PART 1
A new-found colleague, Daniel Machover, sent me the text of a Declaration co-authored by his father, Moshe Machover, in September 1967:
“Our right to defend ourselves from extermination does not give us the right to oppress others.
Occupation entails foreign rule.
Foreign rule entails resistance.
Resistance entails repression.
Repression entails terror and counter-terror.
The victims of terror are mostly innocent people.
Holding on to the occupied territories will turn us into a nation of murderers and murder victims.
Let us get out of the occupied territories immediately”.
(This Declaration followed Israel’s crushing victory in the 6-Day War in 1967, when it gained control of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights).
I found myself ridiculously moved by this — memories run deep and profound in the Middle East. So many wonderful Israelis and Palestinians have devoted their lives to finding common ground — both literally and metaphorically — during those six decades.
So, imagine the grief they and their children, on both sides, must now be feeling as the Prime Minister of Israel and the President of the USA set out to exterminate the people of Palestine. Giving birth, even in the inflicting of depraved death, to another 60 years of strife and violence.
How do we position ourselves, morally and politically, in this historical moment? This is what fills pretty much every part of my working life at the moment:
– According to the 1948 Genocide Convention nation states have a binding duty to prevent and punish genocide.
– The Israeli government, knowingly and strategically, is inflicting genocide on the Palestinian people in Gaza, as defined under the Geneva Convention.
– The UK government is knowingly complicit in that genocide by continuing to provide arms to Israel, by failing to exercise its binding obligations under the Genocide Convention, and by failing to punish those responsible.
– We all have an absolute moral obligation to hold our government to
account, and to act in solidarity with the people of Palestine.
Like so many, I’ve been following the utterly inspirational progress of the Global Sumud Flotilla now that it has set out for Gaza. (The word ‘Sumud’ translates basically as ‘steadfastness’, though with many deeper connotations).
The Flotilla provides us all with a practical way of demonstrating our revulsion against the direct complicity of Western Governments and what is happening in Gaza. Every single one of those sailing in that Flotilla, wherever they come from, is a direct descendant of Moshe Machover and his colleagues back in 1967.
Jonathon Porritt
4 September 2025
