May 2018

Four and a half years since I posted anything! I have been using Facebook to put ideas out, but I am more and more suspicious of the site and what it has done, used by people like Cambridge Analytica, so I'll try blogging again. I was disgusted by the coverage of yesterday's events in Gaza. The wrong questions were being asked, giving Israeli spokesmen the opportunity to spout standard speeches about Hamas, risks to Israeli civilians etc. The sort of questions I wanted to hear: - David Cameron said in 2010 'Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp.' What has Israel done to realise that aspiration? - Most of the inhabitants of Gaza fled from Southern Israel in 1948; what has Israel done to compensate them for the land and property that was taken over by Israelis? - Does Israel accept the right of other people's to self-defence? - The UN partition resolution of 1947 required Jerusalem to become an international city, and Count Bernadotte was assassinated because of his efforts as UN representative to realise that goal. How does Israel justify the total takeover of Jerusalem?