We visited a family friend today and he drew my attention to a short piece in today’s The Guardian. It’s by Professor Nick Maynard, a consultant surgeon at Oxford University hospital, who has been travelling regularly to Gaza for 15 years. He is currently volunteering with the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) at Nasser hospital in Gaza.
If anyone still doubts that the Government of the State of Israel is, through the agency of the IDF, actively engaged in genocide; or that the IDF is carrying out a sadistic policy of deliberately wounding starving Palestinians who are desperately seeking food, they should read Professor Maynard’s article at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/22/gaza-israel-deliberate-starvation-ceasefire-aid.
I realise that, given legislation introduced by the present British Government, if I were to put the heading of this post on a placard and enter a public place, I could hypothetically face prosecution, either for anti-semitism or for implicitly supporting a banded terrorist organisation. It is literally appalling that protesting against the actions of a genocidal State, supported by one that has a sexual predator and convicted felon for President, is seen by a supposedly “Labour” Government as a crime. While I agreed that causing deliberate damage to military hardware is not a sensible, let alone productive, form of protest, the British Government’s response to it is craven, disproportionate, and borders on authoritarianism.
If you have been waiting for me to return to my usual art-related topics in this blog, my apologies. Health problems and the state of the world have kept me otherwise preoccupied. Normal service will, I hope and trust, be resumed in the not-too-distant future.
