I usually try to avoid writing about politics and current affairs these days for the sake of my sanity and blood pressure, and I'm not about to wade into the complex intricacies of the Israel-Hamas conflict - but sometimes it's impossible not to be moved to words by fury and despair.
How else to react to Benjamin Netanyahu flatly dismissing the possibility of a ceasefire, citing the Bible in declaring that "this is a time for war" and using the religiously, racially and colonially charged language of "civilisation" and "barbarism" without any apparent appreciation of either history or the horrors that the Israel Defence Forces are currently inflicting on those trapped in Gaza?
How else to react to the reports of those horrors emerging via various individuals, organisations and international bodies, all of whom are pleading for an urgent end to the hostilities?
How else to react to the way that Israel's relentless assault on Gaza has made dollar signs light up in the eyes of those on Wall Street? The grotesque capitalist urge to unscrupulously and ruthlessly exploit human suffering for financial gain has rarely been so nakedly exposed.
War, then: what is it good for (as Edwin Starr asked)? Simple, really - to paraphrase Megadeth, if killing is your business, then business is good.
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