By Paul Goodman MP, a Shadow Communities and Local Government Minister.
The Times reports today that three youths tried to set fire to a synagogue last Saturday – the Jewish Sabbath. The Community Security Trust, a Jewish charity, describes an increase in anti-semitic incidents. I don’t know the religious background of the assailants, but this rise clearly coincides with the tragedy currently taking place in Gaza.
Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, has called upon all “believers in the Islamic world” to “defend in any way they can the defenceless women, children and people of Gaza”. Some have interpreted this call, rightly or wrongly, as a signal for attacks on Jews worldwide. Whatever the truth, there’s no doubt about the position of Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader in Gaza. He’s called for the murder of Jews everywhere: “They have legitimised the murder of their own children by killing the people of Palestine…They have legitimised the killing of their people all over the world by killing our people.” (My italics.)
Needless to say, synagogues and Jews aren’t the only target of religious-based aggression in Britain. Some mosques and many Muslims, for example, have experienced hostility and violence since 9/11. But there’s a moral in these recent deeds and words that reaches beyond any one religious community in Britain, and which should concern us all.
What happens abroad has an impact at home. Tensions between India and Pakistan are followed closely by Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. Christians lobby MPs about the treatment of their co-religionists in both countries, and elsewhere. And then, of course, there’s Israel/ Palestine, a conflict on which the media focus more intensely than any other. In short, deaths in a communal riot halfway around the world can have more impact in parts of our cities than a hospital closure in a neighbouring suburb – in this world of mass travel, internet access, and foreign-language satellite TV.
Obviously, Muslims and Jews alike feel strongly about what’s happening in Gaza and Israel – as do others of all religions and none. I know from my own constituency how passionately many British Muslims feel about Kashmir, and other MPs have a similar experience from a different angle. Anger, of course, is a natural human emotion. Sometimes, one can’t help feeling it – and in a free country, one should be at liberty to express it within the law: indeed, the articulation and expression of anger is vital to the health of democracy. But we live together as British citizens and, in our common home, violence and thuggery should be left outside the door.
At present, there’s no shortage of organisations issuing statements about Gaza/ Israel. Indeed, there’s long been a plenitude of bodies issuing statements about conflicts abroad. This is as it should be, and long may it continue.
None the less, I’d like to see every group that issues a statement about events abroad, at times when feelings run especially high, to add roughly the following words at the end of it:
“We recognise that many [name of religious or other interest group here] will feel strongly about [name of event here], but [name of organisation here] calls upon all [name of religious or other interest group here] to maintain good relations with their [name of other religious or interest group here] neighbours, to condemn and confront any violence or intimidation aimed at them, and at all times to remember their obligations as British citizens.”
