Diplomatic tsunami against Israel welcome but time not on Gaza's side

The National

21-05-2025

The words of Maya Sion-Tzidkiyahu, director of the Israel-Europe Relations Program at the Mitvim Institute and lecturer at the Hebrew University's European Forum.
I have to admit to taking a certain satisfaction in reading these and similar words in the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz these past few days as European pressure piles on the government of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Almost exactly a decade ago this month, I wrote a lengthy piece for the press in Scotland entitled 'Something is rotten in the State Of Israel.'
READ MORE: Patrick Harvie faces Holyrood election challenge from young activist
To say that it caused a bit of a stir would be an understatement. This after all was long before the current outrage over Israel's onslaught in Gaza and a lot fewer people put their heads above the parapet back then.
At the time, my writing of the piece was instigated by a sense of outrage at the savagery of an arson attack by settlers on the home of a Palestinian family in the occupied West Bank village of Duma.
In the subsequent autopsy that was carried out on one of the victims of the attack, 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh, it was found that his corpse was totally blackened, his features, lungs and rib cage melted from the fire that ignited after the attackers threw Molotov cocktail petrol bombs into the family's house as they slept.
Today of course such atrocities are commonplace, and to be frank they were back then too. The only difference being that comparatively few here in the UK took much notice of what was unfolding daily in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, let alone raise their voice against it.
Some, however, even in Israel itself did. Among them was the wonderful Israeli author David Grossman, who some years ago I had the pleasure of spending time with in Edinburgh.
Back then, at the time of the Duma killings, Grossman summed up the feelings of other ordinary Israelis like him when he commented in Haaretz that 'I cannot get this baby, Ali Dawabsheh, out of my mind ... Who is the person or persons capable of doing this? They, or their friends, continue to walk among us this morning.'
(Image: AP)
Grossman was right in saying that such monsters walked among ordinary Israelis back then and as the evidence makes clear they continue to do so today.
As another Israeli journalist at the time who closely monitored Israeli violence said of little Ali Dawabsheh's gory death, it's now almost as if settler burnings of Palestinian children 'have become a yearly Israeli ritual'.
That slaughtering ritual is fast reaching its zenith right now in Gaza. Ten years ago, just for commenting on atrocities of this kind, myself and like-minded journalists and Israeli colleagues became lightning rods for a Zionist lobby that left no stone unturned in its vitriolic retributive attacks.
Instances of speaking out, especially at a UK Government level, were few and far between, so it's a measure then of how bad things have become that Britain's government has found itsef compelled belatedly to raise now a measure of condemnation against Israel.
'Blocking aid, expanding the war, dismissing the concerns of your friends and partners. This is indefensible and it must stop,' UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy finally found the cojones to say in Parliament on Tuesday.
Few doubt – as The National has highlighted – that beyond this rhetoric, Sir Keir Starmer's government will go on shunting the weapons and intelligence that Netanyahu's government needs to prosecute its ethnic cleaning in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
The UK Government is only one of a number of Johnny-come-latelies, that have finally become squeamish enough about the horrors that have been unfolding these past 18 months and more to finally 'act'.
Don't get me wrong here, for genuine allies in opposing Israel's policies towards the Palestinians are always to be welcomed. My simple worry is just how genuine Starmer's government actually is remains open to question, and were Donald Trump and his administration begin to throw their weight around in support of Israel, I have little doubt that Lammy would be back in silent mode in a jiffy.
That a majority of EU foreign ministers on Tuesday expressed support for launching a review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement is also to be welcomed. The fact that the diplomatic push was led by the Netherlands, usually a staunch backer of Israel, is again a measure of how bad things have become.
But here too, just as with the UK Government, watch out for obstacles and double standards, for any decision to ultimately suspend trade ties would require the involvement of the European Commission and unanimity among its 27 member states.
It's worth noting also that a similar request to fully suspend the agreement was made by Spain and Ireland last year, but did not garner wide support due to deep divisions within the bloc over the Israel-Palestine conflict.
All this is not to be overly negative, for let's hope that what one Haaretz headline described as a potential 'diplomatic tsunami' is indeed underway, gaining momentum and might ultimately force Israel to back off.
As Sion-Tzidkiyahu says, at least 'the bullet has left the barrel' in diplomatic terms. As she says too, if this means enabling the EU to debate Israeli violations of international law and sends a strong signal to international courts, then that is also a step forward.
Ten years ago, when I wrote my article entitled Something is rotten in the State of Israel, words and phrases like 'genocide', 'ethnic cleansing', 'apartheid', and 'international pariah' about Israel were used sparingly and too often dismissed by those who should have been paying attention to the political trajectory in which Netanyahu's government was travelling.
Now those words and phrases have come to haunt the world with a shocking resonance, waking many up to the reality. It's certainly not before time. But as the saying goes, better late than never.
The only concern now is that time is not on Gaza's side, and the real proof of being able to hold Israel to account has yet to fully reveal itself.