Even though your Eyewitness swore off the Palestine-Israel “he-seh dem-seh” squabble, it just won’t stop!! The latest eruption, of course, is over who bombed the hospital in Gaza and killed over 500 men, women and – yes – children…dozens of them. He’s resigned that – in the inimitable words of Keith Rowley after observing the PNC’s Mingo in action – “this won’t end well”. What with the largest American warship steaming into the area, he wonders if the big powers will be drawn into the conflict and force us all in the underdeveloped world to take sides. There’s that caution about whether elephants fight or make love, it’s the grass that gets flattened!!
This blame game seems to be an infinite regression – you know…like those images in the house of mirrors that keep on going forever by reflecting each other ad infinitum!! So your Eyewitness decided to rummage through history to find out where this all started. Sadly, the only record is the Old Testament – compiled by the Jewish people. It goes back thousands of years ago, and says that God Himself made a covenant with them that the now-disputed land is theirs. Hence the “Promised Land – Eretz Israel.
Evidently, Abraham was told by the Big Guy with the grey beard from on high that whichever land his foot touched was for him and his people!! The trouble was, there were folks living there – the Canaanites, who had to be evicted forcibly. Most were killed and some converted!! Sounds familiar?? And then we had an infinite regression of invasions and returns lasting for hundreds of years. Sounds familiar?? There was their Assyrian expulsion, then their enslavement by the Babylonians, as told in that hymn – By the Rivers of Babylon – where they sat down and cried when they remembered Zion – a hill in Jerusalem!!
Remember their enslavement in Egypt by Pharoah Yul Brynner, and their return to Judea under the leadership of Charlton Heston otherwise known as Moses?? Well, eventually the Romans conquered them and made them into a colony, and called the land Syria Palestine. And we approach the common era when they were scattered all over Europe, Asia Minor, North Africa – and even to India. In each of those lands except in India, they were persecuted and ghettoized. Much of the enmity comes from them being blamed for killing Jesus – who was a Jew!!
They gradually evolved an ideology – dubbed Zionism – that taught they should return to the land that God gave them. Britain was then the big world power, and was persuaded that they should be facilitated. But like back in the day of the Canaanites, there were folks living there – this time Arabs, who called themselves Palestinians!!
And we arrive at the present!!
…corporal punishment??
Your Eyewitness was dumfounded at the viral video of a teacher at some Bartica school enforcing the school’s dress code to a male student. Evidently, the kid was wearing socks that violated the said code – and the teacher violently pushed him in the chest when he objected. And started whacking him with a T-square. Well!! In his day, your Eyewitness did get his share of whupping for one reason or other – mostly for carrying on in the back benches!! But he’s never seen a teacher getting down like this, as he yanked off the boy’s shoes and then the offensive pair of socks!!
Now, your Eyewitness does believe in “spare the rod and spare the child” mode of instilling discipline in kids. Worked for him…didn’t it?? But two things. Hadn’t the authorities ordered that the rod had to be wielded only by the headmaster?? Whatever the rule is…that teacher has some serious anger issues. And your Eyewitness thinks he oughtn’t to be allowed in a classroom anytime soon!!
Wanker!!
…Venezuela??
Didn’t take long, did it? Here it is, only a day after the US signalled they might flex on sanctions if Maduro agreed to supervised elections, and the man has the spunk to amass troops along our border!! Bun him!!
