Thousands of art and culture figures in the United Kingdom have signed an open letter calling for an immediate end to the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, describing the situation as a crime and a disaster.
The signatories include Tilda Swinton, Charles Dance, Peter Mulan, Steve Coogan, Miriam Margolyes, Khalid Abdullah and Maxine Beck.
The letter was also signed by directors Michael Winterbottom, Mike Leigh, Asif Kapadia, comedians Frankie Boyle and Josie Long, playwrights Tanika Gupta and Abi Spallen, poet Anthony Anaxagorou, as well as visual artists Tai Shani, Larissa Sansour, Rosalind Nashashibi, Florence Beck, Georgina Starr, and authors Marina Warner, Jacqueline Rose, Gillian Slovo and Courttia Newland.
This is the full text of the letter. The original petition can be found here:
“OPEN LETTER – TO BE SIGNED BY ARTISTS AND CULTURAL WORKERS ONLY, THANK YOU.
“We are witnessing a crime and a catastrophe. Israel has reduced much of Gaza to rubble, and cut off the supply of water, power, food and medicine to 2.3 million Palestinians. In the words of the UN’s undersecretary for humanitarian affairs, ‘the specter of death’ is hanging over the territory.
“Gaza is already a society of refugees and the children of refugees. Now, in their hundreds of thousands, bombarded from air, sea and land, Palestinians whose grandparents were forced out of their homes at the barrel of a gun are again being told to flee – or face collective punishment on an unimaginable scale. Dispossessed of rights, described by Israel’s minister of defense as “human animals”, they have become people to whom almost anything can be done.
“Our governments are not only tolerating war crimes but aiding and abetting them. There will come a time when they are held to account for their complicity. But for now, while condemning every act of violence against civilians and every infringement of international law whoever perpetrates them, our obligation is to do all we can to bring an end to the unprecedented cruelty being inflicted on Gaza.
“We support the global movement against the destruction of Gaza and the mass displacement of the Palestinian people. We demand that our governments end their military and political support for Israel’s actions.
“We call for an immediate ceasefire and the opening of Gaza’s crossings to allow humanitarian aid to enter unhindered.”
(The Palestine Chronicle)
