Ken Livingstone calls for halt to military attacks on Gaza

thanks Ken, incidentally will be posting up Caroline Lucas's response to the likely land invasion of Gaza when she sends it out.

Also Gush Shalom have condemned the attacks and accuse Israel of breaking the ceasefire.

Press release



28/12/08



“Halt Israel’s military attacks on Gaza”



Ken Livingstone, former Mayor of London, sent the following message of support to today's protest against Israel's ongoing military attack on Gaza in which has already killed more than 200 people and is causing a humanitarian disaster:

“Israel's massive military attack on Gaza is a crime by one of the most well-armed states in the world possessing hundreds of nuclear weapons against the relatively defenceless population of Gaza.

“The response of the US government to the killing of hundreds of people has been in reality to endorse Israel’s actions. The British government has failed to demand an immediate end to the massive military action by Israel. This refusal to uphold the elementary interests of humanity by powers which could stop Israel’s attacks is based on the falsehood that there is an equivalence between the actions of the Palestinians and the actions of Israel. In reality there is no equivalence.

“The Israeli military attacks are out of any proportion to those of the Palestinians. Israel has imposed an illegal state of siege on Gaza, blockading the movement of people, goods and the supply of the most elementary humanitarian needs by the use of brute military force. No people in the world would tolerate such a situation. This is the immediate cause of the present war.

“Israel has not tolerated either democracy or self-determination for the Palestinian people. Elected Palestinian MPs are illegally held, alongside thousands of others, in Israeli prisons.

“Israel continues to not only to illegally blockade Gaza but to illegally occupy, build settlements, seize land and use military intervention in the West Bank. This treatment, too, would be unacceptable to any people in the world.

“These actions are the real causes of conflict with the Palestinians – as they would be with any people against whom they were perpetrated.

“There must be no collusion with these crimes against humanity. Israel is overwhelmingly armed and funded by the US and its crimes against the Palestinians are given diplomatic cover by the British and other European governments. Without that support the slaughter of the Palestinians and the illegal blockading the occupation of their territories could not continue.

“The US, British and other European governments should stop the pretence that anything justifies the killing of hundreds of the people of Gaza and demand an immediate halt to the massive Israeli military attacks.”

ENDS