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Barry Gilheany ✍ That was the week that was.

On Monday 19th May, Prime Minister Starmer of the UK, President Macron of France and recently elected Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada warned that if Israel did not cease its renewed military offensive in Gaza and lifted its blockade on humanitarian aid then “ we will take concrete actions in response” pointedly referring to a UN-sponsored conference in New York starting on 17th June over the possibility of the recognition of the State of Palestine. 

This tripartite statement of almost unprecedented condemnation of an Israeli government followed on from a statement by 27 mainly Western, donors endorsing concerns by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the UN’s main humanitarian body, about the nearly three month Israeli blockade of Gaza and the shadowy plans for a Gaza Humanitarian Plan (GHF) due to start aid operations at the end of May. Their statement read “Humanitarian aid must never be politicised and Palestinian territory must not be subject to demographic change” and warned that “Palestinians faced starvation” – a more than implicit warning of the prospect of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. 

The following day came a passionate statement by Foreign Statement David Lammy to the House of Commons in which he condemned the further planned major military incursion by the IDF as “morally unjustifiable, wholly disproportionate and utterly counterproductive” and Israel’s refusal to permit starving Palestinians access to thousands of aid trucks, and described far right Israeli Cabinet Minister Betzel Smotrich's calls to “cleanse Gaza” by expelling Palestinians as repellent, monstrous and extremist. He then announced a freeze on trade discussions with Israel and the imposition of sanctions on settlers and organisations involved in West Bank violence.[1] This action followed the Dutch foreign minister’s call to review the EU – Israel association agreement due to the conduct of the war and which could lead to further sanctions.[2]

Within Israel, the main opposition party leader Yair Lapid asked if his country had become one which shoots at children for fun and warned starkly of the prospect of it becoming a pariah nation (if it has not acquired that status already in the opinions of more than a few). Such opinions, coming as they do from a proud Zionist, had they been expressed by pro-Palestinian advocates would have been seized upon as evidence of  the ubiquitous and ancient “blood libel.” Opposition to the war is now vocal amongst the families of the hostages taken during the Hamas pogrom of 7th October 2023 who increasingly perceive that their rescue matters less to the Netanyahu government than the resettlement of Gaza - and amongst 70% of Israelis. Into the mix has tragically been introduced the murder of two members of the staff of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC (the bride to be of this couple belonged to the Tech4Peace group which aims at tech collaboration between Israelis and Palestinians) at a Jewish cultural event in the city by an assailant who shouted “Free Palestine” after his arrest. Needless to say, this heinous action will not fill the belly of a single Palestinian child or repair a single medical facility in Gaza. No does it justify the contemptible weaponising  the “antisemitism” and “helping Hamas” labels by Netanyahu towards Starmer, Macron and Carney in his response to this appalling event.

Why Now?

Almost since the start of Israel’s first offensive in Gaza after the events of 7 October, sirens and clarion calls have sounded about the dire humanitarian situation and appalling level of civilian deaths in the territory with many asserting that a live streamed genocide is occurring and have decried alleged at best, inertia and acquiescence by Western powers in it, and at worst direct participation in it, especially by the US which has supplied Israel with the weaponry and munitions to sustain its campaign. The turning point or decisive moment appears to have resulted from the total dissolution of hope after Israel’s breaking of the ceasefire on 2nd March 2025 negotiated as Donald Trump returned to the White House for a second term of office.

For David Lammy in particular, the accumulation of images of emaciated children, the threats to purify Gaza by some Israeli ministers and the apparent inability of the US to persuade Israel to accept that a permanent ceasefire was a legitimate price for the release of the Israeli hostages seized on 7th October became too much.[3] The use of eliminationary language such as “purification” and the seeming pursuit of expansionist aims over the return of the hostages represent stark step changes from the supposedly defensive nature of Israel’s response to the 7th October pogrom. Lammy had condemned the blockade from the outset and on 17th March, described it as a breach of humanitarian law, a judgment he had to row back on since government policy is that only international courts and not the UK government pronounce judgement on breaches of international law – it is this condition that prevents the UK government describing the Gaza conflict (or indeed any other one) as genocide. He also had had a stormy private meeting with Gideon Sa’ar, the Israeli Foreign Minister, on 17th March on what was meant to be an unpublicised visit by the Minister. Sa’ar insisted that the denial of aid was not a form of collective punishment, or unlawful.[4]

Parallel to this diplomatic skirmish, UK concern about shadowy plans for a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) due to start aid operations at the end of May. The GHF was to be overseen by Jake Wood, a US military veteran who ran Team Rubicon, an organisation that distributed humanitarian aid during natural disasters. The organisation’s mission is essentially to replace the now banned UN Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA), as well as OCHA. Since November OCHA has been headed by Tom Fletcher, a former chief foreign policy adviser to Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and David Cameron. While Fletcher’s first few months in the job were spent firefighting the impact of US aid cuts, he soon grasped that Israel’s blockade of aid, [5]and plans for GHF, were part of a strategy to remove the entire UN presence in Gaza.[6]

Fletcher formally sounded the alarm in his speech on 13 May to the UN Security Council where he called for decisive action to “prevent a genocide” and warned members to ask themselves how they will account to future generations when it is asked of them if they truly did all they could to stop Israel’s “unashamed inhumanity”[7]

Fletcher did enter choppy waters last week with his claim on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that “14,000 babies will die in the next 48 hours under the Israeli aid blockade”.[8] This immediately triggered a firestorm from pro-Israel and some Jewish groups and social media accounts about a resurrection of the ancient antisemitic ‘blood libel’ of Jews as (originally Christian) child killers. The claim which did go viral and was cited in the House of Commons was later corrected by a UN spokesperson who stated:

We are pointing to the imperative of getting supplies in to save an estimated 14,000 babies suffering from acute malnutrition in Gaza, as, the IPC partnership (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification), has warned about. We need to get the supplies in, as soon as possible, ideally within the next 48 hours.

Earlier this month, the IPC estimated that nearly 71,000 children under the age five are expected to be “actually malnourished” over the next eleven months of which 14,100 are expected to be severe. The BBC’S Tom Bennett clarified Fletcher’s statement by contacting UNOCHA and reported that the agency:

highlighted report severe cases of acute malnutrition are expected to occur among children aged six to 59 months. The IPC report said that this could take place over the course of about a year – not 48 hours.[9]

This vignette demonstrates the harm that can be done to humanitarian causes such as the campaign to lift the blockade of Gaza by inaccurate dissemination (or nefarious spinning in the eyes of detractors) of crucial data by well-intentioned officials. The 14,000 dying babies story took on the momentary but totemic significance of the debunked tale of the 40 babies decapitated by Hamas during its bloody rampage on 7th October. Both cases caused temporary deflection from the horror and inhumanity of the crimes being perpetrated and gave ammunition to the pernicious agendas of respective atrocity deniers.

However regardless of his unfortunate but quickly retrieved misstep, events are putting Tom Fletcher on the right side of history not least today’s resignation of Jake Wood as CEO of GHF because:

it is clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence, which I will not abandon. 

Earlier, he told CNN that he “unequivocally … will not be part of anything that forcibly dislocates and displaces the Palestinian population.” [10] In this way, the intention behind the GHF operation is squarely revealed; by locating aid hubs only in Southern Gaza is meant to force population movements (again) from Northern Gaza to facilitate the IDF takeover of that part of the Gaza Strip and eventual (voluntary or forced) removal of the Gazan populace.

Whither the Future?

So, are we at an inflection point regarding how the movers and shakers and decision makers view the rogue administration of Benjamin Netanyahu and his ghastly Kahanist coalition allies; namely Bin Givr and Smotrich, and the justice and necessity of a Palestinian state? Has the worm finally turned on decades of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and brutal wars in Gaza and the steady shift towards Triple P (Populist, Polarisation and Post-Truth) governance in Israel itself? 

Netanyahu’s cynical deployment of the antisemitism/pro-Hamas card against the criticism of his war by the heads of Western governments are all too predictable examples of his faux victimhood doubling down. Thus, condemnation is not enough. Certain stars have to align in a particular constellation. Further targeted sanctions: the recognition of the State of Palestine at the Saudi-French conference on Palestine at UN Headquarters in New York and the growing opposition to the war within Israel as shown by mass protests from civil society and hostage families support groups. To build a coalition of anti-war activists from Israel and world wide and to try to take the toxicity out of the Israel-Palestine debate, I would suggest retiring the term Zionism on the grounds that it’s main objective of a Jewish homeland was achieved in 1948 or at least acknowledge that the Zionism of Israeli progressives like Fania Oz-Salzberger, Ehud Olmert, Yair Lapid and the joint Jewish-Arab anti-war movement Standing Together and the writer and blogger Shaiel Ben-Ephrain is not that of the warmongers and expansionists. Maybe it is they who can save Israel from itself.

References

[1] Patrick Wintour,Analysis. Lammy rebuke marks a turning point. The Guardian 25th May 2025

[2] Sanam Vakil Israel is under pressure. But is that enough? The Guardian 22nd May 2025

[3] Guardian, 22 May 2025, op cit

[4] Ibid

[5]

[6] Ibid

[7] Ibid

[8] Alex Griffing, BBC Presses UN Agency to Correct Viral Claim that 14,000 Babies in Gaza Will Die in the Next 48 Hours. Mediate 22nd May 2025

[9] Griffing, op cit

[10] Jeremy Diamond, Hira Hamayan and Jessie Young Head of Controversial US – backed Gaza aid group resigns citing concerns over independence and impartiality. CNN 26th May 2025

⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.

The Dial Shifts Or Too Little, Too Late 🪶 Western Leaders Turn On Israel’s War Of Elimination In Gaza

Barry Gilheany ✍ That was the week that was.

On Monday 19th May, Prime Minister Starmer of the UK, President Macron of France and recently elected Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada warned that if Israel did not cease its renewed military offensive in Gaza and lifted its blockade on humanitarian aid then “ we will take concrete actions in response” pointedly referring to a UN-sponsored conference in New York starting on 17th June over the possibility of the recognition of the State of Palestine. 

This tripartite statement of almost unprecedented condemnation of an Israeli government followed on from a statement by 27 mainly Western, donors endorsing concerns by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the UN’s main humanitarian body, about the nearly three month Israeli blockade of Gaza and the shadowy plans for a Gaza Humanitarian Plan (GHF) due to start aid operations at the end of May. Their statement read “Humanitarian aid must never be politicised and Palestinian territory must not be subject to demographic change” and warned that “Palestinians faced starvation” – a more than implicit warning of the prospect of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. 

The following day came a passionate statement by Foreign Statement David Lammy to the House of Commons in which he condemned the further planned major military incursion by the IDF as “morally unjustifiable, wholly disproportionate and utterly counterproductive” and Israel’s refusal to permit starving Palestinians access to thousands of aid trucks, and described far right Israeli Cabinet Minister Betzel Smotrich's calls to “cleanse Gaza” by expelling Palestinians as repellent, monstrous and extremist. He then announced a freeze on trade discussions with Israel and the imposition of sanctions on settlers and organisations involved in West Bank violence.[1] This action followed the Dutch foreign minister’s call to review the EU – Israel association agreement due to the conduct of the war and which could lead to further sanctions.[2]

Within Israel, the main opposition party leader Yair Lapid asked if his country had become one which shoots at children for fun and warned starkly of the prospect of it becoming a pariah nation (if it has not acquired that status already in the opinions of more than a few). Such opinions, coming as they do from a proud Zionist, had they been expressed by pro-Palestinian advocates would have been seized upon as evidence of  the ubiquitous and ancient “blood libel.” Opposition to the war is now vocal amongst the families of the hostages taken during the Hamas pogrom of 7th October 2023 who increasingly perceive that their rescue matters less to the Netanyahu government than the resettlement of Gaza - and amongst 70% of Israelis. Into the mix has tragically been introduced the murder of two members of the staff of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC (the bride to be of this couple belonged to the Tech4Peace group which aims at tech collaboration between Israelis and Palestinians) at a Jewish cultural event in the city by an assailant who shouted “Free Palestine” after his arrest. Needless to say, this heinous action will not fill the belly of a single Palestinian child or repair a single medical facility in Gaza. No does it justify the contemptible weaponising  the “antisemitism” and “helping Hamas” labels by Netanyahu towards Starmer, Macron and Carney in his response to this appalling event.

Why Now?

Almost since the start of Israel’s first offensive in Gaza after the events of 7 October, sirens and clarion calls have sounded about the dire humanitarian situation and appalling level of civilian deaths in the territory with many asserting that a live streamed genocide is occurring and have decried alleged at best, inertia and acquiescence by Western powers in it, and at worst direct participation in it, especially by the US which has supplied Israel with the weaponry and munitions to sustain its campaign. The turning point or decisive moment appears to have resulted from the total dissolution of hope after Israel’s breaking of the ceasefire on 2nd March 2025 negotiated as Donald Trump returned to the White House for a second term of office.

For David Lammy in particular, the accumulation of images of emaciated children, the threats to purify Gaza by some Israeli ministers and the apparent inability of the US to persuade Israel to accept that a permanent ceasefire was a legitimate price for the release of the Israeli hostages seized on 7th October became too much.[3] The use of eliminationary language such as “purification” and the seeming pursuit of expansionist aims over the return of the hostages represent stark step changes from the supposedly defensive nature of Israel’s response to the 7th October pogrom. Lammy had condemned the blockade from the outset and on 17th March, described it as a breach of humanitarian law, a judgment he had to row back on since government policy is that only international courts and not the UK government pronounce judgement on breaches of international law – it is this condition that prevents the UK government describing the Gaza conflict (or indeed any other one) as genocide. He also had had a stormy private meeting with Gideon Sa’ar, the Israeli Foreign Minister, on 17th March on what was meant to be an unpublicised visit by the Minister. Sa’ar insisted that the denial of aid was not a form of collective punishment, or unlawful.[4]

Parallel to this diplomatic skirmish, UK concern about shadowy plans for a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) due to start aid operations at the end of May. The GHF was to be overseen by Jake Wood, a US military veteran who ran Team Rubicon, an organisation that distributed humanitarian aid during natural disasters. The organisation’s mission is essentially to replace the now banned UN Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA), as well as OCHA. Since November OCHA has been headed by Tom Fletcher, a former chief foreign policy adviser to Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and David Cameron. While Fletcher’s first few months in the job were spent firefighting the impact of US aid cuts, he soon grasped that Israel’s blockade of aid, [5]and plans for GHF, were part of a strategy to remove the entire UN presence in Gaza.[6]

Fletcher formally sounded the alarm in his speech on 13 May to the UN Security Council where he called for decisive action to “prevent a genocide” and warned members to ask themselves how they will account to future generations when it is asked of them if they truly did all they could to stop Israel’s “unashamed inhumanity”[7]

Fletcher did enter choppy waters last week with his claim on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that “14,000 babies will die in the next 48 hours under the Israeli aid blockade”.[8] This immediately triggered a firestorm from pro-Israel and some Jewish groups and social media accounts about a resurrection of the ancient antisemitic ‘blood libel’ of Jews as (originally Christian) child killers. The claim which did go viral and was cited in the House of Commons was later corrected by a UN spokesperson who stated:

We are pointing to the imperative of getting supplies in to save an estimated 14,000 babies suffering from acute malnutrition in Gaza, as, the IPC partnership (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification), has warned about. We need to get the supplies in, as soon as possible, ideally within the next 48 hours.

Earlier this month, the IPC estimated that nearly 71,000 children under the age five are expected to be “actually malnourished” over the next eleven months of which 14,100 are expected to be severe. The BBC’S Tom Bennett clarified Fletcher’s statement by contacting UNOCHA and reported that the agency:

highlighted report severe cases of acute malnutrition are expected to occur among children aged six to 59 months. The IPC report said that this could take place over the course of about a year – not 48 hours.[9]

This vignette demonstrates the harm that can be done to humanitarian causes such as the campaign to lift the blockade of Gaza by inaccurate dissemination (or nefarious spinning in the eyes of detractors) of crucial data by well-intentioned officials. The 14,000 dying babies story took on the momentary but totemic significance of the debunked tale of the 40 babies decapitated by Hamas during its bloody rampage on 7th October. Both cases caused temporary deflection from the horror and inhumanity of the crimes being perpetrated and gave ammunition to the pernicious agendas of respective atrocity deniers.

However regardless of his unfortunate but quickly retrieved misstep, events are putting Tom Fletcher on the right side of history not least today’s resignation of Jake Wood as CEO of GHF because:

it is clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence, which I will not abandon. 

Earlier, he told CNN that he “unequivocally … will not be part of anything that forcibly dislocates and displaces the Palestinian population.” [10] In this way, the intention behind the GHF operation is squarely revealed; by locating aid hubs only in Southern Gaza is meant to force population movements (again) from Northern Gaza to facilitate the IDF takeover of that part of the Gaza Strip and eventual (voluntary or forced) removal of the Gazan populace.

Whither the Future?

So, are we at an inflection point regarding how the movers and shakers and decision makers view the rogue administration of Benjamin Netanyahu and his ghastly Kahanist coalition allies; namely Bin Givr and Smotrich, and the justice and necessity of a Palestinian state? Has the worm finally turned on decades of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and brutal wars in Gaza and the steady shift towards Triple P (Populist, Polarisation and Post-Truth) governance in Israel itself? 

Netanyahu’s cynical deployment of the antisemitism/pro-Hamas card against the criticism of his war by the heads of Western governments are all too predictable examples of his faux victimhood doubling down. Thus, condemnation is not enough. Certain stars have to align in a particular constellation. Further targeted sanctions: the recognition of the State of Palestine at the Saudi-French conference on Palestine at UN Headquarters in New York and the growing opposition to the war within Israel as shown by mass protests from civil society and hostage families support groups. To build a coalition of anti-war activists from Israel and world wide and to try to take the toxicity out of the Israel-Palestine debate, I would suggest retiring the term Zionism on the grounds that it’s main objective of a Jewish homeland was achieved in 1948 or at least acknowledge that the Zionism of Israeli progressives like Fania Oz-Salzberger, Ehud Olmert, Yair Lapid and the joint Jewish-Arab anti-war movement Standing Together and the writer and blogger Shaiel Ben-Ephrain is not that of the warmongers and expansionists. Maybe it is they who can save Israel from itself.

References

[1] Patrick Wintour,Analysis. Lammy rebuke marks a turning point. The Guardian 25th May 2025

[2] Sanam Vakil Israel is under pressure. But is that enough? The Guardian 22nd May 2025

[3] Guardian, 22 May 2025, op cit

[4] Ibid

[5]

[6] Ibid

[7] Ibid

[8] Alex Griffing, BBC Presses UN Agency to Correct Viral Claim that 14,000 Babies in Gaza Will Die in the Next 48 Hours. Mediate 22nd May 2025

[9] Griffing, op cit

[10] Jeremy Diamond, Hira Hamayan and Jessie Young Head of Controversial US – backed Gaza aid group resigns citing concerns over independence and impartiality. CNN 26th May 2025

⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.
Barry Gilheany Israeli Genocide In Gaza

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