Israel's Blockade of Gaza

The remarkably inept interdiction at sea by Israel of an aid convoy headed for Gaza, has highlighted a number of issues wrt the blockade and their handling of the interdiction.

1 The 20 mile sea cordon sanitaire around Gaza is not recognised by anyone other than Israel.

2 When intercepting a ship at sea the rules of the game are that you contact the captain and, if he refuses, the country that "flagged" the ship (in this case it is some flag of convenience). Israel did not do that.

3 The interception took places 40 miles outside Gaza (ie in international waters, outwith the Israel cordon).

In short, aside from the loss of life, Israel has not handled this well and will suffer serious "blowback".

The Lesson of History

I understand that Tony Blair is “dismayed” that President Bush has rejected the UK’s call for an American led monitoring force, to be deployed as a buffer zone between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

The rationale for Tony Blair’s proposal was based on the knowledge that Israel would never accept a UN led force.

However, he ignored the other side of the equation; namely:

• The USA already has large numbers of its forces committed around the world, eg Iraq to name but one place, these commitments are overstretching its resources.



• President Bush is standing for re-election, and will do nothing to antagonise the Jewish vote.

In view of the above, the USA would not have deemed Tony Blair’s proposal to be in its interest; no matter how well intentioned. Therefore it rejected it.

PM Blair felt, that after his support for the US invasion of Iraq, he was owed some form of payback. He ignored the lesson of history, that when dealing with the USA, the USA will always do whatever is in its own national self interest.

This is as true today, when dealing with President Bush; as it was in the Second World War when dealing with FDR, or during the Suez crisis when dealing with Eisenhower.

I do not understand why Blair is “dismayed”, ignore the lesson of history at your peril.

What Use Is Religion?

Mankind throughout the millennia has believed in one, or many, omnipotent beings; who have the power to influence events on earth, and create a spiritual paradise or hell in the supposed afterlife.

These omnipotent beings have been given many names including; Allah, Apollo, God, Osiris and Zeus to name but a few.

The one strand of commonality that links them is that they all, according to those who believe in them, require to be acknowledged and worshipped; thereby necessitating the creation of religions, designed and instigated by mankind.

These religions, by the very fact that they are human creations, contain all the faults and weaknesses of the human character including; vanity, aggression, pride, greed, lust and envy.

Many religions claim to be tolerant; yet their actions, in asserting their own dominance, belie this assertion. Taking three “mainstream” religions as an example; Christianity has throughout the centuries sought to convert the heathen, extreme Islam seeks to eliminate the infidel and fanatical Judaism seeks sole occupancy for those of the Jewish faith of the land in and around Israel.

Throughout mankind’s history, wars have been fought in the name of whatever omnipotent being of the day was believed to be in charge.

In short organised religion, because it is organised by humans, is used as a means to extend the baser instincts and desires of human nature.

There are individuals, such as rabbis, priests and mullahs who seek to do good and to comfort those in distress. However, they do this out of their own inherent sense of decency and affection for their fellow man; not because of the decency of their particular organised religion.

Even those who claim to believe in the same omnipotent being, such as Christians, manage to find ways to use religion against each other. A fine example of this is the animosity between catholics and protestants in Northern Ireland; they so loath each other that they choose to live apart in segregated areas of their cities.

Mankind will always look for ways to factionalise itself, and fight one another; religion has given it another means to do this.

Should an omnipotent being exist, I doubt very much that he/she would wish to be associated with this.

Therefore I ask, “What use is religion?”

The Enemy Within

I understand that certain school boards in the USA have banned large numbers of books, and study literature, from the curriculum that contain particular words and subjects. Amongst these offensive words and subjects are the following (those that are of a nervous disposition should turn away now):

 Dinosaurs-some people don’t believe in evolution.

 Harry Potter-the characteristics of curiosity and heroism are considered to be gender biased.

 Mountains-these are considered to be unfair subject matter for those pupils who do not live near mountains.

 Mickey Mouse-some people dislike rodents.

I shall stop there; however the list, apparently, goes on and on.

Why have these seemingly innocuous words and subjects become taboo?

The bodies controlling the subject matter deemed fit for stimulating, moulding and educating young minds have, in my opinion, taken the coward’s route when setting the curriculum. They have chosen to avoid confrontation with single issue fanatics, those elements of society who possess closed minds to the people and society around them.

These fanatics cannot tolerate the slightest question to be raised against their inward looking, narrow minded view of themselves and the world. When challenged the fanatics will act like a child throwing a tantrum; and through all the channels available in a free society, media litigation etc, seek to drown out the voice of the people or organisation that dares to challenge their views.

This avoidance of confrontation may give the regulators of education a short term respite from the stress of having to perform their role as educators. However, it stores up trouble for the future. I draw your attention to some of the following lessons from history:

 George Orwell, in his most insightful novel 1984, painted a terrifying vision of a society where words were erased by the state’s thought police in order to control what people could think. The restriction of thought restricts peoples’ ability to question the status quo, this in turn ensures that the state can maintain is control over the population and by definition its grip on power.

 The USA passionately believes in freedom of speech, it has demonstrated this many times, for example; fighting Nazi Germany, standing firm against communism and ousting the Baath government from Iraq. These regimes all controlled peoples’ access to literature, they were afraid of independent thought that would question their right to hold office.

 The USA has introduced a road map to peace in the Middle East which envisages the Palestinians and Israelis living peacefully side by side. This implies a belief in the principles of religious tolerance, whereby Islam and Judaism respect each others beliefs.

The cowardly policy of the education boards has the following consequences and paradoxes:

 The control of educational literature in this absurd manner is in direct contradiction to the beliefs and actions of the USA in its foreign policy, as outlined above.

 The policy of the education boards parallels that of the Orwellian dictatorship.

 Restricting the variety and choice of stimulating literature available to young minds will produce a generation of illiterate, unsophisticated and unimaginative cretins; who will oversee the stagnation of the creative drive and energy that has brought the USA to the pre-eminent position it holds in the world today.

 The lack of challenge and variety in the literature offered to pupils will produce a generation that is intolerant of other peoples’ ideas, way of life and religious beliefs. Is that not the very form of society that the Pilgrim Fathers emigrated from all those centuries ago? Indeed, is that not the form of society that the civil rights marchers of the 1960’s fought to eradicate?

I urge the people, and the leadership, of the USA to take heed and to stand up to the feeble minded bureaucrats who seek to undermine the intellectual and cultural base of the USA.

The hard lesson that the Nazis taught us was that where first you burn books, you next burn people.

The freedoms that you take for granted were hard fought for, the price of these freedoms is eternal vigilance.