I resign

' To know the outcome, look to the root, study the past to know the future.'

Lieh-tzu

3oo ad.

I resign.

Palestine, 1968...

Barely a pause for a chat with the boys and we cruise through the crowded checkpoint with more than a touch of arrogance, I thought. First impressions of the notorious enclave are of a bland sort of a place. Hot sunny morning, quite a few cars, buses full of people, the pavements crowded. No sign saying 'Welcome To Gaza' though... hardly have applied to us if there was. Five armoured personal carriers, even a rubber shod tank, we ought to have made quite an impression. Locals hardly bothered to turn their heads though, and when they did, it was to regard us with sullen indifference.

I'm impressed by this ability to remain unimpressed. Cool sort of defiance, one of the last legitimate reactions left to them really, and they practised it with a solidarity even our eastern bloc friends would envy. My first time here, and the more I considered everything, the less my bloody involvement made sense. Of course, this could be because, like so many of the left wing radicals I associate with, I've been dropping a lot of acid lately. About to be made illegal, a pointless attempt to try and keep it out of the hands (and the heads) of the great unwashed. Kind of a last fling, end of an era or something. Very subversive stuff. Been way beyond the call of duty to find that one out. Perhaps a little too far....

Tried to convince them I really wasn't up to this trip at all, but there was no swaying the silly old sods. Suspect I'm about to be pulled from my long term assignment. Showing a little too much sympathy for the counter culture in my reports, probably. Reading between the lines that is. They're good at that sort of thing. Fucking crossword solving mentality. This unpleasant jaunt to the middle east a reminder of who's in charge. Stupid bastards. Nine languages under my belt, photographic memory and a couple of degrees, but none of the qualifications in gung ho needed for this bloody place. Being pushed to play the game on a different level. What they don't realise though, is that I've already had enough, right on the edge of telling them to go fuck their Whitehall mafia perks...

From my limited brief, I can only come to the conclusion that all this has something to do with Red September, or someone similar, blowing up US airbases in Germany. A case of the Germans asking the Americans to tell the Israeli's to deliver some local boy, and in a sign of true cross Atlantic cooperation, just because I happen to speak enough Hebrew and Arabic to get myself hung, they send me in as chaperone, security adviser, whatever, make sure he comes back in one piece. Which means I'm doing the bloody CIA's job for them. Amazing really, trusting another chinless limey, after Philby and everything... Play by their own bloody rules, so there you are. And of course here am I. Dazed and slightly stoned..

Eventually we leave the main drag and the ambience slides into ghetto fast. Reminds me of some of the seedier portions of New York. Burnt out cars, rubbish strewn streets, large spaces containing nothing but building rubble. I notice some of the buildings display obvious scars of machine gun fire.