Following a lengthy discussion with a friend in the USA about whether the Epstein files allegedly held by Pam Bondi, the US Attorney General, contain the name Donald Trump and, if so, whether this means Trump participated in Epstein’s sex activities with underage girls, I concluded:

The Bondi files case is going to rumble on until either the contents of the files are revealed or people simply get fed up with the story.

I then broke ranks and went off on a tangent…

For me, it’s far more important that we, the world that is, address the naked genocidal aggression of Netanyahu’s Israeli government and the Israel Defence Force, IDF, in Gaza. Children are starving to death in Gaza – starving to death! It’s a tragedy occurring before our very eyes, and for what? For Israel’s desire to take back that which they claim is theirs – the land between the river and the sea – that’s what. Why does Israel make this claim? Because the bloody Bible says so. I hate the Bible. I hate how people justify their murderous actions with words written over 2,000 years ago by a bunch of bearded old men wearing long robes and sandals and living in caves and who decided it would be useful to record some of their stories about a mythical being they called Yahweh, Jehovah, or God.

When WW2 came to an end and the true horrors of what went on in Hitler’s concentration camps came to light, the rest of the world was horrified that such an atrocity could ever be planned and carried out. Six million of the Holocaust victims were of Jewish heritage and our hearts went out to those who survived. A few years back, my wife and I visited Auschwitz and, I tell you, I openly and unashamedly wept when I viewed the collection of small brown suitcases, clunky shoes, and wireframe spectacles. The world vowed that never again would such an event of mass destruction and loss of life be allowed to happen. Well, let me tell you. It is happening again in Gaza and is being conducted by the very people against whom it was perpetrated eighty years ago. I don’t understand why Trump has remained silent. One can come up with all sorts of reasons – he’s a hard-hearted business man, fear of repercussions from the Jewish faction who control the US federal government and much of the economy, and maybe other factors I’m too tired to go investigate – but, underneath all these reasons, Trump is a man, a father, a grandfather, a husband. He must have some deep-down emotional reactions to what I can only describe as the genocidal ambitions of the Israeli government and its instrument, the IDF?

On 5th April, Trump says he is “disturbed by images of buildings collapsing and civilians suffering,” saying Israel was “losing the PR war” by broadcasting such footage. He added, “Israel has got to stop killing people.”

On 25th April, Trump calls Netanyahu and says – “We’ve got to be good to Gaza… Those people are suffering.”

These are meaningless political bullshit statements. There’s no threat or authority behind the sentiments. The person who empties my trash can every week could say these things and, like Trump, do nothing about it.

I despair of all the world’s politicians in their passive response to what will one day, I’m sure, be referred to as Holocaust 2. The Holocaust killed somewhere between 11 and 17 million people of whom 6 million were Jews. Holocaust 2 is, so far, responsible for over 61,000 deaths in Gaza. 6 million? 61,000? What’s the difference? A lot if you just subtract one figure from the other. Nothing if you look at the inhumanity and barbarity of the deaths.

I apologise for my outburst. I am emotionally consumed by what is happening in Gaza. I can no longer look at images of emaciated children on television and in the media. Netanyahu and his government seem not to care. The world’s leaders join forces and condemn the Israeli onslaught but rattle no sabres or shake no sticks. The UN, WHO, Médecins Sans Frontières, Amnesty International, and even Pope Leo XIV use the strongest terms in their condemnation of Israel, but have no teeth to bite back. A peaceful organisation called Palestine Action, PA, here in the UK, has just been proscribed by our government as a terrorist organisation simply because a couple of weeks back some of their members broke into an RAF station and sprayed pink paint on one of the RAF’s bomber aircraft. I mean, what the f**k? Anybody joining a PA protest meeting is now liable to be arrested by the police. I am seriously thinking of joining the next local PA protest meeting!

It’s crazy and tragic. Trump is one of a few people, perhaps the only one, who can halt Netanyahu in his tracks and hold him to account, but Trump has decided it is more important to fly to Scotland tomorrow for a four-day visit to his golf course in Aberdeenshire. Starmer, Macron and Merz are conspicuous by their lack of action. And in the meantime, Putin continues with his war of annexation in Ukraine and by saying nothing, indicates he doesn’t care about the crisis in Gaza.

[Update. Later yesterday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France will recognise the State of Palestine. Starmer is under pressure to follow suit, but what does this statement mean? Israel has reacted, predictably, with outrage and condemnation. Trump is playing golf.]

What has happened to the world?

Later, I sent my friend two images I collated, one from the Guardian newspaper, the other from the BBC website:

The image shows the front page of today’s Guardian newspaper. The Gazan baby is 18 months old, weighs 4 kg (just under 9 lbs) and has life-threatening malnutrition. It’s a haunting image.

The BBC reports on the arrest of a 67-year-old retired head teacher (school principal) who attended a Palestinian solidarity rally last Saturday in Leeds, holding a copy of the front page of our best-known satirical magazine, Private Eye. The man was handcuffed and detained for 6 hours before the police released him without charge.

That could happen to me if I were to attend such a rally and hold up a poster like that!

What has happened to freedom of speech, humanity, and common sense?

Ben

(^_^)