Fergus Finlay: Too much death, too much pain, too much fear. Israel, it has to stop

Stop, because no one could justify the appalling atrocities and slaughter of your children, your loved ones, on October 7 in any way. No one could deny you the right to go after Hamas and to demand justice. But no one can justify the wholesale indiscriminate slaughter that the world can see happening now. A slaughter only you can stop.

Stop, because there is no other way to get your loved ones back. The ones being held hostages in inhuman conditions. The children, the parents, who have been in terror since that awful day. Say it in the clearest of words. Return our hostages — tell us how to find them — and the ground and aerial bombardment will immediately stop.

Stop, because hospitals can’t function anymore. They have run out of the most basic requirements of life. They are turning off life support not because there is no hope, but because there is no power. They are being forced to make decisions no doctor or nurse should ever have to make. They are being forced to abandon people suffering, who will die without them.

Stop, because dozens — maybe hundreds — of health workers themselves have died. People whose only commitment is to the care of others. People making terrible sacrifices to save and protect life. People leaving loved ones to care for the sick and dying, and now dying themselves.

Stop, because ordinary people, all across the region, are terrified. Because an enormous movement of frightened refugees is beginning. Uniquely in the world in recent times, they are refugees with nowhere to go. There will be no one willing to take them in. They are as terrified of Hamas as they are of you.

Stop, because among that terrified population are women who will give birth soon, to babies who might survive no more than a day or two, if even that. Within that terrified population, disease is waiting to strike, as a result of the unsanitary conditions in which more and more are forced to live.

Stop, because there are fathers and mothers who have already lost everything. Their homes are gone, all they have left is the clothes on their backs. There is no more that can be done to them. There is no more punishment that can be inflicted on them or their families for the terrible wrong done to you on October 7.

Stop, because your friends — and you have many, all over the world, are begging you to stop. Even those who have not said it publicly are pleading with you privately to stop. There is no democratic friend or ally of Israel urging you to keep this going until everything is destroyed. Perhaps there are some who wish to see you alienated, but nobody who wishes you well wants this terrible slaughter to continue.

Stop, because you are strong, and Gaza is weak. You can defend your country — defence failed on October 7 and you need to do it better in the future. A failure to defend adequately can never be a good enough excuse to wreak havoc all around you. The world will always help you to defend yourselves, to whatever extent you need it. The Palestinian people have entirely lost that capacity.

Stop, because you are a democracy, and Hamas is a vicious cult-like terrorist organisation. Democracies know how to conduct themselves, even in the most extreme circumstances. Democracies that adopt, even temporarily, the barbarous standards of terrorists regret it for generations. Democracies always know when to stop.

Stop, because Hamas wanted you to react this way. Hamas knows it can’t win any war with Israel. It deliberately set out to provoke you to a point of unreasoning rage. Because that’s all it is capable of. It can conduct a campaign of terror. It can kill and maim for reasons of hate. But the only way it can succeed is if Israel weakens its own standing in the eyes of the world.

Stop, because you have an immensely proud and tragic history, as a nation and as a people. That history of persecution, oppression, death, and overcoming has given you enormous moral authority in the world. By far the greatest majority of democratic countries are totally committed to the fundamental principle that Israel has the right to survive and thrive in peace. Stop because what is happening now is steadily eroding that moral authority.

Stop, because anti-semitism is on the rise again. In too many countries now, what is happening in Gaza is fuelling the mindless and cruel, yet generations-old, hatred of Jews. In too many countries Jewish people are again living in fear. Afraid in some cases to show the distinctive features of their clothing, like the skullcap or yarmulke that many Jewish men wear with pride. Beginning to wonder how long they will be welcome in the countries they call home.

Stop, because what is happening in Gaza is also, perversely, leading to a rise in Islamophobia. Arab people all over the world are being blamed for the terror perpetrated by Hamas. Assumptions are increasingly going to be made that their campaign of terror will spread and that innocent people in distant countries will suffer as a result of more dreadful acts.

Stop, because you too cannot win. Your tanks and airplanes and rockets are acting as a recruiting sergeant for the next generation of terrorists. What is happening now is instilling in the hearts of some Palestinians an unbridled desire for revenge. The longer this goes on, the more certain it is that in thirty years’ time, Jewish people will still die as a result of terrorist atrocities.

Stop, because sooner or later you have to stop. And then start counting the number of dead. And then find ways to try to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Democratic countries know they have to find the ways, the words, and the language to forge peace agreements with their neighbours, especially those who threaten them. Even where there is a will, democratic countries know how complex it is to agree the terms for negotiated ceasefires. It often takes one big risk to begin those processes. Democratic countries know how to take those risks.

Stop, for this reason, and one other. There has already been too much suffering. Too much suffering in Israel and too much suffering in Gaza. Too much death, too much pain and loss, too much fear. You know with every fibre in your being what that suffering is like. That suffering is unbearable. It can stop if you make it stop.

Stop, in the end, because this is a spiral. A cruel downward spiral. Day after day it gets worse, more merciless, more shaming. It could be a spiral into hell. Hell for Israel, hell for Gaza and the people of Palestine, maybe even hell for the rest of the world. Nobody knows where this will end if it goes on like this. We only know that you can end it.

Stop, Israel. For all those reasons. Stop.