Witchcraft

In response to the latest report on the Palestinian occupied territories by special UN envoy Francesca Albanese, the Israeli ambassador to the UN accused her publicly and vehemently of witchcraft. She replied calmly that if she could make spells, she would stop the killings “from the river to the sea” and she would give to all the people living in the area the same civil and political rights.

But the genocide continues. Israel has broken the truce several times and killed many people in the last few days, including a great number of children. Violent actions against Palestinian villages continue also in the West Bank. These facts are now more and more known to the global public and the inaction of the governments — with some buying into the fake Trumpian peace — is even more appalling.

Some actions of resistance are building up, however, and are cause for hope. The parliament of Spain has approved a total embargo on weapons to Israel. The sovereign Norwegian fund — one of the largest in the world — has just deliberated a total divestement from any company involved in arms dealing with Israel. The newly elected president of Ireland has made it clear that she would speak the truth on the genocide forcefully and at all times and in all kinds of international meetings.

Albanese, just like Greta Thunberg, has become an icon inhabiting the world of politics and the public stage in a different way. Catherine Connelly is on the way to become that as well. One can be fiery and compassionate at the same time, or rather the two things go together. That scares men and women who have sold their souls to the devil and who find no better way to dealing with the threat to the whole build-up of their fake lives than accusing those women of witchcraft.

When I first saw the video of the accusations by the Israeli ambassador, I could not believe my ears. I questioned whether it was AI originated and fake, but the amount and credibility of reports soon convinced me. It is worth watching. It’s very instructive. It does feel like the final raving cry of a cornered beast, and so it represents also a sign of hope — at least to me.

My mind quickly ran to the many women accused of witchcraft over the course of a few centuries in the Western world. I was not alone. In some Italian cities, on Halloween, women and men dressed up as witches to protest the Israeli and Italian governments — the latter guilty of open hostility toward our own distinguished citizen, Albanese —  holding signs in solidarity with her.

A few years ago, I visited a place of incarceration and execution of witches in Austria, in the Salzburg region. I was appalled by the cruelty of the tortures and the build-up of a deranged collective mentality — truly a “spell” in the sense that accusers and torturers were convinced for the most part of the accuracy of their perceptions.

I was especially disturbed by the fact that the scaffolds and the burning piles were built on a hill like that of the Golgotha, and historians have speculated that the hill itself was completely deforested not just for providing the wood for the executions, but also for making the burnings very visible from several cities and villages.

All of this goes back to the theme of cruelty. But in closing this meditation, I wonder the following: are we perhaps at the turning of an era? Will the vile speech of the Israeli ambassador be remembered by historians as a watershed? In any case let me say: May his name be trampled upon and forgotten forever! Yes, I am also a witch.

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Banner image: “Diorama of a cunning woman or wise woman in the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic.” Boscastle, Cornwall. Wikipedia. Creative Commons.

Queries for Contemplation

How much of a witch do you think you are or can be?