Thank you thank you thank you!!! My grandparents and father fled Haifa in 1948 during the Nakba. Palestinian voices have been silenced and our story has been buried for most of the last 76 years. I am so happy when I come across people who are able to see past the lies and propaganda and are courageous enough to use their voice to speak out against this racist and dangerous belief system. Sending you so much love and admiration!!!
Thank you Lauren. I am so sorry for what Israel did to your grandparents. Israel has been doing everything in its power to indoctrinate not just its own citizens, but the whole world. It is beyond comprehension how successful it has so far been. If Israel was innocent of any wrongdoing, it would have no need to silence the voices of the Palestinian people. The more guilty societies/people are, the more they try to silence their victims and anyone who stands with them. All colonial and setter-colonial societies have done this. Israel is hardly original. It might consider itself special, but it is nothing but a carbon copy of every criminal, genocidal settler-colonialist society that has ever existed. Israeli Jews care about no one but themselves but they are not well. They do not understand that you cannot be a perpetrator and be well at the same time.
I have no doubt about what Israel is planning for the Palestinians, and no one should underestimate the danger Israel presents to the Palestinians, and to the whole world. Everyone should be speaking out. It is our duty as human beings to stand up for victims of abuse, and for justice and accountability. So far, as a species we are a tragic failure. All we have managed to achieve is increase our own numbers, mostly at the expense of so much else on the planet, and at the expense of our own spirit.
For as long as I have a voice, I will use it.
Thank you for your kind message and look after yourself. 🙏🏼
It's important to continue to make our voices heard, the voices of compassion and humanity. This is true, regardless of how long those who need to hear it refuse to do so. Thank you for speaking truth to power. May we see a rising chorus of likeminded doing the same.
I believe everyone should speak out, and everyone should be flooding our ‘leaders’ with letters and comments, through media and to their offices. Thank you so much for your support and for being a decent human being. A.
Please please please send it to Starmer, to Lammy, to your own MP, to everyone in Parliament pretending this is all ok. Please print it and hand out copies. Please print it large and paper it on the walls and streets. Please print it on banners and fly them from every building. Please make them listen.
Thank you, Deborah! Your passion, pain and frustration ring loud and clear. I will do my best, but feel free to print, share, distribute, and to write your own. Each one of us has a valuable voice and our voices need to be heard. 🙏🏼
I expect a huge number of British people feel the same way and feel powerless. Your continued courage to make time to speak out is very moving and beyond commendable. Thank you and bless you. ❤️🕊❤️🕊
Thank you, that is so kind of you to say. I do believe most people, not just some, feel the way we all do on this platform. They just need to be helped to raise their heads and let their voices be heard. 🌻🙏🏼
Thank you Avigail, thank you so much for writing this. As you say, it will be surprising if the Guardian gives it any air, but at least you have this publishing space and I hope your readers will promote it from here.
I have no Jewish ancestry (that I know of), and in that sense have no "skin in the game" but as you say, most people have a sense of their shared humanity and I am no exception. My awareness of the suffering (such an insufficient and mealy-mouthed word) being experienced right now by more than two million people in Gaza, the Occupied West Bank and now Lebanon verges on being unbearable. All of it delivered at the hands of the Israel state with the (at best) misguided support of its populace, but armed and enabled by a bloc of western nations that can only now be regarded as the new "Axis of Evil".
I despair that any government anywhere could be complicit in such terror, such certain genocide, but for it to be MY government, of MY country (as well as my other one, Australia) leaves me shamed and appalled. In truth I would prefer to renounce my citizenships of both countries, and will try to discover how to do so officially as the only form of protest open to me. I am fortunate to have had an Irish mother, which enables me to claim Irish citizenship - has the Irish government been any less complicit? I don't know (I'll look into it).
Again, thank you Avigail. And my thanks also to the others who have commented here and elsewhere to condemn what is happening. The only comfort we have is our unity in denouncing Starmer and and all who turn a blind eye to, go along with or (heaven forbid) support it.
Thank you so much Tony! I agree with everything you say and thank you for being an ally in what we both, I think, believe is the bleeding obvious. I believe everyone’s voice matters and everyone should make a huge fuss and let the world know how they feel and what they think via any avenue available. No significant change in humanity has ever come from the mainstream. It is usually a small group of agitators who have had enough, who end up dragging the mainstream into changes that should be obvious. We do need to stick together. 🙏🏼
Well said, Avigail. I could not agree more. I sincerely hope your letter is brought to the Prime Minister's attention. His stubborn support for Israel, regardless of that state's contempt for human rights and international law disbars him from acting as an honest broker of peace in the Middle East. He may stand with Israel, most British people do not.
Thank you. I agree. I know there is strong popular support for the Palestinians. Our government, like many other governments, is out of step with the population.
Absolutely! There is growing opposition to Israel in western populations, not reflected in our governments' knee-jerk support for Israel and apparent indiference to the victims of its violations of international law.
At his recent party conference, Starmer revealed the truth when he effectively told a heckler that the Labour Party has not cared about children in Gaza since 2019 (provoking laughter from the delegates). Meanwhile, he is obsessed with the fate of 111 Israeli hostages. Some lives, it seems, matter more than others to our Prime Minister.
🙏🏼 Thanks for the confidence ☺️ I am quite fulfilled in my vocation as a psychotherapist. When the political system is dominated by the wrong values and instincts we get the reality we have. We all saw what happened to Jeremy Corbyn. There is no imagination in the current system, no morality and no courage to embark on a new path.
Politics is dominated and corrupted by money and power and seems to the playground of predatory psychopaths all aided and abetted mostly I feel because they are so successful in accumulating both power and money.
If you have money, you can get power and if you have power you can be corrupted by money.
No one can be trusted with this power money dynamic.
Everything and everyone involved in these systems must be held to very high standards of Independant accountability, which they are not.
Oh, and publicly fund all elections, I could go on and on. Hence, all the wrong people have too much power and are not held to account.
Oh #2, and the power to make decisions must be devolved down to the public level, our level, because as Chomsky says “who decides” is the most important power.
When have you and anyone you know been involved directly as an ordinary person in helping to make any of the major critical decisions about how to spend rates, taxes, sending bombs to Israel, going to war, how to tax the wealthy?
Do you follow the work of Bandy X Lee on Sub Stack? She is doing excellent work on Trump Contagion.
Thank you as always Avigail. Will be sending similar thoughts to my elected officials who I will encourage to blockade Israel and Israelis until war crime tribunals are over.
Avigail, I think that you are being very generous indeed to call the mendacious, cowardly, disgraceful Starmer a ‘legal expert’. He has already repeatedly shown that he has NO grasp of human rights law by declaring that the zionist entity “had the right” to stop water, electricity, food and medicines being delivered to the Gaza Strip. Starmer is the personification of the worst type of lawyer: one who is only interested in his own advancement and who will sacrifice everything that he may have previously believed in (however, I suspect that he has no beliefs, only positions of personal convenience) to achieve this personal advancement. The Guardian lost its way a long time ago and sadly, no, they won’t publish your letter. However, you speak for so many of us.
Well, everyone deserves a chance to redeem themselves. All of us have made mistakes and have got things wrong along the way in our lives. I think I agree with you, but you have to try to appeal to whatever shred of decency there may be in a person. He is a human rights lawyers, so should know his stuff. A law degree, or any degree is no guarantee of emotional maturity, self-awareness or ethics. Most people are poorly developed and he is too. Thank you for reading and for your comment.
Thank you thank you thank you!!! My grandparents and father fled Haifa in 1948 during the Nakba. Palestinian voices have been silenced and our story has been buried for most of the last 76 years. I am so happy when I come across people who are able to see past the lies and propaganda and are courageous enough to use their voice to speak out against this racist and dangerous belief system. Sending you so much love and admiration!!!
Thank you Lauren. I am so sorry for what Israel did to your grandparents. Israel has been doing everything in its power to indoctrinate not just its own citizens, but the whole world. It is beyond comprehension how successful it has so far been. If Israel was innocent of any wrongdoing, it would have no need to silence the voices of the Palestinian people. The more guilty societies/people are, the more they try to silence their victims and anyone who stands with them. All colonial and setter-colonial societies have done this. Israel is hardly original. It might consider itself special, but it is nothing but a carbon copy of every criminal, genocidal settler-colonialist society that has ever existed. Israeli Jews care about no one but themselves but they are not well. They do not understand that you cannot be a perpetrator and be well at the same time.
I have no doubt about what Israel is planning for the Palestinians, and no one should underestimate the danger Israel presents to the Palestinians, and to the whole world. Everyone should be speaking out. It is our duty as human beings to stand up for victims of abuse, and for justice and accountability. So far, as a species we are a tragic failure. All we have managed to achieve is increase our own numbers, mostly at the expense of so much else on the planet, and at the expense of our own spirit.
For as long as I have a voice, I will use it.
Thank you for your kind message and look after yourself. 🙏🏼
Kind one, do you mind if I repost your words?
Avigail.
Your convictions for humanity and empathy for the oppressed are felt and heard loud and clear.
Yes, 'as a legal expert', Keir Starmer is failing to uphold the oath he has taken.
🙏🏼 Thank you Samer. You are a wonderful ally.
Legal experts also know how to do the most depraved things legally.
I know there’s a doctor’s oath to not be an asshole, is there a lawyer’s oath?
I don’t know if they have an oath but they certainly have some sort of code of ethics they’re supposed to follow…
It's important to continue to make our voices heard, the voices of compassion and humanity. This is true, regardless of how long those who need to hear it refuse to do so. Thank you for speaking truth to power. May we see a rising chorus of likeminded doing the same.
I believe everyone should speak out, and everyone should be flooding our ‘leaders’ with letters and comments, through media and to their offices. Thank you so much for your support and for being a decent human being. A.
Please please please send it to Starmer, to Lammy, to your own MP, to everyone in Parliament pretending this is all ok. Please print it and hand out copies. Please print it large and paper it on the walls and streets. Please print it on banners and fly them from every building. Please make them listen.
Thank you, Deborah! Your passion, pain and frustration ring loud and clear. I will do my best, but feel free to print, share, distribute, and to write your own. Each one of us has a valuable voice and our voices need to be heard. 🙏🏼
thank you, I will. I do my absolute best to write, shout, broadcast, publish, scream and share. silence is not an option.
I expect a huge number of British people feel the same way and feel powerless. Your continued courage to make time to speak out is very moving and beyond commendable. Thank you and bless you. ❤️🕊❤️🕊
Thank you, that is so kind of you to say. I do believe most people, not just some, feel the way we all do on this platform. They just need to be helped to raise their heads and let their voices be heard. 🌻🙏🏼
Thank you Avigail, thank you so much for writing this. As you say, it will be surprising if the Guardian gives it any air, but at least you have this publishing space and I hope your readers will promote it from here.
I have no Jewish ancestry (that I know of), and in that sense have no "skin in the game" but as you say, most people have a sense of their shared humanity and I am no exception. My awareness of the suffering (such an insufficient and mealy-mouthed word) being experienced right now by more than two million people in Gaza, the Occupied West Bank and now Lebanon verges on being unbearable. All of it delivered at the hands of the Israel state with the (at best) misguided support of its populace, but armed and enabled by a bloc of western nations that can only now be regarded as the new "Axis of Evil".
I despair that any government anywhere could be complicit in such terror, such certain genocide, but for it to be MY government, of MY country (as well as my other one, Australia) leaves me shamed and appalled. In truth I would prefer to renounce my citizenships of both countries, and will try to discover how to do so officially as the only form of protest open to me. I am fortunate to have had an Irish mother, which enables me to claim Irish citizenship - has the Irish government been any less complicit? I don't know (I'll look into it).
Again, thank you Avigail. And my thanks also to the others who have commented here and elsewhere to condemn what is happening. The only comfort we have is our unity in denouncing Starmer and and all who turn a blind eye to, go along with or (heaven forbid) support it.
Thank you so much Tony! I agree with everything you say and thank you for being an ally in what we both, I think, believe is the bleeding obvious. I believe everyone’s voice matters and everyone should make a huge fuss and let the world know how they feel and what they think via any avenue available. No significant change in humanity has ever come from the mainstream. It is usually a small group of agitators who have had enough, who end up dragging the mainstream into changes that should be obvious. We do need to stick together. 🙏🏼
Well said and it needs saying +++
Well said, Avigail. I could not agree more. I sincerely hope your letter is brought to the Prime Minister's attention. His stubborn support for Israel, regardless of that state's contempt for human rights and international law disbars him from acting as an honest broker of peace in the Middle East. He may stand with Israel, most British people do not.
Thank you. I agree. I know there is strong popular support for the Palestinians. Our government, like many other governments, is out of step with the population.
Absolutely! There is growing opposition to Israel in western populations, not reflected in our governments' knee-jerk support for Israel and apparent indiference to the victims of its violations of international law.
At his recent party conference, Starmer revealed the truth when he effectively told a heckler that the Labour Party has not cared about children in Gaza since 2019 (provoking laughter from the delegates). Meanwhile, he is obsessed with the fate of 111 Israeli hostages. Some lives, it seems, matter more than others to our Prime Minister.
Outstanding. I will also be sending your letter to my local Labour MP, and asking for his own response. Many thanks.
Inspiring - powerful words
🙏🏼
Great message, Avigail. We need more people like you speaking up!
They are all there. They just need to speak out… 🙏🏼
Avigail for PM.
Boy we need sanity right now and none are saner.
Great letter. Thanks
🙏🏼 Thanks for the confidence ☺️ I am quite fulfilled in my vocation as a psychotherapist. When the political system is dominated by the wrong values and instincts we get the reality we have. We all saw what happened to Jeremy Corbyn. There is no imagination in the current system, no morality and no courage to embark on a new path.
Politics is dominated and corrupted by money and power and seems to the playground of predatory psychopaths all aided and abetted mostly I feel because they are so successful in accumulating both power and money.
If you have money, you can get power and if you have power you can be corrupted by money.
No one can be trusted with this power money dynamic.
Everything and everyone involved in these systems must be held to very high standards of Independant accountability, which they are not.
Oh, and publicly fund all elections, I could go on and on. Hence, all the wrong people have too much power and are not held to account.
Oh #2, and the power to make decisions must be devolved down to the public level, our level, because as Chomsky says “who decides” is the most important power.
When have you and anyone you know been involved directly as an ordinary person in helping to make any of the major critical decisions about how to spend rates, taxes, sending bombs to Israel, going to war, how to tax the wealthy?
Do you follow the work of Bandy X Lee on Sub Stack? She is doing excellent work on Trump Contagion.
Hear, hear. I haven’t seen Brandy X Lee but will look her up. Thank you for reading and commenting.
Thank you as always Avigail. Will be sending similar thoughts to my elected officials who I will encourage to blockade Israel and Israelis until war crime tribunals are over.
Brilliant. Let us know how you go. 👍
Avigail, I think that you are being very generous indeed to call the mendacious, cowardly, disgraceful Starmer a ‘legal expert’. He has already repeatedly shown that he has NO grasp of human rights law by declaring that the zionist entity “had the right” to stop water, electricity, food and medicines being delivered to the Gaza Strip. Starmer is the personification of the worst type of lawyer: one who is only interested in his own advancement and who will sacrifice everything that he may have previously believed in (however, I suspect that he has no beliefs, only positions of personal convenience) to achieve this personal advancement. The Guardian lost its way a long time ago and sadly, no, they won’t publish your letter. However, you speak for so many of us.
Well, everyone deserves a chance to redeem themselves. All of us have made mistakes and have got things wrong along the way in our lives. I think I agree with you, but you have to try to appeal to whatever shred of decency there may be in a person. He is a human rights lawyers, so should know his stuff. A law degree, or any degree is no guarantee of emotional maturity, self-awareness or ethics. Most people are poorly developed and he is too. Thank you for reading and for your comment.
Good luck!
Thank you. Not holding my breath, but I need to use my voice.
Great letter, Avigail. Thanks so much for speaking out.