We Should STILL All Be Screaming.

I was looking back on when I wrote some of my blogposts, and I realized it’s been close to a year since I wrote this:

Why Aren’t We All Screaming?

And I entertained the idea of waiting until the 25th of this month to write this, but I thought, writer’s block being what it is, better not risk it, better write this now while I feel able.

It’s been close to a year since I wrote this, a year since I did my best to write about, how am I supposed to feel about the fact that a live streamed genocide just brings a shrug of the shoulders from so many people? The year went by so fast, and in some ways, everything has changed, and in others, nothing has changed.

A curious phenomenon we’re encountering lately, is people who said nothing about the genocide all along, all of a sudden, seemingly out of the blue, having something to say about it.

Like the Crown Prince Of Lethargic Centrism, Bono:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9C5480ExiJ0

Sure, it’s “both sidesy” as all fuck, but here we have Bono explicitly criticizing Nehenhayhu. And what about this, the poster child for not giving a fuck about Gaza issuing a statement about it? Here’s what Thom Yorke had to say:

https://pitchfork.com/news/radiohead-thom-yorke-releases-statement-on-israel-and-gaza/

Sure, there’s a lot of whinging here about how people are mean to him, but this is, to the best of my knowledge, the first statement from Thom Yorke where he acknowledges that the genocide in Gaza isn’t actually very nice.

Who’s next. What’s this, the King Of Fair Weather Humanitarianism has issued a statement! Bob Geldof! Now, this one, I feel a bit different about, because the statements from Bono and Thom Yorke come across as “Okay, I said the thing, can I go now?” But this statement from Bob Geldof is different. Because, I feel it was actually a really good statement overall. Yes, I question Geldof’s sincerity, not just a little, but a lot, because he waited 21 months to say anything, but, I think what he said was really powerful, and if I hadn’t been informed about Geldof’s 21 month silence, I would have sworn he meant it. Have a listen yourself.

“They’re lying” I did NOT expect him to go that far. I was expecting, “Israel accidentally made some mistakes but they’re very nice actually.”

“What’s unfair is that one hour, from the hunger, people are sitting down to their un-threatened dinners to watch the latest Netflix soap.”

Regardless of who’s saying it, this is just so true.

“So if Israelis want to protest, stuff your cars full of food, drive through the border, and let your own army stop you.”

A call to action to Israelis, to get off their arse and do something about it? Wasn’t expecting that!

“Who are we? In Bristol this week they created the fourth largest computer that can do 23 quintillion deductions in a second, and children, are taking a teaspoon of salt, and a belly full of water, down the road, shut up, what have we become that we can do this miracle, and perpetuate this agony?”

This really sums up how fucked the whole situation is.

Yes, Bob Geldof waited 21 months to say anything. And yes, Bob Geldof is STILL pro-Israel. But damn it, this speech, sincere or not (and I’m leaning towards insincere) still gives me hope, because what he said was still so powerful, that my hope is that it will still inspire people to take action to stop the horror in Gaza. That’s my hope anyway. Hope is in short supply these days!

Since this time last year, my argument is that a lot has changed, but also that nothing has changed. I’ll get to the more depressing part of it where nothing has changed later. But first, how have things changed?

I think what it comes down to is that, this time last year, Israel’s most, we’ll say, cartoonishly evil actions typically involved bombing hospitals. For this, people who wanted to defend Israel, or wanted to stay “neutral”, could just hide behind the excuse that Israel was trying to bomb Hamas, and WOOPSIE, they accidentally bombed a bunch of seriously ill patients! That hospital was a Hamas stronghold don’t you see! And so was that hospital. And that hospital! And that hospital over there! See that hospital with all the children in it, well, that baby in the hospital was actually a Hamas agent! So, people could hide behind the excuse of, one of the most advanced armies in the world kept doing a woopsie daisy on the hospitals while trying to get Hamas! Conscience, CLEAR!

But, Israel’s tactics seem to have changed a bit. They can’t really bomb hospitals anymore, since they bombed all of them. So now their tactic seems to be, starving people to death. And that seems to have woken a lot of people out of their 22 months coma.

For shootings, and bombings, there is always the excuse that the IDF made mistakes. It’s a paper thin excuse, but it seems to work for Johnny No Principles. But, the woopsie daisy excuse doesn’t seem to work on starving people to death. There’s a Hamas agent in the baby formula!

Now, there is still the excuse that Israel and pro-Israel people are putting out that Hamas is stealing the aid, but, this excuse doesn’t seem to work as well as the excuses for bombing hospitals. With bombing or shooting, there seems to be this idea that, “Well, that’s war! Sometimes bad stuff happens when it’s war, that’s the way it is!” But, with literally starving people to death, there seems to be this idea in the public consciousness that a serious, serious line has been crossed.

To be clear, yes, a serious line has been crossed with Israel deliberately creating a famine, but to me, and to many others, this is like, the one thousandth line that Israel has crossed. Israel likes crossing lines. It crosses all the lines. Crossing lines is the national pass time over there!

Now, the “tide turning” as it’s been called, has varied quite a lot. One major exception to this is Sky News Australia. Sky News Australia is still just “Good day mate, let’s throw some genocide on the barbie!” I have previously made mean comments about Australians on this post:

On “Separating The Art From The Artist”

And in this post I clearly stated that I would apologize for such remarks as soon as Australia apologized for Rupert Murdoch. Australia still hasn’t apologized for Rupert Murdoch I’m afraid. Now, an Australian could easily say, isn’t it true that Ireland still hasn’t apologized for Bono? Yes, that’s a fair point, so if any Australian wants to come at me with, “Top of the morning to ya, I’m a leprechaun, now I’m going to throw some shamrocks on the barbie!” go right ahead!

Australia has given the world the Mad Max films, Midnight Oil, and King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard. And for this they deserve all the praise in the world. But if only they hadn’t also given us Sky News Australia! Like, look at this nonsense:

This is the oldest trick in the book. Find an example of someone who makes an argument in a “cringe” way, so you can attack the way they are making the argument, and not the argument itself. Yes, this woman was completely letting her emotions overwhelm her, and yes, in this era of internet nastiness, that sadly makes her fodder for what used to be called “cringe compilations” back in the day. But was anything she said wrong? Are there not babies and mothers and grandfathers starving to death? Isn’t it completely true that Israel won’t let the aid in? But this is the pathetic tactic that is typical of Sky News Australia. Find somebody who makes an argument in a way that is deemed ineloquent, attack the way in which they are making the argument, then you can ignore the argument!

I think this woman has a way bigger conscience than the smug, condescending, vapid, empty Sky News Australia drone that is mocking her. I’ve felt like screaming the way she is, many, many, many times, but I fear if I start, the screaming will never stop. Same reason I don’t cry for the people of Gaza that often, I think there’s this fear that if I cry, the tears will never stop.

Luckily Sky News Australia doesn’t speak for all Australians, as this recent protest indicates. Tens of thousands, maybe more, came together to protest against the mass slaughter of the people of Gaza:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tens-of-thousands-protest-israel-s-war-on-gaza-in-australia-s-sydney/ar-AA1JPqbx

So, where are we now? Sky News Australia seems to be an outlier, hopefully anyway, using the exact same tactics it has been using since October 2023. But, elsewhere, things seem to be changing. Bono and Thom Yorke made a statement, granted in that, “Can I go now?”, kind of way, but after months of silence they said something. And Geldof made a statement that was really good! So, is this is? Is the tide turning?

Sadly, I think it’s more complicated than that.

Fuck, I hate to even say the word “complicated” after all those “neutral” people spend the last two years ruining the word. But yes, “complicated” is the most appropriate word I fear!

I strongly suspect, and, believe me, I would give anything to be proven wrong on this. But I don’t think it’s so much that the tide is turning, but more so that the strategy is changing. I’ll give you an example of another person who changed their tune. Piers Morgan!

This is Piers Morgan saying to Medhi Hasan, who has spoken out against the genocide for the last two years, “I have resisted going as far as you have done in your criticism of the Israeli government. I resist no more.”

So, even Piers Morgan, the absolute rock star of insufferable centrism, is on our side now! HURRAY! All of the pro-Palestine activists can go home now!

Not so fast. As I’ve talked about here:

Fuck It

Piers Morgan is still giving very harsh criticism to anyone who is an activist for Palestine. Like when Greta Thunberg, along with a crew of activists, tried to deliver aid to Gaza, Piers had particularly vicious criticism of that act. So where Piers is, is “Yes, it’s a genocide, but do anything to alleviate the suffering of those people, naughty naughty!”

I think I know where we are now. And it’s depressing. The first year and a half of this genocide was when you could get away with saying, what to me are the “The Big Three” excuses. “It’s complicated”, “I stay out of politics” and “Israel has a right to defend itself” Weirdly enough the, “Anyone who criticises Israel is an anti-Semite” excuse is taking a bit longer to die off. But, people have seen, so many images of starving children, that the old excuses won’t work any more.

Piers Morgan called Israel’s actions towards Gaza a genocide, but taking a boat to Gaza with aid on board is too extreme for him?

I think I know what phase we’ve entered now. I could be wrong, and I may feel different as I think on it more, but I think what we’ve entered, is the phase of, calls for moderation.

“First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”

https://letterfromjail.com/

This is from, “Letter From Birmingham Jail” written by Martin Luther King. I had some debate with myself about including this, in short, what does some white boy from Cork know about the struggle for black liberation, and where and when it’s correct to compare that to other struggles for liberation? But, I have a strong feeling that this quote is relevant to pretty much any struggle for justice and liberation, so I hope it’s appropriate to include it here.

This is one of my favourite quotes from Martin Luther King. If you were a white person who lived around the same time as MLK, and if you were horrified by the disgusting treatment of black people at the time, then the deranged ranting of a member of the KKK would not convince you of anything. But what might have convinced you, is if a “white moderate” came up to you and said, “Look, it’s awful what’s happening to black people, I’ll be the first to say it, but you know, these civil rights activists are a bit extreme aren’t they? So, let’s all be nice and moderate, and rights for black people will come in its own good time!”

So, I suspect this is where we are now with the genocide in Gaza. Too many images of starving children (and yes, there’s been a lot of talk about how we need to have more compassion for starving adults, and I agree, but the reality is that starving children has been more effective at breaking people out of their 22 month coma) have been seen by too many people. I don’t think there’s any going back to 2024, “The Big Three” excuses I think have lost all of their power. So I thing the phase we’re entering now, is the “Calls For Moderation” phase.

Oh no, children starving, it’s horrible, I can’t get it out of my head, make it stop! Wait, somebody threw paint at an airplane, that’s too extreme, lock them up I say!

The group Palestine Action broke into an airbase, and sprayed red paint on a military plane. But the genocide in Gaza is unacceptable! So many suffering babies. Surely these people just wanted to highlight the horror of what’s going on, and surely leniency is the appropriate…….

Palestine Action is now a proscribed terrorist organization.

So there you have it. The genocide is awful, it’s terrible, it’s beyond human comprehension how something so vile could happen! But any attempt to do anything to stop it, is going too far. Look, it’s awful, but we need to be moderate! And by “moderate” what is meant is “doing nothing”.

I don’t know what’s next. “Phase One” of the Western World’s reaction to the genocide was, stating that Israel is right about everything it’s doing, or if that doesn’t work, you can take refuge in being “apolitical”. Now we’re into “Phase Two”, where the absolute horror of what is happening is readily acknowledged by Western Governments and Western Media (except Sky News Australia of course), but, we can’t be extreme you see, we have to have a nice moderate plan for nicely asking Israel to stop doing a genocide! And of course, by extreme, they mean, doing ANYTHING to help Gaza, and by being moderate, they mean doing nothing. Better protect yourself from glass, because the Overton Window has been smashed to bits!

I’m going to put it bluntly. I think there will be no “Phase Three” unless action is taken to bring that about. We’ve seen how little the government of even Ireland, that pro-Palestine country, will do. Rhetoric will change, but actions never will. Unless the issue is forced.

That’s Mary Manning at a pro-Palestine protest. She went on strike to force Dunnes Stores to stop handling South African goods, which led to the Irish government banning South African goods in Ireland. I think that’s what it’s going to take for real change. The Dunnes Stores workers went on strike for three years, and eventually, South African goods were completely absent from Ireland. I think we need to look back to the ways that the people of Ireland won the right to keep South African apartheid products out of our country, because the government sure as hell isn’t going to do anything, other than water down the Occupied Territories Bill and keep letting Israeli planes land in Shannon. I think industrial action is ultimately what’s needed.

We’re in Phase Two now. Where the powers that by acknowledge that it’s a genocide, but oppose doing anything to stop it. And we need to get out of Phase Two fast. Because the human body can only last three weeks, just three weeks without food.

Time is running out.