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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The end game, to kill every last Palestinian individual in Gaza, or force them out to god knows where, then do the same to the West Bank.
The genocide is being televised live but the Western media calls it a war, when its just plain old ethnic cleansing, in most cases if not all the western media reports that Palestinian children died, there’s no mention that they were brutally murdered by the Zionists, just that they died.
The Zionists and the Atlanticists control the West/EU they’ve set the narrative on this appalling genocide of Palestinian civilians, and do you know what the b*stards look like they’ll get away with it.
I’ll never think of the EU especially its authoritative bodies in the same way (progressive) ever again I’ll always recall it as aiding and abetting the genocide of an utterly oppressed people. The same applies to much of the West, I’m ashamed of it.
Yes, I think this is a watershed moment in terms of western political self awareness. Since 1945 we have been encouraged to see the world through a Goldilocks prism: we, in Western Europe, avoided the extremes of right wing ideology (such as the USA) and left wing ideology (as in the USSR) and thus enjoyed the fruits of a liberal, social democratic system. Western Europe (via the likes of Eurovision TV) could present itself as guardians of enlightened progress.
Of course, many of us from a UK perspective have long claimed this was mere Overton Window style window dressing. Events in Northern Ireland, The Falklands War, the Miners’ Strike and eventually the Iraq invasion suggested something very different was afoot but the recent events in Gaza have surely forced a generational shift in perspective. The desire by western governments to close down both demonstration and debate are unignorable. Authoritarianism, emboldened by public compliance with Covid lockdowns, is testing its limits. Perhaps future history will view the recent Eurovision Song Contest- reportedly a celebration of sexual deviancy- the same as history views the Berlin cabaret from the dying days of the Weimar Republic.
David, your post brings to mind the film “Cabaret”, a Christopher Isherwood story, directed by Bob Fosse and made in 1972.
The story presents a lens on Weimar, through the fictional “Kit Kat Club” and describes a ménage a trois, between an American singer, Sally(Lisa Minnelli), an English dilettante, Brian(Michael York) and a wealthy German aristocrat Max(Helmut Griem). There are many song and dance routines in the film – and Joel Gray, who plays the daemonic Master of Ceremonies at the club, rightly won an Oscar for his unique performance.
The routines range from bathetic anthems, such as “Two Ladies”, timeless pointed observations like “Money Makes the World Go Round” and darker contextual references. At one point in a song the MC asks “Knock, knock, who’s at the door? Hunger!” – referring to Heinrich Bruning (1885-1970) who was known as the “Hunger Chancellor”. At one point the trio come across a Hitler Youth singing “Tomorrow Belongs To Me” in a village square, accompanied by an Oompah band and watched appreciatively by the villagers, lower-class Germans all.
“Max: The Nazis are just a gang of stupid hooligans, but they do serve a purpose. Let them get rid of the Communists. Later we’ll be able to control them.
Brian: But who exactly is we?
Max: Germany, of course”
German Foreign Policy Blog brought a book review yesterday:
“Le choix de la défaite
Annie Lacroix-Riz analyzes the comprehensive orientation of influential segments of the French elite towards Germany in the 1930s and the smooth transition to collaboration.”
https://archive.is/iPpBn
It offers a French version of the “Let them get rid of the Communists.”:
The famous slogan “Rather Hitler than Blum” – at the heart French steel industrialists as proponents of collaboration. And the majority of the French people. After WWII of course the same industrialists again in the driver´s seat with EU steel/coal union.
What I haven´t figured out, if any of this did influence the French war effort of 1940 with a potentially intended break-down?
I haven´t found hints so far.
On the other hand what sense would have Hundreds of Thousands dead made.
This is a tricky question…
p.s. Abu Sittah´s ban to travel Germany has been lifted by the Potsdam regional court on Tuesday
quick report:
https://archive.is/YPKEF
See Joseph Borkin’s “The Crimes of IG Farben”
He has a chapter on the integration of the French chem/dyestuff industry into the IG Farben cartel – suspiciously rapid, suggesting the integration plan predated the war
Also reading military theory books published in the 1930’s, I noticed the respect and admiration for France’s Army – most theorists considered it the global force de frappe. It didn’t fight because of class conflict imo
thx for that recommendation!
As to class struggle – yeah, very plausible.
my 2 cents:
I am rereading Simon de Beauvoir´s second novel “Le Sang des autres” (The Blood of Others”) from 1945. Written during the war.
It´s clumsy admittedly in certain parts (I don´t read it for leasure purposes). But that very issue is at the core of the story – how to act before, during the German attack and after. With left Communist young intellectual/worker characters at the centre of the story.
Which gives you a glimpse into what “labour” once was.
On the other hand – I was reading a piece on the discovered lost Céline books and the struggle over their publication – the fact that post-WWII cultural output has been of course dominated by anti-Nazi artists, their POVs on the War itself has shaped a completely biased interpretation of what truly happened 1939-44. They most likely represent of what then was a minority view.
(At least I assume. May be I am wrong.)
p.s. As far as I read on the French Army – by numbers and equipment the French should have been able to easily counter the Wehrmacht (the Blitz being much of myth too). They had more tanks and more planes than the Germans and more soldiers.
It is said speed was an issue.
French High Command however was old-fashioned (as was part of the German generals incidentally).
Officer´s corps was urged to follow out-dated tactics and conduct.
Among file&ranks there was much debate over neglecting French strengths by ignoring modernised doctrine. This was ignored by heads.
One reason why French, who had invented tanks in the first place, neglected that very weapon (see de Gaulle).
Another plausible reason: Underwhelming logistics.
No fuel, no spare parts.
French Air Force carried out only a fraction of operations of Luftwaffe. Much of it was destroyed lingering on the ground.
Another interesting aspect is French intelligence being well informed over what Germans wanted and planned.
(See for that also the “Mechelen incident” of Jan 1940.)
But reading a couple of essays isn´t enough of course.
So what remains is speculation from my side.
In Evelyn Waugh’s fictional trilogy “The Sword of Honour” (comprising the novels “Men at Arms”, “Officers and Gentlemen” and “Unconditional Surrender”), he described, inter alia, the process whereby flamboyant peacetime military leaders are replaced by “war winners”, anonymous Colonels in bland offices. The army’s peace time establishment has to be killed or cashiered before the “new men” can bring a viable image of victory, an image that is responsive to the present conditions of the current war not the ahistorical, idealised image of the last war.
The process is well known to the Executive; I guess this knowledge is as old as organised warfare. The question then becomes: how, historically has the Executive dealt with this?
If we consider France, “Rather Hitler than Blum”, I think your quote illuminates the question I pose.
AG, I have been reading various bits and pieces about the mass flight caused by the growing awareness of possible Nazi victory amongst the French people. About twelve million people hit the road, heading west and south. A truly incredible saga only coming more clearly into focus in the recent past. What was particularly fascinating was the way these travellers were treated in the different Departments of France they encountered in their fear-induced anabasis. Because of the breakdown at the centre, each Prefect was left to manage the situation according to their own priorities, which meant completely different responses – from best to worst and back again.
There are several major stories from WW2 that are still not fully appreciated by folk today, and this mass flight was one of them. Strafed by Bf 109s one moment, the next met by a kind Prefect with entourage, bringing sustenance and offering shelter – impromptu folk concerts all the way – incidents of robbery, rape and murder amongst waves of mass supererogatory actions.
I was going to say there is something medieval about it all, but on reflection the story is much, much older. It sounded like a “France” from before the Romans came!
thx for reminding me of the 12 mio. refugees.
Honestly I had forgotten about the scope.
What do we know about the reasons? The nature of the flight?
Who was concerned? The rich, the poor, peasants, everyone?
What areas?
And was it “necessary”?
In the light of your comment that the people were actually divided on fighting the Nazis or not.
Because of course with 12 mio. on the move you have an argument there that they feared the Nazis for being the Nazis. But may be it was more simply getting out of the way of the war? Judging on what happened afterwards.
p.s. in Beauvoir´s book the Hélène character says, what point does it make if you speak about heroism and revolution if the next second you are dead and nothing of what you had planned or dreamed about would matter. Better stay alive for whatever cost, i.e. rather don´t fight. (btw an argument that was made regarding opposition to the Warsaw uprising, but that´s again a different quality of sit.)
p.p.s. Claude Chabrol did a mini-series in the 1980s based on Beauvoir´s book with Jodie Foster in the lead and Sam Neill, Lambert Wilson:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088038/
Obviously there were many reasons but I think the movement acquired momentum very quickly, fed as it was by wild rumour and fear, and touched a deeper, more ancient part of the collective psyche. Though it was flight, it very quickly settled into a fantastic, carnivalesque “moment” with many downsides, not least of which the aforementioned Bf 109s.
The impression I get was that the biggest effect was that of the collapse of the centre. I reckon within 12 hours of leaving home, most refugees were “unmade” – no info seemed to be available to anyone, whatever their former status, I guess because there was none being generated by the organs of the state – it vanished like a puff of smoke. The psychological effect seemed to be some kind of rollback to a time when central authority did not exist i.e. “before the Romans came”, lol.
Though there was a lot of suffering and fear, I think people very quickly began to think differently and as the danger from the bullets and bombs of “the Boche” began to recede and maybe news began filtering through about the actual nature of the disaster, a strong air of unreality set in – like in “Ye Olden Days”
“ When in April the sweet showers fall
That pierce March’s drought to the root and all
And bathed every vein in liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
When Zephyr also has with his sweet breath,
Filled again, in every holt and heath,
The tender shoots and leaves, and the young sun
His half-course in the sign of the Ram has run,
And many little birds make melody
That sleep through all the night with open eye
(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)
Then folk do long to go on pilgrimage,
And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,
To distant shrines well known in distant lands.
— Geoffrey Chaucer, prologue to “The Canterbury Tales”
That’s a nice finish for this thread.
p.s. The Canterbury Tales: In the Netflix comedy/drama series “THE CHAIR” about campus life an old prof. for English lit., who is voted out of her chair, has to realize that times have changed – because her new students rebel against her class studying The Canterbury Tales. It starts with the fact, the students being unable to understand its content. It is in fact funnier and more touching when you see it than my description would convey. It doesn´t condemn any side, which made the show unusual among your average streaming content.
Israel is exonerating Germany and Green Nazism can become the binding ring of Sauron in the Likud-US Empire
What do I see?
I see Sunak inheriting Assange’s cell in Belmarsh.
Good idea!
“Put them all in a cell somewhere
far away from the public glare
and near the electric chair
Oh, wouldn’t it be loverly?”
Sunak will be living in California in 2025
Shameless is putting it mildly. Depraved, more like.
Craig,
You commented and asked:-
” 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?
Well, I understand and see much as Professor Michael Hudson, who had this to say:-
PROF. MICHAEL HUDSON, THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DESTRUCTION OF GAZA. (youtube.com)
HERE IS THE LINK:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNu_OGbqyWk
Thank you, CFRB – I was about to post that important link.
The idea that the ISR tail is wagging the US dog is far too prevalent.
As Biden once said, “If ISR didn’t already exist, we’d have to invent it.”
Michael Hudson’s recollections of encounters with earlier proponents of Zionist methodologies for achieving hegemony in the Middle East are shuddering.
It’s all set out there: in particular, the attacks on women, children, teachers, academics, medics, aid workers… all now happening live, in 24hr technicolor.
The West won’t stop it, because it’s behind the entire campaign.
ISR is very happily and enthusiastically doing the West’s dirty work for it, but *both* parties are equally, and completely, psychopathic.
Indeed. If anyone is still confused about the precious relationship between Israel and the US, they should watch the Storyville documentary currently on BBC iPlayer called ‘Praying for Armageddon’. That should provide much needed clarity. Once it was the KKK that shamed America, now it’s transformed into something with an odious ponerology.
Link to docu: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001z96s/storyville-praying-for-armageddon
I see red blood of Zionists and Nazis flowing
I see the decline of the Old Order. The slowly fading Neo-liberal economic order.
The rise of China and the BRICS is spooking the one’s in the know (not the politicians – they know salary and sinecure).
The US has had a choice for a long time: either they conduct regime changes, or they have to keep established their hegemony in a rapidly changing world.
So far they have decided to sub the domination of their world out via proxies or client States. Israel is one of proxy client states in The Middle east.
The Old World Order (as a I say those in the know) also have a capitalist choice to make: do they ‘make’ on Chinese and BRICS investments, or do they back the reckless politicians in their not-quite-forever wars?
All Great Powers become un-great and the US will be no different. It will take time.
The only weapon the Old Order has is literally weapons. The only way they can stop the BRICS from being successful is by means of War.
But the 3rd World War will not involve troops on the ground – it will be missiles in the air. Idiots like Lindsey Graham doesn’t seem to understand that that type of war means if you send one – your opponent(s) will send at least one back and it escalates from there. Shows a massive lack of imagination and lack of forethought and the dangerous thing is that these idiots are in charge across The Western World.
Samson bringing The Temple down after a haircut (an economic haircut of Course).
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones” – Albert Einstein.
The way things are going, it won’t be long until we find out whether Albert was right in his speculation.
H.G. Wells, in The Shape of Things to Come, foresaw the same thing. Both men seem to have had a good understanding of human nature and what it dooms us to.
Bramble, the film of the same name, made in 1936 is very good. Alexander Korda (producer) HG Wells and director William Menzies Smith collaborated to produce a remarkable visual document, based on Well’s novel. This film and Fritz Lang’s ”Metropolis”, show us the true meaning of the notion of Western “democracy”, as it manifested itself in the 1930s.
Ralph Richardson, to some degree, steals the show, with his portrayal of one of the petty-boss’ who rise in the collapse of civilisation. but there are many enduring images in the film.
Like looking into a crystal ball, both in a bad and good way – highly recommended.
I like the first 2/3 of the film but the last bit is a bore. Did you know that The Boss’s moll (Margaretta Scott) was Mrs Pumphrey in All Creatures Great and Small?
I might agree. It is a long time since I watched this long film but as you say, the beginning and the middle are good – very good.
The key image for me, the one I believe the film turns on, is the appearance of the shiny, hypermodern aircraft, overflying the benighted survivors in the rubble, who are illuminated only by Richardson’s dark, blighted leadership. I realised that I both flew at high altitude in the plane of the future, while at the same time scratch my sustenance out Richardson’s grudging, thin bounty on the ground – both “god” and “insect”, that’s what I call a good film, lol.
p.s. No I didn’t, though I watched ACGS. She looks a lot older, lol.
“If you wish to know a thing, look to it’s origins”
— Aristotle
A disastrous US bill is being discussed as THE INTERCEPT reports.
“Criticizing Israel? Nonprofit Media Could Lose Tax-Exempt Status Without Due Process
A new anti-terrorism bill would allow the government to take away vital tax exemptions from nonprofit news outlets.”
But this is only the surface.
In my view this makes it clear what the entire Gaza genocide has in fact developed into – it has nothing to do with Israeli fears or a Palestinian state any more.
To expand a moment:
The problem with the term “shameless” is, it suggests a level of moral decency which would know shame. But fact is, these people have zero regard or interest in moral standards or traditions.
They.don´t.care.about shame.
Shame is too well-meaning a term. They operate on a totally different set of human interaction.
They only define their actions over violence and power.
Thus this genocidal war eventually hasn´t anything to do with genuine questions of justice or morale or the issue of a Palestine state and neither does it matter if Holocaust trauma might have triggered any “tragic” supremacist Nazi ideology (which sounds like a smart excuse by a Boston law firm.)
Israel´s current atrocities are – in the bigger picture – just a means to destroy intern. law and the fundamentals of free speech and due process in the US and Europe institutionalized in the past 200 years.
THE INTERCEPT has the above mentioned pretty horrible new story here:
https://theintercept.com/2024/05/10/terrorism-bill-nonprofit-journalists-israel-hamas/
If one thinks about it for a moment this is the only reasoning which makes sense.
Otherwise the US wouldn´t play along this shit show and neither would they let Zionist donors act like a bunch of Little Ceasars in D.C.
No. The WH could easily shut down pro-Israel meddling and propaganda in a second.
Remember WH/Senate with a snap of their fingers forced huge companies like TWITTER, Google and fb to follow orders during Russiagate.
They as well with a single signature forced major corporations to abandon Russia within months and give up major assets there.
Same with Germany/EU.
The story of Israel pocketing US politics is only a ruse we are supposed to fall for.
The real deal here is:
The US has identified an opportunity just like it has with Ukraine as an inflection point to change the rules of the game.
THE INTERCEPT reports about attempts in Congress to pass a bill which would make reporting critically about Israel equal to terrorism. And with that “Nonprofit Media Could Lose Tax-Exempt Status Without Due Process”.
If the bill in some form would pass this summer it could well destroy much of indie reporting which has become the only source of truthful reporting about politics at all.
“(…)
Nonprofit news outlets are already struggling even without government harassment, but revocation of their tax-exempt status would be a death knell for outlets doing the kind of in-depth investigative journalism that is hardly ever profitable these days. The mere prospect would chill reporting, not only on Israel but also on U.S. foreign policy generally. And that’s not to mention the threat to nonprofit press freedom organizations that journalists depend on to protect their rights (including to not get killed in Gaza).
(…)”
If this takes place it would only be the beginning of the destruction of the civil rights state as we have known it at least since WWII. It is incomprehensible that any naive NYT editor – however a strong believer in “shame” – would not fight this.
When will they wake up and understand that this is not about their bar mitzvah.
Because if this won´t be stopped their kids´ bar mitzvah will be the least of their problems.
Yes. As I posted earlier the UK is discussing a similar bill. Coincidence ? Or just the puppets enacting Tel Aviv’s latest orders.
thx
you mean this https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2qv7425gvwo ?
(which refers “only” to protests however. We have similar things in Germany.)
The US approach is yet another level because it 100% conflates thought and action. It would shut down free speech completely. Potentially including what we are doing right now writing these sentences.
Lindsay Graham has been talking about a nuclear strike on Gaza in the last day, comparing it with dropping atom bombs on Japan. He claims America faced destruction if it didn’t use the bombs ergo Israel must. He finishes with a call for more bombs for Israel
When America dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, the Japanese Marine, both merchant and military was almost completely destroyed. As an island they had no ability to feed themselves, nor maintain industrial society due to their inability to import anything. The country has only a minority of arable land, the great majority being unproductive hills and mountains, so it had relied on imports historically. A state without food grows closer to revolution by the day, yet two Atom Bombs were detonated, not on military targets but on civilians?
Mr Graham”s criminal ignorance or dissembling is a nightmarish companion to the vastly increased number of military aircraft flying at high altitude near my location recently, discernible by their apocalyptic rumble. There have been many more military flights audible to me since Oct 7 but a noticeable increase in the last week.
Juan Cole has a good article on Lindsay Graham’s mad statements with an interesting accompanying illustration.
Incidentally history professor Juan Cole’s Informed Comment is a good source for news on the Middle East.
When Trump gets in (by default – how can you vote for a senile 82-year-old; just remember Golda Meir) he will stipulate allies take in a quota of Palestinians – thus cutting the population of Gaza to about 200,000 – mainly to work for settlers buying up real estate in Gaza. Some non-elected Democrat officials realize this and are actually working against the party. Trump will make great PR, promoting that he is giving the Palestinians a better life – and practically he will be correct. However, these countries will have problems, as many Palestinians won’t forget – and there will be Jewish targets.
Peter maybe you are right but I think before we get to all of that we have to survive the next few months. I think it is in doubt whether there will be another American prez, as we have known them in the past – whatever, the next one will be a Zionist “Hitler” whether they claim the loyalty of all of the States in the Union or not
Weapons are being shipped all over the world in unprecedented quantities unknown since WW2, certainly the West is at battle stations and is responsible for a major percentage of these movements but not all of them of course. NATO exercises are taking place in Northern Finland etc, these are not the first such exercises but the latest in a rolling program – a rolling program, that if there is to be any future at all, future storytellers will call “The Road To War”
ps Why did the institutions established by the West after the victorious conclusion of WW2 contain so many Nazis?
I don’t think fighting “Communism” was the primary reason
The political class and the media have no right to use words such as Democracy, Human Rights, Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing ever again.
These words are devoid of meaning in their oily mouths.
The west is fascist, has been for centuries. How could the British Bloody Empire have behaved as it did without being fascist? Germany wanted to do exactly the same as the Brits (take over and control most of the world), but wasn’t able to do so. The ideology behind such a vile purpose is irrelevant. Hence we see Starmer et al with their masks lifted and fascism revealed.
The brainwashing isn’t working so well, hence we’ll see state brutality unleashed if protests aren’t stopped. It’s already happened in the Land of the Free.
They will keep using them, we know that by now.
I see that when Gaza is cleared and turned into a beachfront playground for the mindless rich then Israel will turn its evil gaze towards Lebanon, Jordan and Syria with more dead ‘arabs’ on its agenda.
I see no peace in the ME, or indeed the world, until Israel is destroyed.
The ‘Greater Israel’ project is a fundamental element of the original Zionist ideology as outlined over 100 years ago. Areas including Lebanon, Syria and Jordan are indeed part of that project, but you missed out the part of Egypt that is claimed as Israeli territory as well.
The huge Western error was in not stopping the West Bank settlements in their infancy; those beyond the Green Line or 1949 Armistice border. There are now well over 500,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank, and the number increases roughly 3% year on year.
Some 20-25 years ago, we had UK ministers acknowledging these settlements would likely ruin the chances for a viable two-state solution – i.e. UK and US policy at the time. But the UK and US refused to take meaningful action to prevent Israel’s govt pressing ahead with these peace-ruining, highly provocative developments. I also remember the then Foreign Secretary, William Hague, whose ultra safe seat (one of the safest Tory seats in the country iirc), Rishi Sunak inherited. Galloway should ask in parliament: Did a then unknown Rishi Sunak’s father-in-law buy him that Richmond, North Yorkshire seat?
I digress, I remember William Hague, stating to parliament in 2013 ,”the realities on the ground have changed”, this, as the UK govt signalled it was now accepting the settlements were a permanent fixture; there stay as they were now ‘too big’ for Israel to demolish. Today, the same people bemoan Russia moving Russian settlers into captured areas of Ukraine, changing “the realities on the ground” one could say. These are the dangers of double standards and inconsistent application of the so-called rules-based international order.
Yes, I was just gonna say something about that – ie that if the US et al had really pushed Israel to establish two states 25/30 years ago or more (when it was feasible and viable), then the October 7th attack would never have happened and, in turn, the mass slaughter and genocide that BN and Co are perpetrating in response would not be happening. In other words, the US and UK and Germany et al are directly responsible for October 7th and the mass murder of Palestinians because they DIDN’T. And as far as I’m aware, no serious attempt was ever made to create two states when it WAS viable.
And of course Biden and Sunak and Co are just spouting a big lie when they’ve spoken about establishing a two-state solution when the ‘war’ is over; a big fat lie contrived to deceive millions of people.
“moving Russian settlers into captured areas of Ukraine”
Any details here Goose? I was unaware of this until your post. I have probably missed it, paying little attention to the details regarding this conflict.
Some 30 years ago Barry Goldstein murdered thirty people and injured over a hundred in a cold-blooded massacre of civilians. Wearing his IDF reserve uniform and wielding an Israeli assault rifle he entered the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron in the West Bank and began shooting.
The error you refer to is to be viewed in light of the act of murderous hate that Goldstein perpetrated and the ideology that enabled it. Now carried and promoted adoringly by, amongst others, Israeli minister of Internal Security, Itamar Ben Givr. The Western politicians knew what was happening, they have all gone along with it.
If Ben Givr professed Islam or an anticolonial ideology, he would be being hunted by Predator drones and kill teams. Because he professes Zionism he gets a pass – indeed he gets promoted.
will moon
It’s allegedly happening in Mariupol and some other locations.
It’s also claimed that hundreds of thousands of Russians have moved to Crimea since Russia’s annexation, shoring up the pro-Russia majority demographic. Western leaders say it’s completely unacceptable. I have no evidence other than the reports.
Almost one million people moved to Russia from Ukraine following the events of 2014. I would imagine that some of them have now decided to return to areas controlled by Russia. The Mariupol area is undergoing much reconstruction at present according to Russian media.
Well Russian forces put Mariupol under siege for nearly three months during which time it was under near constant bombardment. Over 90% of the housing stock was destroyed. Russia plans to replace the Ukrainian population with Russians and they’re not going to want to move to a city which is a huge pile of rubble. Let’s not get drawn into thinking that Russia has any altruistic motives here.
Pears Morgaine
Good settlers: those stealing land in the West Bank
Bad settlers: those stealing land in Ukraine
Amusing watching some pro-Israel hawks in the US, tie themselves in knots, trying to justify support for one, while condemning the other.
It might be better addressing this question to Tatyana: Have Russia provided any incentives, e.g. free housing or guaranteed employment to entice people to move? I suppose moving from some of Russia’s barren, mostly frozen parts, may be incentive enough?
Returning to your previous home town can hardly be seen as act of ethnic cleansing, no matter how hard the ISW (whose leaders are a roll call of genocide enablers) attempts to present it so. Building houses for people to live in is neither a conspiracy nor altruism: it is what governments are supposed to do.
In addition to accepting this ISW conspiracy theory I note PM also accepts the 90% housing stock destroyed claim which relies on Ukrainian sources.
Mariupol was the H.Q of the much vaunted (in NATO land) Azov battalion prior to its surrender to Russian forces. Those who left Mariupol for Russia after 2014 had good reason to avoid its clutches- a UN report highlighted kidnapping and torture amongst the risks- and only now feel safe enough to return.
“I suppose moving from some of Russia’s barren, mostly frozen parts, may be incentive enough?”
They’re not so frozen any more.
Permafrost covers more than 60 percent of Russia’s territory, putting several large river ports and cities with over 100,000 inhabitants at risk. Siberia has experienced record-breaking temperatures—over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in June 2020, for the first time in recorded history. Devastating wildfires that recently hit the permafrost zones of northeast Siberia brought attention to permafrost’s potential to release carbon and methane and contribute to further warming. It also underscored the possibility that a thaw could activate more long-frozen deadly pathogens, as happened in 2016.
https://theglobalobservatory.org/2021/11/how-permafrost-thaw-puts-the-russian-arctic-at-risk/
Crimea is popular as a holiday destination and a lot people would have second homes there. Plus the rebuilding and investment after 25 years of neglect, was big business.
Beyond that, the place was extremely irredentist. Particularly the big coastal cities like Sevastopol & Simferopol.
So the Russians hardly needed to move people in, as even the Crimean Tartars weren’t exactly warm on Kiev.
Which bye-the-bye had tried playing the settlement game itself, to little effect
Thanks, Goose, for mentioning me here. If you want my opinion:
I visit a nail service, here in Russia we use the word ‘master’ for people doing these sorts of professional services – hairdressers, ateliers, repairs etc.
So, my nails Master is middle-age woman, just like me. Her name is Olga. She moved here in between 2014 and 2018 and she occupies a workshop next to mine.
Olga lived in Severodonetsk, must be Ukraine then. She fled the country, because life was nearly impossible there. She says ‘they do not consider us humans’; there was shelling and there was war coming closer.
The government in Kiev said in no uncertain words ‘you people either swear your loyalty to the new government and new national Identity, or you guys better move to Russia’.
I’m visiting with my smartphone at the moment, so if you need proof, please say so. I’ll be at my laptop tomorrow and will be checking through my bookmarks, to give you Zelensky saying this words. Also, I’ve bookmarked Poroshenko and a local mayor saying in an interview that stubborn people ‘sometimes disappear in his place, quite often’
So, if you want my opinion on who forced whom away from their land, I’ll remind you again, it was Kiev who denied people of their right to live on their land, and to elect their government, and to speak their language, and to exercise their rights, and to respect their holidays, and their religion, and their history, and their monuments, renaming their streets and towns, and cities, and simply forbidding all that was traditional for the population.
For me it looks much more like it’s a foreign government forcing natives away from their lands.
Tatanya, came across a description in a recent book, written by a young Western-facing Ukrainian, from maybe 2015, not quite sure exactly when because it was not clear in the text
The writer describes taking a taxi in north-east Ukraine. The taxi guy is a Ukrainian but refuses to speak it, preferring to converse in Russian. When asked why by the writer, rather angry, the guy replied:
“It is none of your F__king business. But since you ask. When I finish I go to a bar, some Ukrainians, some Russians and some others. We all prefer to speak in Russian, we have a nice time no problem – what’s your problem?”
The writer told the readers proudly, including this one, that they felt compelled to report the taxi guy’s attitude concerning the speaking of Ukrainian to the police and insisted on further action!
I thought, what a bastard.
Will Moon
The difference between Russian vs Ukrainian language is thin, like the the difference between British and American versions of English.
I just thought you may be living in UK, so, if I draw a comparison like that:
Imagine your country (US or UK, it doesn’t matter) came up to the point when you’re unhappy with your life. You go to protest, you urge your government to resign. You want a better life for you and your kids.
At this moment a certain foreign power raises its head. It shoots the protesters, it creates a mess. It appoints into government certain foreign-friendly people.
Your newly appointed governors adopt laws which forbid you from speaking your version of English, from celebrating your holidays, from honouring your heroes, and in general, says that you better say you’re a New Citizen rather than what you are.
Ah, and they beat you if you say Kiev instead of Kyiv, and you may end up in prison for pronouncing it in the way that was common for you since your childhood.
They say you better move away from your country, as soon as you call your son Nicola, instead of state-approved Mikola.
They say that the land you live in isn’t yours, some ‘law’ states you are not the host on your land. It’s them, the… khm… democratically elected guys, who tell you who owns the land you, your dad, your granddad etc. live on.
How do you like it?
Are you happy now?
Tatyana, my strongest impression was the taxi guy thought it was a private matter what language he spoke, while the writer thought it was public matter. Both spoke Russian fluently. I don’t think the police should be involved in this – if the “idea” of Ukraine was real, they wouldn’t need to criminalise Russian.
If the Nazis had a special “Nazi language”, it would be banned. Russian is being treated as if it were that “Nazi language”.
Rishi Sunak bought Hague‘s seat just as Hague got it from Leon Brittan
It is funny how closed the circles are in these political parties
David and Stevie. Re: the Greater Israel project I believe is also known as the Oden Yinon plan, that envisages the Zionist occupation of those lands between “the Brook of Egypt (R. Nile) and the Euphrates”. A lot more ambitious to the reported chants referring to the land between the R. Jordan and the Mediterranean. Btw: Quite why they refer to the mighty River Nile as a Brook is beyond me. When I was a child, Brooks were diminutive water courses that were great fun to jump across while trying not to fall in, and then trying to get your socks dry before going home.
They refer to the Nile as a ‘brook’ probably for the same reason they refer to a massive barrier as a ‘fence’, a mass invasion of armed zealots – fully backed by brutal paramilitaires – as ‘settlers’ and so on – making everything sound small, inoffensive and humble when the exact opposite is true.
I just went out to have a smoke, and directly opposite where I’m staying (in a guest house/temporary accommodation) is the Winter Gardens (albeit closed now for a couple of years), and there’s a shelter directly opposite where people put up posters about various gigs that are happening soon (Bryan Adams is doing one at Dreamland on June 13th, for example), and there are posters right across the top half of it, most of them pretty big. So I’m sitting on the steps at the front smoking a roll-up for about two minutes, and then I suddenly noticed that there are now Stop The Genocide Free Palestine posters going right across the shelter from one side to the other (nine in fact) that have been pasted on top of the other posters. I did see a couple of young women put a poster up about a gig two or three weeks ago in broad daylight, but they usually appear over-night of course. Anyway, it made me think ‘Yeah, great idea, remind people of what’s happening in Gaza right now this very moment’.
Afterthought: None of the posters I’ve seen on there over the past year or more are ever removed, and they just get covered by other posters, so it’ll be interesting to see if these Stop The Genocide posters stay up on there or not (although they will of course eventually all be covered up by other posters anyway).
Correction (as if it matters!): The poster actually reads Free Palestine Stop The Genocide (I just went out for another smoke…). And if anyone’s interested, Julian Marley and the Uprising and Steel Pulse and Aswad are playing at Dreamland on June 22nd, tickets from £29.50 (I could just see the top inch or so of Aswad).
And the ‘shelter’, as I now know, used to be an entrance to the Winter Gardens (which has been blocked off). And, as I learnt from an old black and white photo in an article I found earlier, Margate used to have a pier (the photo was of the Winter Gardens complex, but taken from a distance and quite high up, and the pier was in the background). I wonder what happened to it?
And talking of piers (just did a search and, as it happens)….
‘US-built floating pier for Gaza aid could start operating in the next few days, US and Cyprus say’ (posted yesterday)
https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/58/1262/523556/War-on-Gaza/War-on-Gaza/USbuilt-floating-pier-for-Gaza-aid-could-start-ope.aspx
Just in case anyone’s interested (which I’m sure they’re NOT):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margate_Jetty
Oh, I see that Stevie Boy mentioned it in the very FIRST comment – ie about the pier opening shortly. I undoubtedly read it when I first came on to this thread, but then promptly forgot. Sorry about that (I only have a few braincells left, and my memory banks were destroyed decades ago)
Allan, re permafrost, you might be interested in this one ?
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/05/14/african-wildcats-roamed-inside-the-arctic-circle-just-9000-years-ago-at-temperatures-5c-warmer-than-today/
Interesting. And just posted today! Astonishing!!
The cover for all of the above being October 7th.
A simple question every user of the October 7th excuse should answer, however, is: if you were Hamas, what would you have done on October 7th? (I may be naive, but I think that’s quite a hard question to answer without sounding preposterous.)
It was the 50th anniversary of an attack against Israel, I’m ashamed to say I can’t remember which one, but I remember reading it on al-Jazeera shortly after the attack. I thought at the time it was relevant but obviously it got lost in the MSM frenzy afterwards, and has never been mentioned again. I also thought on October 9th, when the first Israeli said “this is our 9/11” oh aye, what’s coming next then? The idea that Mossad knew nothing of this is unconscionable.
And Benny and his facist buddies of course (and I include Biden and Co).
It was reported shortly after 7 October that both Egypt and the US had warned Israel of the impending attack. The most likely explanation is that the Israeli government expected something much more limited than what transpired and saw political advantage in letting that happen. Of course, like the reports of American diplomats being warned off PanAm before Lockerbie and doubtless quite a few other anomalies that I’ve forgotten, those reports have since been consigned to the Memory Hole.
Had I been “Hamas” – in particular one of the blokes with paramotors and weapons – I would have slaughtered my Israeli (and mostly peace loving hippy type) victims, and then phoned my parents to boast of my murders.
Why? How am I so sure of this answer? Because that’s what the buggers actually did.
Not nice people IMO, wouldn’t invite ’em round to my place. I could understand why some folks, especially relatives of their victims, might want them gone “from the river to the sea”. YMMV 😉
And I wonder how and why he got to be like that……
(Anyway, that’s my quota for today, or I’ll have the Doc on my back)
Those video clips were made by Gazan teenagers, many of whom had left Gaza through the cut fencing, probably for the first time in their lives. Armed with weapons they ran amok, some phoned their parents to boast of their exploits. Horrible situation, that they’ve grown up hating Israelis enough to kill on sight like that.
The actual Al-Qassam Brigades (IQB) fighters, known for their black balaclavas and green headbands, are/were a quite professional, disciplined outfit. They were storming Israeli IDF army outposts, eliminating IDF like Western special forces are trained to eliminate enemies. They aren’t complete amateurs like those teenagers.
Well, you’re entitled to assume all Hamas are nasty buggers if you wish, although I guess you yourself suspect that generalisation won’t hold. But (nice guy r nasty bugger) you’re in a prison. Would you have chosen not to take the opportunity to break out of it – if you were Hamas? Or would you have accepted your imprisonment? What would the SAS do if the UK were in that predicament?
Is it really Israel? Is it the USA using Israel as its enforcer for the region? I think the European countries are just obeying US orders, again with Israel as the intermediary. Ukraine has been used to try to destabilize Russia through deceit and bad faith negotiations. Whatever, the world order has been repolarized. BRICS countries will become economically and militarily dominant. You know the comment – don’t interfere with your enemy when it is destroying itself. I see this as the death throes of US hegemony.
Israel’s Willing Executioners – Read by Eunice Wong
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/israels-willing-executioners-read
That’s effing disgusting George, thanks. They ain’t going to read that out on Newsnight!
Such a naked discarding of soi disant Western values, particularly those of equality, self-determination and anti-racism, seem almost mystical in nature. Sure one might say it’s the grossest venality imaginable, or iron-fisted realpolitik, but the utterly denuded nature of such an indiscriminately violent enterprise seems for this very reason almost metaphysical in nature. To wit, as though Western elites truly, indeed cultishly, believed that the Israeli nation is metaphysically, not simply figuratively, “unique,” thereby superior to most, if not all others. And having established or apprehended said ‘fact,’ it stands to reason, that the aforesaid must be given carte blanche to expand and reach its greatest plenitude, qua Greater Israel, as though the very future of (at least elite) humanity depended on it. In other words, it is as though what is not, the total destruction of Palestinian society in situ, and the edification of a state of supreme metaphysical primacy in its place already is, always was, and shall always be.
The Gaza genocide marks a modern nadir for Western elites and not just for the politicians and their journalists. Virtually all the major celebrities of the West have been silently complicit at best, including in Britain the Royal Family. The moral standing of these elites is captured brilliantly in the latest portrait of King Charles, in which it looks like he is literally burning in hell.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68981200.amp
Well Said Gary Lineker.. Brave
https://twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/1789004933297029551?
3.4 million views in four days. And I would imagine the vast majority completely agree with him.
Yes, a pleasant surprise given the political figures he consorts with (Alastair Campbell, Rory Stewart et al).
One of many reasons why Westminster is a laughing stock and not taken seriously.
“One example is the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Prevention of Genocide (APPG-G).
This is a cross-party group which apparently aims to ensure Britain does all it can to stop genocides and crimes against humanity.
Yet the group has shown no urgency to save lives in Gaza.
Its chairwoman is Fleur Anderson, an opposition MP for Putney. She is also listed as a parliamentary member of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI). ”
https://www.declassifieduk.org/why-is-parliaments-genocide-watchdog-so-silent-on-gaza/
Couldn’t make em up, could ya?
Craig, you are IMO a decent chap and very sound on lots of issues. I do however think that you have become (or maybe already were) completely unhinged on this subject. Just look at the language that you are using, especially the word “genocide” which you seem to have redefined in a way that leaves it meaningless in any historical context. I could add more, but I can see that your “reality” and that of most of your commentards is so otherly aligned that it would be to no point. Other than that, all the best 🙂
No Gareth, far from it, we are all open to whatever you think, so please feel free to elaborate.
Gareth opining on who is a decent chap….
Gareth, who seems unhinged in relation to the ICJ judgment on ‘plausible genocide.’
More ‘shameless’ Western hypocrisy over the ongoing protests in Georgia tonight. If you’ll indulge me…
The government in Georgia are trying to pass a foreign agents registration law, it’s modeled on the US’s own Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) legislation. It requires NGOs that receive more than 20% of their funding from foreign sources to register as agents of foreign influence. The US State Dept has dubbed the legislation the “Russian law”. This despite the fact it’s modeled on similar legislation in the US, the UK has similar legislation too, as do some European countries. Maybe someone can explain the problem here? Why would any country want foreigners funding NGOs and their subversive activities? Whether it be CIA/MI6 cutouts providing funds, European(EU) money, or even Russian money? Nobody wants foreign meddling.
The EU’s behaviour has been despicable in all this, especially that of von der Leyen, Borrell and Metsola and various other obnoxious MEPs. It’s almost as if they’re hoping for a violent putsch in Tbilisi, à la Maidan in Ukraine. That resulted in a civil war, followed by the current catastrophe. A putsch is no good for anyone, clearly. The EU have sent monitors. I don’t remember the EU expressing similar concerns for democracy when 500,000 marched in London, for Palestine, in attempt to make our govt change its policy?
The president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, said it “stands with the people of Georgia”. In a post on X, Metsola wrote: “Tbilisi, we hear you! We see you!”
She added Georgians on the streets “want a European future” and “expect European values and standards”. Georgia’s president responded on X by thanking Metsola for her “personal commitment”.
The UK’s minister for Europe, Nusrat Ghani said the scenes in Georgia are “shocking.” She continued, “This draft law and the accompanying orchestrated intimidation of protestors are not in line with the democratic values of a NATO aspirant country and fundamentally risk derailing Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations..”
Do Europeans even want Georgia in the EU? Don’t forget, in the last referendum held on a partnership with Ukraine, voters in the Netherlands heavily rejected an EU -Ukraine partnership deal with >60% against. Georgia’s immediate neighbours are Armenia and Azerbaijan, they border Iran, and are fighting over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Does the EU really want to extend its borders way out East, beyond Turkey, to Iran? With all the provocation and trouble that will bring?
I didn’t even know Georgia was a NATO aspirant country? The US would push for Israel’s inclusion if it had settled borders.
Do NATO members really want Article 5 or Collective defence obligations in countries spanning the globe, in areas prone to territorial disputes? NATO was never meant to be that kind of organisation.
I have visited many of these former USSR territories over the last 10 years and the story is always the same, perhaps a warning to Scottish Independence supporters like myself. They believed that removing the yoke of Soviet Communism would free their national spirit, only to discover that Soviet tanks were replaced by Western banks. They are no more free than they were before, except that is for the financial elites who are well recompensed for overseeing dollar democracy. The most egregious example I encountered was Tallin, regularly praised as a flourishing democracy within Europe, which amounted to little more than a shortbread tin on a hill (Scottish style) waiting for tourists. The tram system looked like Stalin’s granny might be driving the lead car.
Tibilisi I visited last year and much the same applied there. Some younger Georgians working in banks pointedly refused to speak in Russian with me, but I felt the country was divided Brexit-style about where its future lay. I imagine that Joe Stalin, whose birthplace is a tourist attraction, would have been highly unimpressed.
David Warriston
I think that’s right. The US is determined to remove Russian influence from the South Caucasus region. Before Georgia knows where they are, they’ll be in NATO, hosting US and UK jets as they launch attacks on Iran, for Israel. One only need look at a map.
This (Guardian current main story) reads like a threat: US warns Georgia not to side with Moscow against the west
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/14/us-warns-georgia-not-to-side-with-moscow-against-the-west
Cont…
White House ‘deeply troubled’ by ‘Kremlin-style’ foreign agents law
The White House said on Tuesday the US is “deeply troubled” by Georgia’s “Kremlin-style” foreign agents legislation, which Western countries have criticised as authoritarian and Russian-inspired.
“We are deeply troubled by Georgia’s Kremlin-style legislation,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
“If this legislation passes, this will compel us to fundamentally reassess our relationship with Georgia.”
————–
It’s based on similar US legislation. FFS!
Do you remember the violent daily street protests in Hong Kong, culminating in the legislature building being stormed and ransacked? The ‘Chinese’ Security Law passes, the CIA leave, and miraculously no more street protests.
Another aspect to this, that relates to Israel and the fanatical Zionists who dominate the evidently, compromised, subjugated US government.
NATO member Turkey likely won’t allow its bases to be used to attack Iran, certainly not in a war perceived as for Israel, nor even its airspace. Relations between Turkey & Israel are rock bottom. Other Arab countries would be highly reluctant to get involved too. Sh’ite dominated Iraq’s involvement is out of the question.
If Georgia were to join NATO, and that country were used to launch attacks on Iran. Were Iran to respond then Article 5 would be triggered. And all NATO would be embroiled in a war with Iran, on behalf of Israel; a war no one wanted to participate in.
I am not sure I agree here. Türkiye has a good relationship with Israel.
Until last week, the country has enjoyed booming trade with the apartheid entity and still allows the flow of Azerbaijani oil to pass through their pipeline at Adana, travelling as it does from Iraq. Türkiye has nothing to be proud of – Türkiye is a facilitator of this genocide.
According to K Almassian, speaking a couple of weeks ago on Syriana Analysis with three Armenian guests, Israel has been engaging in daily flights delivering Israeli weapon stocks to Azerbaijan as Britain and America and the rest deliver new weapons to Israel, I assume in exchange for Azerbaijani oil, which flows to Israel courtesy of Türkiye. These flight have been taking place for quite some time.
Azerbaijani dynastic strongman, Aliyev, is demanding a “land corridor” through Armenia to Türkiye. I guess with all those Israeli weapons Aliyev will get his land corridor from Armenia’s president, Pashinyan – though the Armenian commentators I watched did not seem to agree with their president.
Goose, I have no faith in Türkiye’s current leadership; Gülen’s would be worse – remember the CIA were able to set the Gülen coup in motion in 2016 which resulted in units of Türkiye’s army attacking Turkish citizens in Istanbul, amongst other locations – with heavy armour running over protestors and helicopter gunships firing autocannon and chain guns into vast unarmed crowds who were resisting the coup.
The Baltic States are slowly dying: they’ve lost 25% to 35% of their population, due to emigration & natural attrition. Former Eastern Bloc countries like Bulgaria are also facing this issue.
If this was happening in Russia, you’d never not hear about how apocalyptically s**t things were, with the wicked Kremlin running off and cannibalizing tens of millions.
However the Russian population – of actual living people, actually living in the country – is higher than Soviet times. Including millions of Georgians.
Ukraine was also in horrible shape, thanks to the benefits of “independence”, before Maidan. Now they seem intent on emulating the Paraguayan’s hopeless war of national suicide.
On the main subject of Georgia, that issue was settled in 2008 during the 5-day war. Ossetia and Abkhazia were lost permanently. So was entry into EU-NATO.
The most hyper-grant-eating, cargo-cultist NATO/EU lovers have fought a rearguard action. However they’ve lost the decisive upper hand; things have been slowly moving in the other direction.
The anti-foreign-asset law, is the latest milestone, and will be important in hobbling them for good.
Similar stories with the Solomon islands. The USA upset because China was preferred over American ‘democracy’, and the islands infested with USA NGOs trying to interfere in their elections. Good result so far but the overthrow of the elected government is still a possibility. The hegemon doesn’t give up easily.
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/05/13/us-china-rivalry-riles-tiny-solomon-islands/
Stevie Boy
I know we’re no longer in the EU, but I dislike how the EU and US seem to be operating in total synchronization on foreign policy. And we all know, the US are the ones calling the shots, so it’s really a question of: why is EU foreign policy being run out of Washington?
The EU membership carrot being dangled before Georgia, isn’t really Commission President von der Leyen’s to dangle either. That’s for member states. It would cost Europeans a fortune, alongside admitting Ukraine (not much real European enthusiasm for that either, beyond the sympathy for their plight). How could Georgia – and possibly Armenia(?) – be part of the EU’s mutual borders arrangement? Ursula von der Leyen, a failed RW German politician, seems to be both subservient to the US and yet paradoxically, drunk on power.
And the Guardian loses all objectivity when ‘Russia’ is mentioned. A moment’s research, would’ve informed them, this is no ‘Kremlin law’, it’s very similar to the US’s own decades-old FARA legislation and our recent UK legislation. Indeed, if thousands took to the streets demanding the repeal of the US’s FARA laws, US politicians and some media, would brand the protesters likely foreign-sponsored traitors, would they not?
The US’s furious overreaction to this legislation will surely just make Georgian politicians intrigued as to just how deep this ‘foreign funding of NGOs’ rabbit hole goes?
Of course it would be a different story if Georgia was, say, in the middle of Europe. The fact it sits between Russia and Iran is just consequential.
UK is just putting into action with several police arrests its recent National Security Act aimed at preventing “foreign interference” in its affairs, a far more draconian act than anything Georgia is trying to achieve.
A CIA-backed protest such as this against the idea that it is somehow undemocratic to be transparent about where you are getting your money in order to interfere in the country’s affairs is ludicrous but we all know that the Americans are pretty shameless about this sort of thing; as they are in Gaza where their forked tongue cuts no cake with me. UK government is just as bad; shameless, the lot of them.
And ‘foreign interference’ doesn’t apply to Israel as, I guess, that would be antisemitic !
Excellent comment Crispa, in the early US the Colonists made many treaties with the indigenous population, the Indian Chiefs always accused the ‘white eyes’ of speaking with ‘forked tongues’ but that was many moons ago, now the US use the same playbook and want their NGO’s to cause trouble in their prospective satrapies. V Nuland admitted to spending $6 billion dollars to effect regime change in Ukraine,it worked, now our leadership are preparing to take us into WW3 in order to defeat Russia on the battlefield.
What is disturbing is that the more we, pro-palestinians, raise awareness, the less support we seems to get.
We called out war crimes and apartheid back in october – the other side did not care.
We called out crimes against humanity since last year – no reaction from the other side.
Now for months we have been exposing the genocidal acts – still the other side, which still is majority of politicians and majority of journalists, are passive and/or supportive of Israel. It is like it does not matter what happen on the ground – Israel have a right to do what they do seems to be the motto of the western world.
Part of the reason is the sanitized reporting, the orwellian language, the omission, the censorship, the continued use of inviting Israel reps. to candidly and freely spread their propaganda in the studios of CNN/MSNBC/FOX etc.
As hard the situation is though, one are not allowed to jet out of it now, we have to keep doing what we are doing, the people in Gaza only have people like us.
Doesn’t matter how much you protest and shout in frustration; or how many arguments online about Palestine, you win, or lose. Not if those in power aren’t listening.
It’s all about elections, ultimately, and it’s a slow process. Especially when the available democratic tools are as blunt as they are in a two-party system under FPTP. The establishment have quite deliberately made it very hard to change anything substantially in the UK. But they do worry about hung parliaments and smaller parties, and candidates like Craig, potentially holding the balance of power.
hm
what would be e.g. CLARK´s personal view on this?
He seems to engage with people in public on a regular basis. Unlike me.
Things appear very different when one in fact speaks to people face to face.
One of the destructive features of social media stems from eclipsing this part of organizing more and more among people who have not been politically involved in some way before.
Doing this from scratch you need physical contact with people.
p.s. JACK: What changed since Oct.? A lot.
Israel has been charged with genocide at the ICJ!
This has provided “us” with a serious talking point. Regardless of the ridiculous dodgy reactions.
And: The protests on US campuses!
As Goose says it, takes time (sorry, Goose, for breaking your longer comment down to this optimistic view 😜 )
AG
“p.s. JACK: What changed since Oct.? A lot.”
But nothing has changed on the actual ground and nothing has moved the politicians/media in the West to change their attitude to what is going on, the arab leaders have proved to be as passive and callous too unfortunately.
If acts of genocide have not moved them, what will?
y.e.s.
of course you´re right there
protests at Dutch universities expanding btw.
Amsterdam, Groningen, Eindhoven, Maastricht, Nijmegen, Utrecht
Royal Dutch Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague (!!!!) stops cooperation with Jerusalem Beztal Academy for Art & Design.
Though I am not sure boycotts of cultural institutions work. What if we close communicative channels? It will achieve the opposite. They will shut down 100%. Does that help?
(This is no rhetorical question.)
Just came across this on JVL’s website and just had to post a link to it on here. The following is JVLs introduction:
Amos Goldberg, professor of Holocaust History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, wrote the following article about the situation in Gaza for an Israeli online magazine.
It is addressed to Israelis, explaining that just because what is happening in Gaza doesn’t look like the Holocaust – with its trains, gas chambers, incinerators, killing pits, concentration and extermination camps and more – doesn’t mean it is not a genocide.
Nor does the fact that the perpetrators say they are acting in self-defence lessen the crime they are committing.
Don’t just look at genocide though legal eyes where it will take the ICJ some years to declare its verdict. Look at what we can see happening: the level and pace of the indiscriminate killing, the destruction, the mass deportations, the displacement, the starvation, the executions, the elimination of cultural and religious institutions, the crushing of the elites (including the killing of journalists), and the sweeping dehumanization of the Palestinians.
For Goldberg this undoubtedly creates “an overall picture of genocide, of intentional and conscious crushing of the Palestinian existence in Gaza”.
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/prof-amos-goldberg-yes-it-is-genocide/
I don´t know the proper English term for this: idiocy? dumbness? incompetence? stupidity?
Here is an Engl. febr. interview with Jürgen Zimmerer, influental historian of colonialism in this country of ours.
He is the kind of decent guy the chancellor asks for an “expert” brief:
“Gaza war challenges Germany’s culture of remembrance
·05.02.2024
“Decent people must take a stand!”
https://qantara.de/en/article/gaza-war-challenges-germanys-culture-remembrance-decent-people-must-take-stand
I mentioned Zimmerer months ago. Then I was referring to an interview he had given around Oct. 10th.
He was shocked. So on and so forth. Usual.
Well by febr. he had had time to observe, reconsider. We had the ICJ by then. Etc.
So what has changed in his arguments towards the Gaza genocide?
Niente mi amici!
I urge you to read it, its not long – but THIS ACADEMIC INCOMPETENCE puts German academia to shame.
I can´t even be angry with him – because he genuinely believes this.
Guess how many times the word “Palestine” or “Palestinians” comes up?
Right – 0 times
Hamas: 4
Israel: 5
Gaza: 2
Holocaust: 7
Anti-semitism: 9
Not a single word of war crimes, of by then tens of thousands killed (20,000 30,000?)
What the hell am I supposed to say to such a person?
He is not a hypocrite. And he feels no shame the way Craig brings it up.
And he is no corrupt US senator. He is just a decent scholar.
However with zero competence on this very subject.
I.really.do.not.get.this.
His article comes across as self- contradictory and confused. Zimmerer urges all decent people to stand in solidarity with Israel, whilst denouncing the ‘ethno-nationalism’ of right wing groups. Yet there is nowhere an acknowledgment that the Israeli state itself was founded on the very ethno-nationalism he claims to abhor. In fact Zimmerer seems oblivious to the bloodthirsty clarion calls for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians which are being voiced from within the Israeli government at the time of writing. He has the temerity to stand in solidarity with such people whilst lecturing us on human decency.
I would not want him to scholar any students, AG, as he is controlled by the inane guilt that subsumes the media and so-called intelligentsia, for generations after the mistakes of our fore fathers have been regurgitated and remembered by means of an international Shoa business/movement.
The guilt felt in Germany is being kept alive by the new Nazis/psychos in power, that push and fund wars in Ukraine and in Gaza, anything to get at Putin is good, and anti-Semitism is their preferred means to control dissent from their agenda.
The hypocrisy that underlies US/EU arguments and agent provocateur actions in Georgia should be turning their faces red forever, but the western MSM, happily amplifying whatever suits Biden’s and unelected von der Liars agenda and missives.
One wonders what would happen if all hostages allegedly held by Hamas were declared dead from IDF bombing and hastily buried in concrete rubble, wrapped in plastic, by bulldozers.
What would happen if Iran accepts a delivery of nuclear warheads, but does not agree or disagree with their existence?
Would Serbia accept a Chinese Military base in its country? Having friendly relations with Serbia on the fringes of Europe, and or in central America via its BRIC links would put a few western hot heads into the freezer to cool down their global hegemonic aspirations and their clap trap outbursts.
All your examples are excellent. The hypocrisy is extraordinary. And the fact that the media can be so brazen is frightening. Presumably they are confident that the majority of people will not question what they say, or puzzle out the inconsistencies themselves.
AG
I watched Robert Habeck’s speech in which he all but claimed defending Israel from criticism was an integral part of modern German identity.
When does this holier-than-thou penitence; this demeaning political self-flagellation act end?
Everyone involved in the events that led to holocaust is dead. And other ethnic groups that were affected, other than the Jews; like the Romani and Sinti, never even get mentioned. Unless Habeck believes we inherit the sins of our fathers, why the hell are these politicians carrying around such guilt?
Britain in establishing Australia, Canada and the US, carried out acts of ethnic cleansing to further our colonial possessions. Go back far enough, and Britain issued an edict of expulsion against the Jews, in 1290, expelling all Jews from the Kingdom of England, the first time a European state is known to have permanently banned their presence.
The only explanation I can offer to myself and everyone else is Eurocentrism:
#1 The Jews were/are regarded as white Europeans. (Roma/Sinti are to this day outlaws, comparable to blacks in Jim Crow areas not by law but by racist tradition). And thus the Holocaust was – unike all the other Holocausts in the rest of the word – inflicted upon “ourselves”. Which makes them top in the hierarchy of crimes and self-pity. Had it been 6 mio. Jews in Africa or Asia, this would not interest anyone today.
#2 Looking at Indonesia killing 500,000 on mainland + 300,000 in East-Timor / SA killing in Angola and Mozambique 1 mio. / Guatemala 100,000
we realize those are all outside our horizon of interest. It´s not reported daily, its not identified with. So It could as well be 6 mio. killed in Indonesia – to equal the numbers here – it would make zero difference.
Simply because it´s not Europe and not elite Europeans. You have to keep in mind, Jews meant also heart of the capitalist modern European societies. They were a cross section of European populations.
It was worthy vs. unworthy victims.
On that a very cynical note: As far as hypocrisy goes you could psychologize and suggest, only a dead Jew was a good Jew since the dead Jews in hindsight put Germany into the position of moral superiority. As far as mass psychology works, if such a thing exists (I am rather cautious with psychological tropes they are highly unreliable and subject to instrumentalisations).
p.s. Habeck has turned out to be an absolute, treacherous asshole way over his head with his duties. He was a local darling in Schleswig-Holstein. He should have stayed there.
“The only explanation I can offer to myself and everyone else is Eurocentrism…”
I call it racism. Ironically, those most prone to it are exactly those who claim to be absolutely anti-racist.
The thought I had this morning: I should have written racism.
But Euro-centrism somehow seemed to focus more accurately on it in geographical & ideological terms.
However the problem is that – in Germany at least – you will in fact find many who are really not racist who defend Israel´s right to defend itself against terror. There are Arabs who share Zionist viewpoints because they are uninformed.
This muddled incompetence is the core of the entire problem.
Of course what it comes down to IS racism. But many who are not racist don´t reckognize this.
“I watched Robert Habeck’s speech in which he all but claimed defending Israel from criticism was an integral part of modern German identity”.
A mistake (if it is one) that a four-year-old child would not commit. It’s also a beautiful example of a syndrome highlighted by the historian A.J.P. Taylor:
“Men learn from their mistakes how to make new ones”.
– A.J.P. Taylor (The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848-1918)
The Germans were wrong in 1933-45, and they are wrong again now – just in a slightly different sense. But I am sure they have always been deeply convinced of their own righteousness.
“But I am sure they have always been deeply convinced of their own righteousness.”
Absolutely.
You can´t even imagine on what level.
p.s. what so stunned me – in Germany it´s easier to argue with people over Russia breaching Art. 51 with justification (or not) than over the question of genocide in Gaza and Israel´s fascist conduct.
It´s absolutely crazy.
It’s one thing when you think your politicians and media class should be in prison for being venal, corrupt, self serving liars. It’s quite another when it becomes actually apparent that your politicians and media class should in fact be on death row for colluding in genocide.
A re-run of the first Nakba – also not recognised by the West. Exterminate every resistor, encourage the passive majority to leave ‘voluntarily’ and raze all buildings so that there is nothing to go back to. Deny those leaving their right to return and subvert organisations that perpetuate any claim, including the UN. Assassinate leading trouble-makers wherever they live. Smear sympathisers and independent journalists as anti-semitic holocaust / terrorist supporters. If perchance any Arabs do manage to remain, make their daily lives as miserable as possible so that they too give up and go.
Netanyahu held up a map of Israel that included the West Bank and Gaza at a UN speech on September 22, 2023 – a fortnight before the Hamas raid – so your conclusion is hardly controversial. Indeed, one could argue that Hamas were responding to this naked threat. And I believe that Israel has STILL not defined its international borders…
As Zionist Irgun, Lehi and Haganah terrorists killed dozens of our soldiers and tied up thousands more troops than we have in the entire British Army now, I find Israel’s hypocrisy and our complicit media nauseating. Curiously, Tony Robinson has a number of close Jewish friends and his series ‘Britain’s Forgotten Wars’ omitted Palestine. Maybe if their letterbomb had succeeded in killing Winston Churchill there would be less ignorance and racism.
Well done Georgia for passing the Foreign Agents Bill. Western governments are captured by foreign agents and that’s part of why the genocide in Gaza is well under way.
RoS
UK TV news are giving the protests plenty of coverage, but we have to do our own research just to find out basic information. We’re starved of accurate, objective reporting on the situation in Georgia, just as we are on the situation in Ukraine.
One look at the last Georgian parliamentary election, in 2020, shows the Georgian Dream party clearly has a democratic mandate; a mandate most western party leaders would envy. New elections are just months away, so the violent protests may be because these well-funded US, NATO, EU NGO interests fear they can’t achieve their aims through democratic means perhaps? For why would anyone who’s confident of victory, urge a violent putsch? Maybe some are upset because the intention was to flood the opposition parties and attached groups with foreign money in said elections? This law may prevent that or at least show the sources. In its fight against Putin, the West appears to be losing all sense of right and wrong.
The Guardian, Times, Telegraph were just parroting the US “Kremlin law” line. Last night, BBC 2’s Newsnight had a Georgian opposition leader on, a street protester and no other balance. Newsnight is supposed to be the UK’s premier news analysis programme, yet they do this one-sided agenda crap a lot.
You can gather how warped the collective western media mentality and reporting has become, with the breaking news of an assassination attempt on Slovakian PM Robert Fico.
Reported in the UK as, “Putin ally Robert Fico,” as if that somehow lessens or mitigates what is a v.serious crime. As stated above:
In its fight against Putin, the West appears to be losing all sense of right and wrong. Being democratically elected is of little importance to these people if you aren’t part of the EU/NATO consensus.
If indeed it is a covert operation it would shed really bad light on his security details. I mean any sane person knows that US intervention on one level has to be taken into account. So as a security service I would try to do a very good job. Chavez not without reason had people from Cuba advising him.
On the other hand if its an inside job the truth won´t get out.
(The Czechs had a bunch of Mafiosi in their governments I think, which nobody reported on here. People literally involved in murder, if I recall correctly.)
Well of course, their tag-phrase & bulletpoint scripts have been swiftly handed out.
Even the manner of the attempt is cliché, the “lone nut” – such people are easy to groom into weapons.
Funniest case was in Cambodia of all places, a guy who got on the wrong side of the ruling clan. Got killed in a café by a “lone nut” from the other side of the country, who’d been gaslit into thinking the victim owed him money.
Links to the regime quickly surfaced in that case; this is an old dirty trick, and Fico wasn’t playing ball.
Of course whatever the truth the wider world will assume based on ever more openly evil track-record that NATO had a hand in trying to remove a troublesome guy who wasn’t obeying “club rules”.
It might intimidate other club members to stay in line, but I expect overall this will be read as a sign of thuggish weakness & insecurity.
Also good on Georgia, their one hope to be a sovereign country is to free themselves from the grant-eater infestation.
My thoughts exactly Goose. I watched dumbfounded last night as there was no attempt whatsoever at any sort of balance.
Minsk is Munich and Fico is Ferdinand. Putin is Hitler and there are many “Putin’s”. Meloni is Mussolini and there is only one Meloni. Ukraine is Spain, and Macron is Napoleon. Sunak slithers whilst Biden creaks and Scholz abases, Erdoğan dissembles, Netanyahu kills, Zel snorts, while in the mirror Churchill smokes. These and many other factoids are the articles of my faith.
The Road to War is profitable, War is profitable, Reconstruction is profitable.
Unfortunately Peace is not profitable enough, it seems.
Kremlin Law? Kremlin, my ass! It’s Russian plagiarism of US’s FARA, aka Foreign Agents Registration Act!
—
In someone else’s eye there’s a vile, dirty speck infected with all the diseases of the world.
In my eye there’s a trendy log made of expensive wood, that perfectly complements my fashion style.
(с) Guardian, Times, Telegraph, BBC and other mouthpieces of modern gospel.
So it’s a bad law in America but good for Russia and Georgia?
The big difference is that the US FARA law was introduced in 1938 to counter Nazi propaganda and has been progressively watered down since 1945, in 1966 it became a civil rather than a criminal offence and since 1995 only applies to political lobbyists. By contrast since it was passed in 2012 the scope of the Russian act has been expanded to shut down opposition and force international bodies such as the Committee Against Torture and Transparency International out of the country.
Thanks Tatyana for reminding us about the US FARA law, this was the first thing I was reminded of when I heard about the regulation introduced in Georgia and I presumed many other people will have thought this too. Apparently what is repressive in Georgia is fine in the US of A. Thanks too for Pears letting us know that this law in the US of A has been watered down so that Nazis are free to air their views as they might wish. This explains why Mr Trump is not yet in jail.
Trump is not a foreign agent, he’s a home grown, all-American nut job.
I, personally, do not understand what is all that fuss about the law.
I consume news, so I, as a consumer, prefer to be informed on the origin of ‘the product’. Like, you know, I buy olive oil and I want the label to tell me what is the country of its origin. Because currently there are some unfriendly countries, which I’m not inclined to support with my hard-earned rouble.
The same applies to all sorts of information getting into my brain. As simple as that.
I wonder how many hours Biden would need to rush to Zelenskys hospital bed were he the one shot.
Lets wait for the lukewarm press statements from our humanistic Western friends…
p.s. nice warning post btw. Literally red flag
Unless it was an “upset” citizen with pretty good skills.
apparently several gunshots from close range, among the onlookers.
Who walks to such an event and shoots someone from that close in broad daylight with no chance to escape obviously?
This is odd. Too textbook case of your confused individual…
p.s. What happened to our “whistleblower” from early 2023 and the leaked US military assessments. It´s like he never existed…
It’d be wrong to speculate on possible political motives.
The alleged shooter is a 71 year old man. The only interesting piece of information, is that he apparently fired three shots in rapid succession, which is standard practice for those trained to use firearms to kill.
you´re an assassin or somethin´?
(yeah I have no clue of guns)
Of course my speculation is lofty to put it politely
p.s. a view from MoA´s blog:
“The most likely explanation for a ‘lone wolf’ attack is the tsunami or russophobic propaganda which has driven millions of people crazy. In so far as Fico has been portrayed as a Russian ally/puppet he has been turned into a potential target for those ‘sharing western values.’ “
AG
No lol.
I remember watching recruits receiving training in a documentary.
It might be a ‘nothing’ detail, but a novice might fire one shot. Professionals say always press the trigger twice, or even three times.
AG
It’s in case the firearm malfunctions iirc, In a one-on-one combat situation.
In combat, press the trigger once and if there’s a misfire, you’d likely be dead. A rapid second press and it may save your bacon.
In the video five shots can be heard, Fico was hit once in the stomach and twice in a hand which he may have raised to defend himself.
The shooter is described as being a former security guard so he may have had some firearms training.
All the EU leaders are condemning this assassination attempt, as you’d expect. Estonia’s Kaja Kallas describes it as “an attack on democracy itself.” Secretary-General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, has also chimed in.
Surely, they have to acknowledge that the amount of vitriol Robert Fico and Smer have received from various supposedly progressive European newspapers and aggressive social media NAFO trolls, over his stance on Ukraine, could’ve quite easily inspired an incident like this. Whether that’s the case here or not? Idk? There’ll need to be a review of how NAFO are conducting their so-called information warfare activities, if it’s potentially a contributing factor in assassination attempts.
The fact NATO affiliated individuals are denouncing democratically elected leaders like Orban and Fico, for taking a different stance reflects poorly not just on NATO, but the entire EU leadership. The support for the violent protests in Georgia from key EU figures, some, even talking up a revolution in Tbilisi, shows how the West is forgetting that if democracy means anything, it means respecting differences peacefully.
The attacker has been named in the media as Juraj Cintula, a 71-year-old man from Levice, a town in western Slovakia.
NAFO must be praying he’s not a ‘Fella’.
If Hamas would surrender this would be over.
Instead Hamas keeps their hostages and hides behind the innocents. War is not genocide and they end when one side or the other surrenders.
Over for who?
ozzy
Surrender how?
Even Israeli hostages, who escaped after a bomb killed their captors, were shot dead by the IDF while waving white flags and shouting “don’t shoot!” in Hebrew.
Do you really think after 8 months of Israeli bombing, Hamas have a robust command and control system in place and perfect communications? An order issued to surrender, in the unlikely event of it being given, wouldn’t travel through their depleted, dispersed ranks.
There’s no Hamas on the West Bank, where Israeli slaughter and removal of Palestinians is also occurring. Israeli slaughter and removal of Palestinians also occurred before Hamas existed.
Conclusion : Israeli atrocities are perpetrated irrespective of the existence of Hamas.
Exactly Glen
Hamas is very popular on the West Bank, but is not in power. I would have to check up whether a West Bank organisation exists.
But I agree with your conclusion that the atrocities have nothing to do with Hamas.
Why western Leaders
Hate the Palestinians
And Crave Genocide
Nice haiku. If karma were a real entity instead of the mere expression of wish fulfilment Netanyahu, Biden and Sunak would all commit hari kari