Beyond the pale

 Who are the civilians in Gaza. As the death toll goes up and up and the Israeli airforce continue to pound the civilian buildings, any sense of “we are civilian they are Hamas” begins to diminish as death becomes the final arbiter for those living, as does any sense of cooperation with ordinary people who might have been nonaligned but who now hate the oppressor on either side.

With a history like this how can a ‘Two State’ solution come into being, (ie the creation of a fully fledged Palestinian State along side that of Isreal’s.) how can normalisation be established for future ties with the depth of outrage swilling around.

Perhaps the only solution is a Korean style separation, such as between North and South Korea with a ‘no go’ area between the two states and economic ties broken as all population movement is stopped. I suppose this is a solution favoured by Isreal’s but not Palestine since they seem totally reliant on Isreal economically.

Perhaps the fault lies in the history of the region and the unreality of any healthy interrelationship. You can’t build a structure when the foundation is weak and the fractured interrelationship between Arab and Jew appears to be a permanent thorn in their side. It wasn’t always so. In biblical times they were Arabs with a tribal difference which defined the social family structure. The house of Abraham descended from Noah split. into Issac and Ishmael. Moses through from Issac went on to found Judaism whilst Ishmael’s  progeny later founded Islam through Mohammed.

Brothers, cousins, uncles who are now at each others throat were once part of the same stock, but as in any family feud the schism runs deeper than normal because of the assumption of ties which when destroyed are inimical even malevolent to rational persuasion.

Humans with their prejudice are unstable bed fellows owing to assumptions of fealty to tribe and kith-ship, and illustrates how bound to support from those around us we are. Swimming against the stream, holding controversial opinions, rank you a trouble maker to be shunned. And yet it’s from the ranks of controversy a way is defined to move forward.

Churchill was a belligerent whist around him the appeasers held sway and we may be at the cross roads as decisions to arm Ukraine with better defensive/offensive weapons might just be that moment. Of course Churchill was not making decisions in a nuclear world were retaliation brings with it such a price but the lesson of the cold war was that at the brink rational voices held sway.

Joe Biden’s dismal public performance contrasted with his coherent strategy as President generally far offsets his early onset of dementia, forgetting names has been with me for 50 years but it quite rightly sends out warning signals. A greater warning signal is Donald Trumps almost flippant attitude to leadership with no sign of cognitive joined up thinking, simplistic popularist rhetoric replaces the balance required in diplomacy