Holocaust narrative kicked by Netanyahu into the dust

 

Dear Sir

To Editor of The Guardian

Enough is enough. Until now the Holocaust guilt-trap which has haunted the post-war Western civilizations has dictated our Middle East alliances, more even than oil. It has rightly reinforced our sympathy for Israel but blinded us to the Arab sense of injustice ever since the state of Israel was founded, That historical legacy has re-emerged in force as Hamas carried out their barbarous rampage through the Israeli civilian population, murdering, raping and taking more than 2500 hostages. We proudly displayed the Israeli colours in protest and initially turned a blind eye as Israel sought to recover their hostages and to destroy Hamas, while killing more than 20,000 Palestinian citizens in the process. These were mainly women and children, but ostensibly, we told ourselves, they were collateral damage, used as a human shield by the ruthless Hamas leadership. Even as the doubts arose, the protest marches favouring the Palestinians grew, but we comforted ourselves with the thought that now a political solution will at last be found, both for Gaza and the Westbank.

Today we learn that the current Israeli leadership has no such political solution. It is all purely a matter of Israeli security and the political survival of Netanyahu and his right-wing cronies. If the war is to continue without a political solution in sight, then from that moment Western support for Israel must stop and a ceasefire must be called for by all our Western governments. And if Western governments are not prepared to do so, then at least Keir Starmer and other opposition leaders who have bravely supported Israel until now, need to explain to their many Jewish friends that a future UK government will support an immediate ceasefire. We can no longer carry the responsibility of more Palestinians dying if there is no Palestinian state on offer alongside the Israeli one. Israeli citizens desperately waiting for their hostages to be free must understand this. Unless Netanyahu is immediately replaced by a government ready to broker a political deal with Palestinians, then Israel has forfeited our trust and support, and their sacrosanct Holocaust narrative has been kicked by their own government into the dust.