A group from the Croydon Trades Union Council has assembled this morning outside the constituency office of Sarah Jones, the MP for Croydon Central, to deliver a letter setting out its position on the conflict in Gaza.
No replies: Trades unionists in Croydon relate having written to their MP, Sarah Jones, regarding the human catastrophe in Gaza, and receiving no reply
The Croydon TUC is calling for the Labour MP to support a permanent ceasefire.
Jones abstained on the recent vote in Parliament on the issue of a ceasefire.
Kevin Smith, the chair of Croydon TUC, said: “Humanitarian pauses are to be welcomed. But if the bombing and destruction by Israel resumes, it will lead to the deaths of many more civilians in Gaza, including many children.
“This cannot be accepted. A permanent ceasefire is needed.
“We believe there can be no military solution to this conflict. There must be a political solution, giving security to the Israelis and a state for the Palestinians. Otherwise, there will be perpetual conflict.”
Smith said that today’s event “will be peaceful and non-threatening”.
He said: “One reason we are making our point this way is that our members have reported writing to Sarah Jones on this issue but receiving no reply.
“Croydon TUC also intends to make representations about Gaza to Croydon’s two other MPs, Steve Reed (Croydon North) and Chris Philp (Croydon South), neither of whom backed a permanent ceasefire in the recent Parliamentary vote.”
Together with its letter to Jones, the Croydon TUC delegation also submitted this statement:
As Croydon trade unionists we are deeply concerned by the current violence and humanitarian crisis in Gaza. We call for an immediate ceasefire and the upholding of international law.
We condemn the attacks and murder of Israeli civilians by Hamas on 7 October 2023 and call for the immediate release of all hostages.
We also condemn Israel’s reaction to these attacks. This reaction has breached international law by being a collective punishment of the people of Gaza. Israel’s bombing of apartment blocks, houses, schools, hospitals and places of worship amounts to a war crime, as does the forced removal of most of the population of the north of Gaza to the south, and the denial of essential water, food and electricity to the population of Gaza.
The killing of so many Palestinian civilians, including thousands of children, by Israel is not “self-defence”.
We support the road to a just peace in Israel and Palestine. UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, has acknowledged that, “The most recent violence does not come in a vacuum. The reality is that it grows out of a long-standing conflict, with a 56-year long occupation and no political end in sight.”
We believe there can be no military or security solution to the conflict. There must be a political solution. It should be based on an end to the military occupation of Palestinian territory and the blockade of Gaza, and respect for Palestinian rights including the right to self-determination.
Only through such a solution can Israelis and Palestinians live in peace and security in the future.
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The only thing MPs are worried about is losing votes.
I hope progressive groups are organising an effective campaign to show why voting for them isn’t in the interests of Croydon residents or the UK.
I fully support the statement from Croydon TUC.
The terrorist attacks by Hamas were horrific and should be condemned. But the response by the government of Israel has also been horrific and should be condemned as well. We know from our own history of the troubles in Northern Ireland that there isn’t a military solution to these situations. If anyone suggested carpet bombing areas of Belfast or Derry they would have rightly been dismissed as a heartless and idiotic extremist. The declaration of a ceasefire was a vital and key step on the road to the Good Friday Agreement and the period of relative peace that has thankfully lasted for the last 25 years.
The current period of reduced violence in Israel/Palestine is welcome but a pause is not enough. Returning to violence will mean that the horror just continues, and any aid provided will have been pointless. That’s why lots of us have been quite clear in our call for a ceasefire and I still don’t understand why our Croydon MPs, Labour and Conservative, and our local Councillors from those parties have refused to join that call.
For the sake of the people of Israel and Palestine we should all be pushing as hard as we can for a peaceful solution.
If you know what a peaceful solution m is Peter, please tell us because no one else knows.
Drawing comparisons with British experience in Northern Ireland is frankly misplaced. Even at the height of their powers neither the IRA nor INLA ever had the quantity or quality of weapons or funding that Hamas and its allies possess. Neither did any Northern Irish armed faction ever perpetrate a massacre on the scale or nature of October 7th.
According to the Palestinian Centre for Policy after the October 7 attacks, 75% of Palestinians polled supported Hamas and approved of its actions. Whether they still do is a matter of speculation.
In this context what did anyone expect Israel to do? Moreover, given Israel’s past responses to Palestinian acts of “resistance” it would / should have been wholly predictable that Israel would respond to the well organised and successful October 7 attacks with significant ferocity and would strike back at Hamas and its allies in the densely packed urban areas.
The situation is further complicated by the degree to which sites such as hospitals, schools and mosques have been used as active operational bases. The management of Al-Shifa vehemently denied that Hamas was using it as a base until the IDF entered and found the bodies of hostages in the grounds, one who had been subject to an obscene degree of violence before execution, and CCTV of hostages being dragged past medical personnel. From that point the hospital management lost all credibility.
Hamas in its well planned attacks knowingly struck at pro-peace Israeli communities and event. The consequence is that even vehemently anti-Netanyahu voices have been supportive of the Israeli response, that might have served as a moderating influences.
Some 15,000 Gazans are now dead, how many were innocent civilians we do not know and Hamas is unlikely to provide that detail. Given that in 2021 the UN condemned both Hamas and the PA for recruiting and deploying child soldiers, we should not assume that all under-18’s were non-combatants.
Although the Netanyahu government is expected to fall shortly, like the 1929 massacres, which share many of the same characteristics as the Oct 7 attacks, the legacy of this latest massacre will have long term consequences for the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians. While we all may want peace and the emergence of a Palestinian state, unless Palestinians condemn the actions of Hamas and develop their own peace movement, then it is likely that the future for the Palestinians is extremely bleak.
As the Israelis collect and analyse the evidence, witnesses and survivors give their testimony and these are published, and Israelis view the videos of the attacks recorded and distributed by Hamas, Israeli attitudes will harden even further. Why should Israel supply water, electricity, fuel, medicine, food, access to transport infrastructure and collect tax for a people who celebrate the rape, infanticide, torture and murder of Israelis?
This endless cycle of violence will only end when both sides are able and willing to deliver peace, and that depends upon ordinary Israelis & Palestinians supporting peace.
I think you are right to rubbish the comparison between Hamas and the IRA. Hamas is a religious group dedicated to establishing an Islamic state. The IRA never claimed that they were doing God’s will – they wanted independence.
This is the first time Croydon’s TUC has doorstepped their MP, so it indicates the depth of feeling. It also indicates their priorities – that the war in Gaza tops everything else. The war is horrific, that doesn’t need repeating, but does it trump everything?
Mr Underwood’s seemingly impartial views re Gaza must be taken with a pinch of salt as The Green Party actively promotes policies designed to damage the state of Israel. Moreover it associates with organisations that do not recognise a state of Israel as a separate entity to a Palestinian state. My comments do not necessarily endorse the actions of the IDF .