Israeli tanks head into Gaza

Not a fun Saturday night. Between the news that Israeli tanks are heading into Gaza, Marc getting called in to do physio-y things to a very sick teenager and the residual desire to slowly and painfully break the arm of the gobshite who killed the lovely little plum tree on my allotment, my attitudes towards life, the universe and everything are currently a tad jaundiced.
My friend Sharyn is riding with ambulances in Gaza tonight. One Red Crescent station has already been damaged so working alongside medics is no guarantee of safety. Sharyn knows what the Israeli forces are capable of - she has a nice ring of shrapnel from a splinter bullet in her stomach to show it - and one of her latest blog posts, cited below, wondered what it was the Israelis didn't want the hundreds of international they let out through Erez the other day to see. I guess this is the answer.
I remember so well what it's like being aware that an incursion is on its way, watching the sun go down and wondering what will be revealed when the darkness lifts next day. The strange sensation of compression at the base of the throat that is the tension of not knowing.
The last 36 hours have seen hundreds of thousands of people - maybe millions - demonstrating around the world. Yesterday was mainly the Muslim countries, with crowds heading out onto the streets after prayers.
Today was Europe, Australia, the USA. 20,000 in Paris. The lily-livered lying scum at the BBC, whose coverage wasn't too bad at the start but which has degenerated into whinging apologias for the Israeli military, reported 12,000 in London today but I prefer to rely on my mum's description, which suggests that it's bollocks and should be comfortably doubled. Manchester was a good couple of thousand, which given that coaches went from hear to London wasn't too bad.
There are legitimate critiques of marches and their failure to build in participation and to build on their energy to keep working in the communities from which the marchers come. But I also know that the sight of people demonstrating around the world is a terrific boost to the morale of Palestinians when they come under attack, and however dispiriting another bloody chant-chant-slogan-slogan-slogan, SWP-dominated, patriarchal march can feel, they do have their uses. As emphasised by Sharyn's words below, and in a chat I had on the subject with Kevin Brown of the FBU, who was on a solidarity delegation to the West Bank last June.
My brilliant mum was commenting on a news piece she saw which showed an Israeli policeman holding the remains of one of the Hamas rockets we keep hearing so much about in the news - a glorified firework, maybe 2 feet long. And then it cut to an unexploded Israeli missile, the size, as she put it, of a room. A pity not all the fools bleating about Hamas violence haven't been made to view that news item. As I've said publicly and repeatedly, Hamas are largely a nasty, reactionary bunch and targeting civilians is inexcusable. But to talk as if the two had some parity is also offensively stupid, as well as tediously predictable.
Also not an enhancement to my love for my fellow (hu)man has been the process of editing for length an article by Naela Khalil, a journalist from the West Bank who was threatened with suspension for carrying out a piece of investigative work into the use of torture and illegal detention by Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza, against each other's supporters. Naela won the Prix Samir Kassir for her article, which is a valuable contribution to revealing the truth about political conflict within Palestine. It's hardly a shock to find that members of the Palestinian security services are learning the tricks of the Israeli torturers who abused them and are turning them on their political rivals at home, but it's not an encouraging spectacle either. The piece is supposed to be running in Red Pepper, but I suspect they're going to bottle it.