The Recycle Of Tyranny

Religion and politics. Right there are two subjects it’s best to keep the fuck away from discussing, wouldn’t you say? Open your mouth on either one, or both, of these two and you’re sure to rile someone. Maybe I should keep my trap shut on this occasion but, off the internet for most of the past couple days and with my head buried in newspapers instead, my gorge has pretty much risen about as far as it will go.

Surely everyone would agree that the past three weeks has shown an utterly disgraceful turn of events in the Middle East. Over 1200 killed by the bombings and shellings. Hospitals targeted and a United Nations Relief and Works Agency school hit by shells, killing young children. Worse white phosphorus shells, banned from being used where civilians may be harmed, have been fired into the heavily populated Gaza Strip. How many Palestinian militants did the Israelis get unloading all that ordnance?

I find it astonishing that Western government still let the Israelis get away with murder. Maybe the West stays relatively quiet because there are too many skeletons rattling in the corridors of power’s closets when it comes to dealing with the Middle East? In the last century alone the absolute clusterfuck the region has become wasn’t helped by the post-World War I League of Nations mandates that divided up the Middle East after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The partition of Palestine by the United Nations in 1947 probably didn’t make things better either, and we’re still living with the toxic fallout.

Luckily now there’s a ceasefire in place, co-incidentally just as Bush packs away his colouring books and leaves office. Is there the outside possibility that once President-elect Obama steps into his inaugural phone box and Super Barack flies out he’ll have the balls to tell Israel to knock this shit off and quit acting like a bunch of cunty bullies? How many more breaks should they be given? How many more times should they be allowed to play the Holocaust card to shame people into withdrawing criticism and backing down?

By all means go ahead and call me an ignorant buffoon who has absolutely no understanding of the region and the people there. You’re probably right. But the one thought still rattling around in my head is, is this now a symptom of the cycle of abuse, where those who were abused come to victimise another party? In which case, does that mean the Nazis won?