The deluge of Islamophobia on social media unleashed by supporters of the Gaza genocide has been profoundly shocking. It is one reason I am very sorry that Humza Yousaf was forced out as First Minister of Scotland, as he was a particular target and his ousting will have encouraged the bigots.
On Twitter and Facebook I frequently receive comments suggesting that I should go and live in an Islamic country (from people evidently unaware that I have previously), or that I should meet Hamas or the Taliban (from people again unaware that I have previously) who would behead me, or that Muslims wish to kill all non-Muslims.
What strikes me curiously is the sincerity of their Islamophobic beliefs – they really do believe all these things, because they have been imbued with this hate by absorbing years of propaganda in which Muslims are dehumanised.
I want to tell you, and them, a small story. In Pakistan a fortnight ago, I was in Lahore searching for the house of General Allard, where Alexander Burnes spent time. Allard is a fascinating figure but I do not want to digress here from the point of this story.
I did not find Allard’s palatial residence, which has been demolished long ago, but I did find the tomb where he and his daughter were buried. The tomb was attached to the house, and my friend Masood Lohari and I were able to do some urban archaeology, discovering that elements of the palace and its outbuildings had been incorporated into much later structures now on the site.
We were walking around the dense buildings when a man got off his scooter and invited us in to a doorway. Masood told him what we were doing, and he invited us up many winding steps to his attic apartment, where he opened a trapdoor into a roof cavity that revealed a very old structure.
His attic apartment was clean but very sparsely furnished. It had two rooms, in one of which his invalid father lay on a bed. In the other he and his wife had their bed. There were plastic chairs and table and an incongruously large old fridge.
His wife produced dates and nuts and tea and insisted we sit down to drink. The fridge was opened and the entire contents were emptied out for us. There was a delicious half melon, which was diced and put into bowls. A handful of strawberries were crushed and whipped up with the milk. Bread was broken and the very small amount of meat diced and grilled.
We tried to refuse some of the hospitality but plainly to persist in that would have caused enormous offence. It was obvious that this was a household living by western standards in great poverty, but every single bit of food available was cleaned out and given to the guests. Our beaming hosts told us of the blessing they received in providing hospitality to strangers.
The point is, that I have experienced this often in Muslim countries. In my experience, it is typical of the way that Muslim people behave. It is for example a fact that in the UK, Muslims devote a much higher proportion of their income to charity than non-Muslims.
Hate is bred of fear, and fear is bred of ignorance. It is tragic that in developed countries, resources are available for war but not to counter that ignorance.
But of course, the hate is deliberately inculcated as it is required to bolster support for war. From war the Establishment make a great deal of money and foment yet more hatred with which to bolster their authority.
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Just glanced into a French war series about a French unit fighting ISIS in Mosul.
Regardless how critical you want to tell such a story in a pseudo-“realistic” style – you will always end up with the Muslims being on the perpetrator side, the barbaric ones, those who need saving or have to be killed, who are outside the norm.
Now if you consider that the average European and American sees no other image of the MidEast but this, no wonder that the level of public incompetence on this subject is so striking. We grow up on stories about sick, perverted Muslims 24/7. Unless we are lucky due to some family history (immigrant) or having enough friends from the MidEast.
Recently I watched British director Guy Ritchie´s motion picture “The Covenant”. That´s Afghanistan not Iraq. But it´s the same in essence. And if you take the domestic stories like crime series, you again end up with Muslims being either out of the norm or having no agency of their own.
And I really don´t know how this vicious circle should be broken.
The same principle will apply to Russians. In the coming decade we will be engulfed by stories about heroic Ukrainians, perverse Russians, by biopics about Zelensky and so-called psychological studies of Putin and how he became the reincarnation of Hitler. It´s like with Corbyn – even if it´s bullshit, it sticks.
I can only guess the video-game industry is doing the same.
Hollywood has been doing it for 80 years regarding Arabs. If you tried to do anything contradicting, forget it. Just read the leaks published by Wikileaks from SONY. The stuff the bigwig producers were stating – it was basically what Netanyahu´s merry men are now saying openly. Among US entertainment industry moguls this has aways been standard fare.
Good text by Mintpress on this from 2015
https://www.mintpressnews.com/wikileaks-sony-hack-reveals-hollywoods-hand-in-repairing-israels-broken-image/205176/
“(…) A MintPress News analysis of emails contained in WikiLeaks archive of the Sony Hack reveals how Hollywood executives are working to repair Israel’s public image in the wake of the savage death toll from last summer’s Operation Protective Edge offensive against Gaza. This includes a proposed documentary which would attempt to tie support for Palestine to anti-semitic violence in Europe and the United States.
(…)
Known as Operation Protective Edge, the brutal assault left at least 2,000 civilians dead and some 150,000 homeless. Pascal and almost 200 other Hollywood executives publicly signed a Creative Community For Peace petition blaming Hamas for the devastation of Israel’s attack on Gaza — an action the Jewish Journal cautioned “should not be confused with courage” in an op-ed titled “Hollywood Zionists are alive and well.”
A leaked email shows that the Creative Community For Peace works in direct opposition to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to end investment in Israel and is especially strong on college campuses.
David Lonner, a TV producer on shows like “Devious Maids,” writers to Pascal on behalf of the CCFP:
“Over the past couple of years, I, along with a group of influential music execs put together a group called Creative Community for Peace which battles the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) which has tried to stop artists from performing in Israel. We have been very successful in making sure artists like Alicia Keys, Rihanna, Paul McCartney and others were not intimidated.”
Ali Abunimah, writing for The Electronic Intifada, revealed April 2014 emails showing Sony executives taunting Ehab Al Shihabi, CEO of Al-Jazeera America, in response to the network’s unbiased reporting on Palestine. Emails from August quote another executive, Steven Bernard, complaining to several other executives, including Pascal, that a report from Iran’s PressTV links Sony cameras to the guidance systems of Israeli rockets.
(…)”
The entertainment industry might not be of relevance to us here – but it is to Hundreds of millions of people who do not read this blog, and who have never heard of a Craig Murray.
The same syndrome goes all the way back to P. C. Wren’s popular “Beau Geste” (1924) in which brave Europeans battle fierce, cruel Africans without much mention of the fact that the Europeans were invaders seeking complete domination. And no doubt far further back still.
Eh, I think you’re overestimating their potency. This isn’t the 1950’s golden age when Hollywood held dominion over global culture.
The intended audience for all this, is increasingly distrustful, disgusted or just flat out thinks the quality of establishment entertainment sucks. Same story as with the media, standards are slipping everywhere.
Also I think the point about Ukraine is wrong, this war will end so embarrassingly badly for NATO. That I expect them to try and mostly “memory hole” it.
With the Ukrainians blamed for letting the west down, despite all the selfless help they were given.
Vietnam ended ’embarrassingly badly’ for the US but it hasn’t stopped them producing an endless stream of films and documentaries about it.
Indeed, and the general tenor of these films is that the US was in some way the victim of a nightmare in the Mekong delta, which has left the nation permanently scarred. This applies even to those films which have, as their thrust, an anti-war narrative. For the Vietnam war to be portrayed as essentially an American nightmare is rather like portraying the Second world war as essentially a German nightmare
@AG, the video games industry is of particular interest in that players generally tend to want to play the underdog (otherwise it gets boring), which causes problems for historically accurate (-ish) representations. The usual thing is to either concentrate on ‘good’ wars (from the Allies’ heirs, basically WW2), or ignore all the bad things (looting, rape, massacre of native peoples, slavery), or present a kind of warm-and-fuzzy imperialism like the Civilization games where you can take the side of a home-grown tyrant with a whitewashed reputation, if you like.
There are very few games which deal with historical Atlantic racialised chattel slavery and its attendant crimes, for example. Ones I’ve played are Banzo – Marks of Slavery; Assassin’s Creed Freedom’s Cry; and Playing History 2 – Slave Trade. While this topic may increasingly be addressed, colonial warfare from the subaltern side is still commonly silenced. There are some Indie and state-funded games which break from the commercial/national security mould, but you have to search for them. I haven’t come across any game which satisfyingly depicts a historical colonial conflict from the playable viewpoint of the oppressed; though some fantasy games have maybe made such representations by stealth.
Or, very topically, your blockbuster movie adapted from a novel will have fantasy elements but never refer to any British etc imperial crimes, nor well-organised and principled popular resistance to them.
The nearest science fiction equivalent to what you are asking for that I can think of from off the top of my head is Frank Herbert’s Dune, in the representation of the freedom struggles of the Fremen.
“Frank Herbert’s Dune”
Have you read “The White Plague”? That really takes the gloves off.
@Tom Welsh, nope. I mentioned Frank Herbert’s Fremen because the author apparently partly based them on real desert folk like Bedouin, among other Arabic and Islamic influences in the series of Dune novels.
Overreaching security services’ abusing their powers are nothing new.
The US intel agencies, in the 1950s, 60s and 70s – in fact, right up to Church Committee Hearings (1975) – were involved in all sorts of mischief, and abuses of power. J Edgar Hoover, the notoriously feared Director of the FBI, boasted he kept files on everyone. It’s why US citizens are cynical, even to this day about the CIA and the ‘Feds’. The UK never had its own Church Committee equivalent, so respect is artificially high for our security services. US citizens got to know, in the hearings, the sorts of mentalities and abuses of power that happen when you are your own judge and jury, given free rein by a political elite failing in their role.
The politicians are the real problem again today. The covenant between those governed and the government is broken. They forget we allow or tolerate them to be there, in order to serve us; not the other way around. We don’t elect people to lecture us, ban things and wag a moralistic finger in our faces. Quite frankly, we can do without those sorts of managerial busybodies; people who believe in nothing and distrust the citizenry, subjecting us to mass surveillance.
There is book from 2001 “Reel Bad Arabs” which documents the depiction of Arabs in western films. Entertaining to read, with some powerful observations derived from the wealth of filmic detail presented.
I would not be surprised if the author or others have added to what could easily have become a sub-genre. In the book I read back in the 2000s, I thought there was a lot more that could be said about the subject and more telling quotes etc., and analysis of plots etc., to be offered
The finest hospitality I ever received was in a village outside of Nablus.
Thank you Mohammed and your family for your generosity. As with Craig’s example it is those with less resources who are often the most generous.
Incidentally, I recollect reading a biography of the explorer and translator Richard Burton. In those far off colonial days it was the Muslims who were accorded some respect by the Colonial Office while the local Hindu population was deprecated. I suspect that the Brits identified with the previous colonisers as they were perceived to have more martial spirit. How the wheel turns.
In my limited experience of rich bastards, being a rich bastard is a full-time job. Showing hospitality seems inversely proportional to wealth, wherever I go. Nice fridge by the way.
PS who took the pic?
Poorer societies typically aren’t infected by the envy, snobbery and other dehumanizing values that come with western materialism. Though you can bet Pakistan’s wealthy, western educated, ruling elite are. Hence why they think they can lock up Imran Khan; in the hope that their own democratic legitimacy problems will simply go away.
Western materialism is a mindset that has been created by capitalists using constant brainwashing via the MSM. Ie. to be successful you must have this, to be attractive you must look like this, etc. It’s not natural. It started, to a large extent, after WW2 in the USA and has now spread throughout the West. Any nation that has contact with the West will be sold ‘the american dream’ and corrupted through the politics of greed and envy. The poor aspire to be rich, the rich aspire to be richer. Democracy, rules based order, World Bank, IMF, UN, NATO, MSM, MIC. All tools of the hegemon and they won’t make you happier or improve your life.
Being poor doesn’t necessarily make you happier or better but it does force you to focus on the important things in life.
I suppose also, the less one has, especially as you move closer to societies that are at or near subsistence levels of poverty, sharing what little you have makes a lot of sense.
Charlie Chaplin’s underrated speech (considering the fact he wrote the film’s script, acted in it and directed it) from the film The Great Dictator (1940):
https://www.charliechaplin.com/en/synopsis/articles/29-The-Great-Dictator-s-Speech
The observations still resonate nearly 85 years later:
“We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness – not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost…
The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men – cries out for universal brotherhood – for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world – millions of despairing men, women, and little children – victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people….”
I believe some politicians in the US suspected Chaplin had communist sympathies.
I doubt most of them are members of the public. They are almost certainly trolls for the ‘adversaries’ you mention below the line and liars from the mainstream media. The government stokes up synthetic racial and religious hatred, and then the Guardian and the BBC say ‘isn’t it awful?’ and blames white people. That way no one realises that ‘liberal democracy’ is a fraud. That is also why the media were so quick to label anyone critical of the covid rules as ‘far-right’ – it is projection.
May I ask where the “stellar” RFK is in all this shitty crackdown in the US? Or is he just too busy covering up on his complacency with genocidal Israeli elites? I don´t know where people took their notion from that the Kennedys were ever in any freakin’ way special – but it time and again fails the test of time.
And since I just started with it, Edward Said’s “Representations of the Intellectual” is a fine book. (Speaking of true intellectuals, no clones like RFK.)
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/159790/representations-of-the-intellectual-by-edward-w-said/
It has this introduction by Said – as of 1994 – haha:
“as a boy growing up in the Arab world, where the BBC was a very important part of our life ; even today phrases like “London said this morning” are a common refrain in the Middle East. They are always used with the assumption that “London” tells the truth. Whether this view of the BBC is only a vestige of colonialism I cannot tell, yet it is also true that in England and abroad the BBC has a position in public life enjoyed neither by government agencies like the Voice of America nor by the American networks, including CNN.”
These are lectures Said held in cooperation with the BBC. Yes, the BBC.
“But almost from the moment that the announcement of the lectures was made by the BBC in late 1992 there was a persistent, albeit relatively small chorus of criticism directed at it for having invited me in the first place. I was accused of being active in the battle for Palestinian rights, and thus disqualified for any sober or respectable platform at all. This was only the first in a series of plainly anti-intellectual and antirational arguments, all of them ironically supporting the thesis of my lectures about the public role of the intellectual as outsider, “amateur”, and disturber of the status quo.”
We have come a long way since, dear Edward…a Palestinian boy with a kingly British name just doesn´t fit into our current cardboard-cut world I would assume.
Welcome to 2024, the world of assdom.
I’m sure there are a lot of muslims in Batley who would love to extend their hospitality to a (ex) local school teacher…..
Seriously: treat muslims well because most are nice, but all Jews (whether they live in Israel or not, whether they are good or not) are a target for abuse?
If Carlsberg did hypocrisy, it still would not be as good as this….
Especially those decent Jews supporting Palestinian rights, eh Bob ?
Who claims that “all jews are a target for abuse”? Something you made up yourself?
Ponder this question:
I’ve never heard any of these critics claim that it’s wrong for students to protest Iran, or Sudan, or Myanmar, or Russia because it “might make people feel uncomfortable or unsafe.” It’s a lie. And we have no duty to protect to the feelings of people supporting #genocide.
https://twitter.com/CraigMokhiber/status/1787969651185479858
Fact is also that almost 100% of israeli jews support what Israel is doing and a majority part of jews outside of Israel. That is a fact. One cannot be surprised to get hatred back if one openly support gross human rights violations.
If majority of muslims supported ISIS, I would not be surprised if there would be hatred generated against them. But majority of muslims took a stance against ISIS, on the other hand very few jewish organisation have distanced themselves from what Israel is doing in their name.
In nations with significant Muslim populations, much disdain for ISIS
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/11/17/in-nations-with-significant-muslim-populations-much-disdain-for-isis/
“Fact is also that almost 100% of israeli jews support what Israel is doing…”
Not surprising. The same was true of US and Canadian citizens at the time when the native Americans were being murdered, driven out, imprisoned, and exterminated. The technique is identical. First make their lives intolerable, by attacking them, destroying their crops and homes and stealing their animals. If they retaliate or defend themselves by force, label them “vicious savages” and kill them. Then explain that they must move away “somewhere” to make room for more deserving “civilised” peole with the correct religion. Give them no food, drink, shoes, or medical help, and with luck most of them will die out of sight and unheard. Finally, lock the survivors in a concentration camp (er, “reservation”) until they either die from discouragement or break out in desperation and run amok. At this point you can again label them “vicious savages” and kill them.
The Nazis had very similar plans for the peoples of the USSR. But, being rather stupid, they failed to understand that the Soviets differed from Native Americans in being able to manufacture thousands of superior tanks per month, and to handle enormous million-man offensives. Steel and electricity beat bows and arrows and tomahawks every time.
As always, “civilisation” is reckoned by the power of weapons.
Hitler commented approvingly on the US genocide of Native Americans and his ‘vision’ for the USSR inhabitants within Greater Germania was obviously along the same lines.
Had Nazi armies (including around 1 million Nazi soldiers from outwith Germany) succeeded in conquering the USSR then presumably an attempt would have been made, post- Hitler, to polish up the public image of the regime. Whether that would have been as successful as the propaganda efforts of the British Empire, USA and Israel must remain unknown.
Hitler was a huge fan of the British Empire and admired colonialism, the feelings were mutual too. Leading Nazis came to the UK to participate in hunts with hounds. The British upper classes and the Nazis were a natural fit, hand-in-glove so to speak. Old footage emerged showing the British Royals imitating Nazi salutes, including a young future Queen Elizabeth.
One of Hitler’s favorite films was The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) starring Errol Flynn, which he viewed in repeated sittings. He was fascinated by the British Raj and its implications as he saw them, of a superior race conquering a lesser people. Hitler thought the British would always do a deal, hence why after the disastrous British defeat and retreat at Dunkirk in 1940, the German forces didn’t press home their advantage, by invading the UK. A terrible strategic mistake for Hitler, as Britain was then too weak to resist. London would have almost certainly fallen: game over.
Unfortunately – as Israel´s population is concerned – the right-wing shift there has taken enormous proportions.
More than 80% have no problem with what is happening. The numbers calling for even increased violence by the IDF are a bit lower but frightening too.
This comes not from us outside Israel. These are insights from Israelis, or Expats who can´t work there anymore.
And of course this downward development has not come over night.
It has been going on probably especially since 9/11.
It´s not as if Israel´s population had been particularly fond of Arabs and Palestine but there was some sort of omerta to not articulate genocidal demands openly. This has totally disappeared. Now you are expected to support such views.
It reminds me a bit of the war satire “Starship Troopers” – “This is an ugly planet, this is a bug planet”
p.s. A study on the US protests and violence
“US Student Pro-Palestine Demonstrations Remain Overwhelmingly Peaceful | ACLED Brief”
says:
“between 7 October and 3 May, the overwhelming majority of student demonstrations — 97% — have remained peaceful.”
see:
https://acleddata.com/2024/05/10/us-student-pro-palestine-demonstrations-remain-overwhelmingly-peaceful-acled-brief/
“Police intervention against conflict-related student demonstrations increased by more than eight times in April compared to March. Since October, police have arrested demonstrators and physically dispersed crowds much more frequently at demonstrations with counter-demonstrators. However, in cases where student demonstrators have gathered unopposed, police have intervened against pro-Palestine demonstrations more than five-and-a-half times as often as pro-Israel demonstrations.”
AG
More than 80% have no problem with what is happening. The numbers calling for even increased violence by the IDF are a bit lower but frightening too.
That’s the part these Western liberal apologists for Israel, are trying to hide. These liberals typically highlight small counter demonstrations in Israel, calling for a ceasefire. But even those ceasefire calls, are overwhelmingly motivated by concern for the hostages.They couldn’t give a damn about innocent Palestinians.
Israel’s society is, on the whole, just as blood thirsty and extreme as the extremists they say they are fighting. There’s a huge amount of projection from Netanyahu and other Israeli ministers when they say, ‘ Hamas want to exterminate us”.
AG, all.
Wonder what happened to the widely mooted / anticipated imminent ICC arrest warrants?
These, if issued, could have made a real impact and saved many lives that will be lost in the next days, weeks. It’s been reported that the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Ahmad Khan, was Israel’s pick for that role. If so, that appears to be paying dividends, albeit at the cost of the ICC’s reputation.
Corruption and dirty fingerprints everywhere, it would seem.
Last thing I heard was that incredible threat letter of US-Congressmen against ICC.
I assume they folded the same way resistance usually folds in the West when pressure comes.
I would guess Aaron Maté on one of his appearances would have the latest – i.e. either Napolitano, or Useful Idiots or something with Blumenthal.
p.s. I didn´t follow ICC because I considered it DOA when I first heard.
AG
The ‘Rules-based International Order,’ has become Meme-able at this point.
The UK’s political situation is appalling because of a lack of significant resistance to the poor leadership and dehumanizing values. But the US, to me, seems like a country with this strange mix of incredibly smart people : NSA, DARPA, Berkeley, NASA; DoD, M.I.T, then it has a bunch of low grade mostly, sub 100 IQ politicians in charge. Some of the statements that come out of the US Congress & Senate are horrifyingly ill-informed and/or just plain ignorant to European ears. And useless subservient types, like the unelected ‘Royal ‘we’ using, von der Leyen, just go along with the US, as if the EU’s destiny is simply to obey US orders.
I really hope the upcoming European elections remove President Ursula von der Leyen somehow? How did the unelected European Commission – a body originally viewed as a temporary arrangement – become a defacto government of Europe, pushing Foreign Policies made in Washington?
“How did the unelected European Commission … become a defacto government of Europe”
good Q. I.don´t.know.
I never had time to deep-dive into the true history of the EU.
Perry Anderson from the NLR has done tons of stuff on the EU and also two English reporters whose names I fail to recall but who I found in this forum early last year I think.
However, sorry to say, but there won´t be much change re: elections now.
Doesn´t mean we should “fold” too. But to be realistic wouldn´t hurt. I guess.
Without resistance nothing will ever change for sure. But even the late Dan Ellsberg admitted that even the Pentagon Papers and the entire mainstream turning against Nixon wouldn´t do the job. It was until closest associates sang.
Caesar had to be taken out by his own son.
AG
I think originally the intention was to turn the European Parliament into the main organ of EU decision making, but European govts couldn’t take people with them, and some govt’s, notably the UK, didn’t want to cede any more sovereignty. It’s utterly pathetic that the elected European Parliament can’t initiate legislation, but the unelected Commission can, isn’t it? Some EU defenders say the Parliament can reject the President and her team, but it’s an all or nothing vote; a very blunt instrument indeed. MEPs either bring the Commission down causing chaos or just grudgingly accept it.
It’s becoming deeply unpopular because von der Leyen and co are overreaching (a word I use a lot)…
No doubt if the political right in Europe – Le Pen in France, the AfD in Germany, but two examples – sweep the upcoming June elections, the liberal centrists and moderate right, will cry foul: “We didn’t lose, Russia stole it!”. Their stupidity is only matched by their paranoia.
Back to Gaza
Just caught the US State Department’s Jake Sullivan on BBC news, in a US TV Sunday interview, arguing that elimination of Hamas has to be the priority over humanitarian concerns in Rafah. Leaving aside the fact Sullivan is viewed as a outspoken Zionist, surely he can’t believe that Palestinian armed resistance to occupation begins and ends with Hamas?
While ever occupation and oppression continues, there’ll be some form of armed resistance movement, whatever it calls itself. Why no one in the US news media, nor political sphere, is pushing back with this self-evident truth, I don’t know?
re: Sullivan – if the Devil hadn’t existed, you´d have had to invent him.
None of this – Gaza / UKR is designed to be resolved in a meaningful way voluntarily.
Because if that were an option there hadn’t been any of this necessary to begin with.
So what the Ukrainians – mainly men – are as cannon fodder to RU guns, the Palestinians are to Israeli guns.
It’s the same concept as in WWI and some say WWII too. What the EU is trying to avoid is a repetition of it in the EU. And confine the kill-for-profit scheme to second class humans. Because if it comes down to you or me, Ukrainians despite all the insufferable and jingoist Nazi-talk in Europe, are not worth than what they mean to shareholders. So theoretically there is no difference between Palestinians and Ukrainians from the PoV of the EU Commission e.g. or French Dassault or German Rheinmetall. You can see it when EU will abandon its human rights principles, when Ukrainians demand to stay while Kiev wants her soldiers.
Or to quote a Chomsky title: “Profit over People”, literally.
AG
The US seems to be trying to fan another colour revolution, this time in Georgia, judging by recent scenes in Tbilisi and comments online. A mob overthrowing a govt is never a good idea, as Ukraine shows. That’s why we have elections. Georgians need to know 500,000 marched in London to change the govt’s policy on a Gaza ceasefire, and our govt simply ignored the protests. Didn’t hear any EU people calling that an affront to democracy, as they are over the Georgia protests?
Why has Georgia’s foreign agents law, similar to the FARA laws in the US, UK and most EU countries, been called the ‘Russian law’? Any organisation receiving 20% of its funding has to register under this new law; I don’t see the problem with that? You can imagine the Western reaction to some Org that’s frequently involved in domestic protests, getting 20% of its funding from say China or Russia? No Western politician would think that acceptable.
Ursula von der Leyen is encouraging the Tbilisi protests. Totally irresponsible, imho, as we saw in Ukraine the result when one part of the country overthrows a govt supported by another part of the country: you get a civil war – and Ukraine is hardly a role model country right now, is it?
And why is the EU pushing so far East as Georgia? It seems intended to be provocative to Russia and even China. Because there’s no desire in the founding Western European countries to push the EU that far east.
As for Ukraine, this new European identity they crave is a sham. They are Slavs, a proud Slavic people and always will be; the Russians will always be their closest cultural family. They should be seeking a ceasefire and negotiating, not fighting someone else’s war. The US cares less about Ukrainians, and more about hurting adversary Russia – that much is clear. And if Trump wins in November, the losses will have likely been for nothing.
I had hoped the Georgia scheme is over. But apparently not. So far German press is not too outspoken on the topic. We will see. Serbia too has been able to keep control eventually – for the moment.
You mentioned Uschi von der Leyen – you remember Borrell´s garden speech? I mean these people have been bread. Its not a few. It´s an entire class of psychopaths.
Call me a conspiracist if you will…
But… I look at Georgia alongside Azerbaijan & Armenia on the map, way out east beyond even Turkey, and you notice Iran looming large on their southern borders. Is that the evil reason for dangling EU membership like a glittering prize; namely, to use Georgia, and/or Armenia as some sort staging country to attack Iran?
No other Muslim countries will even permit air space usage, let alone host troops for ground operations for such an attack. Tehran and other key sites are in Northern Iran of course. If the US and EU can gain a foothold in Georgia, Armenia or Azerbaijan, Iran would be easier to contain. The EU has been heavily courting Armenia and Azerbaijan in recent years.
Nothing happens by chance and the EU, under sinister von der Leyen, has become little more than a cog US’s hegemonic plans. Ultimately, Israel is central to those plans too. So call me a conspiracist, but there you go.
Goose
Exactly, same goes for ICJ that could have, at least, called for a ceasefire.
The former ICJ persecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, that toed the line for Israel during his term, even said it was smart for ICJ to leave out any ceasefire call!
The ICJ asked Israel to report back in one month with evidence that it is implementing the orders.
Moreno Ocampo described the court’s decision not to order a complete cease-fire as smart, saying it was now up to Israel to decide how to prevent genocide.
The idea is not “to punish people here, the priority is to prevent genocide, and that why the issue is how Israel will adjust,” said Moreno Ocampo.
https://www.dw.com/en/israel-hamas-war-unrwa-fires-staff-accused-of-aiding-oct-7/live-68086035
So the regime that is accused of a crime is the one that should keep itself from commiting the crimes!?
These people are simply rotten.
I do not want to be a downer but I think one should forget ICC/ICJ altogether, if one are going to hear from them one are going to hear them condemning crimes by the Palestinians and/or calls for arrest of Hamas leadership.
I would not be surprised if they declare that Hamas committed genocide and Israel just committed mere 2-3 minor war crimes.
I noticed Paul Mason was cheering on Armenia in his tweets during last night’s Eurovision.
Conspiracy theory confirmed 😉
Jeez .
I’d forgotten all about the Armenia – Azerbaijan war over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. It kinda went out of the news. And yes, the US are or have been, surprise, surprise involved. Article here with picture of Nancy Pelosi in Armenia promising US assistance:
https://time.com/6219263/armenia-azerbaijan-us-involvement/
“The U.S. isn’t simply trying to push Russia out from the post-Soviet South Caucasus. Rather, Washington seems to have realized just how serious the threat is—not just for Armenia, but for the world.”
That was in 2022. It’s reported though, that the Armenians feel betrayed by the US and they’re viewed as the big losers of the US’s concentration on Ukraine, whereas Azerbaijan have been Kremlin-backed. That’s the thing with the US, they’ve only got so many resources they can produce and countries they can assist with expensive military aid, and Ukraine with Israel are their priorities. If Georgia were to plunge itself into a civil war via a Maidan-style putsch, who’d assist?
The US and UK are stirring up trouble all around the world, unbeknownst to our populations. We laughably call it ‘defending our interests’.
GOOSE
re: Georgia, Iran et al.
if that´s conspiracy, Eisenhower was a conspiracy theorist
JACK
Luis Moreno Ocampo made a name for himself as a young persecutor when on the team indicting the Argentinian junta generals for war crimes during the “Nunca Más” legal campaign 1985.
AG
Probably why, out of so many capable, intelligent people in the US, only bad people seem to qualify to be President. Any reasonable, intelligent, kind person taking office would say to the CIA, “you can stop doing that evil sh*t immediately.” Probably why Sanders was completely unacceptable.
AG
Continuing the theme. Have you noticed how in the movies, US Presidents are always really good, deeply moral characters. People who always do the right thing. In TV series too; my relatives like watching old & new episodes of NCIS. All the characters are ultra moral, upstanding types, especially Gibbs (Mark Harmon). I say to them, the reality is probably the precise opposite.
This is why you won’t see a President George Clooney, he apparently had political ambitions once, or any other film star or tech billionaire. It isn’t so much they couldn’t do the role we publicly see. It’s the fact they couldn’t handle the horrible executive decisions and grubby actions others carry out. And still manage to sleep at night.
I see that the Nazis are becoming worried.
“Protest groups such as Just Stop Oil and Palestine Action could be banned in a similar way to terrorist organisations, under a proposal from the government’s adviser on political violence.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2qv7425gvwo
If this goes through then maybe we will see the return of rubber bullets and water cannons on UK streets. Good old tories, the enablers of genocide.
The law has already been tightened regarding the definition of what it means to ‘support’ a banned or proscribed organisation. The definition used to require proof of ‘material support’: be it financing/fundraising; recruitment or some sort of linkage to said organisation. To avoid silly or trivial false positives, like a late night drunk X/Twitter post etc.
You can illustrate how ludicrous the new lesser threshold tests are, by imagining a football stadium in which everyone repeats, “I support [insert banned organisation here] ” Are they going to put 40,000 under investigation? What if millions simultaneously posted it; 6 million under investigation? The test should be the more robust: providing material support, as it is in America:
Any property, or service, including currency or monetary instruments or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safe houses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel, and transportation, except medicine or religious materials.
This is why US citizens can and do post stuff on x/Twitter that the British simply can’t. Without the more sensible ‘material support’ test, you’ve got a ‘thoughtcrime’.
Thoughtcrime – In the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell, the word thoughtcrime describes a person’s politically unorthodox thoughts, beliefs, and doubts that politically contradict the tenets of Ingsoc, the dominant ideology of Oceania.
Some may think this view pretty wild, huh?
But it was Green party policy in 2015, Natalie Bennett, the then leader, went even further, arguing that people should not be punished for what they think. She even argued it should not be a crime to belong to al-Qaeda or Isis! She now sits in the HoL as Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/green-party-leader-natalie-bennett-says-it-should-not-be-a-crime-to-belong-to-alqaeda-or-isis-10001999.html
To clarify, I’m not advocating anyone should do anything. Merely highlighting how freedom of speech/thought is being steadily eroded.
One final thought on Proscription Orders.
The fact British citizens can, and do, serve in the IDF, some producing silly Tik Tok videos, boasting of their Gaza exploits, incl. massacres. Then return home to the UK – all with the blessing of HM Govt – rightly infuriates, not just Muslim communities – faced with harassment for simply not condemning Hamas enough – but nearly all citizens I’d imagine.
If the decision were ever taken to proscribe the IDF – fully justified btw, as they’re suspected of multiple war crimes – the howls of outrage from these hypocrites at the Telegraph, Times; Sun, Mail et al. would be deafening. UK double standards are brutally obvious to all – all but UK politicians, it seems.
This was actually true for Germany too. Before 9/11 affiliations were possible for private citizens, unthinkable today. Membership with, interest in Djihadi groups etc. (WHERE IS ANNA!? 😜) And that´s just 20 years ago.
Today if you even get near those you end up on a blacklist. Which of course doesn´t exist.
AG
I swear, if these politicians and some of their more authoritarian security folks could monitor citizens thoughts in real time, they would. They already monitor the internet as if everyone is a suspect. The surveillance and attitudes are misanthropic.
Needless to say it, but representative democracy shouldn’t consist of overly self-important autocrats barking orders from on high. It should be a collaborative affair, with open dialogue between governed and government, about anything, any subject at all. It almost feels like Western govts are at war with their own populations sometimes, such is their overly defensive behaviour and secrecy.
“proscribed organisation”, ie. the state tells us who the naughty boys are, just like they tells us what the facts are and what truth is.
And, isn’t it funny that ISIS never attacks Israel? I wonder why that is …
Stevie Boy
We banned the military wing of Hamas ; Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, under the Terrorism Act 2000.
But Israel lobbied and lobbied, and the then Home Secretary, Priti Patel, declared the entirety of Hamas a terrorist organisation, in 2021. In a move many said would prevent meaningful channels of dialogue.
Shai Masot boasted he could get any UK minister removed and Israel seemingly can get any UK legislation changed it wants. Russia and China must be envious. If MI6 are concerned about foreign meddling, maybe they could start with Israel’s open boasts of interference?
It was the equivalent of banning not only the IRA but also Sinn Féin.
I would be careful with promoting what America does. It’s superficial, the reality is very different.
For decades Americans provided material support to the IRA, and for decades Americans provide material support to Cuban ‘refugee’ groups in Florida. America provided material support to ISIS and Al Queda, as well as Iran-Contras. So it goes on. Bans only apply to the wrong sort of ‘terrorists’.
The message the public hears from the top about Muslims is that they are worthless people who can be starved to death en masse in good conscience.
David Cameron confirmed to the BBC this morning that the British Government won’t restore funding to UNRWA and repeated the Israeli claim that UNRWA workers were involved in October 7th.
https://x.com/SaulStaniforth/status/1789578985371763081
The BBC knows every bit as well as Cameron that Israel has provided no evidence for those claims, which were made to distract from the ICJ ruling of plausible genocide.
But even if the Israeli claims were true, Cameron is telling the British public it is right to respond by starving everyone in Gaza to death.
The BBC is fully complicit because it refuses to report what Cameron has done as collective punishment. The BBC still poses every day as the respect and equality channel.
Cameron, like Sunak are establishment shills – no-one voted for these cunts.
They are a lot worse than that. Some of the individuals who comment under Craig’s articles are establishment shills. What Cameron and Sunak are is mass murderers, gleefully participating in a genocide. The BBC is their vital accomplice and cover man, portraying these murderers as good, principled statesmen, doing what’s right.
Absolutely Correct Anthony Trying to tell Some folk this is hard going
I’ve noticed that acknowledging British participation is taboo even for the iconoclasts on here. Some kind of residual chauvinism? It’s why Cameron, the BBC and co can get away with being so brazen about it.
Anthony and Brian
May I please add my view on this?
There is a well-known mental experiment: a train or trolley with passengers rushes into an abyss and you can turn the railway switch, but then the child playing on the tracks will die. There are many variations (the victims are lying on the rails, the child is yours, etc). You should make your decision.
Every time I see people making propaganda, as if inviting me to ‘make my choice’, I think how much f*cked up their brains must be. Just think of it.
A normal person will first of all ask, what can be done without killing people? How did this situation arise in the first place? Who is the crazy person who let the child play on the tracks? Who is the psycho who tied up the victims and put them on the tracks? Who let the passengers on the broken trolley? Why is there an abyss on passenger route? And finally, why is the responsibility for lives is now suddenly yours?
So, if you meet a person who puts you before such a choice, know that he is a dangerous idiot, who believes that someone must be killed, and he needs your approval.
And they urge you, and blame you for being slow and hesitant, and tell you to join the choice of the majority, and say you don’t see obvious things, and you must be bad man, or wrong man, and many other typical propaganda manipulations.
No need for that, just watch the interview.
One wonders how that can be said by people who also purport to believe in and support “human rights”. The whole point of human rights is that every human being has them, regardless of their traits, appearance, conduct, language, religion, etc.
To say that any person is worthless and can be killed “in good conscience” is to say that you do not believe in human rights – and, incidentally, that you make no claim to be a Christian.
It would be interesting to get those in power to make such a formal statement, in public.
Eli Ben Dahan, a rabbi, said that “To me, (Palestinians) they are like animals, they aren’t human.”
So there you have it, Israelis/zionists, on the whole, don’t consider Palestinians as human, so no human rights, and they probably think the same about gentiles. Biden is a zionist, Starmer is a zionist, …
Came across this piece by Tony Greenstein yesterday from 2006. It’s entitled Zionism and the Holocaust, and is in fact part 2, and under the subheading The Transfer Agreement it says the following:
At a time when Jews, trade unionists and anti-fascists were launching a worldwide economic boycott of Nazi Germany, the World Zionist Organisation was secretly negotiating an economic agreement which allowed richer German Jews to liquidate their property in Germany and redeem part of the money in Palestine. This agreement was announced by the Nazis shortly before the 18th Zionist congress in Prague, in September 1933.
The Jewish Chronicle reported:
“The spectacle is puzzling to the world, whose sympathy we bespeak, and disheartening to Jews for whom the boycott is one of the few weapons to their hand and who now see themselves deserted by the movement which they most have a right to claim as an ally in their fight.” [21]
Some 60% of all capital invested in the settler economy in Palestine between 1933 and 1939 came from Nazi Germany! [22] By June 1937, the largest exporter to Palestine was Germany. [23] As Baruch Vladeck, chairman of the Jewish Labor Committee in the USA described it, Palestine had become “the official scab-agent against the boycott in the Near East”. [24]
There were some boycotts that the Zionists did support. In 1941 Agudat Yisrael began sending food packages to the inhabitants of the ghettos in Poland. In July the AJC and the Zionist Organisation of America began picketing their offices. It is estimated that 25% of the Warsaw ghetto and 18% of the Lódz ghetto died from hunger and disease even before the deportations had begun. [25] Hans Frank spoke of a “sentence of hunger death” against 1.2 million Jews. [26]
And directly after the above under the subheading The Judenrate it says this:
Everywhere the Nazis conquered, “the most important concentration measure prior to the formation of the ghettos was the establishment of Jewish councils (Judenräte).” [27] As Eichmann commented, “The assimilated Jew was, of course, very unhappy about being moved to a ghetto. But the orthodox were pleased with the arrangement, as were the Zionists.” [28] Some two-thirds of the Judenräte consisted of Zionist supporters. [29]
There were three stages to the final solution – concentration in ghettos, deportation to the east and extermination. Everywhere there were functioning Judenräte, the Nazis were successful in their plans.
The Prague Community Council was to provide the model for the Judenräte, which in the towns of Poland and Russia in 1941-43 registered the names of their flock, brought them to the assembly place, and eventually followed them to the execution pits and death camps. [30]
The Judenräte were reviled by the Jewish population and with good reason. The Nazis insisted that “the authority of the Jewish council be upheld and strengthened under all circumstances”. [31]
Unable to fulfil their welfare function, “they made themselves felt all the more in their implementation of Nazi decrees. With the growth of the destructive function of the Judenräte, many Jewish leaders felt an almost irresistible urge to look like their German masters.” A Nazi observer in Kraków in March 1940 “was struck by the contrast between poverty and filth in the Jewish quarter and the businesslike luxury of the Jewish community headquarters.” In Warsaw, “the Jewish oligarchy took to wearing boots”. [32] In Lódz, Rumkowski had his portrait put on ghetto stamps and currency.
Arendt’s conclusion provoked outrage among the Zionists:
“The whole truth was that if the Jewish people had really been unorganised and leaderless, there would have been chaos and plenty of misery, but the total number of victims would hardly have been between four and a half and six million people.” [33]
As Steinberg observed, “This argument provoked a general outcry among the Jewish historians of the catastrophe, but could not be refuted.” After all “The Jewish Councils had been created by the Germans for the sole purpose of destroying the Jews …” [34]
SS captain Dieter Wisliceny explained:
“Our system is to exterminate the Jews through the Jews. We concentrate the Jews in the ghettos – through Jews; we deport the Jews – by the Jews; and we gas the Jews – by the Jews.” [35]
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/mideast/greenstein/zionism2.htm
I just scrolled down to the bottom of the page (I’d only got as far as the above) to see if it links back to the first part, only to find that there’s a Part 3, so here’s a link to Part 1, although I don’t think you neccesarily have to read part 1 first:
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/mideast/greenstein/zionism1.htm
What it all amounts to is the Zionists didn’t give a fuck about ordinary Jews. And they STILL don’t, and as with their quest to destroy Jeremy Corbyn, they had absolutely no problem at all causing concern and consternation amongst the Jewish population, and now they are doing the same in relation to the anti-genocide pro-Palestine marchers and protesters.and characterising them as antisemites and a threat to Jews.
It’s just PURE evil.
See:
Zionism During the Holocaust: The weaponisation of memory in the service of state and nation [2022]
by Tony Greenstein
From Amazon, or direct from https://azvsas.blogspot.com/
Of course the method is known from prior conquests including genocide and extermination.
You would e.g. also find the divide & impera principle among slaves in the US and any slave society.
Regarding the elite Jewish class and the Holocaust, nonetheless one has to ask, in the light of capitalist rules – what would have been the alternative? Either you die or someone you don’t know.
One shouldn’t fall for the diversion tactics of the Nazi-concept: everything enabled “by the Jews”.
In any extraordinary threat scenario the rich will try to eat the poor.
It would be a mistake, I think, to mix up Zionism with a peculiar anti-Jewish/human ideology as Greenstein might be doing.
To use Palestine for economic leverage again is “human”/normal/usual.
Do not forget, Jews had no arms. And when they did arm themselves it was a massacre in Warsaw.
Those who survived WWII betrayed themselves and everyone else. Or were lucky.
If your life is at stake you do anything. And that is true ever since and for anybody.
Israel’s instrumentalisation of history today should not be projected back into history.
e.g. The French Resistance, I already wrote this in the forum, was regarded by the Nazis as completely insignificant. And that underground in fact was equipped by the Allies. Still their resilience was little. Once caught they were a lost cause.
And even the ordinary French who had nothing to fear unless Jewish or Communists, didn´t do anything against German occupation.
And the Nazis came to power not least due to the immense use of force and violence. Germans were simply afraid of them. The same applies to the Jews in death camps.
It is a highly fascinating topic of course. But if one shouldn’t buy into social constructions like “self-hating Jew”; nor should one buy into – as Greenstein possibly did – an exceptionally corrupt behaviour only to be found with Zionist supremacist ideology, suggesting that those who did not belong should be sacrificed. There is no special hidden psychology here than the obvious one of survival.
It should be remembered that in Europe most people learned to live with the Nazis, that the Holocaust was not reported by the international press and that people looked away.
Many Jews survived by fleeing to the USSR. But that had a wrinkle. You could only stay if you fought. So even the Bolsheviks wouldn’t grant you anything for free – in the face of annihilation of their own people. So integrity carries you only so far.
In German there is a nice idiom “Das Hemd näher als die Hose” – difficult to translate – “Near is the coat/shirt, but nearer is the shirt/skin” in the sense that “charity begins at home” – as far as my research suggests.
Israel/Gaza in 2023 is 80 years after the Holocaust and after dozens of other genocides.
The Holocaust was the Holocaust before the fact. People back then might have known the underlying mechanics from the colonialist exterminations. But it hadn’t been seen in Europe on that scale.
We shouldn’t mix up 2023/34 with 1942/45. If Netanyahu does that’s his choice. Both are horrors in their own time and context. Conflation not necessary.
And something occurred to me shortly after I posted my comment above that I haven’t thought of before. In the past few months I’ve watched quite a few videos by Owen Jones (and dozens and dozens of others in respect of the holocaust being perpetrated by Israel on the people of Gaza), and in his videos he often speaks about the smear campaign and the demonisation of the marchers/protesters, so given that he of course knows why they are being smeared and that they ARE being smeared as antisemites etc, it is of course inconceivable that he hasn’t at some point – if he didn’t know it already (which he MUST have done) – realised that the very same people and organisations and media outlets that are smearing and demonising the protesters did the same to JC (and left-wing members).
As for the passages I posted earlier from the piece by TG they, and perhaps other stuff Tony has written in respect of the Zionsts, could be included in a leaflet – THE leaflet – I posted about a week or two ago. And given what Stevie Boy posted about this morning, we better get it together soon before the ‘Nazis’ criminalise enlightening people and exposing them and their lies and falsehoods.
Yes George (just spotted your post), Tony will of course have included all this information in his book. I donated towards his crowdfunder to pay to get it printed and, as such, am due a copy at a discounted price, but what with being made homeless in January of last year and having to put all my stuff in storage – including around five/six hundred books or more – there was no point in me getting a copy until I’m in permanent – as opposed to temporary – accommodation.
AG, from what I’ve read, the Nazis were really concerned about the boycott, and no doubt it’s precisely because they WERE that they came up with the Haavara Agreement.
@AG:
“It should be remembered that in Europe most people learned to live with the Nazis, that the Holocaust was not reported by the international press and that people looked away.”
The second clause, “that the Holocaust was not reported . . .”, should NOT be remembered, because it is not true. It was reported and denounced by the international press and the allied governments etc. It was one motivation for people to do the only thing that would stop it – fight the biggest war in history. Their record is about as good as one could hope for and should be held as a model, not thrown down the memory hole. This untruth descends from right-wing Zionist propaganda, the Netanyahus of that era and later.
Starmer did publicly state that to Nick Ferrari on LBC. It provoked no questioning in establishment circles of his human rights credentials.
Muslims are NOT a race. It’s “Palestinians” or “Arabs”.
One of the many dumb mistakes one makes – unintentionally however – due to stupid routines.
But if one were more aware of this, things could be better .
And we could say the same about Jews …
If have put up a link to Electronic Intifada (EI) – BOSTON GLOBE had commissioned an article about the student protests to then refuse to publish. EI published instead.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/breaking-news-gaza-only/page/13/#post-97458
Now that´s a new level of legislative creativity:
“Senator Marshall and Blackburn Introduce Measure to Put Pro-Hamas Terrorist Agitators on FAA No Fly List”!
“students, faculty, professors, or paid agitators, on the no-fly list if they have called for violence against Jewish people, pledged allegiance to terrorist groups, or have been subject to disciplinary action by the school related to such. This legislative action comes in response to the continued antisemitic, pro-Hamas movements and encampments that have wreaked violence and chaos on college campuses nationwide.”
This seems like the beginning of a really cool era of free speech and cultural progress.
Lovely.
(Someone seems to have misunderstood 1984 in high school. And has mistaken Ridley Scott’s ad for APPLE as reality.)
Just came across the following whilst doing some research (regards statements Hitler made in respect of the Jews). I am of course aware of some of the so-called laws/legislation, but there’s a lot of stuff that I’d not heard about:
‘Antisemitic Legislation 1933–1939’
During the first six years of Hitler’s dictatorship, government at every level—Reich, state and municipal—adopted hundreds of laws, decrees, directives, guidelines, and regulations that increasingly restricted the civil and human rights of Jews in Germany.
In their 25-point party program published in 1920, Nazi Party members publicly declared their intention to segregate Jews from “Aryan” society and to abrogate their political, legal, and civil rights.
Nazi leaders began to make good on their pledge to persecute German Jews soon after their assumption of power……
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/antisemitic-legislation-1933-1939
And then there was this, which is more what I was searching for:
On September 16, 1919, Hitler issues his first written comment on the so-called Jewish Question.
In the statement, he defined the Jews as a race and not a religious community, characterized the effect of a Jewish presence as a “race-tuberculosis of the peoples,” and identified the initial goal of a German government to be discriminatory legislation against Jews. The “ultimate goal must definitely be the removal of the Jews altogether.” Hitler’s years in Vienna (1908–1913) and his military service were important stages for his development of a comprehensive racist ideology.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/index.php/content/en/timeline-event/holocaust/before-1933/adolf-hitler-issues-comment-on-the-jewish-question
So in the first article it says that the Nazis published their 25-point plan in respect of Jews in 1920 and that party members publicly declared their intentions, but what did that amount to in reality – i.e. how many people in Germany at the time actually got to know about it. And the same goes for the second article – i.e. how many people in Germany at the time learnt of this statement ‘issued’ by Hitler. Very few I would imagine.
But when he says that the ‘ultimate goal must definitely be the removal of the Jews altogether”, what does he mean specifically? I’ve not read Mein Kampf, so I don’t know what he says in it in relation to Jews, but the following came up in the results when I just did a search:
‘Adolf Hitler: Excerpts from Mein Kampf’
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/excerpts-from-mein-kampf
The point I am trying to make is this: Despite the plight of the Jews in Germany getting increasingly worse from 1933 onwards (except for the Zionists), did anyone foresee what would happen eventually? I am, in effect, trying to respond to what AG said earlier and, as such, that it WASN’T a matter of survival and life and death for the Zionists in the first four/five years after Hitler and the Nazis came to power. That came later, but would undoubtedly have become evident to many Jews after Kristallnacht in November 1938 that the situation was getting deadly serious. But even then I doubt anyone could have foreseen or imagined what would actually happen.
Allan,
I think you are conflating two distinct concepts: ‘survival’ and ‘life and death.’ The former can refer to having control over your economic, working and family life, although it can obviously refer to avoiding death as well. The latter term speaks for itself.
I can’t agree that life did not become worse for Zionists in mainland Europe after 1939. Even the notorious Chaim Rumkowski perished. Menachim Begin, released by the NKVD from Siberia, was encouraged to return and help create the conditions for a Jewish homeland in Palestine but I don’t doubt, for all my feelings about the man, that he would have gone down fighting in the Warsaw Ghetto. Nasty, brutish and short he may have been, but he was no coward. The reasons for Begin’s late elevation to high office in Israel, after around 20years of being a fringe player, should be more fully discussed in the West.
I think AG offers fair and wise counsel on the danger of seeing Zionism as unique in its moral turpitude. I do however reject AG’s opinion that the average German was too frightened to oppose Naziism. They chose to go along with Hitler until Stalingrad and even then the opposition did not seem to make any common cause with the thousands of political prisoners who had, to their perfect knowledge, been imprisoned by the Nazis since 1933. Did it never occur to them to try and organise the multitude of prisoners within the overwhelmed concentration camp system even if their claim that did not know of ‘death camps’ was genuine?
Check out the Edelweiss Pirates of Cologne if you haven’t already: they were a disparate bunch of late resisters, largely since sidelined by bourgeois historians who prefer to focus on the spirited resistance of Sophie Scholl and her group. But these working class ‘oiks’ and army deserters did manage to blow up a police station and kill a senior local Nazi, before being hanged publicly. Their lack of fear of reprisal does not fit the western historical narrative.
David, I think it’s quite straightforward: AG contended that survival on the part of the Zionists (in Germany) was the prime factor at work in them, and I – after checking out what I believed the situation to be and confirming it – responded to his contention that there was no life and death situation during the first five years or so of Nazi rule, and that it was only after Kristallnacht that the situation became potentially life-threatening for the Jews.
In that respect, it would be interesting to know how many Zionists (of the 60,000, according to the wikipedia entry) emigrated to Palestine each year, but I don’t suppose such records exist any more. Or perhaps they do, but they are being kept under wraps.
Correction: The wikipedia entry for The Haavara Agreement refers to 60,000 Jews of course, but I think we can assume that just about all of them were Zionists.
Trying to be quick little time at hand:
– Of course I wouldn´t seriously question Germans’ responsibility.
But with age I am trying to develop and understand other perspectives on the issue than the obvious ones told to the public and taught.
And there I do think that the lack of a powerful opposition in Germany had much to do with fear.
Indeed as DAVID WARRISTON says there were other groups such as the totally overlooked “Edelweißpiraten.”
However there were people resisting in probably every larger town. In Berlin you could find someone trying to do something against the system in every quarter of the city.
Edelweiß, as far as I know, were very young. And as such only responsible for themselves. I know from my own youth that there is a time when one is willing to take certain risks at that time of life. (just look at those who carry the weight of the Gaza protest in the US.)And under the threat of constant surveillance (real and imagined) and the terror of being snitched upon, arrested, possibly tortured and killed, and the huge popular base NSDAP did have even if a considerable part of the population was opposed that did not account for meaningful resistance.
Those who went along could have a good life unless they were sent to the East Front. However that was not really opposed to by anyone. In the case of Ukraine we can witness why – since propaganda is capable of amazing things – even in a time where everyone has a smartphone and could well reach any news media if he or she really wants to, probably hundreds of thousands were willing to die against a foe who vowed for a peace deal the first day he attacked.
– The watershed moments for Jewish extermination were in fact:
1938 additionally to ALLAN´s above, with the “Ordinance on Jewish passports” –
“passports were declared invalid and confiscated or given a Jewish stamp. This made it impossible for German Jews to cross the border unnoticed using visa-free border traffic.”
https://de-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Verordnung_%C3%BCber_Reisep%C3%A4sse_von_Juden?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Which became a major obstacle for Hundreds of Thousands.
Even extremely well connected individuals like Austrian physicist Lise Meitner, who had discovered fission with Hahn/Straßmann late 1938, got into serious trouble and managed to flee to Holland only with the secret help of a friend at the SS in the summer of 1938.
1938 with the Evian Conference, declining to offer real opportunities for refugees
1941 with the attack on the USSR and the official ban on Jews leaving Germany.
On this last issue this article (admittedly of rather limited quality but that´s internet sources today):
“The (lack of) opportunities to escape. Jewish emigration 1933-1942”:
https://www-annefrank-org.translate.goog/de/anne-frank/vertiefung/die-fehlenden-moglichkeiten-zu-fluchten-judische-emigration-1933/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
(WHAT IS MISSING HERE? YES! the 1.5 mio who fled to the USSR!)
For this, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_the_Soviet_Union
Which has NO German version….
Remember there were no extermination camps intended as such (Dachau was no explicit extermination camp even though horrible things happened there) – wisely and intentionally – placed inside the German Reich.
Most of them in Poland. To kill masses of people they needed a certain control over those countries and that came with fighting the Russians. Among other reasons.
Additionally the infamous “Wannsee”-conference where the extermination was officially finalized took place in Jan. 1942. Very late considering the killing of Communists which had begun almost 10 years earlier. The first KZs were intended for them, not Jews. But by then the country had become totalitarian and a killing machine to those minorities and German soldiers alike, as far as the own people are concerned.
– On Hitler´s writings – the writing were known yes, but that in itself is no evidence that the Weimar Republic would go berserk colonialist style on its own population. There were many crossroads where things could have turned out different. Even though I doubt that by 1938 war could have been prevented with Hitler killed. For that the entirety of German clout had gambled to much on a war to unite Europe under Nazis rule. This would be true until 1942, in my view. It is unclear by what earliest time even people from within would start to contact the Western Allies to broker some deal, before 1944.
Wolfgang Streeck recently reminded that most of Western Europe took little real issue with Nazi rule. And that RU was considered – sigh – a basket case. German Wehrmacht told soldiers winter underwear was unnecessary, they would be home by Christmas.
– (What on Earth was the Scholz government thinking?! What ARE these IDIOTS thinking?! Sry but this overcomes me every single day…) –
– quick passages from Wiki Germany:
“By the time the Wannsee Conference was convened, the murderers had killed around 900,000 Jews from Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union in the territories occupied by the Wehrmacht with Hitler’s approval.”
(The words “murderers” and “Hitler” are completely unnecessary in a factual text like this, btw.)
From the entire list of concentration camps:
https://de-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Liste_der_Konzentrationslager_des_Deutschen_Reichs?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Jewish extermination camps (I won´t get into other groups of victims now):
Auschwitz-Birkenau – October 1941 to January 1945 – 1.1 to 1.5 million
Majdanek concentration camp – July 1941 to July 1944 – 78,000
Kulmhof (Poland) – December 1941 to April 1943 / April 1944 to January 1945 – 160,000+
Maly (Belarus) – May 1942 to July 1944 – 40,000–60,000
Belzec extermination camp – March to December 1942 – 434,508 Jews + 1,000–1,500 Poles
Sobibor – May 1942 to October 1943 – 250,000
Treblinka – July 1942 to November 1943 – 713,000–1.1 million
Even 60,000 Zionists as ALLAN could find out, seem a limited figure on this scale.
Sorry if this is hasty…
If anyone is interested and willing:
2 older documentary classics on WWII:
#1
German director Marcel Ophüls´ seminal 4 hour documentary on French collaboration and resistance under Nazi rule
“Le chagrin et la pitié” from 1969
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorrow_and_the_Pity
“The Sorrow and the Pity (French: Le Chagrin et la Pitié) is a two-part 1969 documentary film by Marcel Ophuls about the collaboration between the Vichy government and Nazi Germany during World War II. The film uses interviews with a German officer, collaborators, and resistance fighters from Clermont-Ferrand. They comment on the nature of and reasons for collaboration, including antisemitism, Anglophobia, fear of Bolsheviks and Soviet invasion, and the desire for power. ”
Here free in 2 parts with download options:
https://archive.org/details/the-sorrow-and-the-pity-2_202106
The engl. subs oddly didn´t work for me.
In case look for other download sources for subs
by this file name:
“the.sorrow.and.the.pity.(1969).eng.2cd.(3169169)”
#2
Soviet director Mikhail Romm´s 1965
“Triumph Over Violence”
“The film uses archival footage to depict the rise and fall of fascism in Nazi Germany.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLR3g6E2pZA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_Over_Violence
“ Wolfgang Streeck recently reminded that most of Western Europe took little real issue with Nazi rule.”
Integration of French chemical combines Kuhlman et al into the IG Farben chemical/dyestuffs monopoly was completed with incredible rapidity after the Fall of France.
Indeed, Joseph Borkin, writing in his book “The Crimes of IG Farben” goes as far to hint that this integration was too rapid – leaving one with the distinct impression that the plans for a European-wide chemical/dyestuffs cartel long predated the Fall of France and the beginning of the war.
About a dozen years ago, i was visiting the Borobudur temple in central Java. I struck up a conversation with a retired employee of the temple. He invited my son and I to dinner the next evening. I suspect he was fairly well off by local standards, but he lived in a modest house. They fed us well.
The first Muslim I met invited me to his house for dinner.
Anecdote is anecdote, whether for or against the idea Muslims are hostile to the West. What can’t be denied is that Islam is a colonising culture, given the opportunity.
Fran who is the “West” for you? Do you mean the tiny handful of wealth extremists who decide policy or the people in my street and all the other streets, who don’t decide policy?
What can’t be denied is the “West” is willing to kill millions upon millions to be “given the opportunity” to colonise other cultures and now the western spear-tip, Israel, is slaughtering tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza whilst apparently selling Gaza as beach lots on which luxury condos and the rest will be built
Fran, you’re projecting.
Do me a favour. Ask them “What is the penalty for apostasy?”
Do me a favour ask them “the penalty for living in Gaza. “
But you don’t need to – we all know the penalty. The Israeli’s and their necrotic supporters insist that living in Gaza is “Behaviour worthy of death”
“Hate is bred of fear, and fear is bred of ignorance.”
I agree with this wholeheartedly. To overcome fear we seek power: and this is more than ignorance, it is delusion. A definition of power is being able to control reality. But human control of reality is limited – critically so – and with dire consequences. If I may use reference to a syllogism: every empire in history eventually faces the war it is trying to avoid; everyone wants to avoid WWIII; therefore, that is the fate that awaits us. Paradoxically, the only chance of avoiding that fate is to accept it. It is not our differences that cause division, it is our interests. I explore this theme in my e-pamphlet The Doomsday Syllogism.
https://www.candlinandmynard.com/doomsday.html