Ceasefire in Gaza: Ceasefire, yes! But how…?
by John Dillon
Previously:
What Makes a Good Person?, Intimations of Mortality, Cowardice:You Only Get To Do It Once, A Crazy Diamond: Percy Bysshe Shelley,
When They Created Humanity, I Think Therefore..?, The Word of Godot, Morality for Adults, Chaucer’s Adam, God Has No Place…,
Ceasefire, yes! But how…?
Ceasefire in Gaza
Anyone who endeavours to express an opinion on the current actions of the Israeli government in Gaza is likely to provoke a vociferous and potentially violent reaction from those with alternative perspectives. Even the speaker of the House of Commons has created a furore for considering such a potential threat to MP’s. His misdemeanour? Ignoring parliamentary procedure by attempting to allow MP’s a vote on three alternative ceasefire motions and amendments, including varying degrees of qualification.
Disclaimer: Antisemitism and Peace
Before I go further, I want to make a few declarations. First, I am not antisemitic. My wife is Jewish. My nephew by marriage is a rabbi. Second, I do not hate people who espouse Islam, or any other faith for that matter. However, I am an atheist, which means that I view religious conflict – and make no mistake the Hamas-Israeli conflict is at root religious – with a high degree of antipathy. Every single state in the Middle East is theocratic. Great claims are made about Israel being the only democracy in the region. However, its politics have been hijacked by the Jewish religious-Right, and even now it is accelerating its occupation of the Palestinian West Bank.
Hamas Attack
Yes, the Hamas attack on 7 October was a monstrous atrocity, but so has been the retaliation. As it stands, almost 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s endeavour to liberate hostages and destroy Hamas. Instead of which, very few hostages have been released and many have died. Furthermore, the actions of the Israeli Defence Force has guaranteed the recruitment of a new generation of Hamas fighters who have lost loved ones in the wanton destruction of their homeland, and yes, Gaza is their homeland! Israel and many Western politicians have argued that such actions can be justified on the grounds of ‘self-defence’, but this in no longer tenable, hence the current difficulties in our own parliament. All now want a ceasefire but no one can agree on how this can be practicably achieved.
From the River to the Sea
You will no doubt have heard of a slogan that is regarded by many as taboo: ‘From the river to the sea’. But ironically it has been used by both sides. Yes, it was adopted by the Palestinian Liberation Organization in the 1960s, and later by Hamas, to indicate their ambition to recover what they regarded as their ‘usurped homeland’. However, the Israeli Likud party also used it in the 1970s to declare its wish that Israel should have sovereignty from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean too. And all of this murder and mayhem from both sides is because of the creation of a state for people of a particular religion in a preexisting country, Palestine. The political impetus for its foundation was the naive and cynically motivated Balfour declaration of 1917, an initiative which gained great traction because of the Holocaust. The end result is two bitterly opposed religious ideologies with exactly the same territorial ambitions.
The Balfour Declaration
Yes, we do need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire but this is impossible to achieve because neither side will put humanity above their claims of territorial and religious sovereignty.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-57205968
Bob Hall
Surely you can’t be making a case for shared blame in any historical context. Zionism is absolutely a fundamental, foundational premise of Judaism. And there can be no honest, intelligent argument made that the modern-day imperialist monsters of Israel have in any way hijacked or taken over the Jewish religion and are using it for their own personal agenda – be it the Israeli ‘Zionists’, the so-called ‘Kazarian Mafia’, or any other Jewish organization. What is happening in Gaza right now is no different than what happened and was carried out by the people of the Old Testament Bible. They were originally commanded in the time of Moses to “Capture the land” I.E. steal it! I am a total non-believer of any of it, but weather these events happened or not doesn’t matter one bit. The fact is that it is in their holy books, and THEY believe it! And not that it needs to be pointed out … but those texts were written many centuries before the introduction of Islam. No sir, this is NOT a tit-for-tat situation – not at all. The ambitions of the Jewish political manifesto were literally carved in stone long, long before the Balfour Declaration (at least ‘written in stone’ according to the bibles, so you can take that for what it’s worth). “Biblical morality is doing what you’re told regardless of what is right. Morality in the context of human ethics is doing what is right regardless of what you are told.” The actions of the IDF, and indeed the entire world right across the political spectrum are an abomination to human ethics and morality. Zionism is a historic cornerstone and core belief of Judaism. The desire of expulsion of all non-jews from their perceived “God Given” homeland didn’t just manifest with Theodor Herzl, or suddenly occur to them out of thin air in 1948. Zionism I.E. the acquisition of Zion, is arguably the most defining element of Jewish cultural and political identity – and is a major theme of both volumes of the bible. If you haven’t seen this clip …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LACse017-A
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