You can go on a little holiday with the Conservative Friends of Israel and return with a mindset about the current carnage in Gaza. Or, you can spend 30 years covering the Middle East as a foreign correspondent and come to the conclusion that simple solutions to complex problems are just trite.
The blood-splattering has its own routine. Yes, Hamas provoked Israel’s anger, just as Israel provoked Hamas’s anger, which was provoked by Israel, which was provoked by Hamas, which … See what I mean? Hamas fires rockets at Israel, Israel bombs Hamas, Hamas fires more rockets and Israel bombs again and … Got it? And we demand security for Israel – rightly – but overlook this massive and utterly disproportionate slaughter by Israel.
At the end of Iain Dale’s piece we see the shocking disparity between Gordon Brown’s dreadful unequivocal support of the Israelis and William Hague’s much more balanced point of view. And finally, as Robert Fisk says…
Not a whimper from Tony Blair, the peace envoy to the Middle East who’s never been to Gaza in his current incarnation. Not a bloody word.
Nor from George W. Bush… the man who said he would make a Middle East peace settlement his lasting legacy. If you weren’t crying, you might just laugh.
Update: Of all the comments, on all of the blogs in all of the world… this takes the biscuit:
At December 29, 2008 9:53 AM , Blogger Iain Dale said…
Nick, Gaza is Israeli territory. Israel withdrew from it in 2005. I’d love to know how you can say Israel has occupied another country – or is it that you don’t thinK Israel has a right to exist?
See Beau Bo D’Or on The Mainly Dale.
And so, you solution is . . . ?
I have no intention of offering some trite solution to the middle east problem in a couple of lines on a blog. However, what I am fairly certain of is that bombing the people of Gaza will no more solve the problems than the firing of rockets by Hamas. The people of London did not respond to the blitz by throwing their hands in the air and surrendering. It hardened their resolve. Why should anyone think the Palestinians are any different. The price of this weekends killings will be paid for in blood shed by innocent people far and wide from the borders of the Gaza Strip.
Dear Mr Piper,
Why are you swallowing this nonsense about “no comment from Blair”? Because it came from the agenda’d Robert Fisk, by any chance? The man so wrapped up in his own thoughts and words that he fails to keep an eye out for those of others? Or would like to fool us into a certain judgement?
Mr Blair spoke on this on Saturday, as the Israelis first attacked. He called on BOTH sides to cease attacks. Of course that balanced call does not sit comfortably with those who pushed him out after the Lebanon attack, does it? Fisk would have been the first to report it if Blair had ONLY said the Hamas militants should stop their (almost) daily rocket launches.
The information is to be found at his website.
http://tonyblairoffice.org/2008/12/tony-blair-urges-restoration-o.html
And you can find it here too at my blog.
http://keeptonyblairforpm.wordpress.com/2008/12/28/tony-blairs-call-to-both-sides-calm-tahdiya-new-strategy-for-gaza/
Yes, some of us appreciate and appreciated Mr Blair and all he did and tried to do for Britain. And some of us, me included, were not even Labour members.
“Yes, some of us appreciate and appreciated Mr Blair and all he did and tried to do for Britain. And some of us, me included, were not even Labour members.”
Errr probably Tories which says a lot about Bliar…
” have no intention of offering some trite solution”
Well, that’s a relief!
“bombing the people of Gaza will no more solve the problems than the firing of rockets by Hamas”
I don’t think it’s meant to “solve the problem”, only stop rockets being fired randomly into Israel which, when you think about it, is an intolerable situation for any government to put up with. So why weren’t you blogging on the subject of the rockets, and the unilateral end of the ceasefire by Hamas?
And you can find it here too at my blog.
http://keeptonyblairforpm.wordpress.com/2008/12/28/tony-blairs-call-to-both-sides-calm-tahdiya-new-strategy-for-gaza/
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Wow – someone even more stupid than Brainless Bob.
Duffy, that’s a stupid question, even by your own very low standards.
Bob is right, what do you expect the people to do. I dont recall if dale went to Gaza on his trip or not, but if he did unless he is blind he would have seen one of the great humanitarian calamities of recent times.
When you starve a people, when you confine them to ghettos for voting in elections, when you cut of their heat and light, when you take their taxes and then withhold the distribution of those taxes, when you fly aircrafts over the most densely populated place on earth with the intent of causing sonic noises to unsettle the residents, when you refuse to allow any serious aid, when you stop medicines and doctors from crossing the border, when you have done this and you are shocked to find out that the people harbor resentment regardless of your words about peace , then YOU are wrong.
The people of Israel, the non likudniks anyway, KNOW what it is like to have been confined to ghettos and remember the misery and tragedy that resulted.
Bob is right there is no trite answer and Dales posturing is pathetic.
I do know this if Israel attempt a ground war, they will lose.
“Duffy, that’s a stupid question, even by your own very low standards.”
So how come you find it so difficutl to answer? Are you going to force me to search your entire blog for one single mention of the iniquity of Hamas firing indiscriminately 6,000 rockets in 3 years into Israel. Your silence is deafening!
Read this Bob…
The sound of Gaza burning should be drowned out by the words of the Israeli writer Larry Derfner. He says: “Israel’s war with Gaza has to be the most one-sided on earth… If the point is to end it, or at least begin to end it, the ball is not in Hamas’s court, it is in ours.”
From Jonathan Hari: The true story behind this war is not the one Israel is telling, The Independent, London, Monday, 29 December 2008
Johann, I nearly used the reference to your article as well as Robert Fisk’s. Excellent stuff.
Duffy…. save me trawling… where is the reference on your blog to the 6,000 rockets? Or the reference to the inhumane blockade of Gaza? Does the fact that you have remained silent on it mean it is not an issue? It would make more interesting reading than your bending down and offering your bare arse to the US to allow them to use you as their bitch.
You may love Dummy Bush and his gangster cohorts, but surely even you have the brains to see the obscentity of this one-sided ‘war’.
Or not.
Liam, were you pointing to Harry’s Place as an example of a balanced and reasonable point of view? If so, have you lost your marbles? Why not point to the BNP site for an argument against immigration.
I keep reading about, in relation to criminal justice matters, ‘what about the victims?’. Here we have Israel bombing the hell out of 5 innocent sisters. Not satisfied with this slaughter of the innocents Israel announces it is stepping up its attacks. Am I to understand that Iain Dale is friendly with the kind of people engaged in this act of barbarity?
“Duffy…. save me trawling… where is the reference on your blog to the 6,000 rockets?”
So I’ll take that as a ‘no’ to my question as to when, if ever, you have raised a fuss about Hamas rockets. And, no, you will not see any condemnatory posts from me against *either* side. It’s a war, and in war nations do what they have to do. I couldn’t care less about any of them, as such, but I support Israel on the basis that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. None of that stops me pointing up cant and humbuggery when I see it – as above! War is neither obscene or noble, it is what it is, just part and parcel of the human condition.
In the meantime, please excuse my hurried exit towards the bathroom as I try to hold down the vomit, but the sight of the ‘Jailhouse Murderer’ waxing lyrical on the subject of innocent female victims is too much to bear. (Honestly, Bob, the company you keep!)
Ah… I see. Anyone else who shamelessly bears their arse to the US is you friend too.
Am I not surprised?
Bob, the Falklands are Argentine territory, they withdrew from them in 1982.
Oh, hang on, I see what you mean now.