Afrasianet - It may not be new that former diplomats, who hold British and French nationalities in particular, have sent an open letter to French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, demanding that the Israeli occupying state be held accountable for its settlement and ethnic cleansing policies in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem.
This is because Israeli policies in general, and then the genocidal, racist and settler policies adopted by Benjamin Netanyahu's government, the most right-wing and fascist in the history of the Zionist entity in particular, no longer allow for many formats Blindness, silence, or justification even to the closest friends of the occupying power in Europe and the United States.
This is in addition to the widespread condemnation of Israeli war crimes among public opinion in general, as well as students and youth in particular, as well as human rights and humanitarian organizations and courts concerned with the application of international law.
It is no less significant that the number of signatories to the letter was 52 from France and 50 from Britain, including former ambassadors, senior diplomats and embassies in the Middle East and the United Nations.
It is also not surprising that the tone combined the recording of the bitter reality of the Palestinian people as a result of Israeli policies and the acknowledgment of the failure of the occupying power's "key international partners" to take an approach that makes "Palestine fade before our eyes," as the letter puts it.
There is also a higher tone than usual in diplomatic language, as the letter refers to the fact that two million Palestinians are crammed into 30% of their "destroyed land," where "hunger, lack of medicine and housing," and "more than 1,200 Palestinians have been killed since the so-called ceasefire."
The letter goes on to East Jerusalem and the West Bank, where "the demolitions of Palestinian homes and the rampant settler violence, with the complicity of the Israeli army and police, constitute ethnic cleansing."
The signatories also go further to the "occupation and destruction" in Lebanon, where "many villages have been razed to the ground, and to Syria," which constitutes a "stain on the conscience of humanity."
The letter's call for the criminalization of the purchase of real estate by British and French citizens on stolen Palestinian land, the withdrawal of the charitable status of "associations" that finance settlements, the prohibition of all forms of trade with them, and the warning against European bodies advancing the tenders for the E1 project.
In addition to adhering to international and criminal resolutions, suspending the association agreement between the European Union and the occupying power, transferring weapons to and from it, and stopping all forms of bilateral military cooperation.
Since the letter alludes to the special role played by France and Britain in shaping the Middle East, it is not an exaggeration to wonder about the consequences of the Sykes-Picot agreements behind the bitterness of the retirees of diplomacy in the two countries, even on the basis of late arrival rather than the observance of silence.
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Source : Al-Quds Al-Arabi
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