David Caldicott

Urgentiste / Disasterologist / Dissident. Handyman to the Human Body. Anti-Viral Agent. Bad typist. Twitter is to keep notes. All opinions are your own.

[William Peynsaert @PeynsaertBill]

'The sympathy of the people on the spot seems to be with the Arabs. This is not only because the Jews have had, at least some of their leaders, an unfortunately arrogant, uncompromising attitude, but they feel that after all, the country has been Arabic for the last few hundred years, and they naturally feel sympathic. After all, Palestine was hardly Britain’s to give away.'

John F. Kennedy's Letter to His Father, 1939, full version:

Dear Dad:

I thought I would write you my impressions on Palestine while they were still fresh in my mind, though you undoubtedly, if I know the Jews, know the “whole” story. It is worth while looking at it in its entirety.

In discussing Palestinian questions one naturally goes back to before the war. Palestine was at that time under Turkey, inhabited by Moslem Arabs with a scattering of Christians. There were also a few thousand Jews, though at that time the Zionists’ movement had not assumed great proportions. During the war, the British government, desiring both the assistance of the Jews and the Arabs, made separate promises to both, one in the MacMahon, the other in the Balfour declaration. The terms in the MacMahon letters guaranteeing an independent Arabic state were quite vague and the territorial delineation was equally vague. The Balfour declaration was also indefinite, giving with one hand what he took back with the other.

In considering the whole question now, it is useless to discuss which has the “fairer” claim. The important thing is to try to work out a solution that will work, not try to present a solution based on these two vague, indefinite and conflicting promises. This is my objection to the White Paper. It theoretically presents a good solution, but it just won’t work.

Returning to the background from 1922 when mandate was given favoring the establishment of a national home for the Jews, the situation has been difficult, however, it really assumed serious proportions during the depression and growth of the refugee problem. With the coming of these new Jewish immigrants, new capital poured into Palestine. This capital, while economically a poor investment as it only brought in a fraction of a percent on the original, nevertheless enabled the Jews to acquire about 15% of the land which included the most fertile. The Arabs naturally objected to the Jewish encroachment. They felt that the Jews, if permitted, would dominate in their country numerically as well as economically.

The British endeavored to settle the situation and sent out several commissions. A partitioning plan was presented in 1936 which advocated the break up of Palestine into two independent states, with Jerusalem and those cities such as Haifa with an approximately equal Arabic and Jewish population, and incidentally the territory through which the oil from Iraq flows; all this was to be under British control. Because of the difficulties that this presented, because both sides refused to sign it, because of the fact that it would leave two small states which would not be able to subsist independent of England, and lastly, and probably most importantly, because Mussolini objected to this change in the Status quo, this plan was not put through.

In 1939 a conference was held in London in which the two groups tried to reconcile the differences. As this was impossible the British government stated that it felt free now to present its own solution. This they did in the White Paper which was rejected by both sides. The Jews were particularly angry as they saw all hope of their Zion’s state disappearing and their indignation was increased by the fact that the problem had a religious as well as an economic background. They felt that the Jews were now fated to be a minority and that now that the immigration was going to be limited they felt that the Zion’s movement might collapse and that the funds which were pouring in any support of this would be stopped, bringing economic disaster, for these funds are the only method by which Palestine can come anywhere near balancing her exports and imports.

The Arab’s objections to the White Paper are: (1) the objection to the indefiniteness of the period that the British government will hold control, as the formation of an independent state depends on Jewish cooperation, something they believe impossible; and (2) they say that there is no provision for an elected assembly under their own leadership which has been the first step in Iraq towards the formation of an independent state. They also want all immigration stopped; they feel that the Jewish problem is not their problem. They also fear that while there are 450,000 Jews in Palestine, only 250,000 of them have become citizens. Why, therefore, should they be entitled to be counted as members of the state?

However, while these are for purposes of publication the chief objections of the two groups, there are fundamental objections which, while they are not stated publicly, are nevertheless far more important.

On the Jewish side there is the desire for complete domination, with Jerusalem as the capital of their new land of milk and honey, with the right colonize in Trans-Jordan. They feel that given sufficient opportunity they can cultivate the land and develop it as they have done in the Western portion. The Arab answer to this is incidentally, that the Jews have had the benefit of capital, which had the Arabs possessed, equal miracles could have been performed by them. Though this is partly true, the economic set up of Arabic agricultural progress with its absentee landlords and primitive methods of cultivation, could not under any circumstances probably have competed with the Jews. However, this very fact lies in the background of the Arabic objection to the Jews. They realize their superiority and fear it.

The political angle of the Arabic objection to the White Paper is that it does not permit the return of the Grand Mufti, the religious and political leader made, incidentally, that, by the British, who is now in exile in Syria. He naturally wishes to return and therefore is unwilling to compromise and, as the minority group of Arabs, composed of about 100,000 Christians and moderate Moslems, constitute a weak opposition at the present time, it looks as if the situation will continue.

I see no hope for the working out of the British policy as laid down in the White Paper. As I said above, theoretically it sounds just and fair, but the important thing and the necessary thing is not a solution just and fair but a solution that will work. As the British interest must and will be naturally safeguarded, and bearing in mind the pressure that has been given privately by the Arab states and publicly by the various Jewish organizations to the press and radio, it seems to me that the only thing to do will be to break the country up into two autonomous districts giving them both self-government to the extent that they do not interfere with each other and that British interest is safeguarded. Jerusalem, having the background that it has, should be an independent unit. Though this is a difficult solution yet, it is the only one that I think can work. This is a development of the British proposal of 1936 favoring partition.

At present, situation still seems to be difficult as far as outrages and bombings. There were 13 bombs set off my last evening there, all in the Jewish quarter and all set off by Jews. The ironical part is that the Jewish terrorists bomb their own telephone lines and electric connections and the next day frantically phone the British to come and fix them up. Incidentally I have become more pro-British down there than I have been in my other visits to England as I think that the men on the spot are doing a good job.

This roughly, in fact very roughly, is an outline of the situation. It will be interesting to see it develop and see what form the solution takes, as a definite solution has not been found yet. I thought Dansig was a tough problem, but I have never seen two groups more unwilling to try and working out a solution that has some hope of success than these two groups.

The sympathy of the people on the spot seems to be with the Arabs. This is not only because the Jews have had, at least some of their leaders, an unfortunately arrogant, uncompromising attitude, but they feel that after all, the country has been Arabic for the last few hundred years, and they naturally feel sympathic. After all, Palestine was hardly Britain’s to give away.

The question is further complicated by the fact that both groups are split among themselves. There is the strongly orthodox Jewish group, unwilling to make any compromise, who wished to have a government expressing this attitude, there is the liberal Jewish element composed of the younger group who fear these reactionaries, and wish to establish a very liberal, almost communistic form of government, and there are the in betweens who are willing to make a compromise. There are even further lines cutting these groups, but they do manage to present a united front now; if and when they get their claims, then the breakup will start.

As for the Arabs, while most of them are heartily sick of the whole business which is playing hell with their economic life, yet so strong is the hold of the Mufti by reason of his religious grip and because of the strength of the new nationalism, that it is going to be extremely difficult to effect a solution without bringing him back. He of course feels that if the Arabs accepted the White Paper he would be all through, as the Paper calls for the Arab officials to be appointed by the British during the transition period, and they will naturally appoint Arabs that will be in their camp. That is why they insist on an elected assembly, although considering the general standard of the country, it would naturally be a farce.

That is what makes the whole situation so impossible. All three sides have such great interests all in a great measure conflicting, and all three sides have great means of putting on pressure. Poor Malcolm McDonald. Thus as I have said, the only thing to do now that a theoretically fair and good solution has been presented and is failing, after a period of time, they can say that they have done the best they could under the circumstances and then arbitrarily force the partition plan to be accepted.

Leaving now for Bucharest. Love to all,

JAC

[Haaretz.com @haaretzcom]

Nine of 10 suspects in attacks on diplomats, U.S. journalist released https://t.co/febjNQj31f

[Abier @abierkhatib]

All those words just to say ethnic cleansing, but lemme break it down for y’all.

Israeli settlers trespass on Palestinian land, then the Israeli army shows up and arrests the Palestinians.

Read that again.

The Jewish terrorists invade Palestinian land, and the people who actually own it get handcuffed, blindfolded and detained.

This is how ethnic cleansing works without needing an eviction order.

[Gabriel Gatehouse @ggatehouse]

The latest cover of Private Eye is 😘

[Decebalus Tuta @Decebalus89]

@Tracking_Power pay attention to what they teach their children in jewish schools...

[SHIBBY32 @shibby3235]

@Tracking_Power @HarleyShah Yup. 👍

[TheRealNetTechNerd @RealNetTechNerd]

@Tracking_Power It’s all fake

[David Caldicott @ACTINOSProject]

@ALeighMP I appreciate your efforts, Andrew- truly, I do.
But have you considered that some of the anxieties being expressed on social media are as a consequence of an electorate feeling unheard on pretty important issues to them, like international law, or the climate?

[Judith T Soon everyone will have been against this @JuAvrilT]

@ALeighMP Look at legacy media first. Anything else is disingenuous if you don’t.
You can start here - this despicable front page of this trash paper attacking antiZionist Jews for holding a peaceful vigil

[Ounka @OunkaOnX]

Q: "You would block the creation of a Palestinian state?"

Netanyahu: "I have been blocking it... We cannot have a Palestinian state because that's the end of a Jewish state"

A permanent commitment to denying Palestinians a state- because their freedom would mean the end of Jewish supremacy. He admits it: the only way to maintain a Jewish state is to deny Palestinians their own.

[Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt @FranceskAlbs]

From the genocidal fields of Gaza.

[Jo @JoJoFromJerz]

He's waving at a "crowd" that isn't there.
Because it's all fake.
All of it.
His entire so-called presidency is bullshit.
And it's fucking embarrassing.

[George Galloway @georgegalloway]

Protect this cameraman at all costs

[Quite Interesting @qikipedia]

The word ‘Tory’, commonly used to refer to a member of the UK Conservative Party, comes from the Irish Gaelic word ‘tóraidhe’ meaning outlaw or robber.

[French Response @FrenchResponse]

Every day we are fighting to prevent French stats from looking like this.

[Press TV Français @fr_presstv]

‼️🇫🇷 L’homme cagoulé filmé en train de lancer un projectile depuis un groupe de lycéens était bien un policier

⚠️ L'affaire s'est déroulée à Reims, en France, le 2 octobre 2026

[KellieTranter @KellieTranter]

[The welcome wisdom and informed perspective of @PatMcGorry]

“…In general terms this is an extremely widespread problem in Australian society, whether it is in regional Australia or in the metro areas.

Large numbers of people with serious mental illnesses are just languishing in the community. Thirty years ago we closed all the mental hospitals. We failed to build a fit for purpose system to replace them and so only about half of its people – even at the most extreme and severe forms of mental illness – can access care at all and the quality of that care is really much below par and that was exposed in the Victorian Royal Commission.

Mark Butler, at the time of the Bondi Junction tragedy, described it as a stain on our nation, and it certainly is. IT’S A MASSIVE FAIL OF PUBLIC POLICY which is putting the community at risk…

It is well known that there’s an inverse relationship between the number of prison beds in a society and the number of psychiatric beds and that has been reversed over the last few decades so that we’ve got a fraction of the psychiatric beds and a very substantial increase in the number of prison beds. The result is large numbers of mentally ill people, especially men, are ending up in prison….

It’s like crossing the Berlin Wall in the 1960s trying to get people into psychiatric care in the regions but I think that’s also true of the metropolitan areas, especially the outer metro areas.

WE’VE GOT A MASSIVE PUBLIC HEALTH PROBLEM HERE AND IT HASN’T REALLY BEEN SERIOUSLY TACKLED, ESPECIALLY AT THE STATE GOVERNMENT LEVEL.

The State governments are responsible for the seriously mentally ill. They always have been – and they were responsible for the old mental hospitals – and they have abandoned these patients now and the community, and the patients themselves, are much less safe as a result.

[question re: community mental health services going to seriously mentally ill people whether they are accepting of treatment or not]

“It happened briefly in the late 1990s when these teams were first set up, these mobile assessment and community treatment teams, but they are a shadow of their former selves. They’re not properly resourced. The work practices and the mindset has changed dramatically and they’re several steps back behind the police. The police are not really trained or equipped for this role of engaging and reaching out to seriously mentally ill people. They may have to be involved in some cases but it is a health first response, which is what the Victorian Royal Commission recommended…”

#nswpol #auspol #vicpol

https://t.co/TBpV8uKNvg via @ABCaustralia

[David Caldicott @ACTINOSProject]

@Ed_Miliband Encouraging the IHRA definition is not a productive outcome, in that it is merely used to protect the plausible perpetrators of a genocide.
Its abuse, even according to its original authors, encourages war crimes to be committed without scrutiny.
Fail.
https://t.co/mRYlLANkg6

[Jenny Difficult-Frecklington-Jones 🇵🇸🇱🇧🇮🇷 @JonesHowDareYou]

"An estimated 1.4 million people, or 67% of Gaza’s population, are experiencing acute food insecurity at crisis levels or worse."

You failed to mention this is by design. Israel has been starving this population for decades—more so during this genocide.
https://t.co/j7SNVpZQsf

[William Peynsaert @PeynsaertBill]

‘If we dehumanize others, we dehumanize ourselves.’
‘I get my heart broken when I talk to people’, Ori Goldberg explaining why he does his shopping in the early morning to avoid overhearing fellow Israeli’s inane conversations. What’s about the maximum level of disarming vulnerability I’ve seen on camera? Ori Goldberg telling young people interviewing not to worry about any sounds of flatulence. ‘It’s me, not you.’ He explains how he has a stoma, because of his colon cancer. Putting people at ease while being forced to knock at whatever afterlife’s door there may be. He wasn’t particularly religious I heard him say in an interview, so I can’t say what Ori thought was awaiting him after his passing at the much too young age of 50, having to leave three children behind.

In every interview he was remarkably welcoming, encouraging interviewers to ask any question burning on their tongues, even very private, uncomfortable ones. He always answered with the same calm tone and serene decorum.

He spoke very openly about his feelings living in a society he labeled as ‘genocidal’, ‘supremacist’ and ‘hollowed out.’

He said: ‘Am crushed’

He spoke of his isolation. How he avoided people, because even friends often spoke with detachment and apathy about the deaths of Palestinians.

‘Am very happy to talk with you’, to a podcaster and you could feel the relief in him.

In at least one interview he is receiving chemo at home and yet there he is. He was generous with his time with podcasters, also small ones, even right after going on Al Jazeera.

He didn’t seem to be interested in attention, but only in sharing his empathy, vulnerability, views and to pay off a debt he felt he had.

He said he felt his sins ‘could never be expunged.’

He called a spade a spade and never minimized or sugar coated anything Israel does.

‘Israel is in it to destroy.’

‘Israel now only cares about death.’

He described how sowing death and destruction was Israel’s idea of victory.

He was convinced there was no bigger strategy, that Israelis were simply jumping at opportunities to kill, without any clear plan for the future.

Netanyahu was not the source of the madness, but only its symbol, its most competent galvanizers of the dark forces long smouldering in the Israeli breast. He explained how even many who vote for him can’t stand Bibi, but need his drive for supremacy.

He was humble and merciless in his self-judgement.

When he said ‘If I was attacked on the street for being Israeli I wouldn’t tell them, hey, am one of the good guys’ you wanted to reach out and hug him.

He explained how he felt he had to stay in Israel, because he had played role in building it through his work at university and for the military.

He was convinced Israel had crossed a Rubicon. That a dark, evil spirit had taken hold of the country and that killing Palestinians was just something that Israelis felt was a task that had to be done. After all, the Palestinians had brought everything on themselves. A society with millions of little children.

He wasn’t sure as to solutions. At times he considered a one state solution and at times a two solutions.

The right of return he supported wholeheartedly.

One of the most profound points he kept hammering was this:

‘If we dehumanize others, we dehumanize ourselves.’

It takes a real fully developed Mensch to say that and mean it and understand the full implications of that wisdom.

He was certain that violence is cyclical in nature and that what Israel was doing to people in Palestine, Iran and Lebanon was certain to come and haunt Israelis.

‘We are the ones being drowned. We are our own victims when we are doing what we are doing.’
He emphasized how his fellow Israelis didn’t realize how reviled they really are and blame all that hatred on typical tropes.

His scariest insights were on how exceptional Israelis feel. How their suffering is the greatest ever and how they were consciously or unconsciously riding that supposed credit.

He had little praise of Israeli opposition voices, because in the end they don’t challenge the occupation or the gradual swallowing up of the West Bank.

whatever sins you claimed to have, the people who embraced you continue your work and the ripple effects are vast, whatever sins you had, they have been expunged.

The idea that Israel had been victorious post-October 7th he emphatically denied. There was no strategic victory, only death, massive damage to Israel’s standing in the world and no real defeat of Israel’s enemies.

Hamas? Still there. Hezbollah? Still there. Iran’s governing system? Alive and kicking and impressively flexible, not tolerant and far from perfect, but flexible and completely misunderstood by the US and Israel and just about everyone else.

Israel’s violence to Ori was merely despair.

A Flucht nach vorne as they say in German.

He did not spare the west or western institutions and indicted those of enabling Israel’s blind mad dog course.

It takes courage to live in society that acts like Israeli society and then to critize that society so openly, so relentlessy and at great cost to one’s self. Ori could have chosen to squeeze maximum personal joy, pleasure and fun experiences out of his days, but instead he devoted most of his time to fighting evil.

Given how many people feel the world has lost some of its brightest, most soothing light after his death, it’s fair to say he touched the hearts of many.

Whatever he did before his Saul on the road to Damascus style fall (meaning a complete change of views, sorry, I was kinda thrown into the classic biblical bath as a kid) am no Catholic priest and it’s not really my right, but I will be forgiven for forgiving this beautiful man. Ego te absolvo, Ori. Your sins, whatever they were, are hereby expunged by the sadness your death have caused, proof of how much good and nourishment you brought to souls hungry for redemption, a fair reckoning and a kinder, disarmed world in the way you were kind and disarming.