Netanyahu Plays Chicken 901


Netanyahu is desperate to keep war simmering along and to draw the USA closer and closer to him. At the same time he cannot send ground forces into South Lebanon where they will take massive casualties.

Israel can assassinate, it can employ indiscriminate terrorism and it can bombard from the air, and it has done all these things against Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran. But Israel cannot destroy Hamas nor Hezbollah, cannot get back its hostages from Gaza and cannot make Northern Israel safe for its colonialists.

Nothing Israel is doing in any way advances those declared objectives and in fact makes all of them increasingly unlikely ever to be attained.

But as Biden and Harris accept and reinforce every single escalation and every single illegality, Israel’s stranglehold on its western vassal politicians gets ever stronger. Those have now all (including both UK Labour and Conservative ministers) supported illegality well beyond the stage where there is any going back. They have now to hope that they will be “justified” by military victory.

The Iraq war shows that however illegal the war, if you win you get to write – or at least interpret – the rules of international law. I wish I could come up with good counter-examples. “Justice” is visited only upon losers.

But the problem for Netanyahu, Sunak, Starmer, von der Leyen et al. is that just what victory looks like, nobody seems in the least clear.

We appear to be locked into a hideous distortion of existentialism, where the killing of Arabs of any age and sex is in itself the path of virtue and a reason for living.

Israel’s TikTok army of child-killers, rapists and lingerie-flaunters will take heavy casualties if it advances into Lebanon. It is currently launching intense air attacks, but it cannot destroy Hezbollah that way, not even were it to triple the colossal amount of explosive it has dropped on Gaza.

Netanyahu’s strategy of assassinations and deadly stunts appears to be an attempt to goad Hezbollah out of their own territory into a suicidal advance into Israel. But Nasrullah is not falling for it.

It is worth stressing that, contrary to the propaganda, in the last year Israel has hit Lebanon with five missiles for every one sent by Hezbollah.

Meantime the United Kingdom’s claims to respect international law are exposed as an utter sham as it failed to vote for the UNGA Resolution giving effect to the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion on Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territory.

The ICJ’s ruling that the Occupation is itself an illegal act, and that states must do nothing which can assist Israel to maintain it, sets out a clear legal status quo which the UK is equally clearly breaking.

When the ICJ decision came out on 19 July, the FCDO statement was as follows:

We have received the Advisory Opinion issued by the International Court of Justice on Friday 19 July and are considering it carefully before responding. The UK respects the independence of the ICJ.

The promised response has never come; unless you take the failure to vote at the UN General Assembly for the implementation of the ICJ ruling as the response. The decision to suspend 8% of arms export licenses for Israel was framed not in terms of this ICJ ruling – which logically can only require the cessation of all arms sales to Israel – but more broadly in terms of unspecified possible breaches of international humanitarian law.

In its “explanation of vote” at the UN General Assembly, the UK deliberately ignored a key tenet of the ICJ Opinion. The UK stated:

“our abstention reflects our unwavering determination to focus on efforts to bring about a peaceful and negotiated two-state solution,”

This ignores the ICJ ruling that Israel must leave the occupied territories before any negotiations. An occupied people cannot negotiate with, in effect, a gun held at their head. That is explicitly why the ICJ did not accept that the Oslo Accords alienated any Palestinian rights in international law.

The UK is still – directly contrary to the ICJ – attempting to maintain that Palestine’s right not to be occupied was signed away at Oslo.

British military flights, weapons supplies and intelligence cooperation with the Israel occupation continue unabated. Starmer’s total support for Israel is now a fixed part of the governing landscape, as the failure to condemn the terrorist device attacks on the Lebanon makes clear.

The US and UK are now hopelessly yoked to a Netanyahu nihilist strategy of which the primary aim is to retain his own power and immunity from prosecution by permanent conflict, of a kind which makes his allies ever more complicit and which will rope them in to active military support.

That requires constant Israeli aggression against an axis of resistance that has so far refused to be provoked into major conflict. Israel’s plan is to humiliate Iran and its allies to an extent that a full-on regional war becomes inevitable, in which the United States will fight alongside them – and very probably the Sunni Arab regimes too, I am extremely sorry to say.

This is plainly madness that is entirely against the interests of the Western powers themselves. But their politicians, including very directly Biden and Starmer, are so compromised by Zionist-lobby money that there appears to be no escape, short of popular revolt in the West.

The West is bound to Israel by the simple, unalloyed mechanism of cash paid to politicians. That is the truth.

 

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901 thoughts on “Netanyahu Plays Chicken

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  • frankywiggles

    The British media, in its entirety, has observed a scrupulous silence on the UK role in the Gaza Genocide, which according to Israeli media is critical and outsized.

    Ha’aretz reported very early on that RAF Akotiri in Cyprus was the international hub for the slaughter, used not just by the British but by the Americans and by Israel itself.

    Matt Kennard discussed all aspects of Britain’s role in the genocide (and the shameful silent complicity of the British media) in last week’s Electronic Intifada live cast.

    https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1RDGlyOEBOEJL
    (Discussion of Britain’s role starts from the 1:05:00 mark).

      • Laguerre

        That was the point of the post-war (post 2WW) settlement: even war-time action was supposed to be regulated by law. And the point here is that the regulation is not working. Even the Roman empire fell in the end to the peoples it tried to control at the point of the sword, as recommended by Cicero.

    • Stevie Boy

      The UK is a primary enabler of the genocidal actions of Israel.
      If the UK ceased all support there would be an immediate impact, potential stoppage, of the genocide.
      All UK mainstream parties are complicit and, in a fair world, would be imprisoned.

  • Jack

    Good graphic Craig showing it is Israel that trigger and initiate the attacks.
    Some years ago Israel admitted that they had struck Syria thousands of times previous years:
    https://en.radiofarda.com/a/israel-defense-minister-says-has-hit-thousands-of-iran-targets-in-syria/29707256.html
    Each of these thousands attacks are an act of war. Of course media do not report on it and the western politicians have never claimed that Syria “have the right to defend itself”, even though Syria have all the right to use force since they are occupied by Israel, their ingrained, western ethnocentric gaze keep them from seeing the conflict from the other side.

    Imagine engaing in genocidal acts, killing atleast 20000 children, occupying three nations – Syria (Golan Heights) Palestine, Lebanon (Sheeba farms), attacking Yemen, attacking Iran and overall having the upper hand in tech., having the upper arms in arms – fighting people that do not even have protective helemts, body armour – having tremendous support by the western governments etc and still STILL have the gall to claim to be, the victim of the story!? Israel cries out in pain as he strikes you.
    The israelis live in such a twisted, psychological perverse way of seeing the world. Their herrenvolk mentality really went into overdrive past year, showing their true colors.

  • Robert Dyson

    I too noted the ICJ’s ruling that Israel must leave the occupied territories, totally clear out, and no negotiation is needed for that.
    “This is plainly madness that is entirely against the interests of the Western powers themselves”. I have to add that this is against the interests of Israeli citizens too. I doubt that Israel will survive this as a viable state.
    What intrigues me is that the US has regime-changed so many governments over the past 70 years; I don’t understand why it did not replace Netanyahu, it must be more than money.

    • Stevie Boy

      Netanyahu is a handy focus. The reality is that Israel itself is the evil party wholly supported by the majority of its evil citizens. It’s a ‘nation’ that was founded on lies and survives on lies, there is no place in the modern world for such an abomination.

      • Carlyle Moulton

        Founded on lies like all other colonial settler states including:-
        Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama and the USA as well as others of whose names I do not have easy recall.

        Look into the past of all empires and colonial settler states and you find genocide after genocide, massacre after massacre. Note I did not say look into the history. History is what is written about the past and the elision of some events and inclusion of fictitious ones is required to suit the agendas and politics of the historian.

        • Lysias

          Many countries may have been guilty of awful things in the past, but what is at issue here is the present conduct of Israel and its supporters.

          • Carlyle Moulton

            Lysias.

            What I am trying to get at is the inability of members of species homo sapiens to understand normal homo sapiens behavior.

            When one more powerful group of humans covets the land occupied by another group of humans genocide is inevitable. There is nothing about present times that makes them different from past times so that where genocide could not be prevented in the past it could be prevented today. There is always a ruling class and the ruling class feels more affiliation with Jewish Zionazi killers than they do for Palestinians and so their servant class of bureaucrats and politicians are incapable of conceiving that prevention of genocide is either possible or desirable.

  • Ewan2

    It seems like the media and politicians have been hypnotised, the trigger being ‘Israel has the right to defend itself’ and all of a sudden bombing children is acceptable.
    The pager attacks were random – anybody could have been killed – but the BBC said it was ‘audacious’, as if it gave them some sort of erotic feeling.
    No wonder Starmer needs his clothes bought for him, they must stink after a day, a stink that can’t be washed out, thus the need for a steady supply of new clothes.

    • Lysias

      The pager attacks were indeed monstrous, but, as a veteran of the US Air Force, I have to reflect that the victims of US bombing attacks were equally randomly chosen.

    • Philip Espin

      Funny the hypnotic effect waving large amounts of cash under politicians noses and putting it into their top pockets has. I gather it also works with free clothes, holidays, concert tickets and gifts to politicians/advisers children.

  • Republicofscotland

    It looks like Netanyahu requires a full blown regional war – to turn heads away from his current genocide in Gaza – a regional war, would allow Netanyahu, Biden/Harris, Starmer, Scholz etc – to move the narrative away from the Palestinians, and onto the defence of Israel – from the likes of Iran, Iraq and Lebanon – and a victory would allow the West, to write the historical accounts of the war – whilst conveniently excluding or reducing greatly, the genocide in Gaza – to a minor skirmish that the people of Gaza brought on themselves – due to an attack on Israel – on Oct 7th last year.

    As for Sunni regimes fighting along side the Zionists – the West props them up and helps them suppress their own citizens – so yes they will aid Israel and the West to help win a regional war.

  • Adrian

    Dear Craig. Thanks for this great article. Keep on fighting the good fight. I want to say, the populations of Western countries, and the U.K. in particular which is where I am from – Scotland, like you, but live in China (thank God, I sometimes think) – should now be actively pushing for and planning general strikes and more concerted forms of civil disobedience. While the popular pro-Palestine protest movement is huge and a credit to those populations that have one, it seems not enough. A general strike, mass walkouts, mass sit ins, and more are needed.

    Everything you have said here is absolutely true, the dramatic split between the elites and the public, the stark black and white nature of the huge injustices ongoing in Palestine and elsewhere, cuts to the heart of humanity itself, and therefore the situation is nothing less than a fight by humanity itself, to save itself – otherwise, I’d say all is lost if the current powers that should not be and elites are not only challenged, but also defeated, in the name of humanity and in the name of the Palestinians, and in the name of justice everywhere. If they win, as you say they will rewrite history and define the future. They should never be allowed to. Down tools! Shut down the system.

  • Jack

    Nasrallah admitted that Israel have an upper hand in tech/arms:
    “There is no doubt that we suffered a major security and humanitarian blow, unprecedented in the history of our resistance,” he conceded. “We have been hit hard, but this is the state of war, and we understand that the enemy has technological superiority.”
    https://swentr.site/news/604302-lebanon-war-attack-israel/

    Therefore resistance groups in the region should utilize and make use of their own advantages. Sending rockets on Israel leads to nothing.

    In the 80s, reistance groups managed to carry out sabotage that caught the west by suprise:
    The 1983 Beirut barracks bombings that killed 300+ american troops and resulted in the US leaving Lebanon:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombings
    There are hundreds of american bases around the middle east, attacking US bases will also put pressure on the US and affect the US voter not to get their nation entangled in another war in the middle east for the sake of Israel.

  • Dom

    Revulsion towards the genocide in Gaza has produced the largest, most sustained British protest movement since Chartism — yet Labour is trying to prevent Palestine from being even discussed at this week’s party conference.

    https://tribunemag.co.uk/2024/09/labour-is-trying-to-silence-palestine-solidarity/

    “By an overwhelming majority the British public supports a ceasefire, with roughly three-quarters of Labour Party voters backing an end to arms sales to Israel. Yet pro-Israel factions on the right of the party — closely linked to the leadership — are expected to try to push [‘Israel/Palestine’ motions] off the order paper…party managers refused to include the words ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid’ in the official conference guide.”

  • Goose

    Israel and their online supporters are becoming increasingly unhinged; unable to differentiate between enemies (who wish them harm) and critics (who merely wish to change their behaviour – so that they act proportionately and uphold basic human rights). Lots of online Zionists post comments celebrating death and maiming, and call for all opponents of Israel to be eliminated. It’s become like a fanatical cult in which many American politicians and officials are members. Also, Western social media is moderated in a way that makes it far more tolerant of Zionist extremism than any other form of extremism. I’m sure everyone would agree.
    And the relatively recent tradition of prospective US presidential candidates debasing themselves, by competing to pledge everlasting fealty to the Israeli lobby, like a vassal to a Lord, is a deeply disturbing development. One that would have the Founding fathers spinning in their graves. It’s the most disloyal, unpatriotic thing any prospective leader could do: pledging unconditional loyalty to a foreign state. And it wasn’t always thus; you only have to look back three or four decades for more objective US votes at the UN.

    Israel can’t kill their way to victory and peace in the Middle East. And by designating whole nations ‘terror states’ to justify mass slaughter of citizens, it simply shouldn’t be possible in 2024. They forget the Stern gang (Jewish resistance 1907-42) were by any definition terrorists, imagine the Nazis had used the same logic against them in an attempt to justify the holocaust, presenting it as an anti-terror operation, would anyone have accepted that? If terrorism is defined as such by the indiscriminate methods and tactics used, how are Israel’s recent actions not terrorism? That’s the level of insanity coming out of the US and Europe. I honestly think Israel could get away with any scale of mass murder, and we’d still have apologists among western elites.

      • Goose

        How many Americans know that Lebanon is divided nearly equally between Muslims and Christians?

        What basis does Israel have for bombing Beirut because it has trouble on its Southern border with a force that only exists, remember, because of past Israeli incursions into Lebanon. 5.49 million people live in Lebanon and Netanyahu is threatening to make Beirut look like Gaza, using American weaponry. Aside from the the murder and mayhem that would entail, it’s not in Europe’s nor Turkey’s interests for Lebanon to become a failed state with huge refugee population flows to Europe. This is even more true of Iran, population 89 million. This is why Europe (EU) blindly following the US, is so idiotic. Israel and the gleefully murderous, bloodsoaked Netanyahu, need to be reined in somehow.

    • Dom

      They’re quite boldly committing genocide, not “acting disproportionately” (?!!) And Western elites are doing more than merely apologising for it. A lot more.

  • glenn_nl

    CM: “The West is bound to Israel by the simple, unalloyed mechanism of cash paid to politicians. That is the truth. “

    It would seem that western media – state media, mainstream news channels and papers, not to mention ‘influencers’ like Rogan, Pool, Dore etc etc are similarly bound.

    • pretzelattack

      why include Dore in that group. and it would seem you have fallen for the bs that Russia is having some kind of significant influence via propaganda.

    • JohnnyOh45

      I will often take a look at the The Jimmy Dore show online and he will frequently refer to the Israeli conduct in Gaza as a genocide. From the coverage I have seen it is clear he is NOT a Zionist.

      • Wings Overdone

        I also often take a look at Jimmy Dore’s show on YouTube.
        Funnily enough I never seem to get suggestions from YouTube for other films from Dore’s channel as I do with any other channel I may click on, one time, out of curiosity or even by accident. Then I’m inundated with suggestions for weeks on end for said other channels.

  • Jack

    That requires constant Israeli aggression against an axis of resistance that has so far refused to be provoked into major conflict. Israel’s plan is to humiliate Iran and its allies to an extent that a full-on regional war becomes inevitable, in which the United States will fight alongside them – and very probably the Sunni Arab regimes too, I am extremely sorry to say.

    These regimes, from western to arab regimes wants to be humiliated by Israel, there is no other conclusion to make in my opinion. They bow down for everything Israel say, do, want. Israel is above all.

    Egyptian seaports have turned into important stations for cargo and cement ships transporting goods to and from Israel during the Gaza war period, according to an open source investigation.
    https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/egypt-ports-become-key-supply-points-israel-gaza-war
    The absurd thing is that these arab leaders believe somehow they will be respected, spared but if Israel manage to destroy palestinian, lebanese or even iranian resistance they will be next. One could easily imagine how Mossad, IDF, the political class in Israel laugh and cheer behind closed doors on the stupidity, the gullibility of the arab leaders.
    If the resistance groups were a bit stronger they could have taken the war to the genocidal-enabling arab states. Let them feel the hellacious calamity the palestinians have felt past 12 months.

    • Stevie Boy

      The Arab states are bought just as all the western states are. They’ve all taken their pieces of silver, they are no more stupid or innocent than our own governments. Why should they act differently just because of their race and religion, that seems to be a racist meme that leads us to where we are now.

      • Jack

        Stevie Boy

        No, they are on a whole other level of moral and inhumane corruption. That many white, Westerners, from Christian culture feel no affinity with Arabs, Muslims is one thing. That Muslims, Arabs (leaders) however sell out to the very murderer when… Arabs, Muslims are being killed, is something completely different.
        No need to defend these scums’ active participation/enabling of the genocide; they are the reason why there is no unity against Israel in the region.

        Gaza war: Arab regimes ignore popular support for Palestine at their peril
        https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/war-gaza-arab-regimes-ignore-popular-support-palestine-peril
        The Arab population is not racist for caring about their own ethnic group, palestinians; they are humane.

  • Alyson

    Netanyahu requires a global war. Everyone is to blame except Israel. The chosen people are entitled to every country and if you are not with them you are against them. This is one narrative. It is not fact. I suspect however that there are some people who would like it to be fact.

    There has never been a tallying of civilians killed by settlers or IDF because people might care, and that narrative must be hidden.

    Remember the protests in Israel.before October 7th? 400,000 in Tel Aviv declared Not in My Name and were roughly handled by their police much to their surprise. Bernie is at last coming out against arming Israel. It has taken him too long to stop wishing Israel seriously just needed to defend itself from unarmed civilians under siege in Gaza. Germany has now stated it will no longer send arms to Israel, but Cameron is and always was an arms dealer with offshore bank accounts and Theresa May’s husband is a trillionaire arms producer. These two Jewish former incumbents of Number 10 are perhaps less Orthodox than Starmer whose father in law insists he be home in time for Friday Prayers at 6pm.

    All we can do is weigh up individuals and the crimes they commit. None of the above have broken any laws, so stretching the culpability for war crimes to the supply chain and funding sources is perhaps a stretch too far. For now the priority has to be an alliance of nations with conscience, holding up the standard of international human rights, and taking stock of decision makers holding responsibility for the safety and welfare of the UK.

    Netanyahu has no love for Germany, France or the UK. Israel is scary because it is audacious enough to murder civilians who get in its way anywhere. It will pull us all onto its frontline to face its enemies if we let it. Who are our decision makers who intend this to happen? Where is the alliance of sanity to question this possible narrative timeline?

    Nothing is fixed yet. Identifying the architects of potential future scenarios is all we can try and reveal. The WEF, hedge funds, Israel, and the US hegemon are not completely aligned though they are all obstacles to our democracy. The Chinese approach is to have an agenda and merely flow round obstacles. Is there a peacetime agenda for afterwards? Slowing the current trajectory towards something rather unpleasant is the priority. Good people everywhere want peace. Plausible narratives of possible timelines are not yet set in place.

    • Alyson

      Jeremy’s banner is Peace and Justice. We know there are those who would even call this anti semitic, merely just to stand for peace and justice, but he remains supportive of Jewish and Muslim communities in his constituency. His example is what stands him apart from other MPs. Looking back through his parliamentary record, he has always been on the right side of history, unswayed by factionalism, and sometimes a lone voice for Peace and Justice. He may not have the bureaucratic skills for leadership or the bullish tenacity to pull disparate groups together, but he is a Good Man.

  • Tom74

    And now the British authorities and their media lackeys have decided posthumously that Mohamed Al -Fayed was a rapist. Nothing to do with the change of government since Al Fayed’s death, his ethnic heritage or his quite persuasive case that his son and Diana were murdered by one of the intelligence agencies, of course. I was about to apologise my post was slightly off-topic – but actually I am not sure it is.

    • Goose

      Tom74
      There does seem to be quite a lot of supporting evidence.

      The timing is odd tho, given the ‘Me Too Movement’, which peaked in 2017-18, was surely the ideal time to come forward with these historic allegations.

      • SA

        Whether he is guilty or not should however not be determined by a trial by media. Of course the man had great problems and many enemies but is still entitled to a fair trial posthumously and according to the law. There is a tendency now for the press to assume guilty until proven innocent in such cases.

    • Stevie Boy

      Rape, seems to be the new antisemitism, especially for the wokeratti and polically motivated.
      However, it seems that there are different rules for some, like the BBC. For example: Huw Edwards, the pedophile, (suspended sentence) and Israel, the actual rapists of Palestinians, are okay – the right sort of rapists.
      Al-Fayed, just Like Jimmy Saville, was totally okay and a good friend to the establishment (particularly Herr Starmer), whilst alive and handing out favours and money. As soon as they’re dead the unspeakbles crawl out from under their rocks to attack. And, there’s no evidence just their word and the establishment pile-on.
      This is distraction politics in action. What are they hiding, apart from Genocide !

  • M.J.

    Far from being chicken, I think that Netanyahu has recklessness borne of desperation, like Trump in some ways. The explosion of Hezbollah’s pagers and walk-talkies make sense as the preliminary for a major ground invasion of Lebanon in order to keep Israel on a war footing, and so keep Netanyahu’s cabinet intact, and him out of jail. Netanyahu may well believe that America won’t sanction Israel just before a Presidential election, and that by the time the next President has gathered enough nerve to consider the idea (if she is elected, since Trump wouldn’t be a problem) he will have destroyed or driven out Hezbollah, just as Menachem Begin did the PLO 40 years ago.
    Further, many Hezbollah members at present can be identified by lacking an eye or limb or both, and the group is liable to be relatively weak and incapacited in the immediate future.
    Therefore, I won’t be surprised if we see, before the end of the year, and even within weeks, a major ground invasion of Lebanon by Israel, aimed both at creating an adequate buffer zone in the South of the country and destroying Hezbollah as a military force.
    Though I would personally prefer American sanctions aimed at effecting an end to Israeli apartheid, in favour of full democracy between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.

    • Goose

      If Israelis were living in relative peace, within a two-state solution and with Israel respecting those borders. Well, there’d be no place politically, for a man like Netanyahu, within that peaceful political environment. His political campaign videos consist of fearmongering and presenting himself as the only one capable of offering protection against looming threats. The fact that his desire to annex all Palestinian land is the cause of most of the dangers and insecurity Israelis face, doesn’t seem to matter.

      He’s also been claiming Iran is “just months away” from acquiring nuclear weapons, since at least the mid 1980s when he attended hearings in the US, all while avoiding mentioning Israel’s undeclared stockpile.

  • Republicofscotland

    How to stop the Zionist regime in occupied Palestine, from getting weapons to continue their genocide – when weapons executives and board members – head up many institutions.

    “A trio of human rights groups this week announced an interactive initiative exposing what the coalition is calling a “Genocide Gentry” of weapons company executives and board members and “54 museums, cultural organizations, universities, and colleges that currently host these individuals on their boards or in other prominent roles.”

    “The coalition — which consists of the Adalah Justice Project, LittleSis, and Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE) — published a map and database detailing the “educational and cultural ties to board members of six defense corporations” amid Israel’s ongoing annihilation of Gaza, for which the U.S.-backed country is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice. ”

    “Israel has destroyed every university in Gaza and nearly 200 cultural heritage sites since October 2023, using bombs and weapons manufactured by the companies included in the Genocide Gentry research,”

    “Universities across the country including the likes of Columbia University, Harvard University, the University of Southern California, and New York University have remained largely silent on Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza,” the groups added.

    “Behind closed doors, these same universities are hosting executives and board members of the companies manufacturing the weapons used in these attacks as board members, trustees, and fellows.”

    Members of the Genocide Gentry include:

    Jeh Johnson, Lockheed Martin board of directors: Johnson, [a former secretary of homeland security] is currently a Columbia University trustee, and sits on the board of directors at MetLife and U.S. Steel. Columbia University notably shut down student protests demanding divestment from weapons companies like Lockheed Martin.

    Brian C. Rogers, RTX board of directors: Rogers is currently a trustee of the Harvard Management Company, tasked with managing the $50 billion endowment. Notably Harvard administrators have cracked down on students demanding divestment from weapons companies like RTX, formerly Raytheon.

    Catherine B. Reynolds, General Dynamics board of directors: Reynolds is a trustee of the Kennedy Center and sponsors a fellowship at New York University, which has also cracked down on anti-genocide protests and recently enacted a policy equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. ”

    https://consortiumnews.com/2024/09/20/the-genocide-gentry/

  • Sol

    The evidences which proves israel to be now a rogue entity which practices warcrimes and terrorism as religious practices, practices which it defends as lawful under the supposed right to do everything it does in acts of what it alleges to be “self defense”, brings to the surface its disregard and hate towards non members of its cult and towards human values, as well as is official status of terrorist entity and of lethal threat for the all of humanity.
    We can no longer limit ourselves in demanding the enforcement of the ICJ ruling, we must also pretend military action to prosecute the war criminals which have allowed for a Genocide to continue and to become what is an effect “an Holocaust”
    Turning a blind eye will only result into blinding the world, we must instead use the evidences in our hands to prosecute and remove from public office the scum of our world.
    Thx for sharing

  • Republicofscotland

    O/T.

    We were ALL 72 minutes away from destruction last week – and most folk didn’t even know it, it might yet come.

    The one-time Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev – said of nuclear war:

    “The survivors would envy the dead.”

    “Had Biden yielded to Starmer’s pressure (the British, together with Ukraine and several NATO nations, believed that Putin was bluffing), and signed off on the permission, Ukraine was prepared to launch strikes on Russia that night.

    (British soldiers deployed in Ukraine would be needed to operate the Storm Shadows and they are already there, according to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has refused to send similar weapons to Ukraine.)

    Russia would likely have responded with conventional attacks on Kiev using new weapons, such as the Avangard hypersonic warhead, which would each deliver a blow equivalent to 26-28 tons of explosives.

    Russia would also most likely have struck NATO targets in Poland and Romania where Ukrainian fighters are based. And, lastly, Russia would have struck British military targets, possibly including those on the British Isles.

    This would prompt a NATO retaliation under Article 5, using a large number of NATO long-range strike weapons targeting Russian command and control, airfields, and ammunition storage facilities.

    The Russian response would most likely involve the launching of more Avangard conventional warheads against NATO targets, including Ramstein airbase and NATO headquarters, as well as airbases from which strikes against Russia were launched.

    At this juncture the United States, using nuclear employment plans derived from a nuclear posture which emphasizes the pre-emptive use of low yield nuclear weapons to “escalate to deescalate”— i.e., force Russia to back down through a demonstration of capability — would authorize the use of one or more low-yield nuclear warheads against Russian targets on Russian soil.

    But Russian doctrine has no capacity for engaging in a limited nuclear war. Instead, Russia would respond with a general nuclear retaliation targeting all of Europe and the United States.

    Whatever U.S. strategic forces that survived this onslaught would be fired at Russia.

    And then we all die.”

    https://consortiumnews.com/2024/09/19/scott-ritter-72-hours/

    • David Warriston

      RoS,

      That’s a possible scenario. But article 5 is maybe more an article of faith than anything else. So long as any Russian responses were limited to Europe, there is no guarantee that the USA would offer up much more than token retaliation.

      The best warning shot available to Russia, politically, would probably be missile attacks on UK military installations. That would send a chilling message to the eastern NATO members but fall short of throwing a direct punch at the USA. Not an outcome to be wished, although we might see some genuine political diplomacy in that event.

      • Republicofscotland

        ” But article 5 is maybe more an article of faith than anything else. So long as any Russian responses were limited to Europe”

        David Warriston.

        Oh – that’s comforting, not – lets not forget that the UK and the US have many troops in Europe – I could see Article 5 not being triggered – if there was strike from Russia on a minor Nato member – but not a major one like the UK or France, or Germany – and maybe even Poland.

        We must remember the world is watching – and the US/Nato would have very little option but to strike back – to show power, tit-for-tat as the saying goes – until it escalates to a nuclear strike – unlikely I hear you say – well, we’ll find out soon enough, if Storm-Shadow missiles are fired from Neo-Nazi Ukraine deep into Russian territory.

    • Alyson

      And then Israel could say: thank you sir Starmer for clearing Europe and England of surplus people so that the Jews could return en masse from the ruins of Palestine? This is all sounding utterly bonkers so I don’t really believe what I am writing. We are such softies that it is hard to contemplate having leaders who could be so deranged. The focus now must be on the UN and its ability to prosecute war criminals wherever they might be.

      Meanwhile the other depopulation agenda is killing off old people, emptying their wallets, freezing them, and making them destitute, after a lifetime paying National Insurance and income tax in the belief that pensions, healthcare and social care have been prepaid and saved up for in advance. An Independent Labour Party with the values of Nye Bevan and Keir Hardie is very much needed. And the one thing the Tories have always been exemplary in, is not rocking the boat once policies have been agreed. Policies, values and standards need to be defined clearly and truthfully, so that easily bought career politicians do not feel like infiltrating, or if they do, can be easily booted out.

      As for rapists, the HoC and the HoL have had plenty in their ranks to shine a light on if they choose. Jimmy Savile promised to bring the whole House of Cards down with him if they dared to shine a light into his wrongdoings. Power corrupts and misogyny is its clearest manifestation in too many cultures. But as long as it isn’t national policy like in the IDF then the Law at least has a role to declare that it is a crime even if it still makes it too difficult to achieve successful prosecutions due to the powerlessness of victims.

      Distraction and titillation and war crimes.

    • JK redux

      RoS

      A bit of reality please.

      Putin has been threatening “the devil and all” since his illegal invasion failed in 2022.

      Tankies want Putin to succeed in Ukraine just like Zionists want Netanyahu to succeed in Gaza and Lebanon.

      (And no-one takes Scott Ritter – a convicted child sex offender – seriously.)

      • Republicofscotland

        JK redux.

        I take it – you don’t like it being pointed out that the vile bellicose actions of Nato and the EU – could lead to a nuclear exchange.

        • Pears Morgaine

          Only in the fevered imaginings of Scott Ritter and that oafish redneck has been bellowing about ‘Putin’s Red Lines’ for the past couple of years. I’ve lost count of the number of ‘Putin’s Red Lines’ that have been kicked into dust. Ritter has proved himself to be consistently wrong about everything; unless you really think Israel is being comprehensively defeated in Gaza and that Ukraine surrendered back in the summer.

          • Republicofscotland

            ” fevered imaginings”

            Pears Morgaine.

            The Storm-Shadow missiles are already in Ukraine; their was reticence at first from the West to send HIMARS – or MiG Fighter jets, or Leopard tanks – and other Western weapons – but the West eventually decided to allow the Neo-Nazi dictatorship regime that is Ukraine to use them.

            In my opinion Putin tolerated the above because – the effects of these weapons, supplied by the West – are mainly confined to Ukrainian territory – the same cannot be said of the use of long range missiles which can strike deep into Russian territory.

            Would Biden or Starmer or Netanyahu, or Macron or Scholz – Jesus it read like a roll call of monsters – but I digress, would any of them, not retaliate if long range missiles were fired into their countries, via a proxy country – from a group of countries hell bent on removing them and plundering their countries resources.

          • Pears Morgaine

            ” would any of them, not retaliate if long range missiles were fired into their countries, via a proxy country ”

            I doubt that they’d go nuclear within 72 minutes if that’s what you mean but then neither would Putin.

        • JK redux

          RoS

          The country that started the war (Russia) is entirely responsible in law and in morality for the consequences of that action.

          Any counter-attack by the defender (Ukraine) is entirely justified in law and in morality.

          Any use of nuclear weapons by Russia would merely heap further barbarism on an already barbaric war and would have ruinous consequences for Russia and the Putin regime.

          • Republicofscotland

            JK redux.

            I sincerely hope that you are blushing – why? well you speak of law and morality – when you support the West – that has no morality, and is breaking International laws at an alarming rate – especially when it comes to Gaza.

            The Head of the Snake – the USA, has invaded, regime changed and murdered its way across the planet – closely followed by one of its favourite minions the UK – and I haven’t even mentioned the French and Germans war crimes – you can claim its all whataboutery – but you’re the one that mentioned morality.

            For me, if anything Putin left it late to stop the – what would have surely been a genocide of the people in the Donbas by Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi battalions – and in the process Putin stopped nukes being placed in Eastern Ukraine – with a short flight time to Moscow – Nato and its nukes eh! – China is already surround by US bases in proxy countries – that the US has first wooed – and if that didn’t work – then threatened.

          • David Warriston

            Pomposity is the last refuge of the warmonger.

            The history of the world (so far) has been a series of ‘justified attacks’ on ‘barbaric enemies.’ It’s just a question of which side you prefer to align with.

          • MR MARK CUTTS

            I think you’ll find that if it all goes nuke, the fate of Putin would be the last on the list of worries for everyone in the world.

            The problem with MAD is that it is ‘Mutual Assured Destruction’, not ‘Putin and Russia assured destruction’. Maybe Lammy needs to read up a bit with some pamphlets from the early 1980’s.

            Start at Protect and Survive – a government publication and then watch Threads if he is not scared enough by the pamphlet. But this (or could be?) the way it is all heading.

            The answer to the ‘Is Putin bluffing routine?’ is where we all came in.

            That means Ukraine should be allowed to become a member of NATO. An attack on one then becomes an attack on all. The Three Musketeers policy.

            The US will not allow it and it’s why it’s stood at the back supplying weapons and some assistance but it realises that Putin and his government are serious.

            The US can always come back to Ukraine later – its focus is on Israel. A fight it dare not lose.

            Russia’s fight is the same for different reasons.

          • Squeeth

            The Ukrainian civil war began after the US-Ukronazi coup d’etat in 2014. The Russians intervened after back pedalling for years and this is reminiscent of their decision to join the Syrian government in repelling the US head-chopping, heart eating rapers and slavers. Russia defeated the US-Ukronazi regime in the first week and has been defeating the US empire ever since. The catastrophic state of the US-Ukronazi regime is obvious to anyone who looks, it’s only a matter of time before American Caesar runs out of equipment to send to the Ukronazis and by then, its Nato proxy will have been disarmed.

    • Lysias

      Prodded by a recommendation from Jeffrey Sachs, I just read Annie Jacobsen’s.”Nuclear War.”. It is indeed a horrifying read, as I am sure a real nuclear war would be. But the author chickens out in one significant way. The novel begins with an unprovoked thermonuclear attack on DC by an irrational North Korean leadership. When nuclear war is much more likely to start with an irrational Israeli or US leadership.

  • Squeeth

    It’s not the monee, it’s realpolitik; the zionist antisemites do American Caesar’s bidding in return for a free hand in Palestine. If there’s a hidden hand here, it’s the use of the proxy and its disguise as a lobby. If Septic and British politicians are on the take from them then they sell themselves so cheap that it is a disgrace to corruption. Lobby/proxy money is an epiphenomenon, after all, the money they use comes from Caesar.

    • joel

      Gobbledegook. Livestream genocide is leaving the Hegemon brutally exposed, not advancing its interests. Biden-Harris can’t end it for one reason alone – they are owned by zionist billionaires.

      • Squeeth

        It doesn’t make a ha’p’orth worth of difference, the only people who can change anything are the ones behind it. This isn’t gobbledegook, it’s the bleeding obvious, the zionists are a proxy, not a lobby.

  • Jack

    The treasonous saudi media working full time to frame the attacks on Lebanon according to will of the masters in Israel:

    Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya in bed with Israeli army to ‘shape Gaza coverage’: Report
    Israel’s Hebrew language public broadcaster, Kan, reported that the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya satellite news channel is directly cooperating with the Israeli army. The channel receives exclusive information in exchange for presenting a positive image of the Israeli army to its viewers in the Arab world.
    https://thecradle.co/articles/saudi-owned-al-arabiya-in-bed-with-israeli-army-to-shape-gaza-coverage-report
    I went to “Al-Arabiya” site and found sanitized reporting, majority of the articles were indeed sourced to what IDF said. Statements from Hezbollah was not even reported!

    This is also a problem, where western media, Israel try to frame that Israel is surrounded by oh so many hostile arab states, fact is that majority of the leaders of the arab states support what Israel is doing.

    • Alyson

      Saudi is our oil supplier. Saudi expects to get everything on its wish list. Saudi is where Al Qaeda and Daesh originate from. Saudi funded the Morsi government that was Egypt’s doomed foray into democracy after their Arab Spring saw off Mubarak’s secular government. After armed insurrection surged across from Sinai, attacking tourist buses, and Christians were being attacked across the country, and all the women who were working in hotels lost their jobs, the Egyptians sighed with relief when Sissi chucked the hardline Muslim government out and secured the borders against armed incursions. The people then realised that Israel, the US and Saudi were claiming the oil and blocking internal supply routes while new drilling off Alexandria was established.

      Business as usual. Saudi may be Israel and the US’s friend but it is fully on board with dollar hegemony and would not sell oil for euros, as Iraq, Libya, and Russia were willing to do. Saudi is a strong country which has provided services in return for rather more up to date weapons than was previously considered sensible. It also attacked the twin towers. Its strength is not in question.

      • Stevie Boy

        True, Saudi has oil and money but that’s all. Like a lot of rich Arab nations their populations are soft and weak and lacking in motivation to get off their backsides while they can pay poor Asians to do their bidding. All the high tech weapons systems would have to be operated by the suppliers because the Saudis can’t do it. During the war with Yemen it was the UK (Bae) that was running operations.
        True, Saudi was heavily involved with 911 but it was essentially Israel and the FBI/CIA that set it up and covered it up. Saudi is just like a big, retarded kid, they’ll do what daddy tells them.
        Plus Saudi has applied for BRICS membership and has already sold oil in non dollar denominations.
        As the Americans call them: Sand Ni***rs.

    • Laguerre

      I wonder whether this story about Al-Arabiya is not to a degree fake news. Israel has been running a campaign for ages to convince us that Saudi is on the point of leaping into bed with them, and signing its own peace accord on the lines of the Abraham accords. These stories always come from Israeli sources, as does indeed the Cradle story. There may be a degree of truth in it: Al-Arabiya is a private company, and not an organ of the state. I didn’t find the Cradle story that convincing, more likely just another round of the Israeli campaign.
      Saudi official policy is definitely the opposite, even if it is only a week or two since MbS the crown prince officially announced that Saudi would not recognise Israel until there was a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem. But it’s been going that way for a very long time: Saudi is unable to sign, even under intense pressure from the US. Why I keep having to repeat it every week or so, I don’t know, but we just keep getting the same repetition of the Israeli version as we find in Alyson’s comment at 19.48.
      To repeat the story the Israelis try to keep secret: the humiliation they suffered in 2013, when Netanyahu thought he had a secret meeting with MbS, and flew by night to that new city Neom in Saudi. Only MbS never showed, and Netanyahu waited 14hours before flying back frustrated. No doubt the Yanks were the intermediaries. Israel desperately wants a deal, but it never works.

    • SA

      Jack what is also interesting is that Al Jazeera Arabic has a completely different style of reporting on Gaza to the English channel and obviously aimed at different constituents. I suppose they think that Arab speakers do not read the english channel also.

  • SleepingDog

    There are historical examples of the losers adjudging the rights and wrongs of their conflicts (monks raided by Vikings being one) and in many conflicts there are clear losers on more than one side (or group). Surviving Nazis seem to have done pretty well in post-WW2 West Germany (I’ve started watching a fictionalised account).

    But I’ve been thinking about the Greek accounts of the Trojan War. Whatever actually happened, Greeks come out of it quite badly in Greek accounts like Homer’s. Even accounting for fickle and partisan gods, the Greeks seem less heroes than bickering mass-murderers, rapists and looters, and their legacy from the war is largely punishment, atonement, death. And this story has been culturally preserved. If it hadn’t been for the German Nazis, Italian Fascists and Japanese Imperialists (there were winners among the surviving members of last two groups as well), the rather similar imperialist-racist Allies might have had a dreadful time justifying war, and War may have gone out of fashion. Perhaps it did: nuclear ecocide was pitched as a trendy alternative.

    But war, weapons, uniforms, grappling and stabbing in mud and blood and shit, dropping bombs on civilians and returning home for tea, concentration camp perks, shooty things, lethal gadgets, on-brand genocide: all these have their adherents, profiteers and superfans. Yet we’re still involved with the unjust war and cowardly massacres the Greeks tell us they inflicted on Troy many centuries ago. Our appreciation of war seems deeply contested. Can culture wean us off it?

  • James

    It’s no surprise that the Israeli state is murderous. All states are built on and run by violence, or the threat of it.
    Over a century ago, Leo Tolstoy repeatedly tried:
    “to show that what intimidates men – the fear that without governmental power the worst men would triumph while the best would be oppressed – is precisely what has long ago happened, and is still happening, in all States, since everywhere the power is in the hands of the worst men; as, indeed, cannot be otherwise, because only the worst men could do all these crafty, dastardly and cruel acts which are necessary for participation in power. Many times I have endeavoured to explain that all the chief calamities from which men suffer, such as the accumulation of enormous wealth in the hands of some people and the deep poverty of the majority, the seizure of the land by those who do not work on it, the unceasing armaments and wars, and the deprivation of men, flow only from the recognition of the lawfulness of governmental coercion.”
    (Emphasis mine.)

    • Lysias

      The ancient Athenians discovered a remedy for the fact that in all competitive systems power devolves to the worst men: they chose their officials and representatives by lot.

      • James

        While that might be better than what we have now, it would still give power to officials etc. Power corrupts, and they would be corrupted.
        IMO, cooperatives would develop automatically in response to local requirements, in the absence of governments. No hierarchy and no deference to authority would be necessary.

  • Tatyana

    I tried to find informal for ‘ladies and gentlemen’ and Google gave me ‘guys and gals’. I hope it is correct to address people.

    Guys and gals,
    I’ve just discovered TRT channel. They presented “Holy Redemtion” documentary.
    It captures the TRT team’s infiltration of radical Israeli groups in the West Bank two months after the Gaza genocide that began on Oct. 7 last year.
    Here’s the promo.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oN9BhLnrR4
    Description under the video says:
    These are a group of racist fascists who are willing to do anything to impose Jewish supremacy officially. TRT World’s investigative documentary, “Holy Redemption”, infiltrates militant Zionist settler group “Hilltop Youth” and exposes violent tactics of “Israel’s Daesh” to steal land of Palestinians with the support of illegal outposts and Israeli soldiers.

    I do highly recommend to watch it. Apalling how they justify their artrocities, murders, by their religious beliefs.
    https://youtu.be/mF6B5UVupyA

  • nevermind

    Titus Flavius had the right idea when he sacked Jerusalem. It looks lke he did not go far enough.
    As for todays genocidal political parties, Labour Conservatives and Lib Dems., they should be declared subscribed terrorist parties by all who care about Palestine, just as this criminal genocide supporting Government has called out the elected party of Hezbollah in Lebanon.
    Exploitative greedy colonialist countries are at the heart of evil and suffering in this world and the comfortable off can’t be bothered to raise human rights above their personal gains or the dire needs for future generations.
    Some might say good riddance to the lot!

  • Ludovic

    Is it the considered opinion of our erudite host that Oct 7 was indeed what the Israeli regime says it was or whether, on the contrary, it was something more like Nordstream, albeit one where the opponent is goaded into perpetrating the calamitous attack, however towards ends that ultimately serve the interest of the incomparably stronger military party in the present case?

  • Jack

    While Netanyahu is of course the problem, it is not like if Netanyahu would vanish tomorrow Israel would become normal.
    The israeli population is a population of extremists, some weeks back it was reported that:
    Survey: 75% of Israelis believe Netanyahu is managing war with Hezbollah ‘very poorly’
    https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/survey-75-of-israelis-believe-netanyahu-is-managing-war-with-hezbollah-very-poorly/3311978
    …I assume the support for Netanyahu in the past days has skyrocketed amongst the israelis. This whole thing of committing terror and massacre against civilians seems to win votes in Israel.

    Earlier this summer the israeli minister of education threatened to annihilate Lebanon and said there is no difference between Hezbollah and Lebanese. The exact same indiscriminate, genocidal rhetoric they used pre Gaza genocide.
    Video: https://www.facebook.com/MiddleEastEye/videos/israeli-minister-says-lebanon-will-not-exist/1691526498327025/
    What time and time again strikes me is how depraved these people are – to go live on tv and say this or that nation is going to be … annihilated? Who does that? It is like the israelis have zero shame, zero scruples, and that is what makes them so dangerous. They lack the basic human trait of self-awareness, painting themselves as the eternal victim while being the perpetrator with overwhelming force, hurting and killing defenseless people.

    • Ewan2

      The Israelis and backers have the antisemitism charge to keep them comfy in their echo chamber. Carlo Suares, a Kabbalist of some stripe, noted that Judaism was still the immature child of the semite religions. To annihilate everything is the behaviour of a spoilt child having a tantrum, smashing the house up and demanding restitution for its finger which it cut hurling glasses at the cat

  • Harry Law

    This is probably [in my opinion] one of the best posts Craig Murray has made in years.
    Israeli economist Shir Hever says Israel’s genocidal war has bankrupted its economy and destroyed the country’s future…
    – 46,000 businesses have gone bankrupt and up to 60,000 will close by the year’s end
    – Foreign investment has dropped 60%
    – There is NO Tourism
    – Education system has collapsed
    – Doctors have left the country
    – Millions have returned to their homes in Europe
    The Tech Industry (Israel’s largest) has slumped 56% and Intel cancelled a $25B project.
    He says any regime that commits Genocide also commits suicide. There is no coming back from it.

  • Nota Tory Fanboy

    Anyone else get the feeling that the MSM wouldn’t have dared air the CCTV footage of people being blown up by pagers, if those people had been Israelis, rather than Lebanese, or Syrians?

    • Wilshire

      It’s a matter that has nothing to do with decency, or lack of it. Very clearly, a secondary objective of these pagers and walky-talkies attacks has been to IDENTIFY the Hezbollah personnel and commanders hit by them. The more CCTV coverage, the easier. Witnesses and viewers talk.
      Likewise, Israeli intelligence has found very useful the admission logs from the various hospitals following the attacks. Excellent source of information for updating their files.
      Apparently, Hezbollah leader Ibrahim Aqil had been wounded in the attacks, and treated at the hospital, which provided a convenient lead for targeting him the following day in an air strike. They just had to follow his track from the hospital…

      • Laguerre

        While the Israelis may have had the secondary objective you describe; it didn’t work so very well, as a large number of the killed and injured were not Hizbullah at all, but medics and other random civilians, including in Syria. Except of course at the AUB hospital, where the staff were told to change their pagers shortly before the attack. If Aqil, who was pretty old, was injured in the pager attack, then it is quite likely he would have been taken to AUB as it is American run and must be one of the best. If they changed their pagers (and thus were in on the plot), I wouldn’t be surprised if it were thoroughly Israel-penetrated.

  • Crispa

    Compare and contrast
    Hezbollah statement as reported by The Cradle on its Telegram channel.
    “In support of our steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and in support of their valiant and honorable resistance, and in an initial response to the brutal massacre committed by the Israeli enemy in various Lebanese regions on Tuesday and Wednesday (the Pager and wireless devices massacre), the Islamic Resistance bombed the military industries complexes of the Rafael Company, which specializes in electronic means and equipment, located in the Zevulun area north of Haifa, with dozens of Fadi 1, Fadi 2, and Katyusha missiles, at 6:30 am on this Sunday morning, September 22, 2024.”
    BBC 10.15 22.09.2024
    “Smoke was seen rising over the northern Israeli city of Haifa following a wave of strikes launched from Lebanon on Sunday night.
    Some residential buildings were set alight and residents injured. Rescue teams arrived at the scene to treat the wounded, while Israeli security forces cordoned off the area.
    The city is further south than previous Hezbollah rocket attacks have managed to reach”.
    There are passing references to Hezbollah statement but it is pretty clear the impression BBC reporting and pictures wants to create.

    • Wilshire

      There’s no hiding that Hezbollah has a much better command of English than the Israeli zealots quoted by the BBC. Moreover, it’s very strange to see smoke rising from strikes on Sunday night, since it’s only early afternoon in Haifa currently.
      Takes all kinds.

  • Reza

    “our abstention reflects our unwavering determination to focus on efforts to bring about a peaceful and negotiated two-state solution”

    The UK knew there was no chance of a two-state solution long before this summer, when it was explicitly disavowed by the Knesset. Everybody understands it’s the most cynical bullshit, but the media will allow them to keep spinning it into perpetuity.

    • Wilshire

      In case you couldn’t find the time to actually read the full statement, it’s important to note that in the very same sentence quoted by our honorable host, the following clause which he omitted is:

      “…the United Kingdom aims, by this statement, to indicate our clear view that Israel should bring an end to its presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories as rapidly as possible.”

      Bullshit or not, the 2-state solution is the only realistic goal, according to most official parties involved. Certain members of the Knesset may have different views, but that doesn’t change the reality of the issue.

      • Reza

        It wasn’t certain members with different views. It was overwhelmingly. The resolution to reject establishment of a Palestinian state was voted through, 69-8, the only dissenters being Arab Israeli legislators. Every one of the cherished “moderate” Zionists voted to reject. They could not have ended the pantomime more emphatically.

        There was not even an imperative to so explicitly end it. Anyone aware of the 750,000 settlers in the West Bank- East Jerusalem, or just of the ideology of Zionism itself, already knew a two-state solution was an impossibility in practical terms.

        Israel could have just kept the bullshit going forever, if only for their allies sake. It was all to their benefit to just maintain a pretence of being peacemakers.

        But they cannot change what they are, what Zionism is.

        • Wilshire

          Tiger can’t change its spots. I sadly fear you’re right.
          Meanwhile, you know that the Knesset has 120 members. 69 doesn’t sound like there’s strictly no different opinions. As the Times of Israel specifies:
          “Lawmakers from Opposition Leader Yair Lapid’s center-left Yesh Atid party left the plenum to avoid backing the measure, even though he has spoken in favor of a two-state solution. The more left-leaning Labor Party followed suit. The only ones to oppose the resolution were lawmakers from the Arab-majority Ra’am and Hadash-Ta’al parties.”
          Whether in Israel or elsewhere, Politics are Politics and it doesn’t smell good.

  • Peter

    Powerful piece Mr Murray, thank you.

    “This is plainly madness that is entirely against the interests of the Western powers themselves. But their politicians, including very directly Biden and Starmer, are so compromised by Zionist-lobby money that there appears to be no escape, short of popular revolt in the West.”

    Plainly, but don’t think for one minute that Russia and China are sitting on their hands.

    Starmer has already shown by his lunatic desire for war with Russia – potentially placing this country in great jeopardy – that he, like the entire European political class, has lost his mind:

    “British military flights, weapons supplies and intelligence cooperation with the Israel occupation continue unabated. Starmer’s total support for Israel is now a fixed part of the governing landscape, as the failure to condemn the terrorist device attacks on the Lebanon makes clear.”

    So, to his idiotic desire for war with Russia you can add Starmer’s direct complicity in genocidal war crimes. He will, no doubt, support the future US plans for war with China.

    We can only be glad that cool, calm, collected and, above all, deeply intelligent heads rule in Russia and China, not to mention also in South Africa. South Africa is currently finalising plans to take the UK and US to the ICJ for complicity in the Palestinian genocide:

    https://skwawkbox.org/2024/09/17/south-african-lawyers-gearing-up-to-file-war-crime-complicity-case-against-uk-us/

    The US is seeking to dominate the planet through military conflict – albeit through proxies – with its competitors. Israel is seeking to do likewise in its region.

    Both are failing catastrophically.

    • Goose

      The pager and walkie-talkie attacks are against international law and thus a war crime – Article 7, Subsections 1(a-e), 2 and 3 – Prohibitions on the use of booby-traps and other devices in civilian areas – which both the UK and US are signatories to. The use of booby-trapped objects in civilian areas is strictly prohibited.

      “Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the us e of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices as amended on 3 May 1996(Protocol II to the 1980 Convention as amended 3 May 1996)…

      Yet, not a word of condemnation from Starmer, Lammy or the FCDO.

      • Republicofscotland

        Goose.

        Who’d have thought, that the day would come, when the West would back a genocide in Gaza – and prop up an Neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine – a WWII Nazi, even got a standing ovation in the Canadian parliament.

        The West is run by vile people now – people with low morals – who are open to whatever bribes come their way – so much for Borrell’s comment – Europe is the Garden of Eden – and the rest of the world is a jungle.

        • David Warriston

          ”Who’d have thought, that the day would come, when the West would back a genocide in Gaza – and prop up an Neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine – a WWII Nazi, even got a standing ovation in the Canadian parliament.”

          That day came some time ago. The Zionists were allowed to evict the Palestinian people in the late 1940s under western eyes; there is an argument over whether that form of ethnic cleansing amounted to a genocide.

          Ukrainian Nazis were funded by western governments post-war with the intention of undermining USSR control of various areas. Stetsko, who became the main voice of Ukrainian nationalism, was eventually dropped by the CIA when they realised he was very relaxed about a nuclear winter in eastern Europe so long as Ukraine could achieve independence as a result. Sounds a bit familiar?

          Stetsko didn’t make the Canadian parliament but he was greeted at the White House by George Bush snr as a celebrated fighter for freedom. Stesko’s earlier support for the holocaust was a little embarrassing but his lifelong hatred of Communism ensured he was considered a friend of America’s ruling elite.

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