Geraldine Schoeman I have a response from Councillor Robert Boswell as follows which seems to clearly indicate the intention to continue: We took the decision to raise the flag of Palestine ion response to a request from some Preston constituents who drew the attention to us of the humanitarian suffering in Gaza. It was done in the hope of drawing world attention to this crisis and hopeful give a very small push to world opinion to do something to protect vulnerable people suffering in Gaza. It was not done because we were taking sides. We are not interested in apportioning blame. We are not anti anybody - but we are pro humanity. We are neutral on the historical causes of this conflict. We are not taking sides. We are certainly not anti-sematic in anyway whatsoever. While people are arguing over the causes and playing a blame game it appears to us innocent people are suffering and dying. Unfortunately, our humanitarian action has been hijacked by many people on see it as a criticism of the the Israeli government and chosen to justify the Israeli military action rather than seeing our action for what it is. I find this very disappointing. I am not of the Jewish faith. But from what I can see the Jewish faith is a faith of love and compassion. The religion at an international level cares abut the world and tries to use its influence to prevent suffering and hardship throughout the world. I am sad that the many people who have contacted me of the Jewish faith cant see what we are doing in purely humanitarian terms. If a group of Preston Citizens approach the council with evidence of a humanitarian crisis is Israel and ask us to fly the Israeli flag and the evidence seems compelling then this request would be considered. We have a tradition of flying flags in response to requests form Preston citizens. We have flown the Jamaican flag to celebrate 50 years of Jamaican independence. We have flown the Rainbow flag in response to a request from the LGBT community. I would have hoped if we had been around in the late 1930s and some Preston citizens drew attention to us of the terrible pogrom that taking place against Jewish people in central Europe at the time we would have flown the Star of David to do our very small part to try and draw attention to this.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 11:56:13 +0000
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