The UN Would Never Lie to George Monbiot
Atomic Moronbiot
By JOE GIAMBRONE | CounterPunch | April 1, 2011
Quite the nauseating display on DemocracyNow the other day. Renowned doctor and scientist Dr. Helen Caldicott, with more than 3 decades intense study on this issue to her credit, attempted to school the pro-nuclear British journalist on the gross ignorance and misinformation that guides his rationale. So, now Dr. Caldicott is a conspiracy theorist, fair game for snide rebukes and silly faces.
If Monbiot isn’t a shill for the nuclear industry, then I could certainly get him set up there in about five seconds. Monbiot reveals his anti-intellectual agenda by repeatedly resorting to a false dichotomy:
“But I’m very worried that the global response to what’s happening in Fukushima will be to shut down nuclear power stations around the world and to cancel future nuclear power stations, and that what will happen is that they will be replaced by coal.”
(Monbiot)
Thus begins a discussion of coal, which nobody suggested in the first place — except Monbiot. This false choice, which I have heard time and again recently (like a PR script), is that our only decision is between nuclear and coal. Utter nonsense on its face. Monbiot leads with nonsense.
But it gets much worse, as you’ll see.
Monbiot and his cult of technofascism either fail to understand the difference between radiation that is outside the body vs. radiation that is trapped internal to the body, or else they know full well and just don’t give a damn.
Dr. Caldicott:
“You don’t understand internal emitters. I was commissioned to write an article for the New England Journal of Medicine about the dangers of nuclear power. I spent a year researching it. You’ve bought the propaganda from the nuclear industry. They say it’s low-level radiation. That’s absolute rubbish. If you inhale a millionth of a gram of plutonium, the surrounding cells receive a very, very high dose. Most die within that area, because it’s an alpha emitter. The cells on the periphery remain viable. They mutate, and the regulatory genes are damaged. Years later, that person develops cancer. Now, that’s true for radioactive iodine, that goes to the thyroid; cesium-137, that goes to the brain and muscles; strontium-90 goes to bone, causing bone cancer and leukemia.”
Bitch slapped, but does Monbiot accept basic medical facts from a specialist in the field? Of course not. It’s time to obfuscate by appealing to a clearly unreliable United Nations study of Chernobyl (notably published by the IAEA). This study, blessed by the U.N., is greatly disputed by the doctors and scientists who actually live in the contaminated regions and have dealt directly with this catastrophe since 1986 (not tourists).
When directed to the New York Academy of Sciences compendium of 5,000 of these translated studies on Chernobyl, George Monbiot simply dismisses these numerous studies as “cherry picking.”
“Well, we have to use the best available science, not cherry-pick our sources…”
He uses this buzzword at least three times, as he also uses the “climate change deniers” smear again and again. This is Monbiot’s style of so-called “debate.”
That U.N./IAEA report however relied on a specific 350 studies and used criteria to ignore increases in the cancer rate statistics post 1986. Their approach uses a minimum threshold of radiation exposure as an apriori condition to exclude everyone that — in their opinion — didn’t receive enough of a radiation dose to be made sick (whether they actually were made sick or not). This U.N./IAEA “study” set the parameters such that they would only look at a specific demographic and exclude the rest of the population despite its ongoing exposure to lower levels of radiation and free floating radionucleide particles in the dust, crops and water.
In their own words:
“Because many organs and tissues were exposed as a result of the Chernobyl accident, it has been very common to use an additional concept, that of effective dose, which characterizes the overall health risk due to any combination of radiation. (emphasis in original)” (U.N./IAEA, 2006, p.12)
This statement reveals an unscientific bias, straight off the bat. Why should the U.N., while finding out how many people actually died from Chernobyl, need to rely on a fictional concept called “effective dose?” And further, this assumption that they can characterize someone’s “overall health risk due to any combination of radiation” is a second fiction. They were supposed to be looking at just the facts on the ground, no (or below it)?
The U.N./IAEA does concede (unlike George Monbiot) that their numbers are not definitive, and that the true death toll cannot be known very accurately, particularly with the methodology they chose to employ:
“It is impossible to assess reliably, with any precision, numbers of fatal cancers caused by radiation exposure due to Chernobyl accident.”
(IAEA, p.7)
George Monbiot instead tells the world that this study produced the “official death toll from Chernobyl in 25 years.”
The actual study also left room for the tally to grow, without directly admitting that it was surely much higher:
“The international expert group predicts that among the 600 000 persons receiving more significant exposures… the possible increase in cancer mortality due to this radiation exposure might be up to a few per cent.”
(IAEA, p.15)
The “few per cent” are not included in what George Monbiot calls the “official death toll.” Neither were the tens of thousands of stillbirths. And there is yet much dispute over spikes in nearly every type of cancer in those regions after 1986.
“Some radiation-induced increases in fatal leukaemia, solid cancers and circulatory system diseases have been reported in Russian emergency and recovery operation workers.”
(IAEA, p.16)
Again, not reflected in Mr. Monbiot’s magical “official” toll of “43.”
The IAEA exercise was a rigged study. It violated the scientific method. First you collect the data, and then you make sense of the findings. In the UN study, they first went to lengths to make sure data was restricted to only people whom they said had received certain exposure levels. That is the standard practice there.
Who’s doing the “cherry picking” in this equation?
If George Monbiot’s real concern is the “cherry picking” of studies and the corruption of science, he would be all over this situation and in agreement with Dr. Caldicott.
But, that’s not the case.
Again Calidicott tries to educate Monbiot on the basic Nuclear 101 freshman introduction, to no avail:
“Nuclear power, George, creates massive quantities of radioactive waste. There is no way to put it on earth that’s safe. As it leaks into the water over time, it will bioconcentrate in the food chains, in the breast milk, in the fetuses, that are thousands of times more radiosensitive than adults. One x-ray to the pregnant abdomen doubles the incidence of leukemia in the child. And over time, nuclear waste will induce epidemics of cancer, leukemia and genetic disease, and random compulsory genetic engineering. And we’re not the only species with genes, of course. It’s plants and animals. So, this is an absolute catastrophe, the likes of which the world has never seen before.”
Monbiot’s moronic conclusion to all this:
“Now, on these questions that Helen raises, I mean, if she’s honestly saying that the World Health Organization is now part of the conspiracy and the cover-up, as well, then the mind boggles. … If them and the U.N. Scientific Committee and the IAEA and—I mean, who else is involved in this conspiracy? We need to know.”
Of course Monbiot should know about the agreement between the WHO and the IAEA, May 28, 1959 at the 12th World Health Assembly, clause No. 12.40:
“whenever either organization proposes to initiate a programme or activity on a subject in which the other organization has or may have a substantial interest, the first party shall consult the other with a view to adjusting the matter by mutual agreement…”
The IAEA’s purpose is:
“to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world.”
So yes George, pure science takes a back seat to other interests as you should well know.
So whose “consensus” are we talking about?
In Monbiot’s own newspaper, The Guardian from March 25th of 2006 (yes he worked there then):
“UN accused of ignoring 500,000 Chernobyl deaths
United Nations nuclear and health watchdogs have ignored evidence of deaths, cancers, mutations and other conditions after the Chernobyl accident, leading scientists and doctors have claimed in the run-up to the nuclear disaster’s 20th anniversary next month.”
(John Vidal)
“Leading scientists and researchers,” George? In 2006? In your own newspaper?
George, did you follow up with these “leading scientists and researchers?” No, you could not have since you pretended to be so surprised by what Dr. Caldicott told you during your “debate.”
The Guardian (2006) continues:
“An IAEA spokesman said he was confident the UN figures were correct. ‘We have a wide scientific consensus of 100 leading scientists.'”
Wait a minute! An “IAEA spokesman” is handling this supposed “consensus” of just 100 “leading scientists?”
I thought it was a health issue, not a promotion of nuclear energy worldwide issue.
The IAEA flack tells The Guardian:
“If they have data that they think are excluded then they should send it.”
Data that “they think” are excluded. That’s cute.
“‘At least 500,000 people – perhaps more – have already died out of the 2 million people who were officially classed as victims of Chernobyl in Ukraine,’ said Nikolai Omelyanets, deputy head of the National Commission for Radiation Protection in Ukraine. … ‘We have found that infant mortality increased 20% to 30% because of chronic exposure to radiation after the accident. All this information has been ignored by the IAEA and WHO. We sent it to them in March last year and again in June. They’ve not said why they haven’t accepted it.'”
(Vidal)
So who are the true “leading” scientists, and who’s got the real “consensus?”
Dr. Janette Sherman who edited the translated 5,000 European studies said:
“On the 20th Anniversary of Chernobyl WHO and the IAEA published the Chernobyl Forum Report, mentioning only 350 sources, mainly from the English literature while in reality there are more than 30,000 publications and up to 170,000 sources that address the consequences of Chernobyl.”
(Sherman, 2011)
Just how does the United Nations IAEA manage to ignore half a million to a million dead Eurasians?
It just so happens I’ve been going through some of the aforementioned excluded studies, and I found some interesting commentary pertaining to just that question.
“These findings indicate that the spectrum of developmental defects generated by incorporated radioactivity in humans may be much greater than derived by international radiation committees from the follow-up of Japanese A-bomb survivors. The findings are compatible with a particularly high radiosensitivity of the fetus… In contrast to this, the International Commission on Radiological Protection ICRP has postulated a threshold dose as high as 100 mSv in Publication 90 of 2003 for effects after prenatal exposure. They and other committees exclude radiation effects by Chernobyl fallout referring to the very low doses which were derived for the population.”
(Wolfgang Hoffmann, Inge Schmitz-Feuerhake: Malformations, Perinatal Deaths and Childhood Morbidity after In Utero Exposure by Chernobyl Fallout. Observations in Europe and Turkey, Institut für Community Medicine, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt Universität, Greifswald and Universität Bremen, Fachbereich Physik und Elektrotechnik (i.R.), 2006)
The “threshold dose” concept is used as the determinant of who is counted and who is not. That’s how the IAEA/WHO manipulates the data on Chernobyl and in-effect lies to the world on the horrors of radiation poisoning.
Multiple official sources confirm that there is no safe dose of radiation, at all:
Environmental Protection Agency: “… any exposure to radiation poses some risk, i.e. there is no level below which we can say an exposure poses no risk.”
Department of Energy: “… the major effect is a very slight increase in cancer risk.”
Nuclear Regulatory Commission: “any amount of radiation may pose some risk for causing cancer … any increase in dose, no matter how small, results in an incremental increase in risk.”
National Academy of Sciences: “… it is unlikely that a threshold exists for the induction of cancers ….”
(John LaForge: Dangerous Disinformation About Radiation, 2011)
It’s not surprising that the UN is in favor of promoting nuclear power and glossing over its faults. All the powerful nations are pro-nuclear. It is these nations’ governments who provide the “leading scientists” to write up the manipulated faux “consensus.”
By the way, George Monbiot, cherry picking 100 experts (why not 99? Or 101?) is not the definition of a “consensus.” I’m afraid I’m going to have to call that one out as a lie. You don’t get to redefine the language.
The real consensus comes out of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and thereabouts:
“These results challenge the assumption of thresholds for genetic effects of low level ionizing radiation as well as the assumption of relatively high doubling doses for genetic effects as propagated by pertinent international commissions.”
(Hagen Scherb: Statistical Analysis of Genetic Effects after the Chernobyl Disaster, GSF-National Research Center for Environment and Health, Institute of Biomathe-matics and Biometry, Neuherberg/Munich, 2006)“They showed that the existence of the effect at the low foetal doses which had been received defined an error in the current ICRP risk model for this kind of exposure of upwards of 100-fold. … The finding effectively falsifies the current radioprotection system for these kinds of internal exposures to fission products and suggests urgent reappraisal of the nuclear site child leukaemia clusters…”
(Chris Busby: Infant Leukemia in Europe after Chernobyl and its Significance for Radiation Protection. A meta-analysis of three countries including new data from the United Kingdom, University of Liverpool, Dept of Human Anatomy and Cell Biology, And Green Audit, Aberystwyth, UK, 2006)“Deteriorated radiation situation in Ukraine has adversely affected the brain tumor incidence in infants thereby leading to over 2.3 times growth of total patient population and 6.2 times growth in the number of patients under 1 year. ”
(Yuri Orlov, Andrey Shaversky, V. Mykhalyuk: Intracranial Neoplasms in Infants of Ukraine. An Epidemiological Study, Institute of Neurosurgery named after acad. A.P.Romodanov, AMSU, Kiev, 2006)“It should be noted that earlier made prognosis for thyroid cancer failed, and real picture has surpassed all expectations.”
(A. E. Okeanov 1 , E. A. Sosnovskaya: Incidence of Malignant Tumors Among Different Groups of Belarusian Population Affected to the Chernobyl Accident, International State Environmental University, Minsk, Republic of Belarus and Republican Research-Practical Center of Radiation Medicine and Human Ecology, Gomel, Republic of Belarus, 2006)“Thus, it was shown that small doses of radiation are statistically significant risk factors of malignant development.”
(Emilia A. Diomina: Radiation Epidemiological Studies in a Group of Liquidators of the Chernobyl Accident Consequences, R.E. Kavetsky Institute of Experimental Pathology, Oncology and Radiobiology of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kiev, 2006)
We hear a lot of chatter from pundits like Monbiot how we are surrounded by background radiation. Have you once seen them distinguish between the radiation source outside the body vs. one emitting inside your body and jammed up against your cells and DNA?
You don’t hear them concede that pregnant women aren’t allowed to receive x-rays either. Their arguments tend to fall apart under scrutiny.
These findings were quite sobering:
“The wrong general assumption of a constant linear radiation effect from high to zero (half a dose, half the effect) is unfortunately even today still the base of the radiation protection laws, although supralinear effects in vivo (Petkau effect) are today confirmed on all levels of live including man.”
(Ralph Graeub, Langnau, Schweiz: The Petkau Effect, Chernobyl – 20 Years Later – Experiences and Lessons for the Future, 2006)“Chernobyl’s radioactive contamination at levels in excess of 1 Ci/km2 (as of 1986 1987) is responsible for 3.8 4.4% of the overall mortality in areas of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. In several other European countries with contamination levels around 0.5 Ci/km2 (as of 1986 1987), the mortality is about 0.3 0.7% (see Chapter II.7). Reasonable extrapolation for additional mortality in the heavily contaminated territories of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus brings the estimated death toll to about 900,000, and that is only for the first 15 years after the Chernobyl catastrophe. ”
(Alexey Yablokov, Vassily Nesterenko, Alexey Nesterenko: Chernobyl Consequences f the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, New York Academy of Sciences, VOLUME 1181, 2009)
And then we finish up with DemocracyNow, March 30 2011, live…
“GEORGE MONBIOT:—that so far the death toll from Chernobyl amongst both workers and local people is 43. Am I—sorry, are you saying you didn’t know that they had examined this—
HELEN CALDICOTT: That’s a lie, George. That’s a lie.”
In sum: If you believe that less than fifty people died after the greatest nuclear meltdown in history, then I’ve got a fantastic house to sell you, mansion, pool, hot tub, everything. It’s a steal… just outside Fukushima, Japan. Ocean view, stunning. Email me (George).
~
Joe Giambrone is a filmmaker, troublemaker, and author of Hell of a Deal: A Supernatural Satire. He edits the Political Film Blog. polfilmblog at gmail.
April 1, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, Nuclear Power, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment
Ali Abunimah & David Cronin at King’s College London
sternchenproductions | March 24, 2011
David Cronin:
Ali Abunimah & David Cronin at King’s College London on 24 March 2011, sponsored by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and King’s College Action for Palestine.
April 1, 2011 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment
Depleted Uranium – The Ultimate Dirty Bomb
Uploaded by iching64 on Oct 19, 2006
Depleted uranium is considered a weapon of mass destruction and is banned for use in warfare by international law, yet the US and Israel use it routinely.
The US military has used thousands of tons of depleted uranium in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Iraq sickening civilians and its own soldiers by the tens of thousands.
Depleted uranium contaminates food, water, air and land forever. It’s the ultimate “dirty bomb.”
For more information about this video go to: http://www.beyondtreason.com
March 30, 2011 Posted by aletho | Militarism, Nuclear Power, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment
Elliot Abrams’ Plan For Syria
“If Tunisia can move toward democracy, Algerians and Egyptians and even Libyans will wonder why they cannot. This kind of thing may catch on.” – Elliott Abrams, January 7, 2011
By Tony Cartalucci | Activist Post | March 29, 2011
Degenerate globalist co-conspirator Elliot Abrams, has been consistently supporting the recent conflagration throughout the Arab world and is pushing for ever-expanding US meddling in the region. In his recent piece, featured in the Washington Post titled “Ridding Syria of a Despot,” he fleshes out what is a fairly predictable plan of action already taking shape against the Bush-era “Axis of Evil” member.
Elliot Abrams is a member of the corporate-financier Council on Foreign Relations, a Project for a New American Century signatory, and former deputy national security adviser to President George W. Bush. He was convicted for his involvement in the Iran-Contra conspiracy and promptly pardoned by George Bush Sr. He would later go on to be implicated for his involvement in the 2002 Venezuela coup attempt against Hugo Chavez. His history of betraying and disgracing his country, and getting away with it, is probably why he feels perfectly comfortable making broad, sweeping threats toward entire nations today.
Elliot Abrams recently issued a personal threat to Libya’s Qadaffi and his intelligence chief, stating that they would both meet the “same fate as Saddam Hussein” if any American is attacked in the wake of increasing US threats and actions against Libya. He also had weighed in on Egypt in his piece “Less ‘Engagement,’ More Democracy” in the New York Times. In this piece he criticizes the current policy of engaging as equals with nations he deems as repressive regimes and calls for a revisit to George Bush’s “freedom agenda.” In other words – the export of “democracy” that has brought America the trillion dollar military adventures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Libya at the cost of thousands of US soldiers’ lives and the lives of millions of foreigners killed, maimed, or displaced.
It should be no surprise then that Abrams, who has never shouldered a rifle for his nation himself, is more than eager to move on to Syria with a myriad of aggressive attacks on its sovereignty prepared and ready in hand.
Abrams calls on the White House and Congress to condemn Syria, in particular the Assad government. He suggests that Syria be immediately brought before the UN Security Council, who just recently finished extra-legally ordaining the war with Libya. The Human Rights Council and the International Criminal Court are also mentioned as possible avenues to pressure Assad and the Syrian government.
Regarding the newly US-reordered Tunisia and Egypt, Abrams suggests they convene the Arab League and expell Syria as a member, as he claims they just did to Libya. Abrams’ suggestion echos fellow globalist policy wonk Kenneth Pollack’s proposal in his Brookings Institute report, “Bifurcating the Middle East.” Bifurcate, meaning to “divide,” indicates the classic gambit of divide and conquer is in play. Pollack, like Abrams, suggests that the “Arab street” after being “reformed” be rallied against states like Libya, Syria, and of course, Iran.
Abrams also suggests that Europe begin acting against Syria. Nicolas Sarkozy of France seems to have gotten the memo and is already making lofty threats toward Syria, including threats of military action, citing the ongoing atrocity in Libya as a stern warning for other Arab nations to consider. Sanctions are also being pushed by Abrams, but to what extent the Europeans are willing to carry them out remains to be seen.
Finally, Abrams suggests that the US pull its ambassador from Syria, reiterating his belief that it was a mistake in the first place to show this token sign of mutual respect for the sovereign nation. He concludes with a breathtakingly absurd display of patriotism and propaganda by stating, “Our principles alone should lead us to this position, but the memory of thousands of American soldiers killed in Iraq with the help of the Assad regime demands that we do all we can to help the Syrian people free themselves of that evil dictatorship.” And ‘help’ the US is doing, with the entire opposition being funded, defended, supported, and even partially based out of the United States and England.
Strange that Abrams has implicated Assad as complicit in killing US troops in Iraq, when Abrams himself and his “Neo-Con” cabal have hands-down done more to send US troops off to their needless deaths with their willful lying regarding WMD’s, than any Arab with a Kalashnikov. Also interesting, considering his statement, is Abrams’ support for the armed campaign in Libya, where the US is currently providing air support and arms for Al Qaeda linked rebels who themselves have sent fighters to Iraq to kill American troops, on record.
Of course, Abrams is writing for the impressionable readership of the Washington Post, so this blinding hypocrisy is most likely fodder strictly for the public’s consumption. However, sweeping aside the propaganda, we see a very real strategy already beginning to play out in regards to Syria. Let us remember that this is already a plan in motion, and recognize the surprise displayed by our feckless “leadership” as the poorly-feigned act that it is.
March 29, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
Corporate media delete U.S. role in Hamas-Fatah split
By Alex Kane| March 28, 2011
In response to the youth of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank rising up on March 14 and 15 to call for Palestinian political unity, both the leaders of Fatah and Hamas pledged to enter into talks aimed at reconciliation. Most recently, President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah “met with senior Hamas officials to discuss a proposed trip to Gaza and efforts to mend internal Palestinian division by forming a unity government,” the Ma’an News Agency reported.
With those talks came a spate of articles in the U.S. corporate media about the efforts at reconciliation. But in providing background on why these talks are happening, and the roots of the split between Hamas and Fatah, media outlets have deleted the crucial role the U.S. played in fomenting that split.
The New York Times explained that:
[Abbas had] not set foot in Gaza in the four years since a brief, bloody civil war there sent him and his Fatah colleagues fleeing to the West Bank…Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections in early 2006, and, for a brief time, Fatah and Hamas had a national unity government. But tensions between them led to the fighting and a break in communications.
TIME magazine’s Karl Vick similarly put it this way:
Mahmoud Abbas, who heads the Fatah party that governs the West Bank, has accepted an invitation from rival Hamas to travel to the Gaza Strip. The visit would be the first since Hamas drove Fatah operatives out of Gaza in 2007 — throwing some off from the tops of buildings — in the turmoil that followed Hamas’ surprise victory in elections months earlier.
All of these accounts don’t mention where the “turmoil” and the breakup of the short-lived national unity government between Hamas and Fatah following the 2006 elections came from. The expose of the Bush administration’s role in the split by David Rose in Vanity Fair remains essential reading for those wanting to understand the roots of the split.
Some crucial excerpts:
Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America’s behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power. (The State Department declined to comment.)
But the secret plan backfired, resulting in a further setback for American foreign policy under Bush. Instead of driving its enemies out of power, the U.S.-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of Gaza…
Within the Bush administration, the Palestinian policy set off a furious debate. One of its critics is David Wurmser, the avowed neoconservative, who resigned as Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief Middle East adviser in July 2007, a month after the Gaza coup.
Wurmser accuses the Bush administration of “engaging in a dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt dictatorship [led by Abbas] with victory.” He believes that Hamas had no intention of taking Gaza until Fatah forced its hand. “It looks to me that what happened wasn’t so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen,” Wurmser says…
Without this back story, why there is a bitter Hamas-Fatah split remains obscured. The least the U.S. media could do is provide a sentence explaining these facts.
March 28, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
Euro-US War on Libya: Official Lies and Misconceptions of Critics
By James Petras | 03.25.2011
One of the basic flaws of the arguments of critics of Euro-US wars is their resort to clichés, generalizations and arguments without any factual bases.
Introduction
The most common line on the US-Euro war on Libya is that it’s “all about oil” – the seizure of oil wells.
On the other hand Euro –US, government spokespeople have defended the war by claiming it is about “saving civilian lives facing genocide”, an act of “humanitarian intervention”.
Following the lead of their imperial powers, most of what passes for the Left in the US and Europe, ranging from social democrats, Marxists, Trotskyists and other assorted progressives claim to see and support a revolutionary mass uprising and not a few call for active intervention by the imperial powers, or the same thing, the UN, to presumably help the “social revolution” defeat the Gaddafi dictatorship.
These claims and variations of these arguments are totally without substance and belie the true nature of US-UK-French imperial power, based on rising militarism as evidenced in all the ongoing wars over the past decade (Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, etc.). What is revealing in the context of militarist intervention in Libya is that all the major countries which refused to engage in the war are motivated by a different type of global expansion: economic and market forces. China, India, Brazil, Russia, Turkey, Germany, the most dynamic capitalist countries in Asia, Europe and the Middle East are, in part, all opposed to the self-styled “allied” military response because they see (with solid reasons) no threat to their security, an open door for access to oil, a favorable investment climate and no signs of any progressive democratic outcome among the disparate elites competing for power and Western favor among the media labeled “rebels”.
(1) The Six Myths about Libya: Right and Left
The principle imperial powers and their mass media mouthpieces claim they are militarily assaulting Libya for “humanitarian reasons”. Their recent past and present history argues the contrary. Interventions in Iraq resulted in over a million killings, four million displaced civilians and the mass destruction of an entire civilization including water, electricity, research centers, museums…
Similar outcomes resulted from the invasion of Afghanistan. What was dubbed a humanitarian intervention resulted in a human catastrophe. In the case of Iraq the road to imperial barbarism began with ‘sanctions’, progressed to ‘no fly zones’, then to partition, then to invasion and occupation and the unleashing of sectarian tribal warfare among the ‘liberated’ rebel para-military death squads. Equally telling, the imperial assault against Yugoslavia, also justified as a “humanitarian war” against a “genocidal regime”, led to the 40 day massive bombing and destruction of Belgrade and other major cities, the imposition of a gangster terrorist regime (KLA) in the separatist province of Kosova and a huge US military base in the latter.
The bombing of Libya has destroyed major civilian infrastructure, airports, roads, seaports, communication centers as well as military targets. The sanctions and military attacks have driven out scores of multi-national corporations and exodus of hundreds of thousands of African, Middle Eastern and North African immigrant workers and technicians, devastating the economy and creating mass long-term unemployment. Moreover, following the logic of previous imperial military interventions, the seemingly ‘moderate’ call to patrol the skies via “no fly zone”, leads directly to bombing terrestrial civilian as well as military targets, onward to overthrowing the government. The imperial warmongers attacking Libya, like their predecessors, are not engaged in anything remotely resembling a humanitarian gesture: they are destroying the civilian lives they purport to be saving – as was the case in Vietnam earlier.
(2) War for Oil or Oil for Sale?
One of the most often repeated clichés by leftists is that the imperial invasion is about “seizing control of Libya’s oil and turning it over to their multi-nationals”.
The facts on the ground tell us a different story: the multi-national oil companies of Europe, Asia, the US and elsewhere have already “taken over” millions of acres of Libyan oil fields, some are already pumping and exporting oil and gas and are reaping hefty profits for almost the better part of a decade. Multi-national corporate (MNC) “exploitation by invitation” – from Gaddafi to the biggest oil companies- is an ongoing process from the early 1990’s to the present day. The list of foreign oil majors engaged in Libya exceeds that of most oil producing countries in the entire world. They include; British Petroleum with a seven year license on two concessions with one billion dollars in planned investments. Each concession involves BP exploiting enormous areas of Libya, one the size of Kuwait, the other the size of Belgium (Libyonline.com). Five Japanese firms, including Mitsubishi and Nippon Petroleum, Italy’s Eni Gas, British Gas and Exxon Mobil secured exploration and exploitation contracts in October 2010. In January 2010, Libya’s oil concessions mainly benefited US oil companies, especially Occidental Petroleum. Foreign multi-nationals gaining contracts also include Royal Dutch Shell, Total (France), Oil India, CNBC (China), Indonesia’s Pertamina and Norway’s Norsk Hydro (BBC News, 10/03/2005).
Despite sanctions imposed by Reagan in 1986, Halliburton has worked on billion dollar gas and oil projects since the 1980’s. During former Defense Secretary Cheney’s tenure as CEO of Halliburton, he led the fight against sanctions, arguing that “as a nation (there is) enormous value having American businesses engaged around the world” (Halliburtonwatch.com). Sanctions against Libya were lifted under Bush in 2004. During the current decade Gaddafi invited more foreign companies to invest in Libya than any other regime in the world. Clearly, with all the European and US imperial countries already exploiting Libya’s oil on a massive scale the argument that the “war is about oil” doesn’t hold water or oil!
(3) Gaddafi is a Terrorist
In the run-up to the US military assault, Treasury led by Israeli super-agent Stuart Levey, authored a sanctions policy freezing $30 billion dollars in Libyan assets claiming Gaddafi was a murderous tyrant (Washington Post, 3/24/11). Yet precisely seven years earlier, Cheney, Bush and Condoleezza Rice took Libya off the list of terrorist regimes and told Levey and his minions to lift sanctions. Every major European power followed suite: Gaddafi was welcomed in European capitals, prime ministers visited Tripoli and Gaddafi reciprocated by unilaterally dismantling his nuclear and chemical weapons programs (BBC, 9/5/2008). Gaddafi bent over backwards in co-operating with Washington’s campaign against groups, movements and individuals on Washington’s arbitrary “terror list” – arresting, torturing and killing Al Qaeda suspects; expelling Palestinian militants and criticizing Hezbollah, Hamas and other Israeli adversaries. The United Nations Human Rights Committee gave Gadaffi a clean bill of health. Western elites welcomed Gaddafi’s political turnabout but it did not save him from a massive military assault. Neo-liberal reforms, political apostasy, anti-terrorism, eliminating weapons of massive destruction, all weakened the regime, increased its vulnerability and isolated it from any consequential anti-imperialist allies. Gaddafi’s concessions made his regime an easy target for militarists in Washington, London and Paris.
(4) The Myth of the revolutionary Masses
The Left, including the principle social democratic, green and even left socialist parties of Europe and the US, tail-ending their imperial mentors, and susceptible to the massive media propaganda campaign demonizing Gaddafi, justified their support for military intervention, in the name of the “revolutionary people”, the peace-loving masses “fighting tyranny” and organizing popular militias to “liberate the country”. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The root base of the armed uprising is Benghazi, a hotbed of tribal backers and clients of the deposed King Idris who ruled with an iron fist over a semi-feudal backward state, who gave the US one of its biggest air bases (Wheeler) in the Mediterranean basin. Among the feuding leaders of the “transitional council” (who purport to lead but have few organized followers) are neo-liberal expats who promoted the Euro-US military invasion and can only envision coming to power on the bases of Western missiles .They look forward to dismantling the public oil companies engaged in joint ventures with foreign MNC. All independent observers report the lack of any clear reformist set along revolutionary organization or social-political democratic movement.
The armed militias in Benghazi are reportedly more active in rounding up, arresting and executing any members of Gaddafi’s national network of civilians active in his “revolutionary committees”, arbitrarily labeling them “fifth columnists” than in engaging the regimes armed forces. The top leaders of the “revolutionary” masses in Benghazi are two recent defectors of what the Left dubs Gaddafi’s “murderous regime”, Mustafa Abdul Jalil a former Justice minister (who prosecuted dissenters up to the day before the armed uprising), Mahmoud Jebril a top Gaddafite neo-liberal prominent in inviting multi-nationals to take over the oil fields (FT, March 23, 2011, p. 7) and Ali Aziz al-Eisawa, Gaddafi’s former ambassador to India who jumped ship when it looked like the uprising would succeed. These self-appointed leaders of the “rebels” are staunch backers of Euro-US military intervention just as they previously were long-term backers of Gaddafi’s dictatorship and promoters of MNC takeovers of oil and gas fields. The heads of the “rebels” military council is Omar Hariri and General Abdul Fattah Younis former head of the Ministry of Interior, both with long histories (since 1969) of repressing any democratic movements. It is not surprising that these top level military defectors have been totally incapable of arousing their troops, conscripts, to engage the loyalist forces backing Gaddafi and all look forward to riding the coattails of the Anglo-US-French armed forces.
The absence of the minimum of democratic credentials among the leaders of the anti-Gaddafi rag tag forces is matched by their abject dependence and subservience to the imperial armed forces to bring them to power. Their abuse and persecution of immigrant workers from Asia, Turkey and especially sub-Sahara Africans, their false accusations that they are suspected “mercenaries”, augurs ill for any possible new democratic order, or the revival of an economy dependent on immigrant labor, any vestige of a unified country and anything resembling a national economy.
The composition of the self-appointed leadership of the “National Transitional Council” is neither democratic, nationalist nor capable of uniting the country. Least of all are they capable of creating jobs lost by their armed power grab and sustaining the paternalistic welfare program and the highest per-capita income in Africa.
(5) Al Qaeda
The greatest geographical concentration of Al Qaeda terrorists is precisely in the areas dominated by the “rebels” (Cockburn: Counterpunch, March 24, 2011). For over a decade Gaddafi, in line with his embrace of the Bush-Obama “anti-terrorist” agenda, has been in the forefront of the fight against Al Qaeda. They have now enlisted in the ranks of the “rebels” fighting the Gaddafi regime. Likewise, the tribal chiefs, fundamentalist clerics and monarchists in the East have been active in fighting a “holy war” against Gaddafi and welcome arms and air cover from the Anglo-French-US “crusaders”, just as the Taliban and the Islamic fundamentalists welcomed military support from the Carter-Reagan White House to overthrow a secular regime in Afghanistan. The imperial intervention is based on ‘alliances’ with the most retrograde forces in Libya, with uncertain outcomes as to the future composition of the regime, and the prospects for political stability allowing Big Oil to return and exploit energy resources.
(6) “Genocide” or Armed Civil War
Unlike all ongoing mass popular Arab uprisings, the Libyan conflict began as an armed insurrection, directed at the violent seizure of power. Unlike other autocratic rulers, Gaddafi had secured a mass regional base among a substantial sector of the population on the bases of a well-financed welfare and housing program. Violence is inherent in any armed uprising and once one picks up the gun and tries to seize power, there is no basis for claiming one’s “civil rights” are being violated. The rules of warfare come into play, including the protection of non-combatants-civilians-as well as respect for the rights and protection of prisoners of war.
The unsubstantiated Euro-US claims of “genocide” amplified by the Western mass media and parroted by “left” spokespersons are contradicted by the daily reports of single and double digit deaths and injuries, resulting from urban violence on both sides, as control of cities and towns shifts between one side and the other.
Truth is the first casualty of civil war and both sides have resorted to monstrous fabrications of victories, casualties, demons and angels.
The fact of the matter is that this conflict began as a civil war between two sets of elites: an established paternalistic burgeoning neo-liberal autocracy with substantial popular backing and the other, a western imperialist financed and trained elite backed by an amorphous group of regional tribal, clerical and neo-liberal professionals lacking democratic and nationalist credentials
Conclusion
If not humanitarianism, oil or democratic values, what is the driving force of Euro-US imperial intervention?
A clue is in the selective bases of armed intervention. In Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, Qatar, Oman, ruling autocrats allied with and backed by Euro-US imperial rulers’ arrest and murder peaceful protestors, with impunity. In Egypt and Tunisia, the US financially backs a conservative self-appointed civil-military junta, to block a profound democratic, nationalist, social transformation in order to facilitate neo-liberal economic “reforms” run by pro-imperial electoral officials. While liberal critics accuse the West of “hypocrisy” and “double standards” in bombing Libya but not the Gulf butchers, in reality the imperial rulers are using the same imperial standards in each region. They defend autocratic strategic client regimes where they possess air force and naval bases, run intelligence operations and logistic platforms to pursue ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to threaten Iran. They attack Libya because it still refuses to collaborate with Western military operations in Africa and the Middle East.
The key point is that while Libya allows most of the big US-European oil multi-nationals to plunder its oil wealth, it is not yet, a strategic geo-political imperial asset. As we have written in many previous essays the driving force of US empire building is military not economic. In fact billion dollar economic interests were sacrificed in setting up sanctions against Iraq and Iran; the Iraq war shut down most oil exploitation for over a decade.
The Washington led assault on Libya – the majority of air sorties and missiles are carried out by US warplanes and submarines – is part of a general counter-attack against the most recent Arab popular pro-democracy movements. The West is backing the repression of pro-democracy movements throughout the Gulf; it is financing the pro-imperial, pro-Israel Egyptian junta; it is intervening in Tunisia to ensure that any new regime is “correctly aligned”. It backs Algerian despotism and Israel’s daily assaults on Gaza. And now, in Libya, it backs an uprising of ex-Gaddafites and right-wing monarchists who promise to militarily align with the US-European empire builders.
Dynamic market driven global and regional powers refuse to join in this conflict which jeopardizes their access to oil, including current large scale exploitation of energy sources under Gaddafi. Germany, China, Russia, Turkey, India and Brazil are growing at fast rates by exploiting new markets and natural resources, while the US, English and French spend billions in wars that de-stabilize markets and foment long-term wars of resistance. They recognize that the “rebels” are not capable of a quick victory, or of creating a stable environment for long-term investments. The “rebels” in power would become political clients of their militarist imperial mentors. Moreover, the military thrust of the imperial invaders has serious consequences for the emerging market economies. The US supports holy-roller rebels in China’s Tibetan province and Uyghur separatist “rebels” elsewhere. Washington and London back separatists in the Russian Caucasus. India is wary of US military support for Pakistan and its claims on Kashmir. Turkey opposes Kurdish separatists backed by US supplied arms to their Iraqi counterparts.
The Libyan precedent of imperial armed invasion on behalf of separatist clients bodes trouble for the market driven emerging powers. It is an ongoing threat to the burgeoning Arab freedom movement. And the death knell to the US economy; three wars can break the budget sooner rather than later. Most of all, the invasion undermines efforts by Libya’s democrats, socialists and nationalists to free the country from dictatorship and imperial backed reactionaries.
March 28, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | Gaddafi, Libya, Middle East, Muammar Gaddafi, Stuart Levey | Leave a comment
Zionists wield their influence by winning the ongoing propaganda war
My Catbird Seat | March 28, 2011
Iranian Journalist Kourosh Ziabari speaks with journalist and activist Stuart Littlewood about the enormous influence of Israeli lobby in the West.
Kourosh Ziabari: Zionists have always claimed that the Land of Israel historically belongs to them and this verdict is clearly emphasized in the Hebrew Bible. They say that according to the Book of Genesis, the land was promised by God to the descendants of Abraham through his son Isaac and to the Israelites, descendants of Jacob, Abraham’s grandson. So, what’s your response to them? Do they have the right to cite claims over what is called the Land of Israel? Is there any historical evidence to demonstrate that Palestinians are the true possessors of this land?
Stuart Littlewood: Using mythical scripture to make out that God is a racist who favors one tribe above all others, is bizarre to say the least. Some Zionists don’t believe it, so why should anyone else? In a booklet called “Zionism: A Jewish Communal Response” recently launched by The Board of Deputies of British Jews, Rabbi Tony Bayfield writes: “I am horrified by some strands of Zionism which treat the Bible as an exclusive title deed written by God. I do not regard the Torah as an extra-historical document written by the Divine hand… It is not Judaism’s title deed to the land.”
But it provides cover for the Zionists’ criminal scheme to dispossess the Palestinians-Arabs and Christians – so its importance is pumped up to bursting point. But why any non-Jews should take it seriously is beyond me.
The Jews were expelled by the Roman occupation. These days the right of return must be exercised as soon as the reason for expulsion, for example, foreign occupation, ceases. The Jews had their chance when the Roman Empire collapsed. They didn’t take it. It’s ridiculous to lay claim 16 centuries later at gun-point and eject the people whose homeland it now is. Most of today’s Jews, I’m told, have no ancestral links to the Holy Land anyway.
The Jerusalem Declaration of 2006 by the Latin Patriarch and Local Heads of Churches sums it up for me: “We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as a false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation… We reject the teachings of Christian Zionism that facilitate and support these policies as they advance racial exclusivity and perpetual war…”
As for Jerusalem itself, it was already 2000 years old and belonged to the Canaanites when King David captured it. Historians say that before the present-day conflict the Jews controlled Jerusalem for some 500 years, whereas it was subsequently ruled by Muslims for more than twice that long. And for nearly 90 years it was a Christian kingdom. Lots of people, besides the Jews, conquered Jerusalem, so there are many competing claims, which is probably why the UN declared it should be independently administered as an international city.
Matters weren’t helped when Obama opened his big mouth and declared to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that Jerusalem “will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided”. Realizing it was a stupid thing to say, he added: “Well, obviously, it’s going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be part of those negotiations… And I think that it is smart for us to work through a system in which everybody has access to the extraordinary religious sites in Old Jerusalem, but that Israel has a legitimate claim on that city.” A legitimate claim? As everyone knows, the Old City officially belongs to Palestinian East Jerusalem.
I don’t think it’s a question of the Palestinians proving ownership, though I imagine most families can produce Ottoman-era land deeds – if the Israelis haven’t confiscated and forged them.
Hamas chief Khalid Misha’al has said: “We shall never recognize the right of any power to rob us of our land and deny us our national rights. We shall never recognize the legitimacy of a Zionist state created on our soil in order to atone for somebody else’s sins or solve somebody else’s problem.” That doesn’t sound unreasonable.
KZ: As you mentioned in one of your recent articles, the UK Foreign Secretary William Hague has categorically condemned the atrocities committed by the regime of Moammar Gaddafi and the mass killing of Libyan citizens by his mercenaries. The UK government revoked Gaddafi’s and his family members’ political immunity in an action aimed at threatening the interests of the Libyan dictator worldwide; however, we haven’t seen any action against or condemnation of the brutal massacre of the defenseless Palestinians by the Israeli regime in the December 2008 and January 2009. What does this exercise of double standards imply? Is it possible to justify it?
SL: It’s no use looking to the British government for fair play. The political scene here is heavily infiltrated by the pro-Israel lobby, and money talks. The Friends of Israel movement claims 80 per cent of Conservative Party MPs including of course its leader, David Cameron. Membership, I hear, is a necessary stepping stone to high office. Cameron calls himself a Zionist and our foreign secretary, William Hague, has been a Friend of Israel since his schooldays. His side-kick, Liam Fox, the defense secretary, thinks that “we must remember that in the battle for the values that we stand for, for democracy against theocracy, for democratic liberal values against repression – Israel’s enemies are our enemies and this is a battle in which we all stand together or we will all fall divided”. The minister for Middle East affairs was an officer of Conservative Friends of Israel. It’s all sewn up.
David Cameron recently told Jewish dinner guests: “With me you have a prime minister whose belief in Israel is indestructible… I will always be a strong defender of the Jewish people. I will always be an advocate for the State of Israel.” Cameron, and Brown and Blair before him, are patrons of the Jewish National Fund. Quite simply, Israel is never punished. It is allowed to get away scot-free.
A body called the Committee on Standards in Public Life is supposed to call to account MPs who place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organizations that might influence them in the performance of their official duties, but it too has been infiltrated.
It’s interesting to see how the British Government rushed to press for a UN mandate to take whatever steps might be necessary to protect Libyan civilians from their bully-boy dictator and wasted no time establishing a no-fly zone and annihilating Qaddafi’s air defenses. But it stood idly by and watched the Israeli slaughter of Gazan civilians and showed no sign of wanting it stopped.
Headlines this week quoted Hague saying, “There can be no hiding place for tyrants”, referring to Qaddafi, but he’s leading the rush to change our Universal Jurisdiction laws to protect Israel’s war crimes suspects from arrest. These double standards are the hallmark of a corrupted political class. It can never be justified, but for the moment we’re stuck with these people.
Hague condemned the recent Jerusalem bomb blast as “a callous and disgusting act of terrorism” but he’s careful not to condemn the almost daily air-strikes by Israel on Gaza’s civilians. I’m reading a report now on just one day’s horror inflicted by the Zionist military on the Occupied Territories that says:
24 hours to 8 am, 23 March 2011
3 air strikes – 7 attacks – 28 raids including home invasions – 8 dead – 15 injured – 1 curfew – 15 taken prisoner – 14 detained – 79 restrictions of movement
Child, teenager and 3 adults killed in Israeli shelling – homes damaged
Injury and 4 deaths in Israeli air strikes
Agricultural sabotage: farms and homes under Israeli fire in 3 Gaza areas – crops bulldozed
Israeli Navy opens fire on Palestinian fishing boats
Zionist mob smashes on-duty ambulance windscreen
Zionist militants cut down Palestinian olive trees
Night peace disruption and/or home invasions in 8 towns and villagesSource of statistics: Palestinian Monitoring Group
The Fourth Geneva Convention puts Contracting Parties under a solemn obligation to act. They don’t seem to have grasped that.
KZ: It’s widely believed that the Zionist lobby has an enormous influence over the mass media in the U.S. and European countries. AIPAC and other influential Zionist circles usually block the publication of materials critical of Israel and its policies, and vilify as anti-Semitist whoever dares question the barbaric conducts of this illegitimate regime. What’s your idea about the dominance of Zionist lobby over the mainstream media in the West?
SL: You are right to focus on this question. The Zionists wield their influence by winning the ongoing propaganda war. The Arabs, after being on the losing end for decades, still haven’t learned how to fight it and don’t show any sign of wishing to. I have put forward proposals for media skills training but it’s hopeless. Even allowing for the PA being dominated by Israel’s stooges their failure to address this is not only ignorant but a major strategic blunder.
Last year The Israel Project, a US media advocacy group, produced a revised training manual to help the worldwide Zionist movement maintain its control over the propaganda war, keep their ill-gotten territorial gains and persuade international audiences to accept that their crimes are not only necessary but conform to “shared values” between Israel and the civilized West.
It’s a clever document. It teaches how to ‘justify’ the slaughter, the ethnic cleansing, the land-grabbing, the cruelty and the blatant disregard for international law and UN resolutions, and give it a sweeter smell. It is designed to have us gullible Americans and Europeans believing that we actually share values with the psychopaths of Israel’s racist regime and that their abominable behavior deserves our support.
The strategy from the start is to isolate Hamas and rob the resistance movement and the Palestinian population of their human rights…. It drums into them nonsense like, “The language of Israel is the language of America: ‘democracy,’ ‘freedom,’ ‘security,’ and ‘peace.’ These four words are at the core of the American political, economic, social, and cultural systems, and they should be repeated as often as possible because they resonate with virtually every American.”
Most mainstream media in the UK are under pro-Israel influence, if not Zionist ownership. The BBC also is heavily biased and too often broadcasts Israel’s definition of the situation. However, a small number of outlets, such as Channel 4 News, take an independent line.
Then there’s the over-representation of Jews in Parliament. If Muslims were over-represented to the same extent they’d have 200 MPs. And there’d be a big fuss.
These are not the only issues. It has to be admitted that Israel’s propaganda people do a good job of cultivating the news media, providing timely briefings and making sure spokesmen with good English are available whenever needed. The Palestinians on the other hand are lazy, disorganised and their embassy here in London is worse than useless. They fail to take media relations seriously so they and their countrymen pay a heavy price.
Nor is it enough to be the crushed victim. Having labels like “extremist”, “militant” and “terrorist” pinned on them, no matter how unjustly, is deeply damaging. The Palestinians must shake off these slurs, but before they can do so Hamas must re-write its objectionable charter and ‘re-brand’ itself.
Hamas and Hezbollah are only regarded as terrorists by the White House and Tel Aviv and by US-Israeli stooges and flag-wavers at Westminster and elsewhere. The definition they use describes the antics of the US and Israel perfectly, and the whole situation needs reframing to reflect this.
The resistance movements have work to do on this. The propaganda battle can’t be won without a properly planned communications strategy skillfully executed.
KZ: The 13 May 2010 incursion of IDF commandos into the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was followed by the astounding silence of the international community, United Nations and the United States. No credible investigation was carried out to shed light on the atrocious attack of Israel on the international peace activists and Tel Aviv never heeded the call of Turkey to officially apologize for its criminal action against the peace activist. Let’s imagine that a third country, for example Iran, had attacked the flotilla of Israeli activists in international waters, killing 9 and injuring tens of others. What would the reaction of international community, UN and the U.S. have been? Would they assume the same passive stance and remain silent deafeningly?
SL: Former British MP George Galloway, a mainspring behind the Free Gaza movement, called the assault “a murderous act of piracy” on innocent humanitarian aid workers and demanded a wholesale review of the international community’s relationship with “the criminal pirate state of Israel”.
But Israel’s Mark Regev told BBC TV. “We did everything we could to avoid violence. They [the aid workers] chose the path of confrontation… This is elementary, we have to defend ourselves.” He claimed the Israeli boarding party was attacked! The BBC failed to question Israel’s act of piracy in international waters and its blatant violation of maritime law.
As it turns out, the Israelis did themselves immense damage by attacking the Mavi. They were too stupid to understand how it would be seen as an ‘own goal’.
It’s funny how HMS Cumberland and York magically appeared in the Mediterranean when Hague or prime minister David Cameron snapped their fingers during the Libyan crisis. Where were these ships when British nationals on the Mavi Marmara and the Dignity and other vessels were being assaulted in international waters and terrorized by Israeli pirates, abducted and thrown in their stinking jails? Why weren’t they bringing life-saving aid to innocent Palestinians after Israel’s indiscriminate ‘Cast Lead’ blitzkrieg?
Our ships have been protecting victims of Qaddafi, and HMS York unloaded tons of medical supplies and other humanitarian aid for the Benghazi Medical Centre. Israel is still bombing and strafing Palestinian civilians in Gaza with impunity on a daily basis, so when the Libyan crisis dies down I see no reason why York shouldn’t be loaded up with more supplies and sail for Gaza, along with the rest of the NATO fleet, where the humanitarian crisis continues unabated.
On the Libya situation Hague has been sounding off with loud threats of retribution. “Crimes will not go unpunished and will not be forgotten; there will be a day of reckoning and the reach of international justice is long,” he says.
Let’s not imagine Iran attacking the humanitarian flotilla. If Britain and the so-called civilized countries of the West won’t call Israel’s bluff and break the blockade let’s imagine Iran doing so.
KZ: In its resolutions, the United Nations Security Council has always called Israel the occupying power, implicitly attesting to the occupation of Palestinian territories by the Israeli regime; however, no practical steps were ever taken to end the occupation of Palestinian lands by Tel Aviv. Do you know of any effective solution to bring an end to this occupation and hold Israel accountable for the crimes it has committed against the Palestinian nation?
SL: Israel is violating over 30 Security Council resolutions that require action by it and it alone. If any other state in the world were to defy the will of the international community so persistently, it would be subjected to economic and/or military sanctions.
UN resolutions must be implemented and international law enforced. If the international community won’t act to rein in the delinquent, all hopes of global peace will remain in shreds. UN Security Council Resolution 242 (fully binding) affirms among other things the necessity for guaranteeing freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area. The blockade must be broken, if necessary by vessels with an armed escort.
The Israeli regime relies heavily on the EU for its exports and enjoys preferential treatment under the EU-Israel Association Agreement of 1995. An obvious part of the solution would be the suspension of this agreement. Its terms require compliance with the principles of the United Nations Charter placing emphasis on peace, security and regional co-operation, and on the need to contribute to the stability and prosperity of the Mediterranean region and promote understanding and tolerance.
Article 2 says that “respect for human rights and democratic principle constitute an essential element of this agreement”. Israel has never complied but continues to reap the benefits. In April 2002 the European parliament, with a large majority, requested the European Commission and the Council of Europe to suspend the agreement, without success. The EU has all the leverage needed but is afraid to use it.
We are maybe halfway through the process of educating and informing Western citizens. There will come a point, I feel sure, when civil societies will be savvy enough to clean up their Zionist-infested politics and force the necessary action. In the meantime the Palestinians need to be heard in Western Europe and the United States. A proper on-the-ball communications and media centre and a radio station should have been established years ago. Iran too needs to improve its image to counter the barrage of smears.
Israel is always trying to upgrade its image, but no amount of marketing gloss can hide the evil beneath.
KZ: What in your view, is the reason behind the unconditional support of Israel by the United States? Why does the White House endanger its interests to pay for the atrocities and brutalities of Tel Aviv? Why does it distort its global image in compensation for the suicidal mistakes of Israel?
SL: The ignorance of your average American citizen plus Jewish domination of major business, media and financial institutions and the whole political fabric. Another reason why Americans are soft in the head about Israel is the Scofield Bible, which became the standard fodder of fervent Christians. Cyrus Scofield, a sleazy character and convicted criminal, was commissioned to re-write the King James Version of the Bible by inserting Zionist-friendly notes. The aim was to change the Christian view of Zionism by creating and promoting a pro-Zionist subculture within Christianity. The Oxford University Press used Scofield as the editor, and the Scofield Reference Bible, as it was called, has been a best-seller in America for over 90 years.
It introduced a new worship icon, the modern State of Israel, which did not exist at the time but was already on the drawing board of the World Zionist movement.
KZ: A report which is attributed to the CIA indicates that the political entity of Israel will decline within 20 years. Do you agree with this prediction? Will Israel survive, should the United States lift its support and backing for it? Is Israel capable of standing on its own feet without the assistance and endorsement of the United States?
SL: Israel has an attitude problem. I suppose it might survive without US support if it mended its manners drastically. But I doubt if it will ever be able to throw off its pariah status or stop shooting itself in the foot. It will become isolated and slowly crumble. Thanks to its selfish fanaticism and unhinged leadership it will do a great deal of damage in the process.
Fortunately, a good many Jews across the world are not Zionists and are disgusted by Israel’s conduct, and their number seems to be growing. And the worldwide boycott and disinvestment movement is making good progress and the effect is hurting Tel Aviv. So the tide is turning.
US government aid to Israel runs at around $3 billion annually and Israel is not required to account for how it is spent. The money helps pay for Israel’s costly occupation and the high-tech paraphernalia of military oppression. Most of it violates the US’s own laws, but that doesn’t seem to matter to the brainwashed Washington administration. Israel usually gets another $2 to 3 billion in indirect aid – military support, loan write-offs and special grants. The US has also been paying Egypt and Jordan to buy their co-operation with Israel.
If Americans wake up to what’s going on and aid is withheld until Israel complied with UN resolutions and international law there would probably be peace. But hostilities would soon flare up again if aid resumed. The tap has to be turned off permanently.
KZ: Israel’s illegal nuclear activities are known to almost everyone. Under the pretext of not being a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Israel has deposited more than 200 atomic warheads in its arsenal and the Federation of American Scientists has admitted that Israel is the sole possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. However, in violation of the UNSC resolutions that demand that Israel bring its nuclear program under the safeguards of IAEA, Tel Aviv is secretly continuing to develop atomic bombs. How should this concern be tackled? Who is responsible for disarming Israel?
SL: The responsibility is America’s, because it has encouraged Israel to duck its international obligations. In October 2009 the Washington Times ran a report, by Eli Lake, that Obama had agreed to keep Israel’s nukes secret by reaffirming a decades-old understanding that allowed Israel to keep a nuclear arsenal without opening it to international inspections. Under this understanding the US has not pressured Israel to disclose its nuclear weapons or sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which could require Israel to give up its estimated several hundred nuclear bombs.
Israel is never required to honor what it signs up to. Back in 1995 it agreed, with the other parties to the Barcelona Declaration, to “pursue a mutually and effectively verifiable Middle East Zone free of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, chemical and biological, and their delivery systems” and “consider practical steps to prevent the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons as well as excessive accumulation of conventional arms.”
There has been no progress, either, on the Security Council’s demand in resolution 487, passed in 1981, that “Israel urgently … place its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards”.
KZ: Considering the Zionist regime’s notorious lack of restraint, it is obvious that Israel’s 200 (or is it 400?) nuclear warheads pose a massive threat not only to the Middle East but the rest of the world.
As you say, it is the only state in the region that possesses nuclear weapons (and probably the only one that possesses chemical and biological weapons) while not being a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It has signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. Israel has not signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. It has signed but not ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. Why not? Because being a menace is necessary to its ambitions.
Israel is capable of wiping Iran, and every Arab state, off the map at the touch of a button. Its warheads can also be targeted on European cities and, some say, already are.
SL: Despite all this, in the words of Israel’s chief spin-doctor Mark Regev, “Israel is very concerned about the Iranian nuclear program. And for good reason. Iran’s President openly talks about wiping Israel off the map. We see them racing ahead on nuclear enrichment so they can have enough fissile material to build a bomb. We see them working on their ballistic missiles… The Iranian nuclear program is a threat, not just to my country, but to the entire region. And it’s incumbent upon us all to do what needs to be done to keep from proliferating.”
Iran’s nuclear facilities, including its uranium enrichment facilities, are under IAEA supervision. Strange, isn’t it, that the West is putting such immense pressure on Iran about its nuclear activities, but not Israel.
~
Kourosh Ziabari can be reached at kziabari@gmail.com
March 28, 2011 Posted by aletho | Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment
False Symmetry: Teaching Holocaust in Gaza Schools
A set of historical ironies arises from this absurd report. (UNRWA)
By Seraj Assi | Palestine Chronicle | March 27, 2011
Spring has turned red in Gaza with a new Israeli massacre. Late Monday night Israeli combat planes pounded Northern Gaza and murdered two children and three adults whose only crime was playing football in front of their house. At the same day Haaretz published a report complaining that Hamas protests UN plans to teach Gazans about the Holocaust. It was also the very day that the Knesset in Israel approved the Nakaba Law, an absurd legislation that bans Palestinian citizens from commemorating the Nakba.
This is no mere coincidence. Nor is it the first time that Israel’s massacring of Palestinian children is followed by absurd demands to teach Jewish victimhood in Palestinian schools, while working to prevent its Palestinian citizens from commemorating their tragedy at the same time.
The uproar against the UN plan to teach the Holocaust in Gaza schools was spurred in February this year after a UN official told a Jordanian daily that UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, would introduce the Holocaust history to Gaza students as part of its human rights curriculum for the next school year starting in September.
Haaretz also reported a series of statements by UN and Israeli officials accusing Palestinians of not fully understanding the tragedy that happened to the Jews, of divvying up facts, taking things out of context, and being reluctant to acknowledge Jewish suffering fearing it would diminish recognition of their own claims. The Israeli newspaper did not forget to remind Palestinians how the need to find a sanctuary for hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors contributed to the creation of Israel and that Palestinian recognition of the Holocaust is a necessary step toward peace.
A set of historical ironies arises from this absurd report. Most notable is that Israel’s billing of the Holocaust as a moral justification for the creation of Israel is historically refuted. Simply because it does not account for the fact that preparations for the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine had begun some half century before the Holocaust. Nor does it really tell us how many Holocaust survivors live in Israel today.
Yet this is not to suggest that we must accept this moral logic had there been a valid historical connection between the two events. For Palestinians are not responsible for the Holocaust and it is absurd to see their refusal to teach it to their children as complicity, especially when they are being ethnically cleansed by Israel’s air forces on a daily basis.
Yet what does remain valid here is that linking the Palestinian Nakba with the Holocaust is still vital to understanding how the latter has been always used to justify the former. The bulk of Gaza residents are themselves refugees whose dispossession was justified by Zionist misappropriation of the Holocaust tragedy.
Israel’s symmetry between the histories of the Holocaust and the Nakba is misleading for a simple reason. That is while the Holocaust is seen by Palestinians as part of European history and has nothing to do with Palestinian consciousness, the Nakba was generated by Israel and must be taught in its schools as part of its own history. Not to mention that for Palestinians the Nakba is an ongoing tragedy; that the refugee question is still unsettled and that Palestinians still live under occupation and ethnic suppression.
The question that persists is has Israel ever acknowledged Palestinian suffering and ongoing tragedy? The fact is that while countless books have been devoted in Israel and the West to denying Palestinian tragedy and distorting their history from Joan Peters’ notorious From Time Immemorial to this present day, there is no comparable Palestinian study on denying the Holocaust or challenging its scope.
I myself spent twelve years in an Arab school inside the so-called modern, democratic and liberal State of Israel and never heard of the word “Nakba.” The name Palestine itself has been banned in Arab schools for decades. We Palestinian students were never taught about the Islamic era in Palestine which lasted about thirteen centuries. Instead we were taught about Israel’s Independence Day, Zionist Peace Doves and Palestinian terrorism.
I vividly recall those moments when we were forced to stand still in memory of Israeli soldiers who had killed our own people. How else could we come to terms with the fact that many Palestinian Arabs in Israel continue to call Israel’s Independence Day the Independence Holiday?
Yes Palestinians are aware of the tragedy that befell the Jews. But they are also aware of the way it has been invested to justify their dispossession and displacement. They are aware of how by a strange change of fortune they became the victims of the victims; how the Zionist movement made the shift from victims to victimizers with terrifying ease; how Jewish suffering has been turned into political industry and discursive device for its colonial project in Palestine; how it has been used by Israel as political instrument and ideological weapon and seen as tantamount to the recognition of Jewish claims to the land.
To be sure, Palestinians do not refuse to teach or learn the Holocaust per se, but the Zionist perspective on the Holocaust. That is the way the tragic history of the Jews is being now turned into a modern version of civilizing mission in Gaza. Is there anything more absurd than besieging a people, ruining their life, slaughtering their children, destroying their schools and hospitals, and returning the next day to offer them lessons in multiculturalism?
Perhaps when Palestinians will have their full rights as a people, when they will live in freedom and justice and feel more secure in their homeland; they would be most happy to learn the history of the Holocaust, teach Jewish literature, and perhaps read Greek poetry.
– Seraj Assi is a PhD Student in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University, Washington DC.
March 27, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise–Lieberman Suggests No-Fly Zone an Option in Syria if Violence Escalates
crescentandcross | March 27, 2011
Sen. Joe Lieberman suggested Sunday he would support military intervention in Syria if its president resorts to the kind of violent tactics used by Libya’s Muammar al-Qaddafi.
Dozens reportedly have been killed in protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government, raising questions about whether the international community would get involved.
Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, told “Fox News Sunday” that if Assad starts slaughtering his own people, he will risk other countries imposing a no-fly zone “just as we’re doing in Libya.” He urged Assad to, instead, negotiate with the “freedom fighters” in his country.
“There’s a precedent now that the world community has set in Libya, and it’s the right one,” Lieberman said.
The Obama administration, though, pushed back on suggestions that the United States could support another intervention.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday she doesn’t expect that to happen, describing the clashes in Syria as part of a “police action” — as opposed to a military campaign against the Syrian people.
“Each of these situations is unique,” she said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “Certainly we deplore the violence in Syria.”
March 27, 2011 Posted by aletho | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
Israel, right or wrong
By Paul Balles | MyCatbirdSeat | March 26, 2011
A staunch defender of anything Israel does, the Washington Post’s Richard Cohen feeds Jewish paranoia, distorts Palestinian history and attacks Israel’s critics.
“If I were an Israeli, I’d be worried. If I were an Arab, I’d be insulted. If I were a critic only of Israel, I’d be ashamed.”
Thus concluded Richard Cohen in the Washington Post (Monday, February 28, 2011)
What Cohen would be worried about is what he perceives as anti-Semitism in the Arab world, fuelled in WWII by the Muslim cleric Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem.
According to Cohen, al-Husseini “the titular leader of Muslim Palestinians, broadcast Nazi propaganda to the Middle East, recruited European Muslims for the SS, exulted in the Holocaust and after the war went on to represent his people in the Arab League.”
Cohen not only faults Arabs for their support of al-Husseini, but for Cohen’s conclusion that “The Arab world is saturated by Jew-hatred.”
This is a propaganda line that serves no other purpose but to instill fear in Jews everywhere.
Voices like Cohen’s–and there are many–have a much greater impact on Israelis and their worldwide supporters than any biased statements made by a single Muslim cleric.
But then Zionists in America feed their own paranoia by deceiving themselves and distorting reality in their image twisting house of mirrors.
Cohen says “If I were an Arab I’d be insulted.”
To Cohen, an Arab should be insulted by al-Husseini seeking support from the Axis of Germany and Italy prior to WW II.
In 1941, al-Husseini sought a public declaration of support from the Axis nations for: 1) Arab independence from British and French rule; 2) the freedom for the independent Arab nations to unite in some form; 3) and for the elimination of the proposed Jewish homeland in Palestine.
Why should those goals give cause for anyone except an Israeli to suggest that Arabs should be insulted?
Instead of putting al-Husseini’s mission to save Palestine for the Palestinians into proper perspective, Cohen attempts to distort history.
Al-Husseini also sought military and financial assistance for an Arab uprising that he promised he could unleash, though only in conjunction with the Axis declaration.
Finally, Cohen crows “If I were a critic only of Israel I’d be ashamed.”
If American supporters of Israel were more critical of Israel when Israel deserves it, there would be little call to complain of the crimes committed by Israelis.
Israel stands in constant denial of any wrong-doing, whether the wrong happens to be killing by the Stern Gang, apartheid treatment of Palestinians, murders in Gaza or illegal Jewish settlements.
If the rest of the world attempts to pass a resolution finding Israel guilty of wrong-doing, the US, under Zionist control, vetoes it. This has happened 36 times in the past four decades
Jews who criticize anything that Israel does, no matter how horrendous, have been dubbed “self-hating Jews”.
Major U.S. Jewish organizations, from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations are committed to defending Israel whether right or wrong.
“Any time you engage in an activity critical of Israel you are trying to destroy the state of Israel,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, said.
Israel isn’t even able to accept criticism by Zionist Jews. Judge Goldstone is a case in point. He was severely faulted for identifying wrongdoing by Israel in Gaza even though his investigation was thorough and fair.
While Israel continues with apartheid practices, illegal settlements, and attempts to get the US to bomb Iran, its blind supporters promote anti-Semitism.
It’s time for reflection and self-criticism. Thinking like Richard Cohen’s only increases fear by Jews and disdain by others.
March 26, 2011 Posted by aletho | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment
Resistance factions do not call for war, Ashkenazi calls for shelling populated areas
Palestine Information Center – 26/03/2011
GAZA — The recent firing of mortar shells at Israeli targets by the armed wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, was in retaliation to the escalating Israeli army crimes against the Palestinian people, Abu Obaida, the Brigades’ spokesman, said.
He added in an interview with the Panorama TV program on the Hiwar network Friday that there is a practical calm in Gaza, and the resistance factions only retaliate against Israeli attacks.
The spokesman stressed that resistance factions do not call for war and seek to spare the people its repercussions, charging Israel with starting the aggression.
Israel is trying to picture the resistance as the one starting violence and that its aggression was in retaliation, which is totally false and the vice versa is correct, Abu Obaida added.
He accused Israel of spreading rumors about resistance arming itself with advanced weaponry to the extent it said the resistance has acquired pilotless planes.
Israel is trying to drive a wedge among the Palestinians in a bid to weaken resistance, which is the factor uniting the Palestinian people, Abu Obaida said.
~
Ashkenazi calls for shelling populated areas to kill resistance fighters
Palestine Information Center – 26/03/2011
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel’s former chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi has called for killing Palestinian resistance fighters in the Gaza Strip using all means even it entails shelling populated areas.
Speaking at a ceremony in Paris, Ashkenazi was quoted by the Hebrew radio on Friday as saying that the Israeli army should chase and liquidate Palestinian resistance fighters in Gaza at any price “even if they are present in civilian areas”.
Shifting to Iran, the former chief of staff opined that Iran should be blocked from attaining nuclear weapons. He added that no option should be ruled out in this attempt.
~
Israel deploys air defense system ‘Iron Dome’ near Gaza
Palestine Information Center – 26/03/2011
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The Israeli army is to deploy the mobile air defense system the “Iron Dome” in areas adjacent to the Gaza Strip on Sunday, a Hebrew press report said.
Yediot Ahronot said the deployment of the system to start on Sunday was in anticipation of further deterioration of the conditions on the “Gaza front” as calls are escalating for launching a large scale offensive against the besieged coastal enclave.
Two of the Iron Dome’s systems would be initially deployed, the paper said, noting that it would not be practically operational for months.
However, heads of local councils surrounding Gaza doubted the Iron Dome’s ability to ward off the danger of rockets fired from the Strip as it would not cover all those areas in the first stage.
The army announced that the Iron Dome, which is designed to intercept very short-range rockets up to 70 kilometers in all-weather situations, would not be able to cover and protect all settlements surrounding the Strip.
~
Israeli artillery shell blasts factory in Gaza
Palestine Information Center – 26/03/2011
GAZA — Artillery shelling by the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) at dawn Saturday started a huge fire in a soft drinks factory in the Gaza Strip and inflicted major damage to the facility.
The PIC reporter said that an artillery shell slammed into Al-Sattar factory east of Zaitun suburb in Gaza city causing a big explosion in the petrol tanks inside the factory.
He said that fire fighters controlled the resultant massive fire after two hours, adding that civil defense squads participated in the effort.
March 26, 2011 Posted by aletho | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment
Israel’s racist response to Itamar murders would be unthinkable in the U.S.
By David Samel | Mondoweiss | March 25, 2011
Most of us generally think of the U.S. as a country that has made significant strides in combating racism, even if it still has a long way to go. Israelis and their supporters sometimes try to downplay Israeli racism by comparing it to the unfortunate phenomenon of American racism. But as shown by the aftermath of the recent murders of five family members in the West Bank settlement of Itamar, any suggestion of a rough equivalence is obscene.
First, let us go back a generation and recall the 1989 murder in Boston of Carol Stuart, a pregnant lawyer. She and her husband Charles were shot in their car as they returned from childbirth class; Carol died and Charles was seriously wounded in the abdomen. Charles told police that a black gunman with a raspy voice had entered the car in a hijacking attempt and shot them both. The Boston Police reacted fiercely by targeting virtually the entire African-American male population of the Mission Hill neighborhood where the crime occurred. Men and youths were stopped, frisked, searched, interrogated, some even stripped naked on the street. The police apparently intended to wreak such havoc that eventually someone who knew something would crack and provide a lead on the killer. To that end, they were “successful,” inducing a tip and arresting a known robber named William Bennett as the murderer. Charles Stuart then picked Bennett out of a lineup. If that were the end of the Stuart saga, it would have been outrageous. Only those who worship at the altar of police authority could justify the brutalization of an entire community in response to a crime, however horrible, committed by an individual. The racist overtones of the police response were unmistakable as well. It would have been inconceivable for the police to commit such mayhem against any white community if Stuart had identified a Caucasian as the assailant. As it turns out, the story took an expected and dramatic turn a few months later when Stuart’s brother told the authorities that Charles had murdered his wife and fabricated the black gunman with the raspy voice. Charles committed suicide before the police closed in.
Fast forward 20 years to Itamar and the nearby Palestinian village of Awarta. In the wake of the grisly discovery of the five bodies, the Israelis, assuming the perpetrator to be a Palestinian from Awarta, launched a retaliatory/investigative response on the village that could best be described as the Boston Police on supersized steroids. The Israeli Defense Forces immediately arrested 20 “suspects” and eventually detained hundreds, holding dozens in jail for at least several days. International activists reported that the IDF took over about 30 homes for their own housing, either expelling the residents or forcing them to crowd into one room. They arbitrarily searched and vandalized hundreds of homes, including defecating on beds, and physically attacked numerous villagers. The Jewish settlers themselves sought revenge, hurling stones at random Palestinians. Even PM Netanyahu got into the act, announcing the construction of 500 new housing units for settlers as payback for the crime, as if the entire Palestinian community were responsible. Of course, the fact that all of the settlements are considered illegal by every country on Earth except one never even entered the discussion.
The Boston Police received some much-deserved flak from the public when the dust settled on the Stuart tragedy. It would be nice, but probably unduly optimistic, to think that such heavy-handed tactics could not be repeated today in the U.S. But the orgy of collective punishment unleashed by the IDF, the settlers, and the government went light-years beyond what the Boston Police dared to impose in Mission Hill. Can anyone imagine the police rounding up dozens of innocent blacks, occupying dozens of apartments housing black families, allowing white vigilantes to stone African-American residents? Can anyone imagine Boston’s mayor unveiling a housing plan that targeted the entire African-American community as payback for a black-on-white crime?
It now appears that the initial presumption that the murders in Itamar were committed by Palestinian(s) may also be incorrect, but regardless of how that plays out, the responses of Israel’s settlers, army and government have demonstrated that millions of Palestinians are subject to ruthless and arbitrary treatment at the hands of Israelis – private citizens, army, and government alike – who presume to exercise unchallenged authority over them. The U.S. surely has not resolved its own racial disparities, but at least such brazen public displays of foul racism here would be unthinkable. The Israelis don’t even bother with a fig leaf. How long will Israel continue to enjoy the near-unanimous support of U.S. lawmakers, which requires willful blindness to a system of ethnic superiority that we are proud to have abandoned decades ago?
March 25, 2011 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment
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How 1960’s French Nuclear Tests Are Still Claiming Lives in Algeria
Sputnik – 15.02.2018
On February 13, 1960, France carried out its first nuclear test in Algeria’s southern Reggane region. According to official statistics, 17 nuclear tests were carried out in total over the next 6 years. The area remains affected, and local scientists say that radioactive contamination has caused genetic mutations and irreversibly changed the region.
There are no official statistics on the number of victims. The only figures can be found in the records kept by the French representative of the local church, which lists 42,000 victims of nuclear tests. Three years ago, the French Ministry of Defense issued a statement, putting the number at 27,000 people. The victims include French soldiers as well as local Algerians who lived in the surrounding areas. … continue
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