I was sitting in a pub on October-7 last year with a friend when he told me about a developing situation within the borders of the Israeli terror state.
Hamas breached the 17-year-long Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip with a brutal, coordinated attack on at least seven Israeli military installations surrounded by more than 20 residential communities.
In a retaliatory frenzy, Israel unleashed a mass Hannibal directive, with tanks and gunships firing indiscriminately at both Palestinians and Israelis, foreshadowing its deliberate criminal atrocities to come.
While acknowledging its counter-terrorist purpose I commented that there would be a horrific bloodletting in response to the Hamas breakout operation. Although knowing that Israel, a racist and apartheid state, would not baulk from massacring civilians little did I think that it would launch a full scale genocide, 'supercharged by US imperial impunity.' At the time, because of the US having used Putin's war of aggression against Ukraine to steal a march on many of its critics, I was inclined to believe that it would not cede the moral high ground it believed it had manufactured for itself and would keep Israel on a tight leash: allow a few weeks, maybe months, of relentless bombing and Einsatzgruppen savagery before reigning the beast back in. That proved naive.
The fake moral high ground has evaporated under US feet, its murderous president having fashioned a reputation for himself as Genocide Joe, where in the annals of history he can sit alongside Richard Nixon, his Secretary of State Antony Blinken next to Henry Kissinger. The current US administration is arguably the most ideologically committed there has yet been to the Zionist project. Where competition is fierce, that takes some doing.
What the world faces today is the Israeli state waging war against numerous countries simultaneously in its pursuit of its Nazi-like policy of lebensraum. Since the Nazi wars of aggression, the Israelis and the US are perhaps the only two nation states to be involved in multiple wars at the same time. If there are others they don't jump to mind. The US bombed Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos over half a century ago while Israel is currently bombing Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, Yemen, Syria and is licking its fangs at the prospects of bombing Iran.
What the world has learned in a year, if it did not previously know it, is that there is no rules based international order. The UN has been sidelined by the US, as has the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. These global institutions are of use to the US only as instruments that it can wield for its own strategic and hegemonic ends. The speed with which the ICC moved to issue an arrest warrant for the murderous Putin contrasts sharply with the delay in treating Netanyahu in similar fashion. Difficult to believe that this is not the result of sustained US threats.
This month has seen the continuation of vigils in Drogheda in solidarity with Gaza. Apart from the weekly Saturday afternoon gathering in front of the cathedral in West Street, there were two additional events. The first was organised by Sinn Fein on the Bridge of Peace where it was heartening to hear so many horns beeped by drivers as they passed. Imelda Munster, the outgoing local TD, was in attendance accompanied by the woman who hopes to replace her, Councillor Joanna Byrne. There were no speeches, just a silent troop of people hoisting flags, placards and scarves.
When it could seem easier to despair and give into war fatigue in a world in where the US concept of might is right dictates how humanity is misgoverned, people still turn up in Drogheda and elsewhere to stand against might being wrong. Why do we come? A question best answered by the English student, Zoe Rogers, one of the Filton 10, imprisoned for taking action against one of Israel's main weapons suppliers
When they ask why I did it, I tell them about the children.
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Their childhood was stolen from them.
Their skeletons are left charred and smoking.
Their bodies are crushed so easily by falling buildings.
Their skin melts as flaming tents collapse around them.
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I tell them about the boy found carrying his brother’s body inside his bloody backpack.
I tell them about the girl whose hanging corpse ended at the knees.
I tell them about the father holding up his headless toddler.
I tell them about the mother who received the ‘approximate weight’ of body parts of her family to bury, as they had been shattered beyond recognition.
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Then, I tell them about the history — how this has happened time and time again.
I talk about the Stern Gang, the Hilltop Youth, the wars of 1948 and 1967, Operation Cast Lead, and Operation Protective Edge.
I explain how they call it “mowing the lawn” — “cleaning” the land of these “human animals.”
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I tell them how they calculate the minimum nutrients to keep everyone alive, chop a bit off, and let only that inside.
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Since the war, they’ve banned chlorine, morphine, children’s toys, and much more that’s needed for people to survive.
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Finally, I talk about how it was us that started it with our Balfour Declaration and media suppression.
I say I cannot stand for this anymore, that it can go on no longer,
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so I took action against Elbit, their weapons supplier.
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But I never forget to say:
It was love, not hate, that called me.
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I watched their songs and dances for freedom.
I read their hope-filled books.
I listened to their dreams of becoming doctors, teachers, journalists, and of never giving up.
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Cam comments
ReplyDeleteSo poignant, especially the end, just sums up the brutality being waged and it in its own particular way gives hope - the Nazis never saw the counter-offensive and the US/Israelis have not either - Jordan is now publicly speaking out against their actions - that will spread and eventually lead to a physical reaction - a great read.
CAM, have you not noticed the ongoing offensive by Iran through it's Shia proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq?
DeleteCAM, I am out in Jordan at the moment on a wonderful holiday. Its tourist industry which is a major earner has sadly taken a major hit due to the conflicts around it. It is so easy to gob off about "physical reactions" from a safe distance when you do not have to deal with the consequences.
DeleteCAM, so what does a "counter-offensive" and "physical reaction" look like to you? Regardless of the horrors that the IDF are inflicting on the people of Gaza, it is a fact that Hamas initiated the latest iteration of the century old Arab-Jew conflict in Palestine by its pogrom of 7/10. So you can scratch any Nazi comparisons as the Nazis started World War II (btw does the name Sean Russell mean anything to you?)
ReplyDeleteIt is not a fact that Hamas initiated any latest reiteration - before October 7, 2023 had been the worst month on record for IDF murders in the West Bank. But conveniently ignored by the fake It all started on October 7 narrative.
DeleteThis account by Jeremy Bowen in BBC News online of a nurse's recording of the injuries and deaths inflicted on Jabelia refugee camp is a particularly harrowing and gruesome but necessary read
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce891r9pd48o