I cannot be alone in seeing that what is going on in the Middle East right now is genocide. Gaza is redolent of the Warsaw Ghetto where tens of thousands of innocent people were trapped in a city under bombardment, denied aid, medical attention, water and power. What is also so similar is that international press were kept out and borders sealed.
Tens of thousands of people have died, a handful were combatants, the vast majority have been women and children.
There is no justice, no mercy and no concession to the world of ordinary people that look on in horror.
When millions of Jews were massacred, starved, tortured and abused it was rightly considered a war crime and even 50 years on, guards and administrators, politicians and military were still being sought out and prosecuted.
For years, since they annexed it, the Israeli government has turned a blind eye to Israeli settlers on the West Bank. In recent years they have turned a blind eye to persecution of Palestinians living there. Murders have occurred and also ignored and armed settlers shooting stone-throwing children has been treated as if it is a minor misdemeanour.
The current Israeli government and army talk about wiping out terrorist organisations, once and for all, or, to use Hitler’s terms, a final solution. This is as selective a process as taking a barrel of apples with one rotten fruit and pulping the whole barrel!
More than 1000 Israeli men, women and children were massacred or kidnapped and held ransom; an outrage rightly condemned by the world. Attacks on Palestinian terrorists, or even the whole of HAMAS is entirely justifiable. Killing tens of thousands of civilians is not. Isolating more than two million people, destroying their homes and infrastructure and blockading aid is a crime against us all. Attacking hospitals and schools is a war crime.
Israel does not stand alone… they are supported by the west. The US, UK and many other countries weakly call for ceasefires and constraint, to allow humanitarian aid and talks. The Israeli state is underpinned by US money & military supplies, just like Russia supported of a massacring tyrant in Syria. The ‘great powers’ fight proxy wars against each other, millions of weaker states bear the brunt of clashing ideologies or commercial interests.
I have no religion and so have no religious prejudices. I worship nothing and am tolerant of others’ wish to honour their deities. But religions have eons of history of oppression. Christians, Muslims, Jews and others have oppressed minorities, suppressed the rights of women, shunned other races and fought wars in the name of their ‘merciful’ gods.
But, there have also been eras where Muslim rulers allowed Jewish enclaves to go their own way. In some parts of the west people are allowed to follow their religion without persecution. In Europe’s past Jews were allowed to trade and Muslims were teachers of science.
Humans can be enlightened and respectful of difference… but right now, in many places, religious crimes, political expedience and self-interest flourish. For such evil to flourish all it takes is for most of us to turn aside, be deaf to crying children and blind to the massacre of innocents.
As Edmund Burke famously said: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
