[Interview]: British Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn Reveals Where Israeli Post-Ceasefire Offensive Is Taking Palestinians

The Israeli occupation started to resume its post-ceasefire offensive on Palestinians in Gaza as the seven-day truce came to an end on Friday, Dec. 1 an hour earlier than what was initially agreed on.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken laid the blame on Hamas for the breakdown of the brief ceasefire, attributing the outbreak of aggression to the resistance group —during a time that coincided to be when the group stated that Israeli airstrikes had caused the end of that temporary halt in violence.

“It’s also important to understand why the pause came to an end. It came to an end because of Hamas. Hamas reneged on commitments it made. In fact, even before the pause came to an end, it committed an atrocious terrorist attack in Jerusalem, killing three people, wounding others, including Americans,” he said in his press statement.

“It began firing rockets before the pause had ended. And as I said, it reneged on commitments it made in terms of releasing certain hostages,” he added.

In an earlier development of events, Israel intensified its aggression in the West Bank while negotiating a potential extension of the Gaza truce. Early Tuesday morning, Israeli forces reportedly arrested more Palestinians than they released in the context of the ongoing hostage-for-prisoner swap. Even with the resistance group’s welcoming stance of extending the ceasefire and handing 105 of Israeli hostages, the situation in the West Bank adds a new layer of complexity to the broader regional dynamics.

As political figures are trying to step in and de-escalate the situation, British Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn condemned the indiscriminate bombing of Palestinians in what he called “the beginning of the total annihilation of Gaza and its people,” demanding a permanent cessation of Israeli violence in Gaza.

To speculate what the post-ceasefire period holds for the people of Palestine and what the way forward has to be, Muslim Girl founder and editor-in-chief Amani Al-Khatahtbeh sat with Corbyn and discussed the current status quo in Palestine.

AMANI AL-KHATAHTBEH: Jeremy, thank you so much for your time, and for speaking with us. So obviously, we’re resuming now post-ceasefire. All the aggression was taking place in Gaza after what already has been a complete decimation of the local civilian population. What’s your immediate reaction to this being allowed to transpire right now?

JEREMY CORBYN: I drove back from England very, very late last night, I got into London at four o’clock this morning, it was a mess-up on the trains. And then when I woke up, I turned my phone on. They restarted. 70 dead already, live footage, which I described, of municipal being bombed and angry, sad, and depressed. And we think of all those families being killed, all those children being killed. All of those people could have been teachers, could have been engineers, could have been doctors, dead. That is what is happening now. 

They say, “Remove the Palestinian population and drive them out of Gaza, into Egypt.” Well, this time, I hope the world can wake up and start saying to Israel, “No, we can’t do it,” and stop supplying Israel with the white phosphorus and all the other weapons that it’s using.

AA: I mean, in terms of the world waking up, we’re seeing unprecedented numbers of people in the streets around the world. Millions of people have been onto the streets.

JEREMY CORBYN: I’ve been involved in protest movements and demonstrations. The biggest one I’ve ever been on before was the demonstrations against the Iraq war in 2003. And I was in the demonstration in Washington, and in San Francisco, as well as the one in London — massive demonstrations. And we’re approaching those kinds of numbers now.

AA: Well, you said that Israel only responds to tremendous amounts of international pressure. As you said, it is unprecedented the amount of international pressure that we are witnessing right now. And yet, you know, it’s this audacity of continuing with their plan. What is the way forward then?

JEREMY CORBYN: The way forward has to be to make sure that the Palestinian people are not expelled from Gaza, but also for Israel’s main arms backers, and that is, Britain, France, the European Union, and particularly the United States, to say no. And what I find interesting is, and you’ll know this better than me, is across the United States, there’s more and more opposition to this war as Biden has been put under a lot of pressure on it. I just wish that those people in the U.S. Congress in the U.S. Senate, whom we normally rely on for messages of peace and opposition to war, speak and demand an end to the U.S. complicity in this bombardment.

AA: I don’t know if the U.S. is the best example since we were founded on genocide with the Native American population.

JEREMY CORBYN: Yeah. No country has a perfect history, and the U.S. certainly doesn’t any more than Britain does. And I’ve always been fascinated by U.S. history. And I just recently read a book on U.S. history from the perspective of Native Americans, which is fascinating. Data also read a lot of stuff about U.S. history from the perspective of the victims of the slave trade and slavery. So Howard Zinn is a fantastic book on the history of the USA. There is a big alternative movement in the USA, and there always has been, there has always been that dissent from the mainstream narrative. We need that dissent to become the majority.

AA: I think it’s pretty obvious in terms of the people, the majority is vastly pro-Palestine. I mean, now we’re watching them become actively pro-Palestine. As we established today during the event, this is genocide by legal definition, but the enforcement amongst political powers is severely lacking. So if we have the political pressure coming from the people, but world leaders are refusing to reflect what in America, it’s now become the majority that’s in favor of a permanent ceasefire, which is shocking.

JEREMY CORBYN: Indeed. And I think that’s interesting. I think it’s also worth remembering there are people who are very brave and have spoken out against this war in Israel: human rights campaigners, people of serious disposition have spoken out against this. My old friend, the late Uri Avnery, was a pacifist peace campaigner in Israel. Whenever this happens, I just think of him. He was originally part of the Irgun in 1948. He was part of the militants that established the State of Israel.

He later became a pacifist and later deeply regretted many things, including the way Palestinian people are treated. I remember a fascinating meeting with him in his house in Tel Aviv. He was one of those of that tradition who felt what was going on was wrong and spoke out. They’re still there. They’re not the majority I’m not saying they are. We’re not at war with the people of Israel; it is the government and army of Israel that’s at war with the people of Palestine.

AA: I’m actually very taken aback. You had mentioned the Irgun because I’m the granddaughter of survivors from the Deir Yassin massacre. And they were responsible for carrying that out in 1948 and expelling my family from their village.

JEREMY CORBYN: I’m gonna bring it up. I don’t mean to give you a hard time.

AA: No, not at all. 

JEREMY CORBYN: But the opposite; I do have to recognize—

AA: —the moment that we’re in right now. Absolutely.

JEREMY CORBYN: Yeah. So the message from London was this: “There’s a lot of us. We’re very strong and very determined. We’re very multicultural. We’re all faiths, and that. We’re not giving up. We’re not going away. We’re gonna be here as long as it takes.”

AA: Especially as a British man, do you believe that the end of Israeli occupation is inevitable? 

JEREMY CORBYN: Yes.

AA: Thank you, Jeremy. Thank you so much for your time, and your wise words.

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