Alistair’s “Random Rambles” (26)
By Kathy Martin…
Written August 2014
People around the world can scarcely be unaware that there is trouble in the Gaza Strip and West Bank border areas of Palestine and Israel. The world press blatantly displays the death rate (usually around 10:1 in favour of the Israelis). Of course, in war for every death there is at least one wounded, sometimes permanently such as when a person’s limb is destroyed.
Admittedly Hamas, one of the political factions in the Palestinian Authority, appears to be the aggressor. However, unlike the sophisticated offensive and defensive weaponry available to the Israelis, most of its weapons are “homemade”!
I wonder how and why this death and mutilation toll is allowed to continue without the involvement of “peace keeping” troops from the United Nations. After all, there has been a “peace keeping” force here in Kibris for the last 50 years, and that has been needless since the Turkish intervention of 1974!
Could it be because the powerful Jewish vote and the Jewish financial control of the American economy, that has protected Israel, has emasculated the United Nations?
In 2011 the Palestinian Authority wanted to gain recognition as a state from the United Nations. However, should this be successful, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice hinted that the U.S. government might withdraw United Nations funding! Ms Rice is quoted as saying, “This would be exceedingly politically damaging in our domestic context, as you can well imagine. And I cannot frankly think of a greater threat to our ability to maintain financial and political support for the United Nations in Congress”!
As such the Palestinian Authority had to be satisfied with “non-member” status, a greatly diminished ranking!
In effect America told the United Nations that if it did anything that may prevent, or even just hinder, Israel’s status and ability to be the biggest bully in the area, it would be bankrupted!
President Obama, because you and your politicians can bully the United Nations, you have given your little pet, Israel, the ability to bully Palestine, the blood of the dead and wounded Palestinians (and even the dead Israelis) is on your hands!
Can you remember as far back as 9th October 2009 President Obama? That was the day when, after you had been in office for only a few days, you were given the Nobel Peace Prize! At that time as you had had little or no effect on the “world stage”, you were probably given it for “politically correct” reasons because you are the first “black” American President.
How can you justify keeping that prize, or even sleep at night, while you calmly allow your little Israeli friends to commit genocide, yes, genocide with impunity?
In 2010 the cargo ship “Mavi Marmara”, along with a few other vessels set sail from Turkey with the stated objective of breaking the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza. This was a purely humanitarian mission, as the cargo on each vessel was either clothing or foodstuffs. The convoy was intercepted by the Israeli navy, while it was still in international waters and Israeli commandos boarded the “Mavi Marmara”. During the ensuing “punch up” nine “political activists” were killed on that ship by the commandos.
As the “Mavi Marmara” was in international waters, no part of maritime legislation was breached; therefore Israelis actions were tantamount to both piracy and murder!
The United Nations huffed and puffed and demanded that Israel should apologise. Israel refused, so the United Nations said “OK, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to”, and turned to matters that wouldn’t cast Israel in a bad light!
Currently, worldwide, Jewish/Israeli diplomats, politicians, press and media are plaintively bleating that anti-Semitism is on the rise, and cannot understand why!
While Hitler’s solution to the “Jewish problem” was certainly over-excessive, the “Jewish problem” has reared its ugly head on a number of other occasions and has arisen in other countries.
- For example, Jews were expelled from England as far back as 1290, massacred in Spain from 1391 until the survivors were finally expelled in 1492.
- In the Ukraine massacres, culminating in expulsions, occurred between 1648 and 1657.
- Similarly, in Russia massacres and expulsions occurred between 1821 and 1906.
I could go on, but I believe that these examples will supply sufficient weight to my theory.
Readers will have noticed that while the countries and centuries change, in the list above, the common thread is (are?) the Jews. Perhaps, like now in Gaza, the Jews have always been arrogant, objectionable, pig-headed, (can I use the word pig when trying to describe to a Jew? No!,….)
OK then, stubborn headed people who regard themselves that, as God’s “chosen people” they have the divine right to disregard the feelings and even the lives of others? As a result they have frequently outstayed their welcome and upset the local population in more than one country and century?
Just a thought!
Last week’s Ramble was mainly about “firsts” in the First World War, but I forgot to mention this “first”.
However, with hindsight, (what a wonderful thing hindsight is, with it, life would always be perfect!), as this “first” happened after the end of the war, perhaps a week’s delay in publication is fitting!
At the beginning of the first history lesson at senior school my teacher stated that history is taught so that “the people of today can learn from the lessons of the past”.
Neither we, nor our children (nor their children), should belittle or ignore a war memorial simply because it only has a dozen or so names on it. Even though today that memorial may have been absorbed into an area of modern urban sprawl, in 1918 the names recorded may well have represented 50% of the human “breeding stock” and workforce of a small rural community!
As you can assume, I am talking about war memorials.
I don’t mean the triumphal arches of ancient Roman times, or structures such as Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square, London, but the engraved stonework in small town centres, village greens or churchyards that listed maybe a dozen or so names.
These were the names of farmhands, shopkeepers, and more importantly, were the husbands, fathers, and sons, who had gone off to the “Great” War (how can any war be described as “great”? “Come on in, we are having a really great time killing and maiming people”!), either as volunteers or conscripts, and had subsequently joined the “glorious dead”.
How can being dead be regarded as “glorious”? It is glorious to be alive, to be dead is… well…er…..it is anything but!
Sorry, about the above that almost turned from a ramble into a rant, the point that I was trying to make is that, for the first time (certainly in Britain), the names of “common” soldiers, sailors and airmen were being recorded for posterity for the first time.
This practice no doubt was caused by the fact that the majority of people whose names were on the “village” memorials hadn’t chosen the military as a career or occupation. They were simply civilians who had the misfortune to be alive (and then dead) when power crazy politicians and inept military generals were in power.
In last week’s ramble I said that, statistically speaking, the 6 hour delay between the signing of the armistice and its publication condemned 1,500 military personnel to death. My friend Chris, in the UK, told me that, according to a television programme on World War One, all the French servicemen who died on 11th November 1918 are recorded as dying on 10th November for political and emotional reasons.
A cynic might wonder if they were docked a day’s pay!
