JJP eaction letter to MPs

Eaction letter to MPs

On 11 December 2024, the JJP Executive asked signatories and supporters to write to their MPs about the continuing, horrific situation in Gaza and Lebanon.

The letter is below:

Dear

I’m writing to you as a Jewish resident of your constituency.

I’m horrified by Israel’s ongoing onslaught against Gaza and Lebanon and by its ever-increasing oppression of the Palestinians of the West Bank. Its massively increasing levels of destruction and deliberate and illegal ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza is, like its other attacks, an affront to humanity. Here are two important articles (including one by an Israeli journalist) about that utterly appalling current ethnic cleansing operation:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/12/israel-northern-gaza-palestinians-annexation-settlers
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/14/israel-accused-of-crimes-against-humanity-over-forced-displacement-in-gaza

But I’m also horrified by the UK government’s tragic refusal to take sufficient robust action to at least try to help restrain the Israeli government.

Like every other country, Israel of course has a right to self-defence – but its destruction of Gaza and its people go massively beyond legitimate self-defence. So far, Israel has slaughtered well over 44,000 people in Gaza (including more than 13,000 children), has injured or maimed over 105,000 people, has displaced almost two million people – and has destroyed or severely damaged more than 80 percent of Gaza’s residential buildings and infrastructure.

Israel is deliberately driving tens of thousands of civilians from their homes with the stated, illegal intention of never allowing them to return. It is a deliberate land grab that the UK’s Prime minister (and all party leaders and all MPs) should be condemning in the strongest terms. Israel is also obstructing the flow of humanitarian aid – and thousands of people are now suffering from malnutrition. Scores have so far died of starvation. It is clear that Israel has been committing (and continues to commit) war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

More than 3,000 Lebanese have been killed in a little more than two months.

I would therefore like to ask you to do a number of things:

(1) Please draw my concerns to the attention of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary

(2) Please also consider robustly advocating for them in Parliament (including asking relevant PQ’s etc and issuing public statements to local and other media – and on your website).

(3) Please also draw my concerns to the attention of key members of your party’s leadership.

I believe that Israel’s appalling conduct is not only terrible for Palestinians and Israelis, but is also dangerous for peace and stability. I also believe that Israel’s conduct grotesquely violates several of the Ten Commandments and is therefore harmful to Judaism.

The rules-based international order Is being increasingly and very dangerously undermined in several parts of our world. That is bad news for Britain. Especially in the Israel/Palestine conflict, the British government is sadly failing to use all the economic, trade, financial, regulatory, diplomatic and geopolitical levers it should be robustly deploying to try to help ensure that international law is respected. Maximum pressure should be brought to bear on the UK government to ensure that all those levers are rapidly deployed.

As the former colonial power and as a long-term supporter of Israel, our country and its government have a moral duty to do absolutely everything in our power to stop Israel from continuing with its war, its illegal ethnic cleansing and its appalling oppression of the Palestinian people. Creating ever-increasing levels of hatred is not in Israel’s interest or in the world’s.

There should be an immediate unconditional cessation of Israel’s appalling attacks against its Palestinian and other neighbours.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Your sincerely,