OPEN LETTER to all Ambassadors of Israel

Exploding Gaza - The Guardian

21st March 2024 –

This Persian New Year is not a happy time in the Middle East

Dear Ambassador,

I imagine you must be as horrified as I am at the fact that 30,000 people have been killed by Israeli bombing or shelling. 12,300 children died in the past 4 months according to Philippe Lazzarini of UNWRA. Does that make you proud of the Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza?

You know as well as I do what is happening in Gaza and you must realize that the actions of the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) are destroying the reputation of Israel across the world. Young people everywhere are disgusted with Israel’s treatment of Gaza: your country is losing support worldwide.

We know that Israeli soldiers in Gaza shoot to kill because Israeli soldiers shot dead three Israeli male hostages who had removed their shirts to show they were unarmed, and who were waving a white flag. Three Israeli hostages followed the rules of the IDF for surrendering; it is a pity Israeli soldiers did not follow IDF rules and accept their surrender. The Israeli families of those three dead men must share my horror at Israeli policy and activity in Gaza.

Sadly three escaping Israeli hostages - Alon Samriz, 26; Samer Fouad al-Talalka, 24,; and Yotam Haim, 28, died on 15 Dec 2023, when Israeli soldiers did not respect their white flag.

What will their families write on the tombs of these three dead hostages?

Did they die as heroes?

Were they killed by heroes?

Or by murderers? After all, IDF has accepted responsibility.

How many men, women, and children in Gaza have been shot in cold blood?

How do you feel about it, Mr Ambassador? I wish I could hear your response to the killing of unarmed hostages waving white flags, and your reaction to the deaths of thousands of Palestinian children.

How many Israeli diplomats are challenging your government’s actions? Have any Israeli diplomats resigned from government service? How can you continue to serve such a regime?

We have seen on television how the IDF treats medical staff in Gaza’s hospitals. We see lines of men stripped naked, injured patients lying on hospital beds in the open air with their hands tied together, and doctors shot through a window while operating to save patients. Of course, Israeli soldiers do not sign the Hippocratic oath to keep people alive: they seem focused on humiliating and killing.

I have taught university courses about terrorism, peace, and justice, Mr Ambassador. I have taught university students about genocide and the horrors of the Holocaust. I once visited Dachau, where I saw pictures of the brutality perpetrated on Jewish people. God preserve us from any repeat of those concentration camps. Yet those tragic photographs are revived in my memory by what I see in Gaza. Last month the president of Brazil raised the comparison of Gaza with the Nazi Holocaust—and these hospital pictures suggest that he was not wrong. Gaza is living through its own Holocaust.

The president of South Africa has accused your country of genocide: The legal case presented to the World Court was, in my opinion, unanswerable. If we define Gazans as a people, then Israel is guilty of genocide. It was appropriate that this accusation should come from South Africa because Israel has often been accused of operating a system of apartheid in Palestine.

The judges of the International Court of Justice sat on the fence and asked Israel to avoid war crimes and genocide; I suspect that if the arguments were presented today, with the new hospital evidence we have seen, they would no longer be on the fence. Israel has moved from apartheid to genocide.

Israel should be—and would be—condemned for genocidal actions.

This is not the responsibility of the Israeli people: the majority of Israelis are surely horrified to see what is being done in their name. All Israelis, all Jews, and all decent people the world over were distraught at the horror and brutality of the Hamas attacks on October 7th, 2023. The incompetence of Israeli ministers and colonels responsible for Israel’s defense in no way diminishes the horror of the Hamas actions.

Some Israelis focus on their national tradition of freeing hostages. Others are focused on killing Palestinians—with the absurd idea that this may destroy Hamas.

The correct Israeli response would have been to negotiate for the release of Israeli hostages—a noble tradition that this Israeli government decided to ignore. Instead, Israel launched a campaign of destruction and brutality equal to that of Hamas, and entirely futile. The United States of America made the ridiculous decision in 2001 to eliminate the Taliban, and I do not need to tell you that they were unsuccessful. It would be equally absurd for an outside power to invade Israel in order to destroy Zionists. You cannot kill ideology with bullets. It is simple stupidity to launch a project that is impossible to achieve.

I do not need to explain to someone of your education that Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood—and this organization cannot be eliminated with guns. Ideas can only be defeated with better ideas. To say that Hamas can be changed with bullets is to expose one’s stupidity.

You are of course not responsible for the way in which your prime minister has cobbled together a minority government—itself a denial of “democracy” …. and if the past five years of press reports are to be believed, his main objective is to keep himself out of prison for corruption. For this, Israelis and Palestinians die.

Of course I do not expect a response—probably you will not even read my letter. But someone will read it. While I was drafting this letter, Senator Chuck Schumer has added his voice to mine. His opinions weigh more heavily than mine even though our concerns are identical. Probably you would rather not know that people (dare I suggest MOST people?) are horrified by what is happening in Gaza. Senator Schumer has made sure that you know it.

We were horrified by the deaths of 1200 Israelis on October 7th, and we cannot be anything other than horrified by the deaths of >30,000 Gaza citizens at the hands of Israel.

Genocide is genocide, whoever commits it.

I choose to believe that most Israelis deplore the genocide being perpetrated in their name. Are you one of those people?

Sincerely yours

Dr. Robin E. Poulton

Dr. Robin Edward Poulton ChONM, ChROSC, UNSM, MBIM, MA (Hons St A), MSc (Oxon), PhD (Paris),

Member of the Transcend peace journalism network

Former Managing Partner, EPES Mandala Consulting

Former Senior Fellow, UNIDIR Geneva (United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research)

Former President, V-Peace (VIPIS = Virginia Institute for Peace and Islamic Studies)

Former Professor of International Studies (affiliate), Virginia Commonwealth University 2002-16