By Sadiq Khan, Labour MP for Tooting (THE GUARDIAN, 29/07/06):
As I speak to my constituents in Tooting and people elsewhere in London, of all faiths, races and backgrounds, I hear views that are almost identical: "This is worse than Iraq." It is not easy for Muslims to watch, every night, TV pictures of the destruction that Israel has wreaked in Lebanon. We find it difficult to understand why our government has steadfastly supported the US in giving a green light to Israel, allowing the killing to continue.
I recently took part in a televised appeal for donations to help victims of the attacks. Callers found it difficult to understand why we couldn't avert this man-made humanitarian crisis, and even more difficult to argue against those who bundle Iraq and Lebanon together to denounce British foreign policy in the Middle East. It is also difficult to understand why Tony Blair, who led the way on Africa last year, appears to have lost his way on the Middle East. British foreign policy is not anti-Muslim, but that is, increasingly, a challenging argument to make.
In the past two weeks Hizbullah has killed dozens of innocent civilians in Israel. At the same time Israel has killed around 10 times as many in Lebanon, and forced a fifth of its population to flee their homes.
One principle separates a sensible and humane response to terror from a policy that simply feeds a cycle of violence. That principle is that military attacks, whatever their justified purpose, should never cause disproportionate harm to civilians. That is what the Geneva conventions and international humanitarian law are all about.
On Tuesday, the 14th day of this dreadful conflict, I attended a meeting in the House of Commons with a number of international lawyers. They had no doubt that Israel's attacks, on such a huge scale, were a clear violation of international law. The UN has said the same. They also suggested that the UK's tacit support for Israel's campaign raised painful questions about the legality of Britain's own policy. And we have since learned that Prestwick airport has been used as a stopover for aircraft carrying bombs to Israel.
Since 9/11 British foreign policy has failed to stand up against an increasing trend to brutal, and usually ineffective, counterinsurgency around the world. This is unfortunate because, as in Lebanon, the UK could play a more useful role. Moreover, if it doesn't then Labour could lose more supporters than it lost over the government's decision to go to war in Iraq.
The Labour government in the past has played a far more honourable role. It has seen that Britain can gain from a safer world, not just from promoting a narrow national self-interest. The prime minister in particular has long argued that the international community has a "responsibility to protect" people threatened by genocide and war crimes around the world. Last year he helped win the UN's agreement on this point. Labour said it would never turn its back on "another Rwanda".
Lebanon is not "another Rwanda" but Israel, like Hizbullah, is committing war crimes in Lebanon. And what is Britain doing to protect the victims of these war crimes? What happened to Britain's responsibility to protect them?
The people being killed happen to be mainly Muslims. But that is not the point. The point is that war crimes should be condemned no matter who commits them, or whom they are committed against, and whether they are committed in the name of some evil racism or a misplaced sense of what will defeat terrorism. If British foreign policy cannot command greater respect among its own citizens, what chance is there in the Middle East?