Brendan O’Neill
The Spectator, Apr. 3, 2024
“What is striking about Israel’s mistake is that it is not being treated as ‘friendly fire’ at all.”
David Cameron has got some front. The Foreign Secretary is haranguing Israel over its tragic unintentional killing of seven aid workers in Gaza, and yet he oversaw a war in which such ‘friendly fire’ horrors were commonplace. In fact, more than seven people were slain in accidental bombings under Cameron’s watch.
It was the Libya intervention of 2011. In that Nato-led excursion, in which Cameron, then prime minister, was an enthusiastic partner, numerous Libyans died as a result of misaimed bombs. Things got so bad that the West’s allies took to painting the roofs of their vehicles bright pink in an effort to avoid Nato’s missiles.
In one awful incident, 13 people were slaughtered by our ‘friendly fire’. Their number included not only anti-Gaddafi rebels but also ambulance workers. It was in the wake of this calamity that the rebels got out the pink paint. ‘How to avoid friendly fire? Libya rebels try pink’, said a headline at NBC News.
Yet now Cameron is on his high horse over Israel’s bombing of trucks carrying volunteers from the World Central Kitchen. He is demanding a ‘full, transparent explanation of what happened’. Fine. Three of the dead were British nationals, so it makes perfect sense Britain wants answers. But you would think a former PM who was involved in wars in which other accidents happened would understand that ‘friendly fire’, sadly, is all but inevitable in bloody conflict.
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