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.
“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.”
I daresay. But how is it relevant to _this_ blog, on _this_ thread?
How about some weather reports, or maybe a traffic update on the M4 westbound – that would probably be a bit more relevant. Maybe some local news – a missing cat, a stolen motorbike or other such weighty, time-sensitive matters.
Does anyone come here simply to get news headlines? Could we please have a bit less of this “NYT News Alert” type service which nobody asked for or appreciates. Thanks.
That was well Done Node ( the List ) cheers
” 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.”
And they would have had NO choice but have used it… The world would have Known alright,
@ Courtney Barnett
“Anyone wanting a truly scholarly analysis of the issue should read this:-”
As I see it they are a Cult. Zionism is highly embedded form of brainwashing.
Remember brain material is highly plastic at a young age and after the age of forty two
it starts to crystalise.There is no hope after that. They will not except they are conditioned
because they have no awareness of it.
Fred,
You are the lesse-majeste of lesserdom.
What a slave you remain as you always beckoned unto your comely role.
Craig, at 12:31 am, yes, thanks, I agree.
I have said much the same . Just because my surname is tenuously linked to Irish nobility of yore this is no basis for making extraordinary claims on the land of Ireland .
” “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.”
I daresay. But how is it relevant to _this_ blog, on _this_ thread?
How about some weather reports, or maybe a traffic update on the M4 westbound – that would probably be a bit more relevant. Maybe some local news – a missing cat, a stolen motorbike or other such weighty, time-sensitive matters.”
_____________________
Seconded (in spades!) – and that goes for the rest of Glenn’s comment as well.
This blog should not be a vehicle for certain people to provide a breaking news service or a showcase for irrelevant bits of pub quiz “knowledge”.
Habbabkuk has spoken.
Does anyone come here simply to get news headlines? Could we please have a bit less of this “NYT News Alert” type service which nobody asked for or appreciates. Thanks.
“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.”
______________________
And with this supplementary post Craig has largely redeemed himself.
I also think that a one state solution is probably the best way forward.
This is because of the likelihood that an independent, separate Palestinian state would rapidly turn into the same sort of state as other Arab states, ie, not a nice place to live in. Far better to live in a larger State of Israel whose citizens enjoy – as they do now – democracy, accountability, the rule of law and, within the limits of a capitalist system, material well-being, opportunity and hope.
“You may not openly advocate it, but it is the concrete result of your position.”
No it is not.
Why are you telling lies about me?
One thing I’ve noticed about Nationalists, they are less concerned with what is true than what they can make people believe that is why.
If you can’t argue the facts you attack the person.
Despicable.
There’s still time for the non-sedentary among us to do something practical in the face of the Israeli genocide. The Big Ride is there to help enable children of Palestine to rebuild their lives. Even the sedentary can give it a go. In fact I’ll be in the saddle most of the way – except for the hills.
http://www.redspokes.co.uk/thebigride/
“You are the lesse-majeste of lesserdom.
What a slave you remain as you always beckoned unto your comely role.”
I don’t call you names, why do you call me names?
Because I state the facts. Zionism is Nationalism. Nationalists would rather people are not reminded so they attack the person saying it.
This forum really is a nest of nasty little shits who are incapable of discussing the message without attacking the messenger.
This is what a ‘Palestinian state’ looks like.
The Palestine Archipelago
http://www.juancole.com/images/2012/11/palesarchi.jpg
Wake up and spot the continuing takeover of land in the euphemistically named West Bank where the settlements for those foreign Jews making aliyah arise like fortresses atop the hills. There were 600,000 such arrivals in 2012.
https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2013/06/20/ethnic-cleansing-of-palestine-the-map/
~~~
Speaking of beaches, like Apartheid South Africa, there is demarcation.
Those Israelis using the Tel Aviv beaches had better watch out for the E.Coli.
Gaza’s revenge: Israelis swim in Palestinian shit
Sam Bahour
11th September 2014
Consecutive Israeli military assaults have caused huge damage to Gaza’s water and sewage systems, writes Sam Bahour. One result is that almost all Gaza’s water is unfit for human consumption. Another is the tide of raw Palestinian sewage lapping on the beaches of Tel Aviv. So who should we feel most sorry for?
http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/2550620/gazas_revenge_israelis_swim_in_palestinian_shit.html
This Glaswegian whom I greatly admire for his advocacy and support for the Palestinians, and also for protests at Faslane, writes about the ZBC film.
Thursday, 9 July 2015
Doucet’s shameful film: Children of the Gaza war
‘A truly disgraceful piece of distortion from the BBC’s Lyse Doucet.
The title of this film is a clear hint of the propaganda to come, based, as ever, on the fatuous ‘two sides’ narrative. There was no ‘war’, only another orchestrated massacre, a campaign of civil terror, in order to maintain Israel’s wicked, illegal siege. From the first minute of this shoddy film, one just wants to urge Doucet: tell the truth, give the context!’
‘I hope the families that Doucet interviewed in Gaza get to see how they’ve been used and exploited in this shabby, deceitful film.’
‘This is one of the worst examples of ‘two sides’ reportage ever shown. Israel couldn’t have hoped for a greater piece of mitigating hasbara. Doucet’s film is one of the most shameful pieces of ‘war journalism’ ever put out by the BBC.’
/..
http://johnhilley.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/doucets-shameful-film-children-of-gaza.html
It was obvious from Doucet’s film that no reconstruction has taken place in Gaza. This explains the reasons.
Israeli blockade makes Gaza recovery ‘impossible’: aid agency
July 9, 2015,
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Israel’s blockade of building materials for Gaza has created one of the highest levels of unemployment in the world and made it impossible for the small coastal enclave to recover from the war a year ago, aid agencies said on Wednesday.
Less than one percent of the materials needed for reconstruction have been allowed into the enclave, the international charity Christian Aid said.
Israel has blockaded Gaza, placing restrictions on people and goods leaving the enclave and goods entering it, since the Islamist group Hamas won power in Gaza in elections in 2006.
The blockade has isolated Gaza from the rest of the world, “helped to create some of the highest unemployment and aid dependency levels in the world, and must be brought to an end,” Christian Aid spokesman William Bell said in a statement.
/..
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/08/us-gaza-recovery-aid-idUSKCN0PI1XJ20150708
Note this sentence, slipped in to give ‘balance’ of course.
‘Israel launched “Operation Protective Edge” on July 8, 2014 in response to rocket fire into Israel by militants in the Gaza Strip.’
There are plenty of other sources identifying pogroms, destruction of synagogues and other persection of Jews in Moslem countries centuries before the creation of Israel – I am afraid one sultan doesn’t make a summer.
I don’t deny it. Yet the willingness of the early Ottomans – not just one sultan – to accept Jewish communities is a significant qualification to the blanket assertion that Islam was in the habit of persecuting Jews (which is as true of ‘Christianity’ as of ‘Islam’ and for reasons similarly based on its religious dogma. Indeed Islam teaches tolerance of the other Book faiths. Christianity isn’t that specific).
Still, that’s to evade a point, referenced by someone earlier. If we accept that the Jews have a right to live in peace, like anyone else, and not transcending the rights of anyone else, and if we accept that Palestine is where they should do so, do we accept that they should institute a monotheistic state in which adherents of the faith should have the right, without limit, to expropriate land from non-adherents? Do we accept a ‘right of return’ for adherents whose last ancestral contact with the land was in Roman times or earlier over any possibility of return for non-adherents who fled post-1948?
And isn’t the Zionist state of Israel, by its exclusivity and divinely-ordered intransigence, creating exactly the same situation vis-a-vis its neighbours as its predecessor communities did in Babylon, Rome and throughout Europe? Only the scale changes.
“This forum really is a nest of nasty little shits who are incapable of discussing the message without attacking the messenger.”
thanks for this frank look in the mirror,Fred, not only can you see yourself, but all the others standing behind you.
what do you expect from humans?
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. (Herbie)
Timely reminder, thnnks.
Far better to live in a larger State of Israel whose citizens enjoy – as they do now – democracy, accountability, the rule of law and, within the limits of a capitalist system, material well-being, opportunity and hope.
Interesting comment Habba- but in the single state solution you envisage would the Palestinian population have the same voting rights as the Jewish population ?
Also, if they had the same notional right to vote as Jewish citizens, how likely do you think state gerrymandering, on a scale greater than that which prevailed in NI pre 1972, would be ?
Anon1 (who cares when?)
Strange kind of ‘anti Semite’ who has several Jewish /israeli friends/colleagues.
Keep trying…
Israel has a TRUE friend in the House of Lords, Lord Quentin Davies, latterly Labour MP for Stamford until 2010.
“Blame it on Gaza” say UK Politicians
by Stuart Littlewood / July 9th, 2015
It has no nukes, no navy, no air–force, no tanks, no phosphor bombs, no subs, no guided missiles, no exits, nowhere to run… its people are terrorised, blockaded and exhausted… their homes are rubble… unemployment is the highest in the world and 73% suffer food insecurity… but suddenly:
Gaza is ‘a recurring threat to peace’!
This blame-it-on-Gaza bombshell came in the middle of a House of Lords debate on the political situation in the Gaza Strip yesterday.
‘Hasbara’ stooges present their propaganda ‘facts’
/..
http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/07/blame-it-on-gaza-say-uk-politicians/
He was once a Conservative MP but defected to NuLabour. Also a member of Lloyds and declares a shareholding (only the one?) in Vinci SA which is described on Wikipedia as ‘a French concessions and construction company founded in 1899 as Société Générale d’Enterprises. It employs over 183,000 people and is the largest construction company in the world by revenue.’
http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/lord-davies-of-stamford/346
Fred, have you ever considered that your long held beliefs may be wrong?
I guess you are of a certain age that grew up when when the UK was a comfortable place to live. The NHS was safe, everyone had a job and there were no beggars on the streets.
When things got tough for you in England, you moved to a remote part of Scotland.
Have you considered that maybe you don’t really knoe what is happening in Scotland, and your view on ‘nationalism’ is possibly outdated or wrong?
Benjamin Netanyahu’s current psychiatrist must be a psychopath like Bibi himself. A former psychiatrist had a conscience and committed suicide, just another of Bibi’s victims.
“I can’t take it anymore,” wrote Yatom. “Robbery is redemption, apartheid is freedom, peace activists are terrorists, murder is self-defense, piracy is legality, Palestinians are Jordanians, annexation is liberation, there’s no end to his contradictions. Freud promised rationality would reign in the instinctual passions, but he never met Bibi Netanyahu. This guy would say Gandhi invented brass knuckes.”
http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20Editorials/2010/June/14%20o/Psychiatrist%20of%20Israeli%20Prime%20Minister%20Benjamin%20Netanyahu%20Commits%20Suicide%20By%20Michael%20K.htm
I posted the news about the NYSE reopening because I had earlier posted the news that it had shut down. Reporting the one and not the other could have resulted in people here being misinformed. And the original news about it shutting down seemed to me eminently newsworthy because of various possible explanations (e.g., hacking, fear of an imminent worldwide economic collapse).
The last time the New York Stock Exchange shut down for a period of time equal to yesterday’s was July 31, 1914. (Although that shutdown ended up lasting a lot longer than yesterday’s.)
Fiddling as Rome Burns. Grexit or NYSE just additional symptoms. China being overlooked just like if we were whistling past the graveyard.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/11725236/The-really-worrying-financial-crisis-is-happening-in-China-not-Greece.html
“The parallels with 1929 are, on the face of it, uncanny. After more than a decade of frantic growth, extraordinary wealth creation and excess, both economies – America in 1929 and China today – are at roughly similar stages of economic development. Both these booms, moreover, are in part explained by extremely rapid credit growth. Indeed, China’s credit boom dwarfs that of even the “roaring Twenties”. Borrowed money, or margin investing, played a major role in both these outbreaks of speculative excess.
True, the Chinese stock market bubble is only a one-year wonder, whereas the build-up to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 was more sustained. Even so, the comparison still holds. As noted by JK Galbraith in his classic account, The Great Crash 1929, even as late as 1927 it was possible to argue that American stocks represented fair value.
See live cyber attacks coming out of China.
http://map.norsecorp.com
A former psychiatrist had a conscience and committed suicide, just another of Bibi’s victims.
Did he not write a book? Describing the nasty specimen that is the epitome of zionists, as the most disturbing type of psychopath?
He was a victim in more than one way and his death firmly points to the Kelly fashion murder by suicide.
“Fred, have you ever considered that your long held beliefs may be wrong?”
If I were wrong why would the Nationalists be making ad hominem attacks against me? They wouldn’t need to if they had facts to back their beliefs. Why would you now be painting a totally false picture of me in the hope people will believe it instead of just posting evidence of how the people of Scotland would be better off if Scotland were independent. But you can’t, because they wouldn’t.
Myself and the rational majority voted against independence based on the evidence not on any tribalist nationalist prejudices.
Re. Bibi’s shrink: it’s an obvious hoax, which the alt.left has been cheering itself up with for years*. Untraceable, but possibly this Mike Smith:
http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2015/02/benjamin-netanyahus-babysitter-election-ad.html
* if only because the depiction of Netanyahu is so close to the truth…
“Myself and the frightened majority voted against independence based on the propaganda from the British media, and on tribalist, Orange Order British nationalist prejudice.”
At least we agree on something.