Western press and addressing grievances in Gaza
By Mohammed Suliman – The Electronic Intifada – 08/26/2011
In 2006, the Israeli authorities imposed an overall siege on the Gaza Strip forcing 1.6 million Palestinians to live under miserable conditions. Since then, Gaza, depending on the degree of instability in the area, has been largely covered in the world media, sometimes enjoying the status of a quasi-main theme.
However, many of these subjects dealt with by the Western press are quite unimportant to deal with publicly. The only importance they have seems to be that of their context.
One needs though to be as critical as not to fall victim to any deliberate misrepresentation of facts or any other well-handled, yet ill-timed treatment of any of these controversial subjects.
The real oppressor of Gaza women’s rights
Only last night, a fellow journalist and I had an argument over the recently recurring theme in the Western press of the oppression of women’s rights in the Gaza Strip. We both came to an agreement that one can confidently state women’s rights are flagrantly abused in Gaza but, unlike how Western press tends to show it, the question remains who the real oppressor of women’s rights in Gaza is.
The issue of women’s rights in Gaza is one part of a larger— to avoid the word “propaganda”— misinformation scheme that should be seen as an attempt to divert the world’s attention from the indispensable issues which need to be constantly and unfalteringly addressed in the Western press.
Take this for example. “Sorry, Hamas, I’m wearing blue jeans” is an article that, on the surface of it, seems to be a credible and well intentioned attempt to encapsulate how women’s rights are abused a daily basis in Gaza by the government, the people, their religion and customs. It features the resentment of “a defiant Palestinian feminist from Gaza reflect[ing] on being secular in a religious land.”
Reading through the article, one can’t but feel irritated at the blatantly Orientalist character of it. It is indeed one of the most deeply flawed and misrepresentative articles that falls into this exact category of misinformation that I have spoken of earlier.
I will not go further to reply to this article since the real resentment felt toward it and generated by its blatant inaccuracy has already been highlighted by several responses which none has written but Palestinian women (and men) from Gaza refuting its baseless arguments and countering what it displays as “facts”.
The unfortunate “Gaza Youth Manifesto”
Likewise, recently a group of Palestinian youth from Gaza has issued a “manifesto” on their Facebook page called Gaza Youth Breaks Out. It outstandingly highlighted the anger and frustration that have grown so immense inside the chests of young Gazans that they cannot be any longer suppressed. Unluckily, however, its writers poured out their fury indiscriminately at every possible cause they deemed as conducive to their miserable conditions instead of carefully underlining the principal source and prime perpetrator of this unendurable suffering.
Hence, the true causes for this suffering, i.e. Israel, its 2008/09 invasion of the Gaza Strip, the five-year relentless blockade, and its daily heinous crimes against Palestinian civilians, were (unintentionally, I assume) relegated and not as much accentuated as the uncommendable behavior of the Hamas government in Gaza toward its people which replaced Israel as the originator of Gaza’s youth distress.
That said, the GYBO manifesto has received worldwide attention from Western press and media outlets including the Guardian and the BBC. But did any of them take the time to listen to the grievances the manifesto itself prompted in a considerable portion of Gaza’s youth due to its misguided content and damaging quality?
Of course, not. Because simply that is what Western press had been looking for and now that it rose from within Gaza youth itself, they wouldn’t hesitate to embrace this unfortunate manifesto. (Note: under great deal of criticism, the group had to issue a second manifesto, which appears on the group’s Facebook page).
Whether deliberate or not, digressions as such only harm the Palestinians and are aimed at diverting the world’s attention from the base injustice the Palestinians are forced to live under besides the daily crimes committed against them by the Israeli armed forces. Moreover, they do seem to attract the attention of an audience, that has become used to prosaic coverage of continuous and flagrant Israeli violations of basic human rights.
Still, this does not mean issues of human rights’ abuses should be disregarded. The suppression exercised by the government and other violations of human rights should always be brought to light to help fight against it.
But there is still a huge difference between objective reporting of incidents of human rights violations and other obviously subjective and unrepresentative or misleading publications.
The “rising middle class” and addressing minor grievances
Similarly, a newly published Associated Press feature story throws light on the widening gap between a very tiny (rising?) middle class and the majority of the people who live under the poverty line, as the article illustrates.
Well-written, objective, and supported with facts and figures as it might seem, the article should nonetheless be dismissed as misleading and lacking in analytical interpretation necessary to explain the real origins of the discontent the people of Gaza have.
“A budding middle class in the impoverished Gaza Strip is]…[fueling perhaps the most acrimonious grass roots resentment yet toward the ruling Hamas movement.”
The introductory statement of the article is inaccurate since, from the beginning it presupposes the presence of this “resentment” toward the Hamas government in Gaza, and it doesn’t go further to place this feeling within its greater context which is that of the Israeli occupation and its blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The only and real grievances the people of Gaza have are those toward Israel and its blockade of the Gaza Strip which has fueled in them so much anger and despair to the extent that, like the GYBO, they started to resent everything around them, on the top of which is the Hamas government. So even this sense of dissatisfaction toward the government is basically a form of grievous indignation toward Israel itself.
Quite normally people would hate the government under whose control they have had to endure the most miserable conditions. It is true the government in Gaza isn’t doing enough to at least alleviate the people’s Israeli-inflicted suffering. It’s also true that there is too much corruption inside the government itself to be concealed or ignored any longer, but trying to make these issues the prime source of people’s anger is dubious since it ignores the fact that what people are enraged about, above all things, is the Israeli siege.
However, since this siege is something the people of Gaza have started to take for granted, criticizing the government, blaming it, and feeling resentment toward it has become a trend. It has become much easier and, indeed, practical for them. (One feels obliged to praise Israel for having relieved itself of the burden of taking responsibility for the people it occupies).
Although, the article makes it clear the majority of the people are discontented and frustrated, at some point it seems to ridiculously question the fact that there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza while there are others— a very small minority— who live in self-indulgence. It also never accounts for the so called “rise of the middle class” in Gaza except by simplistically relating it to the attitudes of the Hamas government and the “corruption” of some of its “loyalists”.
The only thing this article seems to do is deflect the readers’ attention from the real origins of frustration in Gaza represented by Israel’s overall inhuman policy toward the Palestinians to few, indeed, unimportant issues.
Israel’s siege and crimes are always the issue
While in other countries, which seem to enjoy wealth and maintain stability, suppression is exercised by governments on a larger scale and women’s rights are abused at a more serious level, little attention is paid to them. Likewise, the grievances toward an assumed middle class rise in Gaza is a completely preposterous issue to discuss when only a few days ago Israeli airstrikes killed 15 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. (update: 11 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes during the past two days).
At a time when the people of the Gaza Strip, both wealthy and poor, are woken from their sleep by Israeli warplanes bombing their neighborhoods, grievances, suffering and anger of this sort is all what the world needs to know about Gaza.
Israeli Hasbara Delegation Arrives In South Africa Amidst Protest
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC News | August 24, 2011
South African security forces were put on high alert this week as a delegation of former Israeli soldiers arrived as part of a campaign by an Israeli group to promote Israel through talks and events at university campuses worldwide.
The delegation was organized by the group ‘What Is rael’ (a play on the name Israel), which states on its Facebook page that the group aims to recruit “Students who consider themselves Zionists” to travel around the world to speak on campuses to challenge the global movement for a campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.
According to Israeli activists, the group has ties to the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Jewish Agency, which have both been recently promoting ‘hasbara’, or propaganda campaigns promoting Israel as democratic and diverse, to try to counter groups that have sprung up worldwide to voice opposition to Israeli policies and ongoing occupation of the Palestinian Territories.
The South African Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Working group announced that their research into the visiting delegation of twenty ‘students’ had found that “two of the Israeli student delegates claiming to be students worked at the Israeli parliament. One is a deputy spokesperson and another is an official policy advisor.”
After a call was issued by the South African Students Congress last week to boycott and oppose what they called a ‘propaganda’ tour, dozens of students showed up at the airport to protest the arrival of the ‘What Is rael’ delegation, forcing the Israelis to exit the airport under heavy security through a back exit.
At the delegation’s first stop, the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, they were met by a number of protests, including a flash mob ‘die-in’, in which students all fell to the floor at the same moment to represent Palestinians killed by the Israeli military. According to one protest organizer, several of the former soldiers involved in the delegation have publicly bragged of involvement in the 2008-9 Israeli invasion of Gaza in which over 1400 Palestinians were killed, 400 of them children.
The University of Witwatersrand student newspaper quotes Stephanie Hodes, from the South African Union of Jewish Student (SAUJS), which sponsored the delegation, as saying, “the protest was sad, they should rather come inside and eat falafel.” The falafel, a traditional food in Palestine and the rest of the Arab world, was being promoted at the event as an Israeli food, with no mention of its Arab origins.
South Africa has been a main organizing center for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, with activists who fought the racist system of apartheid in the seventies and eighties among the first to term Israel’s system of segregation, occupation and discrimination against Palestinians as an ‘apartheid’ system.
The Coalition of South African Trade Unions, COSATU, by far the nation’s largest, was one of the first trade unions to support the boycott of Israel, blocking Israeli ships from entering South African ports and preventing the import of Israeli goods.
‘Politico’ features claim for Israeli sovereignty of W.B. where ‘Jews have been the majority’ since 1800s
By Philip Weiss on August 23, 2011
Josh Block used to work for AIPAC. Then he started a PR shop with Clintonite Lanny Davis, and now he’s at the Progressive Policy Institute. So he considers himself a liberal Democrat. And he gets a platform at Politico to spew falsehoods about Jewish numbers and sovereignty. This is what it means to be progressive in the U.S. establishment:
the fictional Palestinian state conjured up for the United Nations doesn’t meet international law standards. Its legislature hasn’t met in nearly five years; it can’t hold elections as required under its own law, and it doesn’t have defined territory — instead claiming land once held briefly by Jordan, where Jews have been the majority population since the 1800s, and now under Israeli sovereignty.
How Michael Ruppert’s ‘Peak Oil’ Pile is Gaining Tonnage
By Dave McGowan | March 5, 2005
Excerpt:
It appears that, unbeknownst to Westerners, there have actually been, for quite some time now, two competing theories concerning the origins of petroleum. One theory claims that oil is an organic ‘fossil fuel’ deposited in finite quantities near the planet’s surface. The other theory claims that oil is continuously generated by natural processes in the Earth’s magma. One theory is backed by a massive body of research representing fifty years of intense scientific inquiry. The other theory is an unproven relic of the eighteenth century. One theory anticipates deep oil reserves, refillable oil fields, migratory oil systems, deep sources of generation, and the spontaneous venting of gas and oil. The other theory has a difficult time explaining any such documented phenomena.
So which theory have we in the West, in our infinite wisdom, chosen to embrace? Why, the fundamentally absurd ‘Fossil Fuel’ theory, of course — the same theory that the ‘Peak Oil’ doomsday warnings are based on.
I am sorry to report here, by the way, that in doing my homework, I never did come across any of that “hard science” documenting ‘Peak Oil’ that Mr. Strahl referred to. All the ‘Peak Oil’ literature that I found, on Ruppert’s site and elsewhere, took for granted that petroleum is a non-renewable ‘fossil fuel.’ That theory is never questioned, nor is any effort made to validate it. It is simply taken to be an established scientific fact, which it quite obviously is not.
So what do Ruppert and his resident experts have to say about all of this? Dale Allen Pfeiffer, identified as the “FTW Contributing Editor for Energy,” has written: “There is some speculation that oil is abiotic in origin — generally asserting that oil is formed from magma instead of an organic origin. These ideas are really groundless.” (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/04_04_02_oil_recession.html)
Here is a question that I have for both Mr. Ruppert and Mr. Pfeiffer: Do you consider it honest, responsible journalism to dismiss a fifty year body of multi-disciplinary scientific research, conducted by hundreds of the world’s most gifted scientists, as “some speculation”?
Another of FTW’s prognosticators, Colin Campbell, is described by Ruppert as “perhaps the world’s foremost expert on oil.” He was asked by Ruppert, in an interview, “what would you say to the people who insist that oil is created from magma …?” Before we get to Campbell’s answer, we should first take note of the tone of Ruppert’s question. It is not really meant as a question at all, but rather as a statement, as in “there is really nothing you can say that will satisfy these nutcases who insist on bringing up these loony theories.”
Campbell’s response to the question was an interesting one: “No one in the industry gives the slightest credence to these theories.” Why, one wonders, did Mr. Campbell choose to answer the question on behalf of the petroleum industry? And does it come as a surprise to anyone that the petroleum industry doesn’t want to acknowledge abiotic theories of petroleum origins? Should we have instead expected something along these lines?:
“Hey, everybody … uhhh … you know how we always talked about oil being a fossil fuel? And … uhmm … you know how the entire profit structure of our little industry here is built upon the presumption that oil is a non-renewable, and therefore very valuable, resource?
And remember all those times we talked about shortages so that we could gouge you at the pumps? Well … guess what, America? You’ve been Punk’d!”
For the sake of accuracy, I think we need to modify Mr. Campbell’s response, because it should probably read: no one in the petroleum industry will publicly admit giving any credence to abiotic theories. But is there really any doubt that those who own and control the oil industry are well aware of the true origins of oil? How could they not be?
Surely there must be a reason why there appears to be so little interest in understanding the nature and origins of such a valuable, and allegedly vanishing, resource. And that reason can only be that the answers are already known. The objective, of course, is to ensure that the rest of us don’t find those answers. Why else would we be encouraged, for decades, to cling tenaciously to a scientific theory that can’t begin to explain the available scientific evidence? And why else would a half-century of research never see the light of day in Western scientific and academic circles?
Maintaining the myth of scarcity, you see, is all important. Without it, the house of cards comes tumbling down. And yet, even while striving to preserve that myth, the petroleum industry will continue to provide the oil and gas needed to maintain a modern industrial infrastructure, long past the time when we should have run out of oil. And needless to say, the petroleum industry will also continue to reap the enormous profits that come with the myth of scarcity.
How will that difficult balancing act be performed? That is where, it appears, the ‘limited hangout’ concerning abiotic oil will come into play.
Perhaps the most telling quote to emerge from all of this came from Roger Sassen, identified as the deputy director of Resource Geosciences, a research group out of Texas A&M University:
“The potential that inorganic hydrocarbons, especially methane and a few other gasses, might exist at enormous depth in the crust is an idea that could use a little more discussion. However, not from people who take theories to the point of absurdity. This is an idea that needs to be looked into at some point as we start running out of energy. But no one who is objective discusses the issue at this time.”
The key point there (aside from Sassen’s malicious characterization of Kenney) is his assertion that no one is discussing abiotic oil at this time. And why is that? Because, you see, we first have to go through the charade of pretending that the world has just about run out of ‘conventional’ oil reserves, thus justifying massive price hikes, which will further pad the already obscenely high profits of the oil industry. Only then will it be fully acknowledged that there is, you know, that ‘other’ oil.
“We seem to have plum run out of that fossil fuel that y’all liked so much, but if you want us to, we could probably find you some mighty fine inorganic stuff. You probably won’t even notice the difference. The only reason that we didn’t mention it before is that – and may God strike me dead if I’m lying – it is a lot more work for us to get to it. So after we charged you up the wazoo for the ‘last’ of the ‘conventional’ oil, we’re now gonna have to charge you even more for this really ‘special’ oil. And with any luck at all, none of you will catch on that it’s really the same oil.”
And that, dear readers, is how I see this little game playing out. Will you be playing along?
Several readers have written to me, incidentally, with a variation of the following question: “How can you say that Peak Oil is being promoted to sell war when all of the websites promoting the notion of Peak Oil are stridently anti-war?”
But of course they are. That, you see, is precisely the point. What I was trying to say is that the notion of ‘Peak Oil’ is being specifically marketed to the anti-war crowd — because, as we all know, the pro-war crowd doesn’t need to be fed any additional justifications for going to war; any of the old lies will do just fine. And I never said that the necessity of war was being overtly sold. What I said, if I remember correctly, is that it is being sold with a wink and a nudge.
The point that I was trying to make is that it would be difficult to imagine a better way to implicitly sell the necessity of war, even while appearing to stake out a position against war, than through the promotion of the concept of ‘Peak Oil.’ After September 11, 2001, someone famously said that if Osama bin Laden didn’t exist, the US would have had to invent him. I think the same could be said for ‘Peak Oil.’
I also need to mention here that those who are selling ‘Peak Oil’ hysteria aren’t offering much in the way of alternatives, or solutions. Ruppert, for example, has stated flatly that “there is no effective replacement for what hydrocarbon energy provides today.” )
The message is quite clear: “we’re running out of oil soon; there is no alternative; we’re all screwed.” And this isn’t, mind you, just an energy problem; as Ruppert has correctly noted, “Almost every current human endeavor from transportation, to manufacturing, to plastics, and especially food production is inextricably intertwined with oil and natural gas supplies.” )
If we run out of oil, in other words, our entire way of life will come crashing down. One of Ruppert’s “unimpeachable sources,” Colin Campbell, describes an apocalyptic future, just around the corner, that will be characterized by “war, starvation, economic recession, possibly even the extinction of homo sapiens.”
My question is: if Ruppert is not selling the necessity of war, then exactly what is the message that he is sending to readers with such doomsday forecasts? At the end of a recent posting, Ruppert quotes dialogue from the 1975 Sidney Pollack film, Three Days of the Condor:
Higgins: …It’s simple economics. Today it’s oil, right? In 10 or 15 years – food, Plutonium. And maybe even sooner. Now what do you think the people are gonna want us to do then?
Turner: Ask them.
Higgins: Not now – then. Ask them when they’re running out. Ask them when there’s no heat in their homes and they’re cold. Ask them when their engines stop. Ask them when people who’ve never known hunger start going hungry. Do you want to know something? They won’t want us to ask them. They’ll just want us to get it for them.
The message there seems pretty clear: once the people understand what is at stake, they will support whatever is deemed necessary to secure the world’s oil supplies. And what is it that Ruppert is accomplishing with his persistent ‘Peak Oil’ postings? He is helping his readers to understand what is allegedly at stake.
Elsewhere on his site, Ruppert warns that “Different regions of the world peak in oil production at different times … the OPEC nations of the Middle East peak last. Within a few years, they — or whoever controls them — will be in effective control of the world economy, and, in essence, of human civilization as a whole.”
Within a few years, the Middle East will be in control of all of human civilization?! Try as I might, I can’t imagine any claim that would more effectively rally support for a U.S. takeover of the Middle East. The effect of such outlandish claims is to cast the present war as a war of necessity. Indeed, a BBC report posted on Ruppert’s site explicitly endorses that notion: “It’s not greed that’s driving big oil companies – it’s survival.”
A few final comments are in order here about ‘Peak Oil’ and the attacks of September 11, 2001, which Ruppert has repeatedly claimed are closely linked. In a recent posting, he bemoaned the fact that activists are willing to “Do anything but accept the obvious reality that for the US government to have facilitated and orchestrated the attacks of 9/11, something really, really bad must be going on.” That something really, really bad, of course, is ‘Peak Oil.’
To demonstrate the dubious nature of that statement, all one need do is make a couple of quick substitutions, so that it reads: “for the German government to have facilitated and orchestrated the attack on the Reichstag, something really, really bad must have been going on.” Or, if you are the type that bristles at comparisons of Bush to Hitler, try this one: “for the US government to have facilitated and orchestrated the attack on the USS Maine, something really, really bad must have been going on.”
Israel doesn’t respond to violence, it foments violence
Ibrahim Hewitt | MEMO | 22 August 2011
Yet more tragic loss of life, this time in Eilat and Gaza, and yet again Israel “responds” with “full force”; the bombs dropped on overcrowded Gaza City, and the resultant deaths, are testimony to that. However, this is nothing new for the Palestinians. The violence being unleashed on them by Israel now is not a response to what happened in Eilat, nor was the attack on Israeli soldiers and civilians in Eilat “the trigger”, as the BBC has claimed, for Israel’s disproportionate “response”. It’s just Israel being even more violent than usual. Let’s face it, Israel is an aggressive, occupying (and nuclear-armed) power which doesn’t respond to violence, it foments violence.
In the week prior to the attack in Eilat, Israel killed two Palestinians, including a mentally disabled young man whose only crime was to wander too close to the border; trigger-happy Israeli soldiers shot him ten times, mainly in the head. Four Palestinians were wounded by Israel in the days pre-Eilat, including a child; a number of civilian targets were bombed and Palestinian fishermen off the coast of Gaza were attacked by Israeli gunboats, leaving one injured. This brief summary of Israel’s violence “pre-response” doesn’t take into account the ongoing Israeli oppression of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, where the occupation authorities have approved thousands of new housing units for illegal settlers in the past few week and are threatening to deport prominent Palestinians from their own city.
The world is driven by concern for Israel’s security, which takes precedence over all other aspects of Middle East affairs. The Arab spring? How will it affect Israel? Palestinian reconciliation? How will it affect Israel? This Western fetish for Israel’s security is the reason why the Zionist state can, and does, act with impunity. Of course, any state has the right to defend its people from outside attack, but doesn’t that right also extend to Palestinians living under occupation and siege? Are they not also entitled to act in self-defence when Israeli soldiers enter Gaza at will, or shoot a mentally-unstable boy for wandering, in his own country, too close to the border with the Zionist state? Isn’t that “response” from Israeli soldiers probably not much older or wiser than the 17-year old victim the sort of thing which was condemned when East German border guards shot people who got too close to the Berlin Wall? The downfall of that wall has been commemorated in recent days; the Israel version continues to be built but nobody in Washington or European capitals cares. It’s Israel, after all, and Israeli security comes top of the list of concerns, especially for the many US Senators and Congressmen and women who take summer breaks in Israel, all expenses paid.
Few journalists, and even fewer politicians, seem willing to look at the situation in the Holy Land objectively so that the general public have a more balanced understanding of events. Instead, we always hear about “Israel’s response” to this Palestinian rocket or that attempted incursion by terrorists. Few delve deeper behind the headlines to ask why Palestinians fire rockets into Israel, or why the resistance groups try to live up to their name and resist. Few point out that Palestinians are resisting the Israeli occupation of their land, and are entitled by international law to do so with whatever means are at their disposal. It is telling that they have been labelled as “terrorists” by the people running Israel who are adept at flouting international law, to the extent that many Israeli politicians and military officers will not travel abroad for fear of being arrested on war crimes charges.
Who are the real “terrorists”, the occupiers or the occupied? This is an important question, so important in fact, that politicians and the media are afraid to answer it. But when my wife’s friend and her mother email us to say that they were “hiding under the bed trying to shut out the terrifying noise of the bombs”, it is a question to which we are entitled to expect an honest answer.
The laws of cause and effect are really quite simple in this situation, despite attempts in the media and Israeli propaganda to convince us otherwise: Israel was founded in 1948 on Palestinian land following a UN Partition Plan passed by the General Assembly as Resolution 181 (virtually the only UN resolution Israelis have ever stood by, even though it was not mandatory). The people who drafted that plan did not consult the Palestinians on what they thought about giving up more than half of their country to provide a home for Jewish immigrants from Europe. It was thus the Palestinians who paid the price for European anti-Semitism and were the victims of a campaign of brutal ethnic cleansing at the hands of Jewish militias which saw the nascent Israeli state establish itself on more land than the UN ever envisaged or sanctioned. Likewise, in June 1967 Israel kicked-off a war and took even more of historic Palestine, occupying the West Bank and Gaza Strip which, since 1948, had been administered by Jordan and Egypt respectively. The Zionist state has been colonising the West Bank in defiance of international law ever since. Ergo, Palestinians resist the theft and occupation of their land. Which European or American citizen, supporter of Israel or not, could say with hand on heart that they would not resist the occupation of their own country if that ever took place? End the occupation and the need for resistance will also end. It’s not rocket science.
But Zionist Israel is different, quite probably due in part to the American politicians who holiday at the state’s expense. They’ve been bought, and have been for many years, by the powerful Israel Lobby in Washington. That Lobby is now very influential in Britain and the rest of Europe.
What do the Lobbyists make, though, of the claim made by journalist Harriet Sherwood that “an Israeli official told the Guardian: ‘We knew they were out there’, suggesting intelligence had picked up the possibility of an attack” on Eilat? If Israel’s intelligence was so certain, to the degree that Prime Minister Netanyahu could tell the world just hours later that “the people who gave the order” for the attack “are no longer amongst the living”, it also suggests that the Israelis could have prevented it. The Gaza Strip is more than 200 kilometres away from Eilat; if the Israelis “knew they were out there”, why didn’t they intercept the people who carried out the attack on Eilat before it could take place? Since when has Israel been shy of pre-emptive strikes and why was it decided not to make one on this occasion?
I am thinking the unthinkable. Did the Israeli government decide to allow the attack, despite the potential cost in Israeli lives, to go ahead in order to have an excuse – as if it ever needs an excuse – to launch another assault on Gaza and divert attention from its domestic problems in the process? The cancellation of large-scale protests in Israel over the weekend seems to tick at least one of those boxes. Politics is a dirty business, especially in the Middle East, so I wouldn’t rule anything out. Perhaps the families of those Israelis killed in Eilat could ask their government for an answer.
I was brought up by my parents on Tyneside to be honest and stand up for what is just and right. Those core British values of my youth have stayed with me to this day. That’s why I don’t understand why our Prime Minister and senior politicians, backed by an all too compliant media, abandon those core values, which they otherwise espouse so passionately, when the issue in question is the Israel-Palestine conflict. They dance to the Israel Lobby’s tune ever so willingly and call for “restraint” from both parties, as if there is some degree of parity between the military capabilities of Israelis and Palestinians. This is a conflict between a heavily-armed occupier and an almost 100% civilian population under occupation, not a clash of equals, but that simple fact appears to have passed them by.
South Africa’s Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Silence is not an option when faced with Israeli injustice in occupied Palestine. When will we have politicians and a media who understand this and side with the oppressed for a change?
BBC admits role in 1953 Iranian coup
Press TV – August 21, 2011
The BBC Persian TV channel has at last acknowledged the role of the BBC Persian radio in the toppling of the democratically elected government of Iran in the 1953 coup.
The coup overthrew the government of the then Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh leading to the restoration of absolute monarchy under dictator Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi who was later toppled in the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
In a documentary aired on August 18 on the anniversary of the coup, BBC Persian channel admitted for the first time to the role of the BBC Persian radio as the propaganda arm of the British government in Iran.
After repeated denials of the BBC Persian radio’s role in helping London oust Mosaddegh, the program entitled Cinematograph detailed how the radio network broadcast anti- Mosaddegh programs to undermine his government.
“The British government used the BBC Persian radio for advancing its propaganda against Mosaddegh and anti-Mosaddegh material were repeatedly aired on the radio channel to the extent that Iranian staff at the BBC Persian radio went on strike to protest the move,” the Cinematograph narrator said.
Britain had lost its power as a world empire after the World War II and Mosaddegh’s efforts to nationalize Iran’s oil industry, which bore fruit on March 19, 1951, meant Britain lost one of the most important resources it formerly fully controlled under the guise of the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company due to subservience of the Pahlavi regime.
This comes after the BBC Persian channel aired another documentary on March 19, 2010 that categorically dismissed the broadcaster’s Persian radio role in the 1953 coup claiming the radio channel even went against the policies of the British government.
The Cinematograph also quoted a classified document going back to July 21, 1951 in which a Foreign Office official thanked the British ambassador for his proposals that were followed to the word by the BBC Persian radio to strengthen its propaganda against Mosaddegh.
“The BBC had already made most of the points which you listed, but they were very glad to have an indication from you of what was likely to be most effective and will arrange their programme accordingly,” the document shown in part on the program read.
“We should also avoid direct attacks on the ‘ruling classes’ since it seems probable that we may want to deal with a government drawn from those classes should Mosaddegh fall,” it added.
The document further stressed that the Foreign Office “shall be grateful for [the ambassador’s] comments on the propaganda line we have proposed”.
Israel kills 15 in Gaza then tries to shift blame to Hamas
By Jalal Abukhater – The Electronic Intifada – 08/20/2011
Quoting from Haaretz:
“In response to the ongoing rocket fire, an IDF spokesperson stated that the military will not tolerate any attempt at harming Israeli civilians or soldiers, and will continue to “act with determination and strength against any source of terror.” The spokesperson also claimed that Hamas must be “held responsible” for the ongoing attacks.”
Israel is quickly trying to shift the blame for the war crimes it is committing in Gaza to Hamas. Suddenly those firing rockets (after 10 were killed for no reason last night, now 15) are the bad guys and Israel is the good guy doing self defense in this equation.
In times like this, what alternative would you give to the resistance groups other than fire rockets? Their families are killed, their children are either dying or becoming handicapped due to continuous raids. The 1.6 million population of Gaza is terrorized night and day, there isn’t any place in that open air prison safe from the random Israeli shelling, not even UNRWA schools as we have seen in 2009. Israel aims to collectively punish all those who live in Gaza for the crime of living in Gaza.
Let us keep in mind that for the past two years, al-Qassam and the majority of Gaza factions have respected the ceasefire treaty in order to maintain security in the besieged Gaza Strip. In fact, Hamas faced internal issues after it started suppressing armed groups who planned to launch rockets into Israeli cities. It was almost always Israel which would strike first or assassinate political figures which would prompt them to launch rockets in retaliation.
The blood thirsty leadership of Israel bombs Gaza for no reason other than their own self satisfaction. Another reason is that no one would interrupt them in their war crimes process, the US and EU leadership hurries to condemn Eilat attack while barely giving attention, if any, to those civilians slaughtered in Gaza.
And of course, let us not forget that Israel started bombing Gaza on Thursday for no reason. There is no evidence of any connection between Gaza militants and Eilat attack. The only proof the IDF claimed was that Eilat attackers used AK47, which is a weapon that only comes from Gaza (In fact the AK47 or Kalashnikov is the world’s most common firearm). This was literally said on the tongue of the IDF spokesperson Lt. Colonel Avital Leibovich interviewed by the The Real News Network’s Lia Tarachansky as This site has brought it to my attention.
Tarachansky: On what are you basing your conclusion that this group [the Popular Resistance Committees] is responsible for the terror attacks?
IDF Spokesperson: We did not say that this group was responsible for the terror attack. We based this on intelligence information as well as some facts that [we] actually presented an hour ago to some wires and journalists. Some of the findings that were from the bodies of the terrorists, and they are using for example Kalashnikov bullets and Kalashnikov rifles are very common in Gaza —
Tarachansky: Many terrorist groups use Kalashnikovs —
IDF Spokesperson: No, not many terror groups. I’m not saying — I’m referring to the terrorists that came from Gaza.
Tarachansky: Prime Minister Netanyahu said today that the group that was responsible for the terror attack was the one that was eliminated [in Gaza] and you’re saying that’s not the case?
IDF Spokesperson: I don’t know what he said [when speaking on Israeli national television] — I’m not Prime Minister Netanyahu. I’m saying that the group came from Gaza and I’m giving you proof why it came from Gaza — how we know it came from Gaza. This is all I’m saying.
Despite the continuing terror Gaza suffers, Israeli media is doing an even more horrible job. I spent yesterday going through almost all Israeli English news websites, non of those websites mentioned Gaza civilian deaths along with news on rockets coming into Israel. In the matter of fact, I kept reading news reports on Haaretz, Jerusalem Post, and Ynet to realize there is nothing about Palestinian civilian deaths, they only mentioned rockets, Israelis injured, and Gazan militants who were killed. Covering up the real news from the public is dangerous!
This tweet by +972 magazine’s Noam Sheizaf couldn’t describe it better:
By reporting only rockets fired 2 Israel in its top stories & hiding news over dead in Gaza, Israeli media is making public want more blood
Zionists and the Palestine Narrative
By Mohammed Bsiso | Palestine Chronicle | August 19, 2011
History is a very powerful political tool that if wielded correctly can produce far-reaching results. Unfortunately, Zionists and their supporters in the West have long consolidated their control on the historical narrative of ancient and modern Palestine; effectively manipulating and channeling information through institutions of scholarship and the mass media. No era in history has been construed to demonize Palestinians and Arabs more than the story of the Children of Israel’s mortal enemy; the ancient Philistines. According to traditional Muslim, Christian, and Jewish beliefs, these ruthless and barbaric peoples inhabiting Palestine were the enemies of God and his divine plan for the holy land.
Decades before and after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the invasion of Palestine, Zionist Jews and Christians constantly reference the biblical Philistines and their supposed ancestral ties to the Palestinians of today. This propaganda tool has served well in reaching out to the Christian masses and justifying the actions of occupiers which normally would be deemed unjustifiable. These same so-called ties have infiltrated Palestinian psyches and have even served as a false source of pride. It is common to hear a Palestinian proclaim that they are the descendents of the ruthless and barbaric peoples that once occupied Palestine and cast fear into the hearts of the Hebrews at the time. This misguided and ill-informed sense of honor is rooted in the successful brainwash of a people occupied and humiliated for decades; ultimately accepting a distorted and altered historical narrative at their own reputational expense. In a sense, the Palestinians of today have been passed down the torch of infamy once carried by the Philistines of yesterday; at least in the eyes of the Western world.
So if this historical narrative is untrue and completely unfounded then the question remains; who are the Philistines and where did they come from? And are they really the defeated and accursed forefathers of the Arab Palestinians of today? Upon considerable research and inquiry into the history of this subject (much of which has been done by Western and Israeli scholars) and the most recent archaeological evidence excavated from historical sites, it becomes clear that these peoples were not in any way related to the Canaanites who are the historical ancestors of the Arabs in the Levant. In fact, the Philistines were not even native to the area. These invading “sea peoples” as they were called originated in the Aegean region (modern day Greece) and were ethnically and in some aspects culturally Mycenaean. As they invaded and eventually settled into Arab lands they adopted much of Canaanite culture and customs after having driven out many of them from their homes.
To simplify this ancient scenario, we can summarize it in the following terms. Powerful sea faring European forces expanded their empire into Canaanite (ancient Arab) territory, occupying and expelling its original inhabitants and causing regional instability. Sound familiar to anyone? The history of the Philistine invasion and occupation of Arab lands might as well be the same narrative of the modern history of Palestine under British colonialism with the mere shuffling of names and players. Would any rational Palestinian today proclaim proudly that they are the descendants of the British? I strongly doubt it and the same should be said about the Philistines.
It is important that Palestinians and all dignified supporters of justice around the world take back the historical narrative of this blessed land and its natural inhabitants. This can only happen if we remove ourselves from the vicious mental occupation of Zionism. … True history will uphold the side of justice and has no need of alterations and disfigurement in order to justify a claim or grievance. More importantly, we must understand that politics and history are interconnected which means a failure in one field is a failure in both. Again, we must free ourselves from the Zionist narrative and take back our history!
– Mohammed Bsiso has a Masters Degree in History from The University of Texas at Dallas. He is a freelance writer originally from the Gaza Strip. Visit his blog: www.islamicnewsandhistory.blogspot.com.
Egypt’s Secret Minister
By THOMAS C. MOUNTAIN | CounterPunch | August 17, 2011
Just exactly what influence Omar “The Secret Minister” Suleiman retains over the military junta that rules Egypt is a question of utmost importance for those who live on the banks of the Nile River. With a resume including 20 years as head of Egyptian Intelligence he is not someone anyone of those who helped bring about the downfall of Mubarak can afford to ignore.
He was the CIA’s go to man when it came to doing the Agencies dirty work in the Middle East as well as being the liaison with Israel and was reported to be in contact with Mossad on an almost daily basis.
Suleiman is infamous for enforcing the blockade of Gaza, saying he wanted the Palestinians there to “be hungry but not starving” in punishment for supporting Hamas. Hungry as in a 40% level of malnutrition related disability rates amongst Gaza’s children.
Mubarak as Egypt’s Godfather was as lacking in charisma as any leader in the Arab world and ruled by brute force alone. Omar Suleiman was his consigliere and enforcer combined, and was reputed to having a hands on approach to how his torturers carried out their interrogations.
While Mubarak and Sons lived a very publicly ostentatious lifestyle and were well known for their corrupt and decadent ways, Suleiman “The Secret Minister” always preferred to remain behind the scenes, at least until those last desperate days of the Mubarak regime and his “appointment” to the new position of Vice President of Egypt. It was he who announced to the world that a military coup had been carried out and that Mubarak was officially “retired”.
Of course, every member of the Egyptian military junta that overthrew Mubarak had arrived on the Supreme Military Council with his appointment stamped “Approved by Suleiman”. While they may hate “The Secret Minister” one could expect that the junta leaders know that if they want to avoid ending their careers standing in a cage in an Egyptian court “they had better hang together or they will all hang separately”.
Suleiman put them where they are and who better to keep matters from really disintegrating? And who better to keep them informed about what the CIA will and will not approve of.
Today the whereabouts of Suleiman the Secret remains just that, a secret. The last time he was allegedly heard from was via a letter to Al-Ahram newspaper in which he disavowed any desire to be elected President of Egypt. No, all he wanted to do was “live a quiet life with his family”.
Trial by military courts, torture and disappearances, all the hallmarks of Suleiman the Secret are still a part of today’s Egypt and those who partied in the streets after the Coup against Mubarak had better be warned. Behind the scene and still pulling the strings, Suleiman the Secret remains a danger whose continued influence will be ignored at the peril of those who rejoiced at Mubarak’s downfall.
Thomas C. Mountain is the only independent western journalist in the Horn of Africa, living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006.
Israel detains Al-Jazeera reporter alleging ties with Hamas
Palestine Information Center – 16/08/2011
JENIN — Al-Jazeera’s bureau chief in Afghanistan Samer Allawi is being held by Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet for alleged affiliation to Hamas.
An Israeli military court extended Allawi’s term of detention on Tuesday after Shin Bet filed an indictment against him alleging that he is affiliated to Hamas and had relations with some of the commanders of its armed wing.
Allawi has denied all charges, saying the Israeli authorities were trying to produce fraudulent charges and that his arrest was actually based on his work as a reporter. He said interrogations focused on his professional work, social ties, and financial affairs.
The defense has refuted the possibility of Shin Bet having any evidence to support the charges.
Allawi, 46, was arrested while departing from the West Bank on Tuesday Aug. 9 after a three-week visit to his home village of Sebastia northwest of Nablus city.
He told the lawyer of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society last week that the Israeli intelligence tried to recruit him and that when he refused to work with them he was threatened with being accused of something serious.
Is Benny Morris (Professor, Ben-Gurion University) a Serious Historian or Plain Old Racist?
London BDS | 28 July 2011
London BDS is pleased to announce that a video about Benny Morris with footage of what really happened on his visit to London has now been released. People should draw their own conclusions about why Benny Morris referred in a press interview to ‘Brownshirts’, ‘Muslim mobs’ and ‘broken English’.
Benny Morris gave numerous interviews after his lecture at the London School of Economics in June 2011. Typical of these was his interview with The National Interest Magazine in which he claimed that he was accosted outside the lecture by a Muslim mob:
“As I walked down Kingsway, a major London thoroughfare, a small mob—I don’t think any other word is appropriate—of some dozen Muslims, Arabs and their supporters, both men and women, surrounded me and, walking alongside me for several hundred yards as I advanced towards the building where the lecture was to take place, raucously harangued and bated me with cries of “fascist,” “racist,” “England should never have allowed you in,” “you shouldn’t be allowed to speak.” Several spoke in broken, obviously newly acquired, English. Violence was thick in the air though none was actually used. Passersby looked on in astonishment, and perhaps shame, but it seemed the sight of angry bearded, caftaned Muslims was sufficient to deter any intervention. To me, it felt like Brownshirts in a street scene in 1920s Berlin—though on Kingsway no one, to the best of my recall, screamed the word ‘Jew’.”
Please take the time to watch the whole video – it’s a good guide to Benny Morris and what he stands for. The encounter with Benny Morris on London’s Kingsway is also included.
An article to accompany the highly-recommended 34 minute video can be found here.
If you don’t have time to spare, an abridged version commences at 30.00 min.
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Book Review
New paperback: Butchered by “Healthcare”
Lies are Unbekoming | October 20, 2026
Butchered by “Healthcare” is Robert Yoho’s plain-spoken account of how American medicine stopped being a profession and became an industry. 341 pages. Over a thousand references. Thirty-eight chapters.
“Screening Tests Are Useless”, on tests that find diseases that would never have hurt you. “The FDA Protects the Big Drug Companies”, on an agency funded by the companies it regulates. “The Journals’ Sins Are the Editors’ Sins”, on ghostwritten studies and captured peer review. “Opioids and ‘Pain Management’”, on how a generation was prescribed its way into addiction. “Prozac and Relatives” and “Antipsychotics Are Disastrous”, on what psychiatry does to adults and children. “Surgery: Money Before Patients”. “Failed Cancer Treatments”. “Futile CPR and Overprescribing”. “Billing Scams & Specialty Warfare”. “Hospitals Are Sharks”. Each with a Patient Tips section at the end on how to survive it.
If you have ever walked out of a doctor’s office with a prescription you didn’t ask for, or watched a parent put through a treatment that made them worse, this is the book you want on your shelf before the next appointment. … Full review
Butchered by “Healthcare” is available on Lulu now.
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Iran’s Next Strike May Not Explode. It Could Shut You Down /Col Doug Macgregor
- Iran: US political targets legitimate if assassinations return
- Iraq shuts key border crossing with Iran under US pressure: Report
- Undersea Internet cables could be targeted in retaliation for attacks on Iran: IRGC deputy chief
- EU sending ‘biased’ observers to interfere in Serbian election – president
- White House envoy declares kinetic action against Yemen ‘fruitless’
- Ukraine deployed thousands of microdrones in Iraqi Kurdistan: Tasnim
- Iran calls for emergency UNSC meeting over Trump’s ‘brazen’ bomb talk, Israeli threats
- Iranian sources reveal details of Russia-China Hormuz proposal
- Plan for more US-Israel integration puts our military tech at risk
- If Americans Knew
- Americans at National Conservatism Conference held in Israel this year criticize Israel
- Christiane Amanpour exits CNN with a legacy shaped by the debate over Israel
- Israel’s war on Iran is the final move in a decades-old strategy
- Israel Denies Entry to French Journalist, U.S. Researcher Amid Rise in Entry Denials
- Gaza’s hospitals are running out of life-saving fuel – Daily Update
- Mysterious bot accounts reportedly spread fake ‘man on the street’ videos for Michigan Senate candidate
- Israeli Defense Minister Katz Says Over 60 Lebanon Villages Have Been Destroyed
- Why Is Israel Running TV Ads in Iowa Ahead of the Midterms?
- Hind Rajab’s Alleged Killer Is in the United States. HRF Demands His Arrest.
- US Officials Face Fresh Pressure After Another American ‘Brutalized’ by Israeli Settlers in West Bank
- No Tricks Zone
- E-Cars Reduce CO2 Emissions By Only 41% Compared To Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Professor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
