POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN HAMILTON'S SPECTATOR
George Galloway is a genuinely heroic political figure.
His values of justice and decency are beyond question.
His skills in debating or arguing those values are simply formidable.
Galloway very much reminds me of certain 18th century figures who bravely stood their ground, defending worthwhile principles.
Politicians today generally offer nothing of the kind. Being a political weasel or a hypocrite has been developed into a fine art, as we see in our own thirty-percent prime minister, always excusing his failures with blather.
The running wound of Palestine is the greatest international issue of our day, and almost no politicians and no newspapers are willing to take it on.
The lack of justice and fairness there are major contributing factors to so much of the trouble we see in today's world.
Today Israel is into its fourth year of trying to starve out a million and a half people in Gaza. We have revelations only recently that Israel's government actually calculated the food ration which would make the people miserable but not die from malnutrition, and it is that calculation which decides what enters Gaza.
We also saw Israel attack an unarmed boatload of humanitarian workers on the high seas, deliberately killing nine of them.
How in God's name is that any different to the work of Somali pirates? Yet where is the outrage in our press?
Peace really is not that hard, if you genuinely want it, and Israel, while mouthing the words, clearly does not want peace. It wants more land, minus its inhabitants of centuries.
At least Galloway articulates these humanitarian truths. He also walks the walk, having spearheaded convoys of humanitarian assistance.
