Dear Miriam Cates MP
I can only assume you are in the pay of Israel, but what you said in Parliament today was neither accurate nor fair. I do sincerely trust the case here is that you simply have not educated yourself properly about the situation regarding the Israelis and Palestinians, as opposed to you being incapable of understanding or lacking any empathy.
The “murderous terrorists and rapists” you describe are firstly the Israelis, who have done little else but cause abject misery and death in the region since they arrived there in 1948, illegally expelling Palestinian landowners when they settled there. The International Court of Justice and most of the international community holds their settlements to be illegal, and say they should be returned to the Palestinians.
There have been so many accounts of Israeli forces abducting innocent Palestinian adults and children from their houses and land and holding them without charge, sometimes for years or until their deaths, raping and torturing them and of many, many Israeli settlers terrorising Palestinians, destroying or stealing their land and property and killing them.
Further, the “with glee” part of your statement to the House applies to the IDF. I suggest you look up the deleted but official IDF Telegram channel ’72 Virgins’ which featured such videos shot by the IDF as Palestinians purposefully being run over by IDF tanks while their soldiers laugh and tell viewers to turn the volume up so they can hear the Palestinians’ bones being crushed under the tank treads.
Do you not know that Gaza has been under siege by Israel for over 15 years and Israel controls everything that goes in and out – Israeli authorities joked about ‘putting them on a diet’ by allowing just enough food in to keep them alive? Do you know what the Israeli expression ‘mowing the lawn’ means, killing Gazans for no reason whatsoever just to remind them that they are living in the world’s largest open-air concentration camp? Do you know what the Hannibal Directive is, that led to around half of the Israelis killed on 7/10 being killed by Israelis themselves? Do you know what Israel’s Dahiya doctrine is, where the IDF smashes Palestinian civilians without targetting, in an entirely disproportion manner, as an official offensive tactic?
Aside from all of this being morally repugnant, these things are in stark contrast to international law – so you saying ‘Hamas bears responsibility for all deaths in the conflict’ as if Gazan people are getting what they deserve, is a stain on your record and of all politicians who are supposed to represent decent people in this country, and I believe you should apologise and back a ceasefire immediately. You should then dedicate the rest of your career to assisting in the building of a Palestinian state where they can finally control their own destiny without being under the heel of a heartless and murderous oppressor.
Kind regards
Richard Powell
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-68349957
16:45
Hamas bears responsibility for all deaths in the conflict – Cates
Miriam Cates
House of Commons
Copyright: House of Commons
Conservative Miriam Cates says “war is terrible”, and this one is “devastating” and “appalling”, but it was “unavoidable” because of Hamas’s massacre on 7 October.
Any government that did not act to prevent the 7 October attacks happening again would be failing in its duty to protect its citizens, she says, adding “we are all appalled by the loss of life”, but to call for an unconditional ceasefire is “naive”.
Cates argues there is no moral equivalence between “murderous terrorists and rapists” attacking civilians “with glee” and a nation state using conventional forces to “root out dangerous enemies”.
Hamas bears responsibility for all the deaths in the conflict and must be destroyed, she adds.
