‘Turning A Blind Eye to Gaza is the Fatal Flaw in Starmer’s European Alternative to the Trump-Putin Axis’

If European leaders are to build a broad resistance to ‘America First’ aggression on the world stage, they must bring Palestine into equal focus with Ukraine, writes Martin Shaw

As UK and EU leaders attempt to find their bearings in the wake of the second Donald Trump ­administration, there is one point on which many agree: Ukraine cannot be sacrificed to Vladimir Putin. The other point on which, implicitly, most appear to agree is that Gaza can be sacrificed to Israel’s Trump-endorsed genocidal war.

A decade ago, when still a lawyer, Keir Starmer appeared before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to argue Croatia’s genocide case against Serbia, describing the 1991 destruction of the city of Vukovar, in which more than 1,000 civilians died, in terms that clearly fit the much greater destruction of Gaza today. “Not an armed conflict directed at military objectives, but a radically disproportionate attack, ­deliberately intended to devastate the town and its civilian population”, he said.

As Labour Leader in 2021, Starmer tweeted that “genocide can never be met with indifference, ­impunity or inaction”.

As Prime Minister, in a speech on this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day in January, he said “it is on all of us to make ‘never again’ mean what it says: never again”.