As the Guardian noted later yesterday:
Benjamin Netanyahu was accused of slander and pursuing a war without end after he claimed the leaders of France, Canada and the UK were stoking antisemitism and siding with Hamas by demanding he end the two-month blockade of food and aid into Gaza.
In what has become an extraordinary standoff with some of Israel's closest allies, Netanyahu appeared to deliberately raise the stakes on Thursday night by accusing his western critics of abandoning Israel in a war for its very existence.
Let's be clear about four things.
First, Israel is not engaged in a war about its very existence. It has not been at any stage since October 2023. Not for one moment has anyone ever doubted Israel's military domination of its region, and as a consequence, ever doubted its existence. For Netanyahu to claim this is for him to simply lie. There is no other way to say that: the man is a charlatan.
Second, he's worse than a charlatan. This war is all about saving Netanyahu. He is a criminal, and a much bigger one now than he was when he started this war in an attempt to prevent his being brought to justice. He deserves to spend his final years in jail, and I hope he will.
Third, the politicians now criticising him are way too late to do so. Nothing lets them off the hook. It was obvious what they had to do with Israel in October 2023. They had to tell it to back off then. They had to demand a cessation of hostilities then. They had to say the invasion of Gaza that followed a Hamas atrocity was not in any way justified as a result of the way in which it was conducted. They should have said then that international law was being violated in a way that already could ot be justified. And they did not. That is why they have always been complicit in what Israel has done, which they have enabled.
And, fourth, the media is in the same position, he Guadian most definitely included. As my fellow National columnist, Owen Jones, has said in that paper this morning:
[W]hile almost the entire Westminster media backed, legitimised and whitewashed the genocide, this publication was a rare exception. From the beginning, it exposed Israeli war crimes, took Israel's genocidal intent seriously, treated Palestinian life as having equal worth.
And let's be honest: The National is treated with contempt by other publications. It's infantilised, as though it's unserious compared to the supposed grownups in the room.
So how exactly does that leave these supposed journalistic big beasts feeling, then?
You have no excuse. You knew enough: about entire extended families wiped from the face of the earth, deliberate starvation, every hospital being attacked, the liquidation of more than a thousand medics, Gaza being reduced to apocalyptic ruin, the incessant stories of torture and rape. You know South Africa hauled Israel before the International Court of Justice to face genocide charges 14 months ago. You knew the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor issued requests for arrest warrants a year ago, which were served six months ago. You knew enough – more than enough.
And he's right, they did know. They did nothing, but as Owen also says:
Unfortunately for you, The National – with its courage, integrity and insight – underlines that you have no excuses. And yet even now you probably feel indefinitely protected by a shield made from Israeli impunity, reinforced with anti-Palestinian racism. Yet deep down, you know that is crumbling.
That support for Israel is crumbling. Trump might shore it up for a bit. But the truth will be told.
Netanyahu has undertaken genocide.
Our politician aided and abetted him.
Our media pretended it was not happening.
But one small, pro-independence, Scottish newspaper that I am proud to write for stood out, alone, from the crowd, and called out what was happening.
There is no comfort to be had in what is happening in Gaza. Quite literally, there is none whatsoever. But I can say that The National called it right when no one else did.
And the rest, as Owen has suggested, need to be held to account for that, not least because they are doing the same on the rise of fascism in the UK, which they will not name, let alone call out as to its consequences.
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Hats off the the National. Wrt to the Guardian, many of its columnists are Israel apologists & I never read them.
One chap worth listening to is Finkelstein.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czyF0IucIpY
From 25 mins in he gives some very very hard truths about Israel. Point the finger at Net&yahoo by all means, the man is a monster but as Finkelstein notes, most of the Israeli-jewish population has been led down the path & are the ones that are committing genocide and, largely, supporting it. As Finkelstein notes – they all know EXACTLY what is happening & have been groomed to support it.
Worth listening to.
In the case of the Uk, the Starmer/McSwine gov has to be replaced – they have shown themselves to be little more than extensions of the Net&yahoo government. They are traitors.
Thanks
‘McSwine’ – another one of your gem nicknames, Mike.
Not quite on a par(r) with ‘Fart-rage’, but nevertheless both nicknames capture the essential essence of those individuals.
Keep them coming 🙂
I saw a very interesting film with a very critical member of the knesset, in which he explains that the in-bred Jewish belief that they are the chosen race, coupled with considering Palestinians as inhuman and unworthy of human kindness means support for genocide is widespread and steadfast.
I see nothing changing.
John, it’s worse than that. The Settlers determined that they would take over politically with their vision for israel decades ago. And frankly, they have done. They took control of the levers of government in so many areas. They shape how the Jewish israeli public think and feel about the ‘othered’ peoples who share the land they claim exclusively through education – from nursery on – and through all forms of media. Religious ‘leaders’ make statements (former Chief Rabbi claiming hundreds or thousands of Palestinian lives are not worth one Jewish fingernail), write books (two extremist rabbis living in the West Bank) like ‘Torat HaMelech’ – The King’s Torah – which detail just how babies can be considered enemies worthy of death (see some of what Max Blumenthal wrote in relation to that). The extremists love this sort of thing. Thousands of copies of the book were handed out to the army despite calls for it to be banned. And of course it’s still going around. Education has been made more ‘nationalist’ (the way trump wants to in the US) and more ‘religious’ in that particular sense. Nurit Peled Elhanan writes on that – despite losing her only daughter in a bus bombing at age 13 during the last intifada both she and her husband try to work for peace. Anybody under middle age has been indoctrinated, programmed, brainwashed into adopting the hatred; into believing that a country for all its people is equivalent to a call for the destruction of israel. I don’t see how this ends in a world that seems always to be behind and supporting that horribly sick country.
This government has also been complicit in arming Israel. If it had not sent them bits of planes and other weapons the war would have had to stop months ago. They are still arming them.
Instead it’s left to groups like Palestine Action to risk being sent to prison for what they believe in.
https://palestineaction.org/case-dismissed-instro/
Note that the company producing the arms did not defend itself in court as they did not want what they are doing to be in MSM.
Agree.
Been a subscriber to The National for years. And where I discovered RM.
National’s stance is anti-oppressive, the opposite being oppressive which is what the British media aligned with,
But then the British establishment is the colonial super model, Trump and Netanyahu are legacy, chips off the old block.
As you say Richard, support for Israel is crumbling. The one scintilla of support remains due to the supposed ‘atrocities’ carried out by Hamas on the 23rd. October which give some legitimacy to the notion of self defence and which you repeat. However, evidence is steadily emerging, despite Israel’s best efforts to suppress it and their refusal to allow an independent investigation, that, while there is general agreement that about 1200 Israeli’s were killed that day, who killed them and how they were killed is highly questionable. For instance, we know that Hamas’ mission was to destroy a number of IDF surveillance sites close to Gaza and to take as many hostages/POWs as possible. We also know that the IDF instructed its forces to destroy any vehicles seeking to return to Gaza, which resulted in the destruction of hundreds of vehicles. There is considerable photographic evidence of piles of mutilated cars which could not have been caused by the light weapons carried by Hamas and were almost certainly the result of Israeli gunship missile fire. How many of these vehicles carried Israeli hostages is unknown.
Claims of babies barbarously killed, beheaded and burned are evidence free; the israeli forensic service has listed only two dead babies, one killed while being carried by its mother by persons unknown who shot through a door and the other an unborn child, again, perpetrator unknown. Mass rape, no forensic evidence, only supposed eye witness accounts which have varied and changed with subsequent retellings – no living rape victims have come forward. So by perpetuating the Hamas atrocity line we are inadvertently offering the Israeli Government a rationale for their atrocities, which Netanyahu repeated in his denunciation of Starmer et al after the recent killing of the two Israelis. Instead of accepting Israels ‘Hamas atrocities’ mantra we should be demanding evidence and access for independent investigators.
@ Philip Maughan
Thank you for this – you have said what I wanted to say, but haven’t known how to express it, where you have done so admirably.
Two basic points under International Law need to be stated. The first is that an oppressed and occupied people has the right to resort to armed struggle and resistance against their occupiers, exactly as the French Resistance had in WW2.
Secondly, as the UN Rapporteuse, Francesca Albanese repeatedly made clear, an occupying force has no right to self-defence from armed resistance occurring in territory that forms part of State, and no one suggests that the Gaza Strip is not part of Israel.
Were the Gaza Strip still, as it once was, part of Egypt this argument would fall, while the right to armed resistance against the occupation would still stand.
The crucial questions then, as regards HAMAS’s culpability are first, whether any persons killed by them were acting in a military capacity. If the dead and injured were so acting, then they were legitimate targets under International Laaw.
Any such dead and injured who were civilians, not acting in a military capacity, were not legitimate targets, and attacking and killing them would constitute an act of terrorism, and in the circumstances of such a conflict a war crime.
The second question, following on from this, is to establish how many of the Israeli dead and injured were civilians, and to apportion blame as to who caused that death or injury.
Only when those questions are answered definitively, can the October 7th HAMAS action be judged as a permitted military action (which in part it certainly was) or a culpable act of terrorism and a war crime on the part of HAMAS (which it probably also was in part).
The jury is still out on the answer to the questions as to who died/were injured on the Israeli side, and by whom were they killed or injured.
The question does not apply to HAMAS victims – they were either military combatants, or terrorists and war criminals, whose death or injury is to be expected and not attracting blame on the part of the perpetrators.
Thanks
I am in total sympathy with your views and those above.
All I would add is that even though Gaza is totally appalling, it is also has to be seen in the context of what is happening in the Sudan and in Yemen which are huge in the scale of their human misery.
Gaza has become hell’s half acre for sure, but the Sudan is a huge country, 3rd largest in Africa and Yemen one of the largest Asian countries.
We are living in times of fascist tinged ethnic, proxy and religious wars of extermination – again – interlinked I’m sure with the needs and aims of the West. Our media has under-reported the Sudan and Yemen conflicts terribly and the West and its post war institutions have failed. Is it something to do with the fact these people are not white? It all seems pregnant to me with the attitude that these people do not matter.
So, Israel and Gaza are a higher profile in the West. What is truly disgusting is the abuse of history in this conflict, with Israel abusing its own Holocaust history to justify a new one against someone else. That is unforgiveable in my mind and totally fascist.
The only silver lining is the Israelis and Palestinians who oppose and speak out about the intransigence of their leadership and the anti-Zionists who bravely risk being called anti-Semites.
If I had to sum up the age we are living in, I’d call it ‘The Age of Pissing into the Wind’. We are making the world more unsafe it seems, with threats from each other and the bio-sphere growing exponentially.
Death is lurking, everywhere.
My MP.
https://www.lfi.org.uk/luke-akehurst-champions-uk-israel-military-cooperation/
He actually thinks that the UK helping Israel also helps Palestinians. He thinks his constituents are idiots.
Luke Akehurst has never been anything else.
My daughter wrote this piece today about the genocide and how it has changed her. I highly recommend it.
https://kiragunnbarrett.substack.com/p/on-witnessing-a-genocide
Thanks
Excellent. Well done.
As I am sure you are, you must be very proud of your daughter.
Maybe you should read Charles Moore in the Telegraph today:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/23/trump-not-only-peddler-of-fake-news-misinformation-israel/
Specifically:
“But in Gaza, more than in any other current conflict, the battle is being fought not only by weapons, but by constant propaganda. The overall effect of this is to dehumanise Israelis and, by extension, all Jews.
The constant use of the word “genocide” to describe Israel’s war is not merely a heartless insult. It is designed to make Jews seem like the Nazi murderers who sought their extinction in the 1940s.
If that propaganda succeeds, two things happen. The first is that, as in 1945, Israel will be made to face a legal reckoning for what will be claimed as war crimes. The rhetoric of Mr Lammy and, indeed, of the joint statement this week by Britain, France and Canada, ramps up the idea that international courts have the authority to punish Israel, and threatens trade and further arms export restrictions. By implication, they see what they call “the Netanyahu government”, as an illegitimate regime, even though it is the only government with democratic legitimacy in the Middle East.”
People like you are stoking and legitimizing anti-semitism. I don’t doubt for a second that you yourself and many of the people who post here, along with many on the left are anti-semites, as many posts on this very blog have shown.
You say the invasion of Gaza wasn’t justified and international law was violated, but what are Israel supposed to do when they have been attacked by a murderous terrorist death cult which calls for the destruction of Israel and murder of all Jews in its very founding charter?
Do you think Hamas, who delight in murder and rape were simply going to hand over their hostages? Do you think they were going to stop using civilians as human shields or stop stealing aid to sell to the civilian populace at huge mark up to fund their arms purchases and tunnels?
Or do you believe the made up casualty figures from the Hamas run health ministry, which even if true would show that the IDF has managed to prosecute a war which has caused proportionally less civilian casualties than any other urban conflict in history? So there is no genocide.
No, you, Owen Jones and those at the National are simply a terrorist supporting anti-semites.
Thank you for your comment.
I do draw comparison between Hitler’s actions and those of Netanyahu.
I cannot differentiate them. Both conducted genocide with the aim of eradicating people based on theor ethnicity.
And you ae the anti-Semite. You are seeking to discriminate on the basis of Jewishness. I am blind to that. I only notice the action of another huamn being, regardless of anything else. And Netanyahu is guilty of mass murder, genocide, pursuing war illegally, and more.
Saying so does not mean I condone what Hamas does: you amde that up.
But what Netanyahu is doing ahs nothing at all to do with what Hamas did.
You should be profoundly ashamed of your hatred of your fellow human beings, the people of Gaza.
And shoiuld the leaders of Israel be tried? Yes. And leaders elsewjere, too. Start with Trump. Add in Biden. But do not end there.
The Irish comedian Tadhg Hickey has commented very strongly on this attitude. I won’t share the post, if you want you can look it up on Facebook, but here’s a quote, which would seem to be directed at the likes of Charles Moore:
“You are the most anti-semitic people in the world. You label people who ask you to stop murdering children as anti-semitic – as if murdering children was a core principle of Judaism.”
Agreed
So, what of the Jews who point out Israel’s crimes and its attitudes to Palestinians?; Baron Levy was recently interviewed and stated that being critical of the Israeli governments’ policies in Palestine was in itself ‘not anti-Semitic’.
Are these Jews whom I refer to dehumanising themselves Jon? What are you talking about Jon?
If Richard or anyone here was simply saying that ‘the Jews’ as a group were doing this and doing that, you’d have cause to call us anti-Semites.
But we are not. Clearly and over and over again, we are saying that a certain section of the country of Israel – founded as a Jewish state – is behaving badly and not only that, we can point out that that section of Israel doing so is its government and we can go so far as to name the individuals within that government too for being responsible for what looks rather familiar to events say in the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto in the early 1940s when the Jews there paid a heavy price for sticking up for themselves against the Nazis. No one here is blaming the Jews as a group overall for oppressing another group. That would be in my opinion anti-Semitic and dehumanising of Jews everywhere, making out that they all think the same on this issue – which they don’t. It is elements within that group of Israeli Jews – not all Jews – carrying out this oppression and genocide and it is those we are criticizing (along with the settler movement within Israel).
That is what we are saying here and it is right to point it out.
My other view is this: the behaviour of Netanyahu and the Likud Party and the settler groups in Israel is the most un-Jewish behaviour I can think of, and quite possibly an affront to God. To me, it is these three entities that are the dangerous anti-Semites, no one here Jon.
Now, go away and have a really grown up think about it will you. Please?
Agreed
Well said, Richard.
Thanks to certain politicians and political groups on the right of the dividing line, the terms “anti-Semitism” and “terrorist” have been thrown around to the extent that may people now look at them with a jaundiced eye. The people responsible for this should be ashamed of themselves, but of course they won’t be, that in itself is indicative of their overall dishonest mode of operating in every sphere of their politics.
Jon wrote, ‘Do you think Hamas, who delight in murder and rape…’ This is exactly the kind of unsubstantiated claim that I pointed out in my earlier comment.
Agreed
“The first is that, as in 1945, Germany will be made to face a legal reckoning for what will be claimed as war crimes. The rhetoric of Mr Churchill and, indeed, of the joint statement this week by Britain, France and Canada, ramps up the idea that international courts have the authority to punish Germany, and threatens trade and further arms export restrictions. By implication, they see what they call “the Hitler government”, as an illegitimate regime, even though it is the only government with democratic legitimacy in mainland Europe.”
There you go Mr Jon. Enjoy. Suggestion – don’t quote Charles Moore when it is clear that he is on his 5th G&T.
It was brave to allow the post Jon made. It is a good example of the illegitimate politicisation of Jewishness, and conflating legitimate attacks on the present Government of Israel with illegitimate attacks on people because they are Jewish. Netanyahu’s assertion that Starmer, Macron and Carney are “anti-Semitic” because they ( rightly, if very belatedly) criticised the appalling belligerency of the Government of Israel’s forces (IDF) in Gaza, is a misuse and abuse of the concept of anti-Semitism.
Agreed
Jon came back, and his second post revealed all the traits of a troll. It was deleted.
It’s not war in any conventional sense as Gaza is blockade/occupied territory. There is no symmetric force attacking Israel from another country. If anything it’s a civil war or insurgency by a resistance within what has effectively been greater Israel for decades.
And resistance to forced oppression in the situation you describe is legal.
Speaking of Israel it does appear as if some Israeli MPs are not happy bunnies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzDxV7jnAos
Perhaps what is most interesting is that,. in what claims to be a democracy, the asking of (uncomfortable?) questions, in a parliment, in not tolerated.
The reactions of the other MPs tells you all you need to know.
More than any other outlet, BBC News immediately undermines any claim by an interviewee of Israeli war crimes against civilians with the qualification that “the Israeli government would dispute that”.
This interview with a colleague of the Palestinian doctor who’s 9 children were killed yesterday by an Israeli attack is only the latest disgrace that BBC News has brought upon genuine journalism. The dignity shown by the interviewee in the face of such a shallow-minded, cold-hearted ‘both sides’ defence of Israel was stunning – “You don’t ask the perpetrator of genocide if they’re committing genocidal acts”…
https://x.com/PulaRJS/status/1926350733969969507
Thank you.
I am not sure how low Israel can go with its attacks, but this was staggering.
No one, and not a single one of the zealots who come here claiming I am an anti-Semite, could ever justify thosee killings.
I refuse to hate Jews.
I refuse to discriminate on the basis of a person’s faith or ethnicity. I dont.
Nor do i believe anyoine has the right to kill another because of their faith or ethnicity.
I do think those who eblieve that they have that right are the problem.
But it is not their own faith or ethnicity that is the problem. It is their hate that is. That, and their distorted love of those that feel as they do.
That is the problem.
It is the hate that I condemn, not the person.
And I refuse to be called an anti-Semite for condemning hate,
Thank you – Richard.
Netanyahu claims that “Free Palestine” is the new “Heil Hitler”
Who is the Hitler he is talking about? Could the collective intellect of the right have degenerated to this?
I hope we are all held to account. And with the world awash with cash, we can certainly afford it.
Having gone ‘off piste’ with the issue – and why not, its’s endlessly challenging – the post suggests a reckoning with the media is on the schedule somewhere and I agree.
This remains a difficult question, because the media will be affected internally and externally as an organisation in its portrayal of the obscene events in Gaza.
Looking at external factors, it is clear that there is a lot of fear generated over Israel and Palestine that is to do with not wanting to be accused of being an anti-Semite. The ‘anti-Semite backlash’ is there and can be felt and has consequences that can be very damaging. Sometimes the back lash accusations are actually fascistic themselves in operation – a ‘gishing gallop’ is used, a wall of accusations and outrage that immediately calls for a defence to be put up by the accused and just disorientates the accused and those watching. I feel that these backlashes are well co-coordinated and designed to just ensure that only one side of the conflict is presented and others voices – victims and their supporters – are effectively silenced. Another factor is also at work here that does not help – anti-Semitism DOEs exist, and Jews are still subject to it everywhere albeit no society treats Jews today as they did in Nazi Germany. Saying that, I believe that Jews are returning to places like Iraq – how is that going? How are any Jews in Iran getting on – are there any?
In terms of internal pressures, it may very well be that news outlets employ Zionists or are owned by Zionists or funded by them. Should there be more disclosure of this in media outlets? – I think so, it might be helpful.
But should such bias be there in the first place? I don’t think it should. But how is that to be upheld?
Echoing my comments earlier, I still don’t see why the slaughter in Yemen and the Sudan has been under reported as they are human catastrophes that will teach us things we need to know. When you look at the acres of time given to reporting Hollywood, celebrities, fashion and in some newspapers expose’ of what is going on the next episode of a TV soap opera! – there is no excuse.
Our media has become suffused with commercialism too, news programmes need to be funded – even the BBC – and if you want a crash course in the business problems of news production in a capitalist society, please watch George Clooney’s 2005 film ‘Good Night and Good Luck’ – it’s a must see. Again if advertisers are putting pressure on media content, then it needs to be made public and not hidden so then consumers can make up their mind whether or not purchase the products of those producers who support this and that.
As for the BBC – don’t get me started. I have been asked twice to fill in a questionnaire by the BBC about what I think and I just can’t bring myself to do it. They would not listen to what I have to say. The BBC this last 15 years is finished as far as I am concerned. It already is an organ of state and is about to become a worse one under governments that are going to be some of the worst we’ve ever had.
Did the BBC on behalf of ‘the people’ question the boundary changes that led to Attlee losing his second election with most of the popular vote? I doubt it.
Richard’s question in this post still needs to be answered and I have offered some tiny improvements. If mainstream media does not do its job in the name of fairness and balance, then the void is filled with an even more insidious and rapacious evil – the wild west of social media, the internet – where people unfortunately make up their own minds and confirm their biases, because there are even fewer rules it seems. And thus, mainstream media is failing.
Thanks.