Hi John,
Last week I watched an incredibly brave surgeon tell parliament about the targeting of children in Gaza. Nizam Mamode’s testimony was harrowing from start to finish. Describing life in Gaza, he said “a bomb would drop on a crowded area and then the drones would come down and pick off civilians, children... this is not an occasional thing, this is day after day after day.”
The evidence is growing that Israel is deliberately targeting civilians as state policy. It is unbearable. But we cannot look away. Taken together, no other word serves to describe what is happening in Gaza, other than a genocide. And we cannot live through a genocide without using all of the tools at our disposal to bring it to an end and ensure it can never happen again.
But today, I want to ask for your help. We were only able to start campaigning on Gaza because most of our funding comes from ordinary people. That means we aren’t beholden to big funders who determine what we campaign on. We have the independence to take on those international issues which are most pressing.
Please strengthen our work by joining today.
|
|
One of the most shocking things about Israel’s onslaught on Gaza is our own government’s ongoing complicity in it. Arms are still flowing – despite a limited suspension. British military assets are being used to support Israel’s actions. And our government is deepening its economic relationship with the country.
Conversations with new ministers have clearly failed to convince them to change tack. The only option is to increase the pressure they are feeling. And that’s where we come in. There are many incredible groups working to alleviate the suffering in Gaza that deserve support. Our role is to try to mobilise to shift the politics around this issue – without which things will only get worse.
In the coming weeks we want to intensify this work. First, to ramp up pressure on arms sales. We’ve had some success but nowhere near enough. If ministers won’t listen to us, we’re going to make sure MPs listen to their constituents, building a series of online and offline actions.
Second, we want to challenge our government’s economic relationship with Israel. It’s unconscionable that Britain is prioritising trade talks with Israel at this time. We want to mobilise to stop new trade talks, and to suspend the trade deal we’ve already got.
Third, we are looking for new ways to apply pressure on Israel, including pressuring corporations. In particular, the role of tech companies has received too little attention. We want to conduct more research so we can expose complicity and build campaigns for divestment.
This work is all more than we’d planned to do this year. But looking at the unbearable images emerging from Gaza, we have no choice but to do all we can to end this horror, undermining at the same time the root causes of injustice in Palestine.
We can only do this with the support of our members. I don’t want to see any more of the terrible images I’ve seen in the last year. But I won’t look away. Please join me, and help build a movement to end this genocide.
|
|
Thank you,
Nick Dearden
Director, Global Justice Now
|
|
|
|
