Mad Cows and Israelites

A classic example of thinking up a title before thinking up the content.



It's tempting to go off on one about the Foot and Mouth epidemic but I think there are two very good reasons for not doing so; firstly, the epidemic is winding down (so our government assures us) and so it will soon be considered old news. Secondly, I defy anyone to take it seriously after having seen the headline "Slaughtermen terrified of Exploding Cows!"

I mean Jesus Christ! The media have invested time and money whipping us into a frenzy about this non-fatal disease and then they go and ruin it all in one fell swoop. It conjures up images of cows looking up, seeing their would be killers approach, waiting until they're just within range and then...BANG! A cow bravely sacrifices herself for the survival of the herd. Have cows evolved this ability overnight? Or has it always been a part of bovine physiology? Maybe it has and the government has known all along! Maybe there isn't really a foot and mouth epidemic at all; maybe the exploding cows represent a threat to national security and the cull was a pre-emptive strike! After all, why else would perfectly healthy animals need to be slaughtered in their thousands?
Maybe that was why the army was eventually involved. Here was us thinking that they were needed to dispose of the rotting carcasses whereas in fact it was clearly for their bomb disposal expertise! ("Okay Sarge, this baby's got a gutfull of methane and she could blow at any time so we need to be careful. Right, should we cut the blue vein, the red tendon, or the black intestine?")

Actually, we could use this to our advantage. Dubya is busy rattling his sabre at the Chinese again, this time over Taiwan. He's selling all manner of military equipment to the Taiwanese, much to the anger of the Chinese government. Well, if we were to export livestock and agricultural equipment (in much the same way as the US sold "agricultural equipment" to Iraq before the Gulf war kicked off), why then who could object to that? Then, if the Chinese government were ever to invade they would be faced with the first battalion, bovine brigade (Explosives and Artillery division). That way we can further subsidise the farmers by giving them a cut of our defense budget.

But anyway, that is all by the by. What I am finding rather fascinating at the moment are the troubles in Israel (and incidentally, isn't it sweet how we refer to drawn out incidents that involve the casual murder of civilians as "troubles"? Northern Ireland, Indonesia, and now Israel. What next? Tantrums in Algeria? Huffing in the Philippines?)
Currently, Israel is preparing to celebrate their Independence Day and have just conducted a remembrance of their war dead. No one can deny that Israel has had a tough time since it's inception, and most people agree that it was right to give the Jewish people a homeland after the horrors of the Holocaust. After all, the holocaust was a situation where a people who had lived so long in Germany and controlled areas that they considered it their home found themselves persecuted for no other reason than they were Jews. They were oppressed by a militant government who confiscated their land and their property for themselves without any consultation whatsoever. And non-Jews viewed them with hatred and suspicion. Understandably, they wanted to avoid this happening again and so fought for a homeland both diplomatically and by means of guerrilla action. As a result, Israel was created in 1947.

This leads rather neatly on to the reason for all of the troubles in Israel. Currently the Palestinians, who have lived in Gaza and the West Bank for so long that they consider it their homeland, are having their land confiscated by the newly elected hard-line militant government by means of creating new Jewish settlements there. They are also viewed with a certain level of suspicion by non-Palestinians and are certainly hated by swathes of the Israeli populace. Currently they are in the process of fighting for their own homeland by both diplomatic means and guerrilla action. So there situation clearly bears no resemblance to that of the Jews during and after WWII. Erm...

I should of course clarify my position before I'm accused of anti-Semitism. There is no question of Israel slaughtering Palestinians in Death camps, and the Palestinian people have a far more militant wing in the form of Hamas who commit their own acts of brutality against the Israeli's. But if we look at the generalities of the respective situations then there is not much to separate them out.

Is it wrong of me to think of the Israeli security forces in such a light? I don't think so. To stay silent about what is happening to the Palestinians because of what the Jews suffered under the Nazis is rather like ignoring child abuse because the abuser himself was molested in his youth. To take that comparison further, an abused child often becomes an abuser. That cycle is usually broken only with the help of others. Currently pretty much every non Arabic government tends to keep it's eyes downcast and shuffle it's feet until someone changes the subject when it comes to the Human rights abuses committed on the Palestinians and frankly it's about fucking time something was done about it. The wars that they endured in the 60's and 70's (well, perhaps not endured. More accurately the wars that they fought brilliantly and efficiently to ensure minimum loss of Israeli lives) are long since over. Realistically, Israel is not under immediate threat from its neighbours any more. The biggest threat it faces is the internal dissent that it is fomenting by it's continued mistreatment of Palestinians living in Israel. What motivation does it have to change its current stance? The militant minority of Palestinians gain more popular support when the reaction to the small scale carnage caused by a suicide bomber (and no, I'm not trying to cheapen the loss of life in those circumstances; just because only a few people die that doesn't make it any better) is a massive military assault on Palestinian citizens and their homes. Hmm, they're really going for winning the war of hearts of minds there aren't they?

No one in the international community makes any realistic objection to any of this and so it is tacitly condoned, and as such it is unlikely to stop soon unless it is by means of a bloodbath. There are no winners under the current circumstances; Israeli citizens (both Jewish and Palestinian) are afraid to leave their homes due to the fear of suicide bombers and the military respectively. The government makes loud and confrontation noises to appease the hard-liners whose dreams of an Israeli state free of the influence of the Arabic world are about as realistic as a Virgin train timetable. And all the time, people are being killed and the ill feeling in the region multiplies. Maybe it's time for Israel to treat the Palestinians in the way that the world has so shamefully failed to treat the Jews for so long.