Sunday, 11th of January, 2009

The Liberal Conspiracy has a great post up about the endlessly unproductive back-and-forth that occurs whenever Israel-Palestine is mentioned in the media and blogs. Sunny Hundal and Sunder Katwala call for an end to whataboutery – and in case it looks like a simple "you're all equally wrong" kind of thing, flick through the comments to Sunder, and later Sunny's extensions of what they mean here.

I'm not sure it's any kind of manifesto for fixing shit, but it does manage to express something of the way I feel whenever this happens.

Yes, we mean you. If you can only see the humanity of one side and never the other, one side of the history, and one side of the suffering. If everything you say is to point the finger of blame at the baddies and exonerate the goodies. If you haven’t had a new point to make for five, ten or sixty years.

You are not part of the solution; you are part of the problem.

- if you are ordering pizza for the Israeli Defence Force,
- waving Hamas flags on peace rallies
- organising boycotts, blame and ostracism
- if you think that bombing Gaza will bring peace
- if you think Hamas are a bunch of valiant freedom fighters
- if all you can do is quote SWP or Conservative Friends of Israel talking points…

Peace is difficult because it will come when Palestinians and Israelis recognise the essential truth – that their peace and security is mutually inter-dependent.

That’s difficult for those at the centre of the conflict. But what’s your excuse?

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