Academics call for Gaza ceasefire and just peace agreement

Hilik Bar (A thirst for Israeli blood, 21 July) reduces the charge against Israel to killing too many Palestinians. The story is more complicated. The government of Israel, having provoked the firing of rockets by its rampage through the West Bank, is now using that response as the pretext for an overwhelming assault on Gaza. People are dying, and for what?

We are academics and intellectuals from round the world. We have been asked by colleagues in Gaza to urge Israeli academics to make their voices heard in Israel and abroad against what the Israeli government is inflicting on the Gaza population. More than 600 people have been killed in Gaza by the IDF. Most of these people are children, women and the elderly. The Gaza infrastructure, already in tatters, is now further undermined, and the population is in the worst situation imaginable, getting worse by the minute. These atrocities can only lead to further deterioration of the already dangerous situation.

We call on Israeli academics and intellectuals to join their voices in an open protest against these war crimes by the Israeli government. We urge them to answer the call of their Gazan colleagues and make their voices heard in opposition to the war crimes committed in their names. We are heartened that 65 of them have already come forward and signed the following statement:

“The signatories to this statement, all academics at Israeli universities, wish it to be known that they utterly deplore the aggressive military strategy being deployed by the Israeli government. The slaughter of large numbers of wholly innocent people is placing yet more barriers of blood in the way of the negotiated agreement which is the only alternative to the occupation and endless oppression of the Palestinian people. Israel must agree to an immediate ceasefire, and start negotiating in good faith for the end of the occupation and settlements, through a just peace agreement. Dissent in Israel now carries a high price.”

We are glad to stand in solidarity with them in taking this conscientious stand.

Etienne Balibar, Patrick Bateson, John Berger, Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, Richard Falk, Naomi Klein, Ahdaf Soeuif, Marina Warner, Haim Bresheeth, Jonathan Rosenhead.

A full list of more than 1,200 signatories is at http://tinyurl.com/k9kogc5

• Since 2008 the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) has been supporting two new children’s libraries in the Gaza Strip. IBBY is an international organisation of people dedicated to children’s literacy and literature and to the promotion of international understanding through children’s books.

Last year, an IBBY delegation was able to visit Gaza for the first time. In Beit Hanoun the children spoke about hearing the drones overhead and of the people they knew who had been killed or injured in Israeli air strikes.

It is impossible to imagine what it is like for young people just to live from day to day in Gaza under such constant pressure. IBBY UK and the many writers and illustrators for young people, lecturers, teachers, librarians and storytellers who have signed this letter call on the British government to influence the government of Israel to cease its present assault and to lift its blockade of Gaza and its occupation of other Palestinian territory and to work in good faith towards a lasting peace in the region.

Pam Dixchair of IBBY UK, Anne Fine author and former children’s laureate, Michael Rosen author and former children’s laureate, Philip Pullman author,Jackie Kay, Debjani Chatterjee poet, Anne Marley librarian , Alan Gibbons author, Gillian Cross author, Bali Rai author, Beverley Naidoo author, Bernard Ashley author, Rina Vergano playwright, Candy Gourlay author, Elizabeth Laird author, Jane Ray illustrator Helen Cowcher illustrator, Jeremy Strong author, Matthew Kay filmmaker, Kerry Mason and Fen Coles Letterbox Library, Julia Jarman author, Linda Newbery author, Lynne Reid Banks author, Catherine Johnson author, Nicholas Tucker author, Piet Grobler illustrator and lecturer, Rose Impey author, Prodeepta Das photographer, Vivien French author, Sophie Hallam, Mary Hoffman author, Chris Stephenson, Carol Thompsonillustrator,Pamela Lewis, Ferelith Hordon librarian and editor, Charles Forrest, Val Edgar author, Margaret Bateson-Hill author and storyteller, Rachel Johnson, Mary Green author, Margaret Chamberlain illustrator, Nicki Cornwell author, Evelyn Arizpe lecturer, Anne Harding librarian and lecturer, Ann Lazim librarian, Anna McQuinn author and publisher,Laura Cecil literary agent, Nicola Collins, Tricia Adams librarian, Pat Pinsent author and lecturer, Clive Barnes librarian, Lesley Delaney, Alexandra Strick book consultant, Rebecca Butler student, John Newman bookseller,Enid Stephenson, Eve Tandoi student, Jean Burke, Karen Argent teacher and lecturer, Nikki Marsh, Ollie Alden, Beth Cox book consultant, Sheila Ray librarian and lecturer, Shirley Hobson, Zoe Toft book consultant, Sarah Lawrence, Diana Kimpton author, Kay Waddilove, Anne Walker, Susan Bailes, Bridget Carrington, Sue Mansfield librarian, and Marion Brettle