Calling for a ceasefire doesn’t mean you’re pro-Hamas. It’s a call for violence in Israel & Gaza to end
Nobody wants violence, whichever side of the brutal war between the Israeli defence forces and Hamas — the UK-proscribed terrorist group behind the deadly October 7th attacks — is on. The amount of killings, the kidnappings, the displacements, and not even to mention that there are children, Israeli and Palestinian, who are at the forefront of this and who have been among the many thousands killed on both sides.
The Israeli government’s retaliation in response to Hamas has been incredibly disproportionate, to say the very least. Gaza is basically a place of bombed-up buildings, in addition to over 200 hostages being held there. And as I write this, Gaza is experiencing an internet and cellular blackout as Israel launches an expansion of its ground operation in Gaza in order to defeat Hamas, which would be impossible to do without killing dozens of innocent civilians, who don’t deserve the consequences of it all.
Defeating violence with violence doesn’t have the capability to keep everyone safe; several lives will be lost and neither side want to take responsibility for it. So there is one important that millions of people around the world are crying out for: a ceasefire. It is designated to stop violence between both sides and allow humanitarian aid in. Is it going to happen, though? Doesn’t even look like it.
Leading the calls to the ceasefire is Antonio Guterres, the United Nations’ secretary-general. His calls for that resulted in relenting fury with Israel, who’ve demanded his resignation for not only saying that, but the Oct 7th attacks “didn’t happen in a vacuum”. As a result of that, visas to Israel for UN officials have been restricted in an extraordinary overreaction.
Here in the UK, there’s been pressure on Labour, not just the Tories, to urgently call for the ceasefire. The mayors of London & Greater Manchester and the Scottish Labour leader have already done that, putting themselves ahead of opposition leader and prime minister-to-be Keir Starmer. The fact that he — and current prime minister Rishi Sunak — haven’t done that represents a grave failure of leadership that this country desperately needs at this critical time for humanity.
However people call for a ceasefire, they have been smeared, ridiculed and dismissed as antisemitic by people on the right. They’ve even been branded “terrorist sympathisers” an “Hamas supporters” for doing such thing. They might as well ask “what about the hostages?” On that, it’s important that Hamas releases every single hostage they took since October 7th, especially at a music festival. And it’s not just the four people they let go of recently.
It’s perfectly legitimate to criticise calls for a ceasefire, but to do all of the above is insanely dangerous and helps nobody, Israeli and Palestinian. Maybe the people making this calls care about humanity, they care about the endemic sufferings created by Hamas and Netanyahu’s government. Maybe they care about not being seen to be endorsing war crimes, which the UK and US are so lacking at calling out. Maybe they want history to be kind to people who refused to bow down to complicity, terrorism and cowardice. Maybe, they want violence on both sides to end.
For me, I’m hoping that there is a ceasefire as soon as possible (by that, I mean right now). But in this current climate, I don’t see it. And I don’t know how anyone can without piling pressure on every world leader to do so. And as long as this war full of genocide continues, the world, especially the West and the Middle East, is watching.
