Over the weekend there has been a lot of scaremongering about escalation. The sum total of the terrorism meted on Iran was the killing of some generals in Damascus, the Iranian retaliation seems to have cause almost no damage. The evidence of death we do have continues to be in Gaza where 100 people a day are estimated to die.
The evidence I can see for all the talk is two groups of men who are facing off against each other in war cabinets.
Here is the Israeli version
Here is the Iranian version
Clearly there are a few differences, the Iranians have clerics , the Israelis have generals but by and large these are groups of men fired up by combat who are behaving badly.
The aim of the rest of the world is to get them to play nicely over time and to get them to calm down right now.
Trump doesn’t often speak well but he spoke well when he uttered his slogan “STOP THE KILLING”. Most of us will not differentiate between the pea-shooting of Iran and the smart but less visible targeted attack of Israel. We see little and care less. We care about the 33,000 dead in Gaza and the 1400 dead on its doorstep.
It seems to me that any escalation is simply making political capital out of misery.
It is time for peace
If you are living in Gaza at this time , your priorities are eating, health and survival. You do not have time for pea-shooting or assassination. The victims of escalation are not going to be the west – we may see markets depressed and pay more at the pumps – the real victims will be in Lebanon, on the West Bank and possible in Israel and Iran themselves. I say “possibly” as this seems to be a war carried out by proxy, with approximate targeting of innocent people as a means to make political points.
We are heartily sick of this as we are sick of the killing in Ukraine , in the horn of Africa, in Myanmar and all other areas where political violence is inflicted on civilians.
Geopolitical tensions
I am sick of these mass killings being sanitised by phrases like “geopolitical tensions”. We preach ESG. That does not stand for Extermination, Slaughter and Genocide.
Each week , Steve Goddard ends Pension PlayPen sessions with the words “we pray for peace in the east”. He is right to do so.
Even the most zealous political activist cannot justify the ongoing slaughter in Gaza. When faced with the pictures of human misery, how can we apportion blame, the only thing we can properly blame are those who have the power to terminate the violence and do not.
These truly are the Masters of War
