Former PM Barrow Condemns Israel’s Actions in Middle East

Dean Barrow

Former Prime Minister Dean Barrow has joined other past foreign ministers in condemning the actions of Israel in the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.  Following the deadly attack on Israel on October seventh, there has been a sustained bombing campaign and ground offensive carried out by the Israeli Defense Force against Hamas fighters, as well as Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.  Foreign Minister Eamon Courtenay has issued a statement against Israel, so have former foreign ministers Said Musa, Assad Shoman and Godfrey Smith.  News Five spoke with Barrow and asked him for a comment on the Israel/Hamas conflict.

Dean Barrow, Former Prime Minister

“What Hamas did was very wrong.  In fact, I certainly will not disagree with those that say that in killing civilians, in consequence of Hamas’ incursion into Israel, in taking civilians hostage, Hamas went too far.  They certainly committed atrocities that, in my view, violate the rules of war.  Of course, the Secretary General of the United Nations said that while it was wrong and terribly wrong, you’ve got to understand that it didn’t happen in a vacuum. What Israel has done in retaliation, exercising their supposed right of self-defense is absolutely genocidal.  There is no way to escape the fact that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians.  The huge proportion of the dead which if you listen to certainly the Palestinian or the Gaza health authority, that number exceeds ten thousand.  The vast majority are women and children, and even though the vast majority of the international community is calling for, alternatively, a full ceasefire, which is the position I certainly take, or at least a pause or pauses halts in the Israeli bombing campaign, in the Israeli ground assault on Gaza so that aid can be sent to an utterly besieged cutoff, completely oppressed Palestinian people.  Israel absolutely refuses to listen to anyone.  I think that anybody with an ounce of humanity, not just humanitarianism, of humanity, that cannot see their way to condemning Israel to make clear that they ought to be held to account for war crimes, in the same way as Hamas, for what they did.”