Donkey

By GlosKat

Mon, 31 Aug 2026
  • 549 reads
19 comments
 

He was just a donkey.  I suppose he had a name, although I didn't see it in any of the news reports.  He belonged to a Palestinian farmer, so he wasn't a pet, he was a vital, valuable livelihood asset.

The donkey was stolen by an illegal Israeli West Bank settler, and dragged along behind a digger until he died.  Tortured to death, in other words.  The harrowing footage is on the BBC website and others.

There are 22,00 dead Palestinian children, what does a dead animal matter ?, you may ask.  But it does matter - at least it matters to me. I love animals and this is the death of one more innocent creature.  Death by gratuitous torture.

Feeling that I had to do something, I contacted The Donkey Sanctuary. They are a British organization but they work with other donkey welfare organizations all over the world. They said they were already aware of the incident and had contacted a partner Israeli organization, who were investigating.

The settler has been named but so far as I can see he hasn't been arrested, either for theft or animal cruelty.  Meanwhile a British activist has been arrested for standing in front of a Palestinian farmer's fence and pushing back Israeli settler children trying to tear it down.

Certificate 15
Non-fiction
Rant

Comments

Submitted by Turlough on

I saw that video clip and I found it absolutely sickening. The territory occupied by Israelis seems to be a totally lawless place where no life has any value. I can't understand why so many people in the world fail to see this and do something about it. As an uncivilised people they should be completely excluded from all matters relating to the civilised world until they learn to behave less like savages and more like human beings.

Turlough

Submitted by GlosKat on

Thanks Turlough.  Lawless is the word.  The UN keeps issuing warnings, which of course have no effect. Nobody is going to issue sanctions against Israel because of their poor human rights record (there's an irony if ever there was one) because it would mean taking on the US.

Alll we can hope for is a more moderate Israeli government after the elections in October, which will put a stop to settler violence and intimidation. 

 

Submitted by Turlough on

We can hope Kat, but it's a very slim hope. There have been more moderate Israeli governments in the past but they have still been brutal in a place where they have no right to be. 

Ordinary people around the world can see that this is wrong but businesses and governments won't do anything about it because there is so much money involved. The problem stems from money and greed and Israel has a finger in every financial pie.

Turlough

Submitted by GlosKat on

Absolutely, money and religion, a dangerous combination. Look at the right wing fabulously wealthy 'Christians' in America.  

But let's not forget the many Jewish people who are appalled by the injustices of what is happening in Palestine.  These brave people are prepared to stand up in public and suffer verbal and physical abuse simply for speaking out.  The Jewish Voice For Peace is an American organization, The Jewish Network for Palestine is a UK organization.  It's a smaller number in Israel itself, but they do exist, they just don't get a lot of news coverage for obvious reasons (ie the state doesn't want the rest of the world to know they exist).  All these people do give me some hope.

 

Submitted by HarryC on

What you say here, Kat, chimes a little with that John Gray talk I mentioned. He's been called an arch-pessimist. But there is a saying that a pessimist is an optimist in possession of the facts! In case you're interested in seeing it. Recorded at the Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=murPOSalbfQ

Submitted by Turlough on

You're right Kat. Those people do give some hope, but is it enough? Although I try, I find it extremely difficult to view the current global situation regarding politics, religion, economics and the resultant wars in a positive way. 

Turlough

Submitted by HarryC on

Me, too. The fog of war is one thing. But this seems to be the fog of everything.

Submitted by HarryC on

Yes, it matters. As Gandhi said: The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

I watched a short talk with John Gray earlier, on the fallacy of 'progress'. We don't progress. We just go forwards in time, as savage as we've always been.

This whole thing sickens me - how these people are allowed to flout every law, every moral principle, every shred of humanity. And the world not only looks on, it's complicit. The irony can't be lost on anyone. How many lives were lost in trying to defeat ideologies like this? Against whom? Why?

Submitted by Turlough on

Well said Harry. I agree with every word.

Turlough

Submitted by GlosKat on

Well said Harry, it is indeed a great irony that the nation against whom was committed one of greatest atrocities of modern times should now be committing such an atrocity themselves.

I can thoroughly recommend a book called 'A Line in the Sand' by journalist James Barr.  It was written in 2011, so it doesn't cover the more recent escalations.  But it is a brilliant, readable, thoroughly researched and unbiased account of how the Middle East got into the mess it's been in since the beginning of the 20th century.

And thank you for the Ghandi quote, I hadn't heard it before, but it makes total sense to me. 

 

Submitted by HarryC on

It's one I always remember from animal rights days. I still uphold the principles, but I'm less active now. More involved in the environmental movement generally. It all connects up, though. None of these matters exists in a vacuum, distinct from others. I have a tile hot plate with a Gandhi quote on it: 'Live simply that others might simply live.' I like that!

The mess in the Middle East has our bloody fingerprints all over it. Power-playing, carve-ups, corrupt deals. The usual suspects.

Another favourite of mine, from philosopher Peter Singer: 'In the end, the ability of the earth to support billions of human beings depends on whether we continue to equate consumption with fulfillment.' I guess that can mean consuming land, too.

Submitted by Turlough on

What makes me feel terrible is that the actions of Netanyahu and his awful government, with the support of numerous other governments and powerful people around the world, have made me change the way I feel about the dark history that Jewish people have suffered.

In the past I have visited several sites from the holocaust of the mid twentieth century, including the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland. I have come away from them feeling utterly sickened and struggling to hold back tears. These were feelings that disturbed me for days (and nights) afterwards and which never completely went away. But these days I ask myself if I were to go back there would I feel the same way having since seen the victims of one holocaust inflict the same inhumane terror on another nation.

I know the answer and I feel bad about it. What is happening is something I would never wish on anybody, but my sympathy for what happened in the past has become diluted.

Turlough

Submitted by GlosKat on

I know exactly how you feel Turlough because the same thing has happened to me.  They have squandered the huge wellspring of sympathy which every decent person felt for them post the second world war.  

 

Submitted by HarryC on

I absolutely understand what you're saying, Turlough. This is something that bugs me, too. I always try to look at both sides of an argument, weigh up the evidence, find some sort of resolution - even if it's a hard compromise - that I can live with. Similarly with the war in Europe. It's really hard to find any balance, and I don't like feeling I have to take a side. I see the entrenched positions on either side - the refusals to compromise, to negotiate, to honour agreements. And then, as mentioned, I question the idea of 'progress'. It implies improvement, enlightenment, betterment. But all it really means is 'moving forwards'. Nothing else. Moving forwards into what? I have to try to maintain my faith in the one thing that exists beneath all the labels and designations and affiliations and everything else. The one thing we all have in common. Being human. I'm sometimes afraid, though, to even think about what that means any more.

Submitted by Di_Hard on

Didn't know about the Donkey, that's horrific. They had the clip on the news again recently of the little girl in a car full of her dead relatives, begging for help as the Israelis closed in to finish her off. That we still have diplomatic relations with Israel's government is beyond me. What could we possibly be gaining that's worth more than not accepting this behaviour?

An archeologist (I am sorry, I can't remember his name) when discussing our ideas about progress, pointed out that homo erectus had lasted 2 million years, and homo sapiens have only been going 315,000 and are about to wipe out not only ourselves but most other life as well.

Thinking about the symbolism of Donkeys, so gentle and strong, Jesus rode on a donkey on Palm Sunday to show he was King of Peace

 

Submitted by GlosKat on

Thank you for your comments Di.  I support the Donkey Sanctuary and they do wonderful work all round the world helping donkeys and their owners who are usually some of the poorest people in the world.  I have visited their sanctuary in Sidmouth  and the donkeys are lovely, gentle, affectionate, intelligent animals.

Behind the heart-breaking story of the tortured donkey lies the heart-breaking story of the farmer who had his donkeys (there were several) stolen.  Is he going to be able to manage to run his farm without them ?  The settlers must hope not.

As if things were not bad enough, there is all this gratuitous cruelty. The donkey (why not just shoot him ?).  The small girl in the car, whom you mention.  The teenage boy shot and dying in front of the IDF who did nothing other than hold his mother back.

Why we have anything to do with this barbaric regime I do not know, when we impose sanctions on so many others on the grounds of human rights.  I guess, as Turlough says above, it's all about money.

 

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

It sickens me to hear about any sort of cruelty whether human or animal. Donkeys are such beautiful gentle creatures and to think this sort of thing goes on is a real tragedy. 

I really hope something does get done to stop not only the cruelty to animals, but also to human life too.

Jenny. 

 

Submitted by GlosKat on

Thanks Jenny. Great to see you are well enough to post again.  There is a little good news.  Since the donkey episode Ed Milliband has declared sanctions on any firm involved in the illegal West Bank developments.  It's a small step but more than any previous British government has done. At least it sends the right message  - the decent people of the world are disgusted.

.

 

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

That's such good new Kat. Thank you for letting me know.

Jenny.