By Rose Le Warne, Labour Party member in the Channel Islands
Dear the Rt Hon Jeremy Corbyn
I am horrified by what I am witnessing once again in the Labour party, which is nothing more than a ideologically driven witch hunt, which includes the despicable targeting of Jews who do not identify with Israel nor the political ideology that enables it, including actual holocaust survivors of death camps, not even alive to defend themselves.
You cannot, Sir, win this by attempting to keep compromising and pandering, this minority, and it is a minority, will not be satisfied with anything less than you removed as our democratically elected leader, along with everyone who supports you and a party that will not even consider the right of Palestinians to be treated in accordance with international law and to live with freedom, dignity and self determination, a fundamental right of every human on this planet.
The only way forward is to say enough, everything that needs to be put in place to protect Jews from genuine antisemitism has been and will be reviewed as necessary, that is all you have to say on the matter. Someone needs to put a case together for defamation of character that sets a precedent, the lives of average people in our nation depend on a line being drawn in the sand.
The party cannot keep being held to ransom by a minority that, along with ignoring international law, disregard the rights of another people to not be subject to racially motivated ethnic cleansing and, with what has now been confirmed by its ‘Nation State’ bill, an Apartheid. Every time we allow someone to be silenced we are enabling that suffering and in addition are creating a situation, as identified by Robert Cohen a British Jew in his article (which I have attached a link for), which will inevitably cause a rise in actual antisemitism:
https://mondoweiss.net/2018/07/establishments-bringing-semitism/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
I am an international member of Labour based in the Channel Islands and I will tell you a little about our history and why I choose to fight for the rights of Palestinians.
In the Channel Islands we are brought up learning about how our grandparents suffered under Occupation in WW2 and every year we celebrate our Liberation, it is very much part of our identity and thus when I learned about the suffering of the Palestinians under occupation it struck a chord with me.
Our occupation was only for 5-years and is not comparable to the Palestinians occupation and blockade. We would have died, however, from starvation had it not been for the HMS Vega being allowed to deliver humanitarian aid from the Red Cross. To learn how Israel is violently stopping similar aid being delivered to a people far more desperate than we were, in contravention of international law, outrages me. People attempting to silence me on speaking about this and demanding the end to impunity does much more than that.
We must never forget the words of Sophie Scholl the young German student who passively resisted fascism and paid the ultimate price and use her words to motivate us:
“how can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause? Such a fine sunny day, and I have to go but what does my death matter if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?”
I appreciate you are very busy, but I respectfully request a response to this email so I know that it has been considered.
Kind regards
Rose Le Warne