Commenters may wish to dig around on this one. Just how precise a correlation is there between media supporters of the illegal invasion of Iraq, and media supporters of the illegal attack on the Gaza convoy?
Take both old and new media into account. I think you will find the correlation is approaching 100% – and is a much higher correlation in the media than among politicians.
Now how do you explain this?
Discuss
Conspiracy theories are for losers I guess.
For me, this flotilla was a civil rights movement, similar to Sharpsville or Bloody Sunday or riding buses in Alabama, or Ghandi attempting to make salt on the shores of India. In each case protesters knowingly put themselves at risk for the sake of civil rights.
So far I haven’t seen journos making this point, but rather than moan about it let me simply ask: has anyone seen a well written article making these kinds of analogies?
Appreciate any good links you can find – w
Easy to explain, Craig… money.
willyrobinson
what conspiracy theory?
I have seeb quite a few comparisons to Sharpeville on the net. I agree it is a Sharpeville moment. There is also an excellent analogy between apartheid’s bantustan policy and the laughably misnamed two state solution.
Conspiracy theories are meant to bring ridicule, as for Craig’s question, who owns not just Reuters but the controls the whole mainstream media, hollywood included and who founded Israel? who controls the wealth of the planet?
we will now see total gun control in the uk, dunblane did the same except Bliar put a hundred year secrecy on that one. google Hollie Greig for the cracks appearing in Blairs nemesis, never mind Maddie
It certainly feels odd to me the way the people involved are regularly described as “activists.” It has a somewhat negative connotation. I am not sure what word I would use instead but certainly not that one.
Boarding a ship running a legitimate and declared blockade of a declared belligerent nation is LEGAL.
Shooting back at people trying to kill you is LEGAL.
No amount of posturing and lying about ‘illegal’ this and ‘illegal’ that, and ‘murder’ this and ‘murder’ that, from the usual crowd of Judeophobic numbskulls, is going to change that.
The majority of visitors to here probably wouldn’t notice it, but having left a city bombarded by its own government with my parents pushing us all in a wheel barrow to escape the wanton slaughter. I know when I see a totalitarian regime.
Israel and its supporters are simply predators as Ehud Barak made it clear:
Barak: In the Middle East, there is no mercy for the weak
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/barak-in-the-middle-east-there-is-no-mercy-for-the-weak-1.293751
Why the Uber Alles can’t see it now is because they are enjoying the privileges of the system they have adopted at the expense of everybody/everything due to a psychotically induced perception of superiority.
If Uber Alles are rewarded with high ranking officialdoms, economic advancement as those now here in the EU and USA. Why would they let go of it?
My solution to fight predators is to have a strong judicial institution which openly scrutinises the actions of government officials to stop them from carrying water for others except UK tax payers. There should be no aspirations in personal gains before country in UK government, otherwise this country will be heading to become another Zimbabwe.
I thought ‘activists’ only had a negative connotation in the US. All my friends would wear that term as a badge of honour. Is activist a dirty word in other parts of the world now?
John,
If Israel is a declared belligerent, why does it continually make protests about Hamas rockets?
Tony Blair and the ‘Politics of Condemnation’:
http://www.afghancentral.blogspot.com
@John – no-one wins ideological arguments by shouting 🙂
It is interesting to have some Israel supporters here, since in theory we can have a conversation to each try to understand the other. Demonisation of either side – as tempting as it is for all of us – doesn’t offer solutions, just frustration. However my experience with one or two people here who are severely critical of the generally pro-Palestinian position is that they appear to be here to throw around insults and cause disruption. I tend to ignore those people, to avoid significantly distracting the flow of the comments threads.
But those people are I am sure a minority – and if you want to have a conversation about this, I am happy to.
The people on the MM were unarmed, unless you count common boat equipment (such as an axe) as being “armed” against highly trained commandos holding firearms. The boat had already been searched for weapons by the Turkish authorities. All on board were humanitarians, seeking to highlight the destructive effects of the blockade Israel is imposing on Gaza.
You appear to trivialise the issue of legality, but if we don’t have law as a mechanism for agreement upon mutually acceptable behaviour, then what shall constrain us from greed? In terms of international law, the wall is illegal, the annexation of Palestine is illegal, the blockade is illegal, and war crimes have been carried out against civilians in a variety of Israeli military incursions. At the UN, resolutions usually go against Israel by a factor of 150-1, with the usual abstention from the US, or sometimes a small state that can be “persuaded” to abstain.
I hope we have agreement that criticism of Israeli policy or the culture of discrimination +some+ Israelis hold against the Palestinian people is not the same thing as anti-semitism. But, anti-Jewish racism does exist, and when Jewish people are collectively insulted, it does need to be challenged.
We should remember of course that Israeli discourse on the Palestinian question (one state? two state? permanent conflict?) is much more open in Israel than it is in the US, or, I wonder, the UK too. There are also good people in Israel in left/progressive blocs or humanitarian organisations who are horrified about what their country is doing to another, and the destruction they are visiting on another people.
I don’t at all hate Jews, given that they are not a monolithic bloc. Jewish people in Israel deserve to live in peace and security. But, their government is locked in a cycle of financial dependence on military conflict, and it is not helped that there are extremists on both sides who favour killing people for essentially religious reasons.
Jon,
I agree with pretty well all of that, but would only add that immigration from the ex-communist bloc has irreversibly tilted the political balance in Israel towards virulent and violent extremism. I would disagree that genuinely liberal Jews are stronger now in Israel than in the US.
@Craig
Sorry if I was projecting a bit. I love this blog for finding interesting and important stories that often pass me by in my cursory review of the media.
I have seen some civil rights analogies in pro-palistinian sites and blogs – preaching to the converted as it were – but little in the big media.
Again, all links appreciated – w
@CheebaCow – I am an activist. I like the word, and I reclaim it. But I agree that there is something about the word that is muttered about, or sneered at.
For the MSM, their ideological framework is about “democracy” i.e. all solutions come from the ballot box and the power of the market. And for members of the public, who in general are too busy to improve the world – the idea that someone wants to fix the world is discomfiting for people who think they should do something too, but won’t spare the time for it.
‘Jews’
There are no ‘Jews’ it is a man made term, like so many other man made terms. What we have is human beings who live on a planet spinning in space. We all live in somekind of abstract reality. That is the problem.
I can think of one exception – Andrew Sullivan.
But that’s all. The correlation seems pretty darn strong.
I’m far from being a fan but Johann Hari bigged up the 2003 invasion and has just written this over at the Independent…
“Everyone now knows the Israeli navy committed a machine-gun massacre on a ship in international waters that was carrying humanitarian aid for the blockaded people of Gaza, who Israeli officials joke they have “put on a diet”. The boat was armed with Holocaust survivors, Nobel Peace Laureates, food, medicine, cement to rebuild bombed-out homes, and a couple of metal bars that were grabbed at when armed gunmen illegally boarded the boat.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-when-hands-across-the-sea-are-tied-1990801.html
It is Israel and its lobby.
The only nation that gained from the Iraq invasion was Israel.
So the Zionist Lobby supported it. They also Support what ever Israel does unconditionally.
You will also see other correlations.
You will see a correlation between the politicians and media that attack Islam and the ones that support the invasion of Iraq and what ever Israel does.
You will see a correlation between the politicians who want to ban the Hijab and the ones that support this and ever other action of Israel, as well as actions to against Muslim nations such as the invasion of Iraq.
It is all the same people, and the agenda is “If it is good for Israel, it is good”.
Arsalan:
I disagree that Israel benefited from the Iraq invasion. I don’t doubt that Israel wanted the invasion, however I believe the rise of the Shi’ia has benefited Iran and Hezbollah most of all. I think that Iran is increasingly a regional power is one of the reasons why Israel is lashing out so irrationally now.
StefZ
I didn’t recall Hari as an Iraq war supporter. Are you sure?
Given its relative size, and its near fascist regime, it is quite staggering the hold Israel has over US politics and the media. They have succeeded in suppressing the vicious nature of their colonialism, at the same time influencing US Foreign Policy to an alarming degree – as you can see in their attempts to bring war to Iran. I don’t believe Obama agrees with them for a second, or indeed doesn’t despise them, but even a President is hemmed in by the potential firestorm they will provoke if he cuts their aid, supports the Palestinians or any other humane policy. The political capital he would have to expend to combat these fifth columnists would make his presidency unmanageable. He knows it, they know it.
This is the kind of stranglehold which makes it so difficult to get any justice for Palestine. In the UK it may not be so rabid, but it is still the case. Most of the commentators and interviewers have been pathetic in their lack of knowledge, or sheer inability to challenge the relentless torrent of lies and manufactured propaganda we have endured this week. The Israelis have poured a vast amount of time and money into propaganda, as well as ensuring the activists were unable to tell their story until now. Our journalists are mainly cowed by their own timidity, and unwillingness to acknowledge how they are being played for suckers. They are an open goal for Israel, whose demonstrably false and hysterical stories are privileged and given an unquestioned authority which is laughable in the light of their mendacity.
It will take a huge cultural shift to get interviewers to treat Israel with the suspicion and scepticism it deserves – very few asked the blindingly obvious questions they would have asked had it been a Hamas video or press release. However, it is slowly changing as people realise how far-fetched the absurd Israeli narrative is – ‘they forced us to kill them in the dead of night’; ‘wheelchairs can be used for terrorist acts, as well as pencils, jam, notebooks etc.’
Nobody thought protests and sanctions would ever change S Africa – yet they proved a crucial part of the overall demise of that regime. You have to hope that the same will happen to Israel. Certainly, apartheid almost seems benign in comparison to Israeli occupation and siege.
This very short excerpt courtesy of The History Channel may be of interest…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXqj9epGEas
Haven’t virtually all the traditional media (newspapers, magazines, radio, TV) been in favour of both?
“After three years, after 150,000 dead, why I was wrong about Iraq”
Johann Hari, 2006
http://www.johannhari.com/2006/03/18/after-three-years-after-dead-why-i-was-wrong-about-iraq
“Just how precise a correlation is there between media supporters of the illegal invasion of Iraq, and media supporters of the illegal attack on the Gaza convoy?”
i dont know why this is a surprise, just as it wasnt a surprise that the israelis were involved in talks between blair and bush (crawford) pre iraq war.
as david frum (he of axis of evil speech writer and leading neo con) has stated one can only be a neo conservative if one is 100% pro zionist.
as you must have realised by now all of our leaders are subscribers to neo conservatism as are many other parliamentarians.
similarly the media & affiliates who also prop up our politicians and in return our politicians who similarly prop up some in the media.
since 2001 nothing has changed the media is still pursuing the neo con agenda as are our politicians , regime change here and in the usa has not meant policy change.
why should this be the case – power and money – blair today is a very rich man and who can touch cheney ?
“Now how do you explain this?”
Anti muslim, pro “westerner” bigotry suffices.
“No amount of posturing and lying about ‘illegal’ this and ‘illegal’ that, and ‘murder’ this and ‘murder’ that, from the usual crowd of Judeophobic numbskulls, is going to change that.”
since when was this a jewish issue? surely it is about israel and its zionist regime.
does israeli government reflect or embody the morality and ethics of judaism. was its actions actually anything to do with judaism? id say not.
israel acted because it wanted to defend the very illegal blockade and continue the humanitarian catastrophe (united nations).
it was under instructions from its paymaster the usa.
once one realises that the usa holds all of the keys to the resolution of the palestinian – israel conflict then one can understand that its not the tail wagging the dog.
Arsalan
What do you mean re. the hijab?
I see it this way:
I haven’t read anything written by politicians and met on-one who want to ban the hijab, if by that you mean the khimar. The problem the West has is with the niqab and burqua. It’s about covering the face and eyes, rather than dressing modestly more generally.
In the West people are just not prepared to accept peoples faces being hidden in public transactions, for security as much as as equality reasons, and also see this as being about regarding women as second class citizens.
Many people also see Islam as requiring the West to make compromises while offering none itself – demanding respect for Islamic tradition but not respecting European customs and norms. For us all to move forward towards more harmony, the Islamic world has to be prepared to make some accomodations to reflect modern society, particularly in relation to cultural norms which are not in the Koran but part of later patriarchal custom.
“Given its relative size, and its near fascist regime, it is quite staggering the hold Israel has over US politics and the media.”
its not israel that holds power it is the zionist lobby, and in the majority they are american and christians. these were the core voters that supported bush (40% of his support) .
the fact that the zionists have a strategic hold in the middle east through israel is misunderstood as being israel having control over the usa.
the zionist network has its influences here too with cameron at PMQ’s declaring himself to be a friend of israel , in essence declaring his support for zionism (clegg and any nu labour leader is of the same political strain).
now why would cameron or hague or anyone else want to wear their support for israel as a badge of honor as peace activists are being murdered and 1.5 million palestinians muslims, christians and others of no faith / some faith are being held in one open concentration camp at near starvation levels?
israel or zionism?
The BBC website is doing a fine job of pretending to report this issue while gradually burying it.
Some time ago I read an article outlining how well the Israeli press office ran, they delivered journalists stories ready packaged, and gave them refreshments too. Journalists being up against deadlines and perhaps not overly eager to go out to where the shooting is file these stories.