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| Peace in Gaza needs a return to negotiations | Peace in Gaza needs a return to negotiations |
| (25 days later) | |
| As members of the National Council of Imams and Rabbis we are extremely concerned at the escalation and continuation of hostilities between Israel and Gaza. We are deeply saddened by the violence, hatred, suffering and loss of life. We acknowledge the grief and pain they cause. We call on wise leadership to strive for a ceasefire and a return to the negotiating table to work towards a sustained peace and two-state solution. | As members of the National Council of Imams and Rabbis we are extremely concerned at the escalation and continuation of hostilities between Israel and Gaza. We are deeply saddened by the violence, hatred, suffering and loss of life. We acknowledge the grief and pain they cause. We call on wise leadership to strive for a ceasefire and a return to the negotiating table to work towards a sustained peace and two-state solution. |
| With regard to our shared responsibilities here in Britain, it is particularly important that we do not allow what happens elsewhere in the world to affect the cooperation and understanding we have built up between the Muslim and Jewish communities in this country. We seek to replace fear and prejudice with knowledge and understanding and in this way work together for a more peaceful world. May it be God’s will that peace prevail.Qari Muhammad Asim imam, Makkah mosque, Leeds, Dayan Ivan Binstock rabbi, St John’s Wood United synagogue, London, Sheikh Muhammad Ismail imam, Birmingham Central mosque, Jonathan Wittenberg rabbi, New North London Masorti synagogue, Colin Eimer rabbi, Sha’arei Tsedek North London Reform synagogue, Imam Asim Hafiz Islamic adviser to the chief of the defence staff, Abdullah Hasan imam, Masjid Khadijah and Islamic Centre, Peterborough, Dr Margaret Jacobi rabbi, Birmingham Progressive synagogue, Sheikh Ezzat Khalifa imam, London Central mosque, Jason Kleiman rabbi, Bet Hamidrash Hagadol synagogue, Leeds, David Lister rabbi, Edgware United synagogue, London, Ian Morris rabbi, Sinai synagogue, Leeds, Mokhtar Osman imam, York Way mosque, London, Shahid Raza imam, Central mosque, Leicester, Danny Rich chief executive of Liberal Judaism UK, Mohammad Shafiq imam, Darul Ummah Jamme mosque, London, Reuven Silverman rabbi, Manchester Reform synagogue, Daniel Smith rabbi, Edgware Reform synagogue, London, Alexandra Wright rabbi, Liberal Jewish Synagogue, London, Mufti AK Barkatullah Islamic Sharia Council, Leyton | |
| • I am not sure if outrage outweighs grief at witnessing the escalating human destruction in Gaza (Israeli strike kills 15 at UN school used as refuge, 25 July). When did slaughtering civilians you illegally occupy and daily humiliate become the new “self defence”? Would a British government be so crazed as to illegally occupy its next-door neighbour for 50 years, deny its history, steal its resources, move settlers into choice locations while caging the ousted “natives” within remaining sealed remnants, then bomb them for firing (relative to Israel’s awesome arsenal) garden-shed rockets? | • I am not sure if outrage outweighs grief at witnessing the escalating human destruction in Gaza (Israeli strike kills 15 at UN school used as refuge, 25 July). When did slaughtering civilians you illegally occupy and daily humiliate become the new “self defence”? Would a British government be so crazed as to illegally occupy its next-door neighbour for 50 years, deny its history, steal its resources, move settlers into choice locations while caging the ousted “natives” within remaining sealed remnants, then bomb them for firing (relative to Israel’s awesome arsenal) garden-shed rockets? |
| Violence by either party cannot be condoned. There are no “sides”: we mourn each victim. But every law of human decency, war and international law is being broken in the killing of civilians in Gaza. A Palestinian boy wrote on Facebook, “We have nothing left to lose. Now I would rather die with my family under the rubble of our house than have a humiliating truce. No justice, no peace.” Those who maintain a strangling siege reap reprisal. Those who turned Gaza into an overcrowded, impoverished internment camp should not be surprised that they tunnel underneath the earth, just as imprisoned Jewish people and British soldiers did during the war. What right have those who have, for 47 years, indiscriminately crossed the green line, expropriating land and constantly harming civilians in raids, shootings and settlements, to raise their hands and speak of Palestinian terrorism? The occupation has turned Israel into a colonial power and colonialism brutalises not only the occupied but the occupier as well. What is happening is a tragedy for Israelis and Palestinians alike. | Violence by either party cannot be condoned. There are no “sides”: we mourn each victim. But every law of human decency, war and international law is being broken in the killing of civilians in Gaza. A Palestinian boy wrote on Facebook, “We have nothing left to lose. Now I would rather die with my family under the rubble of our house than have a humiliating truce. No justice, no peace.” Those who maintain a strangling siege reap reprisal. Those who turned Gaza into an overcrowded, impoverished internment camp should not be surprised that they tunnel underneath the earth, just as imprisoned Jewish people and British soldiers did during the war. What right have those who have, for 47 years, indiscriminately crossed the green line, expropriating land and constantly harming civilians in raids, shootings and settlements, to raise their hands and speak of Palestinian terrorism? The occupation has turned Israel into a colonial power and colonialism brutalises not only the occupied but the occupier as well. What is happening is a tragedy for Israelis and Palestinians alike. |
| London and Washington give almost iron-clad support for Israel and US vetoes at the UN shield Israel from prosecution for war crimes and the occupation. Public anger is steadily growing at the impotence of political and judicial systems, locally and globally, to enforce justice, equality and human rights. Unless Israel is called to account, we fail the helpless civilians of Gaza and encourage all those with a militaristic mindset that they can perpetuate a violent modus operandi.Catherine ThickEquity & Peace | London and Washington give almost iron-clad support for Israel and US vetoes at the UN shield Israel from prosecution for war crimes and the occupation. Public anger is steadily growing at the impotence of political and judicial systems, locally and globally, to enforce justice, equality and human rights. Unless Israel is called to account, we fail the helpless civilians of Gaza and encourage all those with a militaristic mindset that they can perpetuate a violent modus operandi.Catherine ThickEquity & Peace |
| • In your editorial (26 July) you state that “unless the deeper causes of the problem which is Gaza are addressed by Israel, the US and the international community, a ceasefire will mean very little”. You obviously absolve Hamas from any need to address this problem. But the Hamas charter shows that much of this dire situation flows from its ideology. It states that peace initiatives are all contrary to its beliefs. Israel may well need to rethink its policies but there can be no peace without a drastic change in Hamas’s objectives.Paul MillerLondon | • In your editorial (26 July) you state that “unless the deeper causes of the problem which is Gaza are addressed by Israel, the US and the international community, a ceasefire will mean very little”. You obviously absolve Hamas from any need to address this problem. But the Hamas charter shows that much of this dire situation flows from its ideology. It states that peace initiatives are all contrary to its beliefs. Israel may well need to rethink its policies but there can be no peace without a drastic change in Hamas’s objectives.Paul MillerLondon |
| • “Before the current round of violence, the West Bank had been relatively quiet for years,” writes Jonathan Freedland (Israel’s fears are real, but this war is utterly self-defeating, 26 July). According to B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights centre, 90 West Bank Palestinians were killed, 16 of them children, by the IDF or by settlers between January 2009 and May 2014. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there have been 2,100 settler attacks since 2006, involving beatings, shootings, vandalising schools, homes, mosques, churches and destroying olive groves. According to Amnesty International, between January 2011 and December 2013, Israeli violence resulted in injuries to 1,500 Palestinian children. “Relatively quiet” for whom?.Leon RosselsonWembley, Middlesex | • “Before the current round of violence, the West Bank had been relatively quiet for years,” writes Jonathan Freedland (Israel’s fears are real, but this war is utterly self-defeating, 26 July). According to B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights centre, 90 West Bank Palestinians were killed, 16 of them children, by the IDF or by settlers between January 2009 and May 2014. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there have been 2,100 settler attacks since 2006, involving beatings, shootings, vandalising schools, homes, mosques, churches and destroying olive groves. According to Amnesty International, between January 2011 and December 2013, Israeli violence resulted in injuries to 1,500 Palestinian children. “Relatively quiet” for whom?.Leon RosselsonWembley, Middlesex |
| • Jonathan Freedland expresses the emotional impasse. The “but” lies in the argument, used last week by David Cameron: “What would we in Britain do if we were subject to rocket fire from across our border?” It looks convincing as grounds for Israel’s actions. But what would we in Britain do if a large chunk of our land – proportionate to the West Bank – had been taken by a foreign power, built upon and our people repressed? The question answers itself and provides the way forward. | • Jonathan Freedland expresses the emotional impasse. The “but” lies in the argument, used last week by David Cameron: “What would we in Britain do if we were subject to rocket fire from across our border?” It looks convincing as grounds for Israel’s actions. But what would we in Britain do if a large chunk of our land – proportionate to the West Bank – had been taken by a foreign power, built upon and our people repressed? The question answers itself and provides the way forward. |
| As the US seems to be the only actor with clout, an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank under American and UN supervision and with US guarantees to Israel to defend her borders should be security enough. Only the US could do it. Without this radical solution it’s hard to see how Israelis will ever sleep peacefully in their beds or Palestinians begin to recover from the deep hatred they must feel for Israel’s land-snatch. I cannot know the answer in Gaza, but settling the West Bank problem must be the start.Richard PayneIpswich | |
| • Your editorial seeking to identify the roots of violence in Gaza claimed that the “chain of causation” leads to Ariel Sharon. It comes as no surprise that your interpretation of history has a wicked, devious Israeli deceive a nation of simple honest Palestinians, who wanted nothing better than to live in peace with their neighbours. | • Your editorial seeking to identify the roots of violence in Gaza claimed that the “chain of causation” leads to Ariel Sharon. It comes as no surprise that your interpretation of history has a wicked, devious Israeli deceive a nation of simple honest Palestinians, who wanted nothing better than to live in peace with their neighbours. |
| You say that “Israel left Gaza institutionalised”. But the first acts of the leaders of that “institutionalised state” were to destroy the houses of the settlers at a time of desperate housing shortage and tear down the market garden economy left by the settlers. They preferred to have their people living on aid, rather than be economically independent. The roots of violence in Gaza are to be found in the fantasy that Israel must be and will be destroyed. The chain of causation leads directly to Riyadh, Tehran, Doha and the other Islamic states that feed this fantasy and thereby mislead the Palestinians.Gunter LawsonLondon | You say that “Israel left Gaza institutionalised”. But the first acts of the leaders of that “institutionalised state” were to destroy the houses of the settlers at a time of desperate housing shortage and tear down the market garden economy left by the settlers. They preferred to have their people living on aid, rather than be economically independent. The roots of violence in Gaza are to be found in the fantasy that Israel must be and will be destroyed. The chain of causation leads directly to Riyadh, Tehran, Doha and the other Islamic states that feed this fantasy and thereby mislead the Palestinians.Gunter LawsonLondon |
| • Thank you for your highly informative editorial on Gaza. However, you conclude that Gaza is an intractable problem. If western governments put as much pressure on Israel to come to a just settlement with the Palestinians as they are putting on Vladimir Putin on Ukraine, it may not be intractable.John HaworthBlackburn, Lancashire | • Thank you for your highly informative editorial on Gaza. However, you conclude that Gaza is an intractable problem. If western governments put as much pressure on Israel to come to a just settlement with the Palestinians as they are putting on Vladimir Putin on Ukraine, it may not be intractable.John HaworthBlackburn, Lancashire |
| • Jonathan Freedland’s perceptive article suggests that the current war between Israel and Gaza is self-defeating. He observes that “it was the discovery of the tunnels that prompted the ground offensive”. On the same day your correspondents note that the Hamas leader “has insisted on an end to the siege of Gaza... The gap between the two sides is wide.” One way to bridge this gap would be to station UN observers on the border inside Gaza with the equipment to monitor underground tunnels and rockets, and at the border crossings to ensure the siege is ended. | |
| The UN could then organise fresh elections in Gaza and the West Bank to mandate representatives for peace talks to ensure that the cycle of violence does not resume. Renewable energy technologies offer a new dynamic for the negotiations. Fundamentally the conflict is about who owns the land. The UN could own solar panels and wind turbines that would harness the wind, sunlight and atmospheric water above the disputed areas and in Gaza. They could ensure the electricity and water would be for the economic benefit of both Israel and Palestine.Emeritus Professor Keith BarnhamLondon | The UN could then organise fresh elections in Gaza and the West Bank to mandate representatives for peace talks to ensure that the cycle of violence does not resume. Renewable energy technologies offer a new dynamic for the negotiations. Fundamentally the conflict is about who owns the land. The UN could own solar panels and wind turbines that would harness the wind, sunlight and atmospheric water above the disputed areas and in Gaza. They could ensure the electricity and water would be for the economic benefit of both Israel and Palestine.Emeritus Professor Keith BarnhamLondon |
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