By Jody Mcintyre

As I was sitting on the steps of my close friend Fifi’s house in Catford, south east London, at around 1.30am, a man walked past asking for a cigarette. Fifi politely obliged.

He came and sat down on the floor next to us, and Glen, as he introduced himself, turned out to live in a home for people with mental disabilities just a few doors down. He told us about the maltreatment of people living there, which could well have been true, and his plan to set up a system of cameras to catch the staff as they carried out their dirty work.

However, as Glen spoke with us for the next couple of hours, it quickly became clear that his grasp of reality was extremely thin. He was clearly very anxious, suffering from extreme paranoia and believed that, to quote him, “the air is actually poisonous”. He was a nice guy, and I always believe in treating all people in a decent manner, no matter what their disability, but one thing was certain, you take stories from a schizophrenic with a pinch of salt.

After the actions that have taken place this week, “lunatic” is the only word that can be used to describe the State of Israel. I arrived home from Fifi’s at three o’clock in the morning, to find out that the Freedom Flotilla, which many of my friends were aboard and I was very close to travelling with myself, had been brutally attacked by the Israeli military, with several people murdered.

A lunatic will find a story to justify every action he/she takes, no matter how outlandish or outrageous, and Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli government, was on hand, as always, to fill the role.

“…the hardcore extremists on the boat…a blockade is a legitimate tool…”

After all, every circus needs a clown.

Let’s just put this into context. This boat was in international waters! No further questions need to be asked. We can ignore the fact that this was a humanitarian aid mission, we can ignore the fact that it’s aim was to break a siege that the UN and every government in the world has condemned time and time again, we can even ignore the fact that there were less “weapons” on that boat than you would find in your average household kitchen! The underlining fact is, Israel have broken international law, maritime law, and committed a massacre.

I can only hope that this will be the beginning of the end of Israel’s crimes. No-one could have predicted this. Even Glen would have been stupefied.

[The complete ‘Life on wheels’ archive is available at http://jodymcintyre.wordpress.com]