22 October, 2014
Dear Madam/Sir,
Events of this summer leave no one in doubt. Israel is engaged in a ruthless nearly seven decades long war against the very notion of the Palestinian people, a war that now pits a nuclear power against a captive population in which refugee camps, hospitals, UN shelters and power stations are the main targets of F-16, white phosphorous and drone attacks. Add to this incomprehensible slaughter of innocents the seven year inhumane siege of Gaza – which now has no clean water or viable power source – and Israel’s militaristic, legal and bureaucratic stranglehold over the West Bank – including house demolitions, administrative detention, child arrest and torture, the deaths of birthing mothers at checkpoints and the routine murders of peaceful protesters – and the picture is brutally clear. If this is not genocide, what is?
Israel’s aim is clear: to take and control all of the land that rightfully belongs to the Palestinians. Israel has never been punished for its flagrant abuses of human rights and violations of international law. This desperate, tragic situation has to stop. Now. The world can wash and wring its hands no more. Truth and reconciliation may yet be possible, but only once the perpetrator is disarmed and shamed into change. Only international pressure, truth and justice can effect that transition. One million people marched this summer against the third massacre of Palestinians in six years. But popular resistance is not enough. If international law is to count for anything it must address this grotesque injustice, this massive trauma, this stain on the conscience of the world. I demand a genuine enquiry from your office into the question of Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people.
Yours truly,
Naomi Foyle
Brighton, United Kingdom
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