Jerusalem, apparently still not satisfied with its reputation as the region's foremost producer of dramatic sky-bursts, has decided once again to paint the Gazan horizon with a rather unfortunate palette of smoke and sorrow. Six more souls have been added to the ledger of the departed, including one Ahmed al-Ajrami. He was a cameraman for Al Jazeera, which means he spent his days pointing a lens at the very sort of chaos that eventually swallowed him whole. The Israel Defence Forces, in a statement dripping with the sort of bureaucratic euphemism that would make a Whitehall mandarin blush, described the target as a 'terrorist operative.' They didn't mention the camera. Or the other five bodies. Or the fact that the word 'operative' has come to mean anyone standing within a hundred metres of a man with a beard and a grudge.
Meanwhile, from the hallowed halls of Whitehall, a voice of reason has emerged. No, not a call to halt arms sales or a demand for an independent inquiry, but something far more quintessentially British: a call for restraint. Foreign Secretary David Lammy, a man whose name sounds like a minor character from a PG Wodehouse novel, issued a statement that managed to be both utterly predictable and profoundly useless. 'The UK is deeply concerned by reports of civilian casualties,' he intoned, his words probably printed on recycled paper and sealed with a polite, non-committal wax stamp. 'We call on all parties to show restraint.' Restraint. The national default button of a nation that once built an empire on the back of not showing any. There was a time when Britain's foreign policy involved sailing gunboats up the Nile. Now it involves sending strongly worded letters that get filed under 'Noted' in foreign ministries around the world.
The sheer, breathtaking absurdity of it all could fuel a small power station. Israel bombs Gaza with American-supplied F-16s, killing a journalist who was probably more interested in frame composition than martyrdom. The UK tuts and asks politely for everyone to calm down. Meanwhile, the cycle continues: airstrikes, funerals, statements, repeat. It's a media carousel designed to make you forget that the horses are all dead. Ahmed al-Ajrami's final footage will likely be analysed, debated, and possibly even awarded a posthumous prize by some brave NGO. But his death, like the five others that accompanied it, will be folded into the statistics, a footnote in the ledger of a conflict that has become the world's longest-running irrelevance.
What would it take for the UK to do something other than call for restraint? Perhaps if the bombs started falling on Tunbridge Wells. Or if the Foreign Secretary's own constituency was suddenly declared a 'buffer zone.' Until then, we can expect more of the same: the measured disappointment, the vague appeals, and the quiet ignoring of the fact that 'restraint' is not a plan. It's a Pox Britannica, a diplomatic fig leaf that covers the genitals of inaction while the blood runs down the street. Blood that, in this case, belongs to a man who probably just wanted a steady job and a better view of the sunset. But the sunset in Gaza these days is mostly made of smoke and shrapnel. And it is, one must admit, a spectacularly photogenic tragedy. If only he were still alive to film it.
