What Do You Think Today?

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I recently watched the documentary Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, originally intended for airing by the BBC, but suspended and then finally cancelled (allowing for its showing on Channel 4 instead), due to "impartiality concerns."

Impartiality concerns? Of course it's impartial! The story related is that of the systematic and deliberate destruction of the Gazan healthcare system. It's the story of the perpetration of a war crime, the deliberate murder of doctors, surgeons and their families with the specific purpose of decapitation of the system upon which the beleaguered inhabitants of Gaza depend for their only defence against the horrendous injury being heaped daily upon them.

Would the BBC cancel a documentary on say dog fighting because it is deemed to have impartiality concerns? The people being interviewed for the film, doctors and paramedics, are being murdered as the programme is being made for God's sake! They dissapear into the Israeli detention system, are killed in drone and missile attacks targeted on their houses, are followed down the damn streets as they flee! Impartiality concerns? Where in God's name do the BBC get their ideas from?

And as for the documentary. Every politician in this country should see what they are involved in when they vote in the Commons on issues pertaining to Gaza. The evidence of what is happening is mounting day by day, week by week, into an undeniable mountain of facts. The deliberate hospitals destruction policy is now all but undeniable (remember how the first bombing of Al-Shifa was explained as an accident, then as a result of its being underrun with Hamas used tunnels - since then virtually all of the 36 Gazan hospitals have been attacked, to the point where it is now barely deemed worthy of report). It follows hard on the heels of the mounting evidence of deliberate shoot to kill policies being operated at the four mega-distribution hubs being operated by GHF, together with a deliberate starvation policy of the Gazan population. Again this mounting evidence is airbrushed, whitewashed and presented in language designed to deliberately introduce a misrepresentation of the true horror of what is being committed in real time before our eyes.

For clarity here I repeat. This is not a war, it's a genocide. What is being done to the Palestinians of Gaza, is akin to what the Germans did to the Jews in Europe, the systematic and brutal destruction of a people, but in that case without the constant leakage of real-time footage from mobile phones and cameras directly linked to satellites beyond the reach of being shut down.

Documentaries such as this should not have to fight for the opportunity to be shown. The reality of the footage captured is beyond question. It isn't the production of some nutcase in a backroom with an AI tool. It's documentary footage of the killing of a people and it should be essential viewing for anyone in any way connected to this situation. This is not a documentary, it is evidence. It is testimony.

I watched a brave fellow on YouTube this morning, coming out and saying things for which he can expect a knock on his door, such is the state of things in Stamer's Britain. He's a braver fellow than me and I salute him. We have got ourselves into a pretty pass in our support for Israel since October 7th. We none of us forget the horror of that day and only the hardest of hearts could wish for anything but the speediest release of those poor hostages remaining alive in the hell-hole which is Gaza. But October 7th, no matter how bad, could never serve as justification for what has followed. If it could then we are truly doomed, every man jack of us.

It's time for Israel to stop. It's time for our governments to stop. It's time for them to listen to their people - the people to whom they answer and not the other way around as they would have us believe. The man on YouTube implored that each of us, every one, to step up now, in the moment of Gazan greatest need, and in some way, whatever manner, however small, cast a pebble into the pool of resistance against what is being done in our names. Together, cumulatively, he said, the ripples caused thereby will gather into a great wave that even our smug and complacent leadership will not be able to ignore.

(Gaza:Doctors Under Attack is available to watch both on the Channel 4 online app and on YouTube itself (in its entirety). Go watch.)

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Only those who have been living under a rock can have been suprised at the Financial Times revelation that the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) was balls deep in the notorious Donald Trump plan to relocate all the Palestinian population from Gaza and turn the place into a "riviera" and technology center in which both Trump and Elon Musk would have a large stake.

It's a bit complicated but it seems that the plan, put together by Israeli business people and US consulting firm Boston Consulting Group (BCG), was certainly formulated in the presence of staff members of the TBI, even if they were not actively involved in its development. Two Institute members have been acknowledged as being present, "in an observational capacity," and while the TBI originally denied any involvement, when confronted with proof that their staff had been involved in WhatsApp group discussions on the subject, they admitted to this limited presence.

There has been suggestions that they were involved in the preparation of a 'slide-deck' presentation of the idea, an accusation they deny, as indeed do BCG, who embarrassingly also have some connection to the now notorious Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, about which we have been hearing so much.

"Richer than Croesus," as George Galloway so nicely put it, Tony Blair has long had his bloody hands immersed in the history of the Middle East. His Institute is only the means via which he has retained power and influence in the region since his disastrous intervention in Iraq with 'Dubbya'. That one left over a million people dead and led to the formation of Isis, the notorious killing machine whose second head poncho the British government of today is so inclined to favour as a man they can do business with. As an aside, diplomatic relations with Syria under the said Isis man's premiership have just now been announced.

Needless to say the TBI is horrified by any suggestion that it was involved in any way with a plan that would have seen Gazans by the truckload shipped out, who knows where, so that the Trump dream could be realised. "Nothing to see here," they say, whistling away in innocent fashion while surreptitiously pointing there finger at BCG from under their jacket. BCG for its part, suddenly seems to know very little of what its own staff are up to. Some clowns have taken the fall, accused of being rogue operators as it were, and naturally we believe the Group's assertion that this was the case.

Why is it, I ask myself, that things in this Gazan situation just get worse and worse all of the time. While slaughter proceeds on a daily basis with such boring regularity that it is no longer even being reported (there is not one mention of Gaza on the BBC News website 'front page' this morning and I have little doubt that the printed media will prove the same), the disgusting perfidy of the power players at the top of our polities, our establishments, just gets ever deeper by the day. While a genocide in in progress, the very man who was in at the start of the Middle East's modern problems is found grubbing around in the planning stages of developments as to how to deploy the assets of the murdered people into churning out wealth for the grabbing. It's as predictable as it is sickening. Instead of a prison cell in the Hague, as Galloway put it, he's in offices pouring over spreadsheets outlining yet more despicable plans.

What on earth can have possessed him, I asked myself on reading the story; surely he must have known how toxic this plan was. With all of the history already attached to his actions in Iraq and elsewhere, what in God's good name would have stopped him from running a mile when he heard the words "Trump Riviera in Gaza" first spoken? Surely he must have been aware of what his staff at the TBI were up to?

But then I realised. He's already so tarnished, so mired in responsibility in the eyes of the world, that he no longer cares. He's got nothing to loose. All that matters is being there, involved in how the cake is sliced up. They'll still hold open the doors on the limousine when he turns up to bank the mullah. What's a little more opprobrium heaped on top of that already associated with his name. And if he's already rationalised all the responsibility he already carries for the million deaths in Iraq (and all the evidence is that he has - those deaths trouble him not one jot) then it'll be small problem to turn a blind eye to what has happened to the people of Gaza once they're gone. After all, they are doomed, irrespective of what he does. And someone's going to reap the rewards so he might as well be in on the action as anyone else.

Because only a person with the nievity of a four year old could believe that the Israeli businessmen/BCG plan for the Trump Riviera, the Elon Musk Technology Park, has any place in those plans for the current inhabitants of Gaza in them. And Blair is certainly not nieve. No-one could ever accuse him of being that!

And so, as evey day passes, I'm left with an ever deeper pit of disgust for what our world, our Western world with its touted high moral compass, its ingrained superiority over every other culture and system on this planet, considers to be the example it should set to the rest of the world. That people who should rightly be in the Hague are instead plotting the means of securing their next few million, while the corpses of those upon whose backs those millions will be made are still warm in the mass graves in which they have been buried. This is our world. We made it, and now we think that it should be exported to those of the world who follow different pathways, whether they like it or not. Dear God let them see with absolute clarity and understanding, the moral vacuum that exists at the heart of our system and resist the imposition of it upon themselves with all their might.

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385 to 26.

That's the number of MPs who voted 'aye' as opposed to 'no' in respect of adding activist group Palestine Action to the Terrorism Act 2000 (proscribed organisations) list.

That they would not support the activities of the group is not necessarily surprising. Some will simply not be in support of their aims as a group and some, while being in general support of the idea of a Palestinian homeland, won't agree with the methods that the group use to promote this end.

I can accept either position, but what I struggle with, is the idea that only 26 MPs had the courage to stand up to the government's manipulation of the 'machinery' of the voting system, to ensure they got the result they desired, that would allow them to add Palestine Action to the list of proscribed organisations.

If there were serious questions about the proscription of the organisation - and enough commentators, both political and otherwise said there were for it to be likely true - then parliamentarians should have been given the option of expressing their views in a single dedicated vote on the group alone. Lumping it in with two other clearly terrorist groups in order to ensure its proscription was a low use of the parliamentary voting mechanism - the government knew it, the MPs knew it and should have had the courage to express it in a nay vote.

That only 26 found the courage to do so is a searing indictment of the quality of individuals who represent us in the House. I'm happy that people who disagree with me on any issue should be MPs - I have no monopoly on being right on everything - but what I'm not happy about is having cowards in there representing us.

When the government manipultes the system in order to get its way and MPs do not stand, as a matter of principle, against it, then this is cowardly. They are there to represent us: not to put their own political futures ahead of the interests of the people of this country, and not to stand against such duplicitous behaviour when the government attempts it is to do just that. We deserved better. We deserve better.

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I remember in my youth, the visit of the golden mask of Tutankhamen to London, along with 50 or so other artifacts from the rulers tomb.

I was excited to see the items, only on the television as it happens not being able to visit the British Museum personally, but also aware of the surge of interest in history that the exhibition brought about. People queued around the block in order to gain entry into the museum, and these queues featured on the news coverage almost as much as the items themselves.

I'm very much in hope that the forthcoming visit, on loan, of the Bayeux Tapestry in 2026, will cause a similar surge in interest once again. It is by events like this that future historians are made. Sparks are kindled in the minds of children that later blossom into full blown interests, some just recreational as is mine, some more academic in nature.

I don't know if I'll get to visit the Tapestry - I very much hope so - but I'm very happy that it is coming and thank France deeply for the honour of allowing us to hold, if all but briefly, this treasure.

(Incidentally - I did ultimately get to see the Tutankhamen treasures, but not in London. I had to go to Cairo itself, to the inimitable Egyptian Museum, to see them. The gold mask alone was worth the effort.)

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So Gregg Wallace has now been sacked from the BBC following revelations of around 50 further accusations of his being a 'very naughty boy' around the people he was involved with when presenting the Masterchef programme on the channel.

I can't say much about the accusations, or indeed about Wallace himself - I don't really watch him very much, preferring the professional chefs version of the show in which he does not feature. But I'm afraid that (and this is simple prejudice - no other word for it) I just don't like it when men shave their heads as he does.

I mean - it's one thing being a baldy, a slap-head as the condition is known - but to deliberately make your head look like a boiled egg, devoid of even a respectable ring of remaining hair curcumscribing your noddle? Come on! What are you going for - the 'Dr Evil' look from the Austin Powers movies? C'mon; if you're going bald, do it with grace.

And I don't know, but there's something......salacious....about it. Why am I not suprised that these accusations are being levelled against Wallace (amongst which was the one where he is supposed to have run into a studio prior to filming with only a sock held over his meat and two veg) - it's because of that bald....no shaved...noddle. It simply reeks of there being something wrong, something unsavoury about a character, for them to deliberately foster such an appearance. Do anything - go bald, grow a beastly comb-over, sport a freakin' great diversionary tactic beard - but don't do the boiled egg thing. It's just wrong.

That's all I can say.

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Defence Minister (Israel Katz) says Israel plans to concentrate all Gaza's population in 'humanitarian' zone built on Rafa's ruins.

So runs a headline in Haaretz, Israel's oldest and most widely read left wing newspaper - an organ which to its credit has chronicled the post October 7th operation in Gaza in far more depth (and with more honesty) than anything we have seen in our own 'unbiased' media.

The plan is to start with 600,000 people from the al-Mawsi area, moving them (by what means we not being told) through "security screening" into what experts have described as an internment camp, from which they will not be allowed to leave (except, one assumes, to a third country).

Described as "a blueprint for crimes against humanity," one can only imagine what horrors will be perpetrated on the hapless internees once inside this 'concentration camp', let alone what will be the fate of any presenting themselves for passage who do not clear the security screening. Israel would control the perimeter of the site in which ultimately, the entire Gazan population will be contained. So says Katz, according to Haaretz.

Efforts to find third countries prepared to take in the Palestinians so herded, as refugees into their own countries are ongoing, but are not, it is reported, meeting with much success. The presence of a large number of Palestinian refugees can have a destabilising effect on a country, particularly if they feel that their displacement to this third country has been forced (which it will in all effect actually have been, despite Israeli claims to the contrary) and entertain bitterness towards the country as a result. Another problem is that the displaced Palestinians will almost certainly continue with a distanced operation against Israel, which would inevitably see friction arising down the road, even between Israel and the country that has taken the refugees, as Israel increases its demands that the Palestinian immigrants be subjected to tighter controls and scrutiny.

For these reasons, the idea that the 2 million strong population of Gaza can be moved to third countries is a chicken that won't fight, and in truth I'm astounded that I even speak of it as a possibility at all; it's ethnic cleansing on a mass scale and how, I ask myself, has such a thing become normalised to the point where people with views even as strong as I possess, can discuss it as if it were a rational possibility.

So that leaves a population, penned into the ruins of the south of Gaza, at the mercy of its captors who control the entry of food and the other requirements basic to life (and we've all seen how that goes) into the internment camp. It's a recipe for disaster. For humanitarian abuse on an epic scale. It's the point where the controlling authority shrugs its hands and says, "Well if no one else is prepared to take them.......".

I leave the rest to your imagination.

Why as Owen Jones asked on his YouTube posting yesterday, is the Western media not all over this? Why are they not shrieking in outrage.?

I've searched out the details, firstly in the Haaretz headline and subsequently in more detail (Haaretz has a pay wall) in a Guardian Web post. So the information is out there - but only if you dig deep for it. It's thanks to the reportage of Jones and also the guys at Novara Media that I even know about these developments. Trump has been discussing them in his recent meetings with Netenyahu in Washington (Bernie Sanders has been posting on that, saying that the President has been meeting with an indicted war criminal on American soil) and it's been suggested that the corralling of the population in the south will allow some of the clearing and construction of the planned Gaza Tech and Recreation Hub to be initiated in the north.

But again I ask, like Jones, how is it that Sky and the BBC are not all over this? How is it not occupying every front page of every newspaper in the nation? This is ethnic displacement on a massive scale, the public committing of a war crime so egregious that it's almost too big to contemplate. Incredibly some commentators even remark on the plan as if it were a good idea! GBNews commentator Julia Hartley Brewer was certainly prepared to posit the question as to whether the transfer of the Palestinians out of Gaza might not be so bad an idea. Such measures have, she said, been used quite successfully on multiple occasions in the past. I wouldn't even know where to begin to unpick this in its callous stupidly, but it is such commentary that will ultimately allow the West to stand back and watch this atrocity being actualised before our eyes, and do nothing about it.

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Ex Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters has been outspoken on the atrocities being perpetrated in Gaza for some good while.

He's recently gone even further out on a limb by calling for an 'I am Spartacus' moment, and asking people to stand up.

I'd like to be able to tell you more about what he's been saying, but I can't - or at least I haven't the courage to face the possible consequences of doing so.

Again, there isn't any coverage of this in the mainstream media (which, as I've said before, is functionally dead as a source of information as to what is going on, so partial is its content) and I wouldn't expect it. Waters is still a highly respected member of the music establishment - a grand doyen in the field - and what he says will be listened to. It simply wouldn't do for his name to be plastered across the mainstream media, drawing attention to things that our leaderships would far rather we weren't thinking about.

Waters is unlikely to be handed down a custodial sentence for what he's done. It's unlikely that he'll be charged at all: to do so would likely make it much harder for the media to ignore and in that sense would be counterproductive. Thus do the snares the government has created for itself draw in to create yet further problems amongst their coils.

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In a lovely bit of juxtaposition that I don't think the BBC intended, their website this morning features a piece this morning recording that actress/designer Jane Birkin's original Hermes handbag has just gone under the hammer for a whopping 7.4 million pounds - and another telling us that in New York very shortly, the oldest known inscription of the Ten Commandments (est 300-800AD) will also be put to sale. The latter is only expected to pull in a measly couple of million dollars however, which tells us much about the relative values we hold as a society in the wider sense of the word.

Me, I'd rather have the stone tablet any day. I don't even know who Jane Birkin is (was?) and Hermes was the Greek God of messengers (winged sandals and whatnot).

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It was interesting to watch the body language and jockeying between the two vain peacocks Macron and Stamer in London yesterday.

When they appeared outside Downing Street there was the usual paternalistic one-upmanship thing of hand on back placement (the one getting his hand in position appearing the more dominant) which Macron seemed to pull off, and then the being last through the door (remember - a dominant male always ushers a subservient female through first: same rules apply with two male politicians) in which again, Macron seemed to score the goal.

Later in the day I saw Stamer get a sneaky hand onto Macron's shoulder, so I suppose he did score one back, but generally speaking the result was for the French President and the tone of the news coverage seemed to reflect this.

Undoubtedly in the face of a pretty hostile Trump, the UK and France are going to pull closer together and the signs are that the French will dominate the relationship. This was again reflected in the differing attitudes they seemed to display towards the 'one in, one out' agreement on illegal immigrants they reached. Stamer seemed to think that they'd reinvented the wheel; Macron seemed bored. Well, I suppose it's a bigger deal domestically to Stamer than it is to Macron - but you'd think that the latter would have the good grace to show at least some interest (especially since he's the one on a visit, getting all the state pomp and banquets and what have you.

But one thing they could absolutely agree on was that we had to take a more aggressive stance against Russia. Macron seems intent on pushing himself to the fore as the statesman responsible for the protection of Europe - the German guy isn't well known enough yet, and Stamer is also not quite considered a full European leader - not at least in the continental sense - and that leaves Macron in situ as 'the man' of the day. Needless to say the cocky little pipsqueak loves it. His wife should give him another clip round the ear and knock him down to size a bit. (She, by the way, looks more odd by the day. It doesn't matter what science and cosmetic art can achieve, they can't yet turn an old woman into a young one and it looks bizarre when they try. Always.)

Still, it's been a useful tool for avoiding the main story of the day, the Israeli intention to establish the concentration camp in southern Gaza. That's simply not a story that the western media can afford to cover, bringing questions as it would, absolutely to the fore about our role in all of this. I'm so wanting to write to my MP and raise questions like have they been keeping abreast of the television reports on strikes in Gaza and what do they think of our complicity - quite possibly our direct involvement with refuelling of Israeli planes etc - in it? I don't because I'm too afraid to raise my head above the parapet. It's ridiculous isn't it, but there you have it. Novara Media put out a short video yesterday advising on how far we can go with our support for the Palestinian cause and it's pretty frightening stuff. Two women wearing 'Free Palestine' T-shirts were stopped by police the other day and warned that they might - might - be overstepping the law in wearing them. There is chilling evidence of the effect of the recent proscription spreading outwards as the authorities 'get creative' in their application of loosely worded legislation. Certainly posting online is an activity that now demands the greatest of care, where once it could be done with pretty much total freedom. In Germany recently, a state minister said that people must understand that they could no longer post on social media sites in unexpurgated fashion and expect no consequences to result. It is even suggested that criticism of the state and politicians be treated as a treasonous act over there (and quite possibly here as well for all I know.) The truth is, you'll never know where the line is until you've crossed it.

God! I've read diary extracts from people in pre-war Germany who talk about the tightening noose of the state around their society. Personal accounts of how things were seen by individuals, recorded at the time and suddenly, suddenly, this is starting to resemble one of those. I can't tell whether it's me being paranoid or whether this is really happening. Pray God it's the former, but to be on the safe side let's be clear on my position on all of this.

Do I support direct action in respect of the Palestinian cause. No. I think it is counterproductive. Do I want a 'Free Palestine'? I don't even know what that means. I simply want them to be left alone to pursue their own destiny in their own homeland alongside Israel, in accordance with the pre 1967 borders. The two state solution as it is known. Do I think that in the light of what is currently happening in Gaza, my government has a bounden duty to cease provision of all aid, both military and intelligence related, to Israel, and to bring pressure to bear for the immediate restoration of full humanitarian aid, administered at scale to the people of Gaza? Yes absolutely I do. What is happening is an abomination that we as a nation should have no part in, and nor should we stand idle while it is perpetrated. We should join with those other nations who have been sufficiently moved to speak out in the name of humanity and call out Israel for what it is doing. I hope this is clear enough and if it strays beyond a point where I must be found in contempt of the law then so be it.

I simply can't stand seeing all these people killed. Israeli, Gazan, Ukrainian and Russian. I just want it to stop. There are no causes, no land or ideologies, no religions or political parties that are worth this. Any of it.

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The BBC's Jeremy Bowen says he's spoken to senior Western diplomats about their government's nervousness that they may be seen as "complicit in future criminal investigations", if they don't speak up about "the catastrophe inside Gaza."

And well they might be. Given the material hekp that they have provided to Israel, both before and since the October 7th attack, it seems to me that being complicit is probably the least of the charges they might face. More likely active participants I'd think. And it should not be limited to general charges in my mind; there are people behind these decisions and it's people who should stand in the dock in my opinion.

In the same piece Bowen also concludes that given the readiness of Israel to ferry western journalists around the sites of the Hamas driven massacres of that awful day, but their subsequent and continuing ban on the same from entering the Gazan territory, it can only be assumed that in this case, Israel does not want the world to see what it is doing in there. Again, he has it right, but his language is understated. Criminals don't want the world to see what they are doing; of course they don't. It's a statement of the obvious.

Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories (recently sanctioned by the US government for her damning report on the genocide - and she has no hesitation in calling it that) says she has hope that slowly more governments will move towards the position of condemnation of Israel for its activities in Gaza, but I fear it will be too late for the Palestinians to benefit from that. Of more hope (in my amateur opinion) is the recent uptick in the BDS movement, as more and more large companies and official institutions speak out and divest themselves from association with Israel. Of late, the body representing the collective Christian Church has signed up, Norway has removed its sovereign wealth fund from Israeli bonds, and multiple other significant names have joined the list, putting real pressure on the Israeli government to rein in its activities. More than 100 NGO's and charities now lend their names to the movement and it will not take much for such actions to significantly impact the Israeli economy, and perhaps this will work the oracle, where common humanity has failed.

Albanese spoke also of the people of Israel as being the victims of the genocide. It was an interesting take that bears much scrutiny. The unhealed wounds of the Holocaust have, she said, left the people particularly open to manipulation by both internal and external forces, such that they now partake in what is happening without in many cases the same constraints that would apply to populations that don't share their awful history. But still, she said, the toll is terrible. The youth suicide rate is terrible, as the pressure placed on the young is materialised in mental illness and inability to cope. And we in the West are also victims in our own sense. We will bear the burden of this going forward. Our legacy to the future is compromised at least. At greater levels, we are seeing a process that may serve as a blueprint for future conflicts in the world, with no knowledge of where and when such tactics will again be utilised. Never again, it seems, may morph into again and again.

But a question that I'd like to put to our politicians, with their constant refrain that "Israel has the right to defend itself," is, does Palestine also have that right?

And if so, how does the October 7th attack fit into that right?

The people of Gaza have been trapped in the strip for decades. Their access to the outside world cut off and the supply of the goods necessary for the maintenance of life severely restricted. At what point was the world going to step in and extend a hand to lift them out of the straits they had been reduced to? There was no sign of it happening: the world had lost interest in them and their slow-burn death as a people would have gone on unnoticed and un-commented upon had they not done something to change this. Against this backdrop, which one of us might not have crossed that border that day, done some of those terrible things.

These are questions we must ask both ourselves and our leaderships, who have been silent about their plight, allowing this situation to develop, to persist for so long.

But then, why would we help them? We don't even recognise them. Geopolitically as a country, but some people even as a people. Never mind the continuous occupation of a region that goes back into the deep roots of the past, some centuries at least and quite possibly millenia.

So here's yet another question we should ask: why do we, the UK, not recognise Palestine as a nation state? I'm sure they recognise us? I'm sure it was us in the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 that drew up the borders of the British Mandate of Palestine. So surely, when we handed it back to United Nations oversight in 1947/8, the recognition of Palestine as a state must have gone with it? Yet now - and despite a House of Commons vote to do so - we still don't actually recognise them as a sovereign state. Just think how much Kier Stamer could do in one fell stroke to aid their cause, simply by instructing his government to recognise Palestine formally in bilateral agreement. But it isn't going to happen.

But still, I'd like to ask the question why?

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I've always been deeply suspicious of charities.

I'm absolutely sure that there are many individuals who are motivated by nothing more than - well - charity, to set up funds and organisations in order to deal, support or otherwise pay for this or that situation, but I'm also acutely aware that there are many out there who are not simply so inclined, but also have an eye to the....main chance, as it were.

It's often the case no doubt that what starts out with purely altruistic intent, once the money or the possibilities manifest themselves, suddenly becomes prey to the lesser inclinations of human nature.

Look at old 'Captain Tom' of the Covid pandemic fame.

I don't suppose either he or his family ever intended that once the millions started rolling in - money donated to the foundation set up in his name by countless people moved by the daily sight of him tracking backwards and forth on his zimmer frame - that suddenly they'd find themselves administrating a fortune way beyond anything they'd ever envisaged (but such was the power of the lachrymosal coverage by the BBC, playing upon the heartstrings of a population already swooning in manufacured sentimentality by 'clapping for the nurses' on a Thursday night).

And so it was and suddenly, well, all that money has to be administered doesn't it, and at what point should it be expected that one would donate of ones services for free (after all - even the nurses were getting paid for their endeavours weren't they)?

And so began the ignominious decline into compensation packages that were generous to say the least, swimming pools and gyms built on money intended to go for rather more general provision of health than just to the offspring of the now deceased Captain. But this is human nature; and you'll suprised to what extent people can convince themselves that what they are doing is justifiable.

And hey - maybe in our 'get rich, get famous, by good means if you can, but by any means if you can't' society, perhaps it is. Never give a sucker an even break as the saying would have it. Or, there's one born every minute. I was once witness to how the best of intentions by ordinary people can be maniputed by the less worthy motivations of others. A very wealthy lady had left a fortune for her local council to set up an animal charity in her name and a certain individual on the council had out of 'the goodness of his heart' stepped in to administer the gift. In due course a lovely rural property was purchased and the said animal refuge was indeed set up, with guess who living, rent and rate free, in the property. As time progressed and the old council members died away or retired, the ownership of the property became cloudy and uncertain. Had it been intended that the council would own the now actually doing pretty well charity? What about the property? Would it pass to the individual that had been living there, overseeing the 'presentation' (not doing the work you understand - never the work) of the 'business'? Three guesses to the answer to that one.

And so I come to the recent and unpalatable events surrounding the book and film adaptation of The Salt Path.

Presented in the form of a 'triumph over adversity' tale, a discovery of the richness of the world, even in the face of horrific trials, through the simple act of walking, the story has become a cultural phenomenon. Aided by a huge marketing campaign and very public adoption of the story by a media that thrives on such schmaltz, who now doesn't know of the story of Raynor Wynn and her husband Moth, who following the loss of their home and Moth's diagnosis with a 'terminal' degenerative neurological condition, decided walk the Salt Path, the 600 mile South West Coastal Path, from end to end, finding spiritual redemption in the process.

Except that following recent revelations in the Sunday Observer, it appears that there might more to the story than the reading of Wynn's account actually disclosed. Like money embezzled from the business of a family 'friend'....and a terminal diagnosis that seemed to be inexplicably delayed in reaching its terminus.

I don't know how this tale will ultimately spin out - perhaps Wynn will clear her name and all will be well in the end. Time will tell. But as the story has unfolded in the media since the Observer story ran, I just feel a sort of emptiness, a resigned ambivalence about it, "Who knew," style of thing.

Because it just seems to sum everything up. The rottenness at the heart of Denmark. The shallowness of a society that so needs these story's of redemption that it can create them, spin them up out of books and films, without putting in the actual hard miles of verification, of actually establishing that the world really can be that kind, really can give gifts of spiritual fulfillment, even in the face of the most awful of circumstances.

And of course it can. But maybe just not in the flim-flam way of our tissue thin coating of glamour, the bucks-based (always bucks-based) lens of presentation through which everything, even spirit lifting redemption tales, in our society must be presented.

So no suprise to me at least, if The Salt Path turns out to be a shit trail. It just confirms much of what I already know of human nature and the vapid shallowness of the society that we have created, or maybe has been created, around us. I can't even feel particularly bad about Wynn and her husband, if it turns out that they've spun us a line. They've just been following the 'one born every minute' path rather than the Salt one. If we've fallen for it, or our literary, film and media culture has bought into it without doing the necessary checks to validate the unlikelyness of the whole thing, then its okay (except it isn't maybe, because in this world maybe people actually needed this kind of shallow redemption, this candyfloss nonsense, in the way a child needs sweets reassure them that their world is okay, that mummy loves them).

But hey, that's deeper than I'm going here. Because all said and done, Wynn cracked it. Remember. Rich and famous. Good means or bad. Either way, she pulled it off.

-----0-----

I heard an interesting guy talking about the October 7th attack on YouTube yesterday who made, I believe a valid point.

He was saying at what point did he have the right to say how the Palestinians should have acted, what measures they should have taken, in response to the atrocities, the persecution heaped upon them, in the last, what 75 years?

This struck me as a powerful argument.

We constantly hear proviso, in discussions about the Gazan situation, that "Of course we must recognise the atrocity of what Hamas did on October 7th," before any comment about the things Israel are doing are referred to, but this guy was asking, "Why?"

Not ourselves having been present in Gaza, locked in since what, 2007/8 without being able to leave, even if it is only to go perform menial work in the cities of Israel, kept on barely above starvation rations, subjected to regular 'mowing the lawn' episodes, taken hostage, held in camps and brutally tortured and in many cases simply murdered - at what point do we have the right, at what point have we earned, the position from where we can observe on what they should or should not have done in response?

If it were you, your family, your loved ones and neighbours, what would you have done. Now tell me that this man wasn't correct, that we quite possibly don't have the right to have an opinion on this. We can lament it for sure - but to judge it? That is something else.

The same guy also made the observation that you and I are, by virtue of being citizens of our Western countries for which whose polities we bear responsibility, probably amongst the most violent people alive in the world today. Just by getting out of bed and paying our taxes, by our complicity that which our governments are doing, we put ourselves amongst the worst offenders in the world, in terms of distributors of violence. It's only the language with which we are afforded information on what is going on that allows us to turn away each day and pursue our lives as if we were not responsible. Language, he said, is the single most powerful weapon that is being waged in this conflict - a turning upside down of its true purpose which is to convey information. In this case it is being used to twist meaning, to distort understanding and to allow us the freedom to turn away and ignore our responsibility.

And then, when the final bullet has been fired, the final bomb dropped and missile fired - at that point we will engage in the hand-wringing for what we have done. But this also will be part of the plan. The acknowledgement of our guilt so many years down the line, when the object has been achieved anyway. When it is too late to change the outcome for the Palestinians, who will be dead. Already the groundwork is being prepared for this; you see it in the establishment's utterances and lamentations about what is happening. Because these are accompanied by exactly zero action to change anything. It's all part of the plan. It's all part of the plan.

[peter]

There seems to be a new tactic being adopted in Gaza of striking people queueing for food and water.

Twice in the past couple of days have we had reports of such strikes, both killing significant numbers of people with a high proportion of children amongst the victims. The first, hitting a queue for food, killed 34 people and the second ten, who were queueing for water and six of whom were children. Israel has commented that it regrets the civilian casualties which occurred, it said, when a strike against a nearby Hamas target went awry.

But on average around 100 people a day are dying in Gaza. On Saturday it was 92, so a relatively quiet day I suppose. But there is a definite change in the air around the reporting of these horrific statistics: it's as though the media establishment is becoming increasingly aware of its own complicity in this catastrophe and is adjusting its output to distance itself from the crime scene. Still the ambiguous and cynical use of language is in full swing; the large majority of outlets still talk in terms of this being a "war" between Hamas and Israel. When, tell me, did you last see a coordinated strike against Israel? How many battalions has Hamas and where are they situated? We know 100 Palestinians a day are being killed - what about IDF soldiers? In wars don't both sides loose combatants?

But despite the extensive media coverage of the bombing - and the BBC has a whole page of its website dedicated to the 'Israel-Gaza war' every day - it's interesting that not one outlet today, neither printed, online or otherwise, has a single word to say about the significant event happening this week (starting tomorrow in fact) in the Columbian capital Bogota.

Because it is there that tomorrow, the collective of global South countries banded together under the name the Hague Group, are holding their emergency meeting to decide what can be done to enforce the declarations and pronouncements of the ICC, the ICJ, and the United Nations in respect of Israel and its activities in Gaza. In other words, to move the opposition to Israel's genocide from the merely rhetorical, to the practical.

It is significant that this action should come from a collective of the 'weaker' countries of the world, the ones that no-one has normally to take any notice of, because clearly the big movers and shakers of the West are going to do nothing that would put the brakes on the activities of their genocidal ally. And so this alternative grouping of smaller nations has decided to eschew the post war organs of 'maintenance' of international law and order, and to go it alone.

The formative nations of the Hague Group, mainly South American with South Africa joining in, are not much on paper to look at, but they are exhibiting more morality in one day than West has shown in all the days since this murderous destruction of a people has begun. And while still small, still nascent in their objectives, they are attracting the interests of the bigger players, non aligned to the West, as well. Both Russia and China have provisionally expressed interest in the Group's deliberations in Bogota, and will be present in non-membership status at the talks. Together these countries will begin to assess how the international framework of law can be used to bring the perpetrators to justice, but more importantly in the here and now, to bring about a halt to the genocide.

It's no wonder that our media does not deign to notice this movement. Not only is it a direct challenge to the countries of the West and their ruling hegemony over the world, but collectively these countries have teeth with which to bite. They can administer sanctions against Israel, stop trading with it, freeze assets and cease transporting any goods or products associated with the state. They can bring collective legal actions and do significant economic harm to Israel, increasing pressure domestically on the Netenyahu administration.

In other words, this meeting in Bogota could be a big deal, and one from which the Western hegemony could suffer both significant damage to its interests (aligned with Israel's as they are) and reputation. Suddenly the tired and ineffectual organisations such as the United Nations might see other centers of international collectivism growing up, away from their sphere of influence. This is no small thing, and the collective silence of our media might just be our usual contemptuous ignoring of any input on just about anything by the global South, but it might also be reflective of something else - fear.

Remember that beautiful scene at the end of the film Muriel's Wedding, where Muriel and her friend are finally leaving Porpoise Spit to move to the big city, and their old adversaries from school, the pretty, popular girls who everyone loves (but who remain stuck in the sticks) come forward and say, "But you can't ignore us - we're beautiful!", and the pair look at each other and just burst out laughing? Well that's it. The West is only powerful if everyone else agrees that they are. The moment the rest of the world just looks at each other, and laughs, then that power is broken. What is happening in Bogota could be that laugh, and that is the most frightening thing the West can experience. The day that suddenly the rest of the world realises its collective power and suddenly stops playing the Western game.

The Israel genocide could well be the spark that lights that fire,and Bogota the first striking of the match.

[peter]

Sigh.

We've had our run of Gaza news; time now to switch back to Russia-Ukraine. After all, we don't want people getting too familiar with what is being done in that hellscape in order to achieve the eradication of a people do we.

Enter Donald Trump.

"We're going to supply Ukraine with bigger, better, faster stuff than they ever had before! It's going to be beautiful because we make the best stuff in the world and Europe is going to pay for it! How good is that! And if Putin doesn't agree to a ceasefire in 50 days it's 100 percent tariffs on Russia and any countries that deal with it (China and India - I'm looking at you)."

So switch away Western media. Volta face! One! Two! Three! Four! (Now quick, Bibi - get what you want done while the cameras are pointing away.)

And Lisa Nandy - culture minister in Kier Stamer's neoconservative Labour government and ex chairman of the Labour Friends of Palestine under whose watchful eye it was allowed to "wither and die" according to a colleague member, who said she was not interested in it in the slightest - she's up in arms over the BBC.

The BBC who showed an independently produced documentary one time before it was pulled, that had a child of a low ranking government technocrat narrating the story of Gazan children since October 7th, because in doing so (even though the child was reading from a script and nothing of any political significance was said by him) they were 'breaking their code of impartiality'.

Lisa Nandy, the stalwart Friend of Palestine who conducted secret meetings with the Ambassador for Israel Tzipi Hotovely - who denies that Israel are killing children in Gaza and says that the two state solution is over - now thinks the BBC chairman should be sacked (the BBC chairman who should never have been elected in the first place, buddy of Boris Johnson as he was)....

And so it goes on. The bullshit and the manipulation and the twisting of narratives to serve the ends that you want them to.

And none of it matters a fuck. Because the only thing the self styled president of peace is doing there is to bring the world closer to nuclear armageddon (if he really intends to supply Ukraine with missiles to strike deep into Russia at armaments producing facilities), lining the pockets of the arms manufacturers and their shareholders, and guaranteeing that the forever wars he campaigned against go on until one day they don't because it's difficult to fight with a mushroom growing above your head. Needless to say, the warmongers of the EU and NATO are virtually wanking each other off at the thought of all that lovely war being extended ad infinitum.

And who gives a fuck about BBC impartiality when Palestinians are dying by the bus load every day and our government, responsible for the whole godawful mess in the first place, is still supplying the arms and intelligence upon which Israel relies in order to commit its genocide as we speak. C'mon Nandy - let's hear your opinion on that bit of your government's activity. Not of course that the BBC has been impartial in any way other than in the direct opposite of the direction that you claim in all of this. It's been shown by studies, as if to anyone watching, it needed to be.

-----0-----

Ex swimming champion and commentator Sharon Davis (Davies?) is to say today (how do we know this, I'd like to know, but the Telegraph says it is so) that if transgender women are allowed to continue to compete in women's sports such as swimming, tennis and weightlifting (weightlifting?) the governing bodies of these sports will face prosecution.

Whatever, but is there such a thing as a transgender woman anymore? I thought that recent ruling in a court did away with the idea that men who had undergone tampering around with their hormones and wedding tackle etc were, post messing about, women? Didn't the ruling say that there was only two biological sexes, male and female, and that an individual would always remain in the eyes of the law, that sex in which they were born into.

Surely in this interpretation there is only male and female, men and women? Shouldn't a transgender individual be no more (or less) than that - an individual? Not a transgender woman or a transgender man, but a transgender individual? I don't see this as a lessening in any way of their status. But I don't think that under the new rules in particular, society should be made to play the transgender game of accepting that these people can transform into real men, real women anymore. It was a nonsense in the first place and it remains a nonsense now.

As Doctor Robert Winston said before he was dropped by the BBC for doing so, your sex is hardwired into every cell of your body from day one of your existence. Nothing, but nothing in the world can change this and it's a futile and childish exercise not to be able to accept this reality.

(Incidentally, I haven't been talking about the Gaza ceasefire that the news has been reporting on because I thought it was just a stupid smokescreen. There was never any intention that any ceasefire would be permanent on the Israeli part - hence the Hamas requirement that it would be, which needless to say, the Israeli's would not wear. At best it was a ruse for Netenyahu to get a few more hostages returned and keep himself in office for a bit longer. His domestic ratings have been slipping of late and need a bit of bolstering. Even had the ceasefire been agreed - and this is looking increasingly unlikely - it'd only have held until the hostages were exchanged and then Israel would have broken it.

But as one commentator said recently, it wouldn't make any difference anyway. The genocide will go on, ceasefire or otherwise. It's now so hardwired into Netenyahu's plans that nothing is going to stop it. In fact, there's the suggestion that it'd actually help, because the IDF has apparently said openly that it cannot construct the concentration camp (they call it the humanitarian zone or something) in the south without a cessation in the bombing and raiding activities.

So against this backdrop it seemed pointless to waste time discussing the proposals anyway.)

Bad post today. Sorry about that. It's the best I can muster against an attack of ennui that seems to have got me in its grip.

[peter]

Do you remember that ambush that Trump and his Vice President carried out on Zelensky, when the President told him he was playing with starting World War 3? Well according to the Financial Times this morning, subsequent to announcing the biggest supply increase in arms to Ukraine since Biden left office, in a recent telephone conversatio between the two, Trump asked Zelensky if he could "strike Moscow if the US provided long range weapons."

Talk about playing with fire - I mean that this is the kind of talk that could really get us all blown to shit.

Let's just post a direct quote from the article to make sure we have the right measure of this thing. Entitled Trump urged Zelensky to strike into Russia and asked if Moscow could be hit, the article reads

Donald Trump has privately encouraged Ukraine to step up strikes inside Russia, and even asked Vlodomyr Zelensky if he could strike Moscow if the US provided long range weapons, say people briefed on the talks.

That's my italics at the end because I want to draw attention to the point that this (it is purported) comes right from the center.

The article goes on to say that the conversation, held during the July 4th celebrations, marks a complete about face on Trump's previous position and underscores the President's frustration with the Russian leader in the latters refusal to play ball with his (Trump's) peace initiatives. Trump had held a telephone conversation with Putin the day earlier which he described as "bad."

The report goes on, apparently giving an actual slice of the conversation between the two leaders.

"Vlodomyr, can you hit Moscow? Can you hit St Petersbuurgh too?" Trump asked on the call, say the people (those people again - my parentheses), "Absolutely, we can if you give us the weapons."

Trump then by accounts, said that he wanted Russia to feel some pain in order to force the Kremlin to negotiate.

All of which seems pretty clear. The President has apparently gone stark raving bonkers and is threatening to take us all down into the abyss with him. I mean it's pretty hard to put any other interpretation onto it. Putin has repeatedly said what the Russian response will be in the event of long range strikes being made into Moscow and other cities. That he will consider the supplier of the arms with which the attack has been carried out as bearing responsibility for it and on this basis, a justified target in any return attack. There is no reason not to believe him in this. Trump is playing with fire.

The call, said one western official, was reflective of the Ukrainian allies desire that the conflict should be etended by "brining the war to the Muskovites" via the provision of longer range missiles.

So much would seem straightforward then insofar as there suddenly seems to be a desire in the Whitehouse to ramp things up where previously this was thought as being recklessly dangerous.

But hang on - are things as they seem?

I do a little searching to see if there is anything else out there and my first hit brings up the following.

The Financial Times story hit their website 21 hours ago, but 10 hours ago the Telegraph website comes forward with this. "Trump rules out long range missiles for Ukraine," and only 54 minutes ago the Independent website returns with this; "Ukraine war: Trump tells Zelensky not to target Moscow after discussing strikes."

Talk about confusing! If I'm confused, just imagine what President's Putin and Zelensky must be experiencing!

But I imagine that by now, both men realise that Trump is seriously in something similar to the Biden state of meltdown: he covers it better but basically he has no comprehension of what he is saying, and how it ties up with anything he has said on any previous day. And this, for the men who are trying to juggle with eggs in their response to this senile geriatric cannot but be highly dangerous. That such an individual has his finger on the button of the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world is concerning to say the least, but I believe that the USA has pretty robust measures for dealing with even this unusual eventuality. I expect that they have a sort of 'playpen' done up to make the President think he's calling the shots, akin to one of those high end little toy cars that look like the real thing but in miniature size. It might even be centered around a big red button with a sign over it reading, Do not press unless you are the President of the United States.

Alas, I can't read the Telegraph article - it's behind a pay wall - but the Independent one seems as confused as I am. They refer to the FT article, but say that now Trump has said exactly the opposite in public, that Ukraine should not target Moscow. This was said in an interview given on the Whitehouse lawn, and the Independent reports that Trump is considering supplying Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles of the type recently used in the attack on Iran. Needless to say, this flies in the face of what the Telegraph reported only hours before.

Such is the fog of confusion that exists outside the President's mind, entirely reflective of that which exists apparently within it.

If the major msm news outlets can't get a handle on what is going on, how in flips name are the rest of us supposed to get a grip of it?

I give up. I'll go and read some Kant or something as a bit of light relief.

[peter]

You would have thought that something as significant as Donald Trump asking Vlodomyr Zelensky if he could strike Moscow and St Petersbuurgh with long range missiles might have made the main news bulletin of the day yesterday? But no, it seems like the squabbles between Kier Stamer and Kemi Badenoch over who shares most blame for the debacle of leaked details of Afghanistani personnel working with us during our disastrous stint in the country took precedence over the potential end of the world.

But the news did make it through that Israel is up to its tricks again, bombing the crap out of the Syrian capital and even hitting the defence ministry buildings and presidential palace in the process.

Of course they're doing it out of an altruistic desire to protect the Druze community who by accounts have been subjected to attack and atrocity since the new regime took power in the Western cooked up overthrow of the old dictator, Bashir Al Assad back in December 2024. That would be the overthrow where we paired up with our old 'enemies' Al Queda and Isis and installed the head chopper that is now leading the country, and apparently unable to stop or actively behind the said atrocities which so upset the Israeli's that they feel moved to dive in with missiles and bombs the shit out of everything in sight.

Of course it's nothing to do with the old Israeli idea of split, divide and conquer; the process that has worked so well elsewhere in which you break up countries into smaller areas controlled by different groups, set those groups against each other, and sit back and either pick up the pieces or just watch the country fall into chaos and carnage. Buried in the FT reporting of the bombing this morning we have just the clue that this might be somewhere in the thinking behind the attacks.

Turkish and Arab officials have repeatedly criticised Israel's interventions, saying they are undermining efforts to stabilise country that is home to multiple sects.

You don't say!

Of course all of this is going to be pretty embarrassing for the Kier Stamer government who but a matter of days ago re-engaged diplomatic relations with Syria, and with whose president Ahmed al-Sharra our own Foreign Secretary David Lammy was seen but a couple of days before, pressing flesh.

There's no mention of that embarrassing fact in the news reports however and in fairness to the Syrian leader it does seem that situation down in the south of the country where Israel has also been concentrating its attacks is running out of (certainly his) control.

There has been four days of sectarian violence raging in Sweida in the country's south, with Druze militia fighting against both Bedouin tribes and the Syrian security forces. Israel's words that it is acting in protection of the Druze loose some credibility in the face of its attacks in the capital itself, which seem more directed against destabilising the newly installed nascent leadership than protecting any given faction. Of course, Israel and the Christian forces in the Middle East have history. It was the Christian militia of the Lebanese Forces that the IDF stood aside for and allowed the massacres at Shabra and Shatila to occur back in 1982.

President Ahmed al-Sharra has himself been pretty restrained on the subject. He's condemned what Israel has done as "criminal and illegal", but he's going to be painfully aware that to be overly aggressive in his response (even verbally, never mind in terms of taking retaliatory action against Israeli forces themselves) would be to sign his own death warrant. The house of cards he has built for himself is looking increasingly shakey with each passing day, and I don't personally see how he can survive long. It was never Israel's intention that Syria stabilise post Assad - that doesn't serve its long term goals of regional dominance in the slightest. Client governments or chaos is the order of the day in their playbook. It remains to be seen whether this is the beginning of Turkey's loosing patience with Israel: the country does very well by selling Israel the oil that fuels its war machine, but even that has its limits.

And Egypt as well. There are lots of people in the region all ready to step into this fray if it should be deemed unavoidable (none that actually want to, but many that will if necessary). Even Israel with its formidable military advantages has its limits, and one can only assume that it relies absolutely on the assumption that America will always step in to save the day if it is needed to - an assumption in which it is most probably correct.

But our politicians are noticeable in their lack of having anything to say on the subject. I don't wonder if that is suddenly why this Afghanistan super-injunction was lifted by the court right at this most oportune time. Remember that bit of advice that when all of the media is united in saying to you, "Look - look at this!", that this is the moment that you most need to be looking elsewhere for what you are not supposed to be seeing? Well this is one of those moments. That injunction by the courts preventing the media from disclosing the data breach of Afghanistani helpers againsitt the Taliban didn't have to be lifted right now. The defence minister chose this moment to do this. And even the media has been wondering why. It's a dead cat bounce - be sure of it - the only question is what are we being distracted away from. I'd hazard a guess it's this Syrian thing. Israel being at odds with the new leadership that we've done so much to clean up and make presentable (clipped beard, new suit, no mention of head chopping please), acting to destabilise him, possibly unseat him and leave a trail of chaos in their wake - it doesn't look good. Even the British public are not so stupid as to miss that incongruity. ie How can we support both Israel in everything they do, and at the same time watch them blow away the chances of Syria setting itself up after its bruising period of Assad's tem in power - a setting up that we have been so visibly in support of. The lack of coherence between the two arms of our foreign policy is too overt to be missed should the media give it any attention.