Acts of terror are conducted by those with limited power, against those with great power (usually the state or sometimes a large business conglomerate). The aim is to rip off the mask of the powerful and reveal the violence behind their power. The problem with terrorism as a political strategy is that the state is better at terror than the terrorist. Accordingly, the attack by Hamas fighters against Israel, as well as ripping off the respectable democratic mask (which didn’t need much ripping, it already being in tatters), has resulted in Israel moving from being a proto-apartheid state into it becoming a proto-genocidal state, laying siege to Gaza, bombing its infrastructure including hospitals, schools and residential areas, denying food, water, fuel and medical supplies, and their defence minister wanting to eradicate the ‘animals’ who live there.

Both sides have committed war crimes: targeting civilians and collectively punishing a people, with Israel well practised in operating outside of international law. It is regularly sanctioned by the UN for creating illegal settlements, violently invading Palestinian territorial waters, operating humiliating checkpoints, denying medical attention, bulldozing houses, oppressing its Arab citizens, undertaking illegal surveillance, its snipers killing people as they go about their lawful business, carrying out drone strikes and denying Palestinians access to the outside world. It is no secret that the Israelis train the increasingly militarised Western police forces in how to control a populace; for they are the experts. But now, the normal day to day violence of the proto-apartheid state escalates into the radical violence of a proto-genocidal state.

The actions of Hamas are also illegal and an outrage, but let us remember that they were elected to replace a corrupt, collaborating government and were at their inception, a group practised in community development in Gaza. When elected, their governance was immediately sabotaged and attacked by Israel and the West. If they are now a terrorist grouping they have been made so by Israel and its US backer. And when you make life intolerable for the citizens of the most densely populated area on the planet, for year after year, these people, constantly experiencing grief, hopelessness, hatred and anger, ultimately have nothing to lose and will explode.

Watching this tragedy with the emotions of pity and fear, it is interesting to witness the local reaction, to see the Government’s call for the upholding of international law and for restraint, immediately attacked as too soft by the local Jewish lobby, with its propaganda that Israel is a country upholding the values of freedom and democracy in the midst of a sea of Arab vindictiveness. By some mysterious process those values don’t translate into the governance of the country or into tolerance of international debate. The propaganda is so successful, that if I were in Scotland this piece could possibly lead to a visit from the police. Meanwhile, Western leaders condemn the war crimes of Hamas without equally condemning the war crimes of Israel. Why? Because Israel remains a beacon of colonialism.

Locally, there is either indifference or ignorance, of, if the matter is brought up, a new age response that if we keep putting out bright-eyed positive energy, the problems of the world will go away. When that naivety is in turn challenged, then the response is, It’s not the Jewish people wanting an apartheid state (despite voting for it and continuing to serve in the army and yes, protesting when their own civil rights are threatened), or that it is the fault of bad leaders (all leaders being suspect, but someone votes them in). It’s like Christians existing in a sinful world and praying for the enlightenment of the sinners (and meanwhile Ukraine worries that it will slip from the radar as the chief recipient of the products of the arms industry, with its accompanying profiteering).

Of course there is a sort of street wisdom in this, and a memory of the values at the core of Pacifism, and the willingness to go to jail for those values: that all working people want is a peaceful and just society and therefore we refuse to slaughter one another because of the quarrels of the masters and the profiteers they hang out with.

Let me suggest that it is once again time for a genuine and widely supported peace movement.