Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Keir Starmer of being “on the wrong side of justice, humanity and history”, after the UK Prime Minister, together with French President Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, released a joint statement calling on Israel to end its military operation in Gaza immediately.
In a video released after the murder of two Israeli embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC, Netanyahu spoke about how the chant from the terrorist as he was taken by American police was “exactly the same chant we heard on October 7th”. Talking about Hamas, the Israeli leader described them as “Neo-Nazis”, for whom “free Palestine’ is just today’s version of ‘Heil Hitler’. They want to destroy the Jewish state. They want to annihilate the Jewish people, who have been in the Land of Israel for 3,500 years.
“I could never understand how this simple truth evades the leaders of France, Britain, Canada and others”, Netanyahu continued.
“They are now proposing to establish a Palestinian state and reward these murderers with the ultimate prize.
“You won’t be surprised to learn that Hamas thanked President Macron and Prime Ministers Starmer and Carney for demanding that Israel end its war in Gaza immediately. Hamas was right to thank them. Because by issuing their demand – replete with a threat of sanctions against Israel, against Israel, not Hamas – these three leaders effectively said they want Hamas to remain in power. They want Israel to stand down and accept that Hamas’s army of mass murderers will survive, rebuild and repeat the October 7th massacre again and again and again because that’s what Hamas has vowed to do.
“I say to President Macron, Prime Minister Carney and Prime Minister Starmer: When mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers thank you, you’re on the wrong side of justice. You’re on the wrong side of humanity and you’re on the wrong side of history.”
Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim (Credit: Embassy of Israel to the USA)
In the joint statement on Monday, Starmer, Macron and Carney said: “We call on the Israeli Government to stop its military operations in Gaza and immediately allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza”. The three leaders warned that “we will not stand by while the Netanyahu Government pursues these egregious actions. If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response.” Their statement also called on Hamas to release the remaining hostages and made clear that they supported “a long-term -political solution” which would include “ending Hamas’s control of Gaza”.
The UK also announced this week that it was suspending free-trade agreement talks with Israel, and imposed sanctions on a number of senior figures in the Israeli settler movement.
Commenting further on the joint statement by Starmer, Macron and Carney, said: “these leaders may think that they’re advancing peace. They’re not. They’re emboldening Hamas to continue fighting forever. And they give them hope to establish a second Palestinian state from which Hamas will again seek to destroy the Jewish state. And mind you, it’s not going to be a state free of Hamas. When you establish a Palestinian state, we’ve seen it, the radicals take over. Iran sends them in and they take over. So don’t give us this talk, ‘It’ll be a peaceful Palestinian state’. It won’t be.
Netanyahu also appeared to lay the blame for the Washington DC murders at the feet of Tom Fletcher, the United Nations’ Emergency Relief Coordinator. On Monday Fletcher claimed on live television that if aid was not immediately let in to Gaza “14,000 babies will die within 48 hours”. The statement was reported internationally and was cited by more than a dozen MPs in a House of Commons debate. It subsequently transpired that the claim had originated from a report which estimated that if food aid to Gaza did not resume, 14,000 young children could be at the risk of severe malnutrition over the next year.
Netanyahu referred to “Hamas’s propaganda that says Israel is starving Palestinian children. And not only is Hamas putting out this lie. A few days ago, a top UN official said that 14,000 Palestinian babies would die in 48 hours. You see many international institutions are complicit in spreading this lie. The press repeats it. The mob believed it. And a young couple is then brutally gunned down in Washington.”
The Israeli embassy identified their murdered staffers, who were shot outside an American Jewish Congress event, as Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim.
So here are the facts: Since October 7th, Israel has sent 92,000 aid trucks into Gaza. That’s right. 92,000 aid trucks. That includes 1.8 million tons of aid. 1.8 million tons of aid – more than enough food to feed everyone in Gaza. Yet as we had let the aid come in, Hamas stole it. They took a huge chunk for themselves. The rest they sold at exorbitant prices to the Palestinian population. And then they used the money they stole to recruit new terrorists to continue their war against Israel.”
Netanyahu said that Israel “has devised a mechanism to achieve this goal. American companies will distribute the food directly to Palestinian families. They’ll do so in safe zones secured by our military. And this will allow us to complete our goal of destroying Hamas while enabling aid to reach the civilian population. We’ll complete the construction of the first distribution zones in the coming days. Ultimately, we intend to have large safe zones in the south of Gaza. The Palestinian population will move there for their own safety, while we conduct combat in other zones, and receive humanitarian aid there without Hamas interference. In the meantime, we authorized letting trucks enter Gaza to provide for immediate needs.
“Yesterday I think 100, more than 100 trucks went in. More will come in today. I tell you this: no army in the world has ever gone to such lengths to provide aid to the civilian population in the midst of intense combat.”
Responding to news of the Washington murders yesterday, Starmer said that he “thoroughly condemn[ed] the antisemitic attack outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC.
“Antisemitism is an evil we must stamp out wherever it appears. My thoughts are with their colleagues, family and loved ones, and, as always, I stand in solidarity with the Jewish community.”
