Why am I feeling very pessimistic and genuinely fearful for the next generation?
I hate the divisiveness of this conflict, it is a human rights issue and it started years before the dreadful murders of the 6/7 October. Before that weekend, one population has been dispossessed of its lands, and moved either into miserably overcrowded ‘refugee camps’ or marooned into a ghetto [I don't believe that any other word is suitable] and subject to a 16 year blockade which has reduced a stateless population to utter misery, and without hope, and without any real support in the wider world. Who was posting about these things before the 6th October? The silence was deafening. International Law has been ignored at every turn and the world’s only super power gives unilaterally allegiance and arms to Israel. If one takes the words Israeli and Palestinian out of the equation and substitute them for Nation A and Nation B people are horrified at the sufferings of Nation B notwithstanding the history of racism perpetrated against Nation A. The USA even blocked a proposal that their be a ‘cessation of fighting’ at the UN. Where is our humanity?
The West through the British Mandate and through the machinations of the UN helped create Israel as a way of dealing with its guilt over centuries of Western anti semitism and the refugees created by Nazism, I think the dream of a nation where Jews could live free from racism and as a beacon to other nations has failed. How many of us as young people wanted to visit Israel and work in a kibbutz, I know I did, it was a very idealistic society but over time the idealism seems to have been replaced with a very violent and racist underbelly, and its racism is directed at Arabs, be they Christian or Muslim. Now it seems to be about a land grab where only people claiming Jewish ancestry have any rights. Yes it will tolerate Western holidaymakers especially of the evangelical Christian persuasion, but it will not tolerate any Arabs living on the land. Netanyahu and his present cabinet contain some truly appalling people, who are trying to destroy Israeli democracy. A political settlement is the only way peace will be established. It requires all the protagonists to negotiate. It requires compromise and a respect for international law. It requires political will, it will require the USA to demand certain things of Israel and I cant see that happening anytime soon.
We are heading to an abyss over the Middle East and the so called ‘Muslim world’. We have the Saudis and their genocidal war in Yemen, which should be a cause of immense public outrage, but as usual we are not bothered about this genocide. Paraphrasing Trump after the murder of Jamal Khasoggi, ‘we do too much business with these guys to do anything’. We have the Saudis and their hands on the distribution and price of oil. We have the Saudis and their policy of creating and funding extremism elsewhere in the world. Accepting Saudi money seems to lead to lower standards in public life. When violent oppressive regimes control the purse strings, people seem to lose sight of right and wrong, they compromise their beliefs they start to tolerate what should not be tolerated.
The states surrounding Israel: Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan cannot cope with any more refugees. They are poor nations and fractured societies where national unity is very fragile. We have the multiple disasters of the Bush/Blair wars in Iraq and Libya which have reduced these states to poverty and rampant sectarianism, we have the civil war raging in Syria and we have been trying for decades to isolate and destroy Iran. A nation were the West’s meddling in the 50s staged a coup and brought down a moderate and democratically elected government headed by Mosaddegh for the sole purpose of protecting British petroleum and US oil companies. His government was replaced by the murderous regime of the Shah which in turn helped create the extremism of the Ayatollah Khomeini.
We have a presidential election in the States being fought by lets face it 2 elderly man who are engaged in the fight for the ‘American soul’….where senators no longer represent the people because they have been bought and paid for by the sectional interests beloved of oligarchs and are, with 1 or 2 exceptions representatives of the fabulously rich, a large part of which is made up of the arms industry, pharmaceutical industry, banking, media and the technology industry.
Ukraine and Russia seem to be set for a long slow painful war that may last years, and China is always the sleeping giant, the West having embraced the philosophy of ‘globalisation’. A policy which made a new class of capitalist , ‘the oligarch’ , people who almost overnight are richer than nation states and wield immense and unfettered power. Globalisation has led to the deindustrialisation of the West and is now leading to a revival of right wing parties, who are opposed to non white immigration and very assertive about patriotism. India appears to be set on a course of extreme Hindu nationalism and is virulently anti Muslim, and Brazil home to the Amazon has a significant population still supportive of Bolsonaro and his environmental thuggery. AND looming over the entire planet is the disaster known as climate change, which will radically alter WHERE, HOW and IF the human race can live.