A Diversion into Dangerous Ground...

I try not to post about politics here any more.  It is all too depressing and like almost everyone else, I'm just hanging on now until we reach that inevitable General Election and hopefully kick these corrupt bastards out of power.  In the meantime, I just gird my loins and try to endure as best I can every new bit of reactionary, neo-fascist spite and bile puked up by the likes of Suella Braverman.  But I do feel moved to say something about the current situation in Gaza and Israel.  You know, it is perfectly possible to simultaneously condemn the recent actions of Hamas in Israel, attacking and killing civilians, while also expressing sympathy for Palestinian civilians in Gaza who are, in response, being bombed and shelled indiscriminately by the Israeli military.  Neither action is justified - Hamas' actions in Israel are reprehensible, while the Israeli reaction is disproportionate and equally inhumane.  neither is going to do anything to resolve the long-term problems in the region.  But, if we are to go by social media and even the British press, holding such a position is tantamount to supporting terrorism and you might as well have murdered Israeli babies yourself.  It is these sorts of rabid idiocies which mostly keep me off of social media these days.

But the thing that has sickened me most about the current situation in Gaza is the opportunistic way in which various figure on the right have seized upon it to pursue their usual twisted agendas.  We have, for instance, the aforementioned Suella Braverman taking the opportunity to use the crisis to try and get the police to enact her repressive fantasies by arresting people for doing things like displaying a Palestinian flag.  Is this really the sort of country we've become, where possession of flags can be classified as a terrorist act?  But apparently, it can be - as can expressing support for Hamas.  Distasteful though many might find either of these things, in a free society they surely can't be criminalised in this way -  people can think and feel whatever they like.  If, however, they should take it a stage further and act on this support by, perhaps, throwing a brick through the window of a Jewish owned shop, or harassing Jewish people than, yes, that would be criminal and possibly could be classified as an act of terror, (the opposite, of course, of Jewish people harassing Palestinians in the UK, would also be criminal and possibly an act of terror).  Worst of all, though, is the likes of the Daily Mail and its rancid columnists using the Gaza situation as an excuse to resume its war on the BBC, with their childish calls for the corporation to call Hamas 'terrorists'.  

Perhaps they should bear in mind that back in the late forties, when the Palestine was being administered by the UK on behalf of the UN, the Israelis were the 'terrorists', killing British soldiers in the name of establishing an Israeli state.  (In point of fact, after one particularly brutal incident, there were anti-Jewish riots in Liverpool - where the dead soldiers came from.  Another piece of British history conveniently swept under the carpet when it became expedient to treat Israel as an ally).  Back then, the likes of the Mail was railing against these 'wanted terrorists' (as the UK authorities described them) - many of whom later became senior members of the Israeli government.  The point I'm floundering around trying to make here is that, as Spike Milligan was fond of saying on 'The Goon Show', 'it all depends on where you are standing'.  Terrorism is a relative thing: one man's evil terrorist is another's heroic freedom fighter and vice versa - history, as written by the victors, will ultimately decide which is which, so it really is pointless arguing over who calls who a terrorist in the here and now.  But hey, this situation is all too depressing and a moral minefield.  So, I'll be returning to the safer ground of exploitation films and video nasties - you know where you stand with them.