When words are inadequate, emotions overwhelm

I’m struggling to begin,

to find the words.

My usual strategy

for blog initiation,

Particularly at times of uncertainty

is

short

sentences.

They seem to unlock something inside me.

They make accessible

the

hidden,

The locked away.

And,

Yesterday

I spoke with my brother.

He had been changing the filters in his bomb shelter.

Let’s unpack that.

30 years ago,

Saddam Hussain

Fired rockets at Israel from Iraq.

He threatened chemical warfare,

and the citizens of Israel (Jew/Muslim/Christian/Atheist)

(Gay/Straight/Trans/Binary and Non)

Were issued gas masks.

I can remember the conversations with my brother as to what he would do for his little children if the canisters fell.

Yes, GAS MASKS.

Remember Zyklon B?

Perhaps you have forgotten. Perhaps you never knew.

Look it up.

~

Last week, I wrote about trauma.

Trauma is the lettering in Blackpool Rock that runs through the heart of every Jew, every Israeli.

And yes, the Palestinians are traumatised too.

Trauma does terrible things.

It makes you behave in ways that are alternate to your intentions.

It makes you crazy.

I haven’t listened to Blindboy in a few weeks.

He previously announced that the Irish people, themselves traumatised from centuries of tyranny naturally side with the Palestinians. He even announced once that he doesn’t have a SodaStream as it is an Israeli Company (it’s not, although it once was).

What would you think Blindboy if I said I don’t drink Guinness as it’s an Irish beverage associated with a country that supported the IRA?

You would think I am stupid. Perhaps you don’t buy Israeli dates from Waitrose either.

It is this level of ignorance, (who works in the SodaStream factories in Israel and the West Bank?) (I’ll give you a clue, the sign on the door doesn’t say ‘No Arabs’).

And, amidst this naïveté, thousands demonstrated took to the streets of major cities in the UK and US yesterday. I am sure they protested down Berlin, Amsterdam, and Rome high streets too.

Freedom for the Palestinians.

Yes, I too want the Palestinians to be free. I would also like the Israeli and other hostages held in Gaza to be free.

I wouldn’t march down the high-street with a banner expressing as much. I would perceive that as provocative.

The marchers I imagine (Were you one of them, dear reader? I hope not) want to provoke.

~

Yesterday, after talking about dysfunctional bomb shelters my brother mentioned something that one of his friends had explained,

‘The Persians invented the game of chess; this is chess. Sderot, Re’im and Nachal Oz were the first moves, Saudi Arabian withdrawal from talks with the Israelis was a subsequent play.

And the demonstrators yesterday or the moron who climbed up City Hall in Sheffield last week to remove the Israeli flag don’t get it.

Perhaps he and his pals are too stupid.

F. Scott Fitzgerald said that intelligence is being able to hold two contradictory thoughts or ideas in your head at the same time.

I suspect, in many of these situations intelligence is lacking.

‘Free Palestine,’ is easy.

Harder to reconcile the innocent men and women, old and young, the children, babies included who were tortured then slaughtered by the terrorists eight days ago.

When you begin a game of chess the end cannot be predicted.

There are too many variables even for the grandest of grand masters.

The Iranian government (Persians) didn’t need to drop an atomic bomb for people to attack Israel. They merely weaponised their proxy and let things play-out.

Iran didn’t need to worry that their enemy (Saudi) would join Israel as the ripples of consternation within the Arab world from the inevitable Israeli response to the atrocities were adequate.

Just think, the Ayatollah brought the protesters out yesterday.

He also kills women who refuse to wear head coverings and men and women who are gay.

That’s just the way it is.

That’s OK.

Has the world forgotten about Nazanin?

Is kidnapping the way ahead?

If I don’t get what I want I will take what is yours and hold it until you give-in.

Is that the game they want to play?

I don’t know whether the Persians invented chess, they are likely masters of the craft.

~

This morning, waking early, I wanted to write and write.

For, you see, writing is my therapy.

It is hard to write when the thoughts in your head are so disturbed.

~

Last week was, the hardest in my life.

~

My sense of powerlessness.

Fecklessness.

A review of my life conducted whilst portraying a professional front.

Last week I smiled. I felt guilty.

~

I visited my patients in their homes.

Their TVs were tuned to the usual daytime stuff.

Me, I’ve had to switch the TV off.

I can’t stand the news.

I can’t stand the BBC and Channel 4 position of fair reporting.

The image in my mind is of last Sunday when people were both discovering the nature of the atrocities and still fighting for their lives was the journalist showing pictures of occasional bombs falling in Gaza.

The UK mainstream media’s refusal to call the men who murdered the children terrorists is galling.

As I said, holding contradictory perspectives is OK.

Black and white as the newscast prefer, I can’t do.

~

And,

There is so much I cannot or will not write,

Either because my thoughts are too dark

Or because the narrative has not yet played-out in my head.

~

It’s OK to be sad.

It’s OK to be angry.

It’s OK to feel isolated and alone and victimised.

All of these are the human condition.

~

Political scientist Micah Goodman described it well in his interview with Amanda Borshel-Dan.

What we feel now will not be forever.

Emotions are impermanent.

Transitory

Illusory

This pain will not last forever.

~

On Friday night,

I joined my local Jewish community for a session of reflection and prayer.

We said the Kaddish.

At first, I thought the old man leading the service was confused.

‘Does he mean Kiddush?’

Kiddush is the Friday night blessing of the bread and wine.

No, he meant Kaddish, the ancient prayer for the dead.

~

Life goes on and the contradictions are overwhelming.

~

Last night

At Sheffield City Hall,

My wife and I listened to the Halle.

This was my first exposure to live classical music in over a decade.

At first, I had the illusion that the instruments were not real, that the sound was coming from speakers, electronically generated.

This,

The peak of human accomplishment,

The connection, collaboration of an orchestra, the ability to conjoin people and their instruments into a perfect whole is at the top of our sophistication.

Sophistication and depravity.

As the music played, my mind wandered to the Warsaw Ghetto, playing as the strangle-hold was tightened.

My thoughts lead me down darkened streets.

~

And, just as the protests in Sheffield and Manchester were dissimulations of the Iranian game, my coming together with fellow Jews was a consequence.

Both my children, unbidden baked challot on Friday night.

The braided, sweet Jewish bread we eat with salt during the Kiddush.

The ripples are unknowable.

~

And if you listen to Micha’s interview you will hear him describing the reality that played out yesterday and tomorrow.

The so-called zero-sum game of fear and love.

Israelis want the world, that is Holland and France and Germany to love them. They want to sing in the Eurovision and stand beside the other developed nations of the world and yet, they also want the terrorists, in the north and the south, in Iran and Syria and Qatar to fear them.

Love and fear cancel one another out and you are left with nothing.

Micha called on us to break this equation.

I don’t know how to do it.

I know the love of humanity.

I know the raised eyebrows of the Kippah Aduma felafel worker in Ra’anana as I tell him to put on extra ‘charif’ (hot) on my daughter’s pitta. ‘Atah betuach?’ (are you sure?) he asks.

I remember my friends and I singing the Song of Peace (Shir Ha-Shalom).

If I am not for myself them who will be for me? Rabbi Hillel asks.

I must be for myself and my family and my friends and my people.

It is a simple calculus.

Go, go, and protest, feel you are making a difference. Tell me not to buy dates. Conflate dates with inhumanity.

Spend your time playing with your belly buttons. If it makes you feel better, go on, don’t let me stop you.

I’ll eat my Bamba.

And my vegan chicken soup (yes, such a thing is possible, I have done it).

I will carry the names of the murdered in my heart.

I will continue to wake, to fitfully dream.

I will wait for someone who can weigh the complexity of our world arrive, able to lead, to show the way, beyond the failed leadership who have guided us so far. I don’t want the Messiah; I don’t want the return.

I’ll make-do with a mortal who can hold the infinity of contradictions, who can weight right and wrong and can find common ground with those who would overwhelm us and take us to a higher level.

Claudius has been calling for this shift, this move in human consciousness for many years.

Now is the time

We need to leave behind our dolls and toys, the implements of our childhood, our innocence and embrace something more sophisticated.

Something approaching Beethoven but more.

An orchestral manoeuvre beyond the everyday.

~

Thank you for listening.

~

~