Western media helped build the case for genocide in Gaza | Jonathan Cook

Veteran media critic Jonathan Cook recently talked to Declassified UK about his latest article (reproduced below in full) exposing the Western media’s pro-Israel bias, from the Guardian to the New York Times. He also discussed how independent media can avoid algorithm censorship and make Palestine’s plight heard:

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How the Western media helped build the case for genocide in Gaza | Jonathan Cook

From obscuring the West’s role in starving Gaza to sensationalised accounts of mass rape by Hamas, journalists are playing the role of propagandists, not reporters

The past five months have been clarifying. What was supposed to be hidden has been thrust into the light. What was supposed to be obscured has come sharply into focus.

Liberal democracy is not what it seems.

It has always defined itself in contrast to what it says it is not. Where other regimes are savage, it is humanitarian. Where others are authoritarian, it is open and tolerant. Where others are criminal, it is law-abiding. When others are belligerent, it seeks peace. Or so the manuals of liberal democracy argue.

But how to keep the faith when the world’s leading liberal democracies – invariably referred to as “the West” – are complicit in the crime of crimes: genocide?

Not just law-breaking or a misdemeanour, but the extermination of a people. And not just quickly, before the mind has time to absorb and weigh the gravity and extent of the crime, but in slow motion, day after day, week after week, month after month.

What kind of system of values can allow for five months the crushing of children under rubble, the detonation of fragile bodies, the wasting away of babies, while still claiming to be humanitarian, tolerant, peace-seeking?

And not just allow all this, but actively assist in it. Supply the bombs that blow those children to pieces or bring houses down on them, and sever ties to the only aid agency that can hope to keep them alive.

The answer, it seems, is the West’s system of values.

The mask has not just slipped, it has been ripped off. What lies beneath is ugly indeed.

Depravity on show

The West is desperately trying to cope. When Western depravity is fully on show, the public’s gaze has to be firmly directed elsewhere: to the truly evil ones.

They are given a name. It is Russia. It is Al Qaeda, and Islamic State. It is China. And right now, it is Hamas.

There must be an enemy. But this time, the West’s own evil is so hard to disguise, and the enemy so paltry – a few thousand fighters underground inside a prison besieged for 17 years – that the asymmetry is difficult to ignore. The excuses are hard to swallow.

Is Hamas really so evil, so cunning, so much of a threat that it requires mass slaughter? Does the West really believe that the attack of 7 October warrants the killing, maiming and orphaning of many, many tens of thousands of children as a response?

To stamp out such thoughts, Western elites have had to do two things. First, they have tried to persuade their publics that the acts they collude in are not as bad as they look. And then that the evil perpetrated by the enemy is so exceptional, so unconscionable it justifies a response in kind.

Which is exactly the role Western media has played over the past five months.

Starved by Israel

To understand how Western publics are being manipulated, just look to the coverage – especially from those outlets most closely aligned not with the right but with supposedly liberal values.

How have the media dealt with the 2.3 million Palestinians of Gaza being gradually starved to death by an Israeli aid blockade, an action that lacks any obvious military purpose beyond inflicting a savage vengeance on Palestinian civilians? After all, Hamas fighters will outlast the young, the sick and the elderly in any mediaeval-style, attritional war denying Gaza food, water and medicines.

A headline in the New York Times, for example, told readers last month, “Starvation is stalking Gaza’s children”, as if this were a famine in Africa – a natural disaster, or an unexpected humanitarian catastrophe – rather than a policy declared in advance and carefully orchestrated by Israel’s top echelons.

No, NYT, starvation isn't stalking Gaza's children, like some weird, abstract predator. Israel is choosing to starve Gaza's children by blocking aid.

Starvation isn't committing genocide. Israel is. pic.twitter.com/T9hkxUsSRk

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) March 1, 2024

The Financial Times offered the same perverse framing: “Starvation stalks children of northern Gaza”.

But starvation is not an actor in Gaza. Israel is. Israel is choosing to starve Gaza’s children. It renews that policy each day afresh, fully aware of the terrible price being inflicted on the population.

As the head of Medical Aid for Palestinians warned of developments in Gaza: “Children are being starved at the fastest rate the world has ever seen.”

Last week Unicef, the United Nations children’s emergency fund, declared that a third of children aged under two in northern Gaza were acutely malnourished. Its executive director, Catherine Russell, was clear: “An immediate humanitarian cease-fire continues to provide the only chance to save children’s lives and end their suffering.”

Were it really starvation doing the stalking, rather than Israel imposing starvation, the West’s powerlessness would be more understandable. Which is what the media presumably want their readers to infer.

But the West isn’t powerless. It is enabling this crime against humanity – day after day, week after week – by refusing to exert its power to punish Israel, or even to threaten to punish it, for blocking aid.

Not only that, but the US and Europe have helped Israel starve Gaza’s children by denying funding to the UN refugee agency, UNRWA, the main humanitarian lifeline in the enclave.

All of this is obscured – meant to be obscured – by headlines that transfer the agency for starving children to an abstract noun rather than a country with a large, vengeful army.

Attack on aid convoy

Such misdirection is everywhere – and it is entirely intentional. It is a playbook being used by every single Western media outlet. It was all too visible when an aid convoy last month reached Gaza City, where levels of Israeli-induced famine are most extreme.

In what has come to be known by Palestinians as the “Flour Massacre”, Israel shot into large crowds desperately trying to get food parcels from a rare aid convoy to feed their starving families. More than 100 Palestinians were killed by the gunfire, or crushed by Israeli tanks or hit by trucks fleeing the scene. Many hundreds more were seriously wounded.

It was an Israeli war crime – shooting on civilians – that came on top of an Israeli crime against humanity – starving two million civilians to death.

The Israeli attack on those waiting for aid was not a one-off. It has been repeated several times, though you would barely know it, given the paucity of coverage.

The depravity of using aid convoys as traps to lure Palestinians to their deaths is almost too much to grasp.

But that is not the reason the headlines that greeted this horrifying incident so uniformly obscured or soft-soaped Israel’s crime.

For any journalist, the headline should have written itself: “Israel accused of killing over 100 as crowd waits for Gaza aid.” Or: “Israel fires into food aid crowd. Hundreds killed and injured”

But that would have accurately transferred agency to Israel – Gaza’s occupier for more than half a century, and its besieger for the last 17 years – in the deaths of those it has been occupying and besieging. Something inconceivable for the Western media.

So the focus had to be shifted elsewhere.

BBC contortions

The Guardian’s contortions were particularly spectacular: “Biden says Gaza food aid-related deaths complicate ceasefire talks”.

The massacre by Israel was disappeared as mysterious “food aid-related deaths”, which in turn became secondary to the Guardian’s focus on the diplomatic fallout.

Readers were steered by the headline into assuming that the true victims were not the hundreds of Palestinians killed and maimed by Israel but the Israeli hostages whose chances of being freed had been “complicated” by “food aid-related deaths”.

The headline on a BBC analysis of the same war crime – now reframed as an author-less “tragedy” – repeated the New York Times’ trick: “Aid convoy tragedy shows fear of starvation haunts Gaza”.

Another favourite manoeuvre, again pioneered by the Guardian, was to cloud responsibility for a clear-cut war crime. Its front-page headline read: “More than 100 Palestinians die in chaos surrounding Gaza aid convoy”.

Once again, Israel was removed from the crime scene. In fact, worse, the crime scene was removed too. Palestinians “died” apparently because of poor aid management. Maybe UNRWA was to blame.

Chaos and confusion became useful refrains for media outlets keener to shroud culpability. The Washington Post declared: “Chaotic aid delivery turns deadly as Israeli, Gazan officials trade blame”. CNN took the same line, downgrading a war crime to a “chaotic incident”.

But even these failings were better than the media’s rapidly waning interest as Israel’s massacres of Palestinians seeking aid became routine – and therefore harder to mystify.

A few days after the Flour Massacre, an Israeli air strike on an aid truck in Deir al-Balah killed at least nine Palestinians, while last week more than 20 hungry Palestinians were killed by Israeli helicopter gunfire as they waited for aid.

“Food aid-related” massacres – which had quickly become as normalised as Israel’s invasions of hospitals – no longer merited serious attention. A search suggests the BBC managed to avoid giving significant coverage to either incident online.

Food-drop theatrics

Meanwhile, the media has ably of Israel imposing a famine on Gaza compounded by the US and Europe de-funding UNRWA, the only agency that could mitigate that famine.

British and US broadcasters excitedly joined air crews as their militaries flew big-bellied planes over Gaza’s beaches, at great expense, to drop one-off ready-made meals to a few of the starving Palestinians below.

Given that many hundreds of truckloads of aid a day are needed just to stop Gaza sliding deeper into famine, the drops were no more than theatrics. Each delivered at best a solitary truckload of aid – and then only if the palettes didn’t end up falling into the sea, or killing the Palestinians they were meant to benefit.

The operation deserved little more than ridicule.

Instead, dramatic visuals of heroic airmen, interspersed with expressions of concern about the difficulties of addressing the “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, usefully distracted viewers’ attention not only from the operations’ futility but from the fact that, were the West really determined to help, it could strong-arm Israel into letting in far more plentiful aid by land at a moment’s notice.

The media were equally swept up by the Biden administration’s second, even more outlandish scheme to help starving Palestinians. The US is to build a temporary floating pier off Gaza’s coast so that aid shipments can be delivered from Cyprus.

The plot holes were gaping. The pier will take two months or more to construct, when the aid is needed now. In Cyprus, as at the land crossings into Gaza, Israel will be in charge of inspections – the main cause of hold-ups.

And if the US now thinks Gaza needs a port, why not also get to work on a more permanent one?

The answer, of course, might remind audiences of the situation before 7 October, when Gaza was under a stifling 17-year siege by Israel – the context for Hamas’ attack that the Western media never quite finds the space to mention.

For decades, Israel has denied Gaza any connections to the outside world it cannot control, including preventing a sea port from being built and bombing the enclave’s only airport way back in 2001, shortly after it was opened.

And yet, at the same time, Israel’s insistence that it no longer occupies Gaza – just because it has done so at arm’s length since 2005 – is accepted unquestioningly in media coverage.

Again, the US has decisive leverage over Israel, its client state, should it decide to exercise it – not least billions in aid and the diplomatic veto it wields so regularly on Israel’s behalf.

The question that needs asking by the media on every piece about “starvation stalking Gaza” is why is the US not using that leverage.

In a typical breathless piece titled “How the US military plans to construct a pier and get food into Gaza”, the BBC ignored the big picture to drill down enthusiastically on the details of “huge logistical” and “security challenges” facing Biden’s project.

The article revisited precedents from disaster relief operations in Somalia and Haiti to the D-Day Normandy landings in the Second World War.

Credulous journalists

In support of these diversionary tactics, the media have also had to accentuate the atrocities of Hamas’ 7 October attack – and the need to condemn the group at every turn – to contrast those crimes from what might otherwise appear even worse atrocities committed by Israel on the Palestinians.

That has required an unusually large dose of credulousness from journalists who more usually present as hard-bitten sceptics.

Babies being beheaded, or put in ovens, or hung out on clothes lines. No invented outrage by Hamas has been too improbable to have been denied front-page treatment, only to be quietly dropped later when each has turned out to be just as fabricated as it should have sounded to any reporter familiar with the way propagandists exploit the fog of war.

Similarly, the entire Western press corps has studiously ignored months of Israeli media revelations that have gradually shifted responsibility for some of the most gruesome incidents of 7 October – such as the burning of hundreds of bodies – off Hamas’ shoulders and on to Israel’s.

Though Western media outlets failed to note the significance of his remarks, Israeli spokesman Mark Regev admitted that Israel’s numbering of its dead from 7 October had to be reduced by 200 because many of the badly charred remains turned out to be Hamas fighters.

Testimonies from Israeli commanders and officials show that, blindsided by the Hamas attack, Israeli forces struck out wildly with tank shells and Hellfire missiles, incinerating Hamas fighters and their Israeli captives indiscriminately. The burnt cars piled up as a visual signifier of Hamas’ sadism are, in fact, evidence of, at best, Israel’s incompetence and, at worst, its savagery.

The secret military protocol that directed Israel’s scorched-earth policy on 7 October – the notorious Hannibal procedure to stop any Israeli being taken captive – appears not to have merited mention by either the Guardian or the BBC in their acres of 7 October coverage.

Despite their endless revisiting of the 7 October events, neither has seen fit to report on the growing demands from Israeli families for an investigation into whether their loved ones were killed under Israel’s Hannibal procedure.

Nor have either the BBC or the Guardian reported on the comments of the Israeli military’s ethics chief, Prof Asa Kasher, bewailing the army’s resort to the Hannibal procedure on 7 October as “horrifying” and “unlawful”.

Claims of bestiality

Instead, liberal Western media outlets have repeatedly revisited claims that they have seen evidence – evidence they seem unwilling to share – that Hamas ordered rape to be used systematically by its fighters as a weapon of war. The barely veiled implication is that such depths of depravity explain, and possibly justify, the scale and savagery of Israel’s response.

Note that this claim is quite different from the argument that there may have been instances of rape on 7 October.

That is for good reason: There are plenty of indications that Israeli soldiers regularly use rape and sexual violence against Palestinians. A UN report in February addressing allegations that Israeli solders and officials had weaponised sexual violence against Palestinian women and girls since 7 October elicited none of the headlines and outrage from the Western media directed at Hamas.

To make a plausible case that Hamas changed the rules of war that day, much greater deviance and sinfulness has been required. And the liberal Western media have willingly played their part by recycling claims of mass, systematic rape by Hamas, combined with lurid claims of necrophilic perversions – while suggesting anyone who asks for evidence is condoning such bestiality.

But the liberal media’s claims of Hamas “mass rapes” – initiated by an agenda-setting piece by the New York Times and closely echoed by the Guardian weeks later – have crumbled on closer inspection.

Independent outlets such as Mondoweiss, Electronic Intifada, the Grayzone and others have gradually pulled apart the Hamas mass rape narrative.

But perhaps most damaging of all has been an investigation by the Intercept that revealed it was senior Times editors who recruited a novice Israeli journalist – a former Israeli intelligence official with a history of supporting genocidal statements against the people of Gaza – to do the field work.

More shocking still, it was the paper’s editors who then pressured her to find the story. In violation of investigative norms, the narrative was reverse engineered: imposed from the top, not found through on-the-ground reporting.

‘Conspiracy of silence’

The New York Times’ story appeared in late December under the headline “‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7”. The Guardian’s follow-up in mid-January draws so closely on the Times’ reporting that the paper has been accused of plagiarism. Its headline was: “Evidence points to systematic use of rape and sexual violence by Hamas in 7 October attacks”.

However, under questioning from the Intercept, a spokesperson for the New York Times readily walked back the paper’s original certainty, conceding instead that “there may have been systematic use of sexual assault.” [emphasis added] Even that appears too strong a conclusion.

Holes in the Times’ reporting quickly proved so glaring that its popular daily podcast pulled the plug on an episode dedicated to the story after its own fact check.

The rookie reporter assigned to the task, Anat Schwartz, has admitted that despite scouring the relevant institutions in Israel – from medical institutions to rape crisis centres – she found no one who could confirm a single example of sexual assault that day. She was also unable to find any forensic corroboration.

She later told a podcast with Israel’s Channel 12 that she viewed the lack of evidence to be proof of “a conspiracy of silence”.

Instead, Schwartz’s reporting relied on a handful of testimonies from witnesses whose other easily disprovable assertions should have called into question their credibility. Worse, their accounts of instances of sexual assault failed to tally with the known facts.

One paramedic, for example, claimed two teenage girls had been raped and killed at Kibbutz Nahal Oz. When it became clear nobody fitted the description there, he changed the crime scene to Kibbutz Beeri. None of the dead there fitted the description either.

Nonetheless, Schwartz believed she finally had her story. She told Channel 12: “One person saw it happen in Be’eri, so it can’t be just one person, because it’s two girls. It’s sisters. It’s in the room. Something about it is systematic, something about it feels to me that it’s not random.”

Schwartz got further confirmation from Zaka, a private ultra-Orthodox rescue organisation, whose officials were already known to have fabricated Hamas atrocities on 7 October, including the various claims of depraved acts against babies.

No forensic evidence

Interestingly, though the main claims of Hamas rape have focused on the Nova music festival attacked by Hamas, Schwartz was initially sceptical – and for good reason – that it was the site of any sexual violence.

As Israeli reporting has revealed, the festival quickly turned into a battlefield, with Israeli security guards and Hamas exchanging gunfire and Israeli attack helicopters circling overhead firing at anything that moved.

Schwartz concluded: “Everyone I spoke to among the survivors told me about a chase, a race, like, about moving from place to place. How would they [have had the time] to mess with a woman, like – it is impossible. Either you hide, or you – or you die. Also it’s public, the Nova … such an open space.”

But Schwartz dropped her scepticism as soon as Raz Cohen, a veteran of Israel’s special forces, agreed to speak to her. He had already claimed in earlier interviews a few days after 7 October that he had witnessed multiple rapes at Nova, including corpses being raped.

But when he spoke to Schwartz he could only recall one incident – a horrific attack that involved raping a woman and then knifing her to death. Undermining the New York Times’ central claim, he attributed the rape not to Hamas but to five civilians, Palestinians who poured into Israel after Hamas fighters broke through the fence around Gaza.

Notably, Schwartz admitted to Channel 12 that none of the other four people hiding in the bush with Cohen saw the attack. “Everyone else is looking in a different direction,” she said.

And yet in the Times’ story, Cohen’s account is corroborated by Shoam Gueta, a friend who has since deployed to Gaza where, as the Intercept notes, he has been posting videos of himself rummaging through destroyed Palestinian homes.

Another witness, identified only as Sapir, is quoted by Schwartz as witnessing a woman being raped at Nova at the same time as her breast is amputated with a box cutter. That account became central to the Guardian’s follow-up report in January.

Yet, no forensic evidence has been produced to support this account.

But the most damning criticism of the Times’ reporting came from the family of Gal Abdush, the headline victim in the “Screams without Words” story. Her parents and brother accused the New York Times of inventing the story that she had been raped at the Nova festival.

Moments before she was killed by a grenade, Abdush had messaged her family and made no mention of a rape or even a direct attack on her group. The family had heard no suggestion that rape was a factor in Abdush’s death.

A woman who had given the paper access to photos and video of Abdush taken that day said Schwartz had pressured her to do so on the grounds it would help “Israeli hasbara” – a term meaning propaganda designed to sway foreign audiences.

Schwartz cited the Israeli welfare ministry as claiming there were four survivors of sexual assault from 7 October, though no more details have been forthcoming from the ministry.

Back in early December, before the Times story, Israeli officials promised they had “gathered ‘tens of thousands’ of testimonies of sexual violence committed by Hamas”. None of those testimonies has materialised.

None ever will, according to Schwartz’s conversation with Channel 12. “There is nothing. There was no collection of evidence from the scene,” she said.

Nonetheless, Israeli officials continue to use the reports by the New York Times, the Guardian and others to try to bully major human rights bodies into agreeing that Hamas used sexual violence systematically.

Which may explain why the media eagerly seized on the chance to resurrect its threadbare narrative when UN official Pramila Patten, its special representative on sexual violence in conflict, echoed some of their discredited claims in a report published this month.

The media happily ignored the fact that Patten had no investigative mandate and that she heads what is in effect an advocacy group inside the UN. While Israel has obstructed UN bodies that do have such investigative powers, it welcomed Patten, presumably on the assumption that she would be more pliable.

In fact, she did little more than repeat the same unevidenced claims from Israel that formed the basis of the Times and Guardian’s discredited reporting.

Statements retracted

Even so, Patten included important caveats in the small print of her report that the media were keen to overlook.

At a press conference, she reiterated that she had seen no evidence of a pattern of behaviour by Hamas, or of the use of rape as a weapon of war – the very claims the Western media had been stressing for weeks.

She concluded in the report that she was unable to “establish the prevalence of sexual violence”. And further, she conceded it was not clear if any sexual violence occurring on 7 October was the responsibility of Hamas, or other groups or individuals.

All of that was ignored by the media. In typical fashion, a Guardian article on her report asserted wrongly in its headline: “UN finds ‘convincing information’ that Hamas raped and tortured Israeli hostages”.

Patten’s primary source of information, she conceded, were Israeli “national institutions” – state officials who had every incentive to mislead her in the furtherance of the country’s war aims, as they had earlier done with a compliant media.

As the US Jewish scholar Normal Finkelstein has pointed out, Patten also relied on open-source material: 5,000 photos and 50 hours of video footage from bodycams, dashcams, cellphones, CCTV and traffic surveillance cameras. And yet that visual evidence yielded not a single image of sexual violence. Or as Patten phrased it: “No tangible indications of rape could be identified.”

She admitted she had seen no forensic evidence of sexual violence, and had not met a single survivor of rape or sexual assault.

And she noted that the witnesses and sources her team spoke to – the same individuals the media had relied on – proved unreliable. They “adopted over time an increasingly cautious and circumspect approach regarding past accounts, including in some cases retracting statements made previously”.

Collusion in genocide

If anything has been found to be systematic, it is the failings in the Western media’s coverage of a plausible genocide unfolding in Gaza.

Last week a computational analysis of the New York Times’ reporting revealed it continued to focus heavily on Israeli perspectives, even as the death-toll ratio showed that 30 times as many Palestinians had been killed by Israel in Gaza than Hamas had killed Israelis on 7 October.

The paper quoted Israelis and Americans many times more regularly than they did Palestinians, and when Palestinians were referred to it was invariably in the passive voice.

In Britain, the Muslim Council of Britain’s Centre for Media Monitoring has analysed nearly 177,000 clips from TV broadcasts covering the first month after the 7 October attack. It found Israeli perspectives were three times more common than Palestinian ones.

A similar study by the Glasgow Media Group found that journalists regularly used condemnatory language for the killing of Israelis – “murderous”, “mass murder”, “brutal murder” and “merciless murder” – but never when Palestinians were being killed by Israel. “Massacres”, “atrocities” and “slaughter” were only ever carried out against Israelis, not against Palestinians.

Faced with a plausible case of genocide – one being televised for months on end – even the liberal elements of the Western media have shown they have no serious commitment to the liberal democratic values they are supposedly there to uphold.

They are not a watchdog on power, either the power of the Israeli military or Western states colluding in Israel’s slaughter. Rather the media are central to making the collusion possible. They are there to disguise and whitewash it, to make it look acceptable.

Indeed, the truth is that, without that help, Israel’s allies would long ago have been shamed into action, into stopping the slaughter and starvation. The Western media’s hands are stained in Gaza’s blood.

Click here to read the same article as it originally appeared on Declassified UK published on March 20^th.

And here to find it reprinted on Jonathan Cook’s official website on the same day.

THE SLAVE REVOLT IN GAZA, and Bernie Sanders | Norman Finkelstein

The following article is republished unabridged with all capitalisation and highlights retained (including in the title) from the original source.

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Former progressive presidential candidate Bernie Sanders issued a second statement yesterday (12 October 2023) on the hecatomb in Israel and Gaza.  The gist of what he had to say was that, before October 7th, everything was going along more or less swimmingly in the struggle for justice:

For years, people of good will throughout the world, including some brave Israelis, have struggled against the blockade of Gaza, the daily humiliations of occupation in the West Bank, and the horrendous living conditions faced by so many Palestinians.

But then, along came “Hamas’s terrorist assault,” which constituted “a major setback for any hope of justice for the Palestinian people” and “will make it much more difficult to address that tragic reality.”

Here is a reality check. “For years,” no one was doing anything to end the blockade of Gaza.  Not Bernie.  Not me.  Not anyone.  The people of Gaza—70 percent of whom are refugees (from the 1948 war) and half of whom are children—had been left to languish and die in what Hebrew University sociologist Baruch Kimmerling called “the largest concentration camp ever to exist.”   The “people of good will throughout the world” were not “struggling against the blockade.”  The world had moved on.  On the eve of October 7, the Biden administration was cobbling together an agreement with Saudi Arabia that would have rendered null and void any prospect of “justice for the Palestinian people.”

Israel is not “at war” with a foreign entity, let alone a foreign state.  Gaza is an integral part of Israel.  “There is one regime governing the entire area from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea,” Israel’s leading human rights organization, B’Tselem, observed some years back, “based on a single organizing principle” of “Jewish supremacy.”  What happened on October 7 was a slave revolt inside Israel.

The largest slave revolt in U.S. history against “White supremacy” was led by Nat Turner.  Turner was a religious fanatic; he believed that the revolt was divinely inspired and sanctioned.  Here’s how Wikipedia describes what ensued:

The rebels traveled from house to house, freeing enslaved people and killing many of the White people whom they encountered…. Historian Stephen B. Oates states that Turner called on his group to “kill all the white people”…. Turner thought that revolutionary violence would awaken the attitudes of Whites to the reality of the inherent brutality in slave-holding. Turner said he wanted to spread “terror and alarm” among Whites.

Scores of White innocents were deliberately killed.  Nonetheless, the Nat Turner Rebellion now occupies an honored place in American history.

Turner’s rebellion provoked mass genocidal hysteria among Whites.  To gain one’s moral bearings at this fraught moment, it repays to peruse the statement issued by the great Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison right after the revolt:

What we have so long predicted,—at the peril of being stigmatized as an alarmist and declaimer,—has commenced its fulfilment. The first step of the earthquake, which is ultimately to shake down the fabric of oppression, leaving not one stone upon another, has been made. The first drops of blood, which are but the prelude to a deluge from the gathering clouds, have fallen. The first flash of lightning, which is to smite and consume, has been felt. The first wailings of bereavement, which is to clothe the earth in sackcloth, have broken up our ears. 

…

The crime of oppression is national. The south is only the agent in this guilty traffic. But, remember! The same causes are at work which must inevitably produce the same effects; and when the contest shall have again begun, it must be again a war of extermination. In the present instance, no quarters have been asked or given. 

But we have killed and routed them now—we can do it again and again—we are invincible! A dastardly triumph, well becoming a nation of oppressors. Detestable complacency, that can think, without emotion, of the extermination of the blacks! We have the power to kill all—let us, therefore, continue to apply the whip and forge new fetters! 

In his fury against the revolters, who will remember their wrongs? What will it avail them, though the catalogue of their sufferings, dripping with warm blood fresh from their lacerated bodies, be held up to extenuate their conduct? It is enough that the victims were black—that circumstance makes them less precious than the dogs which have been slain in our streets! They were black—brutes, pretending to be men—legions of curses upon their memories! They were black—God made them to serve us! 

Ye patriotic hypocrites! ye panegyrists of Frenchmen, Greeks, and Poles! ye fustian declaimers for liberty! ye valiant sticklers for equal rights among yourselves! ye haters of aristocracy! ye assailants of monarchies! ye republican nullifiers! ye treasonable disunionists! Be dumb! Cast no reproach upon the conduct of the slaves, but let your lips and cheeks wear the blisters of condemnation! 

Ye accuse the pacific friends of emancipation of instigating the slaves to revolt. Take back the charge as a foul slander. The slaves need no incentives at our hands. They will find them in their stripes—in their emaciated bodies—in their ceaseless toil—in their ignorant minds—in every field, in every valley, on every hill-top and mountain, wherever you and your fathers have fought for liberty—in your speeches, your conversations, your celebrations, your pamphlets, your newspapers—voices in the air, sounds from across the ocean, invitations to resistance above, below, around them! What more do they need? Surrounded by such influences, and smarting under their newly made wounds, is it wonderful that they should rise to contend—as other heroes have contended—for their lost rights? It is not wonderful. 

In all that we have written, is there aught to justify the excesses of the slaves? No. Nevertheless, they deserve no more censure than the Greeks in destroying the Turks, or the Poles in exterminating the Russians, or our fathers in slaughtering the British. Dreadful, indeed, is the standard erected by worldly patriotism! 

For ourselves, we are horror-struck at the late tidings. We have exerted our utmost efforts to avert the calamity. We have warned our countrymen of the danger of persisting in their unrighteous conduct. We have preached to the slaves the pacific precepts of Jesus Christ. We have appealed to christians, philanthropists, and patriots, for their assistance to accomplish the great work of national redemption through the agency of moral power—of public opinion—of individual duty. How have we been received? We have been threatened, proscribed, vilified, and imprisoned—a laughing-stock and a reproach. Do we falter, in view of these things? Let time answer. If we have been hitherto urgent, and bold, and denunciatory in our efforts,—hereafter we shall grow vehement and active with the increase of danger. We shall cry, in trumpet tones, night and day,—Wo to this guilty land, unless she speedily repent of her evil doings! The blood of millions of her sons cries aloud for redress! IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION alone can save her from the vengeance of Heaven, and cancel the debt of ages! 

It is to be noted that, whereas he stated that the “excesses of the slaves” could not be justified and he was “horror-struck at the late tidings,” William Lloyd Garrison did not condemn the slave revolt.

Click here to read the same article as it originally appeared on Norman Finkelstein’s official website published on October 12^th.

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Additional:

Norman Finkelstein is an historian and political scientist who specialises in Israel-Palestine relations and the Holocaust. He is also the son of Holocaust survivors. Both his mother and father survived the Warsaw Ghetto and the Majdanek concentration camp. His father was also a survivor of Auschwitz.

On Tuesday 17^th, Norman Finkelstein was invited to speak at greater length about his article as well as to dispel false claims, historical and current, about the Israel-Palestine conflict, the events and the atrocities of the October 7^th Al-Aqsa Flood Operation, and the brutal Israeli retaliatory assault on Gaza. The full interview with Katie Halper is embedded below.

Norman Finkelstein told Katie Halper: “Now you have to acknowledge that was an incredibly principled position that Garrison took. He was told ‘don’t go south because you’re not going to come back.’

“So when I read that statement by him, my appreciation of the abolitionists soared. Because there were very few people after October 7^th who were willing to say about the Israelis and Palestinians what Garrison said about the whites and the African-American slaves.” [from 1:05:00 mins]

Volodymyr Zelensky and Justin Trudeau lead ovation for Waffen SS veteran in Canada’s parliament

Update:

Norman Finkelstein is an historian and political scientist who specialises in Israel-Palestine relations and the Holocaust. He is the son of Holocaust survivors. Both his mother and father survived the Warsaw Ghetto and the Majdanek concentration camp. His father was also a survivor of Auschwitz.

On September 29^th, Aaron Maté and Katie Halper invited Norman Finkelstein on to their weekly news show Useful Idiots to talk about his reaction to the Canadian Parliament and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s applause for Ukrainian Banderite veteran and Waffen SS war criminal Yaroslav Hunka.

*

Of the “wake-up call for people who will never wake up” Finkelstein says:

“It’s very funny now to read the coverage of it because one of the Canadian officials said the biggest crime that was committed that moment in the parliament was we forced Zelensky to raise his fist – and that’s the horror.

“Now, number one, nobody forced Zelensky to do anything! His raising of his fist was of his volition. Number two – and you guys can correct me – but his raising of the fist came after the speaker said that [Hunka] fought against the Russians during World War II.

“Now, Zelensky knows English. If he heard that this fellow fought against the Russians in Ukraine during World War II then a bulb had to go on in his head. If he fought the Russians he must have been on the Nazi side. Or, it’s true that the Banderites swivel off from the Nazis in a certain point, but they were still ideologically of the same type as the Nazis, so when he raised his hand, this Jew – this Jew as we’re constantly told – from Ukraine, he was lending himself to the Nazi cause. Nobody took his arm and told him to hold it up.” [from 20:55 mins]

The original article begins directly below the asterisk.

*

The headline to this post is taken from the Morning Star. It is a statement of simple fact that encapsulates the impudence and the decline in Western values with exact clarity. Moreover, the Morning Star, to its tremendous credit, was one of just a handful of media outlets that originally reported on the story at all – although the mainstream has now caught up issuing its insincere apologia:

*

On the CBC news report embedded above, for instance, correspondent J P Tasker says he has tried to contact Yaroslav Hunka, the 98-year old Ukrainian Nazi veteran, who “defended his War service in the past calling it a fight for Ukrainian independence.” Tasker then goes on to add that: “Regardless Russian propagandists have already pounced, using his presence in Parliament to malign Ukraine and Canada’s support for their war effort.”

It is hard to know how to respond to such nonsense. There was a time – and not very long ago – when the idea that anyone in the West might rush to the defence of a Nazi collaborator was completely unthinkable. So here we are witnessing something absolutely grotesque and truly abominable. Now let’s think more carefully about what just happened here and what it actually means.

Last Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky travelled to Canada and gave a speech in front of Canada’s parliament. Afterwards, the speaker of the parliament had his own comments to make and as he was talking about World War II, he introduced a World War II veteran: a World War II veteran who proudly declared he had fought the Russians. A Ukrainian who fought the Russians in World War II, which means very clearly he is a Nazi, even if you know nothing else about World War II.

Let’s glance at Wikipedia‘s entry on World War II:

If you just read the basic summary of World War II and go down to the main participants – presuming you didn’t already know this – you will see who the main Allied leaders were and the list includes Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union, which obviously includes Russia. And who were they fighting against? The Axis which included Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany, Emperor Hirohito of Japan and Benito Mussolini of Italy. This is such a basic level of historical understanding that it is something we all probably learnt at primary school.

So if you were fighting against Russia, it meant you had to be fighting with one of the Axis powers and it turned out that this Ukrainian veteran that the entire floor of the Canadian Parliament gave a standing ovation to was a literal Nazi, who at one point routinely performed the Sieg Heil salute, quite possibly to the actual Adolf Hitler when he was still alive.

Genuine democracy requires an informed electorate, and if the head of the Canadian Parliament is this profoundly ignorant about something like World War II, who the participants were, and he accidentally invited a literal Nazi into the Canadian Parliament and gave him a standing ovation, what does that tell you about the intellectual capacity of Western leaders right now in the West?

We will keep hearing about how Nazis in Ukraine is a Russian propaganda talking point. That if you bring attention to this, somehow you are just repeating Russian propaganda. And yet we also see incidents happening over and over again – in fact, whenever the Western media goes into Ukrainian held territory and take videos or pictures of Ukrainian soldiers – and we find they’re covered in Nazi symbols. So what’s the chance that you invite a World War II veteran to the Canadian Parliament and he turns out to be an actual Nazi? What are the chances of that happening accidentally, unless Ukraine has a serious Nazi problem?

The other thing we always hear is that Ukraine cannot possibly have a Nazi problem, because their President Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish. Well, watch the video again. See what the Jewish president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, does when the Canadian head of parliament introduces a World War II veteran who was fighting the Russians. Let’s watch his reaction:

Standing and clapping for a literal Nazi. So if you want to know how Ukraine can have a Jewish president and the country still be completely infested past and present by Nazis that is exactly how; because of the profound ignorance and apathy running across the entirety of the West and their Ukrainian proxies.

As the Morning Star concludes its report:

Following the incorporation of openly neonazi units like the Azov and Aidar battalions into the Ukrainian military, the incident underlines the way the war is being used to rewrite history and rehabilitate fascist collaborators while depicting the Soviet Union as the aggressor in World War II.

Monuments to the Red Army, in which millions of Ukrainians fought against Nazism, have been torn down in Ukraine as well as in other eastern European states including Latvia, Bulgaria and Poland.

Speaking to the Morning Star last year, former East German leader Egon Krenz argued that rightwingers across Europe were using the passing of the last generation that fought in World War II to “erase the popular memory” of the Soviet role in liberating Europe and “assert that everything about European socialism was illegitimate.”

Yaroslav Hunka’s invitation to the Canadian Parliament was no mere accident. The ovation that he received was no accident either. Doubtless, many of the MPs cheering him to the rafters did so through outright ignorance and in sheep-like acquiescence. For this is the only defence any of them can have and it is a wretched defence. By contrast, the pitiable Zelensky (and let us not forget, he is a Jew) cannot offer up even this much of a pathetic excuse to his own defence.

Support David Miller: fired by Bristol University for resisting Israel’s assault on free speech

Update:

On October 11^th, Labour Campaign for Free Speech organised an online meeting to discuss the background to Prof. David Miller’s sacking and how to resist the ongoing Zionist campaign to restrict free speech and academic freedom.

David Miller spoke first, and other speakers included Jewish mathematician, philosopher and socialist activist, Moshé Machover; pro-Palestinian activist, Natalie Strecker, who served as a human rights monitor in Hebron in 2018; rapper and political activist, Lowkey; doctor of medicine, author and academic, Dr Ghada Karmi; and British student, activist and writer with Palestinian and Iraqi heritage, Huda Ammori, who is co-founder of the solidarity group Palestine Action.

Lowkey’s contribution is so well-informed and powerfully expressed that I have cued the video to begin there, however, the discussion is excellent throughout (although there are audio problems in some parts) but in particular I also direct readers to listen to David Miller’s introduction, Huda Ammori’s call for direct action [from 58 mins] and Natalie Strecker’s [from 24 mins] courageous defiance of Labour’s adoption of the IHRA definition of anti-semitism which conflates Judaism with Zionism in assuming that all Jews are Zionists, and that the state of Israel in its current reality embodies the self-determination of all Jews:

*

The University of Bristol has fired Professor David Miller, a leading UK critic of Israel and its lobby.

After a years-long campaign of smears by that same lobby, the university said on Friday [Oct 1^st] that, “Professor David Miller is no longer employed by the University of Bristol.”

The statement said only that Miller “did not meet the standards of behavior we expect from our staff,” though it did not elaborate.

Miller told The Electronic Intifada he would be appealing and “fighting it all the way.”

From a report written by Asa Winstanley, published by The Electronic Intifada.

It continues:

The university said in its statement that Miller “has a right of internal appeal which he may choose to exercise and nothing in this statement should be taken to prejudge that.”

The university “does not intend to make any further public comment at this time,” it said.

Bristol University further claimed that it was committed to an environment preserving “academic freedom.” But in what seemed a Freudian slip, it also said that “we take any risk to stifle that freedom seriously.”

Adding:

A who’s who of right-wing figures, anti-Palestinian activists and Israel lobbyists made a massive effort to push for Miller to be fired, with even British politicians piling on. […]

These included the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Zionist Federation, the Jewish Labour Movement and the Community Security Trust.

At the end of February, Israel itself also got involved, mobilizing one of its online troll armies to flood social media conversations with calls for Miller to be fired.

Act.IL – which is directed and funded by an Israeli ministry – issued a mission calling for attacks on an opinion piece published by Al Jazeera defending Miller.

However, David Miller has also received a great deal of support including statements of solidarity from filmmaker Ken Loach and comedian Alexei Sayle and many hundreds of academics and relevant others including Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappé, Norman Finkelstein, Ronnie Kasrils and John Pilger who have signed an open letter of support which is reprinted in full below.

On February 20^th, Miller wrote in a piece for The Electronic Intifada that:

Britain is in the grip of an assault on its public sphere by the state of Israel and its advocates.

Meaningful conversations about anti-Black racism and Islamophobia have been drowned out by a concerted lobbying campaign targeting universities, political parties, the equalities regulator and public institutions all over the country.

Earlier this month, the newly elected secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, Zara Mohammed, was set upon by two of the most energetic Zionist campaigners in British public life (Laura Marks and BBC presenter Emma Barnett) within days of taking up her position.

This month American commentator Nathan J. Robinson revealed how The Guardian fired him as a columnist for a mere tweet referencing US military aid to Israel.

At the same time, the celebrated film director Ken Loach was smeared by Israel lobby groups such as the Board of Deputies of British Jews, who attempted to prevent him speaking to students at the Oxford college where he studied.

And this week, Israel’s lobby in Britain has trained its guns on me.

Adding:

In February 2019, I delivered a lecture for a course I teach at Bristol explaining the five pillars theory of Islamophobia.

The theory details the mechanisms by which certain states, far-right movements, the neoconservative movement, the Zionist movement and the liberal New Atheist movement promote Islamophobia.

Within weeks, the pro-Israel Community Security Trust complained to Bristol university about the inclusion of the Zionist movement in my teaching.

This was followed by a complaint to university authorities against me drafted by the Union of Jewish Students, a group revealed in an undercover Al Jazeera investigation to be funded by the Israeli embassy in London.

And concluding:

There can be no doubt, too, about the threat Israel’s campaign of censorship poses to Arab and Muslim students, who are silenced from expressing how the racism that targets them actually works.

Bristol university has seen several shocking racist incidents unfold in recent years, including far-right posters plastered over its campus and an event co-hosted by the Zionist Pinsker Centre at which the guest speakers included the proudly Islamophobic former British army colonel, Richard Kemp.

Also speaking was Yossi Kuperwasser, the former “head of research” of Israeli military intelligence and former director general of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, the department in charge of overseeing manufactured anti-Semitism allegations internationally and of targeting pro-Palestinian activists around the world.

The Israel lobby’s attack on me lays bare what is actually going on – a weaponization of bogus anti-Semitism claims to shut down and manipulate discussion of Islamophobia.

But the lobby’s tactics are only so effective because they are rarely challenged. It is time for those who are concerned about Islamophobia, racism and academic freedom to make their voices heard.

Click here to read David Miller’s full article entitled “We must resist Israel’s war on British universities” published by The Electronic Intifada on February 20^th.

And here to read Asa Winstanley’s full article published by The Electronic Intifada on October 1^st.

*

Additional: Educators and researchers in support of Professor Miller

Public intellectuals, educators and researchers speak out against the censorship campaign targeted at Bristol’s David Miller

Professor Hugh Brady

President and Vice-Chancellor

University of Bristol

Re: Academic freedom and the harassment and victimisation of Professor David Miller

Dear Professor Brady,

We wish to express our serious concerns about the unrelenting and concerted efforts to publicly vilify our colleague Professor David Miller.

Professor Miller is an eminent scholar. He is known internationally for exposing the role that powerful actors and well-resourced, co-ordinated networks play in manipulating and stage-managing public debates, including on racism. The impact of his research on the manipulation of narratives by lobby groups has been crucial to deepening public knowledge and discourse in this area.

The attacks on Professor Miller stem from a lecture on Islamophobia that he gave to students at the University of Bristol two years ago. In the most recent instance of this harassment, Professor Miller was approached to provide a statement on Israel-Palestine. When he responded honestly to the query, well-orchestrated efforts were made to misrepresent these responses as evidence of anti-Semitism. A call was then made to the University of Bristol to deprive him of his employment.

We oppose anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and all forms of racism. We also oppose false allegations and the weaponisation of the positive impulses of anti-racism so as to silence anti-racist debate. We do so because such vilification has little to do with defeating the harms caused by racism. Instead, efforts to target, isolate and purge individuals in this manner are aimed at deterring evidence-based research, teaching and debate.

Prolonged harassment of a highly-regarded scholar and attempts to denigrate a lifetime’s scholarship cause significant distress to the individual. Such treatment also has a broader pernicious effect on scholarship and well-informed public discourse. It creates a culture of self-censorship and fear in the wider academic community. Instead of free and open debate, an intimidatory context is created and this can be particularly worrying for those who do not hold positions of seniority, influence or stable employment, particularly in times of job uncertainty and in a sector with high levels of casualised employment. As a result, important scholarship is omitted, and this curtails the public’s and students’ right to learn and to engage in thoughtful debate.

At a time when the Black Lives Matter movement has reinvigorated public consciousness about the structural factors entrenching racism, attempts to stifle discourse on Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism are particularly regressive and inconsistent with the values the University of Bristol espouses.

As public intellectuals and academics, we feel duty-bound to express our solidarity with Professor Miller and to oppose such efforts to crush academic freedom. Given your roles within the University and your responsibilities to the wider academic community, we urge you to vigorously defend the principle of academic freedom and the rights to free speech and to evidence-based & research-informed public discourse. We hope that you will uphold the integrity of academic debate.

cc:

Professor Simon Tormey, Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences and Law

Professor Sarah Purdy, Pro VC (Student Experience) 

Professor Tansy Jessop, Pro VC (Education) 

Professor Judith Squires, Provost 

Mr Jack Boyer, Chair, Board of Trustees 

Dr Moira Hamlin, Vice-Chair, Board of Trustees

Ms Jane Bridgwater, Director of Legal Services 

Yours truly

Professor Noam Chomsky, University of Arizona, Linguistics

Dr Ahdaf Soueif, Writer and Retired Professor in English at Cairo University 

Professor Sami Al-Arian, Istanbul Zaim University, Director, Center for Islam and Global Affairs

Professor Ilan Pappé, University of Exeter, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies

Mr John Pilger, Journalist, Author and Filmmaker

Dr Norman G Finkelstein, Political Scientist and Author

Mr Ronnie Kasrils, Author and Former South African Government Minister (1994-2008)

Dr François Burgat, Emeritus Senior Research Fellow at French National Centre for Scientific Research

Professor Deepa Kumar, Rutgers University, Communication and Information

Dr Françoise Vergès, Political Scientist, Historian and Feminist

Professor Emeritus Seamus Deane, University of Notre Dame

Mr Sami Ramadani, London Metropolitan University, Social Sciences (Retired)

Professor Peter Kennard, Royal College of Art, Photography

Professor Salman Sayyid, University of Leeds, Sociology and Social Policy

Professor Augustine John, Coventry University, Office of Teaching & Learning

Professor Emeritus Joseph Oesterlé, Sorbonne University, Paris, Mathematics

Professor Ad Putter, University of Bristol

Professor Alf Nilsen, University of Pretoria, Sociology

Professor Aeron Davis, Victoria University of Wellington, Political Science and International Relations

Professor Ali Rattansi, City, University of London, Sociology

Professor Anand Pillay, University of Notre Dame, Mathematics

Professor Andreas Bieler, University of Nottingham, Politics and International Relations

Professor Anna Gilmore, University of Bath, Health

Professor Bryan McGovern, Kennesaw State University, History

Professor Cahal McLaughlin, Queen’s University Belfast, School of Arts, English and Languages

Professor Chris Knight, University College London, Anthropology

Professor Craig Brandist, University of Sheffield, Languages and Cultures

Professor Cyra Choudhury, Florida International University, Law

Professor Daniel Boyarin, University of California at Berkeley, Near Eastern Studies and Rhetoric

Professor Daniel Broudy, Okinawa Christian University, Rhetoric and Applied Linguistics

Professor David H. Price, St Martin’s University, Society and Social Justice

Professor David Randall Roediger, University of Kansas, American Studies

Professor David Whyte, University of Liverpool, Sociology 

Professor Des Freedman, Goldsmiths, University of London, MCCS

Professor Elizabeth Poole, University of Keele, Humanities

Professor Eshragh Motahar, Union College, Schenectady NY, Economics 

Professor Frank García Hernández, Juan Marinello Cuban Institute for Cultural Research

Professor Hagit Borer, QMUL, Fellow of the British Academy

Professor Haim Bresheeth-Zabner, SOAS, Palestine Studies Centre

Professor Hamish Cunningham, University of Sheffield, Computer Science

Professor Hans Klein, Georgia Institute of Technology, Public Policy 

Professor Harry Hemingway, UCL, Institute of Health Informatics

Professor Hatem Bazian, Zaytuna College and University of California, Berkeley, Islamic Law and Theology 

Professor Helen Colhoun, University of Edinburgh, IGMM 

Professor Iain Munro, Newcastle University, Business

Professor Iftikhar H. Malik, Bath Spa University, History 

Professor Izzat Darwazeh, University College London, Engineering

Professor James Dickins, University of Leeds, Languages, Cultures and Societies

Professor Jane Wheelock, Newcastle University, Geography, Politics and Sociology

Professor Janet C.E. Watson, University of Leeds, Languages, Cultures and Societies

Professor Jared Ball, Morgan State University

Professor Jawed IA Siddiqi, Sheffield Hallam University, Computing

Professor Jeff Goodwin, New York University, Sociology 

Professor Jeremy Keenan, Queen Mary University London, Law

Professor John Parkinson, Maastricht University, Philosophy

Professor John Womack Jr, Harvard University, History 

Professor Julia O’Connell Davidson, University of Bristol, Sociology, Politics and International Studies 

Professor Julian Petley, Brunel University London, Social Sciences

Professor Julian Williams, University of Manchester, Education

Professor Kate Alexander, University of Johannesburg, South African Research Chair in Social Change

Professor Kevin O’Neill, Boston College, History

Professor Mario Novelli, University of Sussex, Education

Professor Maurice L. Wade, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, Philosophy

Professor Megan Povey, University of Leeds, Food Science and Nutrition

Professor Michael Rowlinson, University of Exeter, Business

Professor Michael Wayne, Brunel University London, Media

Professor Miguel Martinez Lucio, University of Manchester, Humanities 

Professor Mohan Dutta, Massey University, Culture-Centered Approach to Research & Evaluation

Professor Mujahid Kamran, Former Vice-Chancellor of Punjab University

Professor Nacira Guénif, University of Paris VIII, Education Sciences

Professor Natalie Fenton, Goldsmiths, Media, Communications and Cultural Studies

Professor Nigel Patrick Thomas, University of Central Lancashire, Social Work, Care and Community

Professor Patrick Bond, University of the Western Cape, Government

Professor Paul McKeigue, University of Edinburgh, Medicine and Veterinary Medicine

Professor Penny Green, QMUL, Law

Professor Pilar Garrido Clemente, Murcia University, Arabic and Islamic Studies

Professor Rafik Beekun, University of Nevada, Management and Strategy

Professor Ray Bush, University of Leeds POLIS 

Professor Richard Jackson, University of Otago, New Zealand, National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies

Professor Salim Vally, University of Johannesburg, Education

Professor Sam Ashman, University of Johannesburg, Economics

Professor Sandra Eldridge, QMUL, Institute of Population Health Sciences

Professor Saoirse Nic Gabhainn, National University of Ireland Galway, Health Promotion

Professor Schneur Zalman, Newfield CUNY, Social Sciences

Professor Siobhan Wills, Ulster University, Law

Professor Steve Tombs, The Open University, Social Policy and Criminology

Professor Susan Newman, The Open University, Economics

Professor Tariq Modood, University of Bristol, Sociology, Politics and International Studies

Professor Tim Hayward, University of Edinburgh, Social and Political Science

Professor T. J. Demos, UC Santa Cruz, History of Art and Visual Culture

Professor Tom Cockburn, Edge Hill University, Social Sciences

Professor Yosefa Loshitzky, SOAS, University of London, Media Studies

Professor Emeritus Alex Callinicos, King’s College London

Professor Emerita Avery F Gordon, UC Santa Barbara, Sociology

Professor Emeritus Bill Rolston, Ulster University, Transitional Justice Institute

Professor Emeritus Chris Roberts, University of Manchester, Health Science

Professor Emeritus Colin Green, University College London, Surgery and Interventional Sciences

Professor Emeritus Colin Webster, Leeds Beckett University, Social Sciences 

Professor Emeritus Daniel Cornford, San Jose State University, History

Professor Emeritus David Emmons, University of Montana, History

Professor Emeritus David Moshman, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Educational Psychology

Professor Emeritus Dennis Leech, University of Warwick, Economics

Professor Emeritus G Rex Smith, University of Manchester, History

Professor Emeritus Hartmut Logemann, University of Bath, Mathematical Sciences

Professor Emeritus Henry Maitles, University of the West of Scotland, Education and Social Sciences

Professor Emeritus Jennifer Birkett, University of Birmingham, Modern Languages

Professor Emeritus John Marriott, University of Oxford, History

Professor Emeritus Kerby Miller, University of Missouri, History

Professor Emeritus Laurence Dreyfus, University of Oxford, Faculty of Music

Professor Emeritus Leslie Sklair, London School of Economics, Sociology

Professor Emeritus Mark Duffield University of Bristol, School of Politics and International Studies

Professor Emeritus Mike Gonzalez, University of Glasgow, Latin American Studies

Professor Emeritus Mike Tomlinson, Queen’s University Belfast, Social Sciences, Education and Social Work

Professor Emeritus Moshé Machover, King’s College London, Philosophy (Retired)

Professor Emeritus Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Bowling Green State University, Journalism and Public Relations

Professor Emeritus Paddy Hillyard, Queen’s University Belfast, Sociology

Professor Emeritus Patrick Williams, Nottingham Trent University, Media and Cultural Studies

Professor Emeritus Phil Scraton, Queen’s University Belfast, School of Law

Professor Emeritus Stan Smith, Nottingham Trent University, English

Professor Emeritus Timothy Gorringe, University of Exeter, Theology

Professor Emeritus Vivien Walsh, University of Manchester, Innovation Research

Professor Emeritus William Nolan, University College Dublin, Geography

Adjunct Professor Matthew MacLellan, Mount Saint Vincent University

Associate Professor Anthony J Langlois, Flinders University, Business, Government and Law

Associate Professor Claire Blencowe, University of Warwick, Sociology

Associate Professor Issam Aburaya, Seton Hall University, Religion

Associate Professor Jesús David Rojas Hernández, Universidad Nacional Experimental Simón Rodríguez

Associate Professor Mark Taylor, University of Queensland, Modern Languages

Associate Professor Yusuf Ahmad, University of the West of Bristol England (Retired)

Assistant Professor Tim Kelly, Coventry University, English

Honorary Professor Iain Ferguson, University of the West of Scotland

Former Honorary Visiting Professor Roy Greenslade, City, University of London, Journalism

Click here to read the original letter with the complete list of signatories.

And here to add your own name to support David Miller

Norman Finkelstein on why HRW finally turned their back to “the lunatic state” of Israel

The title of the Human Rights Watch report is “A Threshold Crossed”. The paradox there is the threshold was not crossed by Israel – like you say, this is all old news – the threshold was crossed by Human Rights Watch. They crossed the threshold. They now were looking square in the face without any extenuations, any qualifications, any caveats; they said Israel is based on Jewish domination… I mean I can barely say that.

I have a small public career denouncing Human Rights Watch – many of the chapters in many of my books are devoted to denouncing its whitewashing of Israel… Who would have thought the day would come to pass that Human Rights Watch would make us look like milquetoast? Taking positions that frankly I’ve not taken publicly – I was of a school of let’s just resolve this: let’s end the occupation and let’s move on; but now the terms are changing. [from 44:00 mins]

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On Monday 10^th, BBC Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis interviewed Palestinian Ambassador to UK, Husom Zomlot, who eloquently called out the western media’s consistent downplaying of Israel’s settler colonial oppression as just its inevitable response to a cycle of violence sparked by Palestinians:

And here is Palestinian writer Mohammed El-Kurd from Sheikh Jarrah responding to CNN anchor in a clip that went viral:

Here’s the first part of the interview. There framing was problematic and inaccurate, so I pitched in. pic.twitter.com/9N6xWMBvRY

— Mohammed El-Kurd (@m7mdkurd) May 11, 2021

As the liberal media does its level best to misrepresent the ongoing Israeli attacks on Palestinians as “clashes”, feigning equivalence between Palestinian stones and ‘rockets’ to the routine brutality of Israel’s military occupation and its “mowing the grass” with renewed airstrikes and bombing of Gaza, on Tuesday night [May 11^th] political commentator Katie Halper invited Jewish American scholar Norman Finkelstein to speak about the protests in East Jerusalem and more widely across the Occupied Palestinian Territories, lending his own perspective on both the current and historical context for the violence. The full interview is embedded below alongside my own transcripts with relevant links provided – all the quotes (including the one above) are Norman Finkelstein:

I’ll tell you something that is a kind of a paradox; an irony. I’m not passing judgment now; I’m just going to lay out a picture. From 1967, Israel’s occupation, and especially beginning in the early 1970s, Israel’s existence as a Jewish state ceased to be called into question. The international consensus was: Israel, for better or for worse, it exists; it’s a state; if it wants its Jewish majority, it can have its Jewish majority, and it can carry on however it wants internally. And then the issue was just [what to do about] the occupied Palestinian territories.

Had the Israelis not been so arrogant; had they not been so supremacist, so contemptuous of the Palestinians; had they just calculated their own best interest; they would have settled for the two states and said let’s move on. But their arrogance, their Jewish supremacy, that impulse for Jewish domination – the cheapness to which they reduced Palestinian life – that had a paradoxical consequence. And what was the consequence? The consequence was that now their whole legitimacy is being challenged.

When it first came up in 1975 with the “Zionism is racism” resolution at the UN. When it first came up the western states, and in particular the United States, had expressed its outrage, its indignation: how dare you say Israel’s a racist state? How dare you say Israel is an apartheid state? You probably remember the American official – I won’t call him ‘a statesman’ – Daniel Patrick Moynihan [who] made his whole reputation by sitting in the United Nations… holding up his hand, giving his no vote to that resolution. And that launched his career…

Here’s the irony: what Moynihan is objecting to now that ‘Zionism is racism’ resolution at the UN. Guess what? You now open up B’Tselem’s report, you open up Human Rights Watch report, and what did they say? The Israeli state is based on Jewish Supremacy and Jewish domination. Now isn’t that an irony? That’s what the reports are now saying. Exactly what launched Daniel Moynihan’s career was denouncing that claim, as did the whole of the western states and the American media in particular. That position, ‘Zionism is racism’ – Israel as a Jewish Supremacist state based on Jewish domination – that notion has now been legitimised.

From an historical point of view it’s a real irony, because to use simple language ‘they could have gotten away with it’. The international community was willing to accept Israel as it was, even though they knew the land had been and was still being relentlessly confiscated. They knew there were Palestinian refugees who were denied the right to return to their homeland. Everybody knew that. But, the international community turned its head away, and said let’s just forget about that, let’s just resolve the conflict: two states: Palestinian state, Israeli state; and let’s move on. [But] they didn’t want to move on. They wanted to have everything. And now everything is being called into question. Everything! [from 37:00 mins]

*

The text below is also a partial transcript of Norman Finkelstein’s conversation with Katie Halper.

Let me just map out broadly what I see happening. First is the headline news, which is the explosion in East Jerusalem. Which was a long time coming. There have been intimations for the last few weeks or more that Israel’s expulsions of families in East Jerusalem were at some point going to climax in a clash. And that happened this past week. You can never predict when they’re going to happen, but obviously a breaking point had been reached.

That’s the political aspect – the facts on the ground – and that’s what’s right now garnering all the headlines. But there’s another aspect to this conflict which has been getting some but not equal media attention. And that is the quite dramatic and one might say a turning point in the Israel-Palestine conflict at the legal, at the moral, and at the public opinion level. A collapse of all three: legal, moral, public opinion level. And for some of your listeners it’s particularly revealing of what’s happening in the American-Jewish community.

Now, let me try to just back-up and put things in context. First the major development. The major development is the past week Human Rights Watch, which as you know is the leading human rights organisation in the world. It’s the most prominent, the most influential, the most well-endowed. And I would also say – because it’s pertinent to what I’ll be saying in this evening’s conversation – it’s also the most centrist. The most mainstream of the human rights organisations.

And this past week Human Rights Watch put out a very substantial report. It ran to 214 pages, and it had a voluminous scholarly apparatus, which is the fancy way of saying that it was exhaustively and comprehensively researched. It’s an impressive piece of work. And it had many dramatic things to say. The title of the report is “A Threshold Crossed”, and before I get to that threshold crossed, I want to just back-up a moment and set it in context.

The context is that since roughly 2009, Palestinians and their supporters have been trying to bring a case against Israel before the International Criminal Court [ICC], and these were very protracted proceedings and they frankly seemed as if they were getting nowhere. There were two cases brought before the court. One was after many, many years finally dismissed by the Chief Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda – that was the subject of [Finkelstein’s] book I accuse – it was an attack on the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda; and then there was a second case brought before the court. The second case was also dragging and dragging and dragging, and it looked as if was going to die out. However, this past year for reasons which I won’t go into now, the court finally decided it’s proceeding with an investigation into Israeli war crimes against Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as Gaza.

Now one hurdle had been cleared to pursue this investigation, but there were still many other hurdles to be cleared. I myself having followed the case very closely and studied it, I was very sceptical the Palestinians would be able to clear the next hurdles. There are a lot of legal technicalities that would have enabled the court to kill the case. And I didn’t think [the Palestinians] would be able to prevail.

But then, lo and behold, about three months ago, the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem, which is the main Israeli human rights organisation monitoring Israeli crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories, they came out with what one might call an astonishing position paper. And I’m just going to read you the title. I’m not going to belabour you with the text; just the title: “A Regime of Jewish Supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is Apartheid.”

Now there are three notable things about that title:

Number one. They use a very incendiary phrase. The phrase is “Jewish Supremacy”. Obviously for an American ear that sounds an awful lot like ‘White Supremacy’. Jewish Supremacy: there’s not even a flea’s hop separating the two. So to a public which has been – mostly because of the Black Lives Matter movement – very much sensitised to issues of White Supremacy and White domination – it was, as I said, an incendiary phrase.

Secondly, usually in discussions of the Israel-Palestine conflict there’s Israel here and the Occupied Palestinian Territories there. Israel’s legitimacy is more or less accepted. The point of contention is the state and future of the occupied Palestinian territories. B’Tselem did something new. It said we’re no longer talking about Israel here, Occupied Palestinian Territories there; there’s just one state now. We have to be honest about it. There’s just one state between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, and that one state is Israel. And that one state is a Jewish Supremacist state. As the report goes on to say: this state’s foundation is Jewish Supremacy.

And then it takes the next step and says “this is an apartheid state”. Well, that crossed several red lines. Number one: it no longer acknowledged the legitimacy of the State of Israel. The point of contention was no longer just the occupied Palestinian territories; it’s the whole thing. And number two: they compared it to apartheid, and for Israel’s supporters that’s been a bogie: you can’t compare it to apartheid.

So frankly speaking – candidly – I was shocked. I was very surprised at what they did. They have a new leadership; the fellow who heads the executive is named Hagai El-Ad – he’s a very unusual figure. I don’t know him personally. I have never had personal contact – not from a want of trying from me, but we’ve never had contact. He’s a Harvard PhD in Physics and he apparently set aside his professional attainments and he now heads up B’Tselem. And he’s a remarkably principled and forthright person. There is one quite amusing exchange between him and [former] Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon at the United Nations. It’s a real sight to behold. And frankly I personally thought – and still think – he has gone so far out on a limb that there’s probably a good chance he will be assassinated. [from 2:45 mins]

Here is Hagai El-Ad, the director of Israeli non-profit organisation B’Tselem slamming the Israeli occupation’s crimes and violations during a UN Security Council session held in October 2018:

The response of Israeli Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Danny Danon, was to say “Shame on you, collaborator:

[B’Tselem] is the main Israeli human rights organisation monitoring Israeli crimes and abuses – I don’t like the word abuses I prefer the word crimes – Israeli crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories. It’s very reputable. It’s won many awards, and I think it’s fair to say no-one has seriously disputed the quality or the accuracy of its research. So it’s a formidable organisation in terms of its persuasive power. It has a good track-record for its accuracy.

Now the Human Rights Watch report is as astonishing as the B’Tselem report but in a different way. First of all, the Human Rights Watch report says, not that Israel has established a regime of ‘Jewish Supremacy’ across the board from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean; they say something slightly different, but equally incendiary. They say Israel has established across the board from the Mediterranean to the Jordan (Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories); they have established a regime – I’ll use their words now – ‘a regime of Jewish domination over and against the Palestinian people’.

And they say, that in the occupied territories, Israel has established – or Israel engages in – the crime of apartheid and the crime of persecution, and that these two crimes constitute under international law crimes against humanity, which according to Human Rights Watch, quoting some statutes, they say these are among the most odious – ODIOUS – crimes in international law.

And they say, that the ICC should not limit itself to investigating Israeli war crimes, but should go to the next step and investigate Israeli crimes against humanity. So it’s already taken what you might call ‘out on a limb’ positions – I’ll get back to that in a moment – the other thing that it does which was a total surprise to me (and I’m not saying these things for their theatrical or emotive effect – I’m being quite sincere and candid with you – I’ve studied this conflict since 1982 when Israel invaded Lebanon which eventually became the subject of my doctoral dissertation and so I’m pretty inured to events in the Israel-Palestine conflict – I kind of think I’ve seen it all) but some things are happening which are very surprising. It’s the 1960s song that I grew up with: ‘There’s Something Happening Here’. There is: something is happening – there’s no doubt about it.

Because the Human Rights Watch report doesn’t just stick to the present: what is the situation now; what has been the situation in the past ten or twenty years. The B’Tselem report is basically a description of the present. The Human Rights Watch report – I’m not exaggerating, believe me I don’t exaggerate; I’m very careful about staying true to the facts – it goes all the way back to Israel’s establishment in 1948 – it even goes back to 1947. And it says, from the beginning, Israel, in order to create this Jewish state – the Zionist movement and then the State of Israel – they tried to do two things.

Number one – I’m using their words now – they tried to engineer a Jewish majority in Israel. Because for the founders of the State of Israel, a Jewish state could not be a Jewish state unless there was a Jewish majority, and so they wanted to engineer that Jewish majority. Well there was only one way to engineer a Jewish majority; you had to expel the indigenous population. There’s no other way to do it. And so Human Rights Watch… delegitimises the notion of a Jewish majority, because it says in order to create that Jewish majority, it could only be created at the expense of the Palestinians. And so it says this creation of a Jewish majority state was intrinsically at the expense of – or discriminating against – the Palestinian population.

The second pillar of the Jewish State objective was the confiscation of the land, because the land was owned by Palestinians; they didn’t live there. When Israel was created only 6% of the land in Palestine was owned by Jews. So they describe in searing detail – even though I know that’s a kind of catchphrase – this juggernaut, this maw, which is gobbling up the Palestinian land; dispossessing the Palestinians of their land. And to the point of creating the Jewish majority, 90% of the indigenous population was expelled; about 750,000 Palestinians. Now, with their descendants, Human Rights Watch gives a figure of 5.7 million Palestinian refugees.

And then on the other end, they say that Israel controls 93% of the land – its state owned land – and that 93% is earmarked only for Jews. Palestinians constitute 19% of the population of the State of Israel (about 1.6 million people) and they are confined to about 3% of the land.

To cut to the chase and to make a long story a little bit shorter, the effect is… and I’m not quite sure if Human Rights Watch is really aware of what they are doing – honestly I’m not sure – but the long and the short of the report is that it completely delegitimises the idea of a Jewish state. [from 13:55 mins]

What’s happening now in East Jerusalem, when you read the Human Rights Watch report, you see it as part of this juggernaut that began in 1947; this relentless, heartless, confiscation of Palestinian land. They just don’t stop – you know the expression: the hunger increases with the eating. The more they consume that land, the more they want more and more and more.

And so after reading the report, you see what’s happening in East Jerusalem in Sheikh Jarrah, you just see it as one more step in this long trajectory, this relentless, heartless juggernaut – this maw – of stealing the land from those hopeless, helpless and hapless people. That’s one point.

The second point I would make is where I left off a few moments ago. Human Rights Watch is a mainstream organisation. It’s not a radical organisation… They watch NPR, they listen to the NPR, they read The New York Times, in their leisure they read The New Yorker, they probably subscribe to the New York Review of Books, probably a few subscribe to the London Review of Books – they’re very mainstream, very conventional. They’re also very Jewish. Kenneth Roth, the Executive Director – this is the mainstream of the progressive and centrist Jewish community. And they’re very dependent on Jewish donors. They received a humungous donation from George Soros – a spectacular number [precisely: $100 million].

And so they must be very sensitive to how far they can go on the Israel-Palestine conflict before they lose their donors and they lose their constituency, which tells me that having done the calculations they reached the conclusion that their donors and their constituency were ready, were prepared, could digest a human rights report issued by HRW which not only condemns Israeli policy in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and describes this policy as the crime of “apartheid”, the crime of “persecution”, and those two crimes – apartheid and persecution – are crimes against humanity under international law, which as they say constitute among the most “odious crimes in international law” – they went not only that far, but they described the whole regime from the Jordan to the Mediterranean as one based on “Jewish domination”, which as I’m sure you recognise is only a flea’s hop from saying ‘Jewish Supremacy’ – these are pretty much synonymous – and what’s most revelatory they said all this on the assumption (in my opinion) that they wouldn’t lose their Jewish constituency. […]

The bottom line is, henceforth the paradigm is no longer Israel here and Occupied Palestinian Territories there: Israel, for better or for worse, we accept it as it is; Occupied Palestinian Territories we don’t accept, the occupation has to end and a Palestinian state has to be created. That was the paradigm up until now. Now, the whole legitimacy of the State of Israel as a Jewish state has been called into question. [from 24:10 mins]

As you probably know there’s been a huge amount of contention on college campuses over this annual event called “Israel Apartheid Week” which unfolds annually on many college campuses. And up until now, the Israeli organisations and their supporters have said that it’s antisemitic – it hurts the Jews and makes Jews feel scared, and all this politically correct nonsense [is used] in order to try and suppress the Israel Apartheid Week. Well, guess what happened? In the past three months, the most important human rights organisation in Israel and the most important human rights organisation in the world, they said: but it is apartheid. And they just legitimised Israel Apartheid Week. How can the Israelis answer that now and their supporters? You want to suppress a term, ‘apartheid’, that’s been appropriated now by Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem?

So I think this is a major setback for Israel’s apologists. I think they’re probably now in a panic mode. And I think that events like what happening now in East Jerusalem will no longer be seen in isolation. When you read the Human Rights Watch report you see it now as a momentary flashpoint in a long trajectory. […]

The [main] flashpoint is in East Jerusalem, however, Palestinians in Haifa, Palestinians in Nazareth, they’re all joining in; Palestinians in the West Bank are joining in; Palestinians in Gaza via the so-called ‘rockets’, they’re joining in. And so you kind of see a manifestation of what the report described. Because both reports talked about from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, meaning it’s about all Palestinians and all Israelis…. and so for the moment it seems it is becoming a struggle no longer confined to the occupied Palestinian territories, or confined to Gaza, as was the Great March of Return beginning in March 2018, or confined to the West Bank; it’s now spreading among all Palestinians. I think that’s a significant development.

It’s possible that all the terms for understanding the conflict and resolving the conflict – those terms are now being called into question and they may be recast in a new form, which I think is going to be a real problem for the State of Israel. [from 32:15 mins]

I don’t want to be polyannish about this but I don’t think {Israel and its apologists] are going to be as successful anymore. We saw a video of them dancing and singing as the fire blazes on Al-Aqsa… they were all wearing Jewish yarmulkes… It was actually quite hideous.

Video shows Israelis dancing and celebrating the burning of the Al-Aqsa Mosque – the third most holy Islamic site in the world [the same footage can be viewed in the Katie Halper show at 1:07:15]:

If you were to imagine in a neighbourhood like where I live in Ocean Parkway [Brooklyn, NY] where there’s about two synagogues in every block, of Muslims gathered around the synagogue while the synagogue is on fire, and they’re cheering. [from 1:02:25]

If you go back and listen to the interviews (not that you’re obliged to of course) I’ve done in the last few years, I’ve said: “it’s a lunatic state”. And you see now the lunacy is being played out, maybe not in The New York Times and maybe not in the New Yorker and maybe not in the New York Review of Books or The Atlantic magazine, but enough people will see it. It’s a cliché but it’s true: the democratising effect of the web. They’re not going to be able to hide this…

I don’t want to be too polyannish but in my opinion Israel’s in for a rough ride now. Too much is known. Too many people are alienated. Too many people disgusted. There is a sea-change occurring. [from 1:07:55]

We should acknowledge when there have been victories and what has now been said [in these reports] constitutes a major victory. And from my point of view, what’s equally important: it’s going to give Israel a very hard time now. [from 1:13:10]

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Last night’s Novara Media also devoted its main segment to Palestinian protests in the occupied territories and the latest bombardment of Gaza by Israel. Host Michael Walker welcomed Riya Al’Sanah who is a Palestinian activist and writer based in Haifa:

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Additional: Palestinian solidarity protests across Britain

On Saturday 15^th, there are events planned to take place across the country calling for an end to Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, and for the right of return for all exiled Palestinians.

Protests are being organised around the country by Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War Coalition, Friends of al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain and Muslim Association of Britain.

SATURDAY 15th MAY 2021 #SaveSheikhJarrah #FreePalestine #FreeGaza Protests:

Aberdeen, Marischal Square, 2pm – https://www.facebook.com/events/579816402984185/

Brighton, The Clocktower, 12pm

Bristol, Castle Park, 2pm – https://www.facebook.com/events/210502050657881/

Canterbury, HSBC Bank, Whitefriars, 9 Rose Lane, Canterbury CT1 2JP, 1pm – https://www.facebook.com/events/307828627519700

Cambridge, Market Square, 11.15am – https://www.facebook.com/groups/cambridgepalestineforum

Cardiff, Aneurin Bevan Statue, 12pm – https://www.facebook.com/events/4560945557267377

Edinburgh, Regent Road Park, 12pm – https://www.facebook.com/events/372506180780931

Exeter, Bedford Square, 12pm – https://www.facebook.com/events/306515077708621

Hastings, Near Debenhams, 12pm – https://www.facebook.com/events/1183922488708042/

Hitchin, Windmill Hill, 11am – https://www.facebook.com/events/284046986748935/

Inverness, Town House, 12-1pm – https://www.facebook.com/HighlandPalestine

Jersey, Royal Square, 11am – https://www.facebook.com/events/580129649570440/

Leeds, Leeds Trinity Briggate (Area outside Zara/Debenhams), 2pm – https://www.facebook.com/LeedsPSC.org.uk

London, March to the Israeli Embassy, Assemble Marble Arch, 1pm – https://www.facebook.com/events/464271897978862

Machynlleth, The Clock Tower, 11am-12pm – https://www.facebook.com/events/208833754148964

Manchester, Platt’s Field Park, Rusholme, 12pm-4pm – https://www.facebook.com/events/373982893940589/

Newcastle, Grey’s Monument, 11.30am – https://www.facebook.com/events/463362151414611

Nottingham, Old Market Square, 12pm – https://www.facebook.com/events/833822114155903/

Plymouth, New George Street, 11am-1pm  – https://www.facebook.com/events/323519439242407/

Sheffield, Sheffield Town Hall, 12pm – https://www.facebook.com/sheffieldpalestine

Southampton, Bargate, 11am-12.30pm – https://www.facebook.com/events/237979378115605/

Wolverhampton, Queen Square, 11am – https://www.facebook.com/groups/167943526632859

Sun 16 May:

Glasgow, George Square + March to BBC, 1pm – https://www.facebook.com/events/2625768251049758/

Click here to find this same event list on the Stop the War Coalition website.

B’Tselem and Human Rights Watch confirm that Israel is an apartheid state

The forthright branding of Israel as an apartheid state by Human Rights Watch could be a watershed moment in mainstream acceptance of what Israel has become. Human Rights Watch is not an outlier or left wing organisation. It is very much a part of the establishment in the United States and is not generally associated with hard hitting criticism that conflicts with the promoted interests of the American state.

This is the verdict of Craig Murray in light of the release of the recent HRW report that confirms Israel is an apartheid state.

It is interesting to consider how we have reached this moment, so before coming back to the details contained in the new report, let us quickly retrace some events that have happened since the turn of the year.

Firstly, on January 12^th, B’Tselem, ‘The Israeli Information Center of Human Rights in the Occupied Territories’, released their own report that emphatically accused the state of Israel under the government of Netanyahu of being “a regime of Jewish supremacy”. Headlined “This is apartheid”, it begins:

More than 14 million people, roughly half of them Jews and the other half Palestinians, live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea under a single rule. The common perception in public, political, legal and media discourse is that two separate regimes operate side by side in this area, separated by the Green Line. One regime, inside the borders of the sovereign State of Israel, is a permanent democracy with a population of about nine million, all Israeli citizens. The other regime, in the territories Israel took over in 1967, whose final status is supposed to be determined in future negotiations, is a temporary military occupation imposed on some five million Palestinian subjects.

Over time, the distinction between the two regimes has grown divorced from reality. This state of affairs has existed for more than 50 years – twice as long as the State of Israel existed without it. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers now reside in permanent settlements east of the Green Line, living as though they were west of it. East Jerusalem has been officially annexed to Israel’s sovereign territory, and the West Bank has been annexed in practice. Most importantly, the distinction obfuscates the fact that the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River is organized under a single principle: advancing and cementing the supremacy of one group – Jews – over another – Palestinians. All this leads to the conclusion that these are not two parallel regimes that simply happen to uphold the same principle. There is one regime governing the entire area and the people living in it, based on a single organizing principle.

Click here to read the report entitled “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid.”

Then, on February 5^th, the International Criminal Court made a landmark ruling that it has jurisdiction to investigate Israel for war crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Shortly afterward [Feb 14^th], The Grayzone’s Aaron Maté invited Jewish American historian Norman Finkelstein to discuss the ICC decision and its probable outcomes:

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The ICC investigation commenced on March 3^rd, when the chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, issued her own statement:

Today, I confirm the initiation by the Office of the Prosecutor (”Office”) of the International Criminal Court (“ICC” or the “Court”) of an investigation respecting the Situation in Palestine. The investigation will cover crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court that are alleged to have been committed in the Situation since 13 June 2014, the date to which reference is made in the Referral of the Situation to my Office.

Continuing:

Any investigation undertaken by the Office will be conducted independently, impartially and objectively, without fear or favour.

Click here to read the full statement by ICC Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda.

The Guardian reported:

The move, which Palestinians and human rights groups said was long overdue, was immediately condemned by the Israeli foreign minister, Gabi Ashkenazi, as “morally and legally bankrupt”.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, added: “The decision of the international court to open an investigation against Israel today for war crimes is absurd. It’s undiluted antisemitism and the height of hypocrisy.”

In a videotaped statement, Netanyahu added: “The state of Israel is under attack this evening.[”]

Click here to read the full Guardian article entitled “ICC opens investigation into war crimes in Palestinian territories.”

The BBC headline was more nuanced with scare quotes and a skilful avoidance of any mention of Israel: it reads, “ICC opens ‘war crimes’ investigation in West Bank and Gaza”. Their report does however include the following statement:

Campaign group Human Rights Watch said “all eyes” would be on incoming prosecutor Karim Khan to “pick up the baton”, and that “ICC member countries should stand ready to fiercely protect the court’s work from any political pressure”.

Then last Tuesday [April 27^th], Human Rights Watch finally issued its own 213-page report, “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution”.

The HRW Press Release begins:

Israeli authorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The finding is based on an overarching Israeli government policy to maintain the domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians and grave abuses committed against Palestinians living in the occupied territory, including East Jerusalem.

Continuing:

“Prominent voices have warned for years that apartheid lurks just around the corner if the trajectory of Israel’s rule over Palestinians does not change,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “This detailed study shows that Israeli authorities have already turned that corner and today are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.”

The finding of apartheid and persecution does not change the legal status of the occupied territory, made up of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza, or the factual reality of occupation.

Originally coined in relation to South Africa, apartheid today is a universal legal term. The prohibition against particularly severe institutional discrimination and oppression or apartheid constitutes a core principle of international law. The 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid and the 1998 Rome Statute to the International Criminal Court (ICC) define apartheid as a crime against humanity consisting of three primary elements:

1. An intent to maintain domination by one racial group over another.
2. A context of systematic oppression by the dominant group over the marginalized group.
3. Inhumane acts.

The reference to a racial group is understood today to address not only treatment on the basis of genetic traits but also treatment on the basis of descent and national or ethnic origin, as defined in the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination. Human Rights Watch applies this broader understanding of race.

The crime against humanity of persecution, as defined under the Rome Statute and customary international law, consists of severe deprivation of fundamental rights of a racial, ethnic, or other group with discriminatory intent.

Human Rights Watch found that the elements of the crimes come together in the occupied territory, as part of a single Israeli government policy. That policy is to maintain the domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians across Israel and the occupied territory. It is coupled in the occupied territory with systematic oppression and inhumane acts against Palestinians living there.

Drawing on years of human rights documentation, case studies, and a review of government planning documents, statements by officials, and other sources, Human Rights Watch compared policies and practices toward Palestinians in the occupied territory and Israel with those concerning Jewish Israelis living in the same areas. Human Rights Watch wrote to the Israeli government in July 2020, soliciting its perspectives on these issues, but has received no response.

Across Israel and the occupied territory, Israeli authorities have sought to maximize the land available for Jewish communities and to concentrate most Palestinians in dense population centers. The authorities have adopted policies to mitigate what they have openly described as a “demographic threat” from Palestinians. In Jerusalem, for example, the government’s plan for the municipality, including both the west and occupied east parts of the city, sets the goal of “maintaining a solid Jewish majority in the city” and even specifies the demographic ratios it hopes to maintain.

To maintain domination, Israeli authorities systematically discriminate against Palestinians. The institutional discrimination that Palestinian citizens of Israel face includes laws that allow hundreds of small Jewish towns to effectively exclude Palestinians and budgets that allocate only a fraction of resources to Palestinian schools as compared to those that serve Jewish Israeli children. In the occupied territory, the severity of the repression, including the imposition of draconian military rule on Palestinians while affording Jewish Israelis living in a segregated manner in the same territory their full rights under Israel’s rights-respecting civil law, amounts to the systematic oppression required for apartheid. […]

Israeli authorities should dismantle all forms of repression and discrimination that privilege Jewish Israelis at the expense of Palestinians, including with regards to freedom of movement, allocation of land and resources, access to water, electricity, and other services, and the granting of building permits.

The ICC Office of the Prosecutor should investigate and prosecute those credibly implicated in the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution. Countries should do so as well in accordance with their national laws under the principle of universal jurisdiction, and impose individual sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, on officials responsible for committing these crimes.

The findings of crimes against humanity should prompt the international community to reevaluate the nature of its engagement in Israel and Palestine and adopt an approach centered on human rights and accountability rather than solely on the stalled “peace process.”[…]

“While much of the world treats Israel’s half-century occupation as a temporary situation that a decades-long ‘peace process’ will soon cure, the oppression of Palestinians there has reached a threshold and a permanence that meets the definitions of the crimes of apartheid and persecution,” Roth said. “Those who strive for Israeli-Palestinian peace, whether a one or two-state solution or a confederation, should in the meantime recognize this reality for what it is and bring to bear the sorts of human rights tools needed to end it.”

Click here to read the HRW press release in full.

In his own assessment of the HRW report, Craig Murray writes that:

The strength of the report lies in its systematic comparison of the structural system of Israeli rule with the formal definition of the crime of Apartheid in the Statute of Rome [which established the ICC] and the Apartheid Convention, both widely ratified and important documents of international law. This perforce leads to less concentration than is possible on the outrageous acts of individual cruelty, but shows them to be systemic and part of a much wider design.

The Statute of Rome defines the international crime of apartheid as:

inhumane acts… committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.

The Apartheid Convention defines apartheid as:

inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.

I do not believe anybody can sincerely deny that the situation in Palestine meets these criteria, even if attempts are made to justify how we got here. If you have not done so, you may like to read my previous personal article on why Israel is an apartheid state, which draws on my experience as FCO Desk Officer for South Africa when it was the original apartheid state.

Click here to read Craig Murray’s full article which includes a less than glowing personal account of his interview with Kenneth Roth after he left the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in 2005 and was shortlisted for the position as HRW Global Advocacy Director and flown to its “very plush” New York HQ located inside the Empire State Building.

no confidence in Keir Starmer! support Jeremy Corbyn’s legal fund

It is reported that John Ware, a presenter for BBC’s Panorama, is taking legal action for libel against former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. In response a legal fund has been set up by Carole Morgan at GoFundMe. She writes:

The relentless attacks on Mr Corbyn, a man of integrity, honesty and humility cannot be allowed to continue and we have an opportunity here to offer him support in a practical way.  It will also let him know that his supporters have not forgotten him, nor have they gone away.

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As a party member, I regard the Labour leadership’s decision to issue an unreserved apology and to pay out substantial damages in out of court settlements to John Ware and the other seven plaintiffs (read more about the story below) as not just another assault on the left-wing of the party but, as Labour Against the Witchhunt states, “a clear misuse of party funds and an insult to all Labour members”.

For these reasons, I fully endorse the campaign to support Jeremy Corbyn.

After only 2 days the legal fund already stands at £239,565.

Click here to read Labour Against the Witchhunt‘s model motion for “no confidence in Keir Starmer”.

And here to add your own support to the legal fund to defend Jeremy Corbyn.

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Update: Campaign for Free Speech!

On July 29^th, ‘Labour Against the Witchhunt’ gathered together speakers including Norman Finkelstein, Tariq Ali, Chris Williamson, Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, David Miller and Tony Greenstein to launch a ‘Campaign for Free Speech’. The event was chaired by Tina Werkmann of Labour Against the Witchhunt and Labour Left Alliance:

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Background story:

Last July BBC1 flagship investigative documentary series broadcast Is Labour Anti-semitic?

The programme came directly off the back of an investigation into the party launched by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) “to determine whether the Labour party has unlawfully discriminated against, harassed or victimised people because they are Jewish” for which its report is expected imminently. And it helped set the tone for what was to become a dominant angle of news coverage, especially during the general election that followed in December last year.

writes Justin Schlosberg in a recent article published by Novara Media entitled “BBC Panorama Investigation Into Labour Antisemitism Omitted Key Evidence and Parts of Labour’s Response”.

On Wednesday 22^nd Novara Media’s Michael Walker welcomed Justin Schlosberg on to its ‘Tyskie Sour’ show to discuss the decision by the Labour Party to apologise “unreservedly” and to offer their substantial out of court settlement to Panorama presenter John Ware and the seven ‘whistleblowers’:

Schlosberg, who is a Senior Lecturer in Journalism and Media at Birkbeck College and a former Chair of the Media Reform Coalition, continues:

Along the way, the programme has received nominations for prestigious awards, including a Bafta. And it has seen off over 1,500 complaints, several of which were escalated to Ofcom. A judge recently refused permission for an application I made to the high court, asking for a review of Ofcom’s decision not to investigate the programme.

To cap it off, both the presenter John Ware and the whistleblowers have settled libel claims against the party, which is believed to have paid out around £180,000 in damages and close to £400,000 in legal costs, in addition to apologising for having made ‘defamatory and false allegations’.

According to a statement from Jeremy Corbyn [see screenshot below] and to other Labour party sources, including a former member of the party’s national executive committee, the decision to settle was apparently taken despite the party having received “clear advice” from its own lawyers that Labour would have won in court.

The libel claims appear to have been based on the former leadership’s strong defence of its record in response to the programme. A party spokesman described Ware’s documentary as “a seriously inaccurate, politically one-sided polemic, which breached basic journalistic standards, invented quotes and edited emails to change their meaning”. The spokesman went on to accuse the programme-makers of deceiving the British public:

“An honest investigation into antisemitism in Labour and wider society is in the public interest. The Panorama team instead pre-determined an answer to the question posed by the programme’s title. No proper and serious attempt was made to understand our current procedures for dealing with antisemitism, which is clearly essential to reach a fair and balanced judgement. And Panorama distorted and manipulated the truth and misrepresented evidence to present a biased and selective account.”

Since then, critics of the programme have been further outraged by an apparent accountability failure. A scathing letter to the Bafta chair recently called for the nomination to be rescinded, adding that it “should never have passed the BBC’s compliance regime in the first instance”. Signatories of the letter included Mike Leigh (an award-winning film director and Bafta fellow), Sir Geoffrey Bindman (a leading human rights QC) and Tim Llewelyn (a former BBC Middle East correspondent).

The testimony of Ware’s “whistleblowers” has also been brought into question by a leaked report, documenting a culture of intense factionalism at Labour’s Southside headquarters during the period in question. The report drew heavily upon WhatsApp conversations between former Labour staffers, including several of Panorama’s witnesses. Nobody has questioned the authenticity of those messages, which paint a deeply unflattering picture of the protagonists —not least of their track record when it comes to issues of racism and antisemitism in the Labour party.

Now, exclusive new evidence suggests something altogether more serious and damning: the programme-makers overlooked key parts of leaked emails and the Labour party’s reply which fatally undermined the testimony of its whistleblowers.

This stands against the BBC’s repeated assertion that the Labour party was offered “a full right of reply”. And it raises new questions over why and how Ofcom took an extraordinary 63 days to decide simply not to investigate the programme.

Click here to read Justin Schlosberg’s full article at Novara Media.

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Update: message from Carole Morgan, organiser of the petition

Hello, it’s me again. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine when I decided to act in support of Jeremy Corbyn that the fund would make the impact that it has. I have received hundreds of emails from well wishers who have expressed their love and support for Jeremy, and also to me for setting up the fund, for which I thank you.

I had a need to express my gratitude and support for Jeremy and setting up this fund was the only way I could think of to achieve that. I didn’t realise at the time just how many of you shared that same need. Jeremy’s support fund has had an effect in ways that I never expected. Those of us who have always longed for a better world, one that ensures dignity, security and peace for all humanity found ourselves voiceless after the terrible general election result and the subsequent loss of Jeremy as our democratically elected Leader of the Labour Party.

Through Jeremy’s fund we have found our voice again. We are One voice that cries out for justice, not just for Jeremy, but for all the people who have suffered so terribly under the years of austerity here in the UK, those who are suffering political upheaval, wars and genocide around the world. I have received emails from so many like minded people who are struggling to hold their lives together and are not in a position to donate, so I wanted to share with you all that there are still more of us out there than even the fund can reflect.

Of course there are those who oppose what we have achieved in so short a time. I have come to the realisation that this is because they are afraid. The fear they carry is like a disease that has spread through every fibre of their lives and their being. It has always been there and they have learned to see the world only through the eyes of fear. They are afraid of the changes that we want to create in the world; the return of love, compassion, equality and peace. They seek to stamp us out because they are afraid for their very existence. They are unable to understand that they are welcome to share in our world, if they would only let go of their fear.

Of course a platform is just that. It is important to remind yourselves that it is each and every one of you who has turned the platform into a shining beacon of light. Words cannot convey my gratitude to you all, and I thank you from the very bottom of my heart.

With love

Carole

Note that: the fund now stands at £295,259.

Click here to add your own support.

Norman Finkelstein on Netanyahu’s options for Israel’s illegal annexation of Palestine

With Israel poised to illegally annex parts of the West Bank on Wednesday 1^st July, author and scholar, Norman Finkelstein, discussed Netanyahu’s options with The Grayzone’s Aaron Maté. Finkelstein says Netanyahu is exploiting a brief window of opportunity under Trump and will use the deadline to swallow up valuable West Bank while pretending to be making a compromise:

“If there were an Oscar for Best Dramatic Performance by a Nation-State, Israel would win hands down every year,” Finkelstein says. “And so they will manage to turn this illegal annexation, which will enable Israel to appropriate some of the best farmland, agricultural land in the Occupied Territories that will preclude the possibility of a Palestinian state — they’ll manage to turn it into another agonising, gut-wrenching compromise. I could write the script.”

The transcript below is mine:

Aaron Maté: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has set a date of July 1^st to begin Israel’s annexation of major parts of the Occupied West Bank. Under Netanyahu’s plan Israel would declare sovereignty over all of the illegal settlements built on Palestinian land since 1967 including in the Jordan Valley.

Netanyahu has a green light from Washington. The Trump administration has said it will recognise Israel’s annexation of up to 30% of the West Bank. For the rest of the world, the annexation move is the latest grave escalation of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land since 1967. In a statement, a group of 47 independent UN legal experts call the annexation plan “a vision of a 21^st century apartheid.”

Well, joining me is Norman Finkelstein, author and scholar: his latest book is called “I Accuse!” Norman welcome to Pushback.

Uncertainty still about what Netanyahu is going to do on July 1^st, but what do you think people should know about his talk of annexing the West Bank?

Normal Finkelstein: Well, there are several things. First of all, it’s clearly illegal under international law. Secondly, what seems to have prompted it is not law but brutal politics; namely, Mr Netanyahu is of the opinion, which is probably correct, that he has an opportunity that won’t come again to carry out a large scale ‘legal’ annexation of parts of the West Bank, and that Trump may not be around after November. It’s a question mark. And he wants to take advantage of that opportunity. And I would say thirdly, you have to always bear in mind two things about Mr Netanyahu:

Number one: he is a showman. He’s not really a statesman; he’s a showman. He’s a performance artist. And number two: he is acutely aware of political opportunities. In that regard he’s a politician for sure. He takes advantage of – he exploits – political opportunities as they come along.

There are many examples: actually you’d be surprised, there’s actually a scholarly and academic literature showing how Israelis exploit – take advantage of – political opportunities that come along in order to achieve their goals. Media opportunities, I should say.

So that in mind, there is the possibility that an annexation will occur, although it’s still a question mark. My own opinion is there seem to be three main variations. (Obviously, there are subdivisions of the variations.) But one is annex the Jordan Valley. Two is annex the settlement blocs. And three is annex large chunks of the West Bank: the official figure is 30%; I’m more inclined to believe it’s 40%, but that’s beside the point.

I do not believe he will annex the Jordan Valley, because it’s a question of how it looks. The image projected. So, I said at the beginning, Mr Netanyahu is basically a showman – a performance artist – and so if you look at the map: what it would look like if on one end is Israel and on the other end is Jordan Valley, and in the middle, sandwiched between, are all these Palestinians who don’t have any voting rights.

If you look at the map, it looks like apartheid. Because it looks like if one border is the Jordan Valley, the other border is what’s called the Green Line; namely Israel before the June 1967 war; and then in between are all these Arabs who have no voting rights. It looks like one state where a large chunk of the population is disenfranchised. That looks like apartheid. So I don’t think he’s going to do that.

September 2019 annexation proposal by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Jordan valley shown in orange and the rest of the West Bank including Jericho shown in white.

A second possibility is annexing the whole of the West Bank, or large chunks of it. Again, same problem: how do you represent to the world all those Arabs in the West Bank who have no rights? Who have no voting rights, which are the baseline for any rights in our world. Or rights in a state, which is citizenship; and they don’t have citizenship. So that doesn’t look good.

But there’s a third possibility. The third possibility is the settlement blocs. Now, if you look at the map – if you annex the settlement blocs – they border the Green Line, mostly. So that looks okay on the map.

Israel officially claims to annex the settlement blocs would mean annexing 5% of the West Bank. In fact it would be 10% because they play with the numbers, they cook the numbers. It would be about 10% of the West Bank. And if you look at the map, there are two settlement blocs, one called Ariel and one called Ma’ale Adumim. Now those settlement blocs on the ground, they bisect the West Bank, more or less at the centre; because Ma’ale Adumim stretches more or less to Jericho. And then there’s the second settlement bloc, Ariel Shomron, which will bisect the northern half of the West Bank.

Green Line indicated with the Ariel settlement located top left and Ma’ale Adumim centre right

However, if you look at the map, it doesn’t quite look that way because the map doesn’t show the mountainous areas, which means it doesn’t look fully like a bisection of the West Bank. The point is, in my view, without going into all the technicalities, you probably can get away with annexing the settlement blocs. First of all, all of the Democrat Party and Republican Party leadership has always said that Israel would get the settlement blocs anyhow in a final settlement. That’s what Dennis Ross says…

AM: Dennis Ross being the so-called “peace envoy” for the Clinton administration.

NF: Yes, and he’s actually recommended now that Israel annex, not the whole West Bank, not the Jordan Valley, just annex the settlement blocs. He’s officially on record supporting that.

And so first of all the political elites have supported the annexation of the Israeli settlement blocs already. Secondly, you can put the pretence, or make the pretence, that there’s still the possibility of a Palestinian state because “it’s only 5% of the West Bank”. Thirdly, it can be cast as Netanyahu making a gut-wrenching compromise: he wanted the whole of the land of Israel and he had to appease the right-wing of his coalition – and so he makes his gut-wrenching compromise to annex some territory because otherwise his coalition is going to fall apart.

AM: Similar to what they did in Gaza back in 2005, around then, when Sharon reluctantly gave up Gaza, and there was this huge staged performance and there were the scenes of the settlers being pulled out, and they were wailing and we were supposed to feel sorry for them. Meanwhile Israel, as it’s pulling out of Gaza, it’s consolidating its control and expanding its control over the much more valuable territory in the occupied West Bank.

NF: Listen, I’ve said many times if there were an Academy Award – an Oscar – for Best Dramatic Performance by a Nation-State, Israel would win hands down every year; there wouldn’t even be competition. It would be like comparing Sir Lawrence Olivier with Brad Pitt.  I mean Israel is so practised at the art of performance.

And so they will manage to turn this illegal annexation, which will enable Israel to appropriate some of the best farmland, agricultural land in the occupied Palestinian Territories that will effectively preclude the possibility of a Palestinian state for geographic and economic reasons which I don’t want to bore listeners with – they’ll manage to turn it into another agonising, anguishing, gut-wrenching compromise by Israel. I could write the script.

So I think that’s probably what will happen. And everybody will be a celebratory mood – no quite the contrary, take that back…

The Israeli right-wing – I should say Israeli right-right-right-wing, because there’s a right-right-right-right-wing and there’s a right-right-right-wing, and there’s a right-wing. There’s no centre and there’s no left in Israel: so an unusual state in the world in that regard. But the right-right-right-right-wing and the right-right-[wing] will be so angry, and they’ll be so indignant, and everybody else, [like] The New York Times, will be celebrating the fact that Netanyahu made a very pragmatic decision that kept the two-state solution alive.

AM: There are countries though around the world who are, at least publicly, criticising this. Does this open up the way possibly for some actions like sanctions to be taken against Israel if it illegally annexes territory that it is not legally entitled to?

NF: I don’t believe that will happen because of the way it is going to be presented to the world. It will be presented as a pragmatic compromise. It won’t be presented as an illegal annexation. They’ll keep repeating the fake figure of 5%. They’re going to keep saying, anyhow, we all know that in the final settlement the settlement blocs would have been annexed by Israel in a land swap. And they’ll make it all legitimate, and there will be no reaction.

I’m very sceptical of the kinds of apocalyptic scenarios which are conjured up, and in fact apocalyptic scenarios abet Netanyahu’s agenda, and probably he does it intentionally – I don’t know how much he calculates down to the fine points, but he likes the idea of these apocalyptic scenarios because then he’s going to say “well it’s only 5%”. And it’s going to make him look reasonable.

So all this talk about sanctions – Did anything happen after Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital? No.

AM: But let’s point out something positive, which is that Bernie Sanders came somewhat close to the nomination, and during the process his advocacy of basic Palestinian rights was popular, and that message is increasingly resonant inside the Democratic base. So in terms of holding Israel accountable, pushing back on the Trump administration’s support for Israeli annexation, do you see a ray of light possibly, right here inside the US when it comes to sentiment towards Israel, and people no longer being willing – except for those in Congress – to stand by as it commits its atrocities?

NF: Trump’s biggest ally in the world is Netanyahu. That doesn’t play very well with a lot of people, you know even people who support Israel. It just doesn’t play well because you’re supposed to be anti-Trump if you’re a Democratic Party member or if you support any of the popular causes you’re supposed to be anti-Trump. So it doesn’t play very well that Trump has the closest alliance to any world leader with Netanyahu. So there is an unexpected consequence of the Trump presidency which it ended up even further discrediting the Palestinian cause in even mainstream American politics because of that Trump-Netanyahu alliance.

AM: [clarifying Finkelstein’s remark] Not discrediting the Palestinian cause?

NF: Discrediting the Israeli cause because of that alliance.

Yes, so it’s been a positive development. It’s part of, as I said, the long-term shift in public opinion as Israel has moved further and further to the right, and a lot of the truth has come out making the cause indefensible.

A lot will depend on whether you can make the Palestinian cause again a salient issue in American political life. If for example the Palestinians found the wherewithal to demonstrate and engage in collective action, there’s some reason for hope. It’s going to be very tough under Biden, if he wins; impossible under Trump.

It’s just a very difficult period right now. I don’t believe in giving people false hope. I think it’s a very tough period right now, but as you say, the positive thing is public opinion is shifting; it’s becoming more manifest as against latent; more active as against passive; and it’s an opportunity for people to work for their so-to-speak cause within a larger progressive or radical framework. So there are possibilities. That’s the most I can say.

From a very young age I read a speech by the African revolutionary at the time Amílcar Cabral, who was a leader of a movement called the PAIGC in a tiny, tiny, tiny, little country called Guinea-Bissau. And he had given a speech and the title was “Tell no lies, claim no easy victories”. So that resonated with me. I thought that’s the right approach to politics: Tell no lies, claim no easy victories.

So I’m not one for pep talks. I try to be analytical. I try to be objective. I try to be realistic. Because otherwise I feel it’s patronising. It’s like ‘I know the truth, but I can’t tell you the truth because you’re not ready for it – you’re not equipped for it’. So I have to pretend as if things are better than they actually are so as to lift your spirits because you need useful lies to keep you going, but I don’t. No, I don’t do that.

I think that you can be honest about a situation – I’m honest about the situation with myself – I recognise that we’re at a very difficult moment. But truth be told, it doesn’t diminish an iota of the energy I invest in this, because for me it’s not about Palestinians, it’s not about Jews.

At one point in my life, yes it was. And I’ll acknowledge that. I just felt revulsion at what these people – how they had exploited and corrupted the memory of my parents’ suffering during World War Two for an insidious cause. It’s not about that anymore for me: it’s not about Palestinians; it’s not about Jews; it’s not about corrupting the memory of what my parents’ endured during World War Two.

For me it’s about two very basic things – and it took me a very, very long time to reach this point in my life – that it’s no longer about anything personal. It is about people because the memory of my parents’ suffering is permanently engraved in me. But fundamentally, at root, at its core, it’s about Truth and Justice: those eternal values.

And when I see them sullied, or prostituted, it nauseates me. It makes me so angry that people can be so cheap; sell themselves at such a low price: for a mess of professional porridge [sic], they’ll sell out those values.

It’s a very interesting thing for me, and we’ll leave it at that, that all of these stupid leftist, postmodernists, who say that there’s no such thing as truth, there’s no such thing as Justice – these are all social constructions – these intellectually impoverished morons… and then you go to the demonstrations against police brutality, in commemoration of what happened to George Floyd and many others, and what’s the slogan that’s most popular at these demonstrations?  What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!

And I think to myself while all these stupid intellectually impoverished so-called academics sit around at stupid, ignorant, irrelevant conferences talking about how Justice and Truth are all just social constructions. When the moment comes we all reach back to those same fundamental values: Truth and Justice. What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!

Those values will, so long as humankind endures, forever resonate.

‘Jewish support for Chris Williamson’: an open letter signed by 100 prominent Jews is censored by the Guardian

Reproduced in full below is an open letter signed by over a 100 prominent members of the Jewish community that was originally published in Monday’s Guardian. The next day it was removed “pending investigation”.

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Jewish support for Chris Williamson

Prominent members of the Jewish community, in the UK and abroad, write to defend the Labour MP Chris Williamson amid allegations of antisemitism.

We the undersigned, all Jews, are writing in support of Chris Williamson and to register our dismay at the recent letter organised by Tom Watson, and signed by parliamentary Labour party and House of Lords members, calling for his suspension (Anger over return of MP who said Labour was ‘too apologetic’ over antisemitism, 28 June).

Chris Williamson did not say that the party had been “too apologetic about antisemitism”, as has been widely misreported. He correctly stated that the Labour party has done more than any other party to combat the scourge of antisemitism and that, therefore, its stance should be less apologetic.

Such attacks on Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters aim to undermine not only the Labour party’s leadership but also all pro-Palestinian members.

The mass media have ignored the huge support for Chris both within and beyond the Labour party. Support that includes many Jews. The party needs people like him, with the energy and determination to fight for social justice.

As anti-racist Jews, we regard Chris as our ally: he stands as we do with the oppressed rather than the oppressor. It should also be noted that he has a longer record of campaigning against racism and fascism than most of his detractors.

The Chakrabarti report recommended that the party’s disciplinary procedures respect due process, favour education over expulsion and promote a culture of free speech, yet this has been abandoned in practice. We ask the Labour party to reinstate Chris Williamson and cease persecuting such members on false allegations of antisemitism.

Noam Chomsky, MIT
Norman Finkelstein, Lecturer and writer
Ed Asner, Actor
Prof Richard Falk, Princeton University
Leah Lavene and Jenny Manson, Jewish Voice for Labour
…and more than 100 others.

For the full list of signatories, click here. This letter was previously published in The Guardian, but was removed “pending investigation”.

Click here to find the same article as it appears reproduced by Off-Guardian.

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Additional:

As Kit Knightly of Off-Guardian writes:

The Board of Deputies of British Jews apparently formally complained to the Guardian regarding their “mishandling” of the letter. It was covered in the Jewish Chronicle and the Huffington Post.

Either way, the letter is gone.

Of course, it’s peculiar that this particular open letter had to sent in to them anyway, since The Graun usually like to advertise the views of Noam Chomsky. At least, as long as he’s criticising the government of Venezuela, or critiqueing the BDS movement.

When he’s deploring the US-backed coup in Venezuela, or dismissing the Russiagate accusations as “a bad joke”, he tends to get less publicity.

Funny that.

Perhaps more important than the presence of Chomsky’s name, or that of Norman Finkelstein, is the sheer number of CLP’s represented by the other signatories.

Well over a hundred Jewish Labour members, representing dozens of CLPs, all completely at odds with the Parliamentary Labour Party on this issue. For years this rift – between the MPs and their members – has been obvious. It seems to get wider all the time.

You see Tom Watson et al. accusing Labour members of “bullying” MPs by calling for de-selection. None of the MPs who defected to the absurd Change UK (or whatever their current name is) faced a by-election – which means several CLPs, and thousands of loyal Labour voters, have had their votes and MPs stolen from them. The Blairite wing of the PLP, spearheaded by Watson and his cabal of climbers, have not said a word about this.

When a general election comes, this will be an issue to watch.

It is an encouraging sign for those of us who try hard to spread the truth, at least. Because it means the totally created “antisemitism crisis” is being seen for what it is by a good portion of Labour members. Just another example of ordinary people, in the real world, clashing with the media bubble.

Returning to the letter, it’s actually hard to see why they would bother censoring it, yes it is counter to the establishment narrative, but it is hardly extreme. You could almost call deleting it a desperate thing to do. A move which shows the insecurity of their position. Whatever the eventually announced reason is for removing the letter, it is certainly the wrong thing to do, and not just ethically. The Streisand effect exists. Removing the letter simply calls attention to it, far smarter to just let it rot on the back pages of the internet.

Click here to read Knightly’s full response published by Off-Guardian.

#IStandWithChrisWilliamson

Chris Williamson is the victim of an ongoing witch hunt within the Labour Party and I applaud today’s decision to reinstate him.

Today we are celebrating the long overdue reinstatement of Chris Williamson MP. The reality is that he should never have been suspended in the first place!

The allegation that Chris had downplayed anti-Semitism was totally unfounded. His comments, made at a Momentum meeting in Sheffield, were condemned in a deliberate attempt to ruin both the reputation of Chris and Jeremy Corbyn.

Chris Williamson MP actually said: “The party that has done more to stand up to racism is now being demonised as a racist, bigoted party. I have got to say, I think our party’s response has been partly responsible for that because in my opinion… we’ve backed off far too much, we have given too much ground, we’ve been too apologetic… We’ve done more to address the scourge of anti-Semitism than any other party.”

His comments were clearly neither anti-Semitic, nor denying the existence of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party (as in wider society). But he did quite rightly point to the fact that there has also been a political campaign to “weaponise” accusations of anti-Semitism.

Chris is a target because he is one of the very few Labour MPs who have openly stood up to the witch-hunt of Corbyn supporters and because he has campaigned tirelessly for the much-needed democratisation of the party.

We are deeply concerned that anti-Corbyn right-wingers continue to smear and harass Chris, even after his reinstatement. Ruth Smeeth MP, chair of the rightwing Jewish Labour Movement’s parliamentary group, for example said that he had “demonstrated a pattern of behaviour over a period of many months, seemingly seeking to intentionally undermine, marginalise and harass the British Jewish community and Jewish Labour Party members, which has continually brought the Labour Party into disrepute”.

Despite the departure of Iain McNicol as general secretary, the witch-hunt of left-leaning party members continues. The main target of this campaign is, of course, Jeremy Corbyn himself. But thousands of Labour Party members have been investigated, suspended and expelled, often on spurious grounds. Like Chris Williamson, they are the collateral damage in this campaign to ‘get’ Corbyn.

We call on all Labour Party members to use trigger ballots to challenge saboteurs like Ruth Smeeth, Tom Watson and all those who continue to oppose the positive transformation of the Labour Party.

Here is a guide on how to go about it: http://www.labouragainstthewitchhunt.org/model-motions/how-to-use-the-new-trigger-ballot-to-deselect-your-mp/

Click here to read the original article as it appears on the Labour Against the Witch Hunt website.

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Chris Williamson also talked exclusively to RT’s Going Underground after he was reinstated to the The Labour Party after nearly 4 months of suspension:

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Update: Re-suspension of Chris Williamson is a travesty of justice

The renewed suspension of Chris Williamson MP, two days after he was readmitted to the Labour Party, is deeply troubling. We are particularly concerned that Keith Vaz’ U-turn seems to have been motivated purely by the pressure coming from the right inside and outside the party. Sadly but unsurprisingly, that now includes Jon Lansman.

We presume Vaz initially judged the case by its merit and found – correctly – that Chris had not said or done anything that could be described as anti-Semitic or bringing the party into disrepute. Vaz quite rightly judged that the evidence did not warrant Chris’s ongoing suspension or his referral to the National Constitutional Committee (which is still dominated by the right).

But Vaz’s U-turn and Chris’s renewed suspension, following the deeply undemocratic and hysterical letter organised by Tom Watson, symbolise how unfair and one-sided the whole disciplinary process really is. The right is calling all the shots – and Labour HQ seems to always do exactly what they demand.

But the right will never be appeased. They will never accept Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party, let alone prime minister. They will continue their campaign of sabotage, because he remains unreliable from the ruling class’s point of view, especially given his strong support for the rights of Palestinians.

It is high time that the Labour MPs better reflect the wishes of the local membership. We therefore urge Labour Party members to organise trigger ballots everywhere, particularly in order to deselect the 70 or so MPs who have signed Tom Watson’s letter (above).

Click here to read the same statement on the Labour Against the Witch Hunt website.

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Further update: Sign the open letter to Labour NEC

We, the undersigned, believe that the renewed suspension of Chris Williamson MP is a travesty of justice. […]

There is very little chance that Chris will get a fair hearing from the NEC Disputes Panel, when several of those who will sit in judgment upon him have already torn his reputation to shreds on social media, without even having seen all the evidence.

We therefore call on the NEC:

• to immediately reinstate Chris Williamson, as recommended by the NEC panel
• to immediately open trigger ballots so that Labour Party members can choose a parliamentary candidate who actually reflects their wishes
• to stop the practice of automatic suspensions and expulsions: members should be regarded as innocent until proven guilty

Click here to read the open letter in full and to add your name to the petition.