THE Hamas attack on Israel last weekend, which has killed more than 1,000 Israelis, has been described as “Israel’s 9/11.” Therein lies a warning to the world.
There are obvious differences — Hamas is not a global jihadi organisation as al Qaeda was and is.
The Palestinians themselves have experienced many 9/11-scale onslaughts over the years while violence in the occupied territories and Israel itself hardly has the novelty of a direct strike on US soil.
However, the comparison is appropriate in that the attacks on New York and Washington 22 years ago led to crimes and calamities of a much greater order.
They were the occasion for George W Bush and Tony Blair launching their misbegotten “war on terror.” This led to the 20-year occupation of Afghanistan, the bloody invasion of Iraq and, later, the regime change war in Libya.
The “war on terror” still sputters on in Yemen and parts of West Africa. Its victims are now numbered in the millions, and it has brought ruin, instability and despoliation across the world.
It has proved a far greater evil than the original terror attacks of 9/11, with more victims by many orders of magnitude.
It was also a green light for intensified Islamophobia and for moves to restrict and deny civil liberties, all in the name of keeping Britain safe. This these authoritarian measures failed to do, as numerous subsequent terror attacks have proved.
Today, there are calls to travel down the same disastrous path once more. Some are demanding that Israel or the US launch strikes against Iran, on the entirely unproven grounds that it conspired with Hamas over the attacks in Israel.
That would almost certainly spark a wider war plunging the Middle East and beyond into chaos.
Here in Britain, we have seen alarming suggestions by Home Secretary Suella Braverman, supported by Labour leader Keir Starmer, to ban the waving of the Palestinian flag under some circumstances and to outlaw particular pro-Palestinian chants.
This all fits into the Tory agenda of criminalising protest and restricting the right to demonstrate generally. And it also forms part of specifically anti-Palestinian measures, making any expression of solidarity with a suffering people all but illegal.
The government has already banned any support by public bodies for the BDS campaign, the main international initiative applying peaceful pressure on the Israeli government.
This has been accompanied by outbursts of the crudest Muslim-baiting in the media, regardless of the likely impact on community relations.
In fact, the roots of the crisis in Israel and Palestine today include the determination of the Western powers to ignore the Palestinian people, to offer them no route to ending their oppression and to block any form of practical support from around the world.
Today, the 9/11 example is being followed above all in Gaza, where an abominable assault is being directed by the Israeli government without any regard for civilian loss of life.
It has been backed up by collective punishment in the form of denial of power and water, a war crime under international law, again with Starmer’s encouragement.
This is merely an intensification of the treatment already visited on Palestinians in Gaza by Israel on many bloody occasions.
It will not lead to a resolution. If the history of the conflict teaches one thing, it is the impossibility of breaking the will to resist of the Palestinian people.
The 9/11 road is the highway to more conflict and suffering. Peace, based on justice for the Palestinians and security for all, is the only productive path. That is why Saturday’s demonstrations for Palestine should be supported by all.
