Gazarrrgggghhhh

My previous on Gaza already reads like soft-pedalling: a cute(sic) metaphor that simply doesn’t come close to describing the situation as things have moved on.

This is barbaric, savage, disgusting. For a people who pride themselves on ideals, there can be no excuse – not even one as readily provided by Hamas – for this butchery (even if it is Kosher).

The belligerent Zionist State, established as much through bloodshed and terrorism (viz Menachem Begin – wanted terrorist and founder of the Likud party) as through high ideals following the Holocaust, seems to have lost whatever moral compass it had.

The Holocaust was about Nazi persecution of the Jews, not about opposition to the establishment of a Zionist State: it doesn’t grant a licence to the Israelis to act as (jack?)booted bullies against an impoverished Palestinian people, vulnerable to exploitation by extremists. 

On the contrary, it gives them a moral imperative to behave towards others as they would like to have experienced themselves. That would attract admiration and respect.

Instead, they pursue their enemies with a breathtaking arrogance. Not that this is new. The 1967 Six Day War was the perfect expression of this belligerence, brutally stealing land that was settled by other people. Even for a country established by a – for me, as a practising atheist – somewhat spurious Biblical claim, this took the biscuit. And it’s gone on ever since.

The Israelis accuse Hamas of using innocent people as human shields, while they themselves populate their stolen land with settlements of families, often Orthodox Jews: it’s just a different form of human shield.

What's more, they're storing up trouble for themselves. All you have to do is look into the eyes of the young children who've survived (for now) in Gaza. That's the murderous, vengeful future the Israelis are creating for themselves. Serves them right.

All I can say is that if I was a Palestinian caught up in Gaza, I’d fire missiles too. I’d have been left with no other choice by these aggressive, land-grabbing, bloodthirsty thieves. Where’s Yasser Arafat when you need him? Oh yeah – mysteriously dead.