Palestine/Israel for the Complete Fucking Idiot

On the subject of the Palestine/Israel conflict, I always operate on a few basic assumptions:

1) That this near 100-year-old (1917-2014) conflict has been around sufficiently long enough for people to have no excuse whatever for not 'getting' it.

2) That, if it is not already abundantly obvious, from, say, the widespread use of the term 'Israeli settlers', that we are dealing here with a genocidal, settler-colonial/apartheid problem - ie colonisers/ colonised, land thieves/dispossessed - a little honest inquiry (as in reading one or two reputable books) on the part of anyone with half a brain would clarify the matter.

3) That common decency demands support for the colonised, not the coloniser.

4) And lastly, that if you've been living under a rock all your life, and know nothing about the issue, then opening your mouth on it is only going to expose you for the ignoramus you are.

Why am I spelling this out now? Because it was painfully obvious, after watching Monday night's Q & A, which led with questions on Israel's latest bloodletting in Gaza, that none of the panelists had a clue what the conflict was really all about:

Senator Barnaby Joyce (NP):

"... if they haven't sorted it out in the last 4,000 years I don't think we're going to do it at Senate Estimates..."

Wrong, of course. Palestine's travails date back to 1917 when the British (who had no right to do so) promised Palestine (which belonged to the Arabs who were living there at the time) to a bunch of European Jews (who had no right whatsoever to it - then or now). Prior to 1917 there was no Palestine problem until Britain created one.

"If you want to start picking who started the fight in the pub, you will always come unstuck."

Pub brawls may be the cultural highlight of Barnaby's patch, but they have SWFA to do with settler-colonial situations.

Mark Butler (ALP) Shadow Minister for Environment & Climate Change:

"... as someone who has watched this area for many, many years, who has placed a lot of faith in the Israeli Left's capacity to drive internal pressure for the peace process..."

Butler's having us all on. If he's really been holding a candle for what he calls the 'Israeli Left' all these years, then he knows SWFA about Zionist colonialism and apartheid. Did his kind spend any time in the 80s looking for Afrikaaner apartheid's left wing? Rhetorical question, of course.

Louise Adler, publisher:

"It was a platitude to say there's sort of justice on both sides. I find it very hard."

Settler-colonialism doesn't work that way. It's inherently genocidal, and hence unjust by definition. The Palestinians are absolutely the blameless victims of Britain's imposition on them of a fanatical, exclusivist, European colonising movement.

David Suchet, actor (Hercule Poirot):

"... political debates about who owns what piece of land and it breaks my heart... fighting and killing and shooting weapons at each other..."

Well, what can I say? I see no evidence here of Poirot's "little grey cells" in action.

Madonna King, journalist & author:

"Yeah, what he said really. I mean, I think, yeah... there is wrong on both sides and I wouldn't have a clue where you start with that..."

FFS!