|
|
 |
| |
Fearing the impact of Israel’s actions
• HOW will Israel’s use of indiscriminate and overwhelming force in Gaza impact upon us in Camden?
Quite possibly the answer is very horribly.
We know that war in Iraq and Afghanistan contributed to the 7/7 bomb attacks, in which more Londoners died than the total number of Israelis killed around Gaza not only in the present hostilities but in the whole of the past decade. (Amazing but true).
I was glad to see Camden resident Baroness Neuberger, a rabbi and Liberal Democrat, among the distinguished Jewish signatories denouncing the horror of Israel’s assault upon Gaza and I gladly joined other Camden Liberal Democrats on this month’s weekend protest marches through central London. I was heartened that Nick Clegg, alone among major party leaders, spoke out against Israel’s actions and demanded a halt to British and EU arms exports to Israel.
In truth, compared with the two million strong (yet still wholly ineffective) march against the Iraq war, these were relatively small and forlorn protests.
Yet even the handful of participants in a tiny picket near David Miliband’s home in Primrose Hill were photographed by a police photographer with telephoto lens as if they were suspect terrorists.
Frankly it is not those who are angry enough to demonstrate in public that one should be worrying about, or those who filled the railings in Whidborne Street, King’s Cross, with the Muslim Association of Britain placards I saw on Monday. It is the angry radicals who nurture their furious urge for revenge in clandestine isolation that we should dread.
As Baroness Neuberger and her colleagues pointed out, Israel’s use of such overwhelming force in Gaza – and, I would add, the failure of sufficient people to condemn it – is inevitably further radicalising Palestinian, Arab and Muslim opinion throughout the world. The failure of international opinion, and even the UN itself, to have the slightest effect on Israel’s truculent and callous actions ensures that more and more terrorists will resort to desperate measures in future.
Israel’s failure to reach political accommodation with those it dispossessed threatens us all. It is not only on grounds of high principle that we should condemn Israel, but in our own self-interest also.
Robin Young
Bedford Avenue, WC1
Justification for the killing?
• I READ with horror the letter (Time to show solidarity with the Palestinian people, January 8) from Unison, the National Union of Teachers, Camden Trades Council and Camden Stop the War Coalition.
I’ve never read such a one-sided irresponsible letter that does more damage than it does good.
The history of conflict in the Middle East is well recorded and if you wish to take sides that is your prerogative. However, to put your name to such a poor letter is mindblowing. Unfortunately rockets and bombs are not selective; ask the people of London that survived the Blitz or the people of Dresden. If you apply the words “murderous attack” to war, then all soldiers in the theatre of war are murderers. I do not believe this to be true, even if you do.
The writers inform New Journal reader that they do not wish to play a “numbers game” and then go on to do just that. They give a biased, one-sided, argument and expect everyone to believe them. Show us the facts from both sides and let us make our own mind up, or is that not allowed?
They attempt to justify the killing of Israeli civilians by Hamas rockets by informing us that on average only two have been killed per year in the last decade and four since late December 2008. I read this time and time again, as I could not believe what was written. If the writers believe it is all right to kill just one person, then I fell sorry for them.
Sanctions have been used against countries for centuries, remember the British sanctions against South Africa? They can be a useful tool, as opposed to fighting.
The reference to Special Forces’ actions appears to be purely subjective and has no place in a coherent argument, it is irresponsible. As is the argument that America supplies Israel with planes and helicopters. Most big countries supply smaller countries with defence equipment and it has been like this for generations and Britain is no different.
I would love to live in a world where everyone gets on and war is a distant memory. Where the billions being spent on defence is used to help fight hunger, poverty and diseases.
However, while generation after generation feeds each other with hate from the past, this will never happen.
DF Gowers
Broxwood Way, NW8
Children dying in Gaza as bombardment continues
• WHAT Bernard Kissen omitted from his letter (Who are your friends? January 8) was any sympathy for those Gazans being massacred by Israeli armed forces.
Bombardment continues using warplanes and tanks – and white phosphorus shells – to date killing 850 people there, a third being young children.
The UN allege war crimes are being committed and demand an independent inquiry.
Israel acts with impunity having been given carte blanche by the Bush administration to destroy and kill in Gaza.
It is worth noting that 76 per cent of USA Jewry live in 16 cities in six states which have 181 electoral votes.
It takes only 270 votes in the electoral college to elect a president.
Just how independent will Mr Obama be?
Skip Murphy
Prince of Wales Road, NW1
|
 |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
