original here http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-child-protection-1023121.html

Tuesday, 18 November 2008

Shut out by Israel's Gaza blockade

In the past week, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson has spoken out again about a "whole civilisation destroyed" in Gaza, just as Israel again squeezes the flow of fuel for power stations. To these two latest reminders that Israel is maintaining a state of siege of gaza's 1.5 million people, we would add our own experience.

We are some of the 100 academics and health professionals who were booked to participate in a WHO co-sponsored conference in Gaza, "Seige and Mental Health" two weeks ago. Israel requires those wishing to enter Gaza to apply for permits, and the WHO itself made the applications well in advance. Israel turned them all down en bloc just one week before the conference was due to start, clearly a political decision intended to wreck it. We demonstrated in protest at the Gaza Erez crossing, but to no avail.

Those opposing calls for an academic boycott of Israel regularly cite "academic freedom", yet there has been not a murmur of protest from Israeli universities and medical establishment at this latest violation.

Dr Derek Summerfield (UK)
Dr Ghada Karmi (UK)
Dr Alice Rothchild (USA)
Prof Elsa First (USA
Prof Federico Allodi (Canada)
Dr Alan Meyers (USA)
Dr Ben Alofs (UK)
Dr William Slaughter (USA)
and 22 others
Kings College London

Donald Macintyre's report "Chronic malnutrition in Gaza blamed on Israel" (15 November) detailing the contents of an "explosive" report by the Red Cross attributing the totality of Israel's responsibility for malnutrition in Gaza should come as no surprise to those who have followed this brutal and immoral siege.

Dov Weissglass, an aide to the Israeli Prime Minister, stated at its inception: "It is like an appointment with a dietician. We will make them thin and lose weight but will not want them to die". This chilling statement of intent to starve 1.5 million people trapped in the ghetto that Gaza has become elicited no response or criticism from the EU or US. In fact both became complicit with Israel's actions of blockade. The enforced ghettoisation and attempt to wear down a people by starvation have historical overtones which should have raised alarm bells ringing around the world. The political elites remained mute.

The starving of a civilian population as a political weapon is not only a breach of international law but a moral crime against humanity. Shimon Peres, the President of Israel, whose government continues to perpetrate this atrocity, addresses the House of Commons this week. How long will our parliamentarians continue this moral blindness to Israeli inhumanity and barbarism?

Paul Timperley

Bracknell, Berkshire