I am not taking sides, are you? I hope not.
This morning, many of the citizens of my town gathered at the Mosque to join a march for Palestine along the seafront. This evening, a fair few gathered despite the rain for a vigil for those in Gaza being bombarded daily. A few people, clearly upset by this, shouted at the gathering as they passed. I’m afraid they think we were taking sides, that we don’t care about the Israeli people who have died. I think they are mistaken, but I can see why they might think that.
The other team
Speaking to Israel, the US President Biden said the hospital bombing (another 500 people dead) was done by ‘the other team’. He disgusts me. Politics is not a sport. War is not a competition anyone wins. Terrorism is not a competition anyone wins.
I go to vigils, I go on marches, I send letters and emails, in support of people who are in danger. I do it to help push politicians into action. Right now, people are dying in their thousands in Gaza. Right now, the main danger to the Israeli hostages who are (we assume) in Gaza is that they, too, will be killed by Israeli bombs. It is almost always Palestinians who are abducted and killed in Israel/Palestine, and politicians almost never do anything to try and stop it.
Nationalism doesn’t work any more
Politicians all over the world seem to have taken sides over what they are calling ‘the Israel/Hamas conflict’. Politicians are very fond of sitting in front of their national flags when they speak on TV, like sports commentators in a press release at the big match. It’s not so easy these days though, to get enough of us to think that way. Most of us have friends or family or contacts in other countries. Since COVID lockdown, a lot more people discovered ‘zoom society’, and so have contacts across the world.
Politicians can’t make you forget that, and if they can’t make you think purely in terms of ‘our people’, if they can’t make you stand in front of the national flag and think of everyone else as ‘other teams’ – if they can’t do that, it will become very hard for them to have wars. Like most socialists, I am for a world where no government can call up an army or an airforce to kill all the people in someone else’s cities. I am desperately sorry for Israeli and Palestinian people who have been attacked, abducted, abused. I am desperately sorry for Israeli and Palestinian people whose sons and daughters and friends have been killed.
Personal contact stops wars
I was upset, though not surprised, to hear that the children of one family, and a whole community of other people, who speakers from Hastings have been in contact with and become friends with, have disappeared and are probably dead. It’s because Israel is bombing every day, every hour, bombing everywhere there are people in Gaza.
We, the people, can stop this happening. We, the people, together, can make a difference. Some of our politicians started out saying it was just fine for Israel to cut off food and water to homes and hospitals in Gaza, and to just keep bombing. They did get some push-back about abetting war crimes, and some of them got a bit more careful what they said. The Labour leadership team initially sent out instructions to Labour councillors that they must not show support for the people of Gaza, only for Israel. Apparently they were shocked when dozens of Labour Councillors resigned as a result. Today, a YouGov poll informed them that most of the people in this country want a ceasefire in Gaza.
We, the people, need to keep talking, keep meeting, keep holding vigils until enough understand this isn’t about taking sides, it’s about teaching our politicians. If they can’t find any people to support a war, they can’t get away with having one.
I don’t think many of the people in town tonight were taking sides. I think most of them were there because they know who’s in danger right now — the people of Gaza, and the rest of Palestine.
Flag waving
I will wave the flags and sing the songs if I see sports teams laying on a good show. I will do it whether they’re playing for fun or for money, so long as we’re clear that nobody has to die. I will wave a flag in defence of a people who are coming under fatal attack. You will never see me waving a flag in the hope that one group of people will ‘win’ a war by killing another group of people, and I will never vote for a politician who encourages that kind of flag waving.
Peace making
Sometimes, politicians get together to try and stop a war. We have the United Nations, where they can organise such things but they rarely do. They prefer to take sides, and shout for their ‘team’, and their ‘team’ is usually the richest country, the most useful business ally.
These days our friends, our contacts, come from all sorts of countries, rich and poor. If enough people, from all the countries of the world, join us in protesting, in marching, in holding vigils and writing to MPs and councillors, in support of the people, wherever they are, who are being killed, our politicians will eventually understand that we aren’t going to take sides any more. They will begin to think about the next election, and understand that we aren’t going to support them until we see them trying to stop wars.
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Dear Reader,
Times are hard, and so the articles on this site are freely available but if you are able to support my work by making a donation, I am very grateful.
Cheers,
Kay
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Kay Green 
7 responses to “This is not hate, and it is not a sport”
Neutrality means nothing, amounts to nothing in these times of catastrophe and oppression,
and being neutral means you’re refusing to believe and admit what is happening before your eyes, all the genocides, massacres, and oppression of Palestinians by the zionist apartheid settlers of Israel!
And there is no other side but one, the Palestinian Cause, and all the people that support this noble cause, whoever it may be, from any faith, caste, ethnicity, county, region, community!
We can’t remain neutral when the it’s a one-sided war, onslaught, ethnic cleansing, oppression, atrocities, genocide, and dehumanization of a nation, Palestine! When one side is fully armed, armored, with top military power, super forces, super powers on their back and call and the other side is defenseless, homeless, starved in an open air prison…their basic lifespan being around 18 years old, and with out basic necessities human rights, a single weapon to defend themselves (the civilians), let alone weapons of mass destruction, of terrorism!
Because there is nothing morally grey here, everything is as black and white, crystal clear as day and night,
“The evil vs good,
the oppressor and the oppressed,
the terrorists and civilians,
the perpetrators and victims”.
And we all know for a fact…who is the Oppressor and the Victim!
And we wouldn’t have to choose a side if Both sides were “equals, on equal grounds, with equal strength, resources, and military power”. But it’s not the case and we know it very well!
I appreciate and support your contribution to this great cause but please, don’t shame people for choosing side if they want to stand with the Palestinians and their cause, or not.
Just like people have the right to not pick a side so do the people who wants to have clarity and stand firm with what they believe is the right choice and the side of justice!
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Do you know who the oppressor is, though? Is it Netanyahu? Is it the young Israeli who, on entering national service, is shocked and traumatized and hasn’t figured out what to do yet? Is it Israeli children, or just the adults? You could accuse me as you do if I stayed home and did nothing. What I am doing is demanding that our politicians stop banging the drums of war, and start trying to solve it.
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I am sorry, but what? Are you asking me or yourself this, who the oppressor is? Okay, let me tell you, it’s the apartheid settlers of Is@ael, the government of Isr@el! The USA and its beloved child, Is@ael! You ask me this even after they brazenly admit to their war crimes, their genocidal plans about complete obliteration of Ghaza on international news channels! And you’re clearly misunderstanding my whole comment or putting words in my mouth about Israeli civilians. When did I accuse innocent Israelis to be the oppressors or terrorists? My only clear stance was that don’t draw parallel between the current situations and living conditions, known as open-air prison, to those of the Israeli civilians, their persecution (the Palestinians), oppression, and occupation of 7+ decades to what happened on 7 October! It didn’t start on 7th October and we all know it! Even the Jewish people (whom I respect from the bottom of my heart )who themselves are standing with the Palestinians and their cause are criticizing the Israeli government, calling them oppressors, and standing up against them, against their genocide! But here you are questioning me intellect as if making something up out of thin air or buying into some propaganda (narrative) 🥲 As for your last sentence, I don’t know what to say, you are making it sound like I have so much free time on hands, and would decide to post a hate comment on your blog for no reason without reading your content, and reading and analyzing them – it’s just sad!
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You know, once there’s a misunderstanding the choices are to try and figure out what each other is thinking or to get annoyed and start deliberately misinterpreting to prove the other is stupid. I think that’s what you’re doing now. Bear in mind please that it looks to me as though we broadly agree on the actual issue. I don’t have a heap of time either right now, but will come back and see if I can shed some light at some point.
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First of all, my initial point was directed toward people with neutral stances in general, not anyone in particular! And I admit, it seemed like it was only directed towards you.
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Secondly, please counter my POV with your valid points and reasoning just like I have been doing, not question my motives.
We all want a ceasefire as soon as possible, and by that…it doesn’t mean not admitting the bigger picture here!
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“once there is a misunderstanding the chances are to try and figure out what each other is thinking or to get annoyed and start deliberately misinterpreting to prove the other is stupid”, says the person who exactly did that! After reading your posts I had thought to engage in a civil, albeit constructive, the conversation where conflicts in opinion might clash with our political views, but you have been constantly omitting and ignoring the parts of my comment where I appreciated your work/efforts and “agreed” with you, yet you only chose to notice the part of my constructive criticism and the clash of our conflicts 🤷 It seems unless people don’t agree with you, you don’t bother to give them the benefits of the doubt or respect them!
Respected Sir/Mam, please listen to your own advice of “we should listen to each other and not jump at each other’s throats despite our differences in views and ideology”.
I just believe… ” One can’t stand with Palestine and don’t recognize their oppressors”.
I have nothing more to say, goodbye and keep doing the good work for the Palestinian cause 🇵🇸💓 There is nothing more to discuss, peace out 🤝💓
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And one more thing, I am never shy to admit when I am wrong, so I do admit my initial comment sounded accusative, which was not my intention, my apologies for that 🙏
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There you go – hope the following makes enough sense!
I think I should have made the initial statement in that article much clearer – this one: “they think we were taking sides, that we don’t care about the Israeli people who have died. I think they are mistaken, but I can see why they might think that.”
Probably one of the reasons I wasn’t fantastically clear was that I was in such a rage at Biden’s blatant use of that phrase ‘the other team’.
My point is that I believe it’s quite hard for states to persuade their populations to support wars. They can’t do it until they’ve built a) a national identity and then b) a sense of insecurity, a feeling that some other state means them harm.
It’s been noticeable in recent years that quite a large swathe of the public do see through the nonsense our politicians and media feed us about Israel/Palestine and, as a result, often will agree that the Palestinian people are being mistreated. However, each street action I’ve been to in support of those people has encountered a few hecklers, all of whom *have* been sold on that nationalistic view that the people of Gaza *are* Hamas, and that Hamas are terrorists, whereas other governments and organizations who attack, kill and detain others’ citizens are not, all decided according to national flags and who they currently see as ‘the enemy’.
One of the dangers in that line of thinking is that it hides the important truth that a sizable proportion of Israeli people now openly say they want an end to the occupation and all the abuses that go with it. As one Israeli commentator puts it, “not enough to win an election yet, but not a tiny minority.”
Israeli people will have seen, as some of us saw, the videos this week of Israeli police beating up Israeli people expressing dissent. Far more people in Israel will have seen such things, and will be cowed as a result so there are probably far more who feel that way but haven’t yet dared to let it show.
Unless there are some voices out there expressing solidarity with all dissenters, and empathy with all who suffer (Hamas is not an army, it’s not seriously threatening Israel but it is strong enough to frighten and hurt some people. Rockets have been landing in Tel Aviv for example. Dunno about you, but one old fashioned rocket exploding in my street would be enough to seriously scare me). Those people need support too, or they will *become* our enemies.
I’m not ‘neutral’ in any sense, I just wanted to underline that I don’t take sides on a *national* basis, and I don’t think anyone should. Be for humanity and against any government or other organization that attempts to harm civilians in the name of nation-based wars. If we all thought that way, it would be impossible for them to *have* wars.
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