It is very dark when I wake up in the morning in these days of the winter as we count down towards 21st/22nd December after which time the mornings should start to get a smidgeon lighter each day as the days start to lengthen again. The news media is full of the terrible slaughter that has taken place at Bondi beach in Australia where a father and son gunman have opened fire on a Jewish crowd celebrating Hanukkah killing 15 people which is the latest in a series of world-wide incidents. This rise in antisemitism must surely be linked with the conflict in Gaza which certainly does not justify what might be seen as reprise killings but the media are silent on this point. But the relationship is not an easy one to analyse. Experts point out that antisemitism was already widely prevalent before the bloody conflict in Gaza, provoked by the Hamas attack into Israel of October 2023, polarised opinions across the world. The most lethal attack against the Jewish community in the US, for example, came in 2018, while in 2023, Michael O’Flaherty, the director of the EU’s agency for fundamental rights, described such hate as a ‘deeply ingrained racism in European society’ that posed an existential threat to the continent’s Jewish community. But there is no doubt that such trends were intensified dramatically by the conflict in the Middle East. In the US, the Anti-Defamation League reported 9,354 antisemitic incidents in 2024, the highest since its records began in 1979. For the first time, a majority ‘contained elements related to Israel or Zionism’. The Community Safety Trust recorded 4,296 instances of anti-Jewish hate across the UK in 2023 – double the previous year – and the most ever documented. There were 3,528 in 2024, the second-highest annual total. Perhaps because of this complexity and its evident sensitivity, such relationships are under-reported and not analysed in depth. But there is always a problem in the way in which news gets reported in the media where there is a concentration upon the televisual focusing on real events in the world rather than the underlying reasons for such disturbances. In past decades, we used to have a concentration upon ‘strikes’ where the media loved to concentrate upon heaps of uncollected rubbish (in the case of the classic local authority dustbin men’s strike both historically and also today in Birmingham) whereas the underling cause of the dispute, usually relating to the falling real value of wages, does not lend itself to such a televisual appeal. To be fair to the BBC, there are often discussion programmes on Radio4 and some late night discussion programmes that attempt a more intelligent discussion of ’causes’ or stories behind the news but I suspect that these are watched by a very small minority of people.
At the start of the week, there are a variety of phone calls that I must make and one is very conscious of the fact that Christmas and the New Year (quite rightly) wipes out a lot of time at this time of year. I am thanking my lucky stars that I managed to order a good supply of my routine medications because running out over the Christmas period does present a happy prospect. When I return from Yorkshire next weekend, I only have two clear days and this reduces to one if you were to discount Christmas Eve itself so I am contemplating a really early start to my Christmas day meal shopping although it is only a case of picking up bits and pieces. As the day has gone on, it has developed into one of those days when I have seen either telephoning or texting all day long. I made a couple of telephone calls in the morning, both of which I assumed were going to be ‘tricky’ but in the event turned out OK. One call was to my dentist as a filling dropped out of a molar recently and my next dental appointment is late in January. I telephoned for advice and was originally informed that could go and get a temporary DIY tooth filling kit from the High Street – fortunately, the receptionist found a spare slot for me the following day so I did not have to act on her advice (which is incredibly dangerous because you can seal infection in and make a problem much worse) The rest of the day has been in texting left, right and centre – some texts have been to friends but most have been to members of my family to inform them of my arrival and departure times when travel to Harrogate next Friday. I felt that I needed to give family members a few days notice so that I can try and fit in some meeting time with them – as it is, they all seem frantically busy at this time of year. One of my nieces gave me some good advice as to what sort of Christmas present to buy for my sister when I hope to see het on Saturday. It has been one of those days today when with a layer of heavy black rain clouds, it seems to have been dark all day, even before 3.00pm in the afternoon. Nonetheless, my texts have borne some fruit and I have got on with some domestic jobs like the washing. Tomorrow is going to be a kind of day heavily weighted towards the end of the day as my chiropodist is due to call around late in the afternoon after a postponed visit today and then I have the carol service in my local church followed by tea and mince pies following which I need to dash home for a scheduled telephone conversation with a friend later on in the evening.
Amazingly enough, we seem to be getting some positive news about the Ukraine talks being held in Berlin. Sky News reports that after the Ukrainian team held talks with US officials Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Ukraine’s top negotiator described talks with the US team in Berlin as being constructive and productive. Rustem Umerov added that real progress has been achieved, and he hopes to reach an agreement that will bring us closer to peace by the end of the day. The American team led by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were said to be working extremely constructively to help Ukraine find a way to a peace agreement that lasts. The Ukrainian team is reported to be enormously grateful to President Trump and his team for all efforts they are putting in. It comes after Kyiv handed an updated peace proposal to Washington last week, consisting of 20 points instead of the initial 28-point plan Donald Trump’s team had proposed.