Support London's Mayor, Ken Livingstone, for speaking the truth about Western indifference to the plight of Palestinians and Iraqis.
On July 19, Ken spoke to John Snow on Channel 4 news of Western double standards in the Middle East. He said the West's unqualified support for its client state Israel, whilst ignoring hundreds of UN resolutions and decades of occupation, oppression and injustice, are fuelling Muslim (and Arab) grievances. He said the UK complains when Muslims and Arabs go to Palestine to support their plight, but says nothing when Jews go to Israel to join the army and tyrannise Palestinians who are trying to go about their everyday lives. On July 20, Ken told the BBC Radio 4's Today programme that:
"You've just had 80 years of Western intervention into predominantly Arab lands because of the Western need for oil. We've propped up unsavoury governments, we've overthrown ones we didn't consider sympathetic."
He continued:
"If at the end of the First World War we had done what we promised the Arabs, which was to let them be free and have their own governments, and kept out of Arab affairs, and just bought their oil, rather than feeling we had to control the flow of oil, I suspect this wouldn't have arisen."
On Israel and Palestinians:
"...those governments which use indiscriminate slaughter to advance their foreign policy, as we have occasionally seen with the Israeli government bombing areas from which a terrorist group will have come, irrespective of the casualties it inflicts, women, children and men."
On occupation:
"Under foreign occupation and denied the right to vote, denied the right to run your own affairs, often denied the right to work for three generations, I suspect that if it had happened here in England, we would have produced a lot of suicide bombers ourselves."
On 9 July 2004, the International Court of Justice called on Israel to dismantle its apartheid Wall snaking its way throughout the West Bank. The UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and a plethora of NGO's have highlighted Israel's unlawful policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories for decades. Western indifference to their plight is one of the principal causes of the East-West divide. AMW calls on all people of conscience and good will to support Ken Livingstone's brave stand in support of freedom, justice and human rights in the Middle East. Please right to Ken at mayor@london.gov.uk.
We also urge you to be vigilant in reading newspapers this week and to WRITE IN and make YOUR voice heard. The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the World Jewish Congress have already started complaining. No doubt the Israeli Embassy will join in. Tory MP Anne Widdecome has already called for his dismissal.
Write to the tabloids at:
mailbox@mirror.co.uk
letters@dailymail.co.uk
letters@the-sun.co.uk
expressletters@express.co.uk
brian.dunlea@dailystar.co.uk (letters editor)
Write to the broadsheets at:
letters@thetimes.co.uk
letters@independent.co.uk
letters.editor@ft.com
dtletters@telegraph.co.uk
letters@standard.co.uk
letters@guardian.co.uk
If you want your letters to be considered for publication, say so and provide your full name, address and contact details (the latter 2 won't be published). Please Bcc letters (which will remain confidential) to:
info@arabmediawatch.com.
You can also leave your comments on the BBC website at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4698963.stm