The hospital / social care crisis: a failure to value carers

Ambulance delays and people spending hours, dying, waiting to be seen, in the news again today.

People are living more fragmented, solitary lives. The rise in people living alone has soared in the UK, as around the world, since the middle of the last century and particularly since the 1990s and has more than doubled since the 1970s. 30% of over 65s live alone, the second highest group after 45-6 year olds.

Insufficient care in the community means people can't be discharged from hospital, which means no free beds in hospitals, which means A&E fills up because there is nowhere to send people, which means ambulances can't empty & respond to new emergencies and people die.

It's not just that families don't look after extended family members as much, people are living longer, with more complex needs. The main problem is a "stretched and shrinking" workforce, whether that is going in to people's homes or the workforce in care homes. Low pay, low status and challenging conditions. Astonishingly, only 30% of social care providers are partly digitised. That means patients or residents details are managed by pen and paper or are being carried around in people's heads. Christopher Wren might have been able to build St Paul's like that, but I am sure you would much rather your relative's details were being efficiently managed and shared. Personally, I keep an updated list of my parents medication because I know how chaotic the system is.

Things are supposed to be a bit better in Scotland, but not by much.

We don't value carers, partly because things that really are valuable to humans - nature, care, clean air, unpolluted water, pesticide free food for all, meaningful human connection, spirituality are things we don't, as a society, actually prioritise, certainly not as a society that is "managed" by government. Government priorities are elsewhere and seem to be focused around money, control, minimum standards and maximum compliance.

It is a contradiction that Tories, who are supposed to be about less state intervention actually crack down more on society - but then they are also famously "tough on crime". That is because protestors get in the way of money-making and government. And to Tories, riff-raff - anyone, through fortune or design not like them - are or are near enough criminals and ought to feel the boot of the law. Suella Braverman was just a bit too explicitly Nazi-like about it and lost her job, ultimately for trying to boss the police about, but it was a long time coming.

The people who make the decisions on things like care in the community are not at the sharp end, giving or receiving care. As with so much, it comes down to a failure of imagination, a lack of empathy. So often people don't want to have empathy because they would have to face unpleasant truths and it would make their decisions more difficult. Years ago, a local councillor, who is still in office, made my concern about how dangerous it was for my children to cycle to school into a press opportunity and turned up at my house with an entourage for photos. Later, while he was still there, I pointed out that it wasn't just primary age children and bikes who can't manage our streets, because they are designed for drivers now. It is also parents, often still mothers with prams or elderly people who struggle to cross roads in our town because of the quantity of traffic and the way it is managed. He said he had no children. I said I was sure I could find him a mum willing to go with him and her toddler or two to show him just how hard that could be. He looked terrified. I don't remember if he literally backed off very hurriedly but that was certainly the effect. I now wish I'd suggested doing it with a baby in a pram, a toddler, a doddery grandparent and a dog.

Most decision makers just don't want to experience the difficult truths of people's lives. They just want to decide about them.

In another policy contradiction, this Tory government prioritised reducing migration over improving social care. Tory voters can just pay for private care. But what kind of country wants to "stop foreigners" more than it wants to help elderly people?

Why did these eight countries back the US and Israel in rejecting the Gaza ceasefire proposed at the UN?

These eight countries backed the US and Israel in rejecting a Gaza ceasefire proposed at the UN. Why? Mostly, they get money from the US.

Austria - probably miffed their amendment not to condemn Hamas wasn't included. Conservative-Green (!) government.

Czech Republic -  Israeli trading partner. They saw Israel as a model of freedom after Czechoslovakia was oppressed by the USSR. Why? The USSR had allied with Arab States & Israel was against the Arabs. Right wing coalition government. Gets hundreds of millions of USD in military aid.

Guatemala -  Longstanding trade, defence & humanitarian ties with Israel. Israel supplied military aid in the 70s when the US cut off Guatemala. For reasons that aren't clear, Guatemala was the second country after the US to recognise the new Israeli state.  The US also has USD 200 million dollars earmarked for Guatemala aid.  Centre right government, lots of poverty & violence.

The most interesting story, Liberia:

Liberia is one of the 33 countries which in 1947 voted for Israel to be an independent country.  Perceived parallels between the history of the Jewish people and the initial Americo-Liberian settlers, both oppressed peoples that sought statehood as an escape from persecution. 

Liberia is pro-US because the latter helped freed slaves from the US to set up back in their homeland, via a "colonisation society". This became the Republic of Liberia in 1847,  a one party state until 1979. The settlers held land individually in contrast to the communal ownership of the African population. Their political institutions were modeled on those of the United States but in reality the country appears to be in transition from dictatorship. There seems to have been a kind of apartheid system under the Americo-Liberians and much persecution of indigenous groups. The Americo-Liberians replicated many of the exclusions and social differentiations that had so limited their own lives in the United States. In a nutshell Liberia matches the US model of colonisation and  oppression just as Israel did later. 

In the last twenty years Liberia has received USD 2.4 billion in aid. 

Micronesia recognised Israel in 1948, not sure why. Israel reciprocated in 1993 when the Pacific Islands emerged from UN trusteeship. Israel has also provided aid and technical assistance to the islands. Government: no political parties but elected representatives.

USD 7 billion earmarked for Pacific Islands over the next 20 years.

Nauru is an even smaller speck in the Pacific. You can drive around it in 20 minutes. It offered offshore banking to the US in exchange for aid which didn't materialide. It gets aid from Israel.

Papua New Guinea has an embassy in Jerusalem. Israel has helped them with medical & agricultural technology. The US gives aid. 

Paraguay's embassy was moved to Jerusalem, becoming the third country in the world, after the United States and Guatemala, to recognize the city as the diplomatic capital of Israel in 2018. Paraguay was another of the countries that recognised Israel in 1947 and has had good relations since. 

The US has supported Paraguay with aid since 1942. Government: problematic democracy, conservatives in power.  Problems with corruption, organized crime, and environmental issues.

On being accused of "fuelling hatred"

On 25 October I shared a Guardian article on Facebook.  The article must have been very uncomfortable reading for Netanyahu supporters not least because it refers to horrific statements by Israeli government and military leaders implying the impending extermination of the people of Gaza or dehumanising them. These are statements that are not unlikely to be implicating them in genocide and then they carrying out actions to make these statements a reality   Raz Segal, an Israeli assistant professor of genocide studies, who wrote it quoted more examples in a more recent piece in the LA Times.  A piece by the Andalou Agency lists more. There are many examples of Israeli political leaders and the military suggesting Gaza and Gazans be wiped out: such as when Prime Minister Netanyahu referenced the Amalek.  The reference is to the Old Testament Book of Samuel which says “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” Netanyahu made the Amalek reference on the opening of the ground offensive in Gaza.

There has been a call for a second Nakba and for an emphasis on damage, not accuracy. The heritage minister suggested using a nuclear bomb in Gaza, while the defence minister simply said that everything in Gaza will be "eliminated". The list goes on and on.

The text below is mine in the Facebook post.

Accusation of fuelling [inciting] hatred

I was immediately accused of inciting hatred of Israel.  It was by someone I knew and for whom I had done nothing but help and welcome into dance earlier this year and last.  She came to my free practica, was welcomed, was introduced to people, was given a seat, was helped, silently, to learn to dance, by me.  She received nothing but good treatment and kind words. I had and still have no idea of her background, only of the European country she had come from before Scotland.  My interest in these things, as far as it goes, is generally a long-standing interest in language and accent and in her case I don’t think we even discussed that.

Previously, I had quoted on Facebook, doctors like paediatrician Dr Haj Hassan or Mads Nielson a doctor internationally recognised for his human rights work, both with years of experience in Gaza, on the situation in Gaza. 

The accusation was: "Fuelling hatred against Israel with undifferentiated posts is certainly not going to help here..."

Probably a majority of my posts are actually by Jews or Israelis, many published in Israeli media, that are against Israel’s illegal occupation, the illegal bombing of civilians and civilian infrastructure, illegal settlements, settler violence against Palestinians, IDF violence and discrimination towards and dehumanisation of Palestinians, Netanyahu’s plans to annex the  West Bank and the silencing of criticism of these actions; things of that ilk. 

My first post on this conflict was in fact an article by Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard, well known for his work with Palestinians.

My reply: Undifferentiated posts. Hmmm. Except for the British Jews against the occupation I've just posted....This isn't about fuelling hatred. Protest is increasingly difficult in Britain under the conservatives. And under the SNP free speech is not even allowed around your own dinner table. Your family can denounce you. So we live in an increasingly repressive state, one where the now sacked home secretary wanted to ban a peace march on Armistice day because it wasn't her kind of peace,

So no. This is rather about speaking up and spreading the truth, hidden to most of us for decades, about what Israel has done and is still doing to Palestinians. Because among the many massacres and genocides across the world in my lifetime this is somehow one of the most horrific. Probably because a civilian population has been corralled in a small space and is not only being directly displaced and exterminated. All of the infrastructure the remainder depend on is being blitzed too. And no one is doing anything to stop it. It is greatest political moral failure of my lifetime.

Their reply: Calling Israel’s action a genocide in this context sounds not quite fair to me, and yes I think it is fuelling hatred on Israel and hatred is what is fuelling the spiral of violence.

Is what is happening in Gaza genocide?

There is huge and growing debate on whether Israel is committing genocide.  At the recent vigil for Palestine in my city there were banners about genocide in Gaza, the organisers were shouting about it loudly. No police attended.  No one was arrested.  No crime was apparently committed. The fact that it is being discussed so widely across the world is in itself cause for huge concern over Israel’s acts. There are legal proceedings against President Biden for complicity in genocide. So the fact that people have been discussing it, it is not “fuelling hatred”, it’s raising very legitimate concerns.   

The mass killing of civilians regardless of intent is itself a “crime against humanity”.

Many experts have already raised genocide concerns , including many UN experts, while three Palestinian rights groups have filed a case with the ICC relating to genocide in Gaza and 800 law practitioners and academics.  I said it a month ago but people were already asking that question because Gazans were being wiped out day after day for two and half weeks while settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank saw a sharp uptick.  This has been going on for 7 weeks, 50 days so no wonder people are discussing more whether this is genocide, desperate for world leaders to act, to stop the killing. Thank goodness professionals, academics, lawyers have taken the lead or how much longer would Gaza have been waiting? 

 Inciting violence: who is actually doing the violence?

So this statement about fuelling, i.e. “inciting” violence (a crime) is not accurate, because it turns out many experts believe Israel is  or may be committing genocide or be about to.  This statement then is rather an assault on freedom of speech, an attempt to silence dissent, a tactic of the conservative right in Israel. The kind of people trying to silence criticism of Israel’s actions are by extension actually supporting those conducting the violence. Who is actually doing the killing right now and has been for the last seven weeks?  Israel.  Millions of people around the world are protesting. Through those protests, thousands are waking up to the history of this conflict, to the statistics, to facts like Israel won’t allow DNA testing without a court order or a doctor’s prescription, probably because it could start a debate along the lines of “Oh you’re not actually from these lands you claim are yours…”  

The attempt to discredit, even to criminalise dissent is what people without arguments do when they want to not just monopolise the discourse, but to silence the opposition.  If you wanted a good example of someone who tried to discredit a group and failed, it’s Suella Braverman, recently British Home Secretary.  She called the pro-Palestinian marches “hate marches” (cartoon), criticised the police for it  (caricatured in a fantastic Christian Adams cartoon) and ended up sacked. Dubbed Cruella, for her anti-immigration policies, the woman was routinely caricatured as being eaten up with hate.  Ben Jennings with Suella shark was memorable or abusing homeless people for sleeping in tents as a lifestyle choice.

Israel silences dissent by killing journalists.

What is engagement?

Overall, the silence on this issue has been deafening.  Most people, mindful of work, don’t want to commit themselves “on paper” probably because of the backlash against pro–Palestinian support.  And, simply going by how little Gaza features on the BBC “most read” list of articles, a lot of people just don’t care.  My critics were just this person who wants to silence dissent about Israel and a Milei supporter (Argentina’s new extreme right wing leader).  

People “liked” my post on facebook about the recent candlelit vigil for Palestine in our town.  But what does a vigil do? It’s pretty but does it educate or cause people to think, to consider, to weigh up? Not really.  Did like-minded strangers meet each other?  I don’t think so.  Is it even seen by the town? No. It’s a nice idea I suppose.  A march on the other hand, a protest, a call for a ceasefire is at least visible, takes a stand, is political engagement, physically, visibly, on the street.   For me, the articles that have been written, read and shared are the key driver of change, particularly the ones by experts, grouping together in protest. For all that social media is condemned, it is also spreading awareness of what Israel has done, about history, about what experts are saying, about how ordinary people are changing their minds. If nothing else, people are educating themselves and naturally, wanting to share that, to connect with others interested in or doing the same. The violence that is happening needs to be spoken about, not silenced, not swept under the carpet, not “reframed”. 

“Anti-Semitism” and “the McCarthyite backlash”

Meanwhile, there is a tide of people facing this McCarthyite backlash including in the US. There has been a regrettable rise in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic “incidents” in Britain.  A ten-fold rise, according to the Community Security Trust. Whether that means perception or reality is unclear.  Meanwhile, hundreds of people around the world have found themselves sacked, cancelled and criticised or had funding withdrawn for allegedly inciting violence or being anti-Semitic. Or sometimes just for holding a peace vigil.

Some are celebrities like Melissa Barrera, Susan Sarandon, and Maha Dakhil (backed by Tom Cruise), to Greta Thunbert and Extinction Rebellion.  Steve Bell, cartoonist for 40 years at the Guardian was sacked because someone decided to interpret his cartoon as a reference to Shylock and the pound of flesh, rather than the tribute to David Levine that it was.  

Meanwhile, The Bureau for Investigative Journalism published a piece about a multi-million dollar campaign attacking the pro-Palestinian movement. If so many of us feel our freedom of speech is curtailed through fear of being incorrectly denounced to the police then we cannot support those under oppression or those resisting oppression because now we are being repressed.

Being limited to quoting Jews and Israelis                

There is an important and still very relevant 2019 piece by Raz Segal and Amos Goldberg on the attempts to silence criticism of Israel by calling such criticism anti semitic.  Time and again I find myself referring to articles by Jews or Israelis who oppose the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian territory or the proportionality of Israeli response in Gaza because they say what many feel and are usually closer to the events and the situation. If you quote anti-occupation Jews or Israelis, it is much harder to be called anti-Semitic.  But you shouldn’t have to be limited in that way. Some are, partly through fear.

Hate crime

But take anti-Semitism out of it.  Supporters of Netanyahu and the mass violence against Palestinians in Gaza or just someone who doesn't like you, are able to accuse anyone - Jew, Israeli, anyone at all - of “stirring up” or inciting hatred.  This is a crime in Scotland and, is too under the separate legal system in England and Wales.  In Scotland it is punishable by seven years in prison.  As John McLellan, director of the Scottish Newspaper Society said: “Social media is awash with people bearing extreme grudges against those with whom they disagree and this legislation has the potential to give them a legal means to silence their opponents.” This is exactly the danger. 

Silence through fear, silence through bureaucracy

People become so tied up with having to research whether they can legitimately oppose political parties and state violence, worse, with having to prove that they are not inciting hatred, that their engagement is sidelined or they are silenced through fear - precisely the aim of the accusers. Who, then, is really the hater, the oppressor?

Not all Israelis support Netanyahu

The last election results show that given the current parties for which Israelis voted Israel is, in essence, a country of conservatives, some of whom are religious - 30% of the Jewish population (73%) are observant.  A much higher proportion of Israeli muslims are observant.. Likud, Netanyahu’s right wing coalition won 48.5% of the popular vote and the proportional representation system meant they obtained 63 out of 120 seats in the Knesset.  So yes, to an extent Israelis are culpable for the government’s action, especially when they back those actions.  But of those who voted for Netanyahu, not all necessarily support his actions nor the kind of language Israeli political and military leaders have been using to describe what they want to do to Palestinians and to Gaza.  Support at the end of October for a ground offensive was around 50%. Polls show support for Netanyahu and Likud has crashed.

Hate wastes time and energy

Even if most Israelis did elect Netanyahu, and if they did still back him, the killing and the dehumanising language towards and treatment of Palestinians, hate would have no place in our view.  We can say Israel and those Israelis supporting the current action are misguided, dangerous but we don’t hate them. At best, hate is a waste of time and energy.  Hate damages the hater and their reputation.  I heard it said once that anger - and I suppose by extension hate - is the punishment we give ourselves for someone else’s bad behaviour.  Hate detracts from the right course of action.  If the action is not governed by laws, the best policy is to remove ourselves. If it is governed by laws it is also to document, speak up and report that action. 

Are you really unable to criticise political entities and foreign states in Scotland?

There is very little information about this key question. Interestingly, what there is relates, perhaps not unsurprisingly, to Palestine. The short answer is you can.  More on this another time.

But it is a bizarre and terrible state of affairs that political and military leaders are saying horrifying things, while ordinary people around the world are losing their jobs and their peace of mind simply for condemning these words and the subsequent actions, for drawing attention to Israel’s history, for discovering and sharing things that great and famous minds from all sections of society have been saying for decades, just for wanting to support a long oppressed people.

Mariam Barghouti on The New Humanitarian

Just relistened to an interview with Mariam Barghouti from the end of October about media bias. Many interesting points.  Many have been well discussed in the month since.

Western media is complicit in Israel's "slaughter" in the "blackout", the "active refusal" to feature Palestinian voices.

In Western media, Palestinians, if featured at all, are dehumanised as either "dead bodies or terrorists". We are only hearing about Palestinians at all now because of what happened to Israel, but the difficulties faced by Palestinians are longstanding.

No Western news agency sent their senior people to talk to Palestinians until after October 7, and even then the Israeli stories took priority. People should hear both sides of a story so they can make their own choices.

On social media censorship: platforms like Meta take down/ censor what Palestinians are saying about settler violence/ murders of Palestinians and there is no accountability for the settlers. These accounts of what is being done are being erased. Are these not part of ethnic cleansing? “I am on the street being shot at [while her posts were censored in real time]…if I die right now no-one’s going to hear anything, no-one's going to know.”

Because people are aware of the failures of mainstream media through this conflict, it will become less relevant.

Why is the world afraid of Palestine being free?

The history of western imperialism and colonialism is also about the control of information and knowledge. It's the rhetoric of “We are the children of light. We are civilising the 'savages'”. 

The worldwide street protests have required people to go against what they have been taught, they have caused a dissonance with themselves. People have lost friends, families, jobs, because others don't have that same recognition.

Aid agencies from the Global North act as though Palestine has suffered some natural disaster. They keep them alive enough that they're not dying but weak enough that they're not really able to pursue life. So they are colonial in essence, complicit in keeping Palestinians entrapped. They receive funding to persuade themselves that they're helping but it's really just the alleviation of colonial guilt. They don't address the root problem [the politics].

Gaza is not a humanitarian crisis, as if it's a natural disaster. It's a political crisis, "a crisis of justice".

Interesting 2015 interview with the young Mariam Barghouti

About the family.

The New Humanitarian was founded by the United Nations in 1995 and became an independent non-profit news organization in January 2015. The organization is governed by Swiss law. It is left of centre with a good fact check record.

Protest: how Britain has changed.

 In February 2006, these were the placards I saw on an Islamic march in London outside my work. Tony Blair (Labour) was in poser. The placards also said "Slay", "Behead" "Exterminate" those who basically don't think like us. The police were there and they did nothing. The marchers was allowed to continue, unmolested to, I think, the Danish embassy and to demonstrate there. I had never seen placards like them before nor since. They were breathtakingly awful. The march was in protest against some Danish cartoonists who had represented the prophet Muhammad. I think one person was arrested, someone outraged that this was being allowed to go ahead. A year later there were some prosecutions of the protesters. 

I have never felt such hatred emanating from one group of people. It was scary just to witness.  I felt so affected I sent something to the BBC and it was briefly discussed on the evening news.  

What a difference to the current marches which seem nothing like as explicit or as violent and yet the police are under constant pressure from the government to act tougher. We live in a society with many more laws against free speech and protest and where the police are more expected to crack down.

Mosab Hassan Yousef

Riveting interview, but without nuance, with former Hamas member, whose father was one of the founders. 

In this clip from another video he calls his father an idiot man, swayed by factions. In this one, he says how he will always "honour" his father. 

I have not heard him, in this nor other interviews or speeches mention the Occupation, Israel's flouting of international law, the appropriation of land, detaining Palestinian children in prison. Why not?

He has zeal of a different kind of extremist. He says he doesn't want a Palestinian State. What kind of world for Palestinians does he envisage, without Hamas?

Hamas makes no secret of its acts nor intentions. Between them, Hamas & Israel have brought hell upon Palestinians. Hamas is known for corruption. Poorer Palestinians dont support it. There have been no elections since 2006. And now Hamas indeed seems willing to sacrifice civilians in its fight.

 It looks like both Hamas as a ruling organisation is finished, as, soon, will be Netanyahu. Neither Palestinians nor Israelis are going anywhere. One state, equal treatment, equal rights, proportional representation?

Warning Israel: David Cameron's new line

The Conservatives, tougher with every new incarnation, have done so much harm to Britain, in terms of credibility, changing laws to suit themselves, putting themselves above laws, prioritising money over people, the already wealthy over much poorer people. 

David Cameron is a standard sort of Tory: He cut welfare while saying Britain was too unequal, despite government advisers saying it would increase child poverty. Most of all he was naive, first, to try to settle a complex issue that had divided his own party by putting it to the nation; second, for having no plan if it did not go his way and then he ran away. 

Yet, he is the only person in government showing any proper leadership. He went to Israel recently. He went to the West Bank. He met Mahmoud Abbas as well as Netanyahu. He is now calling on Israel to tone things down.

 "When I met the Israeli president, prime minister and others, I stressed over and over again that they must abide by international humanitarian law, that the number of casualties are too high and they have to have that at the top of their minds." 

 "People are actually targeting and on occasion killing Palestinian civilians, it's completely unacceptable and those people responsible for that, it's not good enough just to arrest them, they need to be arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned. These are crimes." 

 It sounds as though it's news to him, which, in a Foreign Secretary is worrying. The unspoken implication is that if settlers don't murder anyone, land appropriation is OK. 

 Still, it's a start. I am amazed that it is coming from a Tory, but then Cameron is a pre-Johnson Tory. In terms of trying to help calm things down and take a tougher line with Israel it's an improvement on the disaster that was James Cleverly and the indifference of Rishi Sunak.