Nobody is listening to the voices of innocents being slaughtered

Remember that.

When you watch people here and elsewhere taking sides, remember that the tears of a grieving Palestinian are the same as the tears of a grieving Israeli.

I know which side I’m on: the side of the ordinary people being massacred, injured and going through unspeakable trauma in the inhumanity of a war over ideology, territory and power.

The hurt in this region has been going on for a very long time.

This is no Biblical Land of Israel or Land of Canaan. I looked at a map of the area recently from 1947, and Israel, of course, wasn’t on it. The area was the State of Palestine.

But in 1948, Palestinians were dispossessed of large swathes of land when the State of Israel was created to find a homeland for the Jews, the first time in centuries, approved by the West in the aftermath of World War Two when the evil of Nazism exterminated millions of their people.

The creation of a sovereign state was approved by the West, perhaps attracted by the Old Testament promise of God to “gather you from all nations to return you to the place whence I exiled you”.

But this meant occupying Palestinian land, and long-running conflict was inevitable.

Within the area along the coast of the Mediterranean was Gaza, where over two million Palestinians are packed into a strip of land about 25 miles long and 10 miles wide. Another territory of Palestinians live along the West Bank.

Gaza is under the control of Hamas, a militant Islamist terror group. But the overpopulated area is hemmed in by Israeli blockades, and often the people, mostly descendants of Palestinian refugees from 1948, rely on outside aid for survival.

This is an over-simplification of a complicated picture, but the military control by Israel and the displacement of Palestinians has resulted in brutal conflict for 75 years, often breaking out into open war, in 1949, 1956, and the third Arab-Israeli war (the Six-Day war) in 1967.

And in 1973, the Yom Kippur War saw thousands of lives lost as Israel, backed by the United States, militarily defeated Egypt and Syria.

It serves to remind us that last Saturday’s attack on Israel by Hamas didn’t happen in a vacuum.

It was brutal and savage, with several hundred Israelis killed, many more injured, and people kidnapped to be used as hostages.

Some of the reports would break your heart, or indeed, turn your stomach.

Hundreds of young people killed attending a music festival, for peace actually.

Reports of babies killed and beheaded. And so much more.

The actions of Hamas are depraved war crimes. Nothing can defend them.

The response by Israel has been swift and as violent as you would expect from this right-wing Government with a track record of human rights abuses and ill-treatment of ordinary Palestinians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formally declared war and promised to take “a mighty vengeance”.

His Defence Minister ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip, warning the people there would have no fuel or food, and there would be no escape for the “human animals”.

The aerial bombardment on the densely built-up area was sure to kill hundreds of innocent civilians who could not escape when the border was closed; but their deaths were the fault of Hamas, said the Israelis.

It’s equally a war crime to bomb innocent civilians. The United States and the United Kingdom should be calling it out. This is not defending yourself. Nor is it going after Hamas alone.

Criticising Israel is branded by some as equivocation, as somehow we should only focus on the evils of Hamas and turn a blind eye to the slaughter of innocent Palestinians.

No.

So, no, I won’t be honouring the flag of Israel. Doing so gives them a blank cheque to respond to horror with further horror. To hell with your flag and any flag – it’s the slaughter of the innocents of all people of all ages that should stir your anger, not the support of one side.

The world is a dangerous place. We’ve seen hundreds of thousands of people die recently in Afghanistan, in Syria, in Iraq, and the war in Ukraine.

The danger of Iran being involved in the Middle East on the Hamas side is real, and at what stage do other nations get dragged in on one side or the other?

Instead of sinking further into the abyss, the rest of the Middle East on one side and the West on the other, should be doing more to actually bring peace and make justice a reality.

Conflict resolution is very difficult but should be inspired by listening to the cries of the people who thirst for peace.

There’s an organisation in the Middle East called The Parents Circle which brings together people from both sides of the awful conflict whose children have been killed.

Last year, I attended a discussion when two of them came to Belfast to tell their stories.

I listened in awe to a Palestinian Muslim mother speaking about how her six-month-old baby died after inhaling tear gas let off by Israeli soldiers who then blocked her family’s frantic efforts to get the child to hospital.

She sat beside an Israeli mother whose son was shot dead by a Palestinian sniper.

They had overcome their own trauma and their anger and hatred of their enemies to work for peace, and theirs were just two stories of the numerous human tragedies which lie at the heart of years of seemingly intractable conflict in the region; a conflict that goes away back, even away beyond 1948.

On UNICEF’s World Children’s Day last November, it was estimated that 580 children had been killed in conflict or violence in the Middle East and North Africa last year alone.

Every year, Palestinian and Israeli families in The Parents Circle join together in a ceremony to plant olive trees dedicated to a lost family member.

The olive branch is a powerful symbol, and they say the trees for their loved ones will continue to “create a forest of reconciliation and peace”.

They say by sharing sorrow and bringing hope, the people most directly affected by this war will show everyone the common path to peace.

But who will follow?

Who will wave the flag for them?