Martyn's Thoughts on the Unspeakable Events in Gaza & Israel

I haven’t posted anything from a personal point of view these past few weeks. I was weary of even trying to describe the despair, anger and overwhelming sadness I’ve felt as I viewed the devastating the events in the Middle East. As some of you may know I became a Father again a few weeks ago. The overwhelming joy of that is tempered somewhat by the thought of what the future will hold for our new son Jack and his generation, as factions and so called ‘leaders’ squander the meaning of decency and humanity. How can one ever explain these days and the price in lives being paid?

Let me first utterly condemn the horrific actions of Hamas. The massacre in the south of Israel has shattered lives and brought huge suffering to the Jewish nation. I abhor violence of any sort and this so called act of resistance was evil and inhumane. I grieve for all those Jewish families touched by this horror as I also grieve for all innocent Palestinians who are now bearing the enormous and devastating consequences of those heinous crimes.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have the privilege of travelling to the West Bank in Palestine many times in the last decade. Our charity ‘Let Yourself Trust’ has donated and worked with The Alrowwad Children’s Theatre in Aida refugee camp, and my wife Justine was in Gaza two years ago visiting the Al-Ahli hospital where, through our partners the Amos Trust, we have also donated financial help. That was the hospital destroyed by a rocket recently that killed 500 people. I have sat with so many Palestinian people who welcomed us like lost sons and daughters and literally gave us all they had in that moment. I have listened to them bare witness to the intolerable suffering administered to them by the military and governmental forces of Israel for many years. Children who have had to witness their very basic house structures bulldozer’d to the ground in front of them as Palestinians are forbidden to build anything without permission from the Israeli authorities which is rarely granted, children younger than 12 years old taken and detained against international law, the threat of access to water and power supplies being cut off at any time, freedom of movement denied along with the basic liberties and human rights we all take for granted. The massive wall around them that is not about security but rather land grabbing and control..and the continued policy of illegal settlements being built on their land along with a farce of a legal jungle and system that will stall them for years and, in some cases decades, if they dare try to challenge any of this. Where else in the world does this happen without international condemnation at the highest level? Why are Palestinians still subject to these inhumane conditions? Why does the civilianised world look on and do little to nothing to change this? Why is the UK and the US vetoing UN resolutions for a cease fire when, given the circumstances, they would pass immediately it if it were for any other region of the planet?!

I believe that one of the worst things to carry in your soul is your own untold story. Seeing that the narrative surrounding your life is not the truth and that the great majority of people see you as the complete antithesis of who you really are. That’s why, on every visit to Palestine I’ve been on, the only thing the people ask of us is to go home and tell people what we have seen.

Now, I have stood and wept at the sites of the former concentration camps of Auschwitz, Bergen-Belson and Dachau and been suffocated by the absolute evil of those who perpetrated such in-humane and evil acts. I have felt just a small amount of the huge weight the Jewish nation has had to carry since 1945. Their tragic story is told and understood (by the vast majority) though, of course, like many groups, they are still subject to much racism and discrimination. But for Palestinians, the subversive job done on discounting their narrative and truth is astonishing. When South Africa was an apartheid state the world knew it and saw it. Eventually through the boycotting and denouncements by most nations and of course, the immense fight for justice by its people, change came .. it had to. I believe, along with Amnesty International, that the ‘apartheid’ in Palestine is obvious and clear to see. The policies of segregation, dispossession and exclusion under Israel’s control clearly confirm this. However, what an incredible job of deflection and control has taken place to ensure that their suffering largely remains veiled. There is little chance of any change while most Western Governments pay lip service to the situation and will not denounce the Israeli government for its policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Should I or others or anyone else challenge this madness then the cry of antisemitism will swiftly come. It will arrive because of these words I’m writing. But, criticism is not antisemitism. Protest, lobbying and peaceful action is the means of, not only carrying peace and justice to the Palestinians, but also to bring peace to the good people of Israel too. Surely everyone involved deserves a better future, more moral and accountable leaders and freedom from the chains of violence, injustice and despair that has categorised this historic region for so long. History will tell of the current huge price of inhumane loss of life on our watch. Paid because of our inability to see through our deeply flawed perceptions of reality when the truth was clearly there to be seen.

— Martyn Joseph