Paris Olympics epitomize toxic Western elitism and disconnect from real world
Macron has boasted about the Paris Games being a “crazy idea being made real”
Strategic Culture Foundation | August 2, 2024
The Paris Summer Olympic Games opened last Friday to a global controversy with the organizers accused of offending billions of Christians and Muslims around the world through profane depictions of Jesus Christ (a revered prophet in Islam) surrounded by drag queens.
It wasn’t just the alleged scurrilous debasement of Da Vinci’s iconic Last Supper tableau. The entire opening ceremony of the XXXIII Olympiad was a kitsch spectacle that seemed to be reduced to a tawdry Gay Pride event. The Paris 2024 organizers claimed that the theme was meant to convey “inclusiveness” and humanitarian tolerance – although, indicative of fault, they later offered a groveling apology for offending.
The controversy continued during the first week of sporting events when the triathlon swimming in the Seine River was initially canceled due to dangerous pollution levels and then ordered to go ahead despite concerns for the safety of participants. Athletes complained that they were forced to swim through sewage and rat-infested waters so that the French organizers would not lose face over a public relations disaster.
The pollution fiasco could serve as a metaphor for how Western elitist politicians have lost the plot on the realities of today’s world. No amount of fancy French perfumery can hide the stink behind the cheap politicization of the Games.
After spending over $1.5 billion on purportedly cleaning it up, the Seine is as toxic from contamination as it ever was since public bathing was banned in the river a century ago.
Western politics has likewise become a deceitful charade and parody of liberalism. No amount of whitewashing can conceal the burgeoning detritus of lies and corruption emanating from Western capitals. On the one hand, politicians talk about the lofty values of democracy and rules-based order, while on the other hand, they drop bombs on civilians with rainbow flags painted on the warheads. Or they sponsor NeoNazi killers in Ukraine wearing Gay Pride logos.
Uniting humanity through sports is supposed to be the Olympian principle of the modern Games which first took place in 1896 in Greece as conceived by Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin. Over the decades, the world’s foremost sporting event has been disrupted by wars and geopolitics, especially during the Cold War years when the Games were boycotted in 1980 and 1984. Despite the vagaries over the years, there was always a semblance of neutrality in international politics.
Not anymore. The current Paris Olympics have become flagrantly politicized. Russia and Belarus have been banned due to the conflict in Ukraine after the Western-dominated International Olympic Committee declared “solidarity with Ukraine”.
This is an absolute disgrace for the IOC and the Games. The hypocrisy is putrid. Never was it considered to ban the United States and its NATO allies over the many illegal wars that they engaged in, from the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, among other aggressions.
Arguably, the war in Ukraine is a proxy war waged by the U.S. and its NATO allies against Russia. The history of the conflict points to Western responsibility and calculated provocation. To define the conflict as solely down to “Russian aggression” is a dubious political position, one that the West promulgates but which is not shared by many other nations.
It is an abuse of its credentials for the IOC to adopt a partisan position on the Ukraine war.
The double standard is brazen when one considers that Israel is free to send its national delegation to the Olympics without any official reservations. Yet the International Court of Justice has ruled Israel’s conduct of hostilities in Gaza constitutes a genocide. It is a sordid spectacle when Israeli athletes are afforded untrammeled participation while their state has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, mainly women and children, during the past nine months of unrelenting violence. Western capitals have given the Israeli regime diplomatic cover and vital military support to conduct this genocide. The horrendous massacres in Gaza from refugee camps being blown up and whole families slaughtered in cold blood continue unabated while the Games are televised around the world.
The juxtaposition of this Western-enabled barbarism in Gaza amid Games that champion “diversity and tolerance” is too sickening and perverse for words. Indeed, one could say without any equivocation that the Paris Olympics are morally depraved given the abomination of mass murder in Gaza.
That the organizers of the Paris event seek to cover their proceedings with a veneer of supposedly sophisticated inclusion and humanitarianism is doubly obscene. The moral decadence is manifest in the blasphemous insults towards religious beliefs. Nothing is sacred, it seems, except Western notions of elitism. Criticism is not permitted without incurring petulant accusations of bigotry and ‘Transphobia”.
French President Emmanuel Macron has boasted about the Paris Games being a “crazy idea being made real”. One can say that again, with absolute contempt.
Macron and other Western political leaders are encumbered with narcissistic notions that they represent noble values of “liberal democracy”.
This is while Macron and his Western cohorts have recklessly fueled the slaughter in Ukraine and Gaza. Then they have the gall to ban Russia and Belarus from the Games.
The edifying concept of the Olympics has been debased to a gaudy propaganda show aimed at promoting pretensions of Western virtue.
However, the reality is that this is not a demonstration of supposed tolerance and inclusivity but rather an imposition of twisted Western elite ideology on the majority of humanity.
One might argue the toss about whether the offense against Christianity and Islam was an unfortunate mistaken interpretation of French artistic license.
But what is inarguable is the heinous hypocrisy demonstrated over the Western-enabled genocide in Gaza and the sanctioning of Russia over Ukraine.
No wonder many people around the world have lost the usual interest in the “Jeux Olympiques”. The Paris event has alienated much of the planet because of its cheap and dirty politicization.
The stink emerging from the River Seine – possibly the world’s biggest open sewer – is the groaning reality dump on Western duplicity and pretensions.
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Israeli police arrest Al-Aqsa Mosque preacher for mourning Haniyeh
Sheikh Ekrima Sa’id Sabri, the former grand mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories walks outside an Israeli police station after being summoned for interrogation, in Jerusalem on January 2, 2023. [Saeed Qaq/NurPhoto via Getty Images]
MEMO | August 2, 2024
Israeli police, on Friday, arrested Al-Aqsa Mosque preacher, Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, for mourning slain Hamas Political Bureau chief, Ismail Haniyeh, Anadolu Agency reports.
Haniyeh was assassinated on Wednesday in Tehran, Iran’s capital. While Hamas and Iran blamed Israel for the killing, Tel Aviv has not confirmed or denied its responsibility.
One of Sabri’s relatives told Anadolu that the Israeli police officers stormed into his home in the Occupied East Jerusalem and arrested him.
Following the Friday prayer in Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sabri led a funeral prayer in absentia for Haniyeh.
“The people of Jerusalem and the environs of Jerusalem from the pulpit of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque mourn the martyr Ismail Haniyeh,” he said during his sermon.
Following the sermon, the Israeli police said they were probing whether the statement constituted “incitement” and that they would act accordingly.
The 85-year-old preacher was detained multiple times by the Israeli forces in the past and was banned from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque in Occupied East Jerusalem for several months.
Sabri is a staunch critic of the decades-long Israeli Occupation of the Palestinian Territories. He had previously held the position of Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories from 1994 to 2006.
US Sen Graham Introduces Bill Authorizing Military Force in Iran
By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 02.08.2024
After the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Tuesday, Iran promised a “harsh punishment” for Israel. On Wednesday, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin declared that the United States was ready to defend Israel in the event of an attack by Iran.
US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) introduced legislation right before the Congress recess in August that would authorize President Joe Biden to use military force against Iran if he determines that Iran has capabilities that threaten the national security interests of the United States.
“The President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against the Islamic Republic of Iran if the President determines that the Islamic Republic of Iran–
1) Is in the process of possessing a nuclear weapon that threatens the national security interests of the United States; or
2) Possesses uranium enriched to weapons-grade level, possesses a nuclear warhead, or possesses a delivery vehicle capable of carrying a nuclear warhead that threatens the national security interests of the United States.”
While the bill specifies that it is limited to Iran’s nuclear program, it is broad enough to potentially authorize Biden to strike Iran as soon as the bill passes. While Iran is not believed to possess a nuclear warhead, it already has an arsenal of missiles that would be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead if Iran were to obtain one. Biden seemingly would be authorized by the bill to strike Iran if he determines that to be a threat.
The same day, Graham also introduced a bill that would affirm any “escalation by Hezbollah” will be seen as an escalation by Iran and urges Congress and the President “to use all diplomatic tools and power projection capabilities to hold both parties accountable for their actions,” but stop short of specifically authorizing military force.
On Thursday, Graham posted on X that “it is long past time to start talking about offense when it comes to Iranian threats against Israel, the United States, and the world.”
Both bills come as tensions are rising between Lebanese Hezbollah and Israel and Iran and Israel. Earlier this week, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran and Hezbollah leader Fouad Shukur was killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Beirut.
Iran and Hezbollah have promised retaliation.
The Senate will go into recess on August 3rd. Unless an emergency session is called, both chambers of Congress will return to Washington on September 9.
Prominent activists, former officials urge Indian govt to end ‘abominable’ arms trade with Israel
The Cradle | August 2, 2024
A group of 25 prominent Indian activists, including former judges, diplomats, activists, writers, and economists, issued a letter urging their government to cancel arms exports to Israel, the Hindustan Times reported on 2 August.
In a letter addressed to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, the group argues that licenses issued for the export of arms and ammunition to Israel violate India’s commitments under international law and its constitution.
“We are writing to you as concerned citizens, alarmed at the continued grant of export licenses and permissions to various Indian companies, for the supply of military arms and munitions to Israel, since the war on Gaza began,” the letter states.
The group, which includes Booker prize-winning author Arundhati Roy and renowned lawyer Prashant Bhushan, referenced recent rulings by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) showing Israel is in violation of its obligations under the Genocide Convention and that Israel’s occupation and settlement of the West Bank are illegal.
The group noted that, as a result of the ICJ rulings, any supply of military material to Israel would amount to a violation of India’s obligations under international humanitarian law and the mandate of Article 21 read with Article 51(c) of the Constitution of India, the group noted.
“We urge you, therefore, to cancel the concerned export licences and halt the granting of any new licences to companies supplying military equipment to Israel,” the letter concludes.
Several countries have imposed unofficial or “silent” arms embargoes on Israel in response to its war on Gaza, which has killed over 39,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and displaced some 90 percent of the strip’s 2.3 million residents.
In response, Israel has begun to rely more heavily on India for weapons purchases. Israel also exports large amounts of weapons to India.
Several Indian companies, both government-owned and private, have joint ventures with Israeli defense manufacturers and make sub-systems and parts for the original manufacturers.
The letter highlights the role of three Indian companies working closely with the Israeli military: Munitions India Ltd, Premier Explosives Ltd, and Adani-Elbit Advanced Systems India Ltd.
“We demand, therefore, that India should immediately suspend its collaboration in the delivery of military material to Israel,” the letter urged, adding that, “International law aside, we consider such exports to be morally objectionable, indeed abominable.”
Israel Has a History of Killing Hamas Leaders Who Are Trying To Secure Ceasefires
Benjamin Netanyahu’s reckless assassination of Ismail Haniyeh undermines the prospects for a peace deal and the release of the hostages
Ismail Haniyeh in Doha, Qatar, on March 26, 2024. Photo by AFP via Getty Images
By Mehdi Hasan – zeteo – July 31, 2024
“Israel’s leaders killed three birds with one stone,” wrote Reuven Pedatzur, a senior military affairs analyst for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “They assassinated the man who had the power to make a deal with Israel; they took revenge on someone who had caused more than a few Israeli casualties; and they signaled to Hamas that communications with it will be conducted only through military force.”
Was Pedatzur referring to the Israeli assassination of senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the group’s political bureau, in Tehran in the early hours of Wednesday morning?
No. Pedatzur died in a road traffic accident in 2014. His quote from Haaretz, above, was in response to the Israeli assassination of another senior Hamas commander, Ahmed Jabari, in November 2012, which kicked off the 2012 Gaza war.
As my former colleague at The Intercept, Jon Schwarz, documented in great detail last year, “Jabari had come to believe that it was in the best interest of Palestinians for Hamas to negotiate a long-term truce” and had been in communication with the respected Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin. “Just before the assassination, [Baskin] gave Jabari a draft proposal for such a truce to review and approve. The draft was agreed to by Baskin and Hamas’s deputy foreign minister, and Baskin also said he had previously shown it to Ehud Barak, then the Israeli minister of defense.”
Would Jabari have signed off on a ‘hudna,’ or long-term truce, between Hamas and Israel? We’ll never know.
Israel, in fact, has a long and cynical history of killing Hamas leaders who are in the midst of ceasefire negotiations or, even, proposing long-term truces with the Jewish state.
Remember Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the quadriplegic co-founder and spiritual leader of Hamas? He was assassinated less than three months after he proposed a long-term truce with Israel “if a Palestinian state is established in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”
His successor, Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, was assassinated less than three months after he made a similar truce offer to Israel.
Then there was the Netanyahu government’s 2012 assassination of Jabari, who, as mentioned, was reviewing a “long-term mutual cease-fire” deal just “hours before he was killed,” according to Baskin.
The parallels between 2012 and 2024, between the killings of Jabari and Haniyeh, are eery.
“He was in line to die, not an angel and not a righteous man of peace,” Baskin said of Jabari shortly after his killing, “but his assassination also killed the possibility of achieving a truce and also the Egyptian mediators’ ability to function.”
The same could be said of Haniyeh. Mainstream Western media outlets agree that the Hamas leader was – by Hamas standards – a “pragmatist”; a key figure in the ongoing negotiations to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and free the Israeli hostages.
From Reuters:
“For all the tough language in public, Arab diplomats and officials had viewed [Haniyeh] as relatively pragmatic compared with more hardline voices inside Gaza, where the military wing of Hamas planned the October 7 attack. While telling Israel’s military they would find themselves ‘drowning in the sands of Gaza,’ he and his predecessor as Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, had shuttled around the region for talks over a Qatari-brokered cease-fire deal with Israel that would include exchanging hostages for Palestinians in Israeli jails as well as more aid for Gaza.”
From Sky News:
“Haniyeh was the pragmatic face of Hamas. He was less hard-line and militaristic than Yahya Sinwar, who is the head of Hamas inside Gaza and is leading the battle. Haniyeh was the public face of Hamas’s diplomacy in Arab capitals. He was leading efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza.”
This was the person that the far-right Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu chose to assassinate on Iranian soil on Wednesday.
Why?
Put simply, Netanyahu and his coalition of fascists and bigots do not want a deal to release the hostages. They prefer to continue the war, no matter the cost to Gaza’s civilians or to their own citizens still held inside of the enclave. Despite Joe Biden’s ludicrous claims to the contrary, it is Netanyahu who has been the biggest obstacle to a deal to free Israel’s hostages in Gaza. The former spokesperson for the hostages’ families says Netanyahu rejected a deal. Benny Gantz, a former member of Israel’s war cabinet, says Netanyahu blocked a deal. Israeli defense officials tell Haaretz that “Netanyahu systematically foiled the negotiations to free the hostages.”
There is nothing new here. To misquote Winston Churchill, Israel has always preferred “war-war” over “jaw-jaw.” Israeli governments – especially those led by Netanyahu – have preferred having Hamas as the permanent enemy – or as an “asset,” to quote the current Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich – rather than trying to do a permanent deal with Hamas.
As the late Israeli journalist Pedatzur wrote, in his analysis of the disastrous Jabari assassination in 2012:
“Our decision makers, including the defense minister and perhaps also Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, knew about Jabari’s role in advancing a permanent cease-fire agreement. … Thus the decision to kill Jabari shows that our decision makers decided a cease-fire would be undesirable for Israel at this time, and that attacking Hamas would be preferable.”
Change the name ‘Jabari’ to ‘Haniyeh’ above, and those words could have been written today.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
The Israeli Terrorist State
By Craig Murray | July 31, 2024
It is no longer possible to categorise the nihilistic violence of the Israeli state. It appears to have no objective other than violence and an urge for desolation.
In 24 hours Israel has murdered the man with whom it would need to negotiate hostage release in the short term and political settlement in the long term, and a key figure in its most dangerous potential military enemy which has refrained from full-on war.
In doing so it has violated the territory, indeed the capitals, of two crucial regional states.
Israel has also taken a policy decision that the mass rape of detainees by soldiers – and, somewhat strangely, homosexual rape in particular – is acceptable in war and not to be punished.
Ironically Israel has also underlined its genocidal intent in Gaza by proving that it has the technical ability to carry out targeted attacks, and that the flattening of entire cities with 2,000lb bombs and the massacre of tens of thousands of innocents has been a policy choice.
The western media appears paralysed by this. I have seen virtually no serious comment or analysis. Nor has anybody pointed out the contrast between Israel’s lies about mass rape on October 7 and Israel’s now-admitted policy of tolerating rape of detainees.
The political class seems even more paralysed than the media class. Caught in their commitment to Zionism – basically bought and paid for – they have nothing to say about these incredible events more sensible than Kamala Harris’s zombie-like incantation of “Israel’s right to self-defence”.
The British Foreign Office has failed to produce its promised considered reaction to the ICJ Opinion on the illegality of Israeli occupation, let alone responded sensibly to Israel’s crazed paroxysm of destruction this week.
For me it is now axiomatic that there is no two state solution and that apartheid Israel must be completely dismantled as an entity. I believe that more and more people around the entire globe believe that now.
And if we have to dismantle our own political and media classes to get there, so be it.
Israel’s allies block Security Council statement condemning Tehran attack
The Cradle | August 1, 2024
The US, UK, and France blocked a Russian-proposed statement at the UN Security Council (UNSC) condemning the assassination of Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran’s envoy to the UN Amir Saeid Iravani said on 1 August.
“Russia’s proposed statement condemning Israel’s heinous act was blocked by the US, UK, and France,” Iravani told Russian media following an emergency UNSC meeting on Wednesday night.
“It is now absolutely necessary to hold the occupying [Israeli] regime accountable for the atrocities it committed,” the Iranian diplomat added. “This regime cannot be allowed to escape accountability and consequences for the violations it has committed.”
During the session, Iravani stressed that Tehran “reserves its inherent right to self-defense in accordance with international law” and said that “the responsibility of the United States as a strategic ally and main supporter of the Israeli regime in the region cannot be overlooked in this horrific crime. This act could not [have] occurred without the authorization and intelligence support of the US.”
Permanent UNSC members Russia and China strongly condemned Israel’s attacks on the Iranian and Lebanese capitals, blasting Tel Aviv for once more sabotaging Gaza ceasefire talks and pushing the region to the brink of all-out war.
“China is deeply concerned about the potential for this incident to further destabilize the region,” Fu Cong, China’s permanent representative to the UN, emphasized during the meeting. “China strongly opposes and condemns recent irresponsible actions, including Israel’s attacks on southern Beirut,” he added.
Fu also called on Tel Aviv to cease all military actions in Gaza and appealed to “influential countries” to “put more pressure and work more vigorously … to put out the flames of war in Gaza.”
Russia’s first deputy envoy to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, also condemned Haniyeh’s killing, calling it an “attempt” to drag Iran into war.
“This provocative attack was carried out while the Hamas leader was in Iran on an official invitation to attend the inauguration ceremony of the President-elect of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian. Those behind this political assassination had to realize how dangerous the consequences could have been for the entire region,” Polyansky said.
“The misguided practice of targeted liquidations of prominent political and military figures is bringing the Middle East to the brink of a region-wide war,” the Russian diplomat added.
Feda Abdelhady Nasser, the deputy permanent observer of the State of Palestine to the UN, told the gathered diplomats that the global community “has a choice to make” between “peace and security” or letting “Israel drag us all to the abyss.”
“Israel has been the oppressor, tormentor, and murderer of Palestinians for decades, and it is the longstanding destabilizer of our region,” Nasser highlighted.
Lebanon’s Acting Permanent Representative to the UN, Hadi Hashem, contested Israel’s claims that the attack on the Beirut suburb of Dahye this week was an act of “self-defense.”
“Israel’s claim that it seeks to protect the population it occupies is a display of hypocrisy,” Hachem said, adding, “The real goal of Israel is to prolong and escalate the hostilities. And it is ironic that the killer of tens of thousands of children in Gaza sheds tears for the children of the occupied Syrian Golan.”
Similarly, Syria’s UN ambassador, Qusai al-Dahhak, stressed that “Israel is responsible for the crime in Majdal Shams” and noted that the territory is Syrian, accusing Israel of “weaponizing” the attack on the Druze community “to continue its aggression on the states of the region.”
Robert Wood, deputy US ambassador to the UN, called on UNSC members with influence over Iran “to increase pressure on it to stop escalating its proxy conflict against Israel and other actors.”
France and the UK took a similar line, reiterating a call for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza and condemning what they said was Iranian support for “destabilizing actors in the region.”
Lebanon files complaint at UNSC, ITU, accuses ‘Israel’ of cyberwarfare
Al Mayadeen | August 1, 2024
The Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has filed a complaint with the United Nations Security Council and the Secretary-General of the United Nations through its permanent mission in New York over the Israeli occupation’s repeat violations of Lebanon’s cyberspace.
The complaint calls on Security Council member states to condemn the Israeli cyber attacks on Lebanon, which pose a serious threat to civil aviation services and endanger the security and safety of communication networks, devices, applications, and electronic data in vital Lebanese facilities.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also requested its permanent mission in Geneva to file a complaint with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The complaint urges the ITU to take the necessary technical measures to stop these attacks and assist Lebanon in ensuring the proper functioning of its communication networks.
The Ministry’s actions are based on a report from the Lebanese Ministry of Telecommunications, which revealed the source of interference in northern occupied Palestine that has caused a decline in the accuracy of the Global Positioning System (GPS) in Lebanon, affecting transport and communication services.
The report also indicated the presence of repeated warnings from the Network Time Protocol server, showing the frequent loss of GPS signals and a decline in the quality of service and user experience for mobile network operators.
Since the onset of the Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip in October 2023 and the escalation along the Lebanon-occupied Palestine border area, residents in Beirut have intermittently experienced disruptions in the functioning of widely-used electronic maps, such as Google Maps, and interference with GPS signals.
This disruption in location services for transportation applications, like Uber, is attributed to the interference with GPS signals. Lebanon accuses the Israeli occupation of deliberately causing this interference to hinder land and air transportation amid the ongoing escalation in southern Lebanon.
Not the first complaint
Lebanon’s permanent mission to the United Nations lodged in February a formal complaint to the UN Security Council against the Israeli attacks in South Lebanon, which was not the first time.
The submitted complaint detailed that an Israeli drone, using a guided missile, targeted a residential building in the city of Nabatiyeh, southern Lebanon, resulting in the martyrdom of 10 people, including women and children.
The mission stated that these strikes amount to a “war crime” while addressing the rotating President of the Security Council Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett.
More dead children. More BBC ‘news’ channelling Israeli propaganda as its own
By Jonathan Cook | July 28, 2024
BBC coverage of the attack on a football pitch in the Golan Heights on Saturday has been intentionally misleading.
The BBC’s evening news entirely ignored the fact that those killed by the blast are a dozen Syrians, not Israeli citizens, and that for decades the surviving Syrian population in the Golan, most of them Druze, has been forced to live unwillingly under an Israeli military occupation.
I suppose mention of this context might complicate the story Israel and the BBC wish to tell – and risk reminding viewers that Israel is a belligerent state occupying not just Palestinian territory but Syrian territory too (not to mention nearby Lebanese territory).
It might suggest to audiences that these various permanent Israeli occupations have been contributing not only to large-scale human rights abuses but to regional tensions as well. That Israel’s acts of aggression against its neighbours might be the cause of “conflict”, rather than, as Israel and the BBC would have us believe, some kind of unusual, pre-emptive form of self-defence.
The BBC, of course, chose to uncritically air comments from a military spokesman for Israel, who blamed Hizbullah for the blast in the Golan.
Daniel Hagari tried to milk the incident for maximum propaganda value, arguing: “This attack shows the true face of Hizbullah, a terrorist organisation that targets and murders children playing soccer.”
Except, as the BBC failed to mention in its report, Israel infamously targeted and murdered four young children from the Bakr family playing football on a beach in Gaza in 2014.
Much more recently, video footage showed Israel striking yet more children playing football at a school in Gaza that was serving as a shelter for families whose homes were destroyed by earlier Israeli bombs.
Doubtless other strikes in Gaza over the past 10 months, so many of them targeting school-shelters, have killed Palestinian children playing football – especially as it is one of the very few ways they can take their mind off the horror all around.
So, should we – and the BBC – not conclude that all these attacks on children playing football make the Israeli military even more of a terrorist organisation than Hizbullah?
Note too the way the western media are so ready to accept unquestioningly Israel’s claim that Hizbullah was responsible for the blast – and dismiss Hizbullah’s denials.
Viewers are discouraged from exercising their memories. Any who do may recall that those same media outlets were only too willing to take on faith Israeli disinformation suggesting that Hamas had hit Gaza’s al-Ahli hospital back in October, even when all the evidence showed it was an Israeli air strike.
(Israel soon went on to destroy all Gaza’s hospitals, effectively eradicating the enclave’s health sector, on the pretext that medical facilities there served as Hamas bases – another patently preposterous claim the western media treated with wide-eyed credulity.)
The BBC next went to Jerusalem to hear from diplomatic editor Paul Adams. He intoned gravely: “This is precisely what we have been worrying about for the past 10 months – that something of this magnitude would occur on the northern border, that would turn what has been a simmering conflict for all of these months into an all-out war.”
So there you have it. Paul Adams and the BBC concede they haven’t been worrying for the past 10 months about the genocide unfolding under their very noses in Gaza, or its consequences.
A genocide of Palestinians, apparently, is not something of significant “magnitude”.
Only now, when Israel can exploit the deaths of Syrians forced to live under its military rule as a pretext to expand its “war”, are we supposed to sit up and take notice. Or so the BBC tells us.
Update:
Facebook instantly removed a post linking to this article – and for reasons that are entirely opaque to me (apart from the fact that it is critical of the BBC and Israel).
Facebook’s warning, threatening that my account may face “more account restrictions”, suggests that I was misleading followers by taking them to a “landing page that impersonates another website”. That is patent nonsense. The link took them to my Substack page.
As I have been warning for some time, social media platforms have been tightening the noose around the necks of independent journalists like me, making our work all but impossible to find. It is only a matter of time before we are disappeared completely.
Substack has been a lifeline, because it connects readers to my work directly – either through email or via Substack’s app – bypassing, at least for the moment, the grip of the social-media billionaires.
If you wish to keep reading my articles, and haven’t already, please sign up to my Substack page.
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