In 2009 I spoke to a demonstration of 300,000 in London against another Israeli massacre in Gaza, which coincidentally killed just over 1400 people, the same number claimed killed during the recent Hamas attacks. Strangely Western politicians did not shout out about Palestine’s right to self-defence. A lesson for those who think history began on 7 October 2023.
I am rather proud of this speech. Sadly, every word applicable today.
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Seems I just posted at the death of the previous thread.
Mainly I want to repeat what I said there that as a long term supporter of Palestinian rights it brings tears to my eyes to see the surge in support in the U.K. and indeed the world right now. Also a little plug for Welsh independence if you are into that!
That was a powerful and relevant address and still wholly appropriate today. The rest of the world – the jungle – is with us now: reference the last UN resolution.
At the end of the previous thread Walt mentioned that people were having difficulty accessing his film on Palestine. I was able to watch it by switching VPN to Turkiye.
Film is https://vimeo.com/343618593
Hi Walt link now works and I will watch it tonight and comment
Magnificent speech. The numbers of participants in the demos are swelling, and I hope it goes further.
May I also recommend todays interview of Alastair Crooke on the Napolitano show. Whatever nasty things Crooke may have done for MI6 in the past, he does have a very good sense of the dynamics of the Gaza crisis, and where it’s leading us.
Alastair Crooke: The Deterrence Paradigm has Failed. (Judge Napolitano – Judging Freedom, 30 Oct 2023) – YouTube, 27m 55s
Laguerre
“Whatever nasty things Crooke may have done for MI6 in the past”
did he?
I don’t know, but anyone in MI6 must have done something not very nice in their time there.
AG, Laguerre but what about the old saw that like the Mafia you can never leave the Security Services? (with exceptions like Agee, etc.)
I have listened to Crooke several times and he has held my attention but when an operative leaves “the Special Services” and holds the confidences of their former employer there will always be ambiguity regarding their relation to “the Secret World”. Agee had to settle in Cuba to avoid the ire of the CIA. I think Crooke is in Lebanon(?). Are there any degrees between a loyal factotum and Agee? A sullen, silent retiree cashing their pension and living in bitterness is all that comes to mind. The answer to this question has to decided before the ambiguity I attach to Crooke can be resolved. His work is of a high quality and I have read much that I agree with.
MI6 and their historical analogues will bear some responsibility for the current hecatomb taking place in Gaza.
will moon – you think Crooke is in Lebanon? I always listen to Andrew Napiolitano’s podcasts and for the past few weeks, possibly months, he’s said that he’s speaking to Mr Crooke who is in Italy.
Will Moon
Evidently Crooke left Beirut because of the economic catastrophe of the country and settled in Rome.
I wouldn’t disagree with you about MI6 and the mafia – it was why I said what I said. However I think it is more important to evaluate what he says. I recommended the interview for what he says, not for who he is. He does know a lot about the Middle East, you have to evaluate his remarks yourself.
Laguerre you are right about his knowledge and I guess he has deep connections with the Levant. It was only a week or two ago when I was surveying the “independent” media landscape and realised how consistent this man has been in his output; he is one of the few I still read/listen to.
I take everyone on what they do or say; the past only comes up if what they do or say resembles what they have done or said in the past. This man, to my knowledge, has not done this – indeed I have allowed him to influence me recently concerning Israel’s declared intention to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and build a mythical temple on the site, which is a recipe for far-reaching religious strife, I think. I mention it all the time. He has twigged me to the fact that the Kachists and their ilk are religious terrorists and they are in the Israeli government. The repellent Ben-Givr is the security minister. What security do people of other faiths have, when a religious terrorist decides their fate? If Crooke is a psyop, it is working on me but it won’t work forever. It is known that “the Special Services” have their “limited hangouts”. Maybe this is one, maybe it is not.
So regarding Crooke and his former life? It will all come out in “the wash”.
Laguerre – that link much appreciated. It’s one of the more measured (if possible to use that word in this context) and sensible analyses of what looks like a serious situation moving to an even more dangerous critical phase. It is also gratifying to hear my view confirmed that the problem, while complex and with huge stakes, has been made infinitely worse by the Netanyahu administration. At some point the increasing pressure must find an escape valve or find the weakest point. That weak point, I suspect, is Netanyahu. The commentary by Alistair Crooke (more or less) confirms that Netanyahu and his immediate supporters in government are religious maniacs, something I have suspected for some time. Such fundamentalism will eventually be confronted by the equally messianic fundamentalism of the wider moslem world.
The US is by far the most powerful and hugely resourced component of what makes up ‘the west’ and it is impossible not to infer that their intelligence systems have blundered badly in not having more insight into the the position in such a volatile region as the middle east.
I know my personal intuitions are irrelevant but my general view is that security or intelligence ‘accidents/failures’ of the kind that are supposed to have been the prelude to Oct 7, are vanishingly rarely genuine oversights or failures. With something of such critical importance as early notice of attack, and the mobilisation of defence, there are layers upon layers of checks and balances, and designs are made ‘failsafe’. Human error is minimised to a point of vanishingly low probability by multiple levels of checks and responsibility. Just as security systems are engineered with great care, with overlapping points of reinforcement to address points of potential weakness, so too, it opens up the possibility of engineering ‘failure’ to look like an unavoidable event. Layers of obfuscation maintain deniability.
It all contributes to a feeling that there is more going on here than meets the eye. The reactions of our own domestic politicians are remarkably aligned, almost to the level of privy council briefing and the two main parties have been extremely quick to suppress any hints of dissent in their ranks, and the police are clearly under instructions to quell the madding crowd. Awaiting developments.
Yes, if there was foreknowledge Douglas – and I very much doubt there wasn’t – then I can only imagine that not taking preventative action and sacrificing a few hundred lives or more was seen by Netanyahu as a winner all round, and that blinded him to the possibility of being blamed for the intelligence failure by a majority of Israelis for the carnage. And if, as many critical thinkers believe, all the atrocities such as beheading babies and raping women etc was just black propaganda lies, then that too has rebounded on him. Great comment BTW.
(22.50) Halloween night BBC Newsnight reported that the IDF had killed the Hamas mastermind of the 7th Oct actions. That means that Israeli intelligence had granular knowledge of his location and movements and knowledge of his role in those events (i.e. prior knowledge). I am sure he was not using a mobile phone. Such intelligence ability (assuming satellite surveillance) is utterly at odds with the idea that there were intelligence failures at the time of the Hamas attack.
One would assume that a high-ranking Hamas official would remain underground, so there is either some infiltration of Hamas or there is some kind of ground penetration and detection of hidden Hamas movements, or detectable communication in the tunnels – reputedly in the area of the air strike.
This is a very important point, as the only way the slaughter can be stopped is by the revelation to the Israeli population that the Netanyahu administration has contrived the outrage of the 7th Oct to provide cover for the military takeover of the entire area, including the West Bank. My guess is that there will be some provocation to drag the West Bank into the conflict after Gaza is destroyed, beyond recovery. The only other way out of the current situation in Gaza would be a huge rejection or protest by the US public and some kind of rejection of the current position of support; but that is vanishingly unlikely.
The Israeli government is immune to public outrage and feels empowered to conduct the genocide/slaughter of the Palestine population, as there is no actor in the modern world that can challenge nuclear-armed Israel. There is not a single country, organisation or power in the world that can intervene in any practical sense, and the Israeli administration know this.
Any intervention can be brushed aside as they can answer with a nuclear strike (or the threat of a nuke strike) that would disable the functioning of the modern world. The US can cajole and appeal but they have no ‘hard’ leverage at all over Israel, its ambitions, and its psychotic messianic government.
The Moslem world is impotent, China and Russia would not be at all prepared to stick their neck out over a western European/US problem. This event essentially marks some subtle change in the distribution of power. I suspect the US will withdraw into a Trumpian sulk.
The impregnable position of Israel explains the pusillanimous responses of the western European nations. Starmer, Sunak Macron and Scholtz and the like, dare not criticise for fear that the absence of cover on these naked emperors’ arses is revealed to their population. They are all terrified of the situation. If this was a chess match, Israel have just declared checkmate.
The US have contrived to arm Israel with nukes to allow them to dominate the Levant and Middle East. The US have created an insane, unchallengeable monster.
DL – I doubt that Netanyahu himself is a religious maniac – but he is dependent on the religious maniacs to stay in power. Netanyahu seems to me to be a typical East European, the nature of whom is much in evidence in the Ukraine conflict. The hard fascistic type who form the Ukrainian Azov regiment – that’s Netanyahu too, though his family comes from Poland. That same spirit simply transferred to Israel.
But I agree that the hard religiosity of the settlers is what dominates in the end, and it’s meeting vast anger in the Muslim world. I don’t know whether the Muslim anger is necessarily going to have a direct effect on Israel and the Gaza conflict, but it may spread elsewhere, as with the event in Dagestan.
Neither speech nor speaker have aged a day.
However I would assume that this might be resonating with German Security Services, too.
So don´t be surprised if they question Mr. Murray next time he enters Germany. And as well possible the loss of some supporters with the cause of Assange. (Perhaps replaced by others for the same reason.)
May be.
Justing saying, experiencing the “new” realities around here. And considering Germans´ incapability to add new insight to their old views re: Israel.
p.s. Impressed to learn 300,000 were protesting. And this hasn´t changed that much since it appears…
After that 2009 assault by Israel there was a UN report that came to this conclusion:
The report disputes Israel’s claim that the Gaza war would have been conducted as a response to rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, saying that at least in part the war was targeted against the “people of Gaza as a whole”. Intimidation against the population was seen as an aim of the war. The report also says that Israel’s military assault on Gaza was designed to “humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Fact_Finding_Mission_on_the_Gaza_Conflict#Accusations_against_Israel
Thus, Israel now commit the same atrocity against civilians once again only even greater in scope this time.
“Let me explain what we’ve seen over the last few weekends. We’ve seen tens of thousands of people take to the streets… there’s only one way to describe those marches. They are hate marches” – Suella Braverman
https://twitter.com/SaulStaniforth/status/1719009900796277129
Peaceful marches, predominantly by those carrying placards calling for a ceasefire, are now ‘hate marches’ ?
Braverman is just yet another wholly owned politician.
She’s too dumb—or greedy—to realise she’s been used from the start by multiple players.
Former Home Secretary Priti Patel had to resign as UK international development secretary amid controversy over her unauthorised meetings with Israeli officials.
You’d be forgiven for thinking something strange is going on? I really think we should ban these ‘Friends of …” party initiatives. I don’t want my MP to feel obligated to anyone but her constituents.
” I really think we should ban these ‘Friends of …” party initiatives. ”
Agreed, but who would be doing the banning?
Do you mean visiting ” Golan hospital treating Isis nowadays known as Hamas”. I SSrael is fighting Isis & Al Qaeda known as Hamas 🙂. Being sarcastic is a hard job and I hear this BS every day.
“She’s too dumb—or greedy—to realise she’s been used from the start by multiple players”.
She’s either unprincipled or demented. I suspect the former is marginally less evil. Who votes for these people?
She married Rael Braverman, a manager of the Mercedes-Benz Group, whom Braverman described as a “very proud member of the Jewish community”, in February 2018 at the House of Commons.
As far as I know, she herself is not Jewish? But seemingly has the zeal of a convert.
So Goose, it sounds very similar to Mr Starmer then, whom I understand is not himself Jewish, but is nonetheless married to a Jewess, and quite openly has described himself as being a Zionist.
Pyewacket, Keir Starmer recently converted to Judaism
She’s a willing participant.
I was on the march and I can tell you for a fact that the mood was emotional, horror at what is happening, full of sympathy, and yet entirely free of rancour or anything remotely resembling ‘hate’. The police were very relaxed, as they could see how many people were families, from all walks of life, with the sole aim of wanting to demonstrate support for the poor, benighted and desperate people of Gaza. People took comfort from the size and demeanour of the crowd, which is no doubt what many wanted and needed in this time of disinformation and outright lies. Many are in grief, and this is one way of helping alleviate such symptoms. A couple of reported flare-ups is nothing in a crowd of approx 300,000. A tiny posse of rightwing blowhards were surround by police as they attempted to ‘protect’ the cenotaph, which was of course in no danger whatsoever. People laughed at their preposterous posturing. As a matter of fact, when I passed the cenotaph I reflected on how we honour our war dead, and where would the future memorial be to the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have lost their lives to Israeli genocidal atrocities.
In addition one of the largest cheers was reserved for the Jewish people who bravely stood at the head of Whitehall with placards in support of Palestinians. So, Braverman you coward, where is the hate? Of course she wants to find a pretext to ban marches, so she can drape herself in the flag of the aggressive colonialists – not the British flag. One of my favourite photos is of the Palestinian flag with Big Ben behind it – real British values.
Of course this is not the narrative the media or hate-mongers like Braverman want to hear, but continue to peddle downright lies such as the Telegraph bloviator who claimed that people carried mockups of burnt babies. Such ridiculous propaganda that it could only have come from rightwing zionist idiots.
Now that I think about the cenotaph and the current atrocity, an appropriate response might be to fashion and wear poppies in Palestinian colours. That would be powerful and provocative, but wonderful to see, especially if it took off.
Great idea. If your poppy comes with a leaf, that’s the green. All you need is a magic marker to make one petal black and to cut another leaf out of white paper and you have your Palestinian poppy.
Mind you, the whole remembrance thing is a bit hollow, what with our leaders now cheering on not one but two wars. All it took was the death of the combatants in the First World War and the ageing of those form the second and off we go again, trench warfare in East Europe, carpet bombing in West Asia.
I don’t believe for a moment that Suella Braverman really believes that these demonstrations are hate demonstrations. She’s neither blind, deaf, nor stupid. Just taking the knee before the lobby.
Both she and Rishi Sunak, as non-whites, have to work twice as hard to appear on-side.
Aguirre
IMO Indian (Hindu) hate Muslims more than we can imagine. To my understanding India still have caste system.
Some people are more racist than us!
Pigeon English
Politicians at that level don’t work on the basis of personal likes or dislikes or whatever religion they happen to adhere to, in the UK at least. I’d accept this even in the case of Starmer with his Jewish wife and children brought up in that religion; at most his personal inclinations are in synch with the political stance he’s judged it best to adopt.
Great poppy idea. I can imagine that it would start a movement of “outraged patriots of Bury St Edmonds,/Tunbridge wells which makes it an even more attractive.
Aquirre: think I’d take issue with yr comment that Braverman is not stupid. For a ‘not stupid’ person she has made some really inane comments. She is like a black Truss. A review of Truss’s ravings provides constant wonder and amusement about how she ever became PM. Braverman as home sec. was a Sunak-forced error. She is a shallow thinker, and blown in whatever direction her colleagues hiss from.
It is part of the duties of membership of the club of dumb/Tory totties that she utters ever more shrill, reactionary rhetoric. She is about as conciliatory or solution-focused as a brick wrapped in brown paper. It crumbles when she uses her ‘gift’ as a hammer. Reference her endless failures in relation to immigration and boats. Creative thinking is not her thing. As politicians go she is a booby.
Exactly. In response to the global broadcast of the images of massacred children, these weren’t hate marches across the world, they were funeral processions. RIP
What really gets me about our supposed representatives, they would change their minds instantly about what was the Right Thing to do, their highly principled moral convictions, etc. etc. would immediately reverse – if the US President changed his mind.
If Biden reversed position and called for a ceasefire, you would get whiplash watching our ‘leaders’ turn 180 degrees.
“Those are my principles, if you don’t like them, I have others”
Funnily enough, I heard that on a quite recent podcast of “Oh God, what now?” – did you happen to hear it? Because that same saying has been on my mind lately too.
Groucho Marx.
As far as support for Israel’s right to defend itself – it seems not to be, since the attacks are in the past and you can’t defend yourself against something that has happened, only what is in the future. So what Israel is doing isn’t defence – it is revenge.
Also, as Dr Hadid pointed out, it’s not self-defence when you respond to an attack which is in retaliation for an attack of your own.
Well that’s what thugs and bullies always do, right? They keep provoking until they get some sort of reaction, then act like the wounded innocent party and ‘rightfully’ get their own back.
Txs!
If Israelis killed all the attackers and some civilians died I would argue on the fascistà side . They are defending “herselfs” for 3 weeks.
And in 2009 Henry Siegman wrote this coherent and damning account of the Israeli lies which prevented a peace agreement with Hamas, and their deliberate rejection of a path to a political settlement which would benefit both parties. It is a fascinating background to where we are today as we see the same lies and deception showered all over the international press. Nothing has changed, except the viciousness of the Israelie assault and what looks like its determination to expel Palestinians from Gaza by rendering it uninhabitable. It will of course expect other countries to pick up the tab for the colossal destruction they are engaged in, and sort out the mess they are creating.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v31/n02/henry-siegman/israel-s-lies
The Zionists bomb the only cancer specialist hospital in Gaza.
“Israel strikes the Turkish Friendship Hospital in Gaza.
The only health facility that specialises in cancer treatment there.”
https://nitter.net/Lowkey0nline/status/1719043955457732613#m
This isn’t a war with Hamas as the Western media tries to portray it as, its a clear-cut case of systematic extermination of the oppressed Palestinians.
They are systematically and deliberately destroying everything that supports life in Gaza.
That’s right no mercy, and no mercy for the Palestinian journalists either, the Zionists don’t want the outside world to know what’s going on in Gaza.
Doesn’t seem to be a lot out there about what happened to the third floor of that hospital, other than the smokey clip in your link and I found a quote from the medical:
” “A state of panic afflicts cancer patients and medical staff as a result of the heavy Israeli bombardment of the only Turkish Friendship Hospital for cancer patients in the Gaza Strip and the infliction of severe damage to it as a result of the Israeli occupation repeatedly targeting its surroundings,” Dr. Subhi Skaik, the director general of the hospital, said on Facebook. ”
So he says the hospital directly, then says the surroundings. Obviously Israel isn’t taking care of the hospitals, and is telling them to evacuate and putting out claims about how they’re being used by Hamas that I haven’t seen any evidence for, but it didn’t seem established that they’re targeting bombs on them yet.
Some of the claims implying direct targeted bombing of that hospital seem to be coming from the foreign ministry of Turkey … who, it seems, should understand the difference since they reportedly denied this a few years ago when they were attacking the multi-ethnic communal democracy in Rojava when I think they also killed that British woman volunteering.
“Kurdish groups accuse Turkish forces and their militia allies of attacking Kurdish Red Crescent medical infrastructure, including the repeated targeting of a hospital in the city of Ras al-Ayn, and an artillery shell that landed near a medical convoy a week ago, killing a member of the Free Burma Rangers, an independent humanitarian group.”
People power claim the day this time, but much more is needed.
“Israel’s largest arms company, Elbit Systems, gets shut down today in Boston, USA.”
https://nitter.net/Lowkey0nline/status/1719045859499749815#m
Will Egypt’s puppet president el-Sisi play ball? Will the US urge him to do want the Zionists want?
“An official at the Ministry of Intelligence confirmed that the ten-page document is authentic but “was not supposed to reach the media,” Mekovit noted.
Israeli culture magazine Mekovit published on 28 October a leaked document issued by Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence recommending the occupation of Gaza and total transfer of its 2.3 million inhabitants to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
The document, issued on 13 October, identifies a plan to transfer all residents of the Gaza Strip to North Sinai as the preferred option among three alternatives regarding the future of the Palestinians in Gaza at the end of the current war between Israel and the Hamas-led Palestinian resistance.
The document recommends that Israel evacuate the Gazan population to Sinai during the war, establish tent cities and new cities in northern Sinai to accommodate the deported population, and then create a closed security zone stretching several kilometers inside Egypt. The deported Palestinians would not be allowed to return to any areas near the Israeli border.”
https://new.thecradle.co/articles/leaked-israeli-plan-to-ethnically-cleanse-gaza
IMHO
On “politics live” program today we had 4 guests.
MP Con. Fincelstein (Jew)
Behr (guardian Jew)
Yong black women (ex-advisor for Con.)
Gardner (Lab)
Most was about “about iSSrael”. Very balanced 😃
Just calling for a ceasefire can get you sacked.
“UK Conservative MP Paul Bristow sacked from his government post after calling for a ceasefire in Gaza”
Bristow is the MP for Peterborough.
https://nitter.net/spectatorindex/status/1719061485706727427#m
Apparently he has a significant Muslim minority in his constituency, so given that politicians here always have an appointment with the ballot box, it’s likely he sees the reality of politics?
Bottom line here: Jewish population of the UK, less than 0.5%; Muslim population of the UK, more than 6.5%. Given that Muslim votes tend towards being concentrated, as opposed to the Jewish vote which by this time is very dispersed, we can expect to see more MPs (who want to continue so being) breaking ranks.
The sheer size of Saturday’s demo must be having a very real effect on those who will be facing a GE within a year.
The Jewish population of the UK is actually more concentrated in particular areas than the Muslim population, CO. Over half of British Jews live London, many of them in the Borough of Barnet (Golders Green etc), and over half of the rest live in Greater Manchester, Leeds, Essex & Hertfordshire:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Jews#Geographic_distribution
“The Jewish population of the UK is actually more concentrated in particular areas than the Muslim population, ”
Which is probably because, without a congregation of a certain size, they cannot worship in a synagogue. A religious Jew I used to know, from a family that had lived in England since Cromwell’s time, was very anti-Israel for depleting so many English centres of population of their Jewish communities with the result that the remaining members had to move to somewhere with a larger congregation in order to worship.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. You make a good point – over 100,000 British Jews went to Israel in the years after the war. It’s worth bearing in mind though that many British Jews aren’t particularly religious.
In terms of numbers of constituency’s ? The sheer population numbers alone seem to indicate that the Muslim vote has very much more leverage than a few North London spots, the now legendary Bushey, and possibly parts of Leeds, the historic second city of British Jewry. As for concentration, could I suggest a trip to the former Home of the British Army, Aldershot. I’m open to correction, but I’d imagine that some of the former industrial towns of the north would in many cases outdo ‘The Shot’ ?
As for the worship angle, of all the Jewish people I’ve known on my voyage to fast encroaching phartdom, probably better than 90% have worshipped on the same basis as the Christians we used to call three wheelers, Christenings, Marriages, and Funerals.
Islam is a significant political force in the UK today. One only has to remember George Galloway’s victory of a few years back for what was very much a fringe party, and whilst the adventure of Gorgeous George may very well be an extreme example, the Muslim vote here today is something that any politician ignores at their peril.
Thanks for your reply CO. Based on the above Wikipedia article and some knowledge of the distribution of the Muslim population, I would estimate that there are only around ten constituencies where the Jewish population outnumbers the Muslim one by a non-neglible amount: Finchley & Golders Green, Chipping Barnet, Hertsmere, SW Hertfordshire, Epping Forest, Salford & Eccles, Bury South, Leeds NW and maybe a couple others – perhaps Aldershot being one of them.
Good point about Galloway in Bradford West in 2012 – one of the biggest swings in a UK by-election, which completely wrong-footed the political commentariat. He also did quite well in Batley & Spen a couple years ago, getting out and about on his battle bus and getting 22% of the vote. “Hello, Fox’s Biscuits!”
Following up on Craig revealing that Qatar plays host.
“Axios reports that the chief of the Mossad visited Qatar for talks on hostages held by Hamas”
Meanwhile, WTF, I thought a truce had been called? I smell western interference with this one.
” Bloomberg reports that Saudi Arabia’s military has gone into a state of high alert following clashes with Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis”
https://nitter.net/spectatorindex/status/1719054556485845020#m
Absolute callous comment: US national security spokesperson says civilians will get killed and that’s that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra7LPdKXme8
This video is also telling:
US state dept. spokesperson cannot respond to the question: Do the Palestinians have a right to self-defence?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKhp2iQRGNs
If Trump was president instead of Biden Trump would of course support Israel 100% but the EU would not have supported his stance, EU would probably have called for a ceasefire. But when the Democrats do the same, EU do whatever the Democrats are doing.
I haven’t seen this mentioned in the West’s MSM, and it probably won’t be aired.
“The Israeli Occupation Forces’ spokesperson announced that 312 IOF soldiers were dead and that 239 had been captured by the Palestinian Resistance and kept within the Gaza Strip.
Moreover, the spokesperson explained that while the IOF “expanded the ground operation in Gaza” it remained a complex endeavor.”
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/israel-admits-312-soldiers-dead-noting-ground-invasion-compl
Craig i love you
That is a nice thing to say Mr Bolger and your openness does you much credit. Mr Murray seems a decent sort so I guess your emotions are in safe hands.
I don’t know why you love this man, Alan, but as long as personal boundaries are respected, can love be wrong ?
400 people were arrested, including rabbis, famous actors and elected officials from the New York State Assembly and Senate and the City Council, for calling for a ceasefire at a sitdown/demo in New York’s Grand Central station on Friday past.
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/30/grand_central_protest
RoS, I wonder if you’ve come across Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss yet? You can find many interviews with him on YouTube.
He believes that the creation of the State of Israel flies against the will of God and the essential tenets of Judaism and that the sin is compounded by the fact that this creation came about and is attained by the oppression of others.
Check him out, it’s a valuable corrective to those who believe all Orthodox Jews are Zionists.
Funnily enough (this is from personal experience), when you mention him and his ideas to Zionists and other supporters of Israel, they tend to foam at the mouth and steam comes out of their ears. Very curious!
Guardian headline today: “Nearly a quarter of Labour MPs have called for ceasefire in Gaza”
They make it sound like that’s a lot !
It should read; LESS than a quarter of Labour MPs have called for a ceasefire in Gaza. What shame!!!
Knowing the history of Zionist terrorism to create a Jewish-only state, it wouldn’t surprise me if Netanyahu and his fellow extremists knew about the Hamas attack in advance and sat back to let it happen. Sacrificing his own innocent people like pawns in a game of chess.
Also it is well known that the US is itching for war with Iran. Did they have intelligence of the massacre prior to October 7th?
We expect the Tory government to support war in the Middle East.
As for Starmer’s Labour we know he is a Zionist supporter with close ties to Israel and the British security services.
Our democracy is fucked!!
The Friends of Israel group is fairly large, have any of them called for a ceasefire? Then you’ve got peer pressure they apply to colleagues and through the leadership. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Friends_of_Israel
All in all, it amounts to a really unhealthy interference in our already less than ideal, two-party democratic system. LFI gained huge significance when antisemitism was being weaponised to oust Corbyn. Imagine being approached and saying, no thanks, would Shai Masot or similar be plotting your political downfall? These initiatives need to cease.
to a fellow Doug:”Our democracy is fucked!!” well I know what you mean, and sympathise, but it seems clear that what passes as ‘democratic’ repesentatives are of a calibre inconsistent with their position.
They are corrupted and pre-judged for suitability by the process of selection and the travesty of election. I think the current forms of democracy are unsustainable and some kind of major adjustment is imminent.
One wonders how Braverman will go about arresting around 300,000 people who were at the London stop the slaughter of the oppressed Palestinians demo. Or indeed other similar demos in England and Wales.
“Suella Braverman is branding all the pro-Palestinian marches as “hate marches” which have the aim, in her view, of “wiping Israel off the map”.
She includes all the tens of thousands of protestors in that statement.”
Is Braverman going over the top, to try an negate her “Cultural Marxism” comment?
A link to Braverman saying this would be nice.
https://nitter.net/PaulBrandITV/status/1719005742793888216#m
An interview with Palestinian feminist activist Mariam Abudaqa who was on a speaking tour in France when the “war” started (destroying her house and killing relatives).
The Frenchies wanted to expel her because that´s what serious democrats do.
But a French court had a different view.
“Palestinian feminist Mariam Abudaqa was on a speaking tour in France when Israel destroyed her home in Gaza. France’s government tried to expel her — but, Abudaqa tells Jacobin, she refuses to stop telling the truth about Israel’s crimes.
https://jacobin.com/2023/10/israel-gaza-war-france-censorship-mariam-abudaqa-feminist-interview
Intro:
“In September, renowned Palestinian activist Mariam Abudaqa arrived in France for a speaking tour. She’d come to speak as a feminist organizer — and was even invited to the National Assembly by left-wing party La France Insoumise. But Abudaqa quickly became embroiled in France’s debate over Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, and the crisis in Gaza caused by Israel’s retaliation. On October 9, the parliament’s president blocked the move to have her speak at the National Assembly. One week later, seventy-two-year-old Abudaqa was arrested at Marseille’s Saint Charles train station — and ordered to remain under house arrest until her eventual expulsion from France.
Amid the French state’s general clampdown on Palestine solidarity, the interior ministry justified Abudaqa’s expulsion on the grounds of her membership in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group included on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations. The order also claimed that Abudaqa’s presence was of “a nature that will stoke tensions, hatred and violence between communities and cause serious problems for public order” and was dangerous given “the growing terrorist threat in France.
Yet, last Friday, an administrative judge threw out the order for Abudaqa’s expulsion, ruling that “the interior ministry has seriously, and in a manifestly illegal way, infringed on [her] freedom of expression and movement.” In Gaza, Abudaqa is a leading feminist and Palestine liberation advocate. She spoke about the crisis in Gaza with Jacobin’s Harrison Stetler. Dana Katkhoda translated from the Arabic.”
I’m proud of you Craig.
Labour MP Andy McDonald has been suspended by the party for speaking at Saturday’s stop the slaughter demo in London. McDonald is the MP for Middlesbrough. He will now sit as an independent MP.
The party suspended him for saying; “We will not rest until we have justice. Until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea, can live in peaceful liberty.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67268154
Sir Kid Starver faces no such backlash on backing the Zionists and backing a no to a ceasefire.
No backlash from the PLP. Whether or not there will be a backlash at the ballot box remains to be seen. I’d be inclined towards thinking that there will be a very apparent effect on some voters.
I just did a search on the EIs website to see if they happened to cover Rachael Riley’s interview on Newsnight last Tuesday (in which she said – claimed – she’d seen a video of the pregnant woman having her stomach cut open and her baby cut out and killed by Hamas), but nothing came up under her name, so I tried searching >newsnight< and, as such, got a number of results, one of which was the following, from 2012:
'Revealed: producer of propaganda BBC report on Gaza attack has history of fabrication'
A journalist who produced a film defending Israel’s war crimes in Gaza for the BBC is the same man who wrote hoax stories about Palestine and Lebanon a decade ago, The Electronic Intifada has learned.
In 2002, South African-British freelance journalist Paul Martin posed as a Palestinian journalist writing from Bethlehem under the fake name Sayed Anwar. But Martin later had to admit there was no such person. Martin also sometimes uses the name Paul Cainer.
In stories written for right-wing broadsheet The Washington Times in 2002, Martin posed as a native informant reporting a “reign of terror” against Palestinian Christians by “hard-core Palestinian militants” who he claimed had “seized the Church of the Nativity” (“Exiled Palestinian militants ran two-year reign of terror,” 13 May 2002; “Arafat Aided group that beseiged church,” 23 May 2002).
A few months later Martin was found by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to have attributed a fabricated quotation to Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Writing as Paul Martin on the front page of The Washington Times, he quoted Nasrallah as saying: “I encourage Palestinians to take suicide bombings worldwide. Don’t be shy about it” (“Hezbollah calls for global attacks,” 4 December 2002).
But CBC’s Neil Macdonald scoured the TV archives in Lebanon and found Nasrallah had never said any such thing. “The story originated not in the Middle East but in London, with this man [Paul Martin]” Macdonald concluded at the time. Martin publicly threatened to sue Macdonald and CBC but, unsurprisingly, he never did so.
Fabrications swept under the rug
Martin has re-emerged in recent years as a freelance filmmaker, his past swept under the rug. His documentary reports have appeared several times on the BBC’s flagship Newsnight program since 2008, mostly reporting on Palestinian fighters in Gaza. Newsnight described him as “our correspondent” on at least one occasion.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/revealed-producer-propaganda-bbc-report-gaza-attack-has-history-fabrication/11532
Another piece from the same year as Craig gave this speech in 2009. The very experienced and wise Avi Shlaim lays bare the mendacity, brutality and utterly morally bankrupt claims of Israel. The trail of destruction, lies and deceit, as well as wrecking every chance of peace, is stunning and the savage belligerence of colossally stupid egos of Israeli leaders staggering. It is all unfolded eloquently and remorselessly here by Shlaim who proudly refers to himself as an Arab Jew, since he was born in Iraq.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine
The British weren’t always the patsies of the yanks and the Israelis:
“Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British officials bitterly resented American partisanship on behalf of the infant state. On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by “an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders”. He was right then, and he’s still right now.
Avi Schlaim merits tremendous respect.
I don’t know about bullshit, but Zionism is selfish and greedy.
Why is Israel occupying the Golan Heights?
Oil and gas has been found under there.
Why does Israel want to occupy the northern part of Gaza?
Oil and gas has been found under there.
People can blather on about history, religion and rights; but Israel was happy with the area the Jews had been given as a homeland in the early years, until they realised that the crappy desert areas they left for the ‘ragheads’ were shown to be rich in mineral deposits; which it seems have been discovered under all their enemies’ territory, but not Israel’s.
there is a counterpart to this in US history, when a valuable resource is discovered on land that were “given” to the native inhabitants for as long as “the rivers shall run, and the grass shall grow”, why suddenly a horde of eager gold miners or oil drillers show up, and suddenly that land is up for grabs.
Fat Jon..Pretzelattack
I was reading this last week – Re Palestine / Gaza resource Theft..Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing For US Geopolitical Empire building And –
Palestine’s Maritime Natural Gas Reserves
https://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-gas-oil-and-trouble-in-the-levant/5362955
Thanks for the link Brianfujisan. Very informative.
I really do despair of the psychopaths running the planet, that so many thousands of innocent lives can be lost just to produce a few extra billionaires, and also improve a country’s balance of payments and military power.
It reinforces my view that us mere mortals are simply getting in the way of these wealthy peoples’ rush to wherever the next trillion cu ft of gas/oil is discovered. (O/T…. With that in mind, I am becoming rather surprised that the Covid death toll was not even higher. Perhaps that was just a first trial?)
The following is from a Sky News article I just came across entitled ‘What we actually know about the viral report of beheaded babies in Israel’ and posted on Oct 12th:
Ramsay [Sky’s Chief Correspondent Stuart Ramsay] interviewed two IDF majors – one of whom was a spokesman.
Ramsay said: “At no point did either he, or the other major I spoke to, ever mention that Hamas had beheaded or killed 40 babies or children. I believe that if it were the case, they would have told me and others there.
“There is no doubt that a horrific attack took place at Kfar Aza, and it needed to be reported, and we did see the bodies of the dead from the community in their houses, in the back of a truck, and on the basketball court.
“But it’s important to separate the facts from speculation in a situation like this.
“To reiterate – the IDF had every opportunity to inform the world’s media of any story that had become apparent as the military continue to clear up the kibbutz. The murder and beheading of 40 children was never mentioned to me or my team [or even ONE baby apparently].”
https://news.sky.com/story/its-important-to-separate-the-facts-from-speculation-what-we-actually-know-about-the-viral-report-of-beheaded-babies-in-israel-12982329
I can’t recall who, but other journalists who were there have said the same thing.
Allan
I wonder if in your reading you have come across the German “atrocities”?
I refer, of course, to the German “atrocities” of August 1914, when their armies were advancing rapidly through Belgium as part of the Schlieffen plan with the Belgians unable to stop them and the French and British nowhere.
Nuns had their breasts cut off and some were then crucified. Germans ran babies through with their bayonets. Innocent civilians were killed in a blood lust frenzy
Much play was made of the above – for a while. It helped to justify British intervention, which was not universally popular.
Does any of this sound familiar, I wonder?
There is a long, long history of atrocity stories in propaganda. Check out the account of Boudicca’s rebellion as told by Tacitus. Same atrocities: we are, apparently, very prone to believe such narratives.
It wasn’t the Schlieffen Plan (1905), the German Army revised its deployment (not operational plans) each year and burnt the old ones. Schlieffen-Moltke or Moltke Plan would be better if there must be a label. German atrocities in Belgium are wll attested.
Horne, John N., Kramer, Alan German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial, Yale University Press, Newhaven, CT (2001) 978-0-300-08975-2 [https://archive.org/details/germanatrocities00horn]
Squeeth, there were atrocities in Belgium but not the ones reported in the press at the time
Great Speech Craig..And Yes Very Relevant to The On going Genocide Today. Western Political Evil is so heavy in the air just now. Thank goodness for the Empathic masses.
And thank you Roger Waters Too –
https://www.facebook.com/rogerwaters/videos/345589251358731
“killed just over 1400 people, the same number claimed killed during the recent Hamas attacks”
So one’s a fact and the other is a claim? Absurd: both sides lie like mad. I don’t believe either figure because there’s no reason to.
There’s one key truth about this endless war. It’s a simple conflict of interest: both sides want exclusive control of the same territory.
No chatter will change that; pan-Arabism and Jihad on one side, God’s covenant, only democracy in the Middle East on the other.
These are manoeuvres to try to recruit allies and to stiffen the spines of the fighting men. But it’s a fight over land, that simple.
What you on about ?
All the Humanitarian Aid organizations say Palestine’s Number of dead are Accurate…Why wouldn’t they be ? Oh..The west Says says they are not True figures ..Well that’s settled that then Eh
Over 4000 children dead – sorry Murdered – now.. in this Phase of the Genocide.
.
Given the thousands of powerful bombs Israel has fired on Gaza during the past three weeks and all the destruction, I’m surprised the number of people killed is so low, and isn’t double or treble the numbers given. And many thousands of those who have been seriously injured will have lost one or more limbs and been maimed for life, including many children.
Anyway, I just came across this article on Poynter (which l’ve never heard of before) entitled ‘How media outlets and politicians amplified uncorroborated reports of beheaded babies in Israel’ and posted on October 24th, in which it says the following:
The beheadings claim traced back to a reporter who said she was relaying soldiers’ firsthand accounts. But other journalists on the ground in Kfar Aza, including Oren Ziv of +972 Magazine, which covers Israel and Palestine, and Samuel Forey of the French news outlet Le Monde, said their reporting did not corroborate this report.
During the tour through Kfar Aza, Ziv said he saw no evidence that Hamas beheaded babies, “and the army spokesperson or commanders also didn’t mention any such incidents,” he posted on X. Ziv said journalists in Kfar Aza were allowed to talk to hundreds of soldiers without supervision from the Israel Defense Forces’ communication team.
Similarly, Forey said, “No one told me about beheadings, even less about beheaded children, even less about 40 beheaded children.” Forey said emergency services personnel he spoke with had not seen any decapitated bodies.
https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2023/hamas-behaded-babies-israel-unconfirmed-reports-spread/
You can’t call a country where state policy mirrors that of the political goals of a zealot like Itamar Ben-Givr, Minister of Internal Security, i.e. the building of a mythical temple and the destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque, a democracy. It is a fascist theocracy
The delightful Ben-Givr has recently sanctioned Jewish religious fanatics spitting on Christians in Jerusalem. How would you feel dearieme if your government legally sanctioned religious terrorists spitting on you?
“God’s covenant” (what a meaningless phrase yet somehow deeply creepy) is mutually exclusive with democracy, logically speaking. I can see deductive thought is difficult for you so you can trust me on this.
Israel is a fascist theocracy built on terror and bent on genocide.
It’s a matter of justice, there is no equivalence between the zionist antisemites and the rightful owners of Palestine.
“So one’s a fact and the other is a claim? ”
The other is a claim because they have only been able, even now, to name 800 of the 1400, and many of those are soldiers. Not only that but there is increasing evidence that the IDF went in heavy-handed, shot first and asked questions afterwards and, in doing so, were responsible for a number of these deaths. Before you say that that’s just propaganda, it’s Israelis who are coming forward with the evidence.
“…it’s Israelis who are coming forward with the evidence.”
See here https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/an-open-letter-to-israelis-from-israelis-we-deserve-the-truth-about-october-7/
So true. so succinct, so powerful. Bravo! Thanks.