The Prime Minister of India : End India's 'strategic partnerships' Israel

Dear Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Israel is carrying out a genocide on the civilians of Gaza, which is widely characterised as an open-air concentration camp. Since its 2006 attack on Gaza, there have been reports, some of these from non-Palestinian sources, that banned and newly developed ammunition – such as white phosphorus and cancer-inducing Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME) and spent uranium “dirty bombs” – have been used along with phenomenal quantities of more traditional ammunition. There are similar reports this time, again from non-Palestinian sources. Other, possibly even more sinister weapons may have been used – the world does not know. A very large percentage of the casualties are children, which has given rise to the suspicion that Israel may be pursuing a policy of wiping out an entire generation of Gazans. As you are well aware, these attacks on Gaza come on top of the daily pain inflicted on its population in “normal” times by fragmenting their land, driving them out of their villages by various means, segregating roads, placing innumerable checkpoints that make life almost unbearable, cutting them off from their agricultural land, places of work, schools and colleges, hospitals, etc. What this means can be illustrated by the case of a woman in labour, who was denied passage to a hospital for hours, as a result of which she gave birth in the ambulance and the newborns (twins) died before reaching the hospital. These attacks also come on top of Israel's continued expansion of illegal settlements which occupy Palestinian land by sheer muscle and fire power of Jewish “settlers” backed by the Israeli state. Almost everything Israel has been doing is illegal in the eyes of international law, and has attracted repeated condemnation from the international community in the United Nations and elsewhere, barring a few countries which are guilty of criminal behaviour themselves. The state of Israel has violated many international laws, including United Nations Resolutions and the Laws of War and Occupation as stated in the Fourth Geneva Convention. Many Israelis, among them former soldiers, and Jewish people all over the world, have come out openly condemning Israel. Many of these people, who have expressed dissent within Israel, have been physically attacked. There was a time when the Republic of India stood solidly behind the people of Palestine, as Mahatma Gandhi had, to the extent that it had refused to maintain diplomatic relations with Israel. Later, geopolitical considerations prompted India to change this policy. We are now a close ally of Israel – “strategic partners” and a very large importer of arms and ammunition manufactured by them. Mr Prime Minister, the time has come to rise above those geopolitical considerations, for the sake of humanity. Otherwise history will not be kind to our beloved country. We urge you to end our “strategic partnership” with Israel immediately, stop all arms trade with that country, and downgrade our diplomatic engagement with them, if not sever relations altogether. Let India show the world that its moral fibre has remained intact.