The “Terror of War”, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph, is one of the most memorable images of the 20th Century.
Taken in 1972, it captures a terrified 9-year-old girl, unclothed and screaming in agony, having suffered severe injuries from napalm bombs in Vietnam.
That young girl, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, said later: “Napalm is the most terrible pain you can imagine. Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. Napalm generates temperatures of 800 to 1,200 degrees Celsius.”
Napalm, the jellied gasoline concoction, clings to human skin on contact and melts off flesh.
Those who have witnessed its impact have described eyelids so burned that they could not be shut and flesh that looked like swollen, raw meat.
Today, another image haunts the world. It captures 19-year-old Sha’ban al-Daloubeing burnt to death in a hospital tent while connected to an IV drip.
The promising software engineering student helplessly waved his arms, engulfed in flames from an Israeli air strike on the Al Aqsa Hospital compound in northern Gaza.
Displaced five times since October last year, he was desperate to escape Gaza, pleading with the world to save his family. While Phan Thi Kim Phuc survived, al-Dalou did not survive. The world watched him burn to death.
Al-Dalou’s mother, Ala’a Abdel Nasser al-Dalou, was also killed in the Israeli bombardment. And three days ago, his 10-year-old brother, Abdul Ruhman, succumbed to his injuries from the fire and died.
There are thousands of horrific images coming out of Gaza, depicting the death and destruction that Palestinians have faced. As their genocide is live-streamed to the world, millions have reacted with indignation. Our political class, however, only shows indifference.
Footage of Sha’ban al-Dalou’s killing was projected onto the Houses of Parliament last week by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
The group linked Al Dalou’s murder, and those of at least 42,000 other Palestinians in Gaza, to the UK’s continued political, diplomatic and military support of Israel, despite it conducting what the International Court of Justice has found to be a plausible case of genocide.
In the past week, the Israeli military has killed hundreds of Palestinians in Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, as it seeks to ethnically cleanse Northern Gaza. Aided and abetted by the British Government, its onslaught has extended to Lebanon where at least 2,500 people have been killed.
Despite these repeated massacres, the British government has suspended just 10 percent of arms licences to Israel. Most alarmingly, it has refused to halt indirect exports to Israel of components for the F-35 combat aircraft, known to have been used to massacre civilians in Gaza.
Once again, our government is behind the curve on this issue and an outlier on the world stage. French President Emmanuel Macron has called for a halt on arms sales to Israel while Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni last week said that her country had blocked all new arms sales to Israel shortly after it began its assault on Gaza last October.
But the British Government does not speak for the British people. Polls have shown sustained public support for a ceasefire and the suspension of UK arms sales to Israel. A recent poll found 58 percent of the British public supported a full arms ban on Israel with only 18 percent opposed, and 74 percent of the British public support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
This is not the first time Labour has got it wrong on Gaza. The party was painstakingly slow in supporting calls for a ceasefire, with Keir Starmer also courting heavy controversy for publicly stating that Israel was justified in cutting water and electricity supplies to Palestinian civilians.
It is notable that the biggest parliamentary rebellion that Keir Starmer has faced from his own MPs has been on this very issue. In November last year, 56 Labour MPs — a quarter of the parliamentary Labour Party at the time — went against a three-line whip to vote for a ceasefire leading to the resignations of 10 frontbench MPs. This rebellion would not have come about without the emergence of a mass movement in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Such a movement has organised over 20 national demonstrations since October last year and put Labour MPs in communities across the country under significant pressure. Over 100 Labour councillors left the party over the issue and its position on Gaza contributed to the party’s loss of control of Burnley, Oxford, Norwich and Hastings councils.
And, of course, many Labour MPs were punished by voters at the general election. From Bethnal Green and Bow to Bradford West, former safe seats became marginals overnight as independent candidates highlighted the party’s awful position on Gaza.
One of the most high-profile casualties was Shadow Cabinet Minister Jonathan Ashworth who lost his Leicester South seat to Independent candidate Shockat Adam.
In Ilford North, Leanne Mohamad, a young Palestinian woman, was just 528 votes away from unseating our current Health Secretary Wes Streeting.
In Birmingham Ladywood, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood lost around 18,000 votes. Labour didn’t just lose votes in traditional strongholds. It lost loyal party members with extended family networks, capable of getting the vote out in communities across the country.
Despite these results, it appears few lessons have been learnt on the Labour benches.
When Labour MPs were asked why they refused to vote for a ceasefire last year, the common refrain was that Labour was not in power and that anger should be directed towards the government. Now Labour is in government and refuses to act.
Those calling for a full and immediate arms embargo are few and far between. With no general election likely for the next four years, a sense of complacency has set in.
But the party would do well to remember that it won the election with just 34% of the vote and faces multiple opponents going into the next election.
Labour’s popularity continues to plummet, with Keir Starmer recording a 45% drop in popularity since the election a few months ago.
And it could plummet even further if Labour continues to abandon its core voter base. A movement capable of bringing 800,000 onto the streets is not a movement that will dissipate anytime soon.
That Labour faced such electoral difficulties in traditional strongholds even in an election where it won a landslide demonstrates the vulnerabilities it faces going forward. The next election certainly won’t be a walk in the park.
Beyond electoral considerations, ending government complicity in genocide should be a moral imperative for any party framing itself as ‘progressive’ and ‘internationalist’.
I wonder how many Members of Parliament have seen that horrific image of Shaban Al-Dalou being burnt to death. How many remember 6-year-old Hind Rajab, whose desperate cry for help continues to haunt me? “I’m so scared, please come. Come take me. Please, will you come?” she desperately pleaded as she was killed by the IDF, surrounded by dead family members in a car.
The reality is this: our political class are not and will not be moved by the barbarity being inflicted on the Palestinian people. Their utter disdain for the lives of Palestinians has been on open display for a very long time.
But history teaches us that when those in power fail us, we can use our strength in numbers to demand change. Just as millions stood against the Vietnam War and apartheid regime in South Africa, millions more continue to stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine and Lebanon.
Our elected representatives would do well to remember that it is our communities that send MPs to Westminster, not Westminster that sends them to our communities. We will remember Shaban al-Dalou, Hind Rajab and the tens of thousands of Palestinians whose lives have been cut short. We will remember the silence from those who had the power to act. And we will do everything we can to bring about an end to the genocide of the Palestinian people — with or without our political class.
Source: The New Arab
