My Election Notes 2019; E-Day – 15

by Pseud O'Nym

To prevent  the risk of being accused of being something which I am not, let me say that what I am, which is pro-logic, pro-reason and basically against anything that doesn’t involve either some evidential proof or the use of one’s critical faculties. So it seems that o hate someone on a basis other than their personality makes as much sense as hating someone because of their blood group. Which is none at all.

Earlier today I thought of George Orwell’s essay ‘Politics and the English Language’, principally his assertion that,

It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

The reason I thought of that was because I was listening to the news yesterday and a Jewish man said that he feared for his families’ safety because of anti-Semitism, and that because of that, he was thinking of moving to Israel. I’m not suggesting his fear isn’t real, or that putting his families safety first is anything other than correct. What I am saying that thinking of moving from the UK to Israel is the very opposite of rational if you want to keep your family safe.

Israel’s in a part of the world where most of it’s neighbours wish it didn’t exist in the first place, it has been at war with one of them, been engaged in a near constant violent conflict with people’s in disputed territories it controls, an armed conflict supported with money and arms from a nearby country. One that has nuclear weapons and which Israel sees’s as a threat. And unless one is wealthy, or can get strings pulled, I’d wager that one would be housed close to those disputed territories, where safety is uncertain at best.

I could list yet more reasons I think why being in Israel is less safe than the being in the UK,  but then, I have the luxury of not feeling threatened, of not having a family to worry about. Perhaps when one has got more to lose, one loses one’s sense of perspective?

Perhaps.