Echoing Hamas claims: More than 100 diplomats, mainly British and French, have sent an open letter to French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, calling for harsh measures against Israel over what they describe as Israel\u2019s \u201cethnic cleansing” of Palestinians.<\/p>\n
The letter, signed by former senior French and British diplomats, claims that \u201cPalestine is being erased before our eyes” and that \u201cIsrael is no longer a democratic state.” Signatories include 52 former French diplomats and 50 former British ambassadors, many of whom served in the Middle East, including in senior positions in Egypt, Iran, Bahrain, Israel, Syria, Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur governments are concerned for the security of the Israeli people, just as they are appalled by the suffering of the Palestinian people under occupation. Hamas committed horrific crimes on October 7, 2023, but nothing justifies Israel\u2019s systematic policy of destroying Gaza and its population. Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s claim that \u2018Israel must live by the sword\u2019 is morally wrong and ineffective. It endangers Israel\u2019s security and leaves no room for negotiations. As a result, the world no longer sees Israel as a genuine democracy. There is nothing democratic about denying others their rights and lands,” the diplomats wrote.<\/p>\n
They further claimed that \u201cin Gaza, two million Palestinians are being pushed into 30 percent of their devastated territory, hungry and without medicine or shelter. More than 1,200 Palestinians have been killed since the so-called \u2018ceasefire.\u2019 In East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, the demolition of Palestinian homes and settler violence are rampant, with the assistance of the Israeli military and police, amounting to ethnic cleansing. Palestine is being erased before our eyes. This policy of occupation and destruction extends to Lebanon, where many villages have been destroyed, and to Syria. This is a stain on the conscience of humanity, requiring Britain and France to act.”<\/p>\n
They called on Macron and Burnham to enforce International Criminal Court arrest warrants against Israeli officials, suspend reciprocal arms sales and purchases, halt EU and UK trade agreements with Israel, insist on unrestricted aid entering Gaza, ban trade with Israeli communities, and take additional measures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Echoing Hamas claims: More than 100 diplomats, mainly British and French, have sent an open letter to French…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[46517,2492,5328,1143,28918,382,55706,37],"class_list":["post-260896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-andy-burnham","tag-antisemitism","tag-britain","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-ethnic-cleansing","tag-france","tag-gaza-region","tag-israel"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117143548813239865","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}