PALESTINIAN LIVES MATTER - But not to France, Germany and the Netherlands

Giant Palestinian Flag Beamed onto Embassies of Countries which only remember Israeli Jewish deaths

In the last year in Brighton the local ‘eyesore’ otherwise known as the ‘i-360’ has had Palestinian symbols projected on it.  The i-360 is the world’s highest thin tower, however that is measured, and mainly tourists pay an absurd amount of money to travel up and down inside a viewing pod.  

A couple of weeks ago a giant Palestine flag was laid out on the beach and before that in the iconic Regency Square to be photographed and videod from the pod as it travelled up and down the i-360. 

Inminds decided on the 14th January to do much the same, in this case beaming on 3 London embassies to protesting their countries' hypocrisy over in condemning the killing of the Israeli soldiers whilst saying nothing about the routine death of unarmed Palestinian civilians.  

It should be borne in mind that the Israeli soldiers who died last week in Jerusalem, however horrific their deaths, were in uniform and were also armed. They were very much part of an occupying army and although western journalists might not get the point, Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem and the West Bank and Gaza are seen in much the same light as Nazi soldiers were in Occupied France between 1940 and 1944 and in the same way as British soldiers were in Northern Ireland after 1969.  In other words the local population, despite attempts to criminalise resistance, have a right recognised in international law to resist them by force of arms. The Nazis described the French Resistance and all other resistance movements as bandits'.  Britain too criminalised the IRA before eventually reaching the Good Friday Agreement with it.  Israel today tries to pretend that those resisting it are criminals rather than entitled to resist.  Israel of course pretends there is no occupation since they have a god given right to occupy all of Palestine and they even have the Bible to prove they hold the land deeds! 

Total silence reigns from the Western media when it comes to what are just the routine deaths of Palestinian civilians at the hands of Israel’s occupying forces.  By way of contrast there was massive publicity last week when a Palestinian in Jerusalem killed 4 armed soldiers and injured another of others in an attack with a heavy lorry before the driver was shot dead.

Israel’s propaganda was aimed at drawing a comparison between the attacks in Nice and Berlin and Jerusalem.  For example the BBC prominently reported the Jerusalem lorry attack including Netanyahu’s claim that it was carried out by ISIS.   The BBC report did state that ‘the prime minister gave no evidence to support the claim’ however it then went on to report ‘An emergency meeting of the Israeli security cabinet approved administrative detention for IS sympathisers and authorised the destruction of the driver's home.’  In other words it helped confirm that which it had accepted was unsupported by any evidence.

 

We now know for certain that the Palestinian who carried out the attack had no connection with ISIS.  In other words this was a completely bogus propaganda claim by Israel’s far-right racist Prime Minister.

The BBC also gave details of those killed including their name, age and rank.  Can you remember the last time the BBC devoted such attention to Palestinian victims of Israel’s murdering occupation army? 

The Daily Mail went one step further.  In a headline Horrifying moment a truck driver mows down soldiers in Jerusalem - and REVERSES over them - killing four and injuring 15 before being shot dead at the wheel, as Israeli PM blames attack on ISIS  the Mail’s report went on to say that ‘Netanyahu said the attacker has been identified and 'according to all the signs he was a supporter of the Islamic State.' He says there 'definitely could be a connection' between Sunday's attack, which killed four Israeli soldiers, and recent attacks in France and Germany.’

Brighton beach as seen from the i-360

In fact there is no evidence that the Nice attacker had any connection with ISIS, unlike the attacker in Berlin.  Nor has any evidence whatsoever been provided of an IS connection with the Jerusalem killer.  What appears to have motivated him was the treatment that all Palestinians receive at the hands of the Israeli occupation.  A minor matter of no concern to western journalists. 

The SUN (or SCUM to give it its proper title) went one further.  It had no hesitation:

‘MOWN DOWN Shocking moment ISIS lorry ploughs into soldiers and kills four in Israel terror attack, as first pictures of driver emerge

Note how the BBC report that the Israeli cabinet ‘authorised the destruction of the driver's home.’  without any comment at all.  We would have to go back to Britain’s occupation of Palestine to find this Nazi-like collective punishment which targets a person's family, regardless of whether or not they had any knowledge of what was to happen.  The family in question will therefore be made homeless and I understand they have had their permanent residency status in Jerusalem itself revoked, so the children will be made homeless and stateless.  Literally the Biblical punishment of visiting the sins of the father on the succeeding generations is alive and well in Israel.

By way of contrast let us look at the case of Hadeel al-Hashlamoun, which was particularly horrific, in Hebron 2015.  Hadeel was an 18 year old student.  Completely defenceless.  Hebron is where particularly vicious Nazi-like settlers have set up home having evicted the Palestinian residents and they throw down rubbish, faeces etc. onto the Palestinians whose homes are below them in Shuhada Street, formerly the main commercial street in Hebron but which has now been sealed off and Palestinians are forbidden to even walk there.  In their spare time these Judeo-Nazis paint slogans like 'gas the Arabs' on the front of the sealed off shops and Arab homes walls.  In this and their constant physical attacks on the Palestinian population, the settlers are befriended and supported by the Israeli occupation forces.

Israeli army personnel barked orders at Hadeel in a language she didn’t understand.  She was clearly frightened and paralysed before she was gunned down.  No one has ever been charged, still less convicted of her murder.

Her murder has been covered in a number of media outlets.  The Guardian covered it, as did Ha’aretz, although its headline was demonstrably untrue Palestinian Woman Shot Dead After Trying to Stab Soldier in Hebron.  In the body of the story it reported that ‘Photos published in Palestinian outlets show the Palestinian woman kneeling and a soldier aiming his rifle at her. The IDF claims that the woman had yet to pull out the knife at this point.’ In other words, on the basis of a metal detector she was shot for failing to obey orders she didn’t understand even though she had not yet pulled out the knife, if it ever existed.  Suffice to say the army cleared itself.  Although to be fair, the excellent Amira Hass did a follow-up in Ha’aretz The Execution of Hadeel al-Hashlamoun.  

A search of the BBC site finds no mention of the death of Hadeel al-Hashlamoun - unlike the death of all Israeli Jews killed by Palestinians - yet another example of BBC bias

A number of other outlets carried the story, including Israeli papers, either sympathetically or not.  But the BBC?  Not a word, no mention of her murder.  Because of course she was a Palestinian and Palestinian deaths are not newsworthy with the BBC.  I did a search of their site under the girl’s name and turned up NOTHING.  Bias is not only what might be said but also what is not said.

Below is Indmind’s Report of its own action:

 On Saturday 14th January 2017 Inminds human rights group undertook guerilla projections on the walls of three European embassies - that of France, Germany and the Netherlands, to protest the double standards cities in these countries have shown in ignoring Israel's routine killing of Palestinian civilians, often children, whilst showing solidarity with 4 recently killed Israeli occupation soldiers.

On 8th January 2017, a Palestinian living in occupied East Jerusalem rammed his truck into a group of armed Israeli occupation soldiers killing 4 of them before being shot dead himself. Rather than accept this as a legally sanctioned act of resistance against foreign occupation, several European cities shamefully showed solidarity with the occupation army.  On 10th January Mayor Anne Hidalgo projected an image of the Israeli flag on Paris City Hall in solidarity. This followed the projection of the Israeli flag on the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin in Germany and the flying of the Israeli flag at half mast on Rotterdam City Hall in the Netherlands.

Inminds chair Abbas Ali said "Its shameful that these same cities have never shown any sympathy when Palestinian civilians, very often children, are murdered by the Israeli occupation forces. In summer 2014 Israel target bombed 118 schools in Gaza including 65 UN schools slaughtering 521 Palestinian children, and leaving another 1000 children permanently disabled, and 1500 children were made orphans. Where was the solidarity from these cities when this crime was perpetrated? We didn't we see any Palestinian flags being projected on Europe's monuments in solidarity with the victims of Israeli butchery. And this isn't some thing that just happened in 2014 - Israel has been killing one Palestinian child every 60 hours for the past 17 years - where is the outrage for this infanticide? Shame on these cities for the double standards they  show. We are here, outside their embassies - outside the Embassies of France, Germany, and the Netherlands, to tell them that Palestinian lives are not worth less then Israeli lives, that Palestinian lives matter."

#PalestinianLivesMatter

Full photo-report:

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