In his newly published book, Unleashed Boris Johnson relates on the occasion Binyamin Netanyahu visited Downing Street during Johnson’s premiership when he showed him the desk on which Balfour signed the declaration, supporting the Zionist project to establish a Jewish homeland. And like so much to do with Johnson, he did not know whether that was the table or not.
On this day, October 6, 1973 Egypt and Syria coordinated attacks against Israel, beginning the Yom Kippur War.
Why can’t world leaders stop this slaughter right now? The major powers created the genesis of the problem, why can’t they fix it?
1 comment:
Michael,
Having read your fresh ‘Occasional Scribble’ this Sunday morning, I was drawn to examine again what I had first read last evening, namely, Jonathan Freedland’s article in Saturday’s GUARDIAN (entitled ‘A tale of two Israels: one that is feared, the other fearful’).
I recommend this article to your readers, who likely all share profound anxiety as we learn of the ongoing onslaughts/aggression/unease in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen and Israel.
Fear, linked with a lingering sense of being surrounded and thus constantly vulnerable: this deep-seated sense of weakness can lead leaders of nations and governments to some forms of aggressive behaviour that they/we use to disguise our fear or even seek inwardly to deny they are afraid. This is the ‘fearful’ Israel Freedland’s title and article speak of.
To so many in different parts of the world, the military aggression that leads to death, injury, displacement for people and for families of people, this violence (perpetrated by the ‘Israel that is feared’) is without justification. Tragically, for the moment (at least), Israel’s leaders have lost all confidence and trust in the United Nations Organisation, nor will they listen to calls from other leaders of nations/governments for restraint or for the willingness to initiate negotiations that might lead to a ceasefire and perhaps the saving of human lives all over the region.
Nor does it help anyone, and certainly not those who long for peace, that we are in an ‘inter-regnum’ season in terms of USA leadership.
A Jewish New Year began last Wednesday, and Monday 7 October will mark the first anniversary of ‘the bleakest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust, when nearly 1,200 people, most of them civilians, were massacred, many of them raped, tortured and burned alive’ Furthermore, of the 250 or so hostages taken that day, something like 100 remain unaccounted for.
Many New Years will be marked with fear and sadness in so many families, not least the families of the over 40,000 Palestinians who have died since Israel began its barrage of Gaza. How many anniversaries of 7 October 2023 will come and be marked by further blood so that a countdown to the next massacre or tragedy, until Israel recognise a sovereign Palestinian State?
There is in my view no place for anti-Jewish hate, nor for anti-Muslim hate. How often have the sacred texts I as a Christian respect and gladly hear and hear repeated, how often have central statements in those texts been if you like underlined by an opening phrase like: ‘Hear, my people: I speak peace for the people: peace, not war.’
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