Remain calm

The response from the western powers to the murder of Palestinian civilians in Gaza has been chilling. They appeal for calm, assert Israel's right to defend itself and blame Hamas for starting it all with their pinprick rockets, that every now and then hit something and sometimes even kill people, and expect everyone to fall in line and accept the meat grinding of Gazan civilians as if it were normal and proportionate. But we know Israel broke the truce on November 4th.
Israel plays a strategic role for western powers in the middle East and faces terrible internal economic and social problems. War is a way of releasing some of the tension that has built up, galvanising party support and unity and testing weaponry. This rancid action is no exception. It is nothing to do with anything as immaterial as religion so there is nothing anti-semitic about criticising what is happening. It is just any old state under pressure and lashing out at a prone target in the name of some far fetched idea of self protection. I read somewhere on Harry's Place (a putrid site) that the left has no right to protest against these actions because it failed to demonstrate when the Algerian government was conducting brutal operations in its civil war - some 180 000 people were killed in that conflict. It's a pathetically weak argument on so many fronts.
First, many on the left did protest, but where were the likes of Harry's Place viscious moles? Doubtless all out protesting in favour of the Algerian working class - no chance. They were openly laughing at the idea of muslims killing themselves in all probability. Secondly, even if it were the case that people didn't protest in any great earth changing ways, that in no way means that somehow, everyone has to stop demonstrating when anyone else, in this case Israel, starts inflicting this amount of carnage on women and children. And finally, this conflict is of a piece with the continuing war for domination that the US and its slave state are waging in the region. This conflict is the key conflict of the century. In an ideal world, we could and should be protesting about all sorts of other things in the world, things a lot smaller and less significant. However, thanks in no small part to the goons in America, their military off-shoots and their ideological warriors all over the media, we have to focus on the actions of a few Israelian politicians and their brutal IDF butcher hound. The most politically depressing thing about this is the evident pleasure the Israelis powers are getting out of this. The Israeli cabinet was charged with feeling yesterday on reports of the murderous raids.
Meanwhile, the rest of us - average and above average intelligent readers and interpreters bloggers and scribblers have to search further afeild for news about the slaughter. We filter out the gunge that comes through the MSM (like a report just on French news just now showing a hole in a school roof in Bethsada, the victim of a Hamas rocket) and treat the fodder they give us as further reason not to believe the whole official narrative.
And hope for a jolt in the whole smooth running of the killing operation. Something unexpected something from the streets something like a fightback. Soon - next year - we are gathering.
Remain calm - fuck that.