In the UK and Israel let’s put our values on a firm footing

Geraint Davies

How is it that when 600 masked men dressed in paramilitary uniform block the port of Dover they aren’t even identified and cautioned by the police?

If they were pensioners holding plaques saying “I oppose genocide I support Palestine Action” the police would have made mass arrests.

Interfering with national infrastructure including British ports is a criminal offense and wearing a paramilitary uniform was made illegal in 1936 to stop the fascist black shirts.

But the police chief called the action “spontaneous” and the media a “protest” when it looks like a carefully planned crime with an insider tip-off.

Enough is enough. It’s time to put our values back on a firm and robust footing.

One small step forward was the UK ban on trade with illegal West Bank settlers. This is a welcome signal alongside other countries that talk-the-talk of human rights and the rule of law.

It won’t stop Netenyahu’s brutal ethnic cleansing designed to prevent a two-state solution of a secure Israel alongside a sustainable Palestinian state. However, it’s a chink of light on Labour’s dark record.

Few will forget Keir Starmer’s words “Israel does have that right” as President Netenyahu triggered the blitz and siege of Gaza in the aftermath of the October 7th 2023 terror attack.

I was Swansea West MP and there, trapped amidst the fire, smoke and bodies, were my constituents- a Swansea heart consultant, Dr Ahmed Sabra, his wife and three children.

I was in WhatsApp contact from the moment their accommodation was bombed flat as they fled in their nightclothes.

I immediately attended Parliament and asked the Foreign Secretary James Cleverly to call for a ceasefire to stop the bloodshed and to help them get home. More bombs had already dropped in that first week than in the eight-month London Blitz.

Hundreds of constituents urged me to support a ceasefire and I publicly wrote to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer calling for one. After all, Britain didn’t carpet-bomb Belfast after IRA terrorists bombed Margaret Thatcher in Brighton.

“It is a genocide….. every minute of the day is overshadowed with the smell of death, sound of death, sight of death, death as I have never experienced before” Dr Sabra WhatsApped me as he journeyed perilously across Gaza with his family

Bussed back

After a month under fire the Sabras miraculously got over the Rafah Crossing to Egypt to the assumed safety of the British Embassy staff only to be told that the Swansea doctor was to be bussed back to the Gaza blitz as he was excluded from the Israeli-approved transfer list his wife and children were on.

I pressed James Cleverly to intervene but after three days of talking, in which American split families were repatriated, the British NHS doctor was instead bussed back through “the gates of hell”.

I broke the news to the BBC who pictured Dr Sabra on a cart Biblically being pulled back into Gaza by a donkey.

I went immediately to Parliament to raise an Urgent Question on “the protection and recovery of UK citizens in Gaza”. I attended Parliament to press the government to save Dr Sabra’s life.

The political pressure and news coverage paid off. I was able to announce at a rally for Dr Sabra outside Swansea’s Morriston Hospital that he was coming home and a few days later we were celebrating over a meal.

But the NHS doctor’s experience before his return to Swansea was just a glimpse of the horror.

Antisemitism

I wrote again In public to the Prime Minister calling for a ceasefire pointing out that Netenyahu’s unfolding genocide would not protect Israel but fuel antisemitism.

My third public letter in February 2024 said 28kg of bombs per person – equivalent to 3 atom bombs – had already dropped, 28,000 civilians were dead and Israel had ignored International Court of Justice’s orders to end plausible genocide.

Two and a half years later the Gaza death toll now exceeds 100,000 civilians including 20,000 children with millions left starving. So a UK ban on trade with illegal West Bank settlers is too little too late.

The UK Labour Government should ban arms sales to Israel including drones from Elbit in Bristol and also let MPs have a free vote on the proscription as terrorists of Palestine Action.

After one small step it’s time for a giant leap to call time on right wing extremists in both Israel and Britain with Andy Burnham standing up for our values at home and abroad.

Geraint Davies was Labour MP for Swansea West 2010-24

---

Get more trusted Welsh news

Choose Nation.Cymru as a preferred source in Google News to see more of our journalism.