Palestine

The violence in Palestine has faded from our screens but the problem remains. In Gaza, hospitals struggling with Covid are now clogged with casualties, and around them more wrecked buildings.

It’s not as if it’s a level playing field. With its technical superiority and ‘‘Irondome’’ anti-missile system, Israel remains virtually unscathed. It doesn’t need to acknowledge its continuous taking of land, one of the major causes of discontent.

The historical roots of the problem are very deep. At the beginning of the 20th century, oil was becoming important and the Middle East was the best known source in those days. So it suited the allies in WWI to obliterate the Ottoman empire and redraw the map of the Middle East.

To keep the region stable the Balfour declaration favoured a Jewish state – ‘‘a homeland for Jewish people . . . but nothing shall be done which would prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine’’.

So in 1947 the United Nations agreed to partition Palestine. Jews and Arabs had about half each. It was not a peaceful agreement, and somewhat with that justification Israel has taken over the vast majority of the region and Palestinians are left with a toehold called Gaza.

Backed by United States arms and money, Israel has virtually shunned all attempts at peace.

It is a sad coincidence that Nazi anti-Semitism was a catalyst in the founding of Israel, yet that nation has its own brand of apartheid.

They are not my words but spoken by President Jimmy Carter, the one man who has had any success bringing peace to the cradle of Christendom.

Dennis Veal

Timaru