Keir Starmer says Israelis were 'massacred' but Palestinians 'lost their lives'
www.middleeasteye.net
UK prime minister paid tribute to British nationals murdered by Hamas but did not acknowledge Israeli brutality

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been criticised after publishing a statement on Wednesday night which welcomed the ceasefire in Gaza but recalled the “massacre of Jewish people” while saying that Palestinians “lost their lives”.

The contrasting language used to describe Israelis and Palestinians killed in the conflict has been a constant source of scrutiny with activists arguing that the deaths of Palestinians are downplayed by media outlets and government.

Points of contention have been not mentioning the perpetrators of Palestinian deaths, which is invariably Israel, and also using the passive voice when talking about those killed.

Middle East Eye has contacted Downing Street to ask how the prime minister believed the Palestinians he referred to had died. At the the time of publication, Downing Street had not responded.

  • Zagorath@aussie.zone
    0·
    15 days ago

    Ok, but that doesn’t address the key point. He referred to the death of Israelis as a “massacre”, while referring to the far, far greater number of deaths caused by a far, far more organised and well-equipped army (in addition to the small number of Israeli deaths post–7th October) as merely “lives lost”. Why is the most well-organised genocide of the 21st century not worthy of the “massacre” moniker? Or even better, why not call it what it is: targeted genocide.

    Downplaying it by lumping it in with Israeli deaths (which works entirely against the argument you’re trying to make, btw) and saying it’s just “lives lost” is insulting to the tens of thousands of Gazans slaughtered by the Israeli genociders.

    Also: using terrorist tactics doesn’t make you the bad guys. Not when you’re doing it to overthrow oppressors. We don’t call the black South Africans during apartheid terrorists today, though there many many attacks that could deserve that moniker. The original Irish republicans from 1919 don’t get called terrorists. Nor do American revolutionaries—and the oppression they were fighting against was orders of magnitude less than what Palestinians face today. I might wish Hamas used more carefully-targeted attacks, but no one who actually thinks it through and who has basic morals can in any way end up on the side of them being the bad guys here.