Western media and politicians are now firmly coalesced around the Israeli government narrative. Israel is unwillingly fighting a war of self-defence in Gaza after hostilities were commenced by aggressive Hamas military attack. The storming of Al Aqsa mosque, the shooting at people in prayer, the right wing mobs attacking East Jerusalem, the Krystallnacht style destruction of Palestinian businesses and lynching of Arab Israelis, none of that ever happened at all. What happened was that Hamas launched a missile war and Israel was obliged, ever so reluctantly, to exercise its right of self defence, with enormous care not to hit civilians, except that, entirely accidentally, the IDF has killed a couple of hundred civilians including scores of children.
Palestinians die in the passive voice in western media. The media always says they “have died”; they were never “killed”, and there is virtually never any attribution of the death. By contrast, Israelis are active voice “killed by Hamas” or “killed by missile strikes”. Look out for this journalistic sophistry – once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
I used to be a firm opponent of missile strikes from Gaza. My view was firstly, that they cannot be militarily targeted so constitute an attack on civilians, secondly that they were a gift to Israeli propaganda, and thirdly that they were militarily ineffective. All of those remain true, and yet my view has changed and I find myself celebrating the fact that Hamas has, against all odds, managed to acquire more and better missiles. Part of that change of view is that I have come to see that there is no such thing as an innocent adult coloniser. But the bigger part is that I cannot see what on earth else the Palestinians are supposed to do.
Western politicians obviously believe that the Palestinians should accept apartheid quietly, and should have the good grace silently to wither away. The ultra-venal leaders of the majority of Arab states also wish the Palestinians would just die and allow them to enjoy the lavish personal benefits of their new alliances with Israel. It is absolutely plain there is no political process of any kind in train to alleviate the Palestinian plight, that even those “liberal” western politicians who floated the idea of a “two state solution” meant, at best, internationally recognised apartheid and bantustans. Joe Biden manages the remarkable feat of being still more zionist than Donald Trump.
Were I a Palestinian, I should undoubtedly have concluded that for an entire nation to turn the other cheek to a power which is seriously intent on genocide, is not a viable policy. Military resistance may seem hopeless, but sometimes to attempt to live with a shout of defiance and an effort to fight is the only dignified option remaining to a human.
It was a beautiful day in Glasgow yesterday for the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Committee demo, and it was great to be able to meet up again with so many magnificent and public-spirited people. It was an especially young crowd, which was excellent, and I was able to meet many Palestinians who drew comfort from the public support at a traumatic time.
Watching Mick Napier very much in charge of events, I was struck by the thought that there are so many really excellent and altruistic people who put their heart and entire lives into good causes for very little credit. Mick has been involved with SPSC as long as I can remember, has won important court victories in Scotland against ridiculous definitions of anti-semitism, and I have seen him at vigils on cold wet nights with a dozen people there. It made me realise how many Mick Napiers I have had the great privilege to know. We must not take the good-hearted for granted.
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Leaders of Arab states are probably “ultra-venal”.
Thanks. Or both.
Does that mean riddled with venereal disease ?
Seems like these latest atrocities were instigated by the evil Netanyahu to ensure he holds onto power and keeps out of prison – where he belongs.
Genocide and apartheid seems to be the basic MO for the Israeli Government. And, apparently, 95% of Israelis support the regime. There is no hope. And, Israel only exists in it’s current form mainly because of the US and UK with other puppet regimes falling into line with the murderers.
Only the US can exert real influence.
Ask any US or UK politician if they support discrimination based upon religion or ethnicity and they’d probably recoil, affronted by the notion you’d believe that they could. And yet, that’s precisely what they’re doing by supporting Israel. Israeli Arabs (22% of Israel’s population) are demonstrably second-class citizens,and they’re seeing their rights further erode daily. Historically, they’ve faced restrictions on things like setting up businesses, and on international travel, but Netanyahu seems to be risking provoking a civil war. As for the long-suffering, occupied Palestinians, they’re viewed akin to vermin.
For all the rights movements that western politicians, the forces and intel agencies have embraced, the sham hollowness of these displays can be seen by their unwavering, uncritical support for Israel and its apartheid-like policies.
The west will never acknowledge even a small dent to its moral authority for supporting israeli apartheid and child butchery; anymore than it does for its support of SA apartheid, the genocides in Vietnam, Indonesia, Latin America, etc. It will not even acknowledge a small dent to Israel’s moral authority. It is just defending itself. The only people in the west who lack moral authority are those who opposed all of these things, people like Corbyn and Craig Murray. They are the ones who provoke righteous disgust and condemnation.
The disproportionality of the damage and suffering being inflicted is the only reason the US hasn’t called for an early ceasefire.
It’s coming to something when the Chinese are more representative of world opinion and its moral conscience than the US. I can only imagine Biden’s response had Catholic west Belfast been pounded by British howitzer artillery shells at the height of the troubles.
It’s a white liberal fantasy that the US has been the world’s moral conscience. It was built on a genocide that would make Netanyahu blush and has been taking the barbarity worldwide since WWII.
Little doubt that were the damage and death count equal on both sides, the US and ‘blinkered’ Blinken would be calling for an immediate cease-fire.
The death counts in Israeli-Palestinian conflicts are never anywhere near equal. That situation has never occurred. If it ever looked like occurring, Israel would try to massacre as many Arabs as would cause the Arab death count to rise to 20 or 100 times the Jewish one. And while it was doing so, the US government and its allies would say Israel was “defending itself”.
fonso
“It’s a white liberal fantasy that the US has been the world’s moral conscience.”
I’m a white liberal and I don’t share this fantasy.
“Western media and politicians are now firmly coalesced around the Israeli government narrative.”
Yes, from an absolutist stance this may appear to be the case, but from a relativist stance things are (slowly) improving on the all important American front.
MEDIA: I would cite last nights edition of “Last week tonight” with John Oliver. OK it’s HBO and therefore not reliant on advertisers (and vulnerable to threats of consumer boycott by proxy).
POLITICIANS: Yes, the old guard in the Democratic Party remain pathetically beholden to the Apartheid state, but the new intake to the House are a refreshingly different breed. Jamaal Bowman in Eliot Engel out, that really is a political “handbrake turn”.
The establishment (media and politics) are still dealing with the Israel of their youth. Labour exchanged power regularly with Likud (and at least excerpted a temporary hiatus on the rightward, nationalist drift). Now, Netanyahu has established hegemony. The American establishment is still to absorb the significance of the 2018 “Jewish state act”. This unarguably made Israel a racist, apartheid state by making its non-Jewish population second class citizens. Outrageously and counter productively (if the Zionists could exercise self perception) even previously loyal groups like the Druze and Armenians have been alienated. Witness the unprecedented in recent times, rioting within the pre-67 borders.
What is the recent story with the Armenians in Palestine? Israel armed Azerbaijan in the recent war that saw parts of Nagorno-Karabakh “ethnically cleansed” – large numbers of Armenian refugees, ethnic cleansing, destruction of churches, chased-out inhabitants declared as not being from that area at all, amplification of the denial of the holocaust of the Armenians at the hands of the Turks, etc. – the kind of extreme inhumanity that must have warmed the cockles of the Zionist weapons-selling heart.
I have always wondered at the Israeli behaviour against the Palestinians. If any race of people knows what it’s like to be forced from your home, attacked for your race or religion and grossly discriminated against it is the Jewish people.
Why then, in the pursuit of their homeland would they do exactly that to the people who happen to live there now? These people didn’t force them out yet they are victims of vengeance aimed at distant ancestors.
I’ve been having that exact same thought. It’s as sad as it is baffling.
The only sympathetic explanation I can come up with is that they’re so deeply scarred by their historical persecutions that the only way they’ll feel truly safe is within a Jewish ethno-state which has no chance of being politically infiltrated by would-be persecutors. I suppose Arabs don’t have much love for Jews either – at least from what little I’ve read.
It’s obviously not a practical or moral solution, but I suppose fear can cloud people’s judgement. Obviously it’s a lot more messy than that – and tangled with religion and global politics – but it’s the only angle I can find where I might empathise with their motivations.
It’s not that baffling. When you study the history, it’s pretty obvious.
Hitler is the Father of Israel. Israel has not yet broken free of the evil of its abusive parent, it cannot see that it is still doing as Hitler did.
“Scarred” indeed. The religion teaches that e.g. the inhabitants of Jericho deserved to be massacred: the story is of a total massacre of all the inhabitants, with its being underlined that this included women and children (whoop whoop). Not only that, but a curse was placed on the firstborn of anyone in the future who rebuilt the foundations and gates (whoop whoop whoop). Meanwhile 75000 are described in the Book of Esther as being massacred in Persia.
Anyone got any cultural parallels for this?
Your logical errors are: a) to assume that all Jewish people are Zionists. And b) that all Zionists are Jews.
They’re not.
What’s left for Palestine: armed resistance and patience.
The former may look futile, but the rather ineffective ‘rockets’ they do manage to launch, have a strong negative impact on the Israeli psyche. Every rocket brings with it the message that the Palestinians are still fighting. They are still strong, they will never give up.
Patience is needed to wait for the time when the world’s politicians listen to their populations who are already supportive of Palestine and against Israel this very day. Then the political will be there to finally put a stop to this savagery. Like South African Apartheid, the Israeli version will be brought to heel. No question about it.
To get there faster, we must keep up support for Palestine by exposing the West’s double standards and boycott anything Israel.
Support BDS. Free Palestine!
Hamas outwitted the IOF in one major event. The IOF warned that they were going to launch a ground invasion in the expectation that Hamas fighters would hide in their underground tunnels until the time was ripe to ambush IOF ground forces. They even moved tanks forward to make the attack seem imminent. The IOF had mapped out the site of the tunnels and bombed them in the expectation of killing masses of Hamas fighters. Netanyu was then primed to give an election-winning speech about breaking Hamas. Hamas however were aware of this plan and didn’t go into the tunnels. The IOF and Netanyahu were left with egg on their faces.
“IOF trickery fails”
https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2021/05/15/idf-trickery-fails/
Hamas have also exposed how weak the Iron Dome system actually is. That is going to impact prospective sales – always boosted when the IOF uses Gaza as a live fire testing ground.
All the Palestinians have to to win is to survive.
What’s the point of Hamas digging the tunnels if they can be bombed out of existance? More likely the IDF suspected a trap awaited them and held off.
The U.S. economy and empire are on life support and could collapse at any time. Once they do, Israel’s situation will be far different. If the Palestinians just hold out, better days will come for them.
Changing demographics in the US and Israel/ Palestine will solve it if negotiations continue to draw a blank.
That’s why sensible Israelis should urge settling its borders now, while it can. There’s likely to be new nuclear armed powers emerging: Turkey, Iran , possibly then KSA and even Egypt – where democratic change must come. Simply acting like the toughest guy on the block isn’t a sensible plan for the future. There’ll come a time where Israel can’t throw her weight around with impunity and a wrong move could spell disaster.
BDS is important.
People who aren’t yet doing any BDS in their personal lives might consider
* boycotting Marks and Spencer
* boycotting PCWorld/Dixons/Currys
* checking when they buy fruits such as oranges that they don’t come from Israel.
And dates, especially Medjool dates, unless they are clearly non-Israeli (watch out for weasel words when saying where they’re from). http://bdslist.org/consumer/israeli-dates/
http://bdslist.org/consumer/ for full list of consumer items to boycott.
Israel has a number of justice hurdles to clear and military might will not get them there:-
Until these types of fundamental injustices are addressed – A luta Continua!
Another aspect to this…
“The other end of it is that our opponents will have found a way to unravel our democracy from inside. And our freedom, our way of life and all the things that we espouse would have been undermined. And we won’t have noticed it.”
— General Sir Nick Carter.
When millions marched against the Iraq war and were ignored. And 100,000, mainly young people, make the effort to march in London at the weekend in support of Gaza, and are ignored by policy makers, that is the real risk staring you in the face. Because you can wager for everyone marching there were tens who were there in spirit from across the UK. This populace – political disconnect is the real risk facing UK democracy, not fantasies about some cartoon-like supervillain plotting the west’s downfall out of a high-tech cyber bunker in Moscow. Start by stopping supporting apartheid.
It’s well documented by declassified’s reports that US/UK are providing Israel with SIGINT help in targeting key Palestinian figures in what they see as their struggle against occupation.
“It’s well documented by declassified’s reports that US/UK are providing Israel”
The same applies to Saudi’s attacks on Yemen. The major casualties were women, children, then men. There seems to be no ethnic cleansing too onerous for the USUK to oppose.
The brutal attitudes Colonialism live on, in secret, I guess. At the MoD and FCO.
The empire’s last refuge?
British ministers have called Britain an “ally” of Israel.
Secret treaties – and any agreement establishing an alliance is a treaty – are illegal under the UN Charter. So the said British ministers are in effect boasting about breaking the law…but who cares about the law when it’s the State of Israel…
It is an Israeli company – Cellebrite – that provides Police Scotland with Cyber Kiosks, a laptop-style device that overcomes smartphone and tablet security and allows their contents to be examined and gathered.
In the spirit of Dr. Strangelove (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZct-itCwPE), may I suggest “an astonishingly good idea”.
Since, in the Middle East, the cancerous ideologies of nationalism and religion have combined to form an apparently intractable cluster-f*ck of reciprocal slaughter, could the time be right to invoke a solution to war first proposed in the 1960s – lace the water supply of the region with enough LSD to give everyone at least one good trip? And the fall-back plan should this not work? Lace the area with the world’s multi-thousand-year half-life radioactive waste: those who believe in God/gods will remain, confident in a splendid afterlife, while those of a more rational bent will leave and contribute something more positive to humanity.
You’re wrong, Mr. Murray, to endorse the missile firing by Hamas, you should argue for both sides, Israel and Hamas, to stop the military onslaught, it doesn’t help anyone, it doesn’t solve anything, it just kills people.
the missile firing from gaza was in response to the israeli army invasion of al-aqsa mosque during ramadan and ethnic cleansing in east jerusalem. both sides are not oppressors. only one side is, and has been for 70-odd years.
Yes, but it wasn’t the only response available, zoot, the Palestinians should have taken the UN route, talk to their Scandinavian friends, approach China, Russia, the EU.
Or you reckon the Hamas missile firing will reverse the ethnic cleansing in Gaza? Hmmm
Any potential UN Security Council resolution that criticises Israel gets vetoed by the US on the Israeli behalf. That has happened numerous times now.
It wasn’t always the case, was it? The US used to be far more objective, less blindly supportive.
What so tightened Israel’s grip over US politics? The evangelists’ votes? Rich donors; AIPAC’s growing influence … a combination of all of those ? What exactly?
Baron.
Israel is not interested in a cease fire (or peace for that matter). After all, as usual, they started the latest hostilities.
Israel wants to kill and maim as many Palestinians as possible to make them leave Palestine. Utter savagery.
Thing is, Palestinians will never surrender. It is their ancestral homeland at stake. It is only a matter of time before the mad and racist Israelis come to realise this. Hopefully sooner than later …
One hundred years would be more accurate.
A quote from a letter to the New York Times on 2/12/1948 and signed by numerous prominent Jewish people including Albert Einstein:
“The discrepancies between the bold claims now being made by Begin and his party, and their record of past performance in Palestine bear the imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable stamp of a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews Arabs, and the British alike), and misrepresentation are means, and a “Leader State” is the goal.”
Thomas Suarez’s book “State of Terror – How Terrorism Created Modern Israel” attests to the above.
Furthermore, on the 24th February 1949, David Rees-Williams, the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, declared in the House of Commons, ‘On 14th May 1948, the withdrawal of the British administration took place without handing over to a responsible authority any of the assets, property or liabilities of the Mandatory government. The manner in which the withdrawal took place is unprecedented in the history of our Empire.’ At the end of the Mandate the British Government basically walked away in disgust at the behavior of the Zionist terrorists as referred to in Einstein’s letter.
Mr Baron don’t think you understood what Mr Murray clearly stated. |All that has been tried at nauseam before and no one is willing to tell Israel, the dominant militaristic occupier, to give Palestinians their basic human rights.
Bur, SA, the solution to the plight of the Palestinians can only come through negotiations, violence won’t do it.
What may help is China’s taking the Palestinian side because the conflict can only end if the American give up fueling it, it helps them to promote Israel’s expansionist policy.
@Baron
Let me virtually shake your hand, friend!
That’s right. Add power to the weak to make the rival forces equal, and keep that balance until the parties come to a peace treaty. This is the only way to achieve peace without further violence.
* are you Russian by chance?
They’re making the right noises at the UN but I doubt China would want to bear such a burden.
They’ll have seen how the US is making things as expensive as they can for Russia, in terms of propping up Assad in Syria. The US cares not one jot for international law either, having set up base in the east of Syria with no legal basis whatsoever for being there. And most Americans are wholly ignorant about US foreign policy – most couldn’t find Syria on a map.
If fellow Arab leaders stood by the Palestinians Israel would have to give ground. The elected Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was demolished with US help because they were too supportive of the Palestinians – opening the Rafah Border Crossing, and allowing smuggling to escalate.
El-Sisi is very much a US imposition. Believe it or not, it appears the US puts Israel’s needs before the democratic needs of 100m Egyptians. History won’t be kind.
@Baron
Familiar with the Israeli Meretz Party and the Palestinian National Initiative? Both social democratic organizations on both sides with a cell for a brain.
The Palestinians have the right for armed resistance and self-defense even according to the UN Charter. But you don’t need to be an international lawyer, just use your common sense and morality, if you possess them. When you are mugged on the street, will you try to defend yourself or call on your ‘friends’ to issue hollow statements? The EU and Scandinavia are the enemies of the Palestinians. They have achieved exactly zero for these poor people living under an EU-supported apartheid regime. The EU, led by Germany and France, are busy criminalizing any support for Palestine. Craig would most likely be prosecuted in Germany for what he said above.
The issue of Palestinian rockets has already been settled in Pontecorvo’s great movie The Battle of Algiers. The Algerian liberation movement uses dynamite hidden in women’s baskets and purses to blow up French targets. When the captured leader of the resistance is interrogated by the French, before being murdered, about this tactic he replies that give us your warplanes and rockets and we will give you our baskets.
You are just an apologist for Israeli apartheid. At least be honest. You think the Palestinians should just lay down and die. No need for your fake pacifism, which you only want to impose on the party being massacred from warplanes.
“When the captured leader of the resistance is interrogated by the French, before being murdered, about this tactic he replies that give us your warplanes and rockets and we will give you our baskets.“
This is perhaps one reason why the western media refers to the Palestinian missiles as “rockets”. Mustn’t call them “missiles” because then we might look at what missiles each of the two sides possesses and how those missiles are used. It might become too clear that
* one side’s missiles are ground-to-ground only, with no great targeting available, whereas
* the other side’s missiles include air-to-ground missiles launched from aircraft (against a side that hasn’t even got an airforce), and with far more precise targeting, with the results that we know.
I think the Palestinians are stronger now than they were in 2014, during the latest major Israeli massacre. Rockets and especially drones are a great equalizer. They have shown that any part of Israel can be targeted now, including Dimona. The Palestinians are not going anywhere and Israel cannot kill them all, that would be too much even among their realist Western friends. Israeli apartheid cannot be hidden now, as demonstrated by the HRW report. HRW went out of its way for decades to whitewash Israel, but in the age of smart phones reality cannot be hidden.
Well said, Akos. Bravo!
Unfortunately, Baron, even a superficial study of history reveals that very often extreme violence is the only method that gets results.
Since 1948 and before all the bien-pensant leaders of the world have continually exhorted Israel to treat the Palestinians fairly, give them back their land that was stolen, and accord them proper civil rights.
Isreal has, as a matter of policy, absolutely ignored all such appeals to its better nature.
You are right to say that military onslaughts don’t “solve” anything morally – they just kill people. But when you kill enough people of the right kind, sometimes you make a difference.
The western media bias, subject of paragraph two, is also evident in the Australian national broadcaster, where Israeli military strikes are routinely reported as “in retaliation for” a Palestinian attack from perhaps days, perhaps weeks earlier, but a corresponding rationale for the Palestinians is rarely given.
Most reports appear to be copy-and-pasted from IDF press briefs.
the most extreme pro-Israel media bias is in germany.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1J34IGzW661L8WnKKxDNl7?si=JMpVctSKTEO0PXzyf_MCxA&utm_source=copy-link
Zoot,
Germany has a ‘guilt conscience’ – creating a blind spot when it comes to considering the rights of the Palestinians.
nobody is buying that anymore. they are now just reiterating their weird appetite for mass murder of innocents.
The PLO is no more. The Palestinian Authority won’t give up its well paid jobs and keep doing Israels bidding. It should stop all contacts and not be Israels police force and declare UDI for Palestinian. Ring a bell …SNP ?
Mahmoud Abbas illustrates Israel’s bad faith in negotiations. For years, Israel claimed they didn’t have a ‘partner for peace’. During Yasser Arafat’s time as leader of the PLO this was repeated in western capitals constantly. Abbas has largely kept a lid on West Bank violence and for the most part toned the rhetoric, but he’s 85 years old and has next to nothing to show for his dovishness. What comes next?
@Wikikettle
Palestinian declaration of independence, 1988.
Goose (13.55): Palestinian writer Ali Qleibo, who lives in Jerusalem, has a poor opinion of Abbas. “His authority has totally collapsed. Abbas doesn’t step outside his palace, he barricades himself there with :his security forces. He clings to power in order to further enrich himself, his family and his followers. The corruption is demoralising for us Palestinians”. From interview in Süddeeutsche Zeitung, 17 May. .
That’s exactly right. The only acceptable public position here is anti-Palestinian racism. You bring up Israel and everybody becomes paralyzed and like robots spouts the pro-Israel lines that have been hammered into their heads.
There is a great segment on Electronic Intifada when the German government-affiliated propaganda channel Deutsche Welle interviews Ali Abunimah of EI. He really let them have it. He says that Palestinians are sick and tired of paying the price for Germany’s Holocaust guilt. The interviewer was caught completely off guard. Of course, the next day DW apologized for hosting an ‘anti-semite’.
Given Germany’s history, it’s hardly surprising.
But the suppression of reasonable views is just as dangerous as letting bad ones propagate. Welt has been little more than a pro-Israel propaganda outlet in the last few days. They even had a piece explaining the Israeli celebrations as what the revellers believed was the Al-Aqsa Mosque burning in the background . One look at the map shows why they believed that.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Al-Aqsa+Mosque/@31.7758746,35.2341032,18z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x150329c9c96f3a51:0x9d880658c9248aad!8m2!3d31.7760692!4d35.2357802
The Germans haven’t learned anything from their WW2 sins. They got a jolly good deal. It’s a country that was making bar soap and lamp shade out of human beings, but was allowed to unify and didn’t have to give up anything, land, property, to atone for the horrors it visited upon European Jews, Soviets, etc. Electronic Ali is exactly right. Germany is not even a neutral observer, it arms Israel and helps running the Gaza ghetto.
I live in Hamburg and a couple of years ago the Hamburger Abendblatt had a long report on a ‘hero’ Hamburg border guard who was stationed on the Gaza-Egypt border with his infrared equipment and was catching caged-in Palestinians trying to escape their ghetto. The Germans didn’t see the irony in this.
The Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims will eventually make a psychological breakthrough and realize that they don’t need validation or permission to live from the West. And I think their vengeance will be harsh. Sadly, the Western world as a political unit is racist to its core. 500 years of pillaging the world has made its lasting damage on the Western psyche.
Germany is the most colonized country in the world.
Dockers in the port of Livorno, Italy, have refused to load weapons bound for Israel. May they be an example to portworkers in the rest of Italy and the whole of the world.
Hardly any government in a country that hosts an Israeli embassy will entertain the idea of boycotting or sanctioning the Jewish-supremacist state any time soon. Instead, their leaders are far more likely to jump up and down screaming that Israel has the right to defend itself.
If there is hope, it lies where it has always lain: with the workers, with international working class solidarity, with a rising tide of actions of the kind initiated by the Livorno dockers.
“Thanks to the report of the Autonomous Collective of Port Workers of Genoa and the WeaponWatch association, the port workers, organized in L’Unione Sindacale di Base, learned that the ship was filled with weapons and explosives bound for the Israeli dock of Ashdod. These weapons and explosives would be used to kill Palestinians, who have already been hit by a brutal Israeli military offensive that has murdered hundreds of victims, including many children. The union announced shortly after that it would not allow this or any other maritime shipments of armaments to set sail for Israel.“
That’s what I love to hear: unadulterated workers’ power.
“The dockworkers’ unions in Italy are trying to gather more information about the shipments coming to their ports in order to prevent military supplies from arriving in Israel. Just yesterday they received a report about the presence of dozens of armored military vehicles ready to be loaded onto another ship, the Molo Italia.
This Saturday, the L’Unione Sindacale di Base will be in the streets of Livorno marching in solidarity with the Palestinian population to demand the immediate cessation of the bombing of Gaza and [of] the evictions of Palestinians from their homes.“
The Unions in UK are dead.
Wikikettle,
‘Dead’ – or – just sleeping?
Hi Courtenay, when the UN permanant five are overthrown, I will nominate you to represent the Caribbean. Take care.
yOU MAKE ME LAUGH MATE.
i ONLY WANT JUSTICE IN THE WORLD – NOT HIGH POSITIIONS LIKE YOU ( SMILE)
Abbas is happy that Israel is killing the leadership of Hamas. Abbas is happy that he is not facing cancelled elections. Betrayal in Palestine has been overlooked. There are Palestinians and “Palestinians” ring a bell ? SNP
Let’s hope boycotts spread in the next few days. The Zionists want to associate opposition to Israel and its crimes with “anti-Semitism”. They want to do this so much that they will exaggerate the amount of real anti-Jewish racist hatred that exists – which is generally on the far right, where it is not even dominant because most of the far right nowadays is strongly supportive of Israel. The dockworkers in Livorno would I am absolutely sure have taken a similar action in solidarity with Jews if it was Jews being massacred by a government somewhere as the Palestinians are right now in Gaza.
Some kinds of criticism the Zionist entity has assessed as no big problem, as not worth their time doing anything against. Boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) are NOT in that category. They can have real force, especially if the spread of BDS suddenly goes “whooosh” in a rising international tide of workers’ power.
It is not just weapons to Israel that should be stopped. It is ALL trade with Israel: exports, academic links, media links, transport, etc.
“Hardly any government in a country that hosts an Israeli embassy will entertain the idea of boycotting or sanctioning the Jewish-supremacist state any time soon.”
In Ireland, the Dáil voted 78 to 45 to prevent the importation of any goods manufactured in Zionist settlements in the West Bank. A promising start me thinks.
Excellent news!
N_
~
The article you linked gives me hope. I’ve shared it elsewhere.
~
Thanks,
BK
(a) I’m not a lawyer, but there may not be a great distinction between encouraging terrorism and saying that there’s no alternative. I would be careful what you say.
(b) What would the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank say about the advisability of the rocket attacks? I suspect your three points without the addendum.
(c) According to the British Consulate-General in Jerusalem: “The UK’s policy goal is to preserve the viability of the two-state solution as the best way to bring stability to the region…” So that’s still official UK policy.
A ‘two state solution’? That would presumably match the ‘two state solution’ the UK supported in South Africa. The Israeli legal system defines Israel as a ‘Jewish democracy’ per the Nation State Law.
Ken Garoo,
‘Two state solution’? The Bantustan approach of Israel makes this impossible.
It seems to me that over time there will be a ‘one state solution’. Read what Professor Edward Said wrote years ago; I think that he remains as relevant as ever:-
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/10/magazine/the-one-state-solution.html
When did the UK ever support the creation of Bantustans in apartheid South Africa? As I recall, when the first one, Transkei was created in 1976, no-one recognised it outside South Africa.
M.J. The Jews in the Warsaw ghetto who rose up and fought the Nazis were not Terrorists.
Other prominent politicians have expressed similar sentiments about Palestinian hopelessness:
June 2002. Tony Blair’s wife, Cherie, said young Palestinians had “no hope but to blow themselves up” just hours after the latest Jerusalem suicide bombing left 20 dead.
But she apologised afterwards and her spokesperson said that she “condemns the atrocity today in the strongest possible terms along with all right-minded people. She did not and never would she ever condone suicide bombers or say they had no choice.”
Others went much further than her without consequence.
The Israelis have lobbied heavily for these ‘terrorist organisation’ designations, and they’re as much an testimony to Israel’s diplomatic clout, and the Palestinian’s relative weakness, as anything else. Worth remembering the US had Nelson Mandela on a terrorist watch list until 2008, imprisoned himself for ‘sabotage and treason’ from 1964 -1990. With their experience little wonder the African National Congress (ANC) are still v.supportive of the Palestinians to this day.
Now you mention it, I wonder if Mandela did any useful work at mediation in Israel, or if the ANC could help the situation today.
Cherie Blair is a human rights lawyer like Keir Smarmer, isn’t she? What a joke. It was reported just yesterday that a Palestinian teenager committed suicide after his entire family was wiped out by Israeli bombing. One thing these Western racists should realize is that the Palestinians don’t need their advice or permission to decide how best to resist Israeli apartheid.
The death of that teenager was a tragedy. The sooner the situation calms, the better.
You mean a ‘calm’ where 2 million people live with 3 hours of electricity per day, haven’t enough food to avoid raising stunted kids, drink contaminated water, are regularly droned, are stateless, and live in a big concentration camp with no hope? Nice. Why do they hate us indeed?
@Akos
Even worse, the Israeli’s have a term for these periodic flare-ups of hostility ‘mowing the lawn’ i.e., like culling the herd.
The sickest thing of all thouggh, is how the US has bribed surrounding countries’ leaders(despots) into acquiescence with ‘military aid’. The US is literally responsible for a whole Arab generation being stymied, locked under the leadership of brutes, to just protect the ‘chosen people’ of Israel.
BTW what was the source of the news of the suicide of the Palestinian teenager following the death of his family? I didn’t find it by a simple google.
The Palestinian leadership will be the Palestinian people.
Israelis tend against responsibility, voting for criminals. Superficially nice but accepting of murder and apartheid.
Not all Israelis.
Zionism is a Stamford prison experiment run amok.
Jewish Palestinians Christian Palestinians, Muslim Palestinians, Athiest Palestinians, Poet Palestinians, Artist Palestinians.
… AfroPalestinianslives matter. …
Palestinian Israelis , Christian Israelis, Artist Israelis, Poet Israelis, Arab Israelis, Jewish Israelis, Muslim Israelis, Judaic Israelis, Athiest Israelis.
… AfroIsraelilives matter. …
Israel is a fractured soul, but also a bit of a $*€*. :-/
Hail I – Peace to all. The western politicians are all bought and paid for. They have no integrity. It is now up to the peoples of the world to free Palestine. That is the mass of humanity who stand for the same basics-peace, transparency truth. As Craig always says- THE TRUTH WILL SET US FREE. The USA/UK- supported the apartheid system in SA down to the very last day. They have some company this time -a few gulf states and off course their western lackeys- Austria stand with Israel. However from the river to the sea Palestine will be free and sooner than we think. This is the beginning of the end of the occupying entity. I call on the citizens of the victorious world war two countries to demand of their governments to release of all documents pertaining to that war-NOW. The catholic church too must release their second world war documents-let the chips fall where they may. Salaam.
If all the aid money from the West had been invested in the Palestinian people, they would all be living in 6 bedroom villas with swimming pools and a Toyota Land Cruiser in the driveway. Sadly, Palestinian leaders are as corrupt as they come. How did Yasser Arafat amass a piggy bank of $1 billion? It’s sad to see Craig Murray defending these rogues.
Craig is not defending Abbas and the Palestinian Authority who are bought and sold. He is defending the defenless Palestinians against F16’s.
That would be the same defenceless Palestinians who hijacked the plane my father was traveling on 6 September 1970? He was neither an Israeli, nor a Jew, nor was he in an Israeli plane. They are far from defenceless. They are the running dogs of the theocrats in Tehran who in turn are also far from defenceless.
So what is your Final Solution for the Palestinians? Why don’t you wipe them all out ? You have no logical answers.
Israel holds millions hostage in their own lands.
That would be the Israel that introduced car bombing, hotel bombing, downing civilian airliners to the region? Educate yourself and perhaps read Asad Abukhalil’s ( aka Angry Arab) Twitter feed. Oppressed people don’t need your advice on how to resist their oppressor.
I lived in the Middle East for seven years (not in Israel). I was never on a civilian flight that was hijacked or shot down by the Israelis. I thus don’t need your advice with a view to further education.
Ironically, Al Dente, if you had been on a civilian flight that was hijacked or shot down by the Israelis, you wouldn’t need any advice either.
It seems that, regardless of circumstances, you don’t need advice.
So be it.
Did Arafat keep this mythical looted billion in the same bank as Putin keeps his mythical billions?
Where did you get 1 billion (source)?
The sooner Scotland is an independent sovereign nation it can entirely disassociate from UK foreign policy and set its own. It can bar Israelis from Scotland.
Al Dente. The whole world knows whats going on in Palestine for decades. Its leaders have got fat with the wages. Its not just financial and military power that is employed but honey traps and Lolita express flights to corrupt and blackmail the influencers.
Why would Scotland bar Israelis? The problem is the Israeli government and most particularly Netanyahu running a very unfair, unequal, racist, apartheid state. If I were an ordinary Israeli person, I’d want to make friends with the Palestinians and end the racism, etc. Using the Israeli voting system or any voting system for that matter isn’t much help. Decent, fair , inclusive constitutions, rule of law in a humane and non-confrontational approach would work better wouldn’t it? If I were Israeli that’s what I’d want. I despair when I read things like bar Israelis, Israel has a right to defend itself without taking any of the responsibilities of statehood, hundreds of people killed because idiot countries like the UK, and the US sell arms to both sides – “legally” or through the illegal arms trade. Time for another letter to my MP.
Apparently, 95% of Israelis support the actions of their government against the Palestinians ! That in itself is good enough reason to ban ALL Israelis from participating in the ‘civilised’ world – BDS.
70 plus years Israel hasn’t been prepared to come to an agreement and Europe has been handicapped by guilt. Time for stricter measures, join the community of nations or be ostracised as a parish.
*pariah
Despair nor writing to your MP for that matter are constructive, what else can you offer?
But then Scots mercenaries have often sold themselves as handmaidens to oppressors. A less than glorious record of pacification programmes in India and Afghanistan during Britain’s presence there. So perhaps I expect too much from Scots when it comes to moral leadership?
” UK, and the US sell arms to both sides “
I don’t think UK/US is selling arms to Hamas.
I suspect that an independent Scotland would join the EU ASAP, and then align itself with that body’s foreign policy. The EU advocates a two-state solution similar top the UK:
https://eeas.europa.eu/diplomatic-network/middle-east-peace-process_en
You could call Kushner and Pompeo’s ridiculous détente between Israel and the Gulf states a blunder but that supposes that an arch-Zionist and a deranged Christian fundamentalist longing for “the rapture” are capable of rational thought.
Forget the UAE, it has practically no “Arab street” worth mentioning. Bahrain on the other hand is a Sunni absolute Monarchy with a predominantly Shia population and an undercurrent of unrest held down by a Security state. What’s the word on the “Arab street” in the KSA? I very much doubt MBS has a clue. Perhaps MBS should worry? The continued humiliation of Houthi drone strikes on airports in the Kingdom can’t have been entirely kept secret from the population.
The “Great game” is being gradually won by real, strategic thinkers in Iran. Syria back in the Arab League. Oman and Kuwait leaning toward Tehran. Qatar winning out in its standoff with KSA and humiliating MBS in the process. The Yanqui imperialist dogs have already announced that they’re leaving Afganistan. Syria and Iraq will be next. Ignore the earthquakes, pay attention to the direction of the tectonic drift.
What’s really funny is that in Fat Pompeo’s ‘rapture’ the intention is to kill all Jews that don’t convert to their perverted, right wing, fascist, claptrap – Fact.
No-one has ever seen fit to call the fat fascist an anti-Semite, which is curious ?
That’s a good analysis, VO. Only
” What’s the word on the “Arab street” in the KSA? I very much doubt MBS has a clue.”
is not right. MbS knows perfectly well what the tribes are saying. I should think he hears it every day in the tribal audience. That’s why he didn’t sign a peace with Israel. Why he kept Netanyahu waiting 10 hours in Saudi, after his night flight from Israel, but didn’t show up. Whatever Trump may have been feeding Netanyahu, MbS knows he can’t sign a peace deal with Israel.
I lay the blame of the systematic genocide of the Palestinian people firmly on the shoulders of the UN, they’ve issued more resolutions against Israel than any other military regime. One way to break the vicious circle of violence against the Palestinian people would be if the UN stood up to the Great Satan (USA) who funds and back Israel, but that will never happen, if Israel was an Eastern European dictatorship hellbent on religious genocide as is Israel Netanyahu and Gantz would be standing in the dock at the Hague by now.
As for the Palestinians firing rockets at the occupying forces what can we expect, if I kicked you out of your house saying that I lived in it years ago, and I then cut down your Olive trees and threatened to kill you if you didn’t move into the the worlds biggest open air jail the Gaza Strip, wouldn’t you want justice, wouldn’t we all want justice.
After Israel has inflicted untold casualties on the Palestinian people Egypt, will broker some sort of peace deal until we watch it play out all over again.
The BBC’s coverage in reporting who did what to whom is appalling they continually attempt to put across the suppression and murder of the Palestinian folk as some sort of equal war, burning tyres and sling shot are no match for US paid state of the art weaponry possessed by the oppressive apartheid military regime of Israel.
Because of Truman, the U.N. was started without what its inventor and namer had intended, which was to have been the military means being supplied to a U.N. military force by all nations, for the U.N. to enforce its decisions regarding all matters of international law. And so you are blaming the U.N. and not Truman?
Eric+Zuesse.
War is not the way forward, if the USA won’t get around the table to reel in Israel, in a similar fashion as to China does with North Korea, then economic sanctions should be put in place against the USA, and Israel as well, the BDS movement already impinges on Israeli trade. There are over 190 UN member states, it would in my opinion only take a fraction of that, to put sanctions on Israel and the USA, for America and the occupying force of Israel to take notice, economics is the new war.
The US and UK have undermined and corrupted the UN ( see Katharine Gun revelations) as they’ve other institutions which they claim of the world’s ‘rules based order’ depend upon. They’ve undermined institutions that need to be seen as above reproach – wholly independent and impartial. Same thing with the OPCW, as numerous whistleblowwers can attest,… such a myopic thing to do. The world is doomed with such atrocious US/UK leadership.
No doubt the key players in the US and UK doing this stuff believe in the righteousness of what they’re doing, and that’s the really scary thing.
Goose.
Yes there’s no denying there’s a lot wrong with the UN, but I still think the good it does far outweighs the bad, I can understand the UN chiefs not wanting to upset the US, the US pays by far the most into it, and its aid programmes USAID saves lives, so the UN bigwigs are caught between a rock and a hard place in my opinion, it doesn’t help any that the UN’s HQ is in New York.
However there’s the question of morality the world stands by and watches year after year, decade after decade, of murder and suppression of the Palestinian people, we see their lands stolen from them by new settlers, we all talk of building a better world for our children, but what hope is there for humanity when we allow the systematic persecution of these people go on and on.
I’d agree we need these institutions and they need to be nourished and respected. That’s my whole point about the US and UK undermining the very systems that they espouse as the protectors of world order, especially if they don’t get their way. Grown-up politics?
Given the way the US has interfered, it’s hard to believe the UN General Secretary isn’t a placeman. Ever since Boutros Boutros-Ghali and probably before that, the US has been determined to control the agenda. If the UN was moved out of the US maybe it’d have a chance of becoming a serious institution again, because South Korean Ban Ki-moon (South Korea is dependent on the US for its protection) and António Guterres – the last two incumbents, have been completely useless.
Goose.
The UN was set up by the West to serve the West. It is no coincidence that its headquarters are in New York. The Security Council is rigged – veto right is the ultimate in anti-democracy and mostly used by USA, often in relation to Israel-unfriendly resolutions.
The occupation would end immediately were the US to give such an instruction. Unfortunately, US elite/politicians are as brainwashed/dead as their Israeli counterparts. They are bad ingredients for a peace recipe.
Israel like Saudi Arabia will only withdraw to pre 1967 borders when Palestinians like the Yemenis can fight back. It will never agree to the Oslo Accords. Talk of a one state solution Israel/Palestine which is so logical and just will never be agreed to by Israelies who have the boot on the neck of Palestinians and control their water and electricity supply.
Wikikettle.
I can’t see the possibility of a one-state solution, there’s too much water passed under the bridge, and besides who would lead and govern them, if you were a person from a Palestinian family who had lost loved ones over the years from persecution at the hands of the Israelis, and had the families lands stolen, and handed to new settlers would you trust a Israeli president?
See my 16.50pm comment, no a two- state solution alleviates that, and stop a two-class society.
As he always does, Craig Murray nails it, like no one else can.
There is a theory that the US (administration) is fed up with the Middle East and it seems to be paying lip service to the Israelis. essentially not criticizing them, but not exhorting them or both sides to stand down.
Personally I think this could be a good development. Maybe the beginning of the end of acceptance/support for an morally bankrupt regime implementing unacceptable acts of violence on it’s own citizens, which far exceeds the bounds of anything Saddam, Ghedaffi, or Assad or Botha were accused of.
The US can perhaps stop being a dishonest broker and leave Israel to fend for itself, albeit with billions of dollars worth of donated arms. Even winning wars does not usually win over ideas, especially ideas of freedom and maybe one day soon they will realize that all the blind aggression is counter-productive.
Just put c. £175 into Craig’s account – One way of fighting back. I hope it buys an hour? of legal firm billing.
intp1
That would explain the human Rights Watch about turn. Its strange for a known CIA front to do this. Or perhaps they are publicly distancing themselves from what Israel is going to do.
When Israeli’s wish to protect themselves from the small chance of a rocket strike they go to “bomb shelters”. When Palestinians are confronted with a much higher chance of being killed by missile strikes they go to “tunnels”. But then the inference is tunnels are bad so its legitimate to somehow penetrate them with explosives. The small matter that a building above the “tunnels” may collapse with families or children buried or crushed alive doesn’t seem of any relevance.
Israelies call Palestinians cockroaches and the torture always dehumanises his victims.
To get a taste of what Israelies think of Palestinians, see Abbey Martin interviewing young attractive European Israelies out for the night downtown in Israel.
Scary, isn’t it.
The guardian and other MSM likes to paint those attitudes as something reserved for Israel’s ultra-right, but they are far more common than western media reports. I remember Channel 4 news reporting in the last major war in 2014, and random ordinary Israelis were expressing views about ‘wiping out’ Palestinians that many in the west would fine intolerable. Whether it’s an Israeli media taught thing, idk?
TeleSUR English (2 Oct 2017) – Empire Files: Israelis Speak Candidly to Abby Martin About Palestinians – YouTube (23m 13s)
If someone in the west expressed those opinions, they would be in jail!
It’s very reminiscent of South Africans talking about Blacks during Apartheid.
Eugène N. Terre Blanche of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging quote : “I hate the black bastards”. And that was on BBC news.
The rockets totally play into Israel’s hands. They provide an excuse to carry out another mass bombardment of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure and are the basis for all Israel’s propaganda. Non-violent resistance is the only resistance that makes any sense for Palestine. That and a demand for equal civil rights in a single state.
Carrots, so you think the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto who rose up against the Nazis and fought back were wrong ?
No one helped Iran when US got Saddam to invade Iran. We gave him chemical weapons. It was the Persians in Jewish own histories that freed them from Egypt. The west always play Sunni off with Shia. Divide and Rule. So why why are there more Sunni soldiers in the Syrian army than Shia ? Israel has nuclear weapons not overseen by IAEA. Iran has pledged under a fatwa that nuclear weapons are evil and not permitted. The US and Israel see Iran as a threat because it is independent. All other countries have been destroyed invaded occupied or client states.
They’ve tried that and it doesn’t work. Essentially the average Israeli considers Palestinians breathing to be an aggressive action. It’s fairly obvious that the Israelis are going down the path of total genocide of the Palestinian people – with the west totally complicit.
The policy to “Contain” Russia China and Iran has failed. The EU and NATO are no longer able to dictate to anyone. We will most probably have have a crash soon. COVID has shown how we as a collective world of nation states failed to cooperate. Islamaphobia and blaming the other has been a ploy to distract. Sorry to see India go over to the dark side when it had a tradition of non alignment. Alliance caused WW1. We seem to be back to the future. A miscalculation will cause a nuclear exchange. But don’t worry all the Government and its families have places in the shelters ! We can crawl under the kitchen table.
Really… so you can give me the date when the armed groups all repudiated violence and demanded their civil rights in a single state then?
Every point you make is an exaggeration… and exaggerations really don’t help… they just digress from the truth – which is bad enough already.
They have tried non-violence resistance and protests many, many times. The most famous being the Great March of Return of 2018-19. For their pains, the ‘brave’ IDF took up killing them with snipers from behind their barricades, aiming at defenceless youth in particular. 110 Palestinians were killed, and a staggering 13,000 injured, most severely with deliberate use of bullets which expanded on contact, shredding human tissue and organs. Gaza does not have the facilities to deal with these lifelong severe injuries. There is no evidence that any of these people constituted any threat to Israel or the murderous IDF. In comparison, 5 Israeli soldiers suffered light wounds, and of course had access to high quality medical care.
“According to Amnesty International, who interviewed military experts and a forensic pathologist, “many of the wounds observed by doctors in Gaza are consistent with those caused by high-velocity Israeli-manufactured Tavor rifles using 5.56mm military ammunition. Other wounds bear the hallmarks of US-manufactured M24 Remington sniper rifles shooting 7.62mm hunting ammunition, which expand and mushroom inside the body. The nature of these injuries shows that Israeli soldiers are using high-velocity military weapons designed to cause maximum harm to Palestinian protesters who do not pose an imminent threat to them.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%932019_Gaza_border_protests
Other examples are numerous of protests provoking extreme violence from the occupying forces, imprisonment without trial and torture.
So this is the price of non-violent protest. Israel reacts with lethal force to any challenge to its ruthless occupation, ethnic cleansing and the impoverishment of an entire population. However much you deplore violence, you can hardly be surprised at the reaction of some Palestinians when their lives are reduced to utter squalor with no hope for the future. They are simply mirroring, in their feeble way, the extreme violence perpetrated upon them, on a regular basis, with no accountability or sanction. The UN endorse a right to resistance from occupation.
While we can agree on its tragic futility and its propagandistic use by Israel as an excuse to bombard a captive, defenceless sitting duck population with colossal and disproportionate force, you can hardly be either surprised at the wish to fight back, however feebly. The suffering of an entire population, for 70 odd years, with no hope of justice or basic rights is not something you can write off or ignore. The crushing of non-violent protests with the infliction of lifelong severe injuries is a microcosm of the historical treatment of Palestinians, whose crime was to live peaceably in a region coveted by European Jews and not to acquiesce in their removal and extinction. They are kept in an incarcerated situation, stateless, precisely so that they cannot lay claim to any rights, which are generally granted by a state. Their crime was to be born from the wrong parents and live where they did. The price they are paying is extinction of any hope of living equably and modestly in their own land. Whatever form their protests take, violent or not, they are further crushed and bombed into oblivion because of it. That is a state crime of horrendous scale, which most of the world averts its eyes from, and few dare even talk about.
So your best course of action for the Palestinians is what?
What’s yours, genius? All of their options have been systematically crushed. Their only hope, which has also been near extinguished, is help from outside. The US/Israel alliance has consistently blocked all attempts.
So you don’t have any course of action for them… just a hopeless council of despair and a “What’s yours, genius?” See my first post.
So, you don’t have anything to offer and prefer to demand I solve a virtually insoluble injustice while you ignore the colossal pain and suffering. Your ‘recommendation’ is a fig leaf for your indifference, then. Like the two state solution etc etc.
I’m offering a course of action. I heard one of the militants on the radio once saying yes they know their attacks are counterproductive but its hard to stop in the face of all the provocation. It plays into Israel’s hands. It gives Netanyahu what he wants.
You say no… no… not what I say… but you don’t have a plan at all.
I’ve for many years been supporting the Palestinian cause in my posts. So when you write “ignore the colossal pain and suffering” and “a fig leaf for your indifference,” you’re making silly things up, don’t know who I am, and don’t know what you’re talking about…
“So your best course of action for the Palestinians is what?”
What they are doing now.
Like Israel needs any excuse to murder Palestinians, lol. They were murdering Palestinians and Lebanese decades before Hamas or Hezbollah were born. They have BDS and the Western racist countries, the US and its EU satraps, are wanting to outlaw that too. I completely agree with Angry Arab, Westerners have no right to give advice to Palestinians. Nor do Palestinians need your permission to decide on their strategy. Your duty is to put pressure on your own government to stop participating in apartheid and sanction Israel.
When you move to Gaza and live with 3 hours of electricity per day and raise stunted kids because of the Israeli siege, and drink contaminated water, etc. then I will hear your opinion about how to resist.
I only post here occasionally so I’d forgotten how much the attitude of some of the people here sucks. You’re telling me I’ve no right to do say something, telling me what my duty is, and saying Palestinians don’t need my permission for their strategy – when I didn’t suggest they did.
I give my opinion on whatever I like… and people are free to listen, disagree, whatever. An outside perspective is often worth having. Maybe you should have addressed those same words to Craig and the site – because he did exactly what I did – gave his opinion and I was responding to it. According to you he’s no right to either blah blah. Nor Jimmy Carter, nor anyone else supporting the Palestinian cause and saying the rockets aren’t the way to do it. They should all shut up according to you. That won’t happen and it wouldn’t help Palestine if they all did. Quite the opposite.
All countries forming the UN who made the decision to use the Balfour agreement as its societal heart could not envisage Golda Meir calling all Palestinians terrorists and starting decades of one side depravities towards Palestinians, regardless of their family ties, the deeds they held to land and homes.
Twice weekly the UN replenishes the energy supplies for Gaza. This has not happened since last monday and they are now without, no doubt part of the plan to bring them to their knees. It will make life during the bombardment much harder and hospitals will be severely limited in dealing with injuries.
Be prepared of a lot of onesided coverage to raise conxern and allegiance to the Zionist’s regime and their fraud/ court evading crook in charge.
The action of civilians against civilians are not restrained by the IDF/police, they are tearing, what little trust existed between communities/tribes, apart.
our Governments are cowards for not realising that Palestine is occupied by a rogue state that hates Muslims and ‘the wrong kind of Jews’ from the Sudan Somalia and or Ethiopia. Their stealing of land and murdering of Palestinian civilians will once again harden their resolve into more unspeakable acts of terror.
It will also harden many who object into accepting total BDS. We should not let Israeli companies trade/ manufacture here.
Why did we not give ambassador Tzipi a good.talking to, telling her that we do not need another Auschwitz in Gaza and or to pack her bag?
Israel has no right to self defence. It is an illegal set up, an occupier force created and aided by the west. I’m fed up of westerners and their corrupt friends from the middle east thinking they can dictate how my peoples land should be apportioned. Put the jews in your own backyard. Not too long ago the west had a ban on them and for good reason.
And can the west stop broadcasting how wonderful Biden is. He might pretend to be catholic but he’s anything but. His wife is a jew as well as his daughter in laws. Like much of uk establishment including the jew Middleton woman married to william the US is occupied by an over representation of jews. Believing that change will come from here for the good of Palestinians is plain lunacy. Had Europe’s ban still been in force we wouldn’t be here today.
Israel has no right to exist on my land. It took 80 years for Saladin to reclaim Palestine so plenty of time to deal with the jews and the west for the crimes they have committed against my people.
Yasmin Ali, the collective west does not understand or have any empathy to the plight of your people.
It’s weird that the Ottomans and Persians are speaking out more than your own Arab leaders.
It’s a tragedy that the Jews who suffered the Haulacaust under the hands of Europeans are lauding it over other weak people when they should of all people know better.
The resistance rockets are more sophisticated in 2021 than they were in 2014 are inflicting more damage on Israel. Back then the international airport was forced o close for only one day. This time it’s already been closed for more than a week. Further economic damage is being caused to Israel by the fact it has a conscript army and soldiers have been removed from the economy.
The reality is that for all its American-bought military might Israel has not won a war since 1967 and it will not emerge victorious from this assault either. The tunnels from Sinai are bigger than ever and are impenetrable. The natives aren’t going anywhere. Their numbers are growing faster than those of imported Israelis and the sympathy of the civilised world is with them. Human Rights Watch’s apartheid report shows the tide is turning decisively against Israel. For all its brutality and crybullying it is now firmly on the back foot and they and their corrupt European and US allies all know it.
A repost from the previous article, which belongs here.
As the innocents are being bombed and Palestinian families and babies are destroyed in Israel.
Elijah Magnier explains the whole history of the neighbourhood of the couple dozen families in Jerusalem and the duplicitous Israeli justice system; that has acted over the decades to dispossess them.
Amazingly that has just unified the Palestinians and their regional supporters, for the first time since the intafada.
https://ejmagnier.com/2021/05/13/gaza-hits-israels-prestige/
It seems to me the 2000+ rocket attacks and suicide drones against Israeli military targets and how they have been laid through the length of Israel is as clear a shot above the heads final fair warning as any ever.
Nutty must go.
A genuine peace conference IN Jerusalem running nonstop until they achieve agreement is the only way forward. UN forces to work with both sides.
I’d expect Apartheid laws rescinded. Political prisoners released. Equal rights. Property and land restitution. Truth and reconciliation to settle the stories.
Leaving a much diminished Israeli right wing nationalist ambition, that Nutty is the über Churchillian figurehead of.
Then maybe a non imperialist Israel can learn to exist with its Semitic cousins and peace finally descend upon the much abused region and its ancient Peoples.
Did the Israelis ever try and buy the Palestinians land off them?
Couldn’t some sort of reparations package be worked out for the displaced (and soon to be displaced) Palestinians? And wouldn’t it be in everyone’s interests to chip in a bit to make this a reality (if it were to be accepted)?
Why don’t YOU move out of your house and give it to Israelis? Some people just don’t see how racist they are.
For Christ’s sake I’m not being racist. I’ve never agreed with the formation of Israel, the land grabs, the persecution or the long running fairy-tale of an embattled, godly, people struggling to find their way FYI, but here we are.
It’s pretty clear the Israelis and their allies are never going to stop until the Palestinians are no more. I’m just suggesting a peaceful solution to all of this and wondering why it’s not on the table.
The US Jewish lobby and I suspect many Israelis are swimming in cash so why not at least do the decent thing and give the Palestinians a fresh start somewhere else?
Where we are is that there are basically the same number of Jews and Palestinians between the river and the sea. The Palestinians are not going anywhere and Israel cannot kill them. Hence the apartheid regime. But it cannot last.
One of the problems is that even well-meaning Westerners approach the problem from an ultimately racist position. The Palestinians can’t speak for themselves, have no agency, and Westerners have to come up with advice and solutions from their arm chairs typing on their MacBook Air sipping a Starbucks latte. I would recommend you read Angry Arab and then maybe you realize you have no right to give away other people’s land. If you truly care for them you do what you can in your own country, where you are a tax payer and voter.
I’d say calling people racist every five minutes has gone beyond being tiresome. If you want people to be on your side I’d suggest you don’t do it.
Voting here does absolutely nothing, we’re a vassal state come turnip monarchy, lead by buffoons that are stuck in some sort of ‘secound coming of Rome’ fantasy land. I felt compelled to give my two-pence-worth to counter the idea that using violence is any solution.
I meant no disrespect. My writing style lends itself to a bit of Jimmie Rustling.
*unintentional Jimmie rustling.
Why not buy return tickets to newcomers?
Thanks for highlighting all of this Mr Murray. Your bravery in the face of institutional corruption is difficult to fathom without living it, but as you suggested earlier today, such trials are the daily lot of most Palestinians and without living it, one could not easily fathom the bravery of their struggle either.
Worth noting in the context of the attached article is that the Labour Party employed Israeli spy Asaf Kaplan (Unit 8200) as “social listening manager” whatever that means. The article describes a major out-sourcing of tech and digital media investment to Israel amid drastic cuts in American jobs by the same infotech companies from Google to Microsoft, neatly underlining how deeply Israel is embedded in Western security, media, infotech, business and politics. I expect this trend to continue under Biden/Harris.
The article suggests an increasing level of international complicity in what the UN convention of genocide would easily recognise as such.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/neocon-billionaire-paul-singer-driving-outsourcing-us-tech-jobs-israel/259147/
100% agree with you assessment of Palestine
I am in Glasgow today.
If by chance the world ever does grow a conscience, and decides to put the persecuted Palestinian people ahead of trade with the USA, and is willing to face war from the Great Satan (USA) in sanctions, because sanctions, is war by other means. Then the outcome in my opinion must be a two-state solution, not a one state as some propose.
My reasoning for the two-state solution is very basic and I’ve listened to some Israelis mention this reason as well, that if it were one state that some time in the next fifty to one hundred years the Palestinians would outnumber the Israelis, and of course they would fear a similar backlash that they’ve forced on the Palestinian people.
I’m tempted to say they deserve it, but peace and the ability to cohabit with each other as neighbouring countries is the goal. Well I think that’s the goal of some. Its the Palestinian children that I feel terrible for, no child should have to suffer the way Palestinian children do.