Writing a column for the local newspaper, the daily Plymouth Herald being part of the Daily Mirror group nationally, has been a valuable opportunity for left wing commentary in an otherwise Establishment tabloid. I’ve attempted to be forthright whist recognising there are boundaries. and in any case, the Editor has been clinical with his knife, sure to cut out anything “too political” whatever that means. This week my article was refused. in discussion, it was considered unbalanced and too upsetting for some readers to access. I had no column this week.

The horror unfolding in Gaza has to be sanitised before publication, it would appear. Given the outrageous lies being printed on front pages everywhere, for example the accusation that Palestinian fighters chopped off the heads of Israeli babies (much as was accused of the Germans in the first world war – eating babies, or of Saddam Hussein’s army in Kuwait turning off babies incubators), now being backtracked from in the absence of there being no evidence whatsoever.

I have no control over what is published. But I shall protest in public. I doubt that any normal news service will be resumed anytime soon. The photo below is of this week’s headlines, without apology or refusal to print by Editors devoid of morals or journalistic standards.

The Trades Union Congress met in September this year and voted, by the democratic tradition of representatives with hands up in proportion to the number of members of their organisation, to support the Boycott of, Disinvestment from, and Sanction against the Israeli State. The acronym of which is BDS – an international call for the human rights of Palestinians.

The trade union position is the latest in a long history of support for the Palestinians, not from any antisemitic stance – we abhor and challenge all antisemitism as we do all facets of racism. 

Trade unions have an ancient history of fighting for freedom, justice, human rights and internationalism. We are based upon values of fairness and exist to protect and expand the wellbeing of the exploited and oppressed, the world’s working classes, those not born into wealth and privilege.

This has to include the understanding that political power is concentrated in the hands of a class of humanity that furthers its own aims at the expense of all others. When we discuss democracy it has to be in that context – what checks and balances are in place to allow challenge and defeat of oppressive governments and totalitarian control?

For Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank there are none. Part of their nation, not an empty desert but a society with towns and houses and cars and infrastructure, was taken away from them in 1948 and declared as the Israeli State. Since then, in 1967 further military incursions ensured Israel grew to four times its original size by seizing more land, and in 1973 that was expanded further.

To a point where, whilst 400,000 Palestinians were expelled from their birth homes and expunged of their birthrights in the beginning, today some there are 6 million Palestinians displaced from their homes with no right of return.

The Gaza Strip, home to over two million Palestinians, is surrounded by soldiers and artillery, controlled in all matters of life and livelihood, identified by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty international and others as an open prison. 

The United Nations has, since its first decision by Resolution 242 in 1973, called repeatedly and overwhelmingly for the Palestinian Territories occupied by Israel since then to be returned to Palestinian control. Instead, the Israeli State has expanded further through force, taking land, water and resources to settle its supporters and push Palestinians into enclaves without rights or hope.

In any debate about humanity, this has to be unacceptable.

The scenes of death and destruction are both horrific and familiar. Just this year the daily death toll from Israeli forces into Palestinian towns has been recorded as at least one per day – that’s almost 260 so far this year, mostly civilian. With more than half the Palestinian population under 18 years of age, due in part to the harsh living conditions and lack of resources – some 50% living in absolute poverty, the Palestinians overwhelmingly reliant on international aid – a high proportion of deaths are children.

Israeli forces have the right, enshrined in law, to enter any Palestinian household and remove people into detention, without stating the reason, for an initial period of 6 months and with power to detain indefinitely. That is total military control.

Israel’s far-right government, by their own words the most racist, fundamentalist and fanatic ever, has been ruthlessly escalating its ethnic cleansing, siege, killings, incarceration, and daily humiliation of millions of Indigenous Palestinians.

Last weekend we saw home made paragliders fly into Israeli-occupied land (still recognised as Palestinian land by the United nations and international law) carrying a man with a machine gun in a statement of defiance. This, in sharp contrast to the usual sight of fighter planes over Gaza, bombing sites identified by military drones, an omnipresent top-down occurrence above this open prison.

The world has made so many statements in support of Palestine yet is doing nothing to stop the violence. Not just this week’s violence but the violence perpetrated against the Palestinian people for 75 years. 

Gaza, a heavily populated area smaller than London, is now besieged, already without electricity, water or adequate health facilities, and being bombed by the most advanced weaponry on the Planet. A ground force of trained soldiers is about to enter and occupy some of the most poor civilian streets and homes in the world.

What can be done? Demand a ceasefire, now. But also demand the end to the oppression and violence from a very wealthy military state against a people devoid of any control of their own livelihoods and lives.

We call for the boycotting of Israeli goods, the divestment of funds of banks and pension funds from Israeli businesses, and the impositions of sanctions of all governments against Israel, including withdrawing all military aid, until the basic human rights of Palestinians are restored.