This email from my MP, David TC Davies, was in response to my email to him on 6th February.
Thank you for contacting me about the UK’s decision to pause future funding to United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA.)
The Government wants to see an end to the fighting in Gaza as soon as possible and is calling for an immediate pause to get aid in and hostages out, then progress towards a sustainable, permanent ceasefire, without a return to destruction, fighting and loss of life.
I agree with the UK Government that South Africa’s case at the ICJ is not helping to achieve the goal of a sustainable ceasefire. Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas in line with international humanitarian law (IHL) as the UK Government has made clear from the outset. I share the Government’s view that Israel’s actions in Gaza cannot be described as genocide, and believed South Africa’s decision to bring the case was wrong and provocative.
Of course, I respect the role and independence of the ICJ. I welcome the court’s call for the immediate release of hostages and the need to get more aid into Gaza.
On UNRWA, I am appalled by allegations that any agency staff were involved in the 7 October attack against Israel, a heinous act of terrorism. I support the UK's decision to pause any future funding of UNRWA whilst these concerning allegations are reviewed. The United States, Germany, Australia, Italy, Canada, Finland, Switzerland and the Netherlands have all temporarily paused funding too.
I want to make clear that the UK remains committed to getting humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza who desperately need it. The Government is getting on with aid delivery, funding multiple implementing partners including other UN agencies and international and UK NGOs. This support is helping people in Gaza get food, water, shelter and medicines.
The commitment to trebling aid to Gaza still stands and the UK is providing £60 million in humanitarian assistance to support partners including the British Red Cross, UNICEF, the UN World Food Programme and Egyptian Red Crescent Society to respond to critical food, fuel, water, health, shelter and security needs in Gaza.
Indeed, the UK will continue to support the United Nations World Food Programme to deliver a new humanitarian land corridor from Jordan into Gaza. 750 tonnes of life-saving food aid arrived in the first delivery and 315 tonnes in the second delivery.
Finally, the Government regularly reviews Israel’s capability and commitment to IHL and acts in accordance with that advice, for example when considering export licences.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.
Regards,
David TC Davies
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My response back:
Dear David,
Thank you for your reply. I am extremely saddened by your view, although given the track record of the party you represent it is not exactly a surprise to me.
I'm going to start with your point about UNRWA. There is as far as I can make out, no evidence whatsoever to support Israel's claim about agency staff being involved with the October 7th attacks. Especially given that this allegation was made the day after the ICJ's ruling, I think the suggestion that this was merely a piece of propaganda to distract the world is very plausible. But even if I'm wrong on this, and Israel's word turns out to be true, these allegations are against twelve members of staff. Twelve. Out of 30,000 staff members in total. To put those figures into perspective, the NHS employs around 1.7 million people. When last year Lucy Letby was charged with the murders of seven babies on the maternity ward in which she worked, would your proposed solution have been to withhold funding from the entirety of the NHS?
This is not a hyperbolic comparison. I learned today that three months ago, there were 36 hospitals in Gaza. Today there are none. Every single hospital in the region has been bombed by Israel. In January 2024, CNN reported that about one in 100 civilians in Gaza have been killed since October 7th. This was in January, so now we're almost at the end of February, it is almost certainly substantially more than that. These are war crimes, and cutting off aid from the organisation charged with providing it is fundamentally immoral.
Now let's move onto whether it's a genocide. The ICJ's ruling is that this is 'plausible'. Personally I'd have liked a more concrete conclusion, but I appreciate that within the legal world it's important that every officially recorded statement is explicit and provable. But I do have something to say regarding that. The Nakba occurred in 1948, and the living situation for Palestinians in the region has been becoming increasingly restrictive since 1967. Hamas was formed in 1987, and has only been held office since 2007. Israel, and much of the Western media, would claim that this is about stamping out Hamas - but this is not the truth. If it were the truth, it would make no sense, as this situation has existed for far longer than Hamas has.
Hamas exists as a result of the living standards that the Israeli state is enforcing on the people of Palestine. I read a statistic that around 85% of Hamas' soldiers are orphans, having lost their parents to this war. It's natural that people are drawn to more extremist views the more miserable their own lives are, which is the reason for the rise of Hamas - but I don't really want to talk about Hamas. I don't think Hamas is especially important. It's all a smokescreen. If Israel was interested purely in stamping out Hamas, it wouldn't be targeting civilians in the way that it is. A good analogy I came across was that if a gunman was in a school and all the children and teachers were being held hostage, at what point would it become acceptable to bomb the school in order to neutralise the gunman? I don't think any reasonable human being would think that an acceptable thing to do, and surely you don't either. But this is the logic that Israel uses, and the reason for this is that the Israeli state believes itself to have the right to determine who is allowed to live and who is not. So sure, call it a more cuddly word than 'genocide' if you like. But things are not going to get any better by calling it something else.
As I said at the beginning, your response is not really a surprise given the party you represent. I have found the Conservative Party to have been a substantial threat to the values I hold and the hopes and dreams I have for life since they came to Government when I was 16. However, I also think it's really important to hold each individual politician accountable for their own views and their own actions, and I really hoped that irrespective of your political persuasion you would prove yourself to be one of the exceptions (thankfully, we seem to be seeing increasing numbers of exceptions at the moment - it's a shame you don't seem to be one of them). I've only just moved here, and given that it's an election year I'm putting a lot of thought into who I should vote for. But I cannot in good conscience lend you any support with the positions you've expressed to me in your email. I feel that it defends the indefensible, and frankly I find your complacency frightening.
Yours,
George Harold Millman
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