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| No full house @ UN For Netanyahu |
The rain that has been coming down from around 0800 has just ceased, most likely a temporary halt before another burst. What an easy Western life we have when the only thing to inject irritation into an otherwise pleasant start to the day is a few droplets. Invariably lighter and much less dangerous, sure, raindrops before bombshells any day of the week. Not a choice the Gazans have.
Last night I attended the Drogheda game against Derry. I have an innate affinity with Derry people. They understand so very well what state massacre means. They also can cut through the lies that states invariably employ to cover up for those massacres. That's why we find so many Derry activists doing the same as will be doing in just over an hour, protesting genocide in Gaza. Rain will hardly stop us. In Gaza, rain might be a luxury to people parched by the deprivation of water, something Der Starmer endorsed at the start of the genocide.
This week Der Starmer was at it again. Sure, his government recognised the state of Palestine much to the annoyance of the Israelis. But they are easily annoyed. Those with a fascist mindset usually are amongst the world's most easily offended people. In order to assuage the genocidaires, Der Starmer promised:
So we are clear – this solution is not a reward for Hamas, because it means Hamas can have no future. No role in government. No role in security. We have already proscribed and sanctioned Hamas, and we will go further – I have directed work to sanction other Hamas figures in the coming weeks.
But no call for the arrest of Netanyahu. Hamas are the really bad guys in his colonial worldview.
On the question of Hamas, this week in Ireland we have seen the presidential candidate most vocal on the genocide, Catherine Connolly, being lambasted by the Fianna Fail Taoiseach Micheal Martin over her observation that Hamas is part of the fabric of Palestinian society and that it is up to that society, if recognition of statehood is to mean anything, who has the right to decide who will represent them in government.
As a secular humanist, I hope the Gazans do not allow Hamas any influence in Palestinian society, much as I don't want Christian nationalism to have any influence in Irish society. As Bertrand Russell once wittily observed he has no problem with people talking to god. He does have a problem when god starts talking to people. That is the first sign of religious insanity. Gaza should be ruled by its citizens, not its clerics.
Hamas did not start the violent conflict with Israel. On October 7, 2023 Hamas returned the Israeli serve, managing to get the ball over the net that Israel had long thought would protect it from the consequence of its atrocities. Nevertheless, Hamas should never have targeted civilians.
Almost twenty years ago on the BBC World Service I debated a former IDF chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon about another of Israel's wars, this one against Hesbollah in Lebanon. In a follow up article in the Irish News I wrote:
I concluded that article by writing:
For that reason I do not want Hamas to play any part in the government of Palestine. But I cannot insist on it. It is not for me to decide. It cannot be a precondition of my support for Palestinian statehood. Nor should it be for Micheal Martin. Catherine Connolly has called it right. Let the Palestinians decide, not their colonial and imperialist overlords.
Almost twenty years ago on the BBC World Service I debated a former IDF chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon about another of Israel's wars, this one against Hesbollah in Lebanon. In a follow up article in the Irish News I wrote:
I found his perspective every bit as warped as it was appalling, being wholly at odds with the facts on the ground. Drawing on a report by Human Rights Watch I put it to him that Israel was guilty of war crimes against civilians, many of them children; that despite being future rule in the holiday all its pompous moralising on the phenomenon of suicide bombers, listeners to our exchange would be hard pressed to see any ethical distinction between the suicide bombers of Islamic and Palestinian groups and the infanticide bombers of the Israeli air force.
I concluded that article by writing:
To challenge the role of militarism whatever its source, and the wars it invariably spawns, requires prioritising the rights of civilians over the military. Civilians have a greater right not to be killed than the military has a right to kill them. That should be the one rule of war, to be trumped by no other.
For that reason I do not want Hamas to play any part in the government of Palestine. But I cannot insist on it. It is not for me to decide. It cannot be a precondition of my support for Palestinian statehood. Nor should it be for Micheal Martin. Catherine Connolly has called it right. Let the Palestinians decide, not their colonial and imperialist overlords.
Hamas have been guilty of atrocities. Yet their atrocious actions do not compare with the genocide Israel is perpetrating. Still, Micheal Martin demands that for a two state solution to work only Hamas must be excluded from government but not Likud. In his criticism of Catherine Connolly the Taoiseach fails to see the elephant in the room. His description of Israeli behaviour as genocide has little practical meaning if he does not call for the exclusion of Likud from any role in the future polity of the region.
When we gather half an hour from now in West Street in the rain, the chill that it brings might be dissipated by this week's image of Netanyahu addressing empty seats in the UN. The large walkout of delegates, for the most part is not the result of our governments in the West concluding Netanyahu is a Nazi swine who should not be appeased. It is the consequence of the pressure that ordinary citizens, like those members of Drogheda Stands With Palestine, are daily placing on those governments by refusing to be silenced. There is more moral fibre to be found in West Street than in the political leadership of the West.
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| ⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre. |
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