4^th August 2014
Paul Ronalds
Save the Children Australia
PO Box 280 Fitzroy VIC 3065
[email protected]

Dear Mr Ronalds
We are writing to you following the receipt by the ECAJ of numerous com­plaints con­cern­ing a 30 second advert­ise­ment being screened by your organ­iz­a­tion at Village cinemas.
We of course decry the death and injury of children in conflict, and do not take exception with your message “Stop the use of explosive weapons in Gaza and Israel”.
However, in support of that statement, your advert­ise­ment calls for action from one side of the conflict only, and that is to “End the blockade”.
One might have expected that a statement in aid of innocent children would have at least included the call “End the rockets”, or “End the use of human shields”.
And does Save the Children Australia, have nothing to say about the 160 Palestini­an children (at least) who, according to a report in the Journal of Palestine Studies, have died in cave-ins in the course of con­struct­ing Hamas’s tunnels?
As it is, your advert­ise­ment is one sided and partisan.
Further, calling for an end to the blockade to ’save the children’, is entirely mis­con­ceived. The blockade does not prevent food, medicine and other human­it­ari­an aid from entering Gaza from Israel, and this occurs under UN auspices. Indeed, the blockade has prevented the loss of more innocent lives by restrict­ing the import­a­tion by Hamas into Gaza of the very explosive weapons, which you condemn.
Put another way, ending the blockade is the surest way to bring about an influx of explosive weapons and munitions into Gaza, as it would remove the only obstacle that presently exists to the smuggling of rockets, mortars and other weapons from Iran into Gaza.
We ask that you remove or modify the advert­ise­ment and the petition which it supports.