PLEASE END SLAUGHTER OF INNOCENTS
Posted on 28th October 2023
What happened in Israel on October 7th fills one with revulsion and disgust. I cannot imagine the horror and the anguish experienced by the families caught up in this nightmare. The sheer barbarity of Hamas belongs to the darkest chapters of the Middle Ages. However, let us not forget that these heinous acts were inflicted upon the Jewish people who previously faced annihilation during the holocaust as recently as the middle of the 20th century. Then the chief culprit was Adolf Hitler and his cronies. His weapon was the gas chamber. My father fought in the 2nd World War. I grew up knowing the evil that is antisemitism. Despite what has happened, antisemitism is alive and well and during my adult life I have encountered it in some surprising quarters. When you come across it you must call it out. So back to the present. The murder and slaughter on October 7th was premediated butchery. So now as I put pen to paper and the Israeli air-force continues to kill innocent civilians in their hundreds and their army awaits orders to invade, where lies the blame for this humanitarian catastrophe. Primarily with Hamas. They knew exactly what reaction they were likely to get from the Israelis. Their leaders, located safely in Quatar, must be relishing what all right-minded people view as an appalling tragedy. I can’t get out of my head those small babies in hospitals in Gaza dependent on a functioning incubator to survive. The hospitals need fuel to run their generators. Without electricity those babies will die. As I write this column, I’m in hospital in Dublin and well aware of the electricity required to assist in my recovery. I’m also a Type 1 Diabetic and therefore totally dependent on insulin. If I lived in Gaza I do not think my chances of survival would be very high. Somehow a way must be found to end this madness and stop the slaughter of the innocents.
They say in war the first casualty is the truth. Take the bombing of the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza which Hamas blames squarely on an Israeli air-strike, stoking demonstrations in Beirut, Tunis and Cairo. The truth, of course, was different. It now seems clear that the blast was caused by a rocket fired by a Palestinian military group. The truth did not suit Hamas’s narrative. If the fog of war distorts the truth, of equal importance is the use of language. Just look at the Israeli reaction to the words of the Secretary General of the United Nations. Whether you judge he had a point about the Palestinian position, it was perhaps injudicious to express his view as bluntly as he did. After all many Jews view the current onslaught on a par with the holocaust. However, to hear the anguish in World Health Organisation’s Mike Ryan’s voice on Thursday night on Primetime would break your heart. Aid must get in now.
