I took a poignant taxi ride in one of my favourite cities last weekend.
It was a Belfast mural tour, and when we reached one of the dividing gates between the two communities there was a noticeable contrast in some of the wall daubings. In the Catholic section, alongside the Palestinian flag, were words of solidarity with the people of Gaza. On the Protestant side underneath the Star of David they saluted the Israelis.
It was poignant because while I was staring at those murals, 3,500 miles away their subjects were involved in the latest of their bloody wars, and our taxi guide was ramming home the futility of sectarian hatred.
“Most Catholics and Protestants here don’t know why they’re supposed to be supporting one Middle East side over the other,” he said. “Why does there always have to be sides? I lost a sister during the Troubles because she was thought to be on the wrong side. People on either side of this wall are the same as each other. Just working-class folk with the same problems.
“It took us a long time to realise that and drop the hate. But now we have, there’s no going back.” I thought of that cabbie’s words on Wednesday when Joe Biden was asked about the shelling of the Gaza hospital and he answered: “It was done by the other team.” And when Rishi Sunak told Benjamin Netanyahu: “We want you to win.”
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Why use that kind of language when the Middle East is a powder keg about to explode? Why turn the ugly violence that has killed innocents in both Israel and Gaza into a game with sides? Of course Biden and Sunak are right to show disgust at the Hamas atrocities and back Israel’s right to defend itself. But as well as offering sympathy and support to Israel shouldn’t those leaders be doing the same for the guiltless Palestinians now being indiscriminately slaughtered?
Keir Starmer may well be terrified of the right-wing media accusing him of being Corbyn Mk II by voicing his support for Israel. But does that mean the leader of the British Labour party should “unconditionally” support an extremist like Benjamin Netanyahu who wants to bring Gaza to its knees to distract from his own security errors?
Does it mean he should go on national radio and defend Israel’s right to cut off power, food and water to besieged civilians? Haven’t we learned anything about how besieging foreign lands without mercy radicalises future generations?
Our illegal invasion of Iraq caused more than 200,000 civilian deaths and bred ISIS, a sect that went on to slaughter countless thousands more. How about Afghanistan? A mere 70,000 civilians were killed in our crusade to wipe out the Taliban for good... with the Taliban now firmly back in power.
Already, since Israel unleashed its fury, upwards of 3,000 Palestinians have been killed, a quarter of them children. How many more will die now that we have given Netanyahu a virtual free rein to raze Gaza to dust? If Britain learned anything from the Troubles it’s surely that the road to peace starts with accepting that no innocent child’s life is worth more than another’s.
And that you hit a bloody roadblock when you turn a blind eye to one side of the religious divide committing whatever crimes it wants at the expense of “the other team”.
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