In the past week, Israel has reverted to slaughtering civilians, starving children and welshing on the terms of the peace deal negotiated earlier this year. The IDF’s current offensive seems to be intended to render Gaza unlivable, preparatory (perhaps) to re-occupation by Israeli settlers. The short term demands for the release of all hostages without further concessions, is a signal that Israel has little or no interest in fulfilling the second phase of the original plan whereby (eventually) all of the hostages still alive would be released, and the details of Gaza’s future rebuild and governance would be hammered out in discussions between the warring parties.

By demanding that Hamas release the hostages without any 
“second phase” commitments by Israel, the peace process is being treated as entirely a one way street. The fear is that the hostages are the only thing standing between the Palestinians and the completion of the Gaza genocide. Given the West’s reluctance to denounce Israel’s bad faith – our Foreign Minister is still wittering on about the “two state solution “ that ceased to be feasible 25 years ago – there is nothing to halt, or lessen the carnage. The current estimate is that at least 50,000 Palestinians have died in the IDF response.

Israel’s actions can only complicate the teaching of the Holocaust in NZ schools. While the Holocaust will always be the most horrific crime of the 20th century, the empathy felt towards Israelis as victims of that horror, must now co-exist with the terrible nightly images on the TV news. These images accurately depict Israel as the perpetrators of a different form of the slaughter of innocents, people who have been marked for extinction on the basis of their race. Over time, this cognitive dissonance seems bound to diminish the world’s perception of the Holocaust as a unique example of human evil.

For obvious reasons, this would be a tragic outcome. Among other things...much of the infrastructure of UN international human rights law built after WW11, was written and endorsed by the global community with the Holocaust on everyone’s mind, and intended to ensure that such evils never occurred again. The Geneva Conventions, the Refugee Convention, the Genocide Convention etc were all by-products of that post-Holocaust environment.

Ironically, these are some of the same human rights laws to which the International Criminal Court is now holding Israel to account.

Hail, Luxonia!

In the hermit kingdom of Luxonia, kids are at risk of dying without access to adequate palliative care, cities of 70,000 people (e.g Napier )are subsisting on virtually non-existent healthcare services ,food banks that are dealing with soaring demand are facing funding cuts, young people are fleeing the country in record numbers, homeless people are pouring onto the city streets due to the inability to access emergency housing, hungry schoolkids are being targeted for cost savings, and...on the cusp of our deputy PM’s 80th birthday, have any of these calamities captured his attention?

Not at all. Instead, Winston Peters is concerned whether there is too much fluoride in the water supply, too much effort going into the reduction of climate change emissions, and – worst of all – too much attention being paid to offering equal pay and work opportunities to Māori, women, the disabled, and transgender people. The only recycling of which Peters approves has him re-litigating all the myriad grudges he still holds against the previous government.

It is quite a pitiful end to a long and colourful career. If last night’s “state of the nation” speech was anything to go by, an increasingly cranky Peters can no longer tolerate dissent. So much for the bygone days when politicians would relish the to and fro of political dissent in rowdy halls. These days, Peters is unable to tolerate even a solitary silent protester before clamouring for the security guards to eject such people from the ranks of the faithful, while he squawks about the “fascists” disrupting his spiel.

We are facing genuine problems –many of them generated by the current government – to give so much air time to Winston Peters muttering about fluoride, and jousting at the windmills of the woke.

Footnote: For the record, those allegedly evil “woke” policies around pay and employment were gestures of inclusion. They were meant to ensure that the lasting effects of racism, sexism etc were not stopping talented people from fulfilling their potential and contributing to the general good. In that respect, woke policies are simply the modern version of traditional Kiwi values: let’s give everybody a fair go by treating Māori, women, gays, trans and the disabled as valued members of society.

Instead, Peters and his elitist pals in government are trying to divide the community for their own political gain, by treating a message of tolerance as a battle cry. We’re better than that.

Weyes Blood, Fiona Apple

On both these tracks, it is the singer that raises the stakes. Weyes Blood (aka Natalie Mering) has just released an exquisite version of the Neil Diamond oldie “Shilo” that breathes new life into a song that seemed to have run its course decades ago:

This “Letter From An Unknown Girlfriend” track is from the new album by the Waterboys (aka Mike Scott), and it features Fiona Apple. Her voice is getting older in ways that lend authority to Scott’s typically florid lyrics.

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