What moral universe do we inhabit where a government minister in England can address the housing crisis by seeking to confiscate the tents in which the homeless are forced to live?
What moral universe do we inhabit where that same minister can describe a march intended to save the lives of unarmed civilians as a ‘hate march’?
What moral universe do we inhabit when Israeli Jewish journalists asking for a ceasefire are driven out of their homes by gangs of settlers with rifles?
What moral universe do we inhabit when an Israeli Jewish woman protesting in Germany about the annihilation of Gaza is arrested for antisemitism?
What moral universe do we inhabit when our government supports a state that drops 20000 tons of bombs to demolish hospitals, mosques, schools, power plants, roads, and aid convoys and renders uninhabitable fifty thousand civilian buildings?
What moral universe do we inhabit when Itamar ben-Gvir, the Israeli Minister of Security, tells the police to shoot at Palestinians defending their homes from settlers, and tells the Palestinians “We’re the landlords here, remember that, I am your landlord.”
What moral universe do we inhabit when B’tselem, Israel’s largest human rights organisation is dismissed as anti-semitic for saying “The Gaza Strip is in the throes of a manmade humanitarian disaster. This is a direct result of Israel’s official policy, which continues to determine daily life in Gaza. Israel could change this policy and significantly improve quality of life in Gaza. It could also persist in its callous, indefensible policy which sentences the nearly two million residents of the Gaza Strip to a life of abject poverty in near inhuman conditions.”
This isn’t about Jews versus the rest of us: it’s about people, Jewish and otherwise, who believe in peace versus people who believe in war.
