The 417 signatories to the letter published Thursday hail from some of the most prestigious international law firms, including two Magic Circle firms — Allen & Overy LLP and Clifford Chance LLP. Other lawyers adding their voices are from firms, including Latham & Watkins LLP, Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP, as well as Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
The lawyers said in a joint statement that they supported Israel's right to self-defense as they publicly condemned and denounced "the unspeakable acts of mass terror perpetrated by Hamas, a recognized terrorist organization, against civilians in Israel."
Among the signatories based in London are Andrew Besser, partner at CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP, Jeremy Levy from Baker McKenzie and Paul T. Friedman from Morrison Foerster LLP. Robert Fenner and Josef Fuss from Taylor Wessing LLP, as well as Michal Berkner, Stephen Rosen and Justin Stock from Cooley LLP also signed the letter.
Several others, such as Kfir Abutbul, Adam Chernichaw, Todd Koretzky from Allen & Overy, and Evan Cohen, the former regional managing partner for the Americas for Clifford Chance, are based in New York.
"We stand for the rule of law. We are shocked and horrified by the ghastly barbarism carried out against innocent civilians. We are angered by the cowardly crimes against humanity committed and the massive scale on which they were perpetrated," the lawyers said.
The conflict started on Saturday when Hamas launched a surprise attack from the Gaza Strip on Israeli territory. More than 1,300 Israelis were confirmed killed by Friday with a similar number of Palestinians reported dead in Gaza as Israel replied to the attack.
"We stand for moral consistency. We are profoundly disturbed by the litany of free people throughout the world who are indifferent, or even hostile, when confronted with Jewish suffering," the group said in its statement.
The signatories affirmed that Israel had the undeniable right and obligation to pursue justice against those who harmed it and murdered its citizens, and to defend itself against further aggression.
"We stand for peace. We affirm the right of all people — Jews and non-Jews — to live in peace and security, and we wholeheartedly reject the moral equivalence of bloodthirsty terrorists and Israel's imperative to defend its population," the statement went on. "Finally, we affirm the promise made by our forebears — that never again will Jews sit by while other Jews are slaughtered en masse."
The signatories called on colleagues in the legal profession and elsewhere to stand with them and denounce terrorism against Israel and Jews throughout the world.
The Law Society of England and Wales, the representative body of solicitors, and the Bar Council, the professional organization for barristers, both declined to comment on this issue.
The statement on Thursday by lawyers and attorneys in the U.K and the U.S. followed an open letter sent on Wednesday to the Office of Communications, the U.K.'s communications watchdog, by four leading English King's Counsel, who criticized the British Broadcasting Corporation for refusing to call Hamas terrorists.
Meanwhile, Mishcon de Reya LLP is acting for the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the representative body of the U.K. Jewish community, and on Thursday wrote on its behalf to the Tim Davie, the BBC director-general.
In the letter, available on the Board of Deputies' social media, Mishcon's partner Adam Rose wrote that "our client's complaints is about the BBC's refusal to call Hamas a terrorist organization, to call the terrorists carrying out the terrorism terrorists, and not to review, urgently, the [BBC's] editorial guidelines, or the interpretation of the editorial guidelines."
In his letter, Rose asked Davie to instruct the BBC's "executive complaints unit" to investigate his client's complaint, "and those of others that we are all aware of, as a matter of urgency."
--Editing by Joe Millis.
Update: This story has been updated to include reference to a letter from Mishcon de Reya to the BBC on behalf of the representative body of U.K. Jews.
--Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated Evan Cohen's status. The error has been corrected.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
