My introduction to tumultuous geopolitical conflicts has affected my life ever since I was capable of being able to understand my external environment – a feeling most people in Northern Ireland are familiar with.

I was three years old when the US ordered that Pakistani civilians be subjected to 54 drone strikes.

Whilst this was justified as a means to ‘curb terrorism’, it further destabilised already at-risk areas and created an atmosphere for anti-West ideology.

The unsettling atmosphere prompted my family to leave my homeland when I was just 8, in search of stability, and they landed in the Middle East – quite ironic for them.

My experience of spending the majority of my life in the Middle East can only be described as something I’ll never be able to disentangle myself from.

The ill-thought Western intervention in Afghanistan and Pakistan which led to a huge amount of suffering felt by my people makes time feel circular, because when we look at the Palestinian-Israeli crisis, the US will use ‘terrorism’ as a means to get involved, which will lead to millions of deaths while they make billions of dollars due to the immense influence of the arms industry in military decisions.

This is a telling sign that their support of Israel is not rooted in support of the ‘attacked’, but rather in gross self-interest.

Stocks of Lockheed Martin – the American arms manufacturing firm – shot up 40 per cent after Israel started its bombing campaign in Gaza.

We must recognise that the winners in this war will never be the people in the Middle East but, rather, those in the West who are not affected by their actions.

The politics of the Middle East made me understand that the West’s foreign policy is not just numbers on your television screen, but real people and their families. 

The displacement from one’s homeland is a dreadful feeling that irrevocably changes one’s views on conflicts.

Every single young person around me tragically accepted the futility of life and how easily bad political conditions take everything away from you – a feeling the children of Palestine have been undoubtedly experiencing for decades.

The children of the Middle East are aware of the slaughter of their peers, and the glaring indifference of the West to the suffering caused by them.

In attempting to defend the voicelesss of Gaza, there is a fear of alienation, because at its core you seem to get into less trouble for supporting Israel, and we are told that Israel is just protecting its nation against terrorism.

While the question remains, “Why is there terrorism against Israel?”, we tend to overlook crucial facts about Israel’s role in the creation of Hamas, when they attempted to eradicate any legitimate Leftist attempts against Israel’s foreign invasion into Palestinian land.

Former Israeli officials such as Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev himself referred to Hamas as “a creature of Israel”, which further emphasises that the position Israel is in is due to conditions created by Israel.

Israel has the best security system in the world, spending $24.3bn on its military, making it the world’s second-largest spender on military per capita after Qatar.

It is hard to conceptualise how they were defeated by a group of militants who exist in an “open-air prison” – another product of Israel.

I am in no way saying that Hamas has any right to inflict suffering on innocent Israeli citizens – I’m merely asking for people to stop equating the Palestinian fight with a terrorist group.

Palestinians and Israelis both have the right to live a life of dignity and safety where the actions of a terrorist group, or their state, are not the defining factor in the lives they can lead.

Israel’s violation of UN Resolution 242 and choosing to move inward into Palestinian land since its introduction in 1967 emphasises that Israel has been hell-bent on not co-existing with Palestinians, but rather, removing them from their homeland.

The actions of Israel not only affect the futures of Palestinians, but also Israelis, who will face the wrath of Hamas due to the actions of their state.

I also disagree with a frankly scandalous Arab sentiment that exists in a minority that does praise Hamas, and disregards the horrific actions of assaulting Israeli women as a form of “liberation”.

There is no question that anti-Semitism does exist in these spaces, which is horrid and should be dealt with.

One must learn to separate anti-Zionism from anti-Semitism on both sides for a productive conversion that leads to progress. Moreover, it would be unjust to boil down decades of Palestinians’ struggle to just rabid terrorism.

It is weak to sit here and call for the ‘protection’ of innocent civilians and how there should be peace without acknowledging the horrific actions of Israel.

It is like a spit in the face to every single suffering Palestinian right now, every single family who saw their home bombed by Israel, to the children who will grow up without parents, to the innocent people of Palestine whose only crime for which they receive such immense pain is being born on the ‘wrong’ side of the West Bank.

While Israeli media tries to engage the Western war machine, it is them who cause the deaths of innocent civilians by cutting electricity to hospitals, by their abhorrent behaviour of bombing paths they told Palestinians were safe to be used when Israel gives them the choice of “leave or be bombed”.

If Palestine is not given support, it will no longer exist, except in the traumatised memories of the few civilians who are fortunate enough to leave, but unfortunate enough to experience the horrors committed by Israel. 

As someone who has lived in Northern Ireland for three years, and saw the empathetic response geared towards the Ukrainians after Russia invaded them in 2022, it makes me wonder why is it that when Europeans fight back against a foreign and oppressive state such as Russia, they are hailed as heroes who are protecting ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’, all while subjecting Palestinians to gruesome slurs, and hoping Israel eradicates these “terrorists”.

If we are differentiating between terrorists and freedom fighters and where they are geographically from and their ethnicity, it begs the question of whether we value human life unconditionally, or just when it’s European and white, and it shows how pertinent Western hypocrisy is and the role it plays in what ‘side’ we as a public take.

The siege of Gaza will transform itself into notes in history that will make everybody wonder why nothing was done, and how this all happened in an era of readily available information.

I stand here with everyone in the Middle East wondering this currently, with a feeling the West will not act until the tragedy is over and a meek apology can be issued which means nothing to those suffering in Palestine.

The darkness the conflict has cast over millions of futures is unprecedented, as every war in the Middle East that is justified to the public as a war against ‘terrorism’ always unravels itself slowly as a war against the Middle East for the West’s interests.

These wars are not fought for freedom – although the West promotes itself as the master of freedom, history and current events indicate differently.

Authentic freedom, according to Hegel, is when a person or entity is so free in and of itself that it inspires other people or entities to be free.

Quite contrary to what most would believe, the West’s foreign ventures are characterised only by mastery: so-called freedom in the West is contingent upon the domination of peripheral nations. 

Israel’s attempt to dominate Palestine and its lands is not made in defence, but rather done to ethnically cleanse Gaza, and further Israeli ambitions to ‘wipe out’ Gaza. 

While I do stand with innocent civilians of Israel who cannot be blamed for the actions of their state, and who have undoubtedly also suffered extreme loss and pain due to Hamas, my support is unequivocally with the anti-apartheid Palestinian movement that exists outside the spheres of Hamas.

Anti-Apartheid activist Solomon Mahlangu’s last words were: “Tell my people that I love them and that they must continue to fight. My blood will nourish the tree that will bear the fruits of freedom.”

The Palestinian fight is not rooted in terrorism, but rather in an attempt to not have centuries of their history and homeland bombed and destroyed by a settler nation that does not belong there.

Monesha Talreja (17) is studying history, politics and English literature, and lives in Fermanagh.