Winter 2013

The only adventurous thing I did this winter was to take this photograph of the first snow fall on January 14 at 3.45 am.  It wasn't much to talk about.

Then it came down with a vengeance on 18 January.

18 January 1413 hours

Wonky knees and chilblains  got the better of me and I opted for indoor activities only.

So I raided the spouse's stamp collection.

This one I found most interesting - the tiger of the Federated Malay States.

Wow!  Was there ever such an entity - The Malay States??   Looking at today's analysis of  Malays , Malaya and Malaysia, one would think that the Malays were immigrants like everybody else, that they had just come down from the trees and possessed no political , economic or social structure worth mentioning.  Furthermore, it took the British and others to show them how.

There was of course the overlord, the English King :

But there also existed the Malay Sultans:

........  and way back in those days Jawi was an acknowledged script.  During my colonial education in Singapore in the 1950s, I was given hardly 3 years of Malay language education in Rumi - much less in Jawi.  However my Chinese and Indian classmates were taught their language in their script.

Still, I musn't grumble too much or I may be branded an ultra-Malay fanatic.

However I did make very - and I must emphasise - very small efforts to brave the snow.  You can find pictures of beautiful snowscapes anywhere in the papers and on the screen.  But you'll never see anything like these.

The littlest snowperson  (very PC)

My wash basin and ex-Marmite bottle crowned with snow

My yellow bin with a white topping

Another artwork  - 'Fluffy Wall'

I  WUZ HERE  (Size 4)

But the most unkind cut of all was this.  I trudged through the snow (on the bus) to get an electric under-blanket for the bed in the bolt-hole.  But after unmaking the bed and fixing the under-blanket and then making the bed again, I was ready to plug it in - only to discover this.

Cheers for a Made-in-China British product - the wonder of Globalisation!   (Note the pin on the left)

Goodnight  and have a lovely weekend.

Horse dóeuvre and Pig in a Poke

When you live in Britain, you must not horse around with comestibles from the Supermarkets.  You have to hold your horses before you pay for the pack of beefburgers you picked out in the freezer at Tesco, Aldi, Iceland and Lidl.  Complaints about food standards in the supermarkets have been going on for years but sometimes it's like flogging a dead horse  (it's actually gone into the beefburger, ha ha!).

Most of the time the food giants get away with it except this time, when the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) tested and discovered horse DNA in the burger samples from the four retailers above.  Tesco's Everyday Value Beefburger, for example, contained 29% horsemeat.

What should go into the ingredients  of a 'Value" Beefburger?

From the Daily Mail 16 Jan.2013

What exactly is a 'Value' burger.  It's a pseudonym for cheap or economy burger - the kind of food that the poorer Proletariat can afford to buy.  While the standard ( or posh) burger must have 62% meat, the economy burger contains only  47% meat,  at the least.

What is meat as opposed to MRM (mechanically removed  meat ) and MSM (mechanically stripped meat)?
Meat is specified as "skeletal muscle with naturally included or adherent fat and connective tissue" and the latter two are meat that have been pressure blasted from the carcass.  MRM and MSM , when used in economy burgers have to be listed as  separate ingredients.

Or course only cheap and fatty meat make up the 47% meat in an economy burger and MRM and MSM  would be used as fillers. See the above image.

When we were growing up in the kampung, chicken and red meat were a luxury.  We were made to eat the chicken right down to the bone.  As for beef, after removing the meaty bits, mak would render down the bones and gristle into a kuah or soup - our Malay kampung version of low-tech MRM and MSM.  Nothing was wasted. It was not just because meat was expensive but  it was out of gratitude for the animal that fed us.  To give a meaty flavour to her dalcha mak would buy the cheaper scraggy bits at the market which she described as tetelan.  A quarter pound of meat sandwiched between two skimpy layers of bread was almost an abomination in my mother's eyes - one should not eat that much meat.  As  she would say,  "Jangan makan lauk sa'ja - mesti ada nasi".  

Where is the source of the horse meat or equine (a posher word) meat?   Horses are not bred for meat like cows.  They are mainly surplus or old horses, pets and race horses included, that are more economical to send to the abattoir than to be put down by a vet.  It was estimated that 8118 horses from Britain were exported to Europe in 2011 for their meat - mainly to France, Belgium and Italy.  By the way it's also used in pet food.

So what's the fuss all about?  According to the renowned French chef Raymond Blanc,   "horsemeat is lean and rich in iron, has a slight taste of game - is incredibly tender - and similar in colour to beef  (my emphasis)"

Fair enough, different cultures have their own versions of what is edible.  The British delicacy "hung pheasant" is a wild bird  (dead one of course) that is tied and propped on a hook with guts and feathers intact.  It is then left to hang for up to a week or more at 10 Celsius until the meat is 'high' and starts to decompose. This will make the the meat tender and improves the flavour.

The French enjoy  frog legs and foie gras or fatty liver where ducks and geese are force-fed three times a day with about 4 pounds of grain and fat so that the livers will be bloated to 10 times the normal size. Chinese partiality to cats and dogs of course is much reviled. So, why the kerfuffle over horse meat?

From the Daily Mail 16 Jan 2013

 The reason is this.  The above 'Value'  Burger claims to have 8 % more beef but nowhere does it include the 29 % horsemeat.  That is deceitful and unlawful.

As for the "pig in the poke" out of 31 other meat food products like cottage pie, beef curry pie and lasagne, 21 tested  positive for pig DNA.

After this exposure, over 10 million beefburgers were removed from the Supermarkets' shelves.  I wonder what happened to them - perhaps they've  been diverted to the underdeveloped world.  Or maybe they've been destroyed.  Either way, it's as immoral as the initial deceit.

Now perhaps I can offer something better than supermarket burgers for all the busy mums and dads in Malaysia.  My dear mak often used the word muai in her cooking.  She applied this mainly to rice.  She judged the value of  rice not by the price but by how muai it is - that is how far it can stretch. Her one tin (a condensed milk tin) of beras  (brand A) should cook  into more nasi than brand B.   Whenever she cooked mee goreng, our favourite lunch on a Sunday, she made sure we had rice with it  - again her concept of muai!

So here's my tested and tasty MUAI  MEATLOAF or SQUARE BURGERS

1 lb mince meat
1 lb cooked rice
2 large eggs, beaten
1/2  Tablespoon Worcester sauce or kicap
3 level Tablespoons  tomato ketchup
2 level teaspoons mustard or chili  powder
2 level teaspoons salt
pepper
1 onion sliced and fried slightly
4 teaspoons (or more) curry powder

A 2 lb loaf tin oiled and lined at the base 
Oven 180-190C

Method:  Put meat in a bowl and mix with the cooked rice using a fork or your kid's grubby fingers.  Stir in the remaining ingredients and then spoon into the loaf tin. Pat it down a little.  Bake for 50-60 minutes.

When the meatloaf is cool, cut  into slices.  It can be frozen for up to one month.  Before freezing interleave the slices with grease-proof paper.  It will make it easier and cheaper to re-heat.

This meatloaf is highly recommended by the spouse because it is not too meaty and it's economical or 'muai'!

And it comes straight from the horse's mouth.  When your horrible kids nag you for burgers from the supermarkets or other outlets, just say neigh if you want them to turn into stable characters.  ( I''m enjoying this horse play).

Creating a bolt - hole in Leicester

For  the last week I have been caught up in a major makeover project - to transfer paraphernalia from this back room .....

The  Back  Room

to the front room which is also the study/guest room.

The  Study/Guest Room

This involved sorting out nearly 500 books, re-packing boxes and cases of what the spouse teasingly considers as junk.  The computer table had to be given away together with over 250 embroidery, cross-stitch, patchwork and applique books sob, sob - so as to make way for a bed in the back room.

Back in Kuala Lumpur we were plagued by the infernal noise from Ikan Bakar Sekinchan.  Read  http://anaksihamid.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/malaysia-boleh-tak-bertimbang-rasa.html

Here in Leicester ...

Leicester City Centre

....... in this row of Victorian terrace houses, we have the joy of having 'new' neighbours:  East Europeans on the left and East Asians on the right.  These houses which are over 100 years old were not built to cope with the cacophony from loud radio and TV and with neighbours who are not familiar with living terrace-style, almost cheek by jowl in urban centres.  In the first place, you do not shout  when you want to communicate with each other under the same roof.  When the adults shout, the children scream.  That comes from our East European neighbours.

Our East Asian neighbours on the other hand would be whooping and yelling with joy (at night) over their favourite TV programmes.  And as they work on the late shift, they would get home by near midnight to natter and clatter with their cooking.  On weekends it can get a bit more raucous - the after effects of happy boozing.

We have an additional problem on our street.  Our neighbours cannot speak English and so a civilized tete-a tete is out of the question.  We did manage a certain degree of success with our East Asian neighbours.  When we knocked on their door to explain our problem - the young man opened the door, glared at us saying,  "What, what you want?" After we gently asked for their co-operation, he muttered  "Okay, okay" and shut the door on our faces.  Albeit they did quieten down - but not enough!

As for our East European neighbours, we dare not approach them.  Three years ago, the tenants from Poland used our backyard as their ash-tray.  They pounded their Polish rap music as of eleven in the morning when they came home from the night shift and more wall- pounding music at night up to the early hours of morning during the weekends - and of course they were all plastered with vodka.

 As if to point two fingers at us for trying to get help from the police they smashed their unwanted TV  in front of our window and the tyres of our Corsa were punctured.  Fortunately, as we were just getting to the end of our tether it was time for us to return to Kuala Lumpur and when we got back they had gone.
 More have come and gone on both sides of our house since then.  The only decent ones were two men from Hungary a year or so ago.

Today Leicester is lauded for its "liberality"- and landed (like the rest of the country) with  a 'multi-cultural' population  as a result of immigration.  In the Census for 2011, Leicester's total population was 329,000.  The table below shows the ethnic composition of Leicester.

 The marker  +  indicates the growth of population from 2001 to 2011

Other Features of Leicester from the Census of 2011

1.  Just 45 %  are white British  (excluding the Other Whites from the EU/ Eastern Europe )
2.  28.3 % are Asian or British Asian Indians and 2 % are Asian or British Asian Pakistanis.
3.  65 % were born in England  (84 % nationally),  5 % were born in the EU  (4 % nationally), 10 % in Africa and 17 % in the Middle East and Asia.
4.  18 % of households have nobody speaking English as a main language (4 % nationally).
5.  In 70 % of households, every occupant speak English as a main language  (91 % nationally).
6.  32 % are Christians, 19 % Muslims, 15 % Hindus, 4 % Sikh, 0.4 % Buddhists, O.1 % Jewish and 23 % were of no religion.
7.  In addition, there are 31 Druids,  22 Heathens, 3 members of the Occult, 320 Pagans, 20 Satanists, 10 Scientologists, 62 Wiccans, 30 Heavy Metallists and 778 Jedi Knights.

Of course the "White British" are fearful of what's happening to the population composition, not only of Leicester but of the United Kingdom as well.  As I said to my spouse (and he agrees with me) - it's the chickens coming home to roost.  Britain did this to Malaya over a hundred years ago and now it's happening to them.

Well, today the bolt-hole is done - for Darby.  AsH has the other room.

The bantal peluk in the picture is a family heirloom.  It was made by my mother and has travelled from Pasir Panjang to Jalan Mas Kuning, Royal Road and Johor Baru.  Then it returned to Singapore (Boon Lay).  In 1995 this much-cuddled bolster migrated to Leicester and maybe one day I will take it to my other home in Kuala Lumpur.  This bolt-hole bears all the hall marks of an ancient person's den.  Second from left is a ceramic hot water bottle, followed by Kwan Loong Oil, Olbas Oil and Minyak Gamat.

Finally a few days ago, we were surrounded by this.....

and there's more to come this week - end!!!

The Heavy Metallists and the Jedi Knights of Leicester wish all who read this blog a happy weekend.  May the force be with you.



This song is especially for our dearest Lely.

Viva Malaysia !

What a good start for 2013.  We have been accorded the status of  Best Value Country in today's Daily Mail in an article by Jill Reilly.  Other  'valued' countries include Ecuador, Nicaragua, Panama and Mexico.

The rate of exchange is GBP1 = MYR4.88

Please note: Entertainment does not include alcohol.  This should keep away many  Brits and  Americans!

Anyway for more titillating information, read http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2256031/Worlds-best-value-countries-Live-grand-month-retire-cheap-endless-sun.html

But this news is old hat.  Singaporeans have savoured this boon for the last 30 years or more.  While wealthy  Indonesian Chinese R&I  (Retire and Invest) in Singapore, Singaporeans do the same  and happily tweet  'çheep, cheep'  in Johor Bahru and Johore and Penang and Kuala Lumpur.

The only difference is this:  the West - and I am speaking about Britain mainly - are finding that they cannot afford the expense of looking after their disproportionately  high percentage of over 65s  ( as in Singapore too) .  Putting up the old folks  in a retirement home costs the minimum of  about GBP500 per week.  This would have to come from the State, or the loving children will  have to forego their inheritance of  mater's and pater's property and investments.

There is however another dimension to the plight of old people in UK.  This was  highlighted in the retirement speech of Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to the House of Lords on 15 December, 2012.  He bemoaned "the contempt towards older people"and how this was "fostering verbal and physical abuse " of the older generation.

However, before estate agents  and other servicing agencies in Malaysia get too excited about the 'migration'  of  pensioners who seek a decent life on GBP612  ( MYR2986 ) a month - minus alcohol - I hope they are aware of  Jill Reilly's last paragraph in that write-up.

" But Malaysia's human rights record has come in for international criticism - internal security laws allow suspects to be detained without charge or trial."

Oh dear, oh dear how do we shake off this black mark?  These agents could proclaim -

" We can inform our potential clients of these redeeming factors: we have had no history of dictatorship and civil wars and natural calamities (as in Nicaragua),  we are not a transit point for smuggling drugs and illegal immigrants to the US (as in Panama) and we do not hold the record of having the "highest rates of kidnappings in the world" (as in Mexico).  All these countries, especially the first two - and Ecuador - live mostly in poverty.

In fact, Madam and Sir, we have quite a high standard of living here - but we do wonder how we can manage this and also enable foreigners to live cheaply in Malaysia.  Of all the countries in Southeast Asia, we wonder why Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand,  and the Philippines were not chosen.  And furthermore, dining out in this country excludes alcohol - which is certainly not a plus factor for westerners!

And as for our Human Rights record - we are not really that terrible but we do have a little old lady here who could enlighten and assure you that where human rights are concerned, it's not that much different from living in Great Britain." 

The old lady will refer mainly to information from Human Rights Watch although there are many details and instances of human rights abuses in Britain which are given short shrift in official records.

Secret  Court  Hearings.  The  British Parliament began debating the Justice and Security Bill on 18 December 2012.  "The Bill will widen the use of secret hearings (my emphasis) in the civil courts on national security grounds, excluding the person affected and his or her lawyer from the courtroom.  Such hearings would undermine a basic principle of justice: the ability to know and challenge the case against you.  Parts of the judgement in the cases would also be kept secret.

Stop and Search under Section 44,  the Terrorism Act 2000.  This was supposed to be a counter-terrorism policy.  But between 2007 and 2009 , despite the 450,000 stops and searches, not one was successfully brought to court.

It was quite a selective stop and search because Asians and blacks took the brunt and most of these searches were carried out in London in the areas of Muslim communities. It's hard to tell whether they were picking on Muslims specifically because religion is not recorded during these searches.

Intelligence Cooperation with Countries that Torture.  France, Germany and the United Kingdom have been using intelligence obtained under torture in their 'war on terrorism'.  This goes against the EU's anti-torture guidelines.  Such victims include Djamel Beghal tortured in the United Arab Emirates and the information derived was used to convict  him on charges of terrorism in a French court.

UK's Counter Terrorism Policy  Although the pre-charge detention order in terrorism cases was reduced to 14 days  in early 2012, the Government reserves the right to reinstate the 28 day detention order.

International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers .  UK rejected the recommendations.  "Changes in immigration rules have made it harder for foreign domestic workers to leave abusive situations without losing their immigration status.  Women claiming asylum on gender- related grounds are detained " and not given adequate time to prepare their claims and obtain medical evidence.

Death by Remote Control  The November 2012  HRW Report, "Losing Humanity: The Case against Killer Robots " noted concern about the use of drones, for example , in killing civilians.  There are tons of material on this cowardly and brutal killing of civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan.  This is Britain's contribution.

1.  The Taranis (below) , a United Kingdom combat aircraft, was unveiled in 2010 .  It was designed to attack targets "even in another continent".  By the way,  'Taranis' is  the Celtic God of Thunder to whom human sacrificial offerings were made.  (And  they mocked the Mayan end-of-the-world prophecy).  This is a robot- aircraft that murders without inflicting damage and pain to the man or woman who presses the button. It's described as an autonomous weapon, a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) enabling the perpetrators to execute without getting blood on their hands.

 The United States is undoubtedly the leader in this super killing machine business.  However other countries - "including China, Germany, Israel, South Korea, Russia and the United Kingdom .. are also involved."  We can look forward to full autonomy for weapons within 20-30 years and maybe even sooner.

It's regrettable that Human Rights Watch resorts to the same language of the countries that they are monitoring by describing these barbaric aircraft as "autonomous weapons ".  A 'hurrah' word which means self-governing and free to act independently has been hijacked to whitewash such savagery.

" Cough, cough ahem.  Little old lady (LOL) , ahem ... could you please stop here?  We think you're upsetting our clients."



Beautiful Guitar play in this video - one of my top favourites.

Ringing in 2013

To quote Charles Dickens in "A Tale of Two Cities"  (1859),   the year 2012  :

".... was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of  Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way."

A lot of the time it was like the salmon's journey - upstream against the torrents and losing good friends along the way.

But there were also blessings - like the warmth of new friends ........

 ....... Zarina and her three boys, husband Ken and sons Daniel and Haiqal and Kakak Zainon the mother and grandmother.   And as always, stalwart companions Irene and Jailani.

In Leicester,  there was little  Wania, Yasir's and Rafiah's new and first born bundle of joy.

Happy mum, Rafiah and little Wania.

Proud Baba (Dad)  Yasir.  He could , off the top of his head, inform me that Wania's  " date of birth is 28 November 2012, Wednesday, 1620 at Leicester General Hospital, delivery room number 7"!

So we now have a new title in Urdu, Dada for grandfather and Dadi for grandmother.  In future, each time we come back to Leicester we will have someone under 21 to catch up with.

A big 'teh tarik' thank you to Maria for helping us through many hurdles and crossings - and just for being there - when we were in Kuala Lumpur and even while we are here in Leicester.

This ex-student of mine.....

..... gave up three days of his time to drive me to Singapore and back  -  to enable me to see Lely -  as the spouse was not well enough to make the journey.  Thank you Din from us two and Lely.

Another year, another journey and  I wish for all who pass my way and AsH's blog a happy and peaceful 2013  and a big thank you.

Six Geese a Laying or The Sixth Day of Christmas

As part of the treatment for his battered discs and his osteo-arthritis, the spouse has been doing his walking exercise - about 2 kms each day and every day - at Victoria Park, whatever the weather.  The weather today was chilly and blowy but the spouse kept his feet firmly on the ground.

Daft and Dodgy  DIB   (Donald Iain Buchanan)

This morning I kept him company - to walk off the great dinner  I cooked the night before for our good friend Jack.

 Despite the cold and the wind, the day was gloriously sunny and  bright.  Such cheerful light always makes me a bit loopy and dopey.  I thought a photo of AsH cuddling a tree would prove my green credentials.

Buchanan's Daft  Green Malay Wife

I could not miss this photo opportunity of a  female Malay OAP  (Old Age Pensioner)  sunbathing on a bench in sunny Leicester!

Buchanan's Daft Malay Wife

But all that morning I could not keep out this Christmas Carol  "God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay, for Jesus Christ our saviour, was born on Christmas day"  which kept on ringing in my head.  In fact for the past two weeks a barrage of Carols has been inundating my waking world - in the City Centre and on the radio and TV ... together with all the advertisements for Christmas and New Year Sales!     It's to be expected in this secular and Christian country at this time of year.

But Iain would shake his head in dismay at the breakfast and lunch table (when the radio is on), - not only at the endless Carols but - especially when his wife breaks into a song with each ( or most) of  the Carols.
I could warble for him Good King Wenceslas, Silent Night Holy Night, It Came Upon the Midnight Clear, Away in a Manger, The first Noel, God Bless ye Merry Gentlemen etc, etc.

He asked, "Where did you learn all that?  I don't even know the lyrics to most of those carols."  He shuddered when I replied, "In Pasir Panjang  Primary School during Music Periods!  We also learned them on our Recorder ( somewhat like a flute). "

For good measure I elucidated on the nature of my Music Education in Secondary School.  Other than the usual repertoire of traditional English songs like The Wraggle Taggle Gypsies, The Grand Old Duke of York, I Vow to Thee My Country and God Save the King and God Save the Queen, (when the King died in 1953), we had a jolly old time raucously singing Christmas Carols.  But we were not happy when Miss Scharenguivel our music teacher threw in  a couple of Gospel songs -  too sombre and dirge-like for us red blooded teenagers.

I revel in seeing the spouse's look of disgust when I 'entertain'  him with :

Nobody knows the trouble I've seen
Nobody knows but Jesus.
Nobody knows the trouble I've seen.  Glory Hallelujah.

I  like to sing this when I'm doing my housework chores - giving him a nudge, nudge, wink, wink at the same time.

A few days ago I looked up this particular Gospel Song on YouTube.  Paul Robeson,  Sam Cooke and Louis Armstrong sang the second line as "Nobody knows my sorrow"and not "Nobody knows but Jesus" as we were taught by Miss Scharenguivel.  I reckon they had to water down the Jesus factor for public consumption.  But oh boy, we learned the genuine article!  All part of the British (secular?)  Colonial Education.

Was I deracinated by this English language Colonial Education?  I don't think so.  Thanks to my English educated father and my  unschooled mother.  It's ironic that the younger generation of Malay-Muslims in Singapore and Malaysia are more anglicised/americanised despite their uncolonial education.  They are being colonised by the seductive onslaught of western music, culture, food and fashion and the imported media.  When, years ago, I saw this copy-cat   popular art -caption :

......  I  cringed.  Enough's said.

Here's another Gospel song I was taught in school.

All night, all day, angels watching over me my Lord
All night, all day, angels watching over me.

As angels seem to abound at this time of year, - other than night and day - why not listen to the Dawn?




One  thing my education taught me.  Search and discover and learn.

Cull of 2012 - Part 3c (1987-2012) - Finale

9.  With the Arab nations more or less emasculated by this time and the breakup of the USSR following Gorbachov's Glasnost and Perestroika in the late 1980s, Yasser Arafat and the PLO were now on their own.  The Russian Army had to withdraw from their 'adventure' in Afghanistan (1979-1984) and the symbolic fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 left the world with only one superpower.  This strengthened Israel: now with guaranteed support from secular and Christian Zionist US, it had a freer hand in the Middle East.

      The Uprising or the First Intifada against the Occupation of Palestinian territories went on between  1987 - 1993.  It was basically a battle between Israeli tanks and Palestinian stones.  Despite the imbalance in military might between Israel and Palestine, Israel had no problem in winning the hearts and minds of the western media.  It was very easy for Israel to get moral support following "attacks" by Palestinian "terrorists" on its citizens at home and abroad.  Such "incursions" on the health and safety of the Israelis were picked up by the Western media to demonise not just the Palestinian cause but Islam as a whole.  Israel's brutality in the Occupied Territories went unnoticed.

      But if we look back in history, is there really any  difference between the Palestinians' tenacity to fight against  Israeli occupation  and Britain's determination in the Second World War when the Nazis got close to their doorsteps and  they lived in fear of German occupation?

      In 1938, David Ben Gurion observed:

      Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves ..... politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves ...... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country.
                                                                        (quoted in Chomsky: Fateful Triangle, p. 91-92)              

      And 51 years later, Benyamin Netanyahu, then Israeli Deputy Minister, said this to students at Bar Ilan University:

      Israel should have exploited the repression of demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions, among the Arabs of the territories.
                                                                   (quoted in the Israeli journal Hotam, Nov.24,1989)

10.  Arafat and Yitzak Shamir signed the Oslo Accord in  1993.  The Israeli PM was soon after assassinated by an  'extremist' Israeli for signing the peace treaty.


11.  Then in 1994, another domino dropped out.  Jordan signed an agreement with Israel.  Also in this year Dr Baruch Goldstein, a New Yorker  Jew, went on a killing spree and shot dead 29 Palestinians at prayer and injured 125 at the Ibrahim Mosque in Hebron.    He was not at fault, of course: he was of "unsound mind".


12.  The Second Intifada  (2000 - 2005 )  witnessed a marked escalation of violence.  It saw a tit-for-tat sequence of attacks and counter attacks.  Suicide bombers, hand grenades, light arms, and Qassam rockets were pitted against Israel's tanks, tractors, helicopter gunships and (from May 2001) warplanes - last used in the 1967 War.

      Palestinians called this the Al Aqsa Intifada, because it was provoked by Ariel Sharon's "visit" to the Temple Mount.      But it was more than a visit:  it was a provocative act on Sharon's part to "assert the rights of all Israelis to visit the Temple". He came with his Likud Party supporters and armed bodyguards.    This triggered the 5 years of bloodshed in the West Bank, resulting in the deaths of 1,053 Israeli civilians and 4,789 Palestinians(according to Israel sources).      (Sharon, of course, was no stranger to dirty work: about this time, the Kahan Commission declared him responsible for the massacre at Sabra and Shatila.   He resigned as Defence Minister only after an Israeli died during a demonstration against his policies).

      As part of Israel's reprisals during this Intifada  ( Israel described it as "Operation Defensive Shield" ),  the refugee camp of Jenin in the north of the West Bank was invaded in April 2002.   The BBC reported that ten percent of the Camp was  'virtually rubbed out by a dozen armoured Israel bulldozers'.  Many residents, given no warning, were buried alive.  According to Human Rights Watch, 4,000 people, a quarter of Jenin's residents, were left homeless.

      The death of Rachel Corrie ( an activist from the US)  run down by an Israeli bulldozer in 2003 hit the world's headlines, a story that did not go down well for the Israelis.  But there were also other fatalities like 57 year old wheel-chair bound Kamal Zugheir who was shot and then flattened by IDF tanks and the quadraplegic Jamal Fayid who was crushed to death in the rubble of his home when the IDF bulldozer refused permission for his family to attempt a rescue.  I can imagine the media's attention if they had been Israelis.


      In 2004, Yasser Arafat died from a sudden illness - a big loss for a people who had depended on his leadership for three decades.     It was claimed that he was assassinated by poisoning - but it took eight years before this was taken seriously and Arafat's body was exhumed for tests.     (As for Ariel Sharon, he has been in a coma since January 2006).

      This period also saw the break between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.   A political fracture between the Palestinians was perhaps an expected consequence of a people, a country and an economy broken apart by wars and siege, and subjected to massive outside interference.     Hamas won the 2006 General Election in Gaza, but their democratic victory only sparked outrage and sanctions from the Americans and Israelis.

13.  Closer to our memory is Operation Cast Lead of  2008/2009,  which used as its justification  rockets fired into Israel from Gaza.

      But it is worth noting that just two months before this began, a crucial piece of legislation became the law in the US.    In October 2008, George Bush signed into law the Naval Vessel Transfer Act.  Behind its modest title, this Act had a momentous significance for Israel.  It placed every US President under a legal obligation to ensure that Israel maintains its military dominance in the Middle East.  Giving Israel its "Qualitative Military Edge" had been US foreign policy for at least 40 years - it had now become law. Where does that place President Obama?

The following graphs and image  illustrate the actual danger the Israelis were facing.

The impact on Gaza and her inhabitants was designed to be brutal and the viciousness of the Israelis was too much for even some of her allies and sympathizers.


14.  Then in November 2012 came Operation Pillar of Defence.  Again a brutal response to rocket attacks from Gaza but not before Israel had broken an informal ceasefire by assassinating Hamas military commander Ahmed Jabari on 13 November 2012.  According to Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin, Jabari was murdered just hours after he had received the draft of a permanent truce agreement with Israel ."

      To punish their enemy, the Palestinians may blow themselves up as well - and sometimes innocents are caught in the event.      The Israelis are masters of the same objective, but with a very different modus operandi - and with far greater "collateral damage".    From the 1950s  to the 2010s, Israel's Mossad and other security agencies assassinated 78 people - mainly Palestinians -  in Palestine itself or overseas.  But thousands of others - in Gaza especially - have been the innocent "collateral damage".      But in the language of drone warfare, such innocent victims are mere "bug splats" - the Israelis, after all, view the Palestinians as  "cockroaches", to be squashed out of existence.

      Israeli contempt for the Palestinians is unconcealed.    Israel's Deputy PM and Foreign Minister said, "We must blow Gaza back to the Middle Ages."

      However, Ariel Sharon's son Gilad put it more eloquently,  "We need to flatten all of Gaza.  The Americans didn't stop with Hiroshima.  The Japanese weren't surrendering fast enough so they hit Nagasaki too.  There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles.  Nothing."

But these attacks are not all.  Palestinians are also victims of what Twain described as 'The Long Terror' of sanctions, blockades - especially for Gaza where essential medicines, food and educational supplies and fuel are still arbitrarily subject to Israel's whims.

In the West Bank, since the 1967 War, the Israelis carry on with their Land Grab and illegal settlements - in the name of Eretz Israel ( Greater Israel ).  I shall let the figures speak for themselves.  In the West Bank (excluding Jerusalem) there were 480 settlers in 1948 - by 2009 there were 304,569.  In East Jerusalem,  the number of settlers increased from 2,300 in 1948 to 192,000 in 2009.

The details can be seen here.

According to Ariel Sharon in 1989,  "Everybody has to move, run and grab as many (Palestinian) hilltops as they can to enlarge the (Jewish) settlements because everything we take now will stay ours  ..... Everything we don't grab will go to them." - same source as the earlier Sharon quote.

In the above map, firstly note the little black triangles which represent illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Let me end with the Apartheid Wall  in the West Bank - indicated by a red line in the map above.

The Wall is more sophisticated than the old-fashioned barbed wires and serves the purpose of corralling the Palestinians in the West Bank in the world's largest prison.  Palestine is not even a single territory - it is now a poignant collection of divided and helpless pieces of humanity.

                                   ----------------------------------------------

EPILOGUE

      We are always asked to remember, and rightly so, the holocausts of the past.  In the same way we should not turn our backs on the Palestinians' Long Terror.  After the bloodbath in Gaza in 2008/2009 we made a little extra effort to find ways to beat this terror.    But we must try much harder.

       So I'm posting this video by Lowkey an activist (recently retired) of mixed English and Iraqi descent.  I hope his style and his lyrics will knock  some reality into the minds of our cosy, comfortable youngsters.



Unlike Israel, no one will sponsor the Palestinians with US$7 million a day.  But if each Muslim adult in Malaysia would donate MYR2 each year and every year, we could see more hospitals and schools and public amenities constructed in  the West Bank and Gaza. After all, a drink at Starbucks and a basic burger and fries at MacDonalds cost more than MYR2.

I would also hope that the young ones in my family in Malaysia  (for whom I am writing this post) will make this little effort.  I know that my niece Maria gets her children to donate a portion of their Duit Raya to orphanages in Kuala Lumpur.  It would be wonderful if cucusiHamid could get cicitsiHamid to do the same for the children of Palestine.

 And if this gift is multiplied by another 100 children, 1,000 children and so on - and together with their parents' contribution - then indeed we abide by our Prophet's pbuh  call.

None of you will have faith until he wishes for his brother what he likes for himself.

It is not a matter of Charity but a matter of Faith.