Women and children as human shields
I READ with interest Jennifer Bell’s letter (27th March) saying how few people there are, like her, who lived through WW2 and its aftermath.
Mrs Bell is right to point out the horrors that civilians must have gone through as without warning towns and cities in the UK such as London, Coventry, Birmingham, Bristol, Southampton, Sheffield, Liverpool,
Manchester, Cardiff, Portsmouth, Hull, Clydebank, Belfast and Plymouth were systematically carpet bombed.
My own relatives were evacuated from Plymouth to Tavistock and I remember well their stories about these horrific and frightening times.
Winston Churchill called this enemy “a monstrous tyranny” and in his first speech as Prime Minister to the Commons on May 13th 1940 said: “Victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.” Perhaps that is why, in response to this “monstrous tyranny” of bombings, allied forces (also without warning) bombed Berlin, Cologne and Essen; with a concentrated carpet bombing of Hamburg in July 1943 which led to 42,000 casualties. Ultimately, the allies dropped nuclear bombs on Japan (again without warning); and according to the BBC it is thought that about 140,000 of Hiroshima’s 350,000 population were killed in the blast, and that at least 74,000 people died in Nagasaki.
Where I disagree with Mrs
Bell is her comparison of these bombings in WW2 with what Israel is doing in Gaza. Israel warns in advance of where it is going to bomb to allow civilians to escape; and it strategically selects targets where terrorists are; and not “indiscriminate carpet bombing” as she suggests. Israel, like Britain in the 1940’s, is facing a “monstrous tyranny” and “survival”. If Hamas released their hostages the war would end; but they choose not to. This decision extends the war; and by using women and children as human shields they increase civilian casualties. If “victory at all costs” for the sake of “survival” was good enough for Britain and her allies against a “monstrous tyranny”; surely it should be the same for Israel.
Gareth Jones Tavistock, West Devon