The Genocide of the Palestinian people began 76 years ago. What may be drawing to a close is merely a particularly intense phase in the Genocide.
Gaza is destroyed. 92% of its housing has gone. Its water treatment and sanitation, electricity generation, food processing, farming, and fishing are all now incapable of sustaining much life. Its hospitals, health centres, universities, colleges, and schools are all now destroyed, as are its municipal buildings, waste disposal, road surfaces, drainage channels, theatres, cultural centres, cinemas, cafés.
What is left is 1.8 million cold and starving people, malnourished, soaked, ill-clothed, living in tents and defecating in trenches. Tens of thousands will die in these conditions however fast aid comes – and you can be 100% certain Israeli obstructionism will prevent it from coming fast.
But even if they can be physically saved, the culture and fabric of society are damaged beyond repair. The psychological damage is immense. The institutions of normality that might permit recovery are non-existent.
Nobody really knows the true number killed so far in the genocide. The Palestinian health authorities, run by the elected Hamas representatives, have been scrupulous in giving out numbers only of those officially certified dead following the recovery and identification of their bodies.
Given the almost total destruction of Gaza’s buildings and the unavailability of rescue equipment and the lack of ceasefire for body recovery, I suspect the 46,707 official death toll as of last night (and the Israelis already killed over 80 again today) may prove to be way short of the truth, which could be double or more from unaccounted bodies.
That is without the Lancet study suggesting that 50% again may have died subsequently from wounds. A similar number to the dead are permanently maimed.
The worst effects may not in the long term even be in Palestine at all. The Western world has, in the support of its rulers for Israel as it commits Genocide, abandoned any pretence to wish to maintain the system of international law that had been extended and developed post World War 2. Untold horrors of war may be unleashed as a result in the next decade.
In both the USA and the UK, governments ignored their own senior officials and legal advisers to break the human rights constraints which those nations had imposed upon their foreign policy, particularly with regard to the supply of weapons.
In Poland, France and several other NATO countries, the governments have openly repudiated their duty to enforce warrants of the International Criminal Court.
In the UK, Germany, USA, France and throughout the Western world, there has been a massive rolling back of long-cherished and hard-won rights of freedom of expression and assembly, explicitly to prevent criticism of Israel and support for Palestine.
There has been concerted social media suppression to the same end on all major online platforms, and a seizure of Tik Tok in the USA avowedly because of its failure to repress speech critical of Israel.
The unanimity of mainstream media support for Israel, and the tiny or no space for any dissenting view, has become so established a part of the political landscape it can go unnoticed. But it needs to be highlighted.
In his closing address, the one useful thing Biden said was the correct observation about the USA becoming an oligarchy. The whole world is becoming intensely oligarchic, with an astronomical expansion of the wealth gap between rulers and ruled these past twenty years.
The impunity of Israel, and the decline of international law, is a direct consequence of this. There is a particular truth that encompasses almost every Western country and, interestingly, unites both the Arab and the Western worlds.
That truth is this. The wealthy oligarchic elites who control media and politics are extremely pro-Israel. The people are not.
The gap between the support for Israel among the super wealthy and powerful, and the view of the majority of normal people, really deserves serious study to explain it. Not the least interesting is the fact that not even the almost 100% mainstream media pro-Israeli propaganda has been enough to convince the peoples of the world to support the Genocide, outwith the special cases of Germany and the US religious Zionists.
So, what happens now? Well, I was in Beirut when it was carpet bombed in the hours immediately before the ceasefire here took effect, and I expect Israel to massively bomb Gaza’s tent cities in the next three days.
I have also seen Israel break the ceasefire in Lebanon every single day, and I expect them to do that in Gaza too.
Israel daily breaches the ‘ceasefire’ in Lebanon both inside and outside the demilitarised zone. Three days ago they killed 5 civilians. pic.twitter.com/MiAQpZ4AZI
— Craig Murray (@CraigMurrayOrg) January 15, 2025
So long as the USA and Israel designate Hamas as a terrorist organisation, they will claim the right to bomb and kill at any time as a “counter-terrorism operation”, irrespective of any ceasefire agreement. That is their formal position, just as it is their formal position with regard to Hezbollah and the ceasefire agreement with Lebanon.
The Israelis did not start killing Palestinians on 8 October 2023 and they will not stop killing them now.
I expect the ceasefire agreement to go ahead as projected, with occasional Israeli “anti-terrorist” attacks continuing in Gaza. The prisoner exchanges will happen. The Israelis will continually delay and renege on the provisions on aid access and on withdrawal of troops. Palestinians in Gaza will die in large numbers of disease, hunger and poor sanitation.
Just as the ceasefire in Lebanon led to Israel immediately invading Southern Syria, Israel will now increase its activity in the West Bank, suppressing resistance together with its proxy “Palestinian Authority” forces and continually seizing land from Palestinians.
I do not doubt that it is true that the Gaza ceasefire is due to Trump telling Netanyahu to stop. As I continually said, Biden’s attempts to restrain Netanyahu were a complete subterfuge and Biden was absolutely committed to the Genocide.
Trump is very difficult to read. When he was elected in 2016, I believed he was less hawkish in foreign policy than Hillary Clinton. Had Clinton been elected, for example, I am sure that she would have immediately laid waste to Syria, which would have been destroyed like Libya – eventually achieved by Biden.
Trump II had seemed an altogether more aggressive persona than Trump I, particularly as regards the Middle East. Yet Trump II has told Netanyahu to stop the Genocide – confirming incidentally that Biden could have done so had he wished.
Biden wanted Genocide.
The myth of Western support for international law and human rights died in Gaza, along with the myth of Western support for the “two-state solution”. There never was a viable two-state solution and it was those states who were loudest in pretending to support it, who vehemently refused to recognise the Palestinian state.
The “two-state solution” was only ever a cover for Zionism. With Gaza now utterly smashed and its population ruined, and the West Bank almost totally expropriated, the pretence of a “two-state solution” has to be finally killed off.
Israel has lost any moral authority for its continued existence. It has proven itself to be a genocidal entity driven by ethno-supremacism. (A people who believe themselves to be a superior or divinely favoured race are ethno-supremacists, regardless of whether their claim of ethnic homogeneity is founded or not.)
Within 48 hours of the Hamas breakout on 7 October I wrote my first piece about it. Often in retrospect reactions to a major incident are too influenced by the emotion of the moment, but actually I am as proud of this as of anything I ever wrote.
Asymmetric warfare tends to be vile. Oppressed and colonised peoples don’t have the luxury of lining up soldiers in neatly pressed uniforms and polished boots, to face off against the opposing army in an equality of arms.
A colonised and oppressed people tends, given the chance, to mirror the atrocities perpetrated on them by their oppressor.
This of course feeds in, always, to the propaganda of the Imperialist. A paroxysm of resistance by the oppressed always ends up portrayed by the Imperialist as evidence of the bestiality of the colonised people and in itself justifying the “civilising mission” of the coloniser.
Which is not to say I relish violence, quite the opposite. I am in fact pleased that Israeli prisoners as well as Palestinian prisoners will be returned as part of a ceasefire deal.
While the Palestinian resistance are fully entitled to take as many IDF members and reserves prisoner as they can, I cannot approve of the illegal practice of taking children and other complete non-combatants prisoner – and yes I know the Israelis do it on a much larger scale.
Behaving better than the Israelis should be a permanent guide in life.
Unfortunately, it is not the case that colonial settler, racist states cannot triumph. The white settlers in the USA, Canada and Australia did manage to permanently subjugate and almost extinguish the local populations. I have spoken to some wonderful Arab intellectuals these last few weeks who all tend to take the view that Israel’s ultimate defeat is inevitable because the colonial settler state will never be accepted by the Arab populations. I wish I were so confident.
Where I agree with them totally is that the abolition of the terrorist state of Israel must be the goal, not an accommodation with it.
Israel’s pariah status is now assured for a generation, it is deeply split internally and it is dependent on a parent state, the USA, which is losing its relative power and hegemony. Yet for now Israel is expanding. It occupies significantly more territory than it did two years ago and in Syria and Lebanon it has seized control of vital regional water sources. Israel currently has full military control of over 30% of Syria’s fresh water.
Trump probably supports Israeli annexation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza and more. But that does not of necessity mean he supports either the expulsion of their populations or an apartheid state. He may see such heavy state interventions as an interference in the freedom of business to make money, and even undesirable per se.
It is impossible to be certain about what Trump sees as the end goal. From this first indication, it is fair to say his influence is, to this point, more benign than feared.
It is all a house of cards. As of today, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon all have leadership which is, broadly speaking, pro-USA and pro-Israel. Will that still be the case in a decade? Because it is the fact on which Israel depends for its existence.
The other point on which Israel relies is the support of Western governments. But throughout the Western world, the electoral and party systems which maintain the neo-liberal consensus and give voters no real choice at elections across issues ranging from economic policy to support for Israel, are fracturing.
This requires an article in itself, but in the UK, France, Germany and countless other states there is a tectonic shift happening with voters demanding a shift away from the tiny window of orthodox policy.
To date, the populist right has been quickest to take advantage of this shift, and of course benefited from mainstream media cooperation. But the fluidity indicates an impending seismic shift in western domestic political alignment.
That coincides with the disillusionment of Eastern Europe with the EU and NATO and the consequent desperate attempts of the NATO powers to subvert democracy in Georgia, Romania and Moldova.
At some stage China will take a more active interest in the Middle East. Once the Ukraine war has concluded, Russia will undoubtedly turn more attention to the Mediterranean again.
The situation is dynamic. I would not know whether to be more surprised if Trump initiated US attacks on Iran or initiated rebooted nuclear talks and the lifting of sanctions. I suspect the latter surprise to be the more likely.
Today there is at least a moment of hope that the horrible deaths and mutilations in Gaza may be slowed. Let us take that for a moment of respite, and feel the sun upon our faces. Then we continue the fight against evil.
———————–
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I hope you’re right – about Israel being regarded as a pariah state for a generation. I fear that you are wrong though. People have extremely short memories. VOTERS have even shorter memories. Having successfully weathered the storm, Western governments will revert to business as usual soon. Starmer will ‘review’ the status of defence exports to Israel and, finding no concerns, will reinstate the ability to export weaponry to them they may use to further the genocide. This might be a year away but it won’t be announced, won’t make the news and the public won’t be interested.
When Russia invaded Ukraine it was all over the news, obviously. But, prior to that, COVID had filled our news programmes all day, every day. It was completely displaced from being newsworthy and was never mentioned again. People kept dying of course but they weren’t newsworthy deaths. As soon as you’re not newsworthy the public thinks it’s over and begins to forget.
Nothing has changed, nothing WILL change..
Brilliant analysis as always. I would take issue only with your suggestion that Biden made a correct observation in saying the USA is becoming an oligarchy.
In 1919 Lenin observed: “Nowhere is the power of capital, the power of a handful of billionaires over the whole of society, so crude and as openly corrupt as in America. Once capital exists, it dominates the whole of society, and no…form of franchise can alter the essence of the matter.”
Biden has been bankrolled his entire career by corporate oligarchs and in 2024 his presidential campaign had 150 billionaire donors. Last week he gave a medal to George Soros!
Thank you. I did not know that quote. How apt.
Yep. I doubt it’s an honest observation. I see it as a jab at Trump who’s now building his team of oligarchs. Biden-supporting orligarchy is minuscule compared to that of the Republicans.
” I suspect the 46,707 official death toll as of last night (and the Israelis already killed over 80 again today) may prove to be way short of the truth, which could be double or more from unaccounted bodies.”
Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, a reconstructive surgeon who volunteered in Gaza, suggested that 300,000 is the accurate death toll in Gaza.
https://vk.com/wall506866282_5993
I’d say at least. Journalists and the hospitals that count the dead are the biggest targets.
Israel is keeping almost all its 15-20k hostages.
Why is everyone getting these numbers wrong?
The recent Lancet study suggested that at the end of June 64,260 people in Gaza had died violently, against the official figure of 37,877. The latter figure is about 59% of the former figure, hence a 41% undercount. However, the former figure is about 1.7 times (170% of) the latter figure – therefore the true figure is around 70% (not 40% or 50%) higher.
While I’m on the subject, the earlier letter to the Lancet did not suggest that the death toll was already five times as high as the official figure (= 186,00 or so at the time). Instead, it suggested that even if the bombing and sniping ended that very day, factors such as malnutrition, disease, lack of medical attention, damaged immune systems &c would mean that the *eventual* death toll, after a few months or years, could easily be five times as high.
The continual misinterpretation of these observations has tended to discredit all such statements.
In fact, the two Lancet-published observations taken together would suggest that the current death toll, based on official figures, might at the very least be 1.7 x 46,800 = 79,560, and the eventual death toll in a year or two might be at least 5 x 79,560 = 397,800.
Who seriously has respect for the medical profession, or for that matter for the journals through which its opinions get channelled to it from up-top?
You, maybe.
If x is 40% less than y, y is 67% greater than x.
We can all do basic arithmetic.
Why is everyone here so bloody sarcastic all the time? Have you all got stomach ulcers?
“We can all do do basic arithmetic”, you say. No, we evidently can’t. According to the MSM, the Lancet study says that the true death toll is 41% more. Craig, for some reason, said it’s 50% more. The true figure is almost 70% more. That’s quite a significant difference. Or don’t facts and figures matter?
Thank goodness you’re here to put us straight Huw.
All the figures quoted are estimates, we’ll never, ever know the truth, apart from it’s a f*cking lot, and many, many more than the 1,000 odd zionists that died on the 7th October.
We could say six million but that figure has already been copyrighted.
Let’s get the facts straight; there were 41 beheaded babies.
Sorry.
Let’s get the lies straight; there were 41 beheaded babies.
Great, if heartbreaking, report Craig.. And the Evil of western Media is Sickening.
A princess is ill.
Film stars lost their Big Mansions.
Silence on Gaza.
And well done this Lady calling out Blinken’s Evil – Re his and Biden’s Genocide –
https://x.com/AJEnglish/status/1879445467672826248?
I’m sorry, but the way you are pinning hopes on Trump and the right-wing populists strikes me as very unrealistic. The idea that Trump is opposed to apartheid and ethnic cleansing because of some principled libertarian opposition to ‘state intervention’ or an aversion to inhumane acts as such is ludicrous. He is not opposed on principle to anything, especially not to inhumane acts and human rights violations, as he has shown consistently in word and deed. He probably just wanted to show that he can ‘get things done’ in foreign policy, but this won’t obstruct Israel’s overall project seriously, as you pointed out yourself. The right-wing populists in the West are not real enemies of the status quo and certainly aren’t anti-Israel – on the contrary, being pro-Israel is intimately connected to their racist hostility to immigrants from the Global South.
Two reports on that walking, talking turd that is Herr Starmer:
“Keir Starmer’s support for the Gaza ceasefire is riddled with lies”
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2025-01-16/starmer-gaza-ceasefire-lies/
“Prime minister Keir Starmer’s response to news of a shaky Gaza ceasefire was a racist, gaslighting mess. And it instantly faced widespread criticism for its crass pro-Israel propaganda. Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu already appears to be backtracking on the ceasefire deal.”
https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2025/01/16/netanyahu-ceasefire-deal/
Jews were murdered, Palestinians just lost their lives – Starmer.
I’m confused about Qatar, I remember reading they have taken in the most palestinian refugees over the decades? (despite being small I guess). They brokered this deal. But they’ve long been accused of enabling financing of islamist terrorist groups, including Hamas. The other day I read they were the only country apart from Turkey to designate the Kurdish protection units (YPG) in Syria as terrorist, in a 2016 UN initiative on Syria. Yet here I read the leadership also supports USA/Israel.
Sorry I was mixing up with Kuwait I think.
Apparently more than 600,000 Pals live in the Arab gulf states, half in Kuwait because the ruling family was most sympathetic.
The terrorist state’s credit ratings may be a factor in its current diplomacy.
Its ratings have been cut multiple times during the slaughter – by Fitch, S&P, and Moody’s.
The Israeli mindset, and its relative cohort of diaspora Zionism is deeply rooted in fear and trauma. Terms for mental illness can be applied to the unreason of the unifying belief, that Israel is the safe haven they have always dreamed of, which feeds the genocidal monster. It has been fed for millennia by expulsions from countries where it has lived disloyally, where the tribe has persisted in taking more than its fair share, where it has planted marriages and spies in governing structures, with a long-termism second only to that of China. “Western democracies plan for the next five years. China plan for a thousand years”. A map of the world shows there are 9 billion people in it, half of whom live in China and India. The rest of the world is too busy fighting for local control of resources.
We are the children who have only known peace, whose forbears unified to defend a way of life which was consistent since the time of Shakespeare, a green and pleasant land.
Corbyn is the leader this country still needs. His consistency is reassuring. His support for minorities, the social contract, and peace and reconciliation is still being heard, while the fracturing into minorities appears centre stage. Musk is the loud boy. Many think he has something to say that is worth hearing. This state of flux is still being steered by survivalist instincts, and our governments know where the dangers lie.
Trump will change the dynamic but we don’t yet know in what way.
Zionism “has been fed for millennia by expulsions from countries where it has lived disloyally,”
Given Zionism’s history (invention in the nineteenth century) that sounds implausible. The allegation of the universal disloyal and greedy/unfair Jew (who do you have in mind , Disraeli?) sounds equally implausible. To then associate your remarks with Corbyn is, I regret to say, ugly. I am quite sure that such negative racial sterotyping would be instantly repudiated.
Starting with Moses being thrown out of Egypt several millennia ago, and bearing in mind Queen Esther, of Persia, whose story of ‘heroism’ (betrayal) is taught to children young, not forgetting expulsions from the UK in the ?eleventh century, and from Russia in the ?eighteenth and nineteenth century, and from Spain in the ?twelfth or sixteenth century, I think the story repeats itself at irregular intervals across the lands where diaspora Jews have made their homes. The history is not forgotten by those who hold dear the Promised Land of Israel and remember pogroms and persecutions as their narrative throughout history.
Identity is deeply felt, and religion is profoundly cohesive. Paranoia creates the enemies where friends might otherwise be found. It really is very difficult to see how this can all end in
Peace.
It is Jews who are being thrown out of Labour for being antisemitic.
Looking at Trump’s Daughter’s husbands, tells us all we need to know about how the future of Israeli ties with America are going play out..
Which daughter is that? Is polyandry legal now?
“some wonderful Arab intellectuals these last few weeks who all tend to take the view that Israel’s ultimate defeat is inevitable because the colonial settler state will never be accepted by the Arab populations.”
They need some other premise to reach that conclusion, unless they assume government needs to be by consent.
As for the marginalisation of pro-Palestinian protests in western Europe, which began before 2023 – see how Labour under Jeremy Corbyn was stopped – this is an asset for the Zionists.
It is also closely related to the recent rise of a perceived “problem of anti-Semitism”, which is also an asset for them.
An assault on the West Bank seems likely within a few years, maximum. Could be sooner.
Isn’t that why the Zionists demonise “Iran” anyway?
this might be to do with a shared cultural and religious heritage, Islam as a unifying force rather than a dividing one.
According to a Norman Finkelstein interview some weeks back he predicted that once there is a ceasfire, Gaza will be forgotten and vanish from the news.
Video: https://youtu.be/o_BtoZETnEc?t=3627
As for Trump, he have no interest in Gaza and therefore rather see it end because it does not advance U.S national interests, his object is Iran – just like Netanyahu – and with his an anti-iranian bent my guess is that Israel/US seek to pivot towards Iran and therefore wanted to leave Gaza and focus more on Iran.
The whole Abraham-accords were initiated by Trump/Kushner, in part, to unite Israel and the arab world against Iran and Trump’s goal is to expand that union of nations.
There were earlier reports earlier this week that Russia, Iran was to sign a major agreement, but the deal seems to fall short of expectations:
Iran-Russia agreement excludes mutual defense clause, Tehran says
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202501166749
Russia constantly want to appease everyone and therefore end up being weakened on all fronts.
Israel is already delaying any agreement on this ceasefire and peddling more lies to reinforce its murderous position.
continue to pray for the children – https://thedailybeagle.substack.com/p/it-impugns-the-conscience
I assume we could forget any good news on Gaza from the ICJ from now on:
“Pro-Israel judge to replace Lebanon’s new PM as head of Intl. Court of Justice “
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/01/16/741038/Palestine-ICJ-Julia-Sebutinde-Israel-genocide-Nawaf-Salam-Gaza
Surely the incoming lebanese PM knew this would happen? I take it for granted that the idea to make him step down and become the PM of Lebanon was a deliberate idea pushed/lobbied by Israel/US with the intent to stop short the israel-genocide-file at the ICJ.
It is insane how bad the arab leaders keep playing their cards, I do not know whether to cry or laugh at this stupidity. This is once in lifetime chance for not just the palestinians, not just the arabs but for the global south to score a major point (by concluding that israel – with the aid of the west – commit genocide) and then they all (likely) blew it by themselves.
Four rules for an middle eastern government
1. Trust absolutely no one, especially Britain.
2. Never, ever, act alone.
3. Don’t let home opposition fester: kill it n o w, or die, albeit later.
4. Patience. Always patience.
Following these rules leaves little space for skilful card play, not least because of the inherent contradictions. The fear they dwell in blinds them to opportunity. The spectacular wealth darkens their eyes when it comes to justice.
Jack
“It is insane how bad the arab leaders keep playing their cards”
Its because they are quislings.
I wonder how accurate these cartoons by Naji al-Ali are in depicting Arab leaders (perhaps very?).
Blinken’s last press conference interrupted by real questions:
https://x.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1879926469633487204
There’s something strange about this deal. So many government and media figures are
bending over backwards forgoing out of their way to be nice about Donald Trump. Maybe they think Elon Musk will make their lives worthwhile by mentioning them in a tweet. (Cf. Toby Young.) It is vomit inducing. Since when did an insane f***wit stop a war? Since never.See for example the Financial Times:
“How Donald Trump swung the Gaza ceasefire deal”
Now that’s an interesting topic, which is why I clicked on it, but the article doesn’t answer the question at all, other than to say that Trump gave the deal his “imprimatur” – which is just a stupid w***er’s way of saying he said it was OK, which isn’t “swinging” it – and that Trump and Biden “put aside their rivalry”. Well bully for them. So how did Trump “swing” the deal again? Dunno…….
Trump is a puppet, and it doesn’t take much to realise whose.
“The only difference is Trump. Netanyahu does want to align with Trump . . . they [the Americans] made clear that they want quiet here,” said another person familiar with the talks.”
The burger munchers and whose army?
Frankly I don’t have a clue what’s going to happen next, and I suspect senior government figures and their business masters and intelligence bosses in many great power countries are in the same boat.
But the theme of Trump’s first few hours and days back in the White House seems very unlikely to be “Happy Christmas. War is over.”
It may sound awful and crude but the question for the well off rich Arab states is:
What is the Trade Off for defending Gaza/Palestine?
We have the oil/gas and we do well out of it but, only by the allowance of the US and the
other members of the Imperialist ( past and now by different means ) other countries.
What does Palestine have?
They have no oil/gas worth defending – we do.
That equation is what keeps all the Arab League countries in step with the US and its Proxy
Israel.
Even the Numbskull GW Bush knew how to threaten lesser nations.
” You’re either agin’ us – or against us ” he said and even he understood what that meant as
thick as he was.
That same threat occupies the tiny minds of the so called ‘ Sovereign Nations ‘ who worry themselves
sick at the threat of Russia taking away their Sovereignty but, will hand the same over to the US without
the blink of a cowardly eye.
Any European government for building an Axis of Resistance against the US?
No chance.
The poor historically have always lacked backers – even from the slightly richer nations
for the simple reason that the rulers don’t want to end up poor themselves.
Whether that be the PA or the current Labour Party MPs.
Better a salary and sinecure and networking ( once your MP days are over ) to secure your future
and no-one elses.
No principles in the West – never mind the Near East – nothing changes.
Meanwhile the MSM salaried and co-opted media will pretend ( or maybe some of them genuinely
believe that The Israelis are sincere.
About as sincere as Hughie Green and Jess Yates ( let’s throw in Jimmy Swaggart to labour the point)
as all of them.
Salaries/making connections and gaining future income is the name of the politicians game and maybe
hosting a quiz show on a wet Wednesday is the News Presenters game in the future.
Some ambition and some achievement that is for sure but that is their ambition.
Can you imagine John Pilger or Noam Chomsky on Celebrity Squares on a Saturday night back in the day?
No – neither can I but that’s the state of play these days.
We will have to wait and see what Trump does and I would like to think that Craig is right and that the US
won’t attack Iran and go back to the Uranium deal.
Iran genuinely wants no war with the West – in fact it wants to develop its economy with co-operation with the
BRICS countries.
The US and the other grovellers to the US want war – not peace as does Netanyahu as chaos is good.
Yet – if you want to destroy the BRICS Project/Experiment then you have to put countries off joining by
blackmail and threat.
Let’s see if Don Trumpeone makes certain countries an ‘ Offer they can’t refuse.’
I include the so called Western ‘ Sovereign ‘ countries in that too.
Regime change in the Middle East and Regime Change in the EU and the UK.
Yet again: ‘ You are either with us or agin’ us ‘
For the US – there is no Middle Way.
Mark – it is gas under Gaza that has bound Europe to the genocide. They are not allowed clean cheap gas from Nordstream. The gas reserve under Gaza is massive and the pipelines are laid from Cyprus to Europe, and north, to Turkey and east, and to Gaza.
Palestine was the lawful owner. This is why everyone there must die. Israel must own it all.
Alyson
I’m very much aware of that and The Goliath Oilfield is Israeli.
The licences ( allegedly belong to the PA). so not much faith in them.
So – I get what you are saying but that is a long term plan as is development near the sea.
The rich nations have already got theirs and want to keep it so no provocations of the US
or they will not keep it.
This is the problem :
What is meant by ‘ Palestine ‘ owning it for the legal eagles?
If the Palestinians are not there – how can they own something where they are not anymore?
Of course the Democracies will sort out any legal wranglings under The Rules based order.
So never fear it will all be done legitimately.
Vey much like Syria or Iran once they get across it.
“The wealthy oligarchic elites who control media and politics are extremely pro-Israel.”
Can’t disagree. And yet…
…that merely begs the question: WHY? Why are the oligarchic cadre so invested?
No answer makes sense, save from the point of xenophobic, religious settler mania. Yet oligarchs categorically aren’t settlers, settlers are mere tools in their arsenal of ambition. Oligarchs can live on any island on the planet. Have they completely lost control dazzled by the collapse of the socio economic system they universally espouse?
Maybe with all their money they’ve discovered who is actually running the show …
Jeremy Corbyn and the other Independent MPs said the following in a statement on X/twitter yesterday:
“How many lives could have been saved if political leaders acted sooner and listened to the global demand for peace? They have blood on their hands – and it will never wash away.”
https://x.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1879602925305270275
Only sadistic psychopaths (and all psychopaths are inherently sadistic) could stand by month after month after month and let Israel do what it has been doing in Gaza. Such people are twisted beyond comprehension. As are Benny the Baby Killer and Mass Murderer and his fascist buddies of course.
“Yet Trump II has told Netanyahu to stop the Genocide – confirming incidentally that Biden could have done so had he wished.
Biden wanted Genocide.”
Key observation, and thankyou.
I rather liked (in an ironic way) the MSM – Guardian I think, else BBC – reporting how Trump and Biden had generously agreed to put aside their differences in the interests of peace and humanity. Worthy of Orwell.
The Jewish religious far right in the occupation is calling the proposed ceasefire deal a “surrender”.
One of its provisions is the release of some of the Palestinian prisoners held in occupation jails.
Ben Gvir is on record as saying that such prisoners should be killed.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240701-ben-gvir-calls-for-executing-palestinian-prisoners/
It has to be observed that the occupiers haven’t taken many prisoners in Gaza during this conflict. (Have they taken any?)
“I cannot approve of the illegal practice of taking children and other complete non-combatants prisoner – and yes I know the Israelis do it on a much larger scale.”
Children of occupiers are not on occupied territory by choice and should not be taken prisoner.
Civilian adult occupiers, on the other hand, are adults who are responsible for what they do, they know what they are doing, and if someone can’t take a joke they shouldn’t hold a big rave-up party just outside the fence of a concentration camp. (There is a military saying “If you can’t take a joke, don’t join the army.” This applies here. I can’t see that “I’m only a civilian who did the catering at a desert rave” should be an excuse.)
All prisoners including Zionist soldiers should be treated well and in a humanitarian fashion and in accordance with the 3rd Geneva Convention.
Those who want to consider the rights and wrongs here (without assuming it’s going to be simple) may like to look at how the US CIA successfully overthrew the Guatemalan revolution in 1954 but failed to do the same in Cuba in 1961 at the Bay of Pigs. (It’s not pretty.) Or watch the film “The Battle of Algiers”. (Ditto.)
I wonder if we’ll ever learn why the original site in southern Israel fell through, and just a couple of days before the music festival was due to begin on the Friday evening (I don’t actually know when it fell through, but I assume that the organisers were familiar with the Re’im site, and sorted it out pretty quickly when the original site fell through). And apparently it was due to end at approximately 5.00pm on the Saturday evening. And Hamas had no idea the festival was taking place of course, and the festival goers themselves only learnt of the location a few hours before it was due to begin, as is often the case with raves. I mean what an astonishing set of circumstances.
Or was it?
In Europe (including Britain), the principal characteristic of the populist right is its Islamophobia.
It might as well be called the Movement Against Muslims.
Reasonable opinions from Mr Murray, as usual.
The “two-state solution” is now Saudi and Israel, not Israel and Palestine. We’ll see how well that works out. Possibly as well as regime change and democracy for Iraq.
The plan is so obvious yet little reporting on it. Trump will get plaudits for stopping the killing which will give him and his Christian Zionist administration the capital to send Palestinians to all points around the world particularly the Arab states. The baffling mystery is why Biden & Blinken sabotaged their and the Democrats reelection prospects. Its as if Biden wanted the Democrats to lose so Trump can be the enabler of the emigration of the Palestinians.
As we all know, the perpetrators and the enablers of the mass slaughter of Palestinians and the destruction of Gaza are most unlikely to ever face justice. Caitlin Johnstone posted the following article a couple of hours ago:
None Of These War Criminals Will Face Justice While The US Empire Exists
Two journalists were ejected from a State Department press conference on Thursday for asking inconvenient questions about Gaza. One of them, Sam Husseini, was physically carried out by security while demanding to know why Secretary of State Antony Blinken is not in The Hague for his war crimes.
The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal was also made to leave while asking Blinken why he allowed hundreds of journalists to be murdered in Gaza, telling State Department spokesman Matt Miller that he “smirked through a genocide.”
Husseini was then forcibly removed for asking questions about Gaza, and about Israel’s nuclear program and Hannibal directive. Blinken told Husseini to “respect the process,” to which Husseini replied, “Respect the process? Respect the process? While everybody from Amnesty International to the ICJ says Israel’s doing genocide and extermination, and you’re telling me to respect the process? Criminal! Why aren’t you in the Hague?”
The western political-media class is expressing outrage over the incident, not because of journalists being manhandled for asking critical questions of their government, but because those journalists asked critical questions.
The talking heads on CNN described the journalists interrogating government officials as “cringeworthy heckling by activists”, initially expressing bafflement at how those “activists” could have gotten into a press room intended for accredited journalists…
https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/none-of-these-war-criminals-will-face-justice-while-the-us-empire-exists-b068ac39466c
Just came across this article from February last year, which is very detailed (and very long as such) and well worth reading:
Did Israel Deliberately Ignore Warnings Of An Attack By Hamas, To Enable Them To Destroy Gaza?
Israel received numerous internal and external warnings and alerts of a forthcoming attack by Hamas during the months, weeks, and days prior to Hamas’ attack of October 7, 2023 that killed 1,200 Israelis. The savagery and casualties in this attack provided Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu with the excuse and initial justification to launch a calculated war to destroy and depopulate Gaza, with the unified support of Israelis’, and virtually unlimited weapons, funding, and political coverage from the United States.
Israel’s intelligence and military sectors operate from within a contextual reality of being surrounded by enemies, who have a history of launching terrorist attacks and military strikes against Israel. Given Israel’s permanent state of heightened monitoring for potential terrorist and military strikes, it’s improbable they could have ignored so many indicators and notifications of an attack coming out of Gaza during the first two weeks of October, unless Israeli officials dismissed them to achieve specific objectives.
https://www.eurasiareview.com/15022024-did-israel-deliberately-ignore-warnings-of-an-attack-by-hamas-to-enable-them-to-destroy-gaza-oped/
I’ve only read the first few paragraphs, but it looks very interesting and comprehensive, but it’s gonna take a few sessions to get through it!
I’ve not come across the eurasiareview website before, but I just had a bit of a look around, and it looks pretty damn good. Came across the following article in the process, posted today:
Joe Biden’s Terrible Legacy
The moniker “Genocide Joe” is well deserved and one that Joe Biden can never live down, along with any other names that describe the damage he brought to the country and to the world. His legacy is that in every position he held, he was a happy servant for imperialist and neo-liberal interests, like all of his white house predecessors…
https://www.eurasiareview.com/17012025-joe-bidens-terrible-legacy-oped/
“not even the almost 100% mainstream media pro-Israeli propaganda has been enough to convince the peoples of the world to support the Genocide”
Hmmm. Even many of your most regular commenters expressed support for the Genocide Democrats right the way through the past 15 months. Ardently supported them beneath all your vivid descriptions of the terror and horror.
Remember them?