No-one occupies moral high ground in Middle East conflict

There is one truism about the Middle East carnage which none of those involved will accept, but which is obvious to those not blinded by ideology or religion: No-one there occupies the moral high ground.

As the world marks the anniversary of the horrific attack launched on Israel from Gaza by Hamas on 7 October, 2023, it is not anti-Palestinian to express revulsion for the acts of terror against Israelis, many of them civilians.

Murder, rape, abduction and abuse of civilians is a war crime. Nothing less.

However, it is not – as many would have it – anti-Semitic to express a similar revulsion for the Zionist state’s exacting of its own terrible arithmetic of revenge: 30 eyes for one eye.

That is the horrific ratio of deaths of Palestinians – and others, in places like Lebanon and Iran – to Israelis, as the Israeli military lays waste to Gaza and elsewhere.

Unsurprisingly, the Israeli push for an ever-rising body count has further accelerated the vicious cycle of violence, with war now threatening to spread across the Middle East.

ALSO READ: Israel marks first anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack

The shocking imbalance in the death toll means little to the Israelis or their supporters and sympathisers across the world.

That is because all of them will not attach the same value to a Palestinian life as that of an Israeli. Palestinians, in other words, are less than people; ironically they are the “unter menschen”, the subhumans the Nazis believed Jews were.

It is probably not surprising that there is strong support for Israel among many white South Africans who, whether they will admit it or not, had a similar view of black people during the apartheid era.

Some still hold that view, although few will say so out loud.

Many Palestinians and their supporters are also blinded by hatred for Jews.

And no-one wants to give peace a chance.

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