A letter to the Sheffield Star.
Dear Editor,
Sheffield Green Party welcomes the steps finally taken by the Labour government to sanction illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. This tiny step has been taken after years of pressure from the Palestinian solidarity movement.
However, Sheffield Green Party believes these sanctions fall short of even the bare minimum the UK government should be considering. They come after decades of military occupation, enclosure, deliberate impoverishment, illegal settlement contrary to UN resolutions, and against the backdrop of murderous pogroms by militant settlers with the full support of the Israeli military and civil authorities.
These sanctions leave the Occupation intact and provide no redress for the ongoing horrors of genocide in Gaza. They will have no impact on ongoing military cooperation and assistance by the U.K. government to the Israeli regime. The simple fact is that the settlements in the West Bank were always illegal, and the UK should never have traded with them in the first place.
The settlements and Israel are the same political entity; one cannot be targeted without the other. Sheffield Green Party calls on the UK government to implement a full boycott, divestment and sanctions programme against the Israeli regime until it abandons its policies of apartheid, genocide and occupation.
Sheffield Green Party have consistently spoken up for the rights of the Palestinian people and condemned Israel’s devastation of Gaza and beyond. We are the only party on the Council who have voted to condemn the UK Government for its role in the genocide or to declare Sheffield an apartheid free zone.
Unlike other political parties, which have been complicit in the genocide in Gaza, the Green Party has consistently called for freedom for Palestine and for an end to the Israeli occupation and system of apartheid.
Yours faithfully,
John Lilburne
Sheffield Green Party
