I was trying to come up with a witty and apposite acronym for BBC to describe what I have just seen on TV, but all I could manage was Beyond Belief Cunts.
Watching BBC World News here in Accra, I have just seen forty minutes of intense and non-stop Israeli propaganda. A live press conference by Netanyahu and Ehud Barak followed by a long, long interview with Mark Regev in which the most searching BBC question could fairly be paraphrased as “How can you be certain that those dastardly Palestinians will not break the ceasefire and start firing rockets again?”
No attempt whatsoever to give a Palestinian a chance to put over their viewpoint. Now fifty minutes of solid coverage around the ceasefire without a single Palestinian view or pro-Palestinian or pro-peace view. And in that entire fifty minutes not one mention of Palestinian dead.
Beyond Belief Cunts. Actually, it’s not a bad effort.
WHAT A PATHETIC BUNCH OF LOSERS! HOW ABOUT A THREAD FOR THE PALESTINIANS, CRAIG! HOPE U R FEELING BETTER.
Palestine’s UN status upgraded
The United States and Israel voted against recognition, joined by Canada, the Czech Republic, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Panama.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/palestines-un-status-upgraded/story-e6frg6n6-1226527258142
As the Zionists in Palestine in the early 20th century were well aware, the Christian and Muslim Palestinians were in the main not just descendants of other Canaanites different from the ancient Hebrews, they were probably in the main themselves descended from those same ancient Hebrews, whose ancestors in their case converted to Christianity and Islam. The conversion of many Palestinian Jews to Christianity in the early centuries A.D. is historically extremely well attested. The conversion of many Jews in Palestine to Islam in the centuries following the Arab conquest stands to reason. Arabic was just another Semitic language, Islam shares many features with Judaism. I don’t know enough about the historical sources from the period after the Arab conquest to be able to say how well attested this conversion is.
YES! Statehood for the Palestinians!
So much for the Againsts and the Abstains calling themselves “The International Community”! But I’m worried; Israel is likely to retaliate in some way.
https://twitter.com/harryfear
Islam doesn’t share Judaism’s racism. I don’t care who was descended from whom, but until recent times most Jews in the Middle East had Arabic as their mother tongue.
Israel, US & UK failed to water down the draft:
Palestinians Win Statehood Status at U.N. Over U.S. Objections
It opens the door for Palestine to become a party to the International Criminal Court, allowing them to bring cases against Israel…
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/palestinians-win-statehood-status-us-objections/story?id=17837415#.ULf5qGfNm_h
@Lysias
Being of the chosen religion alone is not all that was required to escape repression and real threat of extermination, the 2ionists weren’t particularly keen on the tiny minority of Jewish inhabitants of Palestine who lived there in perfect harmony with all the other peoples, in the earlier part of last century and who themselves were vocally against new arrivals from Eastern Europe, till they were swamped and silenced. Zionism is a pure racism, any original inhabitants of Palestine were considered mortal enemies, the few genuine Palestinian Jews too.
@Lysias, my somewhat cryptic post at 5:38 was iro Masada.
the pathetic abstainers, including my own country, australia. apologies to the palestinians, but my govt does not speak for me, or for my friends, or for many decent australians:
The 41 nations abstaining from today’s vote:
Albania, Andorra, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Colombia, Croatia, Dem. Rep. of Congo, Estonia, Fiji, Germany, Guatemala, Haiti, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malawi, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Poland, Korea, Moldova, Romania, Rwanda, Samoa, San Marino, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Togo, Tonga, UK, Vanuatu
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2012/nov/29/egypt-crisis-morsi-constitution-live
Clark;
If you can manage, please post more often.
Very sorry to see Germany and the UK standing on the sidelines like this – appalled at the actions of the bullying US/Israel, but afraid to do anything but hold the bully’s coat while the little guy gets a thumping. Not brave enough to even go with the moral majority, stand on their side, and say this one – Palestine – deserves to be treated as part of humanity, like the rest of us.
The Netherlands too? That is indeed shameful. Dammit, that’s much more disappointing – they ought to be a standard to which we aspire, not a US stooge with whom we collectively cringe.
But the day was good, nonetheless. Israel/Amerika has to confront the horror – The Horror! – that Palestinians are people too. Not just an amorphous lump of bad people who need to be got rid of and forgotten about.
A memory from Spitting Image:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeDk6ZeGNnU
…and what if something similar was written about Israelis? Still, I’d better shut up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4r_a5adehs
Ben Franklin,
you must be an optimist to think that the decay process of radionuclides in phosphate fertilizers gives you a state of radiation euphoria from smoking cigars. The measured average levels in fertlizer were 75 Bq/kg, (range 3–283) for 235Ra and 25 Bq/kg (range 0.5–110) for 210Po. I could not find any values for 214Pb but there is no reason to expect that the emmision of 214Pb would be higher by several orders of magnitude as its concentration depends on the availability of 235Ra in the sample. Besides 214Pb is a beta emmiter (energy 1,024 keV) and thus not terribly dangerous. You would have to consume about a ton of such a fertilizers to get the desired effect. To my best knowledge, there is no reliable measurement of 210Po in tobacco, as there is no compelling reason for performing such as a stupid task. Some authors give a value of 0.01 Bq/g, which is not really a measurable amount. So forget it
Karel; My point had to do with the plausible presence of the chemical in question, even in a microgram over a lifetime of smoking. It would be an effective delivery device for greater concentrations…(.See polonium arafat)
Macky:
As the Smyrna history is little known, I recommend this book….
From the tone of your post, I assume the book does not mention the fact that the Smyrna (or İzmir) event took place after the Greeks, unencouraged by the Allies, had decided to invade Turkey. On their way to their defeat near Ankara the Greeks committed atrocities to match anything the Turks were later to do in İzmir, and repeated the outrage on their rout back to the coast.
Neither side comes out of it with much honour, but the Turks were severely provoked. I don’t think it’s a terrific parallel for Palestine.
There is an unemotional and neutral account here. Recommended.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805068848
The presence of Polonium 210 in tobacco has been known about since the 1960’s but it also occurs naturally in fruit and vegetables. In the long term continued exposure might cause cancer but it would be difficult, if not impossible, to build up a lethal dose over a long period of time because of the short radioactive and biological half life of the substance.
From the ZBC vomitarium…..
The vote is the lead story. They quote Netanyahu, the Israeli ambassador to the UN and Clinton and even have a video of Prosor. They report the divide between Hamas and the PA. They cannot help repeating their ‘Israel says…’ stuff. Generally a negative slant is applied.
‘The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to recognise Palestine as a non-member observer state – a move strongly opposed by Israel and the US.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said this was the “last chance to save the two-state solution” with Israel.
Israel’s envoy to the UN said the bid pushed peace process “backwards”, while the US said the move was “unfortunate”.’
/..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20550864#
It says it all when this country’s name is at the end of the Abstain list followed by Vanuatu’s.
You can’t beat a cheesy pasty, but an equal amount a potato highlights, the necessity for its fine attributes in the almost perfect pie.
Equal recognition and a fair outcome and let us do what we do best.
Good luck to the Palestinian people.
No they didn’t cut Clarissa’s words. 19’40” in. The name of the recipe she mentioned was ‘Bollocks TO Blair’! LOL
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01p3yb3/The_One_Show_29_11_2012/
The preceding item was about water voles in Scotland. Absolutely beautiful.
Mary, I think we’ll all endorse Clarissa’s ‘Bollocks to Blair’.
The faces of Susan Rice and Ron Prosor at the UN vote are a picture. What revenge for their humiliation will they wreak ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP3moV2gi1s&feature=player_embedded#!
It took a trail through four pages to get to the names of the board of the Press Complaints Commission. Why the hunt Lord Hunt? Seven editorial members and ten ‘public’ members. The usual suspects.
{http://www.pcc.org.uk/about/whoswho/members.html}
Their case list. Note one G Brown MP who objected to his claim for £20 grand for air travel from Edinburgh to London being exposed. http://www.pcc.org.uk/case/resolved.html
G Brown’s ‘recent appearances’ on TheyWorkForYou
Has spoken in 1 debate in the last year — well below average amongst MPs.
Has received answers to 7 written questions in the last year — below average amongst MPs.
Replied within 2 or 3 weeks to a medium number of messages sent via WriteToThem.com during 2008, according to constituents.
Has voted in 14.00% of votes in this Parliament with this affiliation — well below average amongst MPs. (From Public Whip)
People have made 762 annotations on this MP’s speeches — well above average amongst MPs.
Good Luck Palestine, history will change, but Israel is now clearly in a corner and we all know what rats do when they are cornered, they jump.
This is the time for our murderous ME envoy Mr. Blair to visit the West bank and argue for the dismantling of road blocks, the logical solution to this UN decision, see what Regev says to that. Sorry, just day dreaming into my egg and soldiers.
Thanks for making me laugh this morning, Clark, have not seen that for years and never seen the Essex is crap video.
If spitting image would have had ever done an Israeli version of that video, all hell would have broken loose, the BBC would have banned it and the creators, Peter Fluck and Roger Law would be fearing for their life’s
@Komodo, My “tone” ?! The other person who I noticed sometimes gets pulls up on his “tone”, is Norman Finkelstein, so I guess I’m in good company !!
Ok, firstly my parallel was with physically trapped unarmed civilians being openly murdered for a period of weeks, while the World’s Powers looked on, and did nothing to help, but you really need to know the full details to realize the apt comparisons. I was not suggesting an overall parallel between the Greco-Turkish War & the Palestine/Israeli conflict, but Turkey could certainly teach the Israelis a thing or two about successful ethnic cleansing.
You are factually incorrect to state that the Greeks were “unencouraged” by the Allies to invade Turkey; Greece was enticed to join WW1 on the promise of having the mostly Greek inhabited city of Smyrna, (and in another parallel with Palestine, which was promised both to the Palestinians & the Jews), Smyrna was also secretly promised to the Italians. In the end the Greeks with full Allied authority landed in Smyrna to prevent the Italians doing the same. In fact, following the defeat of Turkey in WW1, the Greeks automatically assumed that they would be able to reclaim Constantinople, and their Army had started towards it, until they were forced by threat of war by Britain to stop, and encouraged to invade the interior instead. The Allies subsequently quickly betrayed the Greeks, when they realized that they could do deals with Attaturk iro the oil fields of Mesopotamia (Iraq).
You are factually correct to state that the Greeks committed atrocities, as the Greek army fleeing in a desperate rout from the advancing Turks, tried to slow them down by conducting hasty scorched earth operations, which involved the burning down of Turkish villages, with indeed were marred by many atrocities, but even if they wanted, they didn’t have time to commit organized massacres as some try to claim they did; an atrocity is an atrocity, but contrasting a panicking, frighten fleeing soldiers whose command structure has collapsed, to an army of victorious & vengeful soldiers, who were given free license for two whole weeks to rape, murder & plunder a trapped civilian population, does not give a true comparison.
Your “unemotional and neutral account” can’t be much good if you weren’t aware of any of the above, and such omissions are frankly to be expected from an account written from a British perspective. You may feel that the account I mentioned is biased because it is written by an Armenian, but remember the best scholars of the Nazi Holocaust are considered to be Jewish, and I urged to read her book, but failing that at least view this four part interview with her (apologies in advance for the appalling interviewer !):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu2Zx6Oayp0
Well, well, Macky. We aren’t going to agree on the sanctity of the noble Greeks vs. the evil barbarism of the horrible Turks, are we? Still, I think I may have as good a grasp of the “facts” as you, having looked at the other side as well.
Mirror image of your assertions here:
http://perrya.hubpages.com/hub/The-Greek-Invasion-of-Turkey-1919
With numbers. And a short account of what the Greeks did in İzmir first. They didn’t expect to be returning as a defeated force.
Also, despite something of a numerical disparity, the weapons on both sides were comparable. Unlike Israel/Palestine.
The author of the excellent book I cited is a Jewish American, btw. No axe to grind in this conflict, and reasonably dispassionate about Israel, too. The book gives the broader context for Greek designs on a very vulnerable Anatolia, failing getting their hands on İstanbul. And the failure of Sykes-Picot to resolve anything much after WW1…
Anyway, you’ll never read it, so this is a bit of a waste of time, isn’t it?
It just occurs to me that the real villains in this were Britain and France, who declined to evacuate non Brits and non French from İzmir while the slaughter was taking place.
envoi for donald/buttons
The Minister said it wald dee,
the cypress buss I plantit.
But the buss grew til a tree,
naething dauntit.
It’s growan stark and heich
derk and straucht and sinister,
kirkyairdie-like and dreich.
But whaur’s the Minister?
(Douglas Young, Last Laugh)
“I think I may have as good a grasp of the “facts” as you, having looked at the other side as well”
Sorry Komodo, with due respect, the more you post on this subject, the more apparent it is that the opposite is true; your first Post stated as gospel that “after the Greeks, unencouraged by the Allies, had decided to invade Turkey”, whereas your second Post now provides a link that confirms what is known by everybody even remotely interested in this subject, “that Greece was chosen to this occupation by the Paris Peace Conference” + “England, France and America decided that just Greece would occupy İzmir” & “…which prompted the British to urge the Greeks to land in Asia Minor”.
Although the article is a little suspect, and I really don’t have the time to check all its “facts”, it still does confirm your “what the Greeks did in İzmir first” is lacking qualifying context, namely, “many local Turk leaders chosed to resist defiantly. In the Turkish areas of Izmir, men ran up and down the steets calling for recuits to resist the occupation, some fires were set, groups gathered to plan and speeches were condemning the arrival of Greek troops on Turkish soil. Lacking weapons, the Izmir Reserve Officers Group led hundreds of angry Turks to the local police armory and busted down the doors, seizing the weapons and ammunition.”, and that the spark, being the first fatality, was the shooting dead of a Greek waving a Greek flag. Which of course doesn’t justify the events that followed, however the author states that the tally of what followed as “at least 300 Turk civilains”, and then gives a breakdown that consists of “Some 62 Greeks, 78 Turks, and 22 others were either killed or wounded”, so his arithmetic is obviously as bad as his spelling ! Anyhow he does have the grace to mention that “two Greeks were sentenced to die by execution for excessive conduct”
“We aren’t going to agree”
I am mature enough to known that Human Nature is the same for everybody, ie there are “noble” Turks as well as “evil” Greeks, so please don’t try to insinuate racism; the historical record is what is it, and events are recorded & documented, and everybody is able to study the accounts, weigh the evidence, and draw their own conclusions.
“Unlike Israel/Palestine”
Again you conflate what happened to the civilians of Smyrna with the whole of the Greco-Turkish War, and that with Israel/Palestine, which is not what I’m doing, which is linking the horrors of the captive population of Gaza during the three weeks of Cast Lead, to the final two weeks of horror experience by the captive population of Smyrna.
“you’ll never read it”,
For sure I will if I come across it, and I will probably learn of new facts & details, but I cannot imagine that it will seriously alter my impressions & understanding, formed from many years of reading about this tragic event.
“It just occurs to me that the real villains in this were Britain and France”
Many, many villains & countless innocents victims as a result.
Thanks to Lysias for the nod about Shlomo Sand’s latest book being out in English. (Have they thrown him out of the Uni yet?)
And guess who the Guardian decide to profile today?
“Susan Rice: the sharp UN ambassador fighting for her political future”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/30/susan-rice-un-ambassador-profile
The same bitch who made a veiled threat at the UN:
“Today’s grand announcements will soon fade and the Palestinians will wake up to realise that little in their lives has changed … This resolution does not establish Palestine as a state.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/29/united-nations-vote-palestine-state?commentpage=1
I thoroughly enjoyed myself reading all 925 comments on the above.