Letters to the press: Arab Israeli conflict

Israeli attacks on Gaza
It is becoming clearer all the time that the Israeli army has perpetrated numerous war crimes in the course of the last three weeks. In the case of the village of Khuza'a in southern Gaza they conducted a 12-hour siege in which, residents claim,
• they attempted to bulldoze houses with civilians inside
• killed civilians trying to escape under the protection of white flags
• opened fire on an ambulance attempting to reach the wounded
• used indiscriminate force in a civilian area and fired white phosphorus shells.
You will all know of other examples.

Also, the "cease-fire" called by Israel does not seem to prevent it continuing to drop phosphorus bombs, fire shells and shoot civilian Palestinians dead. Further information from Maannews.

Israel is maintaining its blockade of Gaza and the various governments supposedly anxious to establish a lasting cease-fire have nothing to say about this; they talk only of ensuring that Hamas is unable to smuggle in arms. This approach is doomed to failure, as have all previous efforts to crush the Palestinian people's resistance to the slow genocide imposed on them by Israel's illegal action.

Israel's unrestrained assault on a helpless, caged and deliberately impoverished civilian population has been an abject failure but the likelihood of its having learned anything is well-nigh zero. It seems absolutely set on continuing with its unrelenting oppression, its vicious, insane collective punishment of a whole people.

There has been a wave of revulsion to the carnage and wanton destruction of the last three weeks around the world, shown in countless demonstrations. There has also been a wave of cancellations of orders for Israeli goods, chiefly from Scandinavian countries initially, and from Jordan. This is a step that should be supported: the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign is a practical way of opposing Israel's flagrant breaches of international humanitarian and other law.

It would be a grave mistake to imagine that the cease-fire means that the people of Gaza and of the other Occupied Territories do not need continued support. Rather the horrors of recent weeks should make us intensify our efforts on their behalf, both in the BDS campaign and in relentlessly pressuring the Government to change its pro-Israel stance.

Jim McGinley January 2009

Time for sanctions against Israel
Israel's hugely disproportionate response to the kidnapping of one soldier - the killing of at least 60 Palestinians, the destruction of bridges and power plants as well as orchards and crops, the detention of members of the Palestinian cabinet, the bombing and shelling of government buildings as well as the houses of civilians - amounts to a series of war crimes. Israel is holding 9,600 Palestinian political prisoners, more than half of them without trial and almost 400 of whom are children and it is against that background that we must view the capture of Israeli soldiers. Today we have a blockade of Lebanon in response to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers. The actions of the Israeli government are clearly in breach of international law. It is time for outright condemnation from the British government and for immediate sanctions from the international community.

Jim McGinley
Green Party (Wirral)
May 2006