The New York-set movie to which the head­line of this post owes a nod, romped its way to a pre­dictable hap­py end­ing. The Mid­dle East-based hor­ror show to which the head­line refers is relent­less­ly lurch­ing its way towards unhap­pi­ness that shows no sign of ending.

Venal, mean­ing unprin­ci­pled and  vain­glo­ry, the ugly trait of being con­ceit­ed and boast­ful, sum up both the sto­ry­line and the star­ring actors.
The Saud­is served up one of those feasts of pomp and cir­cum­stance Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump mis­takes for admi­ra­tion, gar­nished with a $142-bil­lion arms deal.
For any­one won­der­ing why they need that much hi-tech weapon­ry, accord­ing to Glob­al Con­flict Track­er, since the start of the civ­il war in neigh­bour­ing Yemen in 2015, a Sau­di-led coali­tion has launched more than 25 thou­sand air strikes, inflict­ing more than 19 thou­sand civil­ian casualties.
The Houthi rebels they were try­ing to oust — and Trump has made a “deal” to stop bomb­ing — still man­age to attack ships in the Red Sea and hit Israel with long range missiles.
Sau­di Arabia’s de fac­to leader Mohamed bin Salman, known as MBS, bru­tal­ly supress­es dis­sent (includ­ing the mur­der and dis­mem­ber­ment of jour­nal­ist Jamal Khashog­gi) and has an abysmal human rights record.
In 2016, Trump said on FOX News: “Who blew up the World Trade Cen­ter? It was­n’t the Iraqis, it was Saudi—take a look at Sau­di Arabia…”,
This week, Trump called MBS “an incred­i­ble guy”, adding for good mea­sure “I like him too much..”
Trump may not be a cheap date, but it sure looks like a lav­ish wel­come and a trade deal will get you to third base on the first try.

                             A BETTER “DEAL”

The appro­pri­ate­ness and legal­i­ty of the Qatari “gift” of a $400-mil­lion dol­lar 747 that Trump says he’d be “stu­pid” to turn down, will be argued over ad infini­tum.
An inar­guably bet­ter deal would be if he sug­gest­ed the Qataris instead spend the mon­ey, and the largess they bestow on Hamas, (report­ed­ly $1.8‑billion over recent years) on food and med­ical aid for Gazan civil­ians and a con­tri­bu­tion to rebuild­ing Gaza as part of a Pales­tin­ian state.
Accord­ing to ana­lysts study­ing satel­lite imagery, 60 per­cent of  build­ings across Gaza have been dam­aged or destroyed since the start of the war.
The death toll has passed 50,000. Injured and maimed civil­ians, main­ly  women and chil­dren, far exceed that and the hor­ren­dous sta­tis­tics are grow­ing by hun­dreds a week.
In what amounts to a war crime, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has sealed the Gaza bor­der for the last two months, as what they claim is a legit­i­mate tac­tic to reduce Hamas’ abil­i­ty to make any mon­ey from food aid and fuel and has­ten the group’s col­lapse, or at least release more hostages.
But a qui­et admis­sion by Israeli defence offi­cials that aid agency claims  civil­ians in Gaza are on the brink of star­va­tion are true, makes it emi­nent­ly clear the pol­i­cy has failed, the sit­u­a­tion is beyond dire and Israeli gov­ern­ment spokesper­sons are lying when they claim otherwise.

                  CYNICAL CRUELTY RULES

Civil­ians are killed every time the IDF strikes a hos­pi­tal or tent camp in hope of killing a cou­ple of Hamas oper­a­tives, a cal­cu­lous that fits the def­i­n­i­tions of both venal and vicious.
Hamas denies it hides behind civil­ians. No one believes that any more than the Israeli claim to have the most moral army in the world. The evi­dence just isn’t there for either asser­tion, not least because for­eign jour­nal­ists are banned from enter­ing Gaza.
The sim­ple, irrefutable fact is that the only ones who can stop the suf­fer­ing and restore a mod­icum of san­i­ty and civil­i­sa­tion in Gaza, are the lead­ers of Hamas and Israel — men with a total lack of empa­thy, moral­i­ty, com­mon sense, or grasp of the real­i­ty of what they are doing and how his­to­ry will judge them for it.
But don’t take my word for it. Instead, con­sid­er this from 98 year-old Dachau sur­vivor Mario Can­dot­to, speak­ing at the 80^th anniver­sary of the camp’s lib­er­a­tion: “I hear talk about weapons and nation­al­ism, and the thought occurs to me: Have peo­ple learned nothing?”
Appar­ent­ly not.
In a state­ment released this week, Netanyahu  said “ we are going in with full force to com­plete the oper­a­tion.” That’s a vari­a­tion on his pro­nounce­ment when the war began 20 months ago that the aim was “destruc­tion of Hamas’s mil­i­tary and gov­ern­ing capa­bil­i­ties; and return­ing the hostages home.”
But don’t  wor­ry, chil­dren of Gaza whose toys and indeed entire once hap­py lives are buried under rub­ble, some press­ing issues are being resolved.
Researchers in Aus­tralia have found that the “empow­er­ment” of Bar­bie (as in the doll) is “tied to the struc­ture of her feet”, which varies from arched to flat accord­ing to the per­sona her out­fit is representing.
In a sad way, that’s a metaphor for the morals and val­ues Trump’s Mid­dle East tour highlights.
Such has the world become.
Such are those “empow­ered” to lead it.

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