Dear Prime Minister,

This is probably the one and only time I will send you a genuinely well meant message of encouragement, so I would like to take this opportunity to assure you that it is sincere, and is the heart-felt opinion of many Labour supporters and members, past and present.

Yesterday saw the issuing of several arrest warrants by the ICC for the alleged perpetrators of war crimes, probably amounting to genocide, in Palestine. As was promptly pointed out by a variety of socialist news outlets, this leads to the personal liability of any person in a position of power who “For the purpose of facilitating the commission of such a crime, aids, abets or otherwise assists in its commission or its attempted commission, including providing the means for its commission.”

The first and most obvious conclusion that occurred to me is the way that you and your colleagues have resisted calls for an end to arms sales to Israel. The second, and probably equally useful to the perpetrators is the way you and the journalists and reporters who support you have spread fog and confusion around the topic of Israel’s long-term illegal occupation of parts of Palestine, and the confinement and slow-starvation of its people.

Now I know that you present your position as supporting British trade and British Jews but you must have realized by now that this is liable to lead you into terrible trouble and I wondered, given the kind of people you are surrounded by, whether you could see the way out of it so, here are my suggestions.

The Lobby

I know that for most of your career, organizations such as AIPAC in the USA and the various political Friends of Israel groups in the UK, including JLM, have seemed like the biggest bullies in the playground but I think if you look into the situation now, you will find that their long-term domination of politics is beginning to fall apart. Once the cracks are sufficiently visible, big business will desert them – big business never, ever backs losers, so you need fear them no more.

In spite of their efforts, the vast majority of the people in the world now realize that Israel is conducting an illegal occupation, that Palestinians have been appallingly mistreated for a long time, and that the source and driver of the violence and misery in Israel / Palestine is its apartheid state.  Now, the modern world does not tolerate apartheid. We brought down apartheid South Africa, and we will bring down apartheid Israel. This does not involve driving all of Israel into the sea, as Zionist propaganda claims. It seeks, just like in South Africa, to bring down a rogue state, not destroy the people who, after all, could not help being born there.

British Jews

Nor do you need support Israel for the sake of British Jews. It’s important here to remember that, to avoid accusations of antisemitism, you must be careful not to be seen assuming that all Jews think alike. There are plenty of British Jews, especially the younger ones, who are enthusiastic participants in the BDS and #FreePalestine campaigns.

Jews for Peace and Justice

Your Labour MP in my town, Helena Dollimore, in her capacity as Vice Chair of the Parliamentary Group on British Jews, has already received a delegation from the new campaign group, Hastings Jews for Justice so she can tell you how passionately they support an end to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, and a concerted effort to find peace and justice for Palestinians.

Hastings is also home to several of the founder members of the group Jewish Voice for Labour, who could tell you far more than I can about how British Jews who are socialists are feeling just now.

And the best news of all

This is the main reason I’m sending a friendly and, I hope helpful missive to you: as Skwawkbox reported yesterday on the subject of international law on war crimes and genocide, The Statute of Rome states that “a person who abandons the effort to commit the crime or otherwise prevents the completion of the crime shall not be liable for punishment under this Statute for the attempt to commit that crime if that person completely and voluntarily gave up the criminal purpose.”

So that is your way out of trouble. If you were to clearly state your intention to end UK arms sales to Israel and end UK forces’ involvement in Israeli actions in and around Palestine, and if you were to underline this by facilitating BDS (the boycott, divest and sanction campaign) you could build yourself a viable defence against complicity in, or the aiding and abetting of, the war crimes and probable genocide being committed by the State of Israel.

I will be sending this to you by email, and also sending it to Helena Dollimore MP, and to JVL and Hastings Jews for Justice and any other press outlets that might be interested.

Yours sincerely,

Kay Green

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Cheers,

Kay

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