Tag Archives: yemen

Tory Minister heckled in Coventry over arms sales to Israel

Posted on by symonhill

Security Minister Tom Tugendhat was heckled about arms sales to Israel and Saudi Arabia when he visited the famously anti-Tory city of Coventry yesterday.

Local mother and Christian campaigner Angela Ditchfield was forcibly removed from the building after accusing the UK government of “starving children in the UK and in Palestine”.

Tugendhat responded to the woman in front of him by telling her that she should not be protesting on International Women’s Day. He then spoke about Hamas’ rape and murder of Israeli women, implying that Angela Ditchfield supports Hamas. She does not.

She wished him, “Happy International Women’s Day” before challenging him about women burying their own children in Gaza. He did not respond.

Tugendhat was there to speak about community cohesion – a bizarre subject from a government that is continuously stirring up division. Tugendhat’s Tories have worked relentlessly over their 14 years in government to dismantle the public services and welfare state that are so vital for keeping society together.

As Security Minister, Tugendhat shares responsibility for the UK government’s militaristic policies as well as their repeated attempts to use issues of security to suppress rights to peaceful protest.

Last November, Tugendhat claimed untruthfully that anti-war campaigners were planning to protest near the Cenotaph on Armistice Day. Along with similar comments from other ministers, he stirred up an atmosphere that saw far-right activists turn up to “protect the Cenotaph” and fight with police. In reality, the anti-war march started in a different part of central London several hours later. So much for community cohesion.

Shortly before she stood up to challenge the minister, Angela sent me a message about her reasons for doing so. Her own words express her pain and sadness over the impact of the government’s policies.

This is what Angela said:

This week, we have gathered to hear the minister talk about how to build community cohesion and resilience – a very important topic.

We’ve seen senior Conservative and Labour politicians agree about many policies recently. Can we celebrate that unity?

Ministers have agreed to keep selling weapons to a regime ripping apart every aspect of social fabric in Palestine.

The UK continues to sell weapons to Israel as it bombs churches, mosques, hospitals, schools, universities and whole neighbourhoods full of homes. And now starving people going to an aid truck.

Both parties have agreed to leave poor children hungry in the UK, and cut funding to those feeding starving children in Gaza. 

If we want cohesion and security, we must reinstate funding to the UN in Palestine, and also feed children here.

Tom’s statement celebrates food banks and warm spaces run by churches – as though it’s ok that old people cannot afford to heat their homes and eat, due to government refusal to invest in house insulation and renewable energy.

Still, at least our elderly are not being bombed or seeing their grandchildren massacred.

The government must stop selling weapons to Israel and push for an immediate ceasefire. 

And not just a ceasefire.

If we want security and community, we must call for an end to apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

We must call for a release of the hostages and political prisoners on both sides.

There is a stitch-up of UK democracy between the two main parties. Most of us live in places where our vote doesn’t count, and the MPs supposed to represent us have been told to ignore us if we don’t like genocide or extinction.

Community cohesion has to include talking about refugees and other migrants as human beings, with respect and compassion.

It has to include not demonising anyone who cares about a genocide in Palestine, or about the potential extinction of the human race.

It has to include not stirring up hate against Muslims.

And if we want security for the UK, we need to stop trying to bomb the rest of the world into submission – we must stop bombing Yemen.

We must stop supporting the apartheid regime that is Israel, and call for peace and justice for all in the Holy Land.

Justin Welby conflates submission to the state with the service of God

Posted on by symonhill

The Archbishop of Canterbury has used his New Year’s Day message to promote militarism and armed force even while Palestinian Christians continue to criticise his position on Gaza and Israel.

Justin Welby’s message comes only days after two Christian pacifists were arrested for pouring fake blood on the gates of Downing Street in protest at the UK government’s complicity in genocide in Gaza.

There are times when I gladly defend Justin Welby. I think he does a better job than many Archbishops of Canterbury have done – though I admit that’s a low bar. He has spoken out about poverty and the rights of refugees. Sadly, when it comes to armed force and monarchy, he is fully in tune with the values of the establishment.

Welby began his New Year message by talking about Charles Windsor’s coronation last year. He said that “our” military were at “the centre of the celebrations”.

This of course is true – monarchy has always been closely tied to militarism. However, Welby claims that the armed forces had such a major role because:

“… they, like many, many others in the country, embodied the theme of the coronation: service”.

Membership of the armed forces is often spoken of in terms of “military service”. The question that Welby did not address was who or what the armed forces are serving.

In a tweet yesterday, Welby went so far as to apparently equate military service with the sacrificial life of Jesus. He wrote:

“Going to @RAFBrizeNorton to film my New Year Message, I met servicemen and women there who embody the spirit of service, following the example of Jesus, who came ‘not to be served, but to serve’ (Matthew 20,28).”

This equation of two very different lifestyles is both outrageous and dangerous. Jesus embodied nonviolent resistance – even in the face of the brutal Roman Empire, which he mocked, challenged and resisted but did not take up arms against.

Whatever view you take of the ethics of violence, it is surely obvious that not everyone who is dedicated to “service” is serving the same person or the same thing. But early in his New Year message, Welby said:

“They [armed forces personnel] promised to be faithful, and to observe and obey all orders.. .Forces personnel are living out that oath every day.”

This is surely different to Jesus’ example of serving God and his neighbours. Members of the armed forces are obliged to obey orders given in the monarch’s name by their officers and NCOs.

However well-intentioned individual armed forces personnel may be (and I don’t doubt that many of them are), they are required to serve the state, not God or humanity. They must obey orders without reference to their own conscience or faith. Recent years have seen a string of British armed forces personnel imprisoned for refusing orders that go against their conscience. Examples include Michael Lyons, Joe Glenton and Malcolm Kendall-Smith.

I don’t for a moment claim to be a better Christian than those Christians who join the armed forces. I frequently fail to follow Jesus’ teachings, to love my neighbour as myself and to seek God’s guidance. I cannot begin to understand how seeking to follow Jesus is any way compatible with joining an organisation – any organisation – whose members are required to obey orders without question, for no authority should trump our loyalty to the Kingdom of God.

The rest of Welby’s four-and-a-half-minute message is little more than a puff piece for the UK armed forces. The archbishop rightly champions their work providing humanitarian relief, but fails to point out that this is not their central purpose or to ask why this cannot be done by a civilian force. In an outrageously misleading moment, Welby claimed that British troops are:

“…supporting civilians in the midst of conflict, in places like the Middle East”.

Welby must surely know that UK armed forces provide military training and support to the forces of countries such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, which are engaged in the systematic killing of civilians (in Palestine and in Yemen respectively).

Far from supporting civilians in the Middle East, the UK government’s troops are complicit in the killing of civilians in the Middle East.

Thankfully, Welby spoke about “the human cost of war”. He added:

“Jesus Christ tells us to stand with those suffering because of war, and to seek to make peace. And we trust in God, who promises peace with justice.”

I agree with Welby on that one. That’s precisely why I cannot share his enthusiasm for an organisation that does not make peace but perpetuates and justifies war.

The archbishop seems to be conflating service of God with service of the state and the monarch.

Welby’s words are likely to cause further dismay for Palestinian Christians, who have been highly critical of the failure of the leaders of many western churches – including the Church of England – to call for an immediate ceasefire and to condemn genocide in Gaza. Many church leaders have rightly condemned Hamas’ vile attack on Israeli civilians on 7 October, but have waffled or made excuses instead of condemning Israeli forces’ equally vile killing of Palestinian civilians.

Munther Isaac, a Lutheran pastor in Bethlehem, challenged church leaders internationally in his Christmas sermon, accusing them of providing “theological cover” for genocide and thus “compromising the credibility of our gospel message”. He insists that “Jesus is under the rubble in Gaza”.

Three days before Welby’s New Year message was broadcast, two British Christians were arrested in Downing Street. Virginia Moffatt and Chris Cole poured fake blood over the gates in protest against the UK government’s military and political support for Israeli forces. They were arrested.

I have been honoured to campaign alongside Virginia and Chris in the past. As it happens, they are both Catholics. They frequently act alongside other Christian pacifists from different traditions, as well as with many other war resisters of various faiths and none. If Jesus is under the rubble in Gaza, then Virginia and Chris were acting in solidarity with him.

The archbishop’s New Year message and the nonviolent action at the gates of Downing Street provide two very different examples of British Christian responses to war. I know which one of them reminds me more of Jesus and the prophets.