Headmaster Mike Fairclough was the darling of primary school education after creating an unorthodox forest school in a council estate in Eastbourne, East Sussex. Alongside the usual lessons, from 2004 Mr Fairclough provided an extraordinarily rich rural curriculum that you would never expect in a state school. He leased 120 acres of marshland opposite West Rise school, the site of a former Bronze Age settlement. The children learned how to build fires and how to whittle wood with knives to make arrows. They learned fly fishing, how to skin rabbits and pluck pigeons. They tended beehives, sheep and even water buffalo.
Mr Fairclough won the admiration of his peers, and in 2015, the Times Educational Supplement ‘Primary School of the Year’ award. Dame Judith Hackitt, chairman of the Health & Safety Executive, said more school head teachers should be following Fairclough’s example. The underperforming school’s Ofsted rose from ‘Satisfactory’ to ‘Good’ and for 19 years, West Rise thrived. The number of pupils doubled from 179 to 360, as did the number of staff from 30 to 60.
Mr Fairclough enjoyed a good relationship with his staff and his local authority East Sussex County Council but resigned last month after a witch hunt using anti-terrorism legislation left him feeling a broken man. In his resignation letter he said: ‘I feel that I have been discriminated against, harassed, and bullied for exercising my right to lawful free speech and for expressing my philosophical belief in the importance of critical thinking, free speech, and safeguarding children.
‘As a headteacher, I have had a legal duty to safeguard children against harm. My professional field of expertise is child development and education. I have publicly shared my opinion that lockdowns harm children, that I disagree with masking children, and that I feel that the risks from the Covid vaccines for children outweigh any possible benefits. It has therefore been entirely reasonable and relevant for me to express my lawful opinions on these matters in the interest of safeguarding children against harm.’ Other heads agreed privately but 50-year-old Mr Fairclough, a father of four, was the only headteacher of 20,000 in the UK to say so publicly.
‘I first started to lose heart during the pandemic,’ he said. ‘The fear of Covid trumped learning, so children weren’t sitting next to each other and couldn’t share resources. Some schools were having children learning outside in the cold, so they weren’t able to concentrate, and it felt like adults’ fear of dying, which was irrational because we were told early that we were at minimal risk of dying of Covid, meant they were using children in their care as human shields. That made me think that the Department for Education weren’t really bothered about kids at all.’
His lawful response put him under scrutiny at the highest levels. Mr Fairclough found out through freedom of information (FOI) that he had been monitored by the government’s Counter-Disinformation Unit (CDU) and their Department for Counter Extremism, although he was cleared of any wrongdoing by East Sussex County Council.
Some people objected to his negative views on vaccinating children against Covid, opinions expressed outside the school setting, on social media and in podcasts. They fell into four main points, all of which are hard to challenge:
· Healthy children were at low risk of serious illness from Covid. (Office of National Statistics figures show that just six under-tens died between January 2020 and May 2021. They do not say whether the children had underlying health problems. For context, around 1,000 children die on the roads each year.)
· Covid vaccines posed known and very serious risks. (Potentially fatal myocarditis, and pericarditis, inflammation of the heart, are known risks.)
· A child can still catch Covid and spread Covid when vaccinated. (Covid vaccinations were not recommended by the Joint Committee on Vaccination (JCVI) for under-16s, a decision overridden by the chief medical officers in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.)
· There was no long-term safety data, trials do not finish until this year, and the potential risks outweighed any benefit.
Mr Fairclough said: ‘I tried to communicate with parents who were undecided in a way that didn’t make me sound like I’m mad. I do think there are some in the freedom movement who say things in a way that doesn’t endear themselves to people with a different view.’
In the end 89.4 per cent of five to 11-year-olds remained unvaccinated although the numbers are hard to find and are not reported by the BBC.
So, who complained about this popular and effective headmaster? The first investigation was launched in June 2021. It was made by a group of retired NHS workers on Twitter (now X) whose mission it was to find anyone in education who appeared to be antivax and anti-lockdown. Mr Fairclough does not know who made the second complaint but the third was made by a concerned group of parents and teachers. ‘No parent came to me,’ Mr Fairclough said. ‘I have an open-door policy and they know they can talk to me at any time. I don’t know exactly which staff complained, but I have my suspicions. There was a small group within the school who did not agree with me although most were aligned with my thinking.’
It was December 1 2022 when the third complaint arrived, reported under the Prevent duty, the government initiative that requires all education providers to safeguard learners from extremist ideologies. Mr Fairclough was also reported to the DfE’s Counter-Extremism Division and was being framed as an extremist and potential terrorist, an intimidating move by the local council that left Mr Fairclough traumatised. He was signed off suffering with stress. He said: ‘I found sleeping difficult. I kept dreaming about what was happening and woke up thinking about it. I’m not a terrorist, all I was doing was discussing the alterative narrative.’
We know utopia does not exist and Mr Fairclough had his run-ins. ‘It wasn’t that I never fell out with parents. Say for example they felt like a teacher hadn’t dealt with a bullying issue, then of course they would come in and kick off and I’d have to look into the matter. But what surprised me with the resignation is that even parents that I’d had that kind of fractious relationship with have actually contacted me personally to say, “we’re really gutted that you’re not here any more”. That surprised me. I thought at least one would say good riddance.’
His absence has sent the school into freefall. An Ofsted report carried out in July, seven months after he was signed off, saw West Rise downgraded from ‘Good’ to ‘Requires Improvement’.
Our education system is increasingly focused on learning by rote rather than teaching critical thinking, a skill Mr Fairclough thinks is essential. He said: ‘Education is highly political under the Conservative government, it’s all about acquisition of knowledge to be retained and regurgitated for a memory test on the other side.’
His unusual approach had the full support of parents, the Health and Safety Executive, Ofsted and the media. Some of his pupils gained places at the local agricultural college and now run their own herds in the Sussex South Downs. A number entered media in film, art, and drama, mainly thanks to his ‘Room 13’, where children could go and have complete creative autonomy.
He is not sure what comes next, but he is sure of one thing: advocating for children cost him his much-loved career in our inverted world. He said: ‘Critical thinking and lawful free speech are not dangerous; they go hand in hand in safeguarding children. Open debate on important matters is the bedrock of any democratic society and no one should be pursued for speaking out.’
Mr Fairclough is not giving up on free speech and is crowdfunding to take his former employer to court. You can donate here.
He hopes his future will include writing more books like Wild Thing, which is about how embracing childhood traits into adulthood can lead to happiness. He recently started a Substack which you can see here.
October 16, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, UK |
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They are not the fearless, justice-seeking advocates they want us to think they are.
I’ve now written several articles pointing out the obvious. Namely, that all important organizations that are supposed to discover the truth are completely captured.
One of the most-important of these professions is Plaintiffs’ Trial Lawyer firms. These are attorneys and law firms that are supposed to exist to represent people who suffered grave harms from malfeasance or nefarious (and illegal) acts.
First questions: Where are these fearless, justice-seeking lawyers today? What are they doing with their lives and careers?
We know what they are NOT doing: They are not suing any person or company whose activities directly or indirectly injured or killed hundreds of millions of possible plaintiffs who are pleading for justice.
Potential lawsuits might expose (and give some compensation or “justice”) to tens of millions of people who suffered harm from lockdowns, iatrogenic deaths and injuries, vaccine deaths and injuries and/or vaccine mandates that resulted in people losing their jobs and incomes.
FWIW, such lawsuits might also stop these horrific practices, saving countless people from pain, suffering and even death.
So why aren’t these lawsuits being filed? Why won’t 99 percent of these firms even consider representing a potential plaintiff class that’s so massive in size?
My answer is that plaintiff trial lawyers are part of a “club” that’s now completely captured. It’s more important to these attorneys to remain in this privileged and protected club than it is to do the job lawyers were created to do.
Basically, to remain a member in good standing of this club, these attorneys know what lawsuits they can file … and, more importantly, what lawsuits they cannot file.
I also note that the members of the Plaintiff’s trial bar are among the wealthiest people in the world. If they file a case and win, they pocket at least 40 percent of the financial judgement.
I also understand most of these lawsuits never even go before a jury. They are settled long before that point – so plaintiff lawyers don’t even have to fully try a case, which, with appeals, could take years to adjudicate.
In short, if you become part of the group that can file authorized lawsuits … and identify enough winnable cases, this is a lucrative gig.
You are going to be a member of the best country club in town and your family is going to be able to take vacations to the south of France.
A key point is that this group never runs out of “winnable cases.”
Every day, an 18-wheeler (owned by a trucking company with deep pockets or good liability insurance) is going to be involved in a fatal traffic accident. Asbestos lawsuits are still making lawyers millionaires decades after asbestos was identified as a potential killer.
If “contaminated water” at a military base might, decades later, have made some people sick that’s a potential windfall for lawyers who recruited enough possible victims.
If you were perhaps discriminated against because of your LGBT status or maybe because of your race, this could produce enough money for a lawyer to live like a king for a couple of years.
Even hospitals or surgeons can be sued for malpractice … if they commit malpractice that is on the authorized “sue list.”
In short, no plaintiff trial attorney needs to file Covid-related lawsuits to continue to make a great living. There’s enough easy judgments out there to keep suing lawyers happy and content.
However, what would happen to these lawyers and their law firms if they suddenly started filing lawsuits against Pfizer, or Moderna or their local hospitals and doctors, people who are the most respected people in their towns?
What if they sued a random scientific expert, and their employers at the local university, who evidence showed were intentionally producing harmful and bogus science and who were retaliating against individuals who were trying to tell the truth?
What if they sued a big local employer, led by “civic-minded” and well-respected CEOs, who nonetheless helped enforce all the harmful and discriminatory Covid mandates?
If any of these things actually happened – if some serious lawsuits were filed – I don’t think the attorneys or law firms that brought these cases would remain in this exalted club for long.
Lawyers are smart. My guess is they understand all of this.
They know how cancel culture works. They saw that even Tucker Carlson, who had the No. 1 rated TV news show in the world, could be fired in retaliation for trying to expose club members.
Attorneys, more than most citizens, can probably tell which way the wind is blowing and who really possesses the most power in society. (The same dynamic applies to mainstream media “journalists,” who know what stories they can write … and which ones they can never write).
In a way, it makes sense that attorneys wouldn’t want to get sideways with certain people and organizations. It’s now been confirmed repeatedly that sociopaths, or those who covet status, are not amused when someone breaks ranks and challenges their status and control.
It would be interesting if some real journalist surveyed some of the most prominent plaintiff trial firms and asked their managing partners why they are not representing millions of gravely injured citizens.
I can guess what their answers would be.
The common answer would be that potential defendants in lawsuits are immune from liability.
This is no doubt true in some cases, but definitely not all possible cases, involving all victims.
As noted, lawyers are smart. If they wanted to file a case, they could find myriad legal grounds to bring said cases.
But, IMO, the real reason would be unspoken.
“Are you crazy? We’re not going to agitate the most powerful and politically-connected organizations in the world. They’d retaliate and put us out of the lawsuit-filing business.”
This is no doubt true, so the world’s elite lawyers are not suffering from paranoia.
But what these attorneys would really be admitting is they are not the “fearless,” justice-seeking lawyers they depict in their TV commercials.
If you were injured in an accident involving a big-rig truck, they’ll talk to you. But if your case would involve debunking the claims of Anthony Fauci or any of the non-pharmaceutical interventions endorsed by every important organization in the world … go talk to Robert Kennedy Jr’s law firm.
What these lawyers in their $5,000 suits are really admitting is that they do fear repercussions from the most powerful entities in the world.
They are either scared as hell of getting on the wrong side of the “Powers that Be” … or they are admitting they’d prefer to remain a member in good standing of the club that rules the world.
For the third time in this essay, I’ll note that lawyers are smart.
Lawyers, hypothetically, can represent any plaintiffs who’ve suffered unnecessary or avoidable injuries. Many key attorneys also represent big companies that want to eliminate or minimize the possibility they’ll have to pay vast legal settlements for corporate malfeasance.
When I think about the machinations of “club” members, it occurs to me that many of the best and brightest lawyers in the world have spent decades re-writing laws and regulations that will protect certain companies from lawsuits brought by millions of possible victims.
I’ve come to believe there was a quid pro quo with plaintiff trial lawyers: If you guys don’t sue the wrong defendants, we’ll make sure there’s enough people left in the world that you can sue and still make a great living.
Remaining a member of “The Club” is far more important to 99 percent of attorneys than representing victims … if said victims happened to be harmed by the policies embraced by the Club.
None of this would matter if lawyers and successful lawsuits didn’t or couldn’t make a difference. But they can and could … if we had many more attorneys who were genuinely fearless justice seekers.
In fact, society probably wouldn’t need a large number of attorneys who were brave enough to bring these cases. Once one jury returned for the plaintiffs, armies of lawyers would probably want to get their piece of this justice pie.
It’s possible legions of members of Plaintiffs Trial Bar are waiting for one brave lawyer in their group who does say, “Damn the torpedoes” and starts suing away.
Of course, this scenario would entail a handful of judges who would allow good cases to go to trial … and this possibility is being blocked as well.
It turns out that the judges are lawyers too. This makes one think everyone who could make a difference …. won’t … because they’re all members of the same captured club.
October 16, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights |
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International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) has today issued UK Labour leader Keir Starmer, Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales Emily Thornberry and Shadow Defence Secretary David Lammy with a notice of intention to prosecute UK politicians for their role in aiding and abetting Israel’s perpetration of war crimes.
The news follows Saturday’s reports that ICJP issued Prime Minister Rishi Sunak with a stark warning that UK government officials could be individually liable for their role in aiding and abetting Israeli war crimes based on their public statements of unequivocal support of Israel, the ICJP said in a statement.
This comes as Scotland Yard’s War Crimes Unit has opened calls for evidence relating to war crimes in the region and could lead to senior politicians being prosecuted for war crimes by Scotland Yard. Individuals could also be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Last week, both Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition, and Thornberry spoke out in defence of Israel’s withholding of food, water and electricity to Gaza. They justified this collective punishment based on ‘Israel’s right to defend itself’.
“Both politicians are human rights lawyers and should be well aware that this argument does not justify collective punishment, which is illegal under international law,” the ICJP said in its statement. ICJP sent a private letter to the Shadow Attorney General last week, urging Labour Party politicians to comply with international law or action would be taken, and now a notice to prosecute has been issued.
“Lammy has also been issued with the notice that Labour politicians could be liable, in his capacity as Shadow Foreign Secretary.”
As well as the total siege on Gaza, Israel has also issued a directive to 1.1 million people in Gaza to immediately leave their homes in northern Gaza and move south. This order will result in mass forced displacement which may amount to both a war crime and a crime against humanity.
“Now that there is clear evidence that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been carried out, and politicians have been formally notified of this, continuation of such support and assistance would mean that any politicians, including senior members of the opposition, could be complicit in the commission of such crimes. This complicity, formally known as ‘aiding and abetting’ war crimes, may mean that UK politicians are held individually criminally liable for breaking international law,” the statement added.
ICJP demands that the Labour Party leadership and UK politicians call for an immediate ceasefire, an end to Israel’s illegal siege and evacuation order for north Gaza, condemn Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity. “They should then press the government into immediate action to do the same.”
October 16, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Gaza, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, UK, Zionism |
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Spain’s acting Social Rights Minister suggested taking Israel to the International Criminal Court for “war crimes,” local media reported.
Ione Belarra shared a video accusing the European Union and the US of “being complicit in Israel’s war crimes,” the Spanish daily, El Mundo, said on Sunday.
She called on Spanish citizens to take to the streets to demand that Madrid distance itself from the US’s unwavering support for Israel and called on the Global South to find a solution.
“Today we want to raise our voice to denounce that the state of Israel is carrying out a planned genocide in the Gaza Strip, leaving hundreds of thousands without light, food and water and carrying out bombings on the civilian population that are collective punishment, seriously breach international law and may be considered war crimes” she said.
Ten days into Israel’s bombing of Gaza, over one million people – almost half the total population of Gaza – have been displaced.
October 16, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | European Union, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Spain, United States, Zionism |
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Israel has killed at least 12 journalists since the start of their blitz in Gaza, in which warplanes have dropped thousands of bombs into the world’s largest open-air prison.
“As of 15 October, in the first nine days of fighting, at least 12 journalists were killed, two were missing, and eight injured,” said the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Attacking the press while reporting on conflicts is considered a war crime under Article 79 of Additional Protocol I in the Geneva Conventions.
“Journalists engaged in dangerous professional missions in areas of armed conflict shall be considered as civilians,” the CPJ report adds. “They shall be protected as such under the Conventions and this Protocol.”
Israel has never shied away from attacking journalists, and western news outlets constantly downplay these deadly attacks. This was the case with Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah, who the Israeli army killed on 13 October, but the UK news agency described his death as being caused by “missile fire from the direction of Israel.”
Killing individual journalists isn’t the only thing the Israeli army is guilty of. During the war on Gaza in 2021, the Israeli air force destroyed the Gaza Tower, a building that housed AP and Al Jazeera offices.
Last year, Al-Jazeera veteran journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed by an Israeli sniper in the occupied West Bank. No one has faced prosecution for her murder.
Israel has been responsible for the deaths of dozens of reporters, photojournalists, and freelance civilian journalists throughout the years.
The Israeli cabinet is in talks about banning Al-Jazeera, one of the few international news stations reporting from the ground of Gaza.
October 16, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Human rights, Israel, Palestine |
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The martyr Qassim Hakam Qassim, 24, was one of the young people who answered the call to participate in a mass demonstration in solidarity with Gaza in the city of Tulkarm, in the West Bank.
The martyr Qassim, who grew up in the Tulkarm refugee camp and who has 6 siblings, did not neglect the blood of the martyrs who were killed for Palestine and came out to express solidarity with the people of Gaza, holding the flag of Palestine.
Since the beginning of the demonstration, which took place on Friday 13th of October 2023, Qassim tried to place the flag of Palestine close to the Sanaoz Israeli checkpoint, near the apartheid wall, to affirm the existence of the Palestinian people and their right to reclaim the lands occupied and controlled by the Israeli occupation.
Qassim did not survive the bullet of an Israeli sniper who was watching him from the very beginning. He was hit directly in the head area and died instantly.
An atmosphere of anger and sadness prevailed in the Tulkarm refugee camp, for the funeral of the body of the young man. His family and friends took one last look at him.
He was prayed for at the Al-Salam mosque in the camp, as Palestinians chanted angrily, condemning the continuing murders committed by the Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank and Gaza.
Qassim’s message is not gone: other young Palestinians will follow his path. The message and the voice of liberation do not die when the body dies.
October 15, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has called on China to intervene to put an end to the ongoing carnage in the Gaza Strip where Israel is carrying out incessant attacks against the civilian population living in the enclave.
In a phone call with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Sunday, Amir-Abdollahian said there is a need for the United Nations to assume its responsibilities with regard to international peace and security amid the ongoing conflict in Palestine.
However, he asked China to use its diplomatic capacity to stop the Israeli regime from attacking civilians in Gaza, the official IRNA news agency said.
The foreign minister described the collective punishment imposed by the Israelis on the Palestinians in Gaza as “unacceptable” while reiterating the need for setting up humanitarian corridors to deliver aid to the people in the enclave.
He warned that there would be no guarantee that the conflict in Gaza would not spiral out of control if the criminal attacks against the civilians in Gaza did not stop.
The phone call between Amir-Abdollahian and Wang came just after Iran’s top diplomat returned from a tour of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Qatar.
Amir-Abdollahian said after meeting leaders of the anti-Israeli resistance groups during his regional tour that the conflict in Gaza would spread to other areas and countries if Israel does not stop its aggressions against the Palestinians.
More than 2,450 people have been killed in nine days of Israeli air strikes and shelling against Gaza, a besieged enclave on the Mediterranean Sea which is home to some 2.3 million people.
The attacks, which have left nearly 10,000 people injured, started last week after the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, which is based in Gaza, launched multi-pronged attacks on occupied territories to retaliate against Israeli assaults on Palestinians.
October 15, 2023
Posted by aletho |
War Crimes | China, Human rights, Iran |
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Gazans being held by Israeli police. Photo from one of the workers.
EXPLOITATION AND OCCUPATION
Hundreds of Gazan workers are being given refuge in Palestine, after having been dumped in the West Bank by Israel.
45 of them are in al-Khalil and the ISM spoke to many of them this evening.
These labourers were working in Israeli settlements. When Hamas broke out of Gaza they were rounded up, detained, and at least one of them was beaten and hospitalised. They spent four hours in prison, their phones confiscated and without contact with the outside world. One man says 6500NIS was stolen from him by the police.
Apartments have been provided by charitable individuals and groups are giving them food and bringing them brand-new clothing to replace the belongings they were not allowed to bring from Israel. No help comes from the P.A.
SO WHAT WERE THESE GUYS DOING IN ISRAEL?
After 16 years of blockade, Gaza’s economy has collapsed. Gazans buy Israeli work permits so as to get jobs as labourers in construction or hospitality. These permits, valid for one month, are purchased from specialised companies and cost 3,000 NIS. Gazan workers earn 6000 NIS monthly for 45 hour weeks. Israelis would be paid around 20,000 shekels for doing an equivalent job. These migrant workers have no health insurance or job security. They have to be married, too.
Women migrant workers find jobs in factories or in agriculture. Manual labour is the only option available to people from Gaza. One of the workers we spoke to has a degree in engineering, one qualified as a social worker and another was a teacher.
Visits to their wives and families are possible at weekends, and they try to return at least twice a month. Travel through the Eretz crossing involves a long wait of up to 12 hours, the crossing opens at 4am on a Sunday morning to let them through. Everything is checked, and they can’t take clothes through, so clothing has to be bought (at high expense) in Israel.
The guards at the border can deny entry at will to anyone, whether or not they have a permit. Israeli intelligence often interrogates and threatens the workers, hoping to add them to the network of informers in Gaza.
THE LUCKY ONES
We were told that around 1,500 migrant workers are still detained or missing in Israel. Their families in Gaza were asking for information about them.
We heard that, when Israel declared war, one of the employers of Gazan workers informed the police that the people working for him were terrorists. We saw a video of corpses after the police intervention. The people shot were colleagues of one of the men we spoke to. Here are their names:
Hashim Barawi (killed)
Suliman Al Atar (killed)
Hary Al Masry (location unknown)
Sahel AL Masry
Nabil Al Barrawi (injured)
Talal Warshasha (injured)
The workers intend to use every legal means possible to obtain justice.
NOT WAR BUT EXTERMINATION
The situation these men are in is difficult, but they are distraught about the situation in Gaza and worried about their families. “My son works with the emergency services, Israel bombed his ambulance, the driver was killed and my son is injured.” “My building was bombed, and my wife and kids are now living in a tent.” “I keep phoning my wife, but there is no answer.”
They denounce the lies and hypocrisy of the international community in its support for Israel. Western countries talk about law and democracy, but they respect neither. How can they support this massacre, this lack of humanity?
One of the men sums it up: This is not war, it is extermination.
Despite the atrocious, immoral position of the countries whose passports we hold, only one man didn’t greet us warmly. Hearing we were from European countries, he said he didn’t want to be in the same room as us.
I was totally sincere when I replied that I understood his feelings, that we are in Palestine because of our countries’ responsibility in the destruction of Palestine, because we don’t agree with Europe’s policies and that we would like to do what we can to tell people about what is happening here. If you’ve read this far, please help us in getting the word out and stopping this genocide.
October 15, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | Gaza, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, West Bank, Zionism |
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Americans face a heightened threat from “lone wolf” terrorists inspired to replicate aspects of Hamas’ recent assault on Israel on US soil, FBI Director Christopher Wray told an audience of law enforcement officers at the International Association of Chiefs of Police Annual Conference in San Diego on Saturday.
Claiming there was “no question we’re seeing an increase in reported threats,” Wray warned his law enforcement colleagues, “We’ve got to be on the lookout, especially for lone actors who may take inspiration from recent events to commit violence of their own” – a reference to Hamas’ attack on Israel last Saturday.
“History has been witness to antisemitic and other forms of violent extremism for too long,” the FBI director continued, vowing to “continue confronting those threats.”
The responsibility for that confrontation was also on conference attendees, Wray added, urging them to “stay vigilant” and notify the FBI and other authorities if they saw any “signs that someone may be mobilizing towards violence.”
The FBI chief did not give any specific examples of domestic threats, copycat or otherwise, that had emerged since Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel. Instead, he made a generalized reference to “foreign terrorist organizations, or those inspired by them, or domestic violent extremists motivated by their own racial animus” as a vaguely equivalent menace likely to target individuals because of their (presumably Jewish) faith.
Wray’s FBI was caught earlier this year targeting Christian groups in a sprawling probe that presented traditionalist Catholics as potential domestic terrorists with “antisemitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ and white supremacist ideology.”
Saturday’s speech was one of the few public references Wray had made since the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021, to an extremist threat with possible origins outside the US. The FBI director has insisted for years that the primary menace imperiling Americans is “white supremacy.” The concept has become increasingly nebulous under the presidential administration of Joe Biden, expanding to include not only the so-called “radical Catholics” but also parents who speak out at school board meetings, many of whom were investigated by the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division for speaking out against Covid-19 policies, LGBTQ material inserted into their children’s curricula, and other controversial issues following a directive from the Department of Justice deeming them a threat to school officials.
The FBI and Department of Homeland Security have highlighted “claims of government overreach” as a motivating factor for these “domestic violent extremists.”
October 15, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | FBI, Human rights, United States, Zionism |
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As Western politicians line up to cheer on Israel as it starves Gaza’s civilians and plunges them into darkness to soften them up before the coming Israeli ground invasion, it is important to understand how we reached this point – and what it portends for the future.
More than a decade ago, Israel started to understand that its occupation of Gaza through siege could be to its advantage. It began transforming the tiny coastal enclave from an albatross around its neck into a valuable portfolio in the trading game of international power politics.
The first benefit for Israel, and its Western allies, is more discussed than the second.
The tiny strip of land hugging the eastern Mediterranean coast was turned into a mix of testing ground and shop window.
Israel could use Gaza to develop all sorts of new technologies and strategies associated with the homeland security industries burgeoning across the West, as officials there grew increasingly worried about domestic unrest, sometimes referred to as populism.
The siege of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians, imposed by Israel in 2007 following the election of Hamas to rule the enclave, allowed for all sorts of experiments.
How could the population best be contained? What restrictions could be placed on their diet and lifestyle? How were networks of informers and collaborators to be recruited from afar? What effect did the population’s entrapment and repeated bombardment have on social and political relations?
And ultimately how were Gaza’s inhabitants to be kept subjugated and an uprising prevented?
The answers to those questions were made available to Western allies through Israel’s shopping portal. Items available included interception rocket systems, electronic sensors, surveillance systems, drones, facial recognition, automated gun towers, and much more. All tested in real-life situations in Gaza.
Israel’s standing took a severe dent from the fact that Palestinians managed to bypass this infrastructure of confinement last weekend – at least for a few days – with a rusty bulldozer, some hang-gliders and a sense of nothing-to-lose.
Which is part of the reason why Israel now needs to go back into Gaza with ground troops to show it still has the means to keep the Palestinians crushed.
Collective punishment
Which brings us to the second purpose served by Gaza.
As Western states have grown increasingly unnerved by signs of popular unrest at home, they have started to think more carefully about how to sidestep the restrictions placed on them by international law.
The term refers to a body of laws that were formalised in the aftermath of the second world war, when both sides treated civilians on the other side of the battle lines as little more than pawns on a chessboard.
The aim of those drafting international law was to make it unconscionable for there to be a repeat of Nazi atrocities in Europe, as well as other crimes such as Britain’s fire bombing of German cities like Dresden or the United States’ dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
One of the fundamentals of international law – at the heart of the Geneva Conventions – is a prohibition on collective punishment: that is, retaliating against the enemy’s civilian population, making them pay the price for the acts of their leaders and armies.
Very obviously, Gaza is about as flagrant a violation of this prohibition as can be found. Even in “quiet” times, its inhabitants – one million of them children – are denied the most basic freedoms, such as the right to movement; access to proper health care because medicines and equipment cannot be brought in; access to drinkable water; and the use of electricity for much of the day because Israel keeps bombing Gaza’s power station.
Israel has never made any bones of the fact that it is punishing the people of Gaza for being ruled by Hamas, which rejects Israel’s right to have dispossessed the Palestinians of their homeland in 1948 and imprisoned them in overcrowded ghettos like Gaza.
What Israel is doing to Gaza is the very definition of collective punishment. It is a war crime: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks of every year, for 16 years.
And yet no one in the so-called international community seems to have noticed.
Rules of war rewritten
But the trickiest legal situation – for Israel and the West – is when Israel bombs Gaza, as it is doing now, or sends in soldiers, as it soon will do.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu highlighted the problem when he told the people of Gaza: “Leave now”. But, as he and Western leaders know, Gaza’s inhabitants have nowhere to go, nowhere to escape the bombs. So any Israeli attack is, by definition, on the civilian population too. It is the modern equivalent of the Dresden fire bombings.
Israel has been working on strategies to overcome this difficulty since its first major bombardment of Gaza in late 2008, after the siege was introduced.
A unit in its attorney general’s office was charged with finding ways to rewrite the rules of war in Israel’s favour.
At the time, the unit was concerned that Israel would be criticised for blowing up a police graduation ceremony in Gaza, killing many young cadets. Police are civilians in international law, not soldiers, and therefore not a legitimate target. Israeli lawyers were also worried that Israel had destroyed government offices, the infrastructure of Gaza’s civilian administration.
Israel’s concerns seem quaint now – a sign of how far it has already shifted the dial on international law. For some time, anyone connected with Hamas, however tangentially, is considered a legitimate target, not just by Israel but by every Western government.
Western officials have joined Israel in treating Hamas as simply a terrorist organisation, ignoring that it is also a government with people doing humdrum tasks like making sure bins are collected and schools kept open.
Or as Orna Ben-Naftali, a law faculty dean, told the Haaretz newspaper back in 2009: “A situation is created in which the majority of the adult men in Gaza and the majority of the buildings can be treated as legitimate targets. The law has actually been stood on its head.”
Back at that time, David Reisner, who had previously headed the unit, explained Israel’s philosophy to Haaretz: “What we are seeing now is a revision of international law. If you do something for long enough, the world will accept it.
“The whole of international law is now based on the notion that an act that is forbidden today becomes permissible if executed by enough countries.”
Israel’s meddling to change international law goes back many decades.
Referring to Israel’s attack on Iraq’s fledgling nuclear reactor in 1981, an act of war condemned by the UN Security Council, Reisner said: “The atmosphere was that Israel had committed a crime. Today everyone says it was preventive self-defence. International law progresses through violations.”
He added that his team had travelled to the US four times in 2001 to persuade US officials of Israel’s ever-more flexible interpretation of international law towards subjugating Palestinians.
“Had it not been for those four planes, I am not sure we would have been able to develop the thesis of the war against terrorism on the present scale,” he said.
Those redefinitions of the rules of war proved invaluable when the US chose to invade and occupy Afghanistan and Iraq.
‘Human animals’
In recent years, Israel has continued to “evolve” international law. It has introduced the concept of “prior warning” – sometimes giving a few minutes’ notice of a building or neighbourhood’s destruction. Vulnerable civilians still in the area, like the elderly, children and the disabled, are then recast as legitimate targets for failing to leave in time.
And it is using the current assault on Gaza to change the rules still further.
The 2009 Haaretz article includes references by law officials to Yoav Gallant, who was then the military commander in charge of Gaza. He was described as a “wild man”, a “cowboy” with no time for legal niceties.
Gallant is now defence minister and the man responsible for instituting this week a “complete siege” of Gaza: “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel – everything is closed.” In language that blurred any distinction between Hamas and Gaza’s civilians, he described Palestinians as “human animals”.
That takes collective punishment into a whole different realm. In terms of international law, it skirts into the territory of genocide, both rhetorically and substantively.
But the dial has shifted so completely that even centrist Western politicians are cheering Israel on – often not even calling for “restraint” or “proportionality”, the weasel terms they usually use to obscure their support for law breaking.
Britain has been leading the way in helping Israel to rewrite the rulebook on international law.
Listen to Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour opposition and the man almost certain to be Britain’s next prime minister. This week he supported the “complete siege” of Gaza, a crime against humanity, refashioning it as Israel’s “right to defend itself”.
Starmer has not failed to grasp the legal implications of Israel’s actions, even if he seems personally immune to the moral implications. He is trained as a human rights lawyer.
His approach even appears to be taking aback journalists not known for being sympathetic to the Palestinian case. When asked by Kay Burley of Sky News if he had any sympathy for the civilians in Gaza being treated like “human animals”, Starmer could not find a single thing to say in support.
Instead, he deflected to an outright deception: blaming Hamas for sabotaging a “peace process” that Israel both practically and declaratively buried years ago.
Confirming that the Labour party now condones war crimes by Israel, his shadow attorney general, Emily Thornberry, has been sticking to the same script. On BBC’s Newsnight, she evaded questions about whether cutting off power and supplies to Gaza is in line with international law.
It is no coincidence that Starmer’s position contrasts so dramatically with that of his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn. The latter was driven out of office by a sustained campaign of antisemitism smears fomented by Israel’s most fervent supporters in the UK.
Starmer does not dare to be seen on the wrong side of this issue. And that is exactly the outcome Israeli officials wanted and expected.
Israeli flag on No 10
Starmer is, of course, far from alone. Grant Shapps, Britain’s defence secretary, has also expressed trenchant support for Israel’s policy of starving two million Palestinians in Gaza.
Rishi Sunak, the UK prime minister, has emblazoned the Israeli flag on the front of his official residence, 10 Downing Street, apparently unconcerned at how he is giving visual form to what would normally be considered an antisemitic trope: that Israel controls the UK’s foreign policy.
Starmer, not wishing to be outdone, has called for Wembley stadium’s arch to be adorned with the colours of the Israeli flag.
“The media is playing its part, dependably as ever“
However much this schoolboy cheerleading of Israel is sold as an act of solidarity following Hamas’ slaughter of Israeli civilians at the weekend, the subtext is unmistakeable: Britain has Israel’s back as it starts its retributive campaign of war crimes in Gaza.
That is also the purpose of home secretary Suella Braverman’s advice to the police to treat the waving of Palestinian flags and chants for Palestine’s liberation at protests in support of Gaza as criminal acts.
The media is playing its part, dependably as ever. A Channel 4 TV crew pursued Corbyn through London’s streets this week, demanding he “condemn” Hamas. They insinuated through the framing of those demands that anything less fulsome – such as Corbyn’s additional concerns for the welfare of Gaza’s civilians – was confirmation of the former Labour leader’s antisemitism.
The clear implication from politicians and the establishment media is that any support for Palestinian rights, any demurral from Israel’s “unquestionable right” to commit war crimes, equates to antisemitism.
Europe’s hypocrisy
This double approach, of cheering on genocidal Israeli policies towards Gaza while stifling any dissent, or characterising it as antisemitism, is not confined to the UK.
Across Europe, from the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, to the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Bulgarian parliament, official buildings have been lit up with the Israeli flag.
Europe’s top official, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, celebrated the Israeli flag smothering the EU parliament this week.
She has repeatedly stated that “Europe stands with Israel”, even as Israeli war crimes start to mount.
The Israeli air force boasted on Thursday it had dropped some 6,000 bombs on Gaza. At the same time, human rights groups reported Israel was firing the incendiary chemical weapon white phosphorus into Gaza, a war crime when used in urban areas. And Defence for Children International noted that more than 500 Palestinian children had been killed so far by Israeli bombs.
It was left to Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied territories, to point out that Von Der Leyen was applying the principles of international law entirely inconsistently.
Almost exactly a year ago, the European Commission president denounced Russia’s strikes on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine as war crimes. “Cutting off men, women, children of water, electricity and heating with winter coming – these are acts of pure terror,” she wrote. “And we have to call it as such.”
Albanese noted Von der Leyen had said nothing equivalent about Israel’s even worse attacks on Palestinian infrastructure.
Sending in the heavies
Meanwhile, France has already started breaking up and banning demonstrations against the bombing of Gaza. Its justice minister has echoed Braverman in suggesting solidarity with Palestinians risks offending Jewish communities and should be treated as “hate speech”.
Naturally, Washington is unwavering in its support for whatever Israel decides to do to Gaza, as secretary of state Anthony Blinken made clear during his visit this week.
President Joe Biden has promised weapons and funding, and sent in the military equivalent of “the heavies” to make sure no one disturbs Israel as it carries out those war crimes. An aircraft carrier has been dispatched to the region to ensure quiet from Israel’s neighbours as the ground invasion is launched.
Even those officials whose chief role is to promote international law, such as Antonio Gutteres, secretary general of the UN, have started to move with the shifting ground.
Like most Western officials, he has emphasised Gaza’s “humanitarian needs” above the rules of war Israel is obliged to honour.
This is Israel’s success. The language of international law that should apply to Gaza – of rules and norms Israel must obey – has given way to, at best, the principles of humanitarianism: acts of international charity to patch up the suffering of those whose rights are being systematically trampled on, and those whose lives are being obliterated.
Western officials are more than happy with the direction of travel. Not just for Israel’s sake but for their own too. Because one day in the future, their own populations may be as much trouble to them as Palestinians in Gaza are to Israel right now.
Supporting Israel’s right to defend itself is their downpayment.
October 15, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | European Union, France, Gaza, Hamas, Human rights, Israel, Keir Starmer, Palestine, UK, Zionism |
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At one time, the ‘Arab-Israeli Conflict’ was Arab and Israeli. Over the course of many years, however, it was rebranded. The media is now telling us it is a ‘Hamas-Israeli conflict’.
But what went wrong? Israel simply became too powerful.
The supposedly astounding Israeli victories over the years against Arab armies have emboldened Israel to the extent that it came to view itself, not as a regional superpower, but as a global power as well. Israel, per its own definition, became ‘invincible’.
Such terminology was not a mere scare tactic aimed at breaking the spirit of Palestinians and Arabs alike. Israel believed this.
The ‘Israeli miracle victory’ against Arab armies in 1967 was a watershed moment. Then, Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Abba Eban, declared in a speech that “from the podium of the UN, I proclaimed the glorious triumph of the IDF and the redemption of Jerusalem.”
This, in his thinking, could only mean one thing: “Never before has Israel stood more honored and revered by the nations of the world.”
The sentiment in Eban’s words echoed throughout Israel. Even those who doubted their government’s ability to completely prevail over the Arabs, joined the chorus: Israel is unvanquishable.
Little rational discussion took place back then, about the actual reasons why Israel had won, and if that victory would have been possible without Washington’s complete backing and the West’s willingness to support Israel at any cost.
Israel was never a graceful winner. As the size of territories controlled by the triumphant little state increased by three-fold, Israel began entrenching its military occupation over whatever remained of historic Palestine. It even began building settlements in newly occupied Arab territories, in Sinai, the Golan Heights and all the rest.
Fifty years ago, in October 1973, Arab armies attempted to reverse Israel’s massive gains by launching a surprise attack. They initially succeeded, then failed when the US moved quickly to bolster Israeli defenses and intelligence.
It was not a complete victory for the Arabs, nor a total defeat for Israel. The latter was badly bruised, though. But Tel Aviv remained convinced that the fundamental relationship it had established with the Arabs in 1967 had not been altered.
And, with time, the ‘conflict’ became less Arab-Israeli and more Palestinian-Israeli. Other Arab countries, like Lebanon, paid a heavy price for the fragmentation of the Arab front.
This changing reality meant that Israel could invade South Lebanon in March 1978, and then sign the Camp David Peace Accords with Egypt, six months later.
While the Israeli occupation of Palestine grew more violent, with an insatiable appetite for more land, the west turned the Palestinian struggle for freedom into a ‘conflict’ to be managed by words, never by deeds.
Many Palestinian intellectuals make a point of arguing that “this is not a conflict”, that military occupation is not a political dispute, but governed by clearly defined international laws and boundaries. And that it must be resolved according to international justice.
That is yet to happen. Neither was justice delivered, nor an inch of Palestine was retrieved, despite the countless international conferences, resolutions, statements, investigations, recommendations, and special reports. Without real enforcement, international law is mere ink.
But did the Arab people abandon Palestine? The anger, the anguish, and the passionate chants by endless streams of people who took to the streets throughout the Middle East to protest the annihilation of Gaza by the Israeli army, did not seem to think that Palestine is alone – or, at least, should be left fighting on its own.
The isolation of Palestine from its regional context has proven disastrous.
When the ‘conflict’ is only with the Palestinians, then Israel determines the context and scope of the so-called conflict, what is allowed at the ‘negotiations table’, and what is to be excluded. This is how the Oslo Accords squandered Palestinian rights.
The more Israel succeeds in isolating Palestinians from their regional environs, the more it invests in their division.
It is even more dangerous when the conflict becomes between Hamas and Israel. The outcome is a whole different conversation that is superimposed on the truly urgent understanding of what is taking place in Gaza, in the whole of Palestine at the moment.
In Israel’s version of events, the war began on October 7, when Hamas fighters attacked Israeli military bases, settlements, and towns in the south of Israel.
No other date or event prior to the Hamas attack seems to matter to Israel, to the West and to corporate media covering the war with so much concern for the plight of Israelis, and complete disregard to the Gaza inferno.
No other context is allowed to spoil the perfect Israeli narrative of Daesh-like Palestinians disturbing the peace and tranquility of Israel and its people.
Palestinian voices that insist on discussing the Gaza war within proper historical contexts – the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, the occupation of Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, the siege on Gaza in 2007, all the bloody wars before and after – are simply denied platforms.
The pro-Israel media simply does not want to listen. Even if Israel did not go as far as making unfounded claims about decapitated babies, the media would have remained committed to the Israeli narrative, anyway.
Yet, if Israel continues to define the narratives of war, historical contexts of ‘conflicts’, and the political discourses that shape the West’s view of Palestine and the Middle East, it will continue to obtain all the blank checks necessary to remain committed to its military occupation of Palestine.
In turn, this will fuel yet more conflicts, more wars and more deception regarding the roots of the violence.
For this vicious cycle to break, Palestine must, once more, become an issue that concerns all Arabs, the whole region. The Israeli narrative must be countered, western bias confronted, and a new, collective strategy formed.
In other words, Palestine cannot be left alone anymore.
October 15, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | Human rights, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Zionism |
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China’s top diplomat Wang Yi said Israel’s actions have gone beyond the scope of self-defense, expressing concerns about the escalating Israel-Palestine conflict as Israel ordered one million people from the northern part of Gaza to evacuate within 24 hours as it prepared for a ground assault.
In his phone call with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud on Saturday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China opposes and condemns all acts that harm civilians, as they violate basic human conscience and the fundamental principles of international law.
Israel’s actions go beyond the scope of self-defense. It should heed the calls of the international community and the UN Secretary-General and avoid collective punishment of the people of Gaza, Wang said.
Israel was preparing on Saturday to launch a ground assault in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, after telling Palestinians living in the densely populated territory to flee south toward a closed border with Egypt, Reuters reported.
Israeli national security adviser meanwhile warned Lebanese militant group Hezbollah not to start a war on a second front, threatening the “destruction of Lebanon” if it did, according to the media report.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Friday that the relocation of Gaza residents from the north to the south “is extremely dangerous – and in some cases, simply not possible.”
The Chinese Foreign Minister said all parties should not take any actions that escalate the situation, and instead should return to the negotiation table as soon as possible. China is actively communicating with all parties to push for a ceasefire. The immediate priority is to ensure the safety of civilians, quickly open humanitarian rescue channels, and meet the basic needs of the people of Gaza, Wang said.
China’s special envoy on the Middle East Affairs Zhai Jun will visit relevant countries in the Middle East next week to further strengthen coordination with all parties, he was quoted as saying in media reports on Sunday.
The Israel-Palestine conflict continues to escalate. Armed conflicts have erupted at the Israel-Lebanon and Israel-Syria borders, and the spill-over effects on the regional and international community are spreading, Zhai noted. The international community must remain highly vigilant and collectively manage and control the situation to prevent it from spiraling out of control, he said.
China has always maintained that force is never the solution. Resorting to violence will only lead to a vicious cycle of retribution, creating further obstacles to a political resolution, Zhai noted. And it is imperative to cease fire and violence promptly, cool down the situation, and thus pave the way for a political solution.
Since the onset of this round of conflict, China has been actively communicating and coordinating with relevant parties. China’s special envoy recently had phone conversations with foreign ministers and officials from Palestine, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and others.
They all hope to end the hostilities, condemn acts that harm civilians, and avoid humanitarian disasters. They also hope to restore the Middle East peace process, Zhai revealed.
Currently, several Chinese citizens remain in the Gaza Strip, he said. In recent days, our overseas institutions have maintained close contact with them, providing safety guidance and support, assisting them in moving to the southern part of Gaza, and striving for their early evacuation to safe areas.
So far, four Chinese nationals have been killed, six are receiving treatment in local hospitals, and two are missing in the latest conflict.
October 15, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, War Crimes | China, Gaza, Human rights, Israel, Middle East, Palestine |
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