It seems the UK trains killers and supplies weapons with no regard for the humanitarian consequences.
The toxic situation (by which I mean the continuing mega-slaughter of innocents) surrounding the Saudi crown prince’s royal welcome to London will have reminded many of the Vietnam-era chant of peace activists in response to the lies and blunders and excuses at that time: “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?”
This was borrowed and amended in 2006 to “Peretz, Halutz, hey hey hey! How many kids did you kill today?” by Israeli peace activists demonstrating outside the home of IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz. Peretz was the Israeli Defence Minister.
On the night of July 23, 2002 Halutz ordered a one-ton bomb to be dropped on an apartment building in a densely populated residential area of Gaza as part of Israel’s assassination or ‘targeted killings’ programme. It was the home of senior Hamas commander Salah Shahade and his wife and family. They and 7 members of the family next door and a dozen more civilians were killed, mostly children. Eight other houses were destroyed and up to 150 people injured. As a result 27 Israeli pilots signed a letter of protest refusing to fly assassination missions over Gaza and the West Bank.
Prime minister Ariel Sharon called the operation to execute Shahade, his wife and kids and neighbours, and many more non-combatants, a success. But human rights organizations said that dropping a one-ton bomb in the…