Recently I saw a book review of Gaza, a history, by Jean-Pierre Filiu in The New York Review of Books, written by David Shulman. From this survey I learned that Gaza is already suffering from war and foreign occupation for 3000 years. It also summarized Gaza’s history since 1948, when the State of Israel was founded. If we see Israelean policy as described in this condensed way only two qualifications come to mind: stupid and nefarious. See and judge for yourself: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/nov/20/gaza-murderous-melodrama/

For me this did not come as a shock; I already knew this for a long time. But what I realized – and that did come as a shock, although I knew this too – that USA, Europe and my own government support this policy during all these decades. Sometimes there is a weak protest, but at the same time money is flowing towards Israel and trade agreements are made and maintained. In criminal law we have a term for this: complicity. This in criminal law is penalized, not as severely as the first offender, but nevertheless. But our governments and our politicians come away with it.

Realizing that my government is an offender I suddenly realized that it is committing more crimes. An example: it is sending refugees, who already are living here with their families for years, sometimes decades, with a legal permit to stay, back to their countries when it appears that they have been a member of an organization (official, or a resistance movement) that has committed war crimes, even if they have not participated in it themselves. (unless they can prove this, but evidence has to come from the countries where the war crimes are committed, and those countries never are cooperating). Our administration can do this without any form of court case, and doing so are ruining families and sometimes are co-responsible for murder. (See the columns of Tinkebell in the Dutch paper Trouw)

Another example: our governments and administrations, national and local, most of the times in purchasing services and products are choosing for cheap instead of ecologically sustainable. Thus they are contributing to global warming, causing millions, maybe billions of deaths in the foreseeable future. This I call nefarious too. (see again the paper Trouw of January 30)

The are many more examples, but for the time being this is enough. The net result is that I don’t feel represented by my government anymore. But I don’ know yet which conseqences I have to derive from that. By paying my taxes I am co-responsible too. But reducing my tax contribution is hardly an option – it would lead to court cases that I should lose and I should end in jail. I never cheated the tax authorities, but I certainly would do it these days if I saw an opportunity. This would not be a political choice, but a moral one.

In the mean time the only thing one can do is protest: in raising ones voice and in action. Showing the facts, like The New York Review and Tinkebell are doing. Will it have any affect? One never can tell. Among the about 120.000 readers of the New York Review and the 90.000 of Trouw there might be some influential and courageous ones. Let’s pray for them, and support them wherever we can.

(I apologize for mistakes in my English. Blogs are cursory – not stuff for correction by a native speaker).