The editorial of July 21, ‘Murder in the skies above Ukraine’, was as predictable as they come, given the paper’s customary foreign policy line. While the somewhat simplistic analysis is convenient for the purposes of placing the responsibility for the tragedy squarely at Vladimir Putin’s door, it is merely echoing the mantra of the usual hallowed international media sources.

What I find reprehensible is that the massacre in Gaza, with almost 600 killed at the time of writing, has not similarly spurred the newspaper into commenting on the situation. I would assume that murder in the streets, especially when perpetrated with impunity against civilians, women and children, is as condemnable as murder in the skies. Surely, playing the blame game in this instance would have been much easier and less open to conjecture than in the Ukrainian case, not least because we have been through it all whenever it is felt necessary to deplete Israeli military stockpiles to enable the respectable supplying countries to replenish via new lucrative contracts. That most of these countries, bar the USA and Canada, happen to have met Brussels in a bid to secure stability in the Ukraine region by imposing more sanctions on Russia is, of course, merely coincidental. Perhaps they might just spare a couple of minutes to discuss the situation in Gaza.

No need for considering sanctions on Israel for the time being. That would definitely be too much to expect. After all, crimes against humanity and genocide are things that only happen in Africa or the Balkans and, then again, only when the perpetrators happen to be in the bad books of the good guys. You know, these are the ones who send people to the International Criminal Court but are not themselves subject to the ICC regime!

Perhaps the paper will eventually deem fit to comment when the world’s only superpower and friends generously broker a ceasefire.