In finding there is a plausible case against Israel, the International Court of Justice treated with contempt the argument from Israel that the case should be dismissed as it is exercising its right of self-defence. This argument took up over half of Israel’s pleadings. Not only did the court find there is a plausible case of genocide, the court only mentioned self-defence once in its interim ruling – and that was merely to note that Israel had claimed it. Para 41:
That the ICJ has not affirmed Israel’s right to self-defence is perhaps the most important point in this interim order. It is the dog that did not bark. The argument which every western leader has been using is spurned by the ICJ.
Now the ICJ did not repeat that an occupying power has no right of self-defence. It did not need to. It simply ignored Israel’s specious assertion.
It could do that because what it went on to iterate went way beyond any plausible assertion of self-defence. What struck me most about the ICJ ruling was that the Order went into far more detail about the evidence of genocide than it needed to. Its description was stark.
Here Para 46 is crucial
The reason this is so crucial, is that the Court is not saying that South Africa asserts this. The Court is saying these are the facts. It is a finding of fact by the Court. I cannot emphasise too strongly the importance of that description by the court of the state of affairs in Gaza.
The Court then goes on to detail accounts by the United Nations of the factual situation, quoting three different senior officials at length, including Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner General of UNRWA:
This of course explains why the immediate response to the ICJ ruling was a coordinated attack by Israel and the combined imperialist powers on UNRWA, designed to accelerate the genocide by stopping aid, to provide a propaganda counter-narrative to the ICJ judgment, and to reduce the credibility of UNRWA’s evidence before the court.
The Court works very closely with the UN and is very much an entrenched part of the UN system. It has a particularly close relationship with the UN General Assembly – many of the Court’s cases are based on requests from the UN General Assembly. In a fortnight’s time the Court will be starting its substantive hearings on the legal position in the Occupied Territories of Palestine, at the request of the UNGA. There are five specific references to the UNGA in the Order.
The Court spent a great deal of time outlining the facts of the unfolding genocide in the Gaza Strip. It did not have to do so in nearly so much detail, and far too little attention has been paid to this. I was equally surprised by how much detail the court gave on the evidence of genocidal intent by Israel.
It is especially humiliating for Israel that the Court quoted the Israeli Head of State, the President of Israel himself, as giving clear evidence of genocidal intent, along with two other government ministers.
Again, this is not the Court saying that South Africa has alleged this. It is a finding of fact by the Court. The ICJ has already found to be untrue Israel’s denial in court of incitement to genocide.
Now think of this: the very next day after President Herzog made a genocidal statement, as determined by the International Court of Justice, he was met and offered “full support” by Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission and Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament.
When you take the detail of what the Court has found to be the actual facts of the case, in death and destruction and in intent, I have no doubt that this is a court which is currently minded to find Israel guilty of genocide once the substantive case comes before the Court.
All of Israel’s arguments were lost. Every one. The substantial effort Israel put into having the case dismissed on procedural grounds was brushed aside. So was self-defence. And in its findings of the facts, the Court plainly found to be untrue the Israeli lies about avoidance of civilian casualties, the responsibility of Hamas for the damage to infrastructure, and the access of relief aid to Gaza.
Those are the facts of what happened.
Do not be confused by the absence of the word “ceasefire” from the Court order. What the Court has ordered is very close to that. It has explicitly ordered the Israeli military to stop killing Palestinians.
That is absolutely clear. And while I accept it is tautologous, in the sense it is ordering Israel to obey a Convention which Israel is already bound to follow, there could be no clearer indication that the Court believes that Israel is not currently obeying it.
So what happens now?
Well, Israel has responded by killing over 180 Palestinian civilians since the Order was given from the International Court of Justice. If that continues, South Africa may return to the Court for more urgent measures even before the ordered monthly report from Israel is due. Algeria has announced it will take the Order to the UN Security Council for enforcement.
I doubt the United States will veto. There has been a schizophrenic reaction from Israel and its supporters to the ICJ Order. On the one hand, the ICJ has been denounced as antisemitic. On the other hand the official narrative has been (incredibly) to claim Israel actually won the case, while minimising the coverage in mainstream media. This has been reinforced by the massive and coordinated attack on UNRWA, to create alternative headlines.
It is difficult to both claim that Israel somehow won, and at the same time seek to block UNSC enforcement of the Order. My suspicion is that there will be a continuing dual track: pretending that there is no genocide and Israel is obeying the “unnecessary” order, while at the same time attacking and ridiculing the ICJ and the wider UN.
No matter what the ICJ said, Israel would not have stopped the genocide; that is the simple truth. The immediate reaction of the US and allies to the Order has been to try to accelerate the genocide by crippling the UN’s aid relief work. I confess I did not expect anything quite that vicious and blatant.
The wheels of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small. The ICJ having flagged up a potential genocide so strongly, it may well fall to judges in individual nations to restrain international support for the genocide. As I explained in detail, the Genocide Convention has been incorporated into UK law by the International Criminal Court Act of 2001.
There will, beyond any doubt, have been minutes issued by FCDO legal advisers warning of ministers being at risk of personal liability in UK law for complicity in genocide now, should arms shipments and other military and intelligence cooperation with the Israeli genocide continue. In the US, hearings started already in California on a genocide complicity suit brought against Joe Biden.
Of course I wish this would all work faster. It will not. The UN General Assembly may suspend Israel from the UN. There are other useful actions to be taken. But this is a long slog, not a quick fix, and people like you and I continue to have a vital role, as everybody does, in using the power of the people to wrest control from a vicious political class of killers.
This was a good win. I am pleased that this course for which I advocated and lobbied has worked and increased pressure on the Zionists, and that my judgment that the International Court of Justice is not just a NATO tool like the corrupt International Criminal Court, has been vindicated.
It cannot help the infants killed and maimed last night or those to die in the coming few days. But it is a glimmer of hope on the horizon.
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Says it all really, they’re in it up to their necks.
“Following the ICJ ruling that there was a risk of genocide in Gaza, I asked the government minister if all British military aid to Israel had been suspended.
He refused to answer.”
https://nitter.1d4.us/jeremycorbyn/status/1752025811547275647#m
When I click your link all I get is
Instance has been rate limited.
Use another instance or try again later.
Peter Mo, you can view the tweet, and its embedded video clip, at:
https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1752025811547275647#m
Unfortunately the Nitter web service – which allowed people to view X/Twitter feeds anonymously – stopped working when X/Twitter introduced tighter restrictions on guest accounts a few days ago. There is no known fix for it, and development of the service has been discontinued. Further details can be found in the discussion forum thread about adding a Nitter link.
Peter Mo try this link
https://nitter.catsarch.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1752025811547275647#m
Just checked it – working atm
With the ICJ indicating the following provisional measures:
” (1) By fifteen votes to two,
The State of Israel shall, in accordance with its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, in relation to Palestinians in Gaza, take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of this Convention. ”
Which are:
” Article 2
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical
destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. ”
Of which Israel is still committing. Should it be the case that anyone of body still supporting Israel after the ICJ’s ruling be classed as promoting genocide and be classed as a terrorist?
Any businesses promoting or defending the occupying oppressive force known as Israel, should also be be boycotted. Do not purchase any goods from them whatsoever. Any political parties or politicians supporting Israel should not be voted for in any election ever again.
So just a few hours after the ICJ delivered its provisional findings – and purely coincidentally of course – Israel notifies the MSM that people working for UNRWA took part in the October 7th attack, and one has to assume that they didn’t hang about, and did so more-or-less as soon as they had supposedly confirmed this. In other words, they just happened to confirm this (to themselves) the very same day as the ICJ delivered its interim judgement. Yeah, sure, what are the chances??!
Now in the first place, why on earth would it take whoever nigh on four months to discover this, and in the second place, how DID they discover this? And as *I* understand it, none of the twelve were killed on October 7th – ie were burnt beyond recognition and now identified by their remains.
I read somewhere on Friday or Saturday that the parties involved – i.e. S Africa and Israel – were notified of the court’s provisional judgement a day or two beforehand; so that would give the psychopaths more than enough time to concoct and contrive some ruse as a way of sticking two fingers up to the court, and to S Africa and the Palestinians, which I think we can be fairly certain is what this is all about. And it’s blatant! Really blatant! But then they just lurve doing something really, really blatant, knowing of course that the UN will know it’s fabrication, but knowing that the UN can’t publicly say so, and have no choice but to start an investigation. And ALL the MSM that are reporting it will of course know that it’s a falsehood, and just like the Israeli mafia be highly amused by such machinations, as with the US and UK et al who then, as planned, joined in the fun and games. And these are the leaders of our countries!
PS Apart from the last line which I just added, I posted the above on skwawkbox about an hour ago, prior to then reading Craig’s exellent piece, which I’m now going to post a link to on skwawkbox and elsewhere.
Afrerthought: Is it possible that Jo/Joe public actually believe this B/S and don’t see it for what it is?? The thing is – as with most propaganda – it’s contrived to evoke emotions, and once emotions are generated – as with The Salisbury Poisonings, for example – critical thinking goes straight out the window.
“The thing is – as with most propaganda – it’s contrived to evoke emotions, and once emotions are generated – as with The Salisbury Poisonings, for example – critical thinking goes straight out the window.”
I have just listened to an interesting lecture about “cognitive ease”. It has been proven that we are more inclined to believe something if it is familiar, because we have already heard it many times. The object of repeating falsehoods in propaganda is to get us familiar with the concepts: “Hamas killed 1400 civilians on October the 7th”, how many times have you heard that repeated? It’s become “the figure”, despite later evidence that some of the dead were Hamas, many of the dead were soldiers and a lot of them were killed by the IDF. As Lewis Carroll wrote in The Hunting of the Snark, “When I’ve said it three times, it’s true”.
Something that Dr. Goebbels and his Ministerium fuer Propaganda und Volksaufklaerung were well aware of.
“…Israel notifies the MSM that people working for UNRWA took part in the October 7th attack…”
I understand that as meaning something along the lines of, “Some UNRWA people were within range when our trigger-happy soldiers were ordered to implement our Hannibal directive, and killed everyone they could see. So the UNRWA people got it in the neck along with all the other Gentiles, which is only fair since no Gentiles are welcome in Eretz Israel”.
Don’t you think that Ugandan judge would have tipped them off in advance? I have read somewhere an allegation that somebody else wrote her opinion for her.
Also, NSA has ways of monitoring what goes on in a bureaucracy like the ICJ.
I think the Ugandan judge had been poggled by either the State Dept or the CIA.
She slavishly voted the UKUSA/Israeli way and has conspicuously been disowned by the Ugandan govt.
Both the State Dept and the CIA have well practiced methods of suborning targeted people.
I think I have been more badly affected by the decision of the UK and the others to cut UNWRA funding so deliberately, cruelly and callously than anything else. I cannot accept that this country and the others could stoop so low with perhaps the exception of the USA, which is a totally lost cause. I have written to my MP and donated to UNWRA as an individual but this is just pissing in the wind stuff. A parent of a twelve year old told my wife today that World War 3 is a hot topic at school, which must be blamed on the likes of Saunders, Elwood and Johnson for spinning it in the media these past few days. This is terrifying and totally irresponsible on their part. Our politicians are letting us down line, hook and sinker, and the same must go for other countries, but how to stop this catastrophic decline of values, morals and everything else is not so easy to work out.
It would seem that Israel has had UNRWA in it’s sights for a long time… Can’t have people helping the Palestinians.
Nova Arbell, former ministry official, called for the destruction of UNRWA in Israeli parliament, on January 4th, saying it is the only way to win the war –
” It will be impossible to win the war if we do not destroy UNRWA, and this destruction must begin immediately ”
How evil do you have to be to want this, and there she stands surrounded by laughing faces,
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h0bMANfC0BQ
Moon of Alabama quoting a Tweet on Frances Boyle who was part of the ConsortiumNews panel along with Craig:
“Sam Husseini @samhusseini – 18:58 UTC · Jan 27, 2024
Francis Boyle states that with States (including US and UK govs) cutting off funding to UNRWA, it is “no longer the case of these States aiding and abetting Israeli Genocide against the Palestinians in violation of Genocide Convention article 3(e) criminalizing ‘complicity’ in genocide. These States are now also directly violating Genocide Convention article 2(c) by themselves: ‘Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part…'”
German media is queueing in with the other apologists spreading hair-raising headlines on UNRWA employees.
The German legacy media has sunk to the level of tabloids.
(that did not ever make much of a difference. But at least they tried to keep up the appearance and allow some cracks in the ideological fabric. No more.)
I wonder if the BRICS countries are discussing stepping in and funding UNRWA while all the Western countries wring their bloodied hands?
Someone on skwawkbox posted a link to this Vox Political article earlier entitled ‘Israeli spokesman demands UK reporter lose her job. Will Sky News cave in?’:
A prominent member of the Israeli government has demanded the resignation of Sky News anchor Belle Donati after she apparently compared Israel’s genocide in Gaza with the Nazi Holocaust.
Here’s the segment of Ms Donati’s interview with him to which Danon objected. In it, he was heard to suggest that Palestinians may “voluntarily” migrate to another country, outside Gaza, and she responded that such migration was voluntary in the same way that any migration of Jews under Nazi rule during the Holocaust may have been:
https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2024/01/28/israeli-spokesman-demands-uk-reporter-lose-her-job-will-sky-news-cave-in/#comments
Hopefully Sky News will tell him to GFH!
Nancy Pelosi goes on TV to tell America that genocide protesters are funded by Putin. The following day when confronted by protesters outside her home tells them to “go back to China where your headquarters is [sic]”.
The western political class is suddenly openly showing its constituents and the world how vapid and barbaric it has always been. The snake oil salesmen like Blair and Obama, its smooth talkers, have disappeared on self-enrichment tours and there is no longer any filter.
They are telling us: “This is who we are. This is what we are”. Believe them.
God forbid if someone would claim that Pelosi is taking shekel money, oh that would somehow be racist, but insinuating there is a chinese or russian conspiracy going on, that is just fine apparently.
83 year old Zionist Democrat Nancy Pelosi Wants FBI to “Investigate” Pro-Palestine Protesters for “Russia Ties”. (Between 1990 and 2024 she received $606,698 from the Pro-Israel Lobby)
https://www.reddit.com/r/chomsky/comments/1ada6n3/83_year_old_zionist_democrat_nancy_pelosi_wants/?rdt=58471
It is absurd how the media could talk about alleged russian intereference when we have an actual grand scale israeli intereference in the open, going on for decades actually harming US interests and the US citizens.
It even sounds somehow flattering for a Russian that people protesting against genocide can be associated with Russia. Even more flattering than Trudeau’s call not to listen to Russian propaganda when the people of Canada were outraged by the applause in parliament for an elderly Ukrainian Nazi.
I believe that many decent people will simply reject this pile of lies and stop allowing their brains to be polluted. I believe that in the end, it is the government that must carry out the will of the people, and not vice versa; the government tells the people what opinion they should have.
The correct demand would be to lift the ban on Russian media and demand that the Russian point of view be covered reliably and without omission. This is logical and reasonable. Even if they don’t like this point, it’s still better than ‘arguing with a straw man’. Until now, Western society lives behind a curtain of illusions, watching a shadow theater that is carefully staged for them. And it’s disgusting.
Let her carry on. She has no idea her accusations make Russia and China look admirable in the eyes of any normal human being.
“Western society lives behind a curtain of illusions, watching a shadow theater that is carefully staged for them.” Yes, that sums it up neatly. Thank you, Tatyana.
You’re welcome, Coldish. Feel free to ask for more 🙂
Our schooling lasts 11 years, and all this time, in literature lessons, teachers encourage us to speak about the works we read with the following words: “What do you think the author wanted to express?” So we learn to analyze what we come across in life.
As for the curtain of illusions, I can’t get out of my head an expression found on the Internet:
“You speak English because it is a language that you know. I speak English because it is a language that you know.”
IMO, here in Russia we turn to English-language sources more often and more easily than people in Anglophone countries turn to Russian-language sources.
Having banned Russian media (that prepared professional translations of news), you can only learn a retelling of Russian sources made by your supposedly “independent” supposedly “journalists”.
It is no longer surprising to me that reading the Western view of what is happening here evokes so many ridicule of the absurdity.
Actually, I could make another – much more picturesque – analogy:
The governments of Western countries, having banned Russian media from Western audiences, are like a wife who covers her husband’s eyes with her hand so that he does not see the naked tits of an actress suddenly appearing on the movie screen.
But, since I have manners, I offered a more high-style “shadow theater” comparison.
Well, husbands will have to be content with a verbal description from their wife.
Hi Tatyana, talking about disinformation/illusion whatever, three parliamentarians from the Baltic States turned up in the Canadian parliament recently to tell us all how dangerous Russia is. These presumably are the neo-nazi supporters who are removing the history of WW2. Anyway, further along in the CBC article, we are told that “many defence experts say the professional Russian Army that started the war in Ukraine has been virtually destroyed” – this is what many people read and believe. Whereas, there is lots of information from other sources actually describing the state of affairs in Ukraine for example – article on twitter/x https://twitter.com/MariaMateiciuc/status/1743658029893984735. Very sad. I keep reposting the link to donate to UNRWA on twitter/x, hoping people will see it and donate – thanks to the post above from whom I took the link. I get Russian/Chinese/Iranian etc new sources on the Internet here in Canada. There is plenty on information other than the MSM for people in Canada to access if they want. Hope all is well.
Hello Rosemary. Nowadays it’s difficult to have an opinion about anything. Sources can lie with impunity, so people simply have to believe or not believe.
More informed reporting is, of course, done by people with experience in the field, since they can compare the news with what they already knew. Well, or people with knowledge of languages, then they can compare news from different sources. But as you can see, this can be done by those who have the time to do it (here I send my heartfelt message to everyone, please support Mr. Murray with a subscription or donation!).
The majority of people simply get news in between their daily activities, from TV or newspapers. And governments then refer precisely to the opinion of the majority of people, but the opinion is formed by the government itself through “journalists.” Tricky, eh?
In social networks and comments I rarely see normal, reasonable comments; more often people simply write “like/dislike” or “believe/don’t believe.” This is sad.
—
I’m sending you and your cats greetings from Russia, from Krasnodar covered with snow, which is rare – snow doesn’t happen here every year 🙂
Indeed, excellent point. One of the most extreme cases of projection ever caught on camera.
Jack, may I please ask, if the Reddit link is somehow connected to Chomsky? I’m no user of Reddit and have no idea who runs the channel. I just find people there are witty and comment in a simple manner, like this one comment “I wish Nancy would complete her final transformation into a crocodile skin handbag already and leave us the fuck alone.”
No it is not releated to Chomsky personally. It is a so called sub-reddit forum dedicated to topics/news that readers/fans of Chomsky might be interested in. I do not use Reddit myself; the moderating is often absurdly pro-establishment/western view on things.
Owen Jones, not my favourite Journalist over the years, has redeemed himself of late, in this video he castigates Senior Labour MP.s including Starmer, Lammy, Thornberry, Nandy and the careerist backstabbing Deputy Leader Angela Rayner. This group would sell their own Granmothers for a sniff of power. It is painful to watch as they squirm in service to Starmer’s Genocide Policy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr71XsdJ8Fw
London 16 October 2023- This morning, ICJP issued Keir Starmer, Emily Thornberry and David Lammy with a notice of intention to prosecute UK politicians for their role in aiding and abetting Israel’s perpetration of war crimes.
https://www.icjpalestine.com/2023/10/16/labour-leadership-issued-notice-of-intention-to-prosecute-uk-politicians-for-complicity-in-war-crimes-in-gaza/
Hope this trio of Genocide aiders and abettors and others end up in the dock. They are the scum of the earth.
Jones is a sheepdog shepherding a particular bunch of Labour supporting die hard idiot guardianistas who are smelling the salts and might rebel. His little columns which he does not use to attack his fellow stenographers zionazi agendas, thereby negating his supposed newfound ‘principled stand’ – are a dead give away of his hypocrisy.
The only purpose of his current posturing is to keep that segment of readership attached to the filthy rag. So the smug idiots believe it allows ‘their views to be represented’ ! It’s like believing that supping with the devil from the same bowl is fine because the soup that touched their lips is pure!
Now if Owen was genuine he would do the following:
• Denounce his Zionist senior cohort;
• Denounce the fake AS attacks aimed at Corbynites for years;
• Denounce the owners and backers of the filthy rag and their connection with the deepstate;
• Denounce the Great knight dope and Colette’s that took over the Labour body and installed their wholly Zionist backed selections.
• Denounce his own filthy rag for the greatest crime against freedom and journalism with the filthy rags attacks and position on Assange over the years;
• Fully support Jonathan Cook the erstwhile foreign correspondent of the rag when it was populated by actual independent investigative journalism, until he was dismissed over a decade ago. As the rag went full neocon.
• Denounce the full russophobic position of the rag and its intimate relationship with ii/77/mi6.
Etc.
Ultimately he should resign with all of the above as his reasons.
Why else is he sipping with the devils he was nurtured and grown up with?
The evil little pos.
j lowrie
Theoretically Prisoners of War (the Gazans who are prisoners of the Israelis) have to be humanely treated, not bombed and maltreated. But if your intention is Slash and Burn so that no-one can go back to where they once lived then it is obvious
that the occupiers have no intention of abiding by any Laws (UN-ICJ or otherwise).
Here’s the thing though: You have to win if you want to avoid prosecution by any UN or any other World Court. The way this attack is being conducted and Netanyahu’s necessity to widen the conflict indicates to me that if Israel loses this conflict because they have widened it, they could be most certainly in the Dock in the future.
Netanyahu is slowly but surely boxing himself and his supporters in. They are not exactly winning hands down against Hamas. Taking on Hezbollah is a big rise in the conflict. Taking on Iran is even more dangerous as once you do that there is a chance that you will lose everything. That is where the support of the US will be critical.
I will assume this though: The US in a Presidential year will not risk big numbers of US Military Personnel getting killed in a war against Iran. They will operated from Aircraft Carriers etc. What the US needs to understand is that Iran is not like the pre-Iraq war. Iran has not been dis-armed, unlike Iraq. In fact they are armed to the teeth – if the reports I read are anything to go by.
This is a much changed world – militarily/politically and economically.
Dungroanin
It is Starmer’s and The New New Labour Party’s job to implement Austerity V3.0. Until the First 11 (the Tories) get their neo-liberal act together.
The reserves have been temporarily put in place for the duration.
Moreover, while all the statements made by Labour’s leadership have expressed deep
concern with the Jewish community in the UK, not a single statement has expressed any
concern with the Palestinian or Muslim communities in the UK. ICJP is in contact with a large
and growing number of Palestinian victims of Israeli war crimes. These include Palestinians
in the UK who have lost one or more members of their families in Gaza, or who have lost
contact with their families. Others have had their homes bombed and destroyed.
The Labour Party expressions of concern and outreach towards only the Israeli and/or Jewish
communities in the UK and not the Palestinian and/or Muslim communities may well amount
to unlawful discrimination under the Equalities Act 2010 on the basis of race or religion, both of which are protected characteristics under the Act.
We note with extreme concern that the leadership of the Labour Party has failed to call
for a ceasefire or condemn war crimes being perpetrated by Israel.
I have seen no condemnation of Israels crimes from the Labour leadership. Has anyone else? This is disgraceful.
“Owen Jones, not my favourite Journalist over the years, has redeemed himself of late,”
That the establishment’s favourite pet ‘lefty’ is saying these things suggests that Israel is being quietly lined up to be thrown to the wolves. Zionism was never a workable project long term and its time is going to run out before West Asia’s oil does, which in unfortunate for the West but perhaps manageable.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/01/29/the-tragic-self-destruction-of-an-enraged-israel/
It’s election year and they need the soft minded Labourites to stay on side just incase the Corbynites launch an independent Labour Party. Like I said he is just a complicit sheepdog.
Very good overview from. Conor Gearty of the lies that Israel propagates and which Western journalists adopt as necessary in order to deny the reality of what is happening. It is good on the exhausting and endless requirement put on Palestinians to prove that events which didn’t happen did not actually happen, in the Kafka-esque world Israel deliberately creates. In such a world, the eventual truth – about the non-existent babies in ovens for example – is lost and ignored. Same for the bomb in the hospital grounds – traced to an Iron Dome site – and the innumerable examples of deliberate slaughter of civilians and the destruction of all their infrastructure – generators, hospitals, schools and houses. And of course the latest, grotesque propaganda about UNRWA. Shocking in its callous, vicious, calculated intent. Reminds me of the German family in The Zone of Interest when it comes to deep, deliberate denial.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n02/conor-gearty/short-cuts
Labour’s Angela Rayner doesn’t know if genocide is being committed against the oppressed Palestinians when asked, however she does know that the Israeli hostages held by Hamas must be released.
“Speaking to Good Morning Britain, Rayner was asked whether she would abstain or vote for a ceasefire if another vote was held today.
Richard Madeley: “Do you think there are aspects of genocide [in Gaza]”
Angela Rayner: “I don’t know”
If you don’t know, why have you thrown out a Labour MP who says whats happening is genocide? #GMBpic.twitter.com/SQ1aeqcW4a
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) January 30, 2024
“I mean the challenge that’s happening in Gaza. I’m a mother and a grandmother myself and you see the devastation in Gaza is absolutely horrific,” she said.
Pressed on whether or not she would vote for a ceasefire, Rayner added: “We’re very clear. We want to see a situation where Hamas gives the hostages, we still have over 130 hostages, people who were going about their daily business on October 7 slaughtered, murdered and taken from their families.”
This doesn’t look good from what ever political angle you approach it. The fact that one side is prepared to dress up as the enemy in order to gain access to certain areas and then kill occupants, shows that ordinary people should not believe a word of the reports coming out of that hell hole which is the Middle East.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13022147/israeli-undercover-cctv-west-bank-hospital-raid-terrorist-attack.html
Surprising for a USA newspaper publishing this piece.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-01-30/unrwa-funding-us-gaza-israel-united-nations-usaid-humanitarian-aid
The piece in the LA Times is a rare occurrence in mainstream US media. For that reason deserves to be read. The point that USA has funded projects worth billions then allows Israel to destroy them is bizarre. It’s an angle that would resonate better with American people always mindful of their tax dollars.
The mistake to make is to assume that the Israeli project is affecting the bottom line of the corrupt in any way.
Destroy property and then let contracts to rebuild; more money for the MIC to murder more; There’s oil to be stolen from the oppressed. And, like Ukraine, Israel is just part of the spin cycle in the money laundering scam.
Just a thought. Are the UK and USA and other governments withholding funds for UNRWA without examining the evidence for complicity with Hamas not just complicit with genocide, but also administering collective punishment and direct involvement in contributing to genocide?
SA, the UK government have taken the word of the notorious liars Israel and the Mossad/Shin Bet who gained this knowledge through “interrogation” – everyone knows what that means. When the Foreign Affairs committee were informed by the relevant authorities that they had serious concerns about Israel;s ongoing International Human Rights violations, David Cameron asked the Israeli authorities about those concerns.
In a written reply the Israelis assured Cameron they were acting within IHL. That was enough for Cameron who immediately approved further arms sales to Israel. Dearbhla Minogue (lawyer for the prosecution) said Cameron simply accepted the word of the perpetrator (Israel), then made the decision to send arms to Israel – in spite of all the facts on war crimes and the intent behind them. It is inconceivable that he did not know about these facts, which everyone in the world saw in real time. Cameron is a liar and a fraud, who should resign ASAP.
This is similar to the (corrupt) UK Judiciary taking the USA word that Assange will be treated well in their maximum security jail – after the fair trial that will, regardless, find him guilty.
Israel are liars, the USA are liars, the UK are liars. Hell, the entire Western establishment are all liars.
We’re all in the mess we are because of lies. The Nazis were never punished or stopped at Nuremberg; they were just reassigned to new duties in the West, and here we are.
Interesting that the west do not even believe there are even war crimes commited by Israel but the same west take for granted, instantly, that the claims against UNRWA by the same culprit, is all but 100% true.
They are just playing a game with the public, and of course they know that Israel is commiting war crimes and genocide. Anyway, I expect someone on here has mentioned it (I haven’t had the time to read every single comment), but SCOTLAND HAS *NOT* PAUSED GAZA AID AGENCY FUNDING, so said the front page of The National yesterday:
https://www.frontpages.com/the-national-scotland/
Ah, turns out it’s a bit more complicated:
Fact check: Did Humza Yousaf pause UNRWA aid payments over Hamas claims?
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24079979.fact-check-humza-yousaf-pause-unrwa-aid-payments-hamas-claims/
In a word: Yes.
When the UK/USA were “merely” supplying military hardware to the Israelis even *after* being told by the ICJ that there is merit to the claim that Israel was committing genocide then a case could (and IMHO should) be made that they are “complicit in genocide”.
It is, indeed, an arguable case, and (again, IMHO) if taken to the ICJ would likely be seen to also have merit.
But this…. unseemly…. rush to suspend funding to UNRWA now that Israel’s destruction of Gaza infrastructure makes that humanitarian aid all the more important *and* the ICJ has ruled that Israel must ensure all humanitarian aid reaches the Palestinians in Gaza?
That’s an altogether different kettle of fish:
1) There is the seemingly coordinated rush by these countries to suspend aid on the basis (never forget) of untested allegations
2) There is the TIMING of this rush to suspend aid (i.e. exactly when it is guaranteed to lead to famine and death)
3) There very preposterousness of cutting off funds to an organization of 13,000 over the actions of twelve individuals
That looks way, way, way more than just “complicity in genocide”. It looks much more like “Conspiracy to commit genocide”.
It looks for all the world like Israel and the USA/UK are conspiring along these lines:
Israel: Look, chaps, I may have to stop bombing Gaza, It’s a real possibility. But now I’ve flattened so much infrastructure then YOU guys can take up the slack by preventing UNRWA from supplying any humanitarian supplies. It’s slower, of course, than dropping bombs on them, but no less fatal.
USA/UK: Sure, but we need some excuse to do it.
Israel: Leave that to me……
The USA and the UK *know* for a fact that if they stop funding UNRWA then the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip will die. That is an absolute given.
They *know* that, so that *must* be their real intention.
The USA and the UK *know* for a fact that if they do accept without question Israel’s (untested, remember) allegations against twelve UNRWA workers then that is a backhanded way of evading the ICJ’s ruling that Israel must allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.
They *know* that, so that *must* be their real intention.
That looks like a conspiracy to me. It waddles like a conspiracy. It quacks like a conspiracy. It is a conspiracy.
If I were BRICS+ I’d now get another country (not South Africa, leave them with a laser-focus on Israel’s military actions) to go to the ICJ with ANOTHER accusation. This time against Israel, the USA and UK, and this time with the charge being “Conspiracy to commit genocide”
The global south should NOT let the west get away with this bastardry. They should NOT let the west think that this is an issue where they can be clever dicks.
US poll conducted earlier this month:
Most voters think that Israel is trying to avoid civilian casualties in the conflict and that it is not committing genocide in Gaza.
On page 54: https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/HHP_Jan24_KeyResults.pdf
How can americans be this stupid and ignorant? If majority of people killed are civilians and where the perp. even brag about the various forms of collective punishment they use, hello?? Does that not ring a bell?
A similar poll in europe would come almost as close in their view on Gaza I fear.
How can americans be this stupid and ignorant?
Because the MSM makes them so.
And, decades of poor education.
Never fear, we are taking the same route because ultimately it serves the purposes of TPTB.
Yes but even so, majority of americans distrust msm-media heavily and the social media, which seems to be the new place to get news for people, is awash with videos from Gaza with senseless israeli human rights violations so I think its mind boggling that americans are still so ignorant, especially the younger part of the population. One thought the whole BLM movement lately would also have turned the tide for social, national justice for the palestinian people.
According to Rashid Khalidi, palestinian-american historian (look him up, he is great!), the middle eastern populations are boiling because of the arab leaders refusal to do anything of practice to help the palestinians.
Short video: https://www.tiktok.com/@analystnews/video/7320287549807709472
And he also put the finger on something vital and that is the importance of organizing. South Africa could be one of these states but many more need to unite, group and then set up demands: if Israel do not do this or that, this group of nations will respond with this or that measure. If the arab leaders get their mind together for once they have great leverage to use against Israel/west.
Israel have an ironclad deep support by the western world, Palestine need their own strong backing regardless of the final outcome of the ICJ.
The counter-weight to the ironclad support of the west should be BRICS+
I don’t think it is a coincidence that South Africa brought this case to the ICJ and is also a BRICS founding member.
We’ll know for certain if another BRICS+ country (Brazil? India?) now steps up to the plate and lodges a case with the ICJ accusing the USA/UK/Germany/Australia/etc of being co-conspirators in the crime of “Conspiracy to commit genocide”.
(Look it up, it is listed as one of the punishable acts under the Genocide Convention).
If that did happen then I would imagine those conspiratorially-minded countries would have a complete meltdown. Their brains would explode.
But they’ll have a tough time beating that accusation in front of the judges because, let’s face it, this is a coordinated act of inhumane bastardry.
Yeah Right
Forget about that, India is in lockstep with Israel – they share the same islamophobia and India being a top trade partner with Israel, China is silent as usual and Russia is tacitly, a great admirer of Israel, especially Putin himself.
The only worthy of nations in BRICS are Brazil and South Africa.
All nations must ban aid to Israel – BRICS member
South Africa’s top diplomat has condemned military support for West Jerusalem following the World Court’s genocide ruling
https://swentr.site/news/591619-south-africa-condemns-israel-aid/
Disgusting that the other BRICS nations still do business with this PoS regime. Especially India, seems to be right there behind Israel in support.
As said before, South Africa deserve some type of prize, not the disgraced pro-western-Noble-prize-spectacle though,
If South Africa have the energy they should send Israel to ICJ on more cases: war crimes, crimes against humanity, or why not crimes of apartheid?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68137050
I see that heavily armed IDF forces entered a Gaza hospital disguised as medics and assassinated three Palestinian suspects.
Isn’t that illegal under some Convention or other?
In the early 1970s I was a young serving officer in the Royal Air Force in Northern Ireland. In those days we always carried a Browning 9mm pistol for personal protection. The uniform trouser pockets were bottomless to accommodate and conceal a lightweight holster for the weapon. One day I heard that a fellow officer was in hospital in Belfast and was in a bad way. In my hurry to visit him I remembered to take my pistol but forgot to take the holster. Improvising in the carpark before entering the building, I used the lanyard to hold the pistol in place in my pocket. Unfortunately for me, the lanyard’s catch subsequently came undone and the pistol slid down inside my trouser leg and clattered onto the marble floor of the hospital. I was aghast and immediately left the premises to initiate a formal verbal and written apology to the hospital’s management and to ‘face the music’ within the Service.
I was very severely reprimanded of course and was told that if the Press got hold of the story I would have to face a Court Martial which would quite certainly involve dismissal and loss of pension and would probably destroy any prospect of employment as a pilot by any airline, and I could face imprisonment. Fortunately for me, the Press either did not hear of the incident or perhaps the story was ‘spiked’ in the national interest.
I was told that it was illegal under the Geneva Convention(s) for military personnel to carry firearm weapons in either an ambulance or a hospital. I knew that anyway. It was taught in Initial Officer Training at Cranwell.
I had fucked up because my friend was on the verge of death. We’d joined the RAF on the same intake and had previously been best friends at secondary school. I wasn’t thinking at all clearly. I just wanted to see him and communicate with him while he was still conscious. I took the pistol as a matter of routine, without thinking, just like every other part of my uniform, other than the damned soft holster.
What is the legality of this latest atrocity by the IDF?
In my case, I very clearly had no intent to use deadly force with my pistol within the hospital. In this very recent case, it is equally clear that the IDF assassins carried their weapons with a very clear intent to kill their targeted victims within the hospital.
Geneva Convention:-
Article 18 – Wounded and sick III. Protection of hospitals
Civilian hospitals organized to give care to the wounded and sick, the infirm and maternity cases, may in no circumstances be the object of attack, but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict.
Bursting into an (undefended) hospital and murdering patients in their beds is the sort of thing you read about the Mafia or the Japanese in WW2 doing. Despicable.
Yes, and the Allied troops did it in occupied Japan too! Sickening! It was to rape the inmates.
Western governments don’t care about the Geneva Convention, anymore than they care about the Genocide Convention.
The days when you were able to pretend they are guardians of human rights are over.
Having labelled Hamas a terrorist organisation, Israel and the West think they can do what they like to these illegal combatants. I believe the hospital was in Jenin, not Gaza. In any case, when have they obeyed international law?
“Isn’t that illegal under some Convention or other?”
Ebenezer, if you haven’t yet twigged that the Israelis don’t give a wombat’s backside for any conventions, laws, treaties, constitutions, morals, or religions, you won’t be able to make any sense out of what is going on in Palestine.
Whenever it suits them they simply ignore even their own laws. As for anything said or done by Gentiles…
Did your friend survive?
Did YOUR MP sign this Early Day Motion?
“74 MPs have signed this EDM, calling on “the Government to immediately halt all transfers of military equipment and technology, including components, to Israel, and to suspend the issuing of new licences.”
Look and see.
https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/61654
I made the mistake of trying to communicate my with my MP during the plandemic. All opinions counter to the accepted agenda just recieved a Tory PR boilerplate response. Sorry, but I certainly won’t waste my time again writing to these oxygen thieves. There are 650 MPs at Westminster, the great majority are a complete waste of time with no independent thoughts or backbone. They do what they are told either by the Tories, Israel, Washington or the WEF. So 74 signed this motion, so what !, 576 didn’t, and you also havre the placeholders at the other place. Actual democracy is an unwanted stranger at Westminster.
Added to the STOPPED funding the UNRWA list of countries.
Austria, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Iceland.
Austria’s not very surprising but Romania and Iceland?! WTF?!
I imagine the Baltics are because they see protection from invasion by Russia being contingent on keeping the US and UK happy…
Romania is one of the most pro-amiercan nations on earth and a cocky member in Nato. But Iceland was indeed a nasty surprise.
And the Baltics are haha…well the baltics that whine day in and day out about russian crimes have no problem supporting a regime that occupy, annex and kill children with a factor of like x20 now compared to Russia.
Yes Iceland stopping funding is a shocker, I thought Iceland wasn’t captured by western rhetoric after it jailed some bankers after the 2008 collapse.
“Bjarni Benediktsson, Minister for Foreign Affairs, decided on Friday to delay the disbursement of Iceland’s annual core contribution to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) following reports of allegations of the involvement of twelve UNRWA employees in the terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7.”
Ah look at that, his pops – with the same name – was a great admirer of Israel it seems:
DEPUTY PRIME minister Abba Eban lunches with Icelandic prime minister Bjarni Benediktsson at Jerusalem’s President Hotel, 1965.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-739799
And here he is the year before visting Israel once again:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjarni_Benediktsson_(born_1908)#/media/File:Bjarni_Benediktsson_and_Levi_Eshkol_1964.jpg
it jailed some bankers after the 2008 collapse.
(Sorry for OT mod). Googling a bit more, this guy was one of the bad guys in that story.
An excellent article by Jonathan Cook on the UNRWA, and why Israel must destroy it to achieve its evil goal.
“UNRWA is separate from the UN’s main refugee agency, the UNHCR, and deals only with Palestinian refugees.
Although Israel does not want you to know it, the reason for there being two UN refugee agencies is because Israel and its western backers insisted on the division back in 1948.
Why? Because Israel was afraid of the Palestinians falling under the responsibility of the UNHCR’s forerunner, the International Refugee Organisation. The IRO was established in the immediate wake of the Second World War in large part to cope with the millions of European Jews fleeing Nazi atrocities.
Israel did not want the two cases treated as comparable, because it was pushing hard for Jewish refugees to be settled on lands from which it had just expelled Palestinians. Part of the IRO’s mission was to seek the repatriation of European Jews. Israel was worried that very principle might be used both to deny it the Jews it wanted to colonise Palestinian land and to force it to allow the Palestinian refugees to return to their former homes.
So in a real sense, UNRWA is Israel’s creature: it was set up to keep the Palestinians a case apart, an anomaly…
Israel’s efforts to get rid of UNRWA are not new. They date back many years. For a number of reasons, the UN refugee agency is a thorn in Israel’s side – and all the more so in Gaza.
Not least, it has provided a lifeline to Palestinians there, keeping them fed and cared for, and providing jobs to many thousands of local people in a place where unemployment rates are among the highest in the world.
It has invested in infrastructure like hospitals and schools that make life in Gaza more bearable, when Israel’s goal has long been to make the enclave uninhabitable.
UNRWA’s well-run schools, staffed by local Palestinians, teach the children their own history, about where their grandparents once lived, and of Israel’s campaign of dispossession and ethnic cleansing against them. That runs directly counter to the infamous Zionist slogan about the Palestinians’ identity-less future: “The old will die and the young forget.”
But UNRWA’s role is bigger than that. Uniquely, it is the sole agency unifying Palestinians wherever they live, even when they are separated by national borders and Israel’s fragmentation of the territory it controls.
UNRWA brings Palestinians together even when their own political leaders have been manipulated into endless factionalism by Israel’s divide and rule policies: Hamas is nominally in charge in Gaza, while Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah pretends to run the West Bank.
In addition, UNRWA keeps alive the moral case for a Palestinian right of return – a principle recognised in international law but long ago abandoned by western states.
Even before October 7, UNRWA had become an obstable that needed removing if Israel was ever to ethnically cleanse Gaza. That is why Israel has repeatedly lobbied to stop the biggest donors, especially the US, funding UNRWA.
Back in 2018, for example, the refugee agency was plunged into an existential crisis when President Donald Trump acquiesced to Israeli pressure and cut all its funding. Even after the decision was reversed, the agency has been limping along financially.
You can read more from my latest article In waging war on the UN refugee agency, the West is openly siding with Israeli genocide here”
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2024-01-30/war-un-refugee-israel-genocide/
R o S
The call to the Crusade has much deeper European roots than the call to International Law and the presence of a large, peaceful and flourishing Muslim population in Europe triggers their sympathies with Israelis.
It’s probably healthier for the Islamophobia of Europe to be openly acknowledged, than constantly repressed. Europe is in deep denial of our century’s equivalent of the African Slave Trade, the colonial theft of oil from Muslim countries.
At the end of the African Slave Trade, Darwin classified Europe’s denial of its colonial oppression in terms of White skinned people being more evolved than darker skinned people. Zionism provides an explanation for our current European colonial oppression by asserting Biblical ascendancy over Islam.
Humans will always invent some ridiculous explanation for their anti-social behaviour.
Thus we learn, from the evidence of our own eyes, in our own times, that it was possible for the whole of European society to know about our inhumanity and to ignore it at the same time. We know it because we see it with our own eyes, now.
And that is a strange consolation, because we know now what happened centuries ago, an entire civilisational refusal to acknowledge any aspect of the sufferings created by our own crimes against others because we see it now.
Giyane – most white-skinned people were the slaves of the ruling classes, living in dark satanic mills etc., while Islam took part in slavery too.
Rich people 1 – Poor people 0 . Your implication that all and only whites took part in heinous crimes is just back-door racism – and you do it quite often from your vaulted position.
There is one risk with the ICJ statement and this is this bit at the end:
Finally, in view of the specific provisional measures it has decided to indicate, the Court considers that Israel must submit a report to the Court on all measures taken to give effect to this Order within one month, as from the date of this Order. The report so provided shall then be communicated to South Africa, which shall be given the opportunity to submit to the Court its comments thereon.
https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203454
Back in 2009, in the so called Operation Cast Lead, where Israel was accused of massive war crimes, Israel was “offered” the same possibility to send in their own investigation to refute the charges by various human rights, UN organizations, and they did in their typical hasbara-propaganda-fashion-type-of rebuttals, and to some extent they were, absurdly, “aquitted” from some charges:
(In Norman Finkelstein’s book Gaza: An inquest into Martyrdom starting around p.105, there is a good thorough write-up on this issue).
Thus, Israel could try to pull this trick once again, either with the goal of stalling the judicial progress or just to flood the debate with their typical lying rebuttals trying to win over sympathizers – including ICJ judges.
It must be admitted that the “state of Israel” project has completely failed. They failed to build a stable place among their neighbors. With such behavior, Israel has no historical prospects, they only add more reasons for revenge.
I think you will agree, in fact, we are seeing several such failed projects, to mention Ukraine, which also failed to build a stable state and arrange relations with its neighbors.
The UN does not fulfill its functions, but only serves as a platform for opinions and expression of concerns.
The United States failed the role of a world leader, focusing on its own interests, and so from a model for other countries it stupidly became a world dictator.
The world must change. People will either hear the alarm and suppress egoism for the sake of cooperation, or we’ll face a world war from which again no one will learn a lesson, and we’ll begin a new round of this fucking historical spiral.
We have a Russian saying “The smart ones learn from other people’s mistakes”. I see we are stupid and can only learn from our own sad experiences.
“focusing on its own interests”
Focusing on the unenlightened self interests of its ruling class as members of that class perceive them.
Actual self interests never matter, only the perceived ones. World War III is not in anyone’s real interests.
Well said.
I do not agree. I believe that there are several points where it is impossible to reach a compromise through diplomatic means, such as with the Minsk agreements in Ukraine, where they were fake from the start, or with the pro-Palestinian UN resolutions, which Israel simply ignores. Added to the diplomatic collapse is the temptation to push through one’s interests by force, using the support of the United States or the European Union. Actually, we see it right now.
I think we will see more, as we saw during the WW2 – many states rode on the back of Hitler’s army, using it as a horse that would allow them to quickly gallop to their goal.
So I think a world war serves too many interests.
We have the Japanese on the other flank, with whom a peace treaty has not yet been signed, and they are constantly begging to give back the Kuril Islands. I bet a world war is a chance for them to take these islands. I also think that in the event of a world war, Scotland will finally declare itself independent, Serbia has not forgotten the NATO bombings and may want to reunite with Kosovo. Hungary and Romania are already making statements that they are not averse to regaining their historical lands that now belong to Ukraine. The Georgians are opening their mouths ready to snap off Ossetia. Israel simply will not exist. The Kurds will create their own state on the territory of Syria, which will greatly upset Turkey. And so on.
I have a considerable chance of getting a schizophrenic disorder, because I often notice that some things come true soon after they are voiced. Here’s a reason for a world war:
Previously, there was a discussion here about a Russian plane shot down over Russian territory with a missile fired from Ukraine. The plane was carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war for exchange, all of them and the crew died.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/ukraine-date-nov-2023/page/3/#post-94255
Today’s news contains Putin’s official statement that the plane was shot down by the American Patriot system. In the comments, people mentioned that Ukrainian military personnel are not allowed to access these systems in Ukraine. It is only managed by American military specialists.
After two World Wars (the first of which was supposed to be “the war to end all wars”), how – as a supposedly intelligent species – are we still at “a reason for a world war”?
There is no reason for any world war! It’s just madness (especially since nuclear weapons)…
That’s the Yanks all over: shoot first and ask questions afterwards.
Just out of curiosity and consistency, since it’s reasonable to expect people in the UK to abhor the stance of Westminster, for the people of the US to abhor the stance of Biden, for the people in Palestine to abhor the stance of Hamas and Fatah, for the people in Israel to abhor the stance of the Knesset, and for the people of Iran to abhor the stance of the Supreme Leader, is it not also reasonable for Russians to abhor the stance of Putin, for Chinese to abhor the stance of Xi and for North Koreans to abhor the stance of the Supreme Leader?
I believe that the people of Britain and the USA are not threatened by anyone, so they can hate the positions of their leaders. This has no practical significance, just opinions.
But I wouldn’t be so sure about the Palestinians – they are threatened by Israel and are more likely to listen to Hamas’ position, and the stronger the threat, the more people will support radical solutions. Also, the people of Israel are threatened by Hamas, and I’m sure that they will support their leader in the most radical decisions.
Russia is threatened by NATO, and with the latest news about the military infrastructure being built by Poland, Germany and the Netherlands, I think even more hesitant people will be inclined to the point that Putin is right and offers the right solutions.
In my opinion, the Chinese are not seriously threatened, so I think they are inclined to support Xi. No thoughts about North Korea, sorry.
In short, I think that radical or violent decisions are supported by people in times of threat, and not supported by those who can easily escape the danger by escaping to another country. Here in Russia, many people have taken advantage of their second citizenship and relocated to Georgia, Israel and the EU. now from these safe places they have the luxury of reasoning and criticizing. Those who have nowhere to escape, like Donetsk or Belgorod, are more likely to vote for Putin again and demand to increase military efforts. Simply because Ukraine is bombing schools and markets, people are dying and something needs to be done about it, right? Based on the idea that all people are the same, I think people in Palestine and Israel have similar sentiments.
The events of 1948 were not recognized as a crime because they were not genocide and the term “ethnic cleansing” did not come into the lexicon until the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 90’ies so the actions of the proto-Israeli terrorists in expelling 750,000 Palestinians were not recognized even as a crime and definitely not as a serious crime.
The people who left ran away for well founded fear of death. The terrorists killed between 7,000 and 15,000 Palestinians to get the others to flee, this is the same order of magnitude as the killings earlier in the current conflict.
Ethnic cleansing is now recognized as a crime, surely it is time to take another look at the events of 1948.
The ethnic cleansing of Germans from Eastern Europe had recently (1944-6) taken place. Nobody was about to condemn that then.
Off thread slightly, but given David Cameron’s recent “unauthorised” suggestion that Britain is ready to bring forward the moment when it formally recognises a Palestinian state, could it be that the Tories, casting around in desperation for votes and for distance from Labour, are starting to come around to the idea that this might actually be a winner for them?
Gav,
Indeed you are correct.
Same thought came immediately to mind when I first read this news.
Courtenay, Gav, might it not be the uni-party attempting to reflate the credibility of brand “democracy” after the Establishment’s lockstep response to the murder of 30,000 – 40,000 civilians, we don’t know yet what horror lies under the rubble. The uniformity of this behaviour has registered more widely than “foreign policy” usually does with the British electorate.
Conventional wisdom has that the Tories, after 15 or so years are not credible -“time for a change”, “throw the bums out” with many voters having unpleasant (shameful even) memories of watching a sordid farce acted in front of a sinister backcloth with Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss etc as the players.
If convention is correct and the Tories have to spend time in the political wilderness, it wouldn’t matter if they were willing to recognise Palestine but it would give some edge to the dog-eared notions that Britain is a democracy and politicians attempt to respond to the electorate. These claims have never looked more insubstantial and more quixotic than they do just now as the captured western media barely reports the indescribable human tragedy that Israel has wrought in Gaza with the full support of America and Britain etc
There’s a similar way to read Starmer’s stance: in alienating Muslims (and non-Muslims who abhor his stance), he’ll attract the furiously hard of thinking racists who would otherwise vote Tory?
Moral lantern Antony Blinken concedes the US hasn’t investigated in any way Israeli allegations against 12 UNRWA workers. However he says the allegations (like the 40 beheaded babies, mass rapes, Hamas hospitals etc.) are “highly, highly credible”, so let’s go ahead and starve millions of Palestinians anyway.
Needless to say, the timing – literally just a few hours after the ICJ announced its provisional findings – was too good to be true. But even if it DOES transpire that these people were involved in the October 7th attack, how on earth does that justify suspending funding? Of course it doesn’t! The ONLY scenario in which it would be justified is if UNRWA senior staff knew that the employees concerned were involved with the military wing of Hamas. And it goes without saying that they obviously didn’t, because apart from anything else – given that many of their main donors have proscribed Hamas as a terrorist organisation – there is no way that they would knowingly employ people involved with Hamas and, as such, risk jeopodising their funding.
And if that’s the case – which it undoubtedly IS – then there is no justification whatsoever for the US and the UK and these other countries to suspend their funding. But if it’s all a stunt concocted and contrived by Israel and its chums to stick two fingers up to the ICJ and S Africa, THAT would be much more credible, and especially so given their prior form.
Anthony
If someone uses the same word twice it is suspicious.
“highly, highly credible” is the same as highly highly incredible.
Israel was given a chance to present evidence of this at the IJC. Believe me if it had “highly, highly credible” evidence it is highly highly likely they would have presented it as proof.
It didn’t, so the proof of the pudding is not in the eating because the pudding doesn’t exist.
Highly highly – highly – non existent.
We’ve yet to see credible evidence of UNRWA workers being involved on Oct 7th but we see as a fact that the West is stopping aid and medicine going into Gaza.
I hope the Chinese and the Russians say: If you won’t do it – we will do it.
That will shut the big mouths up alright.
Yes, that’s a favourite of Donald Trump’s – ie repeating a certain word twice.
The whole thing has a smell of 1914, not 1939.
There’s a complicated tangle of international alliances. All the major countries are armed to the teeth. War talk floods the main media in the West, and perhaps elsewhere.
It’s like a pile of kindling being flooded with an accelerant such as naptha, just waiting for an igniting spark.
There are too many sparks around, mostly spread by UKUSA/NATO, but also by others..
The portents, for everyone, are not good.
I’m sorry to post such a gloomy opinion, but I really don’t see a good outcome to the macro situation that we have on the visible horizon.
Yes, the war-mongering fear-mongers have really been ramping up the rhetoric recently, and here’s some more from today, courtesy of their propaganda machine:
Top NATO allies strike World War 3 deal as Putin on brink of war with the West
Defence officials in a number of European countries have been warning of the growing prospect of NATO soon finding itself in a war with Russia.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1861679/war-preparations-nato-eastern-flank-troops-russia
Well the US and its Nato chums have been in a proxy war against Russia now for two years, a war which they of course provoked in the first place. But it’s undoubtedly just rhetoric, solely for the purpose of fear-mongering, the idea behind it being that a ‘war atmosphere’ will be benificial to the Tories in an election year. The psychopaths are capable of many things, but they are definitely not going to commit suicide.
Also came across the following couple of articles:
Andrew Neil savages ‘weak’ Joe Biden and demands he ‘stop pussy-footing around’ with Iran
https://www.express.co.uk/news/us/1861095/andrew-neil-joe-biden-iran
China and Russia send huge warning to Biden as threat of retaliation against Iran erupts
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1861555/china-russia-warning-joe-biden-iran-retaliation
With respect, it would be worth finding a more credible source than the Daily Excrement
I think you missed my point, which I did explain.
Right, yes – my bad! For which, my apologies!
I automatically don’t believe anything written in the Express. Gutter press does not even describe how low it gets.
Suddenly, judges are no longer conniving with their governments, and the court’s president hasn’t simply published the document she had certainly received from her State Department handlers? Why do conspiracy thinking and malicious accusation have so often to come first?
My Tory MP’s response to my letter protesting against the defunding of UNRWA. I note Sunak in today’s PMQ repeated the “we stand with Israel” slogan. I haven’t heard any mention of the government doing anything to work with its Israeli bedfellows to carry out the IOC ruling – just this denialism, colluding with the genocide and ethnic cleansing that is going on.
“You will be aware of the allegations that agency staff were involved in the 7 October attack against Israel, a heinous act of terrorism. I believe it is only right that the UK is pausing any future funding of UNRWA whilst these concerning allegations are reviewed. The United States, Germany, Australia, Italy, Canada, Finland, Switzerland and the Netherlands have all temporarily paused funding too.
The UK remains committed to getting humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza who desperately need it. We are getting on with aid delivery, funding multiple implementing partners including other UN agencies and international and UK NGOs. This support is helping people in Gaza get food, water, shelter and medicines.
The commitment to trebling aid to Gaza still stands and the UK is providing £60 million in humanitarian assistance to support partners including the British Red Cross, UNICEF, the UN World Food Programme and Egyptian Red Crescent Society to respond to critical food, fuel, water, health, shelter and security needs in Gaza.
Indeed, the UK will continue to support the United Nations World Food Programme to deliver a new humanitarian land corridor from Jordan into Gaza. 750 tonnes of life-saving food aid arrived in the first delivery and 315 tonnes in the second delivery.
The UK of course also continues to call for a humanitarian pause now to allow humanitarian actors and Gazans to operate and move safely, and enable hostages to be released”.
Jack recently posed the following question in respect of the results of a US poll:
How can americans be this stupid and ignorant?
Well I think we all know that the US main-stream media is pretty much on a par with the MSM in the UK, only it’s more TV news network and right-wing radio orientated and, if anything, people in the US in general are even more propagandised than people in the UK. Anyway, I’ve not heard much about how the US media is reporting the war on Gaza, so I did a search and this was one of the results that came up, posted on Jan 18th:
How the Gaza War Can Be Big News and Invisible at the Same Time
What is most profoundly important about the war in Gaza—what actually happens to people being terrorized, massacred, maimed, and traumatized—has remained close to invisible for the U.S. public.
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/us-media-coverage-gaza-war
It is the same throughout the west unfortunately: From the US to the west to Sweden to the north-east and to Italy in the south: the coverage is muted at best, the now 30’000 deaths are treated as a mere “tragic”, a “humanitarian crisis” – the language is almost the same used for natural disasters – that is, without a human hand, a culprit behind the deaths. The israelis and palestinians are framed as 2 equal actors having a quarrel. It is insane. With all the social media and live reporting, the western population is almost as brainwashed as they were on the subject in 1948.
The western coverage brings me to mind this book – what happen on the ground and what the MSM report is 2 completely different things:
The Gulf War Did Not Take Place
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulf_War_Did_Not_Take_Place
MSM never show what actually is going on in Gaza: They do not show how Israel cruelly mock palestinian refugees in loudspeakers, a scene video that brings up Auschwitz to mind:
https://twitter.com/hebh_jamal/status/1752375177516560857
They do not show how 30 Palestinian bodies were found today in mass grave, blindfolded, executed:
https://twitter.com/PalestineChron/status/1752657276723212320
This^particular news above could be framed as much as Bucha was covered but the msm do not even report on it this time in Gaza.
The only MSM that have been great in their reporting is Al Jazeera, amazing that the pathetic EU/US have not banned this channel yet:
Tory MP Tobias Ellwood: “Hamas would have made a lot of effort to try and infiltrate not just UNRWA but other agencies as well…”
Host: “Where is the evidence [for that]?”
Ellwood: “I’m not going to be able to show you any evidence from London”
https://twitter.com/Lowkey0nline/status/1752715883703595038
It’s utterly pathetic. Elwood’s supposed to be able to provide evidence not obtained via torture how exactly? When the US has stated they still haven’t even seen any yet?
Nevermind the ICJ ruling, of which Israel and collaborator countries are in flagrant violation, but it’s fine we’ll still keep funding the genocidal State actor and providing them with military hardware and intelligence!
Also, interesting that that should come from Elwood, who was singing the Taliban’s praises not so long ago…
Nevermind the ICJ ruling, of which Israel and collaborator countries are in flagrant violation, but it’s fine we’ll still keep funding the genocidal State actor and providing them with military hardware and intelligence!
Exactly, the west strain at a gnat and swallow a camel, obviously the sudden attack on UNRWA by Israel/west was obviously a pre-planned initiated psyop. with the deliberate intent to make people talk about UNRWA instead of the ICJ statement the same day.