The actors Maxine Peake and Miriam Margolyes, rock musician Brian Eno, and film director Ken Loach, are among those who have joined Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s call for immediate sanctions to be imposed on Israel.
The call follows Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments, made one day before Israel’s elections, that there would be no Palestinian state on his watch. Netanyahu also made it clear, in the same televised interview, that settlement construction would not be halted.
In a letter published in the Guardian this week, Peake and her fellow signatories wrote: “Without sanctions on Israel, Palestinians cannot see a future free of occupation, apartheid and, in Gaza, crippling siege.
“The next UK government must push the EU to impose immediate sanctions on Israel until it abides by international law, ends settlement building, and ends the occupation and the blockade of Gaza.”
Hugh Lanning, Chair of Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the poet Benjamin Zephaniah, novelist Ahdaf Soueif, scriptwriter Paul Laverty and Palestinian writer and academic, Dr Karma Nabulsi, are also signatories to the letter.
They join nearly 10,000 others who have signed a petition on Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s website in less than a week, calling for the next UK government to push for sanctions.
In addition, nearly 28,000 emails have been sent to Parliamentary candidates using a Palestine Solidarity Campaign e-tool, asking if they would support an immediate arms embargo on Israel if elected to Parliament in May.
The question is one of several designed to uncover where Parliamentary candidates stand on the issue of freedom, justice and self-determination for the Palestinian people.
Their answers will be published on Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s website at the end of March, providing an important resource for voters.
This media release was sent to national and international media on 26 March 2015