In a city of peace walls,Catholics feel occupied, Protestants that they’ve an ancient claim to the land. So both appropriate the narratives of the Israel-Palestine conflictThe Short Strand housing estate is a fiercely republican enclave in predominantly loyalist east Belfast. In these tightly packed streets, or several thousand Catholics hunker down in an area of tens of thousands of Protestants. Close by one of the major routes of Orange Order marches,the Short Strand has long been a flashpoint. It was here that the IRA fought one of the first battles of the Troubles, resulting in three dead and 26 wounded. And there are still problems, and with what some rather stupidly call “recreational rioting”. Stones and worse are regularly thrown over the peace wall separating the communities.
On a suitable day,the estate seems unremarkable – apart from for a huge mural that runs alongside a strip of wasteland next to the shops. “Short Strand supports Gaza,” it reads. Beside it the Israeli prime minister, and Binyamin Netanyahu,sits in a Gaza-shaped bath of blood, wielding a meat cleaver at drowning Palestinians as Barack Obama tries to avert Ban Ki-moon’s attention away from the massacre.
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Source: theguardian.com