Tag Archives: israel lobby

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Territory of Lies

Maidhc Ó Cathail
Maidhc Ó Cathail

Maidhc Ó Cathail

The Israeli-Occupied Hearing on Alleged Iranian Terror

By Maidhc Ó Cathail
November 4, 2011

In the wake of the much-heralded FBI sting that supposedly foiled a dastardly plot by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard elite Qods Force – involving a bumbling, failed used-car salesman’s botched attempt to hire a reportedly Mossad-trained Mexican drug cartel – to blow up the Saudi ambassador in a crowded but fictitious Washington D.C. restaurant, a duly alarmed U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security convened an urgent hearing on “Iranian Terror Operations on American Soil.” As evidence of Tehran’s supposed threat to the Homeland, the Committee heard testimony from “expert witnesses” who could best be described as propagandists for Israel. Commenting on the partisan line-up, an expert on U.S.-Israeli relations remarked, “If it wasn’t so serious, it would be satire.”

Continue reading →

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One up to the Palestinians

Palestine Flag

Stuart Littlewood

It makes a nice change for Palestinians to be able to chalk up a success.

And admission as a full member to UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) is good news for them and bad news for their Israeli tormentors. Palestine becomes the organisation’s 195th member as soon as it has ratified UNESCO’s constitution.

China said yes, Russia said yes, the US and bosom-buddy Israel, Canada and Germany voted no and pretty well isolated themselves. Although 52 member states were incapable of showing a spark of common decency and abstained, the vote was nevertheless a runaway 107 to 14 victory… collapse of stout party. Continue reading →

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Max Puts the Boot into Pakistan

Maidhc Ó Cathail

Pro-Israeli hawk urges U.S. to “get tough” with sole Islamic nuclear power

By Maidhc Ó Cathail

While much attention has been paid to Admiral Mike Mullen’s allegations that Pakistan’s ISI was behind recent attacks on American targets in Afghanistan attributed to the Haqqani network, the subsequent call by an influential neoconservative pundit for the United States to “get tough with Pakistan” seems to have gone unnoticed.

 

Writing this week in two of the neoconservative flagship outlets, Commentary and The Weekly Standard, Max Boot argues for a more aggressive U.S. approach to Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency. “I suggest we start treating Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency the way we treated Iran’s Quds Force in Iraq,” Boot opines in Commentary, an influential magazine founded by the American Jewish Committee, a key component of the pro-Israel lobby. “That is to say, apply the full range of our power–everything from diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions, to kinetic military action–to curb the menace posed by this group.”

Currently a senior fellow in national security studies at the influential Council on Foreign Relations, Max Boot clearly has the kind of influence that could turn his not-so-humble suggestion into American policy. In March 2010, General David Petraeus, then head of U.S. Central Command, turned to Boot for help when some articles appeared in the American media noting that Petraeus’s testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee implied that Washington’s uncritical support of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians was hurting U.S. interests in the region.

Petraeus forwarded one of the articles to Boot, with a note saying, “As you know, I didn’t say that. It’s in a written submission for the record….” In his reply, Boot dismissed the source’s credibility, but promised Petraeus that he would write “another short item pointing people to what you actually said as opposed to what’s in the posture statement.” Appreciative, but clearly still concerned to ingratiate himself with Israel’s powerful supporters, six minutes later Petraeus wrote back: “Thx, Max. (Does it help if folks know that I hosted Elie Wiesel and his wife at our quarters last Sun night?! And that I will be the speaker at the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps in mid-Apr at the Capitol Dome…).” When the Russian-born Jewish writer assured the four-star general that this wasn’t relevant since he wasn’t being accused of being anti-Semitic, a relieved Petraeus signed off with a “Roger!” followed by a smiley emoticon.

The embarrassing spectacle of one of America’s most eminent military commanders seeing fit to grovel in such a demeaning way before a young pro-Israeli hack would surely have ended General Petraeus’s career in Washington before it began if the American public had been made aware of the incident. The Israel-centric U.S. media, however, chose to studiously ignore the revealing Petraeus-Boot correspondence. As a consequence of the media’s silence, the servile Petraeus is currently director of the CIA, overseeing the murderous drone strikes which are predictably enraging the Pakistani people; while his self-assured confidant is goading American policy-makers from his safe perch at the neocons’ primary warmongering media outlets to escalate such provocative policies against the world’s sole Islamic nuclear power–a country which, not insignificantly, has been designated as Israel’s greatest strategic threat by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

While most Americans remain oblivious to the crimes being committed in their names around the world, those concerned about Pakistan’s security would do well to remember that what’s on the pages of Commentary and The Weekly Standard one day will most likely be on the lips of the Israel lobby’s compliant Congressmen and Pentagon and White House officials the next.

Maidhc Ó Cathail is an investigative journalist and Middle East analyst.

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Global Intifada Reaches the US and more

New Bypass Road takes Beit Ommar and Schoukh Land
New Bypass Road takes Beit Ommar and Schoukh Land

New Bypass Road takes Beit Ommar and Schoukh Land

Every day brings some good news on the shaking of the status quo in a positive direction. In my last book and in my writings elsewhere, I predicted that the next intifada (uprising) would be global. The Arab spring in the past few months gave renewed energy and it has spread to even Tel Aviv and New York. But the empire strikes back; settlers go on rampages/pogroms attacking peace activists and burning another mosque, peace activists get arrested by the hundreds, the CIA assassinates US citizens without trial, Israel accelerates its colonial activities, US allied government of Bahrain imprisons many demonstrators, US congress cuts humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinians under occupation (an act of extortion on the behest of the Israel lobby), and more.  But if anything, these actions show that we are in the final stage of this epic.  It only means we should work harder together to be the change we want to see in this world. Read below about BDS successes and the spread of memes of information that is making the racist elites lash out in irrational behaviors that ultimately will bring them down. Stay tuned or better yet, let us all get into the streets and march for freedom.

Israeli settlers attack Israeli activists & journalists; 19 injured, 3 hospitalized

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKzNrNhTu5w

http://mondoweiss.net/2011/09/israeli-settlers-attack-israeli-activists-19-injured-3-hospitalized.html

Testimonies (key points highlighted):

http://kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=48885 (eng)

http://kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=48884 (heb)

New Bypass Road takes Beit Ommar and Schoukh Land

http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/2011/10/02/new-bypass-road-planned-on-beit-ommar-and-schoukh-land/

BDS Success 1: 218 signed the call for a Swedish academic boycott of Israel

Action Group at KTH for Boycott of Israel

http://www.psabi.net/

Coordinating Committee of BDS Sweden

http://isoleraisrael.nu/

BDS Success 2: Ahava finally closes its doors in London
Cosmetics company Ahava is finally to close its controversial Covent Garden store this week, and manager Odelia Haroush said that the company had no plans to move elsewhere in the city, at least for the foreseeable future. Demonstrations by pro-Palestinian activists have dogged the store for years. Protesters claim the products sold in the store are manufactured in a factory in Mitzpe Shalom, an Israeli settlement.
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/55465/ahava-%EF%AC%81nally-closes-its-doors-london

From “If Americans Knew”: Ethnic cleansing has been an integral part of the Palestinian tragedy from the earliest days of the Partition of Palestine and the creation of Israel. October marks the anniversaries of 10 massacres of Palestinian villagers in 1948, as well as a massacre carried out by a unit led by Ariel Sharon in 1953 and another in 1956 in which Israeli border police killed 48, including 6 women (one of them pregnant) and 23 children aged 8–17. To commemorate these dates, we ask you to help fight the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by sharing the booklet  <http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/ref-qumsiyeh.html> “Palestinian Right to Return and Repatriation,” by Mazin Qumsiyeh, which details the plight of Palestinian refugees and lists the many massacres Palestinians suffered during the creation of Israel. Please order copies to give out to your neighbors, friends, coworkers or strangers, on your campuses, in your congregations, on the street, at a public event or at a private gathering.

http://secure.campaigner.com/Campaigner/Public/t.show?NnKI--9vja-c3QCf4

Global intifada reaches the USA: 700 “arrested” in New York and protests spread to many cities around the US

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44742659/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/#.ToeWqE_ers0

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-wall-street-protest-20110930,0,6859500.story

http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution/

http://www.occupytogether.org/

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

http://qumsiyeh.org

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Murdoch is not the only maggot in the rotten apple

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood

Having disposed of the Murdoch menace – for the moment anyway – it’s time for the British public to turn the spotlight on the other villains our craven politicians pay homage to.

Public enemy Number One is the pro-Israel lobby. An organization called the Conservative Friends of Israel states it has “twin aims of supporting Israel and promoting Conservatism. With close to 2000 activists as members – alongside 80% of Conservative MPs – CFI is active at every level of the Party”.

And the rot goes all the way to the top, with Conservative prime minister David Cameron endorsing it enthusiastically: “I am proud not just to be a Conservative, but a Conservative Friend of Israel; and I am proud of the key role CFI plays within our Party.”

Back in 2006 The Jewish Chronicle ran a report on the backers bankrolling Cameron’s bid for the party leadership. It was sent to the Committee on Standards in Public Life as an example of how the pro-Israel lobby infiltrates government and undermines the very principles the standards watchdog was established to uphold. But Zionist tentacles reach further than you think. The Committee ignored it.

At the time Cameron, a self-proclaimed Zionist, pledged: “If I become Prime Minister, Israel has a friend who will never turn his back on her…”

The Liberal Democrats allow a similar lobby group to flourish within their ranks. Its stated aim is to “maximise support for the State of Israel within the Liberal Democrats and Parliament”. Labour also has a virulent Israel supporters club that broadcasts Tel Aviv’s propaganda and, when in power, appoints Israel lobby stooges to key ministerial and other positions.

Britain, as everyone knows, has carved an unfortunate niche for itself as America’s poodle. But not enough people ask the key question: whose poodle is America? American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has the private parts of US Congress in such a vice-like grip that the Zionist regime’s interests come first in Washington. For example, the US House of Representatives felt obliged to endorse, by 390 votes to 5, Israel’s assault on Gaza in the winter of 2008/9, a massacre that killed over 1,400 (mostly Palestinian civilians including a large number of women and children), wounded and maimed thousands more, left tens of thousands homeless and horrified the rest of the world.

It is amazing how many people with dual passports stalk the corridors of power in Washington. And we all saw the orchestrated adulation with which the Israeli primier was received the other week.

The knock-on effect in the UK is inecitable. We too are so embroiled in the Zionists’ perpetual strife with the Islamic world that we’ve been sucked into the same cesspit. Britain is now one of the most hated nations on earth thanks to our cosy association with US-Israeli ambitions in the Middle East.

Meet the ‘Israel-firsters’

Israel was founded on terror, land theft, ethnic cleansing and extreme brutality. Why would the British Establishment wish to snuggle up to it? Why did Liam Fox, now Defence Secretary, famously say: “We must remember that in the battle for the values that we stand for, for democracy against theocracy, for democratic liberal values against repression – Israel’s enemies are our enemies and this is a battle in which we all stand together or we will all fall divided.”

As if that wasn’t absurd enough William Hague, now foreign secretary, came out with this in 2008: “The unbroken thread of Conservative Party support for Israel that has run for nearly a century from the Balfour Declaration to the present day will continue. Although it will no doubt often be tested in the years ahead, it will remain constant, unbroken, and undiminished by the passage of time.”

Undimished by the passage of crime, too. Tzipi Livni was Israeli foreign minister at the time of Operation Cast Lead and largely responsible for the unimaginable terror and destruction unleashed on Gaza’s civilians. Livni’s office issued a statement saying she was proud of Operation Cast Lead and, lacking all remorse, she later declared: “I would today take the same decisions.” Obviously she is on several wanted lists. When a warrant for her arrest was issued in London she went whining to our then foreign secretary David Miliband, who apologized. When the Conservative coalition came in and Hague took over the Foreign Office who can forget how Hague rushed to prove his loyalty by promising that our universal jurisdiction laws would be changed to protect Israel’s suspected war criminals? It was “an appalling situation where a politician like Mrs Livni could be threatened with arrest on coming to the UK” he said.

David Cameron, for his part, told Conservative Friends of Israel: “The ties between this party and Israel are unbreakable. And in me, you have a Prime Minister whose belief in Israel is indestructible.”

And he recently told a Jewish audience: “I want to be clear, we will always support Israel… when Iran flouts its international obligations Britain is and will remain at the forefront of the international community in ratcheting up the pressure with tough sanctions. We will not stand by and allow Iran to cast a nuclear shadow over Israel or the wider region.”

Considering it is Israel which casts the nuclear shadow, menaces the region and flouts international laws and conventions, that remark was beyond ridiculous. Cameron, like Fox, seems determined to make Israel’s enemies Britain’s enemies when we have no quarrel with any of them.

Who gave him permission to spout such dangerous drivel in our name?

Hague too loves ratcheting up the violence. While still deeply embroiled in an unwinnable Afghan campaign he started bombing the hell out of Libya months ago – with no end in sight – and is now sending more British aircraft into “theatre” to intensify the carnage, seemingly oblivious to the fact that back home in Britain we are struggling to make ends meet with a monumental economic and financial deficit around our necks.

Who’s he doing all this bloodshed for? Certainly not for us.

Lacking military experience these Israel-firsters, liked Blair and others before them, show an unhealthy lust for death and destruction. They are what I believe our American cousins call ‘chicken-hawks’ – talking tough but taking care never to risk their own worthless skins.

Lawlessness rules, OK?

Another ardent admirer of the Zionist regime is James Arbuthnot, the Parliamentary chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel. He told Parliament: “Everyone in this House should have an interest in Israel, because it is a country that embodies the values that we should stand for. Israel [has] become a bastion of the rule of law…”

Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu heads their Likud party, which is the embodiment of greed, racist ambition, lawlessness and callous disregard for other people’s rights. In any other country it would be banned and its leaders locked up. Yet Netanyahu is welcomed like a hero in the US and given 29 standing ovations by Congress.

Likud intends to make the seizure of Jerusalem permanent and establish Israel’s capital there. It will “act with vigor” to ensure Jewish sovereignty in East Jerusalem (which still officially belongs to the Palestinians as does the Old City). The illegal settlements are “the realization of Zionist values and a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel”. They will be strengthened and expanded. As for the Palestinians, they can run their lives in a framework of self-rule “but not as an independent and sovereign state”.

Are these the values Arbuthnot is suggesting we adopt?

Kadima, the party of Livni, Olmert and Barak, is little better and has also pledged to preserve the larger settlement blocs and steal Jerusalem.

As for Arbuthnot’s claim that Israel is a bastion of the rule of law, a UN fact-finding mission, dealing with the assault on the Mavi Marmara last year, declared that “no case can be made for the legality of the interception”.

But here’s Arbuthnot again, arguing the case for Israel… “Given that the flotilla was designed to be provocative and to end in violence, we should not blame Israel for the violence against which it failed to guard itself; the blame lies with those who went on to the flotilla expressly seeking martyrdom.”

The Mission considered that Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza amounted to collective punishment and thus was illegal and contrary to Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The interception of the Mavi Marmara on the high seas was “clearly unlawful” and could not be justified even under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations (the right of self-defence).

The Centre for Constitutional Rights agrees that the blockade “cannot be reconciled with the principles of international law, including international humanitarian law“.

If the blockade is illegal, why is it allowed to continue? Because subservient Israel-firsters in London, Washington and other capitals won’t act. Lawlessness rules, OK?

Arbuthnot, by the way, is also chairman of Britain’s Defence Select Committee. Worrying, isn’t it?

Conflict of interests

The British government’s policy of shielding and cosseting Israel’s extremists makes all of us complicit in that regime’s crimes. How does this perverse devotion to a foreign power square with the Seven Principles of Public Life, especially the one about Integrity, which the government is supposed to uphold? The Principle of Integrity lays down that holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might seek to influence them in the performance of their official duties.

Do MPs and ministers not understand this simple imperative? If the Israel lobby has no influence, as some have claimed, how do our leaders explain away the 80 percent of Conservative MPs who are Friends of Israel? How do they explain the appointment of a Foreign Secretary who has been a Friend of Israel since boyhood and a minister in charge of Middle East affairs who is a former officer of the Conservative Friends of Israel?

There are rules about conflict of interests. Why aren’t they followed? Do we ever hear an MP or minister, when taking part in a Middle East debate, say “Mr Speaker, I wish the House to know that I am a staunch member of Friends of Israel and Jewish money paid for my election campaign”?

In his infatuation with Israel Mr Hague even stoops to provide cover for its mega-crimes. At the height of the murderous Gaza blitz, Hague announced to Parliament: “The immediate trigger for this crisis… was the barrage of hundreds of rocket attacks against Israel on the expiry of the ceasefire or truce.”

The truce with Hamas didn’t “expire”. It was violated after five months by Israeli forces in order to provoke Hamas and provide an excuse for the long-planned assault. Israel had also failed to deliver its side of the ceasefire bargain, which was to lift the blockade.

Our Middle East minister, Alistair Burt, is another comedian. He recently announced that Britain would not recognise a Palestinian state unless it emerged from a peace deal with Israel. London, he said, could “not recognise a state that does not have a capital, and doesn’t have borders”.

Hadn’t he heard? Palestine’s borders are the pre-1967 armistice lines as defined in UN resolutions and recognised by the international community. Where does Burt suppose Israel’s borders are? Is Israel where Israel is supposed to be, within internationally defined borders? No, it isn’t. Israel keeps its borders fluid, all the time grabbing a bit more land here and confiscating a bit more there. Yet London recognises Israel.

Burt, Hague, Cameron, Fox, Arbuthnot… there are many more like them. How can we be sure where their allegiance lies? Whom do they really work for?

I’ll leave the last word on Israel’s evil machinations to Sir Gerald Kaufman, the straight-talking Jewish MP. He said in a Commons debate in January 2008: “Is it not a fact that only international action can bring to an end the humanitarian disaster caused by collective punishment imposed by the gang of amoral thugs who comprise the Israeli Government and violate not only international law but the historic Jewish conscience?”

Sir Gerald’s family suffered horribly during the Holocaust and his sick grandmother was shot dead in her bed by a German soldier. “They’re not simply war criminals, they’re fools”, he said of the Israelis when Operation Cast Lead was launched. “My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza.”

Cameron’s judgement, already wobbly, has finally been shot to pieces by his cosiness with Murdoch’s ‘mafia’, and he should be clearing his desk. Add to that his dangerous obsession with racist Israel which drags us into unnecessary wars against countries that pose no threat, and sacrifices our lads in uniform in an unjust cause, and it’s clear that he must go.

Our elected MPs belong to us, the British voters. Not to some gang of foreign thugs. We must mobilise to make sure they clearly understand this. And we must work to take back our parliament.

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood is an industrial marketing specialist turned writer-photographer. In 2005 he was invited to write and shoot pictures for a book about the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. ‘Radio Free Palestine’ was published in 2007. For details please see www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk.

  • The Author is a regular contributor to RamallahOnline.com. Find more Articles by Stuart Littlewood on RamallahOnline.

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Staring into the abyss of a new Dark Age

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood, 13 July 2011
Battle of Britain 2 is about to begin

Churchill, in his Battle of Britain speech 71 years ago, said: “If we can stand up to him [Hitler], all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science…”

Today those “broad, sunlit uplands” of Churchill’s are again shrouded in storm-clouds. Zionist infiltrators have succeeded where Hitler failed. The difference now is that the enemy’s invasion forces are not massing across the Channel. They are already here in our midst and we are indeed on the brink of a new Dark Age, as the ruthless conspiracy masterminded by foreign interests expands its influence by stealth and by subversion and by intimidation.

America is sliding into the abyss fast as US Congressmen repeatedly parade their abject subservience to the powerful pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC. Who will forget the pathetic spectacle of 29 standing ovations they accorded the swaggering, lying, crazed Israeli prime minister Netanyahu while he delivered his poison?

The question now is whether we in the UK can stand up to the encroaching menace and save “all that we have known and cared for”, when we have so completely lost our moral bearings.

We duck our solemn responsibilities under the Geneva Conventions and give Zionist war criminals a safe haven immune from arrest.

We allow fanatics, such as Conservative Friends of Israel, to organize and promote the interests of the criminal Israeli regime at the very heart of Westminster government.

We allow MPs to place themselves under the influence of foreign interest groups and to abuse the principles that are supposed to underpin standards in public life.

We allow Jews to be hugely over-represented in our Parliament and to dominate key areas of our administration, including those related to security. If Muslims were over-represented to the same extent they’d have 200 seats and action would be taken.

We spend large amounts of treasure and send our troops to murder foreign civilians and die in foreign lands simply to support US-Israeli greed, destroying our own good name in the process.

We allow civil society’s hard-earned savings to bail out Zionist bankers in distress and fund endless wars and the corporate and personal profits of those who promote wars.

Civil society’s fury

Last week we watched with satisfaction as media mogul and Zionist flag-waver Rupert Murdoch’s stranglehold on the political scene in Britain came unglued after revelations of hacking into a murdered schoolgirl’s voicemail and other dirty tricks. But it wasn’t the Establishment or the police that taught Murdoch a much-needed lesson: it was a disgusted civil society whose anger eventually brought down the weight of the law and Parliament on the offenders’ heads.

Politicians, from prime ministers down, wet their pants at the thought of how much damage Murdoch’s gutter-sniping newspapers could do to them if they didn’t bow and scrape to the over-mighty NewsCorp. The News of the World, we were told so many times, had the power to make of break political careers.

That was only true, of course, if the politicians in question were weak and susceptible to pressure – and those are not the sort of politicians we want anyway. Blair and Cameron were at Murdoch’s beck and call and socialised with his odious executives, including the scary Rebekah Brooks. Neither had the balls to curb the illegal practices

It finally came down to this. Who were our spineless politicians more scared of – the furious public or ‘Dirty Digger’ Murdoch? Clearly the British people need to show their outrage more often.

When we reach the age of 60 we cringe at how arrogant and ignorant we were at 40. So why saddle ourselves with a gullible 44 year-old prime minister, which is how old Blair was when he entered 10 Downing Street? Cameron was only 43.

Blair at first impressed by being a Flash Harry but in reality was so young, stupid and unprincipled that he became an acute embarrassment, bringing shame on Britain. Cameron is similarly ‘flash’ and continually has to make desperate U-turns to reverse half-baked policies.

Like Blair he’s a warmonger eager to make an impression on the back of someone else’s blood and shredded body parts. Prime minister Cameron recently launched an extraordinary attack on “moaning” military chiefs who had dared to openly question the length of the war in Libya. In a public slap-down he told top brass: “You do the fighting and I’ll do the talking.” He added: ‘I’m absolutely confident that we can keep this pressure up. We can maintain this mission for as long as necessary. Time is on our side.” Arrogant pup, they probably thought.

Indeed. Those were the ill-considered words of a leader whose country is financially broke… and went broke while Cameron and his Conservative buddies were the official opposition charged with the duty of holding the governments of Blair and Brown to account.

So how bad is it, really?

It’s this bad. Britain’s foreign policy remains perfectly aligned with the demands of Israel and its protector, the United States. Long-time friends and admirers of the Israeli regime, such as William Hague and Alistair Burt, are hand-picked to make sure we do not stray from the pro-Israel path no matter how diabolically criminal that regime’s conduct or how offensive the agenda of these Israeli-firsters to ordinary decent British citizens.

Even prime minister Cameron has pledged: “In me, you have a Prime Minister whose belief in Israel is indestructible… I want to be clear, we will always support Israel…” One’s blood runs cold. Is Cameron paid and sworn to represent a foreign military power? It’s not such a silly question as it sounds.

The Foreign Office still refuses to say whether it will protect British subjects and other peaceful nationals from the threat of lethal force by Israel in its attempt to maintain an illegal blockade on Gaza. Instead our ministers effectively endorse the blockade by advising against all travel to the Gaza Strip.

As for Iran the UK has banned more than 80 Iranians from visiting, including scientists and engineers connected with the Iranian nuclear programme, government ministers, members of the judiciary, prison officials and others “who have committed serious human rights abuses”.  Says foreign secretary Hague: “The message to the Iranian government from the UK and its partners is clear: it needs to change its behaviour before it will be treated as a normal member of the international community.”

Has Hague banned any Israelis linked to war crimes, human rights abuses and nuclear arms proliferation? Perish the thought. They are not required to “change their behaviour” in the least. They are welcomed with open arms.

Our politicians, in the main, are already Zionist stooges like their American counterparts. Our enforcement agencies are so weakened or dysfunctional and some leading figures are so out of control and doing so much damage that there may soon be no way of reining them in. We are losing control fast and we’ll find it difficult to take back our country without organizing serious insurrection.

Churchill, a Zionist sympathizer of the old-fashioned kind, confronted many dire threats but could not have foreseen, in his day, how the tentacles of Zionism would envelop the civilized world. But there’s no excuse for today’s leaders when the truth is so brazenly ugly. That they embrace it and even change our laws to accommodate it, underlines their utter unsuitability for high office.

We stood up to Hitler. Is no-one incorruptible enough to stand against the Zionist menace?

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood is an industrial marketing specialist turned writer-photographer. In 2005 he was invited to write and shoot pictures for a book about the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. ‘Radio Free Palestine’ was published in 2007. For details please see www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk.

  • The Author is a regular contributor to RamallahOnline.com. Find more Articles by Stuart Littlewood on RamallahOnline.

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Fear and Loathing in Marrickville – BDS in Australia

Fear and Loathing in Marrickville - BDS in Australia
Fear and Loathing in Marrickville - BDS in Australia

Fear and Loathing in Marrickville - BDS in Australia

Samah Sabawi and Sonja Karkar, Australians for Palestine
Melbourne – Australia

It appears that once again the pro-Israel apologists have decided to single Israel out by making boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel a leading issue for the Marrickville electorate in the lead-up to the NSW state elections.
Not surprisingly, the Palestinians are rendered invisible again as right-wing groups, politicians, the pro-Israel lobby and the Murdoch Press attack the Marrickville Council for their resolution to support BDS. That Palestinians living under Israel’s 43-year-old occupation are being ethnically cleansed on a daily basis from their land, their neighbourhoods and farms seems to be of no concern to our Liberal and Labor candidates who are vying for seats likely to favour the Greens.

There would be no BDS campaign if Israel was not denying the Palestinians their basic human rights: the right of return, the right to citizenship, the right to equality, the right to self determination, the right to live free from occupation, the right to education, the right to freedom of movement, the right to security, the right to fair trials, and much else besides.

The call for BDS was initiated in 2005 by Palestinian Civil Society as a form of non-violent resistance that is rooted in international law and the universal declarations of human rights. It aims to empower individuals to take action to end the conflict. Since 2005, BDS has had a steady rise in popularity amongst Palestinian and Jewish peace groups only to accelerate in 2009 when Israel attacked the Gaza Strip. The deliberate sidelining of the Goldstone report in the UN after the evident savagery of the assault, galvanized organizations and individuals around the world to join the BDS campaign and call for an end to Israel’s criminal impunity and disregard for international law.

On the eve of the NSW elections, none of the politicians are giving a thought to Israel’s new round of attacks on Gaza. Nor is the media, despite Israel’s opposition leader Tzipi Livni calling for another “Operation Cast Lead” with the same chilling indifference she showed when she defended the earlier offensive as “necessary”.

Instead, a smear campaign has been and is still being waged against the increasingly popular Greens for their principled support of BDS, a call coming now from numerous mainstream organisations around the world, including a good number of unions here in Australia. Besmirching the good character of Greens’ candidates like Marrrickville Mayor Fiona Byrne who is standing for the seat of Marrickville, as well as distributing false and sensationalist propaganda for political advantage, ought to sound warning bells for the local electorates and Australians generally.

If Ms Byrne is indeed an “extremist” then she is in illustrious company. Nobel Peace Laureates Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, as well as former US President Jimmy Carter, were also labelled “extremists” by blind supporters of Israel, for daring to criticize Israel’s systematic discrimination and violations of International Humanitarian Law.

Nevertheless, as Israel expands its Jewish-only colonies, pushes its indigenous Palestinian population behind barbwires and tall cement walls, and strips them of any shred of freedom or dignity, our politicians continue to reward Israel. A resolution moved by Liberal Senator Fifield condemning Marrickville’s decision to implement a boycott was just passed in the Federal Senate. The Greens were the only ones who opposed it.

The resolution acknowledges the friendship between Australia and Israel and this is no surprise at all since successive governments here in recent times have bent over backwards to embrace Israel.

Notwithstanding our politicians’ blind support, Australia’s relations with Israel have caused many Australians to question what business we could possibly have with a state that is entrenching its occupation of another people. There is a growing recognition amongst Australians that Israel simply does not live up to its tired and discredited mantra of “the only democracy in the Middle East”.

The idea that Israel is a democracy like Australia is simply not valid. You cannot deny the rights of half of the people living under your control and still be called a democracy. As if that is not enough, Israel has now made it illegal to hold events or ceremonies commemorating Israel’s Independence Day as a day of catastrophe or “Nakba” for the Palestinians dispossessed of their homes and land in 1948. And the Israeli Knesset has just passed a segregation bill, which prohibits Palestinian Israelis from living in Jewish localities built on land confiscated from them.

In light of such blatant discrimination, the call for BDS is neither extreme nor unrealistic. More and more people around the world see it as a morally sound strategy for holding Israel to account. If anything, the spectacle of fear mongering and name calling in Marrickville has shown how incapable some politicians are of having a rational conversation on Israel/Palestine, despite its importance to world peace and security.

Samah Sabawi is a Palestinian-Australian writer, playwright, producer, political analyst, commentator and public speaker on human rights and is the Public Advocate of the Australian advocacy group Australians for Palestine.

Sonja Karkar is the founder of Women for Palestine and the editor of the Australians for Palestine news website. Her articles have been published in Australian and overseas publications.

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Israel Strikes Back

Israeli Pirate Flag Silwan - (June 26 2010, Rebecca Fudala)

Israeli Pirate Flag Silwan - (June 26 2010, Rebecca Fudala)

Jeff Gates, 26 Jan 2011

Timing is everything when waging war “by way of deception,” the motto that has long guided Israeli war-planners. Whenever Israel’s geopolitical goals are threatened, chaos is assured. In national security terminology, the January 24th bombing at Moscow’s busiest airport was “out of theater repositioning.”

First among Tel Aviv’s priorities is their need to maintain traction for the latest geopolitical narrative: a “global war on terrorism” against “Islamo-fascism.” The fact that America’s two latest wars serve Israeli goals remains largely unmentioned in Western media.

Six days prior to the Moscow bombing, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev traveled to the West Bank to endorse a Palestinian state with its capital East Jerusalem. He pointedly noted “this was the first visit of a Russian president to Palestine not united with a visit to another country” (Israel).

Then he joined a fast-lengthening list of nations confirming that, to date, 109 of 192 United Nations member countries support a resolution recognizing Palestinian statehood.

Though the U.S. reliably vetoes Security Council resolutions at Israel’s request, sentiments are shifting as a global public awakens to the costs of the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

Numerous Latin American nations recently extended recognition to Palestine. Ireland just announced an upgrade in its relationship to embassy status.

Out-of-Theatre Repositioning

When waging war from the shadows, Zionist war-planners concentrate their efforts on key variables. Thus the fear in Tel Aviv that emerging events are loosening control of the Israel lobby over U.S. foreign policy.

To sustain a global “war on terrorism,” instability must be sustained. Anyone familiar with the Israeli use of strategic duplicity found it unsurprising when multiple crises emerged “unexpectedly” in North Africa.

Unrest in Tunisia triggered a change in government followed by unrest in Mauritania, Algeria, Yemen and Egypt. During a recent Arab League meeting, Secretary-General Amr Mousa cautioned that the contagion could spread.

If so, look for the price of energy to soar, further weakening leaders in the debt-ridden West where restive populations already face fewer services, higher taxes­—and more debt.

Misdirection also plays a role in such well-timed crises. Tel Aviv just released a report justifying Israel’s deadly boarding of a Turkish vessel last May in international waters carrying aid to Gaza. Yet a post-mortem found 30 Israeli bullets in the bodies of nine dead activists, including one shot four times in the head.

Akin to the 911 Commission Report that obscured the anti-Zionist motivation for that mass murder, news of this Israeli attack was obscured by reports of a bombing in Moscow and a leak that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas secretly agreed to cede Palestinian land to Israel.

That well-timed leak weakened the Palestinian president while the bombing weakened the Russian president when this well-timed crisis forced his cancellation of a keynote address to world leaders at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Multiple Motives

When deploying deceit to wage war, Zionists catalyze mental impressions meant to link events in the public’s mind. Thus the critical role of timing when advancing a thematic narrative such as The Clash of Civilizations.

These latest events heightened tensions worldwide as both fear and the requisite loathing were reinforced by yet another series of well-timed crises. When faced with the threat that its Islamo-fascist storyline is losing traction, what else can Zionists do?

Confronted with the possibility that the West may withdraw support for its six-decade occupation of Palestine, what is Tel Aviv to do? Facing the prospect of global censure for its murder of Turkish activists, how can Israel divert attention?

Tel Aviv is backed into a corner. Overwhelming evidence confirms that Zionists generated the false intelligence that induced the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Though the Israel lobby retains its control over U.S. lawmakers, the American public is fast realizing how many crises originate with those who consider themselves above the law.

To Betray, First Befriend

What are Americans to do when faced with a devious enemy—posing as an ally—whose operatives consider themselves Chosen by a god of their own choosing? With mainstream media dominated by those complicit in this duplicity, how can this chokehold be released?

As a duped electorate slowly awakens to how they were deceived—and by whom—how do Americans make amends for the damage done by their Israeli-compliant lawmakers?

Those determined to defeat this ‘enemy within’ must first make this treason transparent. As the common source of this corruption becomes apparent, accountability can commence.

Americans do not yet grasp that we have long been the target of ongoing capital crimes. Zionists know that our continued ignorance is the key to their continued impunity. With knowledge comes the power to prosecute those complicit. Therein lies the challenge.

Aware of the future that awaits them, Zionists are becoming desperate and even more dangerous. An escalation of violence is assured until the full force of international law is turned on those who have long flaunted the law in pursuit of their extremist agenda.

A Vietnam veteran, Jeff Gates is a widely acclaimed author, attorney, investment banker, educator and consultant to government, corporate and union leaders worldwide. He served for seven years as counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. He is widely published in the trade, popular and academic press. His latest book is Guilt by Association: How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War. His previous books include Democracy at Risk: Rescuing Main Street From Wall Street and The Ownership Solution: Toward a Shared Capitalism for the 21st Century. Topical commentaries appear on the Criminal State website. You may reach him at jeff DOT gates AT criminalstate DOT com. The author contributed this article to Ramallah Online, more articles by Jeff Gates on Ramallah Online can be found here.

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Letter to the British Liberal Democrats

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood, 10 Nov 2010

Subject: Protecting war criminals – “just about the lowest thing anyone could do”

LibDem leaders know perfectly well that under ‘universal jurisdiction’ all states that are party to the Geneva Conventions are obliged to seek out and prosecute or extradite those suspected of grave breaches of the Conventions and bring them justice, regardless of nationality.

“Grave breaches” means willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, and other serious violations of the laws of war… the sort of atrocities that have been (and still are) committed wholesale by Israelis against civilians in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and on the high seas.

In other words, for these vilest of criminals there should be no hiding place.

The British Government shirks its solemn duty. Fortunately the law at present allows private applications for arrest warrants.

However, your Coalition partners the Conservatives, 80 percent of whom are claimed to be signed-up Friends of Israel, plan to interfere with our laws of arrest in order to protect those criminals they count among their friends. Apparently this will be done by ensuring that arrests for war crimes become strictly political decisions enabling the government of the day to pick’n’choose.

Foreign secretary William Hague, a Friend of Israel since his schooldays, recently told the pro-Israel lobby: “We have had good discussions with Israeli ministers on universal jurisdiction where the last government left us with an appalling situation where a politician like Mrs Livni could be threatened with arrest on coming to the UK… We have agreed in the coalition about putting it right, we will put it right through legislation that will be introduced… I phoned Mrs Livni amongst others to tell her about that and received a very warm welcome for our proposals.”

You, the Liberal Democrats, have already agreed to this???

Has everyone forgotten that Tzipi Livni, Israel’s former foreign minister, was largely responsible for the terror that brought mega-deaths and unimaginable destruction to Gaza’s civilians nearly 2 years ago?

Showing no remorse for the 1,400 dead (including 320 children and 109 women), the thousands horribly maimed and the hundreds of thousand made homeless, Livni’s office issued a statement saying she was proud of Operation Cast Lead, the murderous blitz she unleashed. Later at a conference in Tel Aviv she declared: “I would today take the same decisions.”

Many of you will recall how Israel violated the Egypt-brokered ceasefire to provoke a response that could then be used as an excuse to launch the onslaught Israel had been preparing for months.

You may also recall that in 2007 when Israel tightened the siege on Gaza, the prime minister’s adviser, Dov Weisglass, said “the idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger”. Documents just released under a Freedom of Information petition by Gisha, an Israeli law centre, reveal that Israel operated “a policy of deliberate reduction” of basic goods in the Gaza Strip.

The papers confirm that the siege was not for security reasons but to keep Gazans at near-starvation level in order to bring down Hamas, the people’s choice. Since around half the population are growing children this inhuman act of collective punishment has meant that hundreds of thousands of youngsters are undernourished and permanently damaged.

Gisha’s director accuses Israel of “paralyzing normal life in Gaza”, and adds: “I am sorry to say that major elements of this policy are still in place.” http://www.gisha.org/index.php?intLanguage=2&intItemId=1904&intSiteSN=113.

Israel’s current foreign minister, ex-bouncer Avigdor Lieberman, is a convicted child-beater and has been variously described as “a virulent racist” and “a certified gangster”. He directly violates international law by living in one of Israel’s illegal settlements. “If you liked Mussolini, if you were missing Stalin, you’ll love Lieberman,” a member of Israel’s Meretz party observed.

All the same, Hague wants him freely walking the streets of London with Livni and the rest of the world’s psychopaths.

Whatever happened to the Liberal Democrats’ pledge to “reject all prejudice and discrimination based upon race, colour, religion, etc…” and to “fight poverty, oppression, hunger, ignorance, disease and aggression wherever they occur and to promote the free movement of ideas, people, goods and services”. These fine promises are incorporated into the party’s Constitution.

Only last year Nick Clegg, LibDem leader and now deputy prime minister in the Coalition, was telling the Jewish Chronicle: “The very suggestion that I might explicitly or tacitly give cover for racism, I find politically abhorrent and personally deeply offensive.”

Who would have believed that any senior Liberal Democrat would support a move to undermine our justice system in order to make the UK a safe haven for blood-soaked foreign leaders whose policies and unspeakable crimes are alien to LibDem principles, disgusting to the British public and condemned by international law?

If we allow the warmongers to come and go as they please, civilized people will never be able to take back their world.

We read that Hague was sent away from Tel Aviv with a slap in the face the other day when the Israelis without warning suspended dialogue with Britain. As if that wasn’t embarrassment enough for such an ardent admirer, Hague now intends to humiliate us all by groveling and tinkering with British law to appease them.

If Parliament passes measures to undermine the important principle enshrined in the Geneva Conventions and weaken the law to enable those wanted for crimes against humanity to evade arrest, wouldn’t that make the whole British nation an accessory to those crimes?

And please reflect on how nodding it through would be just about the lowest thing anyone could do.

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood is an industrial marketing specialist turned writer-photographer. In 2005 he was invited to write and shoot pictures for a book about the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. ‘Radio Free Palestine’ was published in 2007. For details please see www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk.

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How to anger the pro-Israel lobby

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood, 9 Nov 2010

Tell how it really is in Gaza, especially if you’re an Archbishop
To their eternal shame, Western churchmen seem to care little about the plight of their brothers and sisters in the Holy Land or the fate of the holy places where Christianity was born.

There are, of course, honourable exceptions. One such is the Archbishop of Wales, the Most Rev Dr Barry Morgan, whose church has provided the Gazans with a mobile dental unit.

He is not best pleased that the Israelis make it difficult to obtain fuel and medical supplies for it, and he didn’t mince his words when recently reporting to the Church’s governing body how things really are in Gaza.

The truth of the matter seemed to annoy a certain Mr Simon McIlwaine, who complained that the Archbishop’s words put the state of Israel in an unduly harsh light and he was compelled to “provide some badly needed context”. Whereupon Mr McIlwaine launched into the familiar anti-Gaza, anti-Hamas rant we’re used to hearing from the pro-Israel lobby. http://www.anglicanfriendsofisrael.com/content/view/106/33/

  • “The Archbishop raises a central issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict – anti-Semitism…”

The central issue is 62 years of criminal oppression. The charges include land theft, illegal occupation, ethnic cleansing, disregard for human rights, and war crimes such as those documented in the Goldstone Report. The action required is set out in international law, numerous UN resolutions and every code of human decency.

  • “Hamas is an explicitly anti-Semitic organization that at the very least seeks to exercise a veto over the Jewish right to self-determination.”

Israel is deeply anti-Arab and continues to dispossess and remove Arabs not only from Israel proper but also from areas of the West Bank and East Jerusalem that Israel has earmarked for permanent occupation.

Palestinians have been denied the right to self-determination for decades and Israel even refuses to recognise their perfectly satisfactory democratic process.

  • “Hamas’ anti-Semitic ideology pre-existed the blockade…”

Israel’s illegal occupation pre-dates the founding of Hamas.

  • “Hamas’ attacks against Israel are not merely motivated by a desire to end the blockade, but to deprive the Jewish people of their ability to enjoy a national life of their own.”

The irony of that remark is apparently lost on Mr McIlwaine.

  • “Clearly, anti-Semitism plays a significant role in fomenting violence against Israel in the Middle East.”

Playing the anti-Semitism card yet again. Israel is the violator. Hamas chief Khaled Mesh’al has explained that armed resistance against Israel is the result of Israeli occupation, injustice and oppression, not religious differences.

  • “The Archbishop describes the devastation in the Gaza Strip without acknowledging the role Hamas played in bringing the destruction about.”

Israel broke the ceasefire with a raid killing at least 6 Palestinians in order to provoke the sort of retaliation that could then be used as an excuse to launch Operation Cast Lead, the 3-week onslaught Israel had been preparing for months.

  • “History has shown that isolating tyrannical regimes such as Hamas results in civilian suffering.”

Israel was making Palestinians’ lives a misery long before Hamas appeared on the scene. What right has Israel or anyone else to isolate a democratically elected government and its people anyway?

Hamas is an Islamic party legitimately ruling a mainly Islamic country. It is the people’s choice. How can it be any more “tyrannical” than the Jewish State with its exclusivity laws and lethal attitude towards non-Jews?

  • “…Responsibility for the disruption of daily life in the Gaza Strip lies with Hamas. By way of comparison, daily life in the West Bank, which has not been the source of rocket attacks, is improving.”

As long as Israel occupies Gaza’s airspace, coastal waters and air-waves, controls all access points (except now the Egyptian border, although it still interferes there), maintains a sea blockade and attacks and even murders volunteers bringing humanitarian supplies, it is ridiculous to suggest that anyone else is responsible for disrupting daily life.

In 2007 when Israel tightened the siege on Gaza the prime minister’s adviser, Dov Weisglass, said “the idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger”. According to documents just released under a Freedom of Information petition by Gisha, an Israeli law centre, Israel operated “a policy of deliberate reduction” of basic goods in the Gaza Strip. Gisha’s director accuses Israel of “paralyzing normal life in Gaza”, and adds: “I am sorry to say that major elements of this policy are still in place.” http://www.gisha.org/index.php?intLanguage=2&intItemId=1904&intSiteSN=113.

The documents confirm that the siege was not for security reasons but aimed at keeping Gazans at near-starvation level. Since around half the population are growing children this act of collective punishment has meant that hundreds of thousands are undernourished.

Mr McIlwaine is right that no rockets have been fired from the West Bank. Why, then, are the shredded remains of that territory still under cruel occupation and tight restriction?

  • “Hamas has murdered its political opponents, threatened its critics and stolen humanitarian aid shipped in from outside.”

Another classic piece of irony for us to savour… Assassinations and extra-judicial executions are an Israeli speciality. So is thieving. They even steal British passports for their murder squads.

We never hear what happens to humanitarian aid seized in international waters by Israeli thugs who abduct passengers and crew and rob them of their possessions.  Remember how Israel kept stealing Gaza’s tax revenues? Did they ever give the money back?

Simon McIlwaine is co-director of Anglican Friends of Israel, an organization whose aims include:

  • Securing defensible borders for the State of Israel. (What borders… its ever-expanding illegal borders enclosing stolen lands or its internationally-recognised 1967 borders?)
  • Calling Anglicans to repentance for the wrongs inflicted by Christians on the Jewish people and the nation of Israel.
  • Protecting the Christian communities threatened by Islamic extremism in the Middle East (though not, it seems, against the crushing oppression of Israeli extremists).

The puzzle is why any Anglican would befriend a regime with so much blood on its hands and attack a bishop who speaks up for its wretched victims. St Augustine must be spinning in his grave.

At least Dr Morgan went to Gaza to see for himself. Did Mr McIlwaine?

What did the good Archbishop say that so rattled Mr McIlwaine’s cage? http://www.churchinwales.org.uk/structure/bishops/sermonsb/b38.html

Regarding Gaza, Dr Morgan observed: “Two-thirds of these people live in abject poverty, in refugee camps, after the confiscation of their homes and land by the Israeli Government.  The situation is worse now than when I visited in 2001…” He described how people lived in zinc shacks, without electricity or water and with open sewers running down the streets, and how Gaza City itself was like a bombsite.

“Only 32% of the industrial fuel needed in one week in August 2010 for Gaza’s power plant was allowed into Gaza.  The result was that the power plant shut down completely for two days after exhausting its reserves of fuel, triggering power cuts of 16 hours per day – affecting water supply, sewage treatment and removal, and the functioning of health services. 30% of households in Gaza have access to running water for only 4 to 8 hours per week; 40% receive water once every four days, and the other 30% obtain it once every two days.  Half of the normal level of need of cooking gas entered Gaza in August; no diesel or petrol has been delivered for weeks – hence diesel and petrol being taken through the tunnels at the risk of attack by the Israelis. Imports are limited, raw materials severely restricted, no building materials are allowed into Gaza, exports from Gaza are banned entirely.

“The blockade in Gaza has destroyed public service infrastructure and hospitals have power cuts for twelve hours a day, emergency medical treatment for residents of Gaza is denied, and 40 million litres of sewage is being discharged every day into the sea because of lack of fuel to pump or treat human waste.  Family members in Gaza have been separated from relatives living in the West Bank and elsewhere.”
All of which is confirmed by other sources.

Dr Morgan continued: “The United Nations, the Security Council and the European Union want crossings to Gaza to be permanently open to allow access for humanitarian and commercial aid and all of this was agreed between Israel and the Palestinian authorities in 2005.

He also referred to the Kairos document issued by Palestinian Church leaders a year ago and the report ‘Justice and Peace for Palestine’ discussed recently by the Methodist Church. “Both of those reports say that the key hindrance to security and a lasting peace for all in the region is the occupation of Palestinian territory by the State of Israel…”
For 43 long years. Who is foolish enough to believe there can be peace under the jackboot of occupation?

“Settlements by Israeli settlers are illegal under international law, and over one third have been built on Palestinian privately owned land.  The wall that has been built covering a distance of 702 kilometres…not only separates Israelis from Palestinians but Palestinians from family members and friends.  In rural areas, it effectively cuts them off from their olive trees and fruit and vegetable plantations.  In July 2004, the International Court of Justice declared the separation barrier illegal, and called on Israel to cease construction to dismantle constructed areas and provide reparation to those materially damaged by the construction.”
“Settlers” is too nice a word for my taste. It suggests peaceful pioneers wishing to integrate. Israeli “settlers” are anything but. They are squatters, half a million in over 100 illegal colonies – ugly blots on an otherwise lovely landscape. They include gangs of armed delinquents who terrorise local villagers, vandalise their crops, pollute their land and harass their children.

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention clearly forbids an occupying power from transferring parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.

Next time, the Archbishop might question why the Separation Wall, if meant for security, wasn’t built within Israel’s internationally recognised borders. Its actual route bites deep into Palestinian territory and is designed to annex choice agricultural land and the Palestinians’ precious water supplies. Palestinians are now severely rationed and have to pay Israel inflated prices for a dribble of their own water while Israelis splash around in their swimming pools and wash their cars.

The Archbishop finished by saying: “Now we, as a Church, perhaps cannot do very much except that we ought to acquaint ourselves with what is going on, and fight against injustice, and demand that the rule of law be upheld wherever it is being flouted for whatever reason.  We have a duty to speak out.”
On an earlier occasion in 2009, after Israel’s blitz on Gaza, Dr Morgan was saying:

“Having visited Gaza twice over the past few years I have seen the appalling conditions in which the people there live… with no proper homes, sanitation or means of escape. Their lives are now unbearable as they come under daily fire and are too scared to even leave their homes. We have heard that it has now become too dangerous for our clinic, which was being used as a frontline hospital dealing with casualties, to continue its work.

“It is tragic that there is so much violence in an area known as the Holy Land…  It is time for the fighting to stop – enough children have died and enough homes have been destroyed and it is immoral for the world to stand by and do nothing.”
How very refreshing. Those other bishops who loaf around the House of Lords and never open their mouths when so much needs to be said and done, please note.

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood is an industrial marketing specialist turned writer-photographer. In 2005 he was invited to write and shoot pictures for a book about the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. ‘Radio Free Palestine’ was published in 2007. For details please see www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk.