I am privileged.  This morning I woke up in my own bed, and was able to make breakfast with fresh water and food.

I am privileged.  Nobody took my land and forced me to live in a camp, behind walls of wire and guns.

I am privileged.  Today nobody tried to kill my children.  Nobody tried to kill me or my wife.

I am privileged.  I can go to a doctor when needed, I can go to school without the risk of it being shelled, I can go to work without having to go through a checkpoint.

I am privileged.  I can go to the shops in safety.

I am privileged.  I don’t live in Gaza.

We all know that Israel is currently attacking the political group, Hamas.  Hamas, in turn, has been attacking Israel for years.  Hamas’ charter apparently includes the wish to destroy the state of Israel.

I believe that the state of Israel has the right to exist, and obviously, this implies that it has the right to defend itself.

However, if we look at the extent of the rocket attacks by Hamas, they don’t seem to be anywhere near as deadly as propaganda would suggest.  Some research here shows that, up until the attacks by Israel 3 weeks ago, 35 Israelis had been killed by these rockets in 10 years.

In the past few weeks over 1,300 Palestinians have been killed by the the IDF.  The vast majority of the dead have been civilians, many of them children.

Schools, mosques, refugee centres, hospitals have all been targeted by the IDF.  This is not an attack on Hamas.   It is an attack on civilians.  It is brutal, it is one sided, and it is murder.

Solutions

Hamas should not be launching rockets as Israel, and it should be willing to pursue a peaceful solution.

However, Israel should not be pursing a solution that is disturbingly close to the solution that was inflicted upon the Jewish people 70 years ago.

The Irish Answer?

To my shame, the government I voted for have taken the coward’s route.  When the United Nations had a vote to investigate potential war crimes in Gaza, we abstained.

Our country had a good record of standing up for human rights around the globe.  Maybe it has something to do with our history , or the fact that Ireland is a small country in the global scheme of things.  This record has now been sullied.

Yes, I know that the defence of this decision is that the UN resolution does not cover crimes committed by Hamas, but really, with hundreds of civilians being killed weekly, everything possible should be done to stop the killing.

The future?

I don’t know how or when this conflict will be resolved.  The only thing that is sure is that any militant organisation in Gaza or any of the Palestinian territories will easily find more recruits after this.  May people are justifiable angry.  Israel has just guaranteed many more years of conflict.

After an attack today on a marketplace, wounded children were among those taken to the Al-Shifa hospital