No Room for Wishful Thinking in Gaza

The slaughter continues in Gaza as both Israel and Hamas demonstrate that they are prepared to fight all the way to the last drop of innocent blood.  Behind all the rhetoric of concern for civilians hopelessly trapped in a conflict zone from which there can be no escape, they continue to act with reckless and deadly abandon.

If any solution is ever to be found to this seemingly intractable conflict some unpalatable truths have to be faced.

Like it or not, Israeli strategy will forever be dictated by the Jewish experience of the Holocaust. This means that, ultimately,  Israel will never trust anyone other than itself to protect its citizens and it will do anything it considers necessary to establish what it considers to be defensible borders.  In the final analysis it would prefer nuclear conflagration to defeat. Any attempt to solve the Israel/Palestine problem that ignores these facts is pure fantasy.  

Hamas arose as an Islamist movement, seeking to establish a fundamentalist form of Islam across Gaza, Israel and the West Bank.  Article 7 of its founding Covenant states: ‘The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.’  By anyone’s standards, this is uncompromising stuff.

What hope is there, then for the people of Gaza, understandably driven in large numbers into the arms of Hamas through years of hardship and humiliation at the hands of Israel, abandoned and discarded by Egypt? There is a terrible possibility that there is no hope for them at all; the best that can be expected is a lull in hostilities before the slaughter begins again……and again. Israel will not release its stranglehold and Hamas will not stop its attacks, both remaining ideologically, militarily and politically wedded to their mutually irreconcilable goals.

To abandon the people of Gaza to this fate is, however, unthinkable. Regional and world leaders are well aware of the environment in which any settlement might be brokered and they ought to bend every effort to this effect. In the meantime, ‘ordinary’ people can demonstrate at every opportunity their rejection both of Israeli tactics that result in the slaughter of innocent people and Hamas’ willingness to use Palestinians as little more than pawns in their war on Israel.

Peace-seeking Israeli and Palestinian individuals and groups do exist and can be supported and encouraged with minimal effort by anyone with access to the internet.  This might seem like a drop in the ocean, but surely that is better than abandoning hope and accepting (or even colluding in) a single drop of innocent blood being shed

War and Peace Gaza-Style

The terrible events that have unfolded in Gaza over the past few weeks require serious reflection, not knee-jerk reactions.  Sadly, driven by what seems to be an inherent human compulsion to take sides, people far removed from the realities of broken bodies, shattered homes and wasted lives, have instead defended and attacked their chosen heroes and villains.  This is not the World Cup; something a bit more sophisticated than cheer-leading is called for.

Christian Zionists, appear to be willing to turn a blind eye to almost anything that Israel does. Never mind the dubious thinking that equates the modern State of Israel with ‘the Chosen People’ (something that many orthodox Jews reject), how can it be right to ignore the very many Biblical injunctions to pursue justice, peace and mercy? The fact that Israel originally gave support to the student movement that became Hamas in an effort to destibilise the PLO ought to give pause for thought on the part of even the most ardent Israel supporter.

Equally, Hamas is far from being the liberator of an oppressed people that many pro-Palestinians would like to suggest. If given free rein, Hamas would instigate a rigid, Islamist rule over the Gaza population, imposing a distorted form of Islam that the great majority of Muslims worldwide find unacceptable. The fact that an international marathon run, organised to highlight the plight of Palestinians, had to be switched from Gaza to the West Bank last year because Hamas would not permit women to participate, is a minor example of what lies in store were Hamas to be permanently in charge.

Meanwhile, dozens of entirely innocent men, women and children perish in appalling circumstances. It might be true that if Hamas had the fire-power, it would inflict the same scale of casualties as has Israel, but Israel’s shocking over-reaction and continued targeting of homes, offices and even recreational areas cannot be justified. There is no sign that Jesus’ injunction to ‘turn the other cheek’ is going to be heeded any more now than it was two thousand years ago.

The ‘two-state’ solution has been on the table for many years now and remains the only likely way forward. That, or any other solution that recognises the need for both Israelis and Palestinians to enjoy peace, security and freedom, cannot be established by military means.

The greater goal of securing peace and offering hope for current and future generations means that it is necessary for enemies to sit and talk with one another face to face, however unpalatable that might be.  While not perfect, the settlements in South Africa, in Northern Ireland and in Rwanda all share one thing: peace begins, continues and ends with talk; war ends in death.  In only the most extreme circumstances can war ever become a means of achieving justice and peace. To partially quote an old slogan from the sixties: ‘Fighting for peace is like ******* for virginity’.

Dying to Die

Assisted Suicide is currently a hot topic in the UK. An important Supreme Court judgment was published at the end of June, current and former Archbishops of Canterbury have clashed publicly on the issue and a significant debate on the subject is scheduled to take place at the end of this week in the House of Lords.

Many arguments have been presented in favour of changing the current ban on assisted suicide; just as many have been presented opposing change.  These have covered ethics, philosophy, law, and a host of social theories and attitudes, all of which are important to take into account when trying to decide whether or not assisted suicide ought legally to be permitted.

When all is said and done, however, the Supreme Court has highlighted what is likely to be the crucial, deciding factor in the debate: ‘The question requires a judgment about the relative importance of the right to commit suicide and the right of the vulnerable, especially the old and sick, to be protected from direct or indirect pressure to do so. It is unlikely that the risk of such pressure can ever be wholly eliminated. Therefore the real question is how much risk to the vulnerable is acceptable in order to facilitate suicide by others who are free of such pressure or more resistant to it’. This, it seems, is where the rubber hits the road.

In attempting to influence opinion, both sides in the debate have highlighted compassion as being central to the issue. ‘If we are compassionate, how can we refuse to help someone who is suffering to end his or her own life?’ say proponents of change. ‘If we are compassionate, how can we abandon vulnerable people to pressure from others or from acting out of a sense of guilt, to “stop being a burden?” ’ say advocates of the current law.

Those pushing for change often take a hopelessly optimistic view of human nature; history and current affairs tell us that some people truly are malevolent and that their misdeeds are not easily prevented (for example, over 500,000 elderly people suffer abuse in the UK each year).  Equally, opponents of change often appeal too readily to a Utopian view of palliative care that simply is not reflected in reality.

The impasse can only be resolved by someone making a sacrifice. I balk at the thought of asking vulnerable, isolated individuals to do so. Individuals who freely wish to control the time and means of their own deaths are surely better placed to make such a sacrifice for the good of others.  Perhaps one day, truly effective safeguards against abuse can be found, but, to date, all proposals fall well short of that mark. Self-denial is not frequently promoted or valued in our society, but this is one case where it could helpfully occupy centre-stage.

Stuck Up a Yewtree

The on-going investigation into celebrity-based sex offences in the UK (Operation Yewtree) has once more been in the News with the conviction of the former ‘National Treasure’ Rolf Harris.

The investigative process into cases of ‘historic abuse’ asks three basic questions:

Question One: Did the alleged behaviour constitute a criminal offence?
Question Two: Is there sufficient evidence to make a conviction a realistic possibility?
Question Three: Would prosecution be in the public interest?

The Crown Prosecution Service has had little difficulty in deciding that all such cases are in the public interest, but answering the first two questions is not quite as straight-forward.

Question One: A particular alleged action might be intrinsically offensive but not constitute a criminal offence. Even though there has been both a perpetrator and a victim no crime has been committed.  Alternatively, another alleged action might not be intrinsically offensive, never mind criminal, even though someone genuinely took offence at it. In neither case would a prosecution ensue.  

Question Two: Insufficient evidence might reflect difficulties in making the truth ‘stick’, in which case a guilty individual goes free. Alternatively, insufficient evidence might reflect false or mistaken accusations in which case an innocent individual has been spared the ordeal of prosecution, Mud, however, is still likely to stick.

Even when a case has been brought to trial, all is not, necessarily, clear. A defendant might be found not guilty because the jury is not convinced that a crime has been proved ‘beyond reasonable doubt’, a high threshold of proof. Only in those cases where a criminal offence has occurred and there has been enough evidence to bring the case to court and a jury has found the defendant guilty beyond reasonable doubt, is there an absolutely clear-cut outcome.

All of which brings me to my point. While knowing virtually nothing about the circumstances, I have found myself hoping for certain outcomes in various trials. Even if I sometimes have to face down a visceral and indefensible bias towards members of my own sex in some of these cases, I have had to recognise other influences at play. I have hoped that individuals like Rolf Harris, with whom I felt an affinity, would be innocent; other personalities that I found unattractive, I rather hoped would be guilty. I have also speculated along similar lines with regard to those celebrities who were charged, but not prosecuted. This is, of course, an untenable position: my personal preferences do not determine the truth neither are they indicators of right and wrong.

I suspect, however, that I might not be alone in reacting in this way. There are deep-seated, stubbornly tenacious reasons why we react as we do and we need to be uncompromisingly and uncomfortably honest about exposing them if we are to put the truth before prejudice. Yewtree extends its reach beyond its immediate participants; when we follow these cases, I suggest that more than the defendants are on trial.