The New Dark Age

Imagine being so cowardly you ignore a genocide because you think it’s better for your political career. Imagine actively participating in that genocide for as long as you can because you own shares in arms manufacturers.

Pretty much the entire western political class – from Joe Biden to Rishi Sunak to Keir Starmer – falls into one of those two categories: either they are psychopaths who profit from bloodshed or
they are cowards who fear the shitstorm that helped bring Jeremy Corbyn down. There is no third category of ignorance because they’ve seen the evidence we’ve seen and probably a lot more.

They know exactly what is happening, but they don’t want to speak up for the people being
targeted by bombs in case they get targeted by words.

It’s been particularly galling (but not surprising) to see the leader of the Labour Party, who we should be able to count on to stand up for the oppressed, acting with such cowardice. But I guess it’s nice to see that Starmer, along with Biden, Sunak and others, might possibly, maybe… if it becomes politically toxic not to… well, they might actually show something resembling a principle (this will take all of their acting skills to be convincing though).

We are now hearing murmurings of a “sustainable ceasefire” after two and a half months of insistence that a ceasefire would “achieve nothing” – surely code for “saving Palestinian lives means nothing”. Now they are a hair’s breadth away from saying: “Our focus groups have  indicated Palestinians might actually be a form of human, although the findings are inconclusive”.

FYI: Rishi Sunak’s idea of sustainable ceasefire is one where “hostages are released, rockets stopped being fired into Israel by Hamas and we continue to get more aid in.” The prime minister clarified this does not mean Israel should end its military campaign.

In other words, Hamas should stop fighting and Israel should keep killing until all of Hamas are dead, although Sunak did concede too many civilians are dying. (Sir Keir Starmer is currently asking his focus groups what his version of sustainable ceasefire should be, but it’s hoped it will include a 10% reduction in child limb amputations.)

I would not be at all surprised if Israel announced they were switching to environmentally-friendly bombs in the name of “sustainability”. The  Biden administration has already declared Israel should move to “a more precise, more targeted phase”, inadvertently confessing to the current untargeted phase of war crimes.

Reports are suggesting the bombing of southern Gaza (the safe zone everyone was forced to evacuate to) might be even more intense than the untargeted bombing in northern Gaza. This can only be explained if everything in the Gaza Strip is a target, which it is.

We’ve had a British-Palestinian MP – Layla Moran – live-tweeting about the Israeli military trapping her family in a Palestinian church with no links to Hamas and murdering people who try to visit the toilet and still half of parliament are like: “That Layla must be a wrong ‘un, anti-Semitically objecting to her own family being targeted by Israeli snipers like that”.

In one harrowing tweet, Moran wrote:

“Tanks still outside. Down to almost no provisions. I’ve been told food and water was delivered by the IDF but no sign of it yet. When will this nightmare end?”

The Knesset speaker even accused Moran of “blood libel” in a Channel 4 interview and we’re supposed to pretend this is a respectable opinion, but thankfully, fewer and fewer people are falling for the bullshit.

The situation poses a real dilemma for our political class.

If some are reaching the conclusion Palestinians are almost human does that mean they have to pretend to almost care about them? I mean even animals have rights, right? No one would support blowing thousands of animals to pieces and carpet-bombing their habitat to make it unliveable.

Just imagine the outcry if more of the public realise we are doing this to actual human beings that some of us were able to recognise as equals without consulting a focus group and receiving legal threats from international human rights lawyers.

Why are the people we put in charge always the very worst people at judging these things?

Some of us could see clear as day that it was wrong for Israeli forces to kidnap and torture civilians that they label “Hamas” to justify their brutality. Many of us were reasonable enough to understand you don’t torture enemy combatants, let alone civilians you pretend are
combatants. Many of us instinctively knew it was horrific for Israel to shoot a prisoner in the leg and amputate it and make him sign a document saying his leg was not functioning.

Maybe we’re some kind of special geniuses, given we were so far ahead of our leaders on the morality of this. Maybe these useless bastards should quit and put people like us in charge. I’m not bragging or anything, but I’m confident that my judgement is sound enough that I’d never “accidentally” support a genocide under the guise of anti-racism. What about you?

I mean it’s not like any of this was difficult to figure out. If we measured morality like we measure IQ, anyone who could not see the injustice would be considered to have severe learning difficulties.

Dr Hani Al-Haitham, the chief of Shifa hospital, who was filmed showing such kindness to orphaned babies, has been blown up, along with his entire family, in what was surely another targeted attack, given the frequency of these events.

Imagine our leaders being “unclear” about who the bad guys are when those bad guys are wiping out not only doctors but all of their children out of pure, unadulterated spite. How dare those monstrous doctors work tirelessly day and night to heal people! They and their children must be immediately executed without trial. It’s okay, folks, this is war!

I mean what the fucking fuck? If you’re one of those people who think there is ambiguity here, your morality quotient is in single digits. Perhaps you should consider writing a pop-up book with David Baddiel about how the war criminals are the real victims.

The people who denied blowing up hospitals in northern Gaza are blowing up hospitals in southern Gaza like the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah live on air and saying: “Yeah, we’re blowing up hospitals and you’re going to keep giving us the bombs to do it,” and our leaders are like: “Well, maybe we should consider possibly, in the future, aiming for some sort of sustainable ceasefire, maybe, if Netanyahu allows it,” and Israel is like: “Sure, you can have that ceasefire, just as soon as the entire Gaza Strip is rubble.

Meanwhile, the EU is trying to censor those who speak out to protect us from “Hamas propaganda” and “hate speech”, but they are silent on Israeli propaganda, and we don’t need to do anything resembling Hamas propaganda or hate speech. We simply need to show video footage of war crimes and the interviews of Israelis saying in broad daylight: “I’m in favour of war crimes actually.”