Around this time last Summer I was engaged in protests against the bombardment of Gaza in Palestine. And as part of these protests I wrote this blog. I went on marches, signed petitions, got into arguments with people, stopped buying certain products, the same kind of things that many other people did and are still doing (and will hopefully continue while the present, unjust circumstances remain for Palestine and its people).
At the same time I tried to think of other ways how I could help.
Then earlier this year I got an unexpected answer. I was invited by Mr Dermot Macward to take part in this challenge:
A cycle ride from Edinburgh to London. The ride will begin on 1st August in Edinburgh and end on 9th August in London. In between I will cycle 435 miles (average 48 miles per day). The most grueling day of this "mission" will be day 2, which will be 74 miles of cycling and a 1570 meter climb (I should probably be having feelings of dread as I type that but fortunately I'm numb to it at the moment - see the next bit for why).
But we're aiming to raise lots of money for the children of Gaza, we're hoping to raise the profile of the struggle of the people of Palestine for their own country, and we're hoping to bring forward the day when there will be peace and mutual recognition between Israel and Palestine.
You can't accuse us of not being ambitious!
I'm cycling very long distances during my weekends at the moment (I did 120 miles this weekend). I'm also running, doing bikram yoga (to stop my body getting too brittle) and doing lots and lots of spin classes (much thanks to the people at Cyclebeat in London who play good music while you flog yourself).
What else can I say? As my cycle top says "Another World Is Possible"!
Would you like to sponsor me? Of course you would! :)
One of the most effecting films I've ever seen is the brutal, black and white and brilliantly heart rending Schindler's List - a harrowing account of Nazi atrocities during the Second World War Holocaust, and one brave man who did what he could to help. One of the settings of the film is the Jewish ghetto of Krakow, in Poland. Many attrocities and degredations are visited upon this ghetto, which are terrible to behold, and never has man's inhumanity to man been more powerfully depicted on the silver screen. If you're one of the many people who have seen this film yourself you'll know what I mean.
Thinking back to the way the people of Krakow suffered, trapped in that dismal place with nowhere to escape to, I have a question: what would you have thought if some of the Jews of Krakow had assembled, or gained access to, a rudimentary rocket launcher? And had then had begun launching rockets in the general direction of the German controlled areas of Poland?
Perhaps you would think them stupid, because of the retribution they would suffer, and the possibility that they might kill some of their own with their primitive, directionless technology? Perhaps you would have thought their cause hopeless, surrounded as they were on all sides by a much greater force?
But would you think them evil? Would you consider them terrorists?
Now let's fast forward to the present - to the Palestinian ghetto of Gaza. It was Labour peer Lord John Prescott (I'm sure he'd agree that calling him by that title is a bit weird considering he's a very down to earth Northerner, but I digress) who censured Israel for acting as “judge, jury and executioner” in its quest to mute Hamas “terrorists,” turning Gaza into what he says is a “concentration camp.”
He also said that the Nazi Holocaust should have given the Jewish people of Israel “a unique sense of perspective and empathy with the victims of a ghetto”.
Because it is Israel that is now the occupying power, in Gaza and in the West Bank. Because of its vastly superior weaponry, which should bring with it greater responsibility for seeking a peaceful solution, and the for huge difference in the respective number of casualties on both sides - over 1000 deaths (and climbing) on the Palestinian side compared to less than 60 on the Israeli side at the time of writing (though I realise even one death is one too many).
So there is my opinion. I have chosen a 'side'. I have chosen to support the people of Palestine.
"I will say this: I have nothing against Jews or Israelis, and I am not antisemitic. I deplore the policies of the Israeli government in the occupied territories and Gaza. They are immoral, inhuman and illegal. I will continue my non-violent protests as long as the government of Israel continues with these policies."
"... reports about gangs of Muslims chanting 'death to Jews' on the streets of France, and attacking synagogues and setting fire to Jewish-owned stores. Eighteen people were subsequently arrested in the suburb of Sarcelles, just outside Paris, where this particular outpouring of violence happened. The stunned local mayor says the Jewish community is now living in fear.
Anti-Semitism is on the rise in Germany, too. In Essen, 14 people have just been arrested, accused of plotting an attack on a synagogue. Protesters at a rally in Berlin turned on two Israeli tourists (identifiable by the man’s skull-cap) so viciously that they had to be protected by the police. The city’s authorities have also had to ban pro-Gaza protesters from chanting anti-Semitic slogans and are investigating a sermon last week by Abu Bilal Ismail calling on worshippers at Berlin’s Al-Nur mosque to murder Jews. Jews, not Israelis."
I absolutely reject and abhor this kind of virulent hatred, just as I abhor the act of a suicide bomber boarding an Israeli school bus, or an Israeli tank or bomber targeting a Palestinian school or hospital, or an Israeli missile slaughtering Palestinian boys playing football on a beach.
Naama Abu al-Foul - a 2 year old Palestinian girl
Perhaps most distressing of all is the seemingly insurmountable barrier that seperates those on both sides of this. We are seperated by ideology, by race by religion and by history. Sometimes even the hint of sympathy for the 'other side' can provoke the most extreme reponses, and I was recently told I needed an "exorcism to drive out whatever evil is possessing my soul"!
But I welcome the courage and the grace of the people like the Palestinian doctor, Izzeldin Abuelaish, who lost half of his family to this conflict, but chose to forgive when it would have been so easy not to. If someone like him can let go of his anger, after what he and his family have been through, then there is always hope, even in the darkest times. And right now, things are very dark indeed.
Almost exactly one hundred years ago, the First World War began. What followed was an unprecedented slaughter that lasted more than 4 years and left 37 million people dead. I sometimes wonder if we will ever learn anything. But as I stated, in the darkest hour, they say, there is always hope. Maybe.
