The Israeli government must be called to account as must Hamas killers - Yorkshire Post Letters

A charge of genocide has been lodged in the Hague against the Israeli Government by the South African government on behalf of the Palestinian people of Gaza.

Perhaps unsurprisingly it was initiated by the South African government with its recent history of oppression by the former white apartheid government's oppression of its indigenous black population, very similar to the present Israeli government’s treatment of the Palestinian Arab population.

Bantustan townships were created in South Africa for black people to live separately from the white population. Pass laws were also created to restrict the movement of the black population.

The Gaza Strip similarly reflects an apartheid system and includes a pass scheme controlling and humiliating the people of Gaza.

The notorious Sharpville Massacre took place in South Africa in 1956 shocking the world when military police shot dead 91 unarmed black people and injured a further 238 whilst demonstrating against the white Apartheid South African Government.

The above is being replicated in Palestine/Israel daily and showing no end to the slaughter. In 1982 Palestinian refugees in the Shaba & Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon, controlled by the Israeli Defence Force under the Israeli Minister of Defence (Ariel Sharon), allowed armed Lebanese Christians hostile to the Palestinians to enter the refugee camps resulting in the slaughter of 3,000 Palestinian men women and children.

We learn that West Bank Palestinian Arabs are constantly being squeezed off their designated land by thousands of Israeli settlers.

Palestinians are attacked by Israeli settlers with no protection from the Israeli Military Police.

Steven Sacure of the BBC programme ‘Hardtalk’ in discussion with Gideon Levy, an Israeli journalist and a strong critic of the Israeli Government, asked if it was not understandable why following the horrors of October 7 that the Israeli people fully support the present Israeli Government's actions in Gaza?

Levy replied that the Israeli Government ensures that Israelis are not aware of the bombing and killing of thousands of women and children in Gaza nor that they do not have enough food, water, or medical supplies.

After being asked by Sacure how the Israelis could alternatively protect themselves? Levy replied that what is happening to the Palestinians is not the answer to October 7; adding that the conflict goes back even earlier than the past 75 years (i.e. since the establishment of Israel) stating that we are now simply creating another generation of people that will continue to react to their experience.

Levy finally argued that unless a peaceful resolution is achieved this conflict will never end.

The Israeli Government must be pursued and called to account for its crimes as must the brutal Hamas killers of October 7 without further slaughter of innocents.