“You have had to live with the missile threat from Gaza for fourteen years now. But now you face a new threat, the tunnels Hamas have built running here from Gaza. How concerned are you about that?”
Incredibly, that really was a question asked by BBC journalist Stephanie Bell of an Israeli man, just broadcast on BBC1. So far over 600 Palestinian civilians have died compared to two Israeli civilians (one of whom was a Bedouin who as a matter of policy are denied air raid shelters). Yet the BBC continues to pump out the narrative that the “problem” is Hamas attacks on Israel.
There are many other more interesting questions Stephanie Bell might have asked. Here are some:
“Do you ever wonder about the lives of the Arab families who lived here before they were removed by force? Whether any of them are now living in Gaza and under those bombs and shells”
“Do you honestly believe that this land is yours because God said so?”
The BBC had also been reporting as credible Israel’s appalling denials that it massacred those families in the UN school, and completely unsubstantiated claim it was stray Hamas fire that did it. The UN have confirmed that Israel has regularly been hitting UN schools and medical facilities.
“I’ve been searching for video evidence ”
Why? Do you not believe it’s happening?
Not really much to see:-
http://www.euronews.com/2014/07/11/israel-rockets-intercepted-as-hamas-threatens-to-hit-tel-aviv-s-airport/
The sanctions are squishy attempts to isolate Russia whilst keeping their cash cows healthy. It really is a daunting task.
http://en.itar-tass.com/world/742338
Aside from restrictions on Russia’s financial sector, the EC document mentions a ban on EU exports of sensitive technologies to Russia to target three areas: deep-sea drilling, Arctic exploration and shale oil extraction.
The European Commission may also impose an arms embargo to limit Russian weapons exports to Europe estimated at 3.2 billion euros a year and restrict trade in dual-purpose goods.
@Uzbek
You wrote “Ukrainian military (unlike Russian military in Chechnya) have avoided heavy use of artillery just because high possible civilian casualties” but it seems HRW disagrees.
Unguided Grad rockets launched apparently by Ukrainian government forces and pro-government militias have killed at least 16 civilians and wounded many more in insurgent-controlled areas of Donetsk and its suburbs in at least four attacks between July 12 and 21, 2014, Human Rights Watch said today.
The use of indiscriminate rockets in populated areas violates international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, and may amount to war crimes.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/07/24/ukraine-unguided-rockets-killing-civilians
I cannot fully understand why is Britain so much in hock with Israel (I am not allowed to say Jews, am I?). As N Mckenzie said earlier “the problem is not the BBC per se, but senior managers & politicians”.
I fully sympathise with the victims in Gaza, but, I am sorry to say, we cannot live in our own country either. The interests of the Jewish community always prevail to the detriment or the destruction of everybody else. Why?
“ESLO, yes, I’m sure your attempts to undermine and discredit the man who stood up to torture in Uzbekistan demonstrate your excellent moral superiority.”
You really are an idiot sometimes – just because I disagree on some matters with Craig that doesn’t amount to attempting to undermine or discredit him – I certainly do not disagree with his stance on Uzbekistan or Russia or human rights in general.
Hello Uzbek,
It is impossible to know how Habbabroken Ben is. He can but dream!
Definitely not better than sex and barely comparable with a cuppa, Habbabreak is a sanity helper tool for Craig’s blog.
Habbabreak can make those who annoy you disappear. A virtual FSB if you like.
I don’t like to think of you two Habbabreaking each other but it’s a freeish world and I am only a simple, open-source, free-love, communist-libertarian coder.
Isn’t it funny how the American is defending the Russian state and the Russian is defending the American state. Only on Craig Murrays blog!
Find Habbabreak Here
“ESLO, there are those who criticise diverse abuses, those who concentrate on certain abuses, those who don’t criticise at all, and those who perpetrate abuse. I’ve ranked these in decreasing order of morality. It would seem, by your repeated denigration of their morals, that you’d like those who criticise less than universally to leave the field of debate. ”
There are also those who criticise certain abuses but then defend the perpetrators of others – they are called hypocrites and such double standards actually demonstrates their lack of interest in defending universal but in forwarding one political position or the other. Such believers in the ends justifying the means whether religious, political or just plain lunatics are the source of most misery in the world’s history.
And thanks for the sound bite Ben. Added to the web site.
“ESLO- So you will castigate as racists and ethnic cleansers those who support the argument outlined in this article posted earlier by Doug the Dog ?”
Yes happy to do so. Will you also recognise that bigotry and racism is present with Hamas and their more fervent supporters as well?
Afrend; It’s total Fuckapalypse when cats and dogs learn to live together. 🙂
Many other useful gadgets on Greasy Fork (user scripts)
https://greasyfork.org/
With the emerging fluff of Maidans and Israeli stooges of late, Habbabreak’s stock value is increasing.
Uzbek in the UK, 2:47 pm: sorry, I had to do things.
Precisely because information is so much more easily available, it is not so highly valued by some.
The propaganda flows: “the conflict in Palestine is caused by Hamas. Iraq has weapons of mass destruction” – But information is available, leading many to believe that the distortions must be verifiable. Others do some checking and find they’ve been deceived, so they start to believe that they’re being deceived about everything, and start accepting the opposing propaganda. And a much smaller number accept that all sides deceive, and put up with never being sure about anything.
I was brought up as a Jehovah’s Witness; seven hours a week of indoctrination. Maybe that’s why I’m more suspicious of Russian as well as “Western” propaganda than some other commenters. You and me should compare notes sometime.
As best as I can tell, this is a very common illusion caused by the nature of commenting on blogs. Oh, I’m sure there’s some orchestrated deceit, but I think it’s vastly overestimated. It’s just as daft for you to suspect orchestrated deceit as it is for your opponents to dismiss you as MI5. I’ve been accused of being in Hasbara and of being “an agent of the New World Order” myself. Scouse Billy has been accusing Craig of being “controlled opposition”, but then he thinks that Tesla Free Energy machines are being suppressed and it’s best not to get cancer treated. He also used to hide his IP address by using TOR. Here is you, receiving actual threats in Russian, but it’s Scouse Billy who thinks he needs to protect himself! Ho hum. I’m not surprised you think the West is full of idiots. But just stay cool about it to help prevent it getting any worse.
Clark; Did you ever read ‘Crisis of Conscience’ by Ray Franz?
GF
“I cannot fully understand why is Britain so much in hock with Israel (I am not allowed to say Jews, am I?).”
Yes you can, and you just have. Come on forward!
The reason why Israel attacked UN schools is because it can. And the UN can not do anything about it. They can hold a vote. But no matter how many countries vote one way, all Israel needs is America’s veto. Or should that be called Israel’s veto?
America does what it is told. Because American politicians are bought and paid for.
Uzbek in the UK, it can look like orchestrated deceit because most information flows through a small number of propagandist sources. The sources really are orchestrated, so the arguments, when repeated by diverse commenters, look orchestrated too.
Uzbek is a drive by day character (no internet at home, for the rich right wingers), its blunderbuss Volleys of steadily shrill comments filled with insults whiffs of the “chosen one” kind. So far it has been whining and insulting its way, without offering anything in the way of back up, sort of enforcing Karimov principles, anyone who does not subscribe to UIK is mad, bad, idiot, etc….. everyone should take its word for it, I suppose it is a cultural thing!
However Elso seems to be working the late shift, as R2D2 is not on board with the usual harrumphs. Evidently the BullShit brigade have got their work cut out for them, when the whole world is up in arms about the crappy and inconsequential zionist regime that is running rampant and killing indiscriminately in the way of establishing the kingdom of G-D on Earth!!!!
However it does not detract from the fact that as the propaganda tax payers we should not be irate at the calibre of crap and so obvious propaganda fed to us by the broadcast organisation we are paying for.
ESLO, 6:38 pm:
Maybe they are hypocrites. Maybe they simply believe things that are false; after all, there are massive propaganda machines trying to convince everyone of various things. The problem is the polarisation of argument, and aggression in argument increases polarisation; you can see that in thread after thread after thread. I’d rather you tried to respectfully educate those you argue with instead of condemning and insulting them. I agree that the “end justifies the means” mindset is a cause of much misery. Therefore, diffusing that mindset is important. But that mindset itself is sustained by the polarity of the argument, the lack of respect of each “side” for the others.
And yes, I’m asking higher standards from you than from some of your opponents, rather like I have more criticism for Israel than for Palestinians. But in each case, I’m appealing to your/their own claims of moral superiority – you claim to be better, so demonstrate your compassion and respect by your deeds rather than pontificating about it.
‘Yes happy to do so. Will you also recognise that bigotry and racism is present with Hamas and their more fervent supporters as well?’
ESLO- yes, of course I recognise that some Hamas supporters both in Palestine and outside are Islamist bigots; their charter is often cited as proof of the same. These facts are widely acknowledged by western leaders and opinion formers- but the fact that an Israeli think tanker with establishment links is now openly advocating the ethnic cleansing of Gaza has not to date elicited similar criticism from western diplomats or opinion formers.
Ben-American, 7:00 pm; no, sorry, I haven’t read that. I suspect my eventual cause of death will be suffocation when my reading list topples over and buries me.
Can anyone tell me whether a representative of UNWRA (UN relief and works agency) stated that Hamas had hidden rockets in an empty school? (as stated by the BBC).I can find this anywhere,was the BBC lying?anyone know?
GF – “I cannot fully understand why is Britain so much in hock with Israel”
http://website.thejc.com/home.aspx?AId=46698&ATypeId=1&search=true2&srchstr=++%22big+jewish+backers+%22&srchtxt=0&srchhead=1&srchauthor=0&srchsandp=0&scsrch=0
GF – As for Labour, Miliband is Jewish. Which would open up real possibilities for taking a stand against the slaughter in Gaza. To say something really strong about it. But he’s so concerned about Gaza, (and all the other problems of the world) that his latest speech was all about his own image.
Thanks Je, I can imagine what living – if living that is – must be like, if we are attacked and persecuted here in the country where I was born.
I also suspect that Miliband does not take any stand or doing anything for free. Remains to be seen whether what he is doing or not doing will be worth anything in the end.
(By the way, I am also curious to see how the child abuse inquiry pans out.)
Sorry, I meant “I can imagine what living” in Gaza is like.
Efforts to derail transparent and efficacious info crosses all borders. Seen a lot of activity here? Look at Congressional ‘staffers’
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28481876
“Edits from computers using the IP address belonging to the House of Representatives have been banned before, following similar acts of vandalism.
Maybe someone at the House of Representatives better think about their IT staff”
Jimmy Wales
Founder of Wikipedia
The latest block comes after rogue edits were brought to light by a Twitter feed, @congressedits, which posts every change made from the government-owned address.
‘Russian puppet’
One of the acts highlighted was an alteration to the page on the assassination of John F Kennedy, which was changed to say that Lee Harvey Oswald was acting “on behalf of the regime of Fidel Castro”.
An entry on the moon landing conspiracy theories was changed to say they were “promoted by the Cuban government”.
Another entry, on the Ukrainian politician Nataliya Vitrenko, was edited to claim that she was a “Russian puppet”.
The biography of former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld was revised, describing him as an “alien lizard who eats Mexican babies”.
The standard issue answer by the news editors and producers would be; we report anything that is told to us by various ministers and their appointed staffers. thus if a zionist head hunch tells the man from the bbc that rockets were in the school in Gaza then bbc will report there were rockets in the school in Gaza!
That is until it reports from places that are on the list of favoured enemies, and that point all bets are off, the Jesus himself putting in an appearance to vouch for a fact or other is reported as; a filthy unkempt hippy approached our reporters to point out the apparent bias of the bbc in reporting and covering the atrocities and human rights abuses!
“Lord I don’t remember anything about that young boy I molested” Janner used to do the rounds on the telly and keep going on; “he is a very clever boy”! That was about David the elder one whom was at the time going for the leadership of Tony’s party. Later on after he did not get the job he was given the consolation prize directorship of CIA fronted company “specialising in extractions from hostile territories”.
So it is natural for the chap to talk about important stuff like himself, and keep on waxing lyrical about his favourite subject; himself!
Fact that Palestinians have been dispossessed made into refugees and are the whipping boy of the various lunatics rising to the top in the Jewish Supremacists zionistan is nothing to be concerned about, it is the natural order so far as these scum bags are concerned.
http://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/unrwa-condemns-placement-rockets-second-time-one-its-schools
There is of course a huge difference between storing ordinance in a vacant building and storing ordinance in one which is being used for refugees.