I stand here because I have strong passions and beliefs. My central motivation is the child. When I look into the happy blue eyes of our three girl grandchildren, I see the two billion children in our world. Each child is precious and not one should be hurt in the least way. I believe in the sanctity of life. As a surgeon, I heal and do not harm. I grew up in a family where to lie was sinful. And the underdog was not to be kicked around. Gentleness and sensitivity grew strong within me.

Many share my instincts but most of those in power do not. All living creatures and our most wonderful and beautiful world are threatened by humans who climb to power and who harm every single thing their claws can gouge – like Rumsfeld's claws.

The British have affection for Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta The Pirates of Penzance. These pirates are jolly rascals. No such description can be applied to the pirates of Somalia and even less to the Pirates of the Levant, the Israeli navy.

Wide publicity has been given to piracy in Somalian waters since Captain Phillips of the American-crewed Maersk Alabama was captured. The arrival of a US missile cruiser and US destroyer added the tension and glamour required by the Hollywood confederation. The killing of three young Somalians and the release of the captain provided the blood and the triumph for the star spattered banner. Piracy in the Gulf of Aden and along the long shoreline of Somalia started in 1995 in response to rapacious fishing, mostly by Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean vessels. The dumping of toxic waste by European nations stoked more resentment¹. Foreign fishing boats were the first targets but when these got protection from local warlords, the Somalian pirates turned to commercial and cruise shipping. With at least 20,000 vessels on passage they had plenty to choose from. Since the US navy Seals shot their men, over sixty more seamen have been taken hostage.

Why is it that little is heard of the piracy off the coast of the Zionist entity and the strip it dominates called Gaza? In contrast to the actions of young Muslim fishermen from an impoverished and broken Somalian nation, the entity carries out its piracy under the title of the Israeli Occupation Force, out of a country with the greatest wealth and with the pretense of a fully fledged legal system. As it turns out, its maritime law is the British Maritime Law of 1856, a hangover from the British Mandate.

 

For Virtue, Vibrio and God

The paramount war criminal used more tons of aviation fuel flying to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington ten days ago. The CFR sounds like one of the more benign 'think' tanks among the hundreds there. On its board sits Mrs 'The Price is Worth It' Albright and General Plutonium Powell. The gist of the speech given by the envoy for the Quartet was two fold.

Firstly the natives in the ineptly named West Bank (the west side of the Jordan Valley having been robbed from them) have been pacified in Jenin by Palestinian Authority security forces. The quisling nature of these forces who were trained by the CIA in Jericho and Jordan escaped mention of course. So too did the fact that these forces often go for Palestinian "targets" provided by Israel. Ord Wingate trained the "special night squads" in the 1930s and they included trainee Zionist terrorists. The brutal methods spawned by the British mandate have bore fruiting bodies in Israel. Now, the PA has taken the bloodied baton. A phalanx of pick-ups with armed thugs in balaclavas beats the family door down in the early hours. The family sobs in the street whilst the furniture is destroyed and a son is snatched for 'interrogation'. Thus is Jenin pacified and it becomes Blair's exemplar for a new 'state' which has to provide security as its first duty. That security comes down the barrel of a gun and through the local Abu Ghraib from whence the tortured corpse of Sheikh Barghouti was carried in February of this year. 'The Israelis have been able to step back' says the envoy. 'On to this can be grafted economic and social progress'.

"The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. Freedom and slavery are mental states." - Mahatma Gandhi

The rain has ceased for a while. The splendid purples of the heathers are in harmony with the grey of granite and the greens of lichen. Only a few thousand humans share the wide open spaces of the Dartmoor National Park on this sabbath.

Sleek bodies are being oiled against the Mediterranean sun in Netanya. There is music murmuring from I Pods; there is affluence and even opulence. But beneath the satisfaction there is deep unease.

A complex history of great sadness and lawlessness. I can only pick out a few salient things. My central concern is with Palestine – the hinge of humanity, but I will take in Iraq and Afghanistan which are also part of Judaeo-Christian imperialism. They are all of a piece, a continuum. My outrage about what is going on in these places will be obvious to you and I hope that all of you will share that outrage with me.

My reason for standing here – A doctor and surgeon stands for healing, and not for harming. I cannot stand seeing any creature harmed. And when I sign my name I prefix that with 'for truth, reason and justice – the three legs of my talk.

At the end of my talk I will give you my ideas as to how nations/entities can murder, maim and occupy in defiance of international laws and our presumed humanity, and how we might turn the foul tide. And in question time, we will discuss how we, the citizens, might stop the Gaderene rush to the abyss.