Israel, we want to help – but you need to listen

We heard you in 1917 when we issued the Balfour Declaration, promising a home for the Jewish nation.

We heard you again in the aftermath of the Second World War, supporting with compassion, but under some duress, the creation of the Israeli state. We stood by you, despite reservations. We admired your zeal in the relentless pursuit of the perpetrators of the Holocaust.

In the 1960s, we gave tacit support to wars with neighbouring Arab nations. We allowed the displacement of the Palestinian nation for the greater good, never considering you would still occupy territory you seized some 60 years later.

Later introspection led us to quietly question our view.

Recently, your nation itself has joined with millions worldwide to protest the actions of your government and its barbaric use of overwhelming military advantage.

We see you and hear you and remain willing to help. But you will need to accept some tough love. Recognise your faults, your shortcomings – and change.

Do you hear us, Israel?

David Hill

Waterlooville

On 7 October, Hamas terrorists launched a heinous, planned and unprovoked attack. They launched thousands of rockets, then brutalised, murdered and kidnapped more than a thousand Israelis – Jews, Muslims, and others. This despicable orgy of violence emulated the worst of Isis atrocities in Syria and Iraq.

Not only that, but these attacks, deliberately or otherwise, were against communities that supported efforts to reach a peaceful settlement of the ongoing conflict.

This seems to have been forgotten.

I’ll point it out again, because it is the reason that war has come to Gaza. It is the reason that Gazan civilians find themselves clustered in camps near the Egyptian border, fleeing from a deliberate war among the people. It is the reason they require aid. It is the reason seven aid worker lost their lives travelling down a road to deliver aid in the first place.

Many are calling out the wrong side. Though an Israeli soldier fired the weapons that tragically killed these brave aid workers, the blame, ultimately, lies squarely with Hamas.

What happened to Israel, to its citizens, does not enable it to act with impunity. What happened does not free it from its moral obligations to conduct war in a manner that complies with international law, the law of armed conflict.

The tragedy of war is that mistakes will be made. For example, in 2015, in Afghanistan, during a battle with the Taliban, the US military attacked a hospital in Kunduz with horrendous consequences; 42 people were killed, including patients and staff. It happened despite the hospital providing coordinates to the US military.

It was a horrifying mistake. Rightly, disciplinary action was taken. This is exactly what should happen in this case and Israel should, must and will investigate thoroughly.

I do not believe it should be the fulcrum on which judgment of Israel’s response should depend – as if this was Israel’s modus operandi.

In this unwanted, vicious war, it should not be used as a cudgel to deny Israel its right to the security of its borders or the safe return of its citizens. The tragedy for Israel and Gazans is that this will only be achieved once Hamas has been destroyed.

The Independent’s cry of “Enough” should, and must, be directed only in one direction. The injustice and tragedy of the situation must surely rest with Hamas, an unapologetic terror organisation that is bent on the destruction of Israel and the massacre of Jews.

But the coordinates for that seem to have been lost in the fog of war.

Anonymous

Some people will not have noticed Rishi Sunak’s latest threats to the European Court of Human Rights, due to the appalling news from Gaza. Others will dismiss the prime minister’s threats to leave the human rights court we helped create in the late 1950s as the same old empty rhetoric.

However, we must take note as this could be Sunak’s first step on the path which ends with a desperate roll of the dice. His words could become more bellicose week on week, as heavy defeats loom in the local and mayoral elections. He may well offer the chance of a referendum on our membership if he is re-elected.

Rishi Sunak may not be able to rally parliament to such self-harm, but he probably thinks this will remove any chance of him being ousted, and could potentially neutralise the threat from Reform UK. Such actions will not save him, nor his party; it will not lead to our departure from the ECHR, but it will embolden parties on the right who can never be assuaged. Further chaos will only follow for years to come; just take a look at what happened when David Cameron did likewise in 2015.

Robert Boston

Kent

I believe the prime minister should forget about his idea of 18-year-olds learning maths and take a course in modern history himself.

Those of us who were born during the Second World War know that the European Court of Human Rights was implemented by Winston Churchill and other European leaders, to ensure the human rights of people were not abused again after the proliferation of those abuses carried out throughout Europe by the Nazis.

By removing human rights from desperate people, already fleeing from countries where they have no protections, we would be joining the likes of Russia and the Taliban.

Sunak’s threat of leaving the ECHR just to enable his Rwanda plan to work is the best argument for stopping the current bill from becoming law.

Bob Sampson

West Sussex

To put the United Kingdom’s commitment to human rights in doubt all over an obsession with the Rwanda bill is mind-boggling.

Time is not on our side to leave the European Court of Human Rights at all. All it does is give our country, a once-respected liberal nation, a bad name. And all to keep the fringes of Sunak’s own party happy.

Instead of mistreating refugees to placate the Conservatives’ right-wing, why not be more welcoming and offer them training and support to help establish their new life in this country?

When will our prime minister ever learn that it is the human trafficking gangs that should be targeted; it is them risking so many innocent lives for the love of money?

Geoffrey Brooking

Havant