By Stuart Littlewood
If Prince Harry (motto adorning his baseball cap: "We do bad things to bad people,") is determined to return to the fray and pop off his guns again, he might at least pick an honourable fight that will do him credit.
Instead of wasting time in Afghanistan pointlessly annoying ‘Terry Taliban’, why don’t Harry and his gung-ho mates form an international brigade in Gaza and give ‘Zebedee Zionist’ a good whacking?
His brother Wills could sail a squadron of Royal Navy warships into Palestinian territorial waters and shoo away those unwelcome Israeli gunboats, so Gazans can go fishing again, trade with the outside world and drink lager on the beach like everybody else without being shelled.
And when Harry and the lads have restored Palestine’s democracy and freed its MPs from captivity, and his sappers have blown the evil Wall to smithereens, it’ll be time for our hero to move on to Jerusalem and rid the Holy City of the Zionist scourge. The United Nations, I seem to remember, declared Jerusalem an international enclave, so it’s about time it became one.
Sort out the Holy Land, Harry, free the Christians and Muslims from the yoke of illegal occupation and you’ll be able to congratulate yourself on a job actually worth doing. The entire world will be forever in debt to the British Royal Family for showing the grit and integrity sadly lacking among the craven low-life passing themselves off as international politicians.
Meanwhile, the reality just gets worse. My surgeon friend Dr David Halpin has been trying to get into Gaza to attend a medical symposium and check on his ‘Dove and Dolphin’ charity. But his plans have been rudely upset by those in the Israeli government flexing their US-subsidised military muscle against women, children and lightly armed militia who simply want to be left alone to live a normal life at the seaside. The way is blocked. Here is his transmission yesterday, March 2:
"We entered Palestine this a.m. at the Bridge of Perfidy from Jordan. Erez crossing closed and the vice-consul in Gaza was adamant that we should not proceed. I have spoken with my doctor friend in Gaza. His voice was heavy for once. From memory – 105 killed in 4 days, and 205 injured, 27 children amongst the dead. 50 of the wounded are in a critical state. Only 40 of those killed were guerillas. He spoke of ground-to-ground and Apache launched weapons which caused complete destruction where they struck. Jabaliya district was the main target… Some weapons are designed I think to disfigure and amputate so that the loved ones are terrorised."
Israel has been suspected for some time of using hermetically-sealed Gaza as a laboratory for testing exceedingly nasty new weapons. Photos from the Gaza war zone show shattered limbs and such horrendous wounding and maiming to kids and civilians of all ages that they will never be printed in the western media for fear of offending Israel’s admirers in high places.
In an email this morning David reports:
"Contacts told me that things were calm this morning. There was some glee that the Israeli special forces had only penetrated a few metres. It comes across very strongly that they, the Palestinians, will sacrifice as many guerillas as it takes because to die in defence of your family and the umma (nation) is your duty."
Getting the west, and the Israelis, to understand this basic principle is part of the problem.
-Stuart Littlewood is a writer and photographer living in England. He is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For details please visit www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com
