How long does it take for the penny to drop in Downing Street and the Foreign Office (Israel’s Ben-Gvir posts video of gallows site for hanging Palestinians, 20 August)? Israeli individuals have had sanctions imposed on them for over a year with absolutely no effect, and it is likely that people such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, the minister of national security, see them as some sort of badge of honour.
Andy Burnham and Ed Miliband must realise by now that the only sanctions likely to have any effect are those imposed against the state of Israel, so denouncing the issue of tenders for the E1 settlement near Jerusalem as an “unacceptable and destructive act ” is just box-ticking.
It’s all very well for Miliband to say that all Israeli settlements in the West Bank are a “flagrant breach of international law”, but their construction has been going on for years; had the UK and others had the courage to take action when the first ones were built, who knows how many lives could have been saved?
Now, with the UN international commission of inquiry reporting that there is ongoing genocide in Gaza, war crimes and ethnic cleansing being carried out in the West Bank, and the callous murder of journalists and “ecocide” in southern Lebanon, criticising recent events as illegal and inhumane, while taking no effective action, is frankly pathetic.
Bernie Evans
Liverpool
