• How the West’s support for the massacre of children in Gaza may be normalising threats against Muslim children here in the UK
• How Israel’s use of human shields on October 7 has increased crime against Muslims here in the UK
Only a few hours after the biggest mosque in western Europe, the East London Mosque, was shut down after a supposed bomb threat, police were called to investigate a threatening letter sent to a school in Ilford. The letter also sounded much like a bomb threat by someone who knew the buildings function as a school and had no reluctance to hide his insensitivity to the deaths of children.
Letter written to Apex Primary School in Ilford, East London
Children are always seen as the defenceless innocent ones that international bodies like the UN and human rights watch feel as if they are forced to talk about during times of crisis to actually make unfeeling people and leaders realise the harm that is being done. It is impossible to suggest that a child deserves to be killed or that it is the right thing to do in a situation. However, unfortunately, with Israel’s continuous genocide in Gaza and the UK and US not voting or asking for a ceasefire after the deaths of more than seventeen thousand people, 7,000 of them children, as well as the continuous sending of missiles and bombs for Israel to use, the question comes to mind: has the killing of children been legitimised if it serves a higher purpose? Or are the lives of children worth less than the objectives of a neo-colonialist state? All in all, if the US and UK send support in the form of weaponry to kill children without accountability, the sanctity of those who are guilt-free becomes degraded because of this, thus causing a massive shift in the eyes of vile individuals who would normally harm or threaten the adults or elderly in their deranged minds and leave children alone, to harming both children and babies in believing it is justifiable as it has been in Gaza.
Why Islamophobia has increased since October 7th
According to Sam Tarry, MP for Ilford South, London has seen a sevenfold increase in Islamophobic hate incidents since October 7th, with many Muslims in Ilford feeling “that their concerns have been consistently ignored.” Antisemitism has also seen a stark increase; however, unlike islamophobia, it has been addressed at a far higher magnitude than islamophobia has since October 7th. Only in November did the government announce putting in an extra 7 million pounds to tackle antisemitism and not a penny to tackle Islamophobia. Furthermore, the government has its own working independent advisor on antisemitism but not on Islamophobia. We can therefore analyse for ourselves and acknowledge which groups of the so-called fair and equal British community the government thinks are worth more and which groups they value less.
How this all goes back to Israel’s use of human shields on the 7th of October
There are many facts about October 7th that remain unclear, and there are many conflicting accounts from various sources. However, one thing cannot be denied, and that is the perspective of the Palestinian people living in Gaza. A people who have been locked away in the most isolated concentration camp in the world, where any attempt to build an airport to just set foot outside was met with harsh resistance. A people who, to this day, under this apocalyptic bombardment still have people who are older than the fraudulent state of Israel itself. If the US is provoked into war because of the high prices of oil in 2003, then cutting people off from food, clean water, medicine, and many other essential resources means that is a war in and of itself. This means technically, from a Gazan perspective, the war did not begin on October 7th; rather, the genocide began then, but the war itself started at least as far back as 2007, when the blockade was first introduced. Something to note surprisingly, even Tony Blair in October 2017 had regrets when looking back at siding with Bush and Israel to blockade Gaza. Former Prime Minister and mass murderer Tony Blair said he should have tried to ‘pull Hamas into a dialogue and shifted their positions’.
To expect a people to stay still and not resist when blocked from receiving aid and vital resources like that of even a tractor for harvesting is as absurd as telling the American countryman in the most crime-ridden area of the US to hand over his gun. Yet somehow, amid all the realisation and facts on the ground, Israel managed to brainwash a good chunk of their population to believe that there would be no resistance from the Gazan resistance and hence should live right next to the apartheid wall that blocks the Gazans from their freedom. You do not build a house on no-man’s land and expect it not to be attacked, especially not right next to the enemy’s trenches. Yet Israel, which knew of the potential of the resistance, thought it was okay to do so. To say the Israeli authorities and officials genuinely believed the area around Gaza was safe from attack is something they had already proven they didn’t believe. Is it a coincidence that Gaza has been surrounded by a heavily fortified wall with more than three Israeli military facilities not too far away? Is it a coincidence that Israel, although it knew roughly the size and capability of the resistance in Gaza, still didn’t call for a red zone for civilians? We can thereby conclude that, in the end, it was indeed Israel that used its own civilians as human shields on October 7th by conditioning the minds of their people into believing the area around Gaza is a civilian region rather than an active battlefield.
What was the overall outcome of it all?
It was with human shields on October 7th that Israel got away with the mass slaughter of seventeen thousand civilians in Gaza, including seven thousand kids. It was through putting their people in harm’s way that they achieved the international community’s permission to lay waste to the entirety of the Gaza Strip. Therefore, it was Israel’s use of human shields that allowed the dehumanisation of children and babies to contagiously spread and seem more acceptable to extreme Islamophobic individuals here in the west. It was through Israel’s use of human shields that Islamophobes here in the UK felt bolder and more motivated. Consequently, all in all, it was the use of human shields by Israel that made the letter that was deemed a threat to Apex Primary School come through the door of the school.
