Derry Journal Editorial: Palestine / Israel : We must make a stand for a more just world

And as the humanitarian situation deteriorates in Gaza, the death toll continues to mount. As of writing, over 4,600 people have been killed in Gaza. Fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, babies, the elderly, Palestinian and aid workers. And too often that horrific death toll has been tacked on to reports about what has been unfolding, an after-thought without any condemnation from some of those in the west who hold most sway in preventing this atrocious situation spiralling further.

The Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s attack on Israel, in which at least 1,400 people were killed and over 200 people taken hostage, were horrific, disgusting. But one abhorrent killing spree does not justify another.

A mother’s pain is a mother’s pain; a father’s grief is a father’s grief and a child’s fear is a child’s fear. And so many are grieving, in pain and living in fear right now.

So many lie injured and in need of aid just as medicines, fuel, food and water is running out. When aid comes, it may be too late.

And shame of those in power who have played a hand in the history that led us here, to a place of injustice, cruelty and horror.

But the world is watching events in Gaza.

Even traditional western media, which has often being accused of looking the other way, is keeping the cameras rolling. Meanwhile a traumatised child with a phone can reach as many people via social media as a suited politician on a lectern can today. We are all the media now.

And people across the world are rising up in their cities and towns to say no, not in our name; Not in our name the killing of Israelis nor the killing of Palestinians. Thou Shalt Not Kill.

Muslim, Jewish, Christian, people of other faiths and people of none, are calling for the killing, the bombing, the arms trade and proliferation of violence, the persecutions and the double standards to stop. And that is the only way any of this changes.

No country can bomb its way to security, and no country can exist in a state of constant paranoia or repression.

This crisis has brought the world to a fork in the road and we must all be honest with ourselves about what sort of world we want to create and leave as our legacy. It has to be a world where kindness, mercy, morality triumph over murder, suspicion and cyclical hate. Otherwise, what’s the point?

The alternative, the eye for an eye mentality, will just perpetuate suffering and in this age of nuclear weapons, it won’t just leave us blind, it could very well wipe us off the face of the earth.