Who would have thought that a pager could explode “remotely”?  Or even that pagers were still being used by anyone?

    But Israeli intelligence - Mossad - knew.  They had carefully prepared, months, if not years, in advance, to explode these devices, used by Hezbollah for communication, and with the full knowledge of the effect.

   Just what measure of depravity could allow anyone to come up with such a “weapon” in the first place, let alone use it, as happened yesterday in Lebanon?  The pager’s bleep caused all those who carried one (including some medical staff) to pick it up and hold it to their faces - they (and those close by) lost eyes, ears; had part of their brains blown out.  Others have been eviscerated because pagers in their pockets exploded.  There are 9 dead to date and 2,750 wounded.  Lebanon’s hospitals have been overwhelmed.

   But insane hatred and cruel depravity by Netanyahu’s forces aside - this has already been horrifically illustrated in Gaza over the past 11 months - it’s hard to understand what the Israeli government’s motive for this was, and why now?

   Netanyahu rules out a ceasefire, which is the only way to end the ongoing shelling of northern Israel by Hezbollah.  Obviously that’s not what he wants to achieve.  So, did Netanyahu see this as a way to cause an escalation on such a scale - anticipating a response from the Iranian regime, for instance - so as to draw the US directly into this war?

   Obviously, greater US involvement has been one of his regime’s objectives all along, since the repression of Palestinians will continue to be a factor in the Israeli population’s insecurity, unless Hamas, Hezbollah, and all the Palestinians’ allies are totally neutralised.  And of course the Israeli army can never, ever, achieve that.

   On the other hand, going by the continuing, bloody, politically radicalising and unstable mess the US (and British-European) interventions have “achieved” in Iraq, Libya and Syria, there is certainly no guarantee that the US military would be able to stabilise anything at all, if it engaged in an all-out war alongside the Israelis against Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah and the Houthis.

   Anyway, for the time being US Secretary of State Blinken is plying the Egyptian regime with gifts in order to get its cooperation in ceasefire negotiations.  So the reason for and the effect of this latest horror emanating from Israeli government policy is so far unclear.

   What is significant however, is that not one British, European or American politician, newspaper or online news website condemns Mossad’s attack outright, as the shocking and barbaric terrorist act that it is!

   No, it is spoken of half-admiringly, as a techno-achievement!  By de facto consenting to it, they share the responsibility not only for the horror brought to Lebanon’s population yesterday, but for any and all of its consequences.

Another 8 refugees drowned in the Channel last weekend when a dinghy carrying 61 people ran onto rocks off the coast of the French Pas-de-Calais region and was torn to pieces.  This comes less than 2 weeks after 12 people drowned, including 6 children and a pregnant woman, when their boat capsized.

    Like so many others, they were fleeing one of the many regions of Africa and the Middle East (most of them were from Eritrea, Sudan, Syria and Iran) where decades of interference and exploitation by multinationals, backed by US, British and European firepower has produced a near-permanent state of war and deprivation.

   The refugees are mostly ordinary people just like the rest of us, but with one big difference:  to have the chance of a better life they need to leave their birthplaces - and they are courageous enough to risk their lives in the process.

   And let’s be clear they don’t do this because of criminal gangs.  They risk their lives because the rich countries’ politicians closed all legal routes and thus created a lucrative market for people-smugglers.

   It would be easy to “smash the gangs” and stop the boats:  just make migration legal, and provide facilities for refugees to work and develop their skills, which would be in everyone’s interests.  Their new blood is needed on this island with its ageing population - and inbred nationalist idiocy!

   Instead, Starmer visited the far-right Italian PM Meloni this week, to get "tips" on how to "crack down on illegal migration”.  Yes, an Italian regime which pays Libyan warlords to “turn back” migrant boats in the Mediterranean, i.e., to send them to a watery grave.  And it now has a Rwanda-type deal with Albania, which Starmer would like to emulate!

   Of course the real criminality in all this comes from the politicians, like Meloni and Starmer, who choose to whip up anti-foreign, anti-migrant fears in a social context of “things only getting worse”.

   Yes, “divide and rule”, is the tried and tested defence of a political system against the only force which has the capacity to challenge it - a united working class.