The UK government is actively complicit in genocide in Gaza – indeed with its supply of weapons to Israel, provision of communications intelligence and aerial surveillance and participation of UK special services, I would argue it is more than complicit. The UK government is a part of committing genocide in Gaza. This is vile to many people in the UK, but it is especially anathema to a large majority of people in Scotland.
This YouGov survey of November 2 shows that a strong majority of people in Scotland say that their sympathies lie on the Palestinian side, whereas both in England and in Wales majority support is on the Israeli side by a small margin.
Furthermore this survey attempts to measure strength of feeling, and Scottish support for Palestine is the most strongly held opinion in any constituent part of the UK and on any side of the question, by a wide margin, with 43% of Palestinian sympathising Scots holding that view “a great deal”.
Earlier YouGov surveys gave the same result, with Scotland being the only UK nation with majority Palestinian support. This one is for 24 October.
Across the UK as whole, there is a massive difference in age group, with support for Palestine very high among young people, who sympathise with Palestine by 46% to just 9% for Israel. Support for Israel is highest amongst over 65s, by 30% to 10%. I suspect it is related both to closeness of birth to the Second World War, and to propensity to use mainstream media for news.
I would stress that none of this is new: polls have always shown much higher support for Palestine in Scotland than in England. The same is also true of Ireland, and I have no doubt that in both Scotland and Ireland this instinctive support for the Palestinians is in part related to folk memory of dispossession from the land and colonial occupation.
14/10/2023. Pic sof a pro-Palestine / anti-Israel demonstration at the steps on Buchanan Street, Glasgow.
It is important to remember that the extraordinary rise of the SNP and support for Scottish Independence in the first decades of this century was, in part, fuelled by revulsion at the heavy UK involvement at the attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. Those imperialist wars resulted in millions of dead and maimed and tens of millions of displaced, and the complete destruction of infrastructure in those countries.
The urge to be free from a state that continually engaged in aggressive war motivated a great many Scots to support Independence. It can do so again now over UK support for Gaza. Blair’s rampant neo-imperialism also did much to break Scotland’s support for the Labour Party. We might now realistically hope for a similar reaction to Starmer’s Zionism.
That revulsion is now felt again. Every citizen of the UK is tainted by the support of the British state for genocide. We all bear a drop of responsibility for each drop of child’s blood spilt in Gaza. Because like it or not, the UK government represents us. The military support it gives to Israel is paid for with our taxes. None of us did enough to prevent being ruled by callous enablers of murder. There are degrees of complicity, but everybody is tainted.
All three major England-based parties – the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats – openly support Israel and oppose efforts to halt the genocide.
I hear a number of the wonderful people who marched through London for peace last weekend, and in many other English cities, groaning at me. Of course there is a strong movement for Palestine in England, and a great many of my friends are in it. But here in Scotland we are operating in a fundamentally different political culture, that values community and horizontal solidarity.
We Scots deserve the right to allow that culture to flourish away from the imposition of an alien political culture by a much larger neighbouring nation.
Suella Braverman’s far-right bully boys were only the tip of the iceberg of racism which has been enabled in Europe by the support of conservative political elites for the genocidal attack on Gaza. The morass of online Islamophobic and anti-immigrant abuse which accompanies the pro-Israeli rhetoric is frightening. This “war of civilisations” undercurrent is there right across Europe. Where there have been pro-Israeli demonstrations, they have been remarkably white.
Here in Scotland I have been impressed by Humza Yousaf, the Scottish First Minister, for his calm and serious reaction to the Gaza genocide and his unequivocal call for a ceasefire. Yousaf has subsequently been treated to an insane barrage of racist and Islamophobic abuse online. This should be a rallying point for all decent Scottish people to defend their First Minister from racism, whatever smaller disagreements they may have.
MPs had the chance to put humanity before politics.
To say the killing of innocent civilians in Gaza must stop. And it must stop now.
MPs who voted against @theSNP calls for an immediate ceasefire are on the wrong side of history.
This cannot continue. Humanity must prevail. pic.twitter.com/5iDCfwPcQI
— Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) November 15, 2023
This points the way to a reinvigoration of the Independence movement. I can find no statistics on it, but it is evident from social media that there is a very strong correlation between unionism and support for Israel, and between Independence support and support for Palestine.
For Independence to be achieved in the short term, Independence supporters need to rally round a cause, and Palestine is it. There is clear blue water between Scottish and English opinion, and there is clear blue water between Scottish and London political parties. There is also clear blue water within Scotland between nationalist and unionist opinion.
The Palestinian cause is popular in Scotland and in fighting it, we also fight racism. This is the moment to focus on working together on Palestine and putting any divisive issues less acute than genocide (and all issues are less acute than genocide) firmly on the back burner, or perhaps in the fridge.
SNP and Alba party MPs walked together through the Westminster lobby to support a ceasefire in Gaza, while the leadership of Tory, Labour and Liberal parties all voted for more killing. Let us build on that.
Nothing is more fundamental than genocide, nothing is more urgent to prevent than genocide. Let us work together to prevent it.
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Jack, in an earlier comment said the palestinians are also let down by 22 arab states (not to mention almost 60 islamic countries) which is even worse in my view, I agree with you Jack, but keep in mind it is early day’s yet. Hezbollah alone has the capability to make the Zionist apartheid regime unviable. Apart from the ‘Arc of Resistance’ led by Hezbollah the rest of the Arab world [at the moment] can be summed up in these words…
Speaker: T.E. Lawrence
“Sherif Ali, so long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people, greedy, barbarous, and cruel as you are”…
Col Gaddafi said something similar in a speech back in 2009 when he berated other Arab league members for allowing the US/UK to destroy Iraq, then to hang its leader. Any one of us could be next he said. How prophetic and true.
It isn’t early days. North Gaza is flattened. All hospitals, all places of care and refuge, have been destroyed. The people have been concentrated into “safe” south Gaza which is now also being destroyed. Sisi is being put under intense pressure from the Americans and Europeans to open the Egyptian border crossing so the people can be herded out of Gaza altogether and forever. Israel is openly saying Nakba is their real goal as well as showing it. The West is helping them to achieve it while gaslighting their populations it is actualy about rescuing hostages and destroying Hamas.
Reza, I partly agree with you, however the the ace in the pack, Hezbollah are crucial to the outcome of this massacre, the Arc of resistance led by Hezbollah have one reason to exist that is to save the Palestinians and Al Quds. Failure to do this means that they may as well give up, which means that they individually will be eliminated one by one by the West.
Israel persuaded Trump to walk away from the JCPOA because of the fear of Iran’s conventional precision-guided missiles, most in underground silos spread across Iran’s vast deserts and out of sight and reach of Israel/US bombing. This is the real reason for breaking the JCPOA. This link to Foreign Policy https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/15/israel-idf-iran-nuclear-arms-weapons/ includes also a link to a presentation by Uzi Rubin, a missile expert. The existential threat these precision missiles pose to the postage-stamp-sized Israeli state with most of its population and industrial capacity within the Tel Aviv area.
Uzi Rubin, a former head of the Israel Missile Defence Organization and a pre-eminent missile expert, has a chilling presentation he gives on the all-but-existential threat posed by precision-guided munitions to small states. Rubin uses Greece as an example, but it’s obvious he’s really talking about Israel. By perusing easily available public sources, Rubin suggests there are roughly 30 facilities in all of Greece that allow modern society as we know it to function there — systems for water, fuel, electricity, sea and air transport, and communications. Generously assuming his tally of critical targets under counts the actual number by a factor of three, Rubin soberly makes the point that with fewer than 300 precision-guided munitions, an adversary could quickly make life unviable for Greece’s 10 million citizens.
If anything, tiny Israel may be even more vulnerable than Greece. Though the two countries are close in population, Israel’s land area is not even 20 percent of Greece’s. And while Israeli counter proliferation efforts have severely limited Iran’s ability to transfer precision-guided munitions along various routes to Hezbollah, some Israeli officials privately suggest that the terrorist group could already have several hundred in its arsenal. Once it acquires 1,000, it could fire 10 precision strikes at each of Israel’s 100 most critical pieces of national infrastructure. Even assuming a 90 percent success rate for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence, the math at that point will favour Hezbollah, putting the possible paralysis of Israeli civil society within its reach. Hezbollah have the precision missiles to destroy Israel, and as Rubin said in another speech all that is necessary to construct a precision missile is a smart phone and some winglets, which Hezbollah have in vast quantities. Those aircraft carriers and support vessels are sitting ducks off the coast of Israel.
Israel has already created facts on the ground in Gaza that can’t be reversed. As soon as Sisi’s price is met the border will open. Every Gazan will be driven through it. That could be underway as early as next week. Then it’s over. The West Bank will be next, then Hezbollah. That is the plan and it is being executed at pace and with impunity.
harry law, I saw a video demo 15 years ago of a needle gun linked to an AI target acquisition system, mounted on a frictionless, hi-tech fixture. The gun could be moved very rapidly and could produce clouds of deadly “needles” in over 300 locations in one second. Maybe Kinzals can hit carriers and sink them, but if what I saw in that video is true, slower flying missiles would be interdicted if not suppressed. When the US Navy engaged the wave of kamikaze attackers late in the war in 1944-45, they found very quickly that success was related to how much lead they could put up, in a sustained barrage, around the protected asset. With drone swarms and potential missile attack by many, many missiles, those days are back in fashion and the US Navy has an institutional memory of this type of warfare. I find it difficult to believe the carriers are as vulnerable as is sometimes said – however much corruption assails the US Navy (Fat Leonard etc.), anti-ship defence is one of the core competencies, alongside not crashing into things etc., of any naval power. I suppose if violence increases significantly, we will see who’s who and what’s what.
Do you think the many hundreds of Israeli atomic weapons will be able to “snuff out” a broad range of targets? From what I can tell, the Israeli population is in a bunker mentality and would countenance any measures facing what they perceive to be an existential threat. An atomic demonstration on a suitably important target, e.g. Cairo – Sisi’ has got a new capital – to speak directly to the “Arab Street” and cow the “Axis of Resistance” maybe, if Israel faces an “existential threat”? They are being told in Israel that they face “a long war”.
The Israeli leadership, with great assistance from the Western leadership and the Israeli and Western press has fully, deliberately dehumanised the “enemy”. They are committed to a massive campaign of religious, millennial terrorism culminating in the destruction of the al-Aqsa Mosque. Remember as well, it contains notorious anti-human elements like Ben-Givr and Smotrich – public, self-avowed religious terrorists. Some Israeli dead, some infrastructure destroyed, the Israeli people under general bombardment, some atrocities, some false flags, applied media framing of Israel’s “agony”. One of the ministers has been speaking about using atomic weapons. They have been going about the bombing in WW2 – Dresden and whatnot. All this is not a good sign.
I’m sure you know the culminating events of the Allied bombing campaign against the Axis powers. Two atomic devices were detonated in crowded urban areas in Japan, on targets with no military worth – maybe 200,000 people incinerated in those two atomic flashes, and spoke they directly to the “Japanese Street”.
The US Navy was innovatively developed during the Obama years
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fofj2rPqCUA
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Thousands of us back Israel, and just like Nicola Sturgeon instead of focusing on your weakness as a party which is a massive part of your country that does not back you, you focus on reinforcing your party’s divisive nature, we are not by any stretch a pro-Palestine country. You’ll never get a United Scotland until you focus on the people who don’t back you, the Scottish people who don’t back you. You would rather focus on yet another ‘them and us’ situation. All you need to do is to focus on Scottish people who don’t want what you want, and instead of trying to change them, find ways to understand and embrace how they feel and find a way where their beliefs can be embraced, yet under a Scottish independent government – you know, like you embrace Palestine but can’t embrace Scots who, love-or-hate-it, love the Union. If you did that, you could have your independence – but no, it’s now Palestine. Absolutely not.
Harry
Whilst Gaddafi’s Long 2009 UN speech must surely be one of the best ever at the UN – This Might be the Col Gaddafi Speech you were thinking of –
THE SPEECH THAT KILLED GADDAFI! – 3.18 mins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIXxSnj2GUE
Thanks Brianfujisan. Regarding my comment above, it is not only the 130,000 missiles that Hezbollah has, also many precision ones which can reach any part of Israel, It is assessed that Hezbolla have several Ghadir class submarines supplied by Iran,remember Nasrallah said the Hezbollah had surprises in store for the US aircraftcarriers. that being the case, Nasrallah was right when he said those aircraft carrier groups would be easy prey if they launched attacks on Lebanese territory, this is why the US does not want to expand the Gaza conflict.
It has been observed that the Ghadir’s two bow torpedo tubes are large enough to fire typical heavyweight torpedoes. It could also fire the infamous Russian Shkval rocket torpedo, which Iran reverse engineered and now reportedly produces, calling it the Hoot Torpedo. The Shkval is a super-cavitating torpedo that uses rocket exhaust nozzle at the front to vaporize the surrounding water, creating a gas bubble to “fly” though at speeds of over 200 mph.
Iran’s Ministry of Defense has further claimed to have armed these mini-subs with a new homing torpedo named “ValFajr”. Iran claims this torpedo has anti-jamming capability and is armed with an explosive warhead weighing around 220 kilos.
As well as mini-submarines, Iran’s IRGC is reported to have a number of small submersibles. For example the Al-Sabehat 15, a GPS-equipped two-seat submersible Swimmer Delivery Vehicle (SDV). This sort of SDV could have been used by Iran to place Limpet mines on ships in the Gulf of Oman in 2019. The IRGC might also plan to use even smaller SDVs as manned torpedoes.
harry law, Italian frogmen using midget submarines wreaked havoc on the British Navy in WW2, incapacitating or even sinking several of the largest warships of the day
Your submarine/nautical data is fascinating – ” to vapourise the surrounding water, creating a gas bubble to “fly” through..” The creativity of military technology seems such a waste!.
“you can’t say civilization don’t advance, in every war they kill you in a new way”
― Will Rogers
Will Moon, what you have posted is totally untrue. Italian midget submarines sunk no Royal Navy ships during WW2, let alone wreak havoc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Royal_Navy_losses_in_World_War_II
Depends what you mean by wreck havoc. Wiki says:
“Soon after June 1940 a submarine force was dispatched to the Atlantic, honouring a commitment to Germany to help in the Atlantic campaign. Code-named BETASOM, this force was stationed at Bordeaux in occupied France. 32 boats in total served in the Atlantic, equaling the German numbers at the time. Half of them later returned to the Mediterranean, or were converted to transports, for operations to Far East. The Italian submarines operating in the Atlantic overall sank 109 allied merchant ships totalling 593,864 tons”
See :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_submarines_of_World_War_II
“On the night of 18/19 December, three Italian “human torpedoes”, off-loaded from a submarine, came through the boom at Alexandria with returning destroyers and set explosive charges close to Queen Elizabeth, Valiant and the tanker Sagona. Though all six Italian crewmen were apprehended and a search made for the explosives, none was found, and at about 05.45 on the 19 December they began to go off. Sagona and Jervis alongside her, were badly damaged but the two Battleships were put out of action for many months”
— A Life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham, Michael Simpson
That is wreaking havoc in my book. The crippling of two of Britain’s global strategic naval assets was, unsuprisingly, an event of global strategic significance. Queen Elizabeth and Valiant were some of the largest ships of the British Navy at that time, designated “Battleships”. Britain was already hugely over-stretched – this event was a disaster of the highest magnitude. As I recall, one or both of these vessels settled on a shallow in the harbour, which is “sunk” in my book. They were out of action for a long time – 18 months or so. In a conflict of six years’ duration that is a strategically significant intervention by the Italian “human torpedoes”.
One, of the many dire consequences of this successful attack, was the Fleet had to operate from a safer, more distant port for some time, thus denying the embattled the British Army, fighting in North Africa naval fire support missions due to the longer sailing times needed to reach the combat zones. Strengthened security measures in the Canal Zone and at British naval installations in occupied Egypt consumed large amounts of military energy and resources, all because of a few pesky “human torpedoes”.
Will Moon, the Valiant and Queen Elizabeth, which were attacked (not sunk) by midget submarines, were out of date 1910 dreadnoughts. They were over 30 years old when they were attacked. Valaint and Queen Elizabeth were decommed in 1948. Now, please tell me the names of Royal Navy ships which were SUNK by midget submarines.
According to Wiki, both HMS Queen Elizabeth & Valiant were damaged by limpet mines in December 1941, but neither came to rest on the habour bottom – so not sunk by any stretch of the imagination – and they were then capable of sailing to Norfolk, Virginia & Durban, South Africa, respectively, for repairs. The former was out of action for 18 months, but only because the repairs commenced in September 1942 – so probably weren’t particularly high priority, let alone ‘of the highest magnitute’.
Relevant citations:
Admiralty Historical Section (2002). The Royal Navy and the Mediterranean. Whitehall Histories: Naval Staff Histories. Vol. II: November 1940–December 1941. London: Whitehall History in association with Frank Cass. ISBN 0-7146-5205-9.
O’Hara, Vincent P.; Cernuschi, Enrico (2015). “FROGMEN AGAINST A FLEET: The Italian Attack on Alexandria 18/19 December 1941”. Naval War College Review. 68 (3): 119–137. ISSN 0028-1484.
(No, I haven’t read them; no, I don’t have the time or inclination to do so)
I take it andyoldlabour you have a dog in this fight? The point was about tiny submersibles threatening the largest vessels of their day and being able to inflict strategic damage on an adversary.
My granda was a military dock worker in Alexandria at the time and he has always insisted one of these vessels settled on the bottom but this was covered up by the local Imperials because of the huge shame. It is a bit of a family legend – the old man even raved about it on his deathbed. You see the Brits were warned a long time before the attack by Ultra decrypts that frogmen using tiny craft would attack the battleships in Alexandria but due to Imperial arrogance and hubris which lead to the criminal incompetence, the Top Brass were unable to stop the Italian frogmen. Isn’t it amazing the power of “the old school tie”?
Your point about the quality of the ships you self-defeat. Why bother repairing something that’s crap and keeping it running till 1948? The vessels were considered adequate to contest the Med against the Italian battleships, which though more modern had several odd technological flaws that negated their modernity sufficiently for the older British vessels to compete. Note these ships were not battlecruisers but battleships which were very heavily armoured unlike battlecruisers – though both types carried the same huge guns.
The repair of the ships could only take place in a few places in the world, such was their gargantuan size, only a few dry-docks could accommodate them. I think there was one at Norfolk in Virginia and one in South Africa and maybe another at Colombo in Sri Lanka It took time to schedule these repairs because of the large number of “Big Ships” that had been damaged since the start of the war. A major strategic blow coming at a crucial time in the conflict, all because of those pesky human torpedoes wreaking havoc (self-inflicted) on the British Navy.
Good to see British naval tradition still has some defenders though to be honest it sounds like copium.
“‘Naval tradition? Naval tradition? Monstrous. Nothing but rum, sodomy, prayers and the lash.’”
The major problem there is that the Ghadir class have a top speed of 10 knots, about one third that of the US carriers, and the latest version of the Shkval/Hoot has a range of about 10 miles. If a US carrier group was foolish enough to get within 100 miles of Lebanon it would take one of these subs nine hours to get within range by which time the carrier and its escorts could be 270 miles away.
That would presumably depend on the subs being detected as soon as they set out. Does the US really have that sort of technology?
Brianfujisan how many years before this speech was Gadaffi dubbed “Mad Dog” by the Western tabloids? Yet he speaks here a steady rationality belying his tabloid image, fixing his listeners in the spotlight-glare of spoken truth
In some sense the media depiction of this Arab leader is an exemplar of post-colonial control – whatever the Libyan people’s relationship with this man, Western greed has casually immiserated an entire country. When NATO was bombing, I saw an interview with an anti-Gadaffi Arab officer explaining how important it was for NATO to bomb all the sewage and water substations, to make life in Tripoli unlivable for the average citizen and transport the city back to the Stone Age. I don’t think there is much being built in Libya at the moment to replace the massive destruction caused by NATO and its bombing campaign.
Any numbers on how many have died in Libya since the Western nations “helped” the people of Libya?
Indeed will moon..
And Gaddafi was even more articulate in his 2009 speech at UN..It is ..as I mention above in reply to Harry – quite long But great from Gaddafi.. The Translator is very good and Subtitles too.
23 Sep 2009 Muammar Gaddafi speech at United Nations General Assembly – 1hour 35mins –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBRqqa7ZpeQ&t=711s
Thanks for that Brian, Libya is now a failed state created by the West/Nato.
Here Nelson Mandela visits Gaza, and gives a speech where he says;
“Choose peace rather than confrontation, except in cases where we cannot move forward. Then, if the only alternative is violence, we will use violence.”
https://nitter.net/zei_squirrel/status/1725312472750469404#m
Will watch this later tonight thanks.
Do you remember Fidel Castro giving a 6-8 hour speech (lol), detailing the crimes of Capitalism, and how many people are killed in order for Capital to receive it’s minimium, self-sustaining rate of return?
Arafat’s UN speech was close to 6hrs – a friend won the pulitzer photography prize for taking 26 rolls of film to get it. His name was John Chapman
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-december-1988-palestinian-leader-yasser-arafat-pictured-at-the-united-53144262.html
harry law
I wish you were right but there is nothing to expect from the arab states, they have exposed their true colors by deliberately taking no action for reasons I do not understand. But as Wikileaks proved a couple of years ago, this corrupt sunni clientele is only focused on secterian internal religious war with shiite Iran thus they are more allied with Israel, US than the palestinians even though the palestinians are sunni muslims.
“Cut off head of snake” Saudis told U.S. on Iran
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wikileaks-iran-saudis-idUSTRE6AS02B20101129/
And as you say, just look at the smirking arab leaders in the Khadaffi video.
Imagine there was a war in Iran, all these passive arab leaders would join the war just like that, but against Israel for the palestinian cause? Nah.
Hezbollah must tread lightly, they are dealing with a genocidal regime that act with total impunity:
What We are Doing in Gaza We Can Do in Beirut – Israel Threatens Lebanon
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/what-we-are-doing-in-gaza-we-can-do-in-beirut-israel-threatens-lebanon/
The most effective resistance are likely to be…”incidents” like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombings
“there is nothing to expect from the arab states, they have exposed their true colors by deliberately taking no action for reasons I do not understand.”
That is too simplistic and unfair. The Arab powers that could confront Israel have been destroyed in the last two decades, according to the Oded Yinon plan, mainly by the US acting on Israel’s behalf. The others, such as Saudi, have no military capacity.
In my opinion the Arab/Islamic activity is much greater than you think, but it is not going to happen by simple military confrontation. The reaction has to be modulated and subtle. They haven’t yet learnt that the Israeli army is now mostly a conscript rabble, only held aloft by a professional air force.
Laguerre
I was not necessarily thinking of military confrontation at all. Just take the fact that Egypt – well, the whole arab world – play along with the blockade of Gaza. Why are they not lifting it?
Or why are they not kicking the israeli diplomats out? Why are they not kicking americans out? Why are they not calling for the ICC to act? Why are they not stopping the so-called Israel/arab normalization agreement? Why are they not cutting trade ties with Israel? Why are they not blocking israeli airplanes going over their land? I mean there are so many ways they could act, but absolute zero work is done by them. By design.
Fact is these corrupt arab leaders do not give a iota about the palestinians.
And of course 22 arab and/or 50+ islamic nations could take on Israel in 1 hour. Only Saudi Arabia have over almost 400 fighter jet aircraft. But again, there is no interest, effort.
I don’t agree really. Most of the new Israeli ambassadors have been thrown out (although formal diplomatic relations have not been terminated – probably in order not to conflict with the US). In any case the Israeli embassies are small silent fortresses, where no-one goes in or out, and there is no interaction with the local population.
The whole point of the “normalisation” process was for Israel to deal with autocratic regimes (much easier to deal with one person than a whole country’s political process). This worked where there is little or virtually no local national population to say no. i.e. the Gulf emirates, but didn’t work where there is a substantial national population to sympathise with the Palestinians, i.e. Saudi. In spite of the endless media predicting Saudi’s imminent signature with Israel, that’s just Israeli/American bs. It will never happen; between Islamist Saudi princes and a population many of whom live just across from Palestine.
Egypt is a different matter. Who do you think organised the coup d’état that brought Sisi to power? Egypt needs American help for the economy, and is also unusually a highly centralised country, which is easy for a military dictator to control.
You are quite wrong that “corrupt arab leaders do not give a iota about the palestinians”. They care a lot, if only because they are afraid of being unseated themselves if they don’t, but also because their people care. You are just presenting me with the hasbara talking point, which might have had a certain truth once, but not now.
Sorry don’t have time for a 30,000 word dissertation, explaining it all once again, when you should read up the blogs.
Jack.
IMO the bigger snake in the room is the USA, who in reality could end this conflict overnight- if they wanted to. The arab/Islamic nations will be very wary of directly upsetting the USA, so any efforts will be indirect and hidden. Biden and his psychopathic supporters are looking for an excuse to drag Iran and Syria into the chaos, essentially to ensure his election chances and to head off criminal charges, just like Netanyahu.
Maybe the only approach is to sit back and let Israel and the USA destroy themselves ?
Laguerre
But what have they been doing then all these 6 weeks? Again they are 22 arab nations/almost 60 islamic nations. This is the best they could do? Of course not.
Compare the difference in action by comparing how west took on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. The arab states are not even doing 1% of that. Or compare how active the same arab states became during the Yemen war?
But when it comes to Palestine they do nothing.
LIke, again, why do they play along with the israeli blockade? 1 Because they are terribly corrupted by israeli/US interests 2 their care for palestinians start and end with mere vocal lip service.
Stevie Boy
In my view US/Israel do what they do just because there are no resistance from the arab states/islamic states.
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Laguerre
So some Israeli ambassadors have been recalled, but diplomatic relations not broken off.
Is that – plus a mini-mini “psychological” survey of the state of opinion in the Arab street – all you can offer in response to Jack’s agonized puzzlement at the Arab world not doing more (or indeed anything)?
Jack offers some suggestions, to which one could add some sort of oil embargo. Is any of that happening? If not, why not?
“In my opinion the Arab/Islamic activity is much greater than you think, ” – can you expand? Does this activity include the sort of suggestions made by Jack? Other actions?
This blog should be a place for honest opinions, informed opinions, and not obfuscation. So I would say the following, albeit with regret:
You love the Arabs and the Arab world – which is good and to your great credit (especially in these times of manufactures Islamophobia). But I feel it leads you to reject automatically (and not very nicely : your expression is “hasbara talking point”) any opinion critical of Arab inactivity.
To say “you’re wrong” to another poster, and then to throw in a mention of hasbara and then to round off, loftily, with ‘I don’t have time to offer you a 30.000 word dissertation to explain why” doesn’t get us very far. Why don’t you give us 500-1000 words of considered opinion?
Just because the Arab states appear to be doing nothing doesn’t mean that they are doing nothing. The leaders of the world’s nations do not have an obligation to let us armchair warriors know what they are doing. Publicising your intentions in politics is rarely a good idea, unless what you are doing is spreading propaganda.
Need to be careful not to fall into the zionist propaganda trap whereby everyone has to damn Hamas, rather than Israel, and if you don’t you’re antisemitic. In this case we seem to be saying that we must criticise the Arabs for doing ‘nothing’ whilst our governments support genocide. Let’s save our criticism for the actual criminals and not start blaming the Arabs. Divide and conquer is at play here.
Bayard
That alleged stealth tactic have obviously then failed horribly since we are six weeks into a genocidal war and the arab states still do nothing to change the development.
Matter of fact, the only thing the arab states have actually done all these weeks is being the rep. for Netanyahu in the talks with Hamas about releasing the israeli hostages.
I really have a problem with this
Arabs Muslims Christians and Jews Judaism etc.. I believe that most so called Arabs have their own identity.
For me sounds like subconscious racism.
We help our Ukrainian white Christians and you help your Muslim/Arab brothers.
As they say Israel is the only Jewish country. Following this Arab Muslim etc. argument I am with Israel .
Can’t those Arabs move somewhere?
Can’t those Jews move somewhere?
Can’t those Palestinians return (no)?
Can the Jew after 1000 years return with a red carpet (yes)?
“Matter of fact, the only thing the arab states have actually done all these weeks is being the rep. for Netanyahu in the talks with Hamas about releasing the israeli hostages.”
You are still making the same mistake. The only thing the arab states have actually done all these weeks that you know about is apparently being the rep. for Netanyahu in the talks with Hamas about releasing the israeli hostages. The Arab states have no obligation to keep you or anyone else informed of what they are actually doing and any course of action that yields instant results is usually a very bad one. I know you want them to rush in all guns blazing, but Israel has nukes and they don’t.
Bayard
That is a very backwards way of reasoning, you are saying that the absence of proof….is proof that the arab states is working hard? No that is not how the world works.
As I said before compare the arab states pathetic stance with that of the collective west when Russia invaded Ukraine. That is how you do it! The collective west began sending arms like 3 days into the war. But the arab states do not even dare to lift the israeli-imposed blockade sending protective armour, helmets even when palestinians are killed in the thousands. What does that tell you?
I do not understand your support for the arab leaders, they are corrupted, pro-israel/US through and through, it is the arab street that are pro-palestinian, those are the ones one should support and defend.
Politics is not so black and white, and Arabs do not generally, IMO, act like the (psychotic) West.
“… the arab states do not even dare to lift the israeli-imposed blockade sending protective armour, helmets even when palestinians are killed in the thousands. What does that tell you?”
It tells me that maybe they fear the consequences of rash actions and maybe they have been warned of those consequences by the USA/UK.”
“I do not understand your support for the arab leaders,”
I don’t believe It’s a case of support for one side or the other, it’s more a case of solving this conflict without it escalating to WW3.
Have you really sat down and run through the potential scenarios and their outcomes ? Israel and the West don’t give a toss about the arabs, they’re second class citizens in the minds of the elites (including the west’s tame, pet arabs). I’d suggest the hawks in Washington would love an excuse to attack Iran, and the UK and France would love an excuse to attack Syria. It’s best not to give these evil people the excuse.
I understand the frustration, but it’s the west that has form in going in all guns blazing without an exit strategy. This mess is not for the Arabs to clean up.
Bayard
You think all these arab states, islamic states are totally feeble and lack influence? They have a wealth of influence, they have a tremendous amount of arms but they are not using it because they lack the interest to help palestinians. Compare that with their eagerness and work to go against Iran, Hezbollah, Syria, Yemen.
Why do you think Israel and the west are such good partners with the arab leaders? Because they know that if the political opposition in the arab world would rule, the arab states would actually do something to stop israeli/US plots, wars in the region.
Jack, do stop displaying the reckless courage of the non combatant. Maybe the Arab states have considered all the options you are suggesting, have thought them through and realised that the results would leave both leaders and people in a worse position while not helping the Palestinians. As for the West’s reaction to the invasion of Ukraine, sanctions have been a massive own goal and all the supply of arms has done is allow more people to be killed. Russia is still just as likely to win as she was at the start, all of which should tell you where rushing in gets you.
I am not saying that the absence of proof is proving anything. I am saying that the absence of knowledge of proof of your part proves absolutely nothing except the extent of your ignorance. “I have not been told that there is anything going on, therefore there is nothing going on” is not logic. Not everything that happens finds its way onto the internet and not everything that finds its way onto the internet finds its way onto your screen.
An interesting article. Apparently both Biden and Blinken favour a two-state approach – well in public they do, possibly knowing fine well it will never happen, with Netanyahu and his mad dog far-right coalition in power. On top of this huge barrier we have the fact that Israel has nuclear weapons and nuclear subs, Mordechai Vanunu blowing the whistle on that one, and whilst such a far-right coalition governs Israel there is very little chance of peace, and the development of a two-state solution.
It’s claimed that France provided uranium and a nuclear reactor to Israel, while Germany was the source of funding for the Israeli nuclear weapons development.
As for Israel having nukes: there is a precedent in this matter, of an oppressive apartheid regime developing nukes and then giving them up under the NPT. It is of course South Africa, but in that instance the white South African government feared that a black South African president would inherit the nukes, and thus South Africa joined the NTP in 1991; three years later the nukes were dismantled.
I don’t foresee Israel ever giving up its nukes. It fears the likes of Iran has them as well and it would under certain circumstances use them against Israel. However, what is required is for the people of Israel to elect a moderate government that will work with whichever body it chooses to thrash out a two-state solution. But that won’t happen whilst Netanyahu and his bloodthirsty political partners in government hold office.
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/11/17/scott-ritter-the-2-state-solutions-nuclear-option/
RoS…Your Right about Israel never Giving up Nuclear Weapons..Nor Anything else.. Who will make them. The UN and ICC are Silent in the Genocide.. In Stark contrast to how quickly the ICC went after Putin for removing thousands of children from a war zone.
A few hours ago I watched a Clip of an Israeli Bulldozer destroying Palestinian roads and water Pipes.. They would rather the water Gushed into the dirt.. than let Palestine’s Children have a Drink. Sickening.
Unfortunately, I believe, that the people of Israel are part of the problem. Whilst there undoubtedly are some decent people in Israel, the majority support the zionist, apartheid ideology. Netanyahu is not Israel, replace him and another nutter will take over. The belief in zionism, apartheid and a Jewish master race are held by the majority of Israelis. Until that changes there will be no peace.
RoS
I do not know if Germany funded the Israeli nuclear weapons programme (although it certainly provided the nuclear-powered (and perhaps -armed) submarines, but it is certain that France was the country which kick-started Israeli nuclear power capabilities. This was done by the last governments of the French Fourth Republic in the aftermath of Suez, which saw a militarily powerful Israel as a useful counterweight to the independence movement in Algeria and support this movement by a number of fully independent Arab countries (especially Nasser’s Egypt).
Another example of colonialism coming back to bite the colonialists… and something the Yankees can’t be blamed for (unusually).
PM and then-President de Gaulle had a rather different take on Israel and where French interests lay. Of course by then, Algerian independence had been virtually won and the threat to the Republic lay elsewhere (from the OAS).
Do not forget that Israel also stole nuclear technology and uranium from the west:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apollo_Affair
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plumbat
yeah that was my impression, Israel stole it from the US.
Everything we previously believed is a lie !
Maybes Iran needs a moderate government too?
And Hamas needs a moderate leadership. Hezbollah as well.
governments tend to defend their countries when external forces attack them.
Presumably you are using “moderate” in its current meaning of “aligned to the US”, the alternative being, of course, non-aligned to the US, or “extremist”. See also “democracy” and “autocracy”.
You’re right Johnny Boy, it’s all the fault of those pesky unmoderate Arabs. Are there any Arab countries whose invasion you wouldn’t support ?
https://babylonbee.com/news/nikki-haley-stumped-when-debate-moderator-asks-her-to-list-some-countries-she-wouldnt-invade
The Great Max Blumenthal from ‘ The Grey Zone ‘ Talks Israel’s Lies about October 7.. Blinken’s Connection to Zionists.. The Cowardly Criminals of the Mainstream Media Ect – 28 mins
https://rumble.com/v3wdirt-bombshell-max-blumenthal-exposes-israels-and-bidens-lies-and-deceit-over-ga.html?
So back Humza due to Palestine?
Naw. Fuck the SNP.
“Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin addressed the JCIT’s opening session. He set the tone by claiming Western state violence was ultimately “a fight for freedom or liberation” and, therefore, fundamentally opposed to “terrorism.” He concluded his remarks by imploring the assembled throng to go forth and promote the conference’s message once it was over. And they did.”
How Washington and the Pentagon lied about detente with regards to the fall of the Soviet Union, and decided that terrorism (not Western Terrorism) had to be stamped out.
Interestingly in 1983 when Netanyahu was Israel’s UN envoy, he said that if you miss a target and a bomb drops on a children’s hospital that IS NOT terrorism.
Israeli joined and hosted the call to arms against terrorism in 1979.
“Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism (JCIT) in Jerusalem’s Hilton Hotel. It gathered together a 700-strong mob of Israeli government officials, U.S. lawmakers, intelligence operatives from across the ‘Five Eyes’ global spying network, and Western foreign policy apparatchiks.”
Possibly it gave the likes of the US Europe and the dis-untied kingdom carte blanche to enter countries mainly populated by brown skinned people under the guise of hunting for terrorists. Later the same culprits would asset-steal and regime-change to suit their needs, this still goes on in today’s world.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/team-b-jerusalem-conference-israel-helped-craft-modern-terrorism/286295/
Regarding what ‘terrorism’ is, here’s a good article on Media Lens exposing some serious hypocrisy:
https://www.medialens.org/2023/are-hamas-a-terror-group-are-they-a-terror-group-answer-the-question/
It includes a great Chomsky quote: “‘It’s very simple: if “they” do it, it’s terrorism; if “we” do it, it’s counterterrorism. That’s a historical universal.”
“he said that if you miss a target and a bomb drops on a children’s hospital that IS NOT terrorism.”
It is the second time it happens and every time after that, but the first time could be an unfortunate accident. “Whoops, missed again” doesn’t quite cut it.
In the sense that people can wake up to the real history of the British Empire, perhaps young non-militarist Scots are among the most receptive demographics.
I’ve been reading Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent in which historian Priyamvada Gopal unpacks the British imperial playbook with particular focus on the ways that resistance from the colonised impacted and informed dissent back in the metropole. It’s a hefty read, but really gets going after an overly-academic-to-academic introduction (parts of which the author recommends skipping).
The patterns are well worth learning, because they apply to modern conflicts as well as past colonial struggles. For example: Tom Mboya, Kenyan trade unionist studying at Ruskin, wrote 1956 essay for Fabians The Kenya Question: An African Answer, distanced from Mau Mau but respecting their grievances. From p435:
There are certainly parallels between the land-and-freedom struggle of the Palestinians and that of Kenyans; and the movement the colonists termed Mau Mau was demonised and pathologised much in the way Hamas has been. According to Gopal, Mboya condemned the violence of Mau Mau but also the far greater colonial violence of British before and after, saying that the World only took notice when violence erupted.
As to non-violent approaches, Gopal quotes Barack Obama in a partisan speech that yet touches on universalism from 2011:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/25/obama-west-freedom-middle-east
What is the essential difference between Mau Mau (a conflict in which Obama’s grandfather was reportedly imprisoned and tortured by the British) and Hamas?
And what about the Jewish Lehi terrorist group, responsible for how many deaths of British soldiers (NB – these were the soldiers from a country which had just spent 6 years fighting Nazi Germany), British civilians, Palestinian Arabs, UN personnel (Count Folke Bernadotte) and even other Jews (deemed to be “collaborators”) in Mandate Palestine between 1945 and 1948/49?
In which stable were raised “eminent” Israeli political leaders such as Itzak Shamir and Menachem Begin?
@Aguirre, my point is rather that colonialist propaganda demonises people that fight back against it, while refusing to acknowledge that anticolonial violence helps achieve any ‘concessions’. That states and empires commit far more terrorism than their non-state opponents (see, for example, State Terrorism and Neoliberalism: The North in the South by Ruth Blakeley, 2009). That the anticolonial cause is pathologised (an unevidenced claim of ‘savage’ or hatred-fuelled irrational psychology) while real grievances (including colonial failure to address peacefully submitted ones and persecute civil representatives) are covered up.
It took a long time and much activism for a British government to admit serious and systematic wrongdoing in Kenya, and perhaps the reputation of the British Empire will not recover from its now well-known crimes. I cannot see a future rehabilitation of Israel’s reputation, and perhaps Hamas has also had its day.
Blakeley writes (p133):
This has strong echoes of what the British did, and tried to cover up, in Kenya. Incidentally, most of the Mau Mau violence was directed against collaborators in the histories I’ve read. The British liked to impose a ‘chief’ system through which they could exert control over populations. They struggled to cope with mass movements, and resorted to extreme large-scale violence and application of terror, collective punishment, area bombing, torture and mass incarcerations in the face of them.
SD: Looks like a fascinating book, but it’s a bit pricey! £45 for a good condition second hand one, good grief. The library doesn’t have a copy either (probably not surprising, given the price.)
@glenn_nl, yes, the State Terrorism book would be pitched at the academic rather than popular market. Reading through my notes, the author also mentions mass executions, mass imprisonment to extract labour (that is, slavery), systematic and opportunistic rape (including of girls forced into ‘work details’), in Kenya, and additionally razing villages and displaying severed heads in Malaya. The British generally seem to find collaborators over time, especially once their generational culturecide programmes get going. The French and USA seem as bad, although the USA appears more blasé about its atrocities while the Europeans try to hide them.
The book is also concerned with formalism: definitions, and why ‘state terrorism’ isn’t more widely recognised in law, policy and academia. There are a number of named operations and programmes like Operation Condor that could spark further research by readers. The links to neoliberalism are spelt out; elites benefit while the usual groups suffer.
Blakeley writes in summary (p166):
I concur.
“Blakeley writes in summary (p166): The term ‘terrorism’ should be reclaimed as an analytical tool, rather than a political tool in the service of elite power.”
“Terrorism” is the use of terror to achieve one’s aims. Any other or further definition is just quibbling or obfuscation or both.
The Brits betrayed their Arab allies after WWI and sold out the Palestinians to white-skinned European zionist racist settler colonialists.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/betrayal-of-arabs-after-first-world-war-set-stage-for-turbulent-century-1.1840067
Britain has a key historic responsibility for the brutal conflict that has afflicted the Holy Land, something that is widely recognised in the Middle East. There’s an old Arab proverb, “If two fish are fighting in the Tigris there’s an Englishman hiding in the bush”.
When it comes to Britain’s responsibility for bloodshed in the Holy Land the past is never dead.
It is not even past
👇
The UK military and intelligence services may be aiding Israel’s attack on Gaza in at least 7 ways.
Key areas the International Criminal Court must investigate UK ministers over ..
https://www.declassifieduk.org/the-icc-must-investigate-british-ministers-for-gaza-war-crimes-heres-how/
The UK is not part of that section of the world the ICC was set up to investigate.
@frankywiggles, the saying:
would be better applied to today’s British Empire, though now in bottom slot to the USAmerican Empire in the Special Relationship. Unacknowledged imperialism is the curse of geopolitics.
“Unacknowledged imperialism is the curse of geopolitics.”
The greatest trick the USA ever pulled was convincing the world it wasn’t one of the great C19th imperial powers. Having just read a book on the Roman Empire, I was interested to see how much the US Empire of today resembles it.
It is crucial to stress that Israel is an extension of U.S. geopolitical power in one of the most critically important regions of the world.
In fact, it was current U.S. President Joe Biden – back in 1986, when he was a senator – who famously said that if Israel didn’t exist, the United States would have to invent it. The U.S. National Security Council wrote: “[The United States’] goal is to preclude any hostile power from dominating a region critical to our interests, and also thereby to strengthen the barriers against the reemergence of a global threat to the interests of the U.S. and our allies. These regions include Europe, East Asia, the Middle East/Persian Gulf, and Latin America. Consolidated, nondemocratic control of the resources of such a critical region could generate a significant threat to our security.”
Professor Michael Hudson said what we’re really seeing is, having fought Russia to the last Ukrainian, and threatening to fight Iran to the last Israeli, the United States is trying to send arms to Taiwan to say, wouldn’t you like to fight to the last Taiwanese against China?
And that’s really the U.S. strategy all over the world; it’s trying to fuel other countries to fight wars for its own control.
General Wesley Clark in an interview with journalist Amy Goodman on Democracy Now said that Washington’s plans were to overthrow the governments of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finally Iran: Of course he had been informed that Iraq was going to be destroyed.
So there you have it: all those countries with some semblance of an independent outlook which do not follow the US/Israeli line are to be punished. Fast forward 30 years, everything Wesley Clark said turns out to be true. The Arab states have been told what was going to happen, then when it happened, they cannot accept that the US/Israel would do such a thing.
I would call this naivety plus a large measure of self interest. As for Syria and Lebanon they would have been overun years ago but for Russian intervention. Iraq was destroyed, and is still occupied today. All receipts for Iraqi Oil and Gas set up by the Iraqi oil fund must be deposited in the US Federal reserve; from there monthly deposits are made to the Iraq government 1 or 2 $billion dollars a month to pay the government’s administrative expenses. When Trump was President he told the Iraqis that if they insisted on expelling US troops, they would not receive any of their own money deposited with the Fed – it would be confiscated.
This is how the US control their satraps. The mafia are choir boys by comparison…
What can be done to save the Palestinians? The Arab states are impotent; Hezbollah leader of the ‘Arc of Resistance’ are very hesitant and calling for bigger protests all around the world. In my opinion those protests will get smaller and smaller. Why should people support the Arabs when they seem incapable of helping themselves? The US/Israel have the Arabs where they want them,. They regard the Arabs as having no self-respect and will fold if a big enough stick is held over their heads. We shall see.
The Ben Norton interview with Professor Michael Hudson can be seen here:
https://www.unz.com/mhudson/why-does-the-us-support-israel/
“Consolidated, nondemocratic control…”
Presumably that’s “nondemocratic” in its special sense of ” not amenable to control by the US”.
“Professor Michael Hudson said what we’re really seeing is, having fought Russia to the last Ukrainian, and threatening to fight Iran to the last Israeli”
Good post, but you’ve got things the wrong way round with the above. The Israelis are never going to do the bulk of any fighting against large, well-trained and well-armed and motivated enemy armed forces. And that includes Iran. One could speculate that the real objective of Israel in launching the Gaza operation was to provoke Iran into entering the conflict – upon which the Americans would do the dirty work for it.
Luckily (including for the Palestinians), Iran has not let itself be provoked. It may even be that there are some in the State Dept and Pentagon who don’t feel like playing the monkey to the Israel organ grinder.
” Why should people support the Arabs when they seem incapable of helping themselves? ”
harry law, only speaking for myself, I will support civilians who are being bombed until I die.
Aside from the IDF shaming themselves with thoroughly unprofessional behaviour (singing and dancing on Gazans’ graves) and near impunity for war crimes – including but not limited to, shooting and maiming unarmed Gaza and West Bank civilians – their Al-Shifa framing exercise has been exposed as a sham by sloppy attention to detail. So bad, in fact, that even the Zionist-controlled BBC has picked up on it. They released a video in which an IDF ID-tagged Israeli power adapter and a laptop background showing the picture of an IDF soldier – apparently kidnapped but posting on social media – are clearly visible. So embarrassed were Israeli officials, they pulled said video and re-uploaded another, with incriminating IDF-origin planted evidence, blurred out. https://twitter.com/ElCheZOV/status/1725002764252545232
On the subject of liars’ lying, I keep reading claims in our MSM that Iran fund Hamas to the tune of $100m per year. But what is the basis for these claims? Iran fund and aid Shiite Muslim Hezbollah in Lebanon, no doubt about that. But Gaza literally has no supply route for Iran to provide anything much weaponry-wise, other than moral support and encouragement. Unless Iran have perfected invisible ship technology to bypass the Israeli Gaza coast sea-blockade? Or perhaps they sneaked across Israel territory unnoticed? /sarcasm. Via a cursory search, the only thing I’ve found is some Israeli official ‘estimates’ that Iran provides Hamas with between $70 million to $100 million a year – a claim presented in a report to the US Congress. It doesn’t pass the sniff test. Hamas are an offshoot of the Sunni Muslim brotherhood: they opposed Assad, whereas Iran sought to prop him up. The idea Iran has operational control over Hamas is utterly preposterous – nonsense promoted only by leading Western hawks, Israeli ministers and the likes of John Bolton, who has long craved a US war on Iran.
Israel’s disinformation has been repeated by both Pres. Biden and Sec. State Blinken. Blinken claimed 40 babies were beheaded (false) and Biden said he was certain there was a ‘James Bond’-style underground Hamas command-and-control complex under Al-Shifa hospital. Why not a Hamas moon base too? The Israelis aren’t only making themselves look ridiculous, they are making the US appear so too.
” Pres. Biden … claimed 40 babies were beheaded (false) and Biden said he was certain there was a ‘James Bond’-style underground Hamas command-and-control complex under Al-Shifa hospital. Why not a Hamas moon base too?”
Now where have I heard this before?
“I knew once a Scotch sailmaker who was certain, dead sure, there were people in Mars. If you asked him for some idea how they looked and behaved, he would get shy and mutter something about ‘walking on all-fours.’ If you as much as smiled, he would—though a man of sixty— offer to fight you.”
Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
Goose, I think we are moving towards a full exposition of the term “demented” and its tragic real life consequences in Gaza.
A Very Emotive Speech at the UN by the state of Palestine UN representative, Nada Abu Tarbush,
” Never Again is Now.” – 11mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exMIunx37Po
Tarbrush !! Really.
Yes..From the State of Palestine
Tarbush, not Tarbrush.
Good speech but Palestinian reps should also expose to the world that it is Israel that always use human shields, not palestinians. Some statements by Amnesty and israeli NGO B’tselem past years on this issue:
https://nitter.net/VickyPalestine/status/1725828742520451207#m
Palestinian reps should also expose that it is Israel that place their military command right in the heart of civilian neighbourhoods:
MAX BLUMENTHAL ON ISRAEL’S HUMAN SHIELDS HYPOCRISY:
‘The Israeli military places its infrastructure right among the civilian population…Israel’s largest military base HaKirya’s Defence Command Center…is placed directly next to Azrieli Mall’
https://nitter.net/GUnderground_TV/status/1725825360120455382#m
Well She Did Her Best Jack… there is Only so much one is allowed to say at the UN..
And Yes Max is Great.. As I posted that Yesterday..at 18;40
Brianfujisan, this was a good speech. I was particularly impressed by the vocabulary and the measured delivery They have some talented people writing for them and the speaker was able to add something extra. I might call it contemporary, modern etc but it struck me that it could be the future or so I hope. Rational, yet somehow informal, trying to create rather than destroy – the polar opposite of demagoguery
“Good speech but Palestinian reps should also expose to the world that it is Israel that always use human shields, not palestinians.”
Anyone who is paying attention knows that projection is the norm and has been for a long time: “This is what we do, this is what everyone does, so this must be what they are doing, too”. See also countless examples in Ukraine.
I admire your optimism. Let’s start digging tunnels under Scottish hospitals and set up underground command posts. Might come in handy in the future.
You’ll need to hire an Israeli firm. I hear they did an excellent job in Gaza!
In a Sun article posted on their website the day before the big demo on November the 11th (and updated on the 11th) and headlined ‘Cenotaph will be kept under 24-hour police guard for first time during Remembrance commemorations as PM appeals for calm’, it says the following:
Meanwhile, veterans were advised by military officials not to wear their medals or berets when they travel to Remembrance services today to honour the 1.3million servicemen and women killed in action since 1914.
The Sun doesn’t stipulate WHY they should be advised not to wear their medals or berets, but the implication is obvious of course – ie that they risk being abused or assaulted by pro-Palestinian protesters en route to the demo if they do – and this of course is just a few days after millions of people had been led to believe that a 78 year-old poppy seller was punched and kicked by protesters at a pro-Palestinian rally the previous Saturday at Waverley Station in Edinburgh. Mind you, the story didn’t break until the Monday night when the Mail posted it on their website at 22.22, and by the next day it was headline news right across the MSM. It’s a mystery why it took until the Wednesday for the police to announce that they had thoroughly investigated the claim and interviewed witnesses etc and, as such, found no evidence that said assault had happened – only AFTER millions of people had been led to believe it HAD, and didn’t learn otherwise.
Anyway, getting back to the ‘advice’ supposedly given to veterans, it is/was a complete and utter falsehood, because if it was legitimate, the the whole of the MSM would have covered it. As I said in a post three days ago, neither the Guardian or the Indy reported it, and I checked out the Daily Mail and Express earlier, and neither of them reported it either. But GB News and Talk TV covered it BIG time, as did several other outlets. Just check out this GB News video on youtube (7 mins) with the presenter and a Colonel Richard Kemp lying through their nasty rotten teeth about the ‘pro-Hamas’ protesters….. the poison just oozes out of them naturally. And it’s been viewed 203k times since it was posted nine days ago, and has 4,002 comments, just about all of them along the lines of the following:
Wear your uniform with pride,your medals with honour!!! This is Britain, a proud country not a country for religionphobia and hated!!!!
As a vet myself, I will wear my medals. This is enough now people, we must stand together once and for all.
The British people must protect the elderly vets as well as the cenotaph.
I’m English, 63 and was born and live in Portsmouth. I wanted to put a Union Jack in my window to show support for our veterans. My dad would be 103 and fought in WW2. My friends & family advised me not to. I live along a fairly main road. They said I might get a brick through my window or worse. Why should I bow down to foreigners who I don’t even know, in my own country? I can’t take much more, I’ve had enough.
If veterans have been advised not to wear their medals, if people are told not to hold the English flag, if poppy sellers are advised not to be there, if monuments etc are having to be guarded then this is not a demonstration!
I have little doubt that just like the Mail, GB News has its own shills (a couple at least) posting numerous comments on there, and giving many of the most inflammatory of them hundreds of Likes so as to keep them near the top of the comments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQJgWEI98ho
And I happened to come across the following website whilst doing some research – ie Blind Veterans UK – and they would undoubtedly have mentioned it if it was for real. But I did a search on their website, and there was absolutely nothing:
https://www.blindveterans.org.uk/news/remembrance-2023-served-blinded-supported/
i don’t have time to elaborate now, but it looks like it originated from Richard Kemp in the GB News interview (and the Sun’s update on the 11th was just to add the bit I posted).
“… the ‘advice’ supposedly given to veterans, it is/was a complete and utter falsehood.”
It could actually be true in a devious kind of way – it’s pretty easy to manufacture for Sun propagandists (can’t really call them journalists). They phone a few military “officials” known to have right-wing sympathies and feed them leading questions premised on the threat posed by “pro-Hamas hate marchers” and – hey presto! – they get the answer they require to further demonise the marchers.
Or maybe they don’t even bother to do that.
At 2 mins 20 secs in the GB News video I posted earlier, the presenter asks Richard Kemp: ‘What’s the mood in the veterans community about the past four weeks, about the desecration of war memorials, about the march taking place on this sacred day…….?’. War memorials??! The only war memorial being desecrated that I’ve heard about was one in Rochdale being spray-painted with Free Palestine on the Tuesday before the march – ie the 7th…… I just this second did a search, and I see that two teenagers were arrested on the 9th, and then charged on the 10th.
And I’ve just discovered something else – ie that the week before, at the same war memorial, wreaths were removed and replaced with Palestinian flags, and there’s footage of a guy removing the flags and replacing the wreaths which had been thrown on the ground. Hmm, I wonder who took the footage, and then thought to pass it on to the media. And how very fortuitous for the Establishment and their propaganda machine. I just happened to click on the following on X that came up in the list of results, and I’m pretty sure that Darren Grimes is the GB News presenter in the video clip I posted earlier. Anyway, there’s a picture of the guy putting the wreaths back, and this is what Grimes posted:
Earlier a member of the public in Rochdale removed Palestinian flags and replaced wreaths that had been thrown from the Cenotaph.
Today police stand guard after someone sprayed ‘Free Palestine’ across it.
Our boys fought and died so that these scumbags could live in freedom here.
https://twitter.com/darrengrimes_/status/1722001978601988483
I really, really can’t imagine any pro Palestinian peace campaigner(s) in the country thinking to do such a thing, or having reason to do such a thing. I mean what possible reason could they have for throwing the wreaths down on the ground, as if to say that in THEIR mind (or minds) the war dead weren’t worthy of the wreaths because of what Netanyahu and Co are doing to Gaza and the Palestinians. I really don’t buy it. Cui Bono.
As for the two teenagers, I just can’t see people who care about what is happening to the Palestinians doing such an infantile and stupidly pointless thing, and I would imagine that they are much more likely to be anti-pro-palestinian protesters.
“The UK government – with its supply of weapons to Israel, provision of communications intelligence and aerial surveillance and participation of UK special services — is a part of committing genocide in Gaza”
Breaking: UK government blocks parliamentary questions about Britain supplying arms for Gaza genocide.
👇
https://www.declassifieduk.org/uk-government-blocks-mp-questions-about-gaza-related-activity-at-its-cyprus-base/
Sounds very democratic.
Very good piece in the Guardian (link below) that explores why Israel is so disliked in much of the world. The antipathy is clearly connected to that state’s past actions and behaviour.
They seem to have been on the wrong side in every recent historical struggle against oppression/discrimination, right around the globe. Certainly nothing to do with the often misattributed antisemitism:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/17/gaza-invasion-israel-west-crisis
It is absurd, everytime Israel invade Gaza and is exposed for their inhumanity, there is always an israeli PR effort to paint themselves as the victim. I have not seen any journalist in the msm care for the 12000-15000 palestinians killed by a racist, hate-filled depraved Israel, instead the western MSM want to talk about antisemitism 24/7.
Gabor Maté:
‘The English-speaking countries…these countries were all rooted in, founded in colonialism, or had colonial policies themselves. So they’re more likely to identify with the colonial mindset than with the mindset of the people being colonised’
https://twitter.com/GUnderground_TV/status/1726234105258385549
Former israeli negogiator Daniel Levy is talking about this too, west simply deny and refuse to admit being complicit in now 5000 killed kids, they do not know how to confront this fact:
https://nitter.net/TheCradleMedia/status/1726625799737123024#m
And what do Israel/pro-israelis expect? That killing civilians will cause people to….like Israel?? That pro-jewish groups that support Israel will somehow improve the image of jews?
Lets compare with ISIS. When ISIS waged their war, majority of muslims distanced themselves and condemned ISIS. That cut islamophobia down quite a bit.
But, when Israel wage their equally bloody war, majority of jews do not distance themselves and refuse to condemn Israel.
If you support a genocidal apartheid regime you are going to face hatred back, it is your choice.
Glenn Greenwald on the Jimmy Dore show, brilliantly exposes the near unanimous support for Israel in Congress and its new House speaker Mike Johnson. https://rumble.com/v3w2mgh-house-speaker-mike-johnson-demands-israel-keep-bombing-gaza.html
I was just searching for something on Tik Tok that I came across the other day, and came across the following video, and it’s precisely the reaction and the mindset that the likes of Kemp and GB News and the Sun et al set out to foment with their lies and falsehoods, and it’s scary to think how many people are out there with such attitudes, and all built on lies, lies concocted and contrived by hatemongers to manipulate what people feel.
I wonder what this guy would think, and what he would feel, if he learnt it was all lies, and that he was duped and deceived and manipulated:
https://www.tiktok.com/@hereisthe411/video/7299981077123288363
2 mins 33 secs
The Spanish President clamps down on pro-Palestinian voices within his government, this action appears to be typical of EU governments that favour Israel.
“The President of the Spanish Government, the social democrat Pedro Sánchez, has announced dismissal of the Minister of Social Rights and leader of the left-wing party Podemos, Ione Belarra, who in recent weeks had stood out for her defense of the Palestinian people and had described the actions of Israel in the Gaza Strip as «genocide» and «war crimes.»
Sánchez’s decision comes a few days after Belarra, along with other leaders from Europe and Latin America, sent a letter to the International Criminal Court’s Prosecutor, calling for the arrest of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to be tried for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against the Palestinian people.”
https://diariored.canalred.tv/internacional/the-spanish-president-pedro-sanchez-dismisses-minister-belarra-who-advocated-for-palestine-and-called-for-the-arrest-of-netanyahu/
Sad, she was like the only politician in a western government that took a clear stance from the start.I really hope the new the new minister, Pablo Bustinduy will take the same position, he criticised the israeli onslaught earlier in october:
The consequences of what Israel is being allowed to do in Gaza will haunt us forever. Collective punishment will return, the dehumanization of the enemy, the indiscriminate siege, the unpunished violence against a people. This barbarism must be stopped.
https://twitter.com/pbustinduy/status/1713118814534074405
Ione Belarra, Podemos secretary general and former minister of social rights, known lately for her calls to cut diplomatic ties with Israel, is being substituted by Pablo Bustinduy of Sumar.
Bustinduy appears to hold similar views on Palestine as Belarra, recently calling Israel’s actions in Palestine “barbaric” and saying that “1 million children living in hell … is unacceptable,” referring to the current situation in Gaza due to Israeli attacks.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/spain-s-reelected-premier-sanchez-unveils-new-cabinet-with-22-ministers/3059492
How will the western governments react to the ceasefire? They have been arguing against a ceasefire for 50 days, but now they are suddenly supportive of the ceasefire I assume?
Is it not interesting too that Netanyahu rejected the same hostage-deal that was offered on the same day the israelis were caught (7 oct), but Netanyahu decided to bomb Gaza to bits before contemplating and accepting on such a deal some 6 weeks later.
Wanton genocidal killing just to torture the palestinians a bit. Heinous man.
Looks like the Nationalists have got Soros on their side now:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1836662/brexit-scottish-independence-george-soros
It’s upset the Unionists if nothing else:
Former Brexit Party MEP Ben Habib said: “The entire conference is abhorrent. The same people who tried to undermine the United Kingdom’s legitimate desire to leave the EU and be a sovereign independent country, now trying to break it up. The truth is these people loathe their own country. That is why they paint Brexiteers and unionists as far right nationalists. In doing so they seek to delegitimise us. Their hypocrisy in supporting Scottish nationalism is lost on them.”