be short. There will be a hullabaloo, but carrying on as heretofore would be the sin,” he warned.
Last week, former shadow foreign secretary Gerald Kaufman, who led the EU delegation, called for the lifting of the continuing Israeli blockade, saying it was causing “irreversible damage to the health and social wellbeing of Gazan children, adults and elderly people.”
With the support of other MPs, Kaufman also urged the EU to observe the human rights clauses of its Trade Association Agreements with Israel and for the UK Government to “vigorously” support the Goldstone Report detailing the extent of Israeli war crimes.
Earlier this month, Phillips also criticised the UK government for not pursuing Israeli war criminals, saying it was betraying “not only international law and the oppressed Palestinians, but also the large Israeli minority.”