BLOG POSTS

Last night I sat through the UK’s Channel Four ‘Dispatches’ program, entitled “Kill Zone: Inside Gaza.” Could anyone sit through this hour long documentary and not be moved to tears by the horrors that unfolded?

Yes, we’ve seen and heard the news. We’ve watched some of the devastation of Gaza and the suffering and deaths of many Palestinians, but to illustrate the full macabre horror took the efforts of Palestinian journalists and camera people to capture it, in all it’s full blown revulsion and repugnance. Revulsion at the mass suffering taking place; repugnance at the Israeli government’s apparently cold-blooded attitude to the slaughter they’re inflicting.

The Guardian’s review of the program leaves little unsaid. I would entreat everyone to read it, and if possible to watch the documentary. Some of those who made it gave their lives to do so.

It begs the question as to why we human beings do this to each other? Out of eight billion souls on this planet, there are probably less than eight hundred with the real power to create chaos and death on a huge scale. That’s 0.000001  percent of 8 billion. The rest of us just want to live in peace with each other. Whether we are Israeli, Palestinian, Ukrainian, Russian, or from Timbuktu, we have no desire to kill each other or cause our fellow beings suffering.

It’s the remaining 0.000001 percent who create all the wars and chaos in the world. The ones who hold the power. The presidents, the dictators, the leaders of terrorist groups. It’s power that we, the people, have mostly handed to them. We vote them into office. History tells us clearly that those who hold the reins of power are incapable of controlling it. It corrupts them and causes a madness that eats away at their brains like some aggressive, parasitic worm. It causes mental sickness, deluding them into believing themselves as little gods.

But they are not gods. They are weak human beings who cannot handle the power we allow them in a way that reflects our wishes.

When are we, the other seven billion, nine hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand and two hundred going to do something to stop them?

It would by unfair to end this post without mentioning the Israelis who had their lives torn asunder by the heinous crimes of Hamas last October 7th. The maimed, the kidnapped, the bereaved. It is to be hoped that the perpetrators, or at least those who planned the attack and gave the orders, can in time be held to account, along with Netanyahu and his cohorts. We need more power to the International Criminal Court, not less when it suits.

 

^{Ghassan Abu-Sitta denied access to France by German visa ban} 

There are times one reads of things online or in the media that are upsetting or disturbing. Occasionally, one reads things that cause the blood to boil with anger and frustration.

I have always been a strong supporter of the European Union. I believe the unity of peoples and of countries to be our only hope for peace among our turbulent and often violent species.

However, I read today that Germany, of it’s own volition, has imposed a Schengen-wide ban on Ghassan Abu-Sitta. He’s a globally respected medical professional who arrived in Paris yesterday to speak at the French senate, at their invitation.

The French government stated it had no knowledge of the German action against the Palestinian doctor.

Ghassan Abu-Sitta has committed no crime, unless one considers it a crime to be Palestinian.

From the Guardian:

“During the months of October and November 2023 at the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza that has since killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, Abu-Sitta operated from Gaza’s al-Shifa and al-Ahli Baptist hospitals. During his 43 days, he described witnessing a “massacre unfold” in Gaza and the use of white phosphorus munitions, which Israel has denied. He has also provided evidence to Scotland Yard.

Raymonde Poncet Monge, the Europe Écologie-Les Verts senator who organised the conference, said she condemned the police action and said they had contacted the office of the interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, in an attempt to allow Abu-Sitta entry without success.

“How can Germany issue territorial bans throughout the Schengen area? It’s mind-boggling! This is a new step in the repression of everything to do with Palestine,” said Poncet Monge, who later posted a photograph of Abu-Sitta attending the conference via video.

“We are outraged that he cannot be present among us,” she said.”

Outraged, indeed! It would seem that Germany is determined to try to assuage its social guilt over the Nazi atrocities of WW2, by its support of the Israeli government no matter what heinous crimes they commit against the innocent Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank.

Is it not time that Western governments stopped treating Israel as the poor, down-trodden nation that must be appeased at all costs? It’s time to leave religion out of the equation. Every Israeli has a right to practice whatever religion they choose. To be Jewish is to practice the Jewish religion. There is nothing special about being Jewish that sets them apart from the rest of humanity. Unless, of course, you believe all that crap about them being the chosen people of the one God. This loving and caring god who sent the angel of death to slaughter every Egyptian child under two years of age.

Israel now seems determined to kill or maim as many Palestinian children as they can, presumably to prevent them from growing to adulthood hating their belligerent and cruel neighbour.

If Germany is determined to continue acting like some demented child haunted by the atrocities of its ancestors and determined to an existence of continual self-flagellation, then it can feel free to do so.

To thrust its guilt onto the rest of Europe is not unity, but dictatorship.

Competition. How we love our competitions. They pervade every aspect of our lives. We’re brought up to be competitive. The biggest, the strongest, the fastest, the most intelligent. The sporty, the business king, the top gun, the best footballer, the President of the United States, the Archbishop, the Pope. We are taught we must be always be better than the next man or woman, if we are to succeed in life. Playing only the second fiddle is to fail.

I’ve never been competitive. As a small boy I never understood basking in the glory of others: the local football team, the school House sports, the Olympics. When others talked enthusiastically of their team’s latest conquest over a rival, I was not part of the conversation.  I was happy to be away riding my bike, imagining it a bus or a train, or occasionally a pirate galleon.

After all, is it really a good thing to pit ourselves against others? Surely, is not the ultimate competitiveness – WAR?

The latest act of war was Israel’s incursion into Gaza and the West Bank, in retaliation for the atrocities inflicted on them by Hamas. Some competition! Hamas may be an evil entity, or freedom fighters, depending on how one chooses to view them,  but they are a David in comparison to the war machine Goliath that is Israel. That’s no competition, so why do we treat it as one?

All over the Western world university campuses are alight with the fervour of young people appalled at what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. Equally, there are supporters of Israel denouncing the campus occupants as anti-Semites.  Two sides yelling venom at each other like out of control fans at a football game.

This is no football game, so why treat it as such? Because we’re programmed from birth to take sides, one against the other. The truth of this particular situation is that both Hamas and the Israeli government are equally in the wrong. Hamas for its vile and unforgiveable attacks on innocent people, and Israel for its equally vile and unforgiveable attacks on innocent people.

There is no competition so why do we insist on treating it as such and taking sides? Isn’t it right that we should condemn both sides equally?

Maybe it’s time we learned to be less competitive in our lives and instead reached out a welcoming hand to the second fiddle, who after all is equally important in the orchestra, even though it plays a somewhat different tune.