The Guardian’s main headline today is the Israeli propaganda framing of last night’s huge massacre.
The Zionist grip on the political and media class is stark. Ordinary citizens are left with feelings ranging from rage to deep sorrow, but with a feeling of helplessness at having no power and no genuine voice in the country where they live. The bought-and-paid-for politicians intone “Israel’s right to self-defence” as justifying the slaughter of any number of Palestinian children.
They pretend they do not see the obvious genocide which is happening before their eyes. The Guardian’s framing of the death of hundreds, probably thousands, of young children last night, as destruction of Hamas tunnels, ought to be astonishing. Sadly it is entirely unsurprising.
Here is a reminder of how it works. Joan Ryan MP secretly filmed talking to Shai Masot of the Israeli Embassy in London.
Labour MP Joan Ryan discussing a £1M "donation" from the Israeli Embassy with Shai Masot, an Israeli agent plotting to "take down" MPs hostile to Israel.
No biggie. It's not as if Joan helped "take down" Jeremy Corbyn or anything.
Oh, hang on. She did.pic.twitter.com/5doWEquCri
— Frank Owen's Legendary Paintbrush🥀🇵🇸🇾🇪 (@OwenPaintbrush) September 8, 2023
Last night, well after the latest extreme massacre phase had started, the BBC 10 o’clock evening news presented a single volley of Hamas no-warhead popgun missiles – which as usual killed nobody – as equivalent to the massive Israeli high explosive bombardment. They then featured a lengthy interview with a “heroic” clean-cut Israeli soldier who fought a Hamas attack on a military base on 7 October despite being wounded, and who explained that the attacks on Gaza are justified as they will free Israel from terrorism.
All this while the massive massacre was in progress in Gaza. The strange thing is, the BBC and the Guardian, and nearly the entire rest of the MSM, pump out their propaganda as though we have no other access to information or understanding of what is happening.
More than that, there seems to be a presumption that the general population harbour the same Zionist assumptions which the journalists are paid to promote. Well, we don’t. It feels like something has snapped, not only in Palestine but in the UK and much of Europe, where the process of alienation between the governed and the ruling classes has been accelerated.
Democracy has been failing in the West for a while – to take the UK as an example, the idea that a “choice” between Sunak and Starmer offers any kind of democratic alternative is risible. There are key moments in societal breakdown, and this is one.
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Here’s the full UN vote from Friday.
– Venezuela could not vote because illegal US sanctions prevent it from paying UN fees.
– Tunisia abstained in protest, saying the resolution was too weak and should condemn Israel for committing genocide.
https://nitter.net/BenjaminNorton/status/1718244650413335001#m
RoS ..
Regarding your post @ 14;10 28th October – Re Musk’s Starlink Help to aid organizations in Gaza
Now Israel are going to fight against Musk’s effort to offer Starlink satellite internet to after communications were cut off late Friday. – According to Israel’s communications minister, Shlomo Karhi
The Number of Children Dead will be over 4000 by tonight ..as those souls trapped under rubble perish.
The west makes me Feel Sick… allowing and supporting this evil.
Meanwhile police are looking for three women and a man who attended pro-Palestinian protests in London – three of which had images on them of paragliders.
Counter-terrorism detectives appeal for help from the public in identifying four people.
Pic: Met Police
You could not make this shit up.
Surely people who define laws (politicians) and respectability (media) can be expected to be law abiding and respectable. But are they decent?
Paragliders… add them to the list of banned images of inanimate objects. Didn’t the invaders also ride motorbikes too?
It’s certainly ill-advised and in v. poor taste, sure. But beyond that, policing is getting sillier and sillier.
The IDF are slaughtering thousands of innocent civilians, and you can cheer them on as much as you like. Or even go fight alongside them if a dual national. Commit war crimes and come home to Blighty, as if you’ve done nothing wrong.
And sandwiches… and trousers… boots… water… all used by “terrorists”.
The Hamas invaders used speedboats as well. Maybe the police had better start warning their water police counterparts not to use speedboats if they have to chase crooks.
Basically the right-wing press and politicians are frothing at the mouth because they know they are out of step with public opinion, over calls for a ceasefire, and their unqualified support for Israel’s disproportionate response. Most of the public have gone from sympathy, to revulsion, with Israel.
Hence, they do the only thing they can do ; which is the pressurise the police chiefs to make arrests.
“Meanwhile police are looking for three women and a man who attended pro-Palestinian protests in London – three of which had images on them of paragliders.”
Let’s just hope that a lot of “well-meaning” individuals send them on a series of wild goose chases.
Starmer thought he was going to be a certainty for PM…
A week is indeed a long time in politics.
Well, someone is going to have to be PM. But there are no suitable candidates. So whoever gets the job will be unsuitable.
Civil disobedience is about the only ‘rational’ alternative to this corrupt status-quo.
Has Hamas issued any statement agreeing they will abide by any cease fire, temporary or permanent?
Has Hamas agreed to free all hostages?
Has anybody suggested a hostage exchange as a guarantee of good faith during any cease fire? How about 200+ Hamas members hand themselves over to the UN, to be held and subsequently exchanged on a one-for-one basis with the western/Israeli hostages held by Hamas?
All I ever read are one-sided calls for one of the belligerents to tie its hands behind its back. That’s not diplomacy, that’s for sure. Neither is it any recipe for a cease fire that will ever hold.
Has Israel done any of those things? note, you are speaking as if this was an actual war, between more or less equal belligerents. and you ignore the 2 million hostages in Gaza.
John Main, no ceasefire has been agreed to by the only body that has any legal authority: the UNSC. You cannot insist that Hamas make any such decision when the US is resolutely opposed to it with their veto.
“All I ever read are one-sided calls for one of the belligerents to tie its hands behind its back. That’s not diplomacy, that’s for sure. Neither is it any recipe for a cease fire that will ever hold.”
No mention of course of how the other of the belligerents is having its hands tied behind its back, due to the cutting off of water, energy, and food supplies.
Will the Israelis remove all blockades to Gaza at the same time as agreeing a ceasefire? And don’t give me that sh1te about they would only use it to re-arm. What do you think the ten US long haul military transport aircraft an hour landing in the country 24/7 are doing for Israel?
I have an interesting document regarding the right to self defence:
“criteria for recognition of an enemy force as a proper combatant, subject to the rules of war:
1. The enemy force must not be a wild horde, but had to be subject to clear leadership;
2. they had to wear recognisable markings;
3. they had to carry their weapons openly; and
4, they had to uphold the laws and customs of war…
according to Articles 42 and 43 of The Hague Convention the legal use of force in occupied areas rested with the occupying authority, while the civilian population had no inherent right of resistance. Indeed, the same convention provided for a ‘right of repression’ in order to compel irregular forces and the occupied civilian population to abide by the rules of war. To this dubious ‘right’ belonged hostage-taking and reprisal executions”
The title of this book is “The GERMAN Army Guerilla Warfare Pocket Manual 1939-45” edited by Charles D. Melson. (The above quote is from page vii and supplied by Stephen G Fritz, author of “Ostkrieg: Hitler’s War of EXTERMINATION in the East”.) Emphases added.
I will have to see whether Zionists are using the same justifications as the Nazis did for their bestial behaviour on the Eastern Front…
via Moon of Alabama:
“An Interview On Gaza With Dominique De Villepin (As Translated By Arnaud Bertrand)”
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/10/interview-with-dominique-de-villepin-as-translated-by-arnaud-bertrand.html#more
“(…)
Arnaud Bertrand has translated a radio interview with former Prime Minister of France Dominique De Villepin:
Absolutely masterful interview on Gaza of Dominique De Villepin, former Prime Minister of France, who famously led France’s opposition to the Iraq war and who, IMHO is the best diplomat the West has produced in decades.
(…)”
Then there is a link to Gabor Maté:
https://twitter.com/Resist_05/status/1712402483115614498
“(…)Holocaust survivor Gabor Maté describes the Israel 🇮🇱 Palestine 🇵🇸 conflict as the longest ethnic cleansing operation of the 20th 21st centuries…(…)”
p.s. Herzl however might be an interesting literary character, a storyteller of sorts, but never offered any sound political solution.
He kind of went into “political science” creating this fiction of a solution for the Jewish issue in Europe as a surrogate for his failed aspirations of being a famous novelist or journalist.
So basically he made up a fantastic “novel” that would turn into reality. And as fiction vs. reality go that means mostly devastation for those real people subject to that fiction.
(That´s in essence also the tragic history of Italian Futurism turning into Fascism, when poets make politics, when aesthetical theory determines laws and rules of a state.)
Neither “Altneuland” nor “Judenstaat” ever seriously refer to the people who already lived in Palestine. That´s what makes them “expressions of a psychosis of their author” Herzl. Since normally you would expect long studies and surveys done in the area in question and THEN build the concept on the raw data collected. Not the other way around.
But Herzl never did any of that. I think he never even travelled the region.
Albeit good-hearted by nature and not interested in power Herzl´s naive approach devoid of any reference to the realities does resemble the US neocon ideology. Here too, humans in countries far away become subject to fictional political constructions. Usually those do not turn out to be to the advantage of the “subjects”.
Surely it’s beyond debate that the US is aiding the Zionist murders in their genocide of the Palestinian people.
“In a report on Saturday, the American news organization The Intercept said that the Pentagon was quietly moving ahead to construct facilities for American troops at its secret military base – codenamed Site 512 – deep within the Negev desert, just 20 miles from the Gaza Strip.
It added that the longstanding Site 512 is in fact a radar facility, whose mission is monitoring the skies for missile attacks against Israel, yet it failed to detect thousands of rockets fired by the Palestinian Hamas resistance group on October 7 as it focused on possible incoming missiles from Iran, more than 700 miles away.
The Pentagon awarded the $35.8 million US troop facility contract to add barracks-like structures for US personnel to Site 512, which is atop Mt. Har Qeren in the Negev, almost two months before the current war between Israel and Hamas began, it said.
The report comes as US President Joe Biden and his administration claim that Washington has no plan whatsoever to deploy US troops inside Israel to engage in the current war but a secret US military presence in the occupied Palestinian territories already exists, and government contracts and budget documents show it is evidently increasing. ”
— https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2023/10/28/713562/US-secretly-expands-classified-military-base-occupied-territories
Interesting ROS however my intelligence suggests Britain told Mossad that a Hamas attack was forthcoming and Mossad did nothing so I suspect the U.S. knew also. Why they chose not to share this information with political decision-makers is open to inference.
mark golding.
As Henry Kissinger once said.
“It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”
You just have to look at what’s happening to France and its colonial hold over some countries in the Sahel, whilst US bases in the same countries don’t at first appear to be subject to the same actions.
I think you may be over estimating the UK’s intelligence gathering capabilities, even taking into account that the Sovereign Base Areas on Cyprus are a superb location for eavesdropping on the entire area ?
It may not be too fantastic a proposition that Hamas may have pulled off an intelligence coup that compares with that achieved by Michael Collins when he effectively destroyed British intelligence gathering in what became the 26 Counties ?
However, and given the fortuitousness of the crisis and its ability to have changed the political scenery, its probably best to rule nothing out. 🙂
Apparently, according to Iran via Sputniknews, 5,000 US troops are already aiding israel on the ground.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20231028/total-of-5000-us-soldiers-partook-in-israels-overnight-raid-in-northern-gaza—reports-1114553591.html
Given the source it could be propaganda but how many US Citizens already proudly wear IDF uniforms.
When Egypt – under Mohammed Mursi/Muslim Brotherhood – had some courage
In 2012: Protesting Israel’s Gaza operation, Egypt withdraws ambassador from Tel Aviv
https://www.timesofisrael.com/protesting-israels-gaza-operation-egypt-to-withdraw-ambassador-from-tel-aviv/
Mohammed Morsi on Israel
https://www.e-ir.info/2013/12/12/president-morsi-egypt-and-israel/
Likewise:
In 2014: El Salvador joined 4 other Latin American states to recall Ambassador from Israel
https://borkena.com/2014/07/30/el-salvador-joined-4-other-latin-american-states-to-recall-ambassador-from-israel/
But this time, when the bombardment is like 15x more severe there is only passivity on the diplomatic front. No state have even called up the israeli ambassador for a protest or mere “concern”!?
Jack
It is now the opposite: the Israeli representative to the UN calls for Guterres to resign, and the Israeli Ambassador to Spain is claiming that Spanish politicians are aligned with terrorists because they have called for butchery of civilians to stop.
Jack.
In the same vein: When the USA had some balls.
https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2023/10/how-eisenhower-forced-israel-to-end-occupation-after-sinai-crisis/
To say that democracy is failing in the west is a bit of a generalization. Yes, it is failing in the USA and the UK, in Poland and Hungary, but elsewhere it is doing OK, if not perfectly.
“In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of régime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way…”
George Orwell
Well said Yuri.
Just a reminder what the corrupt Palestinian Authority/Fatah/PLO is about:
Palestinian officials were often more concerned with applying pressure to Hamas than easing the crisis in Gaza.
Senior Palestinian Authority officials expressed frustration that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were able to evade the tight Israeli siege of the territory by breaching the border wall and through tunnels to Egypt. One, Ahmed Qurei, even suggested to then Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in 2008 that Israel reoccupy the Gaza-Egypt border area to keep Gaza sealed and to help “defeat” Hamas.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2011/1/25/cutting-off-a-vital-connection
Spy Cables: Abbas and Israel ally against 2009 UN probe
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas colluded with Israel to prevent war crimes charges, according to new leaks.
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2015/2/23/spy-cables-abbas-and-israel-ally-against-2009-un-probe
Good dissent speech in the UN by the Pakistan envoy about western backed pro-israeli resolution that only want to condemn Hamas but never Israel
Video https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cy8z9u7rWDF/
Re: taking down of Corbyn, I thought it was actually the American far-right behind the plot, who hid behind their client state of Israel because they didn’t want an opponent of NATO in power in the UK. Israel was just the smokescreen. Needless to say, given the institutional incompetence of the CIA it backfired, and Corbyn now has far more credibility than the election winner Johnson.
Looking at Keir Starmer now, people can see that the antisemitic hysteria was based on fanatical support of Israel by Starmer and his cohorts. Problem was, and still is, Corbyn just doesn’t want to get on the offensive. Beginning every utterance with “antisemitism is abhorrent” or “I condemn Hamas” just plays into the opponents hand. Look at Trump….he doesn’t let sex allegations affect him and the voters become forgiving. Corbyn would do well condemning Jews for not speaking out at Israel’s actions and be damned at the backlash.
The basic trap is to visualise the whole conflict as that of Jews against non-Jews. In fact Judaism was highjacked by zionists to build a colonial state of people of various European origins often with very tenuous connection to either Judaism or of being traditional Jews. The project has gone wrong when the religious zealots took over. The most effective opponents of the current state of Israel and those who write most cogently and clearly about it are Jewish scholars and academics.
These days, being Jewish doesn’t stop you being called anti-semitic.
Exactly
This is a good book that explains this
https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/news/friends-of-israel-the-backlash-against-palestine-solidarity
Nor being Palestinian it seems.
I agree with all you say except this.
“The project has gone wrong when the religious zealots took over”
SA, I would contend messianic religious zealotry is a feature of Zionism not a bug and the agents of British Oligarchy have known since the start, that by spending a few quid and finding the right psycho or useful idiot, they can turn this feature on at the right moment. Consider this from the first propaganda organ to champion Zionism in Britain, the Guardian, selling it to the public as necessary to the future of British imperium.
“Palestine must be… inhabited … by an intensely patriotic race… On the realisation of that condition depends the whole future of the British Empire as a Sea Empire.’
Herbert Sidebotham, Manchester Guardian’s (26 November 1915)
You wrote exactly how I feel. The cognitive dissonance between what I know are blatant lies from the government and media and the fact that they are aware the majority of the population know they are lying to them and still they do it, is breathtaking. How can they possibly feel so untouchable? It is like the Iraq war all over again and simply put, unless the protests turn violent and turn up on those arrogant fucks’ doorsteps, then the end result will be the same … Hundreds of thousands of dead brown kids and zero fucks given or lessons learned by the political and media establishment.
They act the way they do because they believe they have no skin in the game. They are mistaken. Recent history has many examples of the bloodshed that can easily be unleashed on the comfortable, ignorant West. All this shit will come back to bite us on our shores. Manchester, 911, Paris, etc.
Have I got this right, Stevie? When you state: “All this shit will come back to bite us on our shores. Manchester, 911, Paris, etc.”, you’re being prescient – but when I merely point out that, per capita, British Muslim communities have access to more assault rifles (and the rounds to go in them) than older, white, traditionally Labour-voting communities in northern England and the Midlands, like I did on the previous thread, I’m being racist and should be on GB News?
“but when I merely point out that, per capita, British Muslim communities have access to more assault rifles..”
No you didn’t, what you actually wrote was “I think it’s also worth bearing in mind that, per capita, British Muslims have more full-auto assault rifles than older, white, traditional Labour voters.)” Spot the difference? Anyway, as I pointed out, given that you also postulate that the white traditional Labour voters have no assault rifles (and no access to them), that was a fairly meaningless statement, as the British Muslims could hardly have less. So yes, you were being disingenuous in a way that looks very like racism.
Thanks for your reply Bayard.
Re: ‘Spot the difference?’
No.
Anyway, if we’re being pedantic, where did I say that older, white traditional Labour voters in northern England collectively own no assault rifles (or have no access to them)? Dessie Noonan was fairly left-wing, though not a communist as far as I know, and there’s a fair few like him that’ll be getting on a bit now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Noonan
With regard to your comment below: UK gun laws directly after the Second World War were fairly similar to those before the war, and it’s fairly easy to hit person-sized targets at close range. The reason that there was much political change around that time was because a lot more people voted for Clem Attlee’s Labour than before.
So you really can’t see the difference between “having” and “having access to”? Perhaps you should go to a few English evening classes.
“Anyway, if we’re being pedantic, where did I say that older, white traditional Labour voters in northern England collectively own no assault rifles”
Here: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2023/10/fighting-the-british-police-state-somebody-has-to/comment-page-1/#comment-1048223
“Almost all of the guns held by older, white, traditional Labour voters in northern England/the Midlands will be legal (i.e. no assault rifles).”
Are you really too lazy to go back and read your own comments?
“UK gun laws directly after the Second World War were fairly similar to those before the war, and it’s fairly easy to hit person-sized targets at close range.”
Where did I say these would have been legal weapons? It’s well known that there were a lot of illicit weapons floating around after WWII. A friend of mine’s father had two machine guns as “souvenirs” and my uncle “forgot to hand back” his service revolver when he left the army. As to ease of hitting targets, I don’t think that someone who thinks you can shoot yourself in the side of the head with a .22 pistol and survive has any business pronouncing about things like that.
“The reason that there was much political change around that time was because a lot more people voted for Clem Attlee’s Labour than before.”
No shit, Sherlock! Voting a government into power is one thing. Keeping it there is quite another.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. Fair point as regards my original question. I should have written ‘i.e. not many assault rifles’ (I was forgetting that the OG guys are getting on a bit these days – John Haase* in his 70’s now). Happily, I’m not in my 70’s yet, but I’m still too lazy to do a lot of things. As regards illegal weapons, ‘having’ and ‘having access to’ means essentially the same thing.
I really don’t think that the Churchill government of 1951-55 decided not to reverse many of the policies of the Attlee government because they were worried that a few people had kept some ‘souvenirs’ from the war and might launch an armed insurrection. Quite a few guns have also gone AWOL from British Army bases in recent years, but obviously the authorities don’t want people to know about that.
I’ve looked up the history of UK gun law and found that before WWII, the maximum penalty for being found in possession of an unlicensed firearm was three months hard labour and a £50 fine (equivalent to around £2000 today) – and that would have probably been reserved for people with extensive criminal records. That didn’t change until 1968 (23 years after the end of the war), when it was increased to three years imprisonment (hard labour being abolished in 1948) and an unlimited fine. If your uncle hadn’t been a thief, he probably could have joined a gun club after the war, obtained a licence, and bought a revolver legally.
The reason I know that it’s not too difficult to hit largish targets at close-to-medium range with an assault rifle is because I’ve done it myself as a novice with someone else’s gun in Amerikkka, and I was a size 10 at the time (don’t worry, I was being supervised at all times). I also really don’t want to go through all this again but, as I’ve previously told you, .22 short ammo is significantly less powerful than .22 long rifle (which was what killed RFK – who was only pronounced dead 24 hours after being shot in the head). I never stated that a single .22 short shot was incapable of killing, just that it’s not guaranteed. No one at the scene disputed that Willie McRae was found unconscious but alive, and died later.
* He bought a fair few full-auto assault rifles in his time, though mostly for his get-out-of-jail wheeze involving Michael Howard (but I best not say any more about that).
“As regards illegal weapons, ‘having’ and ‘having access to’ means essentially the same thing.”
No they don’t. Since I live in the country I have access to quite large amounts of explosive in the form of nitrate fertiliser, should I care to go and steal it. If I had it, I would be breaking the law.
As to hitting things at close range, why are you talking about assault rifles? No-one had assault rifles shortly after WWII.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. What I meant by ‘having access to’, as opposed to ‘having’ an assault rifle, was burying one in the countryside, rather than keeping it in your house which can be risky. Unlike with fertilizer, whether you’ve bought illegal weapons or stolen them, they’re still illegal.
The first assault rifle is generally considered to be the German StG 44, which saw action on the western front in WWII, so it’s conceivable that people like your mate’s dad could have pilfered some from dead/captured Germans. In any case, a few hundred people with legal bolt-action rifles would still be a formidable force, but politicians in the 40’s/50’s wouldn’t have been particularly worried about that, just as today’s politicians aren’t particularly worried about ISIS. If they were, most of them wouldn’t attend PMQs.
“How can they possibly feel so untouchable?”
They only have to look at history. When was the last time there was a popular revolt that succeeded in the UK? Never. The closest thing we have had was the Socialists coming to power after WWII and that was only because the majority of the adult male population were trained soldiers with reasonable access to arms. The Establishment are not going to make that mistake again in a hurry.
They do it anyway because they know the English will just shrug and carry on. Protestors and activists just aren’t being “British”.
Latest demo??!
Here’s that most perncious thing.
According to reports (from US websites) the Israeli governernment has cut off the internet in Gaza (read the US has cut off the nodes that 85% of the world’s internet relies on) and therefore if any ‘atrocities’ occur they will remain unwitnessed.
What happens next may not be recorded and remain unknown until many years later.
That is scary.
Musk is turning Starlink on in order for the various aid agencies to communicate. Journalists on the ground in Gaza, are today lobbying hard to be included.
The contrast with occupied Ukraine is stark, isn’t it. US and UK are providing billions in weapons systems to UKraine, including Patriot air defence, tanks, MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), strike coordinates for Russian positions in real time. And yet here, the poor old Gazans are facing off against a regional superpower, Israel, backed by a global superpower, the US. Even calling it ‘war’ is offensive, when one side only has smuggled arms and workshop made rockets. And aside from the human tragedy of this slaughter, the damage to buildings and infrastructure must be running into the hundreds of billions already. Northern Gaza is being turned into a parking lot to make stealing the land a formality.
The protests in the West must lead to sanctions on Israel now. The idea of the EU paying for rebuilding Gaza after Netanyahu unhinged massacre should be a complete non-starter.
Musk says Starlink will provide Gaza connectivity for aid groups
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/musk-says-starlink-provide-connectivity-gaza-through-aid-organizations-2023-10-28/
Yes
Mark,they are using the cloak of silence to murder indiscriminately, whilst lying about numbers of death in Gaza, making out that the Palestinians are genociding themselves.
These rogue Zionist liars are dangerous, liable to use everything they’ve got to achieve their racist genocide and wider war.
“The Zionist grip on the political and media class is stark.”
Surely it is the joint US-Zionist grip on the UK political and media class. The role of the British establishment, how it works, in relation to these two is far from clear to me.
“There are key moments in societal breakdown, and this is one.”
Agreed.
If there is a nascent, progressive political party waiting somewhere in the wings to step on to the stage, now would be the time to do it, when the British political and media classes are rightly held in the contempt they deserve and a new political party would be able to make large strides laying out ethical foreign and domestic policies and programmes.
Is there anybody there?
In the north (at least) of England, check out the local meetings of the new Social Justice Party. Many of the MPs and councillors forced out of the Labour party have joined.
I have found the BBC reports being quite extensive on what is happening in Gaza, especially in reports and interviews with the doctors at the Gaza hospitals.
And Israel has not been happy of some that BBC coverage, as well as BBC not specifically calling Hamas terrorists!
Also, BBC online website has been giving a lot of detail on the situation in Palestine,
Tho, I’m guessing, BBC still feel the need to report on both sides. That does give us an idea of what some inside Israel think.
Regards Jeremy Corbyn, it was quite clear there was a group of MPs in Labour who accused him of being anti-Jewish simply as a means of forcing him out.
They at first blamed him for the Brexit vote in England, and at a time when the tories were in turmoil, instead of seeking to benefit from that, Labour MPs went to war with their own boss!
They didn’t succeed then, so used the very toxic anti-Jewish ploy; and unfortunately for Labour, they got what they wanted in MP Starmer.
John McTernan was on the wireless a few days back, I think it might have been Radio Four’s “PM” , and it was about Keir Starmer’s strategy and dissatisfaction within Labour.
His couldn’t-care-less attitude and casual dismissal of those in Labour unhappy with Starmer over the situation for Gaza and Palestine was appalling.
He was absolute about Labour not wanting to be accused of being anti-Jewish, ever again.
The only major national leader thus far to openly accuse Israel of being war criminals is the President of Turkey. Tho, he would have a bit more credibility here, if he wasn’t treating the Kurdish people in more or less the same way Israel treats Palestine!
But he is at least speaking the truth of it, regardless of anything Israel says.
“Tho, he would have a bit more credibility here, if he wasn’t treating the Kurdish people in more or less the same way Israel treats Pasletine!”
He has the credibility of speaking from experience, though. Takes one to know one, as the saying goes.
Maybe Corbyn had to go because he wouldn’t have been on board with the present wars against the palestinians and russians (which would have to be planned years in advance). Nearly every western politician is on board and this would have required a lot of coordination.
Absolutely. This has been building for years: not just the leaders either. The Media have been demonising the Russians and Chinese through a series of obviously concocted stories with little credibility but much overt bias – and once a lie is told repeatedly it becomes the “truth”. So now the Skripal Saga has become “fact”, as has the MH17 one, as has the “genocide” of the Uighurs (see Gaza for what genocide really looks like – or for that matter any country where white settlers replaced the native population and still repress and abuse their victims).
Corbyn has long campaigned on Kurdish rights too hasn’t he. Yet during the antisemitism crisis a lady in the BBC Question Time audience said she suspected he’s antisemitic because she kept hearing him talk about Palestinian rights but not Kurdish for example. And no one corrected her about the Kurdish, not Dimbleby, not even Abbott on the panel.
Let us be clear on the subject of Palestine. The Palestinians are the indigenous people and are in a majority. Roughly 90% of these native people were expelled from the area that became Israel to Gaza as refugees – now subject to ethic cleansing in spite of the British mandate and more recently controlled by Israel (i.e. the West bank including East Jerusalem and Gaza) – in defiance of International law.
Winding back to just after Christmas 2008, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, a massive, brutal 22-day military assault on the Gaza Strip. The ferocity of the attack was unprecedented, killing some 1,400 Palestinians and over 350 children, including terrible white phosphorus burns. It was in fact a surprise attack initiated by Ehud Barak who had engineered an end to a cease-fire by a raid on Hamas killing a number of their people.
Moving forward from there we reach “Israel’s Operation Protective Edge” in which according to the UN, at least 1473 of the dead were civilians, including 501 children and 257 women, with another 379 individuals yet to be identified. According to PCHR, 1660 Palestinian civilians were killed, including 527 children and 299 women. According to the September 4 2014 UN Gaza crisis report:
“450,000 people were unable to access municipal water systems due to infrastructure damage and/or low water pressure. On average, 20% to 30% of Gaza’s water and wastewater systems remained significantly damaged.”
According to the UN, 22 schools were destroyed and 118 damaged, and at least six teachers killed. As a result of the ongoing violence, schools being damaged and destroyed, and displaced people taking refuge in schools, nearly half a million traumatized children had the start of their school year delayed, from August 24 to September 14.
The figures you give show the difference between then and now. The numbers of civilian dead were very low compared to today.
Your “facts” about who are the indigenous people on any area of the world’s surface depends absolutely on the date you arbitrarily choose.
Regarding Israel/Palestine, a historian choosing say, 10 AD, will arrive at a different set of “facts”.
Let’s be clear about that.
“Regarding Israel/Palestine, a historian choosing say, 10 AD, will arrive at a different set of “facts”.
Let’s be clear about that.”
Regarding practically any country in the world, with the possible exception of China, a historian choosing say, 10 AD, will arrive at a different set of “facts” (about its indigenous population”). Let’s also be clear about that.
It’s something called “history” of which you appear to be unaware. Over time, things change. What was a fact 2000 years ago is no longer a fact now. Today we have new facts which are true today. Go back another 2000 years before the Exodus and the “indigenous” population will be different again.
Let’s be clear about Israeli carnage in Gaza and let ‘indigenous’ well be indigenous.
And these were the same people who lived there since 10AD. Have you got any evidence for this, genetic, documentary or otherwise? The fact is the people who were there in 1948 had been there for several generations in the area which was their homeland. Those who came after 1948 were from all other parts of the world and of different genetic and social makeup. By definition they were invaders.
I think the Jews who have lived in what is now Palestine/Israel since 10AD are generally called “Palestinians”.
– “More than that, there seems to be a presumption that the general population harbour the same Zionist assumptions which the journalists are paid to promote. Well, we don’t. It feels like something has snapped, not only in Palestine but in the UK and much of Europe, where the process of alienation between the governed and the ruling classes has been accelerated.”
I was in London at the demo for the Palestinians today. It was huge; larger than COP26 in Glasgow, the biggest demo since Don’t Attack Iraq in February 2003.
Act Now.
Bravo!
Someone I know had to walk from Elephant and Castle to join the demo, as the Underground and buses were all shut down.
The Palestinian death toll from the ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7 has risen to 7,703, the Health Ministry in Gaza announced on Saturday.
The fatalities included 3,595 children, the ministry said in a statement.
It said 19,734 citizens have been injured since the start of the attacks.
The ministry also stated that Israel “committed 53 massacres” in the violent bombardment on the Gaza Strip overnight.
The Israeli army on Friday widened its air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip, which has been under relentless airstrikes since the surprise offensive by Hamas on Oct. 7. International aid agencies said they lost contact with staff in Gaza after Israel knocked out internet and communications.
Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are grappling with shortages of food, water, and medicine due to Israel’s massive air bombardment and total blockade of the enclave.
The UN General Assembly called for an immediate humanitarian truce, with 120 states voting for a resolution put forward by Jordan. Israel, however, rejected it.
What is happening to Palestinians could be happening to any of us anywhere. When uber supremacists have absolute power, it’s a very dangerous thing and we are all at risk. We have no say and they neither represent nor work for us the people.
When pro-israelis start spreading propaganda about palestinian rockets one should remember how few these rockets actually kill:
Of thousands rockets sent: from 2001 to 2015, these attacks have killed 33 people in Israel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel
33!
Compare that with the 10000-20000 palestinians killed during the same period!
And then they claim Israel is the victim and under threat??
‘Hamas is not a terrorist Movement’, Brazil’s President Lula Da Silva confirms
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231029-hamas-is-not-a-terrorist-movement-brazils-president-lula-da-silva-confirms/
The whole “terrorist” label – past decades have really turned the term on its head as we clearly see now where the systematic dropping of thousands bombs on the whole Gaza enclave, killing civilians in the thousands, are “self-defense”, and when the bombed people respond it is abhorrent “terrorism”.
Anyone catch the Al Jazeera piece on settler activity in the West Bank?
Recently-arrived settlers from the US, Russia and gawd knows where else, upon their arrival, get handed automatic rifles by Israeli politicians. They’re then allowed to go and intimidate and harass unarmed Palestinian farmers; farmers whose families have managed the same olive groves for hundreds of years.
They set up road blocks; burn vehicles and burn down olive trees. All aided and abetted by the IDF, who lurk menacingly in the background. The Palestinian Authority, in Ramallah, are complicit in this. As are bordering Jordanian authorities. It’s a similar story with Egypt and Gaza’s Rafah crossing. Oppression of Palestinians is a regional joint enterprise. And ultimately it’s the heavily Zionist-influenced US, who prop up the surrounding Kings and military dictatorships, with so-called ‘military aid’, who are the main guarantor of this injustice.
I was trying to think of when the Grauniad became a shitty newspaper, I stopped reading it around the mid nineties on the realisation that the issues that concerned it did not concern me very much. Since then it has drifted into exploiting irrelevant issues. On some things it was OK but it seemed to be off kilter with world news, political correctness and stuff like that. Now it seems to shadow what happened to the Sun when Merdeork gained control. It feeds a narrative an entitled middle class want to read with little regard to inconvenient facts. It feeds on a mixture of sensation and trivia while at the same time peddling Neo-liberal propaganda. When I looked at the website it was only to check what poisonous nonsense Nick Cohen was spouting. Now he’s gone, for reasons I really don’t want to know about, I don’t need to look at it at all.
If I want the latest news about Gaza I can consult real news coverage online from genuinely concerned reporters and bloggers like Craig. Still I would like to make a comparison about how shitty is shitty? Is it more shitty to peddle lies or pander to weaknesses? I mean, what is the scale, shitty, shittier, or shittiest? We ought to have a Forum to discuss this. [ Mod: You can use our discussion forum. ]
If the Mods remove this for language, that’s OK, I will be making a donation anyway. [ Mod: The language is fine- and thank you for the donation! ]
The notion of a Western ‘free press’ now seems like an abstract concept.
As recently as the 1970s‒1980s powerful people feared the press. Now they own the press! Intel agencies and politicians realised life would be a lot less stressful with total narrative control. So they set about achieving that, and they’ve surpassed even their most wildly optimistic expectations. When Bilderberg gatherings feature an unhealthy, unholy alliance of the heads of intel agencies, investment bankers, military top bass, leading politicians and all the major corporate news providers, you know democracy (and the public’s access to unfiltered information) has all but left the building.
The whole power structure has become monetized such that anything can be bought at a price and this means that billionaires rule the world. It is not a coincidence that two former bankers are now the President of France and the PM of UK as well as the previous Governor of the Bank of England.. As to the US it is a continuous revolving door between politicians and the banks.
The worldwide effect of “Citizens United” I think SA
The Guardian was broken by the security service MI6 and a henchman was stuffed into their admin.
The UK needs its own First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Though in practice, the Framers’ intentions have been undermined by these huge corporate media entities. The US still has a far healthier press discourse than the UK.
Since Israel’s 1967 land grab the balance of death has been 20 to 1 in Israel’s favour and the Palestinians have continued to resist, which suggests that 19 excess Palestinian deaths to each one Israeli is accepted by the Palestinian population as a necessary sacrifice to regain their stolen land, which includes every square centimetre of Israel-occupied territory except for the Golan Heights and a small section of South Lebanon.
Things that are difficult to believe.
1. Extremely well-organised, efficient and technically fabulously well equipped with the latest satellite and covert surveillance techniques, the Israeli intelligence-gathering system – with its main effort laser-focused on the activities in Gaza of Hamas (which releases fireworks-grade rockets towards Israel) – completely failed to detect any activity or planning by Hamas prior to the attack on Israeli settlements. We heard that the Egyptian intelligence service (much less focussed on Gaza) had picked up on the likelihood of some imminent event and passed that on to the Israelis, who must have dismissed it.
Today (Sunday) BBC reported that the IDF had eliminated (killed) the Hamas operative who had masterminded and implemented the paragliding method of gaining access to Israeli settlements. I am assuming some special effort would be required to acquire such equipment. Were the Hamas fighters trained in using the paragliders? Or did they just leap off a high building and hope that their native wit, natural athleticism and godly guidance would deliver them to their targets still clutching their assault weapons and plenty of ammunition?
So, according to the BBC (and the assumed IDF source), the IDF had the kind of granular information to identify that individual, find him in the ruins of Gaza, kill him and then have some way of confirming their successful assassination, but had not had the information/advance warning (or ignored it) to stall the attack involving Hamas acquiring novel equipment. I mean it’s not difficult to figure out that Gaza was not becoming a paragliding tourist destination.
There’s a lot that doesn’t add up here. If I was Israeli I think I would be focusing my attention on the Netanyahu administration’s utter failure and ineptitude.
Of course tin-hatted loopy conspiracist that I am, the thought percolates my addled mind that there was no intelligence failure, but a meticulously planned event to provide the reason to act out a genocide and rid the promised land of those pesky Palestinians who just won’t stop complaining about state murder and oppression.
If you cast your minds back to the Sunak and Starmer responses to the event, they have the odour of premeditation and forewarning. It demonstrated a kind of certainty of delivery that wrankled on my intuition.
Just thinking out loud.
Of course, tin-hatted loopy conspiracist that I am.
Far from it.
Questions like: Where did they train to use paragliders? Why didn’t the Israelis pick up radio chatter, or simply visually detect this? How did they approach military bases undetected? And why was the initial response so slow, that they had time to take hostages and return with them to Gaza?
Netanyahu has form when it comes to using Hamas to divide and damage the Palestinian cause. He’s a truly evil man, and anything is possible in his quest to achieve a greater Israel.
Would it not be nice if BBC Verify had a good look at all the Israeli claims, probably prove Israel was using rubber bombs!!
It seems also that there was danger that the death toll was going to be too low and the IDF had to make up the numbers (in both senses).
Here’s some footage of Hamas fighters training to fly paragliders, Douglas:
https://metro.co.uk/video/video-shows-hamas-fighters-training-paragliders-ahead-israel-attack-3033751/
As you can see, the paragliders are powered and will have been smuggled in via tunnel from Egypt. There’s a fair few people with a fair bit of money in Gaza, who may have decided to take up a new hobby. That said, it wasn’t the first time that Palestinians have attacked Israelis using gliders:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Gliders
Try as I might, I can’t see how the attacks of October 7th benefit the Netanyahoo government in any way. I think things are simply down to arrogance and complacency on the Israelis’ part, and their becoming too heavily reliant on technology that they thought would protect them.
I must remember that the metro is a reliable go to source, although my only knowledge of it is as a freesheet littering the London underground system. I think it serves admirably as a news platform for homeless people to use as a pavement bed sheet.
We are led to believe that the Israeli intelligence services are shit hot. Their security consciousness is extreme. Israel does good business with surveillance equipment, apparently. There are watch towers and distributed around the gaza perimeter fence equipped with cameras and yet with all such equipment this second-to-none intelligence service missed paragliders blatantly practising military manoeuvres and carrying automatic weapons. Sorry Lapsag – it just seems unbelievable.
Any person who has read a little about the ‘Troubles’ in Ireland has read about the infiltration of the IRA by british intelligence but Israeli inteligence does not attempt to infiltrate a target terrorist organisation within spitting distance of its population centres.
Apparently there is an ‘iron dome’ missile technology that intercepts the home made rockets which are
lobbed over from Gaza. That’s a big investment for a relatively minor threat but we are led to believe they do this complex defence then screw up over the “rope soap and dope’ elements of surveillance. There is an impossible credibility stretch here. In such a supercharged military environment I imagine the enemies of Israel are taking note of their weakness. Such ineptitude would surely trigger a strong pushback from the population but while there have been rumblings and criticisms, the Netanyahu administration is unscathed. This scenario just does not hold up, it has the hallmarks of being managed.
I can suggest this talk by Robert Fisk for some insight into the relations between the ‘west’ and the the Islamic parts of the world. Israel is western to all intents.
https://www.kalamullah.com/age-of-the-warrior.html
It’s from some time ago but Fisk still provides better commentary and raises many questions about the quality of journalism we now endure and provides insights that are notably absent from current discourse.
Many thanks for the Fisk link, Douglas.
Thanks for your reply Douglas. The reason that I posted the link to the Metro article was because I couldn’t remember which Twitter account it was where I’d first seen the footage, and that article was the first one that came up when I typed ‘hamas paraglider training video’ into a well-known, popular search engine. I really don’t think that the Metro has the budget to fabricate stuff like that, even if it wanted to.
Speaking of fabrications, if the Israeli intelligence agencies are so clever as to be able to keep total tabs on Hamas etc., then why did they put out fabricated audio of two putative Hamas operatives in Gaza supposedly admitting that they’d fired a rocket into the al-Ahli hospital, who didn’t even have Gazan accents? Do they think everyone in the West is a blithering idiot?
As I stated in my above comment, Israel became too reliant on technology. All their high-tech cameras, motion detectors linked to automatic machine guns etc depended on relay towers, which the Palestinians took out with RPG rounds dropped from drones. Israel didn’t have any back-up plans in place.
It’s not an impossible credibility stretch to suggest that Israel had no idea of what was about to happen. Increasingly, intelligence agencies the world over are relying more on signals intelligence (SIGINT) at the expense of human intelligence (HUMINT). As a result, groups like Hamas are tending to keep off mobile phones (even encrypted services). There’s evidence they’ve got a large landline network in their tunnels under Gaza. There would have only been a small circle of people involved in planning October 7th anyway. Most of the people (mainly kids) who actually went into Israel probably didn’t know anything about it until the night before.
At the moment, Israel is in rally-round-the-chief mode, but when this phase of the Israel-Palestine conflict is over, whether it takes months or years (most likely ending in stalemate), the current Israeli government will be gone and Netanyahoo will probably be on his way to jail.
douglas leighton, you are persuasive with flowing prose to boot! Do you think the Metro is connected with the Israeli Lobby?
A couple of weeks ago, a commentator here made passing reference to their deafness. I had at that moment, abandoned all visual media, only listening to the sound track and was benefitting from an increase in concentration. After I had read the comment, I realised how lucky I am. Whenever I feel my focus wander when listening to something, I can instantly generate more mental energy by recalling this comment.
I will second Franc in their thanks and will look forward to tonight when I will listen to Robert Fisk.
“Try as I might, I can’t see how the attacks of October 7th benefit the Netanyahoo government in any way.”
There are lots of reasons why the attacks of October 7th benefit the Netanyahu government. Your unwillingness to look for them, your inability to find them is not a very convincing argument.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. Is there any chance you could enlighten me as to any of these multitude of reasons?
I offer you enlightenment, For those who practice political manipulation there is no such thing as a “bad” crisis
If you read “The Prince”, a short medieval book you will be up to speed on Bayard’s “multitude of reasons”
Nothing new under the sun it seems.
Here’s one, natural gas.
Thanks for your reply Will. I wonder if the people who think there’s no such thing as a bad crisis also think there’s no such thing as bad publicity – there is: ask Phillip Schofield. The antithesis to Machiavellian scheming can be summed up in the proverb ‘What a tangled web we weave when at first we practise to deceive.’ Anyway, if it’s of any interest, the medieval period is generally considered to have ended with the fall of Constaninople in 1453. Machiavelli was born in 1469 and ‘The Prince’ was first published posthumously in 1532.
————-
Thanks for your reply Bayard. Is the end-game for the Western powers an invasion of Iran to get at its gas? If so, good luck to them with that. It would be far easier for them to annex Qatar on some spurious pretext, especially as the US already has a base there.
I think you’re not the only one thinking what you think in your last 6 lines.
There are also people who think – Heaven forbid! – that the objective in all of this might have been – might be still – to provoke Iran into some sort of action in concrete support of the Palestinians; which would then provide an excuse for the US to whack Iran. After all, Israel believes that Iran is the root of all evil in the Middle East (according to some previous Israeli foreign minister being interviewed) and getting the US to do its dirty work for it would be just the ticket.
These are the same sort of lies lies we’ve been hearing for decades from so-called impartial observers: Ireland, Belgrano, Lockerbie, Iraq, Libya, Skripal, Ukraine, etc, etc.
No-one should be surprised.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/29/labour-must-beware-of-tearing-itself-apart-over-the-horrific-conflict-in-gaza
Another shitty piece in the Guardian, this time from Starmer apologist, Andrew Rawnsley.
To these New Labour people, every decision is simply a public relations exercise; devoid of empathy and humanity. The sanctity of human life is a secondary consideration to how support for a ceasefire could play in Washington. Could there be any clearer proof that the UK has lost all sovereignty to its stupid ‘special relationship’? Starmer has acted more like he’s Dearlove’s puppet, since stealing the leadership using blatant deception. Labour MPs should therefore force a leadership contest; let members decide whether they want to endorse Starmer’s hawkish position. Because if they don’t, things will be far worse if he’s in No.10, possibly backed up by a big parliamentary majority. The chances of dovish MPs preventing the UK joining some Israel encouraged US-led attack on Iran will be zero.
“Labour MPs should therefore force a leadership contest; ”
I suspect it would have been as easy to unseat Stalin.
Peter Kyle is another New Labour Blairite creep. A man who appears to be in a constant struggle to conceal his viciousness, stated earlier, that Starmer won’t sack frontbenchers over their stance on a ceasefire.
Let’s face it, he can’t sack ’em. They’d form the nominations needed. Starmer is incredibly vulnerable to any challenge due to a membership horrified by his stance on this, and his legacy of leadership campaign lies. The controlled media we’ve got will try to protect Starmer, giving Labour MPs little cover to pursue it – the precise opposite to what happened to Corbyn. These MPs have got to take a leap of faith, though most are clearly too cowardly to put nominations in. The SCG should be organising it.
Crispin Blunt is a good example of what awaits those brave enough to try.
An unlikely rebel is he not Bayard?
Starker has form; trained by the security services, manipulator of laws. I repeat he must not – must not – be handed political power to govern, to override, to deny, to enforce, to obfuscate and cheat the British people.
The Guardian is not all bad (!) it does contain some articles that are very critical of Israel and hypocrisy of the west and reporting.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/11/israel-palestine-war-biden-zelenskiy
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/18/israel-gaza-hamas-palestinians
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/28/marching-palestine-gaza-tragedy
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/16/the-language-being-used-to-describe-palestinians-is-genocidal
Owen Jones also does some very good podcasts.
SA, I will have to decline your generous selection. I abandoned the Guardian after reading an article a decade or so ago, claiming that Daniel Ortega, President of Nicaragua, was running “death squads” – a person who spent his life battling the “death squad” ethos. About 8 months later, unrelatedly, the Grayzone ran a piece investigating the claims of the NGO that had made the “death squad” allegations. Several charity workers were saying they had been payed to make these claims and the NGO had lost all credibility.
It was a difficult decision. The only ambition I have ever had was to able to read and understand every word of the Guardian, which I had harboured from the age of ten. The newspaper was read by my family and their friends and my memory holds many happy moments in which it is an important element. Yet it was those Guardian readers who told me “Whenever you see a claim about a decent leader which says “death squads” it is straight from Langley”. I am sure you are correct about it containing good stuff but with a world drowning in information I can afford to pick and choose, as can you.
Came across these statements whilst reading recently..
“C. P. Scott, editor of the great Liberal newspaper the Manchester Guardian, was converted to Zionism in 1914 by Chaim Weizmann, a Russian Jewish chemist who had settled in Manchester. Scott, who was considered to be Lloyd George’s closest political confidant, took up the cause with all the force of his idealistic nature.”
— Peace To End All Peace, Fromkin
“Scott was a leading exponent of the strategic school of thought. ‘Palestine’, he told Lord Milner, was ‘a small thing . . . but it was the thing that mattered.’ It was with Scott’s approval, if not encouragement, that Herbert Sidebotham, the Manchester Guardian’s military correspondent aired his view (issue 26 November 1915) that Palestine should become a ‘buffer state between Egypt and the North, inhabited … by an intensely patriotic race… On the realisation of that condition depends the whole future of the British Empire as a Sea Empire.’ Sidebotham was the first journalist to propound publicly the identity of British and Jewish interests.”
— The Question of Palestine, 1914–1918, British-Jewish-Arab Relations, Friedman
Israel never ending inhumane practices and lies are really non-stop, now they threat and bomb right outside the Al-Quds hospital – biggest hospital in Gaza – telling them to evacuate, and concoct the same lie they used on the other hospital they bombed: that Hamas have a HQ under the hospital.
Netanyahu aide walks back Gaza hospital air attack admission
https://www.trtafrika.com/world/netanyahu-aide-walks-back-gaza-hospital-air-attack-admission-15443552
“Israeli Air Force struck a Hamas terrorist base inside a hospital in Gaza. A multiple number of terrorists dead. It’s heartbreaking that Hamas is launching rockets from hospitals, Mosques, schools, and using civilians as human shields,” the post said.
Even if Hamas had a HQ Israel have no legal right whatsoever to raze a hospital, completely unhinged inhumane behavior.
Of course the razing of hospitals is the intent itself, making hospital care in Gaza non-functioning so Palestinians are going to die quicker, easier.
Netanyahu and his thugs should be arrested immediately as war criminals. What right do they have to ‘order’ evacuation of a hospital, which they know is impossible, given that there is nowhere for the patients or staff to go, and nowhere to access the facilities and medicines they need. The ‘evidence’ of any ‘terrorist’ infrastructure in the hospital is of course non-existent.
What is clear is that Israel’s plan is to destroy the whole of Gaza, and what better way to force the expulsion of the remaining people it hasn’t murdered is to make sure that there are no institutions remaining which are necessary for civil life – schools, hospitals, homes, public building, or resources such as water, electricity and fuel.
I don’t care any more about ‘sensitivities’. It is time to call this what it is: Gaza is a concentration camp overseen by cold-blooded monsters whose aim is to erase the Palestinian people, and the only word appropriate it for is a Holocaust. In what way is it any different to the one suffered by Jews in WW2?
What was it – never agian? Well, here we are and it is happening again, while we all watch helplessly while apologists and propagandists wave it all away. Sick.
Can only imagine the response in the West if the Kremlin ordered the immediate evacuation of Kyiv and Lviv because they were about to be levelled.
Western leaders are tying themselves in hypocritical knots defending Israel’s impunity. London, Westminster politicians and media, are acting like they’re in some detached bubble, dangerously at odds with their own citizens on a ceasefire. Isn’t it embarrassing, that the likes of Putin and Xi are more representative of British public opinion on this, that our moronic leaders?
The David Mencer here (below) claims in his CV to have written speeches both for Blair and Brown:
https://voxpoliticalonline.com/tag/david-mencer/
Some more background on the Israel lobby here:
https://forthzando.com/with-friends-like-these/
Thanks for link to With Friends like these
Guardian : Israel – Hamas war
Irish Times : ‘It’s not a war or a battlefield, it’s a massacre”
Mark Rowley London Chief of police shows his true colours. Met chief says police will be ‘ruthless’ at pro-Palestine marches in London.
Is this how we want to be policed? No thanks. Ruthless… No pity, merciless, cruel etc. No, you effing gobshite. Could those colours be the same as the Israeli Flag?
He’s coming under a lot of pressure from Home Secretary, Suella Braverman.
Suella Braverman is a mitra – Sanskrit for “friend” – within the Triratna order. When she was made Attorney General her position within the controversial scandal-hit sect, led to questions being raised about whether it could affect her judgment as the government’s senior legal expert.
Hard to imagine anyone further removed from the tenets of Buddhism than Braverman..
You’d imagine being of Asian heritage and having some understanding of the horrible colonial legacy in India, both Sunak and Braverman, would have more empathy for oppressed Gazans. I will say this though, If Sunak were a Muslim, there’s no way his current position, opposing a ceasefire, would be tenable. Look at Khan, Sarwar and Yousaf none of those are what you’d call natural rebels, yet they’ve all called for a ceasefire.
India’s behaviour may be instructive here, it obviously has it’s own Muslim minority (400 million) and I’ve seen heavy crackdowns reported against demonstrations in support of Palestine. This is of course under Modi (a Hindu nationalist) . There is also the regional dimension with Pakistan and their support for Palestine. Sadly, such religious bias, possibly plays a part in Sunak’s indifferent response too.