There are lots of different people going on
demonstrations in support of the Palestinians, calling for a ceasefire and who
are concerned about the death toll and the number of injured in the Israeli
Hamas conflict since October.
People on the Left and especially the Far Left are most
likely to demonstrate. Along with them are some people without particularly strong
views who have been swayed by horrible scenes on the news. The next biggest demographic
is probably ordinary Muslims who might up to now have not been particularly involved
in political issues. Finally, there are some Islamic fundamentalists.
The Left and particularly the Far Left is motivated mainly
by dislike of the West. It only ever demonstrates if either Britain or the USA
is involved in a war or if a western ally is involved. It is always
particularly hostile to Israel.
Israelis are viewed falsely as being, white, European
colonisers while Palestinians are viewed as brown, Middle Eastern victims of
colonisation and oppression.
I think its reasonable to suppose that the vast majority
of British Muslims overwhelmingly sympathise with the Palestinians. Most
Muslims will have their view of the justice of the conflict. This is no
different from how anyone else views foreign affairs. We are all allowed to
think as we please about foreign wars. In this they are no different from large
numbers of other Brits who support the Palestinians in a perfectly peaceful legitimate
way.
But if we are to analyse the justice or injustice of
the Israeli-Hamas conflict we have to put it into a historical context.
Since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948
there have been approximately 116,000 deaths. We don’t know exactly how many deaths
the present conflict has involved, and we don’t know how many fighters and how
many civilians have been killed. We don’t know how many Palestinians have died
because of friendly fire from Hamas rockets and how many have died because of
Israel. But a lot of people have died. It may be more than 30,000.
Well let’s go back to a similar date to when Israel
was founded.
1 The Partition of India 1946-1948 200,000–2,000,000
2 Kashmir conflict 1947- 80,000–110,000
3 Algerian War 1954-1962 400,000–1,500,000
4 First Sudanese Civil War 1955–1972 500,000+
5 North Yemen Civil War 1962–1970 100,000–200,000
6 Nigerian Civil War 1967–1970 1,000,000–3,000,000
7 Bangladesh Liberation War 1971 400,000–3,600,000+
8 Invasion of East Timor 1975–1976 100,000-200,000
9 Lebanese Civil War 1975–1990 120,000–150,000
10 Afghanistan conflict 1977- 1,400,000–2,500,000
11 Iran–Iraq War 1980–1988 500,000–1,500,000
12 Second Sudanese Civil War 1983–2005 1,000,000–2,000,000
13 Algerian Civil War 1991-2002 44,000–200,000
14 War on terror 2001-2021 272,000–1,260,000
15 War in Darfur 2003- 300,000+
16 Boka Harum insurgency 2009- 350,000+
17 Syrian civil war 2011- 506,750–613,407+
18 South Sudanese Civil War 2013–2020 383,000+
19 War in Iraq 2013-2017 195,000–200,000+
20 Yemeni Civil War 2014- 377,000+
All of the conflicts that I have listed here have
involved Muslim states or people. Sometimes it has been Muslims fighting
Muslims, at other times it has been Muslims fighting non-Muslims. But in each
case the number of deaths has exceeded the present conflict between Israel and Hamas
and in most cases, it has far exceeded the deaths in all of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflicts since 1948.
In each of these conflicts innocent women and children
died either directly or indirectly from war. The Bangladesh Liberation War in particular
involved the murder of up to 3000,000 Bengalis and the rape of 300,000 women.
At the time of many of these conflicts we did not have
24-hour news, nor did reporters have the same degree of access as they do now.
But the suffering of the people involved in these conflicts whatever their race
or religion was similar if not worse to that suffered by Palestinians in Gaza.
It is not worse to be killed or wounded in Gaza because there are pictures on
the BBC news.
Most of the conflicts listed received minimal coverage
in the British media and few if any demonstrations. Many of these conflicts are
all but forgotten today. How many people know about the mass displacement of
Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims during the partition of India. How many know about
the Bangladesh’s War of Independence? Very few, I think.
Yet everyone knows about the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict and appears to think that it is both quantitatively and qualitatively
worse than any other conflict in recent decades. But this is false. It is a grotesque
distortion.
The present war between Israel and Hamas is relatively
small scale. It far less brutal than most wars in history. Israel is taking
more care to avoid civilian casualties than any of the other wars listed. Yet
none of the above wars involved continual demands for ceasefires from the SNP
nor mass demonstrations on the streets condemning one or other of the participants.
If every single Muslim nation involved in the wars of
the past decades had been condemned by Muslims all over the world not least because
they so frequently involved the deaths of innocent Muslims, I would be more
inclined to take seriously their condemnation of Israel. But British Muslims
were largely silent about the war in Yemen or Darfur or the Iran-Iraq War.
There were no calls for a ceasefire then.
It is perfectly legitimate to criticise Israel, but
only if it is done in the same proportion to the criticism you make about other
wars and worse wars. If you ignore larger numbers of innocent Muslims being
killed in Yemen or Bangladesh, you have no moral right to criticise Israel when
it responds to being attacked. It is not anti-Semitic to criticise Israel if
that criticism is justified and proportionate, but it is anti-Semitic to
criticise only Israel and to ignore other far worse wars.
The lives of the countless millions who have died in
wars involving Muslims since 1945 including countless innocent Muslims are just
as valuable as any other lives and just as valuable as the innocent civilians
who have died in Gaza. Our shared humanity is more important than whether we
share a faith.
But it is quite wrong to condemn only Israel while
condemning no one else who has fought wars in the past decades. It is quite
wrong to have mass demonstrations for months about a relatively small-scale
conflict while ignoring or not even bothering to find out about much larger
wars involving your coreligionists.
To condemn only Jews who fight wars while not giving a
damn about Muslims who fight wars that are more terrible is anti-Semitic. It
suggests a warped judgement. It’s just fine for Muslims to kill Muslims, we won’t
demonstrate about that. But if anyone else and especially Jews are involved in
a war with Muslims we will demonstrate and threaten and if our MPs don’t do
what they are told well they should be careful and will deserve what they get.
This is not merely a biased and warped judgement. It
is biased and warped morality.
If you liked this article, then cross my PayPal with silver and soon there will be a new one. See below.
