Houthi Matters

That's all very well, David Cameron. But it will be as effective as Anthony Blinken telling Netanyahu that Israel must do more to protect innocent civilians. Israel is ignoring that, because Netanyahu knows the US won't withdraw funding.  

Houthi chiefs have already said they'll carry on the attacks. Yes, their attacks have been on commercial shipping but now they're saying they'll go for Israeli ships, which will make them heroes in many people's eyes. They don't care about a show of force from the US and the UK. In fact, it gives them justification to carry on. Just like Israel's behaviour reinforces Hamas.  

Cameron recently said the Houthi attacks are separate from Israel/Gaza. Former MI6 chief Richard Dearlove told @TrevorPTweets on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips that it's true in a purely analytical sense, but on the Arab street the two are linked. In reality you can't separate them.

It's not just on the Arab street.

The chanting for Yemen is all across the demonstration

"Yemen Yemen make us proud turn another ship around" pic.twitter.com/wQ296sUPif

— Harry's Place (@hurryupharry) January 13, 2024

Dearlove said that of the three proxy groups in the Middle East; Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, Hamas and Hezbollah are much more directly controlled by and closer to Iran. The Houthis have always been a troublesome, tribal/religious group, less controlled by Iran, but Iran has enough influence to persuade them to stop the shipping attacks.

They're not doing that, so for Cameron to say this isn't political is fatuous. US and UK Govts say what they want us to believe. It's insulting and makes people who are biased against the govt line more entrenched, and it frustrates and angers people who can think for themselves. Worse than that, it creates more conflict and can't ever lead to a resolution. For that to happen, truth and all the complexities must be acknowledged and articulated. Too much to expect from Cameron?

And is the real reason for UK retaliation that Rishi Sunak is playing wag the dog in a desperate effort to win favour with an electorate that generally despises him? Parliament wasn't consulted - and Cameron can't be confronted in the Commons either - because it probably would have said we don't need to do this and we can't afford it. The US has the military capacity, so let's just give them support for now. That will give us time to debate and make a sensible decision.

Dearlove also said that Houthis don't have an infrastructure in the UK, so a "major conspiracy of terrorism" is unlikely. There could be lone wolf ones, though. Not much of a reassurance. And US/UK govts shouldn't be taking the risk. But lives are cheap for politicians.

And I still haven't seen any politician or media refer to Houthi rebels as human beings. It's an inconvenient truth, but they are. Desmond Tutu said if you want peace, you don't talk to your friends, you talk to your enemies. You have to listen to them too. Frankly, I don't think there are any leaders in the West with enough intellectual and emotional sophistication to deal with the whole Middle East conflagration.

Where is Barack Obama when you need him.

Israel and Palestine have Gained No Ground

Has either Israel or Palestine/Hamas gained any ground in this latest conflict? It depends on your perspective. Israel has shown Hamas that it has massive military capacity to do a lot of damage and that it has no compunction about it, no matter who gets slaughtered. The message is, hurt us and we will hurt you back, and we’re better at it than you are.  

But Hamas, once seen as a terrorist organization, has gained legitimacy and support from countries in the Middle East and many people around the world, because Netanyahu’s position, while it can be understood, just is not supportable by reasonable people. And for the first time, the US isn’t playing an obviously pivotal role. Egypt, governed by the Muslim Brotherhood, is.

I don’t know how much Egypt is being influenced behind the scenes by the US but even if it is, that is still evidence of President Obama’s unwillingness to involve the US directly in war. And on the surface this is a Middle East problem being solved by Middle East nations where there’s more real democracy than ever before and they are solidly behind Palestine, represented by Hamas.

Still, none of this amount to anything of any value to humanity or to the people of Palestine and Israel who have the right to a life without violence, because it’s all about military power. Power can broker peace but it can’t sustain it. Hamas is not a peaceful organization; its modus operandum is violence. Netanyahu is a military bully. And both he and Khalid Mashaal have made it very clear that their commitment to the cease-fire is lip service. 

For Israel a dead Palestinian is an unfortunate casualty. For Hamas a dead Israeli is a victory. Neither side has any remorse; and neither is acknowledging that they are as responsible as each other for the casualties in their own countries. Both are saying very clearly that they will do it again. Both leaders have support within their own countries. 

Netanyahu is painting Israel into a corner in a room with nothing like the kind of backing he had before. He can try to fight his way out of it, but wait until Iran gets in on the deal. Is that ultimate scenario what he is relying on? Iran is already in on the deal, supplying arms to Hamas, an organization which, apart from its commitment to violence, has no real control over individual groups of angry men addicted to violence. Scary.

Amassing power is not a solution to lasting peace, any more than intimidation is in a world where egos run rampant. So nobody has gained from this latest conflict and the shifting power dynamics. As Robin McCann of the Human Potential Development Centre in Cape Town said, “if things aren’t getting better, they’re getting worse”. I wonder what it will take for the world to recognise that the power to annihilate is never going to change anything for the better?

It seems that we often learn the best lessons when we hit rock bottom as individuals and as societies. What’s the nadir for Israel and Palestine? That everybody’s dead or maimed? 

How To Preserve the Cease-fire in Israel and Palestine

 Collage J. Stewart using public domain images

Christiane Amanpour asked a hardhitting question of Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, namely, was he ready to take responsibility for the men, women and children killed and wounded by Israel’s missiles. He did a double take and of course denied, but Amanpour is right. Both leaders are equally responsible for their own being slaughtered. But I think her question begs an even more important one.

For a real treaty to happen between Israel and Palestine, everybody seems to be agreed: no violence, either of you. It’s an excellent start. Nobody in the world wants to see a full-on war in the Middle East. Or that’s how it seems on the surface, that’s what everybody is saying, and a lot of countries are getting involved to try and keep the cease-fire in place.

But here’s the chink in the argument. A lot of the countries who supposedly don’t want war are also manufacturing and exporting arms. Their economies rely on these industries, politicians often get to stay in power by triggering off conflict somewhere, stirring up fear and patriotism, and creating more jobs. In the arms industry.

While calling for peace. We’ve become so inured to the sight of tanks and guns and missiles and bloody massacres that we don’t even question war any more. It’s a part of our daily life if we watch the news. If we don’t, it’s infiltrating our lives anyway. So many movies, TV series and books have some level of violence and gun-toting. Censorship blocks swearing but it doesn't block violence. 

Journalists passionate about exposing wrong in the world risk their lives to report on areas where it’s happening and the injustice of it. They’re courageous and it’s good that they wake the world up, because unless these violations get shoved in our face we don’t get involved. except that it doesn’t shock us anymore the way it should. Even if you’re outraged and horrified, and saddened at the tragedy, that reporting loses its edge after a week or two. 

Or three. Or four. It’s only when we’re at the receiving end of a bullet or a missile or we watch our child’s legs get blown off that all the numbness is dissolved as if we were dunked into a bowl of acid. Even then, do we even stop for a minute to consider the source of the problem? It’s not with leaders and fanatics, it’s not with those whose savagery dominates them. It’s definitely not with the men and women who defend themselves against it. 

The real problem is that the world wants to carry on manufacturing arms, and sinking huge sums of money into research and development, pouring resources into an industry that has one purpose. To maim and destroy. That’s where the journalists should be flocking. That’s what we should be watching and reading about every day and every night. All the politics of it, the high finance, the corrupted power.

It would make for great journalism, and we wouldn’t have to watch movies and TV series in the thriller genre any more. Reality at its best. Saving the world. One gun at a time. Making it impossible for anybody, no matter how deranged they are, to blow up children, women, men, animals, everything that is beautiful about life. 

Israel & Palestine - No Peace Without Respect

People with strong religious beliefs at war all seem the same, whether Christian, Muslim or Jewish, unless you’re one of them. They all cite some version of God as their guiding light and interpret some element of scripture to justify their position, and all of them are blind to the reality of their double standards. I’m allowed to hurt you but you aren’t allowed to hurt me. It’s a kind of skewed entitlement. 

It’s easy to judge them and the world does. But anybody who is honest with themselves will admit that at some point in their lives they have been blind to their own unhealthy entitlement and unbalanced behavior.  In our civilized society, teachers violate pupils, parents take their anger out on their children and refuse to acknowledge it, businesspeople destroy the lives of anybody who gets in their way, priests and celebrities rape children.

It’s the same principle, I can do what I want but you don’t have the right to object. In many ways our civilization is just a veneer. We’re still savages, unwilling to pay the price of true civilization, which is understanding that all reactive and punishing behavior is about scared and threatened people. Who can’t settle themselves deep within and are unwilling to face their own abysmal fears and do something about them. 

Projecting their inner uncertainty onto the material world and people around them.  Using an interpretation of some higher authority to justify what they’re doing, and clinging to the ephemeral right and wrong that never resolved an argument or a life’s crisis or a war. That never generated love and never ever settled a person down deep within themselves.  

It’s easy to look at Israel and Palestine and take sides on principles, tagging onto right and wrong. It’s easy to judge Netanyahu who believes he is civilized but behaves like a fundamentalist, and who doggedly refuses to let Palestine have its own turf. It’s also easy to rationalize his behavior in the face of missiles being launched at his country, as it is to rationalize Hamas’s actions in the face of Netanyahu refusing to budge. 

Or to judge Hamas for launching missiles indiscriminately. Or to make sweeping generalizations in either case, no matter which side of the right/wrong fence you stand. Harder is to step away and recognize that this is just about people who feel threatened. We have a tendency to forget that no matter what religion or race or nationality people are, they are affected by the same principles of cause and effect in human behavior.

Israel and Palestine need to get to a place where they can recognize each other’s humanity and say to each other “I see your vulnerability and I empathize with it because it matches my own. We’re both afraid. We’re both leading our own people towards destruction. So let us sit down and talk and listen.” Until they do right and wrong will rule and violence will continue to rape Israel and Palestine. Peace treaties will come and go, as one side or the other is bullied or cajoled into submission by other powers. 

But neither side will ever win and it won’t be about peace. It doesn’t matter who started the war. Somebody has to stop it. And you don’t beat bullying with more bullying. You beat it with respect.