Compared to the IDF Hamas are the equivalent of Orwell’s ‘Old Maids Biking to Holy Communion Through The Mists of the Autumn Mornings’
The commonly accepted definition of ‘terrorism’ is is:
the use of violence or threats of violence to create
fear and achieve political, religious, or ideological goals. It often involves
targeting civilians or innocent people to influence public opinion, government
actions, or policy decisions.
Most people
have a good understanding of what terrorism means in practice. It is the
planting of a bomb at a concert, such as the Manchester
Arena bombing where 21 people died or the attack on the Bataclan
Theatre in Paris where 89 concert goers died. Or Israel's bombing of a school or hospital because they believe a member of Hamas has entered the premises.
The Terrorism
Act 2000 though has a much wider definition. Terrorism is defined as the use
or threat of action which is designed to influence the government [or an
international governmental organisation] or to intimidate the public and it is made
for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological
cause which involves:
1.
Serious violence against a person
2.
Serious damage to property
3.
endangers a person’s life,
4.
creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or
5.
is designed seriously to interfere with or disrupt an electronic system
This
definition is so wide that the state can label virtually any group it dislikes
as terrorists including non-violent protest groups such as Palestine Action.
This
definition is absurd. Terrorism is not damage to property, unless it is combined
with attacks on people, especially civilians.
It has
nothing to with health and safety. Were the Chief Executives of the cladding
companies who caused the Grenfell fire deaths prosecuted?
It has
nothing to do with electronic systems either.
There is
separate legislation to deal with all of the above. Terrorism is about creating
terror in a civilian population by e.g. planting bombs in market places,
schools and hospitals. If anyone is the terrorist it is the Israeli state in
Gaza and the Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan.
What is
happening is a nakedly transparent attempt to use the spectre of terrorism in order to
attack fundamental democratic rights such as freedom of speech and association by
labelling protest groups like Palestine Action or resistance groups like Hamas and the PKK as ‘terrorists’.
It results in the arrest of blind
people and octogenarians for holding up a sign in Parliament Square supporting Palestine
Action. It results in a Police
raid on five members of Defend Our Juries to prevent them addressing a
press conference. This is terrorism. Indeed one prime candidate for proscription as a terrorist group is the genocide supporting
Metropolitan Police!
It’s strange that the Met are so
concerned about the proscription of Palestine Action but are remarkably
unconcerned about the dozens of British people who have served in the IDF in
Gaza committing war crimes, contrary to the Foreign Enlistment
Act 1870. The International
Criminal Court Act 2001 makes aiding
a genocide a criminal act but the Met don’t seem very interested in that law. They
pick and choose which laws to implement according to the whims and dictates of
their political masters.
If this happened
in Hong Kong it would be all over the BBC
but because it’s in Britain the fuckwits say next to nothing.
The Terrorism
Act allows the State to proscribe and thus render illegal national liberation
movements and resistance organisations such as the African National Congress in
South Africa, which Thatcher and Reagan termed
a terrorist group.
It would
have been equally possible, if the Terrorism Act had been in force a century
ago, to proscribe the French or Polish resistance to the Nazis. That is what
the Nazis called them. In other words it entirely depends on which side you are
on.
As Lord
Carrington, Thatcher’s first Foreign Secretary declared, ‘one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorists’. In other words it is entirely subjective
and is open to abuse by the government.
Most people
would support the right of the Kurds to self-determination but the government
has proscribed
the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) because the government, is in alliance with
Recip Erdogan’s semi-fascist government.
The
Terrorism Act and proscription has nothing to do with fighting terrorism and
everything to do with defining as ‘terrorists’ groups the government doesn’t
like. It is about imperialist foreign policy.
Most people would say that the
neo-Nazi Azov Brigade in the Ukraine which openly
displays Nazi symbols and whose founder Andre Biletsky declared in 2010
that his country’s mission was to “lead the white races of the world in a final
crusade . . . against Semite-led Untermenschen”,
or inferior races was a terrorist group.
So why the fuck haven't you summoned the Israeli Ambassador the war criminal @TzipiHotovely - or is it that you are a racist coconut @davidlammy and Palestinian lives aren't as important?
— Tony Greenstein tonygreenstein.com (@TonyGreenstein) August 29, 2025
The late Bernie Grant the former MP for Tottenham must be turning in his grave that he has… https://t.co/se0zTfs5if pic.twitter.com/HxDQdTRAIP
However the
Azov Battalion are one of the main
militias at the disposal of the Ukrainian government in its fight with
Russia so politics dictate that they are not proscribed.
Similarly Abu
Mohammed al-Jolani heads
what is the HTS/Al Qaeda government in Syria which Britain and the United
States are establishing friendly relations with, despite the fact that HTS is still proscribed as
another name for Al Qaeda in Syria (Al Nusra).
Despite the thousands of Alawites,
Druze and Christians who have been massacred
by these fascists, people like John Sawyer, the former head of MI6 and Alistair
Campbell and Rory Stuart have praised them without facing legal sanctions.
Sawyer spoke
of how
‘’the actions we've seen of HTS over the last two
weeks have been those of a liberation movement, not of a terrorist
organisation."
What is that if not a ‘supportive’
comment in breach of s.12(1A) of the 2000 Terrorism Act?
So why are
the Police and Government attacking people that they deem supporters of Hamas,
who in reality are supporters of the Palestinians? The answer is simple. Because of Britain’s alliance
with Israel which is a consequence of US foreign policy in the Middle East.
That is
why, despite the horrendous massacres and human rights abuses, which clearly
amount to a premeditated genocide, Britain, Germany and the Netherlands continue
to supply Israel with the weapons they need to continue to carry on the killing.
The
hypocrisy of our war criminal rulers, such as Starmer and Lammy is staggering.
They constantly refer to the break-out from Gaza, the world’s largest open air ‘prison
camp’ (David Cameron), on October 7 as an unmitigated atrocity, whilst refusing to allow the word 'genocide' to pass their lips. They ignore the slaughter and starvation of
Palestinian civilians and the open
declaration by Israeli leaders that they intend to carry out the war crime
of ethnic cleansing.
Think of
any of the hundreds if not thousands of atrocities that have been committed in
Gaza. All of them have been justified by Israel’s professed determination to
eliminate the ‘terrorists’ of Hamas.
Let us leave
aside the question as to whether Israel’s real goal is the ethnic cleansing of
Gaza and their replacement by Israeli settlers. Let us forget the fact that the Israeli government and
IDF are liars to whom the truth is a stranger.
Let us
pretend that their goal is the elimination of Hamas. The same group that
Netanyahu supported
over the past 20 years as a means of preventing the establishment of a
Palestinian state. Israel was happy
for Qatar to channel funds to Hamas.
Israel was instrumental in the creation of Hamas. But we are supposed to forget everything that is contradicts the imperialist narrative. That means forgetting the Washington Post’s 2014 article How Israel Helped Create Hamas or the Wall Street Journal’s 2009 article How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas and many similar articles.
In order to support US
imperialism and its Zionist attack dog in the Middle East we have to put to one
side anything that runs counter to the idea that Israel is on the side of the
good guys fighting terrorism.
For example we should forget that
Israel was born in terrorism. We must pretend that its three
terror groups – Lehi/Stern Gang, the Irgun and Hagannah were really freedom
fighters. According
to the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum archive
Jewish terrorist groups were responsible for
repeated terrorist incidents and attacks on the Palestine Police, British Army
and British Dependants as well as massacres of Palestinian villagers to free up
land for settlement. The major Jewish terrorist groups were Haganah
and Irgun, both of whom formed prior to the Second World War, and Lehi,
also known as the Stern Gang which formed in 1940. In total 784 British men,
women, soldiers and civilians were killed between the years 1945 and 1948 in an
attempt to bring peace and stability to Palestine.
But this was not terrorism according
to the Zionists. Today there are streets and even towns named after the ‘heroes’
of the Zionist terror gangs including Yair Stern, Commander of Lehi. In 1940-1 Lehi,
offered
the Nazis a military pact – not once but twice.
Lehi was also responsible for the
assassination
of both the resident British Minister in Cairo, Lord Moyne and the UN mediator Count
Folk Bernadotte, a man who had personally saved thousands of Jews and non-Jews
from the Nazis. The latter murder was ordered by Yitzhak Shamir, a man who
twice became Israeli Prime Minister.
It is therefore no surprise that it
is the IDF, in their ‘war’ against children in the Gaza Strip, who are the real
terrorists. If ‘terrorism’ is the problem then it is with the terrorists that
western imperialism is aligned. Israel is the classic example of a terrorist
state.
There is no atrocity, no
abomination that it is not capable of. From bombing hospitals, schools, universities,
bakeries, water desalination plants, food stores, even Red Crescent workers. Israel
has done the lot. Israel is even arming
ISIS gangs in Gaza but you won't get that from the BBC.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the
PFLP/DFLP are the good guys. No matter how many epithets Starmer/Lammy/Trump use,
the fact is that the Palestinian fighters in Gaza are fighting evil.
On
25 August Israeli tanks fired missiles killing two journalists who
were using a camera on the 4th floor of the Nasser Hospital. According to
Israel the target was a “Hamas Camera” that was tracking the movement of
Israeli soldiers in the area who “felt
threatened and moved to eliminate the threat.”
This however
was a lie. The camera fed into a Reuters news feed. It had nothing to do with
Hamas but as we know Israel never knowingly tells the truth when a lie
suffices. The BBC however will accept any Israeli lie at face value. See
Jonathan Cook’s Even
the media's Gaza 'investigations' hide the real story of Israel's atrocities
As journalists
and rescuers gathered, a second strike targeted them, in what was termed by
Israel as a “double tap” attack. It was intended to murder those who were
trying to rescue the victims. Since the second attack was filmed live, Israel
had no option but to admit to it.
New video evidence shows that Israel's 'double-tap' was in
fact a 'triple tap' involving three missiles designed to ensure as
many people as possible were killed.
Netanyahu
apologised for what he termed was a ‘mishap’, stating that “Israel does not target journalists and
rescue workers as such.” 20 people were killed, including 5 journalists, a
doctor and a number of hospital and rescue workers.
More
journalists have been killed
in Gaza by Israel than in both world wars, Vietnam,
Yugoslavia and Afghanistan combined, says Costs of War project. It is the
deadliest conflict ever for journalists.
There
were no allegations of Hamas Command and Control Centres. The five journalists
were murdered, along with the health care staff and patients, because they were
journalists. That is a simple message that our media avoids telling.
All
western journalists are barred from reporting on Israel’s war crimes. Only Palestinian
journalists are able to provide the stories. That is why they are a
target. Israel doesn’t want its crimes
reported. What is this if not terrorism?
The first strike killed journalist Hussam al-Masri, who worked
for Reuters. The second and third killed journalists Mohammed Salama (Al
Jazeera), Mariam Abu Daqa (Independent Arabia and AP), Moaz Abu Taha (NBC) and
Ahmed Abu Aziz (Quds Feed). Palestinian journalist Mohammad Fayq is in a
critical condition.
The attack
on Nasser Hospital came two weeks after six journalists, including four from Al
Jazeera, were killed in an Israeli targeted attack near al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
There was no 'Hamas camera'
- just complicity in Israel's genocide | David Hearst |
One Reuters journalist, Valerie Zink, mourning her colleague who died in the strikes, resigned. saying she can no longer work for an agency she accuses of ‘justifying and enabling’ Israel’s systematic killing of journalists in Gaza by repeatedly and uncritically parroting the Israeli narrative.
In the Hebrew-language
Israeli press (not covered in the Western Press) the soldiers involved were
furious at Netanyahu for apologising insisting that the “double tap” operation
was authorised by the higher echelons of the army. A number of prominent Israeli journalists publicly supported the
action, saying “there are no journalists
in Gaza”, something repeated by the Christian Zionist war
criminal, Richard Kemp, in the Telegraph.
Kemp argued that killing all those “pretending
to be journalists was mandatory and that their killing was “better late than
never.” Kemp is a regular guest on the BBC who treat him as an ‘expert’.
Ha'aretz reported that i24NEWS Arab affairs analyst Zvi
Yehezkeli claimed
that the murdered journalists were "[Hamas elite] Nukhba terrorists in
every sense". In other words, because telling the truth is so damaging
to Israel’s genocide it is justified to kill them. Can one imagine any more
despicable creature than an Israeli ‘journalist?
Journalists congregating on Al Nasser's stairwell before Israel's strike
As Peter
Beaumont wrote in the Guardian:
The
attack targeted a civilian building, specifically a hospital, in a reckless double-tap strike that killed civilians, with
rescue workers and journalists among them. All categories that should be
protected under international law.
While
the Israel Defense Forces, which have killed about 200 journalists already in the Gaza war, immediately attempted to
suggest the killing of civilians had been in error, the reality is that it
appears to be policy and not a mistake.
What
is striking about this incident is that each individual element – the targeting
of a working hospital, of journalists and rescue workers, of
civilian injured already under treatment – would be expected to draw
accusations of a war crime in its own right.
There is
no war crime of which Israel is not guilty.
It is completely indifferent, like the madman in the White House, to international
law.
The coconut who masquerades as our Foreign Secretary, David
Lammy called in the Russian Ambassador because of an
attack on Ukraine which killed 21 people. This is a fraction of the number
Israel kills each day. Why has this racist buffoon not called in the Israeli
Ambassador, Tzipi Hotoveli? Racism and its handmaiden imperialism is the only
explanation.
The disparity in treatment demonstrates that despite his
hollow words of condemnation, Lammy and Starmer have no real problem with
Israel’s genocidal war other than that Israel barely bothers to hide its intentions
and the consequent damage to their reputation.
My own position is quite clear and always has been. Hamas is
a resistance organisation against an illegal Israeli occupation and all
resistance, including that of Hamas, should be supported. Does that mean I support Hamas politically?
No. I have frequently criticised them on my blog for their social policies, their
use of torture and their Islamicisation
policies.
Their ideal goal, the creation of an Islamic state is a reactionary utopia.
I shall be going on trial shortly under s.12(1A) of the
Terrorism Act because I support the right of the Palestinian resistance to
oppose the occupation and siege of Gaza and that includes October 7. Because as
I said earlier, the real target of the British State is freedom of speech not terrorism.
Tony Greenstein
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