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“so it goes.”

In Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut’s character, Billy Pilgrim, uses the phrase “so it goes” every time he comes across a dead body. The repetition of the simple phrase tallies the fatalities of war and illustrates how people become desensitised to death. In Gaza death must now be so familiar that people are becoming numbed by its occurrence.

For most of us the loss of a family member is a shock and source of deep sadness. Particularly intense if it is a child. How does one cope when 10 members of your family have been killed in an instant, including brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers? Worse, when the cause of that sudden loss continues to threaten your own existence.

For those removed from the conflict the rolling news coverage first shocks, then disgusts and then it risks becoming sedimented, “so it goes.”

I have no doubt that the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, is working hard to mitigate the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza, the West Bank, and now Lebanon. War in the Middle East would be a disaster for the global economy and for US interests. Not great in an election year.

One detects an increasingly frustrated tone in his comments about the need to protect civilians and focus on the future when Israel ends the war against Hamas. Particularly in view of the fact that Prime Minister Netanyahu not only ignores Blinken but as much as tells him that he will be ignoring him.

Prime Minister Netanyahu may be happy to risk a regional conflict. He may conclude that Israel has previously benefited at the expense of the Palestinians in such events. However, the world is a different place to what it was in the 1940s and 1960s. Prime Minister Netanyahu may be in danger of overplaying his hand.

At the moment there are two players only who can stop what is happening in Gaza. One is Israel. A right-wing prime minister held hostage from the extreme right in a country where many ordinary Jews feel properly aggrieved at the murderous events of 10/7, does not look like a place to find compromise.

The only other player is the United States who could apply pressure through the $3bn per annum military aid it provides to Israel. So far Secretary of State Blinken does not appear to have even threatened to use that leverage in public. We don’t know what he might have said privately. But whatever he has said does not seem to have impacted much on the Israeli government’s plan of action.  

As I have said previously, when this does stop, it is very likely to look like an exercise in ethnic cleansing, whatever the intention. Further, it is going to be difficult for the US and the UK to look shocked and surprised at what has happened. Their credibility in future negotiations with Arab partners after the bombs stop will at best be threadbare.

However much the Palestinians in the West Bank are chased around the strip by bombing campaigns, at the end of the day, they are still going to be there. That reality should be front and centre of any government’s thinking about long term security and screams the need for significant compromise by Israel if they want peace.

Apart from a brief humanitarian pause to secure the release of some of the hostages abducted by Hamas there has been a pretty much continuous campaign of bombing in Gaza. From the start there have been civilian casualties.

On 10/7 around 2,300 Israeli civilians were killed, “so it goes”. Some 240 Israelis, mainly civilians, were abducted, some of whom have since been killed, “so it goes”.  More than 250 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, “so it goes”. Palestinian deaths in Gaza are well in excess of 20,000, “so it goes.” Of the 20,000 killed, around half have been children, “so it goes”.

The scale of death in Palestine is mind numbing. In three months roughly twice as many civilians have been killed in the Palestinian territories than in Ukraine during almost two years of war, 10,000 Ukrainians, 20,000 Palestinians.

In neither case should we, or more particularly our political leaders, succumb to the dehumanised response, “so it goes”.

However powerful the justification for Israel taking action against Hamas originally, the scale of civilian deaths has undermined the moral force and validity of its campaign. Increasingly the reference back to 10/7 looks more like a rationalisation for something altogether different to a war against Hamas.

If there is no material action taken to apply pressure on Israel to curtail its programme of mass destruction in Gaza there will be no excuses for those that failed to act. The fundamental moral position they have taken will be captured in three words, “so it goes.”

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Moving People

Our Defence Secretary, Grant Shaps, was asked whether the British Government thought it was possible for 1 million people in the North of Gaza to move to the south in 24 hours. He started by saying the British government agrees with the Israeli government that Hamas needs to be removed from the scene but then went on to qualify this by saying it should be done “in a manner that does not affect the Palestinian population as far as is possible”.

Pressed on the point about how feasible such an ultimatum was he then talked about how dreadful Hamas are and how unspeakably vile its actions were in its attack on Isreal. On all this I think most people would agree with the Defence Secretary.

However, interviewer, Michelle Hussein tried to bring him back to the question she started with about the feasibility of moving 1 million people in 24 hours, including the elderly and the sick, across a war zone, where relentless missile bombardments have destroyed large parts of the transport infrastructure, with fuel, food and water scarcity.

The Defence Secretary refocused saying the warning the Israeli army was giving was important and that this was something Hamas had not provided. Well yes, I guess that is why the British Government have declared Hamas a terrorist organisation. But that does not answer the question at the heart of this. Is the order issued by the Israeli military consistent with acting in “a manner that does not affect the Palestinian population as far as possible”?

Indeed in the introduction to the piece, Michelle Hussein, reported the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, as having asked the Israeli government to take “all possible measures to protect ordinary Palestinian citizens”.

Just to give some scale to the Israeli Army’s order. Liverpool has a population of just under 500,000 people. Manchester has a population of just over 500,000 people. Try and imagine what would happen if they were both told they had to move every person in both cities to Warrington within 24 hours and the M62 was destroyed and no trains were running.

Does this sound like a strategy consistent with “not affecting” or “protecting” ordinary Palestinian citizens?

Saturday 10/7 was a black day, one which, as they said about Pearl Harbour, “will live in infamy”. There can be no excuse. The fear must be that one despicable act, killing hundreds of innocent civilians will spawn a response killing hundreds of other innocent civilians. And on and on and on.

This is a process which has moved from horrendous to terrifying and risks armageddon. It is premised on the false assumption there is a military solution to the problems of the Middle East. Only one thing is certain there is no likelihood of any solution being found before hundreds, possibly thousands more innocents are killed.

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Victory?

The atrocities of Hamas in Israel on 10/7 certainly bare comparison with those in the United States on 9/11. Some form of retribution is justifiable and in reality inevitable.

The question is, will the scale and nature of the retribution bring a lasting solution to a the awful situation closer or will it push it further away.

Benjamin Netanyahu claims the Israeli response to the murder and abduction of its citizens will “change the Middle East”. The British Foreign Secretary might have pointed out we have tried that and it does not work.

Attempting to eliminate c30,000 Hamas fighters by starving 2.4m people of all services is likely to have all the long term success of the arbitrary, imperial line drawing of Sykes Picot.

The Middle East is a victory free zone. There are periods when those who impose greater losses on “the enemy” claim a win. But that is only a temporary “win” planting the seeds for bloody reprisals whether immediately or at some point in the medium term.

Neither side ever truly safe. Always living in fear and with a constant need for security.

Sadly, now is not a time when talk of peace or reconciliation will gain any traction. Realistic engagement will only be possible after much innocent blood has been shed. This should be a source of everlasting shame to all those involved, and that includes the imperial powers who lay the border foundations of this whole mess.

When the next moment of exhaustion provides some space there should be a determined efforts to support a locally negotiated, internationally brokered way forward with resources.

Until then, even we committed atheists can only pray actions on all sides over the next few weeks or months are constrained by some common humanity. I only hope the power of prayer is stronger than I expect it to be.

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Deny and Delay

For something in excess of 40 years a group of fossil fuel interests have funded campaigns of climate change denial. This despite having their own evidence that the problem was real, progressive and existential.

As wildfires, floods, landslides, glacier retreats, temperature extreme records multiplied the ability to deny became non viable.

A new strategy was needed to ensure the oil kept flowing. Step forward delay.

Putin creates a new need for energy security and a swift focus on fossil fuel as opposed to a much more sustainable renewable energy strategy.

Then the cost of living crisis added another argument. Suddenly, those making record dividend payments on the back of record fuel prices were distraught at the plight of families hit by the cost of living crisis.

We now have a national leader flying kites about delaying the actions which will secure Net Zero by 2050. You cannot will the ends without the means.

We can’t save the planet by making the UK bankrupt. What this overlooks is the growing cost that the environment is going to impose if we do not act now.

There has been warning after warning about the need for action. These have been ignored.

The lights are going out in the last chance saloon. One can only hope those responsible for initially promoting denial and currently promoting delay will ultimately be held responsible. if only it was a moral universe.