In wanting Mumsnet to help Judi Dench and Joanna Lumley

And yet they have chosen this instead of not in addition to a campaign for better UK maternity care. It's completely their choice to make but why handwave away questions about why they chose Gaza not UK, Afghanistan etc?

And yet they have neither advocated for the improvement of maternity services in the UK or done anything significant other than demand that somebody else picks up a cause they have put their signature to, have they?

It's not as taxing as say, both going to work and posting continually on a thread nearly every hour for a whole day complaining that other women won't prioritise your cause.

I remain open-minded on the issue and think Reap raises an interesting question.

Writing to the foreign secretary or anyone in Government seems a more reasonable and logical course of action.

There are women in dire need of decent maternity care in the UK too and babies dying here (and women being harmed) unnecessarily. Especially among women less well off than the signatories of this letter.

If women chose to focus on something they can more directly influence, they should not be criticised by those massively better off, as well as less well informed (as far as I can tell), for doing so.

The tone of this letter is we care about this highly political luxury cause and are willing to use less well off women to promote our luxury cause but don't actually care much about these women or any problems they face.

10 minutes on the Relationships board would do them all good and perhaps encourage some humility which they seem to be lacking based on this letter.

I wonder how many of her illustrious co-signatories supported Amanda Abbington when she was getting a right kicking from the TRAs around the time of her Strictly appearances. She’d said and done nothing wrong. The activist extremists went after her career and her sanity. She found sympathy on MN FWR. But where else? <resounding silence>

The TRAs are after Martin Freeman now, her ExH for (a) supporting free speech, and (b) being connected to her. Fortunately a High Court ruling is now in force around these matters, hopefully being made permanent today.

I cynically have wondered overnight if that’s why this lot are really poking at Justine - her connection to Ian Katz. Hope not. But something’s off here.

Yet they've still not been willing to provide employee lists at all, to the best of my knowledge. If the charities wanted to pressure Israel, they'd be more effective if they complied with the clearly reasonable part and made it only about the ICC/ICJ.

If they re doctors, they should care first about providing medical care, the potential legal ramifications way way down the line should come a solid second, don't you think?

If MSF wants to keep helping pregnant women in Gaza, they can.

They are not kicked out by Israel, they simply refuse to abide to rules and prefer to stop working in Gaza. It's their sole choice.

If you only care about pregnant women dying, why aren't you incensed that MSF is actually giving up on these women.

If they cared about women this much, they d stay.

I'm sorry but the MSF blurb on this sounds quite political to me. Which generally they're not, but they use the term 'genocide' against Israel which is very politically loaded and fail to note that Hamas' explicit policy is genocide of the Jews.

I fail to see why demonstrating their staff aren't Hamas terrorists is a difficult ask. However I don't have time to research the details and I can't -and more generally UK women can't - judge the truth of any of their statements or the IDF / Israeli statements we're just not in positions to do so.

It's not our problem to solve.

I have donated to MSF in the past and I would do so again if I won the lottery however these days I mostly donate to UK causes as there is tremendous need here too including people struggling to access healthcare for their children and receiving shit maternity care.

Hopefully they'll comply with the request to provide lists of their employees in Gaza then. I wonder why the signatories to the letter aren't trying to persuade them to do that?

Well, there's been one Yazidi slave woman rescued from a Gazan jihadist already, and she'd had children in her forced marriage. Not beyond the realms of possibility there are more.

But you're right, part of activism like this is explaining why you think resources should be focused on one issue in one particular way.

Still probably a good organisation to donate to. Other frontline organisations exist. I'd always recommend due diligence. Google is your friend.

OK, for fear of being sucked back into this thread. A non-political way of providing real support is to donate to a charity like MSF / Doctors without borders. Which the signatories of this letter, who probably earn a lot more than the average MN user, could easily do rather than wasting time on lecturing silly (lower class) mummies.

MSF appear to be very much still active in providing frontline healthcare in both Gaza and Afghanistan (and neighbouring Pakistan where many Afghan refugees have fled).

Afghanistan | Our Work & How to Help | Doctors Without Border

Edited to add: Although actually - sigh - they seem to be refusing to demonstrate their workers aren't Hamas operatives in Gaza and / or the Israelis are unwilling to meet with them to discuss reasonable evidence that won't put their workers at risk. Depending on the source. Either (both?) could be true. I can't possible judge.

Why is there so much focus on Gaza, and so little on the Yazidi women and the women in Afghanistan?

This instance is political because the letter writers are asking Justine/Mumsnet to put pressure on UK politicians to talk/pressure Israeli politicians to change their actions/policies in their own country.

A non-partisan humanitarian response is to give monetary or physical support to e.g. Jamaica in response to recent hurricane while making no mention of how Jamaica is governed.

Great. I agree.

The situation in Gaza is bad. Indescribably terrible.
AND
The celebrities made a serious error in publishing an open letter to Justine. Tactically ineffective and also making themselves look like bullies by doing it publicly.

To discuss the second is not to diminish the importance of the first.

You totally misread my post, yeah.