Letter
Mere words don’t feed
For almost two years, our government has watched the Palestine people bombed, crushed, torn, starved and shot, and it has moved our government to do the sum total of nothing. Footage coming out of Gaza from heroic journalists made clear that all this destruction was in the cause of a Greater Israel. The intent of the Israeli occupation was not hidden – it was crystal clear. We all knew that Israeli talk amounted to committing genocide on the Palestinians to steal resources, and expand into Syria and Lebanon.
Our government pontificates that it will recognise a Palestinian state. But tell me exactly how many mouths will that feed? How many of the dead will that bring back after two long years of your silence?
The Elders, Mary Robinson and Helen Clark, travelled to the Rafah Crossing this week to speak to the Red Crescent and the truck drivers turned back by Israel, to draw attention to the deliberate starvation of Gaza. That these elders can take meaningful action speaks volumes, when our government is impotent, waiting for others to act.
That such horrific cruelty moved our government to do nothing practical to save lives shows a failure of leadership.
— Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook