In a breathtakingly predictable pantomime of statecraft, His Majesty's Foreign Office has unleashed its most potent weapon: a strongly worded call for a ceasefire. This came after Israeli ordnance, in a fit of pique, decided to demonstrate its lack of precision by treating a Gaza street to an impromptu fireworks display, claiming six lives. Among the deceased was a cameraman for Al Jazeera, a man whose only crime was pointing a lens at the carnage.
The IDF, never one to miss a publicity opportunity, exercised its standard script: an investigation will be launched, possibly into alternative facts. Meanwhile, in the green benches of Westminster, carefully worded condemnations wobbled like blancmange in a heatwave. The tragedy, you see, is not the deaths but the ‘lack of restraint’.
One fears for the safety of the chandeliers at the next state banquet. The casualties pile up, the platitudes flow forth, and the gin in my glass tastes ever more like the tears of ghosts. Perhaps the next ‘targeted strike’ will target a dictionary, to remind everyone what ‘proportionality’ actually means.
