Jennifer Horgan: Stop glorifying war — a call for peace is not a betrayal of innocent Palestinians

If John Hume were alive today, he would most likely be trying to spread a message of peace, reconciliation, and dialogue around the Israel-Palestine conflict. Maybe we could all take a leaf out of his book before commenting on the issue

There is nothing easily said about what’s happening in the Middle East. Its complexity is absolutely beyond most of us. There is so much room for miscommunication and misunderstanding.

At a Cork march last weekend, the slogan was chanted: "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." For the marchers present it was a simple call for freedom and justice. Seeing the footage online, people not present, and potentially far away, may have heard in it a call for the destruction of the state of Israel.

That was not the intention. I recognise people in the footage; I know them to be good people who don’t support Hamas. I know they marched last weekend for Palestinian people, half of them children. Good people marching against genocide obviously wouldn’t support it in any context.