Israel’s ‘killing rage’ will fuel conflict for 50 years, warns ex-UK defence secretary

Senior Tory criticises war methods in Gaza, saying they pose threat to Israel’s moral and legal authority

• Israel-Gaza war - latest updates

Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor

Mon 18 Dec 2023 10.22 GMT

The Israeli government’s “killing rage” in Gaza poses a threat to the country’s moral and legal authority and will fuel conflict for another 50 years, the former UK defence secretary Ben Wallace has warned.

In an intervention that goes further than any other front-rank British politician in its criticism of Israel’s methods in the war, the senior Conservative MP wrote in the Daily Telegraph: “Going after Hamas is legitimate; obliterating vast swathes of Gaza is not. Using proportionate force is legal, but collective punishment and forced movement of civilians is not.”

He also criticised Israel’s new generation of “bull in a China shop” politicians for “crashing from one crisis to another”.

International pressure on Israel has been growing over the scale of civilian casualties in Gaza. About 19,000 people have been killed in the course of the Israeli offensive, according to health officials in the Hamas-run territory, since the Hamas attack on Israel of 7 October, which killed 1,200 people.

At the weekend the UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, joined his German counterpart in calling for a “sustainable ceasefire” in the territory, adding that “too many civilians have been killed”.

Grant Shapps, the current defence secretary, said the approach would mean “hostages released, rockets stop flowing and there’s actually a political process in place to make sure that we get to the day after”.

The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, is due to meet the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, this week to discuss in detail when and how Israeli forces may carry out a new phase of fighting.

American officials envision smaller groups of elite forces who would move in and out of population centres in Gaza, conducting more precise, intelligence-driven missions to find and kill Hamas leaders, rescue hostages and destroy tunnels, US officials said.

The UN security council is also due to vote on Monday on a resolution for a durable and sustainable cessation of hostilities. Cameron defined sustainable as one in which Hamas could not mount further attacks on Israel that threatened its security.

In his Telegraph article Wallace was less interested in the timing of a ceasefire than Israel’s tactics.

He wrote: “We are entering a dangerous period now where Israel’s original legal authority of self-defence is being undermined by its own actions. It is making the mistake of losing its moral authority alongside its legal one.

“I am sure that the shame Benjamin Netanyahu feels for not foreseeing the October 7 attacks is deep, especially for someone who presented himself as a security hawk and tough guy. But perhaps that shame is driving him to lose sight of the long term.

“If he thinks a killing rage will rectify matters, then he is very wrong. His methods will not solve the problem. In fact, I believe his tactics will fuel the conflict for another 50 years. His actions are radicalising Muslim youth across the globe.”

He urged Israel to be more patient and to cultivate moderate Palestinian voices.

An Israeli government spokesperson, Eylon Levy, told the BBC Wallace’s choice of words were “unfortunate language” and that Israel was targeting those who carried out the 7 October attack and was putting in place “unprecedented measures to get civilians out of harm’s way”.

Levy said: “What will radicalise a new generation is if the terrorists who burned people alive, and tortured children in front of their parents, and raped Israeli women and girls, literally get away with murder.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/18/israel-killing-rage-fuel-conflict-50-years-warns-ex-uk-defence-secretary-ben-wallace

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My comments :

Although it is a relief that finally a UK ex-secretary (i.c. that of Defence) is overtly criticizing the sociopathic behavior of the utterly criminal Netanyahu clique, he should have gone even a step further, by stating that Netanyahu did not exactly went sleepwalking into the 10/7 event, but that he purposely ignored all the Hamas preparations for the raid IN ORDER to justify the premeditated Nakba 3.0 on the Palestinian population in the Gazan Ghetto.

A repetition of the 1948 and 1967 Nakba, in order to complete the overall Zionist objective, of the Great Replacement of the Palestinians with Zionist jews from all over the world.

Meanwhile we should not forget, that the UK - from a historic perspective - is at the very heart of this horrific geo-political situation.

After all it has been the Palestinians, that had been betrayed by the then UK government - represented by the UK general MacMahon - which had promised the Palestinians in 1916, that if they would assist the Entente, with liberating the Ottoman colonies in the ME from the Imperial Turkish dominance, they would automatically be granted the status of self-determination after WWI.

We now know, that almost at the very same time, Balfour did promise the formidable zionist lobby-force under the leadership of Weizmann c.s., "a Jewish homeland" in Palestine (be it with the - never ever effectuated - restriction, that this promise never might lead to any detrimental consequence for the indigenous population of Palestine : The Palestinians).

We now know, that parallel to those two (already) conflicting promises by the British political establishment of the day, another diplomatique development had been set in motion : The Sykes-Picot agreement between France and Britain, containing the (secret) agreement, that both countries would divide the Mesopotamian region into two separate spheres of influence among each other, whereby neither the Palestinians, nor the Lebanese / Syrians would gain any independence, but instead would become de facto colonies of both then aforementioned superpowers.

We also have to take in to account the resurrection of the League of Nations on the initiative of then USA president Woodrow Wilson, who had ordered a select group of USA scientists to come up with (to design) a 14 point plan, that would envisage the decolonisation of all post WWI colonial possessions.

Wilson even took the trouble of constituting a committee (the King/Crane committee) that painstakingly did examine the opinion of the people in the ME region about their wishes for their future status.

One can not be surprised, that this committee reached the conclusion, that the Palestinians did not want anything else but self-determination, without any sharing of their country with Zionist jews.