KEIR Starmer has been called out for his continued denial of a genocide in Gaza after a video of him arguing genocide had taken place in Croatia in 1991 re-emerged.
In 2014, Starmer was part of a group of international lawyers who attempted to argue at the International Court of Justice that the Serbian siege of Vukovar constituted a genocide.
A video clip of a segment of his argument has re-emerged on social media, with people expressing disbelief over it given he stood in the House of Commons last week and denied a genocide was taking place in Gaza.
In response to a question from MP Ayoub Khan in the Commons about atrocities being committed in Gaza, Starmer said: “I'm well aware of the definition of genocide, and that is why I've never described this as and referred to it as genocide.”
It came after Foreign Secretary David Lammy claimed that the term genocide referred to “when millions of people lost their lives in crises like Rwanda, the Second World War in the Holocaust” and that using it to describe Gaza “now undermines [its] seriousness”.
Last week, Middle East expert Richard McNeil-Willson told The National Starmer and Lammy are engaging in an “incredibly dangerous” approach in not only denying genocide but attempting to “redefine the nature of what genocide is”.
He said the clip from 2014 of Starmer talking about Vukovar shows the scale of the “cynical hypocrisy” the Labour Party are currently engaged in on Gaza.
He said: “The statements made by Keir Starmer over the bombardment of Vukovar to the ICJ in 2014 highlight the scale of cynical hypocrisy in which the Labour Party is currently engaged, in trying to rewrite the definition of genocide to avoid its use in relation to Israeli crimes in Gaza and beyond.
“Starmer clearly and unequivocally condemns the killing of 1100 in Vukovar in statements made just a decade ago - the ruination of family homes, the targeting of electricity, water and sewage systems and the destruction of the cultural fabric of Vukovar through the shelling of religious buildings, schools, kindergartens and public buildings.
Listen to @Keir_Starmer make a case of why the attack on Vukovar (Croatia) was GEN0ClDE. You can LITERALLY replace Vukovar with #Gaza in his address and make the same case... ..except of course the damage, death & destruction in Gaza has been far worse!pic.twitter.com/x5MYQScT25
— Niz (@NizMhani) November 17, 2024
“That Starmer is unwilling to extend even a fraction of this condemnation to the killing of (at conservative estimates) several tens of thousands of Palestinians, the flattening of over half of Gaza’s homes, the displacement of 1.7 million people, and the irrevocable destruction of the fabric of Palestinian cultural life through the deliberate destruction of schools, universities, churches, mosques, national archives and public buildings is representative of the moral descent of the Labour Party into genocide complicity.”
The Yugoslav People’s Army launched a full-blown attack on Vukovar in the autumn of 1991, a siege that would last for 86 days and leave thousands of soldiers and civilians dead.
“Listen to Keir Starmer make the case of why the attack on Vukovar (Croatia) was a genocide,” he said on Twitter/X.
“You can literally replace Vukovar with Gaza in his address and make the same case…except of course the damage, death and destruction in Gaza has been far worse.
“The fact of the matter is that Keir Starmer & David Lammy know that what is happening in Gaza is genocidal... but they cant say this for fear of upsetting the Israeli lobby.”
In the clip, Starmer details the “extensive” loss of life in Vukovar, with only 1000 out of 9000 family homes left standing.
He tells of how essential services including electricity and water “all failed” while the fabric of Vukovar’s “cultural, historic and religious life was destroyed”.
He goes on: “Video footage taken at the time depicts a landscape of burnt-out cars, buildings reduced to rubble. Every house had suffered damage.
“The predominantly residential area south of the river Vuka was flattened and countless bodies lay in these streets and yards unburied because of the danger from shelling to anybody who ventured out.
“These findings reveal not an armed conflict directed at military objectives, but a radically disproportionate attack, deliberately intended to devastate the town and its civilian population.”
Starmer entered the world of politics not long after making this case, becoming the Labour MP for Holborn and St Pancras in 2015.
