Scotfella: John Prescott: David Cameron is like a fish out of water when it comes to Gaza

Sunday 10 August 2014

John Prescott: David Cameron is like a fish out of water when it comes to Gaza

David Cameron and his wife Samantha leave the market of Aljezur, Portugal, after buying squid while on a family holiday in the are

I make no apology for writing about Gaza each week. I felt I was the only senior politician speaking out about the disproportionate killing of women and children.

When I first wrote about it, the Palestinian death toll was 1,000. Now it’s almost 2,000, with hospitals, schools and UN facilities all deemed fair game.

I received many, many emails which contained lots of the same
pre-scripted lines. One accused me of not writing this column – just signing it off!

I was also criticised by the British Jewish Board of Deputies for calling Gaza a “concentration camp”. They even wrote to my Chief Whip asking for me to be disciplined.

A week later, the Deputy Speaker of the Israeli parliament said concentration camps should be set up in Gaza. No doubt the Board of Deputies will now condemn him.

I won’t hold my breath.

People look at a crater on the ground and damaged buildings — Gaza: Eyes of world are on Cameron

But since I voiced my outrage, Nick Clegg, Paddy Ashdown and even Boris Johnson have joined me in condemning Israel. However Foreign Office minister Sayeeda Warsi’s resignation highlights David Cameron’s astoundingly poor judgment.

With Libya, Cameron supported the rebels to unseat the Government. He went to Tripoli with camera crews in tow to congratulate them for “getting rid of a dictator and choosing freedom”. Now the country has descended into anarchy and bloodshed after the rebels Cameron backed fractured into militias and started fighting among themselves.

It’s not their freedom that is threatened, it’s their lives.

Cameron then wanted us to join the US in invading Syria with the justification of removing President Assad and installing “democracy”.

If we’d have done that, we’d have been fighting on the same side of those brave defenders of Western values, ISIS – the militant jihadists who’ve seized huge swathes of Iraq and are forcing people to convert to Islam or face death!

Thank God Ed Miliband stopped him.

Now Cameron thinks we should stand up to Russia and send more troops for NATO exercises by the Russian border. If I was a cynic, I’d say this is less about confronting Putin and more about building alliances in Eastern European countries to support his hopeless plan for EU Treaty change.

The one issue on which Cameron should stand up and be counted, he’s been as quiet as a mouse.

Warsi said: “I think for me it’s morally indefensible where after four weeks of a conflict – more than a quarter of the Gazan population displaced, nearly 2,000 people killed, nearly 400 innocent children killed – we still cannot find the words to say we condemn this.”

Instead of addressing Warsi’s concerns, No 10 briefed against her, saying she left because she wanted to be Foreign Secretary and she wasn’t up to it. At least she had the guts to speak out.

Now, as the world – and even his own ministers – points a finger at Israel, Cameron prefers to point at fish for a photo shoot.

His former boss Norman Lamont once said of Major: “We give the impression of being in office but not in power.”

Cameron wanted to be seen as the heir to Tony Blair.

But his gutless lack of leadership has shown he’s actually Major Minor.