JJP statement – Not in our name
More than 34,000 killed in Gaza, of whom 14,000 are children.
We demand:
- a permanent ceasefire
- end British complicity with the Israeli attack
- end the Israeli occupation
We speak as Jews. The destruction of Gaza is not in our name. It is a violation of our values of justice, compassion, truth and peace.
On October 7th Hamas committed a war crime and crime against humanity, slaughtering more than 1,100 people, mostly civilians.
Israel has responded with ferocious, continuing collective punishment. It flouts the principles of proportionality and discrimination central to the protection of civilians in time of war. It is also a war crime and a crime against humanity.
Holocaust scholars are warning of a genocide in Gaza. The recent International Court of Justice ruling has given the same warning and has ordered Israel to desist from all practices that could be genocidal. On 16 January 2024, eight United Nations Special Rappoprteurs on Human Rights said in their report “Our alarm for the unfolding genocide…”
More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed, three times the number killed in all six previous Israeli offensives. 1.9 million people have been displaced. The deliberate destruction of hospitals, shelter, sanitation, clean water and food supplies is causing a public health catastrophe.
António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, spoke truth to the Security Council on 24 October. 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…”
- There are now some 700,000 Israeli settlers in 270 settlements and outposts in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank. All are illegal under international law.
- The settlement population has been increasing by 20,000 a year.
- Settlers live under Israeli civil law while 2.9m Palestinians live under punitive military law.
- One million Palestinians have passed through Israeli prisons since 1967, many without trial.
- Over 50,000 Palestinian homes had been demolished or destroyed by bombing before October 7th.
- Gaza has been blockaded since 2007. Under international law it is still occupied.
Israel is now addicted to occupation and settlement. Without substantial economic and diplomatic pressure from the international community, it will never change. This cannot be allowed to continue.
Our government has been complicit in Israel’s collective punishment of Gaza.
- The Israeli arms company, Elbit Systems, has several factories in the UK. They make military drones, engines and other parts. Three British companies- BAE Systems, Eaton Mission Systems and L3Harris – make parts for the F35 Stealth fighters used by Israel in Gaza. Our government has continued granting licenses to export this military equipment to Israel during the bombardment of Gaza.
- The UK, along with the United States and several other countries, has suspended funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which provides desperately needed food, shelter and medicine to the Palestinians in Gaza. That was in response to unproved Israeli allegations that 12 UNRWA employees were involved in the Hamas attack, despite those employees making up less than one-tenth of one percent of the 13,000 UNRWA employees in Gaza.
We call on people to write to their MPs, demanding that our government:
- calls for a permanent ceasefire
- stops arming Israel
- reinstates UNRWA funding
- works with other countries to demand that Israel ends the occupation and allows the Palestinians to exercise their right to self-determination
Click here to write to your MP and the Prime Minister.
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