Incredibly the Israeli genocide in Gaza is now reaching new heights of violence. Casualty figures are not coming in, as the attacks are so bad that bodies cannot be recovered, medics cannot travel and there are almost no medical facilities operational now anyway.
We now see that the Western injunctions not to attack Rafah were a smokescreen of lies to mask complicity. The final pocket of Gaza is being ruthlessly ethnically cleansed and its infrastructure will be destroyed like all the rest.
It is striking that this is accompanied by an absolutely shameless doubling down of support for Israel by the Western political and media classes. Any thought that their isolation from the vast breadth of public opinion would give them pause, must be abandoned. Their Zionist lobby paymasters have jerked the chain, and rather than rowing back, we are seeing a redoubling of their efforts to suppress dissent and obscure the truth.
Some of this shameless distortion is so dissonant with the alleged norms of Western society it is almost impossible to believe it is happening. Here are a few examples.
1) Dr Ghassan Abu Sitta is a highly respected reconstructive surgeon who continued to work heroically and tirelessly in Al Shifa hospital, carrying out operation after operation, mostly on women and children, as the hospital was shelled, strafed and machine gunned around him.
He was already a surgeon of great distinction, based in Glasgow where he is now Rector of Glasgow University.
When Germany banned him from entering to address the conference on Palestine from which Yanis Varoufakis and others were also barred, it appeared perhaps as a one-off action as part of Germany’s extreme and panicked reaction to pro-Palestinian expression.
We have come to understand that Germany has a vicious hatred of Palestinians, remarkably based on the psychological trauma of inherited guilt from the Holocaust. While this is a muddled national psychosis that is plainly immoral and wrongheaded, at least it is possible to have some understanding of how it occurred.
But it then turned out that the travel ban slapped on Dr Abu Sitta by Germany has a Schengen-wide effect as he was also banned from France. That appeared again something that was almost a technical accident as regards the rest of Europe.
But the Western political establishment has now doubled down again by banning him from the Netherlands, and this time the Dutch government has made it clear that it supports the ban, and is not just caught by a Schengen restriction.
So the major governments of the European Union are forbidding a distinguished surgeon from giving first-hand medical evidence of the genocide taking place. I cannot think of anything that more sharply exposes the willingness of the Western political class to abandon the most basic tenets of supposed “Western democracy” in the interests of Israel.
2) The willingness of the United States to use extreme violence against pro-Palestinian students on college campuses is another demonstration of the same abandonment of the pretence of democracy when it comes to Israel. It also illustrates what has come to be a serious generational divide in Western public opinion, with young people very strongly motivated to oppose the genocide (which is not to say that older people are pro-genocide, just that they are more split, particularly in the USA).
This is being followed up with yet more crazed pro-Israeli legislation in the United States, seeking to designate anti-genocide and pro-Palestinian expression on campuses as anti-semitic and thus illegal.
In many ways this typifies the reaction of the ruling class across the West. Their reaction to suddenly being exposed as the paid servants of an Israel which no longer has popular support and now causes public revulsion, is simply to attempt to ban free expression and make it specifically illegal to disagree with them.
3) The British Labour Party has gone even madder. Keir Starmer’s Genocide Party is an outstanding example of the success of the Israeli lobby in buying up both sides of the aisle and controlling the entire neoliberal uniparty that poses as the repository of democratic “choice” in the West.
Starmer had been doing his best to conceal his explicitly expressed “unequivocal support for Israel” lately, and to row back from his straightforward assertion that Israel has the right to cut off food and water from the population of Gaza. There had been a fake shift, from refusing to countenance the word “ceasefire” to supporting a temporary ceasefire or a “sustainable” ceasefire – the latter being code for a ceasefire after Israel had achieved all its ethnic cleansing objectives.
But then David Lammy blew this out of the water with an address to US Republican senators in which he made the totally bonkers assertion that Nelson Mandela would have opposed the college protests for Palestine. Lammy is a truly despicable individual, one of the ultimate examples of the corrupt politician whose voice is bought. But this was a move far beyond the pale.
4) Even today, the Western media continues to spout out Israeli propaganda at mains pressure. The Guardian, despite the thousands and thousands of dead women and children we have seen on our mobile phones this past seven months, continues to pretend that the genocidal attack is on “Hamas militants”.
The bombing and shelling of civilians in tents is still described as “clashes”. This propaganda really does not wash any more, though it may reinforce the morale of hardened Zionists. Everybody else has seen through it months ago. Yet still they persist.
5) The endgame is becoming very apparent. The United States is completing its floating harbour for Gaza, and Israel has gained control of the Rafah crossing into Egypt, giving the US and Israel total control of entry points into Gaza. Israel has announced that the Rafah crossing is to be handed over to a US mercenary force. The US can then say it is complying with Biden’s pledge not to put US forces’ boots on the ground in Gaza, while actually taking control.
The Israeli attack on Rafah has been justified by the USA as a “limited military operation”, thus claiming it does not violate Biden’s purported “red line”, even though Israel has ordered over a million displaced people in Rafah to evacuate again, to nowhere.
Conclusion:
The only possible conclusion from all of the above is to reinforce my analysis that the Zionist political and media classes in the West, including Biden, Blinken, Trudeau, Macron, Sunak, Starmer, Scholtz, von der Leyen and all, are active and willing participants in a programme of genocide.
They had numerous opportunities to turn back. We all saw what is happening months ago. They did not take them.
The endgame remains the processing of the remaining Palestinian population out of Gaza through the US-controlled points of the Rafah crossing and the floating harbour, primarily into camps in the Sinai desert. The Western powers are doubling down on their genocide and on their colonial project.
I see nothing whatsoever that indicates they can have any other long-term objective in mind than the complete Israeli annexation of Gaza minus its civilian population. What do you see?
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Well said.
Apparently, the ‘Aid jetty’ is due to open this week. When that happens we will be able to observe its real purpose: ethnic cleansing, or removal of Palestinians under the guise of assistance. Expect the killing to increase.
Will the public take this into account at the GE ?. I suggest not.
100%
I think this has all beenclear from early on.
I lived in Poland for many years so visited Auschwitz several times, and many people will have read a book or watched a documentary on the holocaust.
My thoughts at the time were strong – thank God that this could never happen again, but if it did i would have a clear duty to call a genocide what it is.
Well, one grim form of silver-lining is the regime discredits itself further. You can rule a sullen & cynical population but you can’t expect energy & sacrifice from them.
The NATO armies will continue to dwindle. Their populations, will treat the official propaganda with the distain it has earned.
Any premise that “we” have to do something abroad about Iran/The Mullahs or Russia/Big Bad KGB Tsar Vlad and even China/Evil Emperor Xi etc. Will be bitterly laughed to scorn just like it was when they gently floated the idea of a military draft.
Likewise all the guff, about “our democracy”, “fully-automated-luxury-globalism” or flip-side how we need to tighten “our” belts etc. Is long past its sell-by-date: from gone a bit sour to just outright rancid.
So at least there’s that…
So true…the years of BS -ing the awoke people are long gone. Now we just shake our heads at their complete lies and lies and lies….
I see a region of the world dominated by the two most genocidal ideologies known to Man: nationalism and religion.
I see both “sides” (in reality, “two cheeks of the same arse” © George Galloway) using these ideologies to justify both terrorism and genocide.
I see, more generally, a global population similarly in thrall to these two genocidal ideologies.
I see, finally, a blogger who, while an enthusiastic booster of at least one of these genocidal ideologies, presumes to pass moral judgement on others parading and supporting the same ideology.
Welcome to the irony-free world of the “well-educated” “liberal elite”.
There is a fatal flaw in the argument against ‘nationalism’ made by John S (May 13 at 11:29): that is, that it fails to make a distinction between aggressive, offensive, imperialist nationalism – where an expansionist nation colonises or otherwise dominates other people’s lands (such as British – or more accurately, English – nationalism and that of other plundering European nationalisms and their US successor) and defensive nationalism.
In the latter, a colonised or invaded or occupied country struggles to rid itself of the consequences of the aggressive nationalism of the first that resulted in its predicament. The former is about conquest and plunder; the latter is about defence and self-determination.
Examples of the latter include Ireland, Algeria – and of course, the Scottish nationalism expounded by Craig Murray. Defensive nationalism is morally justifiable; Aggressive colonial or imperialist nationalism, as plunder, theft and (invariably) murder in the name of national aggrandisement, is morally repugnant, and demands resistance.
As an expression of aggressive, imperialist nationalism, Zionism is indeed a genocidal ideology. Its principal victims are the Palestinians – and, to a lesser extent, those Jewish people who have been lured into occupying someone else’s land and who will never therefore find peace. The Palestinians have an absolute right to resist.
The authors of this situation are – it is no surprise to note – the overarching Anglo-American imperium who set up the whole mess, and who maintain and support it – as so amply described by Craig above – in the interests of the plutocrats, who own the US and British governments, and who use it to control the resource-rich Middle East, and to pursue their wider geopolitical aims.
As such ‘religion’ is a bit of red herring (but not without a bearing for both sets of victims – and exploited by these same plutocrats) who themselves are largely irreligious – and indeed irredeemably profane.
The wicked and profoundly evil exploitation of the holocaust, and its victims of genocidal Europeans in the pursuit of this latter genocidal ideology, merely adds to its horror.
If one sets aside a materialist conception of the world and engages with the “real one” (in which the great majority of people believe in things that have no objective existence, God/gods and countries in this case), it is possible to make a positive but limited case for nationalist political movements in the situation that colonial States found themselves in post-WW2, as you suggest. Similarly, again in extremely limited situations, religious ideology can represent a “progressive” political position (the phenomenon of “Marxist” Catholic priests in 1960s Latin America). But that is it in both cases: the role of each (as with all ideologies) is to obfuscate the real relations between things and/or people in order to ensure that the “system” works as smoothly as possible.
Sorry John,
You are too clever by half for me to understand a bloody thing you are on about. Can’t get an ounce of sense out of it!
I don’t think it’s meant to make any sense. It’s a bamboozle, simple as that.
If John S had any worthwhile point that he wanted to make, he would have made it. He didn’t have one, so he didn’t make it.
@ John S, why do you believe that the vast majority of people take superstitious mumbo-jumbo seriously?
You looked in the mirror, then. Same old patronising claptrap from your antique ideology,
“…your antique ideology.”
And yet I wager that you would not so describe empiricism, even though it constitutes the first historical manifestation of idealist philosophy in the form of the Ancient Greek’s “natural philosophy” and is thus 2,500+ years old, nor indeed (philosophical) liberalism, which predates dialectical materialism (Marxist philosophy) by several centuries. How strange.
Empiricism is not an ideology, although yours would like to pretend it is derived therefrom. How strange.
“Empiricism is not an ideology…”
A correct answer is a correct answer, but it is one to a point that I did not make, viz.:
“And yet I wager that you would not so describe empiricism, even though it constitutes the first historical manifestation of idealist philosophy…”.
It seems that in rolling with Ian Macpherson’s incorrect description of a philosophy as an ideology I confused you. How strange.
John S: “I see, finally, a blogger who, while an enthusiastic booster of at least one of these genocidal ideologies […]”
Sorry, but may I be blunt – what the fuck are you talking about?
CM isn’t a ‘booster’ of any form of genocide, and I suggest you prove otherwise or retract your disgusting slur.
Try speaking a little more plainly too, instead of filling the air with such densely packed verbiage. Here’s news for you chief – it does not require a wordsmith to decode what an honest man is saying.
Twisting a bunch of lies into incomprehensible gibberish is what an intellectual might sound like to a stupid person. That’s obviously your game. You sound like an apologist for genocide who should – and actually do – know better, but is desperately trying to dress it up to such an absurd extent so that most (ie genocidal non-enthusiast) people leave the conversation.
So what is it – you’re simply incapable of making yourself properly understood? Or you’re trying to bamboozle any correspondent into submission with magnificent wordplay, without ever actually saying anything at all?
I don’t know what John S. is referring to when describing Mr. Murray as supporting any form of genocide but for the rest, IIUC he’s saying that we are all human beings and only have one planet to share.
His general live-and-let-live statement is undone by a bizarre particular accusing Mr Murray of something or other.
Odd behaviour towards the person who controls the medium one wishes to express oneself in, no? – the limits of “democracy”, lol.
What is your interest in this? Why explain him, surely he can do that himself?
I was simply translating his “verbiage”, in so far as I understand (and agree with) it, for those who had already commented that they didn’t.
I hope that this short reply will answer all questions and clear up all misunderstandings.
Dr. Iain
A Marxist views the workings of the world in an analogous way to that of characters in the Matrix films having taken a “red pill”: the vast mass of humanity participating in various types of “mental cosplay” (religion, nationalism, racism et al), differing from the harmless(?) “performative juvenilia” of Star Trek conventions and the like only in that a genocidal number of deaths can result. In the specific cases of nationalism and religion, there have been periods during which they have had “progressive” characteristics ‒ the post-WW2 anti-colonial struggles, the “liberation theology” movement in Latin America of the 1960s ‒ but using these vanishingly small “positives” against their overall records of destruction is equivalent to citing Nazi Germany’s pre-war economic performance as proof that “Hitler was not all bad”. I find it hard to understand why this point was hard to understand.
Glenn_nl
A charitable view after reading your “output” might conclude that English was your second or third language and that this was the raison d’être for your comprehension manque. A less charitable view might conclude that you are an intellectual midget.
Squeeth
See my answer to Dr. Iain.
Ian
See my answer to Glenn_nl
Not a Tory Fanboy
As Dr. Iain realised, I was not accusing CM of supporting genocide itself but of an ideology that has been used to encourage and justify genocide. When attempting to ”control” such powerful ideologies as nationalism (and religion) for political purposes, things can easily get out of control: the phrase “blowback” springs to mind. We will see how CM handles this issue in the coming general election.
Will Moon
See my reply to Not a Tory Fanboy.
On the subject of genocide, here are two articles by Jean-Paul Sartre, published in New Left Review in issues #41 January-February 1967 and #48 March-April 1968 respectively, relating to the work of the Russell Tribunal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Tribunal):
https://newleftreview.org/issues/i41/articles/jean-paul-sartre-imperialist-morality
https://newleftreview.org/issues/i48/articles/jean-paul-sartre-genocide
I conclude that you are a very ineffective communicator, desperately trying to sound like the intellectual you are clearly not, and making a utterly pompous arse of yourself in the attempt.
Carl Sagan said that anyone who feigned incapability of explaining themselves in a sufficiently clear manner to be actually understood is a charlitan. Sagan, unlike yourself, had great intellect, and could make himself very well understood. Try reading his work, you might actually learn something – both about the subject, and the ability to communicate generally.
John, I don’t do “politics”, I just have an opinion about politics
As a point of fact John it was unclear whether you were or you weren’t, so naturally I did not you accuse of any particular behaviour. Now you have more clearly into the open well
I have read what you have written so read this
I see a small group of extremely wealthy cliques, who have robbed the rest of the world for some several hundred years. All history or herstory, all politics, all religion, all divisions, form the palette that these inhuman monsters use in an attempt to preserve, and if possible increase their gargantuan, extreme wealth.
The only ideology out there John, is the ideology of the wealth extremists. In such a landscape a worthy person listens to their heart and all statements regarding politics, religion etc both spoken and heard, are mediated by this internal dialogue
UK and USA are the most dangerous countries in the world they are the chief troublemakers in the world causing more wars than all the other countries together and now Australia are joining them , AUKUS
– “What do you see?”
I see middle eastern people being bombed and starved for (primarily US) capitalist control of fossil fuel resources, yet again, as I’ve been seeing for over two decades – British Gas negotiators and the US Energy Secretary were sent to Tel Aviv within days of October 7th, and now they hold those extraction licenses. Killing and dispossessing the people of Gaza is simply cheaper than extraction amid the retreating ice of the Arctic.
I also see the death throes of the (primarily US) capitalist project. But we’re all in the belly of the beast.
The Gaza Marine natural gas field is tiny in the grand scheme of things, Clark, and Israel has effectively controlled it for years because it restricted Gaza’s Exclusive Economic Zone to between 6 & 12 nautical miles offshore. The US is in no need of cheap natural gas as, despite restrictions on exports from Russia to the EU, prices there are currently near record lows.
You know, I somehow guessed that you, specifically, would reply like this. You make the same false assertions with the same misleading argument techniques time after time; you arbitrarily divide up the problem and then cherry-pick from each sub-context you thereby created.
If your take is true, why were British Gas Group and the US Energy Secretary so prompt to visit Tel Aviv? If the total East Mediterranean resources are so insignificant, now and in the future, why were UK and US companies so anxious to acquire extraction licenses as if they depend upon Israel’s complete subjugation of Gaza?
That the entire Western, political elite are “willing participants” may not fully capture the intricate dynamics at play.
When reliable history books are eventually written covering this period, Jeffrey Epstein’s Lolita Express will go down as the most efficient and effective intelligence operation of modern times.
I’d wager Joe Biden appears on the hidden flight logs.
Despite likely being of some use to the Israelis, Father, I still reckon that Epstein’s enterprise in the Caribbean was fairly small scale, as well as taking place around two decades ago now (and probably not involving Biden either*). This on the other hand….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware)
* Epstein’s harem were a bit long in the tooth for him:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh0PBr6ZUN0
(Note: This is very much the sanitised version – the X-rated stuff gets removed pretty quickly)
Whitney Webb suggests Epstein “inherited” the operation off Roy Cohn, a brutal “fixer”, who is pictured in the Oval Office with Prez Reagan in the 80s, an intimate “advisor” schooled in the ways of political coercion – after all, Cohn’s mentor and meal ticket was anticommunist Torquemada, Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin – good old Wisconsin, not just the site of a great university lol!
This “intelligence” operation has been running at least 60–70 years. If anything, today it will be more extensive, more insidious, more repellant. The same sort of thing runs in Britain and many other countries. How else to explain Janner, Smith and the rest? How else to explain Zionist predominance in Britain, America, France etc.?
Mr Murray when speaking about this issue recently here, suggested the image of a “frisson”, that the relationship might be less master/slave coercion and more collegiate acknowledgment that one has “arrived”, that one is in “in the club” – the inner circle lol. Maybe like Kubrick’s last film “Eyes Wide Shut”?
ps. Cohn is widely referred to as the mentor of Donald Trump.
wasn´t this the gay Roy Cohn dying of HIV around 1985?
Yes, Roy Cohn died of AIDS in 1986, AG. According to Roger Stone, he wasn’t gay – just a guy who liked having sex with men. Thanks for clearing that one up for us, Rog.
Thanks for your reply Will. No offence to Ms Webb, but personally I’m of the belief that Epstein pretty much started off from scratch, beginning with Leslie Wexner – can’t see any reason why a man in his 50’s who wasn’t incapacitated would grant someone who wasn’t a close relation full powers of attorney unless he was being blackmailed.
Cyril Smith* & Greville Janner were just backbench MPs, never at the heart of government. As for Zionist influence in America: well, over two-thirds of Biden’s extended cabinet are either Jewish or married to Jews – so there is that. And then there’s the US media, but we’re not allowed to talk about such tropes. So, all in all, there’s not that much need for blackmail on the part of the Israelis – but if it’s ever desired, having spyware that can be surreptitiously installed on any Apple or Android smartphone with zero clicks required, which enables full snooping on the calls, texts & browsing of members of Congress etc would be very handy.
* As far as I’m aware, none of the boys that Smith molested and/or spanked (which, in case you’ve forgotten, was a perfectly legal chastisement in state schools until 1987 – and in private ones until 1998) made an official complaint to the police about him in his lifetime.
I wonder how much you know of Roy Cohn and his “activities”?
Can you offer a description to explain this Zionist stranglehold on media, politics etc? And related, do you think Israel should be above criticism?
As for need? – there is the concept of informational redundancy to consider, as well as Kubrick’s point about motive – when one is on the outside one will never understand this “need”, this motive. For outsiders it is of necessity “occult”, ie hidden and unseen.
I would say it is a form of mysticism – once “taken” the mind of the initiate is capable of producing epistemologies and ontologies which bridge this gap and thus becomes an “insider”. This is how societal and personal morality in an individual is overcome, placed as it is, in a lattice of real Sovereign Power – the power to reorder the world at the wave of an indifferent hand, kingly feasts and slave girls and boys, who could resist?
It is as good an explanation as any, to explain how one can murder multitudes of civilians live on the internet – add career advancement and cash and what do you know? – everyone is singing off hymn sheet: marvellous.
thx, L.A.
at least something that makes me laugh!
Thanks for your reply Will. Sorry that I can’t reply to your points: my original reply explaining how US politics vis-a-vis Israel works has been deleted by the mods, presumably for supposedly being ‘anti-Semitic’ – which, if so, is kinda ironic in that, unlike our host and most people on here, I am actually a Zionist, in that I support Israel’s right to exist (within its pre-1967 borders).
——-
Thanks for your reply AG. You’re very welcome. A day without laughter is a day wasted – Nicolas Chamfort
Anti-semitism and racism in general is more marked among zionists than their opponents. That media opinion formers and politicians never mention it doesn’t make it less true. Racism is part and parcel of the rightwing colonialist mindset that characterises support for Israel.
I see Eurofascism 2.0.
If the Ukraine war is the new Spanish Civil War, the 77 year long series of “ethnic cleansing” massacres of the Palestinian people by Zionist Jews is an echo of the Holocaust wherein a racist, fascist, settler state of serf-proclaimed “supermen” believe they can slaughter the “subhuman animals” with impunity. Zionism is a Nazi political movement. Not all Zionists are Jewish; but they are all Nazis.
I rather like the way Alastair Crooke’s analysis is developing (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0MCpMsqpSU). For him, escalation is the only choice Israel has. The extremist zealots have taken power, or perhaps better: are in government and it suits Netanyahu to go along with them, and 68% of the Israeli population agree. They won’t draw back. The idea of “invincible Israel” is a busted flush, that which has been the primary strategic policy since 1948. Even genociding the Gazans is not going to provide a secure future for Israel. The only way is down, the only question being how fast.
Regarding the thousands of students in the US being accused of antisemitism, it goes without saying that their parents and their siblings and their relatives and friends etc KNOW that they are not antisemitic, and that they are maliciously being accused and characterised of being such. In other words – and I don’t know how many thousands of students it amounts to – tens of thousands, and possibly hundreds of thousands of people, are learning just how evil and rotten and unscrupulous their so-called leaders are as a consequence, along with the MSM who give them a platform, and their lies and falsehoods and smears and demonisation credibility.
Anyway, when I did a search re >how many students in the US are involved in the campus protests< the following Guardian article was at the top of the list of results:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/may/02/where-are-the-us-college-campus-protests-and-what-is-happening
I haven’t checked out Counterpunch for a while and so I just thought to do so and, as such, came across the following article entitled The Road to Hell (posted three days ago), which finishes thus:
But here’s the thing: we aren’t children and our numbers are incredibly vast. Abusers get away with their behavior until the veil is lifted and a critical mass is achieved. I think those who have experience with narcissists especially know about “the switch” that flips in your mind when the true nature of another is realized. Not only do you recognize the psychopathy in the narcissistic individual, but you notice it much more readily than most in others who exhibit the same traits. It’s as if you’ve been inoculated against bullshit.
This is clearly what we have to strive towards—that is, a clear-eyed survey of reality. The fact that so many young people have recognized the truth of the current genocide gives hope that the mask is slipping. Not only do we have to fight with all our ability against the current war and misery machine the US is promulgating, but we also need to be aware of the manipulation of our good intentions into something clearly different and only advantageous to the parasitic elite. These are the people who would blow up the world for additional wealth today. In short, we need to grow up and stop believing toxic abusers, small and large, because in truth, we are the only adults in the room.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/05/10/the-road-to-hell/
It seems obvious now that the western world has decided to solve the Palestine issue by simply getting rid of Palestine in every possible sense of the word.
“If a man causes you a problem… get rid of the man”
Another wave of refugees is a certainty. Whilst our MP’s claim to be doing everything they can to “stop the boats” they are in truth doing the exact opposite, or maybe they really are too stupid to see the correlation between blowing up peoples homes and the refugee crisis.
Not the western world, the owners of the US empire. In the olden days when papers carried reportage, this regularly was predicted after the Shit of Iran was given the boot.
I want to Cry..Have Cried. Great work here Craig
Craig writes of the “generational divide” in Anglophone politics, as exemplified by the Gaza protests on campus both in the US and here.
Of course, both he and I, and I suspect many ‘elder’ contributors, may assert solidarity with both the anti-genocide protestors and the Palestinians, but the point remains that such a divide exists. Many ‘elders’ hold profoundly extreme and separate views on Islamophobia, climate disaster, economic rent seeking etc. In the US the academics have identified “gun control, the cost of higher education, foreign relations, immigration, environment and climate change, health care, income inequality, taxes, sexual harassment and assault, abortion, racism, and the treatment of citizens by police and the justice system.” Some list!
And yet these are the same people who are expected to fight the militarised conflicts gleefully directed by their ‘elders’, on behalf of states that are either clients of hegemons or which they publically disavow: “not in my name”.
Little wonder the Chief of Staff in the UK, and many European leaders have asserted the need for forced conscription of the ‘disaffected’ young into their military machines.
Can Western political democracy survive this? I suspect not. The only way that the current hegemons and their clients can hope to ‘defend civilisation’/’keep the gravy train rolling’ is by a shift into the kind of authoritarianism familiar to the 30s, when then-magnates fear of complete expropriation (Communism) opened the door to the fascist style authoritarianism of that era. That needs an ‘other’ to provide a distinct focus for the hatred. That generates the progressively intense Islamophobia (e.g. post Shawcross Prevent) the propaganda exercises around ‘small boats’, a step change in Islamophobic hate crimes, politicians and pet academics promoting the threat of Eurabia/Great Replacement Theory etc. Should I mention the astonishing rise of Reform in England, and the views of those it attracts?
Which brings us back to Palestine and the Islamic Resistance Movement aka Hamas. Given the above, it is hardly a surprise that the US and its clients “active and willing participants” in genocide.
And thank you Craig, and your contributors, for providing a forum for these views to be expressed. I don’t think this comment would have made it past the Guardian ‘moderators’.
Mike, living in a dense urban suburb, I know some of these “disaffected youth” if they put them in the army they will frag all the officers.
I spoke to one youngster about conscription, a decent lad, flirting on the edge of petty organised crime and he seemed very keen to get started shooting and fragging the officers. He was willing to do his “duty” but aired his suspicions that the armed services might not satisfy his requirements in the “organic produce” department adding “The food in the Army will be crap”, lol.
I get the impression from the young that the Armed Services have a bit of a PR problem. I can’t imagine why that might be.
Charles Rosner, 1971 (attributed)
“Join the Army; travel to exotic, distant lands; meet exciting, unusual people and kill them”
https://www.loc.gov/resource/yan.1a37970/
(Library of Congress)
He jokingly made the point about killing the officers, or as he derisively called them “the Ruperts”, then explained because of the TV show “Peaky Blinders” he had looked into his recent male ancestors and suspected one had been shot for cowardice at Passchendaele. It was one of his great-grandads, a young guy in his twenties with three kids. I was surprised how bitter he was, he actually seemed to be looking for vengeance – anyone who conscripts this guy into the Army will probably be killed. He claimed that “Peaky Blinders” had a massive effect on his “Crew”, a group of tough, young lower-class lads – for them there will be no more Passchendaeles – seems like progress to me
“ We could be in Palestine
Overrun by the Chinese line
With the boys from the Mersey and the Thames and the Tyne
But there’s no danger
It’s a professional career
Though it could be arranged
With just a word in Mr. Churchill’s ear
If you’re out of luck or out of work
We could send you to Johannesburg
Oliver’s Army is here to stay
Oliver’s army are on their way
And I would rather be anywhere else
But here today”
— Oliver’s Army Elvis Costello
The Zionist lobby has long been very powerful in the USA, causing older politicians and Republicans (the latter partly as a result of christian Zionism) to support Israel no matter what it does. But the massacre in Gaza has brought about a reaction by younger people that caused Biden, mindful of the next election, to reluctantly press the brake on supplying munitions to Israel. Trump would be still worse, however, and so I see Biden as the lesser evil. Similarly perhaps Starmer as against whichever Tory PM is elected into power by his colleagues for the moment.
The coming UK general election could be another 1997, and so it’s important to write about the books and videos of Ilan Pappe and Miko Peled, the value of BDS in ending Israeli apartheid and the film “Israelism” to MPs and Labour party officials, even if the seed does not take at once.
The grown up liberals are doing you proud. Their values are awing humanity even more than usual ..
“Biden, Blinken, Trudeau, Macron, Sunak, Starmer, Scholtz, von der Leyen and all, are active and willing participants in a programme of genocide.”
Albanese too. All political figures (bar Sunak) whose election or appointment to power was celebrated by the likes of the Guardian. Even Sunak and Cameron were celebrated by many liberals as sensible moderates, infinitely preferable to their “populist” predecessors.
So these world-historic crimes against women and children cannot be pinned on Trump, Bozo, Cummings, Corbyn, Putin or young college students. It will be recorded by history as a liberal-centrist genocide, presided over by the West’s sensible “grown ups”.
I agree
I see fascism is frighteningly alive and kicking in western “democracy” with its headquarters in Israel.
And it’s no good complaining to your MP because, like the Uniparty, the ‘thinking’ from Westminster is as one, the Hive mindset. Here we have the leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, who has issued guidance for MPs to ensure that politicians are protected from annoying constituents that may entertain ‘conspiracy theories’. You can bet that Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing are subjected to the same mindset.
(Apologies for the zionist-leaning source)
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/bad-pennys-taboo-topics-for-mps-youll-never-guess-what-they-are/
It’s a defensive attitude, yes.
Write to your MP and you’ll get back the stock-printed reply, along with some ‘join the party’ bumph.
Many have sat in Parliament for years, and under FPTP, in safe seats, there’s no chance of the majority of them ever being removed by democratic means. Their loyalty is to the Westminster club – the centrist consensus – first and foremost, and then the party machine. Voters in their constituencies are just a minor inconvenience, a speed bump to overcome, every 4–5 years. Original thinking or radical ideas: pfft, you must be joking.
We could reduce the Commons from 650 MPs to 120 MPs and it wouldn’t lose anything in terms of the quality of debates. 120 MPs, elected by PR, and more Swiss-style direct referenda to settle important matters, would be a vast improvement and save a fortune.
“Write to your MP and you’ll get back the stock-printed reply, along with some ‘join the party’ bumph.“
And be placed on a “terror watchlist”
If you want the ear of, and action from, your MP – or your Government – the only way to get it is with a very fat cheque.
Otherwise you can forget it.
They’re not interested in you, or your needs, unless and until you are prepared to donate very significant sums either to them, or their party.
There are many places in the world where this is considered to be perfectly normal practice.
Sadly, the UK is now one of them.
Thanks for the heads up Stevie. Reading further into the piece it’s stated as Guidance for MPs and Candidates, which made me wonder whether; our host’s copy is in the post, considering his declared intention to stand against R Kate (Kate Hollern MP) ? So then, asking the wrong kind of questions about the wrong subjects may well result in the threatened fate of Private Pike by the U-boat Captain…Your name too will be put on ze list.
And then the logical question must be: what will be in store for those that have opposed this criminality at home when the criminals have succeeded abroad. Surly a vengeance proportional to the crimes they are guilty of?
Spot on piece from Simon Jenkins in today’s guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/13/sunak-most-dangerous-britain-values
They say appeals to patriotism – you could include ‘shared values’ – are the last refuge of scoundrels. Sunak really is a preposterous, annoying little man.
Why not say, “Sunak really is a preposterous, annoying brown-skinned man” instead?
glenn_nl
His skin colour and faith are irrelevant.
Although, that said, it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that his Hindu faith could be influencing him in his insistence that Israel is, nearly 8 months on, still simply ‘defending itself’ – a perversion of the truth. This alongside his callous disregard for Muslim suffering in Gaza.
If, hypothetically, Gazans practiced Hinduism, the pressure from his own family, and the UK Indian community, would surely force Sunak to reach an entirely different conclusion?
In reports on India:
Why a third term for Modi could be ‘catastrophic’ for India’s 200 million Muslims – Independent.
Modi is a Hindu nationalist whose party quite openly intends to marginalize India’s Muslims. Could similar attitudes explain Sunak’s own disinterest in the plight of Gaza? Who knows?
If ever there was a country in desperate need for proportional representation to lessen division, it’s India.
Another appalling legacy of colonialism was adopting Britain’s adversarial system.
G: “His skin colour and faith are irrelevant.”
So is his height. Why is that a problem for you?
glenn_nl
You don’t quit. Hehe 😉
His height isn’t a problem either. It’s just a figure of speech.
I guess the ‘little’ refers to his small-mindedness. Being small-minded: selfish, petty, constrained in thought, limited in scope of consideration. Have you watched or read the speech? It’s an apt description.
I like your posts as a general rule, Goose – that’s why I was a bit surprised by this. We see the same charge levelled at Macron. It chaffs a bit with me because it (unconsciously, no doubt) plays into the stereotype of what a ‘leader’ is supposed to look like – which is, almost without exception these days, a white middle-aged male of at least six foot.
The amount of talent that is dismissed through not meeting this utterly trivial criteria is only matched by the unwarranted ‘seriousness’ we grant to candidates that do.
It’s a bit of a pet peeve, perhaps, such as adding bald, bespectacled, or hook-nosed to a person’s description along with anything else we don’t like about them, as if this intrinsic physical characteristic was yet another of their personal failings.
glenn_nl
I understand. And as a rule I don’t go there.
If someone resorts to mocking someone’s appearance or any other ad hominem attack then we just diminish ourselves.
But Sunak represents much that is wrong with UK politics, imho. Here’s why I made an exception:
He and wife are a billionaire couple. His wife Akshata Murty’s father – Rishi Sunak’s father-in-law, NR Narayana Murthy, is reputedly worth around £4 billion and one of the richest men in India. Rishi worked for his father-in-law, before being gifted a safe parliamentary seat Richmond, N.Yorks in 2014. This, after NR Narayana Murthy met the then leader David Cameron in 2010 – onwards. Leading some to allege, the prized safe seat was given in return for party donations? I have no evidence in support, but as an outsider, him being gifted a prized safe seat like that, well, it’s unusual. As long-serving party figures normally get them.
Back to the present.
Rishi Sunak seems incapable of expressing any empathy for those in Gaza and labels all criticism of Israel’s conduct anti-Semitic. He claims the university campus encampment demands, for divestment, are driven by a hatred of Jews too. Which is an untrue and obnoxious accusation.
Ben Jennings’ cartoon take on Sunak’s doom-laden speech here:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2024/may/13/ben-jennings-rishi-sunak-dire-prophecies-next-five-years-cartoon
G: “Rishi Sunak seems incapable of expressing any empathy for those in Gaza and labels all criticism of Israel’s conduct anti-Semitic. “
Oh, I absolutely agree with you on all of this. Sunak, together with the entire high command on both sides of the uniparty, are utterly beneath contempt. They are bare faced liars – meaning they know they are lying, they know you know they’re lying, yet they do so unashamedly. Just get the lie out there, and put anyone denying it have the work of beating off charges of antisemitism before even starting – if they’re lucky – to deal with actual facts and truth.
The same is true about pretty much every single word uttered by an Israeli spokesperson or western apologist. The only time they actually tell the truth (that they consider Palestinians “human animals” etc.) is quickly brushed over, memory-holed, and any mention of said statement beyond that point is held against a critic as further proof of that desperately devalued term nowadays, antisemitism.
But the reason I dislike the drawing of attention to the baldness, shortness etc. of an individual one doesn’t like, is it devalues the rest of the often righteous criticism. Almost all the population is not exactly average height, so one immediately annoys half the population by disparaging this short-arse, or that lanky bastard. Or that baldy or four-eyes for that matter.
There simply is no reason to lose your audience like that, the points you made above are a fantastic argument for losing all respect for Sunak. Don’t give him an argument that a criticism is unfair – such as an unalterable physical attribute.
Good work on these boards recently, by the way.
glenn_nl
I just had a glance at X/Twitter and #PintSizedLoser is trending.
And I SWEAR, I had nothing to do with that!
I don’t even like X/twitter as a forum, because there are too many bots. And I think its significance /ability to influence is taken far too seriously by some politicians.
G: “And I think its significance /ability to influence is taken far too seriously by some politicians.”
As is the Daily (hate-) Mail, for that matter. The BBC thinks that the DM editorial line is hugely significant, it amplifies that perceived significance for politicians, and so it becomes, entirely without justification, the Major Issue of the day.
Did he get the job as PM because of his religion or his intelligence or his political experience or his skin colour? Braverman too? I think their skin colour is being used.
The Red lines are Lies
We want to see Genocide
for Evil Israel
The West is relearning something that Hitler learnt that military spending is good for the economy.
With billion-dollar spending bills there is always plenty of pork to be siphoned off.
Now our leaders are saying what good value these conflicts are, with jobs and manufacturing – plus you never lose votes supporting the military.
It is one of those trains once you get on board it just gets faster and faster and no one wants to get off.
This lovely leaflet:
https://antisemitism.org.uk/research-reports/
tells us that if there is anything you don’t like about anything the government says, then this is disinformation and a conspiracy theory,
and this mean you are anti-Semite.
I wonder why they don’t say anti-Jew instead.
Considering German complicity and the ignorance of media public it appears that at some point only armed resistance would help.
Because if you wanna be nice and communicative – how do you accomplish that if nobody listens to you?
How do you “enlighten” people if any meaningful access to the arena of public discourse is blocked?
At some point you might wanna force your access by violent means.
This is horrifying.
And I know exactly next time I meet colleagues I won´t be able to address this subject!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But if I went rogue – in some fictious scenario – it would ruin me. Simple as that.
So, as a coward, I rather indulge into superfluous studies of WWII. Which changes nothing of course. Very convenient indeed.
p.s. Germany´s highest judges have had contact with the current Scholz government by meetings, emails, telephone calls 40 times by now. A parliamentary inquiry revealed.
How can anyone be serious over this childish term “separation of powers”?
“So the major governments of the European Union are forbidding a [witness] distinguished surgeon from giving first-hand medical evidence of the genocide taking place.”
His status as a citizen (same as the rest of us) is what [should] matter, not distinctions of social rank, it isn’t the C18th.
I see a new book, “The Gaza Ghetto no longer exists”, dedicated to Jürgen Stroop.
In an hour-long interview with “Dr Phil” McGraw, who flew to Jerusalem to do the interview, Netanyahu said the following in respect of the students and the campus protests in the US:
“It’s not directed at what we do, it’s directed at who we are. It’s an antisemitic explosion that threatens all of civilization.”
Yep, the students don’t just threaten Israel and its very existence, but the WHOLE of civilisation. Well I have to say I suspected as much…… And let’s hope they succeed! Succeed in destroying it and creating a sane world in which we can all live together in harmony with each other and the planet that sustains us! As just about everyone on the planet – bar the Psychopaths – would infinitely prefer.
Came across Benny’s bollocks above in this article by Caitlin Johnstone, which she posted a couple of days ago:
‘Using A Fictional Antisemitism Crisis To Support A Real Genocide’
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/using-a-fictional-antisemitism-crisis
“What do you see?” I see dead people.
The other image emerging is one of Pyrrhic victories for the existing World Based Rules Order and the beneficiaries of that power. The existing order is not going to simply pack up and go home to retire, but they can’t do anything other than dig their own grave in the process of hanging on. Fingernails will be taking one hell of a beating.
It is not possible to see how the end game will play out for now; the winds of change could come from any direction and change in a moment. But the end game is happening and I’m looking forward to it…_
One can only agree. The massacre continues and students protesting against it are being criminalised. Western supremacy is coming to an end.
The fact that Israel “won” the Eurovision, as far as getting the most public votes, should send a chilling signal to everyone about the right-wing-fascist mentality ruling in europe. While the whole of europe turned to Eurovision, Israel bombed a refugee camp:
Israeli attacks on northern Gaza: Air strikes pound Jabalia refugee camp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWzPMaqt-hg
And today the UN, for some reason that is not yet clear, cut down the civilian death number in Gaza, and that quite largely. The pro-israel crowd are jumping up and down with joy:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/breaking-news-gaza-only/page/13/#post-97488
The numbers behind the public vote are not remotely reliable, given Israeli interference. The likes of Tommy Robinson urging his supporters to submit multiple votes which was arranged for you via proxies, etc. They made a huge PR effort as they always do, in addition to intimidating any competitor who dared voice an opinion about Gaza.
How convenient Jack, the Israelis won Eurovision as well as a particularly colourful piece of Swiss confectionery. So similar to Ukraine’s win a couple of years back when the victorious Act showed their glee by shouting Strava Ucrania accompanied by straight armed, nazi style, salutes, that did get whooshed pdq. By then, iirc the Azovs, Right Sektor and the Svobodans weren’t fascists at all, no siree, just moderate Nationalists. Ahhh; remember Cameron’s Moderate head choppers who we were funding, training and supporting in Syria, those were the days.
But did they win? Or were the reported voting numbers controlled by outside influences for propaganda?
Hard to better Chris Hedges description of the ultra sadism of small men:
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/israels-willing-executioners
[ MOD: Link sanitised ]
I just did a search to see how much of the MSM covered Lammy’s ludicrous assertion (doesn’t look as if any of them did, but the Sun may have) and came across this Guardian article from 2010 by David Lammy in which he says the following:
There were, of course, legal iniquities of unimaginable magnitude going on elsewhere. I was nearly suspended from school for skipping classes to watch Nelson Mandela’s release from prison on TV, and the disgraceful machinations of Apartheid South Africa were never far from my consciousness. But I thought politics was the only way to fight these injustices….
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2010/oct/07/legal-heroes-sir-sydney-kentridge
The implication seems to be that at some point since then he lost consciousness. Mind you, he could have just been bullshitting, even back then.
I suspect he was. Nelson Mandela was released on the 11th of February 1990 which was a Sunday.