Israel’s massive air strikes against Syria are, beyond argument, illegal. There is no provision in international law that enables you to bomb another country because that country is in internal chaos. Yet the reporting on the BBC, and indeed throughout the mainstream media, makes no mention of their illegality, and makes no mention of the people killed. Contrast this to the condemnatory tone of BBC reporting of North Korean ballistic missile tests, or of Iran’s civil uranium enrichment programme, both of which I view as neither wise nor desirable, but both of which are undoubtedly quite legal.
I have previously noted that Israel does not want the Syrian regime to fall. Tel Aviv has looked long and hard at the likely result, and decided that the risks are too great; an Israel-friendly Sunni strongman could yet be engineered, but a jihadist influenced government is a very real danger for them. This Israeli coolness is the major reason that the Obama government have stepped back from stoking directly the flames of war, although they continue to do so through their Saudi, Qatar and other allies.
But a Syria tearing itself to pieces is, so long as it lasts, pretty acceptable to Netanyahu. He can step in when he wants and destroy Syria’s military infrastructure, such as the defensive installations just wiped out in massive strikes around Damascus. This is very helpful to Israel’s long term military domination. Normally the scale of this devastating Israeli attack on Syria’s ability to defend itself against Israel air strikes would have brought the most profound world condemnation, but suddenly it is “humanitarian intervention” – and nobody in the western media has even felt the need to justify the narrative that Damascus’ air defences were a humanitarian threat to rebel populations.
In the meantime, a clear statement from the United Nations that the evidence points to rebels, not the government, using the chemical weapon Sarin in Syria, does appear on the BBC website but I have not heard it broadcast, and it does not figure in western media with a hundredth of the prominence given to the unsubstantiated claims of Assad forces using Sarin.
I am in no sense a supporter of Assad. I should dearly love to see his regime overthrown and a democratic government representing the Syrian people installed instead. But the attempt to subvert Syria and influence the country towards the installation of a US and House of Saud backed puppet regime, backed by an extraordinary barrage of distorted propaganda to fool western populations over the course and meaning of events, is sickening.
@ April Showers
Not only are they using radioactive uranium, but Chris Bubsy found that the Zionist entity used enriched uranium (Against the people of Lebanon in the Summer of 2006)
surplus illegal uranium feedstock perhaps and doubtless they believed it will harm and kill more people.
Never trust a scientist who wears a beret, LWTC. And please support your assertion re. enriched uranium with a link, eh?
There’s actually no need to exaggerate Israel’s crimes. If any other country committed them, it would be under sanctions.
“the Israelis are even more evil than I thought”…
how can the Israeli (government) be even more evil than you thought?
Amnesty International said a fact-finding team found “indisputable evidence of the widespread use of white phosphorus” in crowded civilian residential areas of Gaza City and elsewhere in the territory.[44] Donatella Rovera, the head of an Amnesty fact-finding mission to southern Israel and Gaza, said: “Israeli forces used white phosphorus and other weapons supplied by the USA to carry out serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes.”[45]
On 5 January the Times reported that telltale smoke associated with white phosphorus had been seen in areas of a shelling. On 12 January it was reported that more than 50 phosphorus burns victims were in Nasser Hospital. On 16 January the UNRWA headquarters was hit with phosphorus munitions.[46] As a result of the hit, the compound was set ablaze.[47]
Many other observers, including Human Rights Watch military experts, reported seeing white phosphorus air bursts over Gaza City and the Jabalya refugee camp.[48] The BBC published a photograph of two shells exploding over a densely populated area on 11 January.[49]
Some not-very pretty pictures of white phosphorus use by our friends, if your browser permits-
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=white+phosphorus+israel&client=firefox-a&hs=lc3&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=FvuIUZWlNMeiO-f2gLgP&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAQ&biw=1662&bih=934
You can see the care they take to ensure no, er, collateral damage such as might happen if a 110 mm WP shell were to airburst above a residential neighbourhood. Obviously it’s being legally used as illumination – it’s as bright as day in many of those shots, and let no naysayer allege that this is because it is day…
Anyway, they’re going to give it up because it doesn’t photograph well. Just when you thought its career in Hollywood was assured –
http://972mag.com/israel-gives-up-white-phosphorus-because-it-doesnt-photograph-well/70063/
Lighten up, Komodo. And get back on topic –
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/06/syria-israel-bombing-moral-relativism
Glenn Greenwald, asking a question which needs answering.
…if Syria this week attacks a US military base on US soil and incidentally kills some American civilians (as Nidal Hasan did), and then cites as justification the fact that the US has been aiding Syrian rebels, would any establishment US journalist or political official argue that this was remotely justified? Or what if Syria bombed Qatar or Saudi Arabia on the same ground: would any US national figure defend the bombing as well within Syria’s rights given those nations’ arming of its rebels?
@ Komodo
“Never trust a scientist who wears a beret” LOL
But I’m afraid it’s become never trust a scientist NOT wearing a beret”
(other than military ones of course! – but that’s a no-brainer)
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-mystery-of-israels-secret-uranium-bomb-421960.html
Craig; I hope you don’t find this amongst your ‘prophecy’ derogations…
(I have to run, no time to read completely, but it is supposed to be a translation of the Zion Master Plan.)
http://members.tripod.com/alabasters_archive/zionist_plan.html
In which, yer man opines, “Dr Busby’s initial report states that there are two possible reasons for the contamination. “The first is that the weapon was some novel small experimental nuclear fission device or other experimental weapon (eg, a thermobaric weapon) based on the high temperature of a uranium oxidation flash … The second is that the weapon was a bunker-busting conventional uranium penetrator weapon employing enriched uranium rather than depleted uranium.”
As to the first, using any kind of uranium would be pointless, as magnesium or zirconium would do the job much better, and are in addition relatively light. The second is a well established piece of weaponry, several of which have been sold by the US to Israel. As to why they would be used in Lebanon, we can probably assume that Israel was well aware of Hizb’ullah’s sneaky tendency to use underground shelters when being attacked.
Busby’s results have been challenged, and in any case do not point to a high level of enrichment. Worrying, especially if the weapons were American made, but not out of the (Israeli) ‘ordinary’ and not proven.
http://www.newweapons.org/filestore/Depleted-and-Enr-Kobeissi-jan06Uranium-in-Lebanon.pdf
If I understand him correctly, his U-238/U-235 analyses are on the high side of what is usually called depleted uranium (and well above US military specifications), but still well below the U-238 content of naturally occurring uranium ores.
@Mark U
“The fact that Israel is in breach of international law on many counts is not in dispute, but many of the accusations leveled at Iran, Syria and Hezbollah appear to be simply that (ie accusations)
If you could give me some examples of the aforementioned countries/organisations breaches of international law then I would be prepared to comment on them. However I will not accept allegations as evidence, particularly allegations made by their enemies.”
Perhaps you might wish to look at the UN report on Syria’s involvement in various assassinations of Lebananese politicians who opposed Syria’s occupation of their country. And then you could look up Nasrallah’s own comments on suicide bombers in Israel. And you might wish to look up the Hama massacre.
Might I suggest that trying to argue that either side has a monopoly of evil or playing some kind of evil regime “Top trumps” game really isn’t going to achieve anything whatsoever – and really is the type of game that the zealots on both sides are all too happy to indulge in.
Brain fart above, sorry. Should read “below the U-235 content”.
Gilad Atzmon does not hold back.
In Bed With Bibi
http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/05/in-bed-with-bibi/
On the subject of secret plans for war (‘xcuse me, in this case barely disguised plans for war…), I came across this today – Julian Assange’s 2011 speech from a debate hosted by the New Statesman “This house believes whistleblowers make the world a safer place”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfXSoHkF7hU
10 minutes. Very topical right now in the run-up to Bradley Manning’s show trial. (Saw a great comment on Twitter about that: “What kind of trial requires a dress rehearsal?”)
Resident dissident
What a strange response you have given me.
My actual words (as included by you):-
“The fact that Israel is in breach of international law on many counts is not in dispute, but many of the accusations leveled at Iran, Syria and Hezbollah appear to be simply that (ie accusations)”
Note the words MANY (not ALL, or even MOST) and “appear to be” (obviously allowing room for doubt)
“If you could give me some examples of the aforementioned countries/organisations breaches of international law then I would be prepared to comment on them.”
You have only just supplied me with your examples, I have had no chance to comment on them. I would appreciate some appropriate links by the way. (not because I am doubting you but because we should be viewing the same material if possible)
In what way have I suggested that any side has a monopoly of evil? I fail to see why I am accused of being a zealot?
I am going out soon, I will try to get back to you tomorrow.
@Komodo. Well, I’ll leave the high level expertise on the fine details of possible modern nuclear weaponry to you.
Of course his results were challenged. They don’t fit nicely in the picture of life we are expected to gaze at.
Regarding the analysis, Chris said: “The data are up on the website of the Low Level Radiation Campaign. The measurements were made at Harwell. Isotope ratio in the soil sample was 108. Toatal U was 13mg/kg. LOD was 0.0002mg/kgU238 and 0.0001mg/kgU235. Instrument was Agilent ICPMS. Diffetnt method alpha spectrometry gave same result in different lab. We have now found EU in a car filter. Check out llrc.org. Thank you.”
(I presume EU is a typo and it should read DU)
Four Filipino UN Peacekeepers have been kidnapped from the Golan Heights, apparently by the ‘Martyrs of Yarmouk’. The latter are said to have been responsible for a previous kidnapping of 21 peacekeepers.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22435393
I wonder if a ” a jihadist influenced government is a very real danger for them” (for Israel),. I think it is a good thing for Israel,, jihadists allow ‘the war on terror’ to go on indefinitely, and the ‘war on terror’ is a good thing for Israel. The ‘jihadists’ we are told, are funded by Saudia and Qatar, these two countries do not breath without permission from the United States. How is it they are funding perceived ‘threats’ to Israel, America’s ally in the neighbourhood. Doesn’t make sense at all, and nothing is haphazard in this region, everything always makes sense. They all work together, America, Israel, Saudi and Qatar.
What we are seeing is a jostling for regional hegemony by various players, among them, Turkey and of course, Saudi/UAE, Iran, Israel… and behind these, the ‘Great Powers’ (let us revert to that C19th term, since we seem bent on reverting to some C19th models) are intensely active. Turkey – or more specifically, the AKP – wants an (Islamist) neo-Ottomania across the Mediterranean. And so we see the AKP in alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood et al. The USA/UK clearly is (I use the singular deliberately) supporting Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood et al and have a long history of doing so. Saudi Arabia/UAE and Israel have an understanding that is mutually supportive.
At times, all of these players will contend, compete, fight, and at times, they will coalesce into tactical alliances. It’s not simple, though, Hsabri, it’s complex and shifting. I agree, though, that for obvious military-industrial and strategic reasons, Israel prefers Islamists to secular nationalist oppositional forces, which might strike one as odd since the former are overtly committed to genocide; the ideology of Islamism is genocidal.
One then has to ask oneself why the ruling cadres of a country which, if the Islmaist had their way, would be obliterated, seem eager to support these same paramilitaries? The answer (or one of the possible answers) might be that the Islamist paramilitaries are perennially useful prostitutes who are destroying the (despotic, long self-delegitimated, since the defeat of 1967 for definite) remnants of secular Arab nationalism which Israel always perceived as its biggest (well, relatively-speaking; they could destroy all the formal, though mnot guerilla, armies of all other Middle Eastern countries in seven literal days). But as a political philosophy, Islamism is strategically, as well as tactically, suitable also because it tends to accelerate societies backwards – ‘The Lawnmower Man’ after the potion wore off. They don’t like Iran, not because it is Islamist, far from it, but because it remains nationalist as well. Under the Shah, of course, Iran was a covert ally of Israel, again, against Arab nationalism.
Meanwhile in various different ways, Turkey and Iran are cooperating, though of course not in Syria. But in general, under the AKP, Turkey has moved closer to Iran. So Turkey – or rather, the AKP – is playing a very clever game. Really good relations with Israel, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Central Asian (Turkic) states, all the new (Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Egypt, soon-to-be-Syria) and old (Saudi Arabia/UAE) Islamist regimes across the Middle East all those Mediterranean/Red Sea countries where it used to be the colonial and cultural superpower, and it’s a key member of NATO, it’s in much of the structures of Europe (except officially, the EU)…
Turkey – or rather, tha AKP – is the one of the clear beneficiaries of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’.
Meanwhile, domestically, the AKP gradually undermines the secular Turkish state with its own placemen in key positions.
Now, see under, FBI whisteblower, ‘Sibel Edmonds’ and learn even more about the AKP/Turkish hard state.
Now the whole sarin story has vanished from both the BBC and Al Jazeera. This is what the corporate media does with awkward stories: drops them. They did it with the Boston bombings and now they’re doing it with sarin in Syria. If the facts don’t fit the official view of a particular conflict or event, then the story goes cold. And people forget, they hope. Move along now. Nothing to see here.
Eisenhower was right. The military/industrial complex are running the show and Governments are there to talk to the cameras.
Quite revolting to hear Cameron on the airwaves earlier today proclaiming that we cannot allow a jihadist takeover in Somalia – exactly what he wants in Syria!
Shock horror! The internet in Syria is down today. The BBC’s Jim Muir (always speaking from Beirut) says that he will not be getting his usual reports from within Syria. Massacres might be taking place and covered up. What wicked propaganda.
Hagel, Livni and Free Syrian Army commanders reported to gather in D.C. at behest of Israel lobby
Philip Weiss May 5th 2013
The U.S. is evidently closely coordinating its policy toward the Syrian civil war with Israel.
On May 9, for instance, the Israel lobby group WINEP will hold an annual symposium in Washington. Reports have it here and here that speakers include Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, two commanders of the Free Syrian Army, and Tzipi Livni, an architect of the 2008-09 assault on Gaza. (The WINEP description of its conference appears to have been scrubbed of the information.)
The 2013′ SOREF Symposium will feature many Senior US, Israeli civilian & defense officials, along with representatives of the FSA, namely (in the statement) ‘Colonel Abdul Hamid Zakaria, the commander & spokesman for the Free Syrian Army, and Colonel Abdul-Jabbar Aqidi commander and head of the Military Revolutionary Council in Aleppo. They will attend a special session on “The situation in Syria and the war against the regime of (President Bashar) Assad,”. This session will be off-the record & not for publication.Speaking at the symposium will be U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel & … Israeli Minister Tzipi Livni
/..
http://mondoweiss.net/2013/05/commanders-reported-gather.html
MarkU
If you had said “The fact is that Israel, Iran, Syria and Hezbollah are in breach of international law on many counts is not in dispute” Then I would have had no problem with such a statement whatsover – might I suggest that it is you and others who are trying to draw some kind of specious distinction between the various countries/entities which really doesn’t lead us anywhere but into various closed loops where no dialectic is possible.
If you want links to the abuses of all the parties concerned might I suggest that you do your own research – I really don’t see where a point by point analysis of each link that I might provide would lead anyone.
Mary
Don’t worry – Jim Muir will just have to go and talk to some of the 2m+ refugees that have left Syria to get some information on what is happening there – or he could just read the reports on RT/PressTV/Medialens.
The Jordanian Parliament has voted to expel the Israeli ambassador to Amman and recall the country’s ambassador to Tel Aviv.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/05/08/302457/jordan-mps-vote-to-expel-israeli-envoy/
No more details yet.
The Jordanian legislators also demanded that the kingdom’s envoy be recalled from Tel Aviv and started drafting a recommendation that the government annul the 1994 Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty.
The session came after Israeli police earlier in the day detained Mohammed Hussein, the mufti of Jerusalem, for questioning over disturbances at a disputed holy site.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israeli-police-detain-top-palestinian-muslim-cleric-for-disturbances-at-jerusalem-holy-site/2013/05/08/fc9510de-b7b0-11e2-b568-6917f6ac6d9d_story.html
(AP)
What are our busy little friends up to? That’s like arresting the Archbishop of Canterbury because a member of his congregation got stroppy.
…got stroppy at a Catholic taking a leak in St. Pauls, as it might be …
http://www.ansamed.info/ansamed/en/news/sections/politics/2013/05/08/Mideast-Jordan-parliament-wants-Israeli-ambassador-expelled_8671746.html
(Petra – probably the original report)
Full version – probably won’t make it into the Guardian –
http://en.ammonnews.net/article.aspx?articleno=20911#.UYpPRcrhdhY
Parliament votes to expel Israeli Ambassador from Jordan
[5/8/2013 1:38:38 PM]
AMMONNEWS – The Lower House of Parliament voted unanimously on Wednesday to ask the government to expel the Israeli Ambassador in Amman, and recall Jordan’s ambassador in Tel Aviv in objection of Israeli attacks in occupied Jerusalem.
The vote comes after deliberations Wednesday morning over the latest wave of Israeli violations in in Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories. Members of Parliament denounced the continued storming of Jewish settlers into Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The occupation forces prevented citizens from both genders who are under the age of 50 years from entering the Mosque, yet allowed Jewish settlers to break into Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem on Tuesday, in the occasion of the 46th anniversary of the so called “the reunification of Jerusalem” under the protection of Israeli soldiers and policemen and toured the place.
Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour described the ongoing and escalating attacks on Al-Aqsa Mosque by Israeli forces and settlers as “premeditated and foretells of evil intentions.”
Ensour said that the cabinet addressed the Israeli actions in a meeting Wednesday morning, and agreed to direct Jordan’s Ambassador in Tel Aviv Walid Obeidat to file an official objection to the Israeli government “as a first measure,” followed by resorting to the UN Security Council if matters escalate.
MPs however went further to demand recalling Jordan’s ambassador back to Amman and expelling the Israeli ambassador here, voting unanimously on the matter to be formally proposed to the government by the Arab and International Affairs House committee.
Over 25 MPs signed a petition to reconsider the 1994 Wadi Araba Peace Treaty between Jordan and Israel, citing the cause to be the continued Israeli violations in Palestine and voicing Jordan’s denunciation.
In their speeches, MPs demanded a “strong response” from the Jordanian government, and called for limiting Israeli air force’s use of Jordanian airspace, particularly in light of the recent Israeli airstrike attacks on Damascus.
Not that this means anyone will actually do it. Note that Jordan’s *government* is not the same as its *parliament*.
Note the last sentence there.
Compare:
Jordan’s King Abdullah has given up on negotiations with Syria and has allowed Israel to use its air space to mount drone attacks on Syria, the French newspaper Le Figaro reported.
“Known only to a handful of Western intelligence services, the decision was taken by the Hashemite King during the visit by President Barack Obama” last month, according to the newspaper.
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/report-jordan-opens-skies-to-israeli-drones-to-attack-syria/2013/04/22/
Original Figaro article is locked but exists: summary version here:
http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2013/04/21/97001-20130421FILWWW00208-info-le-figaro-syrie-la-jordanie-ouvre-son-ciel-aux-drones-israeliens.php