Monthly Archives: May 2026

Our Awful Security Minister

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Itamar Ben Gvir

As the Times of Israel reports here:

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir posted a video on Wednesday in which he is seen taunting activists from a Gaza flotilla intercepted by Israel, immediately sparking an international outcry.

Dozens of activists can be seen in the clip forced to kneel on the ground, with their hands tied, at an Ashdod port facility where they were being processed ahead of their likely deportation.

Those aboard the flotilla intercepted by Israel earlier this week included Italian and Spanish nationals, whose governments said they would summon the respective Israeli ambassadors in their countries for a reprimand over Ben Gvir’s behavior. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a rare rebuke of the far-right cabinet member he appointed, insisting that the national security minister’s conduct was not in line with Israel’s values.

The detained activists are criminals because they tried to break a legal blockade. I have no sympathy for them. If their conditions are not Hilton-level hospitality, that’s tough. But what Ben Gvir did was stupid and unnecessary. It achieved no good. (Well, I’ll come back to that.) It certainly caused Israel harm. The man is a racist, a buffoon, and a disgrace to the country. I despise him. I wish he were gone.

Bibi’s to Blame

That brings me to the next point. As much as Ben Gvir did the harm, Bibi enabled it by appointing him to the government. Bibi knew what Ben Gvir was, but Bibi’s personal needs — staying in power — were more important to him than the needs of the country. In a responsible democracy not only would Ben Gvir resign, but so would Bibi. Of course, neither will, which says everything about the lack of principles and professionalism in our blasted government.

Ben Gvir’s Motivation

The second point is to explain why Ben Gvir acted like this. He knows it’s wrong. However, his voters love it. They very much enjoy seeing Israel’s enemies not only beaten, but humiliated. (The same principle drives his death penalty obsession.)

If an Israeli and an Arab fight, for example, a judo contest and the Israeli wins, what should he do? He should shake hands with his opponent. He should be gracious in victory (and defeat). If his Arab opponent refuses to shake hands, that’s on him. The world looking on will form an opinion. If the judo fighter were Ben Gvir, he wouldn’t offer to shake hands. He would laugh, gesticulate, and do his level best to humiliate the losing opponent. Guess what? The world looking on will form an opinion.

Democracy’s Imperfection

The final point about this tawdry episode is that it also highlights that a universal suffrage democracy is not a perfect system. Everybody gets one vote, but not all votes are cast by principled thinkers. Some of the population are like Ben Gvir. They like to lord it over beaten enemies. So, they vote for Ben Gvir. And, so the circle continues, that’s why Ben Gvir acts the way he does. I don’t offer this observation as a precursor to damning democracy, but instead to remind us all that it has its advantages and disadvantages.

I suspect, but this is pure speculation, Israel would benefit from moving away from a countrywide proportional representation system to one with constituents. That should dilute the Ben Gvir rabble enough to enable better quality candidates. And, yes, I recognize this is not an objective observation; it’s purely subjective and prone to bias.

Flotilla Punishment

I thought about how to punish the flotilla criminals. I posted this on X:

As for a suitable punishment for the flotilla members, I suggest they be sentenced to 21 days hard labor working to help deliver aid to Gaza. Let them schlep crates and sacks for three weeks and actually deliver aid!

If you have any better ideas, do share them!

Big Read, Small Read

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Note: this is a spoiler-free zone!

When I was younger, my main reading interest was science fiction. In the last couple of decades, I’ve been less successful in finding sci-fi that I wanted to read. I have a subscription to Locus to keep me up to date. In essence, most of the reviews convince me that the book under review is not for me. But, every so often, I pick up a couple of hints and take the plunge.

The first book I’ll mention is a Locus find: Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite. This is a novella (101 pages) containing a comfy murder-mystery set in space.

Cover of the book Murder by Memory, written by Olivia Wait. The cover shows a seated figure in a library of some sort, possible memories.

The action takes place on an interstellar generation ship. One of the ship’s detectives, Dorothy Gentleman, wakes up in someone else’s body just as a murder takes place. The important detail is that the passengers can avail themselves of a storage facility for their minds between awakenings. However, it seems that not only has there been a physical murder, but also someone is deleting minds from the storage.

I say it’s a comfy story because it’s reminiscent of one of those TV mysteries where the violence is largely subdued and although a murder has occurred, people are polite, chilled, and going on with their regular lives. That’s the score here.

The writing is pitched well as it tells the story without too much unnecessary embellishment and presents the neat solution with confidence and style. In short, I liked it. However, while I knew beforehand it was a short read, near the end I was frustrated that there wasn’t more. Some of the ideas presented have great potential for lengthier, more detailed tales and I hope the author returns to the setting again. I would recommend this if you like short, straightforward stories and can handle a science-fiction setting.

That was the small read.

The big read is To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini. This is an 800+ page doorstop of a space opera novel. It’s at the opposite end of the scale to the small read. It didn’t come to my attention because of a Locus review. I saw it in a bookshop in London last year and liked what I saw.

Cover of the book To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini. It shows a female silhouette surrounded by lots of stars.

The story revolves around a female character, Kira Navárez who finds an alien relic on an uncolonized planet and all that happens after that encounter. The mix includes aliens, battles, war, and politics. There’s also a love story or two and a veritable feast of future technology and cracking ideas, most of which are really cool and interesting. To put it another way, the book is packed with good stuff.

Another positive is that the main character is sympathetically drawn and believable, doesn’t totally hog the spotlight, and is aided by several good quality supporting members of the cast.

On the other side of the coin, while there’s no doubt this author can write beautifully, sometimes there was just too much description and a hint of repetition, none of which seemed to me to bring anything of great value to the story. Given the history of how the book was created (told in an afterword) I wonder if the editorial team were told to go easy on the writing. If so, that was a mistake.

It’s a good book, but not great. It cannot match Banks, but it suggests the author might achieve that in the future, if guided appropriately. It’s worth reading, especially if space opera is your thing.

The Antisemitism of Amnesty

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I previously referred to the Perfidy of Amnesty. Their continuing bigotry has been brought to my attention by the indomitable Elder of Ziyon in a post entitled Amnesty proves it is antisemitic, again.

I encourage you to follow the last link and read the post on the Elder’s site. For those who want a summary, here goes:

Amnesty tweeted about a Holocaust survivor:

Right now, Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos is at the Nakba Day demonstration in London. The 88-year-old has attended almost every demonstration in the last two year’s protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Stephen stands and sits with family and members of his group the ‘Holocaust Survivors & Descendants Against the Genocide in Gaza’.

The Elder pointed out:

Amnesty-UK is publicizing a child Holocaust survivor who marches in anti-Israel demonstrations, calling the Gaza War a “genocide.” The only reason they want to promote him is to make the point that as a Holocaust survivor, Kapos knows what genocide is and has a particular moral authority to be able to describe Israel’s actions as the most heinous war crimes.

But if Holocaust survivors have a unique perspective on genocide – and they do, having survived the paradigm of all genocides – then what about the 99.9% of living Holocaust survivors who support Israel, and who recognize Hamas and October 7 as being the closest modern equivalent to Nazis? If Holocaust survivors have an important perspective on the matter, why is Amnesty ignoring the feelings of nearly all of them and promoting a fringe figure among them?

From this, the Elder (rightly) concludes that Amnesty doesn’t think most Holocaust survivors’ opinions are important. I agree. How arrogant is their attitude? How bigoted is it?

The Elder makes two particular points following this.

First, Amnesty means that the other Holocaust survivors who support Israel are — by Amnesty’s logic — supporting genocide.

Second, by promoting Kapos above the majority of other Holocaust survivors, they are clearly using him as a prop. If they cared for Holocaust survivors, they would instead quote the others who would tell Amnesty about Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and the Houthis who want to finish Hitler’s job.

And, as I don’t want to lessen the impact of the Elder’s closing words (with which I wholeheratedly agree) I set them out in full here:

To Amnesty, the Holocaust is not a lesson for them to learn from. It is only a lesson for its victims and their descendants. It wasn’t a genocide, exactly, but a giant classroom for Jews to learn to behave themselves and not act like Nazis. The rest of the world, the world that let the Holocaust happen, are now the judges that determine whether Jews fighting for their lives are crossing the line or need to be taught Remedial Holocaust 102. To Amnesty, the Holocaust is a prop meant to be trotted out when it is convenient for them to hurl the most hateful accusations against Jews and then use fringe, mentally ill Jews as a cover to protect themselves from being accused of antisemitism.

No one else can be compared to the Nazis but Jews, in Amnesty’s universe.

This tweet, alone, exposes the cynicism and hypocrisy of this supposedly “human rights” organization. And, yes, the implications of this tweet are pure Jew-hatred.

This is not imaginary. This is real. This is a once worthy human-rights organization that is clearly engaged in naked antisemitism — repeatedly. Their brand is poison and should be shunned forever.