Israel Attacks Aid Convoy

Early this morning, the Israeli Defence Force boarded one of six ships carrying humanitarian aid from Turkey to Gaza and killed at least 10, possibly 19 unarmed activists. This happened about 50 miles offshore, in international waters. By any reckoning, that's an act of war. And yet, there is hardly any international condemnation (half a dozen ambassadors called in for a slap on the wrists), and the silence from the US has been deafening.

Israel behaves more like the rogue state it is with every passing day. Arab states continue to prevaricate and tremble at the knees, while the US not only refuses to condemn Israel's actions, but actively enables them with billions of dollars of aid every year. I would have expected Obama to take a very firm line with Israel, but it seems he's lost his bottle.

Had the Israeli government sat down and brainstormed what was the worst, most revolting, sickening and disgusting thing they could do, I doubt they could have dreamt up anything to beat murdering a dozen or so peace campaigners whose sole aim was to bring some relief to the Palestinians. I am sure that most Israelis are fundamentally decent people, but that cannot be said for their leadership. Human decency features nowhere on their agenda.

Will no-one stop these bastards?

Confession

For about my last five years in Dubai, I had an officette in Dubai Media City. DMC was quite a pleasant place to work. On one side we had the Arabian/Persian Gulf, and on the land side we had an artificial lake and a bit of parkland beyond that. There was this wiggly bridge thing that crossed the lake, with a square bulge in the middle that had a kiosky/kitchenny thing that could be used for a teeny-weeny cafe. I think it had one tenant for about two months during all the time I was there.

I used to like to go out on the bridge several times a day. I would stand on the cafe platform and stare into the water, lost in my thoughts. One day in high summer, I noticed there were thousands of little fish lurking in the shade provided by the bridge and the platform. I also noticed that the sun was at such an angle it cast a shadow of my upper body onto the water. And then I noticed the little fish were moving into the shaded area provided by me.



So, here's the confession; I would wait until my shadow was full of fish. And then I would deliberately move several steps to the left or right, thereby exposing the fish to the full heat of the sun, causing stress, trauma, and goodness knows what else to the poor little blighters.

Sorry, fish.