I CAN’T stop thinking about the group of Gazan babies in a makeshift incubator, as staff battle to keep them alive. Those wee souls know only milk, warmth, clean nappies and sleep. They don’t know they are humans yet, let alone their nationality.
They don’t know hate, but they’d feel their parents’ love and the gentle hands trying so hard to keep them safe. We teach our children so many things, and it seems that one of them is hatred of people who are different from us. Why? Why should some of our peoples on this planet oppress and kill other peoples? None of us enters this world with hate in us.
READ MORE: UN: 32 babies among scores of critically ill stranded in Gaza hospital
I like films, all sorts really, but love a blockbuster. I loved Independence Day with Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum. It’s cheesy now, and technology has moved on apace from when it came out in 1996, but the one thing I took away from watching it was not the SFX or the glorification of the US as saviours of the world (isn’t that ironic), but that the countries of the world united in the face of one common enemy.
All the reasons for hatred, killing and wars disappeared when we had to work together to defeat the one common enemy.
Well, we have one common enemy now. It isn’t any one particular ethnic group, it isn’t one religion. It’s us. It’s our own greed, our own demands for more money, more land, more riches, more power and the consequence of it all is that we are destroying ourselves because we are destroying the planet.
READ MORE: Scottish Bafta guests urged on red carpet to call for Gaza ceasefire
There is no other planet to go to when we’ve finally poisoned the seas, destroyed the rain forests, no matter the size of your bank balance, there will be no fresh air for you to breathe, no safe water to drink (or to make your favourite alcohol), no fields to grow vegetation, no trees to produce oxygen.
We all know it’s happening, we read about it and see it on the news every single day, but we put off fighting that, we put off working together to save the only home humankind has ever had so that weapons can be built and used. So we can be cruel enough to kill newborn babies in their incubators, lifeless before they even know they are alive.
Evelyn Bell
Blairgowrie
ISRAEL has now advised the Gazans in southern Gaza to leave and move west. Aye but to where? Would that be into the Med?
Attacks in the West Bank on the indigenous Palestinian population have also increased, with 180 Palestinian deaths in recent days.
Reports advise this is not the West Bank Settlers versus existing Palestinians, this is the Israeli Defence Force performing military strikes on West Bank villages.
READ MORE: Humza Yousaf shares messages from brother-in-law in Gaza
It seems obvious now that Israel wants to clear all Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank, allowing resettlement of these areas by Israelis. The Israeli government have broken multiple UN rulings regarding the slow but relentless expanding settlements on the West Bank, which has allowed Hamas to flourish.
I also condemn the Gazan government run by Hamas and their attacks on October 7. That was unjustified, as it enabled Israel to attack Gaza.
They played into the hands of far-right section of the Israeli government led by Netanyahu, who needed to include these far-right expansionists to stay in government to avoid corruption charges.
READ MORE: Alastair Campbell targets Greens for list of Labour MPs who did not back ceasefire
A huge swath of opinion in Israel wants to remove Netanyahu, and vote in a new government.
A new caretaker government led by the UN with Arab League involvement may be a longer-term solution. I hope this new government comes sooner rather than later. A ceasefire would be a start.
We are watching a genocide taking place in front of our very eyes.
Alistair Ballantyne
Angus
I WAS absolutely disgusted by Iain Wilson’s letter in Saturday’s National. I suggest he reads up on the history of Palestine over the last 75 years. I certainly don’t condone the actions of Hamas on October 7 but the response of the Israelis is nothing short of genocide.
Bear in mind that they are the OCCUPYING nation. Since October 7 the people of Gaza are have endured 43 days of wanton slaughter in an attempt by the Netanyahu government to wipe them and their infrastructure of the face of the earth. I also suggest Mr Wilson ask himself why no Western journalists are allowed into Gaza to report on what the Israeli Defence Force is doing there.
Jane Bullock
via email
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