Déjà vu
By Ad astra
To minimise the pain of reminding you of the shocking destruction that is occurring day after day in Gaza City, I have kept this piece short. I have found writing it distressing, yet the story needs to be told. It is part of our grotesque contemporary reality.
As you watch your TV news do you despair? Do you ask why is it that such a catastrophe continues unabated?
There have been volumes written about this seemingly unending conflict. We know the history; nobody seems to know how to change its course.
Human ingenuity has placed men on the moon, spacecraft on Mars, and probes towards outer space, yet no one has worked out how to stop this age-old conflict. Why?
It has been born of hatred that dates back to biblical times. Memories of the stories we heard in church of the endless conflicts between the Israelites and the Philistines are burned into our brain. Despite our capacity to reason and solve immensely difficult problems with the advanced technology we now enjoy, this catastrophe evokes no solution. All we have is déjà vu.
Today, man’s advanced capacity for destruction is such that the damage being inflicted on Palestine may be irreversible. Whole city blocks, which Israel is convinced were occupied by active Hamas operatives, were blown to smithereens, leaving mountains of rubble. Palestine is being deliberately and systematically destroyed to eliminate Hamas. Can there be any resolution when Netanyahu claims the right to inflict such terminal catastrophe? Will Hamas ever stop provoking Israel with its rockets launched endlessly into Israel-occupied territory? We know the answer.
The rest of the world looks on helplessly as the carnage continues.
None of the emissaries, none of the advisers, none of the diplomats, none of the self-proclaimed experts have advanced any feasible solution. Those who might be able to effect change are not listening, or don’t care, or have simply given up.
So all we have is weary déjà vu! Oh dear!
This article was originally published on The Political Sword
For Facebook users, The Political Sword has a Facebook page:
Putting politicians and commentators to the verbal sword
Like what we do at The AIMN?
You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight.
Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!
Your contribution to help with the running costs of this site will be gratefully accepted.
You can donate through PayPal or credit card via the button below, or donate via bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969
12 comments
Login here Register here-
nicole livar -
Mark Shields -
ajogrady -
Gangey1959 -
Canguro -
Caz -
Andrew J. Smith -
RomeoCharlie29 -
New England Cocky -
Canguro -
Canguro -
A Commentator
Return to home pageIt is very simple, stop the occupation, stop the ethnic cleaning, stop the USA financing Israel war with 3.8 billions every year, and stop supporting blindly Israel and its media manipulation.
The right of Religious Might will always write our history for us:
In the 21st century, blessed with humanly discovered scientific exploration, we all know there is no such thing as “Sacred Land” or “God” and apologies to Indigenous peoples across the Globe, but now is the time to stop believing in Myth and Mystery, considering everything we actually know.
Humanity is old enough to realise there is NO fucking GOD: If there was one, IT would prescribe that we humans learn from Nature how to co-exist with other species! Because let’s face it, we Humans have chosen to believe that between Left and Right; humanity has diverged into separate species! Scientists and Artists will always see differently but like it or not, we will always remain just another species on this planet until we evolve out of our disgusting sense of competition, discrimination and hatred!
The West continually calls out China for human rights failings and yet turns a blatant blind eye and is reticent in calling out the systematic and orchestrated atrocities of massive human rights abuses and violations whilst intergenerational Apartheid is also being perpetrated against Palestinians by the Israeli government. Is it because it shows the failings of a Democracy?
The entire history of the human species is an endless litany of one dogma or another (pick one) murdering as many of its societal “unbelievers” as it can, in the name of faith “x”.
Until humanity as a whole says enough is enough, and the us and it’s allies stop funding and protecting and enabling the Red Sea pedestrians, the slaughter will not stop.
The people in charge believe that they have the right to murder. Their God said so
It was incorrect.
Waiting for a comment from Jared Kushner, who not so long ago proclaimed peace and harmony had been achieved in the M.E., courtesy of his brilliance at diplomatic wrangling.
The comments posted above are accurate. The West stands rightly accused in its hypocrisy regarding China and other countries apropos the blind eye policies regarding Israel and that country’s appalling behaviour towards the Palestinians – let’s not forget that Israel was gifted this territory by the decisions of western politicians who deemed the Palestinians worthy of disenfranchisement of the lands they had occupied for millennia, and now Israel behaves with contempt and reckless violence worthy of all the charges they are accused of regarding their treatment of the disenfranchised people whose land they now occupy.
It is a disgusting spectacle. I’m glad there’s a minority of Jewish people in the diaspora willing to speak out against that country’s behaviour, but still, they are impotent and powerless against the rabid zealotry of the occupiers & politicians who employ the might of the IDF to maintain the apartheid-like structures that have been the reality for the Palestinians for the last seventy years.
What’s so truly puzzling is that after the horror of the Holocaust, Israel is willing to recreate its own version of a fascist state and enact it against these people. Trauma never ceases, apparently, and seeks to relive itself.
As I see it, Homo sapiens is just the top of the food chain and no better that the beast in the jungle. The only difference is that animals only kill to survive, that is to eat and procreate. We on the other hand tear one another to pieces because we can. And we excuse it in the name of religion. There is no god. There is no afterlife. We create our own hell. The Israelis are no better than their German oppressors of the past.
This conflict will only end with the destruction of the Palestinian people. There is no hope, it’s too late now.
When religion is still central to politics, military and society these events will continue….. like in the US and to an extent Australia, religious belief is allowed to justify almost anything, even redemption; backgrounded by US GOP media techniques.
Apart from the sclerotic PA leadership(s) and politics, Israel is losing moderate secular citizens to emigration, after years of conservative ‘born again’ immigration amongst settlers especially, then backed up by US Evangelicals (part of Trump’s electoral support), The Rapture and need for Jerusalem to be taken over again by Evangelical Christians….
Then we have Netanyahu’s own legal travails which are put on ice each time such conflagrations emerge (chicken or egg?) but apart from issues of losing support of Trump et al., difficulties in formation of coalitions and dealing with multiple corruption allegations, from BBC:
Feb 8, 2021 — Mr Netanyahu, 71, is accused of bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three separate cases.
April 5, 2021 – Netanyahu trial: Editor ‘told to drop negative stories about Israel PM’ …….
The Jewish diaspora has influence far in excess of what its numbers should allow and don’t they scream ‘ anti semitism’ when Israel is criticised. However it’s time Israel and Netanyahu were called out for what they are, a racist state and a fascist leader. Both the US and Australia should be withdrawing financial, and other support from Israel. Time for a two-state solution, settlers out of occupied Palestine and get rid of Netanyahu once and for all.
By any definition these ,military actions are crimes against humanity making the Israeli government war criminals.
Alternatively, the Zionist state is fascist and practising genocidal policies for the benefit of their religious zealots.
Question: What is the difference between a German paratrooper with his jack-boot on the throat of a Jewish teenager in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1944 and and Israeli Defence Force paratrooper with his jack-boot on the throat of a Palestinian teenager in Gaza today?
Answer: 77 years.
OT perhaps, but a couple of years ago a friend of mine was staying at a certain backpackers’ venue hidden in the hills to the southwest of Byron Bay. She mentioned that there was a group of four young men staying there, Israelis, ex IDF, demobilised and getting some R&R into their system in DownUnderland.
She said they were hitting the weed fairly heavily, as well as partaking in magic mushie sessions.
Perhaps there’s no correlation, but I’ve a notion that supports the sense that any violence of any sort is traumatising, and that the greater the violence the greater the trauma, and in this instance, the young conscripts of the IDF are exposed to, and expected to dish out violence towards the oppressed Palestinians, which they duly do, of course, in spades.. better the Palestinians than they themselves copping charges of disobeying orders and potentially serving time in the military brig.
So, perhaps, in a certain way, their use of psilocybin may have had a therapeutic consequence, given the increasing evidence of its efficacy in this arena of trauma resolution.
Among the myriad choices we have in this information rich era, where we can immerse ourselves amid the overflowing troughs of asinine and ugly untruths or conversely endeavour to be self-apprised of something closer to ‘reality’ by dint of judicious choosing our sources of information, one website that I’ve found to be consistently useful is a place called the Information Clearing House.
This article by the respected journalist Chris Hedges from that source website is as good as any to be found regarding Israel’s latest excursion to the dark side vis-a-vis its hegemonic terrorising of the captive Palestinian population.
It’s been a maxim of mine for years that it’s much better to be disillusioned than the state of being illusioned. We tend to use ‘disillusioned’ in a pejorative fashion, but think about it… isn’t it better to be closer to the truth than further away?
This is an intelligent and compassionate article about an apparently intractable, tragic problem
An absolute tragedy, there are no winners in this.