What would history look like if it were written in the style of the Israeli ‘Protective Edge’ operation in Gaza, asks URI AVNERY
WINSTON CHURCHILL was a scoundrel. For five years he kept the population of London under the unceasing fire of the German Luftwaffe.
He used the inhabitants of London as a human shield in his crazy war. While the civilian population was exposed to the bombs and rockets without the protection of an “iron dome,” he was hiding in his bunker under 10 Downing Street.
He exploited all the inhabitants of London as hostages. When the German leaders made a generous peace proposal, he rejected it for crazy ideological reasons. Thus he condemned his people to unimaginable suffering.
From time to time he emerged from his underground hideout to have his picture taken in front of the ruins and then he returned to the safety of his rat hole. But to the people of London he said: “Future generations will say that this was your finest hour!”
The Luftwaffe had no alternative but to go on bombing the city. Its commanders announced that they were hitting only military targets, such as the homes of British soldiers, where military consultations were taking place.
The Luftwaffe called on the inhabitants of London to leave the city and many children were indeed evacuated. But most Londoners heeded the call of Churchill to remain, thus condemning themselves to the fate of “collateral damage.”
The hopes of the German high command that the destruction of their homes and the killing of their families would induce the people of London to rise up and kick out Churchill and his warmongering gang came to naught.
The primitive Londoners, whose hatred of the Germans overcame their logic, perversely followed the coward Churchill’s instructions. Their admiration for him grew from day to day and by the end of the war he had become almost a god.
Four years later the wheel had turned. The British and US air forces bombed the German cities and destroyed them completely.
“Uninvolved civilians” were blown to smithereens, burned to death or just disappeared. Dresden, one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, was totally destroyed within a few hours in a “fire storm.”
The official aim was to destroy the German war industry, but this was not achieved. The real aim was to terrorise the civilian population in order to induce them to remove their leaders and capitulate.