Nottingham university authorities have decided to invite you to speak on our campus. It might interest you to know that the vast majority of staff and students at this University have not been informed of this supposedly “public” lecture. The reasons for this are clear: Far from being an occasion for an honest debate about important issues of the Middle East conflict, the intention has been to stage a friction-free PR initiative to allow you to preach your government’s talking points in front of a small, unrepresentative but sympathetic audience. Here are some facts your audience, and the wider Nottingham University community, might wish to consider before listening to your no-doubt carefully planned marketing pitch:


* Since its creation in 1948, the Israeli state has been engaging in a consistent and sustained programme of expulsion and occupation against the original Palestinian inhabitants within its territories (including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip). In the words of former US president Jimmy Carter



- “Israel’s continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land. In order to perpetuate the occupation, Israeli forces have deprived their unwilling subjects of basic human rights.”



* Today, sixty years on, seven millions of Palestinians living in the Diaspora are still prevented from returning to their homes. Israel continues to deny them their basic human right of return.



* Israel is pressing ahead with its settlement expansion programme , deemed illegal under international law by the United Nations, building more homes and Jewish-only roads on stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank, further fragmenting the Palestinian areas and making a Palestinian State a virtual impossibility.



* Israel is the only Nuclear power in the Middle East, in clear and blatant violation of the Non Proliferation treaty. It continues to reject international inspections of its nuclear facilities and instead has persistently tried to shift attention towards other countries including Iran.



* Your government, Mr Prosor, has been responsible for decades of brutal attacks on Palestinian civilian populations including the war crimes of the Gaza offensive of December 2008-January 2009, condemned by virtually every single reputable human rights NGO including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.



* The Government you represent boasts a racist foreign minister who has advocated the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population.



* The government you represent has been building a wall declared illegal by the International Criminal Court. This wall is being mostly built on confiscated Palestinian land, inflicting further suffering and misery on thousands of Palestinian civilians.



* You government has imprisoned thousands of Palestinian civilians without charge, including Mohammad Othman, a Palestinian Human Rights Activist who has been under arrest without charge for the past 10 weeks simply for daring to tell the world about your government’s crimes.



* Your government has consolidated an apartheid regime that treats its own non-Jewish residents as second-class citizens and considers Palestinians under occupation as sub-human.



* Your government is a major purveyor of state terrorism, as such, it is an obstacle to peace not an agent of it.

Mr Ambassador, we realize your government requires you to join in its latest international PR charm offensive designed to pull wool over people’s eyes, but you can’t hide realities with spin and you can’t avoid the issues by changing the subject.


Everyone has seen the images of dead children and destroyed homes. Everyone has seen what Israel’s “search for peace” really means.



You represent a racist, war-mongering, inhumane regime. You know it, your government knows it, and after the massacre in Gaza, the whole world knows it too.



Mr Ambassador, you are not welcome on our campus.