The Conversation
Between 2 Hamas Members that Israel Posted are Fake & Digitally
Manipulated – the Missile Came From the East not West
Al Jazeera Investigation in Israel's Bombing of the Al Ahli Hospital
Was the Gaza hospital
attack caused by a failed rocket launch? | Bird’s Eye View
Channel
4 News tonight broadcast the first scientific analysis by Forensic
Architecture based at London University that Israel’s ‘evidence’ that Islamic
Jihad carried out the horrific bombing the Al-Ahli hospital is as genuine as a
9 bob note.
Israel's Crude Forgery of a Conversation Between 2 Hamas Operatives
Firstly the missile came from the opposite direction to that
which Israel alleged – East not South West. Secondly that the ‘conversation’
between two Hamas operatives had been digitally manipulated and consisted of
two separate conversations, clearly by two Israeli actors.
Now why should Israel do this if its conscience is clean? If
in fact it was a misfiring by Islamic Jihad that caused the explosion that
killed 500 people what possible reason is there to employ actors to narrate a
fictional conversation?
The Missile that destroyed the Al Ahli Hospital came from the East not the South-West as Israel alleged
Of course the Americans and the BBC are eager to accept the Israeli
denial that it deliberately
targeted a hospital because they wish to portray the Israeli attack on Gaza
as what they say it is, highly selective rather than it being an indiscriminate
attack on the civilian population of Gaza.
Why should Israel behave in this way? Because it has ordered Palestinians
to vacate northern Gaza and therefore wanted all hospitals to close and not to
shelter Palestinian civilians. This is genocide pure and simple.
Channel 4 Investigation of Attack on Al Hilwa Hospital
In a press conference, the Anglican
Archbishop in Jerusalem, Hosam Naoum, said the al-Ahli
al-Arabi Baptist Hospital in Gaza was warned on Saturday, Sunday and Monday by
the Israeli army to evacuate. It was then bombed on Tuesday. Clearly the Israelis
were becoming impatient with the hospital still functioning and decided to take
it out.
Three days before the fatal missile strike the hospital had
already been hit. However it is understandable that Israel wants to reassure its
gullible Zionist supporters abroad that it was not the culprit and sure enough
the BBC and Sky News go to town on Israel’s lies, endorsed by the senile
American President Biden and his puppet Sunak.
If there was any doubt about whether Israel has lied then the
Al Jazeera investigation tonight
lays that doubt to rest. There was only one rocket launched from Gaza that
night and it was intercepted. The only party who could have launched the
missile on the hospital was Israel and of course they know that.
It comes hot on the heels of Israel’s attack
on the Greek Orthodox Church of St Porphyrius, the oldest church in Gaza, some 1600
years old. Once again Palestinian civilians were sheltering in the church
assuming that although Israel bombs mosques without qualms it would draw the
line at Christian churches.
The reality is that Israel has no red lines when it comes to
attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza – be it hospitals,
schools, churches or mosques. These are multiple war crimes yet Biden, Sunak,
Starmer et al. have no hesitation in backing Israel. We are led by war criminals.
Hotoveli – all Palestinians are Nazis and we should kill 600,000 of them
The cat however was let out of the bag by Israel’s far-right
religious nut and Ambassador Tzipi Hotoveli who described all Palestinians as Nazis
and compared what Israel was doing now to the British bombing of Dresden and Hamburg.
She alleged that 600,000 were killed in those bombings and then used
them to justify murdering a similar number of Palestinians.
Of course if we were to call the Zionists and Israelis Nazis
that would be anti-Semitic but if the Zionists call Palestinians
‘Nazis’ then that is fine because the Holocaust narrative is Israeli property, to twist and distort as they will. Instead of being an object in why racism and
fascism is a wrong, the Zionists use the Holocaust as a justification for
whatever evils they perpetrate.
"Hamas need to pay the price."
Israel's ambassador to the UK @TzipiHotovely claims "there is no humanitarian crisis" in Gaza, adding that Israel is working to "make sure all Palestinian civilians will be safe".
According to Hotoveli there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza
and in any case Palestinians are Nazis so who cares. There is no acknowledgment of the starvation siege of Gaza for 17 years
or any admission of any culpability whatsoever.
Adam Keller,
a veteran Israeli peace activist in an article on the Gush Shalom site, The Most Horrifying of Times - And What Can We Still Do? writes about how
genocide is now an appropriate term to use about Israel’s actions. Keller describes
how the word ‘extermination’ with all its resonance of Auschwitz has now
entered the language of Israeli politics in the so-called liberal oasis of Tel
Aviv.
This week Roy Sharon, a
"respectable" radio and TV commentator on the main Israeli
broadcasting corporation, spoke very explicitly of his desire to see “a
million dead bodies in Gaza”.
And the streets of Tel Aviv are flooded
with red stickers reading "Exterminate Gaza!". Not
"Destroy!", not "Flatten!" – but clearly and explicitly
"Exterminate Gaza!". "Le-Ha-Sh-Mid!" -
"Exterminate!" Every Jewish Israeli knows from a young age exactly
what this word means. ….
the idea of Genocide has now entered the
public agenda in the State of Israel, and there is every justification to use
this terrible word and to beat all the drums and raise all the possible alarms.
….
An invasion in which the army would invade
and crush Gaza with all its might would most likely lead to the killing of the
Israeli abductees, among all the many others who would be killed. This was
expressed with characteristic bluntness and ruthlessness by the extreme right
Minister Smotritz: "We
need to be cruel, not to think too much of the captives". Negotiating
with Hamas for a prisoner exchange deal is not compatible with a total war
whose goal is to completely destroy Hamas. This was explicitly stated by Tzachi
Hanegbi, head of Israel's National Security Council. The State of Israel has a
choice between two courses that in practice rule out each other - either an
effort to bring back the captives and abductees from Gaza, or a ground invasion
that will multiply the killing and destruction already caused in the week of
bombings.
None of this is broadcast by fake media outlets like the
BBC and Sky. They are instead happy to buy into Israel’s lies, the BBC
especially, because they are funded by the British government through the TV
license.
Meanwhile in ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’ there
has been a crackdown
on Arab citizens who express any sympathy with the people of Gaza.
NBC’s Chantal Da Silvareported
from Ashdod in Israel that one studentis facing
suspension for posting a picture on social media celebrating her sister’s
engagement. Others have been targeted for expressing solidarity with
Palestinians in Gaza. All are suffering from what some schools and the Adalah egal
advocacy group is calling an Israeli crackdown on free speech.
Police, schools and employers are targeting people for
seemingly innocuous social media posts including quotes from the Quran
according to Adi Mansour, a lawyer with Adalah — The Legal Center for Arab
Minority Rights in Israel, told NBC News on Wednesday.
Mansour said Adalah has received at least 80 reports from
students at colleges and universities of being suspended, expelled or even
arrested for their online musings.
Some social media users threatened “to kill them, to rape them, threats to go to their house,” Mansour
said. Others had been doxxed, meaning their personal information was posted
online.
In a strongly worded letter to Israeli Education Minister
Yoav Kisch on Wednesday, nine schools complained that they were coming under
pressure to investigate their students and report their handling of the cases
to The Council for Higher Education in Israel, which they said risked “creating an atmosphere of McCarthyism and
mutual informing on every campus.”
All of the students targeted identified themselves as being
Palestinian or Arab. One student at Tel Aviv University, who asked not to be named
because of security fears, said the addresses and pictures of homes of Arab
students had been published on social media.
As I write Israel is continuing its bombing of Gaza with one
aim. To ethnically cleanse Gaza of its Palestinians in order that Israeli Jews can
‘return’ and fulfil their messianic destiny. The least people can do is to
attend the demonstration in London tomorrow, assemble 12 .00 at Marble Arch.
Then go on to picket and lobby every MP until pressure is put on Israel to
desist and for Britain not to supply weapons of murder to Israel’s killers.
ALSO: Google censors have deleted my previous postIsrael’s
Denial That It Bombed Al Ahli Hospital Is As Credible As Its Denial That It
Murdered Shireen Abu Akleh
In an articleHow Google and Amazon help Israel sustain its apartheid Ramzy
Baround describes how the words, “We are
anonymous because we fear retaliation,” were part of a letter signed by 500
Google employees in October 2020, when they decried their company’s direct
support for the Israeli government and military. In their letter, the
signatories protested a $1.2 billion contract between Google, Amazon Web
Services and Tel Aviv that provides cloud services for the Israeli military and
government that allow
“for further surveillance of and
unlawful data collection on Palestinians, and facilitates expansion of Israel’s
illegal settlements on Palestinian land.”
Google gave no explanation for its decision other than that it breached its 'community guidelines' as if Google Censors have a community. However it has firmed up by decision to go on Substack where anonymous censors don't interfere with free expression.
However you can still access my article on my shadow blog, see
The Palestinian Uprising has Destroyed the Myth of Israeli
Invincibility – Neither Hamas Nor Hezbollah are Terrorists –Israel Alone Deserves
That Label
I will be speaking this Wednesday
at a meeting on the Gaza-Ghetto Uprising and the significance of the attack by
the Palestinian resistance on Israel. What will be the political fall-out? What
has changed? What does the reaction of the United States and the western powers
signify? What are Israel’s intentions etc.
Socialists should be crystal clear.
Palestinians have every right, after a siege of Gaza lasting over 17 years to resist their oppressors. Anyone who
denies that is no supporter of the Palestinians.
We should also be under no doubt
as to the dangers. Netanyahu has already promised, as if a Nazi General, to raze Gaza to the ground. Yoav
Gallant, Israel’s Defence Minister has already called the Palestinians ‘human animals’ thus betraying the racist
nature of Zionism and its treatment of the Palestinians. This is not an
emotional response of the moment. In 2015 Deputy Defence Minister Eli Dahan
also called Palestinians ‘animals.’
To the more faint-hearted amongst
us who recoil at some of the atrocities that the Palestinian guerillas are
alleged to have committed I say this. There is no war yet when human rights
crimes haven’t been committed by both sides. The mass rape of German women at
the end of the last war, the undoubted war crimes committed by the British when
they bombed Dresden and Nuremburg did not mean that we were neutral as between
the Nazis and the Allies.
It is perfectly possible to condemn rape, the alleged parading of a naked
Israeli woman in Gaza City and yet support the Palestinian Uprising. Because we
all know that whatever war crimes have been committed by Palestinian fighters they
pale into insignificance compared to the endless Israeli atrocities. The
violence of the oppressed can never be compared with the violence of the
oppressor. In today's Times of Israel
I came upon this report of the killing of two Israelis:
At 8:20 a.m.,
terrorists entered Dvir’s home, he lunged at them with an axe, tried to protect
my two kids who were with him, and was murdered in front of
their eyes,” she posted. “His partner Stav also tried to protect them, but was
murdered as well. The terrorist calmed down my Daria and Lavi, covered them in
a blanket, took lipstick and wrote on the wall: ‘The al-Qassam [Brigades]
people don’t murder children.
When has Israel ever spared Palestinian children? Israel’s bombing
of Palestinian homes is indiscriminate by definition. The death of Palestinian children
does not disturb the average Israeli. So far this year 47 Palestinian children have been murdered
in the West Bank yet this and the brutal military occupation didn’t figure once
in the demands of Israelis in their mass demonstrations against the judicial
reforms. Ex-Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked called Palestinian children ‘'little
snakes'.
Let us also be clear that terrorism has a very specific meaning. It is
the deliberate use of violence against civilians for political purposes. It is Israel
which has been responsible throughout its existence for using terrorism as its
weapon of choice – be it the bombing by the Zionist Irgun of
the King David Hotel in 1946 when 92 people were killed and 46 injured to the Sabra and Chatilla massacres in
the refugee camps of Beirut in 1982 when around 2,000 unarmed Palestinians were
murdered by the Lebanese Phalange as Israeli troops lit up the skyline for them.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad are NOT terrorist organizations and they are only
deemed as such by a Tory Home Secretary Savid Javid who bowed to the pressure
of the Zionist Lobby. If interpreted literally the provisions of the Terrorism Act 2000 could be used to
render illegal any meeting or action supporting the uprising in Gaza.
It is quite possible that a meeting where support is given to Hamas and
Islamic Jihad’s attack on Israel could be deemed to ‘encourage support for a proscribed organisation or to further its
activities.’ under s.12 of the Act. Thus we see, once again, how Britain’s
anti-terrorist legislation is there, not to prevent ISIS style terrorism, but
to crack down on free speech that the government does not like.
In the explanation justifying the proscribing of Hamas the government said that the reason for this was
that
This is an outrageous abuse of the law. In the same 2001 clash 67 Palestinian
children were murdered by Israel. Is indiscriminate
rocket attacks worse than Israel’s targeted attacks on civilians and its
bombing of residential streets and peoples’ homes? This law is not about
terrorism it is about the suppression of free speech.
Although I support the attack on Israel by Hamas and Islamic Jihad I am
not a supporter of the two groups politically. They are Islamist groups whereas
I believe that the liberation of the Palestinians has nothing to do with
religion. It is a political struggle.
Of course the misnamed Campaign Against Antisemitism
has issued a typically dishonest, lying statement headed ‘We
will do whatever it takes to defend the Jewish community’. If the CAA,
which was formed in the summer of 2014 on the instigation of the Israeli state,
in order to try and smear solidarity action with Palestinians under attack in
Gaza with anti-Semitism, was seriously concerned with anti-Semitism, then they
would disband tomorrow.
Because there is nothing more likely to increase anti-Semitism in Britain
and attacks on Jews than those who do their best to associate British Jews with
Israeli war crimes.Even the Zionist Community
Security Trust admitted
this in its 2014 Anti-Semitic Incidents Report.
The single
biggest contributing factor to the record number of antisemitic incidents recorded
in 2014 was antisemitic reactions in the UK to the conflict in Israel and Gaza that
began on 8 July 2014 and ended on 26 August 2014. CST recorded the highest-ever
monthly total of 314 antisemitic incidents in July, and the third-highest ever
monthly total of 228 incidents in August.
The CAA, which is no more than an extension of the Israeli state and
which is directly
funded by the Israeli para-state organization the Jewish National Fund does
its best to equate Hamas attacks on Israel with the safety of British Jews.
In its statement the CAA accused Hamas
and Islamic Jihad of supporting the ‘genocide
of Jews.’ If anyone supports genocide it is people like Israel’s Police
Minister Itamar Ben Gvir who
had a poster of Baruch Goldstein on his living room wall. Goldstein entered
the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron and opened fire with an assault rifle killing 29
worshippers and injuring nearly a hundred. It is those in Israel who march to
the chant
of ‘Death to the Arabs’ who are the
genociders but of these people the CAA has nothing to say.
Those who
glorify terrorism and delight in the massacre of Jews, and those who use the
events still unfolding as cover for antisemitic acts should be under no
misapprehension: we will pursue justice against you.
Note how the CAA conflates ‘terrorism’ i.e. support for Palestinian organisations
with murder of Jews, which is the prerogative of the friends of the CAA –
fascist groups like Britain First and people like Tommy Robinson – both of whom
they keep company with.
Nonetheless we should treat seriously their legal threats. The reason is
that Britain’s racist Home Secretary Suella
Braverman combines her racism against refugees, with her talk of hurricanes,
with putting political pressure on the
police to arrest those who support the Palestinians.
Tory MP threatens use of Anti-Terrorism Act to suppress free speech
And just to make it clear to Braverman and her racist friends in the CAA,
I support totally the right of Hamas and Islamic Jihad and others to launch
attacks on Israel in response to the years of suffering and murder that they
have experienced at the hands of the Israeli state and furthermore there is nothing
you will ever be able to do about it.
Tony Greenstein
LLA
statement on Israel/Palestine: Oppression inevitably feeds resistance
The situation in the Middle East is more volatile than it has
been for many decades. We want to discuss what's going on - and if there is a
solution. Join us on Wednesday October 11 at 7pm for an open
discussion forum jointly sponsored by the LLA and the Republican
Labour Education Forum, which will be introduced by Tony Greenstein. More
details below, where you can also find the LLA's statement on the issue.
Hamas’
attack on Israel was certainly not ‘unprovoked’. The systematic and racist
oppression of the Palestinians by the colonialist state of Israel has massively
worsened with the introduction of the blockade 15 years ago and, more recently,
with the state-sponsored extension of illegal settlements and pogroms on
Palestinian land. These actions have created the horrific conditions which have
led to this dramatic act of resistance. The aim of the Israeli state is simple:
to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian population. It does not exploit the
Palestinian people, as the apartheid regime in South Africa did – it simply
wants to get rid of them. As a major ally of US-led imperialism in the
otherwise unstable Middle East, Israel is supported politically, financially
and militarily in this campaign by most ‘Western’ governments and receives more
than 3 billion dollars a year from the US alone (over 150 billion since its foundation).
This
attack however will be a long-awaited opportunity for the Israeli government to
distract from its own problems, rally the divided population behind it, move to
the right politically and expand its programme of ethnic cleansing. The US government
on the other hand might well use this attack as a precursor to heat up its
conflict with Iran.
The
results for the Palestinian population remain the same: Further Israeli
repression, particularly in the Gaza strip, is inevitable. Israel has no interest
in getting rid of Hamas, otherwise it would have to govern Gaza directly, at
great cost politically and financially. But they will want to destroy as much
of Gaza as possible, in front of the TV cameras, before declaring ‘revenge’ has
been served.
The attack
has naturally been described as “anti-Semitic” – that is, after all, what the
smear campaign in the Labour movement was all about, to prepare for a moment
like this. Getting rid of Jeremy Corbyn was just a convenient side effect and
it remains true that the failure of the official Left to stand up to the
witch-hunt has helped to prepare the current ground. Any opposition to the
programme of brutal ethnic cleansing and the coming expansion of military and
financial support for the Israeli government is likely to be branded ‘racist’
and anti-Jewish.
All the more important that
socialists continue to fight:
for an end to the occupation of Palestine
against the conflation of anti-Zionism with
anti-Semitism
against any political, financial or military support
for Israel
The real reason for the attack on Gaza lies not in
immediate events but in the logic of Zionism – ethnic cleansing
Last Monday 1st
August Israeli soldiers arrested Bassam al-Saadi, a prominent figure in Islamic
Jihad in Jenin refugee camp. Failing to provoke a response Israel decided
anyway to restrict traffic around Israeli communities adjacent
to the Gaza-Israel boundary, an area known as the "Gaza envelope" in
order to create the appearance of an imminent threat.
Bassam al-Saadi
One cannot however
look to immediate events and who did what as the explanation for Israel’s
latest murderous attack on Gaza and the Palestinians of the West Bank.
Since 2007 Gaza has
been living under a sea, air and land blockade as punishment for having voted
for Hamas in the last free Palestinian elections and in response to the removal
of a corrupt Fatah administration which had been planning a coup in tandem with
Israel.
Since then Israel has
repeatedly attacked Gaza.In 2008/9 in Operation
Cast Lead Israel killed nearly 1,400 Palestinians. In 2012 Operation Pillar
of Defence killed
174 Palestinians with hundreds wounded.
In 2014 in its most
murderous attack to date Operation
Protective Edge Israel killed 2,310 Palestinians and wounded nearly 11,000
including 3,374 children, over 1,000 of whom were left permanently disabled. 550 children were killed compared to 67
Israeli soldiers and 6 civilians
(including one child).
Israel’s strategy for
Gaza has always been very simple.To
make life as difficult as possible for those living there as a prelude to their
forcible displacement.As Efaim Inbar and Eitan Shamir wrote in a 2014 article for
the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies
“Against
an implacable, well-entrenched, nonstate enemy like the Hamas, Israel simply
needs to ‘mow the grass’ once in a while to degrade enemy capabilities. A war
of attrition against Hamas is probably Israel’s fate for the long term.”
In 2005
Israel withdrew from Gaza, not in order to facilitate peace with the
Palestinians but in order to prevent peace. As Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s
senior adviser Dov Weissglass explained:
"The significance of the
disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process. And when you freeze
that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you
prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively,
this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has
been removed indefinitely from our agenda.
This has
been the Israeli strategy ever since which is why those who call for the two
state solution do it knowing that Israel will never agree to a Palestinian
state. The two state solution is a smokescreen for continued Israeli occupation
and it is an apartheid solution.
As Mouin
Rabbani explained,
Israel’s siege
has nothing to do with security but in keeping Palestinians on the verge of
starvation:
‘The idea is
to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.’
He was
not speaking metaphorically: it later emerged that Israel’s Defence Ministry
had conducted detailed research on how to translate this into reality, and
arrived at a figure of 2,279 calories per person per day – some 8 per cent less
than a previous calculation because the research team had originally neglected
to account for ‘culture and experience’ an exercise in colonial racism Israeli
style.
Israel
thus calculated the bare minimum number of calories needed for the average
inhabitant to survive. This was not an original idea. The credit for that lies
with Hans Frank, the Nazi governor of Poland who was hanged at Nuremberg.
5 year old Alaa Abdullah-Riyad Qaddoum was the first child to die as part of Israel's 'right to self-defence'
What are Israel’s real
reasons for the attacks on Gaza and Palestinians in the West Bank?
We can of
course list the chronology leading up to Israel’s latest bombardment of Gaza
beginning with the arrest of Bassam al-Saadifollowed
by a wave of airstrikes killing Tayseer Jabari, the military commander of
Islamic Jihad along with seven other people, including a 5 year old girl, Alaa Abdullah-Riyad Qaddoum.
Naturally
the the US Ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, stated that “the
United States firmly believes that Israel has a right to protect itself.” It
would be remarkable indeed if the Ambassador had spoken about the right of
Palestinians to defend themselves. Suffice to say that there is nothing that Israel
does which will merit US condemnation.
We only
have to look at Israel’s excuse for bombing residential areas. That Hamas use
civilians as human shields. However when Amnesty International recently condemned
Ukraine’s army for doing exactly in a Report Ukrainian
fighting tactics endanger civilians the right-wing media went
ballistic. In the words of the Telegraph’s Stephen Pollard (ex-Jewish
Chronicle Editor) ‘Amnesty
is now utterly morally bankrupt’. The hypocrisy of these people beggars
belief.
It would
be wrong to ignore the Zionist dimension of Israel’s attack. Middle East
International ran
a piece stating that ‘The logic behind
Israel's Gaza attack, if any, is anyone's guess’ suggesting a variety
of reasons such as Israel’s forthcoming election or Iran. MEI said that ‘The unprovoked bombing campaign makes little
to no sense’. This simply misses the point.
It does however
make sense if you are a Zionist. There is indeed a logic but it will not be
found in Israel’s elections or a geopolitical stand-off with Iran. Israel’s
goal in the Occupied Territories is and always has been maximum land with the
fewest possible Arabs.
Josef Weitz
The
person who articulated this best was Josef Weitz, the Director of the Jewish
National Fund’s Land Settlement Division. Weitz was responsible for the nuts
and bolts of Zionist colonisation and he was obsessive about the necessity for
the transfer of the Palestinians.
In 1937
he formed
the first Transfer Committee, following the Peel Commission’s recommendation
to Partition Palestine and exchange its populations. In all he formed 3 Transfer
Committees, the last in 1948. Weitz wrote
in his diary on December 20, 1940:
it must be
clear that there is no room in the country for both [Arab and Jewish] peoples .
. . If the [Palestinian] Arabs leave it, the country will become wide and
spacious for us . . . The only solution [after the end of WW II] is a Land of
Israel, at least a western land of Israel [i.e. Palestine since Transjordan is
the eastern portion], without [Palestinian] Arabs. There is no room here for
compromises . . . There is no way but to transfer the [Palestinian] Arabs from
here to the neighboring countries, to transfer all of them, save perhaps for
[the Palestinian Arabs of] Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the old Jerusalem. Not one
village must be left, not one [Bedouin] tribe. The transfer must be directed at
Iraq, Syria, and even Transjordan [eastern portion of Eretz Yisrael]. For this
goal funds will be found . . . And only after this transfer will the country be
able to absorb millions of our brothers and the Jewish problem will cease to
exist. There is no other solution. (Benny
Morris, p. 27 & Expulsion
Of The Palestinians, 131-132)
Weitz
was frustrated in his objectives in 1948, because Israel did not conquer all of
Palestine. Transjordan occupied the West Bank. So although Israel expelled 85%
of Palestinians from the areas it controlled it was not until 1967 that Israel
completed the conquest of the whole of Palestine.
Yet even in 1967 Weitz was not
satisfied. Although all of Palestine had been captured and although around
300,000 Palestinians had been driven over the Jordan, the majority remained where
they were. He expressed his feelings in Davar,
the Labour Zionist paper that:
When the UN resolved to partition Palestine into
two states, the [1948] War of Independence broke out, to our great good fortune
[sic!], and in it there came to pass a double miracle: a territorial victory
and the flight of the Arabs. In the [1967] Six Days’ War there came to pass one
great miracle, a tremendous territorial victory, but the majority of the
inhabitants of the liberated territories remained ‘attached’ to their places,
which is liable to destroy the foundation of our State. The demographic problem
is the most acute, especially when to its numerical weight is added the weight
of the refugees.
Yosef Weitz, ‘Solution to the refugee problem: The
State of Israel with a small Arab minority’, Davar, 29.9. 67. [Moshe Machover, Reply
to Sol Stern, 1.1.73. Matzpen
The ‘problem’ that Israel faced
was the fact that although they had achieved one ‘miracle’, the capture of the
West Bank, god had not seen fit to grant them a second miracle like in 1948.
The Palestinians had stubbornly remained on the land.
It is this ‘problem’ which has
bedevilled the Zionists ever since and it explains everything in both the West
Bank and Gaza. Circumstances are not right to enable them simply to deport 5
million Palestinians. Their only option is to make life so uncomfortable that
the Palestinians will want to leave. And for some Palestinians, in particular Christian
Palestinians, this has had some success.
It is this, not one or other incident
or shooting, which explains the recurrent attacks on Gaza and the military
repression coupled with violent settler/army attacks in the West Bank.
This is why those who posit
‘solutions’ such as two states entirely miss the point. The Israeli state is a
settler colonial state whose founding goal of a Jewish state means inevitably that
the number of Palestinians must be reduced to the absolute minimum.
Weitz put the figure at 15% at
the most and in Israel already the number of Israeli Palestinians is over
20%.Coupled with the Palestinian
majority in the West Bank that is the ‘existential question’ that Zionism has
had to face and that explains everything that follows.
In Israel itself Judaisation
and the Prawer Plan
in the Naqab/Negev, ethnic
cleansing in Jerusalem and the Koenig
Report, the Judaisation of the Galilee, coupled with planning processes
that ensures Arab villages and towns within Israel are surrounded by Jewish
towns and communities are one solution. But even they don’t reduce Arab numbers.
The real problem is Zionism itself
and its goal of an ethnically pure Jewish state. To that there is only one
solution. The dismantlement of the Zionist state itself.
Merav Michaeli of the Israeli Labor Party has given full support to the attack on Gaza
And just in case you thought that
the Israeli Labor Party might live up to its name you might be reassured that its leader Merav Michaeli gave
full backing for the attack on Gaza tweeting
that “The residents of Israel deserve to
live in security. No sovereign state would accept a siege
on its residents by a
terror organization’ (my emphasis) No mention of the fact that it is Gaza which
has been under siege for over 15 years. These are the racist double standards
of the Zionist ‘left’.
The other ‘left’
Zionist party in Israel’s far-Right coalition, Meretz, has not opposed the
attacks and as is normally the case has given the government its support.
However it
is good to know that in Britain Palestine Action has once again occupied the
factories of Elbit and its subsidiaries. Elbit supplies over 80% of Israel’s
drones and missiles.
I have
also sent an open letter/complaint to the BBC asking about their double
standards. They broadcast Israeli Prime Minister Lapid’s justification for the
attacks on Gaza but somehow failed to do the same when it came to Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine.
On Monday 1st July, activists walked calmly through security
gates at Discovery Park, an industrial estate near Sandwich in Kent, and
entered the grounds of Instro
Precision which makes scopes for drones, guns and surveillance equipment
amongst other things.
The
company is one of four UK based companies owned and controlled by Elbit Systems – a massive Israeli arms company with close ties to the Israeli state government. Elbit make 80%
of the drones that were used in Operation Protective Edge, an Israeli operation
from 2014 in which thousands of Palestinians were killed (including more than
500 children) and over 10,000 were injured. Amnesty
research showed that there was a failure to avoid excessive harm to
civilians and was therefore a war crime.
The activists put D-locks on both vehicle entrances to the
factory and some climbed on top of a shipping container while others sprayed
graffiti on the windows at the front of the building and on a shutter door at
the rear of the building.
Police arrived and entered into long discussions with senior
managers, including Carl Miller the Operations Director. After several hours, a
cutting team arrived with police reinforcements, and once the front gates had
been freed, dozens of staff (who had been inside the building on an early or
overnight shift) were escorted from the premises while activists chanted, held
banners and handed out leaflets.
Mr Miller then locked up the building and police communicated
to the protesters that they were free to leave at any time without arrest.
After a total of six and a half hours, and satisfied that the
action had closed Elbit-Instro for the day, the activists, some of whom were
from East Kent
Campaign Against the Arms Trade, left together.
The big question is surely that if Instro’s business
is entirely lawful, why on earth would they instruct police not to
make any arrests, given that lock-ons, graffiti and disruption of business all
have clear legal ramifications?
In a synchronised action on the same day, activists in Oldham
targeted another Elbit factory there and some remained in
occupation for three days, temporarily closing it down.
The Kent action was the sixth in Thanet, but the first at
Instro’s new site on Discovery Park, making it clear that arms manufacturers
are not welcome in Kent.
It seems that Elbit is such a dodgy company that even HSBC,
who aren’t exactly known for their moral rectitude, have decided to divest
their $600k shareholding due to concerns over illegal cluster munitions.
Credit: Jerusalem Post
Palestinians have called for an international embargo on the
trade of weapons to and from Israel, and urge individuals and groups to take
direct action to shut down Elbit factories across the UK.
More info via #StopArmingIsrael and @BlockTheFactory
UPDATE: We’ve heard that the Oldham
activists, although originally arrested when they came down after three days,
have all been released without charge. Elbit are seemingly
very forgiving at having their Oldham factory closed down for two whole days.
The BBC Carried Israel’s Justification for Bombing Gaza
but not Putin’s Explanation for Invading Ukraine – Why?
Open Letter
and Complaint to the BBC
Once
again when Israel attacks Gaza or the Palestinians in the West Bank the BBC
does its best to obscure the origins of the conflict and present the situation
as if it is a contest between equals.
Naturally
being even handed the BBC is anxious to present both sides of the ‘conflict’ so
it carried without comment the ‘explanation’ of Israeli Prime Minister Yair
Lapide that Israel was undertaking the bombardment of Gaza with a ‘heavy heart’
and Israeli government spokespersons explained that they mourned the death of every
Palestinianthey murdered. Of course
they don’t mourn enough to stop the killing.
And
naturally the BBC gives full coverage to the hundreds of ‘rockets’ that Islamic
Jihad had fired at Israel, thus giving the impression that it wasn’t Gaza but
Israel that was under attack and that Israel had no alternative but to hit
back.
There
is no explanation that these ‘rockets’ are unguided, crude missiles which a
limited range and velocity and thus easy to shoot down.
During
the broadcast of the Voice of Israel aka the BBC, a thought occurred to me. Why
is it that the BBC’s determination at even handedness didn’t extend to offering
Vladimir Putin the opportunity of explaining the Russian case?
With
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the BBC has no difficulty in taking sides. There
is no ‘both sidism’ there. The BBC is opposed to theoccupation and furthermore it portrays the Ukrainian
resistance in a positive light whereas Palestinian resistance is portrayed as ‘terrorism’
and the fighters are described as ‘militants’ (as opposed to Israeli moderates).
Well
you may criticise me for my naivety but I thought I should pen a complaint to
the BBC.In fact, because the BBC limit
complaints to 2,000 characters I had to submit it over 5 complaint submissions!
Yolande Knell, the BBC's racist correspondent in Jerusalem
And
as I explain in my complaint the BBC’s correspondent in Jerusalem is none other
than Yolande Knell, who in her coverage of the Jerusalem Day pogroms by
thousands of Israeli settlers, managed to describe
the pogroms and the resulting attacks on Palestinian civilians, as a festive
party.
With
racists like Knell ensconced at the BBC there really is no need to interview Israeli
government spokespersons at all.
Tony
Greenstein
Dear
BBC,
With
the latest Israeli attack on Gaza the BBC has once again done its best to
justify Israel’s false narrative that it is defending itself against
Palestinian aggression. And who better to help it in its task than its racist
reporter in Jerusalem, Yolande Knell. Knell is the woman who last May 19 found it
impossible to tell the
difference between a party and a pogrom in East Jerusalem.
Lest
one forget this is how she described a march through Arab East Jerusalemin which dozens of Arabs were
physically attacked by thousands of nationalist demonstrators shouting ‘Death
to the Arabs’
there are just thousands upon thousands
of young Israelis like this that I’ve seen around the city the mood of
them is really jubilant, it’s festive, it feels like a party.
On
1 August, in Jenin refugee camp, Israeli soldiers arrested Bassam
al-Saadi, a prominent figure
in Islamic Jihad. Failing to provoke a response Israel decided anyway to restrict traffic around Israeli communities adjacent to the Gaza-Israel
boundary, an area known as the "Gaza envelope" in order to give the
appearance of an imminent threat.
Despite no missiles being fired on Friday afternoon
Israel launched an attack by air on various points in
Gaza. The main target was a residential building in Gaza City. Several missiles
landed with precision on three apartments in that building.
The barrage killed Taiseer al-Jabari, the commander of the
northern division of al-Quds Brigades (Saraya al-Quds), the military wing of
the PIJ. It also killed Alaa Qaddoum, a five-year-old girl, together with a 23-year-old woman
and seven other Palestinian men.
By
Sunday afternoon, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported 31 people had
been killed since Friday, including six children. More than 265 have been
wounded. There are to date no Israeli casualties.
The
attack on Gaza was therefore an unprovoked attack on a defenceless population.
Although the BBC can be relied on not give any background to what has happened
the facts are clear enough.
The Israeli blockade of occupied Gaza Strip has been in place
since June 2007, when Israel imposed an airtight land, sea and air blockade.
Israel controls Gaza’s airspace and territorial waters, as
well as two of the three border crossing points.
Gaza
is subject to a suffocating blockade that restricts the entry of food, medicine
and anything that Israel decides might make life more comfortable. 95% of the
water is undrinkable and electricity is limited to 3-4 hours a day.
Drones
patrol the airspace 24 hours a day presenting an ever present threat to the
inhabitants as well as emitting an unbearable high pitched noise.
When
it wants to, which is often, Israel attacks Gaza, an area of Palestine of 365sq
km, the size of Cape Town orDetroit
knowing full well that it lacks the capability to retaliate. None of this
information is provided to viewers by way of background information.
The
‘missiles’ that the BBC talks about are in reality little more than fireworks,
unguided, unsophisticated and incapable of significant damage, especially as
Israel is able to shoot down over 90% of them. By way of contrast Israel has an
airforce, drones and guided high explosive missiles and other ordinance which
it can use to devastating effect.
The
BBC however refuses to portray the fight as a David and Goliath struggle
preferring instead to portray it as a fight between equals. This is just one of
the dishonest ways in which the BBC deliberately misinforms its audience.
Although
the BBC did report the murder of a 5 year old girl in Gaza it immediately
carried the lying justification of Yair Lapid, Israel’s Prime Minister that it
was acting in ‘self defence’.
I
can’t help wondering why it is that when Russia attacked Ukraine, with far
better justification than Israel, that the BBC did not immediately carry
Vladimir Putin’s explanation as to why he attacked Ukraine. After all NATO has
been expanding up to Russia’s borders since 1999
despite repeated assurances
at the time of German reunification that no expansion into Eastern Europe was
contemplated.
Or
to use another analogy. I wonder whether the BBC would have carried Hitler’s ‘justification’ for the invasion of Poland that it too was an act of self-defence.
This is certainly what Hitler claimed at the time.
Once
again the BBC has acted as an apologist for Israel’s claims that it was
justified in launching an unprovoked attack on Gaza.
Of
course the real reasons for Israel’s attack are not hard to fathom. Since its
creation Israel has embarked on the systematic ethnic cleansing of the
Palestinians. Most of Gaza’s population are refugees from what is now Israel.
Ethnic cleansing was the way to ensure that in a ‘Jewish’ state the majority of
the population were Jewish.
Israel
embarked on the colonisation of the West Bank since 1967, with the settler
population now standing at over 600,000. Of course the BBC never describes the
apartheid nature of the occupation with the settlers subject to Israeli civil law
with the Palestinians living under military rule with no say as to how they are
governed. After all the word ‘Apartheid’ is verboten.
It
is abundantly clear that in Israel’s eyes the solution to its ‘demographic
problem’ of too many Arabs in what is now Greater Israel, is their expulsion.
Ethnic cleansing. Another phrase that is not part of the BBC’s lexicon.
What
better way to achieve this than the theft of land in the West Bank accompanied
by terror from the army and settlers. This is the explanation for the
assassination of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, whose reporting of
such violence caused Israel considerable political embarrassment.
Extra-judicial executions are part and parcel of Israel’s military occupation.Another fact the BBC choses not to report.
As
the Middle East Monitor reported in August
2019:
“There has
been an increase recently in Israeli projects seeking solutions to what it
calls the "Gaza problem". They have been focusing on Egypt's Sinai,
and appear to be foreshadowing a potential population transfer of Palestinians
to the Sinai peninsula. Such a move would relieve Israel from the security
burdens of managing Gaza and instead transfer it onto the Egyptian
authorities.”
Of
course the BBC treats all Israeli ‘explanations’ in good faith despite the fact
that Israel has pursued a policy of ethnic cleansing and Judaification of the
Negev, Galilee and East Jerusalem since its inception.The Koenig Report and the Prawer Plan are
somehow never mentioned by the BBC because this would undermine its narrative.
I
expect no better of the BBC because at the end of the day it is the mouthpiece
of British foreign policy. That is why it is why the BBC should come clean. Up
till 2014 the World Service was directly funded by the government via the
Foreign & Commonwealth Office before being transferred to the license fee .
Given
its role as a NATO propaganda station it is clearly unacceptable that the BBC
should be funded by the licence fee.
As
the government’s press release last March declared: The
government is giving the BBC World Service emergency funding to help it
continue bringing independent, impartial and accurate news to people in Ukraine
and Russia in the face of increased propaganda from the Russian state. What the
government calls impartial is propaganda to most people.
There
is really no reason why people should buy a TV license when all they are doing
is funding a service that should properly be the responsibility of the
government or NATO itself.
Since
the BBC does not recognise its responsibility to fairly report affairs in the
Middle East or Ukraine there is no obligation on people to buy a licence.
