'You see this fist...'

'You see this fist. This is my moral authority'. This is Harold Pinter on American hegemony in his speech of 2005 upon receiving the Nobel Prize in literature. Hearing today that Israel has assassinated about 200 people without a judge, a jury or a case for the prosecution for any of the individuals involved, I call for the condemnation of the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza who have already been subject to another form of collective punishment, the blockade. One rule for one, one rule for all. It is astonishing and totally unacceptable that this is being described as the beginning, as if it is somehow not enough - that we can tolerate it and tolerate more - and can perhaps be explained again by Pinter when describing the US in the same speech:

'It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis'.

It is time for the Board of Deputies to make a statement on its moral view on the using of airplanes to launch missiles into civilian areas. Is this allowed? Is it morally justifiable to kill seven Palestinians in order to kill one Palestinian?