Set your slogans in a wider time-frame

We can often tell the way people see the world by the range of their vision.There are those who like to keep focused on a particular point or event, cutting out any surrounding matters and declaring that only this laser-like focus will take us through. To quote Father Jack, it will and my arse.  We’ve been watching this with increasing frequency internationally. The Oireachtas has finally got a look at the Occupied Territories Bill. 

 There has been much commentary, much of it from former Fine Gael man Alan Shatter. He and other cheerleaders for the beleagured state of Israel remind us of the killing spree that happen on October 7, 2023. The horror of this, they insist,must be placed alongside the IDF’s ruthless bombing of Gaza areas in which, they contend, an unprovoked Hamas group broke into Israel and killed and abused over a thousand innocent Israelis.  When we include this factor, the IDF’s assault on Gaza is more credible.   No it’s not. 

Because if we back up a little from October 7 Instead, simply look back as far as 2012. Betweem 2012 and  2022, 4.081 Palestinians were killed by the Israelis. That’s somewhere around nine times as many Gazains were killed during the years leading up to 2022. This to say nothing of the lives of surviving  Palestinian people,crammed together in a small area, surviving as best they could in cramped,appalling conditions.

And you’ll notice I haven’t yet totted up the tens of thousands slaughtered in Gaza in a range of ways. even unto sweets left lying in the street: when Palestinian children emerged to seize them,the IDF shot them dead.  In fact we should go back to Nakba in 1948, when over 700,000 Palestinians were kicked off their land and properties, and replaced by Israeli settlers. One can see how Jewish people throughout the world might identify with Israel, but those Jewish people throughout the world who don’t sympathise with the slaughter is notable.   It’s something similar to the Easter Rising. Those opposed to it – and there were many – spoke of the unprovoked violence. Those with a wider vision posed and still pose the two questions:what led to the GPO and the casualties which ensued,  and what was to be gained by that violence?A glance at long-term Irish history, especially over the last 150 years, gives you the answer.