The Handover

Seven weeks of indiscriminate violence, bloodshed, torture, innocent families murdered, babies and children targeted and bombed in hospitals and schools. Unimaginable inhumanity, terrifying fascism, unrepentant war crime. 

I still can't  understand how we let them get away with it and how nothing could be done by the international community to prevent the hostility. Of those in the UN that could have put an instant stop to it, only two nations refused to endorse an immediate ceasefire.

Then came this morning, when it was revealed that the UK ‘spends more than anywhere else in Europe subsidising the cost of structural inequality in favour of the rich. Those inequalities of income, wealth and power cost the UK £106.2bn a year… When compared to the top five most equal countries, however, inequality costs the UK £128.4bn a year in damage to the economy, communities and individuals… Britain in the 1970s was one of the most equal of rich countries. Today, it is the second most unequal, after the US.’ (Amelia Hill, The Guardian, Monday 27 November)

And there it was, in black and white – proof that the real tormenters of this crisis were the self-proclaimed protectors of the free world. The two UN superpowers that consistently denied a ceasefire were none other than the two most despotic, cruel and unfair societies in the world, the US and the UK. But how could Biden and Sunak allow Israel free rein in its incessant bombardment of a powerless, unarmed faction of people? Who in their right mind would even consider such inhumane leadership as this? That would make them the protractorsof war, not the protectors of peace.

I’ve still not resolved how it all started. Attacks at a rave party and at a kibbutz sparked a wave of retaliation; two isolated incidents. I’ve tried to find evidence that corroborates the media’s stance but there’s almost none available anywhere. Following the attacks on 7 October, bomb after bomb and drone after drone have annihilated Gaza City. In seven weeks, it has been razed to the ground. If 1,400 Israelis were killed, the ceasefire came when over 14,000 Palestinians had been killed. A people decimated. Tenth-class citizens. 

But how on earth did Hamas get over to Israel in such large numbers, causing sustained bloodshed, when Israel’s defence systems are the most reliable in the world? It didn’t make sense then and it still doesn’t. Since 7 October, 53 journalists have sacrificed their lives in pursuit of the truth, such is the defiant nature of deception. Someone somewhere wants to keep a very tight lid on it.

And who do I blame for the atrocities? The West, of course. Not Israeli people or Palestinian people. Ordinary people don’t usually go around killing people, and when they do they are incarcerated. That’s why murderers go to jail. And it’s also why nobody wants to hear the truth, because we, the West, are the troublemakers. Sure, we’ll turn into peacemakers once the task is complete, with aid agencies vying for people’s money in a bid to relieve their shameless guilt, an act of conveniently schizophrenic wizardry.

I wrote nothing for seven weeks, every day laying in wait for morning trickles of information on the phone that may lead to more solid conclusions. On two of the three occasions when I brought up the subject with friends, I was shown nothing but disinterest. 

All I had to do was understand the situation. Wait for signs of reaction. Wait for answers to reveal themselves, if only to my mind. Wish and pray for a ceasefire. Don’t watch telly. Vanessa Redgrave had it right when she collected her Oscar for the 1977 film, Julia, saying in no uncertain terms that Zionism was at the root of all that was wrong in the world. She was right and she was brave enough to say it in front of some of the most powerful people on earth, the very people that peck away at our will, our soul and our humanity, if we let them.

I don’t think of Palestine as ‘Palestine’ any more. I think of it as Palestinians, a tribe of people displaced from little slivers of land that were afforded them when their country was ransacked and turned into Israel seventy-five years ago to serve the demands of the West, for ‘peace’. Those little slivers, those open prisons, are now pulverised rubble. ‘Palestine’ as we know it is no more. How can it remain as a nation when they’ve bombed hell out of it? And if Gaza is the physical embodiment of the worst inequality and injustice that can be imposed by the world’s wealthiest and most powerful leaders, how can it possibly survive? The poisoner does not offer an antidote, he rubs shoulders with Elon Musk. 

By decreeing Palestine past redemption, the media has cleverly adjusted our global view to suggest that nowhere is safe from now on. Look at the US, Pakistan, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia, even the UK. Anything goes. Everywhere’s a melting pot of discontent. But what about Palestine? Seventy-five years of oppression. And now this? For what? A glorious new canal to rival the Suez, some say.

Watching the news was a hideous act of bewildered self-harm. What I was witnessing was horrific and insane but in my powerless state I didn’t know how to react. Oncemy worst fears were made clear I became angry, thoughtless, vengeful and confused. I’d been sucked into the void, at odds with my senses, gagged and bound by my own fear to speak out and defend the oppressed. Again, I’d deeply offended myself with inaction. In return, my mind and body reviled all information regarding the Middle East. Every sense repelled it, but it had nowhere to go. In truth, I didn’t believe a word they said.

I urgently needed to sell the telly about a month ago. The money entitled me to a shopping bag of food but, more importantly, it came at a time when I could no longer support what I was seeing on the news. Emotionally I’d become a shell with a hard interior, a cold and wet stone.I was almost on shutdown mode so it had to go and I’ve been fine since, reading a lot more, but I hardly know what to do with myself at times, especially when there’s no work on, and there’s none round the corner the way the world’s going. Everyone’s tightened their belts, including me for lack of good food. Most of the well off are holed up somewhere in the sun so it won’t change. I’d do the same with their wallet. I punched another notch through on the old belt the other day, skinny as a wretch. Eggs on toast just don’t cut it. 

Those early images of suffering in Gaza and Israel are bled into me now. It was like watching like a horror film, too unreal to be true. From a sense of stunned disbelief grew sadness, anger and grief. 

Now the telly’s gone I like listening to the radio. When the news comes on, all I have to do is turn the volume down. It’s right there on the coffee table. Just turn it down and it’s gone. This is the last day of the ceasefire and I know all hell’s going to break loose once the humanitarians blow the whistle for them to start bombing again. I still can’t call it a ‘war’ because it’s one of the most powerful armies in the world versus unarmed innocents. Hello? That’s generally known as genocide but I suppose it's all part of the plan. Wear us down with guilt and shame for not standing up. Keep showing us blithe injustice to desensitise us. Sometimes, depending on who did it, they’ll even justify it. Watch your back, though. You can’t be too careful these days. Mind how you go. If you see anything that looks suspicious…

The West has taken us all for the ride of our lives, and apparently this is just the beginning. They’ve taken all the fun out of everything, even the simple act of driving a car, but it’s our own fault really. We let them do it and you get naught for naught these days. The law provides for those who seek to uphold it, but rewards even more abundantly those in power who seek to challenge it. 

With public services on skeleton mode to fatten the shareholders, UK plc is a sinking ship with no possible chance of survival. In almost every imaginable way, our economy has been short-circuited and rewired to lunacy mode as a matter of course. By conceiving any given project, firstly they put it out to tender, then they make it untenable, then they destroy its integrity and cause further damage before cutting off funding completely to let the thing rot, then they get someone to burn it and blame it on someone else so they can claim on the insurance. Once burned, the lawyers take over and then it’s years, even decades, before even sniff at any whiff of justice is offered. All those billions wasted on grubby termites and vultures, and for nothing but division. Your government destroys your country with every foul breath it takes. But we let it happen, so we destroyed it really. 

In contrast to our own woes, if Gaza was categorised, at worst, as an open prison for second-class citizens and, at best, a begotten outpost of Israel, it is now even less habitable than a concentration camp, because it is rubble. And what will they do with Gaza once it’s been vacated? You can’t very well build a concentration camp on rubble but you can clear it up and turn it into a glittering Wonderland. It’s prime real estate.

Palestinians have been expelled from their immured homeland and have nowhere left to go. ‘Palestine’ is effectively no more and Israel have made it clear that they want it wiped off the map. Egypt will take in some Palestinians but that would then constitute an absolute acceptance of expulsion from their homeland, perhaps without right to return. Imagine another ‘country’ taking over the UK, brick by brick, proverbially, until they had the lot. Or at least 95% of it. Well, the richest 1% of Britons hold more wealth than 70% of Britons, and don’t forget all the dodgy foreign investors that only set foot here to collect their winnings. This is the fault of your government, servants not of its people but of rich, murderous lunatics whose wish is to destabilise and eventually dismantle society as we know it.

So what is it that stops the UK tipping over the edge and diving into the abyss? The City of London, the capital of capitalism. In terms of political messaging, Jezza’s latest smudge-it budget shows how well we teter on the edge. A few mignon taxes nibbled at here and there, thrown scraps at best, then he smuggled in an energy price hike with almost immediate effect. Who does he think he’s kidding? Seemingly everyone, actually. It’s accepted as part of the balancing act, as long as it doesn’t hurt the rich.

Next year, that of ‘the election’, or as I faithfully call it ‘The Handover’, there’ll be lots more upbeat rousing from the Tories, how the money was there all along, sloshing about, loadsamoney just waiting for the right window, which is NOW! Then watch as Labour fall into the trap and offer even more bread and carrots to the wailing, howling, baying public, at which time the media will pounce with some tasty scare stories and the silly sods would baulk. At 10/1 for the Tories to be the next government, perhaps those odds aren’t too bad.

I reckon they’re all in on it together. Put into context, sayyou were stinking rich and you went to New York or Tokyo or Moscow, who would you hang out with? You’d hang out with the stinking rich. It’s the way of the world.Most humans are walking shit-sticks anyway. What with all the robots doing the work now, I think our days may be numbered.