(The letter below was written by one in my mailing network.)
I am writing to you to express my disgust and shock that you
have taken the egregious and cowardly decision to suspend export licenses to
Britain's only true ally in the middle east, Israel.
You make the claim that it cannot be proved that British
weapons are not being used "in breach of international law". And yet
your government knows perfectly well that Israel is exercising extreme
restraint in its conduct of the war in Gaza, and is applying standards and
procedures for avoiding harm to non-combatants in enemy territory that have never
been applied in the history of urban warfare.
The absolute proof that Israel is taking more precautions to
avoid civilian deaths than any other army in history is in numbers: A civilian
to terrorist ratio of 1.5 - 2 to 1 (even if you believe hamas casualty figures
which are the only source of the number of civilian deaths, unquestioningly
repeated by the media and the UN). Compare this to the Iraq war which the
Labour party dragged this country into, where the best Britain and its allies
could achieve was 4.5 to 1.
That you also chose to make this announcement on the day
that six Israelis hostages were being buried after their brutal sadistic murder
by Hamas terrorists is doubly outrageous.
But you know this and you made the decision anyway. Why? I
can think of no other reason than to appease the far-left and Islamist mob that
threatens your MPs' security and your party's vote share.
And furthermore, this comes on the back of two other
disastrous decisions in recent weeks:
- The resumption of funding to UNRWA, which is clearly a
terrorist front group with a vested interest in perpetuating the conflict with
Israel and brainwashing the Palestinian youth into Jew-hatred and violence.
Your government is literally taking money from pensioners and giving it to
terrorists - unbelievable.
- Your back-tracking on the UK government's commitment to
oppose the ICC's arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu, the democratically elected
leader of an allied country.
I can only assume that you think that by giving the
extremists in your party and in the country at large these concessions it will
stop their threats, their violence, their intimidation. It won't. It will have
the opposite effect, it will embolden them to increase their pressure. Where
will you stop Mr Lammy?
Israel is a democratic nation state fighting a war for its
survival against a vicious, cruel, cynical and bloodthirsty terrorist regime. A
regime that murdered, tortured, burned alive, raped, kidnapped thousands of
Israelis - an initiation of Total War if there ever was one. Yet Israel did not
retaliate with total war as some countries no doubt would have done. It is
fighting a just and necessary war to free hostages and to defeat the terrorist
regime, under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, under intense
international pressure, in a theatre where its enemy has deliberately embedded
itself in the civilian population, turned civilian infrastructure into military
infrastructure, dug 500 km of tunnels under every school, hospital, mosque and
home. In spite of these challenges Israel is very clearly adhering to the laws
of war.
Additionally, given that the UK also exports weapons systems
to the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, India, etc etc, what proof
do you have that those are not being used "in breach of international
law"? How many have died in Yemen from Saudi bombardments? How many Kurds
have been killed by Turkey? Will you also be suspending exports to those
countries? I certainly look forward to finding out.
Mr Lammy I urge you to own up to your mistake, to reverse
this decision, to show some backbone and leadership, and to stand up to the
extremists who are pressuring you by telling the truth loudly and clearly:
Israel is NOT committing genocide, genocide is what Hamas promise again and
again to do to Israel's Jews (and demonstrated exactly how they will do this on
October 7), and that Israel is a peaceful nation which respects international
law. Because you know this to be true.
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