CHAPEL END CHARLIE

Flagship to Murmansk by Robert Hughes. Extraordinary things can happen to what otherwise may be quite ordinary people during wartime, and the war Robert Hughes was to experience was to prove no exception. This young teacher was plucked from the safety of a Welsh schoolroom and found himself crammed into the gunnery director of the newly commissioned Anti Aircraft cruiser - HMS Scylla - escorting the famous Arctic convoy PQ18. These convoys supplied vital military aid to Russia during WWII which naturally resulted in the enemy throwing everything they had at them in a effort to stop the flow of supplies. So HMS Scylla, and her inexperienced crew, were soon to find themselves in the thick of the action. Unlike the unfortunate PQ17 this convoy stuck together and thus most of PQ18 managed to get through ultimately, but casualties were still heavy as wave after wave of German bombers and U-Boats attacked the convoy - and if your ship was sunk your survival prospects in the bitterly cold Arctic water could be measured in a matter of minutes only. Hughes recounts the tale of Scylla picking up one incredibly fortunate survivor from the US freighter 'Mary Luckenbach' - a ship that disintegrated in a cataclysmic explosion when a torpedo set off her cargo of 1000 tons of TNT. One moment this man (a black steward) had been waking along the upper deck taking the captain his lunch, the next he found himself a mile away floating in the water - his ship, and all his shipmates, nothing but a nuclear-like mushroom cloud rising in the far distance. C'est la guerre I suppose. The author and HMS Scylla (known as the 'toothless terror' because she was fitted with smaller guns than intended) would survive this convoy and go on to fight in the Mediterranean and on another Arctic convoy before hitting a German mine off the Normandy beaches in June 1944, a mine that would damage her so badly that she was never repaired. A sad end then to a fine ship that served this nation well during her short, but action packed, life. Just one ship and crew among thousands of course, but a microcosm of a nation at war I think. This book is long out of print but there are literary hundreds of remarkable personal accounts of the Royal Navy during WWII still available out there if you look hard enough. So if you find one on the internet, or in a second hand bookshop perhaps, then buy it because in my experience precious few (if any) of them are not worth reading. http://www.britishpathe.com/video/convoy-to-russia

I'm more of a Schubert man myself you understand, but I showed this 60's rubbish to the kids the other day - and they loved it of course. Seeing two little kids copy this silly dance, flapping their 'wings' and pecking away with their imaginary 'beaks' with all the unrestrained love of fun that is childhood, is one of the funniest things I've seen for a long time. If you have little ones of your own then try it yourself - you know it makes sense!

Oh while it's true that Hamas was originally elected into power (way back in 2006 if memory serves) any claim to real democratic legitimacy now seems tenuous to put it mildly - at least until new free and fair elections are held. I must add that the recent summary execution by Hamas of 18 alleged Palestinian 'collaborators' (sic) hardly equates to any acceptable judicial process either. I note with interest that the death/murder of these people has aroused no protest from some otherwise vehement advocates of Palestinian rights on here. Why is that I wonder? Nevertheless it is obvious that Hamas and the Palestinians are not necessarily one and the same thing. I find that this is one of the many benefits of real study, because even a little learning tends to make you rather less likely to resort to 'tar everyone with the same brush' tactics so indicative of the fanatical mindset - as those who (for instance) have attempted to demonise an entire generation of Israeli children would do.

I seem to remember some Middle East expert on here assuring us that Israel would never accept peace because his googling .. sorry 'research' .. had told him that they are in fact a bunch of warmongering genocidal extremists hell-bent on murdering the entire population of Gaza - when they're not busy indoctrinating all their children into a state of extreme fanaticism that is. But here they are with nearly two million Palestinians still inexplicably left alive in Gaza agreeing to yet another ceasefire. It seems they are even (despite their murderous nature) allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza. If you didn't know better you'd almost think that Israeli's too were tired of all this wanton destruction and bloodshed just like any normal (less Jewish that is) Human Being would be. Let's all hope that this latest ceasefire is not as stillborn as all the other recent examples have been and Hamas 'gives peace a chance' this time. Talking about Hamas, I've done some googling of my own and while I can't claim it represents anything amounting to proper peer-reviewed impartial evidence, quotes taken out of context can sometimes be misleading, but taken on face value anyway it does seem that Hamas extremists may not actually speak for all the population of Gaza after all: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/27/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-strip-conflict.html Professor Mkhaimar Abusada. Al-Azhar University, Gaza City. Well I for one make the professor right in all respects. I also think he's a brave man indeed for daring to criticise Hamas while living among them in the Gaza Strip. In any case he's probably in a far better position (both intellectually and physically) to call it than any of us are from the safety of our armchairs over here. However I reckon non of that will stop our resident 'usual suspect' from hitting the internet and telling us all why he's so very wrong of course ...

I've just watched again, for the first time in many years, Clint Eastwood's 'A Perfect World'. Set in early 1960's rural Texas this film tells the story of a manhunt for an escaped convict 'Butch' (played Kevin Costner) and the relationship this unstable man soon forms with a painfully repressed 8 year old boy he takes along for the ride. The driving force behind this film is not its action sequences (well handled as they are) but this unusual relationship that grows between man and boy - both of whom are damaged in their own way. I've loved this sophisticated and subtle film when it was first released back in the 1993 and looking at it again today it has lost little of its ability to impart a genuine sense of compassion for these oddball characters and concern for what happens to them. What (in the hands of a lesser film-maker than Clint Eastwood) might otherwise have been a fairly routine chase movie is transformed here into something rather special and wonderful I think. Like nearly all the better film makers Eastwood (the director) is interested in not only what people happen to do, but just as importantly why they do it. In a way A Perfect World reminds me somewhat of Peter Bogdanovich's equally gripping Paper Moon, in that in both films you just know the intimate adult-child relationship depicted just can't last and a dread sense of threat overshadows everything. The appalling violence and waste of the climax is painful to watch of course, you almost feel like shouting 'NO!' at the screen, but my favourite moment occurs just beforehand when someone attempts to pacify 'Butch' by saying to him 'I know you're a good man' to which butch replies: 'No I ain't a good man ... but I'm not the worst either'. An epitaph that could well apply to many of us. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqLP_E557C8

It took centuries of relentless bloodshed and acrimony before we managed to learn how to live together harmoniously on these islands. That unhappy history now belongs to the distant past of course but history can still teach us much. So to my way of thinking those seeking to break the UK asunder better have some powerful case in their locker as to why that should happen - or leave well alone. I've yet to see anything like that overwhelming case emerge from the 'yes' camp, while the practicable problems that separation would bring after all this time are obvious and formidable. Centuries of cross border trade and social interaction have led to a situation where many hundreds of thousands of Scots now live and/or make their living in England, and equally a great number of English (and Welsh/Irish) do likewise in Scotland. For all intents and purposes we are one nation, a nation that could not be easily divided without a undesirable degree of complication and disruption. This divorce is likely to be of the 'messy' variety. Those familiar with the story of Queen Elizabeth I and her unhappy Stuart cousin will know that there is precedent for England and Scotland sharing the same monarchy. However if a newly independent Scotland wants to continue to use the UK£ too - with control of this currency still vested in London - well then you have to ask yourself just how 'independent' Alex Salmond's new/old country would be anyway? Indeed it is hard to resist the suspicion that the aggrandisement of a generation of Scottish politicians is in fact one of the prime (but unspoken) drivers behind this sense of Scots discontent with the union. We've made (and then lost) a great empire together. We've forged a industrial revolution together the like of which no other nation on earth could equal. We've fought wars together that have played a crucial role in forming the modern world as we know it today. It seems to me that we have done here on these small islands is create a nation that is more than the sum of its parts - a thing worth keeping.

I kind of agree with you, the Gazan people have every right in the world to protest - they have much to protest about. However when confronting a massively superior enemy a policy of 'jaw-jaw' might be wiser than 'war-war' because the military balance of power shows that the Palestinian people have embarked on a road that can only lead to their inevitable defeat. There is no guarantee alas that protesting in a less violent manner will certainly gain them a quick resolution to their appalling situation. It seems likely however that it would lead to more support internationally and ultimately perhaps improve the prospects of some kind of satisfactory resolution being agreed with their neighbours because the Israel people aren't the monsters one person on here would have you believe they are. Should Hamas continue with their current campaign of attempting to bombard Israel into submission then I can only see further bloodshed in this region. Whether you agree with them or not, Israel will not compromise with terror and it is both equipped and prepared to react aggressively to attacks upon it. So terror breeds terror then, and that is the cold hard reality of the situation. If you want to talk about the 'blockade' then do so, but you might do well to ask yourself why was the blockade of Gaza imposed in the first place? Those who like to brag of their extensive 'research' might wonder why their research has not thrown up the fact that Israel has (during periods of relative calm in the region) relaxed in border controls. Anyone on here prepared to open their eyes and accept the full complexity of the situation might even see that this is not a simple Jew v Arab conflict because Egypt and Jordan don't recognise Hamas either ... and I hardly think those Arab states could be described as the natural home of Zionist extremism.

1 - So you feel that repartition of a lie transforms it into something resembling a truth? How Stalin would have approved. 2 - My working definition of genocide is: the attempted mass murder of an large group of people - most often those from a different ethnic group. Clearly not what is happening in Gaza I'd say - but if you can prove otherwise then do so. 3 - It seems that you seem to under the impression that your anti-Semitism represents some kind of consensus - again hardly the case here I would hope. By the way the forum still awaits any sort of cogent reply to reports that Hamas has concealed rockets in schools. I'm starting to think that this might be a 'inconvenient truth' that you'd rather brush under the carpet.

You see this is where you are going wrong Pap because those who lay claim to being genuine 'seekers after the truth' are obliged to commence their research with an attempt to see both sides of a question first (or looking at 'the other side of the hill' as Basil Liddell-Hart once said) and only then forming a conclusion based on that perspective. You on the other hand listen to George Galloway's bile, limit your so called 'research' to finding opinions that happen to fit in with your own particular set of partisan assumptions and then come on here claiming to know how to solve the problems of the middle east! For your information resolving this intractable conflict has defeated the best efforts of generations of statesmen - so methinks the chances of you and 'gorgeous george' solving it in five minutes with a unholy mixture of anti-semitism, leftist dogma and hubris aren't very high. I must say that you are hardly likely to enhance your (dubious) reputation on here by continuing to conflate this long war between Israel and the Palestinians with the vile crimes of Nazi Germany during WWII. I'm disappointed (but not really surprised) to see that you have now gone so far as to accuse Israel of 'genocide' - your term. Explain to me how come Arabs killing Jews is 'defence', but Jews killing Arabs is 'genocide'? If two sides shooting, shelling and bombing each other amounts to the same thing as genocide then please list all the wars in Human history that were not then genocidal in nature. No, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence of course, but you don't have a shred of actual evidence to support this wild 'genocide' claim because it's a obvious lie. Shame on you. I would hope that most reasonably intelligent people on here have acquired at least a basic understanding of the unprecedented scale and extent of Nazi war crimes. Armed with that knowledge I assume that they should then be equipped to see your disgraceful comparison for the nonsense that it is. A mere smidgen of historical learning should tell anyone that the Warsaw and Lodz ghettos were - unlike Gaza - but a intermediate stop on the road to the horrors of Auschwitz-Birkenow. There are no gas chambers (or their latter day equivalent) in Israel - everyone reading this knows it. I think there's a special place in hell reserved for those responsible for what Adolf Eichmann described as the 'Final Solution' to the Jewish problem. As terrible as the situation in Gaza certainly is, what amounts to a long running territorial dispute between Israel and the Palestinians hardly amounts to 'genocide' by any stretch of the imagination.

Might the fact that the Israeli education system has been forced to provide their children with air raid shelters at every school - shelters that are in all too regular use by the way - explain why some Israeli kids might have become fearful? An obvious enough point I would have thought but too subtle for you perhaps. Before you say it, I see no one on here disputing the fact that Palestinian kids have it even worse - much worse actually. As for Israeli 'deliberately' targeting Gaza children I'm not at all sure that's really true. I must add here that this forum still awaits your response to (seemingly reliable) reports that Hamas has concealed rockets in UN run schools. Indeed, please feel free to address this specific point when you are ready to do so. In any case I wonder if the parents of the little boy (aged 4) killed in a Hamas mortar attack on his kibbutz last Friday feel that their child's murder was a unintentional result of this long war, or whether Hamas 'deliberately' targeted him? Hamas rockets tend to be crude and rather inaccurate weapons (smaller but akin to the old Scud or V1 missile perhaps) but a heavy mortar in the hands of someone who knows what he's doing is a lethally accurate weapon. But you tell me - afterall you seem to have all the answers don't you?

Yes people will no doubt read your (disgraceful) post and then form their own opinion, on you as well as on what Israeli children are really like. My opinion is that anyone who chooses to stoop so low as to stereotype an entire nations youth as 'all the same' essentially must have a screw loose somewhere. From my personal experience of meeting (a few) young Israeli's they come across as perfectly normal youngsters, a little more polite and reserved than ours tend to be perhaps, but not all that different from their peers here in Europe or in the United States. So if you really want to unearth a prime example of fanaticism at work then abandon youtube and leftist propaganda because a eminently simple solution to your problem is at hand - you need only look in a mirror.

Umm. Well I actually met some young Israeli's a little while ago and Paps description of them as a bunch of brain washed Hitler Youth style fanatics doesn't really fit all that well with the perfectly normal and rational (well as rational as teenagers get) youngsters I remember. But he must be right I suppose because George Galloway and the internet says it's true don't you know ...

So you don't want to talk about the tunnelling campaign or Hamas hiding rockets in schools then? The real world's a bugger sometimes isn't it? Just when you think you've got it all figured out it throws up sh1te like this. In my imagination you are starting to resemble one of those megalomaniac computers on Star Trek, smoke emanating from your vents muttering 'does not compute' when confronted with a logical paradox or just too much complexity. As for my 'unfailingly pro British' standpoint this is another of your gross oversimplifications I'm afraid - you seem to be specialising in those. I've never attempted to disguise the fact that I am fascinated by our history, because to me history is a fascinating subject. However, anyone who bothers to study history will soon come to understand that no nation possesses a monopoly on virtue and wisdom. Our story seems to me a remarkable one, and I dare say the people of these islands have made a contribution to world history out of all proportion to our number - but in that respect Britain is no different from any other nation. While I hesitate to bring WWII into this discussion yet again, you really would do well to read Martin Middlebrook's book on the Battle of Hamburg. (see my post#657 in 'what are you reading') If you did then you might gain a better insight into the moral ambiguity of war and the virtual impossibility of calling right from wrong in a situation where those simple terms have become immersed in a sea of suffering. But I doubt you'll bother.

Well Johnny this conflict looks very much like a passable imitation of a war to me - indeed what else do you want to call it? The reason the rocket attacks on Israel don't cause more civilian casualties is of course not because of some unlikely display of humanitarian restraint from Hamas, it is rather because the IDF responds effectively to each attack. That is achieved both via a combination of their 'Iron Dome' missile defence system and by counter-strikes undertaken against Hamas targets in Gaza. Obviously as Hamas wear no uniform and launch their attacks from within civilian areas innocent Palestinians are bound to get caught up in the crossfire. I'm sure everyone on here agrees that this is an appalling situation, but I see no way out of it until both sides agree to enter into meaningful negotiations. But if you really feel that not enough innocent Israeli civilians are being killed in this conflict then please give me a number that you would find satisfactory ... fifty, a hundred, a thousand? Maybe in a perverse way if Israel were to allow such a thing then their international reputation might actually benefit. But for some reason they seem reluctant to contemplate paying a 'butchers bill' that is that high - not sufficiently cynical perhaps. As for the rocket attacks on Israel being the 'whole' (your term) justification for the latest outbreak of fighting that is simply not true. The principle reason given when the IDF crossed the border into Gaza was that the network of tunnels Hamas had constructed under the border represented a genuine threat to the security of Israel. Now anyone desiring to argue that the Hamas tunnels were in fact harmless constructions that were not built with a mind to attacking Israel is welcome to make that case on here - indeed I hope someone is rash enough to do so because I'm just waiting to get my teeth stuck into that juicy morsel.

You'd be surprised what countries 'get away' with. For instance Russia (in effect) annexed the Crimea not very long ago and seems to have gotten away with that. China maintains what looks very much like a brutal military occupation of Tibet without any meaningful sanction being applied against them either. Israel's actions in Gaza on the other hand are harsh for sure, but this recent story from 'The Guardian' illustrates that these are hard times: If Hamas has indeed sunk so low as to hide rockets in Palestinian schools, then either the IDF destroys these schools and gets criticised for that apparent 'warcrime', or it leaves the schools alone and abandons its duty to defend Israel instead. Put yourself in the place of the Israeli military and then tell me how 'easy' their job is. No doubt Hamas takes full advantage of the electricity grid too, but I suspect that the primary motive behind Israel's attack on the power station was to demonstrate to the Palestinian people that their continuing support for Hamas will have consequences to them. In my view it is a matter of profound regret when the targeting of infrastructure vital to maintaining a decent standard of living for non combatants occurs, just as I don't support terrorist groups attacking innocent civilians with rockets either. However as a student of military history I understand why this kind of sh1t happens in war. What I just can't understand is why some on here continue to describe this conflict as a simple good guys v bad guys situation.

To be frank about it I don't necessarily think that Israel's response to Hamas terror is entirely wise or proportionate either. But that of course is a easy thing to say from the relative comfort and safety of southern England. Were we having this conversation from the border areas of southern Israel on the other hand, with everything we hold dear exposed to constant attack, we might well both adopt a different opinion on that. A question of perspective if you like. As for Israel's objective in Gaza, it seems to me that if Israel really wanted to erase Gaza from the map - as you put it - then the IDF are more than capable of doing just that. So those criticising the IDF for the scale and violence of their actions in Gaza should bare in mind that Israeli is a regional superpower and their military are more than capable of laying waste the entire Gaza Strip should they see fit to do so - in about a month perhaps. So hard as it will be for some to accept the destruction we have seen in Gaza recently is actually the Israeli version of what a limited response looks like. The analogy I will employ here is that if you come at Israel armed with a knife, then they will pull out a gun. Come at them with a gun and they'll drop a 1000kg laser guided bomb through your bedroom window. You can debate whether that is just or unjust from now until kingdom come. What you can't argue about is that this is exactly what will happen. .

Israel has been attacked many times during its short existence by Arab states - few (if any) of which were functioning democracies by the way.

Your comparison with Nazi Germany is again odious, and before attempting to lecture this forum on international law I would advise you to first familiarise yourself with Article 51 of the UN Charter: Israel is a member of the UN and it is under armed attack. Therefore measures taken to defend itself against said attack from Hamas are (arguably) legal under international law. QED.

I can't argue that the USA does not have it share (more than its share in some respects) of social problems - as recent events in Missouri demonstrate. The very fact however that a black man has been elected (and then re-elected) as President does kind of suggest to me that the USA is not today a institutionally racist nation taken in the whole. But yes they still have a long way to go and progress is too slow. At the Federal level is the US constitution, or US foreign policy, driven by a racist agenda? I'm thinking here that this too is not an entirely straightforward or simple question. Perhaps it may be better to say that US policy towards Israel is driven more by electoral - rather than racial - considerations. The ever infallible Wikipedia tells me that there are many more Jews in the US than there are Muslims. So if a government elected by the people decides to conduct its foreign policy in accordance with the express wishes of those same people ... well is that not exactly what it is supposed to be doing?

I may have lost count now, but I believe that since the IDF withdrew from Gaza a few weeks ago the number of tentative ceasefire agreements that have ended when Hamas has decided to abandon negotiations and renew their (rather ineffectual) rocket bombardment of southern Israel now numbers eleven or more. The Palestinian side will no doubt claim that Israel is not negotiating in good faith. Israel might respond that it is difficult to negotiate meaningfully with someone who is committed to violence if they don't get their own way. Be that as it may, as everyone who has been paying attention should know it is Israeli policy to responded aggressively to all attacks upon them. Now this may (or may not) be wise or effective policy in the long run, but it is however beyond all possible doubt a predictable outcome. I read today that the wife and young child of a Hamas leader were (reportedly) killed yesterday when a IDF weapon destroyed their home. I can only see that as one more awful tragedy among many the people of the region have experienced. At least one person on here will try to tell you that Israel is to blame for all this Human misery, and I don't doubt for one moment that a Israeli weapon did indeed strike this property. It seems to me however that Hamas is well aware of what will happen to their own people when they decide to attack Israel. Therefore I say these two deaths (and many others for that matter) are not only the result of IDF action, they are also the inevitable result of Hamas policy too. Perhaps the truth is that Israel and Gaza are trapped in a kind of intermittent low intensity war that has been underway now for decades. A war that shows no sign of ending anytime soon. In the face of the intractable nature of this long war those who continue to confuse the Middle East of today, with the Wild West of Hollywood mythology, really do need to learn that this is not a simple 'white hat v black hat' situation - lest they make a even bigger fool of themselves then they have already.

For your information I'm seldom to be found perusing internet 'blogs' whether they be from the left or the right of the political spectrum - I leave that kind of thing to the likes of you. Indeed hard as it may be for you to imagine but not everyone in the world still thinks in those restrictive left v right terms. Unlike you we are not all 'political animals' in that sense and I for one am not about to apologise for that. Your problem is - or should I say one of your problems is - that instead of making the mental effort to challenge your own set of (leftist) assumptions and perhaps take on board views that run counter to your own, you instead seek out only the opinions of those who happen to share in your particular world view. Hence you perpetually reinforce your own prejudice. The long list of leftist celebrity endorsements you saw fit to post on here recently prove this point more elegantly than I ever could. Once learned, stereotypes and prejudices become resistant to change of course, even when the available evidence fails to support them or even points to the contrary. This also goes a long way towards explaining your obvious intolerant attitude towards anyone who dares to express an opinion that runs contrary to yours - indeed I suspect you struggle to comprehended how anyone could possibly not agree with you in the first place. So if you want to broaden your mind and become a more interesting and rounded contributor to this forum then my advice to you is to put down 'The Socialist Worker' and pick a copy of the 'Daily Mail' instead - you won't agree with a single word it says, but in time you might just come to understand that there is more than one side to (almost) any argument.

I suspect that anyone who knows you personally runs a mile whenever they see you coming. As for my supposed lack of humility ... well coming from you that is more than a little 'rich'. I see you are still attempting to maintain (for some reason that escapes all logical analysis) that the deafening silence we perceive from the left today re the appalling behaviour of the 'Islamic State' in Iraq and Syria is a 'feeble' point. This is suggestive. Far from being 'feeble' it seems to me that any fair minded observer must conclude that the obvious double standard on display here exposes their utter lack of any real concern for Human Rights, or if there is any genuine feeling it is subservient to the overriding importance of politics. History shows this to be the mindset of the true fanatic. I say that if you profess to be concerned for the suffering of your fellow man then you better understand that this sense empathy can only be applied universally, or not at all. Any well balanced adult should be able to understand this key point because only an obsessive (such as yourself perhaps) can't see that our suffering transcends sterile old left/right political arguments, arguments that most sane people have long consigned to the dust bin of history. Over the years I've learned to tolerate a lot on here, ignorance, stupidly, prejudice even ... I like to think I can cope with any of that. I've also come to see your ridiculous conspiracy theories as a kind of eccentric display of leftist paranoia, disrespectful to the truth for sure, but widely rejected and ultimately more harmful to you rather than anyone else. The one thing I still can't learn to tolerate however is hypocrisy. And you Sir are quite the biggest hypocrite I've had the misfortune to know on here.

Is this really the best you can do? Surely (if all else fails) instead of resorting to mere insults you could have dug up a silly new conspiracy theory or perhaps Googled another long list of celebrity endorsements for the forum's amusement? I for one know how devastatingly convincing that sort of thing can be because if someone on the telly thinks something then it must be true ... If you ever do manage to summon up anything remotely resembling a proper argument re the left wing and anti-Semitism then please come back, because I do kind of enjoy our little chats when I'm in the mood. Otherwise it's probably best you shut up for once in your life.

Is this really the best you can do? Surely (if all else fails) instead of resorting to mere insults you could have dug up a silly new conspiracy theory or perhaps Googled another long list of celebrity endorsements for the forum's amusement? I for one know how devastatingly convincing that sort of thing can be because if someone on the telly thinks something then it must be true ... If you ever do manage to summon up anything remotely resembling a proper argument re the left wing and anti-Semitism then please come back, because I do kind of enjoy our little chats when I'm in the mood. Otherwise it's probably best you shut up for once in your life.

Where should you protest my dear Pap? Well I don't think 'gorgeous' George Galloway could make it this time, busy crusading for justice in the Middle East perhaps, but I see that some of your other mates decided to ransack a branch of Tesco's in Birmingham last Saturday. That seems a reasonable thing to do afterall because its a well known fact that Tesco's was founded by a bloke called Cohen (boo!) and it may have even outraged left wing sensitivities further by having some Israeli merchandise on its shelf's. Next I suppose that front for radical Zionism known as 'Marks & Spencer' better watch out ... My suspicions remain that the real motivation behind your recent contributions on here are more political in nature rather than strictly humanitarian. Indeed, to be honest about it, I don't really believe that you (and your type in general) could give a 'tinkers cuss' for the Palestinians of Gaza, or the Yazidi of Iraq for that matter, as long as they provide a useful excuse to further your outdated leftist agenda. That is what really interests you is it not? The three or four attempts it took to get you to concede - at long last - that the murder of Israeli children too might just have been morally dubious kind of confirms that suspicion. Moving on, I wonder has your ceaseless Googling provided any more 'evidence' that ISIS was created by Mossad yet? Because twenty more pages of yet another (deeply paranoid) conspiracy theory would help pass the time admirably.