Stop this madness! End this racism!

The horrible contrast between the treatment of the three young Israeli settlers who were killed and of hundreds of killed and kidnapped Palestinian children goes right to the centre of the human rights issues in Palestine, to the systematic racism and inequality that defines people’s lives.  The Palestinians are suffering collective punishment and blatant discrimination. One horror is now leading to another. The situation is very serious (see below).

We ask the governments of Britain and the European Union to use the means they have to defend human rights and oppose racism.  Israel should be suspended from the EU-Israel Association Agreement (2000)  unless it abides by Article (2) and respects international human rights law.

We call on the UK media to be fair and responsible in their reporting, to support the equal rights of all children for protection and respect.

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Two weeks ago three young Israeli settlers disappeared and were the day before yesterday they were found dead under rocks south of Hebron. No one knows what happened to them: the Israelis say they were kidnapped by Hamas but no-one has taken responsibility and Hamas has denied it; the Palestinian street is full of alternative suggestions - that they died in a car accident perhaps – and in any case, the truth isn’t known yet.

For the past two weeks,  in a vast collective punishment, thousands of extra Israeli soldiers ranged all over the West Bank, invading towns and villages, turning houses upside down, arresting over 600 people including people who had just been released – Samer al-Issawi after his long hunger strike – many others. During this time nine Palestinians were killed including two young people. Gaza has been attacked again.

The situation is getting worse.  Yesterday the young Israelis were buried, and with that a new wildness. Yesterday a nine-year old Palestinian girl was driven into by an Israeli settler in his car and a sixteen-year-old in Jenin Camp with shot by Israeli soldiers. And this morning, a 15-year old boy working in his father’s shop in Shu’fat near Jerusalem was kidnapped by Israeli settlers, and he was murdered and then set on fire. His body was thrown in Deir Yassin, a horrible symbolism, as Deir Yassin, an old Palestinian village in West Jerusalem, was the site of one of the most famous massacres that took place in the ethnic cleansing of 1948.

This scary madness needs to stop. Yesterday too, a camp was set up on E1 land, threatening to get going on the next stage of the E1 project that controversially threatens to link Maale Adumim properly to Jerusalem (surrounding Abu Dis).  Gaza was under attack again by the Israelis. Two houses were blown up (the places where the suspected killers of the Israelis lived – who knows, though, if they did it? There was no trial)

All children need and deserve protection. But no Palestinian believes that there will be a pursuit of these killers of Palestinian children.   Over fifteen hundred Palestinian children have been killed by the Israeli army and settlers in the past fourteen years*.  There were no investigations, house-to-house searches and no punishment of the murderers. Now, following the shouts of the settlers saying ‘Death to Arabs’ and the kidnap and murder of the Shu’fat child, every Palestinian parent will be afraid. The Israeli settlements are spreading – the crazy settlers and the Israeli army are all around. What scary thing will come next?

** The Palestinian Ministry of Information in Ramallah issued the figure of 1518 children killed between 2000 and June 2013  http://maannews.net/arb/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=581295

2^nd July 2014