My Humanity is Bound Up in Yours

As a counsellor supporting LGBTQ+ and neurodivergent individuals, I witness how systemic trauma shapes lives and communities. It ripples through time and space, touching everything it meets. But trauma isn’t the only thing that spreads. I believe compassion and love can spread too.

In 2017, I visited Palestine and Israel. I saw refugee camps and the wall in the West Bank, and met Palestinians whose freedom of movement was severely restricted. Many continue to be forcibly removed from their family homes and ancestral lands. Palestinians still endure the legacy of the Nakba: living under siege, experiencing displacement, and facing violence. This isn't war. It is ethnic cleansing and genocide.

I condemn the killing and targeting of civilians, both Palestinian and Israeli. No child, no mother, no person should suffer this. I hold space for those shaped by systems that distort truth and weaponise fear.

I also hold deep compassion for Jewish communities, who carry the weight of historic atrocities. From pogroms to the Holocaust to ongoing antisemitism, that trauma is real and deserves respect. But it should never be used to justify the oppression of others.

I acknowledge the complicity of my own country, the UK, in this injustice. Through arms sales, diplomatic endorsement, and colonial legacy, we are entangled in the harm. It is time to end the use of occupied lands as testing grounds for powerful nations and their weapons.

May we move toward a future guided by courage, truth, love and compassion, not vengeance or propaganda.

I do not believe a two-state solution is viable. The illegal occupation of Palestinian land has gone too far. Continuing down that path would reinforce systemic oppression and apartheid. Instead, we need processes of truth and reconciliation, like those seen in South Africa. Palestinian human rights must be protected and dignity upheld for everyone. 

We need a path where regret can be expressed, reparations made and losses grieved together. Love must be restored instead of division, bitterness and hatred. We need true collective healing. There's no moral imperative to forgive, because when we're allowed to grieve, love is naturally restored.

I pray for the day when Palestinians and Israelis live in unity. They may call the land by different names, but they will be together united in greater equality and simple human love. The African word 'ubuntu' means "I am because we are" or as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC, South Africa), put it: “my humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”

The photo below was taken in 2017 on Palestinian ancestral lands, near the place where I was arrested by Israeli armed police (or soldiers, it's hard to tell them apart). Perhaps they were afraid of me. All I was doing was walking alone in the woods, which turned out to be near some barracks. I was taken in a vehicle and interrogated. They seemed especially interested in knowing what my religion was. My religion is love.





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