I was never a big fan of Kate Bush, but that changed last week. 

The reason was simple and straightforward: she released a strong and well-crafted anti-war animation entitled Little Shrew. 

In an interview outlining the background to the animation (and its background song Snowflake), she spoke of how we have become desensitised to human suffering, how the world has become so ‘loud’ and of the need to be ‘present in the moment’.

The animation features a tiny shrew seeking to navigate and survive the violence and devastation of war and was inspired by the invasion of Ukraine and its consequent ravages.  The animation was produced in support of the NGO War Child, which argues that “no child should be part of war. Ever.”

Apart from the quality and merits of Bush’s work, what struck me most was her willingness to stand up and be counted on a fundamentally important issue – war and its impact, especially on children. For her, silence was not an acceptable option.

Not only that, Kate Bush is also prepared to use her talent and gifts, her trade as a songwriter and musician, her professional network and access as well as the opportunities her life provides to take a stand.   

This is something so many of us have become accustomed to avoiding. Shocked and horrified, we look away preferring not to become involved in ‘politics’. This is especially so in the context of the slaughter that is now daily news in Gaza and increasingly in Lebanon. 

That slaughter is taking place with the active connivance of many of the world’s most powerful and influential states, many of them members of the UN ‘Security’ Council, especially the United States. It is taking place despite the weasel words of Presidents, Secretaries of State, Chancellors, Prime Ministers, Ayatollahs and, of course Generals and Securocrats. 

We ignore the slaughter for fear of being accused of antisemitism or of being pro-Hamas or soft of terrorism or simply to avoid being labelled ‘political’. And our silence is matched by the silence of so many others and it is a cumulative silence that permits atrocity after atrocity.

I cut my political teeth opposing the ‘self-defence’ violence of the Provisional IRA and the militarists of the British State. Along with many thousands of others, I faced down the criticism and often the ridicule of those who saw peace activism as naïve, devious or downright traitorous. 

I spent a decade working alongside Arab and Israeli human rights activists together in the euromedrights network promoting rights, justice and equality for all, including Palestinians. That work and the hope it inspired is now being actively destroyed routinely by those who deploy the language and equations of peace and an end to wholesale killing. 

Two million Palestinians are being herded back and forth in their own land (that is those who are not being killed or imprisoned). Tens of thousands have been killed by bomb, shell, bullet, disease, hunger and despair – while the world watches on and while many unforgivably cheer and approve. 

We look away while both the past and the future of Palestinians is being destroyed and undone.  The latest move by the Israeli state to prohibit the work of UNWRA is yet another attempt to undermine the administrative and legal identity of Palestinians (this is part of its mandate). 

TV and severely restricted independent reporting are utterly incapable of capturing the sheer terror and the prevailing smell and sound of what is being done without remorse to Palestinians.  The October 7 atrocities of Hamas or the continued threat that Hezbollah represents can, in no way excuse the slaughter. 

It is well past time to use all our energy, every opportunity and occasion, every platform and structure to demand a ceasefire and an end to the duplicitous politics of the conflict. It is well past time to insist that Palestinians are fully and unequivocally entitled to their humanity, their rights and their basic security just as Israelis are. 

Taking a lead from Kate Bush, every church, trade union, university, youth, women and men’s group, every professional, sporting and arts association, every community structure, every NGO must work energetically to build a threshold of universal rejection of the ongoing slaughter. 

It is time to use every peaceful tool and opportunity available to us to oppose the murderous agenda of Netanyahu, his cabinet and all militarists in Israel (illegal settlers or otherwise) and their apologists and supporters.

Common decency and humanity (as well as history) demand it of us.