A news item in Dawn’s issue of Oct 13 wasn’t really needed. It informed the readers that Britain had decided to send two naval ships and surveillance aircraft to the eastern Mediterranean to “support Israel and regional stability”.

As history tells us, if there is any country that is solely and unequivocally responsible for the slaughter that is going on in Gaza, it is Britain.

By issuing the Balfour Declaration and handing over Palestine to the Jewish minority, Britain paved the way for the massacre happening now and has been ongoing since 1917, not just in the “Eastern Mediterranean” but also between the “river and the sea”, for that is how the Palestinians identify their country — from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean.

Read the full op-ed by Muhammad Ali Siddiqi here