Gaza bites, Gaza hurts. It’s everywhere and nowhere, in the air, in the land, yell it, shout it: No, Stop, Please, Stop.

So the supermarkets have got facial recognition. It’ll never be quite the same going in there. Aware. Bloody hell. Aware. The sniper’s scope with a cross in it. They don’t need a wooden cross on a hill today. A sniper will do.

Two million imprisoned, kept alive by aid and at the mercy of the jailers – for whom they are animals. I remember while researching a film on madness in the 1970s, spending time at the old Kingseat Hospital in South Auckland. One day, hearing strange cries from the back of the large grounds and investigating, I came across a unit devoted to elderly ‘handicapped’ – the mongoloid, the brain damaged… They were literally confined in a cage. I was told that they were people who had never been socialised, could scarcely feed themselves. It was a shocking image,

Who are the unsocialised ones in Gaza? The Trump ‘mob?’ ‘clan’ – neither of those words will do – mafioso is better. They assume more and more the model of the Hunger Games (perhaps the most political book in a decade). Netanyahu and his henchmen? It is one of those appalling situations to which we assume indifference, forget about for months. The US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, an axis of evil to which we bow for reasons of trade. No, best forget it, focus on rugby or the garden, or local shenanigans. There are no drones dispensing tear gas or rockets in the middle of the night, no sniper towers, no occupying army, no border crossings to negotiate. We’re okay, All we have to put up with are some homeless, some kids in poverty and facial recognition cameras in the supermarket. We’re sweet. Except for a conscience that won’t quieten. In frustration. In despair.

What was it like for the townspeople near the death camps? Did they know? Were they aware? Or were they simply minding their own business and watching the grass grow?

Isn’t it time to boycott the US. I’m tired of paying attention to the dysfunctional empire. We are overwhelmed by its culture, its ridiculous foreign policy, its inane leadership, its control of knowledge and information and pharmaceuticals, its media… Time to divest. Time to boycott. Time to seek other friends. We’ll be poorer but we’ll be able to confront the mirror.