Wednesday 23 July 2014

Israel and Hamas - as bad as each other



I did think about writing a long post about how I couldn't decide which side was worse, the side which hides its weapons inside UN-sponsored schools packed with refugees and alongside overflowing hospitals filled with the injured and dying, or the side which decides the best thing to do is to fire missiles at all the places it suspects its enemies and their weaponry to be, irrespective of what sort of collateral damage the countless explosions across Gaza may cause.
I was then going to go on and say that, in fact, they are both as bad as each other.
Then I was thinking about having a rant about the inhumanity of both sides, about how, in conflicts such as this, it is always the innocents who seem to bear the brunt of the suffering...
Then I decided to stop.
Words, any words, however heartfelt, however eloquent, are, I have come to realise, pointless.

Instead, I suggest you look at the face of the young boy in the photo above.
Bewildered.
Shocked.
Bloodied.
He probably knows little, if anything, of the origins of the decades of enmity, its basis in religion and politics, and the bigoted hatred it has spawned. All he knows is pain…and fear…and loss.

If this single image is not enough to convince the leaders of Israel and the leaders of Hamas that what they are doing is simply wrong, then…
God help them!


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