8 days ago

8 days ago the Hamas once again started firing rockets into Israel, non-stop barrages, hundreds of rockets, random targets. Israel began retaliating claiming that this time they wouldn’t stop until there would be no more capability to launch attacks.

8 days ago the world watched in shock and incredulity at the scenes of the night skies over Ashkelon, Ashford and Tel Aviv.

8 days ago riots exploded in the streets — Arabs against Jews, Jews against Arabs. Pointless, unbridled violence and hatred scaring the living daylights out of the vast majority of the population who suddenly realized just how easy it had been to ignite the fuse to racism and violence for the sake of violence.

All this was was right under our noses.

Gaza was described this week as the biggest prison in the world with Hamas, the cruelest and most terrifying jailers.

When I left London,43 years ago,   it was the majority consensus that a solution to the Israel / Palestinian conflict would never be found.

You know, we live in this tiny speck, in the global context, of never-ending covert and overt conflict, so vulnerable, dependent and powerless. How true it is that ‘Humankind lives in fear of their own mortality and nowhere better to come face to face with that life truism is right here — right now.

8 days ago when this last round of lunacy began, many people here felt like they had come to a point where everything had simply caved in on them.

9 days ago we had actually begun to believe that we were on the way out of the pandemic crisis, that somehow the people of Israel — men and women, — Jews and Arabs, religious and secular, with origins from Russia, Morocco, Europe, Ethiopia and the Americas would benefit — restaurants started taking bookings, cinemas, theaters and even gyms and hairdressers reopened their doors.

The rockets began again, exploding balloons fell into the gardens of children looking forward to celebrating birthday parties and rather than inspiring excitement and joy the balloons triggered alarm and panic and, at best, countless parties ended in the shelter, at worst in tragedy.

From Tel Aviv to Sderot the Springtime night sky has been grotesquely reminiscent of the ‘space invaders’ arcade game and terror returned to the eyes of the innocent.

I don’t know how this will finish but what I do know is that there will be no winners, no victors, just tragedy and trauma left in the wake of this disaster. No one deserves this and only the rich get richer.

The media is inundated with one horror story after another relentlessly tearing away at the keystones of a society created and nurtured over the last 73 years. The futility of the deaths and injured will haunt us all for the rest of time itself and still no end in sight.

I don’t have a lollipop to hand out at the end of this diatribe there is no silver lining peeping out from beneath the rubble.

Emily Dickinson’s hope has feathers our hope has none. A great man once whispered in my ear to never give up hope.

8 days ago hope had all but flown out the window. Today, hope is all we have…