4 Letters on Israeli attacks on Gaza

Warning families to move because of impending attacks, and then shelling their new refuge was correctly described by Ban Ki-moon as "outrageous and unjustifiable", but as the Blitz demonstrated in WWII, bombing civilians only increases their determination to carry on. Gaza will continue to resist, so giving Israel the "reason" it needs to attack.

  Israeli tanks firing on the school at Jabaliya has rightly been called "a possible war crime by the UN", and "a source of universal shame", but increased outrage against Israeli action has no effect. (UN:bombing is a source of universal shame",31/07/14)  

   As diplomacy flounders, the only solution has to be the immediate deployment of a UN peacekeeping force, and our cowardly politicians should be shouting it from the rooftops!

 

David Loyn`s argument against Giles Frazer`s "call for emotional reporting" appears to be based on the idea that "emotion is the stuff of propaganda", and is contrary to the "rules governing impartiality in news programmes". (Reporting without tears,04/08/14) Has he not been tuned into the BBC in recent weeks? its correspondents have completely avoided describing Gaza`s military occupation, the 8 year blockade, or even the colonisation by Israel of the West Bank, which according to the Oslo accords of 1993 is supposed to be where an independent Palestiniam state is to be sited. Ignoring such facts vital to an understanding of the current invasion can hardly be described as "impartial", any more than leading the news with the story of the one "missing" Israeli soldier, when over a hundred Gazans had been killed in the preceding 24 hours!

       Did Loyn not notice that on 31 July, the Today programme discussed whether the assault on Gaza had a legal basis, not with legal experts or UN officials, but with two Israelis, one, although listeners were not informed, an ex-Israeli army colonel, Pnina Sharvit Baruch, and the other, as presenter Montague said, was "a spokesman for the Israeli government in the nineties".

      Compared with this "impartiality", give me Jon Snow`s passion any day!

Not being "truly anti-semitic", in the eyes of the movie studio CEO, Ryan Kavanaugh, I must be one of the "most ignorant people", because of my belief that Israel has been attempting to carry out "genocide" in Gaza.(Movie boss attacks stars` anti-Israel letter,06/08/14) I do not deny that Israelis should have the right to defend themselves, or use the Iron Dome system, designed for that purpose. but no-one in their right mind can see the destruction in Gaza, and read about the numbers of killed, injured and displaced, and then describe the action as "self-defence". A nation does not defend itself by ignoring thirty three UN notifications about a school, packed to the rafters with homeless Gazans, and then shelling it!

 If anyone has been defending themselves, it has been the Palestinians, from Israeli colonisation as witnessed in the West Bank, which according to the Oslo accords of 1993 is supposed to be where an independent Palestiniam state is to be sited, and in the seven year blockade which prevents free movement of goods and people. 

    With the Gazan economy on its knees, what justification could Israel possibly have in blocking Qatar`s offer to provide payment of Gaza`s public sector workers? Was that self-defence, too?

 

So ConservativeHome thinks that Cameron was right not to criticise Israel over its onslaught against Gaza, because to do otherwise would have shown him to be a "follower, not a statesman".(The Opinion Matrix, 08/08/14) Presumably, it is statesmanlike to stand by your allies and continue to sell them arms, regardless of the thousands of needless deaths they cause, and the war crimes they seem to commit? How Cameron`s refusal to speak out against Israeli atrocities, because of a fear of offending some of his party`s main donors, can be classed as "statesmanlike" beggars belief!

      Being a "statesman" must also entail allowing your party to accept huge donations from known tax avoiders, whilst claiming to the public that tax avoidance is "morally wrong", and also claiming in your election manifesto that there will be "no NHS top-down reorganisation" and "no VAT increase", whilst doing the exact opposite when given the chance. Hopefully, the electorate will have a different definition of "statesman" in mind from the Conservative one, and act accordingly, in May 2015.