So Soon Forgotten 205


The BBC has … started its news broadcast as usual from Ashkelon in Israel, highlighting rocket attacks on Israel. There is no mention on the BBC – there has never been any mention on the BBC, or anywhere in the Western mainstream media – that for at least 4,000 years Ashkelon was an Arab town, until in 1948 the entire, Arab population of 12,000 was driven out by armed force, many being massacred. Doubtless some older inhabitants of Gaza are refugees whose home is Ashkelon.

Israel is exercising its right of self-defence in precisely the same sense that Hitler was exercising the right of self-defence in Normandy in 1944 – ie not at all. Why the world puts up with this blatant ethnic cleansing and prolonged, agonizing genocide of the Palestinian people, I have no idea. It is not just about bombs and rockets and deaths now. It is about the shepherds being pushed out of their village in 2012 as part of the same process as the massacre of Ashkelon in 1948, all a process of genocide of the Palestinians in which Obama, Clinton, Cameron and Hague, as two whole generations of western politicians before them, are actively complicit.

I blogged this on 21 November 2012. Today every single BBC News bulletin leads with precisely the same trick, from precisely the same stolen Arab village. There is evidently a BBC policy to bias coverage of massacre in Gaza by basing it in the stolen town of Ashkelon. Every single BBC news programme is led by a report of the terror of people in Ashkelon at the rocket attacks which have killed and maimed – precisely nobody. There is then a brief “balancing” mention of the continual bombing of Gaza, which sometimes does and sometimes does not mention that at least 25 people have been killed, and hundreds maimed. Of the five reports I have seen, not one has mentioned that many of the Palestinian dead are women and children (although I once saw it on the strapline underneath). Rather the BBC says that “the Israeli government states it is targeting militants and weapons factories”.

The time given to the attacks on Palestine is abut 25% of that given to the rocket attacks on Israel. The coverage is also very different – we see human interest coverage of Israelis hiding from rockets in cafes. There is nothing remotely similar of the Palestinians under infinitely more deadly attack. There was one showing of funeral footage from Gaza, not of any of the women or children killed but of someone the BBC told us was simply a “militant”.

It is so blatant it is absolutely sickening. There are decent people I know in the BBC. Why do they put up with this?


Allowed HTML - you can use: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

205 thoughts on “So Soon Forgotten

1 3 4 5 6 7
  • guano

    last time
    this time

    This was another death threat from a mutual friend of Craig’s and mine. The political mind cannot tolerate another human being conceiving of a different world view to their own. I believe Islam is a religion of peace and worship. He believes it is an instrument of control. But he was hung upside down and electrocuted and beaten to helpless pulp by friends of Israel.

    That is why Israel does horrible things to pleasant, believing Muslim human beings, to turn them into madmen obsessed by controlling others. Talking of which, while the ISIS wounded are recuperating in Tel Aviv Hospital, they would also be spooning them with zombieing chemicals that make them forget their crimes against humans.

    The hung Nazis in the picture had been doing medical experiments similar to the Israelis now. Had they themselves been victims of Israeli manipulation? Yes says my gut feeling, and once you convert a certain portion of people to Nazi-Frankensteins or Caliphah-murderers, you can get the whole society to morph from cultured Protestant Germans into irredeemable criminals. Shit happens.

  • Ba'al Zevul (With Gaza)

    Thanks, Dre.

    Think they’re up to 13 kids dead now, and have achieved 16% – 17% of the target total deaths before magnanimously agreeing to listen to anyone about anything.

  • doug scorgie

    Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !
    9 Jul, 2014 – 5:14 pm

    “Is it conceivable that Hamas, which controls Gaza, might think it would be a good idea to ensure that rockets are not fired towards Israel?”
    ————————————-

    Yes they do think it a good idea (or they did until recently).

    But, Habbabkuk, you have it arse over tit as usual.

    It is Israel that breaks truce agreements. There is plenty evidence of this if you care to Google.

    For example:

    Ahmed Jabari, a Hamas militant, was successful in stopping rocket attacks by various groups in Gaza under a cease-fire agreement with Israel.

    During this cease-fire Israel assassinated him. Perhaps he was too successful for Israel’s liking?

    “Hours before Hamas strongman Ahmed Jabari was assassinated, he received the draft of a permanent truce agreement with Israel, which included mechanisms for maintaining the cease-fire in the case of a flare-up between Israel and the factions in the Gaza Strip.”

    “Israel’s return to the policy of assassination of leaders from the Palestinian struggle groups shows that the Israeli occupation wants to drag the region towards instability.”

    http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israeli-peace-activist-hamas-leader-jabari-killed-amid-talks-on-long-term-truce.premium-1.478085

  • guano

    Talking of mind control, which Aangirfan has contributed so much to our awareness of, the other day Craig was mocking a toff, the Viscount of Verulam. Craig will never understand until his last day because he has not been through it himself, the insidious mind control that the elite put their children through by sending them sometimes as early as five for the very rich dwellers abroad, to same-sex boarding schools.

    There is no warmth, there is no guiding hand, no wise presence, no kiss, no cuddle, no verbal or even written contact with busy parents far away. There is no knowing parent helping the child to form relationships with their own sex and with the other sex. There are no relationships because there are no women and if you took a male friend you’d get horse-whipped.

    So Craig, before you mock the toffs, please be aware that they have, unlike you, been quite severely mind-controlled. The public schools today are nothing like what we experienced and the boarding schools in Charles Dickens times were even more dreadful. A little humility would be kind.

  • babushka

    ‘hey diddle diddle
    the cat and the fiddle
    the cow jumped over the moon
    the little dog laughed
    to see such sport
    and the dish ran away with the spoon.’

    Sunday morning

    Argentine on Toast

    Please God I am wrong.

  • doug scorgie

    Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !
    9 Jul, 2014 – 5:56 pm

    “This comment is in no way meant to detract from Jonathan Cook’s merits as a journalist, but I do note that he is based in the occupied West Bank and cannot help wondering whether he would be free to write his books and articles and still remain alive and well if he were writing about Russian activities in Dagestan and Chechniya from a Russian town situated in close proximity to those two republics.”

    Firstly a correction Habbabkuk: Jonathan Cook lives in Nazareth not the occupied West Bank so no points for geography.

    Secondly your comment is a mere hasbara distraction and of no relevance to the discussion.

    האָבן אַ פייַן טאָג

  • Ba'al Zevul (With Gaza)

    No tweets on their Twitter account since May 8.

    Electronic Intifada is hosted by this: servers in US.

    http://www.tcpiputils.com/browse/ip-address/162.159.246.237

    From Cloud Flare’s Wiki:

    In June 2014, its services to many of its partners including Nigeria’s most visited indigenous website Nairaland.com has been suspended and it learnt it will not be restored until 30 June 2014.[citation needed]

    Why?

  • doug scorgie

    Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !
    9 Jul, 2014 – 6:00 pm

    “Must I once again – sigh! – remind readers of the fact that Jordan was happy to hold on to the West Bank from 1949 until 1967 instead of assisting in bringing about the creation of a Palestinian state”

    We know all that Habbabkuk:

    Jordan occupied then annexed the West Bank in 1948/49 not to help the Palestinians but to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state based on the UN 1947 partition lines.

    What is the point of your “reminder”?

    What are you trying to say?

    Spit it out man!

  • Ba'al Zevul (With Gaza)

    Jordan also gave the annexees full Jordanian citizenship and guaranteed access (except to Israelis) to the W. bank holy sites. When it inevitably relinquished its claim in 1988, it recognised the Palestine Liberation Organization, as “the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.”

    Compare and contrast with “filled West Bank with armed settlements, dispossessed inhabitants and turned vast areas into no-go areas for Palestinians, who were not accorded equal citizenship status (or even access to the R. Jordan’s banks); destroyed sole legitimate representative of the Palestinians, the PLO….etc.”

    Moral: Read Wikipedia entries all the way through.

  • doug scorgie

    Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !
    9 Jul, 2014 – 8:28 pm

    “Alex I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”

    Yes Habbabkuk and its down to you.

    Dynastic is not the same as monarchic get a dictionary.

  • Miss Castello

    With 130 comments (so far) to scroll through, a ‘reply’ button would be wonderful.

  • Mary

    האָבן אַ פייַן טאָג

    V good Doug. What’s the Yiddish for La Vita e Bella?

  • Mary

    I would love to see Netanyahu and and his vile crew running for cover. From Medialens.

    Netanyahu runs for cover in Tel Aviv;rocket at Dimona nuclear reactor; cows killed in strike on farm

    Posted by alquds43 on July 10, 2014, 12:57 pm

    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4540871,00.html

    Israel hit by fresh Gaza barrage after morning of widespread rocket attacks
    Iron Dome intercepts rockets in skies over Tel Aviv, others fall in open areas; Netanyahu runs for cover in Tel Aviv; Hamas fires long-range rocket at Dimona nuclear reactor; cows killed in strike on farm.

    Ynet correspondents
    Latest Update: 07.10.14, 13:27 / Israel News

    Air raid sirens sounded throughout Israel on Thursday afternoon, as a massive barrage of Gaza rockets were fired at the central and southern regions. Communities under fire included Be’er Sheva, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Sdot Negev in the south, and Rehovot, Yavne, Lod, Ramle, and Gadera in the center.

    Earlier, as the IDF’s Operation Protective Edge entered its third day, rockets were fired at the greater Tel Aviv area, as well as hitting Israel’s south, including near Dimona, home to Israel’s nuclear reactor. Another rocket hit a Netivot house serving as a pre-school, while residents near the Ramon Crater reported hearing blasts.

    Hamas on Thursday afternoon took responsibility for the massive rocket salvo.

    Israel’s advanced Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted the vast majority of the rockets fired at populated areas, often sending debris plunging to earth. In one incident, a number of cows were killed in the south after falling shrapnel hit their cowshed.

    Debris also fell on Israel’s coastal metropolis, after Iron Dome intercepted the morning salvo. Shrapnel landed close to a gas station in south Tel Aviv’s hip Florentin area, and even along parts of the city’s highway, causing light damage to some cars.

    In the south, sirens sounded Thursday morning in Dimona and Yeruham, near the Ramon Crater, and Netivot. Hamas also launched some 10 rockets at Ashdod, south Ashkelon, Ramle and Lod, as well as aiming for targets further north.

    Hamas said it fired M75 rockets at Israel, one of which was intercepted by Iron Dome, and later claimed it had fired 10 new Iranian-made long-range Sajl rockets.

    Rockets also fell in open areas in the greater Tel Aviv area; no injuries were reported. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior politicians joining him for a Security Cabinet meeting ran for cover in a protected shelter.

    Hamas also took responsibility for those attacks, and said it fired its long-range rockets for the first time since fighting began, in an attempt to hit an army base. On Wednesday, Hamas tried to hit Dimona’s nuclear reactor, but failed to reach its target.

    [Tel Aviv residents shelter from rockets in tower block stairwell (Photo: Noa Mayer)]

    Also Thursday morning, a rocket exploded near a road in the Sdot Negev Regional Council, causing damage to the road, but no injuries.

    Iron Dome also intercepted a rocket launched at the southern town of Netivot, also in the Gaza region. In the Ashdod area, some 10 cows died and many others were hurt after a rocket hit a cowshed on a local moshav, residents said.

    The attacks came on the heels of a day that saw rocket salvos and missiles reach deeper into Israel than ever before.

    Some 15 rockets were fired at Israel in a 15-minute span late Wednesday, all of which were either intercepted or fell in open areas.

    At least two rockets fell in open areas north of Zikhron Ya’akov, just 37 km south of Haifa, in what was the furthest reaching rocket attack since Operation Protective Edge began late Monday.

    According to the IDF, roughly 255 rockets have been fired at Israel since Operation Protective Edge began late Monday night. Approximately 70 rockets have been intercepted by Iron Dome, which is only activated when populated areas are threatened.

    Yoav Zitun, Elior Levy, Roi Kais, Ilana Curiel and Matan Tzuri contributed to this report
    First Published: 07.10.14, 08:40

    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4540871,00.html

  • Clark

    Miss Castello, 12:55 pm:

    “a ‘reply’ button would be wonderful”

    Android? Apparently:

    “you can click the little 4-arrow icon in the lower-right corner. This gives you a zoomed out view of the page and you can quickly scroll to wherever you like”

  • Mary

    A relevant poem by the great Palestinian writer, activist, PFLP Member, Ghassan Kanafani, assassinated in Beirut by Mossad, 1972.

    All your armies
    All your fighters
    All your tanks
    And all your soldiers
    Against the boy
    Holding a stone
    Standing there
    All alone

    In his eyes
    I see the sun
    In his smile
    I see the moon
    And I wonder
    I only wonder
    Who is weak and
    Who is strong

    Who is right and
    Who is wrong
    And I wish
    I only wish
    That the truth
    Has a tongue !
    -Ghassan Kanafani

  • Miss Castello

    Hi
    PSC has written an open letter to the BBC regarding its coverage of the bombings in Gaza. The letter will be delivered to the Director General, Tony Hall.
    The letter is on our website at http://www.palestinecampaign.org/sign-open-letter-bbc/ Please sign the letter and ask others to do the same. Signatures will be displayed on the website.
    Because of the volume of traffic to our website at the moment, you may see a message when you attempt to go the letter which says ‘Resource limit reached’. Please try again later. You will be able to get through if you keep trying, and we really appreciate your efforts.
    The letter is cut and pasted here:
    Dear BBC

    Once again Gaza is under massive aerial bombardment from Israeli warplanes and drones, and, once again, the BBC’s reporting of these assaults is entirely devoid of context or background.

    We would like to remind the BBC that Gaza is under Israeli occupation and siege.

    We would like to remind you that Israel is bombing a refugee population – Palestinians who were made refugees when they were forced from their land in1948 in order to create Israel.

    We would like to remind you that Gaza has no army, air force, or navy, while Israel possess one of the strongest militaries in the world.

    When you portray Israel’s shelling of a civilian population as a ‘response’ or ‘retaliation’ to rocket strikes from Gaza, we would like to remind you that these events flow from the displacement of the overwhelming majority of the Palestinian people from their homes and communities, with millions now corralled as refugees in the Gaza Strip. That initial injustice was compounded and continues with the ongoing occupation and siege.

    When you portray the occupier as the victim, and the occupied as the aggressor, we would like to remind you that resistance to occupation is a right under international law. And we would like you to remember that Israel’s occupation, siege and collective punishment of Gaza is not.

    And, finally, we would like to remind BBC journalists, when interviewing Israel’s spokespeople over the coming days, to ask the one question they have all failed to ask: “If Israel ends its occupation of Palestinian land, and allows the people of Palestine to live in freedom from Israeli domination, would that bring peace?”

    Yours
    Thank you very much for your support.
    Best wishes
    Amena

  • Mary

    Doug You say ‘spit it out man’. We don’t know whether our friend is male or female, where he/she is, anything about him/her other than that he/she is a troll with a nasty streak. Pretentious too.

  • Mary

    By e-mail today

    Here is another report that just came in from Denny Cornier, who is in Gaza witnessing the terror and the genocide of the Palestinians.

    From Denny Cormier in Gaza:

    I am still trying to process all that has happened in the last 36 hours. Although I had prepared myself weeks ago for the possibility that I would be in Gaza during an Israeli operation that I saw coming, I could not possibly imagine the barbarity with which this operation is being carried out.

    My life for the last 36 hours has been filled with stories of horrific attacks on civilians and non-combatants. I have heard almost constant bombardment of Gaza and the neighboring communities, and attacks on my own neighborhood by the seaport have been frequent and ferocious. More than once I found myself running for cover but there was no place to run. There is no place to hide from these angels of death that fill the skies over Gaza and over Al Meena hour after hour after hour… the sound of drones and helicopters and jets are punctuated by explosions that shake the house, that rattle the windows.

    I can only imagine how frightened the thousands of children are who surround me – children who are already living in the most challenging of circumstances – and who are now first hand witnesses to the worst instances of man’s inhumanity to man.

    I am confident that the young men and women who unleash these horrors upon a beautiful people (from their cockpits or with joysticks dozens of miles away from my home) will be brought to justice and will suffer the consequences of their actions – because we will decide as a people that a defense of “just doing my job” no longer has validity. You are not playing with monsters in the virtual world, my young friends. You are destroying homes and lives and dreams.

    Should you abandon your cockpits and joysticks, you may still avoid the wrath of humanity when it brings you before its tribunals because it will most certainly bring you before its tribunals. But if you choose not to, you will one day suffer the isolation that you have already embraced with a Pepsi in one hand and falafel in the other – you have freely chosen your own fate. And the hell that you have brought to this place will hold you forever in its selfish embrace. She is an unkind mistress.

    Greta Berlin, Co-Founder, the Free Gaza movement
    Editor, Freedom Sailors

  • doug scorgie

    Mary
    10 Jul, 2014 – 1:34 pm

    “Doug You say ‘spit it out man’. We don’t know whether our friend is male or female, where he/she is, anything about him/her other than that he/she is a troll with a nasty streak. Pretentious too.”

    Mary, I’ve had a psychologist friend read a good selection of his posts and she says he is definitely a he.

  • Ba'al Zevul (With Gaza)

    Noted for attention when the site calms down, Miss Castello, thanks.

    May I also solicit donations to this completely apolitical outfit:

    http://www.map-uk.org/

    Hundreds have been wounded, and the repeatedly-degraded Palestinian infrastructure cannot cope.

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !

    Mr Scorgie

    “Mary, I’ve had a psychologist friend read a good selection of his posts and she says he is definitely a he.”
    __________________

    I’m flattered by your attention, Doug. Does it mean I’m getting through to you?

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~=

    “Dynastic is not the same as monarchic get a dictionary.”
    ____________________

    Are not monarchies dynastic for the most part?

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    “Jordan occupied then annexed the West Bank in 1948/49 not to help the Palestinians but to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state based on the UN 1947 partition lines.

    What is the point of your “reminder”?”
    _______________________

    Surely the point is obvious, Doug? It is that Jordan bears some responsibility for the fact that there is no Palestinian state today.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    “Firstly a correction Habbabkuk: Jonathan Cook lives in Nazareth not the occupied West Bank so no points for geography.”
    _______________________

    Fair enough, Doug. But that reinforces the point I was making, doesn’t it? So Cook lives in the “belly of the beast” (Mary’s expression about Israel, I believe) and is free to write his books and articles in perfect safety. Had he been Russian and living in Russia however, and writing about Russian action in Dagestan and Chechniya, he would have been killed by now. Which shows once again that is more freedom and democracy in Israel, the country you hate, than in Russia, the country you admire.

    *******************

    La vita è bella, life is good!

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !

    Mr Scorgie

    “Is it conceivable that Hamas, which controls Gaza, might think it would be a good idea to ensure that rockets are not fired towards Israel?”
    ————————————-

    Yes they do think it a good idea (or they did until recently).

    But, Habbabkuk, you have it arse over tit as usual.

    It is Israel that breaks truce agreements. There is plenty evidence of this if you care to Google.

    ___________________________________

    Well, that’s your take and of course you’re free to express it : Hamas fires rockets because provoked by Israeli assassinations, etc.

    Personally, I think I’ll stick with Craig’s interpretation, which was :

    “I agree it is an utterly stupid tactic by Hamas. But I think the simplest explanation is that, like almost all political “leaders”, they are more interested in enhancing their own power than doing good for the ordinary people.”

    A take which, by the way, remains valid EVEN IF you were correct. Think about it.

    *****************

    By the way – any thoughts about the recent attack on the Brussels Holocaust centre in which 4 people were killed?

  • doug scorgie

    Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !
    9 Jul, 2014 – 7:20 pm

    “The Russian state would have bumped him off. Whereas he is alive and well in Nazareth, under Israeli occupation, and free to write whatever he pleases.”

    You are trying to say, I think, that Israel maintains a free press even in the occupied areas but:

    “Reporters Without Borders has condemned Israeli attacks on information freedom, journalists and the media in the occupied Palestinian territories, the organisation said on Tuesday.”

    “In a statement the group said: “Journalists have been targeted by the Israeli army. Others have been arrested arbitrarily. And security forces have been conducting raids on media offices. RWB urges the Israeli military to allow news professionals, whether Palestinian or foreign, to carry out their work freely and safely.”

  • Ba'al Zevul (With Gaza)

    Wish you wouldn’t quote the eejit, Doug. But let’s see how Israel fares in the freedom-of-information stakes at thios moment in time:

    Palestine Broadcasting Corporation – times out.
    http://www.pbc.gov.ps/English/about_us.htm

    Palestine Info – 24 Media journalist targeted and killed, colleagues wounded.

    http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7HtFExfKzhwqFoI5w%2fleY2Z77LzPorUhWAhVk2lemePY7KEOL74ylUOCFnGRuzd8x1NzGUUpAmmMhjcK%2fFOAEc6NgquazPoLNQ5OpyA06%2bog%3d

    Palestine News Network -times out (and has done for hours).
    http://www.english.pnn.ps/

    IMEMC – back after a break
    http://www.imemc.org/

  • doug scorgie

    The IDF on Thursday afternoon contacted by phone Arab residents of Gaza living near the security border, warning them to evacuate their homes immediately.

    The phone calls were sent to a total of roughly 100,000 Arab residents of the Hamas stronghold. Among the cities and towns targeted in the phone warning were Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, and Absan, according to Walla!.

    In the phone warning, residents were told to evacuate and go to the west [the sea] or south [a locked gate] in order to avoid civilian casualties.

1 3 4 5 6 7

Comments are closed.