Another genocide and much of the world stands idly by, as with all the others.
Armenia 1915;Holocaust, 1941-45; Bengal famine, 1943; Rwanda, 1994; Bosnia,1992; Gaza, 2024─ although there is less excuse for inaction than ever before, as the horror unfolding in Gaza has been seen nightly on TV screens across the globe.
As a teacher, I sometimes had to arbitrate following declarations of war between pupils.
“I know John started it, which was wrong of him, and you, Tom, feel justified in wanting to hit back. But if you retaliate, John will want to have another go and this could go on and on. An unfortunate little spat between you two could become all-out war. Was your disagreement really worth so much trouble?
That is how nations behave, resulting in lots of deaths. We can we do better than that.
“Tom, if you call a halt to it now, with justice on your side, would you be satisfied if I can persuade John to apologise to you and make you and me a promise that there will be no more of it?”
That usually ended the matter, sometimes with a voluntary hand-shake between the antagonists.
Where appropriate, reparative action was required of the one I judged to be the instigator.
I was dealing with children, so matters were simple. Children have pride and instinctively want to defend their corner, but they are, in the main, rational beings.
I wish world leaders had as much sense. I wish they had a conscience.
Unlike professional politicians, John and Tom do not feel answerable to a belligerent mob, their electorate, rather than to reason. They can see that the philosophy of an eye for an eye is a mad formula for endless, pointless conflict.
The policy of Israel has always followed Exodus, chapter 21, where it is set down as strongly as any commandment, that if a man smite you, you should exact life for life, eye for eye and tooth for tooth. That’s what the Old Testament prescribes, as does the Torah, the Jewish Bible. Its scriptural origin makes it no less senseless and unethical.
The New Testament contains Matthew’s Gospel, where, credited to Jesus, there is a different take on this matter of retaliation, in the Sermon on the Mount: “Ye have heard it said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other.
Is this imaginable from a politician, in response to an international incident? Is it imaginable as Israel’s response to the Hamas attack on 7th October 2023?
No. Netanyahu’s response had to satisfy his extreme rightwing coalition government. Furthermore, he wants to keep the pot boiling for as long as possible, delaying another general election, in order to keep himself out of gaol on corruption charges. The Palestinians are having to pay a mighty price to help keep Netanyahu out of prison.
One of Netanyahu’s excuses for the genocide he is committing in Gaza is his wish to get back the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas on 7th October. By now, those hostages must have out-lasted their usefulness to Hamas. A gesture which would dumbfound Netanyahu and win some credit for Hamas among the international community, would be for Hamas simply to release the surviving hostages. No conditions and no bargaining, just release them.
But that is unthinkable for the Palestinian leadership, because it is another case of tit-for-tat. You see, Israel has held hundreds of Palestinians, without charge or trial, some for several years. Hamas considers these to be hostages and also bargaining chips.
Israel’s stated aim is to destroy Hamas. Being deeply embedded in the densely populated Gaza Strip, Hamas could be bombed and shelled only by inflicting heavy casualties on the civilian Palestinian population, breaking every international humanitarian law in the process.
If only our benighted leaders had as much sense as children. I speak of Netanyahu, Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, Biden, Sunak, Starmer et al.
These luminaries must be aware ─ just as I am aware ─ that Hamas Is a hate-filled theocracy, that rules by coercion, and the Israeli government is no better. It is a gang of far right hate-filled bigoted crazies, to whom western governments kowtow.
Biden, Sunak and Starmer have sold the pass by accepting Netanyahu’s diktat that criticism of Israel or Zionism equals anti-Semitism. Biden accepts it because he is committed to underwrite
every move that Netanyahu makes. Starmer accepts it because that was the perfidious formula for undermining Jeremy Corbyn and it has left the labour Party, denuded of tens of thousands of subscribing members, and consequently in dire need of money from the Israeli Embassy and wealthy Jewish donors, money that does not come without conditions.
The idiotic murderous incursion into Gaza of 7th October2023 gave Israel the excuse for the genocidal ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip. To date, the tally is 34,596 Palestinian dead and 77,816 injured, two-thirds of the dead and injured being women and children. The Israeli military’s stated aim was to wipe out Hamas fighters. Bombarding such a densely populated area from air, land and sea was bound to result in collateral damage on a massive scale ─ all grist to the mill as far as Israel is concerned. Most of the casualties of this genocide are not Hamas fighters, but non-combatant civilians, but they are Palestinians and therefore justified targets. If the war empties Gaza of Palestinians, the Israeli government will be happy to ship in thousands of gun-toting Jewish settlers
The gang of monsters assembled as Israel’s government made their intentions clear from the start.
The finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said of the Palestinians of Gaza,”There are no half-measures. The Gazan cities: total annihilation”. The National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, apropos the shooting of a 12-year old Palestinian boy while playing on a Jerusalem street, said, “I support the soldier who killed the terrorist …this is exactly how you should act against terrorists, with determination and precision”
In other words, as far as Ben-Gvir is concerned, all Palestinians, regardless of age, are terrorists and therefore legitimate targets for the notoriously trigger-happy Israeli Army, the euphemistically titled Israeli Defence force (IDF), which was rooted in two underground Zionist paramilitary organisations, Irgun and Haganah, both considered to be terrorist organisations when they were doing their best to force the British Army out of Israel/ Palestine at the end of the Second World War.
Ben-Gvir, who is in charge of the national police, was convicted in the past for inciting racism. Shortly before Yitzhak Rabin (Israeli Prime Minister, 1974 -1977 and 1992-1995) was assassinated by a Jewish fanatic, who hated Rabin’s peace overtures to the Palestinians, Ben-Gvir himself threatened Rabin’s life. This notorious thug is Netanyahu’s chosen security minister. He has displayed in his house a photograph of Baruch Goldstein, the maniacal West Bank illegal settler, who shot dead 29 Palestinians while at prayer in hebron in 1994.
Under pressure from the democrats in Congress, Biden has called for restraint in Israel’s war on the Palestinians and has warned against an all-out onslaught by the IDF on Rafah, the Gaza-Egypt border zone, to where most surviving Gazans have been driven by the IDF.
During the 2017 General Election campaign, Jeremy Corbyn was asked whether, as prime Minister, he would be prepared to order the use of nuclear weapons as first-strike or in retaliation. He replied that, because of the appalling consequences that would ensue, no, he would not. This was enough to damn him as a pacifist, weak and unpatriotic. A cheek-turner.
In their ignorance of the consequences of nuclear warfare and in their hypocrisy about the ethics of such warfare, millions of British people were gulled into agreeing with the all-round condemnation of the most honest and wise of our current politicians.
Leading the pack of nuclear sabre rattlers and wrapping himself in the flag was Keir Starmer, who has since pledged to squander £5 billion on the Trident system of submarines and nuclear missiles.
At his recent launch of Labour’s election campaign, he surrounded himself with Union Jack flags.
What is he trying to tell us? He should beware, because Samuel Johnson memorably propounded that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Starmer has resisted all pressure from labour Party members and the general public to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and for the starvation siege to be lifted. On the contrary, he has repeatedly asserted that Israel has the right to defend itself, including the right to block the supply of food, water and fuel to Gaza.
Starmer appears to see war-mongering as an election winner.
During World War Two, the Allies knew the Nazis were committing genocide against the Jews of Europe, but did nothing about it. Dubious strategical reasons were given for not bombing the gas chambers and the rail routes leading to the concentration camps.
Again, today, while genocide is being committed, the world stands back and does little to alleviate the desperate plight of the Palestinians.
South Africa has accused Israel of genocide before the international Criminal Court(ICC), eliciting Israel’s usual spurious plea of self defence.
The ICC’s Chief prosecutor has announced he is seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israel’s defence Minister, Yoav Gallant and three named Hamas leaders, all on grounds of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Charges against the Israeli leaders include using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, as well as intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population.
Armed Jewish settlers have attacked aid lorries entering Gaza. This is a measure of the hatred engendered in this apartheid state. Some twenty per cent of the population of Israel is Palestinian and it is growing faster than the Jewish population. Nevertheless, Israel defines itself as the nation state of the Jews, encouraging the immigration and settlement of Jews. Israel recognises no right of return for the Palestinians forced out by the Army in 1948, despite the UN’s declaration that Palestinians should have that right.
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