In a land not that far from here, which many people in this country have visited, there is a genocide going on.
Millions of people have been forcibly displaced from their homes.
Many innocent victims have been killed by an invading force acting contrary to international law.
A place with the highest rate of child amputees in the world has been created in a matter of months.
People are dying of starvation.
All the major hospitals and universities have been destroyed.
Schools have been bombed.
All of this will continue today.
And there has not been a word said about this that I can recall during the course of this election campaign.
Why is that?
How is that?
Do we not care?
Have we turned a blind eye?
Well we continue to turn a blind eye?
Why will no-one talk about this deliberate human-made humanitarian crisis?
I wish I knew the answers to those questions.
Which politician will supply them?
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I understand the Greens have stepped into the Mann-trap because some of their candidates did say something about that place, and were attacked in the usual way.
Do you not blame Hamas for any of this?… or is it all on Isreal ?
I am talking about the genocide
I am not discussing what could have been a legitimate response to the aggression from Hamas, which I have condemned, time and again
I am talking about the illegal genocide
Hamas is a terrorist organisation.
We have to hope that the Israeli government and its armed forces are not and that they aspire to higher standards than Hamas.
Obviously a state has a right to defend itself. But not at any cost. Have the actions of the Israeli forces been proportionate?
To pick a specific example, how many civilian deaths are justifiable in an action to rescue four hostages? Obviously the hostages should be released or rescued, but not at any cost.
If I were to kidnap some people at a party and take them hostage, then hide in amongst my neighbours, would you be happy for the Police to come bomb my neighbours houses and murder their children because of the actions I took? That’s what Israel is currently doing to the inhabitents of Gaza.
The actions of Hamas on October 7th were vile, agreed, but here we are, 8 months later, and Palestinian civilians (who are mainly women, children and the elderly), Aid workers and journalists are being collectively punished by the IDF for the actions of someone else.
It seems incredible to me that there are people in the world who fail to see just how wrong that is and I find myself wondering where we went astray as a society that we produced such individuals.
For the record, I come from a city where “whataboutery” is an olympic level pastime, it doesn’t apply here. Hamas are horrible f*ckers, so are the IDF
I am not sure talking about blame and responsibility are adequate ways to respond to Hamas. And I blame our politicians and media for that.
Thank you, Chris.
History did not start on 7 October, if that is what you imply.
History, going back to 1948 and even the mid-19th century, led to 7 October.
Absolutely, a reading of “A Line in the Sand” outlines the timescales, and how the machinations of the colonial powers. Britain and France were largely responsible for the current mess as the former Ottoman empire was plundered post WW1.
During and after WW2, both France and Vichy were supporting Irgun and the Stern Gang, whose 1930s terror campaigns are now being mirrored by the IDF who learnt their lessons well.
Thee terror groups provided quite a few Israeli PMs and Defence minsters post 1948.
I learnt recently that the Homeland idea was taken to the League of Nations and the US Congress voted in favour.
The American King Crane Commission did visit the area and talked to people. The other nations didn’t bother.
They found most people were against a Homeland but they didn’t listen to the local people.
I have a Jewish friend in the US who was born in England and has been to Israel. He supports the state but not the settlement building. He told me that some of the earlier Zionists in the late 19th century purchased estates from the Turks. The tenants expected that though the ‘lord of the manor’ might change, their way of life would continue. The Zionists operated in a European way and evicted them.
The local Jewish population was Arabic speaking and they had little in common with the European settlers. His point is that the two cultures didn’t understand each other and the settlers were unpopular before Balfour made his declaration.
I think it comes down to seeing ‘others’ in the context of a racial framework.
@chris billham-smith: did you expect the palestinians to do nothing and just have their land forcibly taken away from them?
What would you say was an acceptable action to forcibly living in an open air prison in your own land?
Unusually, Radio4 Today allowed James Elder of UNICEF a platform and with great emotion to say what devastation the bombing and starvation had wrought the
https://x.com/Tom___Scott/status/1801527894444806517
Adam Shatz has a devastating piece in the LRB this week https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n12/adam-shatz/israel-s-descent
‘at the mercy of a furious, vengeful Jewish state, ever more committed to its colonisation project and contemptuous of international criticism, ruling over a people who have been transformed into strangers in their own land or helpless survivors, awaiting the next delivery of rations. The self-styled ‘start-up’ nation has leveraged its surveillance weapons into lucrative deals with Arab dictatorships and offers counterinsurgency training to visiting police squads, but its instinctive militarism leaves no room for new initiatives. Israel cannot imagine a future with its neighbours or its own Palestinian citizens in which it would no longer rely on force.’
When BBC has talked aboutGaza in the election they have tended to racialise it down to ‘the muslim vote’.
The Labour manifesto doesn’t mention restoring UNWRA funding to pay for Gaza aid. I dont think it even mentions the UN – at all – but is littered with fawning comments about the special relationship with United States.
We are all implicated in the ongoing genocide – ‘our’ country is colluding and apparently physically aiding it.
It should be an election issue
For me, it is an election issue. I will not give my vote to people who support this current surge of lawlessness and genocide. I will not vote for evil.
I keep coming back to this. People who are well informed and responsible , in he Eu, UK and US, have issued warnings -now six months ago. They warned us of possible complicity in war crimes. Listening to radio 4 today and a UNICEF rep, there can be no doubt Israel is committing war crimes. Such a declaration is unprecedented. Where are the brave investigative journalists? I can only assume they have been silenced by the govt.
At the lower level of national self interest it is undermines our international standing in the developing world. And, indeed, the standing of our political class at home-with a few brave exceptions.What happened to free speech?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68177357
There are a great many journalist casualties in this war. “At least 108…. killed”
https://cpj.org/2024/06/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/
David Pratt writes in The National and is very critical, often quoting Israeli Journalists writing for Israeli papers who are also critical.
https://www.thenational.scot/politics/24375194.pressure-piles-benjamin-netanyahu-every-direction/
Hi Richard; Craig Murray is a candidate in Blackburn, standing on a ‘Stop the Genocide!’ campaign.
Just a couple of days ago, he adopted your format of short videos to explain the princliples that made him stand in this election.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/ .’Facts about…Part 1′ is well worth watching… a lot said in under one minute.
Craig Murray is not the only Independent candidate standing in this election. Perhaps the one who could cause the most serious disruption to the planned transition of neoliberal power is Andrew Feinstein. I have appointments at Guy’s this week and I want to do some leafleting for Andrew while I am down in London. Challenging Starmer in Holborn and St Pancras, Feinstein could decapitate the Labour project if he is elected. Those ousted from Labour have not gone quietly, both Jeremy Corbyn and Faiza Shaheen are now running as Independent candidates. This is just the tip of the iceberg with many independents now deciding to stand, primarily over Gaza.
I get angry when people talk about ‘the Muslim vote’ as if no one else really cares how many are slaughtered in Gaza. When people challenge me saying that this election is not about the ongoing Genocide in Gaza, all I can say is that disregard for the innocent children being burned alive in their tents in Gaza is emblematic of a total lack of humanity! Why would a politician who supported this carnage care about children living in abject poverty and going to school hungry in the UK? They don’t, they are unconscious, they just don’t care! I do not have any children and I am not a Muslim, but I lose sleep over the Genocide in Gaza and this will guide my vote.
As a committed protester, I have led all but the first two London marches in my red electric wheelchair. As long as it is not raining, I take ‘Shifa’, a shrouded child sized mannequin, in a large backpack that’s strapped to the back of my wheelchair. Even close friends think I am crazy… I also carry a ‘baby bundle’ and an impressive banner that took three days to put together. On one side of the banner I created an Olive tree in sheet cork with the words ‘Freedom – Peace’ stretching up into the trunk and nylon leaves that flutter in the breeze, it is quite stunning. The Oxford Tube drivers harass me almost every time I travel when I am carrying these items on my wheelchair, but nothing is going to deter me.
On the march before last I gave four TV interviews, including one to Aljazeera. Now I worry that there will be a break in the protest schedule during this election period, just as there was over the Christmas holiday. We will continue to have our Thursday night vigils in the Centre of Oxford throughout this time. I feel that we absolutely must continue to march and to protest, but how we vote can make a difference if we support a number of very credible independent and Green candidates. The polling data just relegates those who do not pick the main party candidates to ‘undecided’ or ‘other’ which does not accurately chart the degree of public descent. They may just get a shock on election day, I certainly hope they do.
In an election leaflet for the Green Party for Carla Denya in Bristol Central, it is stated ” As Leader of the Green Party, Carla called for a ceasefire in Gaza from the beginning”.
WE, the People of the Waste.
It is not a state – it is an illegal apartheid colony of white supremacist angloEuropean imperialist settlers guaranteed by just these 5 eye colonies.
The last such invasion in centuries of invasions and genocide of native peoples (destruction of flora and fauna) , robbery of land and resources.
There is only one way this ends an end to that apartheid Imperial occupation and restoration of Palestine. From wherever to wherever.
Just because the western historical education and mass media and propaganda tells us deluded liberal westerners that such Nazi like beliefs and actions are supposedly justified because of the actions of Europeans against fellow Europeans; that WE are responsible because WE are supposedly incapable of NOT being Judaeophobic in Europe against these European’s who chose the Talmudic version of that religion centuries ago.
WE have been long sold that pig in a poke lie – that the Levant was there to be Occupied by Europeans of the Talmudic sects and that legend/con story justified such an evil invasion and nullificatin of native peoples.
That they can be talked of by the settlers as ‘animals’ , herded and put in concentration Slave camps just like the South Africans did . That the native Semitic communities rights to security and ownership of their ancient lands , houses, culture – can be easily negated.
Their institutions , homes, hospitals bulldozed and the people equally crushed – the images and words are the WORST I have seen in all recorded history. I never ever expected to be seeing it in my lifetime and being presumed to be a supporter of it!
Yet WE sit here and supposedly believe that WE are the civilised democratic liberal human rights supporters – the greatest self delusion.
That WE could not be like the German people turned into Nazi lunatics.
WE are and fully support that modern Nazism of Zionism.
WE are the Lunatics in the asylum, it can’t be hidden by the Narrative control and won’t be by future non-Eurocentric historians.
It is in our name that such inhumanity is perpetrated.
There is more than enough evidence – from the mouths and selfies by the illegal settlers; their murderous conscripts, moulded from child, soldiers; to their political and media and celebrity cultural prosletysers across the west – to convict them and the illegal apartheid state and its belief system.
Just as Nazism should have been ground into the dust in post war Europe, instead of given sanctuary and encouraged to rise again. To be used again to attain further imperialist goals for the mighty Few whilst the rest of us are divided and set against each other with petty lies of left/right politics.
It is exactly these forces which have been set loose across Europe again over the past decade , in our smug Collective West to remain as the top dog predators off humanity and the World.
WE are now expected to believe the fascist leaderenes Meloni and LePen don’t get along with Europeans’centerists’ , unelected Von Der Layen and other such scions of Nazis. They are all demented fascists of Europe – with the very fascist notion of the fascist Garden and the rest of the world, the majority of humanity as subhuman Jungle!
Anglo- European politics is now pretty much aligned in neofascist neonazi projects across the whole world. It is an existential crisis.
Self imposed. In which the pathological subjugation of the native Levantines is wholly derived from.
It us not them, it’s all of us in the Collective Waste that are complicit and guilty; not just the few million illegal settlers.
That’s the answers to the questions and why it is not even allowed to skim the surface of this dismal election and it’s issues – don’t worry though – anyone bothered to have even raised their eyes to care about it , will as of this evening be switched off for the next month as the soma of the neo religion Football tournament consumes every waking moment – the genocide will progress.
Only the neighbours and friends of these peoples will resist and come to their aid whilst WE will be sent to war against them!
I lost this making clear I condemn fascism and its techniques, whoever uses them. That is the issue here. Nothing else.
It really comes down to the Israeli government’s major sponsor: the USA. Until Biden decides enough is enough it will continue. The UK could stop supplying arms.
Might the minimal/nil discussion by our political parties of an avoidable disaster be the result of some sort of submerged cartel-like agreement?
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8KT-pCon1o/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
Listen to this and see how vile our government and opposition are.
If Hamas is a ‘terrorist’ organisation, Israel is as bad and much, much worse.
I post this noting I cannot be sure it s correct, although DDN have a good reputation.
Biden’s tipping point
As Geejay says, “Until Biden decides enough is enough it will continue” , ‘it’ being the brutal and unrelenting slaughter of Palestinians, and the obliteration of their culture and history.
Biden’s tipping point will not be the result of moral outrage but of expediency; the crossing of the one red line Biden will recognize, when he and his advisors conclude that, along with fear of a Trump victory, his unconditional support of the IDF may determine, if only by a hairs breadth, the outcome of the US November elections.
It is a relief to be living in a country whose government openly condemns the genocidal actions of Netanyahu’s IDF, Ireland. However, this open condemnation alone will not be enough to curb potential violent political repercussions in the north of the island. Anyone living here will be familiar with the unchecked culture of flagging. Where orange and green or paramilitary siloes are marked by flags flown from lampposts. It has been common practice for many years to see the Israeli flag flying alongside the Union Jack and the Palestinian one alongside the Tricolour in designated Unionist and Nationalist areas. The present unfolding genocide in Gaza is already being seen as a triggering historical parallel to the violent Belfast Irish ‘clearances’ by British Unionists in the early part of the 20th century in some political quarters.
The tolerance of Israel’s political class’s failure to live with their non Zionist neighbours, in large part due to the mediation of Israel by the Western Alliance as a postwar anti Nazi Genocide talisman, is ending. Unfortunately, the conflictual repercussions of Netanyahu’s present genocide will be suffered by many more innocents across the globe.
I think that the Labour manifesto on Gaza may contain all the usual platitudes, but it seems to miss two key points. (https://labourlist.org/2024/06/labour-policy-palestine-state-recognition-israel-gaza-manifesto/)
a) No commitment to stop the supply of arms, while Israel continues to use them to kill Palestinians
b) No commitment to restore funding to UNRWA to alleviate the famine in Gaza.
By the way, can I recommend this blog post by Matthew Yglesias, which suggests that the 2-state solution is a convenient platitude, which ignores the problem of 5m Palestinian refugees.
https://www.slowboring.com/p/palestinian-right-of-return-matters
A useful new journal publication that gives some detail to DunGroanin’s impassioned post:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/378147524_Palestine's_Great_Flood_Part_I
Palestine’s Great Flood: Part I
Agrarian South Journal of Political Economy
February 2024
Max Ajl
Université de Tunis
“Indeed, the harder and stronger Palestinians fight for liberation, the
more, like lightning bolts of ever-increasing luminosity, they bring the
relief of the world system into clearer view: the impotence of the United
Nations; the imperialist contempt for international law; the complicity of
the Arab neo-colonial states with Western capitalism; the fascist racism at
the heart of modern European and US capitalism, as murderers and
maimers operate in Western capitals; the neo-colonial structures of the
Arab and Third World; and the hollowness of Western liberal democracy
and its constellation of civil society institutions.”