Incredibly the Israeli genocide in Gaza is now reaching new heights of violence. Casualty figures are not coming in, as the attacks are so bad that bodies cannot be recovered, medics cannot travel and there are almost no medical facilities operational now anyway.
We now see that the Western injunctions not to attack Rafah were a smokescreen of lies to mask complicity. The final pocket of Gaza is being ruthlessly ethnically cleansed and its infrastructure will be destroyed like all the rest.
It is striking that this is accompanied by an absolutely shameless doubling down of support for Israel by the Western political and media classes. Any thought that their isolation from the vast breadth of public opinion would give them pause, must be abandoned. Their Zionist lobby paymasters have jerked the chain, and rather than rowing back, we are seeing a redoubling of their efforts to suppress dissent and obscure the truth.
Some of this shameless distortion is so dissonant with the alleged norms of Western society it is almost impossible to believe it is happening. Here are a few examples.
1) Dr Ghassan Abu Sitta is a highly respected reconstructive surgeon who continued to work heroically and tirelessly in Al Shifa hospital, carrying out operation after operation, mostly on women and children, as the hospital was shelled, strafed and machine gunned around him.
He was already a surgeon of great distinction, based in Glasgow where he is now Rector of Glasgow University.
When Germany banned him from entering to address the conference on Palestine from which Yanis Varoufakis and others were also barred, it appeared perhaps as a one-off action as part of Germany’s extreme and panicked reaction to pro-Palestinian expression.
We have come to understand that Germany has a vicious hatred of Palestinians, remarkably based on the psychological trauma of inherited guilt from the Holocaust. While this is a muddled national psychosis that is plainly immoral and wrongheaded, at least it is possible to have some understanding of how it occurred.
But it then turned out that the travel ban slapped on Dr Abu Sitta by Germany has a Schengen-wide effect as he was also banned from France. That appeared again something that was almost a technical accident as regards the rest of Europe.
But the Western political establishment has now doubled down again by banning him from the Netherlands, and this time the Dutch government has made it clear that it supports the ban, and is not just caught by a Schengen restriction.
So the major governments of the European Union are forbidding a distinguished surgeon from giving first-hand medical evidence of the genocide taking place. I cannot think of anything that more sharply exposes the willingness of the Western political class to abandon the most basic tenets of supposed “Western democracy” in the interests of Israel.
2) The willingness of the United States to use extreme violence against pro-Palestinian students on college campuses is another demonstration of the same abandonment of the pretence of democracy when it comes to Israel. It also illustrates what has come to be a serious generational divide in Western public opinion, with young people very strongly motivated to oppose the genocide (which is not to say that older people are pro-genocide, just that they are more split, particularly in the USA).
This is being followed up with yet more crazed pro-Israeli legislation in the United States, seeking to designate anti-genocide and pro-Palestinian expression on campuses as anti-semitic and thus illegal.
In many ways this typifies the reaction of the ruling class across the West. Their reaction to suddenly being exposed as the paid servants of an Israel which no longer has popular support and now causes public revulsion, is simply to attempt to ban free expression and make it specifically illegal to disagree with them.
3) The British Labour Party has gone even madder. Keir Starmer’s Genocide Party is an outstanding example of the success of the Israeli lobby in buying up both sides of the aisle and controlling the entire neoliberal uniparty that poses as the repository of democratic “choice” in the West.
Starmer had been doing his best to conceal his explicitly expressed “unequivocal support for Israel” lately, and to row back from his straightforward assertion that Israel has the right to cut off food and water from the population of Gaza. There had been a fake shift, from refusing to countenance the word “ceasefire” to supporting a temporary ceasefire or a “sustainable” ceasefire – the latter being code for a ceasefire after Israel had achieved all its ethnic cleansing objectives.
But then David Lammy blew this out of the water with an address to US Republican senators in which he made the totally bonkers assertion that Nelson Mandela would have opposed the college protests for Palestine. Lammy is a truly despicable individual, one of the ultimate examples of the corrupt politician whose voice is bought. But this was a move far beyond the pale.
4) Even today, the Western media continues to spout out Israeli propaganda at mains pressure. The Guardian, despite the thousands and thousands of dead women and children we have seen on our mobile phones this past seven months, continues to pretend that the genocidal attack is on “Hamas militants”.
The bombing and shelling of civilians in tents is still described as “clashes”. This propaganda really does not wash any more, though it may reinforce the morale of hardened Zionists. Everybody else has seen through it months ago. Yet still they persist.
5) The endgame is becoming very apparent. The United States is completing its floating harbour for Gaza, and Israel has gained control of the Rafah crossing into Egypt, giving the US and Israel total control of entry points into Gaza. Israel has announced that the Rafah crossing is to be handed over to a US mercenary force. The US can then say it is complying with Biden’s pledge not to put US forces’ boots on the ground in Gaza, while actually taking control.
The Israeli attack on Rafah has been justified by the USA as a “limited military operation”, thus claiming it does not violate Biden’s purported “red line”, even though Israel has ordered over a million displaced people in Rafah to evacuate again, to nowhere.
Conclusion:
The only possible conclusion from all of the above is to reinforce my analysis that the Zionist political and media classes in the West, including Biden, Blinken, Trudeau, Macron, Sunak, Starmer, Scholtz, von der Leyen and all, are active and willing participants in a programme of genocide.
They had numerous opportunities to turn back. We all saw what is happening months ago. They did not take them.
The endgame remains the processing of the remaining Palestinian population out of Gaza through the US-controlled points of the Rafah crossing and the floating harbour, primarily into camps in the Sinai desert. The Western powers are doubling down on their genocide and on their colonial project.
I see nothing whatsoever that indicates they can have any other long-term objective in mind than the complete Israeli annexation of Gaza minus its civilian population. What do you see?
"So the major governments of the European Union are forbidding a distinguished surgeon...."
That he's a "distinguished surgeon" is irrelevant, he's a person and should be treated equally, not afforded privileges of social rank, it isn't the C18th.The last working-class hero in England.
Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
What the hell are you on about his being a distinguished surgeon. Did you read the article? It’s totally relevant as Murray goes on to describe his heroic surgery in appalling circumstances in Gaza. What a nitpicking churl you are!!! He’s rector too of my Alma Mata and because of who he is and what he has achieved he deserves respect and to criticise Murray is ridiculous. God save us from the moral absolutism that too often intrudes in these pages.
I'm sure Craig would agree that no-one " should be..." but as I said, he's discussing the real world and not an ideal one. Your criticism is a distraction from a great post.
Sorry Keith, you are a strange chap. That's as far as I'll go here, but honestly, have you even read the article?
"That he's a "distinguished surgeon" is irrelevant, he's a person and should be treated equally, not afforded privileges of social rank, it isn't the C18th". you state
Dr Ghassan Abu Sitta is a highly respected reconstructive surgeon who continued to work heroically and tirelessly in Al Shifa hospital, carrying out operation after operation, mostly on women and children, as the hospital was shelled, strafed and machine gunned around him.
He was already a surgeon of great distinction, based in Glasgow where he is now Rector of Glasgow University.
HIs status as a highly regarded surgeon is totally relevant to this article, the treatment he has received in Germany, France and the Netherlands, and the arguments Murray is making. The doctor is an expert witness and should be heard, the problem is that he has been refused the right to testify n a public forum - Germany gained a lot of expertise doing this in the nineteen thirties, but Grance and Holland? .I literally cannot understand your ridiculous nit-picking here and you can't be bothered to make any comment on the article otherwise?
PS Glasgow University is my Alma Mata. Previous rectors have included Winnie Mandela (before her disgrace), Esward Snowdon, Mordechai Vanunu, Albert Luthuli. The fact is that Dr Sitta is not just an "ordinary person"
Some people deserve praise because of their standing, skills, morals, worth, intelligence, contribution, Dr Sitta is one, and to suggest Murray is guilty of unreasonable deference to some sort of 18th Century "privilege of social rank" is just laughable. Indeed, you are a very strange man, Keith, but I think I've said that before. Quite often.
It's so effing boring K264. You state something like this:
Craig's vestigial liberalism .. blah
No back-up, nada, zilch. No discussion (eyes roll)
I remember you praising Craig and made approving noises on his website, way back. And now, suddenly, you see his liberal cardigan popping out. How? It could have been understable if you pointed out his Ukraine stance, and perhaps you did, way back. This latest comment of yours does not make any sense to lil' mua and probably to other TLN punters. But then you will claim exceptionalism
Re: We all know you shan't be out to prove your points. Ta for assertions : )
You're also a bit of a brat.The last working-class hero in England.
Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
Re: Lack
Posted by t on May 13, 2024, 11:46 pm, in reply to "Lack"
You're also a bit of a brat.
It does depend on yer perspective. Nevertheless, you shan't prove it because you lack the tools to prove it. Assertions are yer tool (boy, is this a serious lake .. I mean lack). The intellectual tools if I may say so .. are seriously lacking. Carry on : )
Lackey
Posted by Keith-264 on May 14, 2024, 12:50 am, in reply to "Re: Lack"
Why would I want your approval?The last working-class hero in England.
Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
Que?
Posted by t on May 14, 2024, 1:07 am, in reply to "Lackey"
Why would I want your approval?
Assumptions, oh dear. Let's cut to the chase .. why would I think that you need my approval? Makes no sense to lil' mua. I asked for clarifications earlier but absolutely no request for yer approval. Shrug. It's all there to see
on May 13, 2024, 3:57 pm
