Letter to the ambassadors of France and Germany to our respective countries

We, the undersigned recipients of the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law, are deeply disappointed with the positions and statements of the German and French governments on the Israeli onslaught against civilians in Gaza. This ongoing bloodshed, which we are witnessing and documenting as human rights defenders and journalists, is a stark manifestation of the erosion of human rights and the rule of law, which you celebrated and awarded us for championing. 

Our role as human rights defenders involves telling governments that respect for international human rights and humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians during armed conflict, is essential to preserve lives and to avoid the further escalation of conflicts. Giving blank checks to the Israeli government in its military actions in Gaza is interpreted as a green light for it to commit more war crimes, crimes against humanity and potentially a genocide of the Palestinian population in Gaza. 

We are cognizant of the historically rooted pro-Israel stances that your respective governments have held time and again. But just as everything about this war is unprecedented, so are your positions that adopted full blindness to Palestinians, rendering 2.2 million people of Gaza, simply, invisible. We are irked and can’t but imagine you also believe that these humans of Gaza are lesser humans. Perhaps this belief extends to the whole of Arab populations. 

We have always been told that your governments and your histories have birthed the universal of human rights. Today we wonder, how supporting the targeting and killing of civilians in Gaza fits with this universal? Is destroying the civilian infrastructure of a city by an occupying force (Israel is an occupier of Gaza and the West Bank according to international law), consistent with human rights and humanitarian law? Is the quest to forcibly displace hundreds of thousands from their homes not a crime against humanity? Is condoning the barring of humanitarian aid from reaching the besieged people of Gaza not collective punishment? And, before this whole war started, did the humiliating siege in Gaza or the expansion of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territories (again according to international law) or the plain denial of Palestinians of their right to statehood, comply with your understanding of human rights? Or are Palestinians excluded from the human category altogether? 

These are not rhetorical questions. In fact they constitute a history that allows us to understand that the current Israeli aggression cannot be reduced to a response to Hamas’s attacks on October 7. The current war is the result of a systematic denial of human rights under occupation for decades. It doesn’t even require commitment to human rights to understand how this war started. This is rather a historical and political understanding.  

Let’s step away for a moment from our region and go to your own cities, Paris and Berlin among others. Banning demonstrations and aggressively responding to protesters while they perform their right to peacefully assemble and demonstrate in solidarity with Palestinians undermines your unconditional triumphing of freedom of expression and gives excuses to repressive régimes to trample rights at home.

Perhaps in a moment of extreme violence like this, governments have no patience to think of human rights. But even if your imbalanced position is consistent with your political interests, we wonder if you stopped for a moment to think of not only the 2.2 million people of Gaza (minus the 7326 people — more than half of whom are women and children— confirmed killed at the time of the last communication from the Gaza Health Ministry before communications in the strip were completely cut), or the 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank, or the 6 million Palestinian refugees scattered throughout the rest of the world, but actually the entire 465 million people living in Arabic speaking countries and in the Global South. These are millions of people you have profoundly alienated and agitated with your unconditional support to an Israeli government intent on committing the gravest violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. And we don’t know how many human rights awards and years of diplomacy can rectify this position. 

As powerful governments, your unconditional support for Israel in waging this war needs to be replaced by swift action with other governments to bring about an immediate ceasefire. Until this happens, we are left wondering: What little place is left for human rights in our conversations? And what political ties do you wish to continue weaving with pro-democracy activists, human rights defenders and journalists in our part of the world?  

We are angry, sad and tired.

Yours sincerely,