"The Living Years"

 

The Living years

Every generation
Blames the one before
And all of their frustrations
Come beating on your door
I know that I'm a prisoner to all my father held so dear
I know that I'm a hostage, to all his hopes and fears
I just wish I could have told him in the living years

More crumpled bits of paper
Filled with imperfect thought
Stilted conversations
I'm afraid that's all we've got
You say you just don't see it, he says it's perfect sense
You just can't get agreement, in this present tense
We all talk a different language, talking in defence

oh, say it clear
(You can listen as well as you hear)
(It's too late) it's too late (when we die) oh, when we die
(To admit we don't see eye to eye)

So we open up a quarrel
Between the present and the past
We only sacrifice the future
It's the bitterness that last
So don't yield to the fortunes, you sometimes see as fate
It may have a new perspective, on a different day
And if you don't give up, and don't give in, you may just be OK

So say it, say it, say it loud (say it loud)
(Say it clear) oh, say it clear
(You can listen) as well as you hear
Because it's too late (it's too late)
It's too late (when we die) oh, when we die
(To admit) we don't see eye to eye

I wasn't there that morning
When my father passed away
I didn't get to tell him
All the things I had to say
Think I caught his spirit, later that same year
I'm sure I heard his echo in my baby's newborn tears
I just wish I could have told him in the living years

So say it, say it, say it loud (say it loud)
(Say it clear) come on say it clear
(You can listen) as well as you hear
(It's too late) it's too late
(When we die) it's too late when we die
(To admit we don't see eye to eye)
Hey, so say it, say it, say it loud (say it loud)
Say it loud (say it clear) come on say it clear
(Say it loud, say it clear) don't give up, don't give in, and don't look back 'til it's too late
Come on say it (say it loud) say it loud, say it loud

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cmKfb4xV1M&list=RD2cmKfb4xV1M&start_radio=1

"Evil" by andy Pollak

 Donald Trump, the Israeli Defence Forces and the banality of evil.

I don’t normally write in this blog about international affairs: about Donald Trump or Israel/Palestine or Ukraine. There are thousands of commentators far more qualified and knowledgeable than me to do that.

But I am a simple person in many ways (maybe that’s the Ulster Presbyterian in me!), and I believe in the presence of good and evil in the world. With last week’s election result in Israel deadlocked, meaning the warmonger Benjamin Netanyahu stays in power, and with the possibility of Donald Trump’s Republican sycophants in the US Congress facing a defeat in the midterm elections tomorrow, I feel I have to speak out in a tiny way against the forces of evil.

Because I believe Donald Trump (along with Vladimir Putin) is currently the most powerful evil force in the world, a champion of ‘might is right’ in international relations and an enemy of social justice, European democracy and international humanitarian organisations . His rise to power has seen ‘copycat’ far right leaders in Latin American countries like Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador (it was a wonderful surprise to see Brazil’s ‘Lula’ – Luis Inacio Lula da Silva – bucking this trend). Similarly he and his supporters have promoted the rise of extreme right-wing parties in most of the major European countries, notably Germany and France – with the likelihood of the neo-fascist Marine Le Pen becoming French president next spring greatly increased by the street violence in that country in recent weeks.

David Remnick, the distinguished journalist who edits the New Yorker, wrote last month1: ” the President of the United States has the impulse control of a toddler, though most toddlers have neither the authority nor the inclination to spark an insurrection, destabilize the Western alliance, live-stream an execution, or threaten to end ‘a whole civilization.’ We are subjected daily to the caprices of a mind both unregulated and amoral. As Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said, the Commander-in-Chief is “fascist to the core…”

“In the passage from lame duck to pensioner, Trump still has plenty of time to inflict further damage on the Republic while milking it for profit. He is the sum of his whims and his rages, and, a change in Congress or not, he will likely go on flouting the law, tightening the screws on universities, cultural institutions, and the press. What he seems to value most of late is the humiliation of his enemies and, even more, the accumulation of vast wealth. Since the second Inauguration, the Trumps and their satraps have operated with all the commercial cunning of the Corleone family; the White House is their front, their Genco Pura Olive Oil Company. The Attorney General, Todd Blanche, is an obedient Tom Hagen. Recently, Kristen Welker, of NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’, asked Blanche, “If the President asks you to do something that you feel crosses an ethical or legal line, would you do it?” Blanche replied, “The President will never ask me to do something unethical or illegal. He never has. He never will.” Not a wartime consigliere, perhaps, but Blanche understands the expectations of his Don.

“What more and more voters are coming to understand is how profoundly they have been betrayed. And this is not just about the price of gas and groceries, though ‘affordability’ is scarcely the joke the President thinks it is. Vladimir Putin long ago set out to mock the United States for its hypocrisies. You are no better than us – that was his message and his cover to crush dissent at home and the liberties of an independent Ukraine. When Trump threatens Greenland and Canada or greases a media merger in his interest, he is proving Putin’s point. When the titans of tech obediently line up at Trump’s Inauguration and fund his ballroom, Putin smiles. Who are we to lecture him about oligarchy? This is the ethos of the era defined by Putin and Trump: morality in politics is for dupes; all that matters is interests. Because Trump is simultaneously an autocrat and a performance artist, because Americans tend to cling reflexively to the fraying notion of national exceptionalism, it is difficult to reckon with the idea that a President might be not merely shambolic and incompetent but something far darker, even evil…

“But if we are uncomfortable using a word like “evil,” how else are we to describe the spectacle of the President unleashing Elon Musk, the wealthiest person in the history of humankind, to slash the budget of the US Agency for International Development? According to an article in The Lancet and the intensive research of Atul Gawande, a surgeon, a former assistant administrator for USAID, and a writer for this magazine, the agency’s support – focussed on fighting malaria, polio, malnutrition, tuberculosis, and HIV – saved at least ninety million lives in the previous two decades. Researchers estimate that the cruelty-by-budget-cut has been responsible for the loss of as many as seven hundred thousand lives.”

Trump’s ringing pre-election endorsement of Benjamin Netanyahu was no accident. They are birds of a feather: Trump waging war on Iran abroad and inflicting terror on immigrants at home; Netanyahu waging war on Iran and genocide on Palestinians at home.

Another type of evil was displayed recently in NAZA (‘collateral damage’ in Hebrew), the deeply shocking documentary by two extraordinarily courageous Israeli film-makers, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, about the integration of AI and surveillance in military targeting by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in Gaza. It features interviews with 24 anonymous IDF soldiers and intelligence personnel (seen only in silhouette) discussing how many civilian casualties are permitted in every AI-targeted strike on that benighted territory.

Each potential target, a Hamas member, was assigned a NAZA ‘value’ representing the expected number of civilian deaths from an airstrike aimed at him. “We say 15 NAZA. We don’t say 15 people killed, and certainly not that 15 children and women will be killed,” said one soldier. According to another interviewee, targets with NAZA ‘values’ below 20 required no special authorisation, while approval could be granted for high ‘values’ – up to 500 in one case.

‘Annihilation zones’ were designated from Tel Aviv, and Palestinians learned their boundaries by being shot when they entered them. “Whoever you decided to kill was considered a terrorist,” one man explained. Another interviewee recalled Israeli snipers firing on starving people at a food distribution point and illustrated the incident with a stick-figure drawing. A female soldier recounted how when injured people were left lying on the ground, she would drop another bomb on them to kill them.

Most interviewees described killing from a distance as routine office work and themselves as merely ‘cogs’ in a machine. They said: “If I hadn’t been there, someone else would have done it.” Or: “I trust the system, and I do my job as part of the system.” Or: “My role is technical. I’m not supposed to express any moral or principled position.”

They said the most reliable targets were often not Hamas fighters themselves but their homes, where their families lived. Every building in Gaza is numbered and the storeys of each building are recorded. The relevant buildings were identified by AI surveillance of communications systems in Gaza, through a system known as ‘Lavender’. This analyses vast amounts of data from the Israeli-controlled phone network to extrapolate the likelihood that any given individual is a ‘Hamas operative’ – thus creating potential targets for elimination, each with a NAZA number of victims. An interviewee said the system has an accuracy rate of 85%. One interviewee called this system a “factory of targets”.However, the Lavender system also made mistakes; among the 70,000 phones it had earmarked, “it once marked an 80-year-old woman. They bombed her house with her entire family in it.”

An interviewee explained that intelligence personnel were able to access the cameras and microphones of any phone in Gaza, including those of children. The phrase “Where’s Daddy?” refers to hacking into a child’s phone to determine when their father will be home, enabling an airstrike to kill the entire family. The name came about because checking children’s calls for words like “Daddy” and “return” had proved a particularly effective strategy. An interviewee described the practice bluntly: “You hack her [i.e. the child’s] phone and then kill her.”

One soldier said that while Hamas sometimes does use human shields, it is absurd to speak of human shields when airstrikes are used to kill them at home alongside their families. “We bomb them in houses because that’s how we find them,” he said. “They just come home to sleep. That’s where we catch them.” In one case, a father had gone out, inadvertently leaving his mobile phone at home; as a result, the missile aimed at his flat killed his daughters, aged 3 to 6, while he himself was spared. The officer recalled listening in on the phone as one of the daughters burned alive and her mother called for help. An interviewee said the ability to hear everything happening inside people’s homes made him “feel like God”.    Andy Pollak

Several interviewees said the mass killing of civilians was not only accepted but viewed as a duty, reflecting the widespread belief in Israel that there were ‘no innocents in Gaza’ in the aftermath of the October 7th 2023 attack. The IDF has made its own rebuttal film (NAZA: The Real Story).

Is this horror not the latest appalling example of ‘ the banality of evil’, the phrase the philosopher Hannah Arendt used to describe the actions of Nazi apparatchik Adolf Eichmann at his 1960 trial in Jerusalem for organising and overseeing the murder of millions of Jews? What she meant by that was how horrific atrocities can be committed by ordinary people, not through malicious intent, but through thoughtlessness, careerism and blind obedience to bureaucratic rules and orders (and failing to question the moral consequences of those orders). And isn’t it the most terrible irony that it should be the Jewish state, founded out of that Holocaust, that is committing this latest high-tech ‘banality of evil’?

Evil is also approaching in that most civilised of nations, France. I have been reading my former Irish Times colleague Enda O’Doherty’s superb book about the far right in that country, The Dark Side of France. He recounts how Marine Le Pen has been working for many years to ‘de-demonise’ her party, the Rassemblement National (formerly the Front National), to make it more morally acceptable to the French electorate. The main ‘demon’ in this instance was her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, a Holocaust denier who was eventually expelled from the party.

In a chapter entitled ‘Renouncing the Devil,’ O’Doherty recounts – quoting Louis Aliot, a senior RN official who is also Le Pen’s partner – how this has not involved softening its racist, xenophobic or Islamophobic image, but only its anti-semitism. It remains entirely legitimate for the party and its members to target people from an African background, Muslim and Christian, and to open them up to threat and insult, particularly through online abuse.

We have our own evils in Ireland. A fine recent film, The Lost Babies of Tuam, recounts the determined campaign of Catherine Corless – a County Galway housewife – to uncover the grim story of the secret burial of the bodies of nearly 800 ‘illegitimate’ babies by a Catholic religious order, the Bon Secours nuns, in a sceptic tank and other underground structures in that town. Corless’s husband calls what the order has done ‘evil’. In their eventual apology the nuns resorted to that politicians’ euphemistic term ‘unacceptable.’ No it wasn’t – it was evil.

Most people instinctively recognise evil when they see it. And there is a lot more of it around in the world of Trump and Putin and Netanyahu. Please God there will be a little less in the US after tomorrow’s congressional elections.

Naza + "I can no longer remain silent"

 

Extract from Independent Catholic news

Israel has been committing a genocide in Gaza for three years - and those with the power to stop it have not done so, rather they have armed and abetted the genocide.

So much we know.

NAZA takes us to the executioners - 24 members of the IDF's elite intelligence corps. From the rooftops of Tel Aviv they impart their engagement in this carnage.

The film's single word title is a euphemistic military acronym ( the Hebrew Nezek Agavi) for collateral damage - a vague, impersonal, casual and lazy way of identifying all those innocent lives cruelly cut short, murdered, in fact.

This inspired title foregrounds the hateful dehumanisation of Palestinians which is at the heart of this tragedy. Like the Man of Sorrows, they are 'a thing thrown away.'

NAZA's co-director Yuval Abraham elicits the facts from his 24 military interviewees - who are speaking under the cloak of anonymity - with forensic aplomb. (And up to 100 sources were used in the corroboration of these.)

Yuval and many other dogged journalists have been reporting as much over the last couple of years but here the perpetrators baldly lay out the destructive details in their own words.

We learn that in the quest to eradicate members of Hamas, the IDF sanctioned the killing of first 15 and then 20 non-combatants, (and, staggeringly, up to 500 in one particular operation).

With a blanket surveillance of Palestinian telecommunications already in place, these intelligence officers deployed an AI-generated system (Code Lavender) in order to crunch the data and find their enemies.

If a Hamas fighter lived on the eighth floor of a block of flats, along with all his family, that block would be razed. Bombardments most frequently took place at night - when the foe was weakest, sleeping in the family home - compounding the destruction.

Unguided 'dumb bombs' would not spare surrounding buildings. In fact, these too were considered fair game, and in due course directives came to flatten entire neighbourhoods.

Some of the interviewees were troubled by their acts - troubled enough to testify in this film - but several displayed pride in their elite status, wriggled to extricate themselves from moral responsibility ('just a small cog' obeying orders) and displayed a sickening detachment from the mass human suffering they were inflicting with a blinkered focus on the job.

One spoke of a general hatred of Palestinians in the Israeli military but said that his cohort were not like that and had a reputation as 'leftists'.

The overwhelming impression was of weak individuals surrendering their consciences and critical judgements in bureaucratic compliance with a governing system. Hannah Arendt's phrase 'the banality of evil' came to mind - for here too was an industrialised slaughter.

One nervy interviewee was a compulsive sketcher of childlike images: the grids of buildings and neighbours identified by the AI system, and then destroyed. In a further image, he sketched 'stick men' (who were indeed starving) and described their implacable gunning down from afar as they ran to food distribution centres - apparently for erring from some arbitrary path.

Murderous drone attacks resembled a 'video game', and when Gazans were forced south, anyone left in the north, the sick and disabled among them, was considered 'fair game.'

At the heart of all the surveillance lay the smart phone. One interviewee confessed to listening in to the intimate daily lives of Gazans and hearing prayers, pillow talk and family moments. There was a clear recognition here of a common humanity - a life of the spirit and a life of love.

In a devastating pay-off, this man recounted how certain phones were meant to lead to Hamas fighters. Only his target had gone out without his, and he was left (to quote from the Massacre of the Innocents) hearing a mother 'weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they were no more.'

The high-rise interviews allowed the cameras to film surrounding apartment blocks. In an interesting development of the sinister surveillance theme, we saw individuals - it always seemed to be lone bodies - in their homes, most often in front of very large TV screens, watching the news. We heard nothing, just witnessed Edward Hopper-like scenes of anonymity with shades of film noir alienation and Orwellian dystopia.

Just a few kilometres away from the neon city, other blocks in Gaza, full of human lives, were pulverised to rubble.

The film mentioned the so-called miracle of Tel Aviv rising out of the desert then cut to footage of an earlier destruction of Palestinian buildings almost a century earlier. A lone Palestinian ruin was left standing in the hyper-modern metropolis.

In the final scene, all the previous bland comment and prevarication was confronted by a terrible scene of human agony and pain: bereaved family members confronted by the limbs of their loved ones, crushed under the rubble.

In his first encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo denounced the use of AI in war and urged its 'disarmament'. Insisting on the dignity of every human person, he asserted the right of peoples to exist, saying 'any attempt or plan to eliminate or subjugate a nation is gravely immoral and therefore unacceptable.' The incarceration, humiliation, ecocide and genocide of Gazans has also been identified as a remorseless example of necropolitics where despised Others are condemned as 'less than human' (as 'things despised and rejected' to evoke Isaiah again).

Consider these figures: 21,000 child deaths and 44,000 children maimed; 38,000 women and girls killed; the overall death-toll of known bodies is approaching 75,000. Ten percent of Gaza's population has been killed or injured.

Co-directors Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham received a 25-minute ovation at the Venice Film Festival and received the special jury prize for this crucial film. Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded that they be stripped of their Israeli citizenship. Their crime? Documenting monstrous crimes against humanity.

Everyone needs to see this film and everyone needs to do everything possible so that, for Palestine, Justice and Peace might come.

Editor's Note: One chilling scene that has stuck with me since I saw this film on Tuesday, was one anonymous member of Israel's Intelligence Corps explicitly describing the intense psychological high and detachment experienced while working within the military machine: "It's like your hormones are going crazy. You aren't sleeping and you're having fun. It's so insanely fun. You complete a mission and you're sharp and there's a sense of meaning. It's really enjoyable. We were fully in it."

Israeli Reserve Major Avdar Shailovski wrote an article—published on his Facebook page—in which he recounts his flight from the Israeli military and his emigration from Israel to Poland, the land of his ancestors.

The article is titled: "I Can No Longer Remain Silent."

Here is the full text of the article:

I am Avdar Shailovski, a major who deserted the Israeli military. I declare, while of sound mind, that I left the Israeli military because I could no longer bear to remain a silent witness—betraying my own humanity—to all the crimes I witnessed during my five years of service.

The events I witnessed will suffocate me if I do not share them with you.

I could die at any moment from the sheer weight of my grief; therefore, I must contribute to revealing the truth—perhaps it will alleviate my sense of guilt, and perhaps God will lighten the torment that awaits me for the horrific acts I committed simply by virtue of being a member of the Israel Defence Forces.

Then, I received a sign: "Leave everything behind and go your own way."

Thank You, God, for guiding me.

As soon as the El Al flight landed at Warsaw Airport, I felt safe—far away from the land of Israel, which no longer holds any meaning for me.

We were taught about the land that God promised us, but it is the greatest lie ever used to deceive the Jewish people. It is a persistent, ongoing lie—one that has, for eighty years, displaced the defenceless Palestinian people from their own land. Moreover, to this very day, these people continue to endure unimaginable suffering. Who invented this lie? And what kind of "foolish" people believed it?

What I witnessed during my five-year service in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) is difficult to put into words.

What words could possibly describe the cruelty, the heinousness, and the atrocity that the IDF inflicts upon the Palestinians?

Do not believe what Netanyahu says. He is a despicable liar—especially when he describes the Israeli army as "the most moral army in the world." Far from it! The truth is that it is the most depraved, cruel, and brutal army in the world.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I can no longer bear to witness the ruin and destruction in Gaza.

I was a witness to what took place on the night of October 7, 2023. Israeli intelligence, Netanyahu, and his gang knew about it; they waited for it to happen so they could justify the destruction of Gaza and attempt to displace its population.

I served in Gaza, and I saw with my own eyes how a tank commander would toy with his tank’s cannon, firing shells at Palestinians huddled inside their tents, or at groups of people standing in lines—whether in front of bakeries, or by vehicles distributing food and aid. With my own eyes, I witnessed aircraft firing projectiles at inhabited residential buildings, reducing them to rubble atop the people living inside.

With my own eyes, I saw snipers from the occupation army amusing themselves by picking off children, adults, and women as they stood in line to receive aid.

This is madness.

Crimes such as these—which I witnessed—could not happen anywhere else in the world; they occur only on the land of Palestine.

With my own eyes, I saw a child clutching a piece of stale, blood-soaked bread, weeping over his mother’s body—while the soldiers laughed, as if they were watching a comedy video.

They claim that these people are not human beings, not equals to us—to us Jews.

I would summon my courage and say to my colleagues, "Brother, even if they were a group of monkeys, could we possibly kill them in this manner?"

They would reply, "You are a coward; you are weak—you are not fit to be a Jew."

I saw settlers in the West Bank uprooting olive trees and assaulting farmers in their own fields.

I saw them destroy homes—issuing an immediate evacuation order to the owners, only to demolish the structures while the residents were still inside.

With my own eyes, I saw a soldier send a text message to a Palestinian, telling him: "Go up to the roof, or we will destroy the house—with your family inside—because of you." When the man climbed to the roof and began waving a white rag, the soldier shot him dead on the spot.

Can anyone believe this? I can find no explanation for all this Israeli cruelty other than the upbringing we, as Jews, were subjected to. We were told that Arabs are filthy, savage, and extremist Muslim killers—and that if we were kind to them, they would cast us into the sea. Just imagine the kind of indoctrination we were fed.

They taught us that the land of Palestine belongs to us, the Jews.

They claimed that the Golan and the entire Levant belong to the children of Zion.

They taught us that "Greater Israel" stretches from the Euphrates to the Nile.

How wicked we Jews must be to believe all these lies! If we were not wicked, foolish, and devoid of morality, we would never have carried out these orders.

I can no longer bear to witness these atrocities.

At night, I would weep, while my comrades mocked me, calling me a coward. They insisted that a Jew should be obsessed with killing Arabs and ridding the Promised Land of them.

I pray for a day when the Arabs wake up and realize that Israel is an illusion—a lie—that will eventually cease to exist. Were it not for their own leaders, who collude with the criminal Netanyahu and his gang, we would never have been able to commit the crimes and atrocities we have perpetrated.

Forgive me, O Lord, for everything we have done to the innocent Palestinians.

Forgive me, O God, for the atrocities we have committed.

As the Muslims say, You are "Most Forgiving, Most Merciful." I am confident, therefore, that You will forgive me, now that I have found my way after having been lost.

Thank You, O God, for guiding me to the straight path—

the path of truth, love, and peace—far removed from the path of the criminal state of Israel.

 

Voice of Gaza

Some Nobel laureates are easy to celebrate. This is one of them.

Navi Pillay’s first day in court came when she was 5, testifying against a man who’d robbed her.

She grew up to be the first woman of colour to open a law practice in Natal, in 1967, under apartheid, defending its prisoners, including her own husband.

When Nelson Mandela became president, he nominated her to the High Court, then recommended her for the UN tribunal trying Rwanda’s genocide. 

 

Three years ago, at this very hour, Gaza was living its last normal night — and none of us knew it would be the last.
Those were the final quiet hours of families sitting together, unaware of what the morning would bring.
The last embraces for children, men, and women who would later lose their lives.
Perhaps the last goodbyes between friends and relatives who never imagined they were saying goodbye for the final time.
They were the final hours for homes that would disappear.

May the hands that inflict suffering be stopped. May the hearts that have grown indifferent rediscover compassion. And may every oppressed person, in Palestine and beyond, one day live free from fear, humiliation, and injustice.

History may record the weapons of the powerful, but humanity will remember the tears of the powerless.

May justice prevail. May oppression end. And may Palestine one day know the freedom, dignity, and peace that every human being deserves.

Former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo has sparked debate after reportedly saying he felt “ashamed to be a Jew” while witnessing violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. During a visit to Palestinian villages that had recently experienced attacks, Pardo condemned the violence and warned that it posed a serious threat to Israel’s future and could deepen divisions within Israeli society. He also reportedly drew comparisons between what he witnessed and historical persecution endured by Jewish communities. His remarks have renewed attention to settler violence, accountability, and the humanitarian conditions facing Palestinians in the West Bank. Comments from former senior Israeli security officials have also added to the broader discussion over government policies, the protection of civilians, and the long term consequences of continued violence in the region.

It’s hard to believe that, after everything humanity has experienced throughout history, we are still witnessing genocide in our world today. Equally disturbing is the sheer volume of propaganda used to justify these atrocities, often through misinformation, distorted narratives, and media manipulation.

Do not look away from Gaza.
Do not look away from Lebanon.
Do not look away from Sudan.
Do not look away from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Our compassion should never depend on which crisis dominates the headlines or which victims our political allies find convenient to acknowledge.

Pep Guardiola: “We are living through a very dark time in our history. We see girls and boys in Gaza searching for their parents among the rubble. Ask for help. Suffering from hunger. To be left alone. We watch them lose everything before they’ve even had a chance to grow up.

"And the hell continues, and with it, the dehumanisation of the Palestinian people. Their lives matter as much as ours. Their pain is not unfamiliar. Let’s not forget. Solidarity with Palestine cannot take a break. Neither can our responsibility…

"As of today the Israel government has killed more than 74,000 people in Gaza and continues to obstruct the entry of humanitarian aid. And while Gaza remains devastated, the demolition of Palestinian homes and forced displacements in the West Bank continues."

" A Wise Storyteller "

 

A Wise Storyteller

In a little town, far far away, there was a little old woman whose years were beyond counting. This old woman was famed as a wise storyteller, and many would make the trip to this little secluded place, just to ask for her advice.

One day, a young woman, her beautiful face twisted by sadness and tears, approached the old storyteller. 

"May I ask a question?" She asked her, as they sat in the market square. It was quiet, early morning, and only they were there.

"Of course, child." said the storyteller as she carefully marked her place in her book. "Tell me what brings such hurt to your eyes."

"My problem," said the young woman painfully, "is that I am good-for-nothing, I just don't... fit in with anything. I've tried so many careers and wasn't suitable for any of them."

The wise old woman slowly nodded and stroked her pipe.

"I've lived in many places and never did I feel I belonged." 

The old woman smiled.

"I've dated many men but have never found my true love."

"I've-" 

"Let me stop you there..." Said the storyteller, lifting a hand to halt the onslaught of worried words.

The woman quieted, breathing heavily.

"... and tell you a story. Isn't that why you came here?" She smiled and took a puff on her pipe.

"It may surprise you, perhaps hard to even imagine looking at this old face, but a long time ago, I was in a similar situation as yours. I too felt different from everyone else, and nowhere did I seem to belong. But I did not have a wise old storyteller to ask for advice, and so I went on a long journey to find the answer my soul sought.

Long indeed was the journey. I crossed streams and rivers, hiked up hills and mountains, found forgotten places and wondrous creatures and men, but never did an answer I found. Until one day.
On that day, while walking through a field next to a village I cannot recall the name of anymore, there was a little brick wall, perhaps 5 foot tall, next to a little house. But that was not what caught my eye, no. What caught my eye were three archery practicing targets on the wall, and in the exact bullseye of each of them was an arrow, stuck as firmly as could be."
 

The old lady stopped for a little puff on her pipe while the young lady did a little jig of impatience with her feet.

"In all my journeys, I have seen many great archers, so I know it to be a hard discipline. I was amazed to find such talent at such a humble place. Then I noticed a little girl peeking at me from the cottage door. Come I bade her and she did. And I asked her: "Dear child, do you know who is the archer who put these arrows in those targets?" She blushed and answered that she was that archer.
I was even more amazed and asked her how she became such an extraordinary shot at such a young age. She blushed further and, in a whispering voice, admitted that she had stuck the arrows in the wall and then painted the targets around them..."

The old woman chuckled softly while the young woman made a puzzled face. 

"I don't understand..."

"That was the moment I learned about the essence of things, my child. You cannot find a place to own you before you own yourself. You must recognize who YOU are, and build a place around you that suits you. In other words, find what you truly wish for and build a life around it. Make life work itself around you, instead of trying to find where you belong. Perhaps the place you belong to is a place you are yet to create."

The young woman thanked her for her wisdom, dried her tears, straightened her back and walked purposefully away.

We can all learn a lot from that wise storyteller.

"The Bundle of Sticks"

 

The Bundle of Sticks

Once there was an elderly farmer who had several sons. Although they loved their father, they were constantly arguing with one another. They fought over small matters every day and refused to work together.

The farmer grew worried. He knew that if his sons continued to quarrel, they would face many hardships after he was gone. He tried to advise them many times, but they ignored his words.

One day, he gathered all of his sons and asked each of them to bring a sturdy stick. After collecting the sticks, he tied them together tightly into a large bundle.

Handing the bundle to his eldest son, the farmer said, "Try to break it."

The son used all his strength, but the bundle would not break.

The farmer passed the bundle to each of the other sons. One after another, they struggled with all their might, yet none of them could break it.

Then the farmer untied the bundle and handed each son a single stick.

"Now break your stick," he said.

Each son snapped his stick easily with little effort.

The farmer smiled and said, "My sons, this is the lesson I want you to remember. When you stand together and support one another, no one can easily defeat you. But if you are divided and always fighting among yourselves, you will be as easy to break as these single sticks."

The sons finally understood their father's wisdom. From that day forward, they worked together, helped one another, and lived in harmony.

Moral of the Story: Unity is strength. Together, people can overcome challenges that would defeat them individually.

Where do you stand ?

 

Catherine Connolly was elected President of Ireland in a landslide last October and took office in November 2025. As a long-time independent lawmaker, she has repeatedly described Israel as a “terrorist state” and “rogue state,” accused it of committing genocide in Gaza, and stated that Hamas forms “part of the fabric of the Palestinian people.”

She has condemned the October 7 attacks as wrong while insisting the conflict’s history did not begin that day, and has called for both sides to disarm and be held accountable for war crimes. These views, expressed before and during her campaign, drew sharp criticism from some Irish leaders and Jewish community voices, yet aligned with significant public sentiment in Ireland. In her ceremonial role she continues to speak against the “normalisation of war and genocide.”

 

 

NAZA, the documentary by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, has set Israel ablaze — not with remorse, but with rage. Rather than confront what the film documents, most Israelis condemned it. The government branded the two filmmakers traitors, ministers demanded their citizenship be revoked, and they now live under death threats.

That is disgraceful. But the greater tragedy is Israel's refusal to look in the mirror and admit that crimes against humanity — genocide — were committed in Gaza. Denial is not a shield; it is moral collapse. A nation that cannot face what it has inflicted on the Palestinians will carry that stigma for generations. When will Israelis wake up? Until they do, the truth will wait — and the price will go much higher.

Far-right Israeli activists have gathered outside the home of Rachel Szor's parents in the town of Savyon, demanding that the family be expelled from the country and their homes sealed.

Protesters have chanted slogans such as "death penalty for traitors" and demanded that the filmmakers be tried and executed.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denounced the film as anti-Semitic incitement. Following this, Culture Minister Miki Zohar accused the directors of "treason" and began taking immediate steps to investigate revoking Abraham and Szor's Israeli citizenship.

 

More than 700 Israeli filmmakers and international figures have signed a petition standing in solidarity with the directors, warning that the state-led campaign is moving dangerously close to "effectively sanctioning violence" against them.

The International Federation of Journalists report that at past 267 journalists and media workers have been killed since October 7 2023. (An estimated 67-69 journalists were killed during World War Two)

The Ed Sheeran Loop Tour will reportedly continue. The lights will come on. The merchandise tables will open. Thousands of people will sing along, and the enormous machine will keep moving because enormous machines are built to survive the removal of anyone with a conscience.

But the absence will be louder than the music.

Macklemore will not be there.

Finneas will not be there.

Lukas Graham, Aaron Rowe, and Beoga will not be there.

The tour may still have its headliner, but the people willing to risk something have left the building.

Ed Sheeran wanted his stage to remain neutral.

Now it is simply empty.

 

 

 

Point the finger at the Billionaires deciding who gets on stage, not the artist they turned into the story so you'd stop looking at them. Channel that venom at the powers that be. Write to your MP. Post about what's happening in Gaza. Refuse to attend shows in venues that censor what's said on their stages. Refuse to buy the brands funding genocide. And if you don't like Ed, his music or his politics, don't go to the show. But don't let this story be hijacked the way it has been to demonise someone we all know has done more for more causes over the last twenty years than just about anyone else in this game.

Here is a full transcript of what Macklemore said that had him removed from a tour, and kicked out of stadiums. Please tell me where he's wrong.

“I've been trying to figure out a way to say this all day. One of the reasons why I wanted to come on this tour was because I wanted to stand up here on stages and stadiums across America and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart: Free Palestine.

"I said, Free Palestine.

“I want those words to be loud and clear, so the people from Gaza, all the way to the occupied West Bank, know that we have not forgotten them.

“To all of my Jewish brothers and sisters: criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide in no way is a criticism of you. My message is for peace; love for all human beings to be treated with dignity, respect, and equality.

“So I say Free Palestine, I say Free Lebanon, I say Free Cuba, I say Free Congo, Free Sudan, I say Free all people in America living in fear of this terrorist organization, ICE. None of us will be free until we are all free."