I have known Merilyn Moos for over 50 years. I first met her when we both taught at a north London college. She was then, and still is, a revolutionary socialist. The daughter of two communists who escaped Nazi Germany in 1933, they were some of the luckier ones. Many of their relatives were killed. Her surviving family live in the UK, the USA and in Israel. I helped to edit her recent memoir, ‘Living with Shadows’.
Just back from Bosnia, I visited her today. I wanted to know if she had been at Saturday's demonstration in support of Palestine and was eager to get her take on the terrible situation in Gaza. Despite ill health she had attended. I know she agrees with her great uncle, Albert Einstein, who said “The (Israeli) state idea is not according to my heart. I cannot understand why it is needed … I believe it is bad.”
Like me, she thinks the situation in Palestine/Israel will only become viable when the apartheid regime is dismantled and replaced with one state for all its people. I asked her if she had watched David Hearst’ recent broadcast, The Myth of Self-defence on the situation.
She had, and told me that she had stopped reading The Guardian. We agree that the corporate media are as compromised as our politicians for discussing the situation totally out of context. we hve both turned to Al Jazeera and I said this cartoon sums up that situation. We found a moment in all this horror to share a laugh.
I told her that I would return home to write this blog. She asked me to mention her support for Medical Aid for Palestine and would I please add their link.
NOTE: Soon after leaving Merilyn, I learned that The Giardian cartoonist, Steve Bell, who had worked for them for four decades had been sacked for what thy regarded as an anti-semitic cartoon.
