Strangely, even the sight on television of the body of a small boy, the same age as Cameron, being dug by hand from the bomb rubble, is not what has stayed with me strongest from the latest attack on the Palestinians. Instead, I recall most vividly a radio broadcast on the BBC World Service two days before the attack on Gaza began.
It was a banal, everyday story of Palestinian villagers being evicted from their land in the occupied West Bank, to make way for an Israeli “military zone”. These pastoralists had lost a thousand hectares to the Israelis in the last few years, and now these ancient villages were being finally, forcibly, evacuated in a vicious act of ethnic cleansing. The shepherds claimed that what this was really about, was the precious springs that watered their livestock. Work was already starting to divert their water to nearby, and illegal, burgeoning Israeli settlements.
The BBC World Service TV has this minute, at 9.00am GMT, started its news broadcast as usual from Ashkelon in Israel, highlighting rocket attacks on Israel. There is no mention on the BBC – there has never been any mention on the BBC, or anywhere in the Western mainstream media – that for at least 4,000 years Ashkelon was an Arab town, until in 1948 the entire, Arab population of 12,000 was driven out by armed force, many being massacred. Doubtless some older inhabitants of Gaza are refugees whose home is Ashkelon.
Israel is exercising its right of self-defence in precisely the same sense that Hitler was exercising the right of self-defence in Normandy in 1944 – ie not at all. Why the world puts up with this blatant ethnic cleansing and prolonged, agonizing genocide of the Palestinain people, I have no idea. It is not just about bombs and rockets and deaths now. It is about the shepherds being pushed out of their village in 2012 as part of the same process of the massacre of Ashkelon in 1948, all a process of genocide of the Palestinians in which Obama, Clinton, Cameron and Hague, as two wholw generations of western politicians before them, are actively complicit.
Goebbels would have been proud at the propaganda being spewed out by our media and politicians in support of the Israeli ’cause’.
“Why the world puts up with this blatant ethnic cleansing and prolonged, agonizing genocide of the Palestinain people, I have no idea.”
People can only respond to what they see and hear and feel etc. The prime function of MSM is to ensure that the agressor is portrayed as wearily responding to attack, and when this becomes untenable and unbelieveable they retreat to a position where both sides are portrayed as bad as one another. They further ensure that there’s little context upon which to contruct a moral position.
Propaganda, in short.
Why media do this is another matter. It would also mean that media are complicit in the slaughter.
Gilad Atzmon explains all in his recent book “The Wandering Who”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFjejrGxFY4
And who where the last occupiers (or their allies) to give a fuck about the indigenous?
I reckon it’s Alexander the Great.
Big areas of Haifa and Jaffa were ‘cleared’ by the Zionist terror army too. Much of Tel Aviv stands on such land.
No person who upholds humanity can support a two-state solution.
Are you sure you have “no idea” why ‘the world’ puts up with Zionist terror? A culture of vicious racism and the establishment and use of what Jenny Tonge calls “financial grips” have got something to do with it.
That’s unless someone can come up with some other reason, which I suppose might be easy and ‘natural’ for those who have minds like goldfish and focus minute by minute on who said what on the telly.
Even in 1948, the leaderships of the US, the UK, and the USSR were utterly acquiescent. It’s often said that this was because they didn’t want to look bad, in view of the mass slaughter that had recently been carried about by German Nazis. This is utter nonsense.
Many phrases are in widespread use which in the way they are used are lies. For example, ‘settlement’. Why the fuck doesn’t the western media ever call a kibbutz a settlement? Or publish any article calling the kibbutz the racist institution that it is? Or ‘occupied territories’. What about the territories occupied in 1948?
It is Hamas who speak the language of truth in this connection, referring to the ’48’ OTs and the ’67’ OTs.
Glad you are well again, Mr Murray.
“there has never been any mention on the BBC, or anywhere in the Western mainstream media – that for at least 4,000 years Ashkelon was an Arab town, until in 1948 the entire, Arab population of 12,000 was driven out by armed force, many being massacred.”
The truth is not funny even though there is an internet joke that the Israelis are just taking back the land the Palestinians stole from them before they arrived!
‘they’ being the Israelis of course.
Last night I switch on BBC iPlayer and promoted at number one to watch is:
“The dark charisma Adolf Hitler”
Why is it when Israel begin a fresh bout of ethnic cleansing do the BBC repeatedly ram the Holocaust down our throats? Is this coincidence?
Maybe next time “The Nazis: A Warning from History” is repeated we could all take note and draw parallels where they are due instead of adopting the narrative of Israeli criticism = Antisemitism.
What was it that Oscar Wilde once said… “patriotism is the virtue of the vicious”; forever true whichever way you turn it!
History is full of cruel and tragic ironies but history is also happening now. Fresh documentaries need to be made on how one peoples struggle and persecution has given birth to anothers.
I don’t think it is coincidence. Around the time of the Gaza massacre of 4 years ago, bus shelters in Britain were covered with big posters advertising the film Defiance.
Ban Ki-moon press conference in Ramallah a few minutes ago with Abbas wasn’t even carried live by Al Jazeera. Had to watch it on Press TV. In contrast, all the networks covered his meeting with Nastyahu last night.
Bomb blast on a bus in Tel Aviv just being reported.
Interesting that as soon as Shillary appears on the scene, the truce flies out of the window. Harry Fear, now on RT, said this morning that it was the worse night of the seven day attach so far and that journalists and reporters are being targeted more than before. The truth must not get out, must it Mr Netanyahu?
This morning, live from Gaza, Donnison was saying the same about last night’s ‘pounding’ (the BBC phrase) by Israel being the worst so far, the sound of a rocket going off was heard in the background. ‘That will be a rocket heading towards Israel’ he says. ‘The sirens there will be going off’. Seamlessly the cameras switched to Ben Brown in Ashkelon where the sirens were indeed going off. ‘I have to go now’ says Brown. ‘It is very dangerous standing here out in the open. I am going to the shelter’, as he hastened away.
If that wasn’t all planned, I will eat my kippah!
btw Shillary should be told that a pony tail is not a good look for a woman of her age. The Croydon facelift is the purpose of course. And she is piling on the lbs. What an awful specimen of womanhood.
And the Drop the Dead Donkey award for most obviously staged news report must go to the BBC’s Ben Brown.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20384330
I think the crouching low and looking nervously over the shoulder deserves the award all on it’s own, getting a sound man to run across the corner of the shot was a stroke of genius. That hint of verging on nervous breakdown tremor in the voice must have taken days to perfect.
The reporters over in Gaza, where the media are being deliberately targeted by Israel, have a lot to learn about the art of bullshitting if they hope to stand a chance in next year’s awards, they just walk around looking casual as if nothing was happening.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20365074
What an amazing nerve Abbas has, to meet Netanyahu at this time, when the legitimate Palestinian government, based in the territory undergoing the blitz, is not doing so. But when has he ever been anything other than a quisling?
I do wish they wouldn’t target buses. If there is one place you can be sure to only harm the powerless, it is a bus.
Oops, sorry, I misread your post, Anon. I thought you meant Abbas, not Ban Ki-Moon.
BBC propaganda management.
A whole page ostensibly about a footballer, but actually about rockets from Gaza. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20397113
A bomb has just exploded in a bus in Tel Aviv, injuring 10 people. Micky Rosenfeld comes on to the BBC to report. He is from the Israeli police force and is used by the Israeli Ministry of Information to report on such events just as Ms Leibovich reports in to the media here on military ops.
Timing of this? False flag likely??
Death toll in Gaza – now 138 Injured – unknown
https://twitter.com/AvitalLeibovich
Explodes right under the IDF office. Hmm. Initial pictures of bus don’t seem to show much damage – just a lot of smoke.
How do you have en explosion on a bus where all the windows remain intact? Or at least that’s what it looks like from initial pictures.
The bleeding obvious is again offered to William. Maybe he’ll stop the self-righteous bellowing long enough to read it, but there is little hope of that…
http://jfjfp.com/?p=36317
Underlying this confrontation, of course, is the clear evidence that this Israeli government has no intention of negotiating peace along the internationally accepted lines. Not only has it refused in principle to cease settlement expansion, but it has undertaken several specific actions that are clear markers of its intentions to keep large parts of the West Bank and East Jerusalem., all of which are known to your staff in the FCO. The most directly relevant is its refusal to submit negotiating proposals to the Quartet a year ago. It continues to maintain its siege of Gaza which imprisons the population and prevents all economic development, creating a pressure cooker environment which is ideal for recruitment to the militant factions.
None of this has been lost on Hamas or the other Palestinian groups. It is not surprising that they resort to mounting attacks as part of resisting Israeli expansionism, and that leads to Israeli repression, which leads to the cycle of violence. The time has surely come to stop blaming Hamas and to place the responsibility squarely on Israeli expansionism where it belongs. Until Israel is held to account for its actions, it is hard to see how the cycle of violence will end.
(my emphasis -K)
Ok, See some damage now. Being reported that explosion may have been outside bus.
Looks like the bus was right outside the Kirya military base at the time.
Strangely, coincidentally or whatever, the bus that was bombed in Tavistock Square on 7/7 carried this advert:
‘The bus displays the well-known advert for the horror-movie ‘The Descent,’ which opened on July 8th (!). The film’s promoters (Wikipedia tells us) had to quickly alter the adverts, because: ‘ ”people were still trapped underground in reality, so no one really wanted to go see a film about people trapped underground…” Yes, indeed, it was ‘Outright terror, bold and brilliant,‘ just as the advert stated.
http://terroronthetube.co.uk/2011/03/01/constructed-terror-the-conclusive-proof/
It seems that Israeli propaganda follows the advice in the bible:
2 Samuel 1:20
“Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.”
Another report that this was not a suicide bomber. Unclear whether package left on bus or detonated just outside. Whatever exploded it certainly wasn’t your typical bus explosion.
I can remember berry picking buses with fewer intact windows.
Norman Finklestein says, “the Israel army is the most cowardly army on earth”, much to the annoyance of a very fat American bloke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxfLlPtDGIg
Hamas now claiming responsibility according to some reports. Not a wise move really.
By the way, it’s well worth reading The Guardian’s Live Blog on the ‘crisis’. It really is amazing how obvious their pro-Israeli bias has become, to the extent that it isn’t even remotely hidden. Oh, at some point a few days down the line a few articles will appear talking about the blockade, but it’s too late then isn’t it? The intial impact is what counts.
The MSM is simply not worth reading anymore, other than to laugh at, and mock. It’s basically an insult to our intelligence. I’m no rocket-scientist, but I really don’t appreciate lies, psy-ops and propaganda masquerading as ‘objective reporting’. I get kinda insulted, really. As in, who are these people to manipulate public opinion is such a blatant manner? What did they ever do, but go to Oxbridge? Nothing, really.
Media bias? Here’s an instructive example.
A few years ago I signed up to the Washington Post’s emailed news alerts. I can’t really remember why.
Anyway, precisely nine minutes ago I got one of those alerts informing me that 10 Israelis had been injured in a bus explosion in Tel Aviv. Not once during the previous week has the Post alerted me about the deaths of any of the 136 (and counting) Palestinians. This includes the deaths of some 25 children.
Civilian casualties are a terrible thing. But it seems that for “our” media only one side matters.
Oh, nearly forgot: welcome back Craig.
Suggestion regarding the demonstration in London on Saturday; for anyone wanting to meet up before proceeding to Downing Street, the previous thread would be a good place to make arrangements.