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On the Palestine Papers

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