Too Many Eyes, Too Many Teeth...

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We have an increasingly worrying problem in the situation in Gaza. And not just worrying from the standpoint of the Palestinian people caught up in this maelstrom, but worrying because of the West's turning of a blind eye to what is not just the elephant in the room, but rather a beached and putrefying Blue Whale lying full-square before us all. This conflict has long ceased to be a proportionate response by a nation to an act of terrorism, but an all-out attempt to enact a pre-meditated policy of ethnic cleansing, possibly even genocide, at the behest of Benjamin Netanyahu principally, and the Israeli state as a whole. It's there for all to see. There's no question regarding the facts of the matter, as Jonathan Sumption wrote in last week's New Statesman: the Geneva Conventions have been given scant regard and ridden roughshod over in Israel's prosecution of this latest horror in the region's torrid history. He was also right to point out the utter disparity between the two sides in the power imbalance between them.

Frankly, it is well described as truly David versus Goliath, except that the biblical roles are quite reversed here in the twenty-first century. On the one hand stands a rich nation, militarily funded by the United States and others, including the UK, to the tune of billions of dollars annually. On the other stands a ragtag band of terrorists surrounded by an innocent and impoverished population whose people, property and lands are being systematically destroyed by the former in the pursuance of a pre-existing agenda to totally displace or even wipe out the Palestinian people: their removal by any means from Gaza.  Baroness Deech's response in her letter to the NS this week characterises Sumption's arguments as dealing in clichés about Israel and Gaza. I disagree. This is not about Hamas or hostages, the historical persecution of Jewry, or race or religion: Israel's response to Hamas' terror attack is far too disproportionate in scale for that. However, it is the stated aim of an expansionist militarist Prime Minister and his government, hell-bent on asserting complete control over the region at the expense of an entire race of people. Where have we heard that story before?

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