Let us call Israel’s destruction of the Bedouin village of Humsa al-Baqai’a for what it is – a Nazi-like act

Three times Israel soldiers using JCB bulldozers have destroyed water tanks, toys and homes using the pretext that it is a military firing range

Herschel Grynszpan - who assassinated German Embassy official vom Rath

From 1933 to 1941 the Nazi policy towards the Jews was not extermination but expulsion. Today that is the unwritten but official policy of the Israeli state towards the Palestinians. According to the IHRA misdefinition of anti-Semitism such a comparison is anti-Semitic, even though it is true. That is one of the unique accomplishments of Zionism and its McCarthyist supporters. Something can be anti-Semitic even though it is true.

It was the expulsion of Jewish refugees from Germany to Poland, leaving them stranded in no mans land, cold and hungry, that caused the 17 year old Herschel Grynszpan to assassinate Ernst vom Rath at the German Embassy in Paris on 7^th November 1938. Herschel’s parents had been amongst those stranded Jews.

Israeli soldiers and workmen get to work destroying Palestinian homes

The death of vom Rath on 9^th November was used by Hitler and Goebbels to launch Kristallnacht, a massive Nazi directed SA pogrom against Germany’s Jews. Hundreds of synagogues were burnt to the ground, nearly a hundred Jews were murdered and over 30,000 were placed in concentration camps.

Israel’s eviction of the Palestinian village of Humsa al-Baqai’a in the Jordan Valley is part of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from Area C of the West Bank. It is no different in principle to the Nazis’ expulsion of Germany's Jews who were also not considered nationals of Germany. 

Indeed it is worse in many ways. Hitler never pretended that Nazi Germany was a democracy.  He reviled democracy whereas Israel claims that it’s the ‘only democracy in the  Middle East’.

British and European Union supplies of equipment destroyed

Full marks therefore to Jon Snow of Channel 4, the only news journalist who has any ethics for the recent coverage of the demolition of Humsa.

Israel's military last week took delight in their third destruction of Humsa. Not content with bulldozing the tents that the European Union had given to the Palestinians you can see on the video how one soldier empties the water tanks of the Palestinians. What kind of bestial mentality is it that would pour the water of communities who are water thirsty onto the ground?

A few of the belongings that have been saved from destruction

Jon Snow’s interview with a representative of the Israeli embassy, Ohad Zemet, was an uncomfortable one.  The number of lies that Zemet told is illustrative.

The first lie is that Israel acts in accordance with international law. That is such an egregious lie.  The Fourth Geneva Convention specifically forbids moving settlers into occupied territory. The occupier is also forbidden to transfer that population out of the  territories. Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled that the Geneva Convention does not apply to Israel’s occupation.

The second lie is that Israel possesses an ‘independent judiciary’ the envy of the world.  It doesn’t.  Israel’s judicial system is an integral part of the Zionist system of control. It has consistently enforced laws designed to segregate and subdue Israel's Palestinians. It has consistently turned a blind eye to for example the 1950 Absentee Property Law which has been used and is still being used to confiscate land from Israeli Palestinians. It has never been used to confiscate land from Jews. The Supreme Court has also accepted the explicitly racist Jewish Nation State Law.

A view of the wreckage

The third lie is that the Bedouin had broken Israeli law and were squatters. The fact that these villagers have lived on this land for longer than the existence of the Israeli state gives the lie to this claim. Israeli law simply acts to legalise what is naked theft.  That is what Zionism is - land theft and ethnic cleansing.

In any case in a democratic society, civilians elect a government to pass the laws which govern them. The Palestinians have no vote and no say in the Israeli military law that governs them.  To therefore talk of breaking Israeli law is like talking of breaking the laws of the Nazi occupation. These laws have no democratic validity.

The fourth lie is that the Palestinians have defied zoning law and planning permission. In Area C virtually no Palestinians are granted planning permission and Israel has repeatedly demolished COVID isolation tents of the Palestinians to add to their racist crime of refusing to vaccinate Palestinians living under occupation, contrary to Article 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The fifth lie is a more subtle racist lie.  The Palestinians are being moved for their own safety because they are living on a firing range!  Unfortunately Jon Snow didn’t pick up on this. It is a regular device of the Israeli military to declare closed military zones on Palestinian, never Jewish settler, land precisely in order to have a pretext to evict them.  Usually, once the Palestinians have been evicted, the firing range becomes safe for the settlers.

A variation of this use of military firing zones is when the Israeli authorities forbid access to the said land.  After a year the Cultivation of Waste Land law kicks in. Uncultivated land reverts to the state after one year. And that just happens to be the Israeli state, Israeli state land is ‘Jewish national’ land, access to which is barred to Palestinians.

The tents, water tanks and equipment that the Israel’s Nazi-like troops destroyed with with a JCB bulldozer, were paid for by Britain and the European Union. Although it’s good to see Britain’s Consul General in Jerusalem protesting this act of destruction it would carry more weight if Britain and the EU were to impose penalties on Israel such as the withdrawal of Israel’s special trading status.  Coupled with an arms embargo.

Until Britain and the EU impose penalties on Israel then all their words of protest are meaningless hot air. The Zionist state listens to nothing except force because ethnic cleansers do not have any morality that civilised human beings recognise.

Of course Keir Starmer, the ‘Zionist without qualification’ has kept his mouth shut.  He neither sees, hears nor speaks any criticism of Israel. That the ‘left’ in the Labour Party – from the Campaign Group to Momentum – is too cowardly to call for the removal of this reactionary stiff is testimony to their uselessness.

Tony Greenstein

 

 

Cameron Wriggles Over Tory Election Fraud

Wonderful entertainment!

Tony Greenstein

Watch Jon Snow demolish Cameron over election fraud allegations (VIDEO)

June 18th, 2016

For the first time since the election expenses scandal broke on Channel 4 News in January, Jon Snow got a chance to put the allegations to the Prime Minister.

The Conservative Party has come under increasing pressure regarding their alleged overspending at elections over several issues, with 18 police forces investigating potential fraud and 31 MPs implicated. The original Channel 4 investigation focused on 3 by-elections in Kent – Rochester and Strood, Clacton-on-Sea, and Newark-upon-Trent where £100,000 of hotel bookings had not been declared.

There were further allegations that the Tories broke the law fighting off Nigel Farage in South Thanet. Investigations have revealed that undeclared expenses would have taken MP, Craig MacKinlay, £18,973 over the spending limit. Kent police have now been granted an extension to investigate these claims – but not before the Conservative party sent a barrister to Kent to unsuccessfully oppose the application.

Following this, there were revelations that the Tories had overspent on their battle bus campaign – with 24 MPs under investigation for not declaring associated costs.

The Canary has also been carrying out its own investigations into electoral fraud with evidence from a whistleblower that the Tories conducted misleading surveys. Those paid to carry out the surveys were allegedly instructed not to reveal that they were, in fact, working for the Conservative party. Again, there are questions over whether this spending was, or should have been, declared on their spending returns.

The interview:

The last time Jon Snow tried to interview MPs about electoral fraud, he was left with nine empty chairs as none of the accused could face turning up to answer his questions. However finally, after five months, Channel 4 were able to put some of their questions to David Cameron. And it did not go well for the Prime Minister.

Having questioned Cameron over the referendum, Snow turned to the election expenses, asking:

Why have you been prepared to spend money on a QC to try and stop the police investigating what we have revealed?

Cameron’s first words were an outright lie:

Well, we haven’t been doing that, what we are doing is we are co-operating with a…

Snow immediately interrupted to challenge him:

You have a QC in the Thanet South constituency, in the court, actually asking the court to stop the investigation.

When Cameron tried to come up with more waffle, Snow hammered the point home:

You went to court to ask the court not to allow the police an extension to go on investigating these abuses.

To which Cameron responded in direct contradiction to his first answer:

That’s right.

Cameron then claimed that he was “very happy for the Electoral Commission to examine all of this” to which Snow immediately asked:

Well why get a QC to stop it then?

Yet again, the Prime Minister had no answer to give, and floundered saying:

Well, that was in one particular seat.

He then reiterated he was “happy” there was now time for the allegations to be investigations and that “they had all the paperwork to examine this”.

This was a another contentious issue as Snow interrupted Cameron again:

They have got the paperwork, but Prime Minister, with respect, the Electoral Commission had to go to court to wring the papers out of you.

Cameron denied this was the case, and Snow reiterated the point:

You were three days overdue and they had to go to court.

The Prime Minister then went from saying “they didn’t have to go to court” to saying that in their view it was “unnecessary” which is hardly the same point. This is especially pertinent given the judgement in the South Thanet case refers to the fact that the party failed “to provide complete and timely disclosure of relevant material such that application had to be made to the High Court”.

Knowing he was onto a losing article, Cameron resorted to:

But anyway there’s no point having a spat about this now.

Which led Snow to accuse Cameron of not taking the accusations “seriously” and that:

There are 31 seats, that you under-declared, and in some cases by tens of thousands of pounds, hotel costs which were never figured in the local inventory.

Cameron repeated the much touted rhetoric that it the battles expenses were “national expenses”. 

Having not been able to give a clear, consistent or truthful answer to any of the questions up to this point, he then confusingly claimed:

I don’t think there are any questions that anyone is asking that we can’t answer.

Snow then nailed him with the judgement from the application for the extension to investigate the offences:

The judge said that Channel 4 news allegations indicate the potential for offences committed in a significant number of constituencies on an unprecedented scale. This is scandal of very large proportions.

Instead of giving a straight answer, Cameron attempted to see how many times he could put the word “national” into one reply:

Well, I don’t agree with that as I say all parties have these national bus tours, which I think by definition are national, and all parties have costs associated with those national tours which again I’d say by definition are national. And those should be part of the national declaration.

Cameron was then asked about his own majority being in “serious danger” if any of the allegations were proved. However, instead of answering the question, he chose to sneer at the investigation:

As I say look, it’s a Channel 4 investigation. I know that you’re proud of the work you’ve done. 

We’re very happy we’re answering all of the questions. I think you’re making quite a large mountain out of what I think is a relatively straightforward…

Snow interrupted:

So you disagree with the judge then?

To which Cameron responded:

No, no. I think it is a relatively straightforward set of questions that we have to answer.

Well, Cameron, evidently you do disagree with the judge given the judgement clearly states that given the number of overlapping accusations the case is “complex and time consuming”.

Despite his assertions, it is very clear Cameron is able to give anything but a straight answer to these allegations of election fraud. Just the act of sending a barrister to attempt to obstruct the police investigation in South Thanet is an example of how worried is he is – and no number of glib replies can cover this.

Given the small majority the Conservatives have, this scandal has the real potential of costing them power. It is essential that these offences are investigated properly to ensure they haven’t been governing and imposing their mandate of austerity through fraud and false accounting.

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A Look Back at Jon Snow's Previous Interviews with the New Israeli Ambassador to Britain

SEE CAMERON SQUIRM - Why the UK supported Saudi Arabia's membership of the UN Human Rights Council

A must-watch interview.  David Cameron twists and squirms as he attempts to defend his government’s support for Saudi Arabia on the UN Human Rights Council.

Tony Greenstein

David Cameron attempts to defend 'squalid' deal with Saudi Arabia in excruciating interview with Jon Snow

Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, 17, faces the death penalty for engaging in pro-democracy demonstrations during the Arab Spring

Cameron repeatedly failed to answer the question during the interview Channel 4, via YouTube

David Cameron has repeatedly refused to explain why the British government agreed to a “squalid” deal with Saudi Arabia, as the country prepares to behead and crucify a teenager for engaging in pro-democracy protests during the Arab Spring.

In an excruciating interview with Channel 4’s Jon Snow, the Prime Minister floundered for a response when questioned on the recently exposed secret deal with the Saudis to allow both nations’ election to the UN Human Rights Council in 2013.

“This sounds a bit squalid for one of the most human rights abusing regimes on earth,” Mr Snow comments.

The PM claimed he would attempt to personally raise the case of Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, a 17-year-old teenager arrested when he was 14 who faces the death penalty, but only if there was an “opportunity” with Saudi authorities.

"We oppose the death penalty anywhere and everywhere in all our international contacts," Mr Cameron added.

Pressure mounts on Saudi Arabia over imminent beheading and crucifixion of alleged protester

Asked three times by Mr Snow why – if Mr Cameron “completely disagreed” with the repressive state over their “punishment routines” as he claimed earlier – the UK had agreed to the deal with the Saudi government the PM claimed: “Well, I’ve answered the question.”

“Well, that isn’t an answer is it? I mean we have done a horrid deal,” Mr Snow responds.

Finally, the Conservative leader claimed it was because the British government has “a relationship with Saudi Arabia.”

"The reason we have the relationship is our own national security. There was one occasion since I’ve been prime minister where a bomb that would have potentially blown up over Britain was stopped because of intelligence we got from Saudi Arabia.”

“Of course it would be easier for me to come on your programme and say: ‘I’m not having anything 
to do with these people, it’s all terribly difficult etcetera etcetera.’ For me, Britain’s national security and our people’s security comes first,” he added.

Wikileaks released documents this week purporting to show the UK and Saudi Arabia supported each nation’s election the UN Human Rights Council in 2013. Both countries were later elected to the 47-member council until 2016.

Human rights organisation have decried Saudi authorities decision to kill Mr al-Nimr, with Amnesty International describing the teenager’s trial as unfair and “deeply flawed.”