https://substack.com/visited-surface-frame

CLLR MHB BLOG

Blog 32 How to Exit the Gaza Hall of Mirrors – Climate Change campaigning: at the sharp end – Celebrating with the Lionesses – Flying Sorcerers

Aug 02, 2025

Blog 32

Photo by Rosie Haworth-Booth

Saturday 2 August, Barnstaple – Palestinians Will Not Be Silenced March. Over 100 marched, sometimes in silence, sometimes clashing pots and pans. Powerful speakers, including Ian Roome MP at the start. I spoke about the bizarre unreality of a situation in which, for example, a felon President of the US sanctions members of the International Criminal Court and – while facilitating a genocide – is nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by the man (on trial on corruption charges) carrying out that genocide, in which food distribution centres become killing fields, in which a country founded as a safe haven for Jews is itself the cause (because of its horrific violence to innocent men, women and especially children) of a huge spike in anti-Semitic attacks around the world. The most astonishing paradox is this, and it seems almost like blasphemy to say it: Israel is currently carrying out its own Final Solution in an attempt to remove Palestinians from what is left of their homelands by mass-starvation, murder, land theft and expulsion. If that sounds extreme, please recall that when Menachem Begin visited New York in late 1948, Einstein, Hannah Arendt, and other Jewish intellectual figures in the United States published a letter denouncing his visit and the organization he led calling it ‘a political party very close in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and fascist parties’. One example they cited was the massacre of 240 men, women, and children in the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin (from Fred Jerome’s Einstein on Israel and Zionism). All governments should respond with an immediate trade freeze with Israel. Is there any other way to stop the starvation of two million people in Gaza and the killings in the West Bank? Josep Borrell, high representative of the EU for foreign affairs and security policy from 2019 to 2024, said the same this week: ‘The EU must finally decide to sanction Israel without further delay. This is the only language that can bring Israeli leaders to stop committing crimes against humanity’.

Last Saturday (26.7) Extinction Rebellion North Devon took part in a national banner drop – one of many we have been involved in. We stewarded the banners attached to railings above the A361, the Link Road, at Swimbridge. An individual took exception, for unexplained reasons, to the banner being displayed in ‘her village’. She went home, returned with scissors, and attempted to slash a banner and cut it loose. I restrained her, as a banner falling onto the highway could have caused multiple crashes. We inferred that the individual was motivated by disinformation about Climate Change that is plentifully available online. The mis-named ‘Reform’ party has weaponised action towards net-zero, like the Tories before it – weaponised quite literally, we realised, as an enraged person waved scissors in our faces. More constructively, I had a good meeting in our village Parklands with Cllr Ed Tylesdesley and Nigel Merrifield of the National Grid about burying the power lines which cross our park – although kite flying is not allowed for safety reasons, not everyone reads notices.

I followed last Sunday’s final of the Euros on my way back from a family gathering in Dorset – first with earphones and a radio on a train, then via the Guardian’s text reporting on the Tarka Line, then on the car radio and finally on TV at home. The fantastic drama of the Lionesses’s tournament continued until the final fabulous penalty kick by Chloe Kelly. Thrilling, as was the celebration in the Mall the next day – I watched the whole thing with immense pride. I’m longing for a programme of highlights from the tournament.

I took part in a Community Speedwatch session in Swimbridge last Monday. There were no speeding vehicles, I’m pleased to say, but there were two soaring Red Kites. One swooped down to reveal its rufous colouring. I have yet to do my Big Butterfly Count but did observe this magnificent specimen – an Emperor dragonfly, I believe. Its damaged wings might result from encounters with Swallows over our pond. I have been thinning out the pond weed, which makes good compost. Thank you for reading.