Regarding the recent Gaza crisis, which has resulted in hundreds of deaths in both Israel and Palestine, calls for an address by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley.
The government had already released a written statement. Still, this time the prime minister is stating that this degree of strife, violence, and widespread devastation of homes, cities, and other facilities is intolerable and is claiming the lives of numerous innocent people.
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The Prime Minister stated it was difficult to address the country without addressing this matter at a press conference held at the Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA) on November 18, 2023, when she notified residents of a newly created cooperation between CARICOM and Saudi Arabia.
PM Mottley stated, “I would like to speak on another matter. I wouldn’t know how to speak today without addressing it. What is going on in the Gaza is a travesty and it offends every human sensibility.”
She continued, “We were offended for sure on October 7, when persons were killed in Israel in acts that were utter terror but what has happened since then is dwarfing that in terms of the scale…I don’t even think that horror and terror is sufficient to describe it because separate from the bombs, the notion that people [in Palestine] will not have access to water or people do not have access to fuel or that babies have to lie on beds cuddling next to one another in the pictures that we’ve seen in order to keep some level of warmth, these things are not good.”
Mottley, who said that this was possibly the first genocide to be broadcast on television, stated that it was crucial for people to voice their opinions from both sides.
“It is perhaps the first televised genocide and hence the world is responding.
“In our own country this weekend we have a march and it is right and fitting that people on all sides should be able to express their opinion but it is equally right that civilized nations must be able to hold people to activities that fall outside of the pale.”
“There are certain things that we should not allow any country, any state to engage in. If you want to fight, fight. But don’t have young children, old people and honest civilians become victims of a battle in a way that simply finding a humanitarian cease-fire could have removed from them the threat of loss of life. Simply finding the mechanism to be able to pause because as I said three weeks ago and I mean it, peace will come.”
The Barbados PM stated, “How many more must pay the ultimate price before peace is secured?”
Mottley implored Barbadians to hope that all parties would have the guts to work toward establishing peace, without discounting other conflicts that are now taking place throughout the globe.
“I ask our people to pray for both sides and to pray that they will find in them the courage to build peace that the world needs. And this is not to say that their battle has any more value than what is going on in Darfur, Sudan and other parts of the world, but this one regrettably has been constant in people’s living rooms, bedrooms and dining rooms because it is being televised.”
