Eoin Butler: writer, journalist and Mayoman of the Year

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On the Palestine Papers

war
A few years ago, a friend and I were discussing conspiracy theories. We both dismissed the vast majority of them out of hand. But I was willing to entertain the remote possibility that Diana, Princess of Wales, might have been assassinated by British intelligence officers.

I don’t for a second believe that she was murdered. I was merely acknowledging that this far-fetched plot, unlike the moon landings, or 9/11, would at least have had a coherent motive and required the complicity (and subsequent silence) of a managably small number of conspirators. My friend was aghast. What would have been the motive, he demanded? They didn’t want the mother of the heir to the throne to marry an Arab, I replied. The royal family aren’t racist, my friend spluttered! (I should mention, I suppose, that my friend was raised in Britain and isn’t white.) I laughed out loud.

Are you insane, I asked him? Royals consider it beneath them to befriend, let alone to intermarry with, 99.99% of the white Anglo-Saxon protestant population, forgetting about any of the rest of us. Bigotry – as defined by Martin Luther King (that is to say, judging a person on a criteria other than the content of their character) – is the royal family’s entire raison d’être.

How then is it so inconceivable that they might be racists? Because they are photographed occasionally at public events shaking hands with Trevor MacDonald or Leona Lewis? Because Philip didn’t really mean that stuff about Chinese people and their slanty eyes? Because Harry was only messing when he called one of his fellow soldiers a Paki? Please. Give me a fucking break.

I was reminded of that conversation today. It’s a cliché. But when something looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck… Very often that creature does turn out to be a duck. Yet one is branded a cynic for making the most elementary deductions.

Leaked cables published in the Guardian tonight confirm what any half-interested observer might reasonably have deduced long ago. That Israel-Palestine peace process is a dead duck. That it has been so for a long time. That Israel has no intention of making peace with Palestine and that no concession the Palestinian leadership might reasonably offer could possibly change that position.

Furthermore, America, who purports to be an honest arbitrator in the region, holds the Palestinian people in contempt and is willingly complicit in their subjugation. While Hamas, those vile extremists who espouse the annihilation of Israel, actually possess a more viable strategy, repugnant though it may be, than the moderate Palestinians who seek a reasonable accomodation with Israel.

Shock? Horror? Outrage? Who’d have thunk it? Yeah right. Gimme a break.

Related (on this blog):

Admit Nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-Accusations.

Document Sets Out The Minimum Calorie Intake Required By Gaza’s 1.5m Population, According to Their Age and Sex

I’m Not Sure What This Guy’s Problem Is, But He’s Pointing an AK-47 Assault Rifle At Me, So I Prefer Not to Make a Fuss

January 24th, 2011.

9 Responses to “On the Palestine Papers”

  1. Ponyo Says:

    Thinking of the moon landings being faked recently. With modern telescopes couldn’t doubters possibly see the flag or whatever from earth?

  2. LazyHippy Says:

    Thats a pretty disturbing picture to use

  3. Eoin Says:

    @ Ponyo – I have no idea. Altho on a related topic, I ran into Harry Browne out in RTE today. (He’s the journo who went head to head against Jim Corr on the Late Late on Friday night.) He told me the conspiracy nuts have been hounding him ever since. One of them even contacted his mother on Facebook and asked them who her son was working for!

    @ LazyHippy – It’s a pretty disturbing war.

  4. Ponyo Says:

    A friend was telling me Jim and the lads had a big event in our hometown just before christmas. Not sure if he was there or it was just people connected to what he believes in. It was in a big hotel. Says all the boys working in the Co-op etc going around talking about the new world order and whatnot. Bit scary.

  5. Kevin Says:

    In relation to the moon landing heres a great video of Buzz Aldrin landing a nice right hook on some conspiracy nut.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOo6aHSY8hU

  6. Eoin Says:

    @ Ponyo – Someone else I spoke to today, who knew Jim pre-fame, has a funny (but at least semi-serious) theory about him. He said that, as a teenager, Jim was constantly being befriended by guys who, it later turned out, were only interested in scoring his sisters. Thus the origins of his paranoia.

    @ Kevin – Wow, I’d heard about that before but never seen it. Had no idea it was so well delivered or so well deserved!

  7. Ponyo Says:

    One of these days, bang boom, straight to the moon.

    Getting with The Corr sisters, the motive behind the one world government. David Ickes next book

  8. Paul Moloney Says:

    “He said that, as a teenager, Jim was constantly being befriended by guys who, it later turned out, were only interested in scoring his sisters.”

    I bet that’s what Lord Monckton was up to, the dirty pop-eyed ol’ codger.

    P.

  9. Rose tinted glass are so hot right now Says:

    Poor Jimbo….I guess if you growing up fancying your sisters the trauma will manifest itself in some crazy way

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