Governments cannot take big decisions extremely quickly except in the most extreme of circumstances. There are mechanisms in all states that consider policy decisions, weigh them up, involve the various departments of the state whose activities are affected by that decision, and arrive at a conclusion, though not necessarily a good one.
The decision to stop aid funding to UNRWA was not taken by numerous Western states in a single day.
In the UK, several different government ministries had to coordinate. Even within only a single ministry, the FCDO, views would have to be coordinated through written submissions and interdepartmental meetings between the departments dealing with the Middle East, with the United Nations, with the United States, with Europe and then of course between the diplomatic and development wings of the ministry.
That process would include seeking the views of British Ambassadors to Tel Aviv, Doha, Cairo, Riyadh, Istanbul and Washington and to the United Nations in Geneva and in New York.
It is not necessarily a lengthy process but it is not a day’s work, and nor would it need to be. There was no practical impact to making the announcement of cutting UNRWA funding a day sooner or a day later.
Consider that the parallel process had to be completed in the United States, in Canada, in Germany, in Australia and in all the other Western powers that contributed to starvation in Gaza by cutting aid to UNRWA.
All of these countries had to go through their procedures, and it could only be by prior coordination – weeks in advance – between these states that they announced all on the same day the destruction of the life support system for Palestinians, then in absolute need.
And then consider that we now know for certain that the Israelis had produced no evidence whatsoever of UNRWA complicity in Hamas resistance, on which these decisions in all those states were allegedly based.
I have no doubt at all that the Western political elite, paid tools of the zionist machine, are complicit in the genocide of Palestinians and ethnic cleansing of Gaza at a much deeper level than the people have yet understood. The refusal by Starmer and Sunak to contemplate ending arms sales and military support to Israel is not due to inertia or concern for the arms industry. It is that they actively support the destruction of the Palestinians.
The coordinated decision of the Western nations to fast track famine by stopping UNRWA funding was announced within an hour, following the ICJ ruling that Gazans were at immediate risk of genocide, and drove from the media headlines the adverse ruling against Israel.
This sent the clearest signal in response that the Western powers would not be stopped from the genocide by international law or institutions.
The Western powers give not a fig for 16,000 massacred Palestinian infants. No evidence of mass graves in hospitals will move them. They knew genocide was happening and continued actively to arm and abet it.
This genocide is the desired goal of the West. No other explanation is remotely plausible.
Western Political Support for this Genocide is No Accident
I have never believed the spin that Biden is trying to restrain Netanyahu, while simultaneously arming and funding Netanyahu and using US forces to fight alongside him.
Biden is making no effort to restrain Netanyahu. Biden fully supports the genocide.
My reading of this was reinforced when I was looking back at the Israeli murders on the Mavi Mamara in 2010, when they killed ten unarmed aid workers attempting a Freedom Flotilla aid delivery to Gaza. Israel’s actions were clearly both murderous and in breach of international law. Joe Biden as Vice President defended Israel staunchly then. It is essential to understand that Genocide Joe has always been Genocide Joe.
Joe Biden took the lead in defending the raid to the U.S. public. In an interview with PBS, he described the raid as “legitimate” and argued that the flotilla organizers could have disembarked elsewhere before transferring the aid to Gaza. “So what’s the big deal here? What’s the big deal of insisting it go straight to Gaza?” Biden asked about the humanitarian mission. “Well, it’s legitimate for Israel to say, ‘I don’t know what’s on that ship. These guys are dropping eight — 3,000 rockets on my people.’”
Biden is not being outplayed by Netanyahu. He is actively abetting Netanyahu and shares with him the objective of full Israeli occupation of Gaza after the Palestinian people are killed or expelled into Sinai. He also shares with Netanyahu the aim of a wider regional conflict in which the US and Gulf states ally with Israel against Iran, Syria, Yemen and Hezbollah. This is their joint vision of the Middle East – Greater Israel, and US hegemony operating through the Sunni monarchies.
If you believe all the spin from the White House about Biden trying to restrain Netanyahu, I suggest you look instead at the White House and State Department spokesmen refusing to accept any single instance of Israel atrocity and deferring to Israel on every single crime.
I am currently in Pakistan, and I must say it has been a great refreshment to be in a country where everybody understands why ISIS, Al Nusra etc. never attacked Israeli interests, and sees precisely what Western governments are doing over Gaza. What is understood by developing nations is thankfully understood by Gen Z in the West as well.
The Arab regimes of the Gulf and Jordan are dependent upon Israeli and US security services and surveillance for protection from their own people. The lack of really massive street protest against their own regimes by Arab peoples is a direct testimony to the effectiveness of that vicious repression, particularly when states like Jordan actually fight alongside Israel against Iranian weapons.
The anti-Iranian card is of course the trick both Biden and Netanyahu have left to play. By promoting an escalation with Iran, Western politicians were able to default to a position of claiming the case for arming Israel was proven – and I think were genuinely perplexed to find the public did not buy it.
The political class, across the Western world and the Arab world, is utterly divorced from its people over Gaza. We are seeing worldwide repression, as peaceful conferences are stormed by police in Germany, students are beaten by police on American campuses, and in the UK old white people like me suffer the kind of continual harassment long suffered by young Muslim men.
This is not the work of Netanyahu operating as a rogue. It is the result of the machinations of a professional political class across the Western world welded to zionism, with the supremacy of Israel as an article of fundamental belief.
Times are not this dark by accident. They were designed to be this dark.
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Remember the words which H G Wells wanted on his tombstone: “I told you so, dammit!”
“Times are not this dark by accident” is a very similar phrase, alas . . .
Very powerful piece Craig, thank you very much.
“This genocide is the desired goal of the West. No other explanation is remotely plausible.”
Yes, certainly with respect to America, that is the conclusion that I have come to. America is not so much complicit in genocide, more it is a fully committed partner with Israel in genocide, and therefore equally guilty.
As with Ukraine, it is not clear to me whether the European Idiocracy is complying with the US through corruption, stupidity or spinelessness.
‘The west’ is dead as an agent of progress in the world.
We must now look to the new, growing sources of domestic opposition and to the non-western world to restore decency and dignity to the future of the human race.
Peter, I agree with your post and can only add that from my pov the US is something more than being an equal partner. Without US arming and funding to the tune of several $billions a year, the occupying state of Israel would be incapable of doing what it does. Similarly, during the recent Iranian reprisal for the bombing of its Consulate in Syria, about which, it had been informed in advance, the collective West spent an alleged $1.3 billion defending their erstwhile despicable ally. The UK even sending Jets from Akrotiri in Cyprus to help out. Doubt the Smarmy Swami will tell us what that cost! Same with their Nuclear Arsenal, totally enabled by the complicity and ample contributions of Western governments. I’ve heard France, the UK, apartheid South Africa and the US were major players in this endeavor. Didn’t several tonnes of Plutonium go missing from America, without any questions being asked or investigation being conducted? The West is up to its neck in all this Genocide and has been for decades, with much of the latest atrocity being driven by the control of the huge Gas reserves to be found off the Gazan coast.
@ Pyewacket
Thanks for your reply, all good points.
It is difficult not to conclude that the entirety of the pan-Middle Eastern–North African wars are about control of the oil supply – control by America, of course.
In that scheme of things Israel can be seen not only as the building of a Jewish homeland but as a crucial linchpin in facilitating western neo-imperial control of the oil supply across the region. As Biden has said, Israel is their “aircraft carrier in the Middle East” and on another occasion that “if Israel didn’t exist we would have had to invent it”.
It is instructive to compare and contrast America’s determination to dominate the region/oil supply militarily, regardless of the colossal cost in lives and social destruction, with China’s approach to extending its influence through constructive ‘win-win’ cooperation – building mutually advantageous relationships contributing to positive mutual development.
As the US Empire, going through its death throes, lashes out wildly and dangerously, I know which approach gets my, not to mention the majority of the world’s, vote – a no brainer.
Peter and Pyewacket, I agree entirely – emphasised by the fact that the entire Zionist project was always antisemitic – and the conception of a ‘Jewish’ state originated in, and was adopted and sponsored by, non-Jewish Zionist groups – including Balfour (himself deeply anti-semitic) and his associates and sponsors, who saw it as ‘killing two birds with the one stone’: the European Jewish “problem’ and the geopolitical designs of those seeking a Eurasian ‘pivot’.
The discovery and need to control Middle-Eastern oil by the Anglo-American money power only added to that impetus.
Actually the Balfour Declaration enshrined land and property rights, and rule of law. The Brits left after their Administration, based in the King David Hotel, was blown up, along with the other European Embassies that were based there. The British Protectorate of Palestine had welcomed the European refugees in the belief that they would integrate. The subsequent wars that claimed larger sections of Palestine did not deprive all Palestinians of their homes and businesses, although the Nakba saw the citizens departing to refugee camps in Lebanon carrying their front door keys. Today families are evicted without notice to give their homes to Jewish American families, or immigrants from other countries who can prove their bloodline.
TINA seems to be the current mindset. There is no alternative. Remember the Labour Friends of Israel fly on the wall documentary? It was working on countering Corbyn’s leadership and the massive Labour membership which supported him. But what sunk that democratic human decency was the waving of Palestinian flags at the Labour Conference, which declared that Britain would be an enemy of Israel if Labour was elected. This is why Zionist Starmer has to be the leader. His credentials are not in question, and he is submissive to Israel’s primary interests.
Universal human rights, war crimes, and democratic nation states are all looking pretty derelict as regards justice and rule of law. These are shameful times.
I ceased and will not use the fake name I****L for that illegal apartheid entity that blights humanity by being the LAST AngloEuropean Imperial colonial project, at the end of hundreds of years of such avarice and enslavement of the non European humanity.
It is a slave name. Like Rhodesia. And others which have disappeared.
It needs to be erased from the lexicon of human civilisation.
@ DunGroanin
I think that you put that rather well.
Re. “being driven by the control of the huge Gas reserves to be found off the Gazan coast.”
IMO, the gas reserves are just a side benefit that enables the zionists to tempt the west to aid its genocide. The real driver is the opportunity, via Gaza, to move towards a ‘Greater Israel’. This has been the objective even before 1948. Greater Israel would potentially swallow up Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and parts of Saudi and Egypt – from the Euphrates to the Nile. Since such a state would nestle up against the Iranian border, then Iran naturally becomes a target for a greater expansion. Obviously, with guaranteed USA funding and support and acquisition of ME Oil and Gas reserves, the gas reserves off Gaza are of little consequence.
Of course this may be totally wrong but can anyone honestly see a future where Israel is content with its borders and is not intent on expansion.
This is a totally accurate analysis.
It has been the aim of the Anglo-American establishment since the late nineteenth century, and broadly follows the ‘Pivot’ model for control of Eurasia (the ‘World Island’) since the time this was expounded by Sir Halford MacKinder.
I watched a really boring movie in my 20’s called Betrayed starring Tom Berenger and Deborah Winger. It is a very strange movie and incredibly dull.
Tom was initially a hero and nice guy who married the lovely innocent Deborah.
As the plot unfolds we are all shocked to discover that Tom is actually an extremist who believes the USA is under Z.O.G.. Now being a young man at the time I had never heard of ZOG but it turned out it stood for Zionist Occupied Government.
The whole point of the movie just seemed to be about demonizing this idea. It was such a boring crap film it is hard to think of any other reason for making it. Especially now with a lot of hindsight and in light of current events, ethnic cleansing using ethnic mass murder to drive it. Genocide.
Well fast forward to today and I don’t think you can describe what we are seeing in any other terms than ZOG.
The US and the UK have been Israelized by the omnipresent Israel lobby and vast Epstein kompromat operations. If they can’t bribe, they blackmail.
Palestine is a lens.
It is bringing into focus things previously well disguised and made taboo for all the world to see. And they are seeing it. It is not the realm of conspiracy theorists anymore. It is as clear as day and it is right in your face.
You have it back to front, the zionist antisemites are a proxy, not a lobby.
Well said!
One friend of mine is of the opinion that the powers that be in the Western Empire of The Rules Based Order aka The US Empire have everything in place for a turn key authoritarianism. What he means by this is that mechanisms are in place to take total control of all information media including the internet to implement authoritarian control of the population including limitations of movement. He even thinks that modern drive by wire cars can be remotely immobilized if the driver departs from his assigned allowable locations.
What he thinks is delaying implementation is the absence of a necessary war such as that planned against China, Iran and Russia. I seriously doubt that the Empire is capable of winning such a war, the decay has gone too far and those vaunted US high tech weapons are overpriced and under-performing while China and Russia are not designing their weapons with the first priority of transferring wealth to the beneficial owners of armaments makers.
He thinks when the excuse arrives the switch will be flicked and the illusion of democracy dispensed with.
The cunning plan is liable to come unstuck, because a Western war against China, Russia, Iran (and others) would fail disastrously. It would not necessarily go nuclear; if it did, of course, we would all die. But if it didn’t, the West would lose heavily – and quickly.
We can see, quite plainly, what is happening and who is involved. The question for me is why, why are they doing this what are they trying to achieve?
For example, we know Biden and his corrupt family are heavily involved in milking Ukraine, and there are clear signs that Sunak and his family are heavily involved in profiting from Gaza. Soros, also, has his dirty mitts in everything. The closer we look, the more it looks like ‘robber barons’ in action. The question is what is the desired end state that all these crooks are facilitating: Greater Israel, destruction of Russia and China, eternal serfdom to the USA?
I despair. It seems that over the last ten years, particularly, life has turned to shit.
For the Americans, the question is easy to answer. Politicians seek power, that’s why most of them go into politics. They want to rule the world, and very nearly attained that goal.
People like Sunak (a Zionist who doesn’t admit he’s a Zionist), Starmer (who openly proclaims he’s a Zionist), and Olaf Stolz are different, and like you, I don’t understand why they are promoting the US/Israel line.
It has nothing to do with opposing antisemitism; Keir Starmer has expelled more Jews from the Labour Party than any previous Labour leader. (Someone somewhere commented that he’s actually expelled more Jews from the Labour Party than all previous Labour leaders combined, but I can’t verify that.)
There is a vicious cycle in operation. Such politicians (and others) seek to be on the winning side – the side of power. And the more of them proclaim their allegiance to Zionism, the more powerful it becomes.
The obvious remedy is to get some leaders who do not automatically suck up to those in power. But where are we to find them? Mr Murray would be a good start, but so far his mass appeal has hardly got off the ground.
Now if he could get into Parliament…
George Galloway posed the question why Labour party MP’s are not members of the Zambia lobby? Then made the joke about Debbie McGee, and what was it that first attracted her to her millionaire husband Paul Daniels.
Many Labour party politicians, Keir Starmer included, receive funding from the Zionist lobby…
Some 13 of the 31 members of Labour’s shadow cabinet have received donations from a prominent pro-Israel lobby group or individual funder, it can be revealed.
The list of recipients includes party leader Keir Starmer, his deputy Angela Rayner, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy, and even the former vice-chair of Labour Friends of Palestine, Lisa Nandy, who is now shadow international development minister.
https://www.declassifieduk.org/two-fifths-of-keir-starmers-cabinet-have-been-funded-by-pro-israel-lobbyists/
Unfortunately, it’s not just Labour; the tories are just as bad. It’s the American disease which all USA politicians are infected with. And, where does the lobby/bribe monies come from? The USA via Tel Aviv. To break away from Israel, you also have to break away from the USA.
Because europeans cower before their American Master like whipped dogs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Thomas
American Caesar is in a crisis of falling expectations, like the German empire 1911-1914. The aggression of the US is an attempt to escape forward that is doomed but they dismiss people who contradict them. Note the volte face of General Thomas during the planning of Barbarossa.
The world should be thankful to the Palestinians (and to Julian Assange) for exposing the true face of western liberalism. The coordinated, carefully pre-planned move to fast track famine in Gaza cannot be pinned on Donald Trump, Steve Bannon or Vladimir Putin. This merciless mass starvation of children was plotted by the woke Democrat administration of Biden. By Trudeau, Macron, Scholz, Albanese and the EU. In the UK not by Suella Braverman but by compassionate “2012” conservative David Cameron. in short, by western liberalism’s compassionate “adults in the room”; its steady hand at the tiller.
There was no point during the Trump years that felt quite as bleak as this one, because even the fool’s hope of something better has vanished now. This is what western liberalism is. Genocidal.
While it’s perfectly clear what you mean, I would like to lodge an objection to your apparent acceptance of the distorted, immoral use of the word “liberalism”.
The proper meaning of “liberal”, according to my dictionary (Concise Oxford) is:
liberal
n adjective
1 respectful and accepting of behaviour or opinions different from one’s own. Ø(of a society, law, etc.) favourable to individual rights and freedoms. ØTheology regarding many traditional beliefs as dispensable, invalidated by modern thought, or liable to change.
2 (in a political context) favouring individual liberty, free trade, and moderate political and social reform. Ø(Liberal) relating to Liberals or a Liberal Party, especially (in the UK) relating to the Liberal Democrat party.
3 (of education) concerned with broadening general knowledge and experience.
4 (especially of an interpretation of a law) not strictly literal.
5 given, used, or giving in generous amounts.
n noun
1 a person of liberal views.
2 (Liberal) a supporter or member of a Liberal Party, especially (in the UK) a Liberal Democrat.
DERIVATIVES
liberalism noun
liberalist noun
liberalistic adjective
liberality noun
liberally adverb
liberalness noun
ORIGIN
Middle English (originally in sense ‘suitable for a free man’ hence ‘suitable for a gentleman’): via Old French from Latin liberalis, from liber ‘free (man)’.
As George Orwell pointed out in “Politics and the English Language”, many words used in political disputes have become so debased as to have lost all meaning. Since he wrote that, “liberalism” has joined them. This is a serious loss for us all, as in its true meaning “liberalism” is a valuable concept.
“The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable”. The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Petain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality”.
A truly valid and important point Tom….a bit like “Rules based Order” vs “International Law”. Their duplicity and Weasel words are, nowadays, never ending.
Thank you Tom for that post. When I read Joel’s post I had the same reaction (I understood his point but decried the association of the term “liberalism”) and you’ve articulated my similar thoughts well, saving me the bother. I’d add “Left,” Right,” “woke” and a few others.
Democracy has become a kind of religious cult in the West. Somehow, another country not being a “democracy” in the way the West wants it to be allows any demonisation of that country. How the West wants it to be democratic is in a way that allows US corporations to extract profit. In discussions with others about various topics I frequently hear “Ah, but Russia, China, insert country here, are not democratic,” thus legitimising anything done to them and demonising anything they do.
ET
The Great Famine in Ireland owed every bit as much to liberals as the present Gaza one does. Liberal ideology was core to the greatest disaster the English ever inflicted on your country.
Tom Welsh
I’m talking about actual existing liberalism. Every western government that has inflicted famine on Gaza, barring the UK Tory one, is considered liberal. Their elections to power were universally celebrated by liberal media and by most people who identify politically as liberals. Even the UK Tory government considers itself to be liberal in the broader political sense of the word.
Dictionary definitions are written by western liberals so should be expected to be more than faintly self-congratulatory. The reality is that from the very beginning (1688?) liberalism has had a dark, exclusionary character, both at home and especially in the colonies. It was no coincidence that slavery reached its historical zenith and vilest manifestation during the golden age of English liberalism. The greatest liberals in the pantheon celebrated not only slavery but class oppression, colonialism, racism and genocide. (For full details see Dominico Losurdo’s Liberalism: a counter history or Pankaj Mishra’s From the ruins of empire).
The refusal of the Oxford dictionary definers to descend from the realms of high philosophical abstraction allows them to suggest that liberal society embodies universal liberty and equality despite them being fully aware that liberal society continues to be marked by savage inequalities at home and promote war and genocide overseas.
joel, I was going to write a similar reply. In the historical context political Liberalism has always been about the freedom for the powerful to exploit the weak, hence Slavery. This hasn’t really changed despite the propaganda promoted by the Oxford dictionary. For example, when we talk of “Liberal Economic Reforms”; that usually means removing legislation put in place to protect people and the environment, or national economic interests to maximize profits of Capitalists. It’s not a coincidence Political Liberalism emerged at the same time as the development of Capitalism.
An individual’s freedoms always run up against the freedoms of other individuals and groups, especially when it comes to exploitation, freedom itself is always a compromise. Political Liberalism simply demarks in who’s interest that compromise is made, which is the privileged Class.
Yes, it was always an ideology of and for the rich, primarily intended to protect private property and inherited wealth. That remains its essence today, which is why it’s the self-identity of choice for almost all the British political and media class. I can see liberalism being very quickly rehabilitated by elite opinion formers once the genocide is over, with no acceptance whatsoever that it has been shredded by the past six months.
IMO. There’s a world of difference between ‘historical’ liberals and 21st century Liberals. Historically, the only people who had the time and money to philosophise about liberal ideas were the idle rich, sat on their fat asses in their mansions making their fortunes off of state contracts and overseas exploitations. To them it was all an intellectual exercise. The great masses were confined to slum accommodation, shared with multiple families and having to work in slave-like conditions with no state benefits to fall back on. For them, liberal ideas would have been a sick joke akin to science fiction.
21st century liberals tend to be the middle classes, the wokerati, the upwardly mobile, the social media zombies, blairites. The working classes are still oppressed but the middle classes think they are liberal and free when they are obviously not, they’re just self deluders.
Historical liberals and modern liberals are different beasts.
Similarly, the Magna Carta: it’s not about the rights of the people, it’s about the rights of the rich.
“Every western government that has inflicted famine on Gaza, barring the UK Tory one, is considered liberal”
Not by me. If a society continues to be marked by savage inequalities at home and promotes war and genocide overseas then its not liberal evan if everybody calls it that. Everybody could call a chair a dog but the chair wouldn’t bark.
Thank you.
What I find particularly telling is that it is not just that the political class are divorced from their peoples across the West, but the fact they seemingly hate us.
As much as they are waging a war against Russia and China and Iran and anyone who does not prostrate themselves before them in complete surrender, they are also waging a war against us, the indigenous populations of the West.
They do not see themselves as ‘of us’.
We are truly just different shades of Palestinians to them. And they hate us just like they hate them.
What is that if it is not an occupation? We are occupied just the same.
I also think what is happening in Ukraine is another form of genocide. They are just sending a whole generation of Ukrainians into a meat grinder knowing it is completely futile and all based on their lies, endless lies. That is also an occupation, a coup. None of that was in the interests of Ukrainians.
There is a real evil at the root of this. Where we are today is ‘decades in the making’, which should worry us all.
“What I find particularly telling is that it is not just that the political class are divorced from their peoples across the West, but the fact they seemingly hate us”.
I think that may be a slight, though understandable, misreading of the situation. Imagine for a moment that you are a cow or a pig, being raised by humans so that they can butcher you and consume your meat. The humans don’t “hate” you – their attitude is more detached and unemotional than that. They don’t even think of you as having agency. To them you are just a “resource”.
That’s why so many corporate employees have been feeling for a long time now that their bosses “hate” them.
I think it all arises from a very nasty (and stupid) view of life: that, even vis a vis our fellow humans, it is (and should be) a zero-sum game. Those people don’t want a rising tide that lifts all boats. They prefer to look down on everyone else from a great height.
It’s an essentially insane attitude.
I see your point. There does seem to be a lot of variation in attitude, maybe depending on how close to the “inner circle” the actors are.
I’d say “contempt” is a better word – for democracy, liberal ideals and those people not allowing themselves to be shepherded quietly towards the end game.
“Those people don’t want a rising tide that lifts all boats. They prefer to look down on everyone else from a great height.
It’s an essentially insane attitude”.
The wonderful film ‘Ace in the hole’ [1951] had a scene where Kirk Douglas (Charles Tatum) was berated by fellow reporters because he had sole access to the big story about a man trapped in a mountain.
Reporter: We’re all in the same boat.
Charles Tatum: I’m in the boat. You’re in the water. Now let’s see how you can swim.
There was a whole book – and even a film – on this subject. Corporations are psychopaths. Their only goal, legally mandated in some instances, is to make money and have power. Everything is resources. See The Corporation by Joel Bakan.
HR: Human Resources. The curse of modern employment.
There was a band called Human Remains.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAAPcur-lOE
Yes, the switch from “Personnel” to “Human Resources” says a lot about attitude.
Applying Occam’s Razor, I find psychopathy to explain a lot of this. Look up and even research the subject of psychopathy. As an atheist, I believe it is an explanation for evil, at least in part.
“They do not see themselves as ‘of us’.”
They never have. In the past it was “The Gentry” as opposed to “Commoners” or “Patricians” and “Plebs” if you go further back. The elite have always considered themselves a race apart.
Here is something else that provides a huge clue.
Why is it that the leaders of Russia and China are doing things to improve the lives of the citizens while our leaders have inflicted a woke nightmare, a neo-cultural revolution, on its own populace, encouraging our children to mutilate themselves. And this has been planned for decades, ‘decades in the making’.
The leaders of our so-called ‘enemies’ are trying to build up their indigenous populations, whereas ‘our’ leaders are trying to destroy our indigenous populations, us.
It seems very likely given the above that we are ones living under tyranny, folks, not them.
I think there is a large cultural factor here. China has a very long history of valuing the community as well as the indiividual, whereas in “the West” we have swung much too far in the direction of unregulated individualism – basically selfishness. The Chinese – after 1948 when they got both the foreign invasions and the Chiang Kai-shek bandits off their back – seem to have evolved a blend of Communism with their own tradition of Confucianism and maybe a little Buddhism and Taoism. They have a very long history, and unlike many they seem able and willing to learn from it.
The Russians, perhaps surprisingly, in spite of their apparent cynicism and pragmatism seem to have their own brand of communal consciousness and responsibility. Not all Russians by any means, of course; but perhaps the not-so-silent majority. Of course they have had the salutary experience of exposure to extreme capitalism in the 1990s – salutary in Nietzsche’s sense of “whatever does not kill me makes me stronger”.
Now that the transitory period of Western military superiority is definitely over, the older and more mature civilisations of Asia have a chance to reassert themselves and demonstrate their worth.
But them damned Commies aren’t free, like us ….
I’ve long reckoned that there are a couple of factors at work. One is the natural evolution, decay and demise of empires. As the empire grows, its leaders in government, enterprises and other powerful positions see how cooperation can speed up that growth and provide more and more loot to share out. But as the growth approaches its limits, they start fighting for bigger shares of what’s already there. They also start believing that the empire is so big and has been around so long that whatever irresponsible things they do for short term personal advantage, it’ll always go on and on.
The other factor is fear of the mob. Every hundred years or so, there’s a bloody revolution somewhere and the movers and shakers have their heads removed or filled with lead. Fear spreads among their equivalents in other places and the risk of meeting the same fate leads them to consider the needs and desires of that mob alongside their own wish for the biggest and glitziest yacht in Monaco. But through the generations the fear fades. It’s now over a century since the Russian Revolution.
Dark times indeed.
From what I can see the student protests in the US are calling for divestment from organisations supporting the genocide.
I would like to think this includes the political class.
And not to take your eyes off Gaza!
James Cameron
In the last presidential Election young voters lent their votes to Biden. These were made up of black voters – Hispanic voters, Asian voters and young Jewish voters etc.
They will not vote for the Democrats this time. They most certainly will not vote for Trump. Many of them may vote for Jill Stein the anti-war Green candidate. My opinion is that Trump will win quite easily.
The interesting thing if trump gets elected is whether he will make good on his threat to leave NATO? If he does, he may well be (how shall we say?) a target of certain members of the so-called Deep State he talks about.
Four riders have finally saddled up, sharpened their scythe and cudgels and are about tor ride against all of humanity. Famine is assured, either by inclement climates or by a nuclear winter – what a prospect for our children.
But let me throw a glimmer of hope into the melee, this morning on the toady program, they interviewed a woman on the issue of new housing on an old train-manufacturing factory, a small new town of 1600 houses, school, surgery and shops.
She said that not one of these houses were affordable and would only serve commuters who work in Manchester or Liverpool, that currently there are no dentists available to many and waiting times for a professional doctors appointment are a month.
She was questioned as to what she would vote for in the next election and how she voted before. She said that she was a lifelong Conservative voter; she said that she most likely would vote for the Green Party or a local Independent from the constituency she lives in – after which the interview ended.
This suggest to me that climate change and Gaza matter to people, that the public is far more clued up and aghast at what is happening.
But, when driving through Norwich, electing a third of cllrs. on May 2nd, the Genocidal party posters are still being put up in front of houses.
Some of the wool that is put in front of the public’s eyes is covering up the stench of war and decay these main parties represent. I have been thrown off the Pink un’s non-footie forum, because somebody complained about my direct style of conversation, because they have swallowed party political messages hook, line and sinker.
My sincere thanks to Craig for writing this timeline of planning for multiple terror by our psychopaths in power, and calling it out for what it is.
We must mention it at every hustings that genocide was planned and supported by all political parties bar the Greens here. The judges at the ICJ must feel very alone now, after having their judgement ignored.
Was Nuremberg just a script for an international real-life event to follow?
‘Affordable Housing’, another term that doesn’t mean what it says. (Like Climate change)
God’s sake… you’re another of those drive-by denialists who are too bashful to actually discuss the subject, but like to do an off-topic hit-and-run, aren’t you Steve?
Perish the thought that someone may actually have a different idea from you, eh? Were your ancestors Puritans in Cromwell’s government or perhaps members of the Inquisition in Spain?
It hardly qualifies as an ‘idea’ – its more of an unsupported assertion. Made again, and again, and again. Maybe you can’t tell the difference?
Your pearl-clutching indignation at someone being called out on it is understandable enough – given this is a favourite tactic of yours. Assert, and run away.
Yet another thread where your only contribution is to complain about someone else’s legitimate opinion being mentioned in passing.
The ‘denialists’ aren’t the off topic and disruptive ones Glenn, its you.
That’s not my “only contribution” – sheesh, checking that wouldn’t have taken you much effort, and you could have saved yourself the embarrassment of being flat out wrong just a few words into your opening sentence.
When someone often goes off-topic – say, by regularly slipping in a sly assertion that people of colour have lower intelligence – that ought to be left unchallenged, you reckon? (I think not, myself, but let’s hear your argument since you’re so adamant about the point.)
As much as media were spreading the lies about UNRWA 2 months ago they now are totally mute, the Germans quietly having resumed their payments to UNRWA, and of course displaying total deafness to Albanese´s report on IDF torture of UNRWA personnel.
But since no day may pass without new shocks, the US Congress is about to pass a bill that would allow the US Treasury to destroy any NGO supporting the Palestine cause:
“the messaging depicting Hamas as somehow behind the campus protests has increased”.
And in an extensive row of Tweets here, the detailed account so far – which seems to be completely ignored by the media of course:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/04/free-speech-on-the-ropes-legislation-to-revoke-not-for-profit-status-of-organizations-that-support-palestine-protests-passes-in-house.html
The worst is already summed up in paragraph #1:
“Chuck L alerted me to an important tweetstorm by Lara Friedman of the Foundation for Middle East Peace about legislation that is designed to drop a hammer on not-for-profits that are deemed to be supporting pro-Palestine protests by revoking their not-for-profit status. As Friedman explains, this bill, H.R. 6408, also removes pretty much all due process rights, so its targets have effectively no recourse. The pretext is that pro-Palestine protests are supporting terrorist organizations, as in Hamas.”
p.s. yesterday Chris Hedges published a touching piece about the campus protests. Of course this is all directed against them, too:
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/revolt-in-the-universities
He interviewed a few students affected by this Eastern Bloc style repression.
With a bit of fantasy one can picture the familial conflicts and tragedies behind these events. Considering that parents save money for decades for their children to attend these by and large corrupt ivy league schools with the hope of climbing up the social ladder.
100%
It was no secret in late January that starvation was already stalking Gaza after months of the IDF bombing every bakery and blocking food aid. So Western governments knew very well what the effect their ending of funding to UNRWA was going to have. Truly unconscionable. So too their client journalists who framed it not just as an appropriate action but a highly principled, noble one. The journalists knew equally as well as the politicians what impact it would have on millions of highly vulnerable souls.
In a comment (here) under your post of April 2nd “An Urgent Message About Gaza”, I outlined how your “good” liberal education had “protected” you from the reality of the economic and political workings of the capitalist mode of production by offering “analyses” of reality based on idealist principles. It seems that the current situation in Gaza is finally creating lacunae in the ideological certainty that this inculcation provided.
It is a testimony to the power of the ideological formation that you received via your “good” liberal education that Capitalism’s post-WW2 history of anti-communist and resource-pillaging proxy wars in the “Third World” that led to the deaths of between 15–20M people did not impinge on your consciousness, despite the copious literature describing it both concurrently and subsequently.
Someone on Skwawkbox posted a link to the following Jacobin article yesterday afternoon about the protests on campus in the US:
‘Why They’re Calling Student Protesters Antisemites’
https://jacobin.com/2024/04/student-protests-antisemitism-war-gaza
And after reading the article I posted the following (in a Reply) which I’ll say more about in due course:
Now I don’t know how many people around the country are regularly getting out and marching and protesting against the mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and the destruction of their homes and civilian infrastructure, but it’s definitely in the hundreds of thousands, but what we need is for millions to be on the streets, and I can’t understand why they’re NOT given that around two-thirds or more condemn what Israel is doing. And ditto in the US, where it should be TENS of millions given the much larger population. And ESPECIALLY in the US, precisely because Biden could bring the genocide to an end tomorrow, and could have done so months ago of course. But one thing it WOULD do immediately is shut the cnuts up who are smearing and demonising and attacking the marchers/protesters.
In other words, the people have the power to shut these malevolent malignent evil scum up AND, potentially bring the carnage in Gaza (and the West Bank) to an end. If there were ten million, fifteen million or more of us demonstrating in the UK, and thirty, fourty, fifty million or more demonstrating in the US, it would DEFINITELY stop these nasty, vicious, demented shit up once and for all, and quite possibly bring the war on Gaza to an end.
It really is way past time to change and transform the totally fucked-up world and reality these mass-murdering planet-destroying demented fucking psychopaths have created!
Just to clarify: What I had in mind was a one-off massive protest right across the UK in dozens of locations from Thurso to Brighton, and Canterbury to Truro, with obviously the biggest of the demos in the main conurbations – i.e. Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester etc., etc., and London of course. And the way I envision it is not to have marches, as such, but in each location for people to congregate at a central point (Hyde Pk in London, for example), and no criticism implied or intended, but to dispense with the drumming and chanting and making a lot of noise, and for the protests to be relatively quiet and peaceful and reflective and, if such numbers could be achieved, the high of knowing and feeling the collective power we wield against the inhuman beings.
And I think I know how we could make it happen.
Not forgetting Belfast etc, and Cardiff etc…… sorry about that (but they were on the list of towns and cities I put together last night!).
Genocide Joe has much longer form on this than is generally appreciated – even back when Reagan demanded Menachem Begin desist from killing civilians, Biden stridently disagreed.
https://theintercept.com/2021/04/27/biden-israeli-invasion-lebanon/
I wonder if the end goal has already been planned, and when Israel has expelled or killed every last Palestinian, and when it’s decided that Lebanon, too, is rightly part of a greater Israel, then it will be illegal to suggest such a thing as a Palestinian ever existed. No, that’s an antisemitic trope – there never was a Palestine, and to suggest otherwise is a blood libel.
They will be airbrushed out of history, schools will teach that – along with The Protocols of the Elders and holocaust denial – even uttering the name ‘Palestine’ is to be considered a despicable act.
I also wonder if support for this genocide and Israel is a demand and a mark of a politician the Establishment can trust. Like a Mafia member, who has committed a murder in full view of other members, to demonstrate he too is ‘one of us’, can be trusted, is fully capable of making the ‘tough decisions’ required.
The government knows two states aren’t possible. That leaves one state. They want that state to remain Jewish for various geopolitical reasons. An Apartheid state won’t last, so the only way for it to remain Jewish is for the Palestinian population to be reduced to 30% or less and kept there. When they no longer are a (demographic) threat, they can have their rights – not until then.
But a single state isn’t possible either. As Sherlock Holmes put it, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however implausible, must be the truth”.
A two-state solution is impossible.
A single-state solution is impossible.
There is no solution.
That is, there is no way for the “state of Israel” (aka “the Zionist entity”) to continue in existence. It has already eaten up hundreds of thousands – possibly millions – of lives. Every single day that passes, it kills, cripples, bereaves, and renders homeless many more.
The dream of Israel must be given up, so that Palestine can go back to being a normal country governed, in a somewhat democratic way, in the interests of ALL its inhabitants.
A single State exists called Palestine – it’s under occupation from the US-backed Zionist State Terrorist group.
93% of Palestine belongs to its Palestinian owners or their Descendants. The other 7% belongs to the Zionists who acquired Title prior to 1948. The rest of the Members of the US-backed Zionist State Terrorist group can stand trial for their crimes against humanity in their countries of Origin.
I expect Poland and Ukraine to have a substantial backlog.
BBC newsnight interview with Emily Thornberry.
Reporter… Do you think cutting off food, water and electricity is within International Law?
Thornberry… I think Israel has an absolute right to defend itself against terrorism.
Reporter… that is not the question I asked.
Thornberry… It is an answer to the question you asked and I think it as appropriate one at this time.
Why won’t you answer whether it is in line with International Law?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqiaXmBY2GM
Emily Thornberry is shadow Attorney General, former barrister and a lifelong human rights campaigner just like Keir Starmer, who told LBC News on 11th October in reply to a question from Nick Ferrari … “A siege is appropriate, cutting off power, cutting off water?” to which Starmer replied “I think that Israel does have that right; it is an ongoing situation.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HQYfsUAf3s
In my opinion these Labour Leaders deserve to be in the dock at the Hague, certainly they are criminal psychopaths and can only be described as barely human.
Emily has also informed us that Apartheid Israel is “a beacon of freedom, equality and democracy”. (A “beacon”, no less!)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4b7_7LkGE4w&feature=youtu.be
She knows saying stuff like this is the Open Sesame to attaining political respect and power in a country like Britain.
‘Emily has also informed us that Apartheid Israel is “a beacon of freedom, equality and democracy”’.
If you are Jewish.
Ah, not quite fair, Tom.
It is “a beacon of freedom, equality and democracy”’ _if_ you are a Jewish Zionist with no morals whatsoever, and who furthermore considers only other Jewish Zionists to be fully human.
All the other Israel cheerleaders are simply unprincipled liars of the first order.
Btw, did you know that observant male Jews begin each day with a prayer, thanking God for not making him female?
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/thank-you-god-for-not-making-me-a-woman/
…. just saying….
A fair question to these slippery genocide enthusiasts (not even apologists!) would be to ask:
What would Israel have to do to the Palestinians, in order to lose your support?
The true answer is that there is no limit. Israeli ministers have already called for the deaths of all of them. Chief Rabbis have said they all must all die because they are all terrorists, even the children. They have been dismissed as ‘human animals’, and so on. All with no reprimands or repercussions.
So when said genocide enthusiast says well of course, we wouldn’t want to [fill in the blank], it’s easy to show examples of exactly that either being done or proposed. So will they be withdrawing support? Of course not – that would require principles and courage!
I concluded that the Illegal Apartheid Entity in the Levant was long planned – going back to at least the early 1800’s by the Imperial guardians in English and European monarchies – that Zionist nightmare was finally implemented post war by a body which seemed to have been set up specifically for the purpose of giving it a false legitimacy – the UN which didn’t have many members then, by the last in that line of imperialist nations – itself wholly a creation of the same villains, the Superpower USA.
It had to be engineered because the Fascist Corporatists had failed to take Russia using the Nazi Germans as the proxies that would fight to the last to achieve that millennia-long goal of the Ancient Global Robber Barons and Slave Owners. That failure was guaranteed by the end of 1942 and the rest was about delaying the inevitable and planning the next attempt at Global domination.
“It had to be engineered because the Fascist Corporatists had failed to take Russia using the Nazi Germans as the proxies that would fight to the last to achieve that millennia-long goal of the Ancient Global Robber Barons and Slave Owners.”
Is it merely coincidence, that the UK supported the Nazis in their plans for expansion eastwards right up to the point where they signed a non-aggression pact with Russia? Suddenly, beating up the Poles was a casus belli.
It would seem the targeting of aid workers by Israel is deliberate as these investigators found out….
During a discussion in the Israeli parliament on 4 January, Noga Arbell, a former official of the Israeli foreign ministry, vehemently declared, ‘It will be impossible to win the war if we do not destroy UNRWA, and this destruction must begin immediately’. Arbell’s stark proclamation and her subsequent call for the dismantling of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) posited the agency as a strategic obstacle in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240129-former-israeli-official-noga-arbell-urges-for-destruction-of-unrwa-in-parliamentary-discussion/
A New York Times investigation has revealed that at least six international aid groups working to help starving Palestinians in Gaza were targeted by Israeli forces – hit despite having repeatedly shared their locations with the Israeli military. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) from France, Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) based in the UK, the US International Rescue Committee, Anera from the US and the Red Cross/Red Crescent from Switzerland were all hit, along with the well-known repeat attack on three World Central Kitchen (WCK) vehicles spread across a 2.4km distance.
https://skwawkbox.org/2024/04/25/video-israel-targeted-six-international-aid-groups-that-had-shared-their-coordinates/
I was just about to post a link to the Skwakbox article, but you got there first Harry. I did a search earlier to ascertain how much of the UK (and US) MSM covered the NYT investigation, and there was absolutely zilch, which is very odd given how much coverage the assanation of the WCK aid workers received in the MSM. Anyway here’s a link to the NYT investigation:
https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/100000009393031/aid-groups-gaza-israel.html
(video 9mins 43secs, with a ‘link’ to the transcript at the bottom of the screen on the right)
Also came across the following, from yesterday:
‘José Andrés honors World Central Kitchen workers killed in Gaza during memorial service’
https://eu.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/news/nation/2024/04/25/world-central-kitchen-memorial-service-honors-7-workers-killed-in-gaza/73454601007/
And this:
‘WCK workers risked lives ‘to feed people they did not know”
Chef José Andrés gave a eulogy at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC to honour the World Central Kitchen (WCK) workers killed by an Israeli air strike in Gaza on 1 April.
The founder of the charity said that Israel’s explanation of the incident wasn’t “good enough” and added that he and his team “demand an investigation into the actions of the IDF against our team.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-68860067
The WCK is, like the White Helmets, a very dodgy outfit with extremely suspicious links.
https://thegrayzone.com/2024/03/27/us-state-depts-chef-gaza-aid-rubble/
What is happening with the ICJ ? Did they drop the ball ?!
I think the ICJ did everything it could. It has absolutely no power to enforce its judgments, so its decision is a dead letter.
All
Please see this interview with Scott Ritter:
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=george+galloway+scott+ritter&iax=videos&ia=videos&iaf=publishedAfter%3Aw&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DhsucQArXUTE
I hope we’ve all left google as our search engine!
Thanks Aidworker1, I was going to post that link. Powerful stuff. For those without the time. Min 17 onwards Ritter holds nothing back, Galloway for once is somewhat lost for words.
Re what I said earlier, one thing we could all do is print off copies of the Al Jazeera article Craig linked to in his article above, and collectively distribute tens of thousands of them through peoples’ doors (and at the bottom in large-ish type say PLEASE COPY AND/OR SCAN AND CIRCULATE TO FRIENDS AND RELATIVES AND WORK COLLEAGUES ETC. And obviously a large heading, along with a short explanation (say in size 14), and then the article (in size 12). We could potentially reach millions of people with the truth and, as such, expose this gargantuan falsehood dissembled by the Israeli black propagandists. I only have Microsoft WordPad, which doesn’t split up the text into A4-sized pages, so I can’t really check how much space the article would take up (and it’s quite a long article). Anyway, whatever the case, it would also be good to include some passages from Craig’s article AND also mention (towards the end of the leaflet) that most of the atrocity claims against Hamas have been debunked, including the forty beheaded babies and other similar claims. I doubt that it would all fit on two sides of A4 (one sheet of A4), and would more-than-likely take up four sides (two sheets of A4 paper), and if that’s the case, then don’t staple them together, and just use a paper-clip (and maybe number sides 2, 3 and 4), so that it’s easy for people to separate the leaflet and make/print copies. I must have at least fifty reams of A4 paper in storage (along with a couple of printers), and were that not the case – i.e. that I’m in temporary accommodation, having been made homeless by some lovely friends who said initially that it would be a home for life – I would definitely run off thousands of copies and distribute them in the surrounding area(s). But maybe I can find a solution…….
If I can get it together in the next few days, I’ll try and put something together and post it on here (I would imagine I can find another word processor to download for free that splits the text into A4 pages). And if anyone else on here feels inclined to do so, or make suggestions regards the (additional) content of such a leaflet………
The British people couldn’t even stop the Tory government (with Labour help) from murdering the disabled and others back in 2014, and is ongoing; so, don’t get your hopes up regarding Gaza.
Install “LibreOffice” – it’s free!
Excellent article Craig, so it was preplanned to cut the funding of the UNRWA by EU nations and the US, and as you mentioned there’s not one shred of evidence that UNRWA staff were involved in the Oct 7th attack.
So the genocide was planned and it’s being carried out with Genocide Joe Biden feigning concern for the way the Zionist leader Netanyahu is systematically exterminating the oppressed Palestinian people – the same must be said of certain leaders around the globe as well, such as Scholz (Germany), Sunak/Starmer (UK).
These people are monsters, and if the ICJ doesn’t hold them to account on playing their parts in the genocide then the ICJ isn’t fit for purpose and it’s just a Western-backed captured body. The West’s mask has truly slipped, and what we are seeing is the face of evil. Dark times indeed.
I think the Gaza genocide was all preplanned, at latest when the US blew up Nordstream.
Lysias.
Pre-planned yes it certainly looks that way.
As for Nordstream, Sy Hersh wrote the US aided by Norway and possibly other nations blew up the pipelines, Biden did say that one way or another the Nordstream pipelines would stop sending energy to Europe. Now EU nations are paying a higher price for their energy.
The blowing up the pipelines was terrorism, and an all out act of war. Imagine if the shoe was on the other foot and US energy pipelines were blown up. The EU is so full of Zionists and Atlanticists politicians that they just accepted what happened; India bought Russia’s excess oil and sold it onto Europe at a profit. Europe is America’s stomping ground, and the place where its war against Russia eventually will take place.
Not everything is by design. And politicians care about one thing above all – remaining in power. Biden is losing votes over this, and that doesn’t make him happy. If he could delay this until after his re-election, he would. As for ACTIVE support I feel Netanyahu would get more from Trump and is trying his best to draw this out until he thinks Trump comes into office when he will face no opposition whatsoever for whatever his plans may be for Palestine.
My personal opinion about Oct 7th is that whoever was responsible for the planning had spent a lot of time considering the timing and the exact look of the attack. Timed to catch Israel at its weakest, timed for a US election year and done secretively enough so that there was little advanced notice of the attack. I believe that this was kept from their allies in Iran to ensure word didn’t get out earlier. Further, I believe that the attack was designed to provoke this type of response. They knew that Israel would expose itself, as never before, to allegations of warcrimes and genocide. This would be Gaza having it’s ‘George Floyd’ moment. The public around the world would realise what Israel was doing and had been doing for decades and press their leaders to end support. The miscalculation made was that they thought Western leaders would pay attention to their citizens; they have not..
Chris Hedges was about to give a speech on the Princeton campus until police stopped him.
Apparently this happened yesterday. Reminds me of Germany and Varoufakis.
Hedges made following statement:
“Princeton University, like most universities around the country, is wildly overreacting from its surveillance of student activists to its rush to criminalize the most tepid forms of dissent. This will only fuel the fires of protest. These universities are frightened, not ultimately by the students, but by the clear moral issues these students raise that expose the moral bankruptcy and complicity in mass murder by all of our leading institutions. What these institutions and those who run them have failed to realize is that there is nothing they can do now. They have been exposed for who and what they are.”
Once you recognize that we are not ruled by well-meaning but occasionally misled bumblers but by full-blown sociopaths, everything they do makes sense.
Bucha, where to this day there is no proof for the RUs executing hundreds of people.
According to Gordon Hahn “some 24 civilians were killed in illegal execution-style shootings” and “the others — (…) another 15-20 — were killed when their car was fired upon, some fleeing from Bucha”
Now compare that and the ongoing fake outrage with this in Khan Yunis:
“(…)
A spokesman of the Khan Yunis Civil Defense estimates that searchers expect to recover another 400 bodies, according to CNN. Palestinian civil defense organizations estimate that at least 2,000 civilians remain missing or under rubble in Khan Yunis.
Disturbing reports continue to emerge about the mass graves, but the testimonies provided so far paint a dystopian picture. Footage and eyewitnesses relate bone-chilling scenes at the hospital complex. Bodies were found buried deep in the ground and covered with waste. Many were found naked, missing parts, skinned, decapitated, mutilated and disfigured beyond recognition. “We found corpses without heads, bodies without skins, and some had their organs stolen,” a local official in Gaza said in a statement shared by Quds News Network. Other bodies were reportedly found in plastic bags with Hebrew inscriptions on them. Many of the victims had their hands and feet tied behind their backs, indicating they were summarily executed before being buried. These include children, who were evidently murdered while in captivity. According to the spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: “Among the deceased were allegedly older people, women and wounded, while others were found tied with their hands … tied and stripped of their clothes.” Doctors and nurses were among those brutally tortured and executed.
(…)”
Your piece explains why changing a major govt department’s mindset is like turning around a supertanker. The temptation to keep your head down and go with flow is ever present, and for many, it outweighs any ethical concerns, I’d imagine. The FCO’s own web promotional blurb states “many staff [are] working flexibly and remotely.” Wonder what affect that’s having if normal feedback revealing ill-ease, isn’t now being heard?
As for the future, I think Biden will try, if he hasn’t already(?), to buy off Netanyahu. With a promises to tackle the thorny issue of Iran’s nuclear ambitions or lack thereof, after the election. The lack thereof comment, comes because Iran’s Supreme leader has issued a fatwa-forbidding their development or acquisition. Iran could’ve probably developed them along Netanyahu’s ‘crying wolf’ time frame of dire warnings, starting in the 1980s. That is, be it not for religious objections from the clerics. The 85 year old, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’ isn’t just Iran’s Supreme leader, more importantly in the context of nuclear weapons development, he’s also Commander-in-chief.
Whether Trump or Biden emerges victorious I can’t see a path that avoids the US acting in concert with the UK, attacking Iran at some point. Depressing stuff, considering it was the US that ripped up the JCPOA.
Thank you Craig. It is essential that the depraved role of the US, UK and other western governments never be forgotten. Not least their synchronised effort to starve the people of Gaza to death en masse. They are trying to rewrite the history of this genocide even while it is still happening. Not just the evil lying jellyfish Starmer in the UK. Across the pond senior Democrats have been coming out one after another — first Schumer, then Sanders and AOC, now Pelosi — to try and confine responsibility for the genocide to Netanyahu. We know they will be aided in the cover-up by their acolytes. So please keep alive the depraved machinations behind their UNRWA atrocity. They are trying to pretend it never happened even as its intended effect is writ large across the withered bodies and wizened faces of children in Gaza.