umkahlil

Open Letter to the Beatles

To Paul, Ringo and the families of John and George

Dear all

We are writing to you to ask you to decline the invitation to join the celebrations marking the birth of the state of Israel in 1948.

What happened was not the peaceful creation of a safe haven for Jews escaping from Europe; it was the brutal ethnic cleansing and massacre of the Palestinians and the theft of their land. The United Nations decision in 1947 to partition Palestine allocated 55% of the Palestinian land for a Jewish state and 45 % for a Palestinian state. But even that gross settlement was not good enough for the Zionists who had targeted the whole of Palestine for the creation of a Jewish State - long before the Nazi atrocities. So, the Zionists took 78% of the land, brutally exiled or killed over 750,000 Arab Palestinians and destroyed over 400 of their villages in an ethnic cleansing operation that was driven by brutal terrorism. Palestine/Israel is about the size of Wales. Can you imagine what the Welsh would have felt and done if the UN had decided to partition Wales and incomers had ethnically cleansed and massacred Welsh villages? It is not only the Palestinians who remember these days of horror as the Nakba; Israeli historians themselves have documented these events in all their bloody detail. And little has changed since in 1967 Israel seized the remaining Palestinian territory (the West Bank and Gaza) and the brutal occupation continues. The Beatles sang “All you need is love” but Israel believes that all it needs is racism and an army. Is this a policy that would have commanded their support when they were singing together? We don’t think so. The prospect of the surviving Beatles celebrating the Zionist theft of Palestinian land in 1948 is obscene, both for the suffering Palestinian people and for the growing number of British people who support their call for justice. As John put it, it is time to give peace a chance, not to celebrate oppression.

Signed by:
BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights
Ittijah - Union of Arab Community Based Associations
The Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign
Alternative Information Center - Palestine/Israel
Rima AWAD – Arab Counseling Centre for Education – Palestine
Yehya Hijazi – Al Mirsat Organization –– Palestine
Sana Shehadeh – Palestinian Counseling Centre – Palestine
Caritas Jerusalem
Palestine Solidarity Campaign UK (PSC)
British Committee for Universities of Palestine (BRICUP)
British Muslim Initiative (BMI)
Friends of Al-Aqsa UK
The Peace Cycle
Architects & Planners for Justice in Palestine
Raymond Deane -Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Comité de Soutien au Peuple Palestinien - Belgique
Association Belgo-Palestinienne - Belgique
Comité pour une Paix Juste au Proche Orient – Luxembourg
Sonja Zimmermann- Netherlands Palestine Committee NPK
Aktionsbuendnis fuer einen gerechten Frieden in Palaestina, Germany
Jüdische Stimme für gerechten Frieden in Nahost - Austria
Fritz Edlinger, Secretary General - Society for Austro-Arab Relations SAAR
Association France Palestine Solidarité (AFPS)
Women in Black – Strasbourg,
Collectif Judeo-Arabe et Citoyen pour la Paix Strasbourg – France
Handicap Solidarité - FranceAssociation Farrah-France
Association Internationale de Préservation du Patrimoine Palestinien AIPPP
Civimed Initiatives - France
Amis du Monde Diplomatique 67
Magda Zenon – Hands Across the Divide (Cyprus)
CADTM - Commité pour l'Annulation de la Dette du Tiers Monde
Solidaridad para el Desarrollo y la Paz – SODEPAZ Spain
Palestine Solidarity Committee of South Africa
Women in Solidarity with Palestine, Toronto
NION (Not In Our Name) Toronto
Creative Response, Toronto
New York City Labor Against the War – USA
Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights
Women in Black Los Angeles
Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights – USA