The Tribune

A MESSAGE was sent to The Tribune’s managing editor recently, asking just one question – what is The Tribune’s position on Gaza?

A simple question perhaps but not a simple answer, nor a simple solution.

For his part, our managing editor has his own experience of the situation in his birth country of Northern Ireland, which for many years looked impossible to resolve, or to bring about peace.

As he said, over the years there were too many outsiders there who declared what they thought would be the solution to The Troubles, while being unaware of what those solutions meant in practice.

For Northern Ireland, the peace that came about through being part of Europe together and bringing the borders down brought a peace dividend.

But it wasn’t easy. Former enemies had to learn to work with one another, to sit across from one another in Parliament, and not always hark back to the shootings and kneecappings of years gone by.

In South Africa, there was the same hard-earned healing process, with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up to deal with what happened under apartheid.

The commission’s goal was to bring about forgiveness and reconciliation between perpetrators and victims of apartheid. The key to it all was telling the truth. It had to be admitted that there were human rights violations before the country could move forward.

Which brings us to the situation in Gaza.

The attack that took place on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched an assault that saw rockets fired and thousands of militants breaching the barrier with Israel, killing 1,139 Israelis and foreign nationals, and taking another 253 hostage, was shocking indeed. To Israel and to the world.

The reprisals, with Gaza crushed by the Israel counteroffensive, has been equally shocking. The exact number of those killed is unclear, but the Ministry of Health claims 30,000 were killed by the end of February, although that number is disputed.

The response in our pages from our columnists has been broadly clear – that the first thing that needs to happen is for the killing to stop. Only then can any kind of future start to take shape, whatever that looks like, be it a one-state solution or a two-state solution.

And there is the area where we run the risk of being the outsiders who do not fully grasp the history and nuance of the situation. This conflict did not truly begin on October 7, it stretches back many years before that.

What the solution on an ongoing basis should be is something that should be determined by all parties involved to ensure peace. To bring that peace dividend that Northern Ireland saw, to see the reinvigorated economy of South Africa.

But what we can say is that the killing has to stop to give that future a chance.

As it stands, that conflict has the potential to spiral out of control and affect the region more widely, but one death or a thousand deaths, all are tragedies.

Cool heads are needed, and not just ones that are looking for a victory, but ones that are looking to build a future.