The cruel hand of fate...

strikes when you least it expect it and history is littered with examples of ironic and painful occasions when fate shows has shown its hand.

For the past few months, as a nation, we have been aware, though not directly affected by the horrific treatment of the citizens of Gaza. Apart from the bombing, the Palestinian people were and are being evicted from their homes - only yesterday I read of 32 new Israeli settlements being set up in the West Bank - the people ejected land and the buildings simply stolen from the legal owners. World attention was subsequently hijacked for a while by the Epstein scandal before the US-Israeli war on Iran but, in parallel, has come mass evictions in Southern Lebanon - this is being accompanied by brutal treatment of the legal Lebanese owners who are now being herded north with only the belongings that they can carry - no home, no choice and nowhere to go. Dependent on each other and the charity of others.

Jewish families being evicted from their homes in Krakow in 1941.

So where is the irony ? I have just returned from Krakow and although I did not intend to visit the tourist hotspots of Auschwitz-Birkenau or Oskar Schindler's factory, I did stumble across the so called Jewish quarter. I say 'so called' because it is nothing like it once was and is only recognisable as having had a rich Jewish past by the remnants of Jewish cemeteries and buildings that were once the property of Jewish families. You see, once upon a time, the Polish and German people forcibly evicted the Jewish people from their homes in Krakow, they suffered and were shot if they did not move quickly enough and they were treated as brutally as the Zionist government of Israel now treats the Lebanese and the Palestinians.

These historical events are ironically identical and I am certain that, if they thought they could get away with it, many of the more extreme Zionist politicians would go to the next step and eradicate whole populations too. Is this the circle of life, the circle of history, the cruel hand of fate or the tragically innate tribalism inherent in every human being? Lets hope that cruel hand of fate never extends to the lives of our children.