Dean Whitbread 2020
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Say what you like about our deeply flawed system, but it does work, sometimes.
I wrote to my MP expressing my horror at the Israeli war crimes in Gaza – she wrote this letter back. I was fairly impressed by her measured but sympathetic reply, and heartened to see that a new parliamentary group now exists – Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East. Israeli military force is decribed as excessive, disproportionate, counterproductive; and the point is made that moderate Palestinian public opinion is “being critically undermined by Israel’s settlements… the confiscation of Palestinian land and the proliferation of checkpoints.”
David Miliband, The Foreign Secretary, may have misled parliament:
[12 Jan 09, in Parliament: “The Gaza truce of June to December 2008 was less than a ceasefire. Over 300 rockets were fired into Israel”. He then asserted: “But the immediate trigger for Israeli military action on 27 December was the end of the truce. Hamas refused to extend the lull, and instead fired almost 300 rockets into Israel between 19 and 27 December”. See http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/newsroom/latest-news/?view=PressS&id=12070906
This was in spite of Mark Regev, Israel’s official spokesperson in the Prime Minister’s office, admission on Fri 9 January, on More4 News, that from 19 June until 4 November 2008, during the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Hamas fired no rockets or mortars out of Gaza into Israel, absolutely none. A video clip of this is available on YouTube http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SILJxPTqjAM . ]
– but my local MP Emily Thornberry does genuinely seem concerned and to be working within the system.
The full set of documents she sent me is here.
