Where is the British Ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould, who has put so much effort into promoting himself as a self-proclaimed “Jewish Zionist”? What has he to say while the people in Gaza are being massacred even as they shelter in UN facilities?
Well two days ago he was attending the swearing in of new Israeli President Rivlin, together with a British delegation of weird right wing folk, including Baroness Pauline Neville Jones, favourite “security expert” of the BBC, Stuart Polak of Conservative Friends of Israel, and New Labour public school and Oxford right winger Paul Spellar.
But surely the British Ambassador to Israel has spoken out in public about the terrible carnage in Gaza?
He most certainly has. Gould has reflected the massive indignation of the British people by stating that:
“This was a conflict triggered by Hamas raining down on Israel hundreds and hundreds of rockets fired indiscriminately at Israeli towns and cities. Israel has a right and even an obligation to defend it citizens.”
Gould paid a pro-Israeli propaganda visit to Sderot, the Israeli chosen destination for media reports about Hamas rocket attacks, and the place where Israelis hold parties to watch people being blown apart in Gaza. Gould spoke of having to take his own family into the bomb shelter in Tel Aviv when sirens sounded from Hamas attacks.
Matthew Gould was a long term collaborator of Adam Werritty, having held meetings with him over a decade in Tehran, Washington, Israel and London, at most but not all of which Liam Fox was also present. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office refuse to list these meetings or say who was present and what was discussed, even though Gould met Werritty including when Gould was Private Secretary to both David Miliband and William Hague.
I have no hesitation whatsoever in stating that what is happening in Gaza is a part of a continuing process of deliberate genocide of the Palestinian people by the Israelis. When I have previously stated this, some commenters have taken issue with the word genocide. I see no other word that fits.
This chilling article by Martin Sherman, Head of the Israeli Institute of Strategic Studies, calling for Gaza to be ethnically cleansed of all Palestinians, should open the eyes of some of those who refuse to see that Israel is no longer a morally defensible entity. The 3,600 Facebook shares of this evil are evidence of how the madness of fascism has overtaken the citizens of Israel.
This banner on Herzl Boulevard expresses what has become the catchphrase for the extermination of Palestinians “There are no innocents in Gaza“. This justification of the extermination even of women and children should evoke parallels for Jewish people which are too obvious for me to emphasise. Yet this extraordinary slogan, justifying genocide, is supported and repeated by huge sectors of the Israeli populace.
I wonder how long it will be before we hear it from Matthew Gould?
If anyone wants to donate to Gaza
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees
http://www.unrwa.org/donate
Palestine Red Crescent
http://www.palestinercs.org/en/donate.php
U.S. FASCIST EMPIRE
EIN VOLK, EIN REICH, EIN CHENEY ! ; )
The truth _is_ widely known, it’s just not in the Muppet Stream Media. But it certainly is on the internet – see Press TV, RT and Information clearing House for details. ; ) –
For example, today on ICH –
“In the US’s so-called War on Terror, by far the greatest and most systematic terrorization of civilians is in fact perpetrated by the US state itself. Unarmed citizens are murdered across the world as ‘collateral damage’, ‘illegal enemy combatants’ or other license of impunity. The US state conceives itself as above international law along with ally Israel, but this reality is taboo to report and so too all the killing and terrorization of civilians.”
“Yes this is a turning-point issue of the world. But the US record as a rogue state is unspeakable in the mass media because they are financed and advertised in by the same transnational corporations that demand the resources and territories of the world by threat of trade-investment embargo and the point of the gun of US and NATO forces.” (*)
‘U.S. Holds the World Record of Killings of Innocent Civilians. Interview with Prof. John McMurtry,’ by Prof. John McMurtry and Kourosh Ziabari – July 30, 2014 – ICH –
– http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39271.htm
ER, CASABLANCA, ANYONE ? ; )
(*) ‘I’m shocked, shocked to find gambling going on! – Casablanca –
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTsg9i6lvqU#t=02m45s
NUREMBERG MK II
The sooner Tony Bliar, Cameron, Clegg, Netanyahu and and the other US fascist Empire Quislings get their long drop on a short rope the better. Nuremberg Mk I for comparision –
– http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=95d_1206462963
THE GOOD NEWS! ; )
The world today sees the Nazism of the US Empire, that its end is very near and devoutly wishes it. It destroys itself by its overreaching hubris. As that historian foresaw. Thank you Howard Zinn?! ; )
Foreseen also by the revered father of peace studies, Norwegian Johan Galtung. During World War Two Johan Galtung’s father, the mayor of Oslo, told his son that the Nazi empire would destroy itself. “Why?” asked his ten year old son. “Because Nazis don’t know when to stop.” Just. Like. Today.
Johan Galtung – US Imperialism – See Online Papers and Editorial Archive. His weekly editorial is usually a breath of fresh air. … Not so sure that Fascists can be dealt with by peaceful means – see Deutschland 1933-45 for details! ; ) –
A Structural Theory of Imperialism, by Johan Galtung, 1971 – No longer in Transcend’s Galtung’s Papers section. Funny how that works, eh? –
– http://bev.berkeley.edu/ipe/readings/galtung.pdf
A Structural Theory of Imperialism – Ten Years Later, by Johan Galtung, 1981 – The pdf is helpfully degraded – magnifying helps a very little. The Empire has willing hands everywhere ??! ; ) –
– http://tinyurl.com/7tjw93r
Transcend – Galtung Editorials, Papers –
– http://www.transcend.org/tms/
To which I can only add Medical Aid for Palestinians
http://www.map-uk.org/
Take your pick, anyway. Please give what you can to anyone who is doing some good.
I for one won’t cavil with ‘genocide’. War crimes and Crimes against Humanity beyond reasonable doubt is my descriptive contribution.
The impunity and the gall to blame the victims, the propaganda by Israel is something we have not seen at this level of evil since Dr Goebbels.
Bastards in any decent person’s language.
The tunnels used by Hamas, I’m beginning to think this is a precursor and reminiscent of the Warsaw uprising. Yes, we are dealing with fascists here, and its name is the Israeli government.
We can only weep Craig.
~~~
Where is Werritty? Anyone? 🙂
~~~
Saw this about Oren ex Israeli UN Ambassador
by David Halpin
“Eliciting the Truth” from the Zionist Elites: “Israel Tries Not to Kill or Hurt Civilians … Hamas is a Vicious, Medieval, Racist, Genocidal Organisation”
Former Israel Ambassador Michael Oren Interviewed by Channel 4
Jon Snow, the lead journalist on C4 News, returned from Gaza a few days ago. It was clear from this blog and in the one written as he flew back to Britain that he had been deeply affected by the deliberate injury and killing of children in Gaza. This was evident too in his colleague Jonathan Miller, and in Lyse Doucet of the BBC.
Last night he tried to elicit truth from Michael Oren aka Michael Scott Bornstein, on C4 News. Oren was ‘Israeli’ ambassador to a surrogate US until last year. He is described as an historian and in the Wikipedia profile as being one of the ten most powerful Jews in the US. There is no hint as to how that is measured.
Mr Snow was unable to tease out any humanity from the Tel Aviv spokesperson about the carnage and ‘infra-destruction’ within the Gaza ghetto, even though the occupier is bound in international law to safeguard the welfare of its 1.8 million humans.
He was interviewing a robot. He did say that ‘Israel’ tries not to kill and hurt civilians, as with the four boys on the beach by the little fishing port. But pull the other one Oren.
/..
http://www.globalresearch.ca/eliciting-the-truth-from-the-zionist-elites-israel-tries-not-to-kill-or-hurt-civilians-hamas-is-a-vicious-medieval-racist-genocidal-organisation/5394077
It should not be forgotten that it is not only the UK which is complicit in this Genocide, the US, Saudi Arabia and Egypt all want to “deal a blow to Hamas”.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-hearst/attack-on-gaza-by-saudi-r_b_5603735.html For the moment the Palestinians are on their own, Iran,Syria and Hezbollah cannot help that much in the short term, however the Palestinian resistance has found Israels Achilles heel, Ben Gurion Airport which belongs to Palestinians in any case. It was formally called Lydda airport, in 1948 Israeli terrorists shot up the town and ethnically cleansed it, in the process they massacred 426 men woman and children, 176 of them slaughtered in the towns main Mosque. The Palestinians have the ability [with a little ingenuity and those simple qassams to close Ben Gurion permanently]and wreck the Israeli economy, to do so would be perfectly legal in International Law, because belligerent reprisal is allowed providing the enemy has perpetrated war crimes [and refuses to stop] and that any reprisal is proportionate i.e a warning given, http://normanfinkelstein.com/2014/are-hamas-rocket-attacks-illegal/ HRW’s Deputy Middle East and North Africa director stated in the first press release. “All attacks, including reprisal attacks, that target or indiscriminately harm civilians are prohibited under the laws of war, period.” Not so. International law does not—at any rate, not yet—prohibit belligerent reprisals.[4]The United States and Britain, among others, have staunchly defended the right of a state to use nuclearweapons by way of belligerent reprisal.[5] By this standard, the people of Gaza surely have the right to use makeshift projectiles to end an illegal, merciless seven-year-long Israeli blockade or to end Israel’s criminal bombardment of Gaza’s civilian population. Indeed, in its landmark 1996 advisory opinion on the legality of nuclear weapons, the ICJ ruled that international law is not settled on the right of a state to use nuclear weapons when its “survival” is at stake. But, if a state might have the right to use nuclear weapons when its survival is at stake, then surely a people struggling for self-determination has the right to use makeshift projectiles when it has been subjected to slow death by a protracted blockade and recurrent massacres by a state determined to maintain its occupation.
Los cojones de Morales:
http://www.worldbulletin.net/headlines/141647/bolivia-condemns-israel-as-terrorist-state
Bolivian President Evo Morales declared Israel a “terrorist state” Wednesday and tore up a long-standing visa exemption agreement with the country in protest at the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza strip.
Morales announced that the Bolivian government would now be demanding Israeli visitors apply for a visa in order to enter the South American country, according to Bolivia’s El Deber news site.
“We are declaring Israel a terrorist state,” Morales said, adding that Israel’s military operation meant the country “is not a guarantor of the principles of respect for life that govern the peaceful and harmonious coexistence of our international community.”
People have a right to exist, therefore an unconditional moral right to self defence in kind.
But nations such as Israel or Scotland, only have the ethical mandates of political agreement to ‘exist’, for ‘nations’ are not people; although nations need people as part of their definition, ‘people’ do not need to be part of a nation to be people.
Alas people do need to be human to be classed as worthy of moral defence, for what good is it to preserve the rights to act inhumanly on grounds of political expedience?
Those who support Israel after the facts, do so at the expense of their own moral credibility, for the purpose of political ethics. With this in mind, recall all those in the West who support moral relativism, in any form; for what goes around, comes around.
well said Jimmy, the morality seems something they are all concerned about without speaking to the iossue. This morning I listened to Regev’s brother on Radio 4, defense minister Phillip Hammond, wriggleing and almost having a rupture in trying not to call the israeli genocide ‘disproportional’, What a great spokesperson for this genocide.
Israel clearly wants to wipe the palestinians offf the face of the earth and those who are supporting the zionist are no different to Mussolini. Guilty for applyin g different standards of humanity, guilty for not speaking out, guilty, guilty guilty!.
Not a single person has spoken of arms embargoes or sanctions to these child killers. Instead we get the BBC trumpeting out the news that 16.ooo extra reservists are being called up to ‘finish the job’.
It is good to read such thought provoking posts from you, Craig. In complete contrast to the aptly-termed “Muppet Stream Media”. A look at the Independent (Ho Hum) or many of the others contains completely sickening guest articles which are attempting to justify what anyone with half a brain can identify as War Crimes. John Pilger’s “Normalising the Crime of the Century” (2009) has simply become a daily occurrence now.
“But nations such as Israel or Scotland, only have the ethical mandates of political agreement to ‘exist’, for ‘nations’ are not people; although nations need people as part of their definition, ‘people’ do not need to be part of a nation to be people.”
And this is precisely why I reject nationalism of any kind, and am appalled by the Tory determination to rewrite the HRA as a British HRA. Instantly the citizens of all other nations become less than people and can potentially be denied their rights as human beings.
there is no mercy for Palestinians. They are an uncomfortable reminder that Palestine was a country before Israel was conjured into existence.
Britain appointing a Zionist as Britsh Ambassador to Israel was a clear sign of our intentions in the region.
I wonder when Israel will begin to talk about the final solution ? I don’t see how a people can live when everything that they need to survive has been stolen,destroyed or denied.We need more Morales everywhere.
The worst of taste: the best of intentions…
http://www.centrepresseaveyron.fr/2014/07/30/liban-massive-attack-dedie-son-concert-aux-enfants-de-gaza,938644.php
That’s “Massive Attack Dedicate Their Concert to Gaza’s Children”
Tell me you didn’t wince, but well done, MA.
Someone managed to get a link to this blog from a Guardian comment thread
http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2014/jul/31/gaza-crisis-israel-calls-up-reservists-as-it-maintains-offensive-live-coverage?commentpage=5
Amazingly it hasn’t been deleted yet by the Guardian moderators!
And this, buried in a long Italian article exploring the oil and gas aspect of bombing schools:
Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, the think-tank Al-Shabaka succeeded in obtaining documents from the British Foreign Office in November 2009, which reveal that Israel had refused to pay the market price for gas in Gaza. In June 2010, the British Consulate in Jerusalem, wrote that despite the large reserves of gas discoveries between Israel and Cyprus, which will give Israel the opportunity to become a net exporter of gas, the Israelis see the potential of the Gaza Marine as “A measure buffer before the new fields are fully in operation. “On 8 February 2011, the British ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould, wrote to the Foreign Office, however, that Israel intends to develop the resources of gas (reservoirs off -BZ) Gaza, especially after the attacks on the pipeline in Egypt
(Google Translate, mainly)
http://www.greenreport.it/news/energia/gaza-guerra-nuova-rapina-gas-mano-armata/
Yes!
Gaza: Israeli performers axe Edinburgh Fringe show
AN ISRAELI arts company has been forced to axe its entire run of performances at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe after facing an angry protest before its first show in the city.
Underbelly, the London promoter which had booked Incubator Theatre into one of its main venues, said it had been reluctantly forced to pull the plug based on police advice.
However, it has vowed to find the company – which is part-funded by the Israeli state – another venue, despite threats from campaigners to continue to disrupt its “hip hop opera” wherever it is staged.
More than 50 leading cultural figures in Scotland have called for the company’s shows to be boycotted, although the stance has been criticised by culture secretary Fiona Hyslop.
More than 150 protesters turned up outside Edinburgh University’s Reid Hall before the first preview of Incubator’s production got under way.
Talks were held later with the theatre company, the police and university officials.
A statement from Underbelly said although the first preview performance had gone ahead, the logistics of policing and stewarding the protest and the impact on both Underbelly shows and those in other venues made it impossible for the show to continue.
The statement added: “All tickets for forthcoming performances in the Reid Hall will be refunded. When an alternative venue is found, customers will be able to book tickets for that show separately.”
/..
http://www.scotsman.com/what-s-on/gaza-israeli-performers-axe-edinburgh-fringe-show-1-3494291
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Remember the controversy about the Edinburgh Festival allowing the Jerusalem Quartet to perform? Their players had been in the IDF. That was in 2008 four months before the last massacre of Palestinians, Cast Lead, took place.
Protesters acquitted of Jerusalem Quartet ‘abuse’
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/30295/protesters-acquitted-jerusalem-quartet-abuse
________________________________________________________________________
STOP THE SLAUGHTER. STOP THE CRIME. FREE! FREE! PALESTINE.
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So terrible to see and hear a man sobbing. Chris Gunness of UNWRA.
This video shows Chris Gunness, from the UN relief and works agency, breaking down during an interview about the bombing of UNWRA’s schools in Gaza.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu3lYK6OmMI
Bolivia again shows the way forward: they have demanded that the Israeli leadership be prosecuted for crimes against humanity and they have declared Israel a “terrorist state”.
On Page 4 now, Craig.
Mr. Murray, your statement that the current operation is part of a “continuing process of deliberate genocide of the Palestinian people by the Israelis” just bears no relation to the facts. The number of civilians killed by Israel is monstrous and tragic, but it’s about the crappiest attempt at genocide in the past 200 years. Your own country’s soldiers are far more effective at murdering innocent civilians without a single member of the British government or armed services ever having been tried for genocide. I believe that when the time comes for the elected representatives to be tried for war crimes and for crimes against humanity they should be tried right alongside those member of Hamas responsible for firing rockets at Israeli civilians and for using UN schools as missile depots.
I write as someone who has consistently voted to end the military occupation of the West Bank and the siege of Gaza. I call on my government to unilaterally withdraw from land occupied since 1967 and to negotiate a settlement with the displaced Palestinians from 48 and 67.
The picture you post, while repugnant, does not show a recognized slogan and the article you link as proof makes it very clear that these are the attitudes of the far right minority. I don’t expect people to judge all UK citizens based on the racist idiocy of Nigel Farage nor do I expect people to imagine that all Americans are as daft as former Vice-Presidential candidate and Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin. In the same respect I would ask you not to tar all Israelis with the bigoted bollocks of Moshe Feiglin or even Naftali Bennett. One of the problems with democracy is that sometime idiots vote for idiots.
Israel appears to have imposed a starvation policy on Gaza after Hamas won the elections, as a form of collective punishment (http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/2-279-calories-per-person-how-israel-made-sure-gaza-didn-t-starve.premium-1.470419). I wouldn’t call it genocide, but I regard it as immoral and counter-productive.
Sign the petition: Expel Israeli Ambassador Daniel Taub from the UK
Daniel Sevitt – I agree, it isn’t genocide as I understand it. But would you not agree with the proposition that the intention of the Israeli government is ethnic cleansing?
The new President, Rivlin, is on record that he would rather have Palestinians as full Israeli citizens than countenance a two-state solution. Which can be read two ways. Either he means that the former will be his policy, and neither he nor Likud have stated this, or that he’s dismissing both options as unlikely, while emitting a nugget of good PR.
The facts on the ground in the West Bank alone support the charge of ethnic cleansing, IMO. What’s going on in Gaza, whose legitimate ownership of a large gas field is very annoying to Israel, is merely the icing on the cake.
Does it pass the duck test?
You bet it does!
blah blah ….. whine, complain, and don’t mention the facts:
Claerly a an ultra ultra left wing and biased report!
Note the tiny minority feel there has been excessive force used, which means really they agree with overall thrust of shooting fish in the barrel exercise of the unfolding attacks on the Gaza concentration camp.
Well I am fooled by the single assurance coming from an “unbiased” and “honest” single source! Where do I sign?
Passerby
I think you miss the point.
Tip O’Neill said ” All politics is local”, meaning politicians act to secure popularity with those who give them their mandate. What Israel is doing is popular with the people, so it’s in Netanyahu’s interest to keep on – it maintains his popularity and future electability.
What happens to opinion outside Israel does not matter one shit to any of them. They are not elected by the international community, they don’t answer to it, they actually don’t care. They are doing this because it is popular with their own electorate.
For change to happen, it is the Israeli people that need to see it as unacceptable. Then, those politicians who exercise such policies will be removed from office. Until then, the situation for the citizens of Gaza is fucked
Sadly, the Israeli public has been conditioned otherwise
“member of Hamas responsible for firing rockets at Israeli civilians and for using UN schools as missile depots”.
Genes of a liar in you, sir. Every 2-3 years, your government declares war and kills hundreds and hundreds of innocent people, who, by the way, have a right to defend themselves by any means, against your occupation of their land since 1947. Every time you exterminate them your propaganda machine finds a reason, it was rockets before, now it is tunnels. What will your next propaganda will focus on? the air, that palestinians are breathing and not letting it through to you?
You don’t understand a human language. You are not even worth of being tried publicly. You deserve something else, like Hitler got in 1945. Nothing else wil stop you, you guys are mad and out of control! I hope God’s wrath will come upon all of you, who have caused misery to palestinians.
“What happens to opinion outside Israel does not matter one shit to any of them. They are not elected by the international community, they don’t answer to it, they actually don’t care. They are doing this because it is popular with their own electorate.”
That’s not true at all. The Israelis expend an enormous amount of time and energy ensuring that US and European media run with the Israeli rationale for whatever crimes they’re currently visiting upon the Palestinians, no matter how bizarre the reasoning.
In contrast they’re actually much more open to alternative opinion within Israel itself, even though that opinion has narrowed over time.
Were European and US mass media to take a more critical approach to ongoing Israeli crimes then that in itself could well bring a halt to their genocidal plans for the Palestinians, and very well they know it.
The simple truth is that Western media complicity in and excusing of their crimes is essential for their continuance, and the bosses of Western media organisations therefore are as guilty of these crimes as those who plan them.
They’re partners to the act, and everyone involved knows that’s the way it works.
Why do these nasty tunnels exist? Could it be that they represent the facts on the ground?
An economic ongoing siege, for years, of close to 1.8million people, regardless of whether they were civilians or not, does not pass the duc k test, as shown by passerby.
Shooting at fishermen feeding their families and boys playin bg football on the beach, not allowing aid ships and or convoys enter by sea, refusing to allow a harbour or two to keep Gaza in a lucrative dependencies relationship, does not pass the duck test.
Like a big shower of dark hypocrissy flakes falling from the sky, our politicians can find time to condemn inhumanity in the Ukraine, Russia, they can get work themselves into a lather about FGM and children being forced by parents and conventions to ‘have it done’,
@Herbie
Sorry, I disagree. The response (or lack of) by US and European media are the result of a long process of lobbying. They are not complicit, they have been rendered supine.
Look at the spokespeople the IDF put out. All are working from the same key messages, ones that any half-decent interview could demolish if they were so minded. However, they’re not so inclined. It’s a sop – they know they won’t be challenged (when Regev was on Newsnight the other night, he nearly lost the plot).
Politicians look at opinion polls before anything else; a politician without a popular mandate is an ex-politician. If it plays well with the electorate, it gets done.