As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict enters its second week the shock and mind-numbing violence just seems to escalate.
Social media is a blessing - and a curse - as we are confronted by the true horror of what the people of Gaza are going through.
One heart-breaking video shows a young Palestinian child, so articulate and composed as she stands in front of the rubble of her bombed out neighbourhood, saying: “I feel so helpless, I don’t know what to do. I’m only ten years old. I can’t take it anymore.”
You can see the despair etched in her dirt-and-tear streaked face. “Why do they hate us? Because we are Muslim? What did we do to deserve this?”
The conflict is being framed as being Jews against Muslim but it really isn’t. Many Orthodox Jews do not support what the state of Israel is doing and have protested for years against the actions of the government. Also why do we forget that a fifth of the population of Palestine is Christian?
What is your view? Have your say in the comment section
So many Jewish people have spoken up and spoken out about terrible war crimes many believe are being carried out by the state of Israel even though they have been called ‘traitors’ and ‘not real Jews’ by Israeli flag- waving supporters.
Now another shocking video has emerged of a convoy of cars bearing Palestine flags blasting obscenities in north London.
The comments calling for the rape of Jewish women and girls are abhorrent and must be condemned in the strongest possible terms.
There is no justification for it and it doesn’t help the people of Palestine - and simply drives a bigger wedge between Muslim and Jewish communities in the UK.
I was invited to speak at a synagogue in Leeds and was given a wonderful warm reception. One of the things that struck me was how people said they felt responsible for the actions of the Israeli government.
Isn’t that how Muslims feel when one of our own commits a heinous act? We feel obligated to apologise for the actions of a wrong-doer from our own community.
We can condemn the actions of Israel without spewing hatred towards innocent Jewish people and I’m glad the perpetrators of that abuse have been arrested.
No right-minded Muslim agrees with these thugs.
Relations might be strained now but historically both followers of Judaism and Islam co-existed peacefully for centuries in Arab lands.
In fact, there was even a widely circulated Jewish document which described Islam as “an act of God’s Mercy” because of the way they were treated under Islamic rule.
We need to keep remembering how much our faiths have in common.
Mindless comments like these don’t help the cause. At this time, more than ever, we should be standing together not falling apart.
