• CATH Attlee’s letter (Challenge the Rwanda deportation policy, September 8) says that Priti Patel was warned about human rights concerns regarding Rwanda.

Patel ignored the warnings, including the US State Department 2021 report, of government “killings, kidnappings, and violence”.

The Rwanda plan was first tried by Israel in 2014 and had to be abandoned after three years of furious opposition from African asylum seekers.

Every week thousands demonstrated in the streets. Many Jewish communities around the world and Jewish religious leaders joined the protests.

The distinguished Israeli lawyer Eitay Mack reports [Like the UK, Israel tried sending refugees to Rwanda – it didn’t work] that the Israeli / Rwandan relationship is predicated on a deal: in exchange for weapons and training, the Rwandan dictatorship whitewashes the Israeli involvement in the Rwandan genocide and prevents the release of documentation about it.

Cath Attlee’s otherwise important letter calls for the people of Camden to support Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) in order to challenge the Rwanda plan.

But she doesn’t mention, or she may not know, that SUTR has allied itself with the initiators of the first Rwanda plan, Israel.

Muslim women, human rights, Jewish anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian organisations have been infuriated that [Statement on the Glasgow march to mark Anti-Racism Day] SUTR has insisted in welcoming friends of Israel groups on their marches.

The result: apartheid-defenders carrying the Israeli flag on marches claiming to be anti-racist!

When we asked SUTR if they were against apartheid in Israel, they said “we will not allow Palestine to split the anti-racist movement”.

But for anti-racists anywhere the liberation of Palestine is indivisible from the anti-racism of opposing the Rwanda plan, whichever government tries to impose it.

MICHAEL KALMANOVITZ
SAM WEINSTEIN
International Jewish
Anti-Zionist Network UK