One of many dark memories from my adolescence is the teacher who would demand to know who had written on the board/been talking/made that rude noise. When the culprit didn’t own up, the teacher would say “Very well – the entire class will be punished” and he’d take out his strap and go to work. We detested teachers who did that.
I thought of that practice as I heard the news that Israel has been carpet-bombing the Gaza strip and has now declared that the population of Gaza must withdraw from half of Gaza. So a people who lived in squalor and on top of one another, are now being warned they must leave everything and head God knows where, because the Israeli armed forces are coming.
You have to hand it to the Israelis. You dispossess a people of their land and push them into unspeakable poverty. Now you tell them that the must flee their homes or die. That includes the old, the infirm, those in hospitals – everyone. And who’s to blame for this? “Not us” the Israelis say. “Hamas is hiding within you so we’re going to punish you all
In school decades back, this collective punishment was remembered and festered in the minds of pupils. In Gaza today, Israeli actions will harden into hatred in the minds of young people. There’s no point talking to Israel – they’re too busy sowing dragons’ teeth.
Soon we will hear about,
…the War to end all wars…
Today, human beings are being deliberately deprived of food, water and health care.
The response of the United(?) States and Britain is to send even more weapons of mass destruction to add to the suffering in what was once the cradle of civilisation.
Genocide and land theft. Who better to advise the Zionists?
I personally think Israel intends to flatten most, if not all, of Gaza. The Hamas attack last Saturday was so repulsive and evil that the Jewish state has carte blanche to do whatever it feels is necessary to defend it’s citizens. God knows they were ruthless enough before this, they now intend to take full advantage of the opportunity offered to them. I am not a mad conspiracy theorist but I would not be surprised if Israel wasn’t aware of the attack, either way, the Hamas people will regret it. Israel will turn Gaza into a barren land, filled with booby traps and barbed wire. A buffer zone. Who is going to stop them? Not America or the EU. The people will have to move to Egypt or some other country in the region. As always, the innocent will suffer.
Very good jude free Palestine
Thank you, James
I’m appalled by the supposition by so many that Israel is a victim here. While the attacks by Hamas are horrible, I’m disgusted that no one seems to be asking what might have prompted such actions. If you ask that here in the U.S. you can be deemed anti-Semitic. No one seems to think the Israeli response far outsizes the original attack. Isn’t this just opportunistic land grabbing? Sort of like a convenient famine that clears the land of poor people, when food is actually plentiful? My heart is so heavy.