The Middle East is not a subject I post about very often on this blog. I learned a long time ago that the only result is to get flamed by nut-jobs who believe that everything that the Israeli Government does is right, irrespective of which party dominates the coalition. Such posts just attract haters, mainly from the USA whose world view is based upon an idiotic, shallow and biased Press and TV news.
I haven't recorded my anger at Ariel Sharon's wall that cuts Palestinians off from their olive groves and from water. I haven't recorded my anger at the constant but low level attacks on Palestinian people and the Palestinian way of life.
I never recorded my disgust when I visited Israel to be told on one hand eg Hotels build upwards in Eilat because there is no land whereas they build outwards in Taba because there is so much land that no one wants, and yet to witness coachloads of prosperous American Students and recent Graduates being given free holidays to tempt them to move from the USA to Israel.
I have read so much that repulses me about the attitudes of the Settlers (West Bank and Golan Heights rather than Gaza), and yet I have failed to comment, because it probably isn't worth it. Also, I haven't written enough about my anger of the bombing of Iraq and Afghanistan, nor my despair at DR Congo and Somalia, both countries that fascinate me. To be honest, I have never fully got to grips with the conflicts in the Former Yugoslavia.
But there comes a time when saying nothing is tantamount to complicity. And yet there isn't a great deal to say, other than anybody who believes that there is any moral justification whatsoever in shelling a school, for example, really needs to examine their hands but must also know they will never wash the blood off.
Israel's apologists continue to justify Israel's rapacious warmongering as retribution for the Holocaust. I cannot recall any history book ever suggesting that Palestinians were culpable in the Holocaust. I cannot fathom a logic that carries on hating for sixty years and creates new victims and yet fails to understand that their hatred is an inevitable reaction to being hated.
I cannot find any justification for targeting of non-combatants whether in Afghanistan, DR Congo or Palestine. It is wrong. And no amount of trimming and triangulation will make it right.
