I am slowly transforming the large garden of my favourite house in Bath right now, replacing adornments ripped out by the previous owners who tried to hold my clients to ransom after the sale was completed. This behaviour seemed to be typical of him. A film-maker friend of mine filmed there once, using the garden as a set. The owner ripped up his huge front lawn and threw the turf away, expecting to get a pristine replacement for free from the production company.
The producer looked at the expanse of brown earth and said, "Oh, don't worry. We will CGI in some grass." Ha ha!
Over the years, when being criticised about the treatment of Palestinians on the Gaza strip, Israelis have always responded by saying, 'you don't understand'. As time goes by I am beginning to think that we never really understood as much as we thought we did, but now it is almost impossible. Civilians on both sides are caught up with increasingly right-wing and extremist ideologists and Hamas has been taken over by the most repulsive factions of fundamentalism who have been driven out of places like Iraq with nowhere to call a caliphate.
One blogger commented that Hamas is increasingly being supported by people in the UK, and that Scotland has a sympathetic Moslem First Minister. He said that England also has a Moslem Prime Minister, but he is a more educated man who supports Israel. Someone had to point out that Rishi Sunak is, in fact, a Hindu.
Some of us are more willing than others to admit that we don't understand, nomatter how educated we are.
Trying to understand these extremist is impossible, they follow a line of thought that ends in violence. Hate chanted in the name of religion is their battle cry. Israel and Palestine are stuck in a terrible circle, condemned by wrong decisions over the years. In the end it must be a united front from all or most leaders of the world to help solve the problem. Civilians should not be used as battle fodder, this applies to both sides.
ReplyDeleteScotland's first minister is worried because of his wife's relatives caught up in the tragedy, as for Sunak, thank goodness for gentle rebukes from those who know and understand his religion.
Work in the sunshine is good, work in the rain not so good. Long may good weather last. The Palestine/Israel war is causing problems for all world leaders and UN and weaknesses will be exploited by Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood anywhere in the world.
ReplyDeleteToo right Tom. Sadly we can have little or no unerstanding of the issues involved here. But as usual it is the innocent who suffer not the so called leaders.
ReplyDeleteIt is a mess of a millennia of making..but mostly in the past century.
ReplyDeleteWhen you look at population maps...you can understand with Palestinians being squeezed, how Hamas has developed.
I don't support either side...some would say a plague on both sides.. I would rather it on neither.
I just remember the mature student on the same ceramics course as myself in Cardiff in the 70s. One parent Palestinian, the other Israeli. As it happens, one parent Jewish the other Christian..
So as ever nothing is simple there, just tragic.
Have you ever read The Lemon Tree? Understand me when I say that there is NOTHING, not a single thing that can justify the actions of Hamas. However, I hope that as a nation we can understand that this is something that two countries need to work out. Israel will have to make some concessions, but how can they make concessions to a terrorist government? Probably the most discouraging thing that I have heard is a Palestinian condemning Israel's counter attack. She asked, "Are our children to blame for this?" She seems not to see that her own government killed children and babies in Israel. Were they anymore to blame for the situation than the Palestinian children? Of course not. But the outraged finger pointing will continue. Instead of picking a side, the world needs to work with both countries to see if a peace cannot be brokered, one that will save children, Israeli and Palestinian alike.
ReplyDeleteWar guarantees bloodshed and that is what we are seeing now. Innocent lives lost on all sides. Leadership has failed and led to war. Your garden transformation sounds like a great project.
ReplyDeleteThe entire world is on fire. It is lovely you have a quiet garden in Bath to restore. You may complain of the tourists, but you are in stonemason catbird heaven.
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