War and Peace Prizes

 

A thought-provoking comment from David Collier today (though the massacre itself took place over a month ago rather than a few days ago):

David Collier: Just a few days ago - 700+ innocent people sought sanctuary in a Church in Axum, Ethiopia.

Reports say they were taken outside, shot, massacred,

700+!

Not that you'd know. Go search. These people don't matter enough for headlines.

If only the BBC could blame Israel for it!

It got a response from an Israeli: 

Eric Kahn (Tel Aviv): Nay: On today's BBC global podcast they followed a segment about the gross inequality of riches earned during the pandemic with a segment about the inequality if Israel's vaccine rollout vis a vis Palestinians. My impression of the UK continues to erode...

Eric, please be reassured that the BBC doesn't speak for me, or for massive swathes of the UK population. 

As far as the massacre in Tigray itself goes, it's very grim. I now wish I hadn't read about it. 

And the church it took place at - the Orthodox Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion - is one of Ethiopia's most precious, deeply ancient in roots and associated with the Ark of the Covenant. 

And it was carried out, I read, by militias and the forces of a Nobel Prize winning Ethiopian prime minister who the BBC were very 'pro' a couple of years ago. 

At the risk of getting the site banned, it must be said that winning the Nobel Prize soon after taking office and then becoming a warmonger is quite the 'in' thing these days. 

Did Ethiopia's Abiy Ahmed look at Barack Obama's Nobel Prize and subsequent airstrikes and military raids on Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and, above all, Libya, and think 'I can do even better than that'? 

Wonder if Joe Biden will get the next Nobel Prize (despite his predecessor not starting a war and making peace in the Middle East and winning no prestigious peace prizes) and then start bombing somewhere before the year's out?