SENECA. LETTERS FROM A STOIC

Seneca has a bit of a mixed press. Some of it brands him a hypocrite. Here we have a millionaire talking of the value of simplicity and poverty. How did he amass his wealth? Individuals I respect, such as Coleridge and Milton, do not think much of him. Others equally eminent throughout history look back to him with respect.

I can only think that if a hypocrite writes as much as Seneca he ought to be found out in his writings. All the hypocrites of our contemporary political life can be found out in their writings in a moment or two, quite apart from the fact that they would be incapable of even beginning to write with the cogent thoughtfulness of Seneca. Can you get hypocrites of a deeply philosophical nature? Would they exist more in the religious or esoteric arena?

In one letter Seneca arrives home to his country estate unannounced and the servants have not made preparations for him. He stoically maintains his equilibrium until they can attend to him. He does not criticise them. This is an uncomfortable example. Quite clearly if he maintains a spare diet and lives simply it is within a setting of material comfort.

On the other hand, when Seneca effectively ruled Rome for five years during Nero's childhood, it has been described as one of the finest periods in Rome's history. Perhaps he made his money because of his position in a way considered appropriate. Then he retires to lead a philosophical life.

Do I have to know whether or not Seneca was a hypocrite, whether or not I like him, in order to appreciate the thoughts he expresses? These thoughts fail to be self-serving or inhumane. I am left with the impression that the individuality which incarnated as Seneca around the time of the birth of Jesus is one of the most significant in the history of humanity. And this is despite the fact that for Seneca the emerging Christians were just one of a number of foreign religious cults. They meant nothing to him.

His significance is reinforced when I read his plays, which are so powerful and unique they seem to point to a future theatrical art form which in part finds its expression in Shakespeare and other Elizabethans. It seems inconceivable that Shakespeare did not know Seneca's work, there is just too much corresponding resonance. Then in the modern era Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, in part, seems to pick up on Seneca's techniques although full development still awaits some knowledgeable and able esoteric dramatist.

GOSPEL HALL

From the ages of 3-13 I was sent to Sunday School by my parents so that they could have Sunday afternoon to themselves. The walk from Council house to Gospel Hall would have been a good mile which included crossing a main arterial road. The Gospel Hall was in no way evangelical. Its superindendent was a caricature of a Church of England Sunday School superintendent: benevolent, elderly, white-haired and kindly Mr Fryor. His 2IC was a large rotund man who fittingly arrived in a Humber. We called him Jumbo. Both men in their ways were well-intentioned comfortable middle class administrants to the children, some of whom came from the wrong side of the arterial road.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. If anyone should believe in Me he shall have eternal Life.

I learned two things from this benevolent Sunday education, despite my rebellion. I came to know the Bible stories inside out and probably still remember them. And I learned that Christian life was all about the New Testament. The stories of the New Testament are completely different in tone from those in the Old.

The Old Testament stories formed an historical context only to the coming of the Son of God in the New Testament. The values of the New Testament given through Jesus Christ were an advance and improvement on the values of the Old Testament. A studious Christian can live without reference to the Old Testament but of course cannot do so without the New.

So when I hear high profile Christian leaders emphasising God and the Old Testament in the content of their sermons I believe that I am listening to someone who should belong to another religion. Literature of the 19th century, especially Dickens, is littered with cold and loveless individuals who in the name of God insist they are Christians performing some form of necessary tyranny against others. If they are not self-professed Christians they are rank materialists who believe in the over-riding power of mechanical science and industry. The segue between the two is minimal.

So long as Bishop Tamaki of Destiny Church spouts the Old Testament he can justify his tyranny and his materialistic success. He can think he deserves to become comfortable after all his industry. But he has to steer clear of the Spiritual Being Who after His hard work was very uncomfortably nailed to a Cross for His pains.

In the Gospel Jesus Christ comes incognito, isolated and homeless into Galilee and begins gathering His disciples. I can assure Bishop Tamaki that if He came today He would not arrive on a Harley Davidson taken from the garage of His material mansion. The unpretentious education of the Gospel Hall fifty years ago allows me to guess that the man Jesus would come from the nondescript people, and that his non-violent radicalism would be too much for the Tamakis and politicians of this world. He would be seen as a troublemaker, a dangerous loner gathering together a dangerous group, leading to only one inevitable outcome.

I thank the humble Gospel Hall for helping me to see clearly without effort the false prophets of our times, whether they come from within the Christian establishment, or from some supposed alternative, or from political circles. What allows Blair of the maniac glare to consciously carry out a crusade and criminally invade other countries belongs to the medieval Catholic Church just as much as to any petty Tamaki tyrant. And they all belong to the ethos of the Old Testament.

It is when I see odd individuals - and some of them may be odd - carrying out loving actions without beating any drum that I feel myself in the presence of the New Testament, in the presence of a true Christian.

JEWS FOR JESUS

I recently made the mistake of purchasing a DVD entitled 'Dylan: Busy Being Born Again - inside Bob Dylan's Jesus years. Dylan is neither a contributor nor a feature. Instead, a number of individuals chunder on about the topic, talking as much about themselves as the supposed feature, and presumably making money out of associating themselves with Dylan.

Most of the contributors appear to be Jewish, including Mitch Glaser who speaks for Jews for Jesus. On the face of it I assumed I was going to hear Jews indicate how they came to Christianity in some form, including their associate Bob Dylan, because it enhanced the limitations of Judaism. Not a bit of it. Their emphasis was on the fact that Jesus and his disciples were Jewish and that therefore it was not they who needed converting but the Gentiles.

What can I say? Without appearing anti-Semitic?

When the man Jesus was baptised in the Jordan something important happened. The spirit of the Christ descended into him. From that moment for the next three years of his life (and his mission) he was no longer Jewish Jesus but the universal Christ on earth. And it showed. The Jewish establishment did not like what he said and what he did at all and became the primary instruments of his crucifixion. They and their followers and descendants certainly needed conversion.

Paul began taking the universal Christ to the world which also needed conversion, and Christianity ceased to be a Jewish cult.

By concentrating on the man Jesus, Jews for Jesus and others are taking a superficial and materialistic view of Christ. The spiritual Christ is non-personal, but so long as you emphasise Jesus you can talk to him with closed eyes as if he is listening in the room next door ready to respond to all your ridiculous and ambitious expectations. To emphasise Jesus rather than the Christ is to emphasise the subjective feeling life of the soul instead of the objective thought-filled life of the spirit.

I can fully understand the wish not to be involved in Christian institutions and the Christian establishment, but this is not solved by ditching Christ.

Update. I have since found in the local library a new book on Dylan by a Jewish-American academic which is yet another fanciful manipulation of the subject in the author's own image. This one is a bit too distasteful. The author is intent upon turning Dylan into a fanatic orthodox Jew conversant with the mysteries of Judaism. Is there a movement to claim him before the man dies? The book is not worth reading in full, but on the principle of a drop giving a taste of the whole ocean, there is a wilful manipulation of complex facts to produce a limited ideological purpose and consciousness in the artist. So despite Dylan writing and speaking of his significant connection to Woody Guthrie, for example, who must not be Jewish, the Jewish academic sets out to destroy this fact with absurd and superficial argument. Gentile that I am, I like and admire Dylan on the basis of his being an unpredictable and independent artist whose stature in modern life is truly outstanding. Behind ethnicity, or nationality, or gender, or religion, or culture stands the individual human spirit and the true artist works from this and the individuality of the other responds. If either Dylan or any other wants to see his work in the conditioned terms of religion, etc. then the work will be rendered barren.

ORWELL IN TRIBUNE

'As I Please' and other writings 1943-7. I know that Orwell is the independent journalist that all contemporary independent journalists look up to. Even people who have no right to quote him do so. Here he is performing the luxury of writing an uncensored column. The range of his subject matter and the depth of his insight are impressive. What is an insight? In Orwell's case it seems to be extreme common sense and logic. With these he makes many an uncanny prediction.

What is actually most remarkable about Orwell's journalism for me is the complete lack of egoism. This absence produces the impression that he has rather a lacklustre style. He writes his perceptive comments in a matter-of-fact and unemphatic manner. His style does not button-hole you, hold you by the collar, or grab you by the throat. You are fully responsible for your attention.

Orwell comes across as a thoroughly decent and civilised man, and also perhaps as a somewhat reserved Englishman concerned with particulars. He is an undoctrinaire socialist. Statements he makes during these years on topics such as world peace and international affairs turn out to be completely valid and relevant today. They turn out to be true.

Rating: Very good

THE ROLL CALL

An extract from Drinking the Sea at Gaza : Days and Nights in a Land under Siege, by Amira Hass appears in Tell Me No Lies : Investigative Journalism and its Triumphs, edited by John Pilger. Amira Hass is an Israeli correspondent regarded as the most courageous reporter of occupied Palestine. The injustices she reports in Gaza in the 1990s literally take your breath away.

Why should I be so concerned? Why cannot I be like most of Hass's Israeli readers, among the best of them, who read one of her items, have their breath taken away, but then put the knowledge aside and get on with their lives? Of course we do get on with our lives, we have to, but surely the putting aside is a consciously wilful action. We are choosing not to have a response. We are choosing to be an unresponsive bystander. This is the role the New Zealand media plays in relation to Gaza.

Amira learned from her mother the evil of the unresponsive bystander when being transferred from cattle truck to concentration camp German women stood on the side just looking. (Her father and mother survived, went to Israel where they refused to accept a house offered them which had been taken from Palestinians).

I am afflicted with an inner compulsion to react to injustice, to bullies. It is involuntary and I cannot put it aside. I do not know why injustice in the Middle East affects me more than in other parts of the world. I fully realise that the victim in this life may be the bully in the next. So why can I not say to myself: why worry? I wish I could. I dare say all those magnificent investigative journalists wish they could. All those people involved with human rights.

Amira Hass, choosing to live among the Palestinians, details the military and bureacratic inhumanity and torment they are subjected to. They are unable to live normally. Suffice to say that in the 10 - 15 years since it has become abundantly clear that Israel intends giving the Palestinians nothing and the only reason it insists upon a moderate Palestinian leader is because he will be amenable to management and the perpetuation of occupation and oppression.

The life of Gazans states Hass is synonymous with mass internment and suffocating constriction. One Gazan joke is that you can get an exit permit if you are about to die. Another joke is that only the roll call is missing. (The point of this latter not seen or appreciated by many Jewish Israelis). Another piece of humour: It's a good thing the roads are in such bad shape - it takes a whole hour to get from one end of the Strip to the other and you don't notice how small it is. If you drive really slowly, say fifteen miles an hour, you can pretend that you're actually going a very long way".

Here I am standing on the sideline wondering what on earth can the Gazans do to have some notice taken of them. They are concentrated into a sealed camp and that mythical international community does not give a damn. What if they adopted a measure of mass demonstration by secretly making or having made a concentration camp uniform? And everyone, literally everyone, began walking about their daily business in these camp clothes?

In what way would Israel go ballistic? Would it mow everyone down with machine guns? Would it put everyone into prison? Would it drive them into the sea? Would it turn the level of deprivation from malnutrition to mass starvation? Would we see the Israeli army back in Gaza full-time administering every neighbourhood and instituting a morning roll call?

Would we international bystanders find ourselves looking into the Gaza camp at skeletons in camp uniforms, some crawling, some dying, some dead? The question has to be asked: does Israel actually know to what depth of fascism it is prepared to sink? Would it even see the irony?

Or would the real international community get the point and refuse to cooperate with the United States, which would of course be blaming the victims for their outrageous bad taste.

LAOR, YITZHAK. THE MYTHS OF ZIONISM

There is a sense of spontaneity about the writing of this work, of creative insight and courage which gives it its form, and I respond to the challenge to the best of my ability.

I approached this work hoping that it would give me better understanding about why Israel is the way it is, and why it behaves the way it does. I remain uncertain, but the exercise has been very worthwhile.

Some of the myths, which appear to be held by all Israelis and not just liberal Zionists, are as follows. The vulnerable child soldier who, no matter what atrocities he/she may commit, requires the protective excuses of the population. The besieged few surrounded by the inveterately hostile many. The victimising victim, from father to son, from Israel to its perceived enemies. The weak merciless father figure or authority figure for whose actions God will take responsibility. (Has Zionism replaced God with the United States for this role?) The learnt cruelty from past history and generations. The 'native' Jewish pioneer, pre-World War II, who has replaced the real native Palestinian. The European Israeli, the modern Jew, who requires the Arab Jew (and the Arab) to put off "backward' culture.

Such myths are in many instances interesting and helpful, but the question remains: why? Why, for example, does Israeli society continue to exemplify the story of Abraham who is prepared to bind and sacrifice his son unless a more caring God intervenes? Why is there so much emotional blackmail in the Israeli (Jewish) family and in Israel's approach to other nations of the world? Why do the sons and daughters conform to the blackmail and carry it on in their own later lives? (This must make the few young men and women who refuse to serve in the military among the bravest individuals in Israel). Why, for example, does the poor East European forebear (and holocaust victim) have to fill the modern Israeli with shame? Why not just have an interest in one's forebears without judgement?

Having carelessly misread the title of this work I began reading as if about the myth of liberal Zionism, but in a way the book is also very much about this topic. The author is to be commended for trying to crack a formidable nut, the liberal Zionist who passes himself off as a member of the Israeli peace camp. He illustrates the hypocrisy of three such high profile persons in David Grossman, Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua. These persons exhibit not only a lack of liberalism, if by this we mean civilised tolerance and compassion, but also subscribe to all the myths of the modern Israeli. The fear and hatred of Arabs - and the threat of their return - is self-induced and pathological.

These liberal Zionists, pretending peace, are the most difficult enemies of truth. They appeal to the same sort of pretenders in the West. The author indicates for me that the Left of the 1960s and 1970s who supported the Palestinian cause have been replaced by the Greens, who are pro-Israel. Even though in New Zealand we have a Green foreign spokesman who happens to be very good on the Middle East, I believe there is general truth in what the author says. For the Greens are essentially not an alternative radical party, but an alternative establishment party. Its followers tend to be comfortable people, more or less content with privatisation, tasteful and even precious in their brand of self-preservation.

The author indicates that The Holocaust remembrance is a recent development which allows Israel to take a seat among the world's elite nations, while allowing the Western world to put all the emphasis upon the victims of this one event and forget about the conditions and crimes within their own societies which allowed this and many other events, then and now, to happen. The Holocaust, besides being the only allowable holocaust to be remembered internationally and officially, is also the only allowable definition of evil. This allows the West and Israel to carry out contemporary evil unchecked.

Once again, how does it come about that the countries of the West fall over themselves to act in the same way toward Israel and holocaust remembrance? I can only think that it is a bit like all the copy-cat behaviour to implement unrestrained capitalism in the 1980s. The behaviour of mediocre minds all over the world, or minds with a low cunning rather than a decent intelligence. Or, worse still, are these negative changes, like supposedly positive ones, simply blowing in the wind? Does this then degenerate into believing that whatever will be, will be?

Having divested themselves more or less honourably of colonialist status the West now allows colonialist Israel to tap into this historical mind-set and find affinity there. The West and its establishment intellectuals are now able to turn their hate from the 20th century Jews toward the 21st century Muslims. Apparently for mediocre minds there always has to be a segment of humanity on the outer which can be treated as non-human.

A thought-provoking book.

Rating: Very good

INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST DAY

The way the state of Israel makes use of and is allowed to hijack International Holocaust Day is an absolute disgrace. A Catholic priest somewhere has caused a stir because he apparently said that Israel uses the holocaust as a propaganda tool. I hope he said it because he is spot on.

That scumbag Netanyahu supposedly remembers those who died at Auschwitz by making anti-Iranian statements and comparing that nation to Nazi Germany. If it was not Iran it would be some other nation. What respect does this really show to victims of the holocaust by making outrageous political point-scoring which could just lead to the destruction of yet another of Israel's unfortunate neighbours.

As for the survivors of the holocaust, I do not believe Netanyahu or the state of Israel really gives a damn about them. They are just useful.

Israel is a nation which strictly speaking should not exist. It forced itself into existence by terrorism. This is a simple fact. However, having done so, it is accepted by the so-called United Nations, including the Arab countries and the Palestinians. Furthermore, I think it is probably the case that any claim that Iran wants to wipe out Israel is a wilful manipulation of the truth. Although why any Arab or Persian country would want to wipe out Israel is perfectly understandable to me. It is completely focussed on wiping out them.

Meanwhile are there independent Jewish voices expressing dismay at Israel's misuse of the holocaust? I am sure there are but they certainly are not allowed into the news. Nor is Israel's bestial treatment of Palestinians allowed to spoil International Holocaust Day. The holocaust survivors who were part of the Free Gaza convoy were not news either.

I quote that wonderful American Jewish journalist I.F.Stone back in 1971: "While the Palestinian Arabs are beginning in their homelessness to talk like Jews in a new Diaspora, the Israeli leadership is beginning to sound more and more like unfeeling goyim. This reversal of roles is the cruellest prank God ever played on His Chosen People."

And if that sounds a little too much like an ambiguous self-indulgent Jewish joke how about the Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibovitz who in 1969 anticipated that in the occupied territories " concentration camps would be erected by the Israeli rulers......Israel would be a state that would not deserve to exist, and it will not be worthwhile to preserve it". We are way past that date.

GAZA: A GIRL CALLED ALMAZA (JEWEL)

I am Almaza Ibraheem Helml Mahmoud Samouni. I'm in the seventh grade. I am thirteen years old. In the future, when I become a politician, I can work on children's rights for those who have been deprived of their families and were brought up as orphans

Every minute I remember my family. Every minute I remember when they were martyred in front of my eyes. I looked at my nephew, I saw that he was martyred. Also, I looked the other way, I saw all my family martyred. They were dead, lying together, one on top of the other. Really, it was a scene I couldn't believe.

All my family is gone at once. Thirty of my tribe was killed. It is completely unjust. Now, when Eid comes, I won't see my uncles. On the day of Eid I used to visit my uncles, go to uncle Talal's home, go to Rashad's home and go to Atia's home. What have I done to be deprived of my family, to be deprived of my uncles and my mother?

I was at home. We were unaware of anything. In the early morning about 6am the Israeli's started invading. First they invaded with planes and when they knew the area was safe for them the tanks and bulldozers followed after. About four o'clock at night there were suddenly shells and bullets coming inside our house. We went into the living room. We were very close to my uncle Talal's house. There's only a narrow pathway between us. They started firing shells that made a very loud noise and gave off a strong smell. Eventually we couldn't hear or breathe. We were suffocating. We were about to die and then suddenly the Israelis blew a hole in the wall and pointed their weapons at us. The look of them frightened me of course. If they're coming at night, how would you know who they were? You could not even see their shadow. They kicked us out of the house and sent us to Wael Samouni's house. We stayed there for three days without food, without water. Even the little children who wanted to drink - and some were about six months old - there was not even anything for them.

We stayed there for three days. My brother went to get some wood but when he was about to leave the house they fired a missile at him and he was martyred. So we had to go inside. I was left with my sister-in-law and her nine month old baby. They executed the baby. They opened fire on him. The little boy was martyred in front of her eyes, while he was in his mother's arms, cradled by his mother. He was executed right after they executed his father.

I went inside where I found them all martyred. I saw three missiles in the house. All of them were martyred. All of them were bleeding and they were in a pile, one on top of the other. A lot of bleeding, bleeding over each other.

We used to study here. We used to play here. This was my brother's room, here's my mother's room and here are my siblings' room who were all martyred. May Allah bless their souls. This is where my books were and I used to put my satchel here. I have a lot of memories.

This was mine when I was little. This was my mother's, may Allah bless her soul. This belonged to my brother Nassar, may Allah bless his soul. This is mine, I used to wear it when I went to the mosque. This is also mine. And this was my nephew Mo'tasem's, may Allah bless his soul. This is my mother's robe, may Allah bless her soul. This is my brother Ismail's, he was martyred.

Here is my uncle's house. We used to bake here. Here we used to play 'Idreas' with stones. Here is the mosque. Here we used to learn the Quran, pray and have lessons in Quran verses. Here, of course, was the praying place for men and upstairs there was a floor for the women.

Here you can see the martyrs. There is my brother Mohammad Ibraheem Samouni, and that is my cousin Walid. Here is the dome of the mosque where a crow used to stand. The dome was so high. This is the dome. We used to study here. Our teacher used to sit over here. It was a sitting room with the breeze blowing through. We used to come to study here and learn the Quran. Here, we used to have our meetings, bring the chairs and sit. The sheikh would sit here. This was a room where we used to sit and study.

Here we used to raise a lot of chickens. A lot. The Israelis bulldozed it and killed them all. Here there were olive trees from which we used to get olive oil and store olives to keep. Here was a pomegranate tree which we used to make the famous local dish 'Rummaniyya'. I used to love pomegranate, I used to love 'Rummaniyya' as its called. This is also where my uncle's wife's house was, my uncle who was martyred. My uncle Atia, he was her husband. My cousin was also martyred. Also, there were lots of orange trees here, there were citrus trees. Lots of trees.

This is the school, the destroyed school. They targetted the school with burning phosphorus bombs. They burned the school. The lab that we used to go to, it was also burned. We had drawn a map. Even that was destroyed, as you can see. They didn't leave anything untouched. This was the lab I used to go to and do everything. It was bombed as well. Here was the library where we used to borrow storybooks and sit and write. They've all been destroyed too. We used to go to a morning school then this was switched to the afternoon.

Now there are about sixty orphans, maybe more, they are all orphans. What have they done? A girl of two and a half who's now an orphan. Who will play with her, who's going to teach her? Her mother, father and elder brothers are all martyrs. Can a girl who's twelve or thirteen years old raise an eighteen month or two year old girl?

(ALMAZA'S FRIEND): No, because she doesn't ask or respond. When my mother was martyred, she was in her arms. We asked her: "Do you want to go to see your mother?" She said: "No, because mum is dead, she was shot by the plane. I don't want to go to her. There was so much bleeding from here and here, I don't want to go there". She refused because when my mother was martyred, she was in her arms and with my father. When they were putting the bandage on my father, when he was injured, she wouldn't ask about her or about anything else. She just keeps on screaming.)

We used to play here. The place was an empty yard. It was bulldozed.

I have the right to claim my rights because they deprived me of my mother and my sisters, deprived me of living in a good home and in a safe place. They took it all away and destroyed everything. This area was pretty, full of everything, trees, it was a nice green area. You can imagine what it looked like. When the Israelis came in, the left nothing.

We will never leave our place here. We will remain in it and Allah, please God, may make it easy for us, to help us rebuild our homes and live in them - Allah willing.

HAITI

We all want to see international support for a people suffering a catastrophe, do we not? The sudden outburst of sympathetic promises for Haiti after its earthquake is, however, extraordinary. There is a positively orgiastic international outpouring, led by the United States, for a poor little shit country nobody knows anything about. The spectacle of the last three U.S. presidents spear-heading a fundraising campaign is strange indeed. What is going on? What we are told is that Haiti is the poorest nation in the region, but at the same time it is a special little friend of the United States. How can a nation be both these things at the same time? Not a case of child abuse?

Omnipotent Obama has declared many a thing for Haiti but especially a contingent of paratroopers to protect Haitians from their own natural propensity for criminality. He is acting to protect Haiti in the awesome image of its big special friend. He has commissioned his special envoys, the Celestial Clintons, to do what has to be done. Indeed Beelzebub Bill has a personal interest in Haiti, He sent in the United States military when He was Himself the Omnipotent One, and did what had to be done when an elected government threatened to go astray. He is personally affronted that God should visit such a catastrophe upon His own Haiti. He takes it very personally.

I cannot say it any better than Carl Dix: "The United States has promised $100 million, sounds like a lot, but that is about 1% of the US military budget for occupying Iraq and Afghanistan for one month. What have they done so far? What they have mainly brought in are paratroopers to help secure the situation and to control things as opposed to focussing on what people really need which is food, water, access to healthcare and relief operations. I think about Afghanistan where they have helicopter gunships going around firing missiles at villages, think about what those helicoptors could do if they had been deployed to Haiti where they are talking about how the roads are down and nobody can get supplies through, well a helicoptor could airlift rescuers, airlift food or water or doctors.
So there is a question of what the priorities are here, as well as the history of US-Haitian relations. The problem is when you talk about Haiti's lack of infrastructure you have to talk about the political and economic strangulation of Haiti historically by the US going all the way back to the founding of Haiti. The US and France attempted to isolate and blockade Haiti when the Haitian slaves rose up and chased the French out because the US felt it would be a very bad example for all the African slaves in the US to hear that the slaves in a neighbouring country had gotten free.
You need a rescue and supply effort that doesn't suppress the Haitian people but actually unleashes and helps them in doing this because there has been a portrayal of Haitians as thugs and criminals just as the way they tried to portray the people in New Orleans after Katrina as criminals who were looting and killing everything, when people were actually saving themselves because the government at all levels, local, federal and state had refused to do that, people were stealing food to get something to eat, taking boats to save other people.
You need a relief effort that is backing up the Haitian people and doing that, not one that is suppressing them in order to maintain Haiti as a low wage area where people can be paid starvation wages to produce goods for export, and not an area where globalisation can destroy the domestic agriculture as US efforts have done in Haiti since the 1980s."

I just know that this analysis is going to be proven correct. Already the US is a military presence controlling who else can land in Haiti. Just today two aircraft carrying medical equipment were turned away by the US military whose helicoptors appear to patrol the skies not to be helpful but to survey the country for trouble, which given the US approach is almost guaranteed to occur.

Update: As the hysterical goodwill towards poor little obedient Haiti continues, one has to wonder when comparing this to the complete indifference toward Gaza which was hit in similar fashion not by an act of God, but by an act of fascist man. I realise that the world's establishment media is comfortable expressing compassion for Haiti and indifference for Gaza but what about the people of the world? Do they really have compassion for one set of people and indifference for another set? because if they do, then the compassion has to be completely phoney. Pretty scarey.

GAZA: A CRIME OF WAR

Rawhiya was a 37 year old wife and mother, a native of Gaza, who was murdered on the 13 January 2009.

IMAN AL NAJAR (Rawhiya's neighbour): For 2 or 3 days before that day they had been firing phosphorus bombs randomly, but they weren't targetting our neighbourhood, they were actually firing from here, so we could see the bombs flying over our heads and falling in different areas.

We thought at first it was the usual firing of bombs overhead but then my neighbour Rawhiya started calling me. She was shouting to us that our homes were burning. We went out, the smoke was like fog covering everything. Every house received their share of phosphorus bombs. Rawhiya was trying to put out the fire at her house and other neighbours were doing the same. Then she told me hurry up your house is on fire. I ran to the house but it was all on fire.

The special forces had taken the high building and alleyway while we were putting out the fires. They later told the prisoners that they took that we saw you trying to put out the fire but we didn't see you carrying any weapons. They told them that if you had been carrying weapons we would have wiped you out.

The sun had not yet come up, it was still early, when we heard our neighbours scream. So I shouted What's wrong? and she said they're demolishing the house from the front while we are still inside.

They were destroying them like you crush a matchbox and we stood there watching. The soldier that was in the bulldozer was laughing, he was chewing gum and laughing. He turned the head of the bulldozer towards us in a playful manner as though he was telling us you are all going to die.

Nawhiya was leading them. She said if all the women and children start moving out then everyone else could follow afterwards. So she distributed white flags and led them out. She walked at the front carrying a white flag, followed by other women carrying their children.

A couple of radio stations called and we tried to echo our voice and call upon the world to find a solution for us, ar at least save Rawhiya. We didn't know at this point if she was still alive or dead.

No-one answered our call for help. At the end we decided to go out together and face the bombardment. The way we saw it was that it was better to walk into the fire than stay here and die under the rubble. If we went out some of us might get hit and some of us might die but at least someone would make it out alive to tell our story to the outside world.

I used to believe that there are international laws and that there are international courts that prevent Israel from abusing the rights of humans. I have learnt that Israel can do anything it wants without being punished, without anyone stopping it, or even asking it why. Israel can kill, demolish houses, destroy trees and wreck not only a small neighourhood or village but an entire country without anyone stepping in. The Security Council can't stop it, nor can international organisations. That's what I learnt.


NASSAR AL NAJAR (Rawhiya's husband): We used to think that this area was safe because there were no resistance fighters here. They used to bulldoze farms and agricultural lands and then leave. We didn't expect them to demolish houses. We didn't expect this extent of criminality.

At Khuza'a the villagers were used to living under the guns of the Israeli watch-towers and in the first two weeks of the war I'd become accustomed to the artillery and air-strikes but the night before Rawhiya's murder it became clear that this was something different.

She said she didn't want to leave her house and that if she was going to die, they were going to kill her, she would rather die in her own house. She said the white flags [?] so they wouldn't harm them, but they didn't respect the white flag.

My heart is wounded. It fills me with sorrow to look at the place where she died. We spent a lifetime together. She was my friend and companion since I was just 17 years old. What can I say?


HIBA AL NAJAR (Rawhiya's daughter): When they were putting out the fire the neighbour started coughing because phosporus emissions were suffocating him, so my Mum grabbed a towel and soaked it with water because we had been told that water helps.

I was right next to her, a centimetre away. My neighbour was also walking next to her. She was holding up her child as though a flag. Then he shot her. He shot her and she immediately fell to the ground.

I immediately knew that she died. I told the women she's gone. My mother died. They were trying to comfort me by saying she's going to be fine, but I shouted at them She's gone, she's dead, I know she's dead.

We were screaming and holding our white flags so they would see us and not demolish the house with us inside, but they didn't care, it made no difference to them, they started collapsing the walls with us inside.

(Crying) Whenever there's bombardment or gunfire starts we stay inside our houses. We can't go out. It is not fair what they are doing to us. We are imprisoned in our homes. We go from home to school, from school to home. What did we do wrong?


YASMINE AL NAJAR (Rawhiya's neighbour): And then they breached the wall of our house, so we tried to escape through the window. We all escaped and gathered in this empty square behind me.

We all gathered here and then the bulldozer breached the walls of the house here which was right next to us, so we started to escape. Just before that the Israelis had gathered the men and told them that we had to evacuate the area within half an hour. But it seem like they hadn't spoken with the special forces.

When we reached the top of the road the special forces were positioned in the house right opposite to us that took us by surprise.

A bullet hit Rawhiya in the head, It entered through one side and went out through the other. I was so close to her, but there were special forces in front of me. They started shooting at me again and the bullets were passing over my head, but they didn't get me this time, only a small splinter of metal that stuck in my arm.

We went through that alleyway but just as I was about to pass and cross an exit in the road, followed by most of the neighbourhood, they started shooting at us again, so everyone went in one of the houses on the street and were stuck there, but I kept running for about 300 metres until I reached an ambulance and paramedics who were waiting for us.


MOHAMMAD AL NAJAR (Rawhiya's neighbour): The place where you are sitting now was a staircase but they levelled it and placed a mattress on it. Then a soldier lay down on his stomach here. I was hearing everything that was happening and when they were taking me to the toilet they took off the blind-fold and untied my hands, so I could see a few things.

They asked me to sing along with them but I refused. They were still talking to me and one of them was translating. He said to me that if I don't do what they ask they will kill me, so I did what they asked, I started to sing with them until they retreated.

I was really scared. I was worried that something was going to happen to my family. I heard the shots being fired at Rawhiya and I heard her scream God is great. Well that scared me more because it meant that they were killing people and I thought that they were going to kill me when they started pulling out.

They were starting to pull out of the area and so they told us when you hear a few gunshots being fired you can leave. They didn't want anyone to see them, they didn't want to draw attention to themselves.

MARWAN ABU RAIDA (Paramedic): I drove straight there, I was still 60 -70 metres away from the body when what I think were Israeli special forces started shooting at me. I felt powerless, there was nothing I could do for her. My understanding was that medical teams were protected under international law and ethics. Medical teams should be protected, they should have freedom of movement and work because they are emergency services.

I ran out of the ambulance and headed toward the body of the martyr who was dead by then. She bled to death after she was lying there for about 12 hours. I took the body which was in horrible condition and headed for hospital in Khan Younis. You could tell she was killed intentionally because she received only one shot straight to the head. It was obvious that the sniper meant to kill her. I wish the International Court of Justice would take action against those who committed these crimes, because what we witnessed here is unbelievable terror.

EDWARDS, DAVID & CROMWELL, DAVID. NEWSPEAK IN THE 21ST CENTURY

The authors are co-editors of Media Lens (http://www.medialens.org/) a website devoted to challenging how British newspapers and broadcasters report the news. We discover as a result of detailed evidence provided, that there are no sources of news which are reliably independent of power and establishment, of the government, owners and advertisors, not even the so-called liberal newspapers such as the Guardian or Independent. All we have in print are independent commentators who can be named on one hand: Chomsky, Pilger, Fisk, perhaps Seamus Milne. Chomsky and Pilger in particular are subject to the resentment of hacks who yap at them from the end of their corporate leashes. No sense of admiration for a better workman in the world of media.

The point is made that for those of us who wish to think for ourselves, rather than to sit back and receive the supposed knowledge of establishment journalists, we have only the internet. It is also the internet which allows freedom of speech and dialogue, whereas the newspaper editor deletes contributions.

There is no such thing as neutral reporting, there is either indifference or compassion. We are either honest or bent. Many of us of course cannot decide which. If we are a human being another's pain must be felt as our own, otherwise what real value is there in what we have to say? We would only be contributing to the power of Newspeak. "Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?" - George Orwell.

One hack is quoted equating thoughtful and honest language and presentation as boring, indicating that we have in journalism persons who have no wish to read. This attitude leads to an atrophy of thought and language. "In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it" - George Orwell.

There are chapters on the BBC and on the British media's complicity in refusing to speak the truth on topics such as climate change, the Blair government's duplicity and criminality in invading Iraq, the Iraqi death count, Israel and Palestine, Iran, and Venezuela.
Rating: Very good.

INDEPENDENT JEWISH VOICES

This declaration was published in The Times on 5 February 2007 and in the Jewish Chronicle on 9 February 2007.

We are a group of Jews in Britain from diverse backgrounds, occupations and affiliations who have in common a strong commitment to social justice and universal human rights. We come together in the belief that the broad spectrum of opinion among the Jewish population of this country is not reflected by those institutions which claim authority to represent the Jewish community as a whole. We further believe that individuals and groups within all communities should feel free to express their views on any issue of public concern without incurring accusations of disloyalty.

We have therefore resolved to promote the expression of alternative Jewish voices, particularly in respect of the grave situation in the Middle East, which threatens the future of both Israelis and Palestinians as well as the stability of the whole region. We are guided by the following principles:

Human rights are universal and indivisible and should be upheld without exception. This is as applicable in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories as it is elsewhere. Palestinians and Israelis alike have the right to peaceful and secure lives. Peace and stability require the willingness of all parties to the conflict to comply with international law. There is no justification for any form of racism, including anti-semitism, anti-Arab racism or Islamophobia, in any circumstance. The battle against anti-semitism is vital and is undermined whenever opposition to Israeli government policies is automatically branded as anti-semitic.

These principles are contradicted when those who claim to speak on behalf of Jews in Britain and other countries consistently put support for the policies of an occupying power above the human rights of an occupied people. The Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza Strip face appalling living conditions with desperately little hope for the future. We declare our support for a properly negotiated peace between the Israeli and Palestinian people and oppose any attempt by the Israeli government to impose its own solutions on the Palestinians. It is imperative and urgent that independent Jewish voices find a coherent and consistent way of asserting themselves on these and other issues of concern. We hereby reclaim the tradition of Jewish support for universal freedoms, human rights and social justice. The lessons we have learned from our own history compel us to speak out. We therefore commit ourselves to make public our views on a continuing basis and invite other concerned Jews to join and support us.

10 MILLION A YEAR

I am obviously not thinking of those success stories of my glorious civilization, those shining exemplars of ingenuity and enterprise, for whom salesmanship lies at the heart of human relations, those precious and superior beings to whom we are all beholden and for whom we hold such veneration, because for these immortal souls 10 million a year is probably not a sufficient remuneration. No, I am thinking of persons somewhat regrettably at the other end of life's wonderful spectrum, persons so unsuccessful as to be almost correctly described as non-persons, who doubtless have only themselves to blame.


10 million children die a year. 10 million. Apparently it corresponds to an aircraft full of them falling out of the sky every 15 minutes. Is it bird flu, or swine flu, or Aids? Why is it not on national television every night? Where are the mobilizing forces of righteous international corporate action? No need to worry, it is just plain old-fashioned starvation and the comfortable cannot catch it.

Indeed the comfortable contribute considerably to starving 10 million a year by protecting and subsidising their own products while subjecting those of the uncomfortable to tariff and exploitation. In the name of free market globalisation - which does not apply to the United States or the European Union - the comfortable insist upon flooding the uncomfortable with the surplus goods of their own comfort, destroying the indigenous production of goods. Having played a significant part in creating poverty the comfortable send in the United Nations to assist the economies of the uncomfortable while having no intention of buying anything from them that is subsequently produced unless completely on their own terms. The uncomfortable are not allowed to compete against the comfortable in any genuine free market.

These sick values are exemplified in the capitalistic horror that is the United States. It goes right back to the founding of that peculiar nation. Reading those wonderful stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder's pioneering family to my six children in succession, even then we read of proud Pa who is independent, who does not need anyone's help and who does not need to help anyone else unless he chooses. (This does not stop Pa taking off when they are starving and forcing wheat from someone else who was not choosing to share it). This phoney philosophy of choice was mysteriously laid down from the start. The ultimate logical end of this attitude is that the final 'choice' may just have to be starvation and death. In the current United States debate on health care reform one conditioned pawn in the game stated proudly that he would rather die poor and free - presumably in preference to living in a civilized nation which looked after those who for whatever reason were unable to do so themselves.

This is one way I can rationalise why the United States can carry on the way it does with a supposedly clear conscience. Then I get some understanding of copycats, for example, how the United States and its little buddy Israel can behave toward Gaza without a blush. How the United States and its despicable crony the European Union has behaved toward Iraq the way they have with economic sanctions and military war.

In my idle luxury, living in the eye of empire, I used to wonder how the world kept going, why it did not come to a grinding halt and fall apart. The people in charge did not seem to have a complete picture. Now I know that for the families of 10 million different children every year, and for hundreds of millions more like them, the world is not working, it is falling apart. But here in a country like New Zealand we can sleep on. What will wake us up will be that time when the centre of empire decides to really take over New Zealand. Warships in the harbours and helicoptors in the skies will be the time when we discover the implacable ruthlessness of the United States, the time when the false mask of benignity begins to slip off. Then we will begin to know what the vulnerable in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East are now experiencing.

PRINS, NOMI. IT TAKES A PILLAGE

The author has been a managing director at Goldman Sachs and gives an insider view of the bailouts, bonuses and backroom deals from Washington to Wall Street. One chapter is headed 'Government Sachs' to underline the network of interaction between the U.S. top financiers and government agencies and elected officials. Criminal financiers were rescued by the public purse because of this interaction and Obama has a more integral relation to this network than Bush. He is now presiding over the largest transfer of public money to private pockets in U.S. history. There is no sense of responsibility to the public and no inclination to reform the financial system.

U.S. capitalism finds its ultimate achievement in the vicious competitiveness of its financial institutions which create clever and complex methods of making something out of nothing. Who gets the biggest bonuses is part of the competition. The most successful institution is Goldman Sachs whose personnel infiltrate and direct government. The author does not ascribe any planned conspiracy to this running of the country, but believes it to be a matter of backroom deals between extreme opportunists.

Nor does the author make any reference to the ethnic backgrounds of the top dogs. Although I have never read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, although I simply accept the document is a fake, although I presume it is about controlling the world by controlling its finance, I now realise after reading this book that regardless of ethnicity the document may well speak truth. We now live in a world controlled by the financiers, making so-called democracy and political parties irrelevant. The author quotes Mayer Amschel Rothschild, founder of the House of Rothschild: "Let me issue and control a nation's money, and I care not who writes the laws".

There is much useful information in this work: the similarity of cause for the Great Depression and this 'recession'; the value of the New Deal; the unacceptability of merging commercial and investment banks; the lack of responsible oversight from the Federal Reserve and from Congress. An example of some good and clear information: "The Second Great Bank Depression has spawned so many lies, it's hard to keep track of which is the biggest. Possibly the most irksome class of lies, usually spouted by Wall Street hacks and conservative pundits, is that we're all victims to a bunch of poor people who bought McMansions, or at least homes they had no business living in. If that was really what this crisis was all about, we could have solved it much more cheaply in a couple of days in late 2008, by simply providing borrowers with additional capital to reduce their loan principals. It would have cost about 3 per cent of what the entire bailout wound up costing, with comparatively similar risk.... There were approximately $1.4 trillion worth of subprime loans outstanding in the United States by the end of 2007. By May 2009, there were foreclosure filings against approximately 5.1 million properties. If it was only the subprime market's fault, $1.4 trillion would have covered the entire problem, right? Yet the Federal Reserve, the Treasury and the FDIC forked out more than $13 trillion to fix the 'housing correction', as Hank Paulson steadfastly referred to the Second Great Bank Depression as late as November 20, 2008, while he was treasury secretary. With that money, the government could have bought up every residential morgage in the country - there were about $11.9 trillion worth at the end of December 2008 - and still have had a trillion left over to buy homes for every single American who couldn't afford them, and pay their health care to boot. But there was much more to it than that: Wall Street was engaged in a very dangerous practice called leverage. Leverage is when you borrow a lot of money in order to place a big bet.... Leverage included, we're looking at a possible $140 trillion problem. That's right - $140 trillion!......but leverage would not have had a platform without the help of a wondrous financial feat called securitization......" etc.

The overall impression left with me is that after a century or so of mass education and non-participatory democracy all that we have produced in the name of progress is the most sophisticated and powerful criminal gang in the history of mankind.

Rating: Very good

RIGHT OF RETURN

On 8 August 2002, in a letter to the Guardian, a group of British Jews renounce their 'right of return'.

We are Jews, born and raised outside Israel, who, under Israel's 'law of return', have a legal right to Israeli residence and citizenship. We wish to renounce this unsought 'right' because:

We regard it as morally wrong that this legal entitlement should be bestowed on us while
the very people who should have most right to a genuine 'return', having been forced or
terrorised into fleeing, are excluded.

Israel's policies towards the Palestinians are barbaric - we do not wish to identify ourselves
in any way with what Israel is doing.

We disagree with the notion that Zionist emigration to Israel is any kind of 'solution' for
Diaspora Jews, anti-semitism or racism - no matter to what extent Jews have been or are
victims of racism, they have no right to make anyone else victims.

We wish to express our solidarity with all those who are working for a time when Israel,
the West Bank and Gaza Strip can be lived in by people without restrictions based on
so-called racial, cultural, or ethnic origins.

We look forward to the day when all peoples of the area are enabled to live in peace with each other on this basis of non-discrimination and mutual respect. Perhaps some of us would even wish to live there, but only if the rights of the Palestinians are respected. To those who consider Israel a 'safe haven' for Jews in the face of anti-semitism, we say that there can be no safety in taking on the role of occupier and oppressor.

ROTH, PHILIP. EXIT GHOST

I do not think that I have read Philip Roth since his first two novels. This 2007 novel has a theme with which I can self-indulgently identify: how does the older person live? The 71 year old protagonist since the age of 60 has eschewed the hectic life of New York and been living in isolation in a rural cabin, reading and writing and listening to music, without television or newspapers. He relinquishes political emotion and "the abiding wish to find out". He quite easily came "to feel completely at home knowing nothing of what was going on". When he temporarily returns to New York for health reasons he meets up with people for whom the outcome of the next election is almost a matter of life or death. He is sympathetic but uninvolved.

A second theme involves the writer who writes the creative work in isolation, free from the demands and negativity of the parasitic world of literary criticism. This too breaks in upon him again in New York in the form of an aggressive young academic who wants to launch his career by writing a literary biography of a neglected author based upon discovered scandal. Our protagonist knew and admired this author and refuses to cooperate or be involved.

Although it sounds suspect and uncomfortable, if not unintentionally funny, there is also a good depiction of being old and afflicted, he with the after-effects of prostate cancer surgery and an elderly female friend with a brain tumour.

Then there are a couple of tiresome aspects. There is the protagonist's obsession with a young woman, a somewhat pathetic self-indulgence given his sexual status, which does not assist the credibility of his other decisions on how to live his life unless we are meant to admire the resilience of human lust. The second aspect is that American style of writing, having escaped the immobile pomposity of Fenimore Cooper, Hawthorne and Melville, the tumultuous onward-rushing narrative, not without its own pomposity, something I first discovered in Thomas Wolfe and Kerouac, not to mention Whitman, a style which continues to this day. There can be high moments, but also a gathering sense of chaos and weariness.

Like this review not a great work of art.

Rating: Good/Fair

TREASON

Since the 1980s in New Zealand it has become compelling to apply the meaning of treason to those persons in positions of power who act in a manner disloyal and injurious to the general population. The two governments of David Lange probably constitute the most significant period of treason in New Zealand history. Conscientious and professional civil servants were labelled irrelevant underpaid monkeys and replaced with a multitude of overpaid monkeys whose brief was to act with force, unpredictability and irrationality. History and context were also irrelevant; everything was done as if newly hatched by flippant adolescents.

The lives of those who did not, could not or would not play the game were turned upside down so that money could move from the public sector into the pockets of select individuals. Muldoon called them the Greedies. The first excuse for the upheaval was the need to get rid of the national debt. It was all a lie. The debt is as bad as ever. Whenever a new government comes in Treasury delivers a paper outlining a severe situation requiring extreme right-wing
measures. Currently the Brash Commission nicely supplements this.

This impulse continued through the 1990s, was somewhat quiescent in the 2000s, resurfacing now and again showing impatience with community and democratic process. A lone outlaw from the rogernomic era comes shooting his way back into town (Auckland) and is allowed to force major changes by a sheriff who watches quietly from behind his curtained office window. That same sheriff, with the laid-back manner and smiling visage, is doing a lot of quiet dismantling in other areas of social service without a peep from the newspaper office next door.

There are now 20,000 young New Zealanders who cannot find work, many with university degrees. Despite this an overpaid peanut called Jonathan Coleman, MP for Northcote and Minister of Immigration, unveils the Silver Fern Visa which actively entices young people from overseas to come to New Zealand looking for work. This is an act of disloyalty and injury to our young people and their families. Otherwise known as treason. There can be no excuse for it other than a variation on the old story of monkeys and peanuts.

New Zealand has been spared the determined attention of the United States. Despite betraying us into accepting an undemocratic americanisation of our economic and social life, Lange did his thing - a very important thing - which resulted in our anti-nuclear stance and this may have helped deter any such attention. But like a death wish, politicians and media hanker after what they fondly term a 'free-trade deal' with the United States. It is always spoken of as a given positive. Nowhere in the mainstream have I heard or read a critical view. Yet it must be known that the United States does not practice free trade. John Key must know this in order to tell us to be ready to make concessions. Ultimately these will be concessions on our sovereignty. An act of treason.

For decades people and nations have wanted to like and get along with the United States, but the US is constitutionally unable to recognise and practice genuine mutual respect. It is like the man who has a willing woman happy to go along with him but he much prefers to drag her into a dark alley and rape her. Not OK behaviour, but let's look the other way.

CHOMSKY, NOAM. WHAT WE SAY GOES

These are conversations with David Barsamian in 2006 and 2007 about United States power and world affairs. If I had only one person to read on these matters it would have to be Chomsky, he is that rare individual - an academic with the ability, insight and courage to call a spade a spade. He cuts through the crap to the essential truths. He is an international treasure. His interviewer is excellent in not wasting time with idiotic questions. The primary truth in these interviews would be as follows: "the United States is a leading outlaw state, totally unconstrained by international law, and it openly says so. What we say goes."
Rating: Excellent

THE WAYS OF A BULLY

An assessment of Israeli playwright Hanoch Levin by drama critic Michael Handelzalts states: "He dissected Israeli society and described it in detail: the crudeness, the insensitivity, the interpersonal violence, the oppression, the gluttony, the intolerance and the cruelty. He wrote about people who enjoy feeling superior and causing pain, who thrive on this and who love to harass their interlocutors and haggle with them for the sake of the haggling".

It looks like the nation of legend turning desert into paradise is nothing more than a lousy bit of cheap fiction. This may come as a bit of an eye-opener for anyone with a blind spot for Israel. Mainstream commentators always report unfolding events involving Israel at face value, as though that nation is committed to some kind of constructive process involving others besides itself. Whereas for anyone following the behaviour of Israel as reported by uncensored media this asseessment gives some understanding of the nature of this particular bully in the global playground.

In that playgrond the United States and Israel stick close together. One is the major bully roaming about insisting upon being in charge of everything and in control of everyone. The other is the little devil of a lieutenant tripping around him, goading him to do things, telling tales about others and getting permission and protection do do his own bullying. It seems to be his mission to keep trouble and hatred alive. Why?

The answer seems to be that this particular bully enjoys feeling superior and causing pain, and thriving on this for its own sake. There is a truly malevolent intent in his psychology. He likes being a bully; he wants to be a bully; to glory and gloat in being a top dog. Apologist commentators harass and haggle any evidence or justified criticism as though everything is a playgound game.

A bully of course expects others to change. Israel went into Gaza and massacred 1400 people. There were no consequences for the bully. When Netanyahu visits Gordon Brown some months later there is not a word about this and continuing behaviour. Instead they jointly voice what others (Palestinians, Arabs, Persians) must do and what Israel will not do.

Between serious bouts of violence against the weak the bully is continually harassing them. An example: Israel sends low-flying aircraft over Gaza creating sonic booms instead of dropping bombs. This is described as educational and almost humanitarian, gently reminding the residents who is top dog. This is like holding a replica gun to a person's head instead of a real one, the terrorising effect is pretty much the same. And it is a real hoot for the bully.

Another example: Palestinian children near a settlement have to be escorted to school by Israeli soldiers to protect them from settler harassment, including the shooting of firearms, but the soldiers often fail to show up or when they do are themselves guilty of harassment, such as driving along beside the children so fast that the little ones cannot keep up. For the bullying soldiers a great way to start the day.

There is a psychological sickness behind such behaviours, the sickness of the torturer. The fine line - if there is one - between the bully and the torturer does not exist in the case of this little devil of a nation.

The bully's denial of wrongdoing is often reinforced by a technique of suffocating the victim by presuming to speak for him. This is an Israeli habit. On the surface this may appear as no more than an insufferable patronising superiority. An example: a Jew from multi-cultural New Zealand "returns" to apartheid Israel and tells us that Palestinians - some of whom are working on his new house under armed guard - prefer to live apart. The victim is reponsible for the apartheid.

Another example: while Israel is busy killing the 1400 people in Gaza and deliberately destroying more of their infrastructure senior politician Livni appears on screen to inform us that her country is helping the people of Gaza against Hamas ( the party they democratically elected).

There is a further strange quality to this particular bully. Witness Livni in the United States, while busy thrashing Gaza, literally sobbing that "we" have had enough, "we" cannot take any more. Immediately a cartoon came into my mind of a large adult beating a child while expressing such sentiments. We cannot hope that Israel will drive itself mad because it already is mad. Decades ago Golda Meir also felt sorry for herself because the Palestinians were making her do violence toward them. It is a very puzzling psychopathic condition, but there can be no excuse for it.

Unfortunately the mad psychopathic bully in the playground is a ticking time-bomb, a danger to everyone, and not a ready candidate for rehabilitation.

APPROPRIATE MURDER

Nato aircraft again kill more "unpeople" in Afghanistan and the German general responsible states that the action was "appropriate". This is an attitude that any contemporary Israeli general would endorse with those contemptible Arabs and Persians in mind. It is also an attitude that any general of the Third Reich would have endorsed. Did the SS have generals? If so, they would have fully endorsed it too.

Update: At least 100 people were killed and the German Minister of Defence has resigned because of the cover-up. So contemporary German government not yet as bad as the Third Reich and a whole lot better than the Israeli government.