The UK and the US are both sending military assistance to Israel to commit a calculated and deliberate act of genocide, which is already underway.
Over 500 children have been killed in Gaza in the last week and over 2,000 maimed, many with life changing injuries. Nobody can claim they do not know what is already happening or what is about to unfold. The cutting off of food and water to Gaza is a major international crime, which the western proponents of the “rules based order” universally refuse to condemn.
In both the UK and the US there can be no more stark illustration of the lack of any kind of meaningful democracy, than the fact that there is no major political party that opposes the genocide – despite massive public opposition.
The bought and paid for media and political class in the west are extremely nervous, throughout the western world. Now they have come to the final genocide for which zionism has always aimed, they face a good deal of popular resistance.
Throughout Europe there is a massive gap between the zionist unanimity of the politicians and the much greater understanding of the Palestinian situation among the general public. Tellingly the response by the zionist political class has been a wave of outright fascist suppression.
In France, Macron has made all pro-Palestinian demonstrations illegal, but as so often the French people are not standing for that kind of authoritarianism.
In the UK, the police have adopted the cowardly tactic of arresting a couple of individuals, one in Brighton and one in Manchester, for pro-Palestinian demonstration. Under Tony Blair’s notorious draconian “anti-terror” legislation, they could face up to 14 years in prison.
The young man in Manchester was arrested on the precise site of the famous “Peterloo massacre”, which generations of British people were taught at school was a terrible crime in breach of the rights to freedom of speech and assembly. Let the irony of that set in.
You can go out in the streets of the UK with an Israeli flag and yell that you want every Palestinian to be cleansed from Gaza. That is not illegal. If you say the Palestinians have a right to resist their genocide, that is illegal.
That appears to be a genuine analysis of the law in the UK, France and many other western countries.
That is intended to terrify all of us. It will not work.
The European Commission has been ferociously zionist and gung-ho for this Palestinian genocide. It displayed the Israeli flag on its Berlaymont headquarters. It has taken a side in the most ferocious way.
It is therefore deeply sinister that the European Commission is actively working to shut down pro-Palestinian information and comment on social media. The European Commission has written to all major social media organisations and is able to threaten them with massive fines if they do not remove information of which the European Union disapproves.
Following the terrorist attacks by Hamas against 🇮🇱, we have indications of X/Twitter being used to disseminate illegal content & disinformation in the EU.
Urgent letter to @elonmusk on #DSA obligations ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/avMm1LHq54
— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) October 10, 2023
The notion is plainly nonsense that through the fog of war the European Commission – which is 100% parti pris – is qualified to say what information is true and what information is false, and what comment is legitimate.
Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner in charge of this operation, is a former chief executive of electronic companies – and defence contractors – Atos and Thomson. He has no genuine interest in freedom of speech, and is engaged in a process of silencing dissent for military aims, which is quite simply fascist.
We are witnessing almost all western governments deliberately facilitating massacre, ethnic cleansing and genocide. We are witnessing almost all western governments turning on their own people to crush dissent at that complicity in genocide.
This feels not so much like the week that western democracy died, as the week it was impossible any longer to deny that western democracy died some time ago.
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2x Democracy Now interviews
1) human rights attorney “Noura Erakat: Western Leaders & Media Are Justifying Israel’s “Genocidal Campaign” Against Palestinians”
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/13/noura_erakat_palestine_gaza_israel
intro:
“The main roads are almost completely devoid of Palestinian-owned cars. Even those who can find a way out of the towns won’t risk going on the road. One of the settlers’ most strident goals is to make Palestinian vehicles vanish from the West Bank’s main roads. They sometimes implement this mission by blocking access roads into and out of towns.
At this tense moment, the lockdown on Palestinian towns and the absence of Palestinian traffic on main roads make it easier for the military to control the area. And as a byproduct, they actualize the religious Zionist leaders’ open with and plan of making the Palestinians disappear.”
2) “A Second Nakba? Israel Orders 1.1 Million Palestinians to Evacuate Northern Gaza Amid Bombing & Siege”
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/13/israel_orders_gaza_evacuation
Interview with “Muhammad Shehada, a writer and analyst from Gaza, chief of communications at Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, columnist at The Forward newspaper, a Jewish weekly in New York. He’s joining us from Copenhagen.”
intro:
“I’ve been through at least six Israeli military operations, or even more. This is like nothing I’ve ever seen in my entire life and nothing like Gaza has ever seen, in terms of magnitude, scale, level of destruction and death. Entire neighborhoods are totally unrecognizable.
With the evacuation orders, it’s basically plain and very obvious forcible transfers. And its most important thing about it is that it’s unimplementable. If you know Gaza geographically and physically and the devastation of infrastructure there, you would know that most roads are broken. There is vast electricity, internet outages. People are not getting any news. At the same time, the area that Israel wants people to go out of is the most densely populated part of Gaza and the area with the most safe shelters, these U.N. schools — although not very safe, because Israel bombed a lot of them over the last six days, but it’s the area with the most U.N. schools. It’s the area with the most hospitals. And right now you have over 7,000 Palestinians wounded in al-Shifa Hospital and other hospitals around Gaza, around the area that Israel wants them to evacuate from. So, by the mere act of evacuation, many people are going to lose their lives.”
I have watched our descent into this madness over the last decades and still can’t quite believe it’s happened to us. We are the nazis now. Right out in the open. Thank God for people like you, Craig. But that there are so few voices of dissent, our media and political establishment so corrupt, so evil. I just don’t have words. How the hell do we get out of this? Only the complete defeat of the West by the rest of the world and all that means for us, our children, could possibly stop these monsters. I pray to God that Russia, China and the rest of the world are strong enough to stand and break my own country rather than allow this to continue.
For once they’ve done this there can be no going back fir them, and what will come next can only be more and more evil, more and more horrific.
I am not a religious man but I have used the word twice now and will use it again in desperation, God help us.
look here:
“BREAKING: HUNDREDS were just arrested blockading @SenSchumer ’s street, including high profile public officials, rabbis, politicians, scholars, and descendants of holocaust survivors — ages 20 to 80.
We demand an end to the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Never again is today.
https://twitter.com/jvpliveNY/status/1713000861637755127?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1713000861637755127%7Ctwgr%5E2854b7fcac833022cb0a6c795ff0718078afbe53%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.middleeasteye.net%2Fnews%2Fisrael-gaza-war-live
Just because media mute things it doesn’t mean they are not taking place.
There is a world beyond our dumb nefarious established MSM.
Simon, there might be few voices of dissent comparatively, but what we can say is that we’ve got most of the best journalists on the planet on our side. And I’m not a religious man either, but thank God for THAT, because we would be right up…. we would be TRULY lost without them.
“Simon, there might be few voices of dissent comparatively, but what we can say is that we’ve got most of the best journalists on the planet on our side”.
And some of them are out of prison – for the time being.
This government abuse of civil rights is legally valid under the UK’s National security Bill, passed by the Parliament on 14 Mar 2023.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-security-bill-factsheets/espionage-etc-national-security-bill-factsheet
Under this new bill national security restrictions are limited not just to traditionally recognized military or State secrets but criminalizes conduct “that is reasonably possible may materially assist a foreign intelligence service in carrying out activities in the UK, or activities outside the UK which may prejudice the safety or interests of the UK.”
This restriction governs any person or agency, including the media. And what are the “interests of the UK” and what activities constitute “prejudice” of those interests? The government of the day will decide. It is entirely legal for the UK government to ban any political protest not to its liking. Civil rights exist at the government’s discretion.
And who is “a foreign intelligence service”? Literally anyone whom the British intelligence services (spooks) or anyone in HMG cares to call a “foreign intelligence service”. How would we or any other ordinary citizens know different?
Petrov and Boshirov, anyone? Harmless tourists or GRU killers or harmless tourists?
Also please notice that the Bill refers to “carrying out activities” anywhere in the world that “may prejudice the safety or interests of the UK.”
“May” in whose judgment, or opinion? That language is so loose that it could be interpreted to outlaw almost any act at all by anyone, anywhere, any time.
And the “interests” of the UK? A Chinese businessman trying to make a favourable deal could easily be seen as prejudicing the interests of British firms competing with him.
This is what you get when the Government and the “Opposition” are two buttocks of the same bum, the country’s toryere.
I was just checking out Al Jazeera for the latest news, and it looks like there are literally millions of people around the world demonstrating against what Netanyahu and his fellow gangsters are doing to the Palestinians. And I think the numbers are only gonna get bigger and bigger and bigger. Not sure how much the Western MSM are covering them though, if at all. Anyway, I just came across this:
‘Gaza’s terrified children all too aware Israel’s bombs steal their joy’
About 500 children have been killed by Israeli air attacks – one-third of Palestinian fatalities in the Gaza Strip.
In the Gaza Strip, children’s ages are measured by how many Israeli assaults they have been through.
About half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million is under 18, and the current offensive is Israel’s fifth major one in 15 years.
The constant trauma has resulted in four out of five children in Gaza living with depression, grief and fear, according to a 2022 report by Save the Children.
More than half struggle with suicidal thoughts and the trauma of witnessing the deaths of other children…….
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/13/gazas-terrified-children-all-too-aware-israels-bombs-stole-their-joy
Yes, but they can still be ignored, as they were in 2003. Over one million people demonstrated in London against the start of the Bush/Blair war of aggression against Iraq. But Tories and Labour were united – all the politicians wanted their war, based on lies. They could ignore the people and they did.
Probably why there is much less enthusiasm for mass protests nowadays. We have been shown that such protests achieve absolutely nothing. They cannot even shame the perpetrators, because they have no conscience and feel no shame or guilt.
“Probably why there is much less enthusiasm for mass protests nowadays.”
The government has only ever listened if protests degenerate into riots. Then they know they have gone too far.
“The constant trauma has resulted in four out of five children in Gaza living with depression, grief and fear, according to a 2022 report by Save the Children”.
Common sense tells me that Save the Children underestimated by 20%.
Really good documentary (Part 1 of 3), and even more poignant in the present circumstances:
Boycott: The fight for freedom of expression
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/featured-documentaries/2023/9/27/boycott-the-fight-for-freedom-of-expression
@Allan Howard, yes, I’ve watched all three episodes now, highly recommended. The USAmerican Christian senator saying Israelis were God’s chosen people, the preacher welcoming the End Times since Jews now controlled Jerusalem, these are dangerously deranged people in positions of influence. Those US citizens legally challenging being required to swear not to boycott Israel are reasonably relying on their constitutionally-protected political free speech.
This is, of course, the horror of the British system with its quasi-constitution and royal prerogative. The Executive can say the British (Empire) will always back Israel only because we are not a democracy, and the people never get to decide who our official friends and enemies will be.
Thanks Allan H. for that link from Algazeera, Boycott : The fight for freedom of expression.
To be honest, i find it difficult to keep up with these links, so don’t look at many, but fortunately i did have a look at the one that you posted, about freedom of expression in America. I had no idea that this was happening in the U.S. and was particularly interested by one character who mentioned that he was, of Irish & Scottish decent, though, not really relevant to the topic discussed!
Yes, polling consistently shows less than a quarter of the British public views Israel in a positive light compared to over 50% who view it in a negative light. This is in the face of incessant zionist propaganda from the political-media class, which reached a previous peak with their bogus antisemitism crisis.
Amazingly it took the football authorities to give some nod of recognition to democracy by refusing to light up the Wembley arch in the colours of the apartheid state. When your national polity and media are falling morally short of the people who run 21st century football that is when you know you have a genuine crisis.
I’d suspect that the FA were primarily motivated by financial rather than democratic interests ? It’s a feature of ‘The Prem’ that it’s very much a worldwide money-maker, and overt support for Israel may well have had a negative impact in many more parts than it would have been positive?
On Monday 9 October, Israel’s Minister of Defence, Yoav Gallant, stated: “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.”
In a compelling specialist assessment of the legal consequences of the Israeli Defence Minister’s order, a leading international law authority on siege starvation, Tom Dannenbaum, concludes:
“This order commands the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, which is a violation of international humanitarian law and a war crime (ICC Statute, article 8(2)(b)(xxv)). It may also satisfy the legal threshold for the crime against humanity of inhumane acts (7(1)(K)) and, depending on what happens from here, other crimes against humanity, such as those relating to killing (murder and extermination) (7(1)(a-b)).”
Dannenbaum’s conclusion stems principally from international humanitarian law strictly prohibiting starvation of the civilian population as a method of warfare in both international and non-international armed conflicts. Furthermore, starvation as a method of warfare is considered a war crime in both international and non-international armed conflicts.
The UN Commission of Human Rights in South Sudan provides the following outline of ‘starvation’ in its October 2020 report on the use of starvation as a method of warfare:
“The term ‘starvation’ should be understood to encompass deprivation not just of food and water but also of other goods essential for survival in a particular context. The crime of starvation does not require that victims die from starvation, only that they should intentionally be deprived of objects indispensable to their survival. This may include depriving individuals of their ability to obtain food, degrading public health, and disrupting access to clean water, or deliberate denial of food and arbitrarily refusing to allow relief operations where the survival of the civilian population is threatened.”
The Israeli Defence Minister’s declaration that, “[T]here will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed”, clearly meets the UN Commission’s understanding of starvation.
Israel’s imposition of a complete siege on Gaza is a core part of its military response which has the stated objective of eliminating Hamas. The UN Group of Eminent International and Regional Experts on Yemen clarified, in its September 2019 report, that:
“Military necessity cannot be invoked to justify the starving of the civilian population. Hence, other violations of international humanitarian law can constitute violations of the prohibition of starvation, in particular attacks against objects indispensable to the survival of the population, as well as denial of humanitarian access…. Parties to the conflict must allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief for civilians in need, provided the relief is impartial and humanitarian in character and subject to the parties’ right of control. The withholding of consent to humanitarian access that leads to starvation is considered arbitrary, hence unlawful.”
Based on this legal clarity, it is clearly apparent that Israel’s current withholding of consent to humanitarian access that leads to starvation for civilians in Gaza, is a serious violation of international humanitarian law. Furthermore, Dannenbaum highlights that such denial of consent constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court:
“Article 8(2)(b)(xxv) of the ICC Statute is explicit in affirming that the war crime of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare can be perpetrated through the denial of relief supplies. Criminal liability attaches when a perpetrator deprives civilians of objects indispensable to their survival with the intent to starve civilians as a method of warfare (ICC Elements, p.21). The deprivation of objects to a civilian population [in Gaza] is clearly underway.”
Keir Starmer knows all this yet he like many leaders “West” agree with him when specifically asked by Nick Ferrari [LBC news] the first question Starmer replied the boiler plate answer, “Israel must have that right to defend herself”. Ferrari then said “A siege is appropriate, cutting off power, cutting off water? Starmer replied “I think Israel does have that right, it is an ongoing situation”. These are words which give the green light to grave war crimes, they are the words of a genocidal monster. He will be judged for them.
A human rights lawyer, in the respectably British sense of the term. Just as disheartening is that the entire commentariat sees nothing incongruous about him.
As to him being judged, the problem is all the carefully selected individuals who monopolise respectable media and the public information sphere in Britain. They are the ones who get to issue the final judgements on everything in this country. Every single one of them should have long ago been discredited beyond employability for disastrous lies about Iraq, austerity, Libya, antisemitism etc, etc. Look at their whitewashing of Sir Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell, David Cameron, George Osborne. They are also the ones who will deliver the official verdict on Sir Keir Starmer.
Oh wonder.
The mountain has laboured and brought forth a pilpullian chimera for principled Keirish cerebration and approval.
12 o’clock and all’s probably well.
(Squiffilly shifty peep at camera to signify heartfelt anguish and authenticity).
A safe pair of eyes!
Will it go anywhere I certainly hope so.
“International Centre of Justice for Palestinians has written to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak informing him of their intention to prosecute UK government officials for complicity in Israeli war crimes in Gaza.”
https://nitter.net/Lowkey0nline/status/1713110323090039042#m
Full details here.
https://www.icjpalestine.com/2023/10/14/prime-minister-warned-of-intention-to-prosecute-uk-government-officials-for-complicity-in-war-crimes-in-gaza/
Al Jazeera Tv (UK) showed a huge demo in New York with countless Palestinian flags on show, no violence but the mood was tinged with anger.
Meanwhile in Rome (Italy) protestors are beaten with batons for supporting the Palestinians.
We know what happens in the dis-united kingdom when folk wave a Palestinian flag, the police frog march them into custody.
https://nitter.net/Lowkey0nline/status/1712946013739086054#m
Shocking, but not surprising.
“Incredible. Leaked emails show the State Department is discouraging its staff from making public statements suggesting the U.S. wants to see less violence by Israel.
huffpost.com/entry/state-dep…
In messages circulated on Friday, State Department staff wrote that high-level officials do not want press materials to include three specific phrases: “de-escalation/ceasefire,” “end to violence/bloodshed” and “restoring calm.””
https://nitter.net/RnaudBertrand/status/1712865991217361309#m
Hardly surprising. The US State Department – like the rest of the US government – always wants to see more violence everywhere with the arguable, and nowadays questionable, exception of the USA itself.
Bernie Sanders speaks out about war crimes in Israel and Gaza and he is shunned by politicians for speaking the truth, what a mad world we now live in.
“German Social Democratic Party leader Saskia Esken has boycotted a Bernie Sanders event over his supposedly anti-Israel statements. Bernie’s statement? “The targeting of civilians is a war crime, no matter who does it.””
https://nitter.net/jacobin/status/1713072143733555418#m
Esken is a coward and an idiot. Her being in that position playing monkey to the VIPs in the party so she can keep her seat and privileges. Its a disgrace. But thats the Social Democrats today. Forget her. Forget the SPD.
But Sanders is nothing out of the ordinary either. In Germany they quote him but that’s because anything regarding Israel is holy here. Principles are handy as long as they´re not. And if Sanders says Israel can just attack as long as it’s not exaggerated – what is that but cowardice and political maneuvering with regard to the DNC and to the US Senate and the US press. It’s fine and well. No misunderstanding. Like everyone here I was supporting him 2016. But his failure regarding Ukraine is a repetition of now. In comparison in Germany he would be either a centrist fom the Christian Democrats (frm. Merkel) or a right-wing Social Democrat, worse than Scholz.
At least that shows us how bad the US truly is.
“But Sanders is nothing out of the ordinary either. ”
It’s not about Sanders per se it’s about what he said that matters.
Sanders is likely smart enough to see that a dramatic change in the idea that Israel can do as it pleases is on the way, as is ‘The Donald’ who is getting stick today for denigrating Bibi.
These are times when one gets to see who are maybe equipped for politics, and those who are mere opportunist mountebanks.
Yes, very cowardly and savage attack on such a progressive paragon who is probably still in the throes of intense mourning for Fudger McCain and Sen. Feinstein.
The best part is Sanders is almost a living stereotype of a “Yankee Jew”, so the descendants of the NSDP are denouncing him for opposing fascistic war-crimes, whilst supporting the heirs of Bandera in Ukraine.
How charming! I wish our current creeping dystopia was more akin to cyberpunk or Clockwork Orange. Alas, it’s beige and perpetuated by the most boringly mediocre functionaries imaginable.
NSDAP.
EU officials know that the Zionists are going to cleanse Gaza, and are willing to pay the heavy price for it. Let’s not forget we (the citizens) of Europe will also pay a heavy price for their actions or inactions.
“The FT quotes EU officials saying “we may be about to see massive ethnic cleansing” and “we’ll pay a heavy price in the global south [for supporting it]”.
ft.com/content/e803f827-f1dd…
“This is insane. They’re predicting a “massive ethnic cleansing”: why on earth is it so hard, at the very least, to say this shouldn’t happen? They’re normally so eager to lecture the whole planet for even the slightest hint of a perceived human rights violation… But when one of them is about to commit what might rank as one of the greatest crimes against humanity of the century, expressing concern is suddenly “an impossible tightrope”. 🤦♂️
Damn right they’ll pay an extremely heavy price for it in the global South! Whatever credibility they had left (which wasn’t much) will be completely gone for a very, very long time. And it will be very much deserved.
In the spirit of fairness I have noticed 2 Western leaders – just 2 – who had enough backbone to express concern about Israel’s actions. They are Norwegian foreign minister Anniken Huitfeldt who said the blockade on Gaza was “unacceptable” and Ireland’s PM Varadkar who said that what is happening in Gaza “amounts to collective punishment”. He added: “Cutting off power, cutting off fuel supplies and water supplies, that’s not the way a respectable democratic state should conduct itself.”
See, how hard is it to say this? That’s how you preserve at least a modicum of integrity as a state.”
https://nitter.net/RnaudBertrand/status/1712846740691534040#m
https://www.ft.com/content/e803f827-f1dd-4bbe-af76-55436e3db587
The shameful Ursula von der Leyen photoshooting her way through this genocide of the Palestinian people.
https://nitter.net/pic/orig/media%2FF8Y4EdUXEAAApAa.jpg
https://nitter.net/ClareDalyMEP/status/1712897153847242978#m
More of this is needed within the EU and UN.
“I fully endorse @antonioguterres warning that Israel’s request that 1 million civilians evacuate from the North of Gaza across a densely populated warzone to a place with no food, water, or shelter into a territory under siege is extremely dangerous and virtually impossible.”
https://nitter.net/JosepBorrellF/status/1713027964563062930#m
Ursula fond der Genocide is clearly a European Hillary.
The fact she seems to have zero concept of proportionality is deeply concerning. Even the caught-lying press, e.g. Guardian are struggling to sell ‘both sides are suffering equally’ with pictures of someone cowering in a Kibbutz after alleged nearby rocket fire in Israel. Alongside pictures of apartment blocks that have been randomly levelled in Gaza and Gazans covered in blood. This is US/UK assisted wanton destruction by Israel and Europeans and the rest of the world will see it as such.
But we can surely all celebrate her choice of hairdresser.
van Der Leyen is the female version of Adolf Hitler – there is no need to mince one’s word from now on, this petite, perfectionist-fascist-clothed heinous woman with her pompous stupid hairdo has the audacity to travel to Israel and shake hands with the butcher of Gaza. Almost 800 children killed by now! When children have been killed by Russian rockets she was the first to condemn it; how can one be depraved to flip like that? Clear sociopathic behavior. Obvious racist.
If BRICS, African union and other nations that area regularly condemned by this vermin are silent now, they really miss a great chance to show the hypocrisy and how depraved and fake the EU really is on human rights.
Meanwhile the butchering goes on: refugees seeking to go southward are attacked by the same weapons EU and US have given Israel.
Southern Gaza bombed even as thousands flee after Israeli evacuation order
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/13/israel-hamas-live-dozens-killed-while-fleeing-to-southern-gaza
As I said before, it is absurd that the equally depraved Arab leaders sit and do nothing. Sure they have their issue with Hamas but why not help the Palestinian cause itself? Why not even bother helping when Palestinian civilians are slaughtered? What a bunch of corrupt nasties. They could just amass troops in Egypt to scare the West off, they could cut ties, they could cut oil/gas deliveries. There is so much they can do, but no they do nothing. So much for Arab brotherhood.
Israel has a right to defend herself/itself they all keep repeating.
Hamas only won something like 52% in their last election, their military wing.
al-Qassam Brigades probably have a lot less support than that. In the same way the IRA had less support than Sinn Féin. Holding Gazans collectively responsible, many of whom won’t support Hamas or their recent actions, is devoid of all logic and reason.
Not once did the UK entertain the idea of flattening entire Nationalist Catholic neighbourhoods or ethnically cleansing N. Ireland – and what would’ve been the US response had the UK done so?
It does not matter if 50% or 100% voted for Hamas, regardless of how high or low support is amongst Gazans for them, Israel has no right whatsoever to do what they are doing now. Israel just looking for any pretext to rid Gaza of Palestinians. One should not buy into the Israeli claim that Hamas is the problem. If anything, the support for Hamas have probably soared over the past days in Gaza.
I think that’s Israel’s real intention too; namely, to incorporate Gaza’s land into Israel.
‘From the river (Jordan) to the sea (Mediterranean) Palestine will be free.’
It’s a punchy message and simple concept, that even the uninitiated can quickly grasp – that of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state. Netanyahu’s goal has been to divide and conquer, making that dream impossible. Now he’s going for the big prize, aided by disingenuous Zionists in the State Dept of the US and FCO in the UK – people more loyal to Israel than their own countries, known as ‘Israeli firsters’ in the US.
“van Der Leyen is the female version of Adolf Hitler”
Same attitudes and beliefs, just a different herrenvolk and a different untermensch.
Thanks Republic of Scotland.
In my opinion the ‘arc of resistance’ should open several fronts to avoid the genocide of the Palestinians, the militias in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and others. The only reason to exist is to save the Palestinians and Al Quds. Failure to do this means that they may as well give up, which means that they individually will be eliminated one by one by the West.
Israel persuaded Trump to walk away from the JCPOA because of the fear of Iran’s conventional precision-guided missiles, most in underground silos spread across Iran’s vast deserts and out of sight and reach of Israel/US bombing. This is the real reason for breaking the JCPOA. This link to Foreign Policy https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/15/israel-idf-iran-nuclear-arms-weapons/ includes also a link to a presentation by Uzi Rubin, a missile expert. The existential threat these precision missiles pose to the postage-stamp-sized Israeli state with most of its population and industrial capacity within the Tel Aviv area.
Uzi Rubin, a former head of the Israel Missile Defence Organization and a pre-eminent missile expert, has a chilling presentation he gives on the all-but-existential threat posed by precision-guided munitions to small states. Rubin uses Greece as an example, but it’s obvious he’s really talking about Israel. By perusing easily available public sources, Rubin suggests there are roughly 30 facilities in all of Greece that allow modern society as we know it to function there — systems for water, fuel, electricity, sea and air transport, and communications. Generously assuming his tally of critical targets undercounts the actual number by a factor of three, Rubin soberly makes the point that with fewer than 300 precision-guided munitions, an adversary could quickly make life unviable for Greece’s 10 million citizens.
If anything, tiny Israel may be even more vulnerable than Greece. Though the two countries are close in population, Israel’s land area is not even 20 percent of Greece’s. And while Israeli counterproliferation efforts have severely limited Iran’s ability to transfer precision-guided munitions along various routes to Hezbollah, some Israeli officials privately suggest that the terrorist group could already have several hundred in its arsenal. Once it acquires 1,000, it could fire 10 precision strikes at each of Israel’s 100 most critical pieces of national infrastructure. Even assuming a 90 percent success rate for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence, the math at that point will favour Hezbollah, putting the possible paralysis of Israeli civil society within its reach. Hezbollah have the precision missiles to destroy Israel, and as Rubin said in another speech all that is necessary to construct a precision missile is a smart phone and some winglets, which Hezbollah have in vast quantities. Those aircraft carriers and support vessels are sitting ducks off the coast of Israel.
Just to add all the many US bases would come under attack, the huge base in Qatar housing large numbers of US fighter bombers including B52’s would be destroyed because it is a short distance from Iran. Remember when the Al Assad airbase in Iraq was destroyed by just 15 precision missiles, 12 got through, the same applies to the US fleet in Bahrain, the tremendous speed of these missiles mean the pilots in these bases would have approx 1 minute to get off the ground to safety. As for the fleet in Bahrain and off the coast of Israel, sitting ducks.
The al-Asad airbase wasn’t destroyed by the Iranian missiles, Harry. The only things that were destroyed were some tents and some storage depots, resulting in some US troops losing much of their personal possessions:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Martyr_Soleimani
Unfortunately for them, I don’t think they’ll be able to successfully sue the Islamic Republic of Iran. In contrast, unfortunately for my thieving and vituperative ex-landlords, who’ve destroyed many of my worldly goods and chattels without my fully informed consent, I should be able to successfully sue them*.
* See the (old-fashioned) telephone number damages awarded in Cashmere vs Walsh, Downing & Veale (Central London County Court, 2009) – and then there’s the legal fees, of course.
The chairman of the US Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul, has stated unequivocally that Egypt sent an official warning of an attack from Gaza to the Israeli Government 3 days before it happened. He does add that he was uncertain of the level of the warning.
It has taken Israel only 5 days to prepare a mass invasion of Gaza, so surely in those 3 days they could have prepared an effective defence.
It all smacks of fish.
And why isn’t this being widely reported in the MSM?
Palestinian reps./Arab states/Russia/African Union/BRICS etc should call for a vote in the UN General Assembly to condemn Israel’s genocidal practices. Such a resolution will only be symbolic, but it will show the world on paper who supports Israel, just like the West initiated a vote on the Russian invasion of Ukraine earlier this year:
UN tells Russia to leave Ukraine: How did countries vote?
A country breakdown of the UN General Assembly vote that demanded Moscow withdraw its troops and end the fighting.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/24/un-tells-russia-to-leave-ukraine-how-did-countries-vote
Besides, look at a map of the Middle east, Africa, it is amazing how this small bastard regime could have so much power while billions of Muslims and Arabs living around them could easily make this carnage stop if they really wanted to through a Responsibility-to-protect intervention. They are not doing this because they are obviously still led by the West colonial/dividing practices.
Besides Muslim nations military intervening, Kadyrov should send his forces into Gaza to protect the population, the mere act would paralyze Israel, not daring to strike at in, effect, Russia. Too bad Russia is too aligned with Israel nowadays, even though Israel covertly aids Ukraine.
Video of Kadyrov forces
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFhdZaU9qfU
An intervention would also spell an end to western dominance of who can use the Responsibility-to-protect argument.
Human Rights Watch reporting that Israeli forces have droppped White Phosphorus bombs in Gaza and Lebanon.
Radio news reporting that the six hours given to the Palestinian people to flee the North of Gaza ends at 4pm (UK time 2pm).
One can only imagine the atrocities that lay in wait for those oppressed Palestinians who cannot flee the coming Zionist tsunami of violence in Northern Gaza when the incursions begin.
On incursions, Al Jazeera news (English) TV reporting that Zionist forces entered the West Bank and abducted over 50 people.
Well written, Craig.
Labour bans MPs from attending Gaza solidarity demonstrations, warns members they may be expelled
https://skwawkbox.org/2023/10/14/labour-bans-mps-from-attending-pro-palestine-demos-warns-members-they-may-be-expelled/
Perversely, Evans excuses this action on the grounds that members protesting may compromise Labour’s ability to fight racism – the party right’s widespread racism toward Muslims, Black people and Gypsy Roma apparently doesn’t count – and to keep the party ‘welcoming’ for all members (presumably except Palestinians).
The racists are, of course, Evans and the Labour leadership for refusing people to show support for the Palestinians.
It would be one thing if they called on members not to support this or that Palestinian group, but the mere support for Palestinians?!
It seems like the virtue-signalling past decades have really peverted the western minds into now becoming supporters of ethnic cleansing and genocide 100% – even admitting so openly. Incredibly chilling development.
There are even calls within European countries to kick out immigrants if they show support for Palestine or Hamas!
No doubt Ms Hodge, and the others who had the knives out for Corbyn, will be pushing this.
I’m sensing that world opinion is moving towards not accepting that Israel has carte blanche to demand 20 or 30 eyes for one of its own? Should that be the case then it’ll once again be the scenario where Labour hobbles itself as it strives for power.
Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom.of heaven. Today I can’t do anything. My mind is gone.
Kudos to the Croatian president, the only European leader to date that has criticised Israel:
Israel has lost my sympathy – EU state’s president
Croatia’s Zoran Milanovic says the bombing of civilians in Gaza has gone beyond self-defense
https://swentr.site/news/584873-milanovic-israel-lost-sympathy/
Not the first time he shows courage against the groupthinking west:
NATO member’s president denounces ‘Glory to Ukraine’
Croatia’s Zoran Milanovic compared the slogan used by Kiev to that of Nazi-allied Ustasha from WWII
https://swentr.site/news/577247-croatia-slogan-ukraine-milanovic-nazis/
Not even the nasty Saudi leaders are as critical: they do not even dare to name Israel in their ‘concern’!
“It’s a disturbing situation. It’s a very difficult situation. And, you know, the primary sufferer of this situation are civilians and civilian populations on both sides are being affected,” the Saudi government said.
“The priority now needs to be to stop further civilian suffering, and here we need to find a way to quickly de-escalate the situation to quickly bring back peace – at least stopping the guns – and then working towards addressing also the humanitarian challenges.”
Of course the Saudi leader said it along with Blinken.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/13/israel-hamas-live-dozens-killed-while-fleeing-to-southern-gaza
Meanwhile Palestinian Red Cross hospitals warn they obviously cannot evacuate after threats from Israel to do so. The hospitals warn thousands of patients risk death because of this move. These are grave, grave warcrimes!
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/13/israel-hamas-live-dozens-killed-while-fleeing-to-southern-gaza
I wonder if it is legal to call for death to Israeli leaders now on social media?
Facebook allows war posts urging violence against Russian invaders
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/exclusive-facebook-instagram-temporarily-allow-calls-violence-against-russians-2022-03-10/
No, of course not.
Hate speech laws in England and Wales are found in several statutes. Expressions of hatred toward someone on account of that person’s colour, race, sex, disability, nationality (including citizenship), ethnic or national origin, religion, gender reassignment, or sexual orientation is forbidden. Any communication which is threatening or abusive, and is intended to harass, alarm, or distress someone is forbidden. The penalties for hate speech include fines, imprisonment, or both.
The Police and CPS have formulated a definition of hate crimes and hate incidents, with hate speech forming a subset of these. Something is a hate incident if the victim or anyone else think it was motivated by hostility or prejudice based on: disability, race, religion, gender identity or sexual orientation. A hate incident becomes a hate crime if it crosses the boundary of criminality.
Some United Kingdom statutes apply in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Scottish government has held an independent review of hate crime laws which it intends to use as the basis for a wider consultation on new legislation. Wikipedia
Palestinians do comprise the relevant characteristics in the various UK legislation. Starmer’s racist diatribe on LBC to Nick Ferrari was 100% racist and directed to all Palestinians in this country and in the Middle East. He should be prosecuted immediately.
“Starmer’s racist diatribe on LBC to Nick Ferrari was 100% racist and directed to all Palestinians in this country and in the Middle East. He should be prosecuted immediately”.
And when do you expect that to happen? Half past midnight on the Tuesday after the universe ends.
“Expressions of hatred toward someone on account of that person’s colour, race, sex, disability, nationality (including citizenship), ethnic or national origin, religion, gender reassignment, or sexual orientation is forbidden.”
The Palestinians aren’t “persons”, they are sub-humans. That is why the leader of our national Socialist party will not be arrested.
The hypocrisy of Zionism isn’t lost on people who eschew the mainstream media’s unwavering pro-Israel propaganda and look at the situation coldly and objectively. They are overwhelmingly overrepresented in pretty much all leftist causes in the West, but want absolutely none of it for themselves. Whether one agrees with mass immigration, socialism, multiculturalism, etc. or not, the undeniable truth is that the Israeli lobbyists take the exact polar opposite stance when it pertains to Israel, instead taking an ethnostate (some say Apartheid) stance.
Of course killing civilians is a despicable war crime. Now, how many civilians do you see in this picture? Quickly now!
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7d9d992c-7aa6-4e20-8617-53ebb620e52b_421x560.jpeg
Actually, this whole article by Julian MacFarlane is worth reading.
https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/israels-six-big-lies
“Facebook has deleted Palestinian media company ‘Quds News Network’ from the platform.
The Facebook oversight board includes former Israeli government censor Emi Palmor. She established the Israeli Cyber Unit which takes down social media accounts.”
https://nitter.net/Lowkey0nline/status/1713158082870518122#m
Meanwhile is this the Zionists’ plan, after they have butchered countless oppressed Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
“Israeli politician Danny Aylon has suggested Palestinians from Gaza can be moved to a “tent city in the Sinai Desert of Egypt”
https://nitter.net/Lowkey0nline/status/1713143926389928307#m
Zionist settlers go on a killing spree in the West Bank, they are protected by the IDF, the UN’s OCHA says that at least seven Palestinian children have been killed by them.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/settlers-go-killing-spree-west-bank
Ex-Tory minister Crispin Blunt warns Sunak he could be prosecuted for abetting Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Never heard of the guy but he is showing himself to be one of the only honourable & honest politicians in the ‘liberal’ West !
Speaking on Israel, UK and warcrimes, remember this?
Former Israeli minister Tzipi Livni to visit UK after change in arrest law
Critics claim change in law governing arrest warrants for war crimes is motivated by political pressure from Israel
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/04/tzipi-livni-arrest-warrant
West talk of Russian meddling sigh… compare that with the actual Israeli meddling, influencing and lobbying which seems to be everywhere in the western world.
The Zionists attempt to shut the mouths of their own.
“The Israeli occupation forces have killed total number of 26 Israeli captives in Gaza. You read that right. It is the application of the Hannibal Directive.
Family members of the Israeli captives are protesting about it outside the Israeli Ministry of War today.”
https://nitter.net/Lowkey0nline
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_Directive
Haaretz seems to have the guts to ask the important question that western MSM and politicians are avoiding, the question that all Israelis should want to know the answer to:
Did Netanyahu know in advance about the Hamas attack, and was he letting it play out part of some sick plan to win public support for annexing and ultimately stealing Gaza?
This looks like the reason why the fleeing oppressed Palestinian people can’t cross over into Egypt.
“Fearing a mass exodus of Palestinians, Egyptian authorities erected “temporary” blast walls on Egypt’s side of the heavily-guarded Rafah crossing, which has been closed for days because of Israeli airstrikes, two Egyptian officials said on condition of anonymity.”
https://nitter.net/sharifkouddous/status/1713146351754625153#m
Ursula von der Leyen’s unfettered kowtowing to the Zionists hasn’t gone down too well in the corridors of the EU.
“There is deep concern among officials, diplomats and members of the European Parliament that she took all these actions despite not having a mandate to do so from EU member states, which are divided on the Israel-Palestine conflict. In doing so she ignored the division of powers by which the commission does not set foreign policy but rather enacts what the member states have decided.”
https://www.irishtimes.com/world/middle-east/2023/10/13/as-von-der-leyen-visits-israel-is-the-commission-overstretching-its-powers/
Deep concern expressed with silent complicity (with honourable exceptions of Clare Daly and Mick Wallace).
No Tom, under the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 members of the public can apply to any magistrates court for a summons to be sent to the alleged offender. I have done this three times over labelling offences, and it has cost me nothing; in fact any expenses incurred can be claimed back through UK central funds. Whether the Judge grants a summons to you is debatable. In my last case, my complaint was directed at an outlet in London selling Syrian wine, grown, harvested, turned into wine in the Golan Heights and labelled, produced, and bottled by Golan Heights Winery POB 183 Katzrin 12900 Israel. And in capital letters WINE OF ISRAEL. The ‘Israeli first’ District Judge Abelson asked me why I thought Katzrin was not part of Israel, I informed the Judge that it was not my claim but that of the UNSC resolution 497 Dec 1981; he would not accept that. That resolution decreed that the Israeli decision to impose its Laws, Jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Golan Heights is null and void and without International legal effect.
“Prosecutions instituted and conducted otherwise than by the Service.
(1) Subject to subsection (2) below, nothing in this Part shall preclude any person from instituting any criminal proceedings or conducting any criminal proceedings to which the Director’s duty to take over the conduct of proceedings does not apply.
(2) Where criminal proceedings are instituted in circumstances in which the Director is not under a duty to take over their conduct, he may nevertheless do so at any stage.
So tragic, the Palestinians have to use an ice-truck to pile dead bodies. Sooner or later the truck will likely be struck by Israel.
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2023/10/14/ice-cream-trucks-being-used-to-store-bodies-as-israel-bombs-gaza
ICC is still embarrassingly silent. How can one be so depraved as an ICC judge to sit in silence when everyone is watching what is going on? I mean there are so many prima facie accounts of obvious war crimes or even worse, but the ICC wont say an iota about it. On Russia, Libya, Syria they acted quick, however.
The ICC prosecutor needs to break his silence on Israel-Palestine
Prosecutor Khan cannot stop the violence on his own, but he still has a role to play.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/10/12/the-icc-prosecutor-needs-to-break-his-silence-on-israel-palestine
Doubly tragic, possibly.
https://www.theguardian.com › world › 2013 › feb › 15 › binyamin-netanyahu-ice-cream
Binyamin Netanyahu ice-cream habit causes meltdown
15. Feb. 2013Fri 15 Feb 2013 09.11 EST As far as vices go, Binyamin Netanyahu’s may be quite vanilla. But the revelation that the Israeli prime minister has a budget in excess of £1,700 to feed his formidable…