The Genocide In Gaza Is The Defining Event of Our Time: We Must All Take Sides
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Leo Varadkar has fallen on his sword.
The Taoiseach dared to criticize the President of the United States and the reprisals were swift, with Varadkar tearfully resigning from the job which he had done for a number of years.
There was Jonathan Glazer.
The Oscar winning director used the biggest platform of all to denounce the Israeli government for their murderous campaign in Gaza and it didn’t take long for the trolls to come out of the woodwork to attack the film maker, describing him a self-loathing Jew etc.
Even as the general election in the United Kingdom, draws closer with the very likelihood of a Labour party landslide, Gaza is threatening to rip up the prospect of a center left government, with the suspension of parliamentarians, who have called for a ceasefire.
Genocide in Gaza is also a defining point in American politics, too.
Leading African-American voices on the left and right are weighing in on what’s happening in the Middle-East too.
We have the likes of Cori Bush, Ta Nehisi Coates, Amanda Seales and even Marc Lamont-Hill speaking out in the clearest terms against the killing of defenseless women and children. And the egregious language which has been used to describe the Palestinian people.
And you have the likes of Lloyd Austin, Tim Scott, Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Kamala Harris who have ensured that Israel’s crimes have continued unabated.
The prevailing mood with African and Arab Americans, is one of profound dissatisfaction with Joseph Biden and are highly unlikely to vote for him in November.
There isn’t a patch on this God-given planet which hasn’t been shaped by what’s going on in the Middle-East.
Germany’s political leadership brought mankind to the very brink of destruction in the 1930s.
We saw how millions of Germans were brainwashed into the hatred of a particular group of people, when its economy spectacularly unraveled in the early part of the 20th century.
Those who chose to speak up against the third Reich became pariahs.
The likes of Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh were very strong supporters of Hitler and made his rise to power feasible.
Here in Britain, leading politicians and members of the royal family were actually sympathetic to the Herr Hitler.
David Lloyd George and King Edward VIII went to see the leading Nazi and were more than happy to endorse his vision of a new Germany.
The acquiescence of the leading figures in the west of Hitler’s vision led to the holocaust, in which six million Jewish people were murdered.
And in lots of ways, the similarity between what’s currently happening in Gaza with Nazi Germany are quite striking.
We have seen dehumanizing language deployed by the extreme right-wing Israeli government to justify the genocide of Palestinians and those who have dared to speak out against the prevailing view in the west have paid a very high price.
But try as hard as we might, the genocide in Gaza is the defining event of our time and it is incumbent upon all of us to pick a side.
I know which side I am on. On whose side are you?