The Guardian’s main headline today is the Israeli propaganda framing of last night’s huge massacre.
The Zionist grip on the political and media class is stark. Ordinary citizens are left with feelings ranging from rage to deep sorrow, but with a feeling of helplessness at having no power and no genuine voice in the country where they live. The bought-and-paid-for politicians intone “Israel’s right to self-defence” as justifying the slaughter of any number of Palestinian children.
They pretend they do not see the obvious genocide which is happening before their eyes. The Guardian’s framing of the death of hundreds, probably thousands, of young children last night, as destruction of Hamas tunnels, ought to be astonishing. Sadly it is entirely unsurprising.
Here is a reminder of how it works. Joan Ryan MP secretly filmed talking to Shai Masot of the Israeli Embassy in London.
Labour MP Joan Ryan discussing a £1M "donation" from the Israeli Embassy with Shai Masot, an Israeli agent plotting to "take down" MPs hostile to Israel.
No biggie. It's not as if Joan helped "take down" Jeremy Corbyn or anything.
Oh, hang on. She did.pic.twitter.com/5doWEquCri
— Frank Owen's Legendary Paintbrush🥀🇵🇸🇾🇪 (@OwenPaintbrush) September 8, 2023
Last night, well after the latest extreme massacre phase had started, the BBC 10 o’clock evening news presented a single volley of Hamas no-warhead popgun missiles – which as usual killed nobody – as equivalent to the massive Israeli high explosive bombardment. They then featured a lengthy interview with a “heroic” clean-cut Israeli soldier who fought a Hamas attack on a military base on 7 October despite being wounded, and who explained that the attacks on Gaza are justified as they will free Israel from terrorism.
All this while the massive massacre was in progress in Gaza. The strange thing is, the BBC and the Guardian, and nearly the entire rest of the MSM, pump out their propaganda as though we have no other access to information or understanding of what is happening.
More than that, there seems to be a presumption that the general population harbour the same Zionist assumptions which the journalists are paid to promote. Well, we don’t. It feels like something has snapped, not only in Palestine but in the UK and much of Europe, where the process of alienation between the governed and the ruling classes has been accelerated.
Democracy has been failing in the West for a while – to take the UK as an example, the idea that a “choice” between Sunak and Starmer offers any kind of democratic alternative is risible. There are key moments in societal breakdown, and this is one.
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Thousands of Palestinian Workers Have Gone Missing in Israel
By Taj Ali
Thousands of Palestinian day laborers from Gaza are stranded in Israel amid the explosion in violence. Israel has revoked their work permits, and their families fear they may be imprisoned — or worse.
https://jacobin.com/2023/10/palestinian-workers-missing-detained-israel-occupation-gaza
This is the kind of ugly truth that our Israeli flag waving fellow citizens either simply don´t know. Or worse, like to ignore.
Since the state of apartheid leading to dead bodies piling up has had to be held up causing all kinds of other nasty and demeaning realities that are the substance of racism. Every single day. The true tragedy usually takes place when nobody looks, nobody is even reporting.
To understand that would mean to get a bit closer to understanding Hamas. And god forbid we shall never attempt doing such awful thing.
https://twitter.com/LivingDadJoke/status/1717537810171810066
It’s been reported that these terrified, arrested men, were Palestinian day labourers. It’s very Nazi-esque, isn’t it. No offense to a German intended.
This, along with the behaviour of the settlers, suggests Israel has a deeper malaise in its society.
“closer to understanding Hamas”
But AG what about,
“To beat the Bug, we must understand the Bug”
Sky Marshall Meru, Starship Troopers
Reading the predictable comments on this site, one has to disagree with FM Humza Yousaf: too few white people around these days in Scotland….
P.S.: when is Egypt going to open its 10 miles long border walls with Gaza to let its Arab Muslim brothers in??
Why should over 2 million civilians be forcibly removed from their homeland? It’s contrary to all international law.
Who started this episode? Hamas.
Who has a lack of everything except rockets? Hamas.
You want a massacre that actually happened instead of a virtual one being predicted for weeks? Go no further than East Pakistan in 1971, when 10 million people had to flee home for the West Pakistani – Punjabi army, and neighboring India opened its border and took ~10 million refugees in. Mostly Bengali speaking Hindus, but also non Hindus. Where was international law?
There’s history before this episode.
You didn’t answer my question either and then used examples to distract from the question. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Your contortions evasions and distractions aren’t helping you here.
Why won’t you answer my question?
Aye, the British foreign office’s cartographical jokes, make Stalin’s look benign.
Who the hell looked at a map of the subcontinent and thought “East Pakistan” was remotely a good idea?
As the secretary general of the UN said, the attack did not happen in a vacuum. Incidentally Antonym you are probably now can’t continue posting your usual line about the population of Gaza increasing therefore there is no Genocide. Please read this.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/16/the-language-being-used-to-describe-palestinians-is-genocidal
antonym
i see you are rolling out the same tired commentary here as you do at moa…. i doubt anyone at craig’s site will accept any of it either.. gaza has been blocked since 2006 – no one getting in or out…. if you lived in a prison you might think about rebelling too…. no one in the world sanctions this and neither ought you.
So james, you tell me “antonym” is a synonym for bullshit. I will remember this important information going forward. Thanks. You have done better than my former grammar teacher, who was unable to make me remember the meaning of antonym.
“a virtual one being predicted for weeks? ”
I take it you are referring to the events of October 7th.
You know why they’re reluctant. They don’t want to have to take in a million plus angry refugees and commit to clothing and feeding them in the Sinai, in perpetuity. As Israel would almost certainly seal the crossing to prevent their return.
And Egypt’s el-Sisi was very much a US imposition, hence why full military aid for regime survival has been resumed. Egypt’s nascent democracy had to be snuffed out, because Morsi and he Muslim Brotherhood wouldn’t clamp down on smuggling or toe the US-dictated line. In all probability, this Israeli operation in Gaza wouldn’t be happening were the Muslim Brotherhood still in power in Egypt. As fighters would be flooding in and Hamas would be much better armed. The US loves propping up military dictatorships in the region in return for their support for Israel, then contrasting these dictatorships with Israel, the “only democracy” in the region, as US politicians keep reminding us.
Germany alone took a million refugees; the EU a few million more. The US is taking in millions. Turkeye too. Who’s lacking? …… the Arab world, specially the oil rich section of it. Egypt just had the Chinese build them a new capital city for many billion$ and is big, so what India did 50 years ago, Egypt should be able to do now too. Of course first disarm Hamas and other armed groups.
Egypt’s a terrible example too Antonym, it’s basically bust.
Antonym
Why? Do you really do not know why? Because that is ethnic cleansing, a warcrime.
Why are not the palestinians let in into Israel if Israel want to save palesitnian civilian/refguee lives?
Why isn’t Israel accepting more refugees in general?
His response is hardly surprising; when Israel faced an influx of African asylum seekers, the government erected a surveillance fence along the border with Egypt as, [Netanyahu] said, “a strategic decision to secure Israel’s Jewish and democratic character.”
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/9/why-isnt-israel-accepting-more-refugees.html
The fact other surrounding countries, could, in theory, absorb them, is the sort of crap you get from American politicians.
Why should they go? Is the correct question. It’s their land, Israel is the usurper nation, and settlers nothing more than a bunch of thieves.
Indeed Goose – it’s a very racist concept. Hey, they’re all brown skinned, aren’t they? So why shouldn’t they all just bugger off and mix in with other countries also populated by brown skinned people. They’re all the same, what difference could it make.
We might as well have said that about white countries the Nazis invaded. Why, they should simply go elsewhere to other white countries and let the Nazis have their land. We’d have accepted a few million Poles for example, right?
Because this is exactly what Israel wants, ethnic cleansing and you know it. Also in fact Israel has a stranglehold on Raffah so that even aid cannot get through.
Antonym, you’re just trolling as you usually do here and at Moon of Alabama, and you know why Egypt cannot take in up to a million or so refugees from Gaza.
If the Netanyahu government were so concerned for the welfare of the Palestinians in northern Gaza, it would not resort to the use of force and violence to deal with Hamas’s actions but would use negotiations to get the hostages back.
After all, by bombing northern Gaza, Israel risks killing the Israelis being held there as hostages. But if commenters here know something of the IDF’s history in retrieving Israeli soldiers held hostage by Hezbollah in the past, they know the IDF would rather abandon those soldiers than try to get them back. Israeli civilians may be worth even less than the IDF’s own soldiers.
Set an example Antonym, take them into your front room.
“Germany alone took a million refugees; the EU a few million more. The US is taking in millions. Turkeye too. ”
When and from where?
Earlier in the conflict, the Israeli ambassador to the UK replied to a question “why do you ask me that question? Why don’t you ask Egypt to open the border at Rafah? This is their business not ours”. Yet it was reported in all the US newspapers yesterday that Biden had asked the Israelis to allow more aid through Rafah. Why would Biden be asking the Israelis if it is not their business? The key to Rafah is held entirely by Israel.
@ Antonym
Where did you learn your ethics?
No ‘military presence’ at Al Quds Hospital: Director
“There’s no police presence in the hospital, no military presence, nothing at all. Just thousands of Palestinians here, many of whom have lost their homes. Thousands of others are seeking shelter in UNRWA schools. Israel is targeting every single building around Al Quds Hospital,” he said.
“Why is that? Nobody knows.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/28/israel-hamas-war-live-invasion-under-way-as-gaza-cut-off-from-the-world
Away from the actual massacres there are different types of war being waged against the palestinians:
Israel Cuts Off Electricity and Water to Palestinian Prisoners in the ‘Security Wings’ of Israeli Prisons
Human rights organizations sent an urgent letter, arguing that this action of collective punishment is illegal and amounts to torture. It is part of a series of arbitrary and vindictive sanctions that the Israeli prison services must immediately halt.
https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/10907
Halt Incitement Against Palestinian Lawyers
Palestinian lawyers are being threatened due to their social media posts and other forms of expression. The bar association has declared its intention to advance emergency regulations that would allow the immediate suspension of lawyers’ licenses.
https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/138668
Public opinion on the respective rights and wrongs in the Israel-Palestine conflict is changing rapidly (so it seems to me, at least) and there is growing evidence that the slavish expressions of support for Israeli occupation and oppression by various governments does not reflect majority public opinion. (I’m pretty sure that many of the governments don’t really mean it either, they just want to avoid attack by the lobby).
One notes also that the “quality” of argument for the Palestinian cause has improved greatly over the past couple of years. It used to be the case that the majority of Israeli spokesmen of various kinds, as interviewed in the MSM, were what you might call “smoothies” – they spoke good English (or French, or whatever), they were fluent, and they knew how to deal calmly with interviewers both sympathetic and occasionally hostile; the Palestinians interviewed on the other hand, often gave the impression of having been deliberately chosen by the interviewers because their English was imperfect (hence their contributions were halting and/or difficult to understand) and because they allowed themselves t be bullied or provoked by the interviewers. Nowadays, however, the number of fluent, confident and articulate advocates of the Palestinian cause for the media has increased, whereas Israeli spokespersons tend to alienate by losing their cool under sharp interview.
Finally, note the care with which Israel’s military (or police) spokespersons are chosen; exclusively Ashkenazi, European-looking, often with English or American names, you won’t often see swarthy, Middle-Eastern looking Sephardis. No doubt all part of the “Israel is part of Europe and nothing to do with those beastly Arabs” spiel…..
Yes but still, you’d think Israel could find a few Ethiopian Jews with the right language skills and employ a few of them as spokespeople. Just to make a show of how not racist the country is.
But they’ might be too used to the blatant official & unofficial racical hierarchy within their own society, to fully grasp that particular nuance of PR.
Always this lousy muted criticism:
Israel response to Hamas attack disproportionate, Norway leader says
“International law stipulates that it (the reaction) must be proportionate. Civilians must be taken into account, and humanitarian law is very clear on this. I think this limit has been largely exceeded,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stor has told NRK public radio.
“Almost half of the thousands of people killed are children.”
“Israel has the right to defend itself, and I recognise that it is very difficult to defend against attacks from an area as densely populated as Gaza,” Store added.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/28/israel-hamas-war-live-invasion-under-way-as-gaza-cut-off-from-the-world
When Russia invaded Ukraine he was more forceful and immediately called for sanctions:
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/security/2022/02/store-russias-ukraine-invasion-serious-violation-international-rights
Israel Cuts Off Electricity and Water to Palestinian Prisoners in the ‘Security Wings’ of Israeli Prisons
14/10/2023
Human rights organizations sent an urgent letter, arguing that this action of collective punishment is illegal and amounts to torture. It is part of a series of arbitrary and vindictive sanctions that the Israeli prison services must immediately halt.
Yesterday, 13 October 2023, Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights, along with the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and HaMoked, sent a letter to the National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s Attorney General, Gali Baharav Miara, and the head of the Israel Prison Service (IPS), Katy Perry, demanding an immediate reversal of the decision to cut off water and electricity to the security wings of the prisons..\\\Adela.org
Al Jazeera news reporting that the Zionists will not allow Musk’s Starlink to be deployed over Gaza, conclusion heaven forbid that the media actually sees what we are doing in Gaza with boots on the ground.
Meanwhile the Zionists have threatened to bomb Al Quds hospital, they’ve already bombed close to it.
Al Jazeera news also reporting that since the slaughter of the Palestinians began one Palestinian child has been killed every ten minutes.
Sir Kid Starver won’t call for a ceasefire in Gaza because their latest mega-corporate donor is Gary Lubner who says he’s donating $6 million dollars to the Labour party.
Mr Lubner is an Israeli lobbyist.
The link.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/labours-new-bankroller-israel-lobbyist-south-african-apartheid-profiteer
I’ve always wondered how much it cost to buy a political party with a substantial presence in the House of Commons. Now I know. Cheap, isn’t it?
Can Israel actually stop the deployment of Starlink over Gaza?
This could be a problem.
“It’s also unclear whether there are any Starlink terminals, which are required for the satellite internet connection to work, in Gaza”
And.
According to this.
“There has not yet been any confirmation that Starlink has formally offered its services beyond Musk’s tweet.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-offers-starlink-internet-services-aid-organizations-gaza-2023-10?r=US&IR=T
Aguirre
I think the word “can” is no longer appropriate once force and total arbitrariness have taken over.
Since “can” would suggest you “can” argue against and “can” act against.
But none of that nonsense no more.
“Just do it”.
(Nike)
It was a genuine question of a technical nature and you reply with some kind of bullshit.
Aguirre
sry I was not at all criticizing you since I totally agree.
I was just trying to make a general (and probably banal) point that injustice if it serves the most powerful is very difficult to counter without violence.
Should have not addressed you by name. That led to a misunderstanding. And the Nike thing was one thought too many.
AG, the word “can” means “is physically able to” as well as “may”. I suspect Aguirre was using it in the former sense. All the force in the world won’t enable the Israeli government to prevent Musk deploying Starlink over Gaza unless they have some mechanism to do that. Of course, if they did, they would probably not hesitate to use it, but I don’t think that was what the query was about.
I think the Starlink satellites know where the ground receiver is and can choose whether to transmit to it.
The receiver on the ground needs a paid-for licence, and Starlink can choose who it accepts payment from. So no Starlink in Russia, for instance.
Here are the names and faces of the 35 Palestinian journalists that the Zionists have murdered so far since the 7th of October.
https://nitter.net/MnarMuh/status/1718642984026001895#m
The Zionists accuse the Irish.
“This is the deputy head of the Israeli Embassy in Ireland, accusing the Irish state of funding tunnels in Gaza.”
https://nitter.net/Lowkey0nline/status/1718589009289412795#m
Yes, RoS, the Israelis are lashing out in all directions – a sure sign that they realise they’re losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the greater public.
I note in passing that their attack against the Irish is a particularly egregious example of Israeli chutzpah, given that if there is any European country whose hands were clean in WW2 as regards the persecution of the Jews, then that country is Ireland.
I wouldn’t want to be one of the Israeli’s getting off the plane at Dagestan.
https://nitter.net/MayadeenEnglish/status/1718708354413965664#m
Hands were clean?
I suggest you study some history before posting here again.
The Irish government infamously expressed official condolences to Germany on Hitler’s death.
For a little more context John.
It was undoubtedly a mistake for Eamon de Valera to officially express condolences upon Hitler’s death as most then and since agree. However, he had his own reasons and stated he acted within strict neutrality protocol. Relations are between states and not between leaders of states.
You can read more about it here:
https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2023/0910/1404292-eamon-de-valera-hitler-analysis/
And here in even more detail:
https://www.historyireland.com/de-valera-hitler-the-visit-of-condolence-may-1945/
In the second link are some quotes from the world press at the time which are pretty damning. It was definitely a low point for Irish diplomacy.
However:
“In that context, and returning to the Constitution, it is worth noting that in 1937, de Valera included a specific recognition of the Jewish faith in the article on religion, an extremely striking decision at a time when antisemitism was rampant in Europe.
In recognition of that act, in the 1960s the Éamon de Valera Forest was planted in Israel, near Nazareth.
The then-Israeli prime minister, Levi Eshkol, said the forest was a “fitting expression of the traditional friendship between the Irish and Jewish peoples, two nations that have so much in common of history and fulfilment.”
The tweet by the deputy head of Israeli embassy in Ireland accusing Ireland of funding tunnels in Gaza has been removed. Israel has stated it (the tweet) did not reflect official Israeli or Embassy views.
Good reply, which saved me from having to give John Main a little lesson.
The underlying point was that Israel lashes out at anyone or any country that dares to tell things as they are.
But it is a rule of political life that hubris always arrives and the propagandist, dizzy with previous success, always ends by over-reaching.
Could there possibly be any connection between Crispin Blunt’s arrest on suspicion of rape and use of controlled substances and his recent activities on behalf of the Palestinians?
I wondered about that, He mentioned that he was cooperating with the police as there was an attempt to blackmail him.
I read something about extortion.
Now this suspicion of rape : I imagine this would be homosexual rape. So either some bloke has come forward to accuse him of rape, or a third party has contacted the police to accuse Blunt of rape. Nothing to stop someone being either blackmailed into making the accusation or being paid to do so.
It will be interesting to get more detail – if we ever do.
Perhaps there will be no prosecution and the whole job was just a frightener.
Sounds to me like standard operational procedure when an MP goes off-message. That’s how their leaders keep them all singing from the same hymnsheet.
The Zionist madman Netanyahu using religious scripture to justify the genocide of the Palestinian people.
“You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible”
1 Samuel 15:3
“Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass”
https://nitter.net/mtracey/status/1718360354764238929#m
And it used to be that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel, if he now has to take refuge in scripture, then we may as well all pack up and go home.
Netanyahu is a mass serial killer, not a scoundrel. Those being murdered in Gaza are told to pack up and leave home and then be bombed. Whether they leave or stay at home they will be killed. This is premeditated mass murder,.
You seem to suffer from an empathy bypass. Is this just concerning Palestinians or humanity in general?
You can certainly see where they get their ideas from.
a short commentary from the Mexican paper La Jornada:
It´s basically impossible such would be printed around here,
“Occidente: matar las palabras”
https://www.jornada.com.mx/noticia/2023/10/22/editorial/occidente-matar-las-palabras-9911
German version:
https://www.telepolis.de/features/Israel-Krieg-Der-Westen-und-seine-hohlen-Worte-9348002.html
Intro:
“The Save the Children organization denounced that every 15 minutes a minor dies in Gaza as a result of the indiscriminate bombardments carried out by Israel, so that children represent a third of the total deaths in the Palestinian enclave. At the same time, the Israeli army publicly warns that it has no intention of respecting hospitals and threatens to destroy the one in Al Quds, as it has already done, according to several versions of the facts, with the Christian hospital in Al-Ahli, where more than 500 people were massacred. Despite this and many other incontestable signs that at this point Tel Aviv’s war operations have nothing to do with its right to self-defense or with the fight against extremist groups, but with ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Palestinian people, governments and corporations in the West censure any criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy, as well as any call for solidarity with the victims.”
Is the US government pouring military resources into the ME and Europe right now and preparing for a regional war and counter attacks in Europe.
“This Sunday morning’s USAF (🇺🇸) airlift to and from the Middle East and European hubs: twenty-nine C-17 aircraft, three C-5Ms and six KC-135s.”
https://nitter.net/space_osint/status/1718605906840006773#m
I have some memory of Charles Grey, possibly the best portrayer of the villain Blofeld, referring to the assembly of military forces in response to his dastardly plan, as being like a group of impotent Beachboys ?
“We Are Witnessing the Largest U.S. Anti-War Protests in 20 Years”
“In recent weeks the U.S. has seen the biggest anti-war protests since the Iraq War, but you wouldn’t know this from watching mainstream media. ”
https://scheerpost.com/2023/10/29/we-are-witnessing-the-largest-u-s-anti-war-protests-in-20-years/
excerpt:
“We’ve seen big protests on Palestine before,” Abudayyeh told Mondoweiss. “We saw big protests in Chicago when Israel attacked Gaza in 2009 and when they bombed Gaza in 2014. High thousands regularly, probably up to 10 or 15,000. We saw them again [when Israel attacked Gaza] in 2021. Nothing I’ve seen looks like this. These have been the biggest I have seen since the Iraq War. The scope is bigger than I’ve ever seen.”
Recent polling indicates that many Americans agree with protesters demands for a ceasefire, an indication that the organizing is having a tangible impact.
A new survey from Data for Progress found that 66% of voters “strongly agree” or “somewhat agree” that the US should call for a ceasefire and a deescalation of violence in the region. This includes 57% of Independents, 56% of Republicans, and a staggering 80% of Democrats.
“The ‘Genocide Moment’”
Gaza’s utter devastation and masses of civilians facing death from bombardment and deliberate starvation already presents the world with a spectacle of mass murder of unspeakable proportions, writes Gareth Porter.
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/10/29/the-genocide-moment/
last paragraph:
“The Genocide Convention also provides for finding that a state is guilty of the crime of “complicity” in genocide, which accurately describes the behavior of the U.S. government under the Biden administration.
Again it is not necessary to show that the complicity was motivated by the desire for the genocide in question but only that genocide could be a foreseeable result of the actions in question.
Both the United States and Israel are parties to the Genocide Convention, which makes a campaign to hold them accountable for their respective roles in the present genocide even more of an urgent moral obligation for people and organizations of good will.”
” genocide is largely based on how it’s been defined by Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish attorney who campaigned to establish the Genocide Convention as the Holocaust was unfolding during World War II. The definition is clear and concise: the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. There are also clear metrics and measuring sticks under the Genocide Convention and international law.” Can you imagine how he is turning in his grave should he have known how his definition would be fulfilled 80 years later?
“In an analysis in Jewish Currents, Israeli Holocaust scholar Raz Segal called the occupation government’s actions a “textbook case of genocide.” In a follow-up interview with Democracy Now!, Segal also said that the Israeli state’s exceptionalism and comparisons of its Palestinian victims to “Nazis” are used to “justify, rationalize, deny, distort, disavow mass violence against Palestinians.” Segal is not alone. Numerous historians, Jewish organizations, scholars, organizers, and Palestinians have confirmed the truth: It is a fact to call the State of Israel an apartheid state that has committed ethnic cleansing. It is a fact to state that the IDF has committed war crimes. It is also a fact that the reactions to the genocide aren’t being properly covered by mainstream media sources. ”
https://prismreports.org/2023/10/26/us-media-genocide-in-gaza/?utm_source=pocket_saves
thx
Sarah Leah Whitson from HRW suggested that “genocide” as a legal terminology and category came up already 1915 with the Armenia sit.
see the interview with her (I dont exactly remember the TC where she said it, sry, but may be she even mentions Lemkin)
https://nonzero.substack.com/p/israel-hamas-and-the-laws-of-war#details
What is upsetting despite all the protest is the domestic German way of communicating all this.
As I above pointed out internal guidelines by German state broadcasting were leaked as to how to report on Palestine including a comprehensive history which is of course highly misleading and racist in its essence without actually acknowledging it.
Since by design any actions taken to defend Israel cannot be racist.
Together wit the UKR/RU case this will further EU´s isolation on the globe.
And for what? And by whose authority? mine? Europe´s population?
Destroying many buildings is now called “genocide”? In that case Bakhmut in Donetsk would be the worst recent case.
Israel kill in a few days more civilians than Russia in 18 months.
Israel is a Death Cult
Of course there’s no one in the buildings. Are you one of the dopiest posters ever?
I guess Modi’s party is supporting Israel, then.
Asking many stupid and tendentious questions is now what passes for “commenting”? In that case the comment at 02:57 would be the worst recent case.
264 comments so far here and many others read elsewhere and I have yet to read any that contradicts a central argument of this article:
“The Zionist grip on the political and media class is stark. Ordinary citizens are left with feelings ranging from rage to deep sorrow, but with a feeling of helplessness at having no power and no genuine voice in the country where they live. The bought-and-paid-for politicians intone “Israel’s right to self-defence” as justifying the slaughter of any number of Palestinian children”.
And the slaughter goes on.
USA foreign policy is at the heart of the matter. “Hegemon” USA now seems prepared to wage war on at least three fronts in defence of its hegemony, Ukraine, Israel and Iran and more besides. It’s to the eternal shame of the UK and EU that they support USA hegemony, sacrificing in doing so the wishes and interests of their people.
Of course you haven’t read any comment which contradicts that central argument.
The reason for that is that it is so true that no rebuttal is possible. So the hasbara and the lobby just don’t answer, at best they just divert.
In the same way, you will never get an answer – only silence or diversion – if you ask the question “do you think that full and genuine withdrawal from the West Bank settlements would be an essential element of a lasting peace agreement”.
Remember when the ‘Settlers’ had to be removed by the IDF from the Sinai ? Pretty much a very similar group to the nutters that are trying to take root in the West Bank. I still remember the BS that was employed by them, ”We found the remains of a latrine dug for Moses” and other entirely spurious claims, but in the end they left.
The uprooting of zealots has happened before, so there’s no reason to think that it can’t happen again?
I think times may have changed a little, CO.
My point was not that it couldn’t be done, it was that you’ll never get a straight answer on the question from a hasbarist. It is either silence or diversion.
Note that idea of a two state solution is essentially fraudulent unless the settlements are evacuated for good; if you look at the map, you will see that the West Bank is not viable as a state in any sense (economically, transport and communication-wise, etc) as long as it is riddled with settlements here, there and everywhere.
A unitary state with a decent constitution looks like a better solution given the facts on the ground (literally).
Highly unlikely that any political solution exists for the present divisions in the holy land? What will probably solve the situation going forward will be demographics. Even now I’d imagine that Israel does not offer huge opportunities for those of the Ashkenazim who take full advantage of the educational opportunities that Israel offers its citizens. And that they will be the group who will be most entitled to gain multiple nationality via the persecution of grandparents, with the attendant ability to seek opportunity in the developed economies of the West. Obviously the hardcore Zionists, those who are descendants of the players who were around in the ’30s, Bibi being a good example, are going to be thinned out by time’s scythe, and the focus of the Zionist effort will diminish greatly. We might look to the current situation with the son of Bibi, who it seems would rather stay in Florida than rush back to Israel in its ‘Hour of Need’.
It’s ironic that whilst it was the Ashkenazi group that originated, and made Zionism happen, they are the very group who will most likely either leave the place, or view it as a nice place for a holiday home. The groups that were ‘Forced’ to take up residence in Israel, the Sephardim, and Misrahim, collectively the Jews of North Africa, and the Levant and Iraq, are the ones who will have no options to leave. They are also the ones who are least differentiated from either the Palestinians, or the burghers of the nations surrounding the Holy Land.
The so-called ‘Settlers’ seem to be composed in great part of incomers from other lands, who have developed zealotry to an art, and are attracted by the lavish tax and other financial breaks that the Israeli .gov offers. One could imagine a situation coming to pass where, with the Ashkenazi ascendency of Israel diminishing, and Israel tending towards a societal nature more akin to its neighbours, it would be very much more difficult for the settlers to maintain their fanaticism faced with much reduced government support. Or to put it simply, the ‘Settlers can only do what they’re doing by virtue of government-provided housing infrastructure and welfare. Should the complexion of the Israeli elites change to the point where other groups get a bigger share of the pot, running a toy farm on the West Bank will cease to be even a remote possibility.
Just for fun, lets imagine that ‘Net Zero’ becomes a reality by 2050? Were that to happen, it would also signal the death knell for Israel in its current form. It’s only Israel’s proximity to possibly the world’s largest concentration of fossil-derived energy potential that makes it of any interest to the ‘West’, and that brings in the subsidies that allow it to masquerade as a western nation.
The modern State of Israel has likely already passed the peak of its being, and going forward it will find that from small beginnings, it will find itself in situations where the boot is increasingly on the other foot.
Russia intends to rebuild its European empire with Ukraine, the Baltic States, Moldova, and maybes one or two others. That will tear the EU apart and generate millions, maybes tens of millions of refugees.
Iran intends to drive 9.5 million Jews out of Israel and export its religion into the non-Russian rump of Europe.
Both countries are driven by their own internal difficulties to progress and spread external wars.
I fail to see how the interests of us in the UK are served in any way by letting this happen.
I fail see how the UK’s interests are served by believing your fantasies.
LOL what a crock. the nations driving this are the US, with its latest iteration of Manifest Destiny, and Israel looking to expand as Greater Israel. both countries driven by their own internal difficulties, Bibi’s and Biden’s reelection campaigns, to progress and spread external wars.
“Russia intends to rebuild its European empire with Ukraine, the Baltic States, Moldova, ”
“Iran intends to drive 9.5 million Jews out of Israel and export its religion into the non-Russian rump of Europe.”
There you go again with your evidence-free assertions. Two can play at that game, here are some of mine:
“The US intends to strengthen its European empire by taking direct control of Ukraine, the Baltic States, Romania (which will annex Moldova)”
“Israel intends to drive 2.5 million Muslims out of Israel and export its religion into the non-Russian rump of Europe”
This is a country which has won very few of its undeclared wars over the past 75 years or so, proposing to take on major powers all at once. I’m having a hard time coming up with historical equivalents of such folly. The Spanish Armada,World War 1, Hitler’s military decisions–this potentially dwarfs them all, because of nukes. I keep hoping there are some realists in positions of power that can tap the brakes on this rather than accelerating it. a few resignations in the State Department isn’t going to do it. the so far peaceful demonstrations won’t do it. There is no effective opposition anywhere in the halls of power–not in Congress, not in the Executive Branch, not in the see no evil courts (which only have symbolic power anyway), not in the military, and not in the mainstream media.
“I’m having a hard time coming up with historical equivalents of such folly.”
Look up Solano Lopez.
Presumably Israel has put its surveillance technology to use, compiling compromising material on foreign politicians, journalists, officials, agents, academics, etc.?
They’ve got plenty on Craig Murray, that’s for sure!
Apparently Starmer’s Mossad file is a blank sheet of paper….
“Starmer’s Mossad file is a blank sheet of paper….”
That is fitting Squeeth, when we consider the man himself is also “a blank sheet of paper…. ” – though not completely blank as he has recently converted to Judaism.
Squeeth, do you think Jimmy Saville’s Mossad file was also “a blank sheet of paper….”?
A dirty filthy child abusing Tory, or a pedophile-supporting Labour candidate.
England … you are lost to those who sold your nation to friends of Israel.
And if you’re not a friend of Israel, you’re not ever going to be an MP!
Judas silver……
#1
The co-author of the original antisemitism definition, Kenneth Stern, in 2019 in THE GUARDIAN complained about the abuse of antisemitism accusations on US campuses.
The case at hand then was of rather limited scope. The problem however was already the same: freedom of speech.
Whereas most of us here are much more radical than Stern would ever be here the link:
“I drafted the definition of antisemitism. Rightwing Jews are weaponizing it”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/13/antisemitism-executive-order-trump-chilling-effect
#2
Here a passage from a German 2022 text by German-Swiss-Jewish historian Micha Brumlik (I guess I already mentioned him).
Again Mr. Brumlik is by far not as radical as we are but at least he does admit a few historical truths:
see original:
https://www.blaetter.de/ausgabe/2022/mai/der-neue-antisemitismusstreit#_ftn5
“(…)
As far as the relationship between Zionism and colonialism is concerned, there is at least widespread agreement that the disputes between the Jewish immigrants or Israel with the Palestinians are territorial conflicts of domination. At the heart of the dispute is the question of which of the two major groups, each claiming the status of a nation, is entitled to the territory of the former British Mandate of Palestine, either in whole or in part, materially and politically.
The Middle East Conflict as a Territorial Domination Conflict
Many participants and observers were aware of the explosive nature of the competing claims from the very beginning. When, after the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, the Viennese rabbis sent two representatives on a mission to Palestine to sound out the chances for a Jewish state there, the rabbis cabled Vienna: “The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man. “[6] And ten years after the publication of Theodor Herzl’s book “The Jewish State” (1896), the Arab mayor of Jerusalem wrote in a letter to his friend Zadok Kahn, the chief rabbi of France, that probably no one could dispute the right of the Jews in Palestine. God knows that historically it is their land. Nevertheless, he said, the bitter reality precluded the resettlement of the Jews, since the land was already populated by Arabs.
“In the name of God,” he pleaded, “let Palestine be at peace.”[7] A 1919 statement by Israel’s later first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, survives that there is no solution to the problem of the conflict of interests between Jews and Arabs. He knew of no Arab who would agree that Palestine belonged to the Jews, Ben-Gurion said: “We want the land for ourselves. The Arabs want the land for themselves.”[8] In the 1930s, in the face of Arab revolt, Ben-Gurion indicated that as an Arab he would also oppose immigration. The Arabs saw exactly the opposite of what the Zionists saw. And it did not matter whether they were right or wrong. What mattered was that they feared losing not only their land, but their homeland, which others wanted to transform into a homeland for the Jewish people.[9] In fact, the Jewish leadership in the Mandate area at that time was already considering a “transfer” of larger parts of the Arab population. This was to take place peacefully and by means of incentives, but if necessary also through the use of coercion and force.[10] Arab leaders, on the other hand, were opposed to this.
In contrast, Arab diplomats were unanimous from the outset in their support for undivided Arab sovereignty over Palestine and for an end, or at least a limit, to Jewish immigration and an end to land acquisitions.
In addition, they variously signaled approval of the formation of a joint state that could include a high proportion of Jewish citizens with equal civil rights – up to 40 percent were under discussion. In October 1944, a number of Arab heads of state officially expressed their regret in the Alexandria Protocol for the great suffering that European dictatorships had inflicted on people of the Jewish faith. At the same time, however, they objected to solving the problem of European Jews “by another injustice” suffered by the Arabs of Palestine.[11]
(…)
Now, settlement processes from the outside can proceed amicably with locals – for example, at the invitation of their authorities in the sense of cultivating unused soil and making land fertile. And there were Zionist currents that understood their settlement activities in this way. Those currents, however, which were counting on a state of their own and thus, in the longer term, on political dominance through territorially secured majority formation, were stronger from the beginning and finally prevailed – not least because of the significantly increasing influx to Palestine in the early 1930s, a consequence of the increasing discrimination against Jews, especially in Germany and Poland, as well as a drastically decreased willingness of all other countries to accept Jews.
(…)
Similarly illuminating is a memorandum by Lord Balfour in September 1919, which was not published until thirty years later. It states that the contradiction between the statutes of the League of Nations and the policy of the Allies is even more obvious in the case of the “independent nation” of Palestine than in the case of the “independent nation” of Syria. For in Palestine there was no question of even asking the present inhabitants of the country about their own ideas. The four great powers are on the side of Zionism. For Zionism is based on ancient traditions, on needs in the present and on hopes for the future. These, however, are of far greater weight than the wishes and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who inhabit this ancient land.
(…)
As late as 1947, two years after the end of the Shoah, a staff member of the Middle East Affairs Division in the U.S. State Department warned on the question of a partition of Palestine in a memorandum: “U.S. support for the partition of Palestine […] can be justified only on the basis of Arab and Jewish consent. Otherwise, we would be violating the principle of self-determination inscribed in the Atlantic Charter, the United Nations Declaration, and the United Nations Charter—a principle deeply embedded in our foreign policy. Even a United Nations decision in favor of partition without such consent would be a mockery and a violation of the United Nations Charter itself.”[18]
Thus, the decisive reason for the first Arab-Israeli war (1948-1949) was ultimately – and as often predicted – the refusal to let the Arab side have a say in the fate of Palestine.
(…)”.
It is important to underline the point that Zionism is an idea entirely born in Europe, reflecting European preoccupations. The Balfour Declaration was entirely born in London. The British colonial administrations in Cairo and Delhi (which administered the Gulf and the WW1 campaign in Iraq) knew nothing about it.
“The British colonial administrations in Cairo and Delhi (which administered the Gulf and the WW1 campaign in Iraq) knew nothing about it.”
-interesting!
p.s. the problem with above quoted Mr. Brumlik like with virtually 100% of German scholarship is its incapability to simply acknowledge that Israel is an apartheid state. Nobody will ever admit this at least in German public.
So concerning German academic elites this country is a lost cause.
It can only change in the long run with a considerable Muslim minority who might bring into their own academic careers personal non-European experience and knowledge and through local grass-roots movements. But that will take a lot of time.
thanks for providing more context. I definitely got that impression reading this quote from AG’s comment above:
“The four great powers are on the side of Zionism. For Zionism is based on ancient traditions, on needs in the present and on hopes for the future. These, however, are of far greater weight than the wishes and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who inhabit this ancient land.”
those pesky Arabs, they wish not to have their lands stolen and their homes burned, and they are prejudiced against being murdered. so different from civilized folk. our needs and hopes far outweigh their insubstantial wishes and prejudices.
their need to sustain colonialism in some form, and their hopes to continue their traditional income streams.
” For Zionism is based on ancient traditions, on needs in the present and on hopes for the future.”
Here we are AG in that future, determined all those years ago by the loyal servants of financial oligarchy. An oligarchy that had just spent the previous centuries reaping the bounty of raping the world
David Dabydeen, a scholar working at Warwick University did some good work thirty or so years ago, demonstrating this “rape” was just as much sexual as it was financial.
The evidence proving the Israelis carried out of Al Ahli hospital bombing.
https://nevergonnabelievethis.net/2023/10/24/what-hit-al-ahli-hospital-in-gaza/
Seems mainly a claim that fragments near the crater look like a wing from a proximity bomb owned by the IDF. Saying the Palestinians may have overlooked them (and the rest may have been designed to disintegrate but then updating with info that’s unlikely).
But reports say that Palestinian police bomb disposal were pictured on scene soon after (no actual time given). And a senior Hamas official said “The missile has dissolved like salt in the water. It’s vaporised. Nothing is left”.
Any sources for your pronouncements GreatedApe ?
Pronouncements? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67216929 under ‘Notable lack of weapon fragments so far’
Is the BBC reliable? Is the BBC independent? Does not the BBC serve a criminal oligarchy and help enforce a deeply unjust economnic system at home and a murderous and oppressive one abroad?
If the BBC is your only source – well yes, pronouncements
“Is the BBC reliable?”
Yes, the BBC is reliably on the side of the British Establishment, so, if they publish a story which appears to be going against the official narrative, you know that it is more likely to be true than not.
The source is for the photo and quote. If you’re saying they don’t check out from other sources, please say so.
This post below really sums up how severe this situation is for the palestinians:
Between 1947 and 1949, Zionist militias forcibly displaced 750K Palestinians and killed 15,000, in an ethnic cleansing campaign.
Since Oct 7—meaning, in just 22 days—the Zionist regime has displaced 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza and killed over 8,000.
Think about that.
https://nitter.net/m7mdkurd/status/1718699056107512172#m
This is another Nakba.
At least one journalist has the integrity to call it out.
“This concentration camp is now being turned into an extermination camp.”
https://x.com/AJEnglish/status/1718901765981065237?s=20
Wall Street eyes big profits from war
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/30/wall-street-morgan-stanley-td-bank-ukraine-israel-hamas-war
Ukraine and Palestine – it’s a bumper month for your munitions stocks!
As the article notes, all of these munitions manufacturers claim to have mission statements which endorse the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So that’s good to know. How thoughtful of them.
wow, I wasn’t expecting to see that article in the Guardian. I guess it’s heartening in that it indicates there is even mainstream pushback on these wars.
Real role models, aren’t they, US and Ukraine.
The Economist Intelligence Unit, doesn’t even consider Ukraine either a full or flawed democracy. Rather, Ukraine falls into the “hybrid regime” bucket, tied for 86th place in the democracy rankings. The United States itself ranks 26th, making it a “flawed democracy.” Ukraine has a presidential election scheduled for next year. Even taking into account the obvious difficulties in staging an election, does anyone believe its backers (the US and UK) will want it to be ‘free and fair’, as in, alternatives to Zelensky, people open to negotiations/compromise to end the war, being allowed to stand? Our values?
Transparency International, which annually ranks 180 countries based on perceived corruption, gives Ukraine poor marks too. The United States, by comparison, performs better but fell out of the top 25.
Surely, if you want to lecture others around the world about your ‘values,’ whatever they are? Setting yourself up as a paragon of virtue, enforcing some esoteric ‘rules based order’ and be a global hegemon. You should be ranked at least in the top five and preferably #1. New Zealand has managed to get to #2, so it’s not a cultural or language barrier preventing it.
This stuff really matters.
The only reason Biden is president today, and not Bernie Sanders, is because the Democratic party machine and powerful corporate media resuscitated Biden’s failing campaign. Withering attacks on Sanders, combined with pro-Biden propaganda making his victory look inevitable, in order to stymie Sanders’ populist march to the nomination. Were Sanders in the White House now, I doubt he’d have agreed to Israel’s brutal indiscriminate bombing campaign. This stuff matters.
Sanders isn’t that much different to Biden on the current atrocities. He is more supportive of humanitarian aid, but also supports Israel.
I know. And many are disappointed with AOC and the Squad too.
But I do think Sanders would’ve been a much better President. For starters, his support base would have insisted on consistency. The White House culture and his Secretary of State pick, plus wider State Dept staff (Nuland?)would have been different, from the Zionist hawks that make up the Biden Administration. Biden is a Dixiecrat, with a long history of warmongering and supporting various military interventions. The idea Sanders would’ve been just as bad is incorrect imho.
Goose, he sure picked some bad staffers to work on his campaign. it was full of DNC types. And I have been appallled by his support of this genocide, leavened with weak opposition to it. He won’t even call for a ceasefire.
Did not some slime from the Integriy Initiative get into the engine of Sander’s campaign A trainee psyop warrior from the sinister, dark heart of post-imperial Britain;s military-security complex, keeping an eye on things. I wonder why?
Chomsky in a 1992 interview about abusive use of “Holocaust”
(I recommend the entire interview)
https://chomsky.info/dissent01/
C: “one very conservative and very honest Zionist leader, Nachem Goldman, who was the President of the World Zionist Organization and who was detested towards the end because he was much too honest — they even refused to send a delegation to his burial, I believe, or a message. He’s one of the founders of the Jewish state and the Zionist movement and one of the elder statesmen, a very honest man, he — just before his death in 1982 or so — made a rather eloquent and unusual statement in which he said that it’s — he used the Hebrew word for “sacrilege” — he said it’s sacrilege to use the Holocaust as a justification for oppressing others. He was referring to something very real: exploitation of probably the world’s most horrifying atrocity in order to justify oppression of others. That kind of manipulation is really sick.
QUESTION: That disturbs you and…
CHOMSKY: Really sick. Many people find it deeply immoral but most people are afraid to say anything about it. Nachem Goldman is one of the few who was able to say anything about it and it was one of the reasons he was hated. Anyone who tries to say anything about it is going to be subjected to a very efficient defamation campaign of the sort that would have made the old Communist Party open-mouthed in awe, people don’t talk about it.
QUESTION: I ask you this question because I know that you have been plagued and hounded around the United States specifically on this issue of the Holocaust. It’s been said that Noam Chomsky is somehow agnostic on the issue of whether the Holocaust occurred or not.
CHOMSKY: My “agnosticism” is in print. I described the Holocaust years ago as the most fantastic outburst of insanity in human history, so much so that if we even agree to discuss the matter we demean ourselves. Those statements and numerous others like them are in print, but they’re basically irrelevant because you have to understand that this is part of a Stalinist-style technique to silence critics of the holy state and therefore the truth is entirely irrelevant, you just tell as many lies as you can and hope that some of the mud will stick. It’s a standard technique used by the Stalinist parties, by the Nazis and by these guys.
* * *
Democracy Now, 27/10/23:
The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: Censorship, Harassment Intensifies on Campus Amid Gaza War
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/27/palestine_legal_campus_censorship_ryna_workman
“we’re joined in Chicago by Dima Khalidi, the founder and director of Palestine Legal, and by Ryna Workman, the NYU law student who had their prestigious job offer rescinded.”
before the interview:
“On Thursday, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution, quote, “condemning Hamas and antisemitic student activities on college campuses,” unquote, which referenced Ryna, though not by name. This comes as doxing trucks target people at Ivy League universities who sign Palestinian solidarity statements, have now appeared at Harvard, at Columbia, University of Pennsylvania with digital billboard screens displaying people’s faces, their names, and above them saying “antisemites.”
Palestine Legal and over 600 other legal groups and leaders issued a letter calling on elected officials and institutional leaders to address the, quote, “hundreds of incidents happening across the country [that] signal a much broader effort to criminalize dissent, justify censorship, and incite anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim harassment,” unquote. The letter notes, “This is not a new phenomenon, but it is escalating at terrifying speed,” unquote.”
I gather that Chomsky is saying of course he doesn’t deny the Holocaust, he only insisted that denial by others can have various other motives/ignorances than racism.
I wonder why he refers to it an outbreak of ‘insanity’ though. When Livingstone made his comment about collusion he referred to before Hitler went mad and ended up killing 6 million Jews.
Chomsky believes that any expression by a human being is first and foremost communication. Regardless if it is a speech by MLK, or a slur by Hoover or what we nowadays call “hate speech” or a joke on the Tonight Show. It is an entirely scientific approach free of any moral or other subjective judgement.
All these expressions are thereof to be equally protected under the freedom of speech. Since all humans are created equal so are all of their (political) expressions.
The next step is then to argue over them. As reasoning is the only human(e) way to find a solution, an agreement. As there is no other way to assess truth after the divine order which had offered an absolute truth given by God dissolved with the 18th century. This line of thinking goes back at least to the Age of Enlightenment and the Declaration of Human Rights 1789. That´s why he was defending Holocaust deniers in Europe in the 1980s e.g. which made people claim Chomsky was Holocaust denier. But one thing has nothing to do with the other. He was merely an attorney for freedom of speech and expression of one individual.
Your second comment I can´t judge since I don´t know Livingstone well enough.
GreatedApe can you clarify this
” When Livingstone made his comment about collusion he referred to before Hitler went mad and ended up killing 6 million Jews”
What, exactly, do you mean?
Are they using the terms in the informal sense like extreme? Or what’s the psychiatric claim about human genocidal motives, or those individuals?
interview:
“Israel is using defamatory attacks against its critics and a strategic deployment of disinformation to shape discourse.”
with RICHARD FALK
(Prof. emer. for Intern. Law Princeton, 2008 United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories – eat those credentials you apologists out there)
https://truthout.org/articles/israel-is-using-disinformation-and-deflection-as-a-foreign-policy-stratagem/
Excerpt on “both sides are at fault”:
Q: For those who rely mainly on local and national news outlets, and for people who just started watching television coverage in recent weeks, how prevalent do you suspect the “both sides are at fault” account for the casual viewer with this war?
Richard Falk: To blame “both sides” in contexts of asymmetrical responsibility such as exists between Jews and Palestinians is to consciously and unconsciously divert attention away from the essential hierarchical structure of oppression and subjugation, which is the core reality confronting Palestinians. This is especially true for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation since 1967 or in refugee camps, and to a somewhat lesser extent, characterizes the lives of Palestinians living as Israeli citizens within “the green line” since 1948. Blaming both sides is also a comfort zone for those who feel insufficiently informed or uncomfortable about adopting a controversial position. It makes a pretense of accepting the mainstream media orientation that both sides are to blame for the failure of the 1993 Oslo diplomatic framework.
I find it to be an insidious line of argument or reasoning if applied to a grossly asymmetric conflict of the sort that has lasted 100 years in relation to the contested future of Palestine as between the Indigenous residents and the colonizing settlers. It has falsely situated the locus of responsibility for a continuation of the prolonged tragic experience of the dispossessed and subjugated Palestinian people as well as facilitating Israel’s continuous settlement expansion, territorial ambitions, and contribute to the creation of conditions that over time have situated the attainment of Palestinian rights and aspirations well beyond horizons of realistic hope.
It has been dramatically illustrated in liberal circles addressing the interaction between the Hamas attack and the Israel provocation and response. By characterizing Hamas as “terrorists” with no credibility as representatives of the victimized Palestinian people, and Israel as the democratic government understandably overreacting to its attack in the spirit of a traumatized victim, “both sides” can be blamed in a manner oblivious to the long Palestinian experience of Israeli state terrorism under the umbrella of its international role as occupying power.
Q: What does global opinion suggest about Israel’s actions in the conflict, all done in the name of self-defense?
The overarching claim of self-defense is both of questionable relevance to specific charges of war crimes or broad contentions of collective punishment, unconditionally prohibited by the Fourth Geneva Convention governing belligerent occupation. But there is a prior question about the legal applicability of “self-defense.” From the perspective of the UN and international law, Gaza (as well as the West Bank and East Jerusalem) are occupied territories subject to the constraints of international humanitarian law. Israel as the occupying power is entitled to take reasonable steps to maintain its security, but it has no right of self-defense against an administrative actor and political movement such as Hamas that is not the government of a sovereign state. Its October 7 attack on Israeli territory qualifies as terrorism, although as a political undertaking, it possessed a hybrid character, as it was a long-provoked resistance to Israeli crimes associated with Israel’s failure to comply with the provisions of Geneva IV, including, above all, the protection of civilians living under occupations.
(…) (his final statement)
Indeed, we do have to remember who we really are and realize that when we act together, we may be the greatest danger the world has ever faced, as when the U.S. Senate shockingly voted 97-0 last week to support Israel unconditionally as its genocidal actions against the people of Gaza continues to unfold.
(…)”
a few of his hyperlinks:
“Weaponizing the Antisemitism Accusation”
https://carnegie-mec.org/diwan/89880
Asa Winstanley
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/6-author/asa-winstanley/
Winstanley´s book on the anti-Corbyn campaign
https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/weaponising-anti-semitism/
“Hasbara, public diplomacy and propaganda”
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/op-ed-contributors/hasbara-public-diplomacy-and-propaganda-358211
“HASBARA IN ACTION”
study by Dervla Murphy
published by Irish Pages
https://www.jstor.org/stable/44508361
“Zionist Politics and the Law: The Meaning of the Green Line”
study by Lisa Hajjar
The Arab Studies Journal
https://www.jstor.org/stable/27933635
p.s. btw Falk´s blog, which he started to celebrate his 80th birthday
https://richardfalk.org/
thanks AG for those links. A substantial read but what comes through is that recent events are part of an ongoing intense complex struggle involving the US/Israel/Europe (the West) and the Islamic world.
I picked out this paragraph as it appears to address some of the weaknesses of western politics (extreme disenchantment and impotence of existing structures) and the apparent helplessness in tackling the major issues connected to the failure to address the breakdown of climate systems and its incompatibility with Fossil-fuelled consumerism.
The paragraph from the Falk blog:
“There is a need for forward-looking global leadership that is informed by a commitment to the global public good. It may be that this leadership could emerge from below, from a transnational movement animated by a struggle for ecological balance and species identity.
Instead of patriots of the nation or state, patriots of humanity; instead of entrepreneurs for profit, guardians of nature. New values and new identities to sustain a responsible anthropocentrism”.
AG
German woman whose naked body was paraded around Gaza found dead – Telegraph
She wasn’t naked, but her leg was badly broken in the image I saw.
Didn’t Welt report she was alive and being treated in a hospital in Gaza? She apparently phoned her mother in Germany, her mother obviously greatly relieved to speak to her. (warning: gruesome detail) It was reported on UK news today , that they found part of her skull? If so dismembered, it does seem likely she was killed by the ferocious Israeli bombing, doesn’t it. How many of these hostages are going to die due to the wholly disproportionate excessive bombing?
that was the first thing that came to mind when I saw that headline, that she had been killed by Israeli bombing.
“German woman whose naked body was paraded around Gaza found dead – Telegraph”
Hang on, wasn’t she supposed to be already dead when she was “paraded around Gaza”?
‘Terrorist(s)’ has to be the most misused word in the English language.
Israel’s whole propaganda shtick, is built around persuading post-9/11 Americans, that their fight against Palestinians and a Palestinian homeland, is somehow America’s fight too.
Perversely, the awful events of 9/11 are probably viewed as the best thing that ever happened, among Israel’s hawks. You can see why there are so many conspiracies around those arrested ‘dancing and rejoicing Israelis’ (later quietly deported) on the day the Twin Towers were hit.
So babies, children, hospital patients and workers, barbers, bakers, journalists, aid workers and UN employees are all ‘terrorists’. Having killed the family of an Al Jazeera journalist, just as a reminder to him, they are now phoning another Al Jazeera journalist to get out, or else…unspecified. She cannot ‘get out’. Who are the terrorists here? It is obvious, and it isn’t the Palestinians.
israeli terrorists want a media silence in which to commit genocide.
First past the post guarantees minority rule. Democracy isn’t like this….
Everything people on here dislike about US and UK domestic and foreign policy, comes back to the corrupt two-party voting system.
The right scream, “they hate our country, our values” at the left. But the left don’t hate anything, they just want better representation. The authoritarian right only dominate our govt, judiciary; media and agencies, because of a rigged, unfair political system.
“The right scream, “they hate our country, our values” at the left.”
They’re not wrong about the values. What is there in the “British values” our leaders have been parading these last weeks to like?
If there is some consolation to be received from current events in Gaza, and I don’t wish to welcome them for a moment, it is that the mask has at last been ripped off the faces of the members of western regimes and we see them for what they are: wholly paid up supporters of the most evil state in the world (though the USA and the U.K. are close runners up) and at last the truth breaks through the lies propagated endlessly by the likes of the BBC and the yellow press. As for the Labour Party, of which I was a member briefly in the Corbyn days, words just fail me. We can all see clearly now.
As a long term supporter of Palestinian rights from the days when a demonstration might attract a couple of dozen attendees, it literally brings tears to my eyes to see so many in their hundreds of thousands turn out weekly in Britain, a country I left in disgust some years ago. We are truly living in epic times. The world is reshaping before our very eyes.
If I may drift off topic finally I would like to add that as a life-long supporter of Welsh independence I have been jealous of the Scottish progress with its advocates such as Salmond and our host, and disheartened by Welsh indifference. Back in those far-off days support was in single figures, and I was astonished and delighted to learn recently that just in the past few years it has understandably taken off: the latest poll I have seen shows 38% support while in the younger demographic is over 50% already and if current trends continue it will reach 60% by 2030. Make it so! I also learned of a newish organisation YesCymru, which is a single-issue campaign which I have joined and is well worth supporting. Who knows, I might yet live long enough to return to an independent Wales!
I forgot to add that in a recent post I gave a link to a film on Palestine I made just before Covid days and a couple of readers said it didn’t work, but last time I looked it had had 14 views so please try again. And comment!
Hi Walt, I’m in Britain, link did not work with Firefox or Tor, even though I tried many times. I quite good at finding files, so you give exact name, file name, size, duration and any other properties you know, I might be able to “find” it.
You post link again also.
It’s Vimeo.com/343618593
Should work if not blocked
Others have sourced
32 minutes
MP4
Do get back to me
The Walled Off Hotel.
That made me laugh!
It’s good to see that the bastards haven’t killed the Palestinians’ sense of humour.
Whilst over 30 journalists mainly Palestinians and those from Al Jazeera have died reporting facts/truth on the ground, none of the reporters from the BBC and or other lie repeaters, spewing out the genocide denials and lies of a rogue Zionist gang have had their lives taken.
The imbalance is stark and shows where humanity, empathy and equality amongst people is apparent.
None of our mainstream Zionist-sponsored political parties deserve to be voted for and unless possible candidates step down and cause by-elections where they denounce the crimes against humanity that would besmirch each and every voter for the main parties, the next GE should be boycotted.
I cannot conceive that any of my friends would want to vote for Nakba supporters, not in the UK, or, especially not in Germany.