THE WAY THINGS ARE

During the Cold War, the domino effect meant a political chain reaction. It still applies with Donald Triumphant in the White House wanting dictatorial control of power; he commands and expects instant acquiescence. When bodies or individuals in authority don’t agree with him, he instigates their closure or has people fired.

Bob Dylan’s song Maggie’s’ Farm comes to mind – ‘The National Guard stands around the door.’ He used the NG to ‘police’ when he had no power to do that; it’s the remit of each state governor. Maggie’s Farm was not a nice place to be, neither is the political world today, its self-serving flaws evident in honest media, with economic interests selectively weighed before human rights.

Informed people can clearly read between the lines of repeated rhetoric. Trump’s seriously unchallenged misbehaviour has opened a dangerous wave of unaccountability. He complains about US ‘Lefties’ yet seems in awe of the President of original Russian ‘Lefties’.

Having a disrespecter of normal democratic, dignified behaviour in the Oval Office has given courage to autocratic leaders to act upon their expansion desires, ignoring international laws. The EU-Ukraine-Willing constantly remind that Vladimir Putin ignores such laws. Why not, when supposedly responsible democratic Western leaders allow ally Benjamin Netanyahu to do so by their abnormal lack of response to his criminally extreme actions?

Trump appears complacent to concede independent chunks of Ukraine to Russia, much as past foreign intervention gave Crimea away. How would Trump react if Alaska, sold to the US by Russia, was invaded by Putin, wanting it back? Would Trump be as willing to give away US land with all the human complexities that entails, as he is to exile Palestinians out of their homeland, so Netanyahu can place non-indigenous settlers there and build a Gaza-on-the Med resort?

Would Trump have access to some big beautiful real estate deals there? The EU is split over Palestinian rights, why, when the crimes being committed by the IDF are obvious? Members of that EU paragon of equality bestowing equal rights on both small and large countries within its embrace, apparently care more about economic repercussions to justify legal actions against Israel, while displaying an apparently psychopathic indifference towards thousands of innocent deaths and unimaginable suffering.

I quote Morgan McMonagle, consultant vascular and traumatic surgeon (The Irish Times, July 31) who worked in Gaza in 2024/25 and ‘saw bodies ripped apart in Gaza, children eating grass, families surviving on animal feed.’ He asked what WCNSF meant on medical charts and was told “wounded child, no surviving family”, and among hundreds of thousands of orphans, hideous burns, mutilations and shrapnel wounds a mere part of his daily workload.

How long have reputable people given testimony of deliberately inflicted misery? How many Palestinian journalists killed and Israeli excuses accepted, no actioned demand for independent observers. Imagine the outcry if they were UK, EU or US citizens.  

Some EU members dither on sanctions or to acknowledge a Palestinian state, well aware of the intended creation of a Trump-approved, enlarged Israel for imported Jews by forced ethnic cleansing. These decades of strife could have been avoided if Palestinians (Philistines), there when Moses’ survivors arrived, were treated equally and given their own state as was the original plan.

Worryingly for honest people, it’s not the expected Holocaust piety or October 7 hideous massacre that prompts Western hesitation on Palestine now, it’s economic partnerships. The same EU leaders would describe as monsters anyone waging such a heartless barrage of suffering on European children; Nazis, anyone?

They conveniently accept Israeli’s intelligence-insulting sound bites that people see through and demonstrate against. Rich Arab states have done pathetically little for Palestine over the decades, also in thrall of the most powerful nation of the West whose president’s bullying threats meet with universal obsequiousness rather than outrage. Democracy is dead, long live the pretence.