Israel

I saw an interesting item on the BBC World News the other day.

At the end of the last Israeli-Lebanese war, a year or so ago, part of the peace settlement involved the establishment of a UN monitored "Blue Zone" between the two countries. Essentially, it involves the erection a fence along the border, each post topped by a big blue pot with UN painted on it.  All well and good. 

Except that along most of the area where the fence is to be erected, there are thousands of anti-personnel mines.  They weren't placed there by Hizbollah militia or any other paramilitary group.  They were laid, very carefully, by the Israeli army. 

Nothing unusual about that......the mines are being cleared, to make the border area safer, and make it easier (and safer) for the UN troops to complete erecting the Blue Zone barrier.  But the interesting thing was that the work of clearing the mines was left to the UN troops.  On their hands and knees, with little garden trowels and anti-blast armour.  Not an Israeli soldier in sight.

And I thought why the hell are the Israeli military not helping?  One assumes they have maps or something, showing where they planted the damned things.  And in that case, surely they must have some responsilbility for this?

But no, this is Israel, of course.  How silly of me to expect them to care about anyone or anything except themselves.

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The state of Israel was founded after the Second War, as a homeland for survivors of the Holocaust (both Hitler's and the one Stalin quietly carried out in the USSR......it's never had the publicity of the other one but was just as brutal and efficient).  The land now known as Israel was then part of British administered Palestine.  We actively helped deport thousands of Palestinian Arabs to the little strip of coastal land now called the Gaza Strip, and to the West Bank in Jerusalem, then buggered off and left the Israelis and the Palestinians to sort out their own political accomodation.

It was not our most successful or clever piece of diplomacy.

The result has been over 50 years of conflict.  The Palestinians were a bit pissed off about being evicted from lands they had lived in and farmed for hundreds of years, especially as the compensation paid wasn't exactly generous.  More like non-existant, in fact.  They demanded their lands back, but the UN, as so often since then, ignored their complaints.  They understandably turned their attentions against their successors, the Israelis.

Not a good idea.  Fresh from being nearly exterminated as a people, the Jewish settlers now battling to build their nation state (with of course significant support from the victorious Allies, in particular the US, with its large, affluent and expanding Jewish power base) basically told them, politely, to bugger off......this is our land, you hook nosed schmucks.  Or words to that effect, I suppose, more diplomatic.

And so eventually we got the founding of Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), basically a terrorist paramilitary organization funded by other sympathetic Arab states, and a whole slew of similar, but less organised, groups.   The Israelis, with their superior American backed armed forces, were quite happy to take them on.

And so it goes to this day.  Tit for tat killings as Palestinians and Israelis both refuse to accept the right to esistance of the other. 

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But the Israelis really do take things to extremes. 

They are quite happy to send a death squad to a neutral country, travelling on stolen identities and forged UK, Irish and EU passports, to assassinate a Palestinian politician in his hotel room..... he was a terrorist of course, according the Israeli Government.  No proof of that, say the Palestinians, the Dubai police and pretty much everyone else.

They are absolutely overjoyed to be able to enforce a blockade by building a 20 foot wall around the entire Gaza area, with limited access guarded by heavily armed regular troops from the IDF.   The fact that the UN has passed multiple resolutions pointing out the illegality of this and demanding it should be pulled down immediately makes no difference: the Resolutions are simply ignored by successive Israeli Governments.

They continue to build settlements, new towns, on land on the West Bank around Jerusalem that was given as part of various peace settlements to the Palestinians.  To do so hundreds more Palestinians are forcibly evicted without compensation and become refugees.  The UN says this too is liiegal, but again, the Israeli Governments ignore the outcry with mealy-mouthed excuses along the lines of we need more houses because our population is growing.  Their lug-eared, Antipodean arsewipe of an apologist Mark Regev is particularly skilled (and sickening) at explaining away this kind of State sponsored brutaility.

They happily enforce a naval blockade of Gaza from the Mediteranean to ensure that the only goods entering the beleaguered city-state (such as it is) is approved by them, licenced by them....  This has led to massive food shortages, fuel shortages, lack of building materials so that the areas of Gaza flattened by continuing Israeli airstrikes cannot easily be repaired.  Even hospitals are denied assistance.  And their response to UN complaints that they are operating illgally?  Why, of course.....they ignore them.  And Regev smiles indulgently....our people have the right to live in safety, and not be scared of weapons built by the terrorists out of....um......housebricks.  And Marmite.  Oh, and aspirin.

Finally, they happily commit an act of piracy under recognized international maritime law by storming by armed force a convoy of ships attempting to breach the blockade and deliver vital aid, sponsored by Turkish aid groups with the tacit support of the Turkish Government.  The result?  9 aid activists dead, several injured, the ships captured and stores confiscated by the Israeli Government.  Oh, and international condemnation....but we've been there before.  And Regev?  Our brave troops were attacked by terrorists armed with iron bars and catapults.....so of course we opened fire with our assualt rifles.  We have the right to defend ourselves from this type of aggression....blah blah blah....

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I've never been to Israel.  I have absolutely no wish to do so.  I may well be doing a complete disservice to millions of very pleasant, friendly and generous people.  The few Israelis I have met in my life all worked in a bank in Zurich, a branch of one of Israel's leading banks.  To a man, they were arrogant, rude, aggressive to the point of viciousness, verbally abusive and unhelpful in the extreme.  They were always right, never made mistakes, and were completely unwilling to even contemplate compromise.....my way or the highway taken to extremes.  A bit like their Government, in fact.  I worked there for about a month, and it was probably the most unpleasant four weeks' work I've ever had to do.

I find it extraordinary, and tragic, and in all honesty quite sickening, that a nation born out of the appalling events of the Holocaust is now clearly intent on committing a Genocide of its own against the Palestinians.  And the UN seems unable (or unwilling) to do anything about it.......  Of course, they can't without the support of the EU and the US, both of whom, particularly the US, have huge and powerful Jewish lobbies tying their hands.  It seems that successive generations of US and EU politicians lack the courage to stand up for what is right in humanitarian terms and stop Israel behaving in this way.  The fact that Israel has nuclear weapons may have something to with that, I suppose, but still......The West eventually stood up to a nuclear Soviet bloc.

It seems to me that George W. Bush was wrong when he branded Iran a "rogue state"  There is indeed a rogue state in the Middle East, but it's not Iran, for all the rhetoric coming from Ahmedinajad and the mullahs.

Its name is Israel.