THERE are some straight questions to which both Netanyahu and Sunak need to provide straight answers.
If Netanyahu’s intention is NOT ethnic cleansing,
1. Where are the Palestinians supposed to go to be safe?
2. Why has he closed the borders to stop them leaving Gaza?
3. Why has he left nowhere habitable north of Rafah?
READ MORE: The National urges readers to sign urgent Gaza family scheme petition
The answers to these questions must be that:
1. There is nowhere left for them to go.
2. He does not want them to leave.
3. He does not want them to return to any part of Gaza.
Does that mean that his intention goes beyond ethnic cleansing and is actually genocide? If it is NOT:
1. Why has he reduced everything to uninhabitable rubble?
2. Why does he want to keep them in Gaza?
3. Why has he deprived them of the bare essentials of life – water, food, medical aid etc – causing famine and death by starvation?
Can Sunak answer any of these questions to prove that Netanyahu is NOT engaged in genocide? If he cannot, then he is accepting that, as long as he and his government continue to supply armaments to Israel, they are making the UK complicit in genocide and other war crimes, in contravention of international law. Scotland must continue to make it clear that this is NOT IN OUR NAME.
P Davidson
Falkirk
AFTER six months of carnage and the horrific scenes of the total destruction of Gaza, I believed I had made the mental adjustment we all subconsciously make to adjust and coexist with situations where we are powerless – until Tuesday, when I found myself enraged with fury, tearfulness and despair.
An American trauma surgeon from North Carolina, Dr Mark Pearlmutter, posted an image of himself and a patient on X. The patient had been chief of orthopaedic surgery at a hospital in Gaza and he refused to abandon a patient on whom he was operating when Israeli soldiers burst into the operating theatre.
READ MORE: 'It's a never-ending nightmare': Palestinian-Scots call for Gaza family visa scheme
They shot him in the knees, scattering fragments of bone around the room; his trainees then operated on him and he was arrested two days later and held for 45 days in an Israeli prison with no medical care and a box of juice on alternate days. His right eye burst after a rifle butt was pushed into the socket. He was then dumped at the border with no food or water and crawled for two miles to a road before he found help.
The new leader of Fine Gael, Simon Harris, spoke for the majority of us when he said the Irish people were repulsed by the actions of Netanyahu and his government. As the daughter, grandaughter, great-niece and niece of seven surgeons, who grew up knowing how seriously they took the Hippocratic Oath, I cannot understand the failure of the professional bodies representing doctors and nurses in Britain and America to speak out against what will undoubtedly come to be remembered as the 21st-century’s Holocaust.
Marjorie Ellis Thompson
Edinburgh
I WRITE in reply to Amanda Baker’s letter in Wednesday’s National. She writes that Alex Salmond’s RT programme “was shunned by politicians of all hues”. Not true – I believe politicians from most parties participated, and Alex Salmond had total editorial control of the programme. Where else would he have been able to broadcast, with 99.9% of the media against him and independence?
He did a lot for Scotland.
Norman Robertson
via email
IN response to Amanda Baker’s attack on Alba, I should say that while I’m not in any party, I found it a bit rich.
Alba formed when folk saw the SNP were avoiding independence.
Salmond’s show was franchised to Russia Today, he wasn’t employed by them, but his show was refused by all UK broadcasters.
READ MORE: Alex Salmond cannot possibly return to role of First Minister
Surely Amanda understands the anger at the SNP doing nothing at all for a decade, silencing anyone who would push them to indy, splitting the indy vote with gender recognition reform and other policies that could have waited until post-indy, then asking England’s court to decide and accepting their ruling with not even a statement to make.
Anyone who thinks this version of the SNP are going to get us our independence is kidding themselves.
They want more devolution to be offered, but it won’t be as this is Westminster’s all-or-nothing attempt to keep Scotland forever.
Our boxer doesn’t even want to get in the ring, never mind fight for independence.
Bill Robertson
via email
REGARDING the reported survey commissioned by Alba from the organisation Find Out Now, I don’t have any time for Anas Sarwar, but for the survey to find that D Ross would make a better FM than him was a source of amusement for me (Poll: Scots think Ross would be better FM than Sarwar, Apr 2).
However, the main comment I wish to make is about the claim from Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh that there is proof based on a regional study that Alba could do “exceptionally well” in the 2026 Holyrood election and be looking at 20 seats. For the following reason I think she has a very ambitious desire.
Politics in Britain at present and for the immediate future is moving at great speed, therefore making assessments as to what the political conditions will be in 2026, and the consequences that will arise and prevail, is to me naive.
As to the survey in its totality, what sprang to my mind was the auld saying “he who pays the pipe calls the tune.”
Bobby Brennan
Glasgow
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