ISM Czech Republic

16 January 2024 | Prague, Czech Republic

Statement by Not in Our Name! – For a just peace in the Middle East

On January 15, Czech President Petr Pavel paid a state visit to Israel, where he met with President Yitzhak Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli political leaders. This visit can only be interpreted as being made in support of Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. As citizens of the Czech Republic, we wish to distance ourselves from this state visit and to clearly state that we are ashamed of it. We do not want to be seen as a “dear friend of Israel”, as President Herzog named the Czech Republic for its long-standing blind support for Israel.

Being a dear friend means being committed to support and understand. However, we can have no understanding for Israel’s current war crimes in both the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, and we cannot unfailingly support a country that has been pursuing a policy of apartheid and settler colonization against the Palestinians for more than 75 years. While President Herzog spoke of a “hypocritical world” in his talks with our President, we do not wish to live in an illusory world where Israel is “the only democracy in the Middle East”, nor with the hypocritical notions that Israeli occupation will bring peace or that the war on Gaza means security.

This is the translation of the original letter in Czech sent to the Czech president, Mr. Petr Pavel on 9 January 2024, prior to his official visit to Israel (which took place on 15-16 January 2024).

Dear Mr. President,

As an advocacy group with a long-standing commitment to the Palestinian cause, and above all as citizens of the Czech Republic, we are calling on you to cancel your planned January state visit to Israel. If, however, you do go to Israel, we request that you to demand to visit the Gaza Strip and meet with the Palestinian people there. This would be in the spirit of the diplomatic legacy of Václav Havel, which you seek to build on.

In the almost three months of the war against Gaza, the Israeli army has killed over 22,000 Palestinians. Almost half of the victims are children. As a result of the Israeli bombardment and ground attack, almost two million people have been forced to flee their homes. Two thirds of the buildings and homes have been destroyed by the Israeli army, leaving the people homeless and with nowhere to return to. Israel is targeting civilians, infrastructure, hospitals, schools, mosques and churches on a daily basis. From the outset of the war, Israel cut off the civilian population in the Gaza Strip from running water and electricity. In addition to the shelling and shooting, this densely populated area therefore suffers from a severe shortage of medicine, food and drinking water. Thousands of children and adults have had their limbs amputated, often without anesthesia, which is in short supply after the cessation of humanitarian supplies to Gaza. Newborn babies die in incubators, pregnant women fear for their survival due to malnutrition, children wake up hungry at night and drink unsanitary water, malnourished mothers lose their milk and cannot breastfeed. Every day in Gaza is a struggle for survival: if Palestinians are not killed by bombs, they may die of starvation or contagious diseases. By mid-December, according to international human rights organizations, the number of mass graves in Gaza exceeded one hundred and twenty.