Gaza blockade - Aggression will not end this insanity

EVEN at the very darkest moments of the recent troubles in this country, even at the darkest moments in South Africa’s long struggle to end apartheid, there were voices urging moderation and compromise.

They might have been small voices at first, struggling to be heard over the carnage that inevitably follows social injustice imposed at the point of a gun. But, thankfully, in the end those brave voices prevailed and we now live in a peaceful, secure country.

Imagine if, after an especially awful IRA atrocity carried out in our name, but without our mandate, the British government decided to impose sanctions of the mildest kind on the Irish.

Say, they demanded that all Irish citizens working in Britain needed a work permit. Even this feeble measure would have had serious consequences for the work-starved Irish of the ’80s and ’90s, when the IRA was at its most murderous. That imaginary sanction pales into insignificance when compared with the measures deployed by Israel in Gaza.

In an effort to end Palestinian missile attacks they blocked crucial fuel supplies into Gaza, despite warnings from the UN that vital food aid could be suspended within days. All of the people of the region were punished for the actions of a few.

Israel has frequently expressed its bewilderment and disappointment at Ireland’s opposition to its aggressive tactics, suggesting that we are the most anti-Israeli of all European countries. Maybe we have adopted thisposition because, despite all out faults, we can still recognise injustice when we see it.