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.
Suhayl
Another excellent post.
May I ask you a question in relation to the ine state/two states question? It is as follows: would you agree with me that an independent Palestinian state is no longer feasible given we are where we are and that the time to set up an independent Palestinian state would have been between 1949 and the 1967 war started by Israel’s neighbours?
Your reply may, if you wish, include criticism of Jordan for annexing in all but name the West Bank after 1949 instead of helping – together with the assistance of brother Arab states in the region – to set up such an undeoendent Palestine?
CORR : “…such an independent Palestine?”.
“Many nauseating mentions of ‘the beach’. Better not mention the four boys killed on ‘the beach’ in Gaza a year ago. Playing football but mowed down by the Israeli navy.
_____________________
No need for me to mention it, Mary, since you do so several ties a week on average.
But could you explain why what happened on that Gaza beach makes my mention of an entirely other beach (and my activities on it)”nauseating”?
If you like, you can ask the Mod to answer that question for you.
” what ought to happen with other forms of supremacist ideology which currently are exerting immense devastation on human beings across the region and beyond?”
A latin phrase comes to mind…
Sic Semper Tyrannis.
“As I also clearly stated, my posts dealt with Arabs and Muslims living within the 1948 borders of Israel-plus East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, not with Palestinains living under an illegal occupation.” Me.
Obviously, I realise that East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights also are occupaied terriroties. They were annexed by Israel subsequnetly and so the people living there have different rights from those living in teh West Bank and Gaza. The statistics and polls, etc. and so on include them in counts of both pre-1967 Israel and Palestine.
Habbabkuk, I think a Palestinian state could still be established. It would entail land swaps and some population movement (mainly of some Israeli settlers out of the West Bank). It is becoming less and less likely, simply because there is no will on the part of Israel or the USA for it to happen. It was nearly achieved in 2000. Whether or not a one-state solution would be better than a two-state solution, I simply do not know.
Your criticism of Jordan and other Arab states is valid. King Hussein was terrified of the Palestinians and of course had a war with them in 1970, when he expelled the PLO (to Lebanon).
Suhayl
Thanks for your post. A quick reaction because I’m going out for dinner shortly.
!/. It think it’s too late for a separate,viable Palestinian state because Israeli settlements in the West Bank are simply too great. There are far more Israelis there than in 2000. It might be regrettabble, but those are the facts on the ground. A one state solution of course obviates the need for land and population transfers.
2/. I’m glad you agree with me on the role of Jordan and the other Arab states. You may recall that I’ve already made the same point on several occasions and got a lot of stick for it from the crazies on here. I hope you wo’t get the same 🙂
A deal was not achieved in 2000 partly because both sides felt under pressure by their opponents/extremists back home. Then US Secretary of State, Warren Christopher made an error in revealing in public that Barak was willing to trade permanent permanent land for peace (even though Barak had asked him not to reveal this in public, for fear of public reaction in Israel) and predictably that created a big stooshie in Israel and Barak felt compelled to back out. Meanwhile, Yasser Arafat also was under pressure to be seen to be firm and ended up withdrawing to play a game of bluff which backfired spectacularly. What might have been sensible was for an agreement to have been reached over the West Bank and Gaza and for the status of Jerusalem to have been put on ice for discussion at a later date.
Habbabkuk, thanks.
I mean I think that Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and the rest could live with a Palestinian state and with Israel (or with a one-state combined entity). It’s a real a pity King Adbullah’s offer in around 200-something was not taken up. And it’s a shame – in both senses of the word – that Israel has continued building settlements in the West Bank. They did not have to do so.
Anyway, we’re not going to sort it out here, that’s for sure, much as we’d like to.
Have a lovely dinner!
The late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, I meant (not Abdullah of Jordan).
Ben – re. “Sic Semper Tyrannis” – yes, indeed.
4:56pm, today, Me should read: “I also stated that I do NOT agree with Zionism and that I am in favour of a Palestinian state.” A typo.
Yes, they are post-colonial stooges. Yet if the potentates of ‘Saudi’ Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain wanted, they could turn their countries into social democratic entities.
This is the height of naivety!
The raison d’etre of “post colonial stooges” to keep their relevant patch in the abyss, lest a developed nation begins to call the shots and start dictating terms in the international markets. Furthermore, what has the “potentates” want or wish to do with the price of eggs in the market? This kind of whataboutry is a red herring and a straw man argument.
However this is clarified in:
I also stated that I do agree with Zionism and that I am in favour of a Palestinian state.
Enough said!
The rest of the diatribe simply stems from in the absence of any credible rebuttal the only recourse is; silly assumptions; “you are not really interested in reading posts” followed by sillier assertions; you simply react in a reflexive manner to any of my posts because you have decided to do so that is followed by the customary denunciations in a slight of hand turn around; You have devided to react in this manner because I refuse to tow your particular line in supremacist ideology.
That is followed by this gem:
And so, if the supremacist ideology known as Zionism must be, in your words, “eradicated” like “ebola”, then perhaps one might pause for just a moment and ask what ought to happen with other forms of supremacist ideology which currently are exerting immense devastation on human beings across the region and beyond?
Really a tough choice, should we keep other supremacist ideologies or not!!!!! Yeah Ebola is good for humanity too, and in fact everyone should have it, while they are at it, they might as well start looking for means of getting a hole in the head too!
In conclusion, history stands that the price of Judas was a sack of gold, however times have moved on and the promise of publications of books etc. evidently can be a pretty sure shot way of hanging in there and as categorically stated; I also stated that I do agree with Zionism.
This is reflected in the prises of the keyboard warrior general stalking this blog and splattering every thread with pearls of ……………………… whom has already gone on record praising the contributor awaiting potential future book deals!
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Thanks Mary, I was aware of that particular wet dream, but as ever life is not always smooth sailing. Regardless of how far the various nations of that area are pushed down the track of destruction and arrested development. These nations shall still exist and they will always remember. That region is used to hundred year wars, as we witness; so far with all the bristling toys and mechanics of destruction, zionistan has not managed to destroy the Palestinians spirit.
The world has a habit of getting ordered a “new” as the transience of other bullies and supremacists is a lesson that is there for all take heed of.
Too late Freudian slip!
Ha! I knew you’d say that, Fed Up and that you would not derive the obvious because you would not wish to. No, it was a typo, as can be judged the context of the post which talks about Zionism as a supremacist ideology and by my previous posts on this thread and indeed before that too.
But is it not true that you also hold supremacist views?
But is it not true that you also hold supremacist views?
The turning of the tables trick, is an old Gestapo ploy as often used by herr Flick of the Gestapo.
Nah won’t wash you are on record and there is no room for “typo” ploy.
Fedup don’t be daft. Suhayl has always spoken against Zionism.
Looks like a typo alright. No point fighting that, Fedup.
You had a much better point in this:
“Yes, they are post-colonial stooges. Yet if the potentates of ‘Saudi’ Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain wanted, they could turn their countries into social democratic entities. The oil would still flow, the money would still pour in – just maybe not all into their own pockets. Yet the fact remains that they do not.”
That’s cobblers obviously.
Fed Up, what exactly is your political ideology? Can you explain it, please? Please could you tell us not what you are against, but what you are for?
Herbie, why is that ‘cobblers’? The key phrase is ‘if they wanted to’.
Chaps, the zionist mafia, are all too aware that, whilst the rest of us are sitting there and splitting hairs on how many angles can fit on a pin head? These gangsters and criminals can get on with furthering their aims.
The constant harangues of “victims”, “persecution”, “enemies all around” are myths of the Jewish supremacists to promote cohesion of the Jews regardless of their misgivings about the mind disease we all have come to know as zionism!
The inception of zionistan was not announced to the zionist congress, or the other plethora of zionist organizations but to one Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, who had set himself up as the leader of the British Jews. This kind of practice among the ethnic minorities is frowned upon when it comes to the south Asiatics, but evidently was pretty much the order of the day, then as it is now among the Jewish minorities (self declared and appointed leaders speaking for the whole of the community).
Does this not make anyone suspicious of the claims of the zionists? The fact that a banksters wishing to have his own domain and set up a financial clearing house that bypasses the whole of the financial regulatory apparatus, by merely setting up a country of his own? Owning the politicians was deemed not enough, owning a whole nation was the solution.
The zionist experiment has been for too long producing nothing but toxic outcomes, that have poisoned the psyche of the world and have promoted immorality and indifference to injustice, land theft, mass murder, mass punishment, and mass incarcerations. Warsaw ghetto was a picnic in comparisons to Gaza and the West bank.
The “arguments” forwarded in support of these venal and corrupt supreamscists are akin to those used by the South African supremacists, and the tolerance of such an abhorrent regime by the various political leaders and actors, included Mrs Thatcher may she have her own privatized suit in hell with a whole bunch of private devils forking her nether regions with their sharp pitchforks for eternity.
The human developments have been stifled by the evil zionist construct as it was with the evils of Apartheid. Fact that both founding fathers of these supremacists mumboojumbo were best of friends, only proves the degrees of parity between the south African racists and the zionistani racists.
However, given the zietgeist and it’s oppressive and conformist edicts re a certain religious minorities, has been the life line that the zionists have enjoyed and have deployed given any opposition to their racist and intolerant supremacist claptrap.
The degree of oppression is so far the we dare not to mention certain facts. Therefore to find any kind of support for these supremacist vermin, through the usual ploys of “democracy”, “peace in our time”, are disingenuous ploys to buy time for furtherance of the failed and utterly disgraceful zionist project.
There should be no let for any such a monstrously hideous construct regardless of the good intention belying such a support!!!
Fed Up, what exactly is your political ideology? Can you explain it, please? Please could you tell us not what you are against, but what you are for?
Detracting from the issue of zionism is bullshit, and focusing on tertiary and almost sophomoric debate is not becoming of this thread.
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The key phrase is ‘if they wanted to’.
What sort of an asinine assertion is this?
Vassals have little choice of their own, those whom did are made an example of and taught as lessons for others to take heed; Saddam and his ignominious hanging, Qaddafi and his graphically brutal end. Are the mobius loop that is constantly playing on the minds of these vassals. Further, what has these vassals wants and wishes to do with anything other diverting from the evils of zionism?
I don’t think the Saudi monarchy are vassals. They actually have control of all that weaponry the US and others sold them over decades and continue to sell to them. The US couldn’t do to Saudi Arabia what it did to Iraq.
Even before the US devastated Iraq it beat it down with sanctions to weaken it. That couldn’t be done to Saudi Arabia; they hold the oil supply which not only guarantees income, it can be used to hold the world to ransom.
The other Gulf monarchies would be protected by Saudi Arabia, I suspect.
I don’t think the Saudi monarchy are vassals. They actually have control of all that weaponry the US and others sold them over decades and continue to sell to them. The US couldn’t do to Saudi Arabia what it did to Iraq.
There you go Clark. Why do you think these countries buy weapons? Who has ever attacked Saudi? When was the last time Saudi was attacked, other than the times that they hosted the US forces, who were attacking Iraq? Further those attacks were with Scud that is as accurate as a blind man trying to score a hat trick in the cup final.
You have simply failed to understand that extortion takes on many forms, be it contributing towards good causes/elections/research/investment in infrastructure etc. in USUK, buying oodles of weapons systems that are pretty much useless; the exported US weapon systems are adulterated and are absolutely useless in the face of any Yank attacks, as per the Snowden releases. This was also evident in the Chechen war that Russian supplied weapons systems failed to operate in use against Russian military assets.
The fact that billions of dollars are being repatriated back to the US printers is not a question of a choice but a question of necessity for the survival of these vassals in charge of these benighted nations.
That couldn’t be done to Saudi Arabia; they hold the oil supply which not only guarantees income, it can be used to hold the world to ransom.
The other Gulf monarchies would be protected by Saudi Arabia, I suspect.
The prospects of Saudi ever growing a pair to hold the world to ransom is a pipe dream that would last a whole fifteen minutes before the culprit balls are chewed off by a US special forces operative and then minced and fed to the owners of the said deviant balls.
Clark you are exhibiting a great deal of naivety on this subject.
But what has this to do with the barbarism of zionist deviants?
Fed Up, are you reluctant to discuss what your own political views are? What do you support? We know what you are against. But what are you for, exactly? Can you please share that with us?
I am:
Against Zionism
Against Israeli settlements on the West Bank
Against the blockading and bombing of Gaza.
For a fully independent Palestinian state (one or two-state solution)
With what, precisely, do you diagree in those four central views?
I believe polls allegedly showing how happy the Israeli Palestinians are with their lot as little as I would have believed polls showing how happy (allegedly) blacks in the Jim Crow South were with their lot. I can’t say that I remember such polls, but I certainly do remember defenders of segregation claiming that the blacks were happy with their lot.
Seems to me from the evidence that the lot of Palestinians in Israel (look at the articles I have cited) is worse than that of blacks in the Jim Crow South. We have the testimony of Archbishop Tutu, who ought to know, that the lot of Palestinians in Israel is worse than that of blacks in apartheid South Africa.
There’s an article in today’s Washington Post, by the way, that mentions demonstrations by Ethiopian Jews (yes, Jews!) in Israel demonstrating against discrimination that they now face in Israel.
Lysias, 11:07 pm, today: I have covered this already.
Tutu was referring to the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, not those in Israel. And I agree with Tutu.
‘Tutu, the Nobel Peace laureate, told News24, a South African media entity, criticized Israeli policies toward the Palestinians in the territories as “humiliating.” ‘
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.578872
http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Desmond-Tutu-Israel-guilty-of-apartheid-in-treatment-of-Palestinians-344874
With what, precisely, do you diagree in those four central views?
Another low ball, and a “clever” bit of sophistry; secondary alternative recourse to win the lost argument.
The record stands, and anyone reading this thread can make their own mind up, without recourse to the Torquemada techniques and lets talk about principles.
The inescapable facts are;
The evils of the deviant supremacist claptrap (ideology is based on logic and reasoning, hence automatically excluding zionism) that has been so far tolerated and is promoted in the political circles, with the help of oodles of monies poured in support of the zionistan, into avaricious pockets of the selected (passed on as elected) political operatives, whom have got there, by the virtue of their brown nosing and kowtowing to the imperatives of the said billionaires purportedly from a certain minority faith.
Further, given the venal and corrupting effect of such a evil supremacist claptrap, it can be no room in any transparent mode of governance, that claims the rights of human are sacrosanct. The simple fact is Palestinians are human and regardless of their demography and geographic location any violation of their rights in the watch of the said “pristinely observant of human rights governments” is an incitement to their hypocrisy and empty sloganeering.
The evils of zionism must be extirpated if only for the sake of future of humanity.
Clark
Fedup is absolutely correct in those posts above.
Dunno why you guys are so down on him. Seems pretty clued in, in terms of analysis.
But what are views, Fed Up?
Here again are my four points, re-phrased into very simple questions.
Are you:
1) Against Zionism?
2) Against Israeli settlements in the West Bank?
3) Against the blockage and bombing of Gaza?
4) For the creation of an independent Palestinian state (either in a one or two-state solution)?
We have the testimony of Archbishop Tutu, who ought to know, that the lot of Palestinians in Israel is worse than that of blacks in apartheid South Africa.
After his speech in Chicago, for his troubles he found simon wiesenthal center, condmed him for his calumny!
Calumny == a false and malicious statement designed to injure the reputation of someone or something, slander; defamation.
This is the kind of oppressive environment that the poor black archbishop whom suffered first hand the indignities of the apartheid to be harangued into silence by another bunch of supremacist bullies; ie the zionist supremacists.