Barnes. Pdf

 
Chapters 
19
ownership. The Balfour Declaration. Jewish immigration from Europe. The Second World War. European guilt over the 
Holocaust being paid for by the Arabs. The Jews having learned from their persecution by the Nazis that the only way to 
survive was to be like Nazis. Their militarism, expansionism, racism. Their pre-emptive attack on the Egyptian air force at the 
start of the Six Day War being the exact moral equivalent of Pearl Harbour (Franklin deliberately did not look at the Japanese - 
or the Americans - at this moment, nor for some time thereafter). The refugee camps. The theft of land. The artificial support 
of 
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the Israeli economy by the dollar. The atrocities committed against the dispossessed. The Jewish lobby in America. The Arabs 
only asking from the Western Powers for the same justice in the Middle East as had already been accorded to the Jews. The 
regrettable necessity of violence, a lesson taught the Arabs by the Jews, just as it had been taught the Jews by the Nazis. 
Franklin had used up two-thirds of his time. If he could feel a brooding hostility in some parts of the audience, there was 
also, strangely, a wider drowsiness, as if they'd heard this story before and had not believed it then either. `And so we come to 
the here and now.' That brought them back to full attention; despite the circumstances, Franklin felt a bubble of pleasure. He 
was the hypnotist who snaps his fingers. `In the Middle East, we must understand, there are no civilians any more. The 
Zionists understand this, the Western governments do not. We, alas, are not civilians. The Zionists have made this happen. 
You - we - are being held hostage by the Black Thunder group to secure the release of three of their members. You may 
remember' (though Franklin doubted it, since incidents of this kind were frequent, almost interchangeable) `that two years ago 
a civilian aircraft carrying three members of the Black Thunder group was forced down by the American air force in Sicily, 
that the Italian authorities in contravention of international law compounded this act of piracy by arresting the three freedom 
fighters, that Britain defended America's action at the United Nations, and that the three men are now in prison in France and 
Germany. The Black Thunder group does not turn the other cheek, and this legitimate ... hijack' - Franklin used the word 
carefully, with a glance at the leader as if to demonstrate how he disdained euphemism - `is in response to that act of piracy. 
Unfortunately the Western governments do not show the same concern for their citizens as the Black Thunder group shows for 
its freedom fighters. Unfortunately they are so far declining to release the prisoners. Regrettably the Black Thunder group has 
no alternative but to carry out its intended threat which was made very clear from the beginning to the Western governments ...' 
At this moment a large, unathletic American in a blue shirt 
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got to his feet and started running down the aisle towards the Arabs. Their guns had not been set to fire only one shot at a time. 
The noise was very loud and immediately there was a lot of blood. An Italian sitting in the line of fire received a bullet in the 
head and fell across his wife's lap. A few people got up and quickly sat down again. The leader of the Black Thunder group 
looked at his watch and waved at Hughes to continue. Franklin took a long swig of stale water. He wished it were something 
stronger. `Because of the stubbornness of the Western governments,' he went on, trying to sound now more like an official 
spokesman than Franklin Hughes, `and their reckless disregard for human life, it is necessary for sacrifices to be made. You 
will have understood the historical inevitability of this from what I have said before. The Black Thunder group has every 
confidence that the Western governments will swiftly come to the negotiating table. In a final effort to make them do so it will 
be necessary to execute two of you ... of us ... every hour until that point. The Black Thunder group finds this course of action 
regrettable, but the Western governments leave them no alternative. The order of executions has been decided according to the 
guilt of the Western nations for the situation in the Middle East.' Franklin could no longer look at his audience. He dropped his 
voice, yet could not avoid being heard as he went on. `Zionist Americans first. Then other Americans. Then British. Then 
French, Italians and Canadians.' 
`What the fuck has Canada ever done in the Middle East? What the fuck?' shouted a man still wearing a towelling maple-
leaf hat. He was restrained from getting up by his wife. Franklin, who felt the heat from the metal floor of his cage to be 
unendurable, shuffled his notes together automatically, stepped off the podium without looking at anyone, walked up the aisle 
getting blood on his crepe soles as he stepped past the dead American, ignored the three Arabs who could shoot him if they 
wanted to, and went without escort or opposition to his cabin. He locked the door and lay down on his bunk. 
Ten minutes later there came the noise of shooting. From five o'clock to eleven o'clock, punctually on the hour like some 
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terrible parody of a municipal clock, gunfire pealed. Splashes followed, as the bodies were flung over the rail in pairs. Shortly 
after eleven, twenty-two members of the American Special Forces, who had been trailing the Santa Euphemia for fifteen hours, 
managed to get on board. In the battle six more passengers, including Mr Talbot, the honorary American citizen from 
Kidderminster, were shot dead. Out of the eight visitors who had helped load supplies at Rhodes, five were killed, two after 
they had surrendered. 
Neither the leader nor the second-in-command survived, so there remained no witness to corroborate Franklin Hughes's 
story of the bargain he had struck with the Arabs. Tricia Maitland, who had become Irish for a few hours without realizing it, 
and who in the course of Franklin Hughes's lecture had returned her ring to the finger where it originally belonged, never spoke 
to him again. 
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