Worse Than You Can Imagine 182


Governments cannot take big decisions extremely quickly except in the most extreme of circumstances. There are mechanisms in all states that consider policy decisions, weigh them up, involve the various departments of the state whose activities are affected by that decision, and arrive at a conclusion, though not necessarily a good one.

The decision to stop aid funding to UNRWA was not taken by numerous Western states in a single day.

In the UK, several different government ministries had to coordinate. Even within only a single ministry, the FCDO, views would have to be coordinated through written submissions and interdepartmental meetings between the departments dealing with the Middle East, with the United Nations, with the United States, with Europe and then of course between the diplomatic and development wings of the ministry.

That process would include seeking the views of British Ambassadors to Tel Aviv, Doha, Cairo, Riyadh, Istanbul and Washington and to the United Nations in Geneva and in New York.

It is not necessarily a lengthy process but it is not a day’s work, and nor would it need to be. There was no practical impact to making the announcement of cutting UNRWA funding a day sooner or a day later.

Consider that the parallel process had to be completed in the United States, in Canada, in Germany, in Australia and in all the other Western powers that contributed to starvation in Gaza by cutting aid to UNRWA.

All of these countries had to go through their procedures, and it could only be by prior coordination – weeks in advance – between these states that they announced all on the same day the destruction of the life support system for Palestinians, then in absolute need.

And then consider that we now know for certain that the Israelis had produced no evidence whatsoever of UNRWA complicity in Hamas resistance, on which these decisions in all those states were allegedly based.

I have no doubt at all that the Western political elite, paid tools of the zionist machine, are complicit in the genocide of Palestinians and ethnic cleansing of Gaza at a much deeper level than the people have yet understood. The refusal by Starmer and Sunak to contemplate ending arms sales and military support to Israel is not due to inertia or concern for the arms industry. It is that they actively support the destruction of the Palestinians.

The coordinated decision of the Western nations to fast track famine by stopping UNRWA funding was announced within an hour,  following the ICJ ruling that Gazans were at immediate risk of genocide, and drove from the media headlines the adverse ruling against Israel.

This sent the clearest signal in response that the Western powers would not be stopped from the genocide by international law or institutions.

The Western powers give not a fig for 16,000 massacred Palestinian infants. No evidence of mass graves in hospitals will move them. They knew genocide was happening and continued actively to arm and abet it.

This genocide is the desired goal of the West. No other explanation is remotely plausible.

Western Political Support for this Genocide is No Accident

I have never believed the spin that Biden is trying to restrain Netanyahu, while simultaneously arming and funding Netanyahu and using US forces to fight alongside him.

Biden is making no effort to restrain Netanyahu. Biden fully supports the genocide.

My reading of this was reinforced when I was looking back at the Israeli murders on the Mavi Mamara in 2010, when they killed ten unarmed aid workers attempting a Freedom Flotilla aid delivery to Gaza. Israel’s actions were clearly both murderous and in breach of international law. Joe Biden as Vice President defended Israel staunchly then.  It is essential to understand that Genocide Joe has always been Genocide Joe.

Joe Biden took the lead in defending the raid to the U.S. public. In an interview with PBS, he described the raid as “legitimate” and argued that the flotilla organizers could have disembarked elsewhere before transferring the aid to Gaza. “So what’s the big deal here? What’s the big deal of insisting it go straight to Gaza?” Biden asked about the humanitarian mission. “Well, it’s legitimate for Israel to say, ‘I don’t know what’s on that ship. These guys are dropping eight — 3,000 rockets on my people.’”

Biden is not being outplayed by Netanyahu. He is actively abetting Netanyahu and shares with him the objective of full Israeli occupation of Gaza after the Palestinian people are killed or expelled into Sinai. He also shares with Netanyahu the aim of a wider regional conflict in which the US and Gulf states ally with Israel against Iran, Syria, Yemen and Hezbollah. This is their joint vision of the Middle East – Greater Israel, and US hegemony operating through the Sunni monarchies.

If you believe all the spin from the White House about Biden trying to restrain Netanyahu, I suggest you look instead at the White House and State Department spokesmen refusing to accept any single instance of Israel atrocity and deferring to Israel on every single crime.

I am currently in Pakistan, and I must say it has been a great refreshment to be in a country where everybody understands why ISIS, Al Nusra etc. never attacked Israeli interests, and sees precisely what Western governments are doing over Gaza. What is understood by developing nations is thankfully understood by Gen Z in the West as well.

The Arab regimes of the Gulf and Jordan are dependent upon Israeli and US security services and surveillance for protection from their own people. The lack of really massive street protest against their own regimes by Arab peoples is a direct testimony to the effectiveness of that vicious repression, particularly when states like Jordan actually fight alongside Israel against Iranian weapons.

The anti-Iranian card is of course the trick both Biden and Netanyahu have left to play. By promoting an escalation with Iran, Western politicians were able to default to a position of claiming the case for arming Israel was proven – and I think were genuinely perplexed to find the public did not buy it.

The political class, across the Western world and the Arab world, is utterly divorced from its people over Gaza. We are seeing worldwide repression, as peaceful conferences are stormed by police in Germany, students are beaten by police on American campuses, and in the UK old white people like me suffer the kind of continual harassment long suffered by young Muslim men.

This is not the work of Netanyahu operating as a rogue. It is the result of the machinations of a professional political class across the Western world welded to zionism, with the supremacy of Israel as an article of fundamental belief.

Times are not this dark by accident. They were designed to be this dark.

 

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182 thoughts on “Worse Than You Can Imagine

1 2
  • Squeeth

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raul_Hilberg#Approach_and_structure_of_book

    As the Nazi (American Caesar) regime developed over the years, the whole structure of decision-making was changed. At first there were laws. Then there were decrees implementing laws. Then a law was made saying, “There shall be no laws”. Then there were orders and directives that were written down, but still published in ministerial gazettes. Then there was government by announcement; orders appeared in newspapers. Then there were the quiet orders, the orders that were not published, that were within the bureaucracy, that were oral. Finally, there were no orders at all. Everybody knew what he had to do.[36]

    The latest announcement from the Wannsee Conference was ready long in advance of its promulgation; there will be plenty of sequelae too. The zionist antisemites have rehabilitated nazi atrocities for American Caesar and have revived the Einsatzgruppen, as the mass graves recently excavated demonstrate. There’s nothing Jewish about this, a minor and inoffensive superstition, the zionist antisemites are Caesar’s proxies.

    • AG

      I don´t think to compare one with the other actually helps.

      Wannsee was before UN, before mass media, was planning and executing the literal extermination. It was a different era.

      There would have been no letting people escape. Wannsee would have meant to seal off Gaza with its 2 mio. and kill them all. So no 40.000 dead but 2 mio.

      Of course that´s not possible today in the same blatant way. And yes, they chose non-German territory to carry it out even then to conceal it. And they tried to hide it even before the age of Twitter and smartphones and 100 channels from foreign correspondents.

      There is the question whether we should treat Guatemala, East-Timor, Indonesia, Vietnam, Congo, Ruanda etc. as a different category or not? And if we do, then that too would apply to mass murder before 1945 on the scale of HolocaustS.

      One thing in Germany they do not understand is the idea that to prevent genocide after the fact would be cynical and everything Germans claim to teach themselves and the rest of us. But to counter that one has to leave some space between genocide and “genocide”.

      Otherwise you end up waiting for millions to be killed to make your point. The inflated use of Holocaust comparison hurts the cause.

      Just like with the idea of authoritarian rule: Just because 2024 it has other forms it doesn´t mean that its not horrific. It doesn´t have to duplicate practice of authoritarian rule from 80 or 100 years ago in order to be authoritarian.

      p.s. I am merely trying to find a path through all this madness, feeling that one should consider some differences and be cautious.

      • zoot

        absolutely. what do the world’s preeminent genocide experts know about genocide anyway? Genocide Convention!? schmenocide convention!!

        • AG

          “what do the world’s preeminent genocide experts know about genocide anyway? Genocide Convention!? schmenocide convention!!”
          Did I say that? I don´t think so. And I frankly do not deserve any of your cynism. It may not matter but I pissed off friends just by sending them Craig Mokhiber´s resignation letter because I fully endorsed it.
          You won´t find anyone more radical in Germany than me.
          But that doesn´t mean that one can not question the terms used. Otherwise you are no better than those around me here who want to ban me from telling them about the ugly truth.
          Remember that Lemkin´s idea originated with the Armenian case.
          I don´t know about the inner workings of how that convention 1945 was eventually shaped to end up in the declaration.
          As I said above: Its not about mincing words. but preventing mass murder.
          But in the evaluation one can still consider differences.
          I was extremely disappointed, and still am in some way, that the ICJ stopped short of condemning Israel for genocide.
          Because their standard of defining genocide would not have left them any choice.
          But I don´t care if someone is a “preeminent genocide expert”, as far as my critical judgement is concerned. I have my own brain which has saved me from the fucking madness around me, and on the same note I have pondered on this.

        • AG

          p.s. which is why I am using the term extermination in contrast to genocide.
          Now if you take the 1 mio.+ that are threatened by the danger of famine that would move into “extermination” territory. Which I guess is one part of the Israeli plan so they do not kill the people in plain sight via bombs.

          I am raising my academic question because I am unsure. But I was already rebuffed on this forum for daring to ask this a few months ago. Not sure what it so earth-shattering about asking and questioning. That´s the basis of discourse. And one should never be afraid of doing it. Unless you believe in the Spanish Inquisition.

        • zoot

          you think genocide denial should be respected under what Craig has written above and has been witnessed every day from Gaza?

          violence so extreme it is beyond comprehension, even after seeing video and photo evidence. the absolute worst atrocities human beings are capable of, day after day – no red lines, no mercy – men, women and children slaughtered. dead children mocked by their murderers posing with their toys.

          zionists openly invoking Amalek and other biblical genocidal slaughters and we are still being told they are only speaking figuratively?

          and not just the Israelis. did you miss the part in Craig’s piece where the west has deliberately inflicted famine on an already starved population? critical thinking verdict, not genocide?

  • Ady

    The pathetic idea that fascism was beaten at the end of WW2 is a nonsense. The West has always been fascist, going back to the Roman era and beyond and even base their concepts of empire and more upon the Roman fascists. How could the British bloody empire not have been fascist to have done what it did? (and the French etc.)? The two bloody world wars were all about who was to gain control of as much of the world as possible. The Yanks gained that control at the end of WW2, after the grisly Europeans destroyed each other.
    So, the Brits passed the baton of fascism onto the US and now the mask has been well and truly lifted. Unless of course, you’re a member of the great British public who is blind to their own history, but venerates football, idiot tv and the entertainment industry (that is, all of the western “mainstream” media- it’s one giant form of sick entertainment, à la The Hunger Games. And the media are just poking fun at us lot who have human decency and morals, by entertaining us with the fetid gumph they call news and entertainment).

    • Bramble

      And there is the Guardian, just this morning, lionising the Nazi Azov brigade. What is happening is WW2 as originally desired by the oligarchs: an alliance of far right, capitalist states lusting to occupy and exploit Russian territory. As for the useless voters in our so-called “democracies” – wave a flag at them and blow the racist dog whistle and they’ll march to war as merrily as ever. This is a self-inflicted catastrophe.

    • ET

      Caitlin Johnstone has some suggestions:
      https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2024/04/29/it-is-everyones-responsibility-to-help-save-gaza/

      “None of us can end it single-handedly, but we can all do something every day to help end it collectively. The machine is far too big and powerful for any one person to deal it a fatal blow, but we can all throw sand in its gears to make it harder and harder for it to continue.”

      “We can do this by making our opposition known in every way possible, and by drawing public awareness to the sadistic savagery that’s being perpetrated in Israel with the help of its western allies we live under. Using any medium and platform we can make use of, we can help people understand the ways the imperial media have been manipulating public understanding of this genocide and minimizing their own government’s responsibility for it so that they can really understand the severity and urgency of this issue. “

  • tony greenstein

    I agree with everything in this article bar ‘I have no doubt at all that the Western political elite, paid tools of the zionist machine’.

    On the contrary the Zionists are the paid tool of US/British imperialism. The US funds Israel to the tune of $4 billion in a quiet year and this year far more. The campaign contributions are a mere token payment back. We shd be clear about the relationship and who is really in charge. Netanyahu and Gallant are merely rabid attack dogs. Their owner lies elsewhere in the White House and Capital Hill.

    • Mr Mark Cutts

      tony greenstein

      Like you, I am not convinced that the Israel tail wags the US dog. All this carnage could not happen (or less of it could have happened) without US and its accomplices’ agreement.

      In a wicked world you can only judge countries politicians, not by what they say but by what they actually do.

      The US is arming Israel to the teeth ($26 billion officially) and I suspect that this is not for 1k bombs to drop on defenceless people but to attack Iran/Syria/Lebanon and Iraq.

      They (the US) are still smarting from Russia’s defence and assistance to Syria and do not forget Iran and Syria are on the list of the so-called ‘Axis of Evil’, so they appear to want to finish the job as done.

      The problem for the US is they cannot (at the moment) escape from The Vietnam Syndrome, where at first the black and white poor kids were sent to fight and then the Middle Class Kids were drafted. The Middle Class in the media did not like this set up at all hence the revealing of atrocities and of course the deaths of Middle Class kids.

      In my opinion Netanyahu and his Mad Messianic Mates have had assurances that – although no US troops will fight against Iran (for now) – they will continue to supply money and copious amounts of weaponry to Israel, so any attacks on Iran will not be by the Infantry – just lots and lots of missiles.

      The danger for the region is; if all this gets out of hand and Israel is getting a pasting and the US doesn’t physically join the fight then Israel is in total danger of defeat and by definition its existence as a State is too.

      There is a chance that they will reach for the Nukes. In my view that chance exists now as Iran is capable of making Nukes themselves – how fast I don’t know but this can be done. Therefore in the fevered minds of these ‘Lunatics’ as Norman Finkelstein has called them they may make a first strike on Iran before Iran can get its nukes in position.

      I hope not but I agree with Norman Finkelstein these people are lunatics. By the way Putin is quoted as say that “an attack on Iran – is an attack on Russia”.

      If the Russians become involved we are all in The Premier League of danger. If Russia becomes involved the US becomes involved and so on.

      My opinion is that this is what Netanyahu and his Crazies want to happen. The US wants to tick off their list Iran and Syria.

      The question for the US and their advisers is: are they just as “Lunatic” as the Israeli “Lunatics”?

    • David W Ferguson

      I think both you and Mark are making the same very common error, which is becoming an increasingly obvious fallacy: believing that the US and Israel are two separate entities, and that one is controlling the other.

      Israel is very obviously controlled by Zionists – that is unarguable. This Twitter thread – https://twitter.com/CensoredMen/status/1783655505245675695 – provides some interesting information about the USA. 6 of the 8 US Ivy League Universities have Jewish presidents. 20 of the 24 most senior officials in Trump’s administration were Jewish. 10 of Biden’s most senior appointees are Jewish. Across the whole US media, among the most influential reporters and presenters, hundreds and hundreds are Jewish.

      Please don’t anybody come back and accuse me of “antisemitism”. Objectively demonstrable facts cannot be antisemitic (although the conclusions you draw from them might be). The conclusion I draw is that most if not all of these people are not only Jewish but Zionists, since the whole US academic and political leadership, plus all its mainstream media, are united and relentless in their support for Israel. Which suggests to me that the USA and Israel are not really two separate entities at all; they are simply two pieces of the same entity in different parts of the world.

      One concluding remark. There is one group who might legitimately claim that their culture values talent and commitment to education and hard work as much as the Jewish culture. The Chinese. And Chinese Americans make up almost the same proportion of the US population as Jewish Americans – 1.6% to 2%. And yet you look across that massive array of academics, politicians, and media, and among all these hundreds and hundreds of people, there is barely a single Chinese American face to be seen.

      • Laguerre

        I think you’ll find that Asian Americans are still on the up, whereas Jews are already there. I noted around the mid 2010s a distinct uptick in the numbers of elite Asian-American students (I couldn’t guarantee they were all Chinese), and that will presumably appear in the leadership in due time.

      • Mr Mark Cutts

        David W Ferguson

        Israel for all intents and purposes may as well be a U.S. State. It represents the overseas arm of the US in the Middle East and is paid to guard US oil/gas interests and of course other interests in that region. So, yes I would agree that they are one and the same (separate, but only by geography).

        Politically, economically, and to a certain extent ideologically – not forgetting that Israel is used as a laboratory for surveillance and weapons technological development of the nature that could not be carried out under US Law. This is what Israel is officially paid for.

        There is a political confluence of Zionist Christians and Zionist Jews no doubt they share as extreme right wingers. There is also a confluence of Corporate money making non Jews in the mix too. In my opinion these are the ones that count, and obviously if it is in their interests that Iran and Syria are defeated in a regional Proper War then they can grab the spoils.

        So, a sort of not a God V Mammon confluence here between religion and profit but if we look at the situation that may unfold the question becomes very dangerous indeed for the Mammonists and the Zionists. That is: If the US and Israel are going to ‘go for it’ as they say there is a massive risk that can only be assessed after the fact.

        The US and Israel have just witnessed how easy it would be for Iran to strike back at Israel and this has altered calculations enormously because until it happened the calculation was that the Iron Dome could defend Israel alone against and attack by Iran. It couldn’t – and was greatly assisted by other countries because it had to be.

        Forget the money spent on defending Israel as the psychological effect of this relatively mild attack has made the Israeli populace and the western politicians extremely nervous. The ‘untouchable’ has been proved very touchable.

        Therefore in my opinion if Israel is left to go it alone they could very quickly get into serious trouble. If they do then the US and its acolytes have two choices:

         •  You do nothing except arm Israel more and assist in some operation and stay out of it.

         •  Or they may be forced into joining in order to prevent the collapse of their overseas US State.

        Israel on its own is not powerful enough to go it alone. Just the Iran powder puff attack proved that beyond doubt. Unfortunately the poor people of Rafah are going to be the Whipping Boys/Girls for this miscalculation by the West and Israel.

      • dean

        I can be a Jew by believing in the correct set of fairies…I cannot be an Asian, no matter what I do. There are so many Jews in the political class not through some 3000 year old bloodline but because it is politically expedient to be a Jew…Put on a funny hat, claim that the Western colony in the middle east is god’s gift to the chosen and that anyone who claims otherwise is as bad as the nazis and watch the campaign funds pour in.

        • Alyson

          Actually bloodline is important, tribe before country, but it is maintained through the matriarchal line, so that David Cameron is Jewish because his mother is. The teachings that are still given to Jewish children today include the book of Esther. She was a Jewish queen who married the king of Persia and betrayed him by letting the Jewish army in to kill the king. Biden’s children are all married to Jewish people. Starmer’s wife is Orthodox Jewish. His children go to a Faith School. Clinton’s daughter is married to a Jewish man, and she was fathered by Hilary’s Jewish Law partner, since, as Bill said, when charged in a paternity suit: it couldn’t be his because he shoots blanks. None Dare Call It Conspiracy is a banned book, because none dare call it conspiracy. The tribe is loyal to its own. The Times of Israel celebrated Princess Catherine’s children delivering a proper kosher heir to the throne of England. Kate’s family home is in Jordan. The infiltration of all the levers of power is absolute. Read the Jewish Chronicle if you can stomach all the supremacism that fills its pages. Zionism is supported at the highest levels of government by bloodline Jewish people. Extreme wealth allows a few guest supporters. Bernie Sanders is a lone voice who is tolerated because he is Jewish and so this is not about being racist but about calling out a conspiracy that has rotted democracy from the inside due to loyalty to tribe before country. Apart from finding this extremely scary there is nothing that can be done other than to shine a light into this network of power brokering and trust to the decent human beings in governments to call out injustice.

          • Squeeth

            I think you’ll find that that is a fetish of a small minority of human beings, for many of the rest it’s snouts in the trough.

    • Calgacus

      I don’t think that view holds water. It just facilely forces the situation into a preconceived framework. It is not consistent with US politics and history and the history of the conflicts. Basically, the campaign contributions preceded the US funding since the 1940s. At times the US could be far more evenhanded. It did not have to become this bad; wiser politicians could have done better. Lyndon Johnson, (followed by Nixon/Kissinger) probably did the most, for the least reason to set up this dynamic. Israel is and always has been a strategic liability to the USA, with no real imperial value.

      • will moon

        There may also be structural factors to consider Calgacus.

        Are you aware of Bendersky’s book, “The Jewish Threat”. He presents a thesis that the US Army’s Military in the 20th century exhibited significant antisemitism in the highest echelons and he presents it as a phenomenon which by the mid-70’s had waned significantly. It seemed to be a generational thing, with the late 60’s – early 70’s retirees still exhibiting this trait in retirement but the newer post-Vietnam generations were less concerned with this issue.

        I have not read the book, only a précis but from what I could tell of that and a few reviews, it comes over as a well researched academic text and may have some bearing on your point.

        It would seem to me, if a significant branch of government is staffed by fairly open racists, their views will at some point feed into policy with the blind opposition of their prejudice colouring the political process and it’s output

        How easy would it be for America to dominate West Asia without the Israeli foothold?

    • will moon

      “Their owner lies elsewhere in the White House and Capital Hill.”

      Tony if this is true should we then not ask who exactly or what class owns these institutions because it doesn’t seem to be the American voter. The power of wealth seems all-consuming, layers upon layer of lobbying coupled with Citizens United has created a monster which few can resist and in these cases trial by media and the employment of the “intelligence” agencies will suffice.

      Also worth remembering the image of the pigs turning into men and the men into pigs

  • zoot

    when the ICJ ruled at the end of January that Gazans were at immediate risk of genocide, the west collectively responded by fast tracking famine in Gaza. that’s not some contentious take Craig has conceived. it was reported all around the world at the time. since then every hospital and means of sustaining life in Gaza has been systematically destroyed, with access being barred to the most basic medicines. all this with the full support of the west, which even now is still upping its supply of weapons to increase the slaughter of a people with nowhere to go.

    this is every bit as much a western genocide as an Israeli one.

    • zoot

      almost 75,000 western bombs and shells have been dropped in 200 days on Gaza, a tiny dot on the map. this is twenty times more than the US aimed at Iraq in six years of war. four times the weight of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    • Dodge

      Exactly! Craig, yet again, regurgitating what’s in the public domain and what most of us know already. The guy truly is a waste of space! I don’t say that lightly, but, rather, with a very heavy heart. 🙁

      • Tom Welsh

        “Craig, yet again, regurgitating what’s in the public domain and what most of us know already. The guy truly is a waste of space!”

        Then what are you doing reading and commenting on his blog?

        • Dodge

          Tom, I’m just being nice to Craig because he was so nice to me, once, many years ago. Murray is no different to the politicians – don’t be fooled! People don’t go into politics because they care. It’s not charity work, despite what Murray will have you believe.

          It takes a special kind of person to become a surgeon – many are psychopaths – and, due to the nature of the work, the same applies to those who love politics.

          Anyway, Murray said it himself some time back that he believes in a ruling class – a group of men and women who make the decisions because the public can’t be trusted to do the right thing. He sees himself as one of those men. He’s a shepherd – the rest of us are sheep!

          Most countries have now resumed funding to UNRWA, so there goes Craig’s “conspiracy theory”.

          • Squeeth

            “Murray said it himself some time back that he believes in a ruling class – a group of men and women who make the decisions because the public can’t be trusted to do the right thing.”

            I’ve been under the impression that Craig has slowly been liberating himself from liberalism these last few years.

          • will moon

            If he is a “shepherd”, you must be a sheep-shagger, a dodgy one at that, if one bothers to ask this “sheep” which you have.

            As for your relationship with Mr Murray? Well who can say? You are nice to him and he is nice to you, allowing your opinions to be aired.

            You seem to be reading the politic dynamic wrongly. As I understand it, we swim in a sea of corruption – up is down, left is right, yes is no – for the voter it’s a zero sum game. Maybe your right about Mr Murray’s “vocation” and what he actually thinks but I would still take a chance on him, in the face of the alternative – a uniparty with a track record of mass murder, biblical-scale financial corruption and complete servitude to the super-rich not to mention the sexual mores of libidinous fleas (if a male flea was the size of a human, its erect penis would be ten foot long).

            Things are in motion now – labels can’t be changed until the gyre has turned, so until that time Mr Murray is a “freedom fighter”, one of an increasing number, fighting a long-established but come recently visible tyranny – a coterie of anti-human freaks bent on total domination.

            The other day when going to buy electricity, I had dropped the £20 note when I was about a 100 yards away from the shop. It took me a couple of minutes of gentle faffing – checking pockets, checking the shop etc before I stood quietly outside and accepted it was gone. It was a blow.

            It can be a very rough area and as I cogitated, a tall, well-built man moved towards me. As I looked at him, I realised he resembled, in his manner of dress and the set of his face one of the petty-gangsters who populate that area. I was strongly concerned: I have no truck with those people and they have no use for me.
            “You looking for something lad?”
            “Yes, A twenty pound note”
            Locking eyes with me and leaning forward he offered me the £20 note and explained he had been driving in his car and watched it fall out my pocket. He had taken five minutes out of his day and parked his Beamer up, to return £20 to a useless eater.

            So you see, the gyre turns. I thought him a wolf – you know, “what big teeth you have grandma” – yet against my own prejudice he was a sheep dog or even a shepherd and I was glad to have met him. He said his name was “Tony” – no-phoney Tony, here’s to ya!

  • Robert Dyson

    I had concluded this myself. Had it been otherwise there could have been some restriction on Israeli actions while still supporting action against Hamas, but there is absolutely none. Pope Francis has been critical of what is happening in both Ukraine and Gaza, arguing for peace negotiations – yet that Devout Catholic Joe Biden seems deaf to the leader of his faith – makes you wonder if that is a sham too.

    • Bramble

      What is sham is our pretence of being “Christian”. As is our pretence of being “democratic”, “anti-racist” and “peace-loving.

        • glenn_nl

          What the hell are you taking about, Dodge? This is absolutely nothing to do with atheism, in fact the very opposite, this is absolutely being perpetrated under the name of Judaism and Christianity!

          Do you think this nonsense is funny or something?

  • JBird4049

    Mr. Murray, thank you for this post even though it unfortunately confirms my own suspicions. Since it has already become this evil, even though I think the current crisis is in its early days, I fear for just how much more evil it will become.

    My grandparents generation said never again, but the current generation of leaders apparently just do not care. I wonder what my relatives who all saw the results of the Holocaust as well as that war would say? But they are gone and cannot give testimony or warning.

    Damn them for doing this almost within living memory of the Holocaust itself without care or concern. I do believe in the existence of God although that is all I truly believe, but I find myself wishing for the existence of Hell.

    This is just trite blathering of some fool with a keyboard using words that while true have lost worth, even meaning, by their being waved as bloody shirts. Evil, war, the Holocaust, genocide…

    • glenn_nl

      Zionists have been dining out on the Holocaust for nearly 80 years.

      It appears to have instilled some nostalgia in them and their cheerleaders, so now they are eager to get their own Holocaust on – against some other defenceless people, naturally, just to keep it faithful to the original.

  • SA

    “UNRWA briefing HIGHLIGHTS
    The agency is a “stabilizing force”, providing the backbone of the entire aid operation in Gaza
    A man-made famine is tightening its grip, but UNRWA is being denied permission to deliver enough lifesaving aid
    UNRWA is facing an Israeli campaign “to push it out of the Occupied Palestinian Territory”
    178 UNRWA workers have been killed and 160 premises destroyed or damaged, killing more than 400 Gazans
    Mr. Lazzarini demanded an independent investigation into the blatant disregard for protection of humanitarian workers during the conflict
    UNRWA is “firmly committed” to implementing any recommendations to strengthen neutrality safeguards
    Dismantling UNRWA would have “lasting repercussions” and will condemn “an entire generation to despair”
    Palestinians and Israelis share a long history of grief and loss. We must recognise “that they are equally deserving of a peaceful and secure future”
    https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/04/11486760
    But instead UK and USA are proposing bizarre solutions to this man made famine. The USA wants to build a floating port but this will only get aid to the coast and will still be liable to Israeli sabotage, so the British are proposing to send troops to accompany the trucks safely. Wouldn’t it be so much easier if the USA and Britain just tell their ally to make sure the aid gets through the normal way, otherwise support will be withdrawn?
    No of course it is not because we must respect their rights to protect themselves against starving civilians.
    But this whole charade including the the World Central Kitchen staged massacre are all part of the same plot to place all control of aid to Israel through its sponsors the USA and Britain. This of course also distances these heavily involved sponsors from the charge of aiding genocide by starvation and deflection, so that they can claim that they did their best to alleviate the starvation, when the ICJ rules that genocide is being committed.

  • Jack

    It feels like this blogpost could be written back in the first week of the war 6 months ago. Nothing has changed to the better. The criticism from the world have become more and more sparse and if there is any it is very muted and general in nature. Not even when some 400 corpses being unearthed there is zero reaction! I do not know have happend past couple of years but international law does not mean anything to the west anymore, what is worse – they do not even pretend that there is such laws either. But it is something else too, it is the demoralization and depravity of accepting or actually being actively involved in the carnage when thousands of people are killed every month, innocent people, children, women! Uncanny and makes me feel sick how low the western stance/moral/mentality have become.

    The only nations/groups that have proved that they have compassion, honesty is South Africa that triggered ICJ, Brazil that have called out Israel multiple times and sent home their ambassador, Algeria – the only arab nation that tried to create some momumentum against Israel, Iran thave have time and time again called out and urged the world to act against Israel and actually dared to attack Israel and then we have the couragous Houthis – the rest have turned a blind eye and/or supported Israel. So many nations that could have acted past couple of months but deliberately chose not to. Nothing but scums.
    It seems that Israel have a tremendous lobby/influence campaigning world wide, even the arab leaders keep mum about the grotesque human rights abuses and even join the defense of Israel when Iran attacked! The arab world have always claimed that they would normalize relations with Israel after a palestinian state have been created. But then around 2020 you had the infamous Abraham Accords where many arab states began to normalize relations with Israel before a palestinian state had been established. Nothing but backstabbers. There are now rumous that Indonesia is next to normalize their relations with Israel.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Accords

    I reckon also that the arab world/media is heavily censored otherwhise I would assume the arab population would be out on the streets daily, wrecking the corrupt pro-israel/US regimes for good.

    A Moroccan activist was sentenced to 5 years for criticizing the country’s ties to Israel
    https://apnews.com/article/morocco-israel-palestinians-zankad-d924b81bb8096f9e593f0efebd30b90d

    • glenn_nl

      J: “I reckon also that the arab world/media is heavily censored otherwhise I would assume the arab population would be out on the streets daily, wrecking the corrupt pro-israel/US regimes for good.”

      But Jack, your last point explains why this doesn’t happen. You cannot criticise your government in these regimes, unless you fancy a five year term just for mild criticism in a relatively benign country like Morocco.

      That’s precisely why we prop up these ghastly governments. Look how difficult protest is getting even in our own countries. See what’s happening in the UK, Amerikkka and Germany.

      Good work in the forums btw, much appreciated.

  • nevermind

    The Zionist genociders seem to have a strange attraction to anyone in the ME trying to acquire or develop nuclear power and enriched Uranium.
    whoever equipped them with the first batch of heavy water should be tarred and feathered, they are responsible for the secretive threats Zionists uttered about they would do if abandoned by their erstwhile enablers.
    When Trump released Israeli nuclear plans to the Saudi’s, they were not happy, so the idea of Iran being able to achieve a nightmare clear capacity, a reactor or weapons, is in their foremost interest.
    Within this Angst lies a solution to stop Zionistans land grabbing and continuous war mongering against Lebanon and its wider neighbours, a solution to force them to the table and negotiate with its neighbours.
    If there would be a strictly commercial undertaking between Iran and Russia to barter Iranian oil in return for Russian nuclear weapons, the Zionistani’s would have no other options but to sit down and talk. It would also stop Biden’s faux emphatic election messages, he is the biggest part of the problem.

        • Pears Morgaine

          In a word no. They have declared a six month moratorium on the export of petrol in response to shortages caused by Ukrainian drone attacks on refineries, a few thousand tons a month is being imported from Belarus but that’s about it.

          Russia guards it’s nuclear secrets very closely, it’s unlikely they’d ever just give warheads to a third party – besides which it would put them in breach of the NPT, and that might be a step too far for even Putin. Iran could do with the foreign currency though, the economy is suffering from the effects of sanctions and widespread corruption, inflation is running at 38% but wages aren’t keeping pace.

  • Gideon Anthony

    Bravo, Mr. Murray. You do the work of a public intellectual: to render the hidden obvious. The obvious question is who gains and looking at the neo liberal construction, I, at least see the external wars as being symptomatic of a more significant internal war whose outcomes I can possibly sense but don’t want to, through the lens of the latest aid sent to Ukraine and who that really benefits. Those beneficiaries appear to be Western arms corporations whose wares were either already deployed to Ukraine or pre-deployed to Poland. This looks like post payment for goods already delivered. To take the analogy further, western militaries look like they are belong to states which subordinate themselves to Blackrock and their unregulated private equity like (Horizontal and vertical integration must equal international political influence). That’s certainly where “democracy” in Ukraine has ended up, a sacrifice on the alter of corporate speculative prinacy. Secular theft sanctified by ethnic hatred.

    From the Great Gatsby:

    “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made… .”

  • tonyopmoc

    Craig – You are Currently one of the most important people in the World…I wish I had met you (nearly did).

    How come no one else in the world – can say it like you?

    You just have so much Courage…I always thought you were Good, but now I am in Awe…

    Lets hope we can turn this horrror around, and get the Criminals on Trial and in Jail

    So We can Celebrate Life and Families – Back to Normal

    God Bless You,

    Tony

  • Republicofscotland

    Israel and the US has blocked the The Freedom Flotilla Coalition from delivering its 5500 tonnes of humanitarian aid and hundreds of international humanitarian observers to Gaza.

    “We received the devastating news that due to Israeli and US pressure, the state of Guinea-Bissau has withdrawn its flags,”

    “Given that we need more time to find another country willing to allow us to sail under their flag, a decision was reached to postpone our trip.”

    • Goose

      Sunak is apparently mulling sending British troops to Gaza, according to reports. They’ll supposedly be tasked with delivering aid, once the giant floating pier the US is building is complete. On that, you can’t help think there’s probably some sinister ulterior motive behind that construction?
      https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/27/uk-weighing-sending-troops-into-gaza-to-distribute-aid

      Israel called up 350,000 reservists after Oct 7, and losses since are probably much higher than the IDF are letting on; reports of lots of IDF troops being seriously injured, lost limbs etc. The US say they won’t be putting ‘boots on the ground’ in Gaza, so where will that leave the UK? To the average Hamas fighter, the UK probably appears as complicit as the US is in the devastation. Aside from the moral dimension of our involvement, and difficulty defining rules of engagement there’s the legal implication dimension of any direct involvement in possible war crimes. It’s rumoured tonight the ICC may issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and other Israeli officials. The idea of British troops fighting remaining pockets of Hamas fighters, in Gaza, will cause a very bad reaction indeed in the UK. And not just among Muslim communities. It’d risk bringing the British army into total disrepute.

      • zoot

        that ship sailed long ago I’m afraid, Goose. the British army has been engaged in the genocide from day one. delivering not aid but a constant supply of bombs from Cyprus as well as providing surveillance for the IDF over Gaza. Craig has mentioned it here repeatedly. IDF aircraft have also been flown to the UK throughout the genocide to be serviced and supplied.

        the Guardian are well aware of this British army involvement as it has been detailed extensively by Declassified UK, they have simply refused to report it.

        • Stevie Boy

          Special Forces from the UK and USA, and probably elsewhere, are already on the ground in Gaza. It’s no coincidence that most, not all, of the ‘aid’ organisations are staffed with obvious military types. One can assume their convoys and bases are multi purpose, i.e. aid plus intelligence. Just as UK military directly aided Saudi targeting of weddings and funerals in Yemen, you can bet the UK is helping the IDF in a similar manner. The UK is 100% complicit in the genocide.

      • Goose

        On Craig’s post on twitter/X on Jill Stein’s treatment, agree entirely, the UK Greens are far too meek on this by way of contrast.

        It may be pure coincidence, but have you noticed this pattern: Irish taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, gives Biden a dressing down over Gaza, https://time.com/6957873/varadkar-biden-speech-beau-gaza-israel-st-patricks-day/
        then shortly afterwards, shocks everyone by announcing he’s standing down.
        Spain’s PM, Pedro Sánchez, leads European countries by urging the EU to collectively recognise Palestinian statehood, stating, Spain will recognise Palestine regardless. Now, he may be standing down due to “intolerable pressures” placed on him and his family. Scotland’s Humza Yousaf leads UK concern for Gaza. The supposedly pro-inde Greens walk out, and bizarrely, will vote with Unionists for an election that favours unionists. There are probably others as I haven’t followed events in other countries.

      • Jack

        How could they even fathom that another occupying force would be welcomed into Gaza, especially one that is aiding and abetting Israel in their mass slaughtering? When one hear such idiocy from the West, one understands that the Western mindset is so off from reality.
        The whole idea that the nations supporting the genocide are then going to give the victims aid…. it is so grotesque I have no words for it. And on top of that, they are going to build a pier?? Why? What is wrong with the Israeli/Egyptian roads leading into Gaza!?

    • Lysias

      Why doesn’t Erdoğan authorize the flotilla? What pressure can they put on him? Wouldn’t it shore up his position with his Muslim voters?

      • will moon

        The Flotilla was supposed to leave some months ago but was delayed, maybe President Erdoğan is not keen on it leaving?

        Türkiye’s business sector has profited mightily from the current crisis. Makes one wonder what the “pro-Palestinian” Türkiye President actually stands for – like Janus, he faces two ways

        I watched a short propaganda film from the government of Türkiye about the Gulen Coup in 2016 – regardless of the spin “the Sublime Porte” attached, some of the witness statements and footage of the coup were, to put it mildly, startling.

        Helicopter gunships, twenty foot off the ground firing autocannon into huge crowds of people, 30 foot away lying on the floor – wherever the gunship’s tracer touched the ground, 3 foot chunks of tarmac would fly into the air. Heavy armour speeding through a main thoroughfare, running over the people who were asking them to stop. Some of the witnesses were people depicted in the footage of the coup, facing off against helicopters and armoured vehicles, talking modestly about their behaviour. Propaganda pot-boiler it undoubtedly was, yet I have thought about that footage and those witness statements frequently since I watched the film several years ago.

        The pregnancy of the footage arrested me. It was a vision of where militarised police forces logically end, a vision of the future – using heavy weapons on vast, unarmed crowds.

  • Jack

    One has to applaud the courageous american youth at the universities protesting and that peacefully, still, they are attacked, smeared, and this under a Democratic regime! Would the Democrats really be this callous if it was a Trump regime that broke up and used violence against protesters? The DNC crowd that always frame themselves as democratic, respectful, including, pro-freedom of speech etc. Well now we see their true face.
    As I said in the forums, there are obvious pro-israeli agent provocateurs’ chanting antisemitic bs to discredit and shut down the protests. Absurd that the university authorities do not understand that – or perhaps they are in on it?
    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/breaking-news-gaza-only/page/11/#post-96244
    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/breaking-news-gaza-only/page/11/#post-96246

    The pro-israeli groups in the US play the american society like a fiddle time and time again.

    • AG

      yes and no.
      It´s like in Germany and everywhere else in the West, those who have access to publishing their view is one group. Those silent are another group. Probably as big, may be even bigger. Depending on the country.
      Germany being particularly stupid about this.
      Finkelstein pointed out that even Sen. Schumer has cut back on his redderick. Perhaps Schumer´s daughters are on the other side of the fence. So it dawned on Schumer, I have to be a little less aggressive. And that was before this all started.

    • Stevie Boy

      The education sector, like many other sectors, has been totally taken over and corrupted in the west. Just look at the salaries of most UK university ‘CEOs’ (WTF). So the major objective of these bodies is increasing the bottom line, and they do that through gifts, grants, tax breaks, sponsors, etc. Students are just resources to be exploited and they must not upset the status quo because that worries the shareholders.
      If you think the education sector is about education then you are mistaken. Look below the surface.

    • Goose

      Freedom has been under attack for a long time in the West. I think Edward Snowden probably did more to reveal this fact than any other person.

      You can see with the UK govt’s opposition to Meta’s rollout of end-to-end encryption across its various services, they think they’re entitled to have access to all data as it passes through various network infrastructure being decrypted and re-encrypted: load balances, cloud storage etc. That’s why https isn’t enough, https is good, if implemented properly, but it stops at the termination point. End-to-end can and should be implemented in a way so as data is never decrypted at rest: user -> load balancer-> server. Or user(app) to user(app) as per WhatsApp. End-to-end means only those who need to see the data see it. And third parties and adversaries have to target an individual rather than just demanding access to some server ;in the process gaining access to everyone’s data. And then forbidding said tech company from disclosing the fact.
      The smug assumptions underlying this bulk collection, is the belief that citizens aren’t entitled to any privacy in digital communications. It would never be acceptable to previous generations. Mass opening of postal mail would’ve been both impractical, but was also viewed as an unacceptable infringement of privacy. So why haven’t the same rights transferred to digital communications?

      We need tech savvy politicians to force the securocrats to rein in their undemocratic Big Brother empire building, as Snowden argued.

      • Goose

        We’re headed for a man-made digital dystopia, in which everything you do online is collected, machine processed then combined with other information included in datasets (things like medical records you never consented to releasing) and everyone will be psychologically evaluated via AI. The state will know more about you than you do. And we’ll call it Western freedom.

        Unless privacy rights are somehow won back that is the Black Mirror-esque future. The Lib Dems and Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of html (not the internet, that was Darpa as part of a US DoD project) called for a digital bill of rights and the Lib Dem manifesto(2017) committed to ending bulk collection of data and forcing various agencies to notify those subject to surveillance , when time limited surveillance ended, as is/was the case in Switzerland

        • AG

          Berliner Zeitung just yesterday brought a horrible interview with the new Senator of Justice for the regional Berlin government.
          The headline says it all:

          “Sabotaging democracy should become a criminal offense”

          I have archived an Engl. translation as I found it so shocking.

          She is an Iranian refugee (whereof she of course regards Iran as a threat).
          And until last year the lady had been working for the German equivalent of the FBI!
          Nice! great choice!! Thank you!!!
          https://archive.is/3PKpa#selection-7903.27-7903.80

          The “money quotes” come in very late, last third of the piece:

          -“The threats to the free, democratic basic order are more complex and varied today than they were during the Cold War. With the Internet, conflicts all over the world have a direct impact in Germany and thus on German domestic politics. For example, the Hamas attack on October 7th: The attack wasn’t over yet; people were already dancing on the streets of Berlin. The effects are felt much more quickly than before, and that also poses a challenge to the authorities.”

          -“Today you have the phenomenon that in certain crises everyone has one goal that unites them, which is to weaken democracy. This was clearly seen in the Corona demonstrations: the goal is to weaken the system. At the Corona demonstrations you had people from the right-wing extremist scene, clearly visible, parts of the AfD, neo-Nazi parties, parts of the left-wing extremist scene, Turkish nationalists. They all marched together against the state.”

          -“The right to demonstrate is a valuable asset that distinguishes us from totalitarian systems. Everyone should be able to take to the streets and protest loudly against government measures. But there is a red line that you must not cross, and that is committing crimes.”

          NOW GUESS WHAT IS A CRIME???

          -“Today, it is no longer just the interception of information that is dangerous, but also the introduction of disinformation and propaganda. Sabotaging the opinion-forming process must be criminalized.”

          THERE YOU HAVE IT!
          the penultimate paragraph!

          • Goose

            AG

            Looking at it from the UK, Germany’s whole approach to policing alleged antisemitism reeks of overcompensating.

            They want to be seen as the least anti-Semitic nation on earth, for obvious historical reasons. But the rough treatment being meted out to peaceful protestors, many female, is sickening. It’s as though the authorities think they can rewrite history by being overly aggressive with Israel’s opponents today. The Springer press is a really malign actor in encouraging this stuff too.

          • AG

            Goose

            it´s kind of you, to try explain it in rational terms.
            I am beyond that.
            I have settled with telling people they have a pychosis.
            Since in the light of the simple facts negligence of this magnitude leaves not many more options.
            speaking of this: in an excellent interview with “Useful Idiots”, Ilan Pappé past winter used that very image for describing Israeli society – they are struggling with a “psychosis”. Becaue for their paranoia towards Arabs there is no other explanation.
            Same true the other way for Germans.
            So they deserve each other, complementing their counterparts like in a symbolistic novel, where perpetrator and victim end up being one and the same entity.

          • Goose

            AG

            I agree, there is something very wrong in Israeli society.

            The politicians in Europe (EU), NATO + UK MoD and certainly not the US, don’t want to acknowledge that fact, because they wrongly conflate such views with antisemitism. But Israel isn’t like a normal Western country. They’ve literally been in a state of high-tension with the expectation of imminent war ever since 1948. Read all the military operations they’ve been involved in : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israel_Defense_Forces_operations

            It’s been obvious for years that Israelis have developed a hard, warrior-like mentality towards Arabs and Palestinians and to be fair, the loathing is mutual. During Operation Protective Edge in 2014, UK Channel 4 news presenters interviewed random Israelis in Tel Aviv, and the views expressed,were, well, by Western standards basically genocidal. Not an ounce of sympathy for Gazans. Even today, most protests in Israel are solely concerned with the fate of the Israeli hostages. Israelis seem to find it very difficult to feel any sympathy or empathy over the massive destruction they’ve caused and an est. 34,000 dead Gazans, many of whom are just ordinary civilians.

          • AG

            Goose

            this fits perfectly:
            Norman Finkelstein´s blog entry from April 19th:

            “A rational analysis of the current predicament must begin with this bedrock fact: Israel is a crazy state. Not a “bad actor.” Not a “rogue” regime. A crazy state. The full range of Israeli elite opinion, itself reflective of Israeli society at large (which overwhelmingly supports the genocidal war in Gaza; only a handful of Israelis have refused to serve), spans a mere flea’s hop:” (…)

            The piece goes into the Iran matter eventually:
            https://www.normanfinkelstein.com/samson-and-cassandra-april-16-2024/

            Now on military topics I have treated Finkelstein´s assessments often with caution.
            But the biblical terminologies used are totally adequate.
            Because beyond rationality only mythology with its larger-than life concepts is adequate.
            aka fascist.

          • Goose

            AG
            They are desperate to remove the Iranian threat. But they don’t know how. The CIA/MI6 have tried the colour revolution route, internal terrorism; they’ve assassinated nuclear scientists, sabotaged equipment (Stuxnet), staged false flag incidents – under Trump.

            Israel knows they can’t act alone and using nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear armed state would be unconscionable. The US knows even attempting an attack on Iran, would be a major undertaking fraught with dangerous uncertainties. There’ll be no invasion as there’s no staging country and Iran is too big and too populous to invade. The US simply hasn’t got the troops if staging were possible (it isn’t). The US public’s tolerance for bombing another country in the ME, in a war viewed as for Israel, and based on a false pretext will simply not be there either under Biden or Trump. Then there’s the added dimension of possible Russian and Chinese support for Iran. US HIMARS and British Storm Shadows are currently killing Russian troops in Ukraine, I’m sure the Russians won’t forget, when the US/UK are next at war. Maybe why Olaf Scholz has been reluctant to send LR Taurus missiles? He has some foresight and knows the old adage, what goes around comes around.
            The simplest route to avoid the destruction Israel’s leaders have nightmares over, would be by implementing a two-state solution and eventually normalizing relations with Iran. But they seem to be incapable of doing the right thing.

      • will moon

        Goose I read a very interesting book concerning wartime censorship in Britain. A recent academic text that kept the numbers to a minimum – it catalogued the broad trends across the period when mail was opened. I can’t remember what the numbers were but it was an extensive effort by the censoring authorities. The subject is well worth a look, imo.

        In 39-40 vague fear, vague triumphalism
        In 40 – to the end of 41 fear, recognition of the existentialist danger
        In 42 vague sense of victory
        In 43+ growing certainty of victory

        The reports were collated monthly and sent to the relevant ministries and to other interested parties, BBC, SIS etc etc

        So maybe since the advent and subsequent dominance of digital communication, we have been in a “State of War”. Wait, what about the “War on Terror” which coincidentally began as “digital” came to the fore?

        • Goose

          @will moon

          We may just stumble into that digital dystopia without anyone really knowing how we arrived there.

          The FVEYs seem to operate solely on the basis of the utility of some new capability; with ethical and civil liberty considerations pushed to one side. There’s also so much infantile secrecy in the UK, we don’t know how they’ll use advancing AI and LLMs. And no one in parliament seems capable of posing the right questions, Not that the govt would answer, as matters relating to national security aren’t discussed by OUR elected representatives!! I don’t even know if the wholly inadequate oversight body, the ISC, even still meets?

          It could happen like the famous line in Jurassic Park , now an overused meme:

          “Your [data] scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

          • Goose

            Interesting aside to all this, and it relates to Gaza:

            In March 2024, a Google Cloud software engineer was fired after a video of them shouting “I refuse to build technology that empowers genocide,” in reference to Project Nimbus, at a company event went viral. Shortly thereafter, dozens of employees participated in sit-ins at Google’s New York & Sunnyvale Headquarters. Sunnyvale Police were called to remove employees from a day-long occupation of Google Cloud chief executive Thomas Kurian’s office. Nine employees were charged with criminal misdemeanor and 28 were terminated.

            Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Nimbus

          • will moon

            I forgot to mention one growing trend that reached a crescendo in ’45 – the growing communicated desire to build a better society on the wreckage of the old one.

            As to stumbling, Goose, I sometimes think that the technology we know represents a “sandbox” – a subset of the actual state of affairs. If this were true it would rule out the notion of an accidental dystopia.

            I knew once an individual heavily involved in some fantastically laborious hobby. They had found a method of earning a modest living from it. In the course of carrying out their hobby-job, they made a scientific discovery – a freak accident. They spent a couple of years, gathering investments and a commercial organisation, in an attempt to exploit this discovery. Then they got bored and sold the patents to a huge multinational corporation for a considerable sum and I have never seen or heard from them – or of them again, lol. The buyer buried the patents for 70 or a 100 years at least. A highly useful development gone. Poof – just like that.

            Yet this knowledge is not lost merely commercially proscribed.

        • AG

          there is a study by a known psychoanalyst who wrote about dreams of Germans during WWII.

          There were interesting contradictions during Nazi rule on the practice of psychoanalysis – some wanted it abolished due to Jewish scholarship in that field, others pushed it, not least due to C.G. Jung´s eminent role.

          Which would take us into interesting territory when considering eavesdropping on psychoanalyst´s confidential sessions. I don´t know about cases where Gestapo would use that. It is known though that in the GDR Stasi was doing that, I guess FBI did too, and the infamou Max Eitington, a former pupil of Freud, working for NKVD as a secret informant used his position as high profie shrink among white Russian refugees in Paris, to spy on their private affairs and plans.
          Where the nation state is concerned, confidentiality between doctor and patient is limited. Same true for letters, emails, phone calls.

      • Goose

        The trouble with Trump, quite frankly, is he isn’t smart enough to take on the ‘deep state’ he so detests. He got landed with John Bolton and Mike Pompeo – you can’t get any deeper members of the ‘deep state’ than those two.

        Let’s face it, if he were smart, he’d have never have dared to make leading Republicans look like idiots: “Little Marco” Rubio, he mocked the late John McCain and made a fool of Jeb Bush. He belittled the then CIA Director, John Brennan, and James Comey then at the FBI. This is a guy without any fear that normal mortals would have attacking powerful permanent officialdom. Jared Kushner, his Jewish son-in-law, basically acted more like an Israeli diplomat, using the power of the US and State Dept to further Israel’s regional goals. The unilateral recognition of the Golan Heights as Israeli and moving the embassy, along with the Israel-Morocco normalization agreement in return for the US recognising Morocco’s claim to the Western Sahara, were all engineered by Kushner. He even brought the Saudis close to reaching an agreement too. No wonder, when together Kushner and Netanyahu were all knowing (wink, wink) smiles, Netanyahu beaming as if with his favourite son.

        The only good thing about a Trump presidency is, I’d imagine, the Pentagon wouldn’t want to conduct a major war with him as commander-in-chief; he’s too irrational. Thus he may be a pacifist president, albeit by accident.

  • harry law

    Robert Kraft billionaire [worth 11 billion, forbes] said…
    “Now, the real shame is, I’ve given to Columbia probably about $50 million over many years,” he continued. “And I’m going to suspend my giving. I’ll give my giving to other organizations.”
    The Columbia Uni President was also given her marching orders by a hostile congress “do you want to be cursed by God”, asks Congressman Allen?
    Rick Allen Republican Congressman brings The Old Testament In Biblical Grilling Of Columbia University President:
    If Craig Murray does not want to be cursed by God, he must learn to be more appreciative of Israel and genocide. i.e. send big donations to the IDF.

    • Jack

      What I think is disturbing is how the Columbia university President Minouche Shafik support the suppression of the protests, she is after all of arab (egyptian) ethnicity and on top of that a muslim. Not to say that just because you are muslim or arab you have to support this or that but this woman have flagrantly thrown the pro-palestinian protesters under the bus. and joined in in the smearing against (arab) professors on her school.

      Joseph Massad responds to fabrications and lies about him in Congress
      On 17 April, Minouche Shafik, the president of Columbia University, appeared before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, the latest episode in efforts by members of Congress to shut down criticism of Israel on campuses by falsely accusing students, professors and administrators of anti-Semitism.
      https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/joseph-massad-responds-fabrications-and-lies-about-him-congress

  • Jordo42

    Craig Murray, you are quite astute in pointing out that this level of coordination in advance indicates an intent of the US and its Euro-vassals to perpetrate and ensure genocide.

    We can also see another indication from back in 2022 when the Biden Administration, and specifically Antony Blinken, unilaterally greenwashed the movement Kahane Kach, which the current Israeli minister Ben Gvir is aligned with:
    https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/05/20/2022-10828/in-the-matter-of-the-designation-of-kahane-chai-and-other-aliases-as-a-foreign-terrorist
    https://www.newarab.com/analysis/kahanism-legacy-violence-and-racism-israel
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/15/israel-ben-gvir-netanyahu-government/
    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/02/27/itamar-ben-gvir-israels-minister-of-chaos

    These kind of actions are not only scandalous and indefensible, they are also completely consistent with an ongoing and strategic intent to unleash genocidal forces against the Palestinian people.

  • Suhayl Saadi

    Is it still illegal to display the Palestinian flag in Pakistan? Like the Arab regimes, the regime aka the Army and its prostitute political class, is a US proxy largely divorced from its own people which like all proxies, acts in the interests of it’s neocolonial master not in the interests of it’s people. The junta in Pakistan is busy gaoling anyone who dares to speak out about anything. I do not have any particular regard for former PM, Imran Khan’s political acumen, but he is in gaol and that is a crime, one of many crimes being perpetrated by the bloated bastards of the Pakistan military.

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