Today I link to something that I did not enjoy reading, just to illustrate a point. It is a truly poor article by one Niles Gardiner in the Telegraph.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100041748/the-world-demonises-israel-once-again/
I point out merely in passing that the first few hundred overwhelmingly negative comments were deleted by the Telegraph. But the real reason I link is the significance of the strapline:
He appears frequently on American and British television and radio, including Fox News Channel, CNN, BBC, Sky News, and NPR.
I bet he does. He has no international diplomatic experience, no knowledge of international law and very little experience of the hotspots of the world. But he is fully armed with the set of opinions those news outlets want their readers to hear.
Absolutely anybody can write this rubbish. Just string these elements together:
Poor little Israel. Threatened from all sides. Nazi Germany. Islamic terrorism. Hamas. Anti-semitism. Brutal Jihadists. Self defence. The right to return. Only democracy in the Middle East. Self defence. Iranian President threat to wipe off map. 8,000 Hamas rockets. Alliance of liberals, commies and islamists. 9/11. Chopping off hands. Subjugation of women. Taliban. Clash of civilisations. Existential threat. Self defence.
I could churn this stuff out easily and be on Fox, Sky and BBC as often as I like. I could pick up a fat salary like Nick Cohen for a weekly column of this stuff, and pocket the Rupert Murdoch TV fees as an extra. I could sit in a think tank. I would certainly be a great deal more qualified, and a great deal more convincing, than Niles pisspoor Gardiner. I write a lot better too.
But then I am handicapped by morality.
Which reminds me. Having followed the media coverage of the Israeli action very carefully, have you noticed what seems a complete absence on TV of bona fide experts in maritime law?
Normally live news brings in “experts” at the drop of a hat to fill in the 24/7 broadcasting, but despite the fact that professors of international law specialising in the law of the sea are not exactly hard to find, no TV station has asked one about the legality of the Israeli action.
That is because the martime law community is unanimous that the Israeli action is illegal.
Which reminds me. Having followed the media coverage of the Israeli action very carefully, have you noticed what seems a complete absence on TV of bona fide experts in maritime law?
YES, glaringly.
International law is law between states.
How can there be law between Israel on the one side, and an international community which is so against it that it regards its people as kikes and hymies?
The over-educated so called experts just made everything too complicated and some of them would say the wrong thing.
Anyway, who needs experts when we’ve got Gaunty, Littlejohn and Iain Dale and all the rest telling us mere mortals what to think.
That’s what annoys me
Now that, Michael Petek, is completely untrue on all counts and you really have no grounds for writing it.
“Poor little Israel. Threatened from all sides. Nazi Germany. Islamic terrorism. Hamas. Anti-semitism. Brutal Jihadists. Self defence. The right to return. Only democracy in the Middle East. Self defence. Iranian President threat to wipe off map. 8,000 Hamas rockets. Alliance of liberals, commies and islamists. 9/11. Chopping off hands. Subjugation of women. Taliban. Clash of civilisations. Existential threat. Self defence.”
LOL! I think I’ve seen that particular piece at least a few hundred times in the mainstream press and media.
Nile Gardiner is a stupid little shit. He works for some Thatcher/Reagan loving institute:
http://ht.ly/1UIKL
I am by no means a professor. I am just a street smarts guy. To me it is very simple. The ships were in International waters. They were boarded the same way as pirates board ships. They murdered innocent civilians, the same as pirates. This then makes them murderous pirates. If N/Korea, or Iran would have done this. America would have nuked them already. Being that is what Israel, we give them the green light and a pass as usual. Shame on Israel, and shame on America.
Case Closed.
Poor wee misunderstood Israel.
We only do racism, ethnic cleansing, paranoia and terrorism to protect us from bad people who don’t like us.
Start liking us and we’ll stop slaughtering you.
Michael Petek at June 6, 2010 4:47 PM
People murdered in International waters but the perpetartors not subject to law because of the international communitiy’s racism, towards Israel.
How do you think your little propoganda campaign on Craig’s site is going?
Believe it or not even some guys in the US are getting fed up with paying through their noses for the US subvention of Israel.
Some guys are also just as mad re-the supine Zio-spew US corporate media and the endless wars on Israel’s behalf.
This guy thinks it’s all gonna blow this summer!
http://americanjourney.blogspot.com/2010/06/united-states-of-zionist-america-im.html
No wonder the Lobby is foremost advocate for the disarming of Americans!
ScouseBilly, were they really murdered?
If you provoke the Jews you get bit!
Just like when you provoke the Arabs.
And if you’re a dhimmi under physical assault by a Muslim, woe betide you if you so much as defend yourself. All you can do under Islamic law is beg for mercy.
I sent an email to Paul Reynolds of the BBC coz I disagreed so much with one of his online pieces – in his reply he referred to the difficulty of understanding international law and I wrote back suggesting he could interview you – you know, kill two birds with one stone – an expert on int. marit. law more qualified than him to comment on the legality of the raid on the flotilla and a counterpoint to the endless number of Israeli spokespeople to redress the imbalance in reporting.
I did not hear back from him, but, in all fairness, I must say he changed some of the things criticised (obviously not just by me but other readers) which improved the article a little. I guess, though, he didn’t get in touch, or did he, Craig?
Reality Zone, North Korea did ‘do this’ two months ago to a South Korean warship, sinking it with the loss of forty-six lives.
But we musn’t over-react, as the Communists might get angry.
International law is law between states.
How can there be law between Israel on the one side, and an international community when Israel doesn’t recognise any international agreements, including the ones it has signed up to, unless they can use them in its favour. A country which also disdains foreign relations on the grounds that it despises all others as weak and feeble terrorists, anti-semites blah blah. But the most significant reason is that Israel is not a state in any normal sense of the term. It has no borders, deciding where they might be on the basis of whether it wants the land – Jews in West Bank are inside Israel, Palestinian Christians and Muslims in the West Bank are outside Israel, although ruled by them. It is a gerrymandered state to ensure one cultural group rules, all the others are second class, subjugated and powerless.
Don’t be too hard on this Petek character. The poor chap is responsible for this web site: http://www.crownofdavid.com.
I kid you not.
June, it’s true that Israel has no borders delimited by agreement, save where they coincide with the borders of Mandate Palestine. But it has borders delimited by the limits of effective territorial control. Gaza never belonged to any state after Ottoman rule ceased, and the West Bank was once – but is no longer – part of Jordan.
Michael Petek at June 6, 2010 5:05 PM
Yes, they were murdered in International waters.
Don’t try and deflect me.
Craig, you are right about the shower of piss poor ‘experts’ who are given space to pontificate and write ill-informed rubbish. I remember a few years ago when it emerged that all the ‘experts’ used by US TV channels were military people hired through government channels ie not independent in any way, although presented as such.
Although you would have a lot more cogent things to say, you have rocked the boat, have been smeared by the FO, and therefore, as they wanted, have been labelled ‘controversial’. Compliant wafflers are welcome, particularly those who go to great lengths to avoid saying anything remotely accurate, or which might imply disapproval. It is a closed shop. Look at the manufactured fuss when Pilger reported on life in the West Bank, and the barbarism of the IDF and its deliberate policy of smashing cultural and social buildings and offices.
It’s impossible to debate with these people.
Saw an Israeli representative on Yvonne Ridley’s show the other day saying that UN Resolutions were mere “recommendations”. Go figure!
Does “walking the plank” still get a mention in Maritime Law?
Great piece by Les Blough on Israel’s disinfo tactics after atrocities it’s committed:
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_60104.shtml
How will readers be better informed as a result of this article?
For becoming informed about the flotilla incident, It is useful to ask: just what is the evidence concerning whether the attack by Israel on the convoy was provoked or unprovoked?
In particular, is there evidence on the internet enables one to evaluate the following statements that some Israelis have made on other websites:
1. The Israelis only attacked one of the six ships, which was the Turkish one.
2. Some of the Turks declared their intent to kill Israeli soldiers.
3. The ‘martyr’ Turks boarded the ship separately and smuggled their luggage on board.
4. One Israeli soldier reports that the Turks had firearms which they threw overboard. This should be regarded as an allegation, and not hard evidence. But it is consistent with what happened.
Note that I am asking for websites with evidence like videos of interviews. Anti-Israel writings in general are plentifully available, as we know.
List of Zionist sado-freaks involved in Operation Cast Lead massacre:
http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/01/27/kawther-salam-names-and-photos-of-israeli-war-criminals-in-gaza/
The Zionists have told so many Big Lies this week to excuse themselves for their latest pre-planned massacre-maybe it’s about time people on the establishment left did a bit of homework on the biggest lie of the lot:the Holohoax as well!
Reams of downloadable material on what Churchill,DeGaulle,and Eisenhower somehow forgot to mention in their war memoirs are available across the web.
THE TRUTH WILL OUT!
Wait for the censor……….
ScouseBilly, those people should have known better than to mess with Jews.
Every anti-Semite knows that you have to have special training to do this safely.
Remember, a Jew can’t harm you if you grab him by his horns and wrestle him to the ground.
He might yell ‘Oy, gevalt’, but he can’t hurt you as long as you keep hold of the horns.
The problem with experts is you don’t know what they might say. Also you should know sometimes they are not exactly unbiased experts. Sure you remember the “expert” from SOAS the Channel 4 got in after the Anjadin massacre!
Paul
Dear Craig
You don’t seriously believe we’re going to end a week when tens of our brave humanitarian brothers and sisters have been murdered in cold blood reading the Telegraph do you?
Kawther Salam is just scorching on the flotilla massacre and is a far more refreshing place to be than the Telegraph!
http://www.kawther.info./wpr/
@Michael Petek:
So you indirectly admit your an anti-Semite since you know how to fight a Jew.
And how long have you been training for?
Michael Petek at June 6, 2010 5:46 PM
You’re just another prick confusing jews and zionists – how tedious.
Abe Rene, there are plenty of eyewitness accounts from flotilla members, including the Swedish novelist. Also you might look at the post mortem evidence of the murders – shots from close range, from behind etc. And you could ask why Israel felt it necessary to do this under an electronic silence, at night, with lethally armed forces, and then only release a tiny part of the video, which suits their story, and omits the crucial question of what happened before. Luckily the eye witnesses accounts corroborate and are widely available.
Not for a moment that I think you are actually interested in hearing about the usual cover ups and lies we get, as evidenced in Cast Lead and in the West Bank on a daily basis.
Shmulk, I’m not trained to fight a Jew, and I’ve never tried to do so.
I find out these things by going onto YouTube and putting the term ‘Borat’ into the search engine.
Why don’t you try it yourself? Look for him performing a song called ‘Throw the Jew Down the Well’. If there were any charts in Gaza, it would be at the top of them.