Hadn’t thought of this poem by Canadian poet AJM Smith in years. Decades more probably. It’s called News of the Phoenix and was published in 1943 - and no, that’s not when I last saw it. But what brought it to mind, of course, was the nature of the reporting of the Iran war. The attacks and deaths that are reported and revised and denied as we evaluate the sources. And no doubt as the sources re-evaluate their own positions. Clearly Prime Minister Starmer would desperately like to be on the same side as Israel and the US, but also on the same side as history. As Lord Peter Ricketts, former head of the UK Foreign Office, warned: “If you’re going to attack a country you have to show it is in self-defence and that there is some kind of imminent threat. You can’t make that case here”.
So the British bases in the Republic of Cyprus have seen increased activity but it is referred to by both the UK and Cyprus as precautionary. On the other hand the UK Defence Secretary’s claim that two missiles fired “in the direction” of Cyprus were intercepted has been flatly denied by President Christodoulides, a politician not normally known for understating threats.
Meanwhile reasonably consistent rumours have it that Netanyahu’s plane was not given permission to land in Cyprus and settled for Germany instead (presumably en route to New York). Noting that he was required to avoid French and Spanish airspace.
And the title of Patrick Cockburn’s biography of his father, guérilla journalist Claud Cockburn, which we read a year ago, comes to mind. “Believe Nothing Until it is Officially Denied.”
Posts
