UK government faces lawsuit over arms sales to Israel
Press TV – August 17, 2014
The British government is facing unprecedented legal action over its continued arms sale to Israel in the wake of the recent deadly Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip.
British law firm, Leigh Day, representing the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), said Saturday that it has written to Business Secretary Vince Cable, calling for the immediate suspension of arms export licenses to Israel.
The law firm said the UK government’s failure to suspend the licenses is illegal, adding that it has been instructed to seek a High Court judicial review of the administration’s reluctance to halt the arms sales to Israel.
A recent report by the British parliamentary committee for arms export controls showed that Israel received around £8 billion in the form of 400 arms licenses from the UK in 2013.
Leigh Day further said there is a risk that British-made weapons may have been used by Israel during its recent onslaught on Gaza in breach of humanitarian and human rights law.
“If arms from the UK are being used to commit crimes against humanitarian law, and human rights law, then export licenses for these materials must be revoked immediately,” said Rosa Curling, representing the CAAT, adding, “If this is not done, the government’s current policy is unlawful and susceptible to legal challenge.”
The British government has come under persistent pressure to toughen its stance against Israel, including by halting arms exports, since Tel Aviv began its onslaught on the besieged Palestinian enclave more than a month ago.
Nearly 2,000 Palestinians, including 470 children, have lost their lives and more than 10,200 have been wounded since the Israeli military unleashed fatal assaults against Gaza on July 8.
Human rights groups say Israeli forces are systematically killing Palestinian children and youths.
Muslim student murdered in UK for hijab: Report
Press TV – August 16, 2014
A PhD student from Saudi Arabia has been stabbed to death for wearing Islamic dress while walking to her university campus in Essex, northeast of London, a report says.
Nahid Almanea, 31, was stabbed 16 times on a footpath with officers believing that she was targeted for wearing a traditional Muslim dress, a long robe and a headscarf, the Huffington Post reported.
According to Essex police, Almanea died on the spot after receiving the knife wounds in her body, neck, head and arms.
The University of Essex said Almanea was a “very hard-working and conscientious” student and was expected to finish her studies later this year.
Her body was later transferred to Saudi Arabia’s al-Jawf Province where a large crowd gathered to take part in her funeral ceremony.
A 52-year-old man was reportedly arrested in connection with her death.
“This isn’t the first attack on a Muslim student and certainly is not the last on a member of the Muslim community in the UK. We will naturally wait for all evidence to become clear. However, if the attack turns out to be Islamophobic in nature because of her Muslim appearance, then it will correlate with the disturbing exponential increase in hate crimes against Muslims here in the UK,” said Omar Ali, president of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS).
The attack prompted strong reactions from people in the UK and Saudi Arabia, who all condemned such attacks on Muslims. Several Saudi nationals even called on the Saudi Embassy in London to suspend business ties with the UK.
European spyware tech used against Bahrainis: Reports
Press TV – August 10, 2014
A German-British surveillance company has assisted the Bahraini regime in spying on anti-regime activists in the Persian Gulf country, reports say.
According to reports, Gamma International provided the Al Khalifa regime with the FinFisher spyware.
German media reported that by using the malicious spyware, the Bahraini regime has managed to hack into 77 computers belonging to opposition leaders, imprisoned politicians, journalists, human rights lawyers, and activists who took part in the Bahraini uprising which began in mid-February 2011.
The surveillance software is said to be capable of remotely switching on and recording a computer’s webcam feed. It can also make a copy of Skype conversations.
Security researchers believe that Gamma International’s technology is being used by other oppressive regimes around the world against journalists and activists.
Gamma had previously said that its spyware was used to target criminals and terrorists and that the company had not done business with Bahrain. The Bahraini regime has regularly rejected reports that it spies on political activists.
Since mid-February 2011, thousands of pro-democracy protesters have staged numerous demonstrations in the streets of Bahrain, calling for the Al Khalifa royal family to relinquish power.
On March 14, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invaded the country to assist the Bahraini regime in its crackdown on the peaceful protesters.
According to local sources, scores of people have been killed and hundreds arrested.
Physicians for Human Rights says doctors and nurses have been detained, tortured, or disappeared because they have “evidence of atrocities committed by the authorities, security forces, and riot police” in the crackdown on anti-government protesters.
Enough of Elie Wiesel and His Lies!
By Gilad Atzmon | August 8, 2014
According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the London Times refused to run an ad featuring Elie Wiesel speaking out against Hamas’ use of children as human shields.
The ad’s headline reads: “Jews rejected child sacrifice 3,500 years ago. Now it’s Hamas’ turn.” Wiesel’s statement is a blatant lie and the London Times knew it.
Jews have never stopped sacrificing their children. The Hannibal Protocol is an IDF directive that orders soldiers to take ‘necessary measures’ to prevent their comrades from being captured by enemy forces. ‘Necessary measures’ include risking the life of the Israeli soldier and anyone who happens to be in his vicinity. Similarly, the Kastner Affair shows that at the peak of the Shoah, Ben Gurion and the Zionist establishment were willing to sacrifice many Jewish lives on the altar of the Zionist goal.
The growing number of genocides and massacres committed by Jews in the last hundred years suggest that at least some Jews are pretty careless with other people’s children. Wiesel should examine the Holodomor and the role of ‘Stalin’s willing executioners’ as Jewish American historian Yuri Slezkine elucidates in his invaluable book The Jewish Century. Wiesel can also read Israeli Sever Plocker’s declaration that “some of (the) greatest murderers of modern times were Jewish.” Just a few years after the Holodomor, the Yiddish speaking International Brigade murdered Catholics and burned their churches in Spain (1936). The tragic and violent circumstances in which the Jewish State was born didn’t sate the lust for violence among some of its Diaspora supporters, quite the opposite. The immoral Neocon interventionists that have been advocates for the death and carnage of millions of Muslims for the past two decades are largely Jewish Zionists. Wasn’t Lord Levy, the chief fundraiser for Tony Blair’s Government at the time we were led into an illegal war in Iraq, a proud Zionist Jew? Weren’t the Jewish Chronicle writers David Aaronovitch and Nick Cohen, who enthusiastically endorsed the Iraq war in the British media, Jewish? Perhaps the time has come for Aaronovitch and Cohen to explain their advocacy of lethal ‘moralism.’ Consider the infamous Bernard Henri Levy who admitted that “as a Jew” he “liberated” Libya. Isn’t it time for him to take responsibility ‘as a Jew’ for the sacrifice of other people’s children?
I would like to advise Elie Wiesel that the argument that Hamas is using civilians and children as ‘human shields’ is not only wrong, it actually provides a glimpse into Zionist cultural morbidity and intellectual barbarism. Let’s imagine a volatile situation in which a bank robber failed to escape in time and is surrounded by police. Scared for his life, the robber takes a hostage and hides behind his/her back while sticking a pistol to the hostage’s head. Could you imagine a police officer ordering a sniper to kill the hostage together with the villain? The answer is, of course, NO. But Israel’s logic is very different. If it is true (and I don’t suggest that it is) that Hamas is using the Palestinian civilian population as hostages, then the IDF is clearly murdering the hostages and on a scale that has reached industrial homicidal proportions. Israeli officials occasionally admit that this is their tactic and it is consistent with Israeli military doctrine that adheres to the ‘power of deterrence.’ Israeli decision makers believe that civilian deaths discourage Arabs from entering into a conflict. The emerging number of casualties from recent rounds of violence suggests that Israel’s tactics are homicidal. They target innocent civilians and on purpose. This shows clearly that the Jewish State is an outlaw among nations and it may even be possible that the London Times realises that this is the case. The humanist message is obvious. The time is ripe for cleansing our cultural and public life of Elie Wiesels and other Jerusalemites who promote dubious non-universal ethics in our midst.
Will there be accountability for Brits fighting in Israel?
By Shazia Arshad | MEMO | August 6, 2014
The Israeli army is currently waging a cold blooded campaign against the Gaza Strip, the third of its kind in less than six years. As thousands of Palestinians are killed and injured by Israeli forces, attention is slowly but surely turning towards those who are committing some of the most cruel and gruesome acts of war.
After Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009) there were attempts to use universal jurisdiction to bring about the arrest of senior Israeli officials visiting the UK who were accused of war crimes. Although the laws on universal jurisdiction were changed by the current British government, inevitably the spotlight remains on the illegality of the IDFs actions during the course of war.
During this war, however, the spotlight has shone upon a slightly different element, those British nationals who are serving in the IDF. In recent months there has been much scrutiny of British nationals who have left the UK for Syria. A letter to the Home Secretary and MP for Hayes and Harlington, John McDonnell, highlighted that 20 British nationals have had their citizenship withdrawn as a result of their activities in Syria. Media reports have suggested that hundreds of British nationals were going to Syria to take part in activities against Assad as the civil war in Syria continues to rage on some three years later. As these reports filtered out, the British government voiced concerns that upon their return these British nationals would be radicalised and become involved in extremism. This is not the first time that government officials have linked foreign affairs to extremism in the UK, but almost exclusively the conversations about extremism in the UK have consistently focused on the Muslim community.
Yet what these conversations have missed is another potential force for radicalisation. This has been missed because this radicalisation will not be of Muslims by Muslims nor at the hand of Muslims; in short it is because that spell happens in Israel.
The IDF do not actively recruit foreign nationals in the UK, yet despite this figures from Channel 4 News suggest that at least 100 Brits are currently active in the Israeli army. The Israeli army do not provide figures for the number of foreign recruits they currently have and whilst British MPs have quizzed the government on this, ministers have been unable to report back on the exact numbers. Indeed, when Lord Ahmed of Rotherham asked the then minister about this in 2009, the minister reported that this information would only be available from the Israeli government.
However, back in 2010 the Independent newspaper reported that a new organisation, Aish Malach, had been established to help foreign nationals enlist in the army. Most can join through a programme known as Mahal, which allows a person who is Jewish or of Jewish ancestry to join the army; they need not be a citizen of Israel in order to do so.
With or without structured recruitment programmes young British Jewish recruits are keen to sign up to the IDF. When the Guardian covered this in 2006, they spoke to a British recruit who said that he was joining, along with other recruits, to show his love and support for Israel. And it seems according to one report in the New Statesman that this indoctrination into support for the IDF starts early, with 16 and 17 year-olds joining the Marva programme, which echoes the training of the IDF soldiers in order to encourage the young participants to empathise with the army. These young British recruits are encouraged to join by youth groups such as the RSY Netzer and the Federation of Zionist Youth. Many of these participants did go on to join the IDF.
Whilst many of these recruits do go on to take Israeli citizenship with many becoming dual nationals, this is not the case for all recruits. Some recruits choose not to take on citizenship and remain British nationals only. Whether or not they have citizenship, these foreign recruits take on a full role in the army and serve in the same way as any other recruit in the IDF. And this inevitably means that they will take part in those same actions which the British public have watched unfold in Gaza over recent weeks resulting in the death of nearly 2,000 Palestinians.
The current conflict in Gaza has undoubtedly seen a breach of international law and it would be no stretch of the imagination to assume that war crimes had not been committed. As Palestinian officials met with International Criminal Court prosecutors, a group of senior British lawyers wrote to the ICC urging them to investigate noting that the ICC had a duty to do so given the UN’s recognition of Palestine. And if Israel is found guilty of war crimes at the ICC, then it follows that Israeli officials would have to be held to account over their actions. And under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Britain would have a duty to ensure that it plays its role in ensuring that justice is served.
With British nationals active in the IDF, there is no doubt that some of these recruits will have taken part in the current campaign in Gaza. As Foreign Office Minister, Lord Malloch Brown, noted after Operation Cast Lead: “anybody who has broken the fourth protocol of the Geneva Convention deserves to meet justice in some court or another.” The minister also said that it would not be right to draw a distinction between “British nationals and others”. Should British nationals return to the UK having partaken in such crimes it should be inevitable that justice would follow. In reality, it is unlikely that any such action would be taken by British courts against British IDF soldiers.
Whilst there have been no moves to prevent Brits enlisting in the IDF, there is a law which states it is an offence for a British national to enlist in a foreign army and should they do so it would be an offence “punishable by fine and imprisonment.” The law however has been barely used and became almost redundant when British nationals left the UK to join the struggles during the Spanish civil war. With no laws to effectively prevent Brits joining the IDF, British nationals remain vulnerable to arrest – if they choose to leave the country and take up arms with the Israeli army, who have been killing and wounding civilians in Gaza they are culpable of committing crimes against a besieged civilian population, almost certainly illegal under international law.
Britain has always been troubled by its role in the Middle East and the effect of its foreign policy on communities at home in the UK. When the current government launched its report into British nationals fighting in Syria, the focus was on how to prevent radicalisation of the Muslim communities in the UK. Those Brits arrested after returning from Syria have been accused of partaking in terrorist activity, but those Brits in the IDF are no less guilty of that. The only difference being that the the Israeli army’s actions are state sanctioned and as of yet have not been condemned by the British government.
When British Foreign Office Minister Baroness Warsi resigned she noted that the UK needs to end its complicity by looking to bring about an arms embargo. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg went on to call for a suspension of arms export licenses within hours of Warsi’s resignation, but if the UK is to fully end its complicity in Israeli war crimes, it needs to look closely at the actions of its citizens who are taking part in the IDFs assault of the Palestinian people.
Ken Loach slams BBC’s pro-Israel coverage of Gaza war
Press TV – August 4, 2014
Internationally-renowned filmmaker, Ken Loach, has slammed the state-run BBC for its pro-Israel bias in the coverage of the ongoing war on the Gaza Strip.
Loach, who has participated in an ongoing occupation campaign in front of the BBC headquarters in the British southwestern city of Bristol, slammed BBC policies, saying, “We should note that many at the BBC, including senior staff, are embarrassed by the broadcaster’s coverage that has an obvious pro-Israel bias.”
“They don’t put the views of Palestinians to the Israelis during interviews, while the use of language about Gazans is pejorative and the war crimes being committed against them ignored…. They’re not ‘militants’ or ‘terrorists,’ they’re ‘resistance fighters,’” he said, adding, “It’s the BBC, we own it, so it should be answerable.”
Loach noted that BBC editors will have to be accountable over the public protest against the broadcaster’s coverage of the Gaza war, stressing that BBC should undergo “tactical” transformations in its broadcasting policies.
Palestine campaigners have occupied the front lawn of the BBC headquarters in Bristol since last week despite the broadcaster’s threat to get them evicted from the site.
Other high-profile artists and campaigners, including celebrated comedian Mark Thomas, have also voiced support for the occupy campaign.
“The BBC reporting of the Israeli military assault on Gaza has failed time and time again to contextualize the violence, refusing to explain the occupation of Palestine and the siege of Gaza,” Thomas said.
The pro-Palestine campaigners also joined thousands of protesters against “Israeli genocide” on Saturday. The demonstration was the biggest protest in Bristol in a decade.
The campaigners also plan to present a “damning dossier” to BBC Bristol TV editor Neil Bennett next week, which incorporates evidence of the broadcaster’s biased coverage of the Gaza war.
They have also organized public burning of TV licenses and the occupation’s court summons and plan to resist any action aimed at evicting them from the site.
More than 1,822 people, including 400 children, have been killed and over 9,400 injured since July 8, when Israel began its offensive against the Gaza Strip.
While the Israeli military says 64 soldiers have been killed in the conflict, Palestinian resistance movement Hamas puts the fatalities at more than 150.
UK opposition slams premier over Gaza
Press TV – August 3, 2014
Britain’s opposition leader has criticized Prime Minister David Cameron for failing to take a firm stance on Israel’s aggression against Gaza.
Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband, said Saturday that it was “wrong and unjustifiable” that Cameron had failed to speak out about the Israeli atrocities.
“…The prime minister is wrong not to have opposed Israel’s incursion into Gaza,” said Miliband, adding, “His silence on the killing of hundreds of innocent Palestinian civilians caused by Israeli’s military action will be inexplicable to people across Britain and internationally.”
In response, the British prime minister has criticized his rival for playing politics with such a serious issue.
The reactions come amid reports that the Israeli regime has been using weapons containing British-made components in the fatal aggression against the Gaza Strip.
The UK daily Independent revealed that arms export licenses worth $70 million have been granted to 130 British defense manufacturers since 2010 to sell military equipment to the Tel Aviv regime.
These range from bulletproof garments to naval gun parts and armored vehicles.
“Among the manufacturers given permission to make sales were two UK companies supplying components for the Hermes drone, described by the Israeli air force as the ‘backbone’ of its targeting and reconnaissance missions. One of the two companies also supplies components for Israel’s main battle tank,” the report said.
Since July 8, more than 1,700 people have been killed and over 9,100 others injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza. Nearly 400 children are among the fatalities.
Meanwhile, thousands of people have staged demonstrations in different countries around the world in condemnation of the ongoing Israeli military aggression against the besieged Palestinian territory.
Tesco: the boycott that wasn’t
By Therezia Cooper | Corporate Watch | July 31, 2014
The illegal settlement Beqa’ot in the occupied Jordan Valley. Photo by Corporate Watch, February 2013
Earlier this week, the Irish Sun published an article which claimed that Tesco’s Irish stores are to stop stocking fruit grown in Israeli settlements and that the chain’s UK stores will follow suit. In the article a Tesco spokesperson said that the chain currently has one kind of own brand dates which is “grown in Israel, but packed in the West Bank”, and that Tesco “plan to stop using that facility in September”. The news spread quickly amongst Palestine activists on the internet, with many congratulating Tesco’s decision boycott settlement produce. It seems, however, that the victory call was premature. In fact, there is no evidence that Tesco’s policy regarding trade with Israel has changed and campaigners should not become complacent.
Firstly, the changes do not refer to all produce but only to Tesco’s own brand, in this case one line of dates, and when Corporate Watch contacted Tesco for a clarification on practice its press office was less than forthcoming. After several attempts, we finally received a short reply from Alasdair Gee which stated “I’d like to point out that the Irish article is highly misleading. There has been no sourcing policy change. Any sourcing arrangements are purely for commercial reasons”. The statement failed to answer any of the questions we had posed, including whether Tesco will continue to source from the Israeli company Mehadrin, which operates in several settlements in the occupied Jordan Valley, as well as in the Golan. A follow up question regarding this has gone unanswered. As Corporate Watch has previously exposed, Mehadrin frequently mislabels produce from illegal settlements as Israeli. By continuing to trade with Mehadrin Tesco is complicit in aiding the settler economy.
Mislabelled Mehadrin produce in the illegal settlement Beqa’ot in the occupied Jordan Valley. Photo by Corporate Watch, February 2013
There is of course a possibility that the “commercial reasons” Tesco gives for its decision to no longer have any of its own lines packaged in a settlement packinghouse have come about because of the consumer boycott of produce with a settlement label, hence making this kind of trade less profitable. According to the Jewish Chronicle two health and beauty product suppliers have been asked by Tesco to list all their products and ingredients from Israel and the West Bank, indicating that pressure from the growing number of consumers who are campaigning for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is working on some level.
There is no doubt that the boycott movement is now firmly on the supermarket’s radar, but so far the steps Tesco has taken are no cause for celebration, but rather increased action. As a minimum, BDS activists should continue to push all supermarkets to adopt a similar position to the Co-op, who became the first UK chain to act on settlement produce when it dropped four suppliers known to operate in settlements in 2012, including Mehadrin. This is the campaign strategy of the Sainsbury’s Campaign, which has monthly pickets outside Sainsbury’s shops nationwide.
Let’s party says Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair as Israel carpet bombs Gaza
By Robin Beste | Stop the War Coalition | July 28, 2014
Was it appropriate for the Middle East peace envoy to throw a lavish party for political cronies and minor celebrities as Israel slaughtered over 1000 Palestinian civilians?
WHERE was Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair last week as Israel invaded Gaza and committed horrific war crimes, killing over 1000 Palestinians, 80% of them civilians, 200 of them children?
Not at his official residence and office in the millionaires’ row of East Jerusalem, which costs £750,000 a year, and from where he directs his somewhat less than successful efforts to bring peace to the Middle East.
And what was Tony Blair doing, as Israel bombed hospitals, schools, centres for the disabled, and UN shelters to which 180,000 civilians fled — as at least 1000 homes were turned to rubble by random bombardment? What was he doing as the people in 46% of Gaza were warned by Israel to evacuate — without any indication of where they could go — or face being slaughtered by the world’s fifth most powerful military force?
What has been the Middle East’s Peace Envoy’s only visible contribution to finding a peaceful resolution to the carnage we have witnessed since 6 July, when Israel escalated its merciless attack on 1.8 million defenceless people, held captive by an inhumane siege, which for seven years has left them starved of food, clean water and essential resources, including medical supplies?
The only sighting has been his appearances on television in which his one purpose seems to be to repeat endlessly that he supports “Israel’s right to defend itself”. By killing 200 childen? is never the repost by his interviewers, least of all on the BBC, which, like Tony Blair, is a fully signed up contributor to Israel’s propaganda campaign justifying crimes against humanity.
So has the peace envoy been active behind the scenes, working tirelessly to bring the carnage to an end?
As far as we know, his only behind the scenes activity has been to act as messenge-boy for the scam Egyptian “ceasefire proposal”, which was actually hatched in Washington, with the terms drafted by Israel. Tony Blair’s errand was to deliver the proposal to US-backed Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, for him then to announce it as his initiative. The Middle East peace envoy, whose role is supposedly intended to mediate between warring parties in the region, didn’t consider showing the ceasefire proposal to Hamas, which only learnt of it from the media and understandably rejected it as a one-sided demand to surrender. As Israel based journalist Jonathan Cook wrote,
The corporate media swallowed the line of Israel accepting the “ceasefire proposal” and Hamas rejecting it. What Hamas did was reject a US-Israeli diktat to sign away the rights of the people of Gaza to end a siege that cuts them off from the rest of the world.
Tony Blair was the natural choice to be the US and Israeli emissary to the Egyptian dictator el-Sisi, who came to power in a military coup last year that toppled the democratically elected government of president Mohamed Morsi. The Sisi regime is estimated to have killed more than 2,500 protesters and jailed more than 20,000. But that didn’t stop Blair at the beginning of July agreeing to “advise” the Egyptian dictator in a deal which is said to promise huge “business opportunities”.
Not for the first time, Blair is blurring the lines between his public position as peace envoy and his private business dealings in the Middle East. Which is why a group of former British ambassadors and political figures joined a campaign to call for Blair to be sacked as Middle East envoy
So where was Tony Blair last week, as the world watched in horror as Israel invaded Gaza with complete disregard for international and humanitarian law?
He was in the United Kingdom.
And what was his prime activity last week? It was planning a surprise 60th birthday party for his wife Cherie. Why she needed one to coincide with the news that Israel’s mass murder in Gaza had passed 1000 is not clear, as her 60th birthday isn’t actually due till September.
But there was the Middle East peace envoy on Friday 25 July, partying at a cost of £50,000 in his £6 million mansion, with 150 political cronies, wealthy businessmen and minor celebrities.
The next day, over 60,000 protesters brought central London to a standstill calling for the Gaza massacre to stop. Many thousands more demonstrated in towns and cities throughout the UK. And across the world, from San Francisco to Tel Aviv, on every continent, demonstrations called for an end to the killing, the siege to be lifted and Palestine to be free.
There is an ever-growing worldwide outrage that Israel is allowed with impunity to get away with such barbarity. As the Channel 4 News journalist Jon Snow put it: “Were any other country on Earth doing what is being done in Gaza, there would be worldwide uproar.”
And the response of Tony Blair, the Middle East peace envoy: “Israel has the right to defend itself.” Time to party.
Jon Snow’s strange interview with Hamas
By Jonathon Cook | The Blog from Nazareth | July 31, 2014
Two observations about Jon Snow’s interview last night with Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan, for which Snow has received a lot of criticism from those supportive of the Palestinian case.
First, we should notice how Snow chooses to frame the interview. This is his first question: “Israel has demonstrated that it is prepared to go on killing Gaza’s woman and children, civilians generally. Why are you encouraging them by continuing to fire your ineffective rockets?”
That is quite some opener. In using the phrase “prepared to go on”, Snow implies that Israel’s killing of civilians is to a degree deliberate. In fact, that becomes the essential frame of the whole interview – and is the source of his irritating, even puerile line of questioning. Why antagonise Israel, when it’s clear it’s going to vent its fury on women and children? Why not hand over your weapons and let Israel blow up your tunnels? Why not abandon resistance?
Snow’s framing does a great disservice to Hamas but it damages Israel even more. Hamas are stupid, according to this approach, but Israel is actually malevolent. We should not discount the significance of the assumption about Israel Snow is making on behalf of his viewers. This may be some sort of tiny victory for the Palestinians in the media war.
Second, Snow keeps telling Hamdan: “There’s no time to go into the history”. In other words, we must ignore the context. But this is precisely the criticism of media coverage of Israel-Palestine made by academics like Greg Philo. Their surveys show the media fail to provide the historical context of the conflict, and this failure puts the Palestinians at an immediate disadvantage, because their case is essentially historical – a demand for redress for the injustices of 1948 and 1967. After all, Hamas represents an enormous group of refugees from those wars, forced out of their homes in Israel and now imprisoned in Gaza. Without that context, we cannot understand what drives Hamas or Gaza’s will to resist.
The Israelis, on the other hand, would much rather we ignored the history, or only concentrated on marginal aspects of it, because the injustice – the dispossession of Palestinians – is precisely historical. So, in refusing to consider history, Snow is taking a side – Israel’s.
http://www.channel4.com/news/hamas-israel-started-this-conflict-in-1948-video
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The run up to the Iran war exposes inner workings of the US/Israeli deep state
By Justin K.P. | The Dissident | June 9, 2026
Taking a careful look at the run-up to the U.S./Israeli war on Iran exposes the inner workings of the U.S./Israeli deep state and the covert operations that the CIA and Mossad carry out around the world to lay the groundwork for war.
In this article, I will detail how the U.S. and Israel astroturfed protests in Iran, infiltrated them with rioters, and ran an atrocity propaganda campaign about Iran massacring protestors to manufacture consent for war.
This article will be an examination of the deep state’s war on Iran, prior to the full-scale U.S. invasion.
This article will be specific to Iran, but should be seen as a case study for how American, Israeli, and often British intelligence lay the groundwork for targets of empire around the world. … continue
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