It's no joke living under a corrupt and sometimes murderous regime, and one can only feel compassion for those who have to.
However, even in the worst days of the Soviet regime, its millions of citizens sustained themselves with sardonic humour and self-mockery, through jokes and satirical songs.
Reading this account of the doings of the Palestinian authority one response is to feel horrified. But the sheer grotesquery in this account of what's going on, particularly the elaborately absurd subterfuges by which the Fatah and Hamas regimes handle the shared adminstration they're forced to engage in, reminds me of the Keystone Cops films.
There's that old quote from Marx about history repeating itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Only here, I think it's the other way round. The farcical setup which allowed an openly terrorist group, Hamas, to stand for election in a supposed democracy, alongside a nominally democratic group, Fatah, which kept a semi-detached force of terrorists in case of need, seems to have produced a situation like this:
A close friend who recently moved from Gaza City to Ramallah with his wife and two young children told me that the cost of each passport for a Gazan citizen is almost NIS 1,200, as opposed to NIS 235 prior to the Hamas takeover - just one of the consequences of the political disputes between the governments of Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in Ramallah.
After the takeover, several administrative offices had been formed in Gaza whose duties included the distribution of passports to civilians. I can't fathom how these offices transfer the passport requests from Gaza to Ramallah. I do not rule out the possibility that they are in fact smuggled through the tunnels and sent via Egyptian mail to Ramallah.
Today there is a serious passport shortage in the Gaza Strip. The PA, to help remedy that problem, is supposed to pass out about 5,000 new passports every month to citizens in the Gaza Strip. Hamas uses passports by selectively distributing them to the people within its government instead of making them available to anyone applying for them. The lack of passports in Gaza has brought a major increase in demand and even 10,000 new passports issued a month would not be enough to relieve the deficit.
But here's where the farce descends into near slapstick. For the article from which the extract was taken was written by the brother of one of the PA's ministers. He's the long-serving head of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitorying Group, which investigates and documents Human Rights abuses by both the Palestinian and the Israeli authorities. And here's his take on his brother's experience at the hands of the government in which he's a minister:
My brother, Hatem Abdulqader, was appointed 40 days ago to be the Minister of Jerusalem Affairs in the Salaam Fayad government. However, his new employer wasn't able to provide him with an office. No one in the government was able to tell my brother to his face that every minister needs a chair, a table and coffee utensils to serve the people who come to his office to congratulate him. When I heard about this, I lent my brother NIS 10,000 to find an office.
Eventually, he had to build one for himself. He had approached the Ministry of Finance many times requesting an office, a chair and a desk, but was told time again that the PA's cash register was empty.
This episode enraged me. Why is it necessity to appoint so many ministers to form a government? Why is the PA in need of $100 million each month for salaries? Where does all this money go? What do all these ministers do for their people?
In the television broadcast showing my brother being sworn in as minister, he raised his hand and swore by the Koran to be loyal to his people and country. If I were him, I would refuse to take this vow in front of Abbas or Fayad. I would be willing to take the oath only when the people standing in front of me are responsible enough to uphold this vow themselves.
The Fayad government actually wanted to use my brother to commit perjury, to swear in front of the entire Palestinian nation in the name of a useless government.
Well, yes, where does the money go? The US and EU may be withholding aid from the Hamas regime, but they're certainly pouring it into the PA's coffers.
But back to tragedy rather than farce. If you fall foul of either the PA or Hamas, you're much more likely to end up with a bullet in your back or blown to pieces in a car bomb than you are with a custard pie in your face.
The Iranian regime has announced that it's using its police apparatus and Interpol to go after Dr Arash Hejazi.
Why?
He spoke out on the BBC about his experience of witnessing the murder of Neda Aga-Soltan at close quarters, and trying in vain to use his medical skills to save her. What's more he spoke of seeing the outraged crowd of protesters capture the Basiji thug who fired the shot, the Basiji's cries that he "didn't mean to kill her", and the crowd's having disarmed him and let him go.
Arash Hejazi's dramatic interview includes his fears of how the Iranian regime will respond to his testimony. "They will put all sorts of things on me," he says--it's about seven minutes into this clip. He knows he is now a marked man.
Iran's police chief, Brigadier General Ismail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, said 1,032 people had been arrested since the 12 June election, but he claimed that most had since been released. "Those who are still in detention were referred to the public and revolutionary courts in Tehran," Fars News Agency quoted him as saying, according to Reuters. Ahmadi-Moghaddam said 20 "rioters" had been killed during the unrest and more than 500 police had been injured. He also asked Interpol to arrest Arash Hejazi, the doctor who was filmed coming to the aid of Neda Soltan after she was shot in the widely seen video of her death.
Hejazi fled to London after the incident and suggested that a Basij militiaman on a motorbike was responsible for her killing. "Her killing was a planned scenario and had no relation with the riots in Tehran," Ahmadi-Moghaddam said.
You don't have to look far to work out what story the Iranian regime is going to try and lay on Arash Hejazi. Here's Ahmadinejad's version of what happened as put out on the Iranian propaganda tool, Press TV:
The massive propaganda of the foreign media, as well as other evidence, proves the interference of the enemies of the Iranian nation who want to take political advantage and darken the pure face of the Islamic republic," he said in a letter to Shahroudi, according to the news agency.
The letter comes a day after Iran's government-backed Press TV said Agha-Soltan did not die the way the opposition claims.
Two people told Press TV there were no security forces in the area when she was killed. And the network said the type of bullet that killed her is not used by Iranian security forces.
A man who told the network that he had helped take her to a hospital said, "There were no security forces or any member of the Basij" paramilitary present when she was killed.
The Guardian's version makes it look as if Dr Arash Hejazi ran away. In fact, Arash Hejazi is currently based in England in order to pursue a postgraduate degree at the Oxford Brookes University in publishing; he was on a visit to Tehran when, like Neda Soltan, he landed up on the scene of the shooting during the course of one of the biggest street protests against the declaration of the faked results of the Iranian election.
The Guardian also fails to tell its readers about Arash Hejazi's background as an award-winning writer and publisher. I would have linked you to his excellent website, which documents his own writings and his publication of democracy activists both in and beyond Iran. But it was based on an Iranian ISP, and in the last few days, it's been taken down. What a surprise.
But you can still find a good account of Arash's extraordinary and impressive achievements on his Wikipedia page. There's a telling account by him of the impact of the Iranian regime's censorship methods here.
It's a shame that the Wikipedia page doesn't carry the information which was on his now vanished website about the last time he was in trouble with the Iranian regime. One of his publishing ventures was shut down after he published a story by Primo Levi. Now, I wonder why the Iranian regime would have wanted to do that?
I hope that Interpol and the British government will respond with the contempt the Iranian regime deserves to any requests to turn over Arash Hejazi to them.
At the height of the pouring out of mass demonstrations on the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities, I started writing the post which is appended to this one.
But I hadn't finished it when tonight, one of the key Twitterers from inside Iran came back after a silence of several days. Over the last hour or two, he's been running a series of tweets telling the story of what happened to some of his fellow Tehran university protesters as they got rounded up by the security apparatus of the Iranian regime.
So I'm editing together the series of tweets to form this continuous post. I don't know if it's safe to give his Twitter name. I want to pay tribute again as I did repeatedly on Twitter, and as I did in the original draft below, to his honesty, his courage and his unfailing commitment to bear witness to what's going on in this uprising.
The tweets from him presented here run backwards--latest first (it came up four minutes ago), down to the first of the series, which he put up about an hour ago. I'll keep updating them as long as he's able to go on telling this story of what's been happening to the arrested protesters.
It's classic police state stuff.
May the Almighty protect him and his fellow protesters, strengthen them and keep them safe.
the biggest help: spread the news & don't desert us! it may take some time but we will take what is rightfully ours!8 minutes agofrom web
why BBC & CNN reporting things like it's all over now? how can it be over after what gov done to us?3 minutes agofrom web
the numbers of protectors were far more than 5000! the entire district was full of people
this is going to happen on every national occasion & gov has no excuse to stop us!13 minutes agofrom web
Karoubi was there in person & Mousavi said he was stuck in traffic but we heard him through his cellphone & loudspeakers15 minutes agofrom web
it may work on a short period of time, but they can't stop what is already started, today's rally was a clear proof18 minutes agofrom web
Gov is working hard on State TV trying to depress people & stop them from fighting back20 minutes agofrom web
we passed a letter to Karoubi today describing everything we know about various students conditionsless than a minute agofrom web
the student community will stand to the very end! we won't forget what they have done to us!
and I don't want to put him in more pressure of any kind right now6 minutes agofrom web
I skipped some of the incidents as Reza requested. he's very weak both mentally & physically7 minutes agofrom web
Reza had no idea why they suddenly released him & some of his inmates1 minute agofrom web
at night around 10PM they Released Reza & his family instantly moved him to a hospital for internal bleeding4 minutes agofrom web
he promised if one of them confess in front of camera he will free them all & they will blur his face & nothing to worry!9 minutes agofrom web
in morning a man introduced him self as Intelligent (intelligence?) came saying he will record their confections (confessions?) with camera1 minute agofrom web
they prevented them from sleeping by kept them standing all the nightless than 20 seconds agofrom web
according to Reza some students from Polytechnic university were also there5 minutes agofrom web
and after they knew Reza is a student they moved him to a more harsh environment with some other people6 minutes agofrom web
the man promised Reza's family they will release him if he's really innocent1 minute agofrom web
unfortunately Reza's mother told everything she knows over the phone to a man calling from Evin3 minutes agofrom web
in last days Reza said it looked they get a little more organized and start searching for any special case in arrested people
a man came and say they will be released today and an hour later another came & say they will be in prison for 10year!2 minutes agofrom web
Reza said it looked like they have no idea what should they do with so much people4 minutes agofrom web
all types of gov agents came & go in the next couple of days, moving people, forcing them to walk or just stand for a long time6 minutes agofrom web
according to Reza some of the injured people already passed out and a taxi driver looked like dead by that time10 minutes agofrom web
In first day at Evin prison staff started searching for severely injured people & gave them some first aid4 minutes agofrom web
and another hour passed just standing in the row at the entrance of prison & filling out forms8 minutes agofrom web
it took near 3 hours to get to the prison, Reza said the driver seemed enjoys wandering in the streets11 minutes agofrom web
Reza had no idea why they select some of the people and where they moved the others16 minutes agofrom web
apparently they released some people on that night & move Reza & some of the selected people to Evin17 minutes agofrom web
around 3am day 2 they started moving people in vans, Reza said a driver was talking to a Basiji about Evin prison is full and what shoul ...20 minutes agofrom web
Reza said some people sign them & some other just faked their signs & names, there were not enough confession papers for all people24 minutes agofrom web
and they paid to go to streets and say things & they know they have violated national security & Islam26 minutes agofrom web
the papers were prewritten confessions all in different hand writings saying the signer is a member of organization by mousavi27 minutes agofrom web
He said in the second day some pain cloth people came with papers forcing people to sign them32 minutes agofrom web
there was also a awful problem of only one toilet for all people in there and a impossible time limit of around 1min for each person34 minutes agofrom web
Reza said the only exception was they didn't hit arrested people directly in the face39 minutes agofrom web
they didn't open the plastic handcuffs for a day & half, & randomly beat up people in there44 minutes agofrom web
Reza estimated around 200 people were in each room and there were not enough space to even sit on the groundabout 1 hour agofrom web
he said all sort of people were there & some of them were just unlucky people just walking in streets and captured for no reasonabout 1 hour agofrom web
he spent his first 48h of arrest at level -4 of ministry of interior building without food or waterabout 1 hour agofrom web
my connection is very poor & I don't know how long I will be able to sustain itabout 1 hour agofrom web
Reza released from Hospital yesterday he is banned from university and now is a stared [marked by gov] studentabout 1 hour agofrom web
1:17AM finally managed to load twitter! HTTPS protocol is still blocked by some ISP & no chance getting to twitter with apps
Drafted on 16th June:
I'm keeping up with what's going on in Iran via this Tweetgrid link, which shows the tweets of protesters in Iran alongside a flood of messages from commenters across the world.
It was Twitter that alerted me to what was beginning to roll on Sunday. I picked up a couple of Tweeter names from my usual followees which were putting out angry protest messages in some contrast to what was running on the MSM-- who were running Ahmadinejad's contemptuous dismissal of the protesters as a variant on disappointed football team losers.
The BBC was running headlines about Mousavi as "the loser", as if to imply that there was certainly no question of doubt about Ahmadinejad's victory.
Then I began reading the tweets of two Iranian students, one obviously under siege in the University of Tehran, the other seeming to have a broader set of contacts across Iran. Then there were the tweets coming from non-Iranians picking up messages and videos coming out of Iran.
I sat up till 3:00am on Sunday night following the tweets from the students besieged in Tehran University. By Monday morning, I emailed my daughter and son-in-law the Tweetgrid link and urged them to follow it.
One of the things that most impressed me and convinced me of the potential power of this movement was the way in which one of the besieged student tweeters sent message after message where he acknowledged his own fear-- he described himself as shaking and sweating with fear-- as he saw the security forces attacking the adjoining building and sought help for a severely wounded friend. He also felt fear at the thought of what might happen at the demo called for the next day. I saw the tweets reporting government threats that the proposed demo must not go ahead because it had been declared illegal, and that protesters would be met by live bullets. He wasn't sure whether to go or not--it was clear that disinformation was being spread fast.
He went offline for almost a day but by that time it was clear
I've never been in the least tempted to vote for UKIP-- the one-issue political party whose sole raison d'etre is to campaign against membership of the European Union.
But I've been gobsmacked by the sight of this UKIP election poster plastered here and there in odd corners I've passed in my car driving across London.
So there's Churchill, proudly invoking victory in his Homburg (hello--a European hat style) as their poster boy.
Does UKIP not know one of Churchill's most famous post-war speeches was the one where he advocated not just a European common market (as was being discussed at that time)-- but a federal United States of Europe, way beyond anything the current EU has proposed?
Here's some extracts from what he was saying back in 1946:
If Europe were once united in the sharing of its common inheritance, there would be no limit to the happiness, to the prosperity and the glory which its three or four million people would enjoy.....
Yet all the while there is a remedy which, if it were generally and spontaneously adopted by the great majority of people in many lands, would as if by a miracle transform the whole scene, and would in a few years make all Europe, or the greater part of it, as free and as happy as Switzerland is to-day. What is this sovereign remedy? It is to re-create the European Family, or as much of it as we can, and to provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom. We must build a kind of United States of Europe. In this way only will hundreds of millions of toilers be able to regain the simple joys and hopes which make life worth living. The process is simple. All that is needed is the resolve of hundreds of millions of men and women to do right instead of wrong and to gain as their reward blessing instead of cursing.....
Our constant aim must be to build and fortify the strength of the United Nations Organization. Under and within that world concept we must re-create the European Family in a regional structure called, it may be, the United States of Europe. And the first practical step would be to form a Council of Europe. If at first all the States of Europe are not willing or able to join the Union, we must nevertheless proceed to assemble and combine those who will and those who can.
Of course, at that time, Churchill spoke of Britain as if it was somehow not really part of Europe. But his vision was of Britain as head of the Commonwealth. That's pointed out by some of the defenders of this campaign in the comments here. However, a key feature of the Commonwealth he advocated was one in which all of its citizens had unlimited right of immigration to Britain. It was the Conservative governments of his time and subsequently which turned to mass immigration from Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent as the answer to Britain's postwar labour shortages. Churchill did express reservations about the policy in racist terms--but it can hardly be UKIP's case that they stand behind Churchill's suggestion, towards the end of the time when he was barely able to function as a politician, that a Conservative Party slogan should be "Keep Britain White"?
So, if UKIP is going to invoke Churchill, are they going to support substituting membership of the EU with that of a Commonwealth of unlimited rights of immigration? Or are they hinting at support for Churchill's sometimes-expressed white supremacist attitudes?
The UKIP grandees like Campbell Bannerman, who picked Churchill as their poster boy, seem to have arrested their awareness of his historical role at Dunkirk, the biggest military defeat in British history, in which his role was primarily to inspire and commit Britain to fighting Nazism and totalitarianism.
David Campbell Bannerman commenting on the launch said: "Sir Winston is an ideal icon for our campaign because it is high time that Britain found that old Dunkirk spirit again and learned to fight its corner in adversity. We've accepted far too much nonsense from Brussels over the years and it is time to say NO MORE! The only way to do that at this election is to vote UKIP, as none of the old parties have anything to offer other than more Europe.
UKIP's barely concealed agenda is a decidedly Little England one. No, they're not fascists in smart suits, like the BNP. But their view of politics is simplistic, ignorant and ultimately a prescription for economic dead-endery.
They would hardly stand a chance in next Thursday's election were it not for the disastrous failure of the UK's three main political parties to confront and put a rapid and decisive end to the cosy, all-in-it-together morass of self-serving corruption through our own Parliament's expenses rackets.
I'm probably going to vote for Libertas in the EU elections, because I think trans-EU parties with a focus on accountability and a combination of commitment and scepticism are the least worst choice.
The local UK elections are more problematic. Any temptation I was beginning to have to vote Tory in protest at Gordon Brown's handling of just about any policy or crisis you care to mention has been laid to rest by David Cameron's shying away from dealing with (and sometimes open support of) those expenses miscreants of his own party he happens to be most sympathetic to.
In the past, I've resorted to voting for the Green and Liberal parties when protesting against the worst excesses of the former ultra-left Hackney Labour Council in its heyday. Looking at the policies of the Green and Liberals today, their policies seem to me a lot more disastrous than those of Labour and their politicians no more trustworthy.
I'll be looking at the other minority parties over the next few days to see if there's one I can square my conscience on registering my vote with.
Into my mailbox pops a breathless little communication from Teachers' TV telling me it's Behaviour Management week. Well, so it is. I hope the voters get their sanctions and rewards right and our politicians decide to change their ways.
I'm talking about Oliver Kamm, one of my very favourite bloggers, and now a Times columnist and leader writer. He's been called the Pope by some of his detractors, probably because of his tendency to pronounce on various matters with a degree of assertiveness that might suggest he thinks he's infallible.
However, even Kamm has his limits, and today's Sunday Times shows him making one of his worst misjudgements ever.
Here's his recommendation for a replacement Speaker for the appalling and irredeemably tarnished Michael Martin:
Oliver Kamm, leader writer and former investment banker, nominates Gerald Kaufman He understands the business of government while upholding the rights and prerogatives of backbenchers. And he is genuinely witty.
And here, published in some detail, is a slice of the track record of Sir Gerald Kaufman, showing his wit in defence of what he's seen as his rights and prerogatives as a bankbencher making absolutely gross claims for expenses. A particularly telling demonstration of someone who " understands the business."...
The former environment minister was asked to attend a meeting with officials from the parliamentary fees office to discuss details of another claim relating to £28,834 of work on the kitchen and bathroom at his London flat.
He told them that the work was necessary because he was “living in a slum”, though his second home, off Regent’s Park, is in one of the most fashionable areas of the capital. He was eventually reimbursed for £15,329.
On one occasion he asked a civil servant “why are you querying these expenses?” and on another threatened to make a complaint unless a dispute was settled by noon on the day in question. In one document, an official in the fees office noted that invoices Sir Gerald had submitted took him to “within 6p” of his annual limit. He also claimed £1,262 for a gas bill that was £1,055 in credit.
Between 2001 and 2008 the Manchester Gorton MP, one of the Labour party’s longest-serving members, claimed a total of £115,109 in additional costs allowances on his London flat, which he owns outright. In June 2006, he submitted a claim for three months’ expenses totalling £14,301.60, which included £8,865 for a Bang & Olufsen Beovision 40in LCD television. The maximum amount MPs are allowed to claim for TVs is £750.
On July 7, 2006 the fees office wrote to Sir Gerald to say: “I regret to inform you that this item falls within the not allowable category of luxurious furnishings, and as such has been rejected.”
He was paid £750.
In March 2007 Sir Gerald submitted a claim for £1,461.83 for a “second-hand rug replacing 24-year-old carpet”, with an additional £389.91 for “customs duty on rug”, which was paid. The receipt showed that Sir Gerald bought the rug from the Showplace Antique Centre on West 25th Street in Manhattan for $2,750. The Green Book strictly forbids “antique, luxury or premium grade” furnishings.
Later that year, on Dec 29, Sir Gerald, who was knighted in 2004, submitted an invoice from ABC Carpets in Harrods for £598, which was also paid.
A note of a telephone conversation between Sir Gerald, 78, and an official in the fees office, states that his reasons for claiming £28,834 for home improvements between 2005 and 2007 were: “Old flat, facilities out of date, decrepit, health reasons, update, living in slum.” Sir Gerald added that he had “not carried out any repairs/maintenance for 32 years”.
Sir Gerald was also challenged over regular claims for “odd jobs” which he submitted without receipts at a rate of £245 every month — £5 below the then limit for unreceipted expenses. He replied: “Why are you querying these expenses?”
On May 18, a senior official in the fees office noted details of another conversation about the kitchen and bathroom, saying: “MP believes that I have seen a detailed breakdown of the £12,416.51 claim he has submitted [for that financial year]… MP is becoming agitated and will be making an official complaint against me, if this matter is not resolved by 12 noon today.” When detailed invoices were submitted, they included £575 for undertile heating in the shower room and £2,695 for Bosch and Miele kitchen appliances. Sir Gerald was asked to attend a meeting with officials on the matter and the fees office eventually agreed to pay him £15,329 of the £28,834. Sir Gerald accepted, saying that he wanted to “draw a line under the issue”.
In June last year Sir Gerald submitted a £1,262 claim for his gas bill, covering the period March 2006 to May 2008. The fees office pointed out that his gas account was £1,055.60 in credit, and only agreed to pay £122.46.
A note in the file on July 10, 2008 quotes Sir Gerald as saying: “I received a letter from [official] saying not pay as is credit. I paid £1,252 THIS year so want reimbursing!!!”
The fees office wrote to him on July 14 to say: “You might wish to ask British Gas to repay you the credit.”
Sir Gerald’s claims between 2004 and June 2008 also included £19,200 for food — close to the maximum — and £4,692 for cleaning.
Last night Sir Gerald offered to repay the money for the rug and admitted that his claim for the £8,000 television was “a bit daft”.
He said that his flat had been in need of complete refurbishment because he had “neglected” it over the years and he had overclaimed for the gas bill because he “misunderstood” the invoice.
He said that his odd jobs bill was actually more than £245 a month, so he had claimed close to the limit. His food claim was “appropriate” because his job meant he often had to “spend a lot of money” eating out, he added.
As for Oliver Kamm's claim about his wit in general, I recently featured a post with a clip of Sir Gerald Kaufman in full flow from the Labour backbenches making a long speech read straight off a script equating the actions of the Israeli Defence Forces in Gaza with those of the Nazis against the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto.
Maybe Kamm was just trying to be tongue-in-cheek witty with his nomination of this man as the replacement speaker for Michael Martin? If he was, he's in danger of being seen as less of a Pope than a Lord of Misrule.
Incidentally, from the picture in the Telegraph article on Kaufman's claims about the "slum" he's been living in, it's not just "near" Regent's Park, it's in a prime block directly overlooking the park, with fabulous views over one of the finest parks in the world, complete with exotic glimpses of the giraffes and the other wild life in the London Zoo, just down the road.
The reason I know that is ironic. I grew up in a real slum-- a small, damp house in the bomb-cratered streets between the Commercial Road and Cable Street, in post-war Stepney. There was an outdoor toilet and no bathroom or hot water. It had already been marked for demolition as unfit for human habitation when my parents moved in in the late forties. My parents were confident that this was a good move, as they would eventually get a council flat when it was demolished. They weren't aware at the time that the LCC excluded non British nationals from rehousing in council flats. But they got British nationality and waited patiently. We were eventually rehoused-- in 1962. And the landlord of the little house was a Mr Simmons, who lived in the very same grand Regent's Park block that Sir Gerald now describes as inflicting "slum" conditions on him.
It's not often you see my favourite UK left of centre blog, Harry's Place, put up posts praising the Tories, but here's David T positively gushing over the newly established anti-BNP site established by Tim Montgomerie's ConservativeHome group and allies.
Much as I would love to see this campaign succeed, and much as I admire the fact that people like Tim Montgomerie have been able to galvanise Tories & others to support this campaign, I think the first video is pretty dismal.
It offers an image of a sweet-looking Afro-Caribbean boy to counter the BNP's propaganda that our troubles are caused by supposedly unlimited immigration and their taking of our resources by people who shouldn't have the right to them. Behind the BNP's racist message is also the conviction that shadowy and corrupt Hidden Hands (yes, that's Jews like me) are behind all of this.
I don't think this approach is going to persuade a single potential BNP voter to cast their vote differently.
For a start, it insults the intelligence of the target audience, something I'd have thought media-savvy people like Tim Montgomerie are intensely aware of.
Non racist potential BNP protest voters are perfectly aware that there are very likeable people amongst the ethnic groups that are its targets. Doesn't stop them from voting for the BNP as a protest against the perceived corruption of mainstream parliamentarians, or as a protest against particular forms of maximalist minority group critiques of mainstream society (as promoted by the Hizb and the Saviour Sect).
Back in the days preceding the Nazi success in the German elections, the angry non-fascists who voted for them in 1933 mostly knew quite a few cuddly Jewish children, or dedicated Jewish doctors and the like. Some of them had close Jewish friends. All this didn't prevent them from voting against the existing traditional parties, because they thought drastic action was needed, and they didn't see anything wrong with being against Jews as a whole whilst simultaneously being very fond of the odd Jew.
Many otherwise sane and reasonable Palestinians voted for the atrocious Hamas and their exterminationist propaganda as a protest against the corruption of Fatah. They were perfectly well aware of what Hamas stood for, and they supported the two state solution, but their anger with Fatah overcame their real political convictions, because they felt they had to "do something" and bring the corruption to an end.
Non-racists who consider voting for BNP as a protest also know that if they send a few BNP MEPs to the EU Parliament and elect a few BNP councils, they will never have the power to affect the actual lives and conditions of ethnic minorities in this country. So they feel they can safely use the BNP to register a protest, or, as with non-ideology driven Palestinian Hamas voters, to take action against corruption whilst forgetting all about the baggage that comes with the protest party.
So what sort of video message might help persuade decent, ordinary people not to cast a protest vote for the BNP? Maybe something that recognises the justice of widespread public anger-- and then puts across the message that the answer to corruption isn't to cast a vote for racism, anymore than a vote for out-and-out terrorism was the answer to Fatah's corruption.
Maybe it should be a "your vote matters" video. Maybe it should show what happens to countries and peoples who cast despair votes for totalitarian and racist parties, and then contrast that with countries where the electorate took some action that voted the corrupt out (Japan?).
A video which put across the message "when you want to stop corruption, don't vote for violent criminals" would enlighten the many potential voters who don't know about the BNP's track record of convictions for appalling offences.
Most of all, all of us who are committed to the mainstream left and right parties need to put all the pressure we can on our party leaderships to come to terms with what we the people feel, and make really radical moves now that will begin to shift the public's perceptions.
Sadly, there's too much evidence that Brown and his circle, even the ministers who despair of him, are virtually incapable of radically changing their direction and stopping the corruption--and its leaders in the form of the guardians of the parliamentary expenses system right now.
Cameron made something of a move, and it has had an impact, but it's nothing like enough. Listening to Hague on BBC R4 Today programme, it's clear that the Tory hierarchy still haven't got it. He's just pushing the latest Tory line of chipping away at the bits that suit them (like the communication allowance) whilst claiming the public don't really care about the Speaker and the corrupt Parliamentary apparatus that enabled the MPs and the Lords build up their sense of entitlement to be above the laws that the rest of us live by, and line their pockets accordingly, whilst chorusing "it's all within the rules".
If you don't want people to vote BNP:
Ensure that the Speaker of Parliament resigns immediately by organizing a whipped vote of no confidence.
Sack all the members of the Parliamentary Privileges Committee and the senior staff of the Fees Office.
Only MPs with impeccable expenses claims records to sit on the Committee in future.
All MPs to place itemised expenses claims on their web sites every three months.
All claims going back to 2005 to be scrutinised by senior HM Revenue & Customs to check that they meet the test of "wholly, necessarily and exclusively" for use in their job as MPs. Claims that don't meet the test to be paid back in full and with penalty fines and interest.
Commit to prosecuting all MPs who knowingly made false claims or submitted improper accounting.
Commit to reducing the number of MPs by half in time for the next election. If practically impossible for boundary commission reasons, commit to having a second election as soon as possible after 2010 to elect the lower number of MPs
All sitting MPs to face reselection meetings with their constituency parties within the next two weeks (ie ahead of the June elections)
Legislation to be passed immediately to enable peers who breach laws on corruption to be stripped of their titles and rights to sit in the House of Lords.
Any major party that committed to that could face down challenges from the BNP and other fringe parties.
Anything else is tokenism and papering over the cracks. And it won't wash with the electorate. Those who are minded to vote BNP will still do so.
Karen, who's currently simultaneously running her indispensible Tel Aviv Diary on two platforms, gives a glimpse of what it's like to have a desert sandstorm envelop your beautiful corner of the great Bauhaus city on the Mediterranean:
Early in the morning, when I left home, the hot, dusty wind gave me a shock. My eyes were smarting, and my car was covered. My neighbor had just put her wipers on, and the dust had turned to mud, so i wiped off the car before I washed the windows. By the time I left work, the wind had died down, and you could see the skyline, but the car was covered again. Just a little reminder from the desert.
You know all that stuff comes from Tunisia, Libya and other Arab countries. We’re lucky they don’t ask for the sand back.
Oy, Karen, don't make trouble. It's not enough for you to be blamed for stealing land, mass ethnic cleansing and genocide, controlling US banks, industries, news media, Presidents and foreign policy? So now, you're revealing the Jews are also responsible for the desertification of the Maghreb.....?
Hazel Blears, Labour government Cabinet member, writing in the Observer for Sunday, 3rd May:
All too often we announce new strategies or five-year plans, or launch new documents – often with colossal price tags attached – that are received by the public with incredulity at best and, at worst, with hostility. Whatever the problems of the recession, the answer is not more government documents or big speeches.
People want to look their politicians in the eyes and get their anger off their chests. We need a ministerial "masochism strategy", where ministers engage directly and hear the anger first-hand. I'm not against new media. YouTube if you want to. But it's no substitute for knocking on doors or setting up a stall in the town centre.
Third, we need to have a relationship with the voters based on shared instincts and emotions. We need to start showing we understand the instincts, fears, hopes and emotions of the broad mass of British people. We approached the Gurkha issue purely rationally and were mown down by a wave of emotion in support of these brave, loyal fighters. We put ourselves on the wrong side of the British sense of fair play, and no political party can stay there for long without dire consequences. So we need to plug ourselves back into people's emotions and instincts and sound a little less ministerial and a little more human.
Nice one, Hazel, using "we" and "ministers", when the references were so obviously to the actions of Gordon Brown, without benefit of consulting his government colleagues. But the "YouTube if you want to," with its jibe at his notorious video, expressed in an unmistakeable echo of Margaret Thatcher's famous and derisive comment on her pusillanimous colleagues "You turn if you want to. The Lady's not for turning" must have enraged Gordon Brown beyond belief.
issued a statement backing Mr Brown and seeking to "clarify" her position. "I want to make it clear that the Prime Minister enjoys my 100 per cent support. Any suggestion that I intended what I wrote as criticism of him or his leadership is completely wrong," her statement said. "I fully support the collective decisions we take as a Government. My article simply calls for the Labour Party to hit the streets campaigning against the Tories in the forthcoming local and European elections."
Mmm, yes, Hazel. How could anyone possibly have taken your article as criticism of Gordon Brown or his leadership?
Do they have some terrifying version of Room 101 at No 10 Downing Street these days? But even O'Brien, the mastermind torturer of "1984", took more than an hour to get his victims to acknowledge their thoughtcrimes and make statements declaring they loved Big Brother.
Perhaps the threat of instantly losing a Cabinet seat was more effective? But surely she realised what the result of her article might be? Or has the Brown entourage got some highly embarrassing stuff on her that they could threaten to release?
Perish the thought.
But, by being shown to have been forced to churn out this preposterous denial, she might still have done for him.
The Jewish Chronicle and some blogs, including the usually very savvy Normblog, have been running the story of Israel boycott leader Omar Barghout's hypocrisy as if it was news that he'd enrolled as a PhD student at Tel-Aviv University, and had done so recently.
I posted about Barghouti's PhD enrolment back in March 2006, when I showed he was closely linked to the magazine Dance Europe's decision to ban reviews of an Israeli dance company as part of the pro-Palestinian cultural boycott of all Israel academics and cultural events.
It showed that he was listing his ongoing PhD studies at Tel-Aviv University way back then. Yes, in 2002.
Now, I'm a never-completed-my-PhD veteran myself. But seven years .... well, it's certainly a bit late in the day to be reporting his enrolment as news.
Barghouti is one of the leaders of the present Fatah Palestinian faction-led boycott movement, started in 2004, when he was already at least two years into his PhD studies. Whilst it calls for a complete boycott of all Israeli academic institutions, except for the purpose of meetings to campaign against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, Barghouti ignores the boycott when it comes to his own self-improvement.
Tel-Aviv University has commendably shown its own opposition to boycotts and sanctions by refusing to eject Barghouti because of his political stance, even though that stance is designed to damage the University and Israeli academia in general. But are they up to the academic mark in allowing a PhD student to stay on the roll quite so long without delivering?
You can see Barghouti in full flow in the clip above, delivering standard Fatah Stalinist-style denunciations of Israeli "genocide", "apartheid" etc in the smoothest and coolest of tones.
There are so many ironies here that it's difficult to pick out which to focus on.
The richest is perhaps Barghouti calling in the clip in late 2008 for "an end to lip service" on the importance of the EU taking boycott measures against Israel, whilst now stating that it's "a personal matter" that he's continuing his seven years of PhD studies at Tel-Aviv University and refusing to discuss that any further.
Sheikh Hassan al-Jouju, head of Gaza's Sharia courts, said that the Palestinians reject with disgust the use of Jerusalem's name as part of "this lawless festival".
"Jerusalem is sacred and pure, and its status is derived from what Allah has given to it, and it does not need this nonsense. It needs courageous national standings which will thwart the Judaization schemes and the digging under the al-Aqsa Mosque."
He went on to ask, "Why didn't we hear the voice of the mufti and the head of the Sharia courts in the West Bank in light of these actions?
,,,,those who approved this event, who let these groups dance on the wounds of our people, on our suffering and the cries of pain of the al-Aqsa Mosque, those who approved this event are not Palestinians.
Senior Hamasmember Hamed Bitawi, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said that "this festival contradicts Islamic law. The Palestinian nation is a nation of jihad and resistance, and this festival damages its image and the memory of the martyrs and their blood. Shame will follow those who approved these cheap festivals."
So it seems the regime in Gaza are firm in their dedication to boycott not just the leader of the supposedly national Palestinian boycott-Israel campaign, but the very cultural activities he and the Palestinian Authority are so keen to promote.
I suspect that they're also less than impressed by his seven year continuing PhD study marathon at Tel-Aviv University.
The World at One is usually one of the less contentious of BBC Radio 4's news programmes. It does offer the standard BBC world view of most matters but as far as I'm aware has rarely featured on blog sites as a source of some of the most outrageous examples of media bias presented as impartial reporting.
On Wednesday 25th February, however, its reporting of the arrival in Britain of "Bishop" Richard Williamson was astounding in the way it presented a notorious anti-semite and Holocaust denier activist Michele Renouf as no more than "a woman supporting Williamson".
It did so on its web page and at the beginning and end of the five minute respectful interview it offered her, handing her an extended opportunity to put over her polemics at length. She was also referred to as in the course of the interview as "Lady Renouf, a supporter of the Bishop who is assembling a legal team in case he is extradited to Germany". Nowhere in the interview or the related World at One web page was any hint given of her extremist racist activism. It is as if Nick Griffin, leader of the racist British National Party had been introduced as "a politician". Not that the BBC would be at all likely to offer Griffin five minutes gently managed airtime to put his views on a self-acknowledged Holocaust denier across.
Michele Renouf is not just any old anti-semite and Holocaust denier. She is a leading activist who tirelessly organizes and propagates the cause of such front line convicted Holocaust denial historical fraudsters as Ernst Zundel, Robert Faurisson and David Irving. She raises money to bankroll convicted British racists to try their luck at seeking asylum from British justice in California. She runs a web site and produces DVDs in their various causes. The web site is also extensively devoted to representing "the Zionist lobby and its allies" as a sinister controlling group, and to representing mainstream Jewish and non-Jewish political commentators and leaders as engaged in related conspiracies to suppress and twist the truth about their sinister machinations.
All this is presented by her as being campaigning in favour of human rights and free speech. It's the same grotesque inversion adopted by President Ahmadinejad and his regime, who defended his Tehran conference to "investigate whether the Holocaust happened" in the name of open-minded enquiry. So it's hardly surprising that Renouf herself was one of the people who took part in that conference.
The point about why debate with Holocaust deniers is inappropriate is not because there is any attempt to suppress genuine historical enquiry, let alone conceal truths about what the Nazi regime did to Jews and its other enemies. Nor is it,as is often represented, out of a wish to avoid giving offence, whether to the surviving victims of the Holocaust or to the dead and their families.
It is inappropriate because all Holocaust denial is invariably based on deliberate historical fraud. It cannot be otherwise, because the evidence that the Holocaust took place as an act of deliberate Nazi policy is so vast, so readily validated by innumerable incontrovertible evidence sources.
The reason Zundel, Faurrisson, David Irving and other Holocaust deniers like them have been convicted is because their supposed evidence has been based on fraudulent and falsified documentation, well established in trial after trial in courts across the world. Any "debates" the Holocaust deniers seek to invoke are invariably founded on the same recycling of fraudulent evidence and falsified historical data, as has been most devastatingly documented in the work of Professor Richard Evans, and in the judgement against David Irving given by Mr Justice Gray in April 2000.
You can hear the interview presenter Sean Ley of the World at One gave her by accessing the Wednesday edition here. It'll be available until 2:00pm GMT on Wednesday 4th March. It starts at around 23 minutes into the 31 minute clip. Ley begins by detailing the reasons for Williamson's notoriety, through the interviews he's given in which he called the Holocaust "lies, lies, lies", his repeated assertions that no gas chambers were used by the Nazis to exterminate Jews, and that at the most some hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered by the Nazis in other ways.
Lady Renouf is a supporter of the Bishop who is assembling a legal team in case he is extradited to Germany. She told me he should not be called a Holocaust denier.
It's an absurd propaganda term and in any case no-one denies anything....If there's any denial going on, it's debate denial that goes on, and that should be objected to by all of us because the concept that we cannot debate and that there is no respect for debate flies in the face of our own civilization.
Isn't it that the debate he chooses to conduct in denying the existence of the gas chambers that killed so many Jews is one that causes profound offence to many people, Jewish or otherwise?
Well, I don't think offence should be part of an investigation into history. I think that is emotional blackmail that has nothing to do with an investigation.If for example your child was murdered and you didn't want to hear about it, you cannot debate whether there should be any investigation or court cases about that. You may not want to read about it, but you cannot say that there may be no investigation because your sensibilities will be hurt. That is an absurd situation.
Let me ask you about the Bishop's position now. His excommunication was lifted by the Vatican but the Vatican has now demanded that he should retract the views he expressed in that television interview and the Catholic Church in England and Wales has said he cannot be in full Communion with the Church until he does so. Is he prepared to do so?
There is something extraordinary going on. The idea of the Holocaust as some sort of thing that [if] one speaks about it and commits some sort of blasphemy in whole or part is the UN resolution. You may not query the Holocaust legendin whole or part. There is no such situation in normal historical debate and rational argument in any other field, and it should be normal for a review of history without exception and I think when the Bishop was asked by the Swedish TV,it was actually to stitch him up because it was later used to try and undermine the idea of this reconciliation with the pre-Vatican II society. And so I think it's actually aimed at preventing the priests who query the Vatican II from their being allowed back into the body of the Vatican.
This grotesque view of Holocaust denial as the attempt to restore suppressed normal historical debate to an area from which it is said to have been excluded went unchallenged by Sean Ley. He did not pick up on her definition of the Holocaust as "legend", despite the fact that she claims to be speaking for open enquiry and rational argument and that she proclaims herself on her web site to be an "actress and model" with no academic background in historical research.
Part of the reason for this is that Ley himself confined the issue of historical denial to the giving of offence and did not concern himself with the evidence of Holocaust denial being based on fraud, suppression of mountains of evidence or both, demonstrated in trials and judgements against all the leading Holocaust deniers.
The only riposte to Renouf's proclamation of the Holocaust as "legend" came from a subsequent telephone interview with Lord Janner, presumably on the grounds of his being Chairman of the Holocaust Trust, who also proceeded to discuss Holocaust denial primarily in terms of its offensiveness to survivors and to assert that he knew the Holocaust had happened because members of his own family had been murdered. Lord Janner has a long and mostly distinguished history on representing various Jewish community concerns, but he is not now at the centre of dealing with Holocaust denial propagandists. His answer here was utterly inadequate.
Why did the World at One team choose to give such a front line Holocaust denier as Michele Renouf a platform? Why did they choose to conceal her background and activism in this field and in promoting anti-semitism?
Who on the World at One team decided that the issue of Williamson's Holocaust denial was to be handled as one of actual or potential offence? Why did they not call one of the impeccably reputed historians who would have been able to show that her claims that the Holocaust is "legend" and that Williamson seeks "debate" are pernicious nonsense?
Quite apart from the outrageousness of giving a platform for Holocaust denial, this particular news treatment is most concerning because it suggests that truth of the Holocaust is coming to be relativised in public debate by being seen as one related to "offence", for the reason that it is seen as needing to be treated as an analogue of Muslim offence over portrayals of Mohammed and of Islam in general. It is another instance of something in British political discourse relating to Jews, and particularly to anti-semitism and Israel needing by definition to be "balanced" by being analogised explicitly or inexplicitly to Muslim concerns. Indeed, one of the reports in the Daily Telegraph to which I've linked refers to "Bishop" Williamson and his fellow Holocaust sceptics, an apparently innocuous terminological shift which reduces the reality of the most documented events in history to a matter of political opinion, analogous with membership of the European Community.
It's interesting that "Bishop" Williamson himself has now issued an apology for "offending" people by his stance on the Holocaust. But as has been widely recognised, not least by the Vatican, this does not deal with his actual denial that Jews were gassed by the Nazi, or that more than two or three hundred thousand were actually murdered.
The image above appeared in this week's edition of "The Jewish Chronicle". It shows a Mardi Gras carnival float in Germany last week. It's a particularly vivid representation of how today's Germany may understand much more acutely that "Bishop" Williamson may represent not just some bizarre sideshow of the backwoods of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, but shaking hands with the devil of anti-semitism.
Will the World at One team recognise they've gone beyond shaking hands with the devil when, without acknowledgement, they put the voice of Holocaust denial in front of the microphone to send its message to the worldwide BBC audience?
Ha'aretz is running this intriguing tickertape newsflash banner this evening:
U.S. to send badminton team to Iran as part of bid to engage Iranian people
Well, I know President Obama's keen on that sort of high energy team sport. The clip above tells you more than you probably want to know about the centrality of basketball in his life story. And he's said to have asked for a basketball court to be installed in the White House so he can go on playing.
I wondered if badminton had been chosen instead of basketball so as to make this breakthrough gesture look less like a bit of US cultural imperialism.
Then I found the full AP storyfrom which Ha'aretz' headline was taken.
What do you know? It seems it's a women's badminton team which is going to be sent out to engage the good people of Iran. Is this a masterstroke, a superb bit of cultural finessing by Obama, in which he sidesteps potential accusations of sexist sports orientation by showing that both US and Iranian women can excel in the most macho of court sports?
Oh, but hang on. The story tells us that this initiative hasn't come from Obama at all.
In fact, it was the result of an invitation from the Iranians.
Er, probably not. Because what's clear is that these exchanges have been going on since January 2007. That's right, since deep into the presidency of-- George W. Bush, the supposed pariah of the old politics which Obama Is going to sweep away with Change We Can All Believe In.
What's more, during this period of the Bush presidency, 32 US athletes were sent to Iran and 75 athletes brought to the US, including weightlifters and wrestlers, basketball, table tennis and water polo players, all organized by the supposedly neo-con dominated Bush State Department in co-operation with the Iranian authorities.
But the spin being put on this latest exchange is that it's part of a broad bid to engage the Iranian people through cultural and educational exchanges. I can't quite work out what's meant to be different about this particular trip that'll engage the Iranian people in a way they weren't previously engaged before.
And still it falls, and the sky is that solid muddy grey that signals another thick blanket ready to descend.
Here's my road, with a bunch of teenagers out enjoying their day off school and the unprecedented opportunity to toboggan down the middle of the road on a tea-tray.
Out on my deck, there's an almost silence. Usually I can hear a distant constant humming, the sound of the North Circular, the busiest road in London. Now, there's almost nothing. Just wind sighing in the trees and the occasional flop of a fistful of snow falling off a vine.
I've only seen one intrepid milk float on the road since eight this morning. Nothing else on the move. All the buses cancelled. Almost all the schools shut.
Last night, I drove home through a blizzard. I emailed my daughter to say that was the first time I'd done that since the time I lived out in rural Berkshire, before she was born. Then at half past one in the morning, she emailed back to say she and her husband (both aged 23) and a bunch of their friends had just come in from being out playing in the snow. Cambridge snowbound at midnight. It must have looked stunning.
I do realise this must make Canadians and most northern USA folk laugh their socks off. Five inches of snow can be almost guaranteed to shut everything down in the UK.
There was our Mayor, Boris Johnson, on Radio 4 at 1pm, valiantly inventing new verb conjugations to convey the frantic intensity of the London gritting team's unsuccessful efforts to get the roads cleared:
We gritted, we grat, we grut, he said. But when you get that much snow, there's just nowhere to put it.
Sending up the notorious "leaves on the line" British Rail apologies for the regular breakdowns of service every time the first major Autumn storm brings the fall, he also said
This is the right kind of snow, it's just the wrong kind of quantities
You have to give the man credit. He'd actually cycled all the way from Highbury to his mayoral office. And the dreaded Red Ken would never have carried off that apology for failure with such charm and good humour.
Hmmm. Weather forecast on Radio 4 just said we're due for another foot of snow in the next few hours.
In case anyone didn't know, there's a war been happening in full swing over these last few weeks. Over 1400 civilian victims. Massive damage through air strikes inflicted by an immensely powerful military machine claiming to be out to defeat terrorism, although the terrorists have been armed with relatively insignificant weapons. Mosques with congregants at prayer in them have been bombed. In some of the most horrific of the endless air strikes, whole families have been wiped out in a moment. There are those who claim the actual numbers of civilian casualties are even greater-- maybe over three thousand. It's almost impossible to get at the truth, because there's the tightest control of press access. And there's a large and smooth-talking PR machine working at justifying the military onslaughts in the name of defeating terrorism.
And now, over the past fortnight there have been levels of protest not seen in the British MSM and on British streets since the 2003 protests over the Iraq War brought over a million onto the streets of London in the largest political protest ever staged in Britain.
Yes, the numbers have been much smaller. But one of the demonstrations mustered over 100,000 people. And some smaller offshoots of the demonstrations taking place almost daily have grown violent, smashing up branches of Starbucks, based on urban myths that Starbucks profits go to finance the bombing. There has been a steep rise in attacks on Jews and Jewish organizations. Students, sometimes supported by academic staff have begun a series of occupations in some of our most prestigious universities, demanding various forms of sanctions, particularly divestment and an end to any academic co-operation, together with support for the resistance organizations, as they call the terrorists. One of our most prestigious schools, the London School of Economics, has caved in, issued a joint statement with the occupiers and agreed to set up a committee which will consider proposals for divestment submitted by the students and anyone else who cares to.
You might argue that all these protesters are just a congregation of the faithful--the far left march-on-demand in coalition with Iranian-oriented radical Islamists and open supporters of terrorism, called forth by the Stop the War Coalition.
But the protests have gone way beyond that. Day after day, the BBC, Channel 4, ITN and the quality newspapers across the board in the UK have run one report after another carrying horrific stories of carnage against civilians. Normally placid leader writers, columnists and commentators have been beside themselves with rage. We have had a government minister claiming the BBC is being cowed by the Israeli government into refusing to publicize a fundraiser for desperate war victims. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the most senior cleric of the Church of England (headed by HM Queen Elizabeth) has spoken out against the refusal. The Religion Editor of the Daily Telegraph, in a normally sedate corner of the British press, has expressed his disgust and nausea. The Prime Minister and senior government ministers have expressed enormous concern and horror about levels of civilian casualties. Opposition spokesman have joined them in condemning the air strikes and the devastation wrought as utterly disproportionate and unjustifiable, particularly in the light of large numbers of child casualties. There are repeated calls from all political parties for an investigation of whether this use of such powerful and deadly weapons against a civilian population has constituted a war crime. In a debate in Parliament last week, the great majority of members who spoke condemned the use of disproportionate force. The leader of the third largest political party has called for the UK and the European Union to impose sanctions.
The curious thing is, that the protests, the media outcry and the Parliamentary outrage haven't been about the war at all. That is, the war I've described in my first paragraph. That's a war in which British forces are playing a full part, including launching repeated air strikes and devastating use of sophisticated ground weapons on civilian areas in which terrorists conceal themselves. That's the war in Afghanistan.
The protests and the outrage have all been directed at Israel's actions in its Cast Lead operation against the Hamas regime based in Gaza.
And it's even more curious that the near disinterest in what's happening to the civilians of Afghanistan at a time when British hearts are being so stirred for the people of Gaza has been virtually unremarked on in British media commentary.
Why is this?
Consider the fact that the whole of the UK is on one time zone; one news cycle. Till just a couple of decades ago, there was only one monopoly radio broadcaster, the BBC. Almost anyone over 40 who grew up in the UK grew up and set down their political compass according to the BBC's carefully constructed and loving self-congratulatory view of its role as an impartial and balanced purveyor of news. In terms of the resourcing of its news operations, funding through a hefty annual tax placed on every household using a radio or TV, it's always tended to set the terms of the debate. Because of the way in which the tax-based funding facilitates training, a huge proportion of broadcasters with other networks spent some of their formative years training at the BBC, and acquiring its left liberal mindset. The BBC until very recent years had a profoundly respectful and deferential attitude towards government and particularly the armed forces.
You only have to compare how the BBC has been reporting the role of British troops in the Afghanistan with its approach to reporting the actions of Israeli troops in Gaza to gain an appreciation of the utterly different approaches. When the BBC reports what British troops have been doing, it focuses on reporting the military aspirations, the fighting soldier's account of his values and experiences and the successes against terrorists. Bad news is when a roadside bomb blows up a British soldier.
When it comes to what's been going on in Gaza, BBC reporters overwhelmingly go for weeping parents and children, preferably against a background of ruined houses. Whether it's India or Israel, the BBC tends to slip into lecturing mode, much as mainstream UK politicians do.
The population of the UK may now be one of the most culturally diverse in Europe, but its elite--including the elite who get to mould the news agenda as reporters, commentators, editors and producers, tend to have attended a narrow range of schools and Universities (notably Oxford and Cambridge). Nobody actually tells them what to think or write.
But given their shared upbringing, their imbibing of respect for BBC and MSM traditions, they bring to reporting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the de haut en bas condescension and lecturing attitudes that are nimbly satirized in this clip. Many have additionally acquired through their undergraduate days a New Left Marxist slant to their elitist disdain, bringing with it a sympathetic understanding of the concept of terrorism as "resistance" and a shining belief that any group espousing it with the support of their local populace cannot be defeated. A New Left slant is going to slant any reporter or senior politician towards seeing any powerful nation as a potential war criminal simply by using powerful technologies against opponents who have what appear to be rudimentary weapons. And taking on the concept of "resistance" usually seems to involve becoming impervious to the concept that stationing your fighters and your weapons where children, families and other innocent civilians live is a war crime.
And is the presence of 3,000,000 UK Muslims who are thought to need appeasement the real reason for the pro-Palestinian slant? I really don't think so.
Back in 1982, the UK press and politicians went into a similar spasm over the first Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Islamist politics were nowhere to be seen.
Then again, you can find ministerial statements expressing grave concern about disproportionate Israeli actions. Horrific reports of yet more civilian casualties buried under the ruins. A Jewish anti-zionist MP and former minister making passionate speeches denouncing the "repulsive" government of Israel (Sir Gerald Kaufman, seen in the clip above, above saying virtually the same things in 2009) .
Oh, wait a minute. That was the UK press and the political elite reporting on the IDF action against Hamas and Fatah terrorist groups in Jenin, following a huge spate of suicide bombings which ended the lives of hundreds of Israelis, back in 2002.
The Rev George Pitcher is a serving cleric of the Church of England.
And this Sunday, he's been telling us that he's "almost as disgusted by the BBC as he is by Israel."
Not the Israeli government. Not the Israeli armed forces. But Israel.
Why? Here are the reasons he offers:
Chickening out of showing an appeal for charitable aid for Gaza is hardly on a scale with using white phosphorous on its civilians and shooting its children in the back of the head,but the moral weakness that the BBC exhibits in hiding behind claims to impartiality induces the same sort of nausea.
My knowledge of Christian doctrine is admittedly rudimentary, but I rather thought there was some commitment amongst its adherents to speaking (or writing) the truth, and having some regard to evidence and its quality before ascribing guilt to anyone, let alone a particular country. Here, he seems to be implying that these actions have not only taken place, but they are the systematic and deliberate policy of Israel against the population of Gaza.
Maybe he sees his stance as moral strength.
One over the top Church of England cleric might not amount to much. But the Rev. Pitcher is no ordinary cleric. He's the Religion Editor of the Daily Telegraph. As such, he's accorded a blog on the Daily Telegraph website to broadcast his views to a huge worldwide audience. One wonders what sort of principles and judgement he brings to his post as Religion Editor.
And besides, the Church of England is an established Church--the official Church of the British state. It has huge rights of involvement in British legislation and policy consultation at every level, from the twenty six bishops with seats in the House of Lords, to the CofE-packed local area "SACRE" committees which are appointed to recommend and approve compulsory religious education programmes in all UK secular state schools. Daily religious broadcasts on BBC Radio 4 give pride of place to Church of England speakers and clerics.
The international Red Cross said Tuesday that Israel has fired white phosphorus shells in its offensive in the Gaza Strip, but has no evidence to suggest it is being used improperly or illegally.
The comments came after a human rights organization accused the Jewish state of using the incendiary agent, which ignites when it strikes the skin and burns straight through or until it is cut off from oxygen. It can cause horrific injuries.
The International Committee of the Red Cross urged Israel to exercise "extreme caution" in using the incendiary agent, which is used to illuminate targets at night or create a smoke screen for day attacks, said Peter Herby, the head of the organization's mines-arms unit.
"In some of the strikes in Gaza it's pretty clear that phosphorus was used," Herby told The Associated Press. "But it's not very unusual to use phosphorus to create smoke or illuminate a target. We have no evidence to suggest it's being used in any other way."
Is the Reverend Pitcher aware of the ICRC Report, or does he just reproduce atrocity stories without bothering to ask himself any questions about whether they are reliable?
As for the "shooting children in the back of the head" atrocity story, has it not occurred to the Rev. Pitcher that if it were true, there would be ample evidence through hospital records and photographs and now that the press are able to enter Gaza, any such evidence would be being trumpeted to the heavens by a press keen to publicise atrocity stories about Israel? Perhaps he got his information from this article in the Daily Telegraph. But even that article ends by stating that the accusations that Israeli soldiers shot a number of children in the head cannot be verified. And if you read the account, it's not at all clear that such shots, even if they happened, were deliberately aimed at children with intent by Israeli soldiers. Of this being in any way a deliberate policy of Israel, you will look in vain for any evidence of that, apart from routine and totally unevidenced propaganda statements from pro-Hamas supporters.
Clearly, the Rev. Pitcher isn't a man to let such cold questions of rational analysis stand in the way of such intense emotions as disgust and nausea where Israel is concerned.
However, we need not jump to the conclusion that the Rev. Pitcher is anti-semitic. After all, on his blog he has published a post expressing his admiration for the self-proclaimed pluralist, tolerant stance of the minority group of non-orthodox Jewish religious movements in the UK. So he couldn't possibly be anti-semitic when it comes to his approach to the Jewish state, could he?
There's huge coverage in the UK media of the current BBC refusal to broadcast the UK's Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) relief appeal for humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza.
It's being carried on all the UK online media-- editorials as well as news reports, including the BBC News website--as if the refusal is an inexplicable, inhumane and even disgraceful decision.
But perhaps the most extraordinary and revealing perspective of all comes from the comments being made by a phalanx of high level UK government ministers. Both Hazel Blears and Douglas Adams, International Development Minister urged that the decision be overturned. However, Ben Bradshaw, the Health Minister, went well beyond them in a live broadcast of "Any Questions?" on Friday 23rd January. His comments included these statements, which can be verified from this clip, about eleven minutes in:
First, the one about delivery - the British government is giving £25m to Gazan relief, we don't have a problem getting it in. There's no reason why there should be any problem getting the relief in.
"Secondly, this nervousness about being biased. I'm afraid the BBC has to stand up to the Israeli authorities occasionally."
Asked by Jonathan Dimbleby, the chair of "Any Questions?", whether he was saying that Israeli pressure was behind the BBC decision not to broadcast the appeal, he said he didn't think it was, but went on to make these statements which clearly show that he does believe the BBC has made its decision because:
"Israel has a long reputation of bullying the BBC... The BBC has been cowed by this persistent and relentless pressure, and they should stand up to it."
So here we have a UK government minister claiming Israeli bullying has systematically cowed the BBC, and that it is so successful in doing so that it almost never stands up to it. Does he offer any evidence? No, he does not. Does the UK government support what its minister says -- effectively that the Jewish state exerts some degree of control over the main UK news organization?
On the other hand, there's no shortage of evidence from analyses of BBC and other media coverage of the Gaza conflict of a great deal of anti-Israel bias by key correspondents and news reports.
Via Harry's Place, there's evidence that there is now a concerted campaign, developed in relation to the Gaza conflict at a very recent conference under Hezbollah auspices in Beirut, that the Iranian proxies, with Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, to include campaigns around "humanitarian relief" as ways of promoting their long term war against Western-style democracies. Central to the conference was building alliances with radical western hard left groups under the common banner of support for "resistance". The SWP-Radical Islamist controlled Stop the War Coalition. And here from the current issue of SWP propaganda sheet "Socialist Worker" are the key messages:
Palestine has become a unifying force across the globe. That was the main sentiment of a conference against imperialism that took place in Lebanon last weekend.
The meeting brought together activists from the Middle East and the rest of the world, including Britain’s Stop the War Coalition and the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste in France.
The conference was dominated by messages of defiance in the face of Israel’s assault from the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance movements.
Osama Hamdan, the representative of Hamas in Lebanon, told delegates that the Palestinian resistance inside Gaza would “continue to confront Israeli troops”.
Hamdan said that “our fighters have managed to halt the Israeli offensive, and would continue to battle until the troops withdraw”.
He called on the Arab regimes to back the resistance and European governments to cut all links to Israel.
“We do not trust Mahmoud Abbas,” he said in reference to the Palestinian Authority leader. “He does not represent the Palestinians.”
In a message to the global movement, Hamdan said, “The resistance will survive because all the free people of the world support us.
“Our fighters are drawing hope from the solidarity they are seeing across the world.”
The conference debated the practical measures to help the Palestinians’ struggle.
“Humanitarian appeals are now part of our political struggle,” one delegate told the conference
All the UK media have been reporting a large scale protest about the Gaza appeal refusal outside BBC headquarters in central London. But as can be clearly seen from the clip above, none of the reports have made clear that this was no spontaneous protest by would-be charitable humanitarians. For a start, it's obvious that almost all the banners concerned are the standard issue of the current SWP/Stop the War campaign-- Stop Gaza, Free Palestine. If you have the patience to watch the whole clip, you'll hear the repeated orchestrated chants, which soon switch from "Shame on the BBC" for "From the Jordan to the sea, Palestine will be free" and the other standard slogans which make it quite clear that this is a campaign for the destruction of Israel, not the relief of Gazans. You can hear a commentator asking protesters why they are taking part. The overwhelming majority state that they're there because they want to see the "whole of Palestine' freed from occupation--meaning all the land which is the state of Israel, not just territory under Israeli control since 1967.
In the BBC's case, is this somehow the result of being cowed by the bullying of the Israeli government? Will Ben Bradshaw explain exactly what evidence he has of his claims about Israel having this effect on the BBC? And why are none of the media carrying his accusation?
I've now heard that the SOAS student union is occupying the School's prestigious Brunei gallery with the aim of attacking a current exhibition there (nothing to do with Israel).
It's clear that their agenda goes far beyond anything to do with Gaza.
It refers to "the occupation of Palestnian Land" but also to a much wider agenda.
I'm writing this from my iPhone, so I can't do a fully informative post, but Harry's Place has the whole story-- link on the sidebar of this blog.
Now here's the really fine thing.
I know about what's going on because I got a forwarded email from a J Darlington, who's one of the leaders of SOAS UCU. The email is signed "Long Live Palestine".
In response, a poster at Harry's Place has suggested pro-Israel activists go and occupy his tutor room.
I think that's intended as a joke, but I profoundly disagree with that suggestion.
The way to fight academic thuggery and political infantilism is not by adopting the same methods in response.
I'm a member of UCU. I stand for free speech in academic settings, with the exception of overt incitement to carry out physical attacks and to intimidate others.
I am sure the vast majority of the staff and the students at SOAS support free speech and opposition to attempts at bans and occupations of this kind too.
Meanwhile, what are the SOAS authorities and UCU going to in response to J Darlington's support for academic bullying and the suppression of free speech?
The Students' Union at London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), one of the UK's highest ranked university centres for the study of the Middle East, Africa and Asia, has voted to demand the cancellation of a lecture series organised to mark the centenary of Tel-Aviv.
The series has been organized by SOAS' Professor Colin Shindler, the UK's first professor of Israeli Studies, who has also been a friend of mine for over twenty years.
The students of SOAS include a very large number of from Arab and other Middle Eastern countries and others who are passionately supportive of the Palestinian cause. But SOAS during most of the recent history of the Israel-Palestinian conflict has also been a place where those students and those from its Hebrew and Israeli Studies centre attend lectures on the Middle East conflict and the history and culture of zionism and discuss the issues in a spirit of scholarship and free enquiry.
Ironically, the Students' Union website carries a constitution proclaiming its commitment to free speech and its absolute commitment to opposing discrimination. That was voted in in 2006, after a previous history of attempts by some student groups to intimidate Jewish students in the name of anti-zionism. Throughout that history, the SOAS directorate firmly opposed such action and subsequently adopted a "Freedom of Expression" code which all who are members of the School are expected to sign up to.
But this latest action has been taken by the Students' Union in the name of boycotting Israeli academics in response to the current Gaza conflict, because they are amongst those who have been invited to lecture in Colin Shindler's Tel-Aviv centenary series.
Here's an even greater irony. The series started last term (and resumed for the current term on Monday night, despite the Student Union banning vote). Amongst the speakers were the Palestinian Authority ambassador, who was formerly a well-respected academic at Bethlehem University, as well as an anti-zionist Israeli academic.
Here's Colin Shindler's statement, issued before the vote was taken, demonstrating his impeccably and consistently sustained record of peace activism on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
Our lecture series
‘Tel Aviv at 100: 1909-2009’ began last term and followed the normal pattern of
lectures that we organise around a theme each year.
Professor Joachim
Shlöer of Southampton University started the series when he spoke about his
academic studies on the history of Tel Aviv. The Palestinian Ambassador,
Professor Manuel Hassassian, formerly of Bethlehem University gave a paper on
‘Tel Aviv and Ramallah: The Next 100 Years’. Professor Reuven Snir, an
anti-Zionist Israeli Professor from Haifa University spoke about Arabic
literature in Israel. This term, academics from Tel Aviv University were due to
speak on the same theme on non-contentious subjects such as architecture and
music. The first lecture this evening is by Professor Anita Shapira, on of
Israel’s leading historians on the early history of Tel Aviv.
It is therefore
terribly unfortunate that these lectures, planned months ago, have coincided
with the terrible events in Gaza.
Any call for
cancelling this series will be seen as not based on opposition to the
centenary, but on the participation of Israeli academics. A resurrection of the
attempt to boycott academics simply because they are Israeli regardless of
their opinion about the tragedy in Gaza. SOAS as an institution and the British
government have always strongly opposed and condemned such a boycott.
Academic institutions
rightly do not suppress different narratives and different opinions. Its ethos
is that the violence of the street should not be brought into the classroom. On
a personal level, it is something that I hold to dearly and even if I am in a
minority of one, I will adhere to this and not bow to any intimidation.
I have never called
for the cancellation of a lecture at SOAS even if the views expressed were not
to my liking – such as the participation of a Hezbollah representative in a
recent conference or the talk, given by the hijacker, Leila Khaled in the past.
In the ten years that
I have been at SOAS, I have always worked hard for my students, regardless of
their opinions and background. I will continue to do this.
I hope that colleagues
will not discriminate against students whose opinions on the Israel-Palestine
conflict they do not agree with.
These are difficult
times for all of us. I am grateful to the many colleagues – whether they share
my views or not – who have contacted me. Let us hope that the killing ceases
this week and we can attempt to rebuild the bridges between us.
Last night, I was at SOAS to hear presentations by Colin Shindler and Dr Emmanuele Ottolenghi on Israel and the Gaza War. The lecture theatre was packed. The presentations were excellent. The post presentation questions and discussions were courteous and attentively listened to. Amongst the SOAS student respondees at the end was a woman in Islamic dress who said she deplored the Student Union vote, and strongly supported free speech. And there was also the ardent pro-Palestinian activist who demanded to know why the Palestinian perspective had not been included. But then, as Colin Shindler pointed out, this was a special event presentation on Israel and the Gaza War. And the activist had spoken as if there was one single Palestinian perspective, although the presentations had discussed the ample evidence of the strongly divergent politics of different Palestinian parties, particularly Fatah and Hamas.
Clearly, the issue is not just about attempting to ban Israeli academics, though that's appalling enough. It's a clear cut attempt to boycott any public academic presentation about Israel, however unrelated to the Gaza conflict, or even the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And it's also about an attempt to impose a one-story Palestinian account, despite the academic evidence of a divergent, complex politics amongst Palestinians and their allies.
So much for the SOAS Students' Union. Sources at SOAS also tell me that Colin Shindler has been put under a great deal of pressure to cancel the series by leaders of the SOAS branch of UCU, the academic staff union, of which he is a member. Will SOAS UCU now act in favour of or against free speech?
But you've only got to listen to speakers from Forward Thinking in full flow to see that they are in fact apologists for Hamas. Greenstock stressed that Hamas' charter commitment to the destruction of Israel is to be regarded as purely rhetorical, because their 2006 election manifesto did not include the elimination of Israel as a goal. The latter part of his statement is quite true. It just leaves out the equivalent statements of commitment to increasing jihad and ending "the occupation" which I've documented in my previous post today. And astoundingly, Greenstock actually claimed that the rockets currently being fired at Israel were not being fired by Hamas, but by Fatah and by Islamic Jihad.
Unsurprisingly, this particular statement was not nailed by the Today presenter.
But in case you're in any doubt, listen to the speech in the clip above from Dr Azzam Tamimi, who is Hamas' leading public speaker in the UK today, notorious for his statement some years back that he would love to blow himself up by carrying out a suicide bombing in Israel.
It was made in the course of a London anti-Israel rally over the weekend, to loud cheers of encouragement from his audience. It shows what sentiments lie behind the "We are all Hamas" slogans being chanted in demonstrations in London outside the Israeli embassy every day, and being brandished against the pro-Israel rally in London yesterday.
It does nothing less than celebrate Hamas terrorism, declare the "good news" that the Hamas military machine is unweakened, and that Israel will cease to exist through its resistance.
So doesn't this count as "glorification of terrorism", illegal under British law? Somehow, I doubt if the UK authorities will do anything to stop this particular voice of Hamas continuing his incitement of would-be jihadis in London.
I don't know how exactly what proportion of the people of Gaza voted for Hamas, but my understanding was that they got 90% of the local vote in the 2006 election.
I remember reading the Hamas manifesto at that time and being appalled at what it promised-- a commitment to continuing attacks against Israel plus a sort of sub-Gandhian rejection of anything that smacked of capitalism in favour of local hand-woven industries.
Oh, and it also promised to change the Palestinian curriculum and all cultural activities to reflect the Islamist vision, in place of the secular marxist Fatah one that it replaced.
Hamas, while under the PLC dome, will propagate the culture of resistance among the Palestinian people in addition to the love of Jihad. The Qassam Brigades, armed wing of Hamas, and its weapons will stay solid and solely pointed at the Israeli enemy for as long as the occupation on our land lasts".
"The armed wing will increase in quality and quantity, and its weapons will be effectively upgraded to drive the occupation out of our Palestinian lands.
"We are proud to be the servants of the Palestinian people, and we shall extend a helping hand to families of our martyrs, wounded, and jailed heroes. And we will use all means in our possession to liberate our prisoners, including kidnapping of Israeli soldiers and officers.
It's all too commonly argued that the Palestinians, and especially the Gazans, only voted for Hamas because of the corruption of Fatah. But no electorate can take selective responsibility, saying I only voted for this part of the manifesto, so the rest of it isn't anything to do with me. It can hardly absolve the Gazans from responsibility for electing a government whose aims and priorities clearly put attacking Israel with increasing ferocity at the top of the agenda.
And A'Zahar turns out to have given a very faithful and accurate outline of what Hamas proceeded to do.
By mid December of 2008, none of the people of Gaza could have been in any doubt about the commitment of Hamas to carry out attacks, including the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit and the bombardment of Sderot and other Israeli towns with rockets. And by then, they had seen the brutal Hamas coup which had led to the summary execution and even hurling off buildings of large numbers of their Fatah rivals.
As the clip at the top shows, they seem to have turned out in absolutely vast numbers to celebrate Hamas' twenty first anniversary. I doubt if there were less than 100,000 present. And it seems to have been an event for men. It hardly seems likely that the women of Gaza were less supportive of the general mood of festivity. And towards the end of the clip, you will see children centre stage, dressed in Hamas uniform and head banners, toting real machine guns, glorifying the jihadist cause.
That mass rally took place on 14th December, just two weeks before Israel launched its retaliatory attacks, and at a time when over fifty rockets a day were being launched at Israel. Not included in the clip was the incident in which a Hamas man dressed up as Gilad Shalit and moaned in Hebrew that he wanted his mummy and daddy, mocking the supposed weakness of both the prisoner and the Israelis. I doubt if anyone walked out in disgust.
No. I certainly don't want to gloat over the death and destruction now raining down on Gaza. And of course there are many who did not vote for Hamas, albeit only a small minority of the population.
It's so often argued that Hamas should be recognised by world governments, because it was democratically elected. Somehow, there's never any going beyond the requirement to recognise Hamas and hold the electorate responsible for the military catastrophe they're voted for by electing a terrorist group committed to ever increasing acts of jihad, including kidnapping Israeli soldiers.
How indulgent would liberal commentariat opinion be if the electorate of Britain were to vote solidly for the BNP because they were fed up with the way Labour had been running the economy and then found they were landed with a racist, fascist dictatorship whose militant manifesto promises embroiled them in a disastrous war with a powerful neighbour?
But that's exactly what has happened in Gaza.
And, yes, I do think the adults of Gaza have to take the lion's share of responsibility for the horrific situation they and their hapless children now find themselves in.
By that time, the chant I kept hearing repeated on a megaphone from the small group of opposing protesters was:
Judaism yes, zionism, no! The state of Israel has to go!
So much for their supposed aim of supporting the Palestinians and protesting the Israeli action in Gaza.
And as for "Judaism, yes", hardly convincing when they were flourishing posters of Hassan Nasrallah, famous for saying things like:
"the state of the grandsons of apes and pigs – the Zionist Jews" and "the murderers of the prophets."
