thank heavens for the BBC

Every week BBC Radio 4 broadcasts a phone-in programme called 'Any Answers', which allows listeners to respond to the panel-show 'Any Questions', which features politicians and other prominent people airing their views on topical subjects. 'Any Answers' was dominated by Israel and its depravity in Gaza. For the 20 minutes of the programme I heard, one listener or e-mailer after another condemned unreservedly Israeli's brutal suppression of the Palestinian people. They talked of the occupation of Palestinian lands, the settlements and the daily humiliation of Palestinians in their own lands that they have occupied for millenia. They spoke of the awful power of the US Jewish lobby, which dominates lobbying in the States and is responsible for making Israel the superpower it undoubtedly is. They wondered how Obama could possibly be free from this lobby. They spoke of the perfect right of Iran to act as a balance to Israel in the Middle East. They pointed out that Iran has not made a point of invading its neighbours or bombing other countries. Israel and the US have a long history of invading and bombing whoever they feel like. As superpowers they can value their security beyond the lives and rights of others, so they do. They can bomb a country simply for their own security needs.

I could go on, for this programme, which is committed to broadcasting a balanced range of views, threw up many fascinating perspectives, not one of which condoned Israeli brutality.

I have tried repeatedly to understand Israel and my latest theory, for what it is worth, is that it is comparable with the abuser of children (for which read the 300 or 400 children it has killed in Gaza). Abusers are frequently people who have themselves been abused. The Jews were more abused than most other races in history, but now they have themselves become the abuser. Their behaviour has awful parallels with the Nazis, a point amplifed by a senior Vatican spokeman who compared Gaza with a concentration camp: the people there are denied jobs, movement, basic supplies, their houses are raised to the ground, UN compounds supplying water, etc. are deliberately targeted. In what way was this spokesman wrong to say what he did?

Israel is a country we should all condemn. It is barbaric, cruel, imperialistic, intolerant, self-righteous, messianic. We should also condemn America for creating this monster.

Israel and a chink of light

Israel aircraft dropped thousands of leaflets on areas of Gaza near the Egyptian boarder, telling ordinary Palestinians to leave their homes as they were about to destroy them. More refugees, though quite where they're supposed to go nobody knows. A school is destroyed and thirty people killed because its grounds were once used by a mortar team from Hamas (we can see a video of it on youtube, accompanied by mind-boggling Israeli propaganda). No doubt if terrorists used Westminster Abbey grounds to attack the Houses of Parliament the RAF would raise it to the ground, plus any unfortunate people within.

We are past expecting civilised conduct from Israel.

The chink of light is Obama. I know we all have great hopes of him after the vengeful, self-interested, militaristic policies of his born-again-Christian predecessor, but on Israel I had the impression from his election website that he favoured the country and planned to pour huge sums of money into it. Fortunately, the latest information is that he intends to open lines to Hamas, though not through direct diplomatic channels. If this is indeed true it is welcome. Israel is incapable of rational or intelligent thought where its security is concerned, but in the end it is only by talking and negotiation that the future of the Middle East can be settled. This is how Britain ended the so-called Troubles in Northern Ireland. Not by laying waste to Irish towns and villages, occupying southern Irish land, building settlements, laying siege to Donegal, humiliating Irish people on their way to work, imprisoning politicians, etc.

Tomorrow the people of Dublin have a chance to voice their protest against the genocide in Gaza. I do hope the march is well attended. It starts at 1.00 p.m. at the Central Bank in the centre of Dublin. It will end at the Israeli Embassy (122 Pembroke Broad, D4). There are similar actions throughout Ireland this week.