ACTIONS FOR INTROVERTS
Israel-Palestine crisis
SIGN PETITIONS FOR AN IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE:
OXFAM #CEASEFIRENOW GLOBAL MOVEMENT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE ISRAEL-PALESTINE CRISIS
RETRACT AUSTRALIAN SUPPORT OF WAR CRIMES
AVAAZ - CALL TO PRESIDENT BIDEN AND GLOBAL LEADERS FOR AN IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE
PLAN INTERNATIONAL - PETITION TO FOREIGN MINISTER WONG
Jewish friends:
JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE - CALL TO PRESIDENT BIDEN
Instantly email your Federal MP using this link. Call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and an end to the siege of Gaza.
Check the APAN website for regularly updated ways to support Palestine.
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Write to or call the Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs :
Use the script below or modify with your own sentiments. Be respectful.
CONTACT:
The Hon. Anthony Albanese, MP
Prime Minister of Australia
Email via this link.
Call the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet: (02) 6271 5111
Or Parliament House: (02) 62777111
Senator the Hon. Penny Wong, Minister for Foreign Affairs:
Phone: (02) 62777 7500
Emails addresses:
foreignminister@dfat.gov.au
senator.wong@aph.gov.au
PHONE SCRIPT:
Hi [name of person who answers the phone], my name is [insert your name].
I’m calling to express my deep distress regarding the Australian government’s refusal to call for a ceasefire in Palestine or to hold Israel to account for its devastating attacks against civilians in Gaza with a death toll now at 12,300, which includes at least 5,000 children and 3,000 women. It’s believed around 6,000 people still remain beneath rubble.
Israel has told Palestinians to flee to the South but it has also been bombing the areas it has told them they will be safe. Since the IDF’s faiure to provide evidence of a Hamas operational command centre beneath Al Shifa hospital, it now claims the Hamas command centre is in the South in Khan Younis where it has begun escalating bombing. Palestinians are not safe anywhere. Israel will never be safe by committing war crimes against Palestinians and international legal experts believe there is sufficient evidence to support claims of genocide.
I call on the [Prime Minister/Foreign Minister] to demand an immediate ceasefire, an end to the siege of Gaza and an end to Israel’s illegal military occupation of Palestine.
Thanks for taking my call and for listening.
EMAIL SCRIPT:
Dear [Prime Minister/Minister],
Like millions of other Australians, I am shocked by Australia’s ongoing support for the massacre of civilians in Palestine and I implore you to take strong and immediate action by calling for an immediate ceasefire and for an end to the military occupation of Palestine by Israel. The heinous attacks on Israeli civilians by Hamas on October 7 have triggered a deep and profound collective trauma for Jewish people, and as Australians we stand in solidarity with their suffering and grief and reject antisemitic sentiment and violence in totality.
However, Israel’s response to this horrific terror attack by Hamas - an undemocratic, illegitimate, extremist group - is nothing short of retaliatory collective punishment. Israelis, Americans and Australians will soon wake up, as the Germans once did, to their complicity in genocide. Israel has destroyed every hospital in the Gaza strip. The IDF has told Palestinians to flee to the south and then stepped up bombing in the South. More bombs were dropped on Gaza by Israel in the first 10 days of its siege than the US rained on Afghanistan in that 20 year war. Over 11,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, most of them have been women and children. Aid into Gaza is still severely restricted by Israel. People in the North and South have no food, water or fuel. Every person in the intensive care unit at Al Shifa hospital has died.
The nature of this conflict is profoundly asymmetrical. Palestinians have been living under a system of apartheid and Israeli military occupation - the longest in modern history - since 1967. And although Israel, like other countries, maintains the right to defend itself, its response in Gaza cannot be characterised as such. This is trauma-fuelled retaliatory violence, which not only places Palestinian and Israeli civilians in imminent mortal danger but Jews and Muslims worldwide as well. We must consider the implications as hate crimes against Jews and Muslims are increasing, and as an immensely wealthy, powerful, far-right Jewish state with strong US backing wields disproportionate violence against an oppressed Muslim population, dangerous levels of antisemitism are accelerating worldwide.
In 1947 Australia played a critical role in the formation of the Israeli state, and as such, it is morally incumbent upon us now to intervene in this humanitarian crisis, to work with international partners to ensure the preservation of life, to prevent acts of genocide, to halt the acceleration of conflict and hatred in the Middle East for generations to come.
As such, we urge the Australian government to use its diplomatic influence and to work with its international partners in urgently calling for:
An immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Israel;
Full civilian access to food, water and fuel supplies in Gaza;
The safe release of Israeli hostages by Hamas, and the safe release of Palestinians detained without trial in Israel;
An end to Israeli territorial expansion and military occupation of the Palestinian territories.
We have allowed Israel to operate with impunity in Palestine for decades, stealing land, arresting citizens without trial and dispensing a violent and oppressive form of justice on Palestinian people
Yours faithfully,
[Your Name]
Script for email replies. Adjust as required.
Dear Minister,
Thank you for your reply.
However, like many Australians, I remain deeply disturbed by the Australian government’s inaction and response to the conflict in Israel and Palestine.
The request for humanitarian pauses in hostilities is equivalent to requesting a break in a domestic violence assault so the victim can drink some water prior to the resumption of the beating. And yet, Israel has rejected even this minimal degree of humanitarian concern for Palestinians.
There is no ethical framework in which Israel’s assault on civilians in Gaza is justifiable other than one that condones revenge. Israel is not defending itself by bombing civilians, it is sowing the seeds of extremism among traumatised young Palestinians and ensuring generations of continuing violence to come.
The Israeli bombardment of Gaza is not intended to remove Hamas. Hamas leadership is secure in Qatar and underground in Gaza, safe from shelling. It would seem, according to Israel’s own leaked reports, that Israel is more intent on displacing the entire Gaza population to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
By remaining silent and refusing to call for a complete and immediate ceasefire, Australia is legitimising Israel’s attempts to wipe Palestinians - in the words of Israeli leadership - “off the face of the Earth”.
It is our great shame to be one of only 45 countries across the globe to abstain from the UN General Assembly’s vote on an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Global organisations and institutions have documented systematic evidence of war crimes committed by Israel including the denial of food, water, fuel, electricity, internet, and medical supplies to the people of Gaza; the sustained bombing of residential neighbourhoods; the bombing of schools, health facilities, mosques and churches where civilians are sheltering. This week the IDF called for the evacuation of Al-Shifah hospital and then bombed the ambulance convoy carrying the wounded to the Rafah border crossing.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry Israeli officials, international observers and aid groups, the numbers of people affected by the war as of Friday 3 November are as follows:
1,200 Israelis killed (October 7)
Over 24,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza
More than 5,200 Palestinians arrested since October 7 including 4,000 labourers working in Israel now held in military bases.
In a public statement on 15 October 800 scholars of international law, conflict studies, Holocaust and Genocide Studies declared “the possibility of the crime of genocide being perpetrated by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.” Since then nearly 7,000 more people have been killed by Israeli forces.
In the words of Israel’s own leadership:
“What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.”
-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
“It is an entire nation out there that is responsible… It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’etat.”
-Israeli President Isaac Herzog
As one of the countries responsible for the creation of Israel in 1947, Australia’s refusal to condemn its actions and call for a ceasefire makes us complicit in these war crimes. In the words of Dr Martin Luther King Jr., “There comes a time when silence is betrayal."
The Australian government’s expressed concerns about the safety of Palestinian civilians rings hollow. We will not stand silently by and abide our government’s inaction. We will continue to protest for justice.
If Australia, the US, UK and Canada wish to retain Israel as a valuable democratic ally in the Middle East, we must join international efforts to pull Israel back from the brink of committing a full scale genocide, and before we are all dragged, kicking and screaming, into another world war.
Call for an immediate ceasefire, Minister, and an end both to the siege of Gaza and Israel’s illegal military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. Please.
Yours faithfully,
[Your name]
