OPINION: Before you speak about Israel and Gaza, ask if your words are true, kind and helpful
Reckless words and actions have impact, warns Labour Party Parliamentary candidate Matthew Patrick.
“The good people in this world far outnumber the bad.” Bernard Meltzer, one of the most popular radio hosts in America in his day, was known to say this on his call-in show entitled ‘What’s your problem?’.
These are words I need to hear and feel right now. I suspect I’m not alone.
The war in Israel and Gaza is weighing heavily on many of us, me included. I am scared, angry, desperate and devastated. I am waking up in the middle of the night in sweats, as my nightmares include the detailed slaughter of me and my family.
My horror at the attack by Hamas is in the intimacy of it. The up-close slaughter of children. There is not a cause in the world worth that. (I’m in two minds about detailing this here. I don’t want to add to the fear and emotion everyone is feeling, but these images are seared in my mind and, without it, I fear people won’t understand where I’m coming from.)
When I was little, my grandmother would tell me how as a people, Jews would never be safe. She told me that people have always wanted to kill the Jews and that, when it comes to it, we won’t be defended. (She also talked to me about cooking, literature, TV and humour – it wasn’t always that foreboding!)
I dismissed this. She was from a different era. She and her family had to fight fascists at Ridley Road. Like so many other Jews, they had to change their surname to remove any trace of Jewishness from it. Her family had fled pogroms in Eastern Europe. She was scarred from her experiences and therefore couldn’t see that everything was different now.
I don’t want her to be right. I’m desperate for her to be wrong. I want so hard to believe that the good people in this world far outnumber the bad. And it’s in desperate times – such as now – that it is hardest to feel that.
It is in the words and actions of others that I allow myself to believe (or not) Bernard Meltzer’s comforting phrase.
And, in turn, I know that my words and actions will impact that for others.
So let me say:
My heart breaks for the innocent people of Palestine. Their suffering is unimaginable. They need food, water, fuel and medicine. Aid must be allowed to reach them.
My heart also breaks for the innocent people of Israel. They cannot live in fear of a repeat attack from Hamas. For peace, Hamas – who are sworn enemies of the Jewish people – cannot control Gaza.
As so many do, I want desperately for peace. Not everyone will completely agree on how we get there but it is the destination we all want.
Peace won’t come amidst the fear, tension and anger so many feel.
It’s why I despair at the media. In an industry where clicks count, anger and horror plays better than calm and balance. But, it is reckless.
When Channel 4 news plays a segment in which an Israeli man talks of his peace-activist sister-in-law being brutally murdered and says ‘we need to do the same to them’, I am left feeling angry at him and his vengeful words. And when in the same segment, a Palestinian academic says that Israeli warnings are a public relations stunt providing cover whilst they seek to murder Palestinians, I am equally appalled.
Their social media clicks do not matter more than peace. Their lack of balance, challenge, reasoned voices and calm heads puts the cause of peace back. It stokes fear, anger, outrage and hurt.
Our media has a responsibility to get this right. I hope sincerely that our journalists, producers and interviewers are thinking carefully about their role – their reporting has an enormous bearing on the discourse. It is the calm heads, the progressives who work for lasting peace and for a shared future, that need to be amplified and empowered.
But it is our social media, Instagram stories, WhatsApp messages, Facebook posts, that I find filling my head and preying on my fears. People rightly want to express their hurt at what is happening – myself included – but even when it comes from a good place we should recognise the impact it might have.
That leads me to another Bernard Meltzer special. A bit longer than his soothing remarks I opened with but, perhaps a precondition of getting us there.
Before you speak ask yourself if what you are going to say is true, is kind, is necessary, is helpful. If the answer is no, maybe what you are about to say should be left unsaid.
- Matthew Patrick is the Labour Party Parliamentary candidate in Wirral West
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