Below is a story from the Jerusalem Post by Justus Weiner dated 7 February 2009, which demonstrates why aid should not be sent into Gaza until the Palestinians can agree and maintain a ceasefire:-

Daily Telegraph (London) correspondent Tim Butcher recently reported from Gaza after the war, stating: "Targets had been selected and then hit... but almost always with precision munitions... I was struck by how cosmetically unchanged Gaza appeared to be. It has been a tatty, poorly-maintained mess for decades and the presence of fresh bombsites... did not make any great difference... [O]ne thing was clear. Gaza City 2009 is not Stalingrad 1944."

A Palestinian man carrying a bag of flour given through UNRWA's aid program [illustrative].
Photo: AP

Despite this, as far back as 1996 the NGO Human Rights Watch has been predicting an "imminent humanitarian crisis/disaster" in Gaza. Indeed, various NGOs have lodged annual claims that the Jewish state is responsible for the "imminent humanitarian crisis" in the Gaza Strip. Might they have stopped to ask: How has the Gaza Strip been "on the verge" of a humanitarian crisis for in excess of 10 years?

In actuality, Israel has gone to extraordinary lengths, including the creation of the Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA) where representatives of the IDF and government ministries work day and night, to prevent a humanitarian crisis. CLA commander Col. Nir Press spoke candidly of Hamas's "well-oiled media and propaganda machine which has succeeded in creating humanitarian 'crises' out of thin air." He gave as an example Israel's decision to suspend fuel supplies in early 2008 after a Palestinian attack on the Nahal Oz fuel depot. Before restricting the supply, Israel filled all gas tanks in Gaza to their maximum. Yet, "taking advantage of this as a PR opportunity," Hamas refused to draw on the fuel and "sent hundreds of people to gas stations in Gaza to stand with buckets in a long line."

Tony Blair, former British prime minister and current Quartet peace envoy, explained that "most people don't understand - that we're trying to urge Israel to get fuel into Gaza, and then the extremists come and kill the people bringing the fuel in. It's a crazy situation." Thus, time and time again, the aid that Israel has allowed to enter Gaza fails to reach the intended recipients: Palestinian civilians in need.

The "imminent humanitarian crisis" chorus is not only exaggerated, it is also entirely specious. In the words of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the critics "should point their criticism toward the Hamas terrorist organization that controls the Gaza Strip." A ministry spokesman also stated that "Israel allows shipments of food, medicine, fuel and electricity to Gaza because it doesn't want a humanitarian crisis, but... there is 'foolproof' evidence that Hamas diverts supplies for 'terrorist use.' If only the Palestinians choose to cease their pointless and indiscriminate firing of rockets against hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens, the entire region would return to normal."

LET'S LOOK at the facts.

According to the World Bank, the Palestinians are the largest per capita recipients of foreign aid worldwide. Regrettably, over the past 60 years, tens of billions of dollars have been mismanaged by the UNRWA due to the organization's lax oversight and faulty accountability mechanisms. Last year, James Lindsay, former legal adviser to UNRWA, wrote a highly critical report calling on the organization to "ensure the agency is not employing or providing benefits to terrorists and criminals." Moreover, a member of the US Congress recently declared "there is absolutely no reason why the United Nations cannot take aggressive action to ensure that not one penny of US dollars is being redistributed to terrorists."

In the aftermath of the recent Gaza war, the immediacy of their criticism has never been greater, as nations with the best of intentions line up to donate millions for the so-called reconstruction of Gaza.

Several other relatively unknown facts regarding Gaza's potential are worthy of mention. First, Gaza's offshore gas deposits are worth an estimated $4 billion. This natural resource could be accessed to improve the lives of residents of Gaza once the anarchy and violence of Hamas is curtailed. Second, the population of Gaza is comparatively healthy and well educated. Life expectancy in the Gaza Strip is more than 72 years, which is higher than in Russia, the Bahamas, India, Ukraine and Glasgow East (Scotland).

Third, Gaza has a much lower infant mortality rate than Angola, Iran, India, Egypt and Brazil. Perhaps the most astonishing fact, is that literacy in Gaza stands at a staggering 92 percent.

Likewise, despite the ceaseless repetition by journalists that "the Gaza Strip is the most densely populated place on Earth," it is in fact markedly less densely populated than an array of other locales, including a number of economic success stories such as Monaco, Hong Kong, Singapore and Gibraltar. Additionally, Macau has nearly ten times the population density of Gaza. This is not intended to compare life in Gaza with Manhattan's Park Avenue or Beverly Hills. Neither should it be denigrated as a disaster zone.

AN ADDITIONAL MYTH popularized by the media, NGOs and certain governments accuses Israel of violating international law by engaging in "collective punishment"' However, exercising legal countermeasures against a hostile entity (such as Gaza) does not constitute collective punishment under international law. Furthermore, there is nothing in international law that requires Israel to maintain open borders with a hostile entity. Examples abound of countries that elect not to trade with hostile neighbors for a variety of reasons: military, religious, economic and political. Thus in the past apartheid South Africa and Saddam Hussein's Iraq were subject to economic sanctions. Recently, others have sanctioned Cuba, Iran and even Israel.

Some provisions of international law impose upon Israel duties to act against Gaza and the Palestinian terrorists who are based there. First, Israel has the duty to prevent and punish Palestinian acts of genocide covered by the Genocide Convention (1948). Second, Israel has the duty, under UN Security Council Resolution 1373, to take various steps against Palestinian terrorists. Among the required steps, states must "refrain from providing any form of support, active or passive, to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts."

Thus, arguably, Israel is forbidden to supply aid to the Palestinian Authority, knowing that part of it will be diverted to Hamas and other terrorist groups and will, therefore, become passive support for terrorist acts. Additionally, Israel is required by Resolution 1373 to "[p]revent the movement of terrorists or terrorist groups by effective border controls." This means that Israel is required to continue maintaining strict controls on the passage of persons from Gaza to Israel.

The conflated message of the NGOs and the Hamas authorities in Gaza has long manipulated a complex reality to reap political and financial gains. In reality, the Palestinian-Israeli fighting in Gaza has been characterized by the extensive commission of war crimes, acts of terrorism and acts of genocide by Palestinian fighters. On the other hand, Israeli countermeasures have conformed to the requirements of international law. International law requires that Israel and other states take measures to bring Palestinian war criminals and terrorists to justice, to prevent and punish Palestinian genocidal efforts and, most importantly, to block would-be humanitarian donations from being misappropriated by Hamas. If you pay the piper, you get to call the tune.

In conclusion, there should be no free lunch. Why should the Hamas leadership, responsible for destroying what existed, be entrusted to dole out reconstruction financing? Simply put, terrorists and those complicit with them should not be handed the purse strings that will finance a new war.

The writer is an international human rights lawyer and a member of the Israel and New York Bar Associations. He is currently a Scholar in Residence at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and an adjunct lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

AFP: Gaza violence simmers as Egypt holds truce talks

AFP: Gaza violence simmers as Egypt holds truce talks

The Associated Press: Hamas dispenses politics along with aid to Gazans

The Associated Press: Hamas dispenses politics along with aid to Gazans

What's going on with Gaza?

He used to be a right good footie player, until he got in to all that drinking and crying lark. Now he’s a bit of a nutter, getting all depressed and going on benders and not looking after his family properly. Shame that.

Seriously though, this past few days has seen yet another furore caused by those Nazis at the BBC. First they let Jonathan Ross go back to work so he can make rude comments about shagging octogenarians with Alzheimer’s, then they refuse to show an appeal to raise money for the little kiddies in Gaza. Frankly, if you don’t like it, don’t watch the BBC! Surely it should be up to them what they put in their programming and who they employ to facilitate that? There are a lot of people out there who seem to think that because they pay their licence fee that they have the right to tell the BBC what to do. Perhaps they should consider their licence fee as a small bribe not to have watch pointless, condescending advertisements on their television and have excellent programming thrown in as a cherry on top! I know I do.

The truth about Gaza is that whilst there may well be a “humanitarian situation” on hand, much of this is self-inflicted by the population of Gaza. Having read many comments across the media, the detractors complaining about the BBC seem to have entirely overlooked the facts and are bent on using emotional blackmail to try and get the BBC to change their mind. I’m sorry for the little kiddies and the women and the civilian population at large, but suffering is a fact of war. People get hurt, their homes are destroyed, the water is bad if there’s any at all, disease is rife, women and children get raped or worse, people go hungry and lose everything, including their “humanity”, not to mention their dignity. It’s why I’m a pacifist, it’s why I get involved in direct action against war, it’s why I sometimes get very frustrated at not being able to do anything about it in real terms.

This particular conflict has been going on for many, many years, almost a century, and I can’t remember a time in my 45 years on this earth when there hasn't been conflict in the Middle East, conflict that has always appeared to be about land or oil, both of which are in plentiful supply, so none of it has ever made any sense to me and I don’t get why people can’t just get on.

My history may be a little shaky, but as I see it the Islamic countries in the Middle East don’t much like Israel. Here in the white, Christian-run West we are given the impression that Israel is inhabited solely by evil Jews and they stole the land from the Arabs, probably in the dead of night when no-one was looking. This is simply not the case.

The reality is that the land was declared to be the home of the Jewish people in 1917 by the League of Nations, formally known as the British Mandate of Palestine. The Jewish people were dispossessed and had no country they could call their own. They were going back to the place from whence they’d come, a long time before Christianity or Islam existed, and they were going to share it. The Mandate declared:-

…in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

There are two particular points of irony here, one is that the League of Nations was set up to bring about peace in the world and put an end to war. The second being that the Mandate, having been set up to bring people together without prejudice, led to the Partition of Palestine in 1948 and the continued conflict to the present day.

The conflict is silly if it’s truly for the reasons given. There is plenty of room for everyone. To put this into context the population of Greater London in around 7.5 million and they live in an area of 610 square miles. The population of Wales is around 3 million in an area of 8,000 square miles and Wales is, for the most part, very sparsely populated. The area of Mandatory Palestine was originally 45,000 square miles, 35,000 of which was annexed by Jordan and in which Jews were not allowed to reside. Just prior to Partition in 1948 the population was around 1.8 million, who lived in the remaining area of 10,000 square miles, 8,000 of which became the State of Israel. The population of Israel today is a little over 7 million. The reason for the jump in the population of Israel is that they accepted 1.5 million Jewish refugees in the first few years of its existence, some had fled Europe following World War II, and 870,000 of which were ejected from Arab states following partition. Most of the population live around the cities of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

When put like that, it seems obvious to me that this conflict is not about land. Most of the land is Arabic and mostly Muslim, with a smattering of Christians. The State of Israel is multicultural, multi-faith and cosmopolitan (certainly by Arabic standards) and the truth is that the Arabs insist on keeping up this conflict and will refuse to stop until the whole area is run by and for Muslims. They don’t want to share, especially not with anyone who has different ideas and beliefs from them. I insist on calling the people who are in conflict with Israel Arabs, because Palestine is what the Jews call the area and they, ultimately, consider themselves Palestinian, too. (Syria deserve a special mention, as they seem to just want all the fighting to stop. Their neighbours don't much like it though.)

The Israelis have called ceasefire after ceasefire, only to have it broken by yet more attacks from Hamas. The Israelis have ignored many attacks by Hamas, on the understanding that Israel know they have a bigger, harder and more organised army, knowing that they can cause a lot more damage to Hamas than Hamas can do to them.

Hamas remind me of my niece when she was about two years old. She went through a biting phase, as do lots of children, and she bit me several times. Once day, I’d had enough and wanted her to understand she can’t go round biting people without consequence, so the next time she bit me I told her if she did it again that I’d bite her back. She bit me again, so I bit her. Not hard, there were no marks on her skin, but I bit hard enough for her to know that I had teeth too. She screamed and ran to her mother. My sister shrugged and said “well, she did warn you…”. I never had any trouble with my niece after that.

Unfortunately, Hamas don’t seem to want to learn from their experience. They continue on and on, insist on biting the Israelis over and over. Hamas broke the ceasefire again yesterday and now Israel are seriously pissed off and have retaliated by bombing just a couple of the tunnels through which Gaza gets supplies., I suspect as a warning for the damage they could really do. It's probably too late for a bite without marks now and I doubt Hamas will take any notice, but will instead escalate the situation and whine to the international media about how badly done to they are.

In spite of what I’ve written, I don’t take sides in this. I don’t support the Israelis attacking their neighbours, I could never support any act of war and still sleep at night. I certainly don’t support Hamas in their absolute refusal to compromise from their ridiculous demands to have everything their own way. This is not how conflict is resolved.

Back to the BBC and their refusal to show an appeal for the victims of this so-called “humanitarian situation”. If this is the case, then the BBC must show an appeal for everyone who is the victim of war and not just those in Gaza. In this particular case, if there is no way that anyone who has any contact with the media is not aware of the DEC appeal and whether this is shown on the BBC should not affect someone's decision to make a donation or not. Further to this, this war has been going on for a long time and women and children have been hurt in it for a very long time, so why all the fuss at this particular time? My personal feeling is that, whilst I have no doubt that civilians are suffering terribly, this is being exploited by Hamas, even though they continually exacerbate the situation and refuse to make any move towards resolution.

This crazy war in Palestine will not stop as long as people refuse to see the facts. If what it takes is for everyone in Gaza to die, then so be it. Hamas continue to inflict this war onto their own citizens and have done so for decades. Every possible solution has been considered and yet no resolution, nor any step towards it, has been reached. These are not reasonable people and any money from appeals will, I fear, end up in the hands of these terrorists and not be spent on clean water and food, but on yet more artillery with which to bombard their neighbours.

The only other possible solution I can see, is to fly in lots of water laced with MDMA, and wait for them all to get too blissed-out to fight, then walk in and get them all to wear smiley face t-shirts and wave glow sticks instead of guns.

Fantasy aside, it took a long time and a good deal of effort to reach some kind of peace in Northern Ireland, and the opposing sides there were about as extreme as it gets. Resolution in Northern Ireland is still shaky, but seems to be on the right path, so if it can be done there why not anywhere?

Wig and Gown Included

He's brilliant, clever, oh so dashing
With growing paunch and bald head flashing
A man of letters, a man of learning
His sense of right it is a-burning

He
Has
Chaaarrrissma!

(Or so he thinks!)

Defending poor and huddled masses
Can he not see even with those glasses
The liars, dealers, pimps and fraudlings
The desperate things and bling-bling kings

An "accidental" killer whose
Defence illicits jury's boos
The driver who had too much beer
The picture here is very clear

(Or is it?)

A lawyer standing for the truth!
Or actor trying to raise the roof?

(Let us take a look at the evidence)

A murderer who he despises
The truth of which he well disguises
The truth is that he wants his fee
To line his pockets verily

The paedophile, a child himself
Where evidence is used with stealth
The truth has nothing to do with it
When he's defending this little shit

Bomber, rapist and armed robber
All with the coppers have had some bother
To get 'em of the hook if he can
Or else spend least time in the can

Can do, will do, it's all a game
And one that's played with absence of shame
Excuses often all too lame
Played to the house like a pantomime dame

(Wig and gown included)

Oh no it isn't, oh yes it is
The real question, m'lud, is this
Who's the genuine villain here
When truth like this is pitched so queer?

(For me, at least)
The only bar taken serious
Is the kind that gets an interval crush

The Trouble with Child Protection

In light of recent events and the trial of the killers of Peter Connolly, aka Baby P, there has been much recrimination laid at the door of social workers, and some of it is well-deserved.

Social Workers are Overworked and Underpaid
Whilst it’s true that social workers have a difficult and demanding job, too much is made of social workers being poorly paid and overworked. Social workers, even during training are paid something approaching £20k and, once qualified will earn considerably more for their 37 hour week. The current average salary in Britain is around £24k, but the majority work for less than this (often in difficult and demanding jobs), with the mean average being artificially inflated by the few who earn six and seven figure sums.

Awareness of Culture
Another defence of social workers is that many are from overseas and have little idea of what to look for in British culture. It is up to the employers to ensure that the people they employ are fit for purpose, so if this means that they need to check if someone is sufficiently culturally aware, then checks need to be implemented to ensure that this is the case prior to employment.

There Are Too Few Social Workers
To train as a social worker and be paid a handsome sum by local authority and have all tuition fees paid, the only qualifications required are GCSE English Language and Maths or the completion of an access course, and as long as those certificates can be produced they will consider any applicant for interview. It is assumed that these qualifications are required to prove that the applicant can read, write and add up. The applicants are then invited to take written tests prior to formal interview.

I have anecdotal evidence of someone who was refused an interview on the grounds that their exams weren’t recognised as being equivalent to GCSE (these being 16+ and CSE, now obsolete). This person was looking for a career change in their late thirties, worked sessionally for the local Social Services department doing group work and training social workers (taking annual leave from their highly technical job to do so) and had specialist training in counselling, developmental psychology and child therapy. When they appealed against this decision, they were told they could retake their exams or take an access course and reapply as a trainee social worker the following year. The potential applicant commented that if the local authority was like this prior to employment then they dreaded to think what they’d be like as an employer and decided to put their energies elsewhere.

The reason I relate this tale, is because it seems indicative of the idiotic levels of bureaucracy to which government agencies are prepared to go in order to fulfil requirement, rather than analysing and acting upon what is actually needed. As the saying goes, the trouble with common sense is it ain’t so common, and it certainly seems to be the case in much of local authority.

Do Once and Share
To be fair, there are some individuals in local authority who excel in their role, and have the drive and vision to change and continuously improve local services. In my experience, such people are driven by vocation and pragmatism rather than career and should be the example from which local authorities should take their lead. These people, too, are bogged down by bureaucracy, but somehow manage to have great success in their endeavours.

All local authorities are given guidelines to work to, but then rewrite them according to local need. This is all well and good up to a point, but it seems that guidelines are sometimes rewritten out of vanity rather than need. There are over 400 local authorities in England and Wales and all of them rewrite centrally dictated policy for their individual area, which is utterly ridiculous. I have a senior colleague who is fond of saying “do once and share”. Guidelines should be written by the best of the people on the ground and then disseminated across all authorities so that some measure of consistency is maintained. Local authorities could take a lot from industry by working to standard operating procedures and perhaps consider working models, such as Kaizen that focuses upon the practice of continuous improvement and is invested in by everyone in the organisation, instead of imparting policy from on high with little or no input from grassroots workers.

To go back to the success of the vocational pragmatists in local authority, these seem to be the same people who listen to their colleagues at all levels, consider their clients’ needs and take a truly multi-agency approach by seeing individuals from other organisations as their colleagues.

Solutions
Solutions to failings within local authority need to have proper consideration prior to implementation. In light of the Baby P case there have been proposals to enforce attendance at parenting courses for those with children on the At Risk register.

Haringey already run parenting courses, but the mother of Baby P (Tracey Connolly) failed to attend them. In this particular case, I believe that her attendance on such a course could have been far more damaging than her lack of attendance. From the information in the press, it seems the mother’s behaviour indicates some level of psychopathy and she would be too wrapped up in herself to have gained much from a parenting course without other interventions. The reported behaviour of the “step-father” (Steven Barker) would indicate outright sociopathy and his attendance would probably have furnished him with further tools with which to outwit the social workers by learning exactly what they wanted to hear from him as a parent.

Prison authorities have learned the hard way that sex offenders need to be assessed prior to any psychological treatment to ensure that the truly sociopathic individuals are weeded out. These characters can be very difficult to spot, as they are often charming and apparently helpful, especially if they think there is something to be gained, such as finding new and convincing ways of expressing “remorse” they don’t really feel, or new tricks in the treatment of their victims.

It’s crucial, therefore, that parents are properly assessed and not sent wholesale onto parenting courses, and that all “solutions” are properly considered before being put into place.

Other Agencies
A political favourite is the “multi-agency approach” and this is often cited as a way forward, but never seems to work in reality. The “public” have the impression that “public services” all have the same remit and the same culture, but the reality is that each organisation is separate and national organisations are usually locally driven. There is further complication in that each organisation jealously guards its own reputation, driving a wedge between the agencies.

Social Services are concerned with welfare, National Health Service with well-being, the Police with the law. All of these are commonly connected, all are seemingly national but in reality locally run, and all carry a snobbery about the other services. All carry a common negativity towards their area of expertise, i.e., the Police deal with criminals, the Health Service with the sick, Social Services with those who don’t care.

No relationship can thrive on negativity and jealousy and the focus needs to be shifted onto the positive aspect of the organisations, the common link being protection.

Good Parenting
I think about how my parents brought me up and continue, in my adulthood, to be good parents to me. They gave me freedom with boundaries, sometimes they punished me, and sometimes they let me get hurt without doing anything to stop it. It taught me that to be truly free I must know my limits, that to avoid punishment I have to understand my own culpability and have respect for myself and others, and that if I consider my actions and make my choices with care I’ll avoid pain and, that sometimes, pain can’t be avoided.

The key to this is that they were consistent and united in their approach, there for me and protected me whilst allowing me to think for myself. Now, in my forties, I’m still able to approach them for support and advice, and I bow to their greater wisdom and experience.

My parents are not perfect, they’re just people like anyone else. There have been times when they’ve got things desperately wrong, but I recognise that they’ve always done their best with the resources they’ve had at the time, and when they have got it wrong they’ve had the good grace to admit it and make reparation. I appreciate that I drew a very long straw in having them for a mum and dad.

I think the public services sector could do a lot worse than be good parents.