Dear Mr Benfield and Ms Sitwell,

I will attempt to be brief because I know you have to work hard to get a good paper out. You know from previous e-mails that I have been unhappy about several things. It is not egotism which finally prompts me to write but the knowledge that the Morning Star is exactly that, truth amidst the capitalist and imperial mire.

It was about 8 years ago I met Roger Fletcher on a march when I heard about the MS. I have taken the paper since then, contributed to it and helped it in every possible way. I see there are 67 links to my name on the MS web site and an article, which jars a bit now for its metaphors, is relevant to the further stage in the evisceration of the NHS announced yesterday
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/23042

But things have changed a bit in the last year or so. The editorial responses to my input are of much lesser importance.

a. whether you conveyed my concerns urgently to HMG having first received them on 24 May? In that letter I said 'We demand that it resists the threatened and armed obstruction of that flotilla in all lawful ways, including the provision of a UK naval escort, as it passes from international waters into those off the 25 mile long Gaza strip.' If HMG had taken a robust line there would not be 19 corpses in morgues and dozens of injured in hospital. As a surgeon and healer I am outraged by the loss of life arising from the subservient silence of the government.

b. Whether any UK subject, or subject with dual UK/Israeli nationality, took part in the assault force?
 

Six Londonderry men and seven teenagers were shot dead by soldiers of the British Parachute Regiment on Sunday 30 January 1972. Five of the wounded were shot in the back. The Widgery Tribunal was convened rapidly. The dead and wounded had been in a march with over 7000 people protesting against internment without trial. The Widgery Tribunal was appointed under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921.

Lord Chief Justice Widgery held a preliminary hearing two weeks after the murders and reported in April. (1) He said that if the march, which had been banned by the British authorities along with all public demonstrations, had not taken place there would not have been any deaths. By the same token, if British army rifles had not been fired there would have been no casualties. Furthermore, he stated 'There is no reason to suppose that the soldiers would have opened fire if they had not been fired upon first," he said. This lie did not run but it limped.

SDLP MP John Hume said his conclusions were a "whitewash" and called for his resignation. The results of the inquiry were rejected by Republican people who began a long campaign for a fresh investigation. In August 1973 an inquest jury returned an open verdict on the 14 people who had died. The coroner, Major Hubert O'Neill, accused the British army of "sheer unadulterated murder". Brave humans tower above the Lilliputian in man's descent. The Saville Inquiry started in 1998 and its very long report is published this week.

copy to The Rt Hon William Hague First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (by Royal Mail).

copy to Alistair Burt MP Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (by Royal Mail)

Dear Mr Stride,

We have corresponded about Palestine before. Congratulations on your election in this new constituency.

I write on behalf of the Dove and Dolphin Charity which I founded with a voyage to Palestine in February 2003. We concern ourselves with the welfare of children in particular but our work becomes ever more difficult because of the barriers to entry and exit that are erected by Israel, or at its behest.

We urge that HMG treats any obstruction of the flotilla that is bound for Gaza with humanitarian cargoes as a gross breach of international law. We demand that it resists the threatened and armed obstruction of that flotilla in all lawful ways, including the provision of a UK naval escort, as it passes from international waters into those off the 25 mile long Gaza strip.

Thank you for this proforma letter of reply. This e-mail is delayed because, like many, I am constantly responding to the cries within the chaos that is Palestine. That such suffering exists 61 years after 80% of the Palestinian population (800,000 humans) were driven from their homes, their land and their living by Zionist terror and force of arms reflects with the greatest shame on the three parties. That these resilient people have lost more lives, more limbs and more land as year has followed year 63 years after the Nuremberg trials shows the dominance of Zionist power in the Houses of Lords and Commons and the grotesque partisanship of the three parties. I note your mantra 'with security for Israel and a viable state for Palestinians'. It is very familiar; it trips off the tongues of Miliband and Lewis, whose partisanship is more plain than that of the Lib Dems. You need to read UNGA 194 if you have not. This was passed in November 1948 and it required that the Palestinians be allowed to return to their homes - though about 500 villages had been flattened by the Zionists in another genocidal convulsion. Israel was not to be recognised until it observed UNGA 194. But the UN was dominated by pro-Zionist nations. No change since.