I have had BBC News on in the background for the last two hours. In that time there have been three lengthy interviews with different relatives of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. There has not been a single interview with a Palestinian relative of a Palestinian prisoner held by Israel.
Today 13 Israeli prisoners and 39 Palestinian prisoners are due to be released. 90% of the BBC mentions of prisoner releases do not include the Palestinians at all. Just finished is a ten minute interview of a Professor in Kent on the psychological effects on Israeli hostages. Earlier there was an expert from Tel Aviv on the psychological impact on Israeli hostages’ families. There has been no report whatsoever of the impact on Palestinian prisoners and their families.
The BBC simply does not treat the Palestinians as human, whereas the emphasis on Israeli personal victimhood is incessant and unrelenting.
Of the 300 Palestinian women and children prisoners on the list possibly to be released during the ceasefire, 252 have never been charged with any crime. 23 were charged with stone throwing.
Since October 8 over 200 Palestinian children have been taken prisoner, none of whom had anything to do with the October 7 attacks. That rather puts the possible release of 33 children and six women today into perspective. But it is not a perspective the BBC would ever give you.
Over 2,000 Palestinians are held by Israel in “administrative detention”, without charge or trial. Some for over twenty years.
Since 1967 Israel has made over 1 million arrests of Palestinians. This “justice” system is an essential part of the imposition of apartheid and the slow genocide, which did not just start this autumn. The BBC won’t tell you that either, and appears to have no problem with permanently showcasing its Israel based correspondents churning out the Israeli propaganda narrative, with no attempt at either perspective or balance.
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Glad you can bear watching BBC News, so we don’t have to!
I’m finding myself watching Al Jazeera more frequently, as their reports are from inside Gaza, and I’m also watching and subscribing to online sources like Novara Media, Double Down News and KernowDamo.
BBC and Sky are just the worst…
Yes I normally watch al Jazeera too. I must admit I watched the BBC in the expectation of finding what I found, but it is so blatant I don’t think I suffered confirmation bias.
Things are also the same here in Germany. The only channel to watch to find out what is going on is Al Jazeera.
On many issues AJ has better panel of guests.
KernowDamo is brilliant specially for Labour behind the scenes shenanigans!
Without a change of position by America and/or determined and sustained involvement by the international community the prospect going forward is more of the same.
Sad to say.
Courtenay Francis Raymond Barnett.
Never happen, Zionist/Jewish lobby groups such as the AIPAC virtually control the US agenda in the region, one could say that US foreign policy in the Levant at least mirrors that of Israel’s such is the lobbying powers of these groups.
Meanwhile UK and US C-17 military aircraft are flying to and from Israel from the RAF base Akrotiri in Cyprus, C-17 aircraft mainly deliver troops and supplies.
ROS,
Maybe over time, with a combination of shifted/shifting world opinion towards Israel coupled with something similar happening within the US, change will come.
I am old enough to remember protesting against White South Africa Apartheid in the 1970s as a student. Many a White South African assured me that I would not live long enough to see Black majority rule. And, the rest is history.
Not saying overnight – just saying.
I am old enough to remember that Japan economy will over take USA. No one ever mentioned China.😃
Pigeon English
I’m sure I read somewhere that after WWII Japan had no military forces, the US was its protector, so Japan didn’t need to spend huge amounts of cash on defence, the money could be channeled into commerce and industry, and its economy flourished.
I think Germany after WWII travelled a similar route and its economy and industries did pretty well and still does.
Ros,
“… the US was its protector…”
Against whom? The people who firebombed and nuked it?
Courtenay Francis Raymond Barnett
Black Holes fade and die eventually as well, but yes you are correct eventually the US empire will fall, empires always do, however I don’t see that happening anytime soon, and when it does Washington and the Pentagon will in my opinion go out with a bang by waging war.
Mind you if Texas and California breaks away from the US first, its collapse might not be such a violent one as other states might follow.
RoS, well, you know what happened last time a few states tried to leave the Union.
Also BBC (and Sky). Israeli “hostages” are “children”; Palestinian “prisoners” are “teenagers”. See what they did there?
Another favourite is “youths”. Ask yourself what connotations that word has for you, and then ask why and how that came to be. As I remember, “youths” used to be a neutral word meaning “young people, usually male”.
The BBC has so often spoken of “crowds of stone-throwing youths”, “rioting youths”, “violent youths”, etc. that for most people today I think the mere word “youths” has acquired significant negative implications.
It’s one step removed from saying “yobs” outright, and deliberately so. It makes the IDF seem like PC Plod dealing with unruly chavs. Rather than a brutal occupation army, enforcing fascist race-doctrines.
MSM wordplay shenanigans are perhaps the most slippery & insidious propaganda of all. The BBC perhaps worst of all, since they try to directly nick your money to fund their lies to you
It almost seems the BBC has become hell-bent on validating every reason for a licence-fee boycott.
And, Israelis are killed/murdered but Palestinians are shot/injured.
Also Israelis are killed or murdered by “Palestinain terrorists” but Palestinians are just shot or injured.
Mark, heard it similarly mentioned that some “died” whilst others were “killed”.
Thanks for self-immolating for all of us subjecting yourself to BBC News torture for two hours (though in background only! :)) to report! The only mention of it give me “clockwork orange” vibes. The only good thing about BBC News left is that nobody watch it anymore, I hope
Shock of all shocks, a BBC ‘journalist’ has actually come out and accused the BBC of bias with respect to the Gaza slaughter. In fact not just one, but eight.
Less surprisingly they wish to remain anonymous.
Equally unsurprisingly, they did not make the claim to a British media organisation. They sent their letter to Al Jazeera:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/23/as-israel-pounds-gaza-bbc-journalists-accuse-broadcaster-of-bias
I thought it striking the reason they gave (as reported): “Fearing reprisal, the journalists requested anonymity. The group does not plan to send the letter to BBC executives, believing such a move was unlikely to lead to meaningful discussions.”
So, if the executives are merely the monkey, who exactly is the organ grinder?
I take it you mean “an ex-BBC journalist”.
Moral courage is excellent, but there is always a price to pay.
And yet the unhinged blowhards at the Telegraph are frothing away that the BBC is biased against Israel and therefore ‘antisemitic’ because it sometimes doesn’t jump to attention when ordered to by the Israeli propaganda machine. Shock horror, it showed some Palestinian suffering, some correspondents tried to check on Israeli claims, as is their job, and they questioned the Ziowood production of amateur evidence as ‘fact’. The belligerent arrogance that the Israeli spokespeople demonstrate, all trained with the same grab bag of hollow phrases and false claims, is repellent. Particularly odious was the insulting and widespread claim that they were just doing what Britain did against the Nazis, as if there was any comparison whatsoever. Their misrepresentation of history to justify genocide is appalling, and had TV anchors any appropriate historical knowledge, you would like to think that they would not allow themselves to be humiliated and browbeaten as they are by these arrogant liars. Allowing self-styled fascists to harangue and humiliate you is not a good look for a public service or any news organisation, so much so that most people will switch off.
But it does show how easy it is for aggressive propagandists to manipulate viewers and public opinion, through such weak, ignorant hosts who think they are being ‘liberal’ in allowing them to lie profusely.
While the specific comparison is odious, when one thinks of similar degrees of entitlement and arrogance the British colonial attitude comes closest to the Israeli image.
But the British sense of superiority was always mainly class-based, whereas Jewish Israelis believe that anyone Jewish is automatically and infinitely superior to anyone who isn’t.
“But the British sense of superiority was always mainly class-based, whereas Jewish Israelis believe that anyone Jewish is automatically and infinitely superior to anyone who isn’t.”
They probably both spring from the same fault in the human psyche which is the inability to accept a difference in nature without a corresponding difference in quality.
You’ll have noticed they are never passive and accommodating when questioning anyone who is outraged by the Israeli genocide. Nor do we hear a peep from them about Britain’s direct military role in the genocide.
As for Telegraph criticism, the BBC’s role as Zionist propaganda platform has been denounced by its OWN newsroom staff. Inaccurate, one-sided and loaded with gross disinformation on Israeli genocide.
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/bbc-accused-own-journalists-bias-its-coverage-israels-war-gaza
Um, yeah the only way Israel’s war against Gaza resembles Britain’s fight against Nazi Germany.
Is if “Germany” was an oddly rebranded Portugal under the dictatorship of Lider Adolpho Hitlerzar.
Or something even more ridiculously lop-sided in military terms.
It’s like the bloody Blackadder joke, about natives armed with extra sharp mangos.
Eight BBC journalists have written to Al Jazeera about bias against Palestinians and pro Israel:
– The BBC journalists said that across British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) platforms, terms like “massacre” and “atrocity”, have been reserved “only for Hamas, framing the group as the only instigator and perpetrator of violence in the region. This is inaccurate but aligns with the BBC’s overall coverage”.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/23/as-israel-pounds-gaza-bbc-journalists-accuse-broadcaster-of-bias
I discovered this via Lowkey’s Twitter stream:
https://nitter.net/Lowkey0nline
Why aren’t the Palestinians held captive by Israel called ‘hostages’ too? A plurality of them have not been charged, have not been convicted of anything. They are hostages for bargaining situations.
Perhaps because the “state of Israel” is internationally recognised, whereas Hamas is not recognised as the de-facto government of the Palestinians.
It’s a can of worms, going back to the Versailles Conference’s failure to provide for a government of Palestine after the Turkish defeat in WW1 ended Turkish rule there. The low contracting parties at Versailles had a self-imposed duty to arrange political institutions for the areas left without government, but in the case of Palestine they simply didn’t.
Thus there were no political authorities in Palestine from 1918 until (by some accounts) the state of Israel was created in 1948. As the state of Israel is defined by its own constitution as being a Jewish state run for Jews only, the Palestinians were still left without an internationally recognised government – and still are today, 105 years after the end of Turkish rule.
Mr Murray would presumably agree that the state of Israel is legitimate, because it has been recognised by the UN. To my mind it’s not at all clear what business it is of the UN or its hundreds of members who should govern Palestine – you might think the people of Palestine would get some say in the matter – but that seems to be the system.
According to Alison Weir, Against Our Better Judgment: The hidden history of how the U.S was used to create Israel (2014), page 56:
“On Nov 29, 1947, UN General Assembly Resolution 181, the resolution creating partition, passed. [Pages 54-5 detail some of the backstory to this.] While this resolution is frequently cited, it was of limited (if any) legal impact. General Assembly resolutions, unlike Security Council resolutions, are not binding on member states. For this reason, the resolution requested that “[t]he Security Council take the necessary measures as provided for in the plan for its implementation” [this is quoted from the text of the resolution itself], which the Security Council never did. Legally, the General Assembly resolution was a “recommendation” and did not create any states.”
I have no idea how reliable Weir’s book is (for all I know, it may be a pack of lies – in which case, no doubt, advocates for Israel will have comprehensively debunked it many years ago), but she provides abundant references for almost every claim she makes in the book. Her text itself occupies 93 pages, and her Endnotes to it occupy 109 pages! There are nearly 3 pages of references and quotations in support of this claim (the General Assembly resolution could not and did not create a state) alone.
The story can be found almost anywhere in histories of the period. The US State Department and other branches of the executive were mostly quite sure that the creation of a state of Israel would be contrary to US interests and security.
Thus the US seemed certain to vote against the partition plan in the UNGA until, unknown to most at the time, as Harry Truman was boarding his campaign train to embark on a probably hopeless attempt at re-election, a Jewish businessman whom he had never met handed him a suitcase containing $2 million in cash. And a prominent Jewish citizen warned Truman that if he didn’t support Israel the Zionists would run him (the incumbent US President) out of town (i.e. Washington DC).
Astonishingly, from then on all US government efforts were thrown behind the Zionist program.
Hah!
Don’t delude yourself for one second, if the non-state-actor or outright terrorist group, happened to align with the right interests.
Their “victims” or “hostages”, would be called “prisoners” or “captives” by the MSM. If mentioned at all.
With plenty of context and/or excuses made on behalf of the group in question.
*Never* doubt that.
Targeted bombing of an imprisoned population, one already starved of water, food, electricity and external communication, has still not met the threshold of genocide for the BBC. That’s despite the Israeli government itself repeatedly yelling its genocidal intent. The BBC wants its consumers to instead regard this unparalleled baby slaughter as a ‘war’. One of ‘self-defence’, whose aim is to ‘rescue hostages’. Its pro-Israel coverage is certain to be looked back upon as another staging post in the decline of public trust in the British establishment’s main propaganda tool.
Mark Livingston 12.03:
“Also BBC (and Sky). Israeli “hostages” are “children”; Palastinian “prisoners” are “teenagers”. See what they did there?”
Indeed we do Mark. The BBC is utterly despicable – and is quite overtly peddling Israeli/Anglo-American plutocratic propaganda – as befits the Brit state broadcaster.
But we should also note the contrast between the use of the word “prisoner” for those children and others detained by the settler state and the word “hostage” by those detailed by the Palestinian resistance to the settler state.
There is no sense in which those innocent Palestinians detained unlawfully by the colonial occupier state can be logically and morally described as anything other than “hostages”.
As it has been since 1948, this entire matter is framed in the UK and US MSM from the standpoint of the occupier – but that is because the occupier is their creature.
What we are witnessing is the latest phase of the Nakba – as the Gaza is ethnically cleansed and the means of life are deliberately destroyed – hospitals, schools, sewage and water infrastructure.
What they want is no secret – members of the occupier government have openly stated their aim to drive the indigenous people into Sinai – the better to steal their land and resources.
Thank you, Craig. Some of the Israeli prisoners are soldiers captured on the field of battle, in which case they are POWs and can legitimately be held until hostilities end. In any case it’s a welcome development that a prisoner exchange is taking place (if it is really going ahead). It shows that, whatever the Israeli government says about not dealing with Hamas, making deals is what they have to do. Credit is due to the Qatari negotiators for acting as intermediaries and of course to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for running the actual handovers.
It’s not clear that Israeli soldiers captured by Palestinians are PoWs, because the fighting does not qualify as a war. War is fought between states, and the Palestinians do not have a state.
What is happening in Gaza and the rest of Palestine is really a civil conflict between an alleged government (Israel) and some of the people whose land it is occupying by force.
Warsaw Ghetto !
Just look at that photo in the blogpost, why would you hold a small child like that? You are dozen of fully military-equpped men with arms, still you just have to brutalize the child like that, scare him, terrorize him, put fear in him by roughing up like that. This prove that the dehumanization run deep in israel. Israel gov./IDF hate every palestinians, toddler to the elderly, because that is what sick dehumanization generate, that is what genocidal war is all about – targering of everyone.
Analysis: How the UK and US media dehumanise Palestinians
Authors examine headlines and front pages from five major news media – Washington Post, New York Times, Guardian, Times, and BBC – showing how they reduce Palestinians to numbers and cover Israel in ways reflecting their governments’ priorities.
https://www.declassifieduk.org/analysis-how-the-uk-and-us-media-dehumanise-palestinians/
Speaking on the “ceasefire”, this is the reality: Displaced palestinians go back to their home and on their way they find that fellow palestinians have been massacred right in the open in the streets by Israel:
Video: https://www.picuki.com/media/3242965839853494813
Who will take notice? Dozens of bodies killed and no repercussion. Where are the westerners that condemned the Bucha killings now?
The only party that benefit from a ceasefire are the rotten people in Tel Aviv and the leaders in western capitals that will now face reduced criticism by the public – ‘look we got a ceasfire that you begged for, now you do not have to protest anymore!’
Palestinians do not benefit from it because In 4 days the genocide will start again.
As the UN rep. for the occupied palestinian territories – Francesca Albanese said: 4 days of ceasefire is cynical.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtpQxQfX4s8
She also call to rehumanise the discourse:
“But at the same time what the Palestinians have been suffering prior to October 7 and what they are going through deserves condemnation, solidarity and action. It’s important to rehumanise the discourse because this has gone too far,” Albanese says.
https://www.teaonews.co.nz/2023/11/20/un-special-rapporteur-francesca-albanese-calls-for-all-governments-to-support-gaza-ceasefire/
Interesting too that every western capital was clearly against a ceasfire past month, now they suddenly changed their mind. They must have got the green light from the lobby. Apparently western democracies are not led by the public, nor are they led by elected politicians in parliament but by the shady Israel-firsters-lobby that obviously call all the shots.
Jack, ever since Theodor Herzl in the 19th century Zionists have been perfectly clear that for Palestine to become a national home for the Jews, everyone non-Jewish must be got rid of.
Either they must be persuaded somehow to leave, or else…
The Israeli zionists have been quite clear and open that killing children and women is acceptable because they are the seeds of the next generation. None of this is by accident. The zionists are homicidal pigs.
As one writer on Israel expressed it, the way the Israelis treat Palestinians is revenge for the way the Germans treated the Jews.
Same in Germany. Süddeutsche Zeitung e.g. still features personal interest stories about the hostages (How many such stories about the Palestinians in Israeli torture prisons? I assume “zero”).
Anything connected to Palestinians NOT aligned to peace & love is completely out of the system.
All other Arabs are under harsh “scrutiny” as usually and treated without individuality.
In Munich from high party member of the Greens, LGBQT activist and chairman of the German-Israel Society since 2022, Volker Beck, obstructed a joint event with Jews, Palestinians and antiwar groups.
(The same gentleman who several years ago reported about the horrible realities for gays in Russia after he had witnessed a demonstration there.)
While the Gaza bombs fall and while the German government day in day out in its press conference confirms Israel’s right for self-defense, there is constant Holocaust Remembrance. Latest example this:
https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/mensch-metropole/charity-dinner-im-hotel-adlon-in-berlin-einsatz-gegen-antisemitismus-geehrt-li.2161963
A high level gala dinner at the Berlin Adlon Hotel with French Ambassador Delattre and MP Agnes Strack Zimmermann, a hawkish, pathological lobbyist for tank manufacturer Rheinmetall, major company in her constituency, (right person in picture) and chair of the Foreign Intelligence Committee in the German Bundestag.
Again not a word of the obvious double standard in the paper.
Rheinmetall is part of the German consortium that intends to build 300 or so tanks per year in Ukraine.
fun fact: Rheinmetall in 1944/45 used Russian female forced labour, 5000 women. Their children were killed by the company. The area with the factory then is still producing tank ammunition, for tanks with the same name (Leopard) and against the same enemy (RU).
Ceasefire holding well. Wonder how many Palestinians will be murdered by the IDF during this ‘ceasefire’?
“Israeli soldiers have opened fire at Palestinian civilians who tried returning to their homes in northern Gaza shortly after the start of the four-day truce”.
https://www.rt.com/news/587905-israel-gaza-ceasefire-civilians/
AG, personal interest stories about the hostages (How many such stories about the Palestinians in Israeli torture prisons? I assume “zero”), so true, I am reminded of that Kirk Douglas film ‘Ace in the hole’, when he tries to school a young journalist on what sells newspapers, he suggested that 1 million dead in Asia from a war or earthquake may briefly make the news, the next day that newspaper is used to wrap fish. What really makes the news are Human interest stories, was the Israeli hostage married; what does his wife and children think etc., etc.? This can go on every day, it sells papers.
That was a Billy Wilder movie. Before he left Germany, Wilder was a reporter for the Berlin press. So he had personal experience of what he wrote about in “Ace in the Hole”.
Starmer’s first public statement as Labour leader, a week after he won the election, was: ‘I support Zionism without qualification’.
That seemed like an astonishingly reckless and naive remark for an eminent human rights lawyer to make, since it seemed to commit him to adopting moral, ethical and legal positions taken by others, a process in which he had no participation, control or influence.
However, as far as I could see, it went entirely without comment in mainstream media, and even alternative news and comment sites.
Since the beginning [sic] of the Israeli-Hamas conflict [sic], unqualified support for Zionism has become even more problematic, since it now implies unqualified support for the massacre of thousands of Palestinians, inflicting life-changing injuries on many more, the destruction of over half Gaza’s homes and infrastructure, a total siege, cutting off all essentials of life, and the open intent of the Israeli government to rid Gaza of its entire Palestinian population, by murder or expulsion.
However, there still seems to be no mention of Starmer’s statement in any mainstream media. I see a lot of explanations/justifications of his position (or lack of it), although none of them seem to suggest that (for example) he prioritises the total defeat of Hamas because he wants, without qualification, the total victory of Israel, which is now defined as the cleansing of the land ‘from the river to the sea’ of every non-Jewish person.
The Guardian, of course, now allows comments on almost nothing except lifestyle topics, restaurant reviews, etc, so I haven’t been able to post anything like this there. BTL comments on The Independent were immediately ‘deactivated’, although I noticed that a couple remained when I posted them 3-4 days after the original piece appeared, presumably because the moderators weren’t paying much attention by then.
Starmer wouldn’t have lasted the week if he had said anything else – he was thanking the team that got him the job.
Try the Daily Mail – only mainstream place I know of that permits free discussion – ironic but true.
And old curmudgeonly right wing Peter Hitchens (brother of Christopher) once in a while manages to squeeze in references to the OPCW whistleblowers, who really shot the “heavenly hundred” in Kiev and other issues no other western paper will touch.
Listened to BBC Radio Scotland the fawning and concern for Israel and the Israeli hostages approached from every angle possible really git my dander up, but no mention of the 5000+ children murdered by the Zionists, almost had me smashing up my radio, Christ I loathe the BBC and all its House Jocks.
I saw online last night as the oppressed Palestinians starve in Gaza, the CEO of the World Food Programme Cindy H. McCain attended a fund raiser (front row seat) to help fund the IDF. She (McCain) should be sacked immediately from the WFP.
https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/5972
WFP. sounds like IMF, world Bank, WHO. Just another USA/CIA cut out. I wonder what the obligations are on any nation to get fed by this bunch of ‘money lenders’.
Robbie Gibb, the owner and sole director of the ultra zionist propaganda rag the Jewish Chronicle, is also a non-executive director of the BBC.
Fellow zionist Emily Maitliss has stated that Gibb plays a significant role in determining the nature of the corporation’s news output.
The media dealing with Palestinians as non-human components in an Israeli tragedy is obscene beyond words. The world is rapidly losing any interest in the words, feelings or welfare of any Israeli’s at all. Their endless self interest and self preoccupation are a disgrace and evidence of total moral bankruptcy. Sentiments of contempt for Israel will persist for years.
On a propaganda note Gareth Porter has reported that the IDF knew all along that the Hamas command centre was never at al Shifa Hospital because they had found the actual command centre 8.5 kms away. But they promoted the false claim in order to attack civilian infrastructure as part of their ethnic cleansing operation.
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/11/23/idf-knew-real-hamas-hq-while-lying-about-al-shifa/
This is unusual. Not because 80% coverage from the Israeli side and 20% coverage from the Palestinian side is unfair.
It is because this is the first big publicised war i can think of which hasn’t been 100% one sided.
Far far more Palestinian talking points have been raised by BBC in any of the last 8 weeks than have been raised in 2 years on Ukraine or 10 years on Syria, or ever on Venezuela.
Every time anyone walked though a University town on a Saturday in UK in last 40 years we saw pro-Palestine protests and walked by thinking I should find out something about that.
Even a few BBC journalists apparently.
Israel is living on borrowed time, here is a map of Israel and how Iran has targeted every city and all infrastructure.
In my opinion Iran will not be involved in a direct way, however Hezbollah has the same fire power as Iran with precision missiles which can reach every part of Israel including its offshore gas terminals and Dimona nuclear facility. In the near future Israel will require a Berlin style airlift because its airports will be targeted and merchant shipping unable to reach Israeli ports. Remember in the last Gaza invasion one wayward Hamas rocket closed Ben Gurion airport for many days causing the economy to plummet . Todays technology is such that Hezbollah can transform their thousands of dumb missles into precision missiles with the addition of a smartphone and a set of winglets, so says Uri Rubin head of Israeli missile defence. The same can be said about targeting any merchant ships attempting to make an Israel port.
Regarding my above comment BICOM did a briefing on Hezbollah’s precision missile capability BICOM Briefing | Hezbollah’s Precision Missile Project – October 2019 Update – a little bit out of date [2019] but helpful as Israel and the US know what is in store for them if the war expands.
I still would warn of underestimating that IDF war machinery.
And in the worst case, lets assume Israel would use smaller nuclear warheads: What would happen?
Nothing. Outrage (outside Europe).
But no other nuclear state would counter that because that would mean WWIII.
I assume the only country right now that could use WMDs without impunity is Israel.
Most likely other countries and Jews abroad would have to bear the costs in form of terrorist counter attacks.
This is totally insane and hyopthetical. And I doubt the US State Department would really allow that.
But these things are being gamed out just like we discussed them with RU/UKR/Pentagon.
harry law
what do you think about Israel’s atomic weapons and the “Samson Option”?
I would not take BICOM and their astro-turfed rubbish that seriously if I were you. They hype the threat to Israel and ignore Israel’s atomic weapons – which would be clownish, if it wasn’t so dark and dishonest. I read they may have over 700 atomic bombs but nobody knows because Israel doesn’t share this information.
For those who don’t know, from BICOM’s own website
“BICOM, the Britain Israel Communications & Research Centre, is an independent research centre producing research and analysis about Israel and the Middle East…We support a close relationship between Britain and Israel, based on shared values and interests. BICOM is funded through private UK philanthropy.”
AG, what sort of situation would lead to the use of Israeli atomic weapons? Certainly the start of any general bombardment, such as harry law suggests, would allow the Empire to strike back with atomics. Also a chemical or biological attack on Israel would also provide this opportunity. Indeed any mass casualty event that could be blamed on Hamas, Hezbollah or Iran etc
In terms of “behaviour worthy of death”, Israeli and Western media have already established Israel’s “right to self-defense/mass murder. The following two statements,which contain references to utterances from the mainstream media delivered by Israeli leaders, in my opinion, contain enough concentrated poison to “justify” the use of atomics, if the media stresses that Israel faces an existential threat. The audience has already been primed
Gallant waxing lyrical about the extermination of “human animals”
The “children of darkness” who live in Gaza where “no one is innocent”
moon
as you write:
“In terms of “behaviour worthy of death”, Israeli and Western media have already established Israel’s “right to self-defense/mass murder. The following two statements,which contain references to utterances from the mainstream media delivered by Israeli leaders, in my opinion, contain enough concentrated poison to “justify” the use of atomics, if the media stresses that Israel faces an existential threat. The audience has already been primed”
This proves that on the level of policy-makers we haven´t moved an inch since the 1500s and Spaniards wiping out native South American people. And everything that followed.
One might argue, like Noam Chomsky does in his latest appearance, that Europeans have learned to not kill each other. But for that to happen they needed 2 World Wars. Which btw hit mainly Eastern Europe and the Russian population.
The core European supremacist thought has been in place since the rise of colonialism and the defeat of the Arab conquest.
Never before did we have such undivided support by the self-righteous European public of a “Western” nuclear power killing off non-European natives.
You can actually be arrested by the police for demanding openly the end of killing Palestinians if you do it too harshly and the papers and their complicit editors would in fact applaud the police in doing so.
That´s a new level.
p.s. Finkelstein was on Piers Morgan´s show. Even though Finkelstein reminded Morgan of the operations “Cast Lead”, “Protective Edge”, “Defending Pillars” (?), Morgan did not come back to what that would actually mean. He only confirmed the existence of those and used them to white-wash himself which Finkelstein did not obstruct. Mistake. So the 1000s dead were never killed. They never WERE.
“This proves that on the level of policy-makers we haven´t moved an inch since the 1500s and Spaniards wiping out native South American people. And everything that followed”
In population estimates i have seen, in 1500 South America’s indigenous population was 100 million. In 1600 the indigenous population was 1-3 million.
Werner Herzog’s 1972 film, Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes) shows the motive force of colonisation on an individual level. The entry point is greed, acquisition without loss – beginning a spiral of homicidal madness. Aguirre is played by Klaus Kinski. There is no other film that I have seen that starts with moral depravity and then rapidily descends into a literal hell on earth. Small cast, limited budget, unique location – a remarkable but deeply disturbing masterpiece
“If I, Aguirre, want the birds to drop dead from the trees… then the birds will drop dead from the trees. I am the wrath of God. The earth I pass will see me and tremble. But whoever follows me and the river, will win untold riches. But whoever deserts…”
— Aguirre, in The Wrath of God, dir. Werner Herzog (1972)
This is the unstated premise in the logic of zionism. Think of Agent Orange, making the birds drop dead from the trees.
Tolstoy wrote a short story called “How much land does a man need?”. The premise is land acquisition, in the vast, empty interior of eastern Russia. The story concerns Pahom and his quest to attain more and more land, Pahom visits the Bakshirs, whose chief agrees to sell him as much land as he can walk around in one day. The caveat: he must return to the exact point he started, or the sale is off. This individuals mindset is very similar to Aguirre, the desire for gain becomes an all-consuming mind-virus leading to terminus. The difference being to Aguirre, is no-one else but the protagonist suffer because the land is unoccupied. Unlike the situation in occupied Palestine where the British Empire facilitated Zionist colonisation and then after the Nabka supported these Zionist “Aguirres” in their policies of genocide and land theft.
“They had sailed from Deptford, from Greenwich, from Erith – the adventurers and the settlers; kings’ ships and the ships of men on ‘Change; captains, admirals,the dark ‘interlopers’ of the Eastern trade, and the commissioned ‘generals’ of East India fleets. Hunters for gold, pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream,bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire.
— Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
“lets assume Israel would use smaller nuclear warheads: What would happen?”
Iran and Hezbollah would carpet Israel with conventional missiles.
“The BBC simply does not treat the Palestinians as human,”
so a bit like being an ordinary British citizen then?
something I saw a while back that resonated with me was the response/statement:
“we’re all Palestinians now”
Julian Assange is, Craig is being treated with a similar disdain, I’m sure at some point I’ll run afoul of the Stasi for stepping out of line,
I don’t expose myself to the MSM anymore, it’s just too antagonizing and depressing, has there been any reporting on ex-State Dept official Stuart Seldowitz harrassing Egyptian streetcart vendors in NYC, or is it only on social media and alt. news channels like Jimmy Dore and the Grayzone?
apparently he got himself arrested in the end, now it appears he’s been harrassing staff of the Russian mission to the UN since 24th Feb 2022,
charming fellow, a real boon to American Israeli relations around the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TLcAEjHmEo
Matt a much better video can be seen here with the full disgusting filth from the top state dept former employee, this encapulates US thinking. https://skwawkbox.org/2023/11/23/video-former-us-israel-adviser-arrested-after-disgusting-islamophic-hate-speech-tirades/
well I didn’t want to post the worst I could find, I was trying to be neutral and objective,
it’s something else isn’t it, I wonder how much AIPAC and the Israeli State has spent on hasbara over the last few decades and this guy nullifies it overnight!
it seems to be a hubris thing, when people think they’re untouchable they really let it all hang out,
but give these people enough rope and they’ll eventually hang themselves,
I think they understood this in antiquity, hence the saying “those whom the Gods wish to destroy, first they make mad”
“encapulates US thinking”
From what I heard it sounded like Zionist talking points not American ones.
There are many American – and British – Zionists.
There are also Dutch and Argentine Zionists – two of these individual have just assumed the highest office, in their respective countries, coincidentally.
“I don’t expose myself to the MSM anymore, it’s just too antagonizing and depressing, has there been any reporting on ex-State Dept official Stuart Seldowitz harrassing Egyptian streetcart vendors in NYC, or is it only on social media and alt. news channels like Jimmy Dore and the Grayzone?”
I’m pleased to report that there has been. Here are just a few examples.
From the BBC, yesterday:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67492512
Ex-Obama aide held over anti-Muslim abuse at NYC halal cart vendor – BBC News
From the Guardian, on Wednesday:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/22/stuart-seldowitz-ex-state-official-attack-food-vendor-racist-islamophobic-new-york
Former state department official loses job after Islamophobic tirade at New York street vendor | New York | The Guardian
(This refers to a Daily Mail article. I wonder if the Graun would have reported it if the Mail hadn’t already done so?)
From the Guardian, yesterday:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/23/new-york-islamophobic-comments-street-vendor-hate-crime
Outpouring of support for street vendor targeted in Islamophobic encounter | New York | The Guardian
“The street vendor in Manhattan who was racially harangued about the Gaza conflict woke to huge lines of well-wishing customers on Wednesday as the former state department official who was filmed berating him was arrested and charged with racial harassment and stalking as a hate crime.
Mohammed Hussein, 24, was back to work at the Q Halal Cart grill on Wednesday on the corner of Second Avenue and East 83rd Street, with lines of customers queueing for food in a sign of support.
[…]
After the videos were shared online and Seldowitz was publicly identified, the political lobbying firm he had consulted with said it had cut ties with him, and offered to represent Hussein. “I’ll represent the food vendor pro bono if he wants to bring a lawsuit,” Gotham Government Relations’ president, David Schwartz, said.”
“After the videos were shared online and Seldowitz was publicly identified, the political lobbying firm he had consulted with said it had cut ties with him, and offered to represent Hussein. “I’ll represent the food vendor pro bono if he wants to bring a lawsuit,” Gotham Government Relations’ president, David Schwartz, said.”
There’s chutzpah for you!
This seems to be an adequate conversation to post between writers Ta-Nehisi Coates and Rashid Khalidi in NYC at Palestine Lit.Fest.
“on Israeli Occupation, Apartheid & the 100-Year War on Palestine”
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/24/ta_nehisi_coates_and_rashid_khalidi
These kinds of things could not be articulated in a big German paper and especially not in German TV.
In GB?
I doubt it.
How can they speak of a free press and freedom of speech.
And if we consider what I constantly keep forgetting that Mister Starmer is of all professions a human rights lawyer – what else can you do but attack him and call him big fat greedy liar. Not worthy of a single phrase. One should stop reporting on these people completely.
(Democrats like to criticize Trump? How is Starmer better? In fact he is worse, a hypocrite. Trump at least admits to be a crook politically even though he would never admit to be a fraud businessman)
p.s. May be the Israeli right-wing nuts who suggested the death penalty for “terrorists” should take council with Mr. Starmer since that´s his specialty.
from above interview:
Ta-Nehisi Coates:
“We went to East Jerusalem to try to visit in the way that Muslims visit to Al-Aqsa Mosque. And I can remember being there, and there were four IDF guards, biggest guns I’d ever seen in my life. And they checked our IDs, and they gave us our IDs back. And then they did nothing. They just made us wait. And we waited. And we waited. And we waited. There was no list. There was no protocol. There was no anything. They were just making us wait because they could. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I was like, “I know what this is. I know exactly what this is.”
The second day, we went to Hebron. And I can remember walking down streets with a Palestinian guide. And we would get to certain streets, and he would say, “I can’t walk down this street with you. You can walk. I cannot, because I’m Palestinian.” And I thought, “I know what that is.”
As we drove through the Occupied Territories and I would look out and I would see roads that Palestinians could use and roads that only Israeli Jews could use, I said, “I know what this is.” As I saw different colored license plates for different classes of people, I said, “I know what this is.” As I saw communities that I can only describe as segregated, I said, “This is Chicago. It’s Baltimore. It’s Philadelphia.”
Rashid Khalidi:
“In 1948, 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes, starting months before the state of Israel was created, including 70,000 people in Jaffa, 70,000 in Haifa — two of the largest Arab cities in Palestine — 30,000 people in Jerusalem, all of this before Israel was even created. And then, once Israel was created, once the war between Israel and the Arab states started, hundreds of thousands of more were driven out.
That was not a result of war. That was part of a settler colonial process which dictates that you must eliminate, reduce, push out the Indigenous population in order to replace it with settlers. That is what Israel is. Israel is a national fact, but it is also a settler colonial fact. It is a fact very similar to the facts that were created in Ireland by settlers sent over by England to push the Indigenous population to the west of Ireland, settlers brought to this country to push the Indigenous population west and out of the land that white colonists wanted to settle. It’s different, but it’s exactly — it’s different in its specifics, but it’s exactly the same process.”
“And the war is not one between equals. It is a war between a Indigenous population and a externally supported powerful movement rooted always in Western Europe and the United States. This is the metropole for that project. This is where that project gets its money, its guns, its vetoes in the Security Council. Without that, we wouldn’t be where we are, without the Balfour Declaration, without the British, without the British and the French, without the United States.”
“… Mister Starmer is of all professions a human rights lawyer…”
Methinks “human rights” are an advanced stage of the same type of progressive moral decay that gave rise to law and lawyers. As a wise man once observed, in any nation that has a “Ministry of Justice”, you will search in vain for justice – or even common decency.
Laws and regulations spring up in a vain attempt to compensate for the loss of simple humanity – the instinctive awareness of what is right.
“When the Great Tao was abandoned,
There appeared humanity and justice.
When intelligence and wit arose,
There appeared great hypocrites.
When the six relations lost their harmony,
There appeared filial piety and paternal kindness.
When darkness and disorder began to reign in a kingdom,
There appeared the loyal ministers”.
– Tao Te Ching
The kind person discovers it and calls it kind.
The wise person discovers it and calls it wise.
The common people live by it everyday and are know it not.
It possesses everything in complete abundance.
This is its great field of action.
It renews everything daily. This is its glorious power.
As begetter of all begetting, it is called change.
It is the Tao
Ta Chuan, The Great Treatise,
Just so.
As the Zionist genocidal war machine blew up hospital after hospital full of injured people and babies in incubators looking for Hamas’s HQ, what the world didn’t know, well most of us anyway, is that the murderous IDF had already found Hamas’s HQ eight kilometers away under a building that they’d already razed to the ground.
So in effect the blowing up of hospitals and ambulances had nothing to do with Hamas and its HQ, it was to do with murdering the sick and innocent and leaving other injured women and children nowhere to seek medical help.
War crimes by the Zionists and their enablers MUST no go unpunished.
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/11/23/idf-knew-real-hamas-hq-while-lying-about-al-shifa/
While the released Palestinians are of course happy to be released, it is brazenly cynical for Israel to agree to release these hostages because Israel know that these Palestinians will end up in either Gaza or the West Bank where Israel will target them in one way or another.
Besides, since there is no surveillance-control mechanism for the truce, Israel could easily breach it. Already have Israel killed Palestinians after the truce was set to begin, but no condemnations, no nothing. Imagine if Hamas killed 2 Israelis after the truce, then the media would be filled with condemnations and proclamations that Palestinians cannot be trusted.
Also, do not Hamas expose to Israel where the Israelis hostages are kept by pulling them out in public? By drones, satellites etc.?
If they’ve got any sense, they will have been keeping the hostages in separate groups and will have released only certain groups and them in full.
That’s why I gave up watching the BBC quite a few years ago. I’ve found Aljazeera English very good – they have given good coverage with all sorts of interesting people from both sides of the issue. The live and unadulterated footage (often the backdrop to a speech by butcher blinken or genocide joe) of the wounded arriving at hospitals, or the immediate aftermath of a bombing, is particularly jarring. I recommend everyone to look at the reality – it will surely convince many of the evil that is the arms trade and the wars that it must have as part of its business model (no war, no sales, no profit) and the evil of our corrupt politicians who promote and support it. Maybe they will become peace activists – let’s end the farcical ‘rules of war’ that no-one follows and become abolitionists instead.
What the BBC says is important for understanding what the State (or its Washington masters) wants you to believe. You shouldn’t just ignore it.
But to get any idea at all of what is going on you need to look at several news/comment sources. That’s what aggregators like https://news.mafraresearch.eu/ are all about.
Townsman I disagree that the BBC has anything to say. I have not watched it or any telly garbage in 15-20 years and feel better informed and much more “the master of my fate”, intellectually and emotionally than when I still viewed this morally infective propaganda organ with it’s dreary, oligarch-friendly pablum. I will never watch it again – ever. I’d rather stare at a wall.
I can predict what it will say about an issue with alarming accuracy because I spent 30 years watching it. There is very little variation in it’s output, even over decades
I ran into a BBC unit filming in the street last year. They were chatty until I asked them whether the BBC produces fake news. They called the Police, claiming I had been harrassing them. A bystander had filmed the interaction on a phone and when the attending Sergeant viewed it, he apologised to me and proceeded to give their leader a ticking off. There were at least a half dozen in their crew and I am old and small and very polite – though a bit scruffy.
Liars they are and liars they will remain.
It’s pretty simple in my opinion.
Israel is a ‘Democracy’.
Therefore because like the US it is a democracy – then they can do no wrong.
The BBC worship the ideal of democracy whilst despising the masses who participate in it.
They would rather the masses didn’t get involved but they have to allow them to do so every so often but they can only have a discussion or vote within the parameters the Bourgoisie limit them to.
The other thing is that the Israeli hostages look white – just like the presenters do and they are considered by the same presenters to be just like them.
They feel their pain from the comfort of a London studio.
Whereas ‘ Arabs’ are not like them (white ) – and the Gazans are skint ( not like them again) and they are tp0prouble causers.
I am pleased that hostages from both sides are being handed over – it’s a start but once the ceasefire/long pause is over (i.e. once Israel has had time to re-stock their missiles etc) it will all begin again and no doubt Orl Geren will once more be reaching for her Thesaurus for descriptions of emotional pain and generally putting a dampner on an already terrible
situation.
Meanwhile though Clive Myrie is reporting some ‘truth ‘ from the relative safety of Jerusalem as he has another series of Mastermind to present and he and the BBC don’t want endanger that by really reporting the facts.
p.s. Is Ukraine still the US’s bezzie mate?
The US a democracy after all – loyal to their friends across the globe in Afghanistan – Libya – Iraq and so on and so on.
Surely the BBC Executives know that?
“The other thing is that the Israeli hostages look white ”
I doubt it, if the two soldiers in the picture above are indicative of the “whiteness”of Israelis. More likely is that, contrary to visual evidence, they are all deemed white.
It was Good to see this reporter being Shamed..asking Genocide protesters about October 7..About time too –
” What about October 8th.. What about October 9th..and on through to November – 1 min –
https://twitter.com/TheCradleMedia/status/1727702505721598135?
I too go to Al Jazeera for coverage of the conflict in Gaza. However it would be a mistake to avoid the BBC. In the past week I came across 2 historical “must see” programmes on BBC iplayer. “Blue Box” based on the diaries of Josef Weitz who settled in Palestine
in 1908, and the 6 part documentary produced in 1998 by Norma Percy and Brian Lapping ” Fifty years of War–Israel and the Arabs ”
Between them they explain so clearly the reasons for the unsolvable problems of today.
The problems of today aren’t unsolvable, it’s just that the people (USA, UK, israel) who could solve the problems don’t want to.
Or even, Stevie Boy, they don’t see this as a problem – a feature, not a bug.