Gaza October 2023

October 7th: Hamas fighters used hang gliders to cross Israel's border and attack a festival. 1,400 people were reported killed or taken hostage. Israel (under Netanyahi) lost their shit and started retaliating almost immediately and things have been increasingly nasty ever since. Internationally, the mantra has been "Israel has the right to defend itself". The American president, Britain's Prime Minister and the EU council have all parrotted that statement. Meanwhile MASS protests e.g. an estimated 500,000 people in London are taking place across the world as citizens show their support of Gaza.

Israel says it understands that Hamas is not Palestine, but that has not stopped them cutting off power, water, food and medicines to the people of Gaza whilst they and, to drop thousands of bombs and missiles onto a population that is trapped by Israeli checkpoints and restrictions.

Israel instructed two million Gazans to flee south in two days and that route was then bombed- but not by Israel they claim.

A hospital was hit mid week causing 500 casualties. Israel claimed it was a Hamas bomb and that has been accepted by some, despite claims that Hamas does not possess bombs able to create such damage, that Israel warned the hospital it was a potential target as a suspected Hamas hide out, and there is video evidence which challenges that narrative.

Israeli politicians are leading the charge against anyone who DARES to criticise their actions by labelling them "antisemitic". Israel's ambassador to UK makes my flesh creep: I understand her need to present 'the party line' but to watch her calmly claim 'there is no humantarian crisis in Gaza' and, when shown film of traumatised children in makeshift hospitals, she glibly says it is the sole responsibility of Hamas.

I have no love to the current leader of the Labour party, his response which was to repeat the "Israel has a right to defend itself" mantra. When pressed on the morality of cutting off power, water etc, he doubled down; insisting they have the right to do that. He ignored the convention of "Collective Punishment" against a population because of the actions of part of that population which is a War Crime. More importantly; there was widespread condemnation from within the Labour party: Muslim councillors resigned en masse and Stamer's attempts at damage limitation went beautifully wrong when he rocked up to a Mosque in Birmingham with cronies and a photographer before misrepresenting the meeting to suggest he had the support of the Imam and his congregants who were forced to issue a statement challenging the narrative Starmer attempted to attribute to them. -That led to even more people losing faith in him and saying so and, to him making a subsequent statement which, rather than apologising or retracting, tried to claim that listeners had not heard him correctly. This gave people the opportunity to share details of Starmer's record so far: of the pledges he made when standing for election he has reneged on ALL of them.

Some hope he will stand down, I think that is a forlorn hope: I think there is no way he will voluntarily relinquish any ground he has gained. Jeremy Corbyn has stood out as usual for his calls for peace. It must be galling for Starmer who has tried so hard to destroy the man he once claimed was his friend, to see Corbyn's popularity undiminished and probably eclipsing his own. Corbyn's reputation as an honest man and a peacemaker is in stark contrast to Starmer. People who have criticised Starmer have been castigated for potentially "letting the Tories win" i.e. forget any misgivings and vote Labour. I am pleased that more people are now thinking 'fuck that'! but also worried that the anti Tory vote will be split so much that the Tories ARE allowed to retain power.

Yesterday the Israelis started their ground offensive. I think more than 7,000 Palestians, almost half of them children have been killed so far. Israel has no endgame for this except perhaps the complete ethnic cleansing of the area.

It must be noted that significant protests by Jewish people against their government have also happened. Orthodox Jews do not accept the validity  of the Jewish state in the first place as their god has not given them permission to return after the destruction of the second Temple.