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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World

On the Israel-Gaza crisis, humanity will guide us better than world leaders

A picture taken from the southern Israeli city of Sderot on October 20, 2023, shows smoke ascending over the northern Gaza Strip following Israeli military strikes.
Smoke rises from the Gaza Strip. ‘There is not a single person of sanity who would condone any of the violence in the Middle East,’ says Dr Fiona Quilty. Photograph: Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty

Rob Delaney’s article gave voice to many who are horrified by the recent slaughter in Israel and Gaza (If someone killed my child I’d want bloody revenge. But I’d be wrong – as is the Israeli government, 17 October).

Any sane person should struggle to understand why people kill and why some fanatics join organisations to kill. Rob gave an airing to an uncomfortable truth – that governments do not represent their people as they struggle to make sense of this horror. An Irish immigrant, I lived in London through the 1970s and 80s and watched, albeit from a distance, as people – ostensibly in my name and in the name of my ancestors – killed, maimed and destroyed lives in Northern Ireland, Britain and Ireland, promoting hatred through terror and mistrust. This insanity by fanatics in Gaza and Israel will prolong the suffering.

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