Not many homes left standing in Gaza from which starving families can gaze upon the drizzle. And when the emaciated look at the skies it is something other than rain they see.
In about two hours time Drogheda Stands With Palestine will stand in that rain with Palestine, if it is still on. If I grumble about the rain somebody in the house will remind me that it rains drops here in Ireland, and often we get a break from it, whereas in Gaza it rains death on a daily basis. For the civilian population seeking shelter in the ruins of Gaza there is no respite from the man-made Israeli weather. It probably welcomes the genuine rain as it can slake the thirst inflicted on them by Israel's siege of Gaza.
Anna Reid, author of the magisterial Leningrad: The Epic Siege of World War II, 1941-1944, described life in the Soviet city besieged by the Nazis:
Yet, there remain those who will howl with rage when comparisons are drawn between the behaviour of the Israelis and that of the Nazis. From their bully pulpits they will spray vitriol at those drawing the analogy. They are more offended by someone labelling a mass murderer of children a Nazi than they are upset by the actual massacre of children. Moral monsters, some of whom will take to their church pulpits tomorrow to preach the gospel but will have nothing to say about genocide, not even as much as a prayer for the victims.
And yet a friend said to me recently:
There is nothing new in all of this. What is new is that Matthew Miller, the spokesperson for Genocide Joe while he was the US President arming the genocide, is now claiming that "it is without a doubt true that Israel has committed war crimes". His excuse for not saying anything in real time was that it was not his job. A true jobsworth who would prefer to hold onto his job of masking genocide rather than speak out against it. An appalling creature.
As for Joe Biden who is now suffering from cancer, perhaps people can better understand my attitude upon hearing the news of his illness about a month back. Subscribing to the Salman Rushdie maxim that when tyrants fall only hypocrites grieve, my one thought on Biden's failing health was fuck him. For treatment, let him line up in queue at a Gaza hospital behind the children he has helped maim. In his eighties, his pain will not last nearly as long as theirs.
Anna Reid, author of the magisterial Leningrad: The Epic Siege of World War II, 1941-1944, described life in the Soviet city besieged by the Nazis:
The typical siege time household is a working age woman with elderly parents to support and children. Her husband is at the front, so she’s trying to support people all on her own. As the siege progresses, one by one members of her family will fall ill and she is often presented with this appalling dilemma of how to distribute the resources . . . she has the choice about whether to to give more food to the weakest and keep them alive or to distribute it equally or to write off the weakest.
In the West we are spoiled for choice as we decide what to have for lunch, not plagued by the harrowing dilemma of choosing which child might have to die in order that others can be saved. Since we last stood in West Street a week ago, an estimated seventy five Palestinians have been massacred as they desperately sought to acquire food from a distribution centre, prompting the UN Secretary General to protest:
It is unacceptable that Palestinians are risking their lives for food. I call for an immediate and independent investigation into these events and for perpetrators to be held accountable.
If his international institution was not a flagbearer for its own powerlessness in a world where heavily financed naked Western military power calls the shots, accountability might have emerged by now. But excluded from the bandwidth of the Western political class are ethics. They matter as little as Palestinian lives.
The scenes of Palestinian children crying over the body of their dead mother are deeply moving. She was shot through the head as she tried to get food for her family. As one of her children said, of course she would go in search of food, the family had been starving for two months.
Yet, there remain those who will howl with rage when comparisons are drawn between the behaviour of the Israelis and that of the Nazis. From their bully pulpits they will spray vitriol at those drawing the analogy. They are more offended by someone labelling a mass murderer of children a Nazi than they are upset by the actual massacre of children. Moral monsters, some of whom will take to their church pulpits tomorrow to preach the gospel but will have nothing to say about genocide, not even as much as a prayer for the victims.
And yet a friend said to me recently:
In many ways what is happening in Gaza is worse due to the barbaric nature of the deaths and because the world is looking on. The scale of the Holocaust was unknown prior to the discovery of the camps but now, today, we are fully aware of what is going on and lacking the purpose to end it. The Israelis really are defiling the memory of those who died in WWII particularly by agreeing with the Nazis that such large numbers of human lives are worthless. Not only worthless but worth more dead than alive. Many parallels but so too with other genocides. The absolute worst of human nature.
There is nothing new in all of this. What is new is that Matthew Miller, the spokesperson for Genocide Joe while he was the US President arming the genocide, is now claiming that "it is without a doubt true that Israel has committed war crimes". His excuse for not saying anything in real time was that it was not his job. A true jobsworth who would prefer to hold onto his job of masking genocide rather than speak out against it. An appalling creature.
As for Joe Biden who is now suffering from cancer, perhaps people can better understand my attitude upon hearing the news of his illness about a month back. Subscribing to the Salman Rushdie maxim that when tyrants fall only hypocrites grieve, my one thought on Biden's failing health was fuck him. For treatment, let him line up in queue at a Gaza hospital behind the children he has helped maim. In his eighties, his pain will not last nearly as long as theirs.
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