John Scumbag Prescott

Those acquainted with my style know that I do not shy away from bluntness; I call the spade a spade and a shmuck – a shmuck. I frown impatiently at political correctness. Nevertheless, I am not in the habit of losing my temper and almost never resort to name-calling.  But there are acts that are so abject, so utterly disgusting, so injurious to God’s truth and justice, that they deserve nothing but the most contemptuous epithets.

Like the previous ones , the latest bout of violence in Gaza has given many a Western bully an opportunity to vent ill-concealed anti-Jewish prejudices under the ‘safe’ cover of ‘humanitarian concern’.  Needless to say, none of these insufferably sanctimonious individuals and groups made a comparable level of noise during the long siege of the Palestinian neighbourhood of Al-Yarmouk, on the outskirts of Damascus.  Which siege has caused Yarmouk’s complete destruction, has included denial of food, drinking water and medical assistance and has caused God only knows how many thousands of civilian fatalities.

Yarmouk, near Damascus, Syria: Palestinian refugees queuing for food.

The ‘pro-Palestinian’ bullies’ concern about Palestinian fatalities mysteriously surfaces only when those fatalities occur in a conflict with Israel.  Otherwise, they don’t much care – certainly not enough to haul their behinds to a demonstration.

But, frankly, I am already inured to the rantings of these rather ridiculous two-quid-a-dozen anti-Semites.  They seldom elicit more than my rather bored shrug of contempt.

Portrait of a scumbag: John Prescott

That was my initial reaction also when I first saw John Prescott’s ‘contribution’ to the 'debate', an article he penned a few days ago for the Mirror. The only reason I decided to read it was, frankly, curiosity.  ‘How huge can hypocrisy get?’ I asked myself as I started to read the article, in which Prescott claims that ‘Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is a war crime’. Yes – a war crime; so says John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister in a government that bombed, invaded and occupied for 8 years (at the cost of hundreds of thousands of civilian lives) a country situated 4,000 kilometres away!

However, had Prescott’s shameless hypocrisy been the only item of interest, I would have dismissed the whole thing with contempt; had it all been just the usual rantings, I would have shrugged it away as the not-worth-a-second-look antics of yet another ‘has-been’ politician with too much time on his hands.  Let him froth at the mouth as much as he bloody wishes.

But that frothing mouth has done something unforgivable: it has violated the memory of the Holocaust. About midway through his otherwise boring tirades, Prescott made the following remark:

“What happened to the Jewish people at the hands of the Nazis is appalling. But you would think those atrocities would give Israelis a unique sense of perspective and empathy with the victims of a ghetto”.

Got it?? Because one third of world’s Jewry was killed by the Nazis, the descendants of those Jews (rather than the descendants of those who killed them, or of those who slammed the door in their face when they tried to escape the slaughter) have incurred some sort of moral obligation above and beyond everybody else. Because my grandmother’s entire family has been exterminated at Auschwitz – partially because John Prescott's grandmother did nothing to help them – it is ME who owes HIM something or other.

In the eyes of people endowed with normal moral compass, a raped woman is entitled to understanding and sympathy; in light of her traumatic experience, she might even be expected to over-react if threatened. But on Prescott’s twisted, upside-down planet, she would actually be required to behave better than anyone else: it is from the victims – not the criminals and the indifferent bystanders – that he requires better behaviour. Rather than being entitled to some allowances, in Prescottland victims qualify for heavier loads and harsher censure.

In the insensitive mind of this louse, the memory of the Holocaust is but another cudgel with which to bludgeon Jews, in a kind of psychological pogrom.

And that is why I say, with all my soul: John Prescott – you are not just a disgusting hypocrite who points at the spec in his neighbour’s eye, while being himself responsible for nearly a million Iraqi deaths; you are actually an abominable scumbag.