This will settle the matter once and for all – part 4

OK, are we all back and seated?

Now, before anyone gets the idea from all this that I lean toward one side or the other, let me assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. Obviously, both sides have their points of view, but you don’t want to get too tied up in it all because if you start listening too closely to them it begins to sound like one of those family discussions which go something like this:

“Mu-u-u-u-um, Johnny just pulled my hair!”

” I did not, you dirty liar!”

“Yes, you did!”

“But you hit me first.”

“No, you hit me first!”

…and so on and so on, until Mum calls Dad to settle the argument, and Dad tells them both to go to their rooms, and everyone ends up in tears, and even Mum and Dad are mad at each other, and Dad doesn’t get any sex that night. That’s what’s called the Law of Unintended Consequences, and it’s all down to Robert Merton for introducing the idea into modern social thought, as there was no such thing before he came along.

Anyway, just to demonstrate how fair-minded and balanced I am on the issue, I’m going to come right out and say upfront that Israel has quite a strong claim to the land they now call theirs. That claim comes about in two ways, mainly. The first is through the legal concept of adverse possession, which means that whoever has the biggest guns and keeps them there the longest, wins. The Israelis are putting a lot of hopes on this argument to carry the day.

The second, and even more compelling, argument is that the land, after all, was given to them by God Himself. You have to admit that it’s pretty hard to contest the point when the other side’s lawyer has a title signed personally by Jehovah. (Or more properly, “Yahweh”, or more properly still, the tetragrammaton “yhwh”…. STOP RIGHT THERE!!! If you’re a religious Jewish Person, don’t try to read that out loud, for God’s sake!

Because, if you are a religious Jewish Person, you don’t EVER read that name out loud. It’s known to bring bad luck. Which brings to mind Oscar Wilde and his “love that dare not speak its name”, and while we’re at it, Prince’s unpronounceable adopted name, which didn’t do his career much good either. Unfortunately for Oscar, someone did have a name for it and dared to speak it, and it earned him a holiday in Reading for his trouble. At least Prince eventually had the good sense to start using his real name again so that people could talk about him. Maybe yhwh (I warned you not to say it out loud!) will also one day come to realise that if you really want your brand to go viral, then you have to give your followers some way of referring to you that will not bring them seven years of drought and a plague of locusts.

Anyway, as I was saying: the Zionists have their legal title and the Palestinians haven’t yet come up with anything signed by Allah – not even a baseball card.

But of course I’m being a bit flippant here. We all know that whether you worship God or Jehovah or yhwh (shhhh!) or Allah or Krishna or The Magic Stinky Weed, they’re all simply different names for the same One and Universal Life Force. All of us know that, deep down, even though it has always been a bit of a giggle to put a skewer through someone and barbecue him for using the wrong name.

All of us know that, that is, except for Richard Dawkins and a few other cranks who like to think of themselves as scientific rationalists, and who hold that it’s crazy to think that just because there’s no evidence for God, it doesn’t mean she’s not there. As much as I’d like to side with them on the point, they’re on pretty thin ice with this claim, because in fact, the evidence is all around us. If there’s no God, how come there are so many churches everywhere, hey? And how did all those miracles happen in the Bible 2000 years and more ago? They didn’t happen all by themselves, you know. And how come Jonah was swallowed by a whale but didn’t die, hey?

Ha! Gotcha there, Richard D, don’t I?

But we’re straying off the point, so let’s leave a more thorough discussion of religion for another blog. There’s already so much to occupy us here just settling the Middle East problem.

So where was I? Yes, back to Jehovah and Allah being one and the same. Where does that leave us with our competing land claims?

Well, no contest there, because as we all know, the Jewish people are God’s Chosen Ones. And how do we know that? Because the Bible says so. (Sing to the tune “…Yes, Jesus loves me, cuz the Bible tells me so­­­…”)­­­­­

Yes, right there in Deuteronomy, it says: “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.”

So there you have it in black and white. That settles the point, just as it settles how we know that “This Land Is My Land, This Land Is My Land…”. Sorry, I get carried away with these catchy tunes.

Yes, so that sort of leaves the Palos out in the cold, doesn’t it? I mean, if God (or whatever alias he’s using this week) has personally chosen you, and given you this land, and made it all official like, then that sort of settles the question, doesn’t it?

Now that we’re on the subject of the Chosen People, I should mention that there’s a dispute over rights to that, too. (Man, there’s nothing like That Old Time Religion to bring out the best in people, is there?) Mainstream Christians apparently believe that those who accept Jesus as their saviour are chosen too, and the Seventh Day Adventists have views on the subject, and the Rastafarians think that the blacks are the chosen race, and they can’t all be right except for black Seventh Day Adventists who convert to Judaism, and I’m not sure I’ve met many of them.

But that’s easy to sort out. They’re all Johnny Come Latelies when it comes to being the Chosen Ones, because the Jewish People thought of it first, or at least were evidently the first to write it down, and so the copyright is theirs and everyone else just has to suck it up, see? When you have both the legal property title and the copyright from God the Mother Almighty, that just has to trump the game, and no two ways about it.

So you Palestinians, you’ll just have to go out and live in the Arabian Empty Quarter, or the Phiilipines or somewhere. I’m sorry about that, but we have it on the very best authority that the land you’ve been calling home since, well, forever, really belongs to someone else. It’s a sort of trespass situation and you’ve been squatting there illegally since Day 1, it would seem, so you’ll just have to bloody well toodle off, and be quick about it. The Jewish People need it for artillery practice, and anyway you haven’t done anything with it except plant olive trees and let your donkeys shit all over the place, while you squat round in your funny clothes drinking sweet tea and smoking those hubbly bubblies which have who knows what in them, probably some of that Lebanese Black from the Bekaa Valley.

 

This will settle the matter once and for all – part 3

OK, I keep promising to put the whole matter to rest and be done with it once and for all, so let’s begin, for there’s no time to waste.

First, let’s consider the question of why the Palestinians don’t just leave the Israelis alone to live in peace, for clearly, without continued provocations from the Palestinians there would be no need for Israel to expend so much of its precious munitions to suppress them, and thereby get such a bad press.

Mind you, if I had taken over another man’s house and land and successfully retained large parts of it for 70 or 80 years, that’s exactly the position I would take on the issue, too: let’s just stop all the arguing and live together in peace.

Of course the Israelis want to maintain the status quo! They’ve grabbed their piece of land and want to hang on to it, and as it turns out, to another and another.

Of course the Palestinians are making trouble! So would you if someone had pushed his way into your neighbourhood and then by stealth and thuggery taken over part of your home and then another, pushing you finally into a corner of your backyard and resisting all attempts to enforce the law because his Pappy happened to be the big man in town.

Perhaps a potted history of the situation is in order here, just to get us started. I’ll try to keep it brief, because we have a lot to cover in this session.

A long, long time ago, the Palestinians and the Jews lived happily side-by-side in the Middle East and, generally speaking, everything was hunky dory. (As I start out, let’s first agree on some terminology, lest I be thought a bigot. Rather than calling them the Jews, which can be an emotive term, let me refer to them less controversially as “the Jewish People”, because while the Jewish People can refer to themselves as Jews, it can be dangerous for others to do so, just as a black person can refer to himself and his friends as “niggas”, while a white man doing so – no matter how affectionately – had better have his Nikes on and tied up tight.)

Among all this hunky-doryness, first the Babylonians and then the Romans came along and, to cut a long story short, they both sent the Jewish People packing, which is how they came to be living in squalid ghettos in Warsaw and London a millennium or so later. Then along came the late 1800s, in correct chronological order, and some of the Jewish People thought it would be nice to go home again, and started talking about it among themselves and even around the neighbourhood a bit. Fair enough, too. After a while along comes World War 1, right on schedule, and the Goodies are stuck in a mud wrestle with the Baddies. They can’t get at them from the front and they can’t get around them, because the Baddies have their backs covered by some other guys wearing tassled hats and slippers down in some nice beach country in the Eastern Med. Problem is, how do they shift those hookah-smokers out of the way so the Goodies can sneak in the back door? Well, they send this short white guy down there with his smooth-talking ways and socks full of cash and a whole lot of what he called tulips, but I don’t think they were flowers, and they promise the Arabs that if they cause a bit of a ruckus in the neighbourhood, they’ll get to keep the place all for themselves after the war. Good deal, hey? So that’s what happens – the first part, that is. The Arabs keep their end of the deal, but ……

Now, cut back to London, where some of the Jewish People have by now done very nicely for themselves in the banking business, thank you, and have a bit of spare cash lying around. So those dastardly, two-faced Brits in the FO make a deal with them on the side, saying if you help us out with the readies, we’ll push over to your side of the table that bit of real estate you’ve had your eye on. So another deal is cut, and once again the other party keeps its end of the bargain and starts packing their sun hats and beach towels. They’ve just struck the deal of a lifetime.

Well, you’ve probably guessed what happens next. Sure enough, the Brits win the war with a bit of help from a few late comers who arrive just in time to share the glory without actually having to do much in the way of real fighting. And when they all get together to divvie up the spoils by drawing red and blue lines on the map, who should show up but both the bankers’ boys and the camel drivers, bearing their IOUs. This leaves the Brits in rather a tight spot. The Froggies have helped themselves to Syria and Lebanon, where nothing much is scheduled to happen for another 60 years or so, while the Brits are left holding Palestine, Jordan and Iraq. This is where things start to get interesting, because the bankers’ boys start slipping more and more of their cousins into beachside villas, and the camel drivers start wondering where all this is heading. So there’s periodic squabbles, as you’d expect if both gangs are hanging out around the same ice cream parlour. Things start to get a bit heated, and the occasional unpleasantness occurs. It’s not all one-sided, by any means, but suffice it to say that the bankers’ boys are clever little rascals, and soon they’re patrolling the neighbourhood with a couple of private armies (whom I will call the Militant Representatives of the Jewish People).

By now, the International squad from the newly-formed UN is taking an interest in all this, and whaddya know, before you can say Bombs Away!, the Militant Representatives of the Jewish People have blown up a hotel with people inside it, and when the internationals try to settle things by sending into town a mediator (who, by the way, had negotiated the freedom of more than 30,000 prisoners from German concentration camps during the war), the Militant Representatives of the Jewish People showed their gratitude and respect by letting some light into him through a few holes that weren’t there in the morning.

Now of course, the Brits are never ones for any overt displays of emotion one way or the other, and would much prefer that everyone just try to get along with each other and not make a fuss. So, as you might imagine, they’re beginning to feel a tad awkward over all this, what with their house guests (as they see them) starting to get on each other’s nerves a bit, and presently they start thinking that it really would be jolly nice to be home playing cricket this time of year, wouldn’t it, dear?, and they announce to management their intention to vacate the premises and head home. But no sooner do they do this than the bankers’ boys – with the generous assistance of the Militant Representatives of the Jewish People – decide to take over the place for themselves, before anyone else makes a booking. Now, this reminds me that I forgot to mention that the internationals, desperately trying to find a way to accommodate all the new arrivals from the land of tasty sausages, had by now decided to give half the place to the bankers’ boys and half to the camel drivers, much like a latter day King Solomon offering to cut the baby in two so as to leave both parties happy with the compromise.

Oh, I also forgot to mention that in the Second Late Unpleasantness, the Baddies (OK, let’s be honest and call them the Krauts) had again been up to no good, and most regrettably (but without meaning to do any harm, and without anyone even knowing about it, really) had evidently caused the rolls of the bankers’ boys to be reduced more than somewhat, which caused a good deal of ill feeling toward the Krauts and also earned the bankers’ boys some measure of sympathy, to the extent that those people across the water, who once again had come into the fight when the best part was over, started to think what a grand idea it would be to give the bankers’ boys a place of their own to call home, and where better to do it than New Mexico. No, just kidding. Of course they wouldn’t give away part of their own back yard, so they scratched their heads and pondered until finally someone in the back row says “I’ve got an idea! Let’s give them a place that no one else wants.” And everyone said yes, yes, what a wonderful idea, that will solve everything.

OK, so now we’re all sort of caught up with the story up to 1948, and by now there are a good few future prime ministers of Israel who have already earned their Boy Scout badges for Murder and Mayhem, or are getting ready to do so. Now, that terrible scourge Terrorism hadn’t been invented yet – at least the word hadn’t – and so naturally it wasn’t called terrorism then, but freedom fighting, and the bankers’ boys were clever enough to do all theirs before electronic media came on the scene to transmit the realities of it in full technicolour to homes around the world. By the time the camel drivers thought of doing some freedom fighting of their own, it had a new name. But, as any marketing exec will tell you, timing is everything in establishing a successful brand, and the bankers’ boys had the deal all stitched up before the camel drivers got a look in.

So that sort of sets the scene, give or take a few wars between then and now, and any of you out there who would like to earn some extra credit can continue your research outside the classroom. Just make sure you use DuckDuckGo for your searches and not Google, because if Google gets wind of you reading up on the facts, you may be getting a night time visit from Seal Team 6.

Whew! Well, we’ve covered a lot of ground there in a short time, and I’m all out of breath, so let’s go to the little boy’s room for a break and on the way back stop by the fridge and pop a can…..

This will settle the matter once and for all – part 2

In my previous post I suggested that there has always been a considerable amount of ignorance on the background to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and that this has done little to help an informed discussion of the relative rights and wrongs of both sides. As a consequence, there is often an unquestioned acceptance in the West – particularly in the US and Britain – of the Israeli position on the issue. This is hardly surprising, given the media’s stance, which all too often is biased heavily in favour of the Israeli narrative.

In my own case, growing up in America in the 1950s and 60s, and attending a school with a large proportion of Jewish kids, I was entirely unaware that there even was a Palestinian population, or a “Palestinian issue”. American media at the time – and to some extent still – spoke only of plucky little Israel standing firm against the combined might of its many Arab neighbours who were intent on “pushing it into the sea”. It wasn’t until I first travelled to the area in 1971 and met these Palestinians that my eyes were opened to another whole new narrative, and it has given me a perspective which ever since has put me at odds with mainstream thought on the issue.

Public awareness of the Palestinian plight has improved dramatically since that time, and there is now widespread support for providing the Palestinians at long last with some measure of justice. It’s vital to understand that this awareness has developed only as the Palestinians have offered determined resistance to Israeli occupation and encroachment, which has provoked the most extreme kinds of Israeli retribution and oppression, such as what we’re witnessing once again in Gaza.

Despite the understandable condemnation of violence on either side, it is only because of the Palestinians’ determination to resist that the world knows anything at all about them and of the injustices they have suffered over the past century. If they had, as is so often suggested, foregone resistance and left the Israelis to pursue their own agenda, there would be peace in the area now. But would there be justice?

It’s only because of their continued resistance that the world knows anything at all about the Palestinian people. Without it they would have disappeared from the scene altogether, and for all intents and purposes ceased to exist as a people. This, of course, is exactly what Israeli would like.

So what is this other narrative that so many of us are unaware of?

For that, please proceed to part 3.

This will settle the matter once and for all – part 1

If there is a silver lining in the horrors that the Israelis have visited on the people of Gaza over the past month, it is the hope that at long last this will be enough to persuade the Western world to shift its stance on Israel.

Don’t count on it, particularly in America, where it is an article of faith that Israel Is Right and Can Do No Wrong, and where the mere hint of anything to the contrary is enough to bring a chill over the room and a brief end to conversation while they consider how you managed to crash the party. This is compounded by the near monopoly of the Israeli narrative in the mainstream media, and the well-recognised intimidation of Congress by Israeli lobbies – particularly AIPAC – which have (and use) their power to swing substantial campaign funding to or away from political candidates based solely on their position vis-a-vis Israel.

But on an issue on which people by and large seem to have made up their minds long ago, there are signs that sufficient numbers are still open-minded enough to be shocked at the horrors meted out to the Gazan population while some truly depraved representatives of God’s Chosen People watch and cheer from their armchairs. It certainly wouldn’t do to voice this thought aloud in polite society, but one can’t help wondering if the only lesson the Israelis learned from the horrors of the Nazi period was that next time around, they wanted to be the ones working the ovens.

I’ve often marvelled at the phenomenon in Western democratic societies that elections are generally so finely balanced that it’s not uncommon to hear results described as a landslide when the outcome is decided by a majority of 52%. I used to wonder how it could be that populations seem to be distributed so evenly on issues that one might expect to generate a little more consensus. As the years go by, however, I’ve come to realise that it’s the inevitable consequence of a two party system of government, as the major parties tweak their electoral product by nipping and tucking at their principles in order to capture the middle ground, which is the only place where there are undecided voters with votes up for grabs.

But ponder the fact that in Israel, with its 101 political parties, there is no such fine division on the issue of Gaza. There, they have the most wonderful degree of consensus. Polls indicate that 95% of the people support the continued artillery practice in Gaza, with the other 5% accepting that maybe they’ve done enough for now and perhaps it’s time to start replenishing their stocks of ammunition for next time.

It’s hardly a good advertisement for the concept of democracy when it manages to deliver the sort of mandate that would cause even Vladimir Putin and Saddam Hussein to salivate. And they manage(d) to do it without all the trouble and expense of elections, too.

How is it possible for any diverse group of people, as Israel certainly is, to line up with virtual unanimity on what one might expect to be a divisive issue, to wit: the wholesale killing and maiming of thousands of defenceless people, in full view of the world, by one of the world’s most modern and powerful armies?

Indeed, how is it even possible to call this a “war” between such manifestly unequal forces? This is truly a fight between David and Goliath, but this time Goliath is Israel. Whatever its supporters might like to say about the country being surrounded by those who would push it into the sea, and however they might like to talk about “existential threats”, Israel is rather less likely to be pushed into the sea or disappear under a hail of rockets than Earth is likely – any time soon – to go spinning wildly out of its orbit and crash into the sun.

After all, one side in this “war” has extensive armaments of the world’s most advanced military technology, including missiles, jet fighters, battle tanks, long range artillery and armed drones – not to mention The Bomb, which everyone knows they have but pretends not to notice. It also has highly trained soldiers and a sophisticated military research and export program. As a major ally of the US, Israel is supported by American foreign aid to the tune of billions every year and qualifies for sharing in virtually all the latest American weapon technology. What they aren’t given freely by the Americans they steal through hacking and espionage, in which Israel is recognised by the CIA as one of the leading threats to America. And what they aren’t given and can’t steal, they build themselves, and they’re good at that too.

That pretty well sums up the position on one side of the “battlefield”.

The other side has sticks and stones, basically. Not that many sticks, but plenty of stones. Over the past month, in fact, since their neighbours stopped by for a visit, they’ve lost a good many apartments, schools and hospitals. But on the plus side, they’ve gained a whole lot of new stones. They also have some Iranian fireworks which the Israeli media calls rockets, but that’s only to make them sound more threatening, because they‘re clearly less dangerous than the things we used to set off on the 4^th of July when I was a kid. In 4 weeks they’ve only managed to kill 3 people. Back in the States they do heaps better than that in one night without even trying.

And yet Israel’s supporters continue to talk about Israel’s right to defend itself, in a place they’ve illegally occupied and colonised, and more recently blockaded, so that the economy is in ruins and even so-called “dual use materials” such as steel and concrete are kept out because they could be used to build weapons, as well as new schools and hospitals. They’re even denied the right to fish out to reasonable (and agreed) distances from shore, in case they come back with artillery and battle tanks of their own hidden under the nets on their fishing boats. This is why they’ve been forced to go underground, because it’s only by means of those tunnels that they can bring in what they need to survive.

I’m often surprised to discover how little most people know about what really goes on in the Middle East, and about the background to all this trouble and pain. Wouldn’t you think that the conflict which has continued for so long, and killed so many, and which is at the root of other major conflicts in the region and now around the world – indeed a whole so-called Clash of Civilisations – wouldn’t you think that most people would know by now what it’s all about?

And yet, they don’t. The general population is as ignorant of the background to this conflict as Grandma Moses was of rap music, and believes as The Gospel Truth the Israeli fairy tale that they’re only peace-loving innocents who want nothing but to be left in peace, picking oranges on the kibbutz. If only those nasty Palestinians would stop disturbing the peace with their rockets and loud music.

For so many people, it’s just a local squabble they keep hearing about and, frankly, they’re tired of the whole thing. Change the channel, please.

Mind you, knowing nothing about it has never stopped people from having an opinion on the subject, and typically it’s an opinion that the Israelis should just be allowed to live in peace, so why do those awful Palestinians keep provoking them? When you hear someone express an opinion like that, it’s a safe bet that it’s an opinion rooted in deep ignorance. The very questions they ask confirm this. Why do the Palestinians do these things? Why can’t they all just live and let live? Why does the world have to keep hearing about their problems? They’re only causing more trouble and they get what they deserve.

All too often these opinions are more than just opinions, they’re deeply held and unshakeable convictions that Israel is the innocent party, and that critics of Israel are simply anti-Semitic, which they think – incorrectly – means anti-Jewish. So supporters of Israeli occupation and aggression and oppression and discrimination have only to utter the magic words “anti-Semitism” to make their critics disappear in a puff of smoke. It’s the “abracadabra” of political discourse.

To even suggest that there might be reasonable grounds for criticising Israeli policies without being “Jew haters” risks provoking even more irrational responses, because for many people, support for Israel is a core belief, an article of faith. When you hear someone arguing like this, you may rest assured that they are even more ignorant than the first group, which at least admits to not knowing the facts.

Let me hasten to add that when I speak of ignorance here, I don’t mean that in the sense of impugning their intelligence. I merely mean to say that they are unaware of the pertinent facts, and that usually is not their fault but simply the result of being part of a culture that heavily favours one side or the other, with a media that is also heavily biased on the issue. When you never hear the other side’s point of view on an issue, it’s easy to accept that yours is the only reasonable position to take.

So in parts 1 through 3 of this post I propose to jot down a few facts which will settle the matter once and for all, to the undoubted satisfaction of everyone. By the end of this blog, the issues will be so clearly explained and so thoroughly understood that we can all proceed directly to the UN Security Council for an immediate and unanimous resolution of the matter. The delegations gathered in Egypt to discuss a ceasefire can all pack their bags and go home, because from tomorrow morning, or by the weekend at the latest, the conflict will be over and sweet peace and harmony will once again reign over the Holy Land.

 

 

 

 

 

Three strikes and you’re out? Not in this ball game.

The inspiration for this blog is an article in today’s Guardian titled “Israel calls partial truce amid outrage at third strike on UN school”.

A third deadly attack on a United Nations school sheltering people fleeing bombardment in Gaza was strongly condemned by both the UN and the US on Sunday, with UN chief, Ban Ki-moon, calling it a “moral outrage and a criminal act” and pleading for an end to “this madness”.

“It was”, said Ban, “yet another gross violation of international humanitarian law, which clearly requires protection by both parties of Palestinian civilians, UN staff and UN premises, among other civilian facilities”. He called for a swift investigation, saying “those responsible [must be] held accountable. It is a moral outrage and a criminal act.

Surely everyone, even non-Americans, knows the expression “three strikes and you’re out”. That’s the way baseball is played. Get it wrong once, no problem. Get it wrong twice, still in there. But stuff up a third time and you are OUT.

But that’s baseball. The moral obscenity that is going on in Gaza now is real life to the nth degree for the Palestinians who have had to live under an illegal foreign occupation since 1967, a crippling siege since 2007 (actually since well before that), and now a third invasion and ruthless bombardment by one of the world’s largest and best-armed militaries.

In an unusually severe statement, the US state department called on Israel to do “more to meet its own standards and avoid civilian casualties.

That’s what passes for an “unusually severe” statement from US authorities, who reserve their real anger for anything that Israel’s victims do. Think of the language that would be used if Hamas had done anything like this. And more than just language. There would be American boots on the ground by now, and the Sixth Fleet offshore.

The Israeli military was investigating the incident, said a spokesman, but preliminary inquiries had shown that its forces were “targeting a number of terrorists on a motorbike near the school, and we did identify a successful hit on a motorbike. We do not target schools. We certainly do not target civilians. We are still reviewing the incident.

Targeting a number of terrorists on a motorbike?! How many is that? One, or two? And they think that justifies an attack on a UN shelter?

As for “still reviewing the incident”, take that as meaning they are still trying to find a way to shift the blame to Hamas, just as they’ve done in earlier incidents and earlier invasions.

If all else fails, they will simply refuse to cooperate with any subsequent investigations, as they have consistently done in the past. By declining to send a negotiating team to the ceasefire talks in Egypt, they are signalling to the world that they really don’t give a shit what anyone thinks, they’ll stop the killing and destruction when they’re good and ready. And as long as there are still people alive in Gaza, they’re not good and ready yet.

When the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict was established in 2009, Israel simply refused to cooperate, and then objected that the resulting Goldstone Report was one-sided and contained factual errors.

If the report focused heavily on Israeli abuses, it was primarily because there was abundant evidence of Israeli war crimes. If there were factual errors, then Israel passed up the chance to correct them. But it didn’t. It simply used these pathetic arguments as an excuse to conduct no meaningful investigations of its own.

It did conduct investigations, but as Geoffrey Robertson points out in his article suggesting recourse by Palestine to the International Criminal Court: “just two [cases] were brought to trial and the only prison sentence – of seven months – was imposed on a soldier for stealing a credit card.” Stealing a credit card! Israel would have us believe that the worst thing they did was to steal a credit card. What a sick joke.

There was another instance of such rigorous Israeli justice last week. An Israeli officer was investigated after shooting a 13 year old Palestinian girl who was recognised by Israeli soldiers as being a frightened child and no threat, and who in any case was walking away from the army post. The commanding officer left his post, pursued the girl, shot her twice in the head and then emptied his magazine into her body. The Israeli army initially claimed that she was shot while walking toward the soldiers with her schoolbag, which they thought might carry a bomb. But recordings of the radio exchange between soldiers on the scene contradicted that, and it was only through the decency of the Israeli soldiers in his command that the officer was finally charged, albeit with only minor offenses. OK, shit happens with the occasional rogue soldier, but unbelievably, the subsequent investigation by the officer responsible for the Gaza strip, Major General Dan Harel, concluded that the captain had “not acted unethically”. One can only wonder what it takes to be recognised as unethical behaviour by the IDF command.

Israel always defends itself against criticism by complaining of a lack of balance, but when the abuses are overwhelmingly committed by one side it is impossible to give equal space to both.

Another typical Israeli tactic is to issue flat denials, as in the case of its use of white phosphorous in 2009, despite photographic evidence making it perfectly obvious that it was being used.

Or it will accuse Hamas of serious violations and then later retract them when no evidence can be produced. In 2009, for instance, Israel accused Hamas of firing rockets from UN schools, but then later acknowledged that that was untrue.

Last week brought another instance of this with the reported capture of an Israeli soldier, which brought forth exclamations of horror at this barbarity, as if capturing a soldier is somehow so much worse than killing him. It also gave Israel a pretext for its massive bombardment of the Rafah district, killing another 50 people or more. That assertion has also now been retracted by Israel, which admitted that Goldin was, after all, killed in combat. Caught out in another lie or, at the very best, another convenient mistake with hugely disproportionate consequences.

Other very disturbing events include 3 separate incidents reported by Human Rights Watch of Israeli soldiers deliberately firing on civilians trying to flee the violence. Somehow all this seems to escape the attention of the American media and government, which refuse to believe suggestions that Israel is anything but the innocent victim who reluctantly has to slaughter Palestinians by the hundreds and thousands.

None of this is to say that Hamas is innocent of wrongdoing, of course. It appears that on three occasions the UN has found rockets stored in its facilities, and that is a serious violation of the UN’s independence that must be investigated when calm is eventually restored. But the overwhelming preponderance of serious violations of the laws of war and of basic human decency have been committed by the Israelis, and no amount of Israeli prevarications can disguise that.

If all this is not yet enough to make you cry, there is another worrying development in the

rapidly unfolding health disaster in Gaza, with overwhelmed medical services on the verge of collapse. It said a third of hospitals, 14 primary healthcare clinics and 29 ambulances had been damaged in the fighting, at least five medical staff had been killed on duty and more than 40% of medical staff were unable to get to places of work. Critical supplies of medicines and other supplies were almost depleted and damage and destruction of power supplies had left hospitals dependent on unreliable generators.

It now appears that after clearing most of Hamas’ tunnels, Israel may be approaching the end of its bombardment. If so, and for that matter even if it is not, Israel should immediately take all possible steps to provide emergency medical supplies to avert another human tragedy. Whatever its complaints against Hamas, whatever its claims that the brutal assault on the population of Gaza was necessary, it cannot now deny that the many innocent civilians are in dire need of medical attention. If Israel fails now to provide urgently needed medical supplies and assistance it will stand condemned yet again in the eyes of the world, and of the law, of gross criminal behaviour. There is nothing Israel can say that can possibly justify a refusal to send these medical supplies and assistance in the volumes appropriate to the situation, and to do so now.

So let’s return to the baseball analogy with which this blog began.

Israel has now, it is virtually certain, attacked UN shelters three times, either deliberately or through gross negligence, as they had been advised numerous times of the facilities’ coordinates. Three strikes but they are not yet out, because in this ball game, Israel owns the playing field, the bats and balls, and the umpire.

But this time they have gone so far that even their American sponsors are feeling awkward and uncomfortable. And not just uncomfortable in the way you’d feel if your dog had pooped on the neighbour’s doorstep again, or stolen the laundry off the line, or impregnated their pedigree bitch with a mongrel pup. Those are uncomfortable moments, to be sure, but after all it’s your dog and you will never abandon it, and you’ll just have to mutter words of apology to your neighbours and wait for it all to blow over, as you’ve done numerous times already.

No, this time it’s nothing like that. This is not a poop-on-the-doorstep sort of moment. This is a your-pitbull-just-ripped-the-face-off-your-neighbour’s-four-year-old-child sort of moment. It really doesn’t matter whether she pulled his ears or took his food. If that was a dog in your town it would be put down immediately. No ifs, ands or buts. It would just happen.

But do you think America will finally admit this? Not a chance. Because in this town, the guy who owns the dog is also the mayor, the police chief, the newspaper editor and the bank manager, and so things aren’t quite so simple any more.

This is time for America and other apologists for Israel to wake up to the monster they have created by shielding Israel from any accountability for its actions over the last 70 years. It is time, and it should happen.

But it won’t.

If anyone doubts that, and kids themselves that now things might be different, and that America will finally put a leash and muzzle on its dog, just google “USS Liberty 1967” and read about the Israeli attempt to sink a US Navy communications ship that strayed too close to Israel during the 1967 Six Day War, threatening to discover Israeli plans to invade Syria as part of its program to grab as much Arab land as possible. It sounds like some bizarre conspiracy theory, and the truth was covered up on the orders of President Johnson. But it all happened, and both the US Chief of Naval Operations Thomas Moorer and the US Secretary of State Dean Rusk, among others, had no doubt that the attack was deliberate. So if a client state and close ally can conduct a deliberate and sustained attack on a clearly marked US ship, killing 34 and wounding 171 of its sailors, and yet avoid any kind of negative repurcussions, then it will take more than just ripping the face off your neighbour’s child to get this dog under control.

 

Playing politics

How utterly predictable that David Cameron would accuse Ed Miliband of ”playing politics” over the British Government’s failure to condemn Israel’s brutal assault on an innocent, captive population.

 “Playing politics” is that curiously dismissive term used by politicians which is generally reserved:

• FOR those who have taken a position on principle which is generally recognised as the right thing to do
• BY those who wish they could take the same position but are prevented from doing so by overriding political priorities.

In this case, the term is used by someone who is at the very centre of UK politics, but who pretends to disdain base political considerations. Yet, it is quite clear that Cameron does so out of fear of provoking the Israeli lobby and losing the votes and campaign donations it wields.

So who’s really playing politics here? Miliband and Clegg, who risk the loss of Jewish votes and contributions in order to speak out against a moral obscenity committed by a nation which regards itself as above international law? Or Cameron, who somehow dares to claim the high moral ground by avoiding a stand on principle in order to protect his votes and campaign chest?

Even the US – Israel’s major sponsor and perennial apologist – has now gone further than ever before in condemning Israeli for its “appalling” and “indefensible” conduct. But still Cameron refuses to be critical of Israel, pretending that by avoiding criticism it may somehow be possible to secure a ceasefire, despite the failure of diplomacy to make any progress in the conflict after decades of treading “softly, softly” with Israel.

Appalling double standards

At long, long last the US finally summons up the moral courage to condemn the outrageous criminal behaviour by Israel in Gaza.

Mind you, it’s only spokesmen for the White House and State Department who dare go so far. Where is the President himself?

As soon as there’s the slightest opportunity to shift criticism away from Israel, he has no trouble making himself available to condemn the reported capture of an Israeli soldier as “barbaric”, and demand his immediate release. (Never mind the fact that the last Israeli captive, Gilad Shalit, acknowledged upon his release that he was treated well by Hamas.)

So where is the President now that Israel has attacked a UN shelter yet again, after similar attacks on schools, hospitals and ambulances? He’s nowhere to be seen. His nameless, faceless functionaries emerge to acknowledge what is obvious to every fair-minded person in the world – which is that Israel is an outlaw state which has learned that there are no limits to the moral outrages it can commit upon a captive population without any fear of being held to account.

And why is this? Because for 70 years it has been sheltered by the US from any penalties for its behaviour. And like so many spoiled brats who are indulged by their parents and shielded from criticism, it soon becomes the bully and then the outright criminal.

Let’s at last see some meaningful action taken to bring Israel’s political and military leaders to the International Criminal Court to face the music for this disgusting moral outrage, as suggested by Geoffrey Robertson this week.

The US rules the world, but Israel rules the US

Spare a moment to sympathise with the US, which since the end of the Cold War has held an unchallenged position as the world’s sole superpower. Now it is being lectured on how to behave by its own client state Israel, whose PM Netanyahu warns them “never to second guess me again”.

How galling, for the folks who make it all possible (through subsidies, intelligence and military assistance) to be told where to get off! It’s bad enough that Israel owns the US Congress and the mainstream media, so as to control the flow of both money and information. But now the Americans aren’t even to be permitted to squeak without prior approval from Netanyahu.

This was after daring to hint at the obvious: that Israel’s brutal onslaught on a captive and innocent population – including targeted attacks on UN shelters – was “totally unacceptable and totally indefensible”. To go this far in rebuking the Israelis was a first for America, although it did nothing to follow up with any meaningful action, despite having the means to do so. On the contrary, it has now re-supplied the Israeli war machine, lest the guns fall silent for want of ammunition. It is also giving extra funding for its Iron Dome system, a marginally successful defence against the barely operative Hamas rockets, which so far have killed just 3 civilians – a figure which has remained static for weeks now.

No doubt grateful for an opportunity to shift attention away from the Israelis, Obama described as “barbaric” the reported capture by Hamas of an Israeli soldier (which turned out to be false). This, despite the fact that Gilad Shalit (the Israeli soldier held from 2006-2011) was given shelter, food and medical care during his captivity, and acknowledged upon release that he had been treated well by Hamas.

How does that “barbarity” compare with the one visited on the helpless population of Gaza day after day, week after week, by one of the most powerful armies on the planet?

 

More rampant hyperbole of Israeli victimhood

The Guardian is to be applauded for its coverage of the ongoing Palestinian plight in Gaza. It presents the horror of their situation in a way that few other news outlets do. Certainly not the American ones, or even the BBC.

However, it published an article yesterday (2 August) which was the most patent nonsense I have yet seen. It was the story by Harriett Sherwood describing how the fear of rockets and capture is hardening public opinion in Israel.

Before proceeding, let me acknowledge that no news outlet can cover a conflict like this without leaving one group or another unhappy. While The Guardian’s coverage has generally been sympathetic to the suffering of a captive population under constant bombardment by the full might of a modern army, I do not expect it to present that side only. A news organisation’s role is not to act as a propaganda machine for either side, but to present its readers with a fair account of the realities that its reporters witness.

In describing the “terror” gripping Israeli residents near the border, however, Harriett Sherwood’s article was one of the most absurd pieces of Israeli dramatic fiction that I have read recently. Let me quote a few passages:

• “Nearly all the children in these agricultural villages have been evacuated. Those who remain live in constant vigilance, awaiting the next alert warning of imminent rocket fire or, worse, a cross-border attack by Gaza militants emerging from the ground via tunnels dug deep beneath the surface.
• “On Friday, the deepest fear of many was realised with the apparent abduction of a soldier…
• “It is impossible to overstate the visceral horror with which Israeli Jewish families view such an event.
• “Soldiers … were constantly fearful of abduction, remembering the fate of Gilad Shalit. “Think about all the mothers who will see their sons in his place.”
• “Another ventured that kidnapping was possibly worse than death. “I don’t even want to think about the hell he is now going through.”

First, how sweet it would be for the Palestinians to be able to remove their children from all danger, and for those remaining to endure nothing more than “constant vigilance” against a threat which is vanishingly small. Recall that the pretext used to justify this massive Israeli brutality is the Hamas rockets, which have so far killed just 3 Israeli civilians. That is three too many, but it pales into insignificance with the number of equally innocent Palestinians who have no opportunity whatever to escape the horror to which they have been subjected continuously for nearly a month. Theirs is no theoretical and avoidable danger, but a constant and brutally real one.

Second, the idea that “it is impossible to overstate the visceral horror” which underlies “the deepest fear of many” is the sort of palpable nonsense which goes down well in Tel Aviv and Washington, where supporters of Israel like to engage in rampant hyperbole about existential threats to Israel. But it has no place in any reputable publication, unless it is accompanied by some factual commentary to remind its readers of the truth. While no one would want to be deprived of his liberty for 5 years, Shalit’s ordeal was far from being “hell”. Although he was denied visits as required by humanitarian law, he was provided with shelter, food and medical care, and upon his release he acknowledged that “he had been treated well by his Hamas captors”.

Moreover, his army career benefited considerably during the time he was held. Captured as a Corporal, he was promoted three times during his 5 years, to Staff Sergeant, Sergeant First Class, and then Sergeant Major. Surely there are few Corporals in any army who could make the grade of Sergeant Major in such a short time.

If Israeli soldiers feel that kidnapping could be “worse than death”, and “don’t even want to think of the hell he is now going through”, then perhaps they are thinking of the treatment they would be giving captured Palestinian fighters, for they cannot be referring to Shalit’s experience at all.

Harriett Sherwood and anyone else expecting the world to sympathise with the handful of Israeli victims of this so-called “war” should take a reality check before writing such hysterical rubbish.

The Guardian should task one of its sub-editors – or even a rookie reporter – to check Sherwood’s stories more closely in future, to keep this sort of laughable stuff off their pages.

Which racial vilification, exactly? Can we please have a retraction of all those deaths, too?

This week the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies demanded an apology from Fairfax Media after accusing it of racism and racial vilification for publishing in the Sydney Morning Herald a cartoon which depicted an Israeli man watching the action in Gaza from his armchair. They said that the cartoon presented a “grotesque stereotype” and incited hatred of Jews. No matter that the cartoon was based on an actual photograph, one of several published last week showing Israelis lined up on couches to watch the bombardment, cheering any particularly large explosions.

Today, the Sydney Morning Herald did indeed apologise for what it called a “serious error of judgment” and removed the offending cartoon from its websites. It acknowledged that in showing the man with a big nose and the Star of David, the cartoon introduced an element of religion rather than nationality.

Considering that the Star of David can be taken to represent equally either the Jewish religion or the State of Israel, which has the Star of David as the central feature on its flag, it seems that what really bothered the Jewish Board of Deputies was the big nose.

What I found so offensive about the cartoon – and the photos and stories on which it was based – was not the man’s nose but the shameful circus atmosphere displayed by the Israelis gathered to enjoy the spectacle of mass murder and maiming. That was a grotesque display of callousness from a people whose history should elicit sympathy for populations at the mercy of military machines.

If the Jewish Board of Deputies were really interested in reducing antagonism toward Jews and Israel, it would drop its objection to the man’s nose and instead:

• plead with the Israeli Government and Army to stop the indiscriminate slaughter and destruction, and
• condemn the obscene Israeli thrill-seekers for their shameful behaviour on the hills overlooking Gaza.

Perhaps the people of Gaza can now complain to the Israeli Army about the racial vilification and stereotyping underlying the pitiless bombardment of a whole population for the actions of a relatively few Hamas fighters, and get a retraction of their many thousands of bombs and the nearly two thousand Palestinian deaths? I look forward to seeing that.