Flabergasted 3

Lorraine Levy's melodrama The Other Son continues to expose the appalling ignorance of its reviewers. This time it's David Stratton (of David and Margaret fame):

"For much of its length, this story is acutely moving, calling into question the appalling way in which neighbours and potential friends have been reduced to living in fear and loathing of one another." (House divided, The Australian, 20/4/13)

Stratton's been around now for over 70 years, and yet in all that time it appears he's led such a sheltered life that he actually believes that if only Israelis and Palestinians would drop in on one another for a cuppa, they'd get along like the proverbial house on fire. Almost a century of ethnic cleansing and dispossession in Palestine, it seems, has failed to register.

Once again, my flaber is well and truly gasted.

Now speaking of houses on fire, if only young Sundus Azza would get off her bum and whip up, say, a nice batch of scones for her 'neighbours' in Hebron:

"Nineteen-year-old Palestinian Sundus Azza cannot leave her family home, or the Sumoud & Challenge Center it is attached to, without making sure there is someone else there, because if she does, she might come home to find Israeli settlers living there. So far, settlers have attacked her house and the center with spray paint, fire, rocks, eggs, and filthy water, cut water pipes, and recently built a large wooden swinging chair sporting an Israeli flag in the middle of the garden in the backyard. A month ago, settlers brought dogs to attack Palestinian children playing in a field by Azza's home, and 5 months ago, a settler attempted to run over her 15-year-old brother with a minibus. 'They are trying to make us leave', explained the cheerful teenager as she pointed to the place on the outer wall near the front door where the fire scorched a black path. 'To be here is a form of resistance'." (Palestinian in Hebron: 'To be here is a form of resistance', Sarah Lazare, truth-out.org, 17/4/13)