Mercury award-winning band Wolf Alice, Peter Gabriel, authors Philip Pullman, Irvine Welsh, Colm Tóibín, and Selma Dabbagh, actors Harriet Walter and Julie Christie are among cultural figures joining many MPs, trade unions and human rights organisations to call on the UK government and political parties to: “support the call of Palestinian civil society organisations for effective measures by all States to stop Israel’s illegal annexation of the occupied West Bank”.

Artists for Palestine UK is proud to partner on the launch of this vital call to action, the text of which is reproduced below. The campaign launches with this letter in the Guardian.

• You can add your name to the statement here
• Please share the statement on social media.  You can do this via this link . (And do join the launch twitter storm at 1pm today Wednesday 10th!)
• Write to your MP using PSC’s template letter. Just click here.

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Starting in July, the new Israeli Government has said that it intends to illegally annex large swathes of Palestinian land in the West Bank, which was militarily occupied in 1967. This would be the culmination of years of appropriation of land – through the forced displacement of Palestinians and the illegal settlement of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. By annexing the West Bank, Israel would take over occupied Palestinian territory and make it an integral part of the Israeli state. 

Palestinian civil society has made a global call for ‘effective measures’ to be taken to stop this annexation happening. If the measures are to be effective, the UK should now, at the very least, be adhering to an ethical policy on all the UK’s trade with Israel , in particular by applying international law on settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and stopping any arms trade with Israel that is used in violation of the human rights of Palestinians. 

In the midst of the Covid pandemic a number of organisations are cooperating to try to respond to the call from Palestine by making annexation a live issue on the current political agenda. Israel’s timetable is to annex land quickly with Trump’s support – this means we cannot wait.

If you agree with this and want to support the Palestinian call for action, please indicate your agreement with the following statement:

SPEAK OUT TO STOP ANNEXATION NOW

I am speaking out now in order to stop the threatened annexation of Palestinian land by Israel in July and I call on the UK Government and all UK political parties to support the call of Palestinian civil society organisations for effective measures by all States to stop Israel’s illegal annexation of the occupied West Bank.

Signatories: 

Organisations:

Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Amos Trust

Artists for Palestine UK

British Palestinian Policy Council,

Jews for Justice for Palestinians

Labour and Palestine

Liberal  Democrats Friends of Palestine

Labour Friends of Palestine and Middle East

SNP Friends of Palestine

Palestinian Return Centre

War on Want

Parliamentarians  

Apsana Begum MP

Baroness Tessa Blackstone

Baroness Christine Blower

Alan Brown MP

Baroness Pauline Bryan

Richard Burgon MP

Ian Byrne MP

Jeremy Corbyn MP

Bob Doris MSP

James Dornan MSP

Lord Hugh Dykes

John Finnie MSP

Lord Peter Hain

Neale Hanvey MP

Lord John Hendy

Rachel Hopkins MP

Stephen Kinnock MP

Ian Lavery MP

Caroline Lucas MP

Kenny MacAskill MP

John McDonnell MP

Ivan McKee MSP

Grahame Morris MP

Brendan O’Hara MP

Kate Osborne MP

Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP

Tommy Sheppard MP

Andy Slaughter MP

Zarah Sultana MP

Jon Trickett MP

Claudia Webbe MP

Sandra White MSP

Mick Whitley MP

Leanne Wood MS

Trade Unions :

Mary Bousted, Joint General Secretary NEU

Manuel Cortes, General Secretary TSSA

FBU

Jo Grady, General Secretary UCU

Len McCluskey, General Secretary Unite the Union

John Phillips, Acting General Secretary GMB

Barbara Plant, President GMB

RMT

Mark Serwotka, General Secretary PCS

Sarah Woolley, General Secretary, BFAWU

Mick Whelan, General Secretary ASLEF

Individuals :

Dr Hafiz Alkarmi  (Chair- Palestinian Forum in Britain)

Omar Al-Qattan

Salman Abu Sitta

John Austin

Zaher Barawi Chair Europal Forum)

Sarah Beddington

Tamara Ben Halim

Geoffrey Bindman

Victoria Brittain

Julie Christie

Chipo Chung

Caryl Churchill

Selma Dabbagh

William Dalrymple

Izzat Darwazeh

Brian Eno

Shepard Fairey

David Farr

Peter Gabriel

Arthur Goodman

Professor Kamel  Hawwash ( Chair PSC),

Canon Garth Hewitt

Nadia Hijab

Kate Hudson (Gen Secretary CND)

Betty Hunter

Ben Jamal (Director PSC)

Ghada Karmi

A.L.Kennedy

Sara Husseini

Hugh Lanning

Mike Leigh

Ken Loach

Dr. Dina Matar ( Chair, Centre for Palestine Studies, SOAS)

Kika Marlham

Yann Martel

Jenny Morgan

Professor Karma Nabulsi

Maxine Peake

John Pilger

Philip Pullman

Hilary Rose

Steven Rose

Atallah Said, OBE ( Chair, British Arab Association; Honorary Chair, British Palestinian Policy Council)

Zac Sammour,

Aimee Shalan

Alexei  Sayle

Clare Short

David Thompson

Colm Tóibín

Harriet Walter

Irvine Welsh

Wolf Alice