Britain’s complicity with Israel in Lebanon and the West Bank | Letters
Letters: Alexandra Lucas asks what has to happen our government to act, rather than simply condemn Benjamin Netanyahu, while John Deards notes Alan Bennett’s prescience on Donald Trump
You report that Donald Trump asked Benjamin Netanyahu to be more “low-key” in Lebanon (Netanyahu says there is no ceasefire in Lebanon as Israel launches fresh strikes, 9 April).
As someone who is Palestinian Lebanese, I know exactly what that means. The West Bank is low-key. The world isn’t watching, so the killing and dispossession continues – door to door, quietly enough that most people won’t realise until Israel has taken the whole of the West Bank.
Lebanon is different. Three hundred people killed in 10 minutes is hard to ignore. So the message from Washington is simply: not like that. Keep it quiet. Take the land. Just don’t let people notice.
Britain’s response is condemnation. But words are not enough. We remain complicit for as long as Britain continues to grant Israel preferential trade terms and supply components for the warplanes and weapons systems being used in these strikes. What has to happen before our government acts – rather than simply condemns?
Alexandra Lucas
London
I have never thought of the writer Alan Bennett as a prophet, but in the latest volume of his diaries, Enough Said, he seems to have a flair for it. On page 167, at the end of an entry for 7 January 2019, is the following: “When Trump destroys the world those who are left will look at one another and wonder why nobody stopped him.”
John Deards
Warminster, Wiltshire
