Glebe Cottage

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Chislehurst

BR7 6QA

 

 

Email:darwin121937@gmail.com

 

17.05.25

 

Rt.Hon. David Lammy MP

Foreign Secretary

 

Dear Mr Lammy

 

I write directly to you, rather than to my MP, Clive Efford, because he appears to have a policy of not responding to constituents’ letters  (well, this particular constituent has never received as much as an electronically generated acknowledgement).

 

During the 1994 Rwanda genocide, for 100 days, while up to a million people were being slaughtered, the UN Peace-keepers, the UN Security council and governments around the world stood by and the media were silent.

 

After the event, regrets were expressed and there were belated recriminations.

 

Similarly, during the genocide of the European Jews, the world stood by.

From 1942, the Allies knew what was going on and, since the war, it has been questioned whether the Allies should have bombed the extermination camps, or at least the railways leading to them.

 

Andrew Roberts, in his History of the 2nd world War, claims that bombing Auschwitz and similar targets was logistically possible for the RAF and USAAF by early 1944.Such operations were called for by the War Refugee Council.

The US government rejected an appeal to bomb the gas chambers and crematoria on the grounds that such a venture would divert resources better engaged in decisive operations elsewhere. This was also the position of the British Labour ministers in the wartime coalition government.

 

Is there any crime against humanity worse than genocide?

Should not every possible action be taken to prevent it, protecting the potential victims?

 

The world, including the British government, is standing by while genocide is being committed against the Palestinian people.

Even President Trump, who normally lamely endorses every action of Israel, says he is “troubled” by what is going on in Gaza. The British government’s position is not even equivocal. Its latest word on the matter is that “there is a tenable view that no genocide has occurred  or is occurring”and yet it is plain for all to see that genocide is taking place.  ”.

Do you and your Cabinet colleagues not read the newspapers or watch the TV newscasts? The evidence is rock solid that bombing and shelling are continuous and that mass starvation is being used as a weapon of war.

 

Furthermore, Netanyahu pronounced his aim at this year’s UN General Assembly: to clear Gaza and the West Bank of Palestinians and take territory from neighbouring states,  in order to create more Jewish settlements in his new Greater Israel.

 

This is reminiscent of Hitler’s aim to create a Greater Germanic Reich to provide lebensraum for ethnic Germans.

 

There, for writing that I could be expelled from the Labour party were I still a member.

 

There was hand-wringing and regret over the inaction in the face of the Holocaust, but there was also punishment for the most guilty.

I wonder whether there will eventually be Nuremberg-type trials for the Israeli ministers and commanders conducting the current genocide. Such trials should also indict the ministers of other governments implicated in the genocide, implicated by, for example, supplying  armamentss to Israel.

 

The Nuremberg principles stand for all time: individuals can be held responsible for crimes against humanity and it is no defence to plead that one was following orders from superiors.

 

It is not too late for the government to do something positive in order to stay the hand of Israel and end this genocide.

 

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Colin Yardley