There are numerous eateries in our country which are ‘banning’ Coca Cola. Because of its ‘ties to Isreal’. Which I think means an Israeli once drunk it. Probably Diet Coke. It’s very popular over there. Maybe that’s what causes the insanity in the IDF to commit all the atrocities they’re accused of. I’ve seen what a sip does to Joey and that was pretty bad.

So Starbucks and KFC and McDonalds are basically boycotted in towns and cities with a high Muslim population. Because no link to Israel, no matter how disconnected, fleeting or distant, is too vague to avoid boycott. Whereas much closer and more direct Israeli-influenced items remain un-banned. Like i-phones and i-pads, pacemakers and a vast number of medications.

And here’s the problem. As the nation, in fact probably as ‘the world’, divides into factions over the war in Gaza; as the ‘pro-Palestinians’ gain traction over those caught in their normal, safe, middle-class, waspy lefty-liberalism which makes them ‘protest’ in defence of any cause or minority or (often misplaced) sense of injustice. The ones who go around singing ‘from the river to the sea’ because they don’t understand what it means and think it’s something to do with a summer holiday. And as ‘Israel-phobia’ catches on, extends and becomes all pervasive, we have to ask where it all stops.

We have 5 ‘Gaza’ MPs in parliament now. There’s also lots of MPs with really tiny minorities over ‘independents’ (Gaza), like Wes Streeting, the minister for Health. 500-odd majority where last time it was over 25,000. Corbyn’s new party will dominate the pro-Palestine lobby and will attract, they estimate, 29% of the ‘new’ voters, the 16 to 18 year olds eligible to cast their ballots for the first time.

And much as Corbyn has never made any difference between pro-Palestine and pro-Hams, nor pro-ISIS for that matter, this conflation of convenience, this blurring of lines, works the other way too. Where ‘anti-Zionism’ can almost interchange with ‘anti-semitism’ for contextual reasons. And thus anyone seen as ‘pro-Zionist’ is the enemy. As most (but certainly not all, for some really ridiculous reason) Jews are Zionists, the Corbyn attitude, the coke-banners attitude, the Towns and Cities which elected Mayors and MPs on ‘pro-Palestine’ tickets, will all view Jews as ‘the enemy’ by virtue of their presumed Zionistic leanings.

At the end of my road are few shops, known collectively as ‘the Market Place’. And on the central reservation railings are tied hundreds of yellow ribbons. The sign of support for the hostages still imprisoned by Hamas. The ribbons are cut down, then replaced, then cut down, regularly. Someone bravely confronted a ribbon-cutter and videod it. As a very nice-looking, normal type, presumably Muslim guy was shouting at the woman, telling her how the ribbons are supporting ‘the genocide’!!! And ‘apartheit’!!! And that’s why they had to come down. The irony that the ribbons actually represent the day when a true genocide was attempted on Israel, when rape and the most brutal of murders took place and men, women, children and babies were kidnapped was lost in the re-written history of that awful day.

This ain’t good.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx