JJP lobbies the Foreign Office on Gaza
On 29 August 2024, JJP wrote to the Foreign Office requesting a meeting to discuss the Israeli war on Gaza and the influence the British Government could bring to bear on Israel to bring it to an end. The core of our letter is that Israel’s war is genocidal, and that should now inform the British Government’s policy towards Israel.
Our new letter follows our extensive lobbying of the Foreign Secretary, MPs, the Foreign Office, the American Embassy and the German Embassy since November.
Our letter is copied below:
29 August 2024
Charles King,
Head, Israel Palestine Task Force
Serena Stone, Deputy Head, Israel Palestine Task force
Dear Mr. King and Ms. Stone,
We are writing to request a meeting to discuss the Israeli war on Gaza and the influence the British Government could bring to bear on Israel to bring it to an end.
We acknowledge that the new Foreign Secretary has taken two of the three decisions that we advocated in our letter of 15 July, i.e. withdrawing the previous government’s intervention on Israel’s behalf with the International Criminal Court, and reinstating funding for UNRWA. We hope recognition of the State of Palestine will follow soon.
We want to discuss the nature of Israel’s war on Gaza, which it has prosecuted relentlessly for 11 months. We needn’t rehearse the grisly statistics of Palestinian deaths, woundings, displacement and starvation. They are well known. Nor do we need to discuss the horrific nature of Hamas’s attack on Israeli civilians on 7th October, which was a war crime and crime against humanity.
However, Israel’s response to the Hamas attack has gone well beyond justified action to protect its citizens. From the beginning, the Israeli army has been flouting the principles of proportionality and discrimination central to the protection of civilians in time of war.
It has gradually become clear that the Israeli government is intent not merely on killing large numbers of Palestinians, but on substantially destroying the Palestinian population of Gaza. Authoritative commentators initially also called Israel’s actions a war crime and a crime against humanity. Now, however, they have come to the even more devastating conclusion that Israel is committing genocide.
As a careful organisation that believes in measured comment, JJP initially called the war a war crime and a crime against humanity. Now, however, we believe the appropriate term is genocide. The bitter irony could not be greater. Israel, the country born in part from the ashes of the Holocaust, is committing genocide in order to further its nationalist ambitions.
We believe the British government has to take all this into account in its policy towards Israel. First, we urge the government to ban export of all military equipment to Israel. We understand the FCDO is now reviewing this issue. Second, we urge the government to suspend Israeli imports to the UK.
These actions would not only reduce Israel’s ability to continue its genocidal war on Gaza, they would also send a strong message that the international community will no longer tolerate Israeli aggression. They would also prevent the British Government from eventually being considered complicit in genocide.
In the longer term, the government must take heed of the words of António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, speaking to the Security Council on 24 October 2023. He said “the deadly assault by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum… the Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation…”
The new British Government should work with other countries to demand that Israel ends the occupation and allows the Palestinians to exercise their right to self-determination. Israel is now addicted to occupation and settlement. Without substantial economic and diplomatic pressure from the international community, that will never change. It cannot be allowed to continue.
We hope to hear from you shortly to arrange a meeting.
Yours sincerely,
Arthur Goodman
Parliamentary and Diplomatic Officer