ON Wednesday, March 4, a rare event happened. Bolton Council voted across party lines, almost unanimously approving (54 in favour, two abstentions and nobody against) a motion on Gaza that condemned the disproportionate use of force during the Israeli military onslaught on the innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

The motion also asked the British/western governments to lift the economic sanctions/blockade on the Palestinians, impose an arms embargo and suspend EU-Israeli trade agreements for repeated violation of humanitarian laws/resolutions.

It was deeply heartening to see the different party members show sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians.

The recent Israeli onslaught, although disheartening because of the hundreds of children and women killed in Palestine, has brought various communities together — people of faith and no faith — to show solidarity with the Palestinian people who have been under occupation for almost 62 years now. Over this period, the Palestinians have gone from a position of owning 100 per cent of the land in 1947, where people of various faiths lived in peace, to the present situation, residing in less than 14 per cent of the original land in Gaza and West Bank.

However, the soul and conscience of humanity has not declined or dropped to such a low level that they do not realise the injustice of man against man. At such times when injustice and oppression are so great, people rise up and speak against such tyranny.

Let’s hope that working across the community barrier and speaking out against injustice is not an exception but the norm, and it should not need a calamity to build bridges between communities, irrespective of their faith or race.

Dr Ghulam Ashraf, Address supplied