Zionism is bullshit. Three thousand years ago my Celtic ancestors were casting sacred swords into the lakes of Switzerland. Can I go back and claim Switzerland? No. Of course not. It’s nonsense.
I am rather proud of that critique, which still seems to me a short and elegant refutation of the basis of Zionism. I have never seen it answered with anything approaching intellectual success. I am especially proud as it came to me in a moment of inspiration, in the final 12 seconds of an allocated three minute speech to a crowd that stretched further than I could see.
A Ghanaian came up to me in an Accra hotel yesterday and said “Craig Murray. Zionism is bullshit. I miss London.” He then dashed off. It reminded me what a small and interconnected world we live in, as well as leading me to dig out the reference.
I have another motive in posting it. This blog now has a much larger regular readership than it did a few years ago. In particular, following the referendum campaign, it has a much larger readership in Scotland. Since I returned to Scotland to campaign in the referendum and then decided to stay until we achieve independence, which I am determined will be before I kick the bucket, a number of voices have been raised to query who I am and where I come from, in the wider sense of the latter. Sometimes those voices have been hostile or suspicious. I shall therefore give the odd riffle through the back catalogue. You could of course buy my autobiography Murder in Samarkand, thus helping us to eat.
Re Lysias
“But my understanding is that the Turks do object.”
True but no longer vital. The Iraqis may well say “bugger off, you (Kurds) cost too much”.
I can think of all sorts of complexities in this situation, such as the Turkish dams on the Euphrates and the Tigris. If they close them, Iraq will be without water. If they close the dams, that will be war.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/spotlight/the-real-face-of-bds-threats-and-intimidation/
I always credited Hasbara although often desperate at least with some basic PR skills .
Then I saw this article in the Israeli Press about an anti-BDS campaign . To my amazement it contains the poster with this slogan on it as can be seen in above article :
Fight BDS
Buy the Chosen Products
From the Chosen People
I don’t know what PR Company is advising them , but perhaps someone should tell them that slogan will NOT be a winner .
I have just watched ZBC’s report on the effect of Protective Edge on Palestinian and Israeli children, although it was entitled Children of Gaza. Equivalence was given to both sides. Many ‘Israel says’ quotes from Ms Doucet throughout. There was no denying that they could not cover up the complete destruction of the buildings in Gaza and the lasting effect on the children of the loss of parents and siblings, especially on the boy called Syed who saw his brother and cousins killed on the beach when playing football, mistaken for terrorists by the Israeli Navy.
There was a deal of anti Hamas propaganda slotted in throughout.
It was noticeable that the little flaxen haired girl Michal in the kibbutz Nahal Oz near the border that came under attack from rockets had a strong American accent. She has two younger siblings. No father seemed to be around so the viewers were left wondering if he was perhaps away serving in the Israeli military.
The children scarred by war
Lyse Doucet
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-33424229
Medialens comments thereon.
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1436022850.html
“Would those Jews have been driven out of Muslim countries if Israel had not been established? Didn’t Islam have a centuries-long history of toleration of Judaism?”
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A curious way of tolerating, surely – an Jewish homeland is founded and Muslim countries a thousand miles away from that homeland react by driving out their Jews?
Shurely shome mistake here. 🙂
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b061vbdj/children-of-the-gaza-war
Mary,
Here’s the link to the ZBC programme on IPlayer . A truly sickening experience watching the ZBC trying to equate the suffering of Gaza’s children with those of Israel .
It wasn’t just that a Jewish state was established (the Jewish homeland was already there under the British mandate,) but also that most of the Muslim inhabitants on the territory of Israel were driven out, with many of them killed. All described in Ilan Pappe’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
“There was a deal of anti Hamas propaganda slotted in throughout.”
Perhaps you could enlighten us as to what was propaganda and what was fact when it came to Hamas?
“New York Stock Exchange has reopened. NYSE resumes trading after unprecedented shutdown. They were anxious to reopen before the close of trading at 4 PM. They made it by 50 minutes.”
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Thank you for that (third) post on the subject, Transatlantic Sage. It’s information like that which makes this blog a must-read.
Sane Zionists like Einstein and Judah Magnes supported the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, but opposed the establishment of a separate Jewish state.
“Frankly I am surprised at your intellectual laxity.”
And I am surprised at your ability to delude yourself, deny today’s reality, continually lapse back into history Same old, same old, same old is a dead piece of propaganda shit, readying you for yet another failed attempt at politics by trying to coalesce support around this issue.
The contradiction and obvious conflict in you Craig is that you are proud to have been associated with the FCO, ex-British Ambassador and all that.
Let’s hear from you why the Palestinians’ brethren, the Arabs aren’t of more help to them. Nobody here ever seems to want to touch why they are failing them so miserably. Including you.
“Habb, I see you dodged my question at 3.35pm, or have you been enjoying yourself so much on the beach, that you accidently overlooked it”
___________________
I did enjoy myself on the beach – very much actually – and shall endeavour to do so until the end of the summer. But you are wrong in believing that I overlooked your question accidentally; truth is, I didn’t think it was worth answering. Sorry and all that!
Nationalism is most often little more than a desire to break from empire.
You unite a territory against empire, and then when you’ve seceded, you fight amongst eachother to see how you arrange the relationships between wealth and labour.
That’s an OK kind of nationalism. It’s a transitory phenomenon. That would be the Scots and Irish versions, for example. Many others as well.
It seems to me the more dubious nationalisms are those you get in more powerful territories where it’s used to unite against an external enemy for purposes of conquest.
You saw that in the UK, especially during later empire. You see it in the US today. You saw it in France, and of course in all the other European colonial powers.
It’s amusing that the empire nationalism that Fred advocates is by far the nastier nationalism.
It’s a very complex subject and would take a long essay.
I don’t agree with Zionism as an ideology. I think that Israel is a reality and I can understand why it was created and why people went there. Most people who live there now were born there. I think there should be a proper Palestinian state.
We do have to start from where we are at. I do not think we call roll back history. I somtimes think that justice might have meant Germany giving up, say, Bavaria or Prussia or the Rhineland – one of their richest areas – for the creation of Israel. But after the Holocaust, of course most European Jews would not have wanted to live there (any more).
Unfortunately, where Palestine at now is worse than at any time; it is disappearing. Craig and others make very valid points but so too do Resident Dissident, Anon1 and Hababkuk. I will not repeat all these points.
What is required is a regional peace settlement involving all parties – including Iran, Israel, Saudia Arabia and so on. That is the only thing that will work. that is even less likely to happen now than in the past.
“Racist hatred of Muslims” – is that even possible?
As possible as the racist hatred of Jews.
Suhayl, a genuinely superior alien race may arrive and bang our heads together.
Mary
8 Jul, 2015 – 10:41 pm
“I have just watched ZBC’s report….” and so on. And so what?
“Medialens comments thereon.” And so?
Do you have anything original to say? Beyond what you said the last few times, beyond what you’ve said before or are you simply abetting Suhayl in his projection of a 1,000 comments before the dawn?
“It’s amusing that the empire nationalism that Fred advocates is by far the nastier nationalism.”
I don’t recall advocating any form of nationalism let alone empire nationalism.
What is it about me that you feel you have to demonize and discredit me at all costs?
Alcyone; Don’t get too full of yourself. Mary has a traditional journalist role here. She let’s the story tell itself while providing context. Now, scurry off for the nut-gathering pre winter.
“What is it about me that you feel you have to demonize and discredit me at all costs?”
Because you steadfastly refuse to play their little games Fred.
Sadly even their Commanding Comrade Craig is heavily invested as a Nationalist. Why is this different from Tribalism?
It’s a very complex subject and would take a long essay.
Classic cup out combined with a lot of homilies and the standard drivel about a peace accord.
The zionist vermin have no intention of ever settling and living in peace in that area. The whole of the zionistani economy is based on militarism and wars. Without wars, and the constant harangues of “persecuted Jew” there can be no zionistan. Therefore the notion of a regional peace is a ploy to stall any kind of development whilst these supremacists vermin get on with their slaughter of the Palestinians.
Just reading the unconscious drivel splattered on this thread, it is clear that the same ploys as the Nazi Germany are deployed to validate the myths that the narrative is formed around; the millennial connection to Jerusalem, discounting the same connection for Muslims, and Christians too. Nazi were sending archeologist’s to find the roots of the Aryan race, the zionist supremacists are too busy filling the mids of their young with the tales of persecution and victimhood.
The reaffirmation of the zero sum game that either zionists or the Palestinians must live or get extinct is the kind of a bullshit that is the product of the sick zionist psyche. Palestinians were born there far before the zionists moved in and declared the place belongs to them as it is their god given patrimony.
The notions of “being a reality” so was the apartheid South Africa a reality. This does not mean that the world has to accept the barbarous supremacist bunch of tossers bent on vandalism, and killing as many none Jews as possible.
Yet another example of dreadful and almost venal contribution that ignores the facts around the issues and promotes the zeitgeist; exceptionalism afforded to the zionist tossers.
When you’re talking about Israel, just as a state, then it’s quite a good idea to think of it as we do other states.
It’s just as much a managed entity as is Britain, France etc., through media and employment fealty and so on.
Ordinary Israeli peeps suffer as much propaganda, economic fiddles, unnecessary wars, divisions, as the rest of us.
You need to be looking at their leaders, power brokers and so on.
That’s where the real story is.
As it is everywhere else.
Israeli leaders care as much about Jews and ordinary Israeli citizens as our lot care about Christians and ordinary Western citizens.
Why should anyone expect it to be any other way.
There’s nothing especially Holy about it. Let’s not be overly hypnotised by man made objects claiming divine status.
A very old trick.
@Habbabkuk (la vita e’ bella)
8 Jul, 2015 – 10:57 pm
What’s going on in China, and what’s been happening in the USA today, is a huge story. I’m afraid that it’s much bigger than Habba sitting on some beach somewhere, or some upper class totally immoral twat in Parliament spouting the latest lies about the UK economy.
China has just banned the selling of stock for next 6 months, if you own more than 5% of a company’s stock.
http://jp.reuters.com/article/mostViewedNews/idJPKCN0PI1OO20150708
(article is in Japanese; use Google translate if you need to)
Watch how the propaganda machine known as the western mainstream media will handle this story tomorrow.
It should be interesting.
In the meantime you can all go back to arguing about Zionism.
“I don’t recall advocating any form of nationalism let alone empire nationalism.”
Fred
You may not openly advocate it, but it is the concrete result of your position.
You position is simply to hold the empire together.
What else could it be, since you attack everyone who tries to breakaway from the fuckin thing!
You can read about it in English too: Why China’s trading restrictions are making matters worse.
China stocks: Trading restrictions will only fuel further selling pressure — BBH.
twoleftfeet, 8 Jul, 2015 – 8:26 pm
In fairness to Resident Dissident he often walks away when he knows what you say is right.
Suhayl Saadi,
I quite agree any solution will have to start from people essentially being where they are. Reverse ethnic cleansing is also wrong. As you know, I want to see a single democratic secular state of Palestine including everybody now living there.
I don’t hold with the “there is no such thing as the Jewish nation” argument. It is equally true of every other nation on earth. Nationality is a matter of self-identification, and in that sense there very plainly is an extremely strong Jewish nationality. Just as there is a strong Scottish nationality despite the fact we mostly speak English and ethnically are Celts, Picts, Norse and English among others.
My mentor once said, “Israel is the West’s best ally in a turbulent region, if Israel goes down, we all go down”. This absurd statement constantly reverberates around the hegemony over world main stream media exercised by Jews and it appears so crucial no one can ever challenge the Zionist narrative or point out the naked, unadulterated lunacy of the whole Zionist enterprise.
Couple this phenomena with a world conscience shrouded in a sea of Holocaust guilt, you get an oppressive atmosphere that has suffocated the ability of Western civilisation to deconstruct Zionism down to its most basic insanities.
Much like Craig’s ‘casting of swords’ how is it conceivable for otherwise rational populations to even entertain, let alone accept and adopt, the twisted Zionist logic about the Jews “returning” to a promised land after so many thousands of years of supposed separation? And how can these same people acquiesce to Israeli politicians openly using such religious nonsense as a justification for the contemporary and ongoing catastrophe inflicted upon the millions of guiltless Palestinian inhabitants of that land?
Zionism is nothing but a terrible, incurable disease of the mind. Yet we cannot eradicate or erase Israel off the map, because, despite the wicked, nefarious deeds concomitant with its creation, Israel is a naked truth we have to live with and Israelis are fellow human beings and children upon whom we cannot scorch the flesh with fire and phosphorus or dangle bomblets from trees that glisten like easter eggs or colourful toys that attact children to play and at once turn laughter into screams and small frames into bloody carcases. Until we all grab the sword regardless of the pain, the Zionist travesty continues unabated.
Mary 8.21pm : “Node put this list on the previous thread showing the disparities.”
I compiled the list of Israeli weaponry using this comparison between the military strength of Israel and Iran. I believe the intention of the author was to portray Israel as being at risk from Iranian aggression, therefore Israeli military strength was probably understated.
I compiled the list of Palestinian weaponry (zero) in the certain knowledge that if they had anything more sophisticated than a home-made rocket, the whole world would know about it.
Great post Craig, with some great points from mostly all.
The killing of Gaza’s Children, the nightmares the survivors have, and endless kidnappings, terrified to go to school, perpetual fear of the next fighting,
Ireland remembers the 556 fallen children of Gaza
http://www.demotix.com/news/8056390/ireland-remembers-556-fallen-children-gaza#media-8055754