EVER since the barbaric attack last weekend, social media has been full of people standing with Palestine or siding with Israel. But there’s been nothing from me, for very good reasons.
Unlike most of the keyboard warriors, I’ve followed this seemingly endless conflict for years.
I’ve read many books on the subject and talked to many people in the region.
And all I’ve been able to determine is that the Israelis have every right to defend their land.
And the Palestinians have every right to claim that land is actually theirs.
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It’s taken me 25 years to come to that conclusion and now I’ve got a new thing to work out.
How on earth did Hamas manage to launch their attack last weekend with no warning?
Of course, people always ask this question when the smoke clears from a terrorist atrocity.
After 9/11, people ran around in furious circles, demanding to know why the CIA and the FBI didn’t even hear a whisper of what was to come.
But I sympathised with the authorities. Because why on earth would you notice that four people had come into the country to have flying lessons?
Spies are trained to spot the unusual. Not the normal.
It’s the same story with MI6 on 7/7. Thousands of people walk round London every day with backpacks. So why should four stand out?
Israel, though, was different. We have been told for decades that its secret service — Mossad — is the greatest and most effective espionage outfit in the world.
They have eyes and ears everywhere, so they always know what’s coming next.
COMPLICATED AND DIFFICULT
And yet we are being asked to believe they simply didn’t notice that, all of a sudden, in the tiny Gaza strip — it’s only 25 miles long and seven miles wide — there was a squad of motorised paragliders.
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It’s as nonsensical as the notion that Ernst Stavro Blofeld could hollow out a volcano without the authorities saying: “Er hang on a minute . . . ”
And how were these paragliders getting into what’s basically a fortified prison. I suppose they could have flown them there, but I suspect Mossad would have noticed that.
Then there’s the question of where they took off from to launch the attack. They’re not Harriers.
They need some kind of runway, which surely would be noticeable on satellite images. And they need pilots. Who needed to be trained.
Some say this happened in Iran. Maybe it did. But you’d think one of them would have told a mate, who told his wife, who told someone at the hairdressers, who was actually an Israeli spy.
This was a HUGE operation, and everyone kept it a secret? Really?
I simply don’t buy that.
So what’s the explanation? I wish I knew. But that’s the thing about this centuries-old conflict.
People like me, in the West, don’t really understand any of it. We don’t understand the issues.
We don’t understand the history. And we sure as hell don’t understand the emotions.
It’s not Yorkshire/Lancashire or Man U/Liverpool or Blur/Oasis. And it’s definitely not some glib opportunity for the stupid and the woke to sound on-point and with-it on the site formerly known as Twitter. It is complicated and difficult and, to those who are not involved, largely unfathomable.
Which is why, on social media, people with no skin in the game should stick to posting pictures of dogs and sunsets.
Bluff stuff's scary
SHOULD we be worried about artificial intelligence?
Until last week, I’d have said no, not really. We haven’t even invented a robot that can fetch my slippers yet, so we are still a long way from Skynet and Arnie coming through the door with a shotgun.
However, before he bounced on stage at the Labour Party conference, I heard an expletive-filled recording of Sir Starmer saying that he hated Liverpool and didn’t want to go there any more.
I figured it was another Gordon Brown moment. That he’d forgotten he was wearing a microphone and was ranting on.
And I also figured that he’d taken a giant dump on the city that loves him more than any other. I actually laughed out loud. “Ha,” I thought, “you’re done.”
But the recording turned out to be a fake. It sounded like Sir Starmer, but it wasn’t him.
And that’s a worry. Because we’ve arrived at a point where AI can’t walk the dogs or get milk from the shop.
But it can affect the way we think and the way we vote.
Foxes foxed by cubs
TOWNIES have been pro-fox for years, arguing that these cuddly-wuddly little orange doggies are as harmless and as cute as a baby playing with a kitten in Richard Curtis’s kitchen.
But now the people of Royal Tunbridge Wells are being forced to change their tune after foxes in the Kent town started to eat their cars.
There were six incidents in just two weeks, where baby foxes took shelter at night under people’s cars and, to keep themselves amused, chewed through brake lines and ABS systems.
A spokesman for the local Community Safety Unit says that animal repellents are available.
Damn right. You need some ammonia, a bucketful of sugar and some fertiliser . . .
Cluck all for veggie
I’VE just returned from a three-week Grand Tour filming trip to Southern Africa and my colon is ruined.
They grow vegetables there. But they obviously feed them to their animals.
Because all people eat, all day long, is meat.
You have steak, lamb and pork for breakfast. Another steak the size of a steamer trunk for lunch and at night, half a cow, served up with two pigs and a mountain of lamb chops.
This was a bit tricky for the non-meat eaters on the crew.
After two days, one said to the production catering guy: “Have you got anything vegetarian?”
“Sure”, he said, “chicken.”
May I have a Sphere in Chipping Norton?
WHEN footage began to emerge of the U2 gig inside the new 18,600-seater Sphere in Las Vegas, I was completely bowled over.
It was one of the most impressive and mesmerising things I’d ever seen.
The only trouble is that to experience this incredible achievement first hand, I’d have to go to Las Vegas. Which, I think I’m right in saying, is the worst place on Earth.
Then came news that there were plans for another Sphere in East London.
“Yipee”, I yelled. Followed by “boo” when I heard that local residents don’t want any such thing on the doorstep.
I do though. And I have a really big farm. The Chipping Norton Sphere. It has a ring.
We could maybe get Fairport Convention to play in it.
Reckon I knew
THERE were two things I took away from watching The Reckoning on iPlayer this week.
Steve Coogan is a very good impressionist. And Jimmy Savile was a rapist
Both of which I knew before I started.
Fngers Bern-ed
HAVING a bad day? Well it could be worse.
Former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone has just been fined £330million for tax irregularities.
That is almost certainly the biggest financial penalty ever imposed on an individual, and as a result, the poor old man is now down to his last £2billion.
