Peace Through Destruction

Yesterday I wrote on the counterproductivity of Israel's policies of harassing and abusing the average young Yusufs of the occupied territories and within a few hours I read of further foolish acts of repression.

In the latest act of jaw dropping stupidity the Israeli army has decided to bulldoze a tract of all too precious agricultural land in Gaza including yet more Olive trees, a frequent target of the Army's bespoke caterpillars.

This follows hard on the heels of a report on the annual lettuce festival in Artas on the West Bank on how the Wall is acting as an instrument of economic repression by preventing farmers gaining access to markets.

The attacks on olive tree plantations are particularly hard to take; they take a long time reach economic maturity and represent a substantial investment by the grower, in the absence of a legitimate military reason for their removal one can only presume this is a deliberate policy aimed at preventing any economic stability for Gaza's residents.

So another sector of Palestinian society learns another reason to hate Israel and it becomes harder for me, living comfortably in the West, to appeal to my Muslim brothers and sisters to hope not hate.

Breeding Terrorism

Which country is doing the most to foster terrorism in the Middle East?

Not Iran, not Syria but Israel. This story from the BBC is an example of how the world's most beleaguered nation seems determined to take ordinary, unradicalised kids and turn them into next year's suicide bombers or Hamas activists.

For every child this happens to Israel is also ensuring that their friends are also being driven away from their moderate backgrounds into the arms of the more radical groups. Israel must also recognise that pretending that these things do not happen and asking the world to believe them rather than the ICRC and Amnesty International as well as their home grown Human Rights groups, is just not the way the world works.

As for the apologists of Israel's policies saying 'It's none of your business', I say it definitely is. Aside from the moral and legal arguments these policies directly impact on the rest of the world who would otherwise be Israel's friends and defenders; these policies turn the impressionable adolescents in our local mosques into angry young men who are easy prey for radical preachers and those who would like to send them abroad for 'advanced religious training'.

We moderate Muslims and others in the West must apply political pressure on our leaders to stand up against these systematic abuses of Human Rights otherwise the whole world will reap the whirlwind that Israel is sowing.