tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17254111226634331892024-03-12T21:03:41.668-07:00ZenpoliticsArticles, comment and meditations on power, oppression and political mindfulnessJohn Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.comBlogger630125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-76913445639119241822024-01-10T20:23:00.000-08:002024-01-12T09:47:28.976-08:00Landmark day at the ICJ - will our own politicians now endorse South Africa's admirable case against Israel's genocide in Gaza?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJslkprBZhYxmM8laUPVYnHC4e7cR-ZB6WIQlUNftrvydTSpKLK44iD1ETRb0Fl0jbQL1vEXZrZkj2lDkIJzxKg-vh12igrbXXsbwY47MCHvCVHhqmsm222YAmj8xY31F4aM6NcyeDju10Wa-uu7pTaFaqymIerB1j3Ix_Nk-bhU-kkBwwF1QU2Dmxz08G/s1019/south%20africa%205.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><img border="0" data-original-height="587" data-original-width="1019" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJslkprBZhYxmM8laUPVYnHC4e7cR-ZB6WIQlUNftrvydTSpKLK44iD1ETRb0Fl0jbQL1vEXZrZkj2lDkIJzxKg-vh12igrbXXsbwY47MCHvCVHhqmsm222YAmj8xY31F4aM6NcyeDju10Wa-uu7pTaFaqymIerB1j3Ix_Nk-bhU-kkBwwF1QU2Dmxz08G/s320/south%20africa%205.png" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">Having <a href="https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203394">invoked</a> the 1948<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Genocide Convention, the state of <a href="https://law4palestine.org/the-gaza-genocide-case-a-comprehensive-overview-of-south-africas-legal-battle-with-israel-at-the-international-court-of-justice-highlights-and-faqs/">South Africa brings a forensically-detailed 84-page indictment against Israel</a> to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><div><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In a landmark intervention, South Africa is seeking to show that <a href="https://icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20231228-app-01-00-en.pdf">statements made by a range of Israel’s top political and military leaders</a>, and the actions which have followed, <a href="https://archive.is/2024.01.04-052114/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/04/stakes-high-as-south-africa-brings-claim-of-genocidal-intent-against-israel">demonstrate clear intent</a> to commit genocide:</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“According to the application, “acts and omissions by Israel … are genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent … to destroy Palestinians in </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/gaza" style="font-family: times;"><span class="s1">Gaza</span></a><span style="font-family: times;"> as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group” and that “the conduct of Israel – through its state organs, state agents, and other persons and entities acting on its instructions or under its direction, control or influence – in relation to Palestinians in Gaza, is in violation of its obligations under the genocide convention.””</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">South Africa is also asking for an interim ruling from the ICJ for “<a href="https://icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20231228-app-01-00-en.pdf">special measures</a>” requiring Israel to </span><span style="font-family: times;">“immediately</span><span style="font-family: times;"> suspend its military operations in and against Gaza</span><span style="font-family: times;">”, </span><span style="font-family: times;">bringing about a durable ceasefire, and for aid to be allowed into Gaza unimpeded by Israel.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As a signatory to the Convention, and facing growing international pressure, Israel has decided to defend itself at this first hearing in The Hague.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Whether it complies with any findings against it seems a lot less certain. Yet </span><span style="font-family: times;">a test case in June 2001 firmly established that the </span><a href="https://archive.is/2024.01.04-052114/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/04/stakes-high-as-south-africa-brings-claim-of-genocidal-intent-against-israel" style="font-family: times;">ICJ’s rulings were binding</a><span style="font-family: times;">, given the court’s “basic function of judicial settlement of international disputes.”</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Whatever their response, any ruling against Israel by the court would bring not only major ‘reputational’ damage, but an obligation on other states and international bodies to prevent Israel carrying out its genocidal acts. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #dca10d; font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Crucially, South Africa's case also puts Israel’s western allies directly in the frame for aiding and abetting their genocidal crimes. As <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/war-gaza-west-stand-dock-alongside-israel-genocide-court">Jonathan Cook</a> notes, citing leaked cables:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“Israel expects support from western capitals because they have nearly as much to fear from a verdict against Israel as Israel itself. They have staunchly backed the killing spree, with the <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/us"><span class="s1" style="color: #dca10d;">US</span></a> and <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/uk"><span class="s1" style="color: #dca10d;">UK</span></a>, in particular, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-israel-gaza-arms-hamas-bypass-congress-1dc77f20aac4a797df6a2338b677da4f"><span class="s1" style="color: #dca10d;">sending weapons</span></a> that are being used against the people of Gaza, making both <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/12/letter-uk-government-calling-immediate-halt-uk-arms-transfers-government-israel"><span class="s1" style="color: #dca10d;">potentially complicit</span></a>.”</span></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: times;">Israel's defence lawyers, he points out, also have a more immediate concern: </span></p><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“Israel’s “strategic goal” at the court, according to the leaked cable, is to dissuade the judges from making a determination that it is committing genocide. But more pressing is Israel’s need to prevent the Hague court from ordering an interim halt to the attack.”</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In other words, Israel is seeking legal authorisation to continue the genocide. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker">Over 23,000 people have now been systematically murdered in Gaza</a>, with thousands more still unaccounted for, and over 60,000 wounded. Gaza's entire infrastructure of homes, hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, courts and every other civil building has been decimated. Starved and homeless, over 2 million people face an existential crisis, with generations of trauma to come.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">How much longer will news reports talk of an “impending” humanitarian catastrophe? It’s already here.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And all of that's <i>after </i>17 years of brutal siege and concentration camp existence.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As footage of Israel’s horrific crimes in Gaza continue to emerge, the genocidal intent is now overwhelming.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">An entire population is being targeted, bombed and erased. Refugee camps are attacked without mercy. Hundreds are being murdered daily, death on an industrial scale. With ruthless precision, over 100 journalists have been targeted and killed. With not the slightest regard for the Geneva Conventions, prisoners are tied, stripped and paraded on the back of trucks. Homes, schools and places of worship, what's left of them, are violated. Mass graves are desecrated. People are randomly shot dead in the street. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="263" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2fUwpNWwO3o" width="316" youtube-src-id="2fUwpNWwO3o"></iframe></span></div><span style="font-family: times;"><br />In <a href="https://x.com/Lowkey0nline/status/1744355799986507899?s=20">one such incident</a>, a group of civilians, mainly women and children, walk through a bombed out street waving white flags.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: times;">A shot rings out from above and one of the women, a grandmother, lies dead on the floor, others fleeing and screaming in panic.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> It's a</span><span style="font-family: times;"> callous, heartbreaking scene, one of so many, repeated daily across the West Bank too.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Now the ICJ will finally hear and see vivid evidence of such atrocities.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><b>Using the 'G' word</b></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">While the case for due justice is pursued, the terrible spectacle of Gaza is helping to bring the word ‘genocide’ itself into common usage when speaking about Israel's war crimes.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">From ‘occupation’ to ‘apartheid’ and now to ‘genocide’, all this terminology now has the stamp of international authenticity.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: times;">It’s an established vocabulary of legal reference, as well as a rising language of public outrage.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">Despite constant media suppression, the ICJ case gives a massive boost to Israel’s crimes now being talked of specifically as genocidal.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;">South Africa's case has also been <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/9/which-countries-back-south-africas-genocide-case-against-israel-at-icj?taid=659e35ea5c118100014937e6&utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter">endorsed</a> by a significant number of other states:</span></p><ul class="ul1"><li class="li1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Menlo; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><b>The Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC):</b> The <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/5/31/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-oic"><span class="s2" style="color: #dca10d;">57-member bloc</span></a>, which includes Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and Morocco, voiced their support for the case on December 30.</li><li class="li1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Menlo; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><b>Malaysia:</b> In a statement released on January 2, the Malaysian Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomed the South African application. It <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/20/malaysia-bans-israeli-affiliated-and-israel-bound-ships-from-its-ports"><span class="s2" style="color: #dca10d;">reiterated a call</span></a> for an independent Palestinian state “based on the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital”.</li><li class="li1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Menlo; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><b>Turkey:</b> <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/14/gaza-war-pushes-tumultuous-israel-turkey-ties-into-deep-freezer"><span class="s2" style="color: #dca10d;">Turkish</span></a> Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Oncu Keceli <a href="https://twitter.com/SpoxTR_MFA/status/1742629500431618408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1742629500431618408%7Ctwgr%5Eea37b5ed088860d817b0ba4fde868cd4a66f2039%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwordpress.aljazeera.com%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost-new.php"><span class="s2" style="color: #dca10d;">posted</span></a> on X on January 3 welcoming South Africa’s move.</li><li class="li1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Menlo; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><b>Jordan:</b> Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on January 4 that Amman would back South Africa.</li><li class="li1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Menlo; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><b>Bolivia: </b>On Sunday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/20/how-have-latin-american-countries-responded-to-the-israel-hamas-war"><span class="s2" style="color: #dca10d;">Bolivia dubbed South Africa’s move</span></a> as historic, becoming the first Latin American country to back the ICJ case against Israel.</li><li class="li1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Menlo; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><b>The Maldives, Namibia and Pakistan:</b> The three countries expressed support for the genocide case filed by South Africa during a UN General Assembly session on Tuesday.</li></ul><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">All of which provides impetus for forcing our own elected politicians to speak and act accordingly.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">That task looks like an onerous one with regard to Sunak and Starmer, who won’t even bring themselves to approve a ceasefire. But, as noted, they will also now be deeply aware of the potential legal - as well as political - consequences of withholding such support and facilitating the genocide. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In Scotland, <a href="https://twitter.com/HumzaYousaf/with_replies">First Minister Humza Yousaf</a> has gone considerably beyond the UK and called Israel’s actions in Gaza “a textbook case of ethnic cleansing”. A welcome statement. But he could have been even more specific and accurate in calling it <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/23/dissenters">“a textbook case of genocide”</a>.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Despite voting for a ceasefire and an UNRWA-led aid/refugee programme, the Scottish Government has also <a href="https://coordin8.org.uk/app/index.php">failed to use its available powers</a> to break ties with, and sanction, Israel, including over the production of weapons/components in Scotland for supply to the regime.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The task of calling out genocide is also being actioned across many cities. Just as <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231124-barcelona-suspends-relations-with-israel/">Barcelona</a> now stands in dedicated support of Gaza and the Palestinians, pressure is being mounted in Glasgow for its council to denounce the genocide and initiate a motion of meaningful support for Gaza and the Palestinian people.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://www.change.org/p/make-glasgow-city-council-help-gaza"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.change.org/p/make-glasgow-city-council-help-gaza</span></a></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Four months into this catastrophic emergency, it's truly shameful that so many of our political class continue to utter unctuous words about ‘humanitarian concerns’.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Until they speak about Israel’s blanket slaughter, physical destruction and ethnic expulsion as precisely genocidal, they are effectively complicit in those crimes.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Indeed<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>- not that they should need it - South Africa’s admirable case before the ICJ now gives them the most perfect ‘political cover’ to do so.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> How afraid must they be to raise their heads above the political parapet when the nation that momentously broke apartheid is now standing up against the apartheid oppression and genocidal killing of Palestinians? As Mandela himself famously said: </span></span></p><h1 class="quoteText" style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-weight: normal; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: small;"><blockquote>“We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”</blockquote></span></h1><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As South Africa’s historic case opens at the ICJ,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> here are some simple words you can ask your own local councillor, MSP or MP to endorse and propose:</span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This Council/Parliament welcomes the application of the South African government to the International Court of Justice calling for formal investigation of Israel under the 1948 Genocide Convention.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We condemn Israel's genocide in Gaza, and affirm our support for the Palestinian people.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: times;">The responses we get back, if any, will allow us to hand down our own verdict on their compliance or complicity. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">Whatever the ultimate outcome at the ICJ, we will at least know that we asked the right questions, denounced the genocide in Gaza, and stood on the right side of history. </span></p></div>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-27613749051016240432024-01-10T19:00:00.000-08:002024-01-10T19:25:58.544-08:00Glasgow for Gaza - street performance at City Chambers <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc7IHTXN6UvufEm_e42cg8T-ovWlI5_wqM_nrwAs7RRTbx0yi_nhaYnPjrNkdy6dHVqPfVrfOhz0Ex-te-aRdqYq1HMvHtsBaIgJaVQF1oteSjWKas70ldFPUf6VjwbFhfjtYTExTjryzWRVvZLhiTwVnmkHPNmV9ubExPUOTWMbPFqmtxe54MgfSwOasn/s1136/F2E9CEF5-2B10-4128-9333-BB1E6CA6A0C2.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1136" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc7IHTXN6UvufEm_e42cg8T-ovWlI5_wqM_nrwAs7RRTbx0yi_nhaYnPjrNkdy6dHVqPfVrfOhz0Ex-te-aRdqYq1HMvHtsBaIgJaVQF1oteSjWKas70ldFPUf6VjwbFhfjtYTExTjryzWRVvZLhiTwVnmkHPNmV9ubExPUOTWMbPFqmtxe54MgfSwOasn/w413-h640/F2E9CEF5-2B10-4128-9333-BB1E6CA6A0C2.png" width="413" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: times;">"<span face="-apple-system, "system-ui", "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; white-space-collapse: preserve-breaks;">Last weekend, we held the first demo of the year 2024 in front of Glasgow City Chambers, and it was truly a momentous occasion. The energy and passion were palpable as we came together to raise our voices for justice and solidarity. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; white-space-collapse: preserve-breaks;">One of the highlights of the day was a thought-provoking role play, where kids bravely depicted the harsh reality of what’s happening in Palestine. Their performance served as a powerful reminder of the urgency and importance of standing up against injustice."</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://x.com/ggectee/status/1745199958267949139?s=20">Watch here</a> on X </span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/C171syTrxOW/?igsh=MTdycWZkZGNyNWZsYQ==">Watch here</a> on Instagram </span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/reel/319830787709096">Watch here</a> on Facebook</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">Produced by </span><span style="font-family: times;">Gaza Genocide Emergency Committee </span><span style="font-family: times;">(GGEC) </span></p><p><a href="https://linktr.ee/ggecscot"><span style="font-family: times;">https://linktr.ee/ggecscot</span></a></p><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGZHPQFlM2p4MyTtmEtGxpAM9lfCrhwHiEbXqSqjHVWClecXZUClpt1CEAM2LJ03w51KR6aDQv2iu8OFVCNNVPU75mryzmBGbvV28LtzQ6qEmZtcxCpmxB2F4SccVpZOcMugGuIeBWDnPhydTeT_zrVlhlJ3wVlerW5ZBRymYPLgT31aH_JaOKNECN0qDc/s1600/A827E8D2-F8B5-4402-9799-2B9B6CC3F6B4.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGZHPQFlM2p4MyTtmEtGxpAM9lfCrhwHiEbXqSqjHVWClecXZUClpt1CEAM2LJ03w51KR6aDQv2iu8OFVCNNVPU75mryzmBGbvV28LtzQ6qEmZtcxCpmxB2F4SccVpZOcMugGuIeBWDnPhydTeT_zrVlhlJ3wVlerW5ZBRymYPLgT31aH_JaOKNECN0qDc/w223-h318/A827E8D2-F8B5-4402-9799-2B9B6CC3F6B4.jpeg" width="223" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZtxXHbKxqheGcaKlJr411vziXibOKwJd1nP2v7CE8fYK-3vylrNHXLW04hbwfN1fXqeh47x4badrpIHCBpO4xFWv-9erba2zhQhdmdW87lNcn-pRcp98xWowUUcnNUJtk6PmMcnkW838kX0FHAPLte_pwJ8AXqlaD8JvlXCcYEv_j3g62fr5_kjh9vNri/s2048/38687439-7D3B-4784-9C98-1F1980F09C7E.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZtxXHbKxqheGcaKlJr411vziXibOKwJd1nP2v7CE8fYK-3vylrNHXLW04hbwfN1fXqeh47x4badrpIHCBpO4xFWv-9erba2zhQhdmdW87lNcn-pRcp98xWowUUcnNUJtk6PmMcnkW838kX0FHAPLte_pwJ8AXqlaD8JvlXCcYEv_j3g62fr5_kjh9vNri/s320/38687439-7D3B-4784-9C98-1F1980F09C7E.jpeg" width="213" /></a></div><p><br /></p> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-21938441939636885372023-12-19T17:28:00.000-08:002023-12-19T17:34:10.443-08:00Final word from the establishment club: BBC's false headline claim on October 7 deaths upheld by BBC's Executive Complaints Unit<p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The BBC's </span><span style="font-family: times;">Executive Complaints Unit have rejected my complaint over the BBC's headline claims that Hamas forces alone were responsible for the deaths of Israelis on 7 October 2023. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The original complaint and preceding set of exchanges can be read <a href="https://johnhilley.blogspot.com/2023/11/bbc-headline-claim-on-october-7-deaths.html">here</a>, <a href="https://johnhilley.blogspot.com/2023/11/bbc-headline-claim-on-october-7-deaths_19.html">here</a> and<a href="https://johnhilley.blogspot.com/2023/11/bbc-headline-claim-on-october-7-deaths_23.html"> here</a>. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The ECU's letter, followed by my observations:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">British Broadcasting Corporation Level 1, </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Executive Complaints Unit</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">99 Great Portland Street, </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">London W1W 7NY</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Telephone: 020 8743 8000</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Email: ecu@bbc.co.uk</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">BBC News</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Our ref: CAS-7679120</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">13 December 2023 </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Dear Mr Hilley</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Thank you for your email to the Executive Complaints Unit.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">You complained about the BBC’s coverage of the 7 October attacks, which you said failed to cover claims that some of those who died in Israel had died because of IDF actions, and it was therefore misleading to report the numbers of dead (initially 1,400, revised to 1,200) as having been killed by Hamas.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As your complaint does not cite any one specific programme/online material, it isn’t possible to assess in detail here whether any particular output met the corporation’s editorial standards.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We therefore considered yours as a “general” complaint, in line with the process set out in the BBC’s complaints framework.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The BBC’s guidelines describe a requirement to meet “due” accuracy – that which is “adequate and appropriate” in the context. Audiences should not be “materially misled”.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As I say, you have not pointed to any single piece of content where this may have happened.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Specifically, you have not shown how the idea that some (you do not say how many) of those who died in the Hamas attacks may have been victims of IDF actions would give audiences a misleading impression of what happened.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Without specific content to investigate we can only consider your complaint in general terms, or look at the context of what was aired.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It may, for instance, be that the figures which you dispute were assigned to the Israeli military, rather than presented as statements of uncontested fact.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It is a matter of fact the attacks occurred, as reported<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67629181"> here</a> and <a href=" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67056741">here</a> and that many civilians died from Hamas actions. It is not clear to me how you feel audiences would be materially misled about those actions because some of the many hundreds who died may have been casualties of “friendly fire”, or how what you call the “public perception” of subsequent events in Gaza would be impacted on, given you do not appear to dispute that Hamas fighters attacked, killed, and kidnapped civilians including children and the elderly.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In support of your complaint you cite an article on The Electronic Intifada, a partisan campaigning website. By contrast I am not aware of any respected news organisation or impartial body which has cast significant doubt on the official figures – the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/10/israeloccupied-palestinian-territory-un-experts-deplore-attacks-civilians">UN</a> referred to over 1,200 people having died.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-18/ty-article/.premium/israeli-security-establishment-hamas-likely-didnt-have-prior-knowledge-of-nova-festival/0000018b-e2ee-d168-a3ef-f7fe8ca20000">Haaretz</a> quoted a police source as suggesting a helicopter may have hit some festival attendees, but this falls some way short of disproving the number to which you object.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Again, it is not clear to me how the idea that some (presumably, from the reporting you cite, a relatively low number) of the many hundreds who died and the thousands who were wounded might have been unintentional victims of IDF responses to the attack serves to materially mislead audiences.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">A distinction can be made between innocent people killed by terrorists in an attack and innocent people accidentally killed by forces seeking to repel a terror attack.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I do not however believe this has the significance you assign to it, since in both cases the fatalities arise as a result of the attack and given it is in any case inarguable that many hundreds of people were brutally killed by Hamas fighters.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">That is the salient fact of the attack and you have not cast doubt on it.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This represents the final word of the BBC on this issue and general complaints of the kind you have raised would not usually fall within Ofcom’s remit.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">But you can, if you wish, ask for their opinion. Details of how they assess complaints about the BBC can be found <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/advice-for-consumers/how-ofcom-deals-with-bbc-complaints">here</a>.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Yours sincerely</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Richard Hutt<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Complaints Director</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">………………………….. </span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Unsurprisingly, the ECU has not upheld my complaint. To do so would have been to expose the BBC’s lamentable journalism, its failure to report open source evidence, and its service to establishment power. In peddling this set of excuses for the BBC, the ECU shows that it is no less a part of the same establishment.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Richard Hutt's convoluted reasons for rejecting my complaint starts with the falsehood that it included no specific example of BBC output.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In fact, my original letter of complaint - which is what the ECU were tasked with considering - references two clear examples:</span></p><p class="p3" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-middle-east-67281166"></a><br /></span></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-middle-east-67281166"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-middle-east-67281166</span></a></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">and</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-middle-east-67305304"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-middle-east-67305304</span></a></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I offered <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001sh62/newsnight-tunnel-found-near-alshifa-hospital-israel-claims">another linked reference</a> in my second letter to the BBC.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And my final letter to the ECU itself <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/evidence-israel-killed-its-own-citizens-7-october/41156">referenced a further updated piece</a> drawing together all the main sources and evidence to date, most importantly evidence drawn from Israeli media sources.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">So much for diligent observation and adjudication.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The ECU letter states:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“In support of your complaint you cite an article on The Electronic Intifada, a partisan campaigning website. By contrast I am not aware of any respected news organisation or impartial body which has cast significant doubt on the official figures – the UN referred to over 1,200 people having died.”</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The ECU may dismiss Electronic Intifada as “partisan”, but won’t address the actual evidence cited by it, or point to any faults in its journalism.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> Likewise with the Grayzone and other notable journalists covering this story. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Many reading this will also note the dark irony of the BBC itself being elevated, in supposed contrast, as a “respected news organisation”.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Yes, Electronic Intifada is </span><span style="font-family: times;">“partisan” in</span><span style="font-family: times;"> its defence of Palestine. In lodging this complaint, I too am </span><span style="font-family: times;">“partisan”. </span><span style="font-family: times;">But the BBC has also shown itself to be no less partisan in its selective reporting of this issue. And Richard Hutt for the ECU is equally partisan in his tortured reasons for defending it.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The ECU letter goes on:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“Haaretz quoted a police source as suggesting a helicopter may have hit some festival attendees, but this falls some way short of disproving the number to which you object.”</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">So, at least a token acknowledgment of a report from the Israeli press, as cited by Electronic Intifada, but quickly dismissed as failing to “[disprove] the number to which you object.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Yet the point of my complaint wasn’t to ‘prove’ <i>any</i> actual number. It was to ask that the BBC investigate the claims behind the<i> stated</i> number, and report with due journalistic integrity any part of that number that may have included killings by Israel.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Incredibly, the ECU letter proceeds to dismiss the actual significance of whether Israel killed other Israelis in the course of its military response on 7 October, and what relevance any such evidence would have for BBC audiences:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“Again, it is not clear to me how the idea that some (presumably, from the reporting you cite, a relatively low number) of the many hundreds who died and the thousands who were wounded might have been unintentional victims of IDF responses to the attack serves to materially mislead audiences.”</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">So it’s enough, apparently, for the BBC and ECU to take Israel’s word that it didn’t kill other Israelis. And even if it did kill its own civilians, the ECU concludes, this too must be laid at the door of Hamas.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The issue here isn’t about Israel’s supposed “friendly fire”. It’s about deployment of Israel's “Hannibal Directive”, wherein <a href="https://x.com/toryfibs/status/1735658690848399682?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">Israeli forces took conscious decisions to sacrifice Israeli civilians</a> in the course of their attacks</span></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The BBC’s part in denying that this happened most certainly “serves to materially mislead audiences.”</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Facing growing criticism from within Israel, its military now </span><a href="https://x.com/jonathan_k_cook/status/1734923684828119295?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA" style="font-family: times;">concedes that, indeed, it did kill Israelis “in immense and complex quantity”</a><span style="font-family: times;">. </span><span style="font-family: times;">Relatives of those killed in Israel are now calling for a formal investigation into the circumstances of 7 October.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In another rigorous piece, <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/israel-admits-immense-amount-friendly-fire-7-october">Asa Winstanley</a> for Electronic Intifada reveals more damning admissions that Israel killed many of its own people in Hannibal-type attacks.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And a further key article from prize-winning journalist <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-war-media-ignoring-evidence-actions-7-october">Jonathan Cook</a> reaffirms the evidence of Israel’s Hannibal-minded killings, asking why major news outlets like the BBC have failed to investigate or highlight such evidence.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As Cook notes, in refusing to </span><span style="font-family: times;">question Israel’s unchecked atrocity stories,</span><span style="font-family: times;"> the BBC and many other journalists have allowed the regime a significant degree of</span><span style="font-family: times;"> ‘legitimacy’ for its horror attacks, and </span><span style="font-family: times;">are thus complicit in the slaughter of Gaza. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">With strong and growing evidence that Israel deliberately killed many of its own people on 7 October, the ECU’s upholding of the BBC's false headline claims stands as yet another blatant deception, giving a further green light to the continued mass killing of Palestinians.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-71867499039401369252023-12-01T12:41:00.000-08:002023-12-01T13:17:00.198-08:00Platforms of peaceful protest - no easy travel for the people of Gaza<p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihUxD_6eisrwNhLIq4vRewdWqUaQpKJJLtbsiTAu9cyG_uW1txSgEN1Zl2q2R38eyWg945piQlqJN8aY0JmlYiRhHxumA0sTrssiV4JwDY4Mri62qNvTMKkE_Pxyt8pXDm6MB9Jy4SIQGIv9ezTic2MgMiAMICHgq2S4JVEWc5qLQpXfIJ0X2CZacYMC74/s275/grand%20central.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihUxD_6eisrwNhLIq4vRewdWqUaQpKJJLtbsiTAu9cyG_uW1txSgEN1Zl2q2R38eyWg945piQlqJN8aY0JmlYiRhHxumA0sTrssiV4JwDY4Mri62qNvTMKkE_Pxyt8pXDm6MB9Jy4SIQGIv9ezTic2MgMiAMICHgq2S4JVEWc5qLQpXfIJ0X2CZacYMC74/s1600/grand%20central.jpeg" width="275" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grand Central, NYC</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: times;">Alongside the multiple millions marching across the world in support of Gaza, some of the most effective spectacles have been the protest and ‘die-in’ actions at train stations and other travel hubs.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Some of the public may reasonably ask, “why here”? </span><span style="font-family: times;">And the answer is very simple.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">It’s not actually about creating disruption or inconvenience to the public.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">It’s to invite people of good conscience to stop for a moment, to take a minute from their own travels, and reflect upon the trapped people in Gaza and the inhuman constraints on </span><i style="font-family: times;">their </i><span style="font-family: times;">basic ability to travel.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAVRlP5pkIZdqcfifXkzrdBvdDFJ4Lif6G85OmXFwERGflJRSO1DS92lobSI8Yv0npGkHKiEJ01euyRuiFYTUHoUrFsPD6XhYjmLGq_NDKBWdRVwjnTs4lmJ0Or6nwKsVWBucP6sFnqXxWboGKIAc9niTC2g82-DbqBiH9VlZRwo7P966-mJq-B1s5_TMC/s1024/Oslo%20train%20station.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="576" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAVRlP5pkIZdqcfifXkzrdBvdDFJ4Lif6G85OmXFwERGflJRSO1DS92lobSI8Yv0npGkHKiEJ01euyRuiFYTUHoUrFsPD6XhYjmLGq_NDKBWdRVwjnTs4lmJ0Or6nwKsVWBucP6sFnqXxWboGKIAc9niTC2g82-DbqBiH9VlZRwo7P966-mJq-B1s5_TMC/s320/Oslo%20train%20station.jpeg" width="180" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oslo Station</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">Many such demonstrations have now been held across major international cities, from <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/palestine-protest-nyc-grand-central-b2445738.html">New York's Grand Central</a> to <a href="https://x.com/QudsNen/status/1719443521269059720?s=20">London's Liverpool Street,</a> from <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231108-demonstrators-in-norway-wear-shrouds-to-decry-killing-of-civilians-in-gaza/">Oslo Station</a> to <a href="https://news.stv.tv/east-central/hundreds-gather-at-edinburgh-waverley-train-station-in-support-of-palestine">Edinburgh Waverley</a>, from <a href="https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/piccadilly-station-closed-hundreds-hundreds-28046237">Manchester Piccadilly</a> to <a href="https://www.thenational.scot/news/23905961.pro-palestine-protesters-flood-glasgow-queen-st-station/">Glasgow Queen Street</a>. A similar display of solidarity has been staged inside the <a href="https://x.com/CairdePalestine/status/1728432429537358318?s=20">Europa Bus Station, Belfast</a>. </span></span><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">How easy it is for us to go to a train station, a bus station, an airport, a port, to do all the normal travel things that people do.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> Yet t</span></span><span style="font-family: times;">hat right to travel and return, a fundamental human right, has been denied to the people of Gaza since 2006 under Israel’s brutal and illegal siege.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Just think what that must be like, to be caged in a concentration camp, to grow up knowing that you may never get the chance to leave, to visit family, to have a holiday, to wander the earth and enjoy the same basic life experiences as others.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">What kind of regime could impose such wicked restrictions on an entire population?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">And now, under Israel’s genocidal plan, the only direction of travel for Gazans is <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/15/palestinians-in-gaza-can-go-to-tent-cities-former-israeli-minister#:~:text=Former%20Israeli%20Deputy%20Foreign%20Minister,fighting%20between%20Israel%20and%20Hamas.">into the Sinai wilderness, to live in tent cities</a>, 2.4 million people banished from their land, refugees again, back on the ‘Nakba road’, bombed to oblivion as they go.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">The known <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker">statistics</a> (almost certainly underestimated) are truly staggering: over 15,000 people slaughtered in 7 weeks, almost half of them children, the greatest concentration of state-directed killing in modern times. </span><span style="font-family: times;">Over 36,000 have been injured. Many more will die from lack of medical attention. Thousands more lives lie ruined. 1.7 million people are now completely displaced. </span><a href="https://x.com/muhammadshehad2/status/1729584729580609750?s=20" style="font-family: times;">70 journalists have also been murdered</a><span style="font-family: times;"> by the regime.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">Crammed into southern Gaza - the torture countdown to the end of Israel's 'humanitarian pause' now passed - the mass murder has started again, with over <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/12/1/israel-hamas-war-live-relief-and-joy-as-more-palestinian-prisoners-freed">175 more souls wiped out</a> on the first day. The media make cursory note of the numbers, the 'normalisation' of mass victims - what's another 175 when set against the many thousands. Astounding levels of killing, all shrouded in criminal silence from the US/UK/EU, the regime's most complicit backers. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Might moral-minded travellers take a moment from their own daily commute to stop and think what all this must be like - to try and comprehend the scale of such cruelty, the savage treatment of an entire people?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib-fB2VUVmOPI-VexADcn8DCJXWcq7txVYPYNEYE0ZAkTgTYFLDHQpxGCy77gmLuc1KGo3HL5kVZx0M8o0xJ3qHIsIMNDP2wvo10-yGG-FFPnehRsKhJsmjtDZWPBtZsG5SHet5nRnQlosLZL0Ik7pPFC-4X5j2LekMbIPaafF_gchseVjTEWxp9OA-tfd/s280/Edinburgh%20Waverley%20protest.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib-fB2VUVmOPI-VexADcn8DCJXWcq7txVYPYNEYE0ZAkTgTYFLDHQpxGCy77gmLuc1KGo3HL5kVZx0M8o0xJ3qHIsIMNDP2wvo10-yGG-FFPnehRsKhJsmjtDZWPBtZsG5SHet5nRnQlosLZL0Ik7pPFC-4X5j2LekMbIPaafF_gchseVjTEWxp9OA-tfd/s1600/Edinburgh%20Waverley%20protest.jpeg" width="280" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Edinburgh Waverley</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">When travelling back to their comfortable homes and humble abodes at night, might they think about the apocalyptic scenes across Gaza: the scorched landscape of pulverised homes, refugee camps, UN schools, hospitals, mosques, churches and playgrounds, all reduced to rubble, so many children still lying under it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">The scale of it all leaves many simply lost for words. The <a href="https://x.com/johnwhilley/status/1730013945514070195?s=20">massacre of entire families</a> in apartment blocks. In the West Bank too, the open <a href="https://x.com/Lowkey0nline/status/1729850426223185975?s=20">slaying of small children</a> in the street. Scenes of incomprehensible barbarism and <a href="https://x.com/QudsNen/status/1730520772710416894?s=20">suffering</a>. The sheer wickedness of what we're seeing before our eyes is <a href="https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israels-savagery-is-so-shocking-its">hard to even process</a>. We can but echo those plaintive words from the heart of darkness: <a href="https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-horror-the-horror">"the horror, the horror."</a> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">For far-right religious zealot <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-minister-calls-voluntary-emigration-gazans-2023-11-14/">Bezalel Smotrich</a>, party to Netanyahu's sordid coalition, Western countries should accept Gazan families 'wishing to relocate': </span><span style="font-family: times;">"I welcome the initiative of the voluntary emigration of Gaza Arabs to countries around the world," he asserts.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Whatever the pain and carnage, whatever the historic loss of life, whatever this latest threat of mass ethnic cleansing, whatever the genocide, the people of Gaza will never heed<i> this</i> fascistic call to travel. They will never be forced into exile by their oppressor regime. There <i>will</i> be a return. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LliKxwn2KDw">Palestine will never die</a>. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">These gatherings at stations are a statement of support for the caged, the bombed, the suffering of Gaza.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><span style="font-family: times;">May homeward passengers on Western platforms with return tickets come to understand the existential fear Gazans have of never being able to return to </span><i style="font-family: times;">their</i><span style="font-family: times;"> own homes, <i>their</i> streets, <i>their</i> land again.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; font-family: times; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiWy2-XW6pstegLlXcs8TkccSxt43WJAGFNHb8zM-d0XIUj3ODn3NwL2rzglNCxkqWykE2I2cYeW8QPrwBa2G-80oMvTr_lShRjTHu7cVF5E8sNWiL1ahpYPNqmnewr1xdAx2T55YRvE0xgYM2-crS_-IEy74IGtYoKCuxlvKNXLpyKmk5Vvpd72dRrIAH/s275/Manchester%20Picadilly.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiWy2-XW6pstegLlXcs8TkccSxt43WJAGFNHb8zM-d0XIUj3ODn3NwL2rzglNCxkqWykE2I2cYeW8QPrwBa2G-80oMvTr_lShRjTHu7cVF5E8sNWiL1ahpYPNqmnewr1xdAx2T55YRvE0xgYM2-crS_-IEy74IGtYoKCuxlvKNXLpyKmk5Vvpd72dRrIAH/s1600/Manchester%20Picadilly.jpeg" width="275" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Manchester Piccadilly</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Let us show our concern, our empathy, our love for the trapped and heroic people of Gaza, for the occupied, brutalised<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and <a href="https://www.btselem.org/topic/freedom_of_movement">movement-restricted people of the West Bank</a>, and for all Palestinians living under this ruthless <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/">apartheid system</a>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Let us stand, and sit, and <a href=" https://x.com/yvonneridley/status/1730319777569161435?s=20">recite</a> moving <a href="https://x.com/tamdeanburn/status/1730325240608178223?s=20">Gaza Monologues</a> at train stations and anywhere else we have a ready platform to be the voice of the oppressed, calling-out this horror regime.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhev5LOS0ydzdbkbd6-CYyUhbWGNh8OO4jGwUdEBZjBtR28seKDFfbzREP-q-MFA7ZdoI_nw8NJV19Be-7KXurdPUiDlZWAOC_Az60MiXk8zUuupNlEx2FbQuAeunKYQiFMOGD9mwoRRn0smdpvmZNQVPaRrY82s3MKQVUcrkjoBl75sfOYFKyZfM78_yxj/s680/gaza%20monologues.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="616" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhev5LOS0ydzdbkbd6-CYyUhbWGNh8OO4jGwUdEBZjBtR28seKDFfbzREP-q-MFA7ZdoI_nw8NJV19Be-7KXurdPUiDlZWAOC_Az60MiXk8zUuupNlEx2FbQuAeunKYQiFMOGD9mwoRRn0smdpvmZNQVPaRrY82s3MKQVUcrkjoBl75sfOYFKyZfM78_yxj/w181-h200/gaza%20monologues.jpeg" width="181" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: times;">Let us work to ensure that, from the ruins, a renewed Gaza will some day rise, where liberated people will be able to stand, like anyone else, at a train station - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Railways">as they once did, long ago</a> - and partake in the normal travels of life.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">And as we express our solidarity at these locations, let us follow them in their own ultimate direction of travel, towards their real destination, a land of justice and equality for all, where, from river to sea, safe to travel, safe to raise the children, safe from genocidal fear, Palestinians will all one day be truly free.</span></div><div><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></p></div></div>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-69804822532733983622023-11-23T06:00:00.000-08:002023-11-23T06:01:14.225-08:00 BBC headline claim on October 7 deaths is clear disinformation and a dangerous deception - Part 3<p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><b>Further exchange with BBC (previous correspondence <a href="https://johnhilley.blogspot.com/2023/11/bbc-headline-claim-on-october-7-deaths.html">here</a> and <a href="https://johnhilley.blogspot.com/2023/11/bbc-headline-claim-on-october-7-deaths_19.html">here</a>).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Enquiry now raised to Stage 2 level for consideration by the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">From the BBC</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">22 November 2023 </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Dear Mr Hilley,</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Ref: CAS-7679120-B1Y1G2-1</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Thank you for getting in touch again about BBC News.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The BBC’s Editorial Guidelines refer to due accuracy and due impartiality, which is to say the accuracy and impartiality must be adequate and appropriate to the output, taking account of the subject and nature of the content, the likely audience expectation and any signposting that may influence.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">What other media outlets report is a matter for them, but we will monitor developments about the killings as the story unfolds.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This concludes Stage 1 of our complaints process. That means we can’t correspond with you further here. If you remain unhappy, you can now contact the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU). The ECU is Stage 2 of the BBC’s complaints process. You’ll need to explain why you think there’s a potential breach of standards, or if the issue is significant and should still be investigated. Please do so within 20 working days of this reply.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Full details of how we handle complaints are available at <a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fcomplaints%2Fhandle-complaint%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR35Gfv29fU1A0WwLjnORogqTp-aNSvQg73MjOGAWwX6UgLGLIs5djtYaoQ&h=AT07gX_B93IVmO3ZkmHDZ_aGpnQrCtz_ZQ1wppP2svZsCo508FZ114xGl5ye3n8qjDDD-WJxTQ2YjSeu6fi3mjVAH1RhqhsxbrfekhjOZYBW8ubX4QLQ-m_flQys3X5FPXWvWo-HVqIsdH4NEMtLvG0cLkM"><span class="s1" style="color: #dca10d;">http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/handle-complaint/</span></a>.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">How to contact the ECU:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We’ve provided a unique link for you in this email. This will open up further information about how to submit your complaint. You’ll be asked for the case reference number we’ve provided in this reply. Once you’ve used the link and submitted your complaint, the link will no longer work.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This is your link to contact the ECU if you wish: </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Click Here</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Best wishes,</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Sean Moss</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Assistant Editor</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">News Editorial Standards</span></p><p class="p3" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="s2" style="text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fcomplaints%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1MM_gQb2Gl9BzysjMx0HEgbg59_N77gqES5OmL74O2AJPNygIEfjPw9yI&h=AT07gX_B93IVmO3ZkmHDZ_aGpnQrCtz_ZQ1wppP2svZsCo508FZ114xGl5ye3n8qjDDD-WJxTQ2YjSeu6fi3mjVAH1RhqhsxbrfekhjOZYBW8ubX4QLQ-m_flQys3X5FPXWvWo-HVqIsdH4NEMtLvG0cLkM">www.bbc.co.uk/complaints</a></span><span class="s3" style="color: black;"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">…………………………………….</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">To the Executive Complaints Unit (ECU)</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">23 November 2023</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Ref: CAS-7679120-B1Y1G2-1</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The BBC have reported, without any apparent challenge, both of Israel’s claims that Hamas killed 1400/1200 people on and around 7 October.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Two initial questions arise here. Aren’t both these numbers too precisely rounded, and therefore<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>suspect? And why take Israel’s claims alone without corroborating evidence?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The more specific point of my enquiry concerns the people who were not killed by Hamas on and around 7 October. It’s about the people killed by Israeli forces.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Strong, available evidence indicates that Israeli forces killed a significant number of Israelis on and around 7 October.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">That key information is not stated in the repeated BBC headline that “Hamas killed 1400/1200 people”.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Further to my previous references, please see this well-informed article, drawing together all the main sources and evidence, to date.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Felectronicintifada.net%2Fcontent%2Fevidence-israel-killed-its-own-citizens-7-october%2F41156%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR0ar0ZMC4_AZqehFkHqsohJ9mmGJl557Hw5gyWus9p_cjw8aY2sJZrLXc0&h=AT07gX_B93IVmO3ZkmHDZ_aGpnQrCtz_ZQ1wppP2svZsCo508FZ114xGl5ye3n8qjDDD-WJxTQ2YjSeu6fi3mjVAH1RhqhsxbrfekhjOZYBW8ubX4QLQ-m_flQys3X5FPXWvWo-HVqIsdH4NEMtLvG0cLkM"><span style="font-family: times;">https://electronicintifada.net/content/evidence-israel-killed-its-own-citizens-7-october/41156</span></a></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Whatever one thinks about what happened on those days, the claim that Hamas alone killed 1400/1200 Israelis has not been verified, and therefore cannot be justified as a BBC headline/statement.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The BBC has clearly been reproducing a crucial untruth in publishing and broadcasting this unverified claim.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I have written in my previous correspondence with the BBC about the key implications of this in terms of fostering public perceptions of the 7 October events, and, most crucially, what Israel has gone on to do in Gaza.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In all such senses the BBC has a responsibility to convey clear and accurate information. This headline claim is clear disinformation.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I wish the ECU to consider why the BBC decided to use, and continues to use, the wording “Hamas killed 1400/1200 people”.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I wish the ECU to consider my request<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>that the BBC withdraw this headline/statement with immediate effect.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I wish the ECU to consider my request that the BBC issue a prominent statement conceding their culpability in producing and repeating this misleading headline, and issue<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>a properly informed replacement headline/statement.</span></p>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-41826674831834836192023-11-19T14:25:00.000-08:002023-11-20T06:39:22.954-08:00BBC headline claim on October 7 deaths is clear disinformation and a dangerous deception - Part 2<p><span style="font-family: times;"><b>Further exchange with BBC</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">(Initial complaint <a href="https://johnhilley.blogspot.com/2023/11/bbc-headline-claim-on-october-7-deaths.html">here</a>)</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Friday, 17 November 2023</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Reference CAS-7679120-B1Y1G2</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Dear Mr Hilley</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Thank you for contacting us about the BBC News website.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We note your concerns regarding our recent coverage of the current situation in the Middle East.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I can assure you that BBC News always aims for the highest standards of accuracy and impartiality when reporting, and we do aim to report accurate, impartial and comprehensive coverage likely to be of interest to our readers.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The bullet points within our live reporting pages aim to summarise some of the main aspects of our coverage - with more detailed information being provided across our articles:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="text-decoration-line: underline;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c2vdnvdg6xxt</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">BBC News has provided our global audiences with coverage and first-hand testimony of the atrocities committed by Hamas, and the suffering in Gaza. We have made clear the devastating human cost to civilians living in Israel and Gaza, and the unprecedented nature of what has happened. The huge loss of civilian life on both sides makes this a shocking and difficult story to cover.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Our correspondents have been to the scenes of attacks, massacres and potential war crimes; and reported on the harrowing scenes they have witnessed.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We have reported on the atrocities committed by Hamas in their assault on Israel and have heard many accounts from survivors of these attacks and family members of the victims, reflecting the trauma they are suffering.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">On the ground in Gaza our teams have reported on the rising death toll from Israeli air strikes and the unfolding humanitarian crisis, as first-hand testimony of the atrocities committed by Hamas, and the suffering in Gaza. water supplies are cut and thousands try to move out of the way of danger.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We have reflected statements from the UN and NGOs. We have interviewed representatives of the Israeli government, Hamas and UK government ministers and asked whether international law is being adhered to.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">BBC News has also examined the history and complexities of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and analysed the potential consequences of the war for the wider region. Our reporting has included opinions from all sides, the region and the wider world.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We have previously covered the escalation in tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, and the reasons for it.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Careful consideration has been given to all aspects of our coverage to ensure that we report on developments accurately and with due impartiality in line with the BBC Editorial Guidelines, which are publicly available.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We know that our audiences turn to us for clarity and to help them separate fact from fake. We know that trust is earned and we do not take that for granted.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">BBC News Chief Executive Deborah Turness has published a blog which addresses some of the concerns about our coverage:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="text-decoration-line: underline;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/articles/2023/how-bbc-is-covering-israel-gaza</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We do value your feedback about this. All complaints are sent to senior management and we’ve included your points in our overnight report. These reports are among the most widely read sources of feedback in the company and ensures that your concerns have been seen by the right people quickly. This helps inform their decisions about current and future content.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Many thanks again for getting in touch.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Kind regards,</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Darren Loughlin<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">BBC Complaints Team </span></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints"><span style="font-family: times;">www.bbc.co.uk/complaints<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></a></span></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">............................................</span></p><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Sunday, 19 November 2023</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Reference CAS-7679120-B1Y1G2</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Dear Darren Loughlin<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Thank you for responding to my complaint, however belatedly.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As expected, this is a typical piece of BBC obfuscation, littered with loaded and imbalanced language.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">You write:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“On the ground in Gaza our teams have reported on the rising death toll from Israeli air strikes and the unfolding humanitarian crisis, as first-hand testimony of the atrocities committed by Hamas, and the suffering in Gaza.”</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Why is one simply “Israeli air strikes”, and the other “atrocities committed by Hamas”? Why not also use “atrocities” to describe what Israel has done in Gaza?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Where is the equivalence of language?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Why are the BBC still saying "Hamas killed 1200 people" (the now reduced figure) when there is strong and mounting evidence to contest this claim?</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">For example:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">“It’s almost six weeks since Hamas went into Southern Israel and killed 1200 Israelis”.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">(Victoria Derbyshire, </span><span style="font-family: times;">Newsnight, 16 November 2023.)</span></p><p class="p3" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001sh62/newsnight-tunnel-found-near-alshifa-hospital-israel-claims"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001sh62/newsnight-tunnel-found-near-alshifa-hospital-israel-claims</span></a></p></blockquote><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Some other BBC captions now appear more circumspect: </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“Israel began striking Gaza after Hamas's 7 October attacks, in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage” </span><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-middle-east-67423274"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-middle-east-67423274</span></a></blockquote><p></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This appears to leave the question of the killing more 'open-ended', but still lacking any indication that Israeli forces were also responsible. </span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And after over 6 weeks of slaughter in Gaza, any such amended wording comes far too late for helping to halt the killing spree which BBC statements like these have helped to drive. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">There is now clear evidence that Israeli forces killed an unspecified number of its own people during the 7 October events.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><span style="font-family: times;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4UONxrIWBE2OxsFD5F76cSsWTWxYxBPbhYn2ndyN-3L_zm6VoAZ2DxC5u1v59C9rKRGrRYQtSd0MDBP5COYN0keNtrN-sEHEE6VaB5H_wJv6ir-jaGoywVtZ3736XgUUn4frBR203rdAS4estEpfP96gzgxI-r27nSeTbQ0b6e1N9WOjWchyphenhyphenrTv3L2_ot/s769/Screenshot%202023-11-19%20at%2020.30.35.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="769" data-original-width="605" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4UONxrIWBE2OxsFD5F76cSsWTWxYxBPbhYn2ndyN-3L_zm6VoAZ2DxC5u1v59C9rKRGrRYQtSd0MDBP5COYN0keNtrN-sEHEE6VaB5H_wJv6ir-jaGoywVtZ3736XgUUn4frBR203rdAS4estEpfP96gzgxI-r27nSeTbQ0b6e1N9WOjWchyphenhyphenrTv3L2_ot/s320/Screenshot%202023-11-19%20at%2020.30.35.png" width="252" /></a></div>This has been <a href="https://x.com/aaronjmate/status/1725981381187039544?s=20">further confirmed</a> in witness statements carried by Haaretz and other Israeli media.</span><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: times;">Where are the BBC's own investigative reports on this?</span></span></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Please see also:</span></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://x.com/aliabunimah/status/1725958732113162579?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA"><span style="font-family: times;">https://x.com/aliabunimah/status/1725958732113162579?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA</span></a></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-helicopter-shot-civilians-7-october-rave-police-find"><span style="font-family: times;">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-helicopter-shot-civilians-7-october-rave-police-find</span></a></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Do the BBC dispute this evidence? If so, please state why. If not, then they have a clear obligation to report such evidence, and to remove any false and misleading headlines or annotations. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I need a full and open reply to my initial enquiry.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">Having failed to address these substantive points, I wish to have my case elevated to a higher stage for further examination.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Kind regards<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">John Hilley<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p></p>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-23196050907886866072023-11-03T13:52:00.003-07:002023-11-03T14:23:52.898-07:00BBC headline claim on October 7 deaths is clear disinformation and a dangerous deception <p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Text of complaint to the BBC (3 November 2023) about the deceptive use of its headline statement on the deaths within Israel on and around 7 October:</span></i></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZSuOEsVe04H73aeRMDi4bbpwB8SESdpPr7EBJSk7ZUAKr3f71o7p-cWbdmyNLoO_wHbadP1z3JOg-HIeEvNCz7yIxfutjrPkLgb9ek4W6YPVTj3F7_wx9V0HI783pxUXd0TZ0p6fIQgek3Ljm-fthsNK-CeIuAitWkh4ncNX84pFI5RT0HF1iyBvm0bQf/s628/Screenshot%202023-11-03%20at%2015.34.49.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="294" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZSuOEsVe04H73aeRMDi4bbpwB8SESdpPr7EBJSk7ZUAKr3f71o7p-cWbdmyNLoO_wHbadP1z3JOg-HIeEvNCz7yIxfutjrPkLgb9ek4W6YPVTj3F7_wx9V0HI783pxUXd0TZ0p6fIQgek3Ljm-fthsNK-CeIuAitWkh4ncNX84pFI5RT0HF1iyBvm0bQf/s320/Screenshot%202023-11-03%20at%2015.34.49.png" width="150" /></a></span></div><div><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The BBC introduce and annotate every news report with the words:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">“Israel began its operation after Hamas killed more than 1,400 people in Israel”.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">(For example, <a href=" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-middle-east-67281166 ">1</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-middle-east-67305304 ">3</a> November 2023.)<br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Whatever one thinks about what happened on and around 7 October, this statement is false, a clear case of BBC disinformation. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Whilst there is little doubt that Hamas and other resistance groups were responsible for a large proportion of deaths, there is strong evidence to suggest that Israeli forces were also responsible for substantive numbers of those killed. This must be accounted for. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The entire account of how <i>all</i> these deaths occurred, showing <i>all</i> those involved, must be told as a matter of public information and historical record. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Please consider the following as <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/27/israels-military-shelled-burning-tanks-helicopters/">a key compendium</a> of Israeli civilian and military witness statements and media references, undermining official Israeli claims and the repeated BBC headline that “Hamas [alone] killed more than 1400 people”. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The BBC’s consistent use of this inaccurate statement avoids the full story behind these events, offering no serious understanding or clarity for those affected. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Most disturbingly, the claim has been used to validate Israel’s illegal attack on Gaza, resulting in the <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/gaza-palestine-israel-hamas-war-gaza-death-count-hits-9-061-says-health-ministry-4538937">killing of over 9,000 people</a>, nearly half of them children, and displacement of an entire population, actions <a href="https://x.com/ajenglish/status/1720036161891000490?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">described by a leading UN figure</a> as "a textbook case of genocide." </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In presenting this false picture about 7 October, the BBC has served to condition public support for Israel's mass killing and genocidal actions. Given the strong body of evidence now questioning Israel’s claims of sole Hamas responsibility, the BBC should withdraw this statement and issue a corrective explanation.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">.............................................................</p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>Further reading</i>:</p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/27/israels-military-shelled-burning-tanks-helicopters/">Max Blumenthal</a> (Grayzone News): '</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #161616; font-family: times;">October 7 testimonies reveal Israel’s military ‘shelling’ Israeli citizens with tanks, missiles'</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2023-11-02/bbc-october-7/">Jonathan Cook</a>: What the BBC fails to tell you about October 7</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/watch-video-about-7-october-youtube-doesnt-want-you-see">Asa Winstanley</a>: Watch the video about 7 October YouTube doesn’t want you to see</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/israeli-forces-shot-their-own-civilians-kibbutz-survivor-says/38861">Ali Abunimah and David Sheen</a>: Israeli forces shot their own civilians, kibbutz survivor says</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://new.thecradle.co/articles/what-really-happened-on-7th-october">Robert Inlakesh and Sharmine Narwani</a> (The Cradle): What really happened on 7th October?</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://x.com/kennardmatt/status/1719682063626809494?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">Matt Kennard</a> (tweet) on "textbook case of genocide."</span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://new.thecradle.co/articles/what-really-happened-on-7th-october"></a><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p></div>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-54925079166229440522023-10-27T18:18:00.004-07:002023-11-17T13:57:10.740-08:00Palestinian suffering and Israel's genocidal plan for Gaza did not begin on 7 October <p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYZpGqv3GXEsEuTV0jdEuJlaYeF8UlAeUmzBV17wPM_s0N0zR8Iq-fMozHYs4kTSU-OP3fbovOaBJcrLFtq6Dq5_nr-qHuCrGj0DcjxqlV6q8nugGECd1EWRcy7sTf7JQrNtAPQ-8HgtLddiow3Sm2iH-D-N6TRDCWtru5wuFqyjo4a15Up3NaHNaQxHIk/s2000/gaza%20dead%20children.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1335" data-original-width="2000" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYZpGqv3GXEsEuTV0jdEuJlaYeF8UlAeUmzBV17wPM_s0N0zR8Iq-fMozHYs4kTSU-OP3fbovOaBJcrLFtq6Dq5_nr-qHuCrGj0DcjxqlV6q8nugGECd1EWRcy7sTf7JQrNtAPQ-8HgtLddiow3Sm2iH-D-N6TRDCWtru5wuFqyjo4a15Up3NaHNaQxHIk/s320/gaza%20dead%20children.webp" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: times;">Even after 75 years of systematic repression, Israel is now engaged in truly staggering levels of genocidal murder and removal of Palestinians, all backed by its Western patrons. </span><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As of 26 October, it has taken Israel <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/26/israel-hamas-war-live-un-ceasefire-bid-fails-as-gaza-death-toll-soars">just over two weeks to murder</a> over 7000 people in Gaza, almost 3000 of them children. Another <a href="https://x.com/jonathan_k_cook/status/1717680955710693581?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">940 children lie missing</a> beneath the rubble. A<span class="Apple-converted-space"> t</span>ruly astonishing and depraved kill rate. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">'Go south', they ordered 1 million people, 'for your own safety', then <a href=" https://x.com/muhammadshehad2/status/1717498700304429359?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">bombed them mercilessly there</a> as well as in the north.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span>The </span><a href="https://x.com/aseelalbajeh/status/1717588222845354231?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">death list of names</a><span> grows by the day. Whole, extended families have been wiped out. Children <a href="https://x.com/seriewoordenaar/status/1716475665644396964?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">shake</a> with fear, utterly <a href="https://x.com/qudsnen/status/1716899548805624135?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">traumatised</a>. This not just a humanitarian crisis. It's a genocidal annihilation.</span></span></p><p class="p3" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://x.com/qudsnen/status/1716899548805624135?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA"></a><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span>Enumerating the drastic scale of death and destruction, </span><a href="https://www.dci-palestine.org/2913_palestinian_children_killed_in_gaza_with_us_approval">Defence for Children International</a><span> note the specific legal implications of Israel’s actions:</span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“Under international law, genocide is prohibited and constitutes the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group, in whole or in part. Genocide can result from killing or by creating conditions of life that are so unbearable it brings about the group’s destruction.”</span></blockquote><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Yet, for all the notes of ‘humanitarian concern’ coming from Western states, Israel could bomb and murder any number of Palestinians anywhere and it would still make no difference to their unfailing endorsement of this savage regime.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">After decades, not just weeks, of</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">this killing and blind-eye support, Palestinians and those who duly observe their suffering, have come to the same rational conclusion: Israel can slaughter with impunity.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">Palestinian deaths, in whatever circumstances, are deemed ‘unfortunate’, mere ’collateral’ results of an ‘intractable conflict’ and Israel's ultimate 'right to prevail'. </span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">How readily ‘our’ politicians and media use words like ‘inhuman’, ‘bestial’ and ‘evil’ to describe what Hamas forces did to Israelis. And how terrible much of that incursion was. But would you ever hear such adjectives being used to illustrate what’s being done to Palestinians? </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It’s quite remarkable how the process of Palestinian bodies being ripped apart by horrific bombs can be sanitised as ‘Israeli air raids/strikes’. Think of the language of outrage we see after the carnage of any terrorist attack. Yet somehow the calculated dropping of a bomb - Israel has now dropped thousands - on a packed residential apartment block in Gaza extinguishing all inside carries no such terminological equivalent.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">The entrenched</span></span><span style="font-family: times;"> racism underlying this selective language and treatment of 'other' peoples is a subject essentially unspoken of in 'mainstream' discussion.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;">A</span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-family: times;">s we've seen with Ukraine, how </span>different the jingoistic reactions and <a href="https://x.com/rivkahbrown/status/1716567733842628796?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">flag-flying support</a> from western capitals and media to the deaths and displacement of white westerners.</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: times;">The same callous Western response to Palestinian suffering is being orchestrated at the UN. After 17 days of relentless bombardment, a Security Council ceasefire proposal was <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/25/what-to-know-about-un-draft-resolutions-on-the-israel-hamas-war-so-far">vetoed by the US and UK</a>. </span><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Despite having no legal binding, a later <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/10/1142932">resolution from the UN General Assembly</a> calling for an immediate ceasefire and emergency aid was overwhelmingly carried.</span><div><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p5" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Rejecting global-wide public support for a ceasefire, Biden and Sunak have suggested instead a ‘humanitarian pause’. Again, such language only underscores the ruthless violence they’ve hitherto supported. As <a href="https://x.com/craigmurrayorg/status/1717482411909386260?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">Craig Murray</a> best summarised it:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“The great brainwave of US, EU and UK leaders is to call for not a ceasefire but a "humanitarian pause". This is to give small children a few sips of water before blasting them to pieces.”</span></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: times;"><span>Biden was also lauded for 'negotiating' the movement of aid trucks at the Rafah crossing, a </span><a href="https://x.com/johnwhilley/status/1716743546814726215?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">paltry gesture while green-lighting the further massacre of children</a><span>. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/25/over-2000-children-killed-in-gaza-a-stain-on-our-collective-conscience">UNICEF has called</a><span> the mass casualties of children “a stain on our conscience.” <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/gaza-tortured-israel-and-us-not-failed-world">More accurately</a>, it's a huge blood stain on Israel and its international backers. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;"><span>Meanwhile, Israel has <a href="https://x.com/ggreenwald/status/1717633408199712903?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">killed over 200 in the West Bank</a> since 7 October, and </span><a href="https://x.com/craigmurrayorg/status/1717412837990047942?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">arbitrarily arrested - effectively taken hostage</a><span> - over 1360.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span>Statistics on the <a href="https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports/unrwa-situation-report-14-gaza-strip-and-west-bank-including-east-jerusalem">UN's own losses</a> in Gaza also make for grim reading. And, after killing 38 UNRWA staff, bombing 41 UNRWA <a href="https://x.com/swilkinsonbc/status/1717459712411574760?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">facilities</a>,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span>refusing UNRWA <a href=" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67227534">emergency fuel</a> and aid, and rejecting the UN ceasefire plea, Israel has now even refused visas to UN diplomats in response to this perfectly factual statement by UN Secretary General </span><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/24/un-chief-says-clear-violations-of-international-humanitarian-law-in-gaza">Antonio<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Guterres</a>:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“It is important to also recognise the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”</span></blockquote><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In essence, Palestinian suffering <a href="https://x.com/maxblumenthal/status/1716903421180264765?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">didn’t start on 7 October</a>. But the<a href="https://x.com/richimedhurst/status/1716895905969062268?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA"> attack on Guterres</a>, and Israel's call for his resignation, for daring to say so, is deeply symptomatic of the Western narrative centred around Israel's 'primary suffering'.</span></p><p class="p3" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;">Western hand-wringing and global solidarity</span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In stark rejection of their complicit Western governments, people across the West have joined millions more around the world in solidarity with the people of Gaza, and for all Palestinians, in</span><span style="font-family: times;"> saying that they are witness to their suffering, support their heroic resistance, and that they themselves won't be constrained or intimidated in defending the Palestinian cause.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It’s also worth remembering, in that vital regard, the words of Desmond Tutu: “</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #101010;"><span style="font-family: times;">If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.</span></span><span style="font-family: times;">” </span><span style="font-family: times;">And that message goes out especially to all those liberal-tortured figures and 'anti-racist' bodies who pander to the Israel-support lobby, their so-called ‘peace’ stalls, and all who serve to normalise Israel’s crimes. </span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Alas, there’s no equivocation in the sides ‘our’ so-called leaders are taking.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: times;">Israel's genocidal crimes in Gaza are being carried out with the full approval of its Western sponsors. As <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/rishi-sunak-tells-benjamin-netanyahu-we-want-you-to-win_uk_65310e52e4b0da897ab6e2e2#:~:text=%E2%80%9CWe%20will%20stand%20with%20you,put%20civilians%20in%20harm%27s%20way%E2%80%9D.">Sunak</a></span><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/rishi-sunak-tells-benjamin-netanyahu-we-want-you-to-win_uk_65310e52e4b0da897ab6e2e2#:~:text=%E2%80%9CWe%20will%20stand%20with%20you,put%20civilians%20in%20harm%27s%20way%E2%80%9D."> said to Netanyahu</a> during his visit to the regime: "We want you to win.”</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">He also said: “I know you are taking every precaution to avoid harming civilians.” </span><span style="font-family: times;">That’s about as clear a statement of complicity to an internationally-defined crime that you can get.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">How telling that Sunak should arrive in Israel from the off-ramp of a <i>military</i> plane, rather than stepping down from a civilian one. </span><span style="font-family: times;">Biden's</span><span style="font-family: times;"> and Sunak's support for the regime's bombing, invasion and collective punishment was also echoed by Von der Layen and the EU</span><span style="font-family: times;">. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Encouragingly, evidence of the clear violations being committed by all of Israel’s accomplices is being <a href="https://x.com/aliabunimah/status/1715846425072767204?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">collated and actioned by international legal bodies</a>:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“On Friday, 100 genocide scholars and Palestinian and international organizations <a href="https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/21946.html"><span class="s1"><span style="color: black;">wrote</span></span></a> to International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan, calling on him to “urgently issue arrest warrants” for cases related to Palestine already under investigation by his office. </span><span style="font-family: times;">They also call on him to investigate ongoing crimes in Palestine and to issue a preventive statement that warns potential perpetrators of the consequences of their actions – measures Khan has so far failed to take.”</span></blockquote><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We should also be clear that Israel is not just committing war crimes, it is systematically using such actions as an erasure project, rather than a military objective.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: times;">As <a href=" https://x.com/aliabunimah/status/1715471312070508752?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">Ali Abunimah</a> writes:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“"Israel" is not "fighting a war" in which it is sometimes committing war crimes. It is waging a genocidal revenge and extermination campaign against a civilian population using war crimes and crimes against humanity as its main method. There is no "military purpose" to this barbarism.”</span></blockquote><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Again, the regime could not enact such violence on an entire people without the consistent assurances of Washington, London and the EU.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Fittingly, <a href="https://www.channel4.com/news/starmer-under-pressure-to-call-for-a-ceasefire-in-israel-hamas-war">Keir Starmer is also now feeling the full backlash</a> of Labour party councillors, members and potential voters after </span><span style="font-family: times;">giving his own open backing to Israel’s brutal and illegal actions, and refusing to back a ceasefire. Due political punishment surely beckons. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><b>Denial and lies</b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Israel's epic genocidal act requires an equally epic campaign of deception and lies.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: times;">As <a href="https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/israels-culture-of-deceit?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web">Chris Hedges</a> writes regarding Israel’s culture of deceit, the regime has taken the ‘kill, deny and lie’ stratagem to a whole new level.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We’ve seen the repeated pattern played out by Israel's hasbara machine over decades of bombing, shooting and repression: as </span><span style="font-family: times;">with the murder of Rachel Corrie - kill and deny; as</span><span style="font-family: times;"> with the esteemed Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh - murder and deny; and now</span><span style="font-family: times;"> with the wilful attack on Al-Ahli and so many other hospitals - bomb and deny - even when their claims are <a href="https://x.com/alextomo/status/1714670858914894046?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">forensically analysed</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/channel4news/status/1715437877604049094?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">strongly disputed</a> and <a href="https://x.com/johnwhilley/status/1714546571537252442?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">duly exposed</a>.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span>Amid the <a href="https://x.com/msf_seasia/status/1715555645100081581?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">mass death and injuries</a>, what kind of ‘civilised’ leader or state could support an entity that orders the evacuation and bombing of hospitals? </span><a href="https://x.com/aaronjmate/status/1715826338823885096?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">Biden</a><span>, Sunak, and </span><a href="https://x.com/jonathan_k_cook/status/1715643961090445674?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">Von der Leyen</a><span> all have - the latter being a particularly rapacious voice for the regime.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span><span class="Apple-converted-space">Yet</span></span><span>, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/ClareDalyMEP/status/1716077473366962405">as Clare Daly reminds us</a><span>, the vast crowds across European capitals turning out for Palestine shows that she doesn’t speak, as she arrogantly asserts, for Europe.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><a href="https://x.com/johnwhilley/status/1716188001842221243?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></a></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span>Besides all this political protection, Israel's denial and lies could not be disguised without the active collusion of a power-serving media.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span><span class="Apple-converted-space">The same</span><span> media will note their ‘concern’ over the ‘looming humanitarian crisis’, but still report Biden and his cohorts as 'honest brokers'.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span><span class="Apple-converted-space">We've also</span> seen these past weeks how the BBC has consistently peddled the message of Israel’s ‘right to defend itself’.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> Routinely, we're told that I</span></span><span>sraelis have been “killed”, while Palestinians have “subsequently died” </span><span>(<a href="https://x.com/johnwhilley/status/1715849902939410919?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">BBC News at Ten</a>, 21 October 2023). </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span>In another such example, an admirable young Palestinian </span><a href="https://x.com/jonathan_k_cook/status/1715878695750009280?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">took a Sky reporter to task</a><span> over the same ‘killed/died’ selectivity, and loaded framing. </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span>See also Palestinian Ambassador</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> <a href="https://x.com/hzomlot/status/1717585112714404057?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">Husam Zomlot</a> putting the BBC's Lyse Doucet right on the whole 7 October narrative.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span> </span></span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzsWY9Eeo5hEX7sXOVWyzcDis-REKKnwRftI1rCJHSb967tuyrHgk7pwFUgcwLi1k05VjZcRuT_dAeA9a4RjXgF3Zq3IFfk-PlPcYQ4y_RBIjEsVvKadN1Oor_B9mgTlMvWbwo9f5Ojs2LaTgq443tGzU2okieuuFpzTtKnEqOlqeVx0QBMLShAPmqxZFL/s770/Wael%20mourns.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="513" data-original-width="770" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzsWY9Eeo5hEX7sXOVWyzcDis-REKKnwRftI1rCJHSb967tuyrHgk7pwFUgcwLi1k05VjZcRuT_dAeA9a4RjXgF3Zq3IFfk-PlPcYQ4y_RBIjEsVvKadN1Oor_B9mgTlMvWbwo9f5Ojs2LaTgq443tGzU2okieuuFpzTtKnEqOlqeVx0QBMLShAPmqxZFL/s320/Wael%20mourns.webp" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: times;">Of course, when the regime itself doesn't like what's being reported, it is only too ready to target the reporter, as in the deliberate <a href="https://x.com/jonathan_k_cook/status/1717525547582898542?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">killing of </a></span><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://x.com/jonathan_k_cook/status/1717525547582898542?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">Al Jazeera journalist Wael Al-Dahdouh's family</a>.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;">Existence and resistance</span></b></p><p class="p3" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">75 years of Palestinian suffering, from the Nakba catastrophe to the occupation and now this genocidal onslaught on Gaza, gets cursory attention, relegated<span class="Apple-converted-space"> t</span>o Israel’s own privileged history.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">People ask: 'Does Israel have a right to exist?' The plaintive answer to that lies in the returned question: 'Did apartheid South Africa have such a right to exist?'</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Whatever the human carnage, the mass murder of children, the destruction of homes and infrastructure, it's <i>Israel's</i> 'history of homeland' that Palestinians are expected to see as sacrosanct. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And now that 'history' is being abbreviated to a singular, 'iconic' moment, as though 7 October is the only landmark of any importance. So much of what passes for</span><span style="font-family: times;"> media ‘analysis’ insinuates the falsehood that all of the conflict started on this day.</span><span style="font-family: times;"> Thus, the hostility Guterres </span><span style="font-family: times;">has encountered for stating a</span><span style="font-family: times;"> simple, historical and unalterable truth.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In repeatedly negating this key context, the BBC and other service media trot out the same unending mantra that Israel’s actions are in ‘response’ to the Hamas killings, and that Hamas is a banned terrorist organisation. Again, where's the much longer timeframe of suffering, pre-Hamas, as intimated by Guterres? And why aren’t Hamas' own actions ever treated as a ‘response’ to the historic and relentless attacks on Gaza and Palestinians at large? Don't Palestinians have the right to exist <i>and</i> resist?</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The answer to that lies in a more hidden truth: that this is not actually a ‘war to destroy Hamas’ at all, as peddled by the regime and regurgitated by the media: it's about t</span><span style="font-family: times;">he systematic erasure of<i> all</i> Palestinians, the continuous Nakba.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">And herein lies another telling message: that those who <i>really do</i> understand the processes of historical oppression and resistance are the first to be castigated for doing so. </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Guterres tried to make an essential historical point, and has been hounded for his honesty. The list of <a href="https://twitter.com/owenpaintbrush/status/1716947146170356050?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">those who call out the regime</a> are likewise smeared and demonised.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> Yet still they</span> continue in resolute voice. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Once again, as a prime example, <a href="https://x.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1717179319389159689?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">Jeremy Corbyn</a> finds himself on the right side of history, illustrating perfectly why the establishment wanted him banished and silenced. Note: he's still here and more vocally relevant than ever.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span>We also find in admirable Jewish figures like </span><a href="https://x.com/johnwhilley/status/1714018612384559444?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">Gabor Mate</a><span> a voice of deep and traumatic experience, yet still unswerving in his concern for justice, and <a href=" https://x.com/aaronjmate/status/1718037722445881522?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">with the moral courage</a> to call-out Israel's heinous historical crimes. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We even see that historical understanding and empathy demonstrated by a certain set of admirable football fans showing their defiant resolve in flying the flag of resistance and telling Palestinians that 'they'll <a href="https://twitter.com/tamseiiicsoniii/status/1717341694138396760?s=64&t=2JKgH0p7POGSdu-4P5malA">never walk alone</a>'. </span><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://x.com/mrbensellers/status/1717595339555787137?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">Celtic fans’ courage</a> here in resisting the intimidations of their club, UEFA and the establishment at large is a guiding lesson to all.</span></p><p class="p3" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And we can be very certain in these dreadful, existential times for Palestinians themselves that they will never forget their own history or succumb to their oppression.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;">W</span><span style="font-family: times;">e can, in turn, show our dutiful support and solidarity in many ways, such as</span><span style="font-family: times;"> demonstrating on the streets, b</span><span style="font-family: times;">ut also in actively challenging the narrative of Israel’s 'historic supremacy' being peddled by its warmongering patrons and our war-stoking media.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> We can also </span><span style="font-family: times;">refuse to countenance their contrived narratives of condemnation and blame. </span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">There can be no peace without justice.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: times;">There can be no progress without recognising the very roots of the conflict.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> T</span><span style="font-family: times;">here can be no resolution of it until we address the <i>real</i> historical facts on the ground:</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">that Israel is a racist-colonial entity, an apartheid state, and a genocidal regime now intent on enacting its despotic task of total elimination.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">Only with an end to the occupation, the apartheid system, and the brutal siege of Gaza could any real peace process even begin to germinate.</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This is an historic chapter in the suffering of Palestinians. But it's also an historic opportunity to help generate new mass awareness of all Palestinian history and their rightful claims. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span>Yet, as </span><a href="https://www.declassifieduk.org/israels-long-held-plan-to-drive-gazas-people-into-sinai-is-now-within-reach/">Jonathan Cook</a><span> shows, </span><span>the regime itself also comprehends the importance of this crucial, historical moment: </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“Israel knows enough history to understand that occupied and oppressed peoples never come to accept their subjugation. They continue to find ways to resist. Even if Hamas can be wiped out, a new, more fearsome adversary will emerge among the next generation currently being traumatised by Israel’s bombs.”</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Which is why the regime</span><span style="font-family: times;"> is now preparing to enact its own ‘historic solution’ in its</span><span style="font-family: times;"> push for complete dispossession and expulsion of Gaza's entire population to the wilderness of Sinai:</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“Netanyahu is aware that he has only a limited time-window to effect enough carnage to realise Israel’s plan.”</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">However broken, any such genocidal endeavour is likely to meet historic resistance from resilient Palestinians. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As of this writing tonight, <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/gaza-communications-blackout-israel-intensifies-attack">all internet connections have been cut to a blacked-out Gaza</a>, as another terrifying bombardment is unleashed ahead of a possible all-out invasion.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">All of our thoughts, solidarity and supportive intentions must be with the people of Gaza and all Palestinians in these dark and desperate times. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;">Further reading</span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.medialens.org/2023/the-absolute-right-to-commit-war-crimes-gaza-israel-and-labour-opposition/">Media Lens</a>: The ‘Absolute Right’ To Commit War Crimes? Gaza, Israel And Labour ‘Opposition’ </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/israels-culture-of-deceit">Chris Hedges</a>: Israel’s Culture of Deceit</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="murphy/hospital-massacre-compounds-gazas-nightmare ">Maureen Clare Murphy</a>: Hospital massacre compounds Gaza’s nightmare</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-war-lying-time-again-never-learn">Jonathan Cook</a>: Israel-Palestine war: Israel is caught lying time and again. And yet we never learn</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2023/10/genocide-unfolding/">Craig Murray</a>: Genocide Unfolding<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><a href="https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2023-10-23/israel-kill-hamas-hostages/"><br /></a></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><a href="https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2023-10-23/israel-kill-hamas-hostages/">Jonathan Cook</a>: Did Israel choose to kill Hamas and the hostages indiscriminately?</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/gaza-tortured-israel-and-us-not-failed-world">Maureen Clare Murphy</a>: Gaza tortured by Israel and US, not failed by “the world”</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://x.com/richimedhurst/status/1716895905969062268?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA"></a><br /></span></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p></div></div></div>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-49533907213921600352023-10-16T06:12:00.003-07:002023-10-19T09:05:42.260-07:00Gaza: the relentless Nakba<div style="text-align: left;"><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgemgDEc6HLkVrQAITrZ4woiaNAmNZT0Oi7ftsNApj46-CdbeGqAKQjJzdnRMUSoONS5PWXr1s0ltGkIYf4J7XIR3PS1a0tSpS58wZIUSIFql3vLDEAXk7_ofY3gPovpprDWjngLG8NrzW9-I2d0LOAE6xrqObl5FtsDc2Uc8o7hybxeKXTuN4tZQIUp4d8/s1200/Gaza%20evacuation%202.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="742" data-original-width="1200" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgemgDEc6HLkVrQAITrZ4woiaNAmNZT0Oi7ftsNApj46-CdbeGqAKQjJzdnRMUSoONS5PWXr1s0ltGkIYf4J7XIR3PS1a0tSpS58wZIUSIFql3vLDEAXk7_ofY3gPovpprDWjngLG8NrzW9-I2d0LOAE6xrqObl5FtsDc2Uc8o7hybxeKXTuN4tZQIUp4d8/s320/Gaza%20evacuation%202.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: times;">The trauma of 1948 is being repeated in Gaza as Israel orders<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>over 1 million people, half the illegally besieged enclave’s population, to leave.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">2.4 million people, half of them under 18, packed into an area the size of the Isle of Wight, now face further expulsion from their bomb-decimated homes.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The Nakba catastrophe which saw 750,000 Palestinians forcibly removed from their land has been a continuous process of ethnic cleansing. And now millions more are facing the march of dispossession.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">80% of Gaza’s people are already refugees, forced from their homes in settler-taken towns like Sderot and Ashkelon across Israel’s ‘security’ fence.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">That’s why the people of Gaza rallied in their thousands during the Great March of Return in 2018, and were murdered en masse for their heroic efforts.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As<a href="https://www.aaronmate.net/p/the-roots-of-israels-ethnic-cleansing"> Aaron Mate</a> charts, the extent of Palestinian resentment over their initial displacement was ‘recognised’ even by one of Israel’s most infamous generals, Moshe Dayan: </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“Let us not cast the blame on the murderers today. Why should we deplore their burning hatred for us? For eight years they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been transforming the lands and villages, where they and their fathers dwelt, into our estate.”</span></blockquote></span></div><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Now they are being displaced once again in another act of brutal collective punishment, an order deemed <a href="https://news.sky.com/video/israels-order-to-relocate-is-a-war-crime-says-head-of-norwegian-refugee-council-12984106">illegal under international law</a>, a breach of the Geneva Convention, condemned by the UN and rejected by every humanitarian agency in the world.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As <a href="https://www.tbsnews.net/hamas-israel-war/israel-says-military-preparing-attack-gaza-air-sea-and-land-718722">UNRWA's director of communications</a>, Juliette Touma warns: </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“This is the worst we've ever seen. This is hitting rock bottom. This is Gaza being pushed into an abyss, there is tragedy unfolding as the world is watching. This is Gaza.”</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">UN Special Rapporteur to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, <a href="https://x.com/franceskalbs/status/1713183214674518228?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">Frances</a></span><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://x.com/franceskalbs/status/1713183214674518228?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">ca Albanese</a>, states:</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">“Mass forced displacement of Palestinians has occurred in 1947/49 and 1967, and continued ever since, in less visible but not less painful forms. This time it risks to be as cruel as ever, under our watch, with some member states even risking to enable it.”</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Deprived of food, water and electricity, bombed and broken people now face the further traumatic prospect of never again seeing their territory, as the new horror of an invading Zionist army come again to kill, expel and annex.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Israel's Defence Minister <a href="https://x.com/jonathan_k_cook/status/1713005882588414101?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">Yoav Gallant</a> declared in his scorched-earth warning: “Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything.”</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We’re now seeing Israel’s long-gestating plan of banishing Gaza’s entire population to the Sinai Desert. “They need to move south, out to the Sinai Peninsula”, Israel’s army head <a href="https://x.com/jonathan_k_cook/status/1713322755507032331?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">Amir Avivi </a>declares.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In another chilling interview, ex-Israeli Deputy Foreign minister and senior diplomat<a href="https://x.com/khaledfahmy11/status/1712998371617571263?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA"> Danny Avalon</a> has revealed Israel’s pre-planned goal of expulsion to the Sinai, sealing the border and confiscating the land.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As </span><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://twitter.com/middleeasteye/status/1713637424255967560?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">Mustafa Barghouthi</a></span><span style="font-family: times;"> clarifies: “Israel is fighting, not Hamas. Israel is fighting all the Palestinian people.”</span></p><p class="p5" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p5" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="color: black; font-family: times;"><a href="https://x.com/aliabunimah/status/1713391683608424498?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">Egypt’s own complicit part</a> in this historic illegal transfer is also now emerging. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And as the enforcement commences, Israel has rained down <a href="https://x.com/m7mdkurd/status/1712863526665003266?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">death and destruction on the south-heading evacuees</a>.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It's also important to remember that, contrary to media references, Israel’s </span><a href="https://x.com/ajplus/status/1713572437017661946?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA" style="font-family: times;">fence around Gaza is not a border</a><span style="font-family: times;">. It has no legal status. It is a physical construct built by Israel to keep Palestinians locked in, controlled by air, land and sea. Israel thus <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/coiopt/2022-10-19/Report-COI-OPT-14Sept2022-EN.pdf">remains the occupying power</a> over Gaza.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">While desperate Gazans reach out to the world for basic aid, the West looks on in callous disregard. The US, Israel’s senior patron, flew in Antony Blinken, pledging to stand resolute with Netanyahu and his supremacist cohorts. EU head Ursula von der Leyen, still fuelling the military madness in Ukraine, has also promised unstinting support for the regime. And the UK - ever-cruel Britannia - is sending not relief ships to deliver vital aid, but <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/israel-gaza-uk-britain-rishi-sunak-royal-navy-raf-forces-b2428820.html">warships off the coast of Gaza to mount surveillance</a> on starving and fleeing Palestinians.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The inhumanity of this war-diseased empire is truly breathtaking. How such a barbaric state still commands unequivocal US/UK/EU support tells us all we need to know about the 'moral standing' of Western ‘democracies’.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This backing also now comes in the wake of an emergent far-right fascist government that’s been green-lighting pogroms and terror upon Palestinians across the West Bank.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It continues despite <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/">Amnesty</a> now joining other major human rights organisations in declaring Israel an apartheid state.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/"></a><br /></span></p><p class="p5" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And it intensifies now as Israel breaks every international law in the book in slaughtering and expelling the people of Gaza, <a href="https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide">clear acts of genocide</a>, as <a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml">specified by the UN</a>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml"></a><br /></span></p><p class="p5" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As <a href="https://www.jonathan-cook.net/2023-10-11/blood-gaza-west-israel/">Jonathan Cook</a> cogently writes, “the blood of Gaza is on the West’s hands as much as Israel’s.</span><span style="font-family: times;">”</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Shamefully, Labour leader <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/uk-labour-says-israel-has-right-starve-gaza-children">Keir Starmer</a>, a lawyer and former DPP, has refused to oppose Israel’s blocking of food, water and electricity to Gaza, a flagrant violation of international law.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/uk-labour-says-israel-has-right-starve-gaza-children"></a></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">He has also <a href="https://x.com/shehabkhan/status/1713208914202775751?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">ordered party officials</a> not to attend any of the mass protest rallies in support of Palestine.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">Is it possible for this shameless and alarming figure to sink any lower? </span></span></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://x.com/shehabkhan/status/1713208914202775751?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA"></a></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Meanwhile, media platforms are awash with drum-beating Western ‘war analysts’, from state-funded ‘think tanks’ to retired generals, offering cold scenarios for Israel’s bombing and invasion.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">There’s no seeming alternative, they intone, other than ground forces to erase Hamas. Alas, they lament, the mass civilian casualties to follow will always be an 'inevitable consequence of war', and no more so than here in the prosecution of Israel's 'rightful retaliatory' war.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Of course, there’s no such admission that deaths from the al-Qassam Brigade's own incursion into Israel could ever be linked to the decades of invasion inflicted on Gaza, or that <i>those</i> civilian losses could ever be viewed as a ‘sad and inevitable’ consequence of decades-long war being waged upon Palestinians.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Nowhere from the mainstream political and media class is there<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the remotest call for Israel and its sponsors to seek an actual political solution, rather than pursue further catastrophic warfare.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Nor will you ever read anything from Western service media on the actual complexities of Hamas’ own political and military development.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">There's no discussion of it being cultivated by Israel from the late-</span><span style="font-family: times;">1970s, </span><a href="https://archive.ph/2023.10.13-232725/https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123275572295011847" style="font-family: times;">and its particular promotion by Netanyahu</a><span style="font-family: times;"> from 1987, as a bulwark to Fatah. </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We hear nothing of the preemptive Hamas action against a US-backed coup following its democratic election in 2006, leading to the subsequent punishment siege from 2007. </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">There’s no mention of the key <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/01/middleeast/hamas-charter-palestinian-israeli/">political shift </a>from its fundamentalist 1988 Charter to its more moderated one of 2017, <a href="https://www.aaronmate.net/p/the-roots-of-israels-ethnic-cleansing">notably its acceptance of two states</a>.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">There’s no explanation of the <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/hamas-has-only-hudna-offer-lift-siege">long-term<i> hudna</i></a> (ceasefire/truce) efforts pushed by Hamas in an effort to lift the siege.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">There's no mention of the West's quiet <a href="https://x.com/craigmurrayorg/status/1713433982002495932?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">back-channel to Hamas, via Qatar</a>. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="color: #dca10d;"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="color: #dca10d; font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">After so many failed Hamas initiatives and obstructions by Israel, there's no thought given to why its military wing took a more decisive shift to armed resistance.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">All of which leaves no serious <a href="https://www.newarab.com/analysis/hamas-attack-israel-context-analysis-and-repercussions">background context</a> to the current Hamas operations. </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This should all be the stuff of studious political analysis and public interest reporting. Instead, the BBC choose to repeat ad nauseam the simplified Western framing of Hamas as a banned terrorist enemy. It's a carefully calibrated presentation, serving not just to demonise Hamas and dumb the public, but to brand Palestinians and anyone supporting the Palestinian cause as implicit supporters of it. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzA1R3hFxeC6S_6L4aG2dAlyC849rSs3XmbPRP2Rk4xNzXp3Ss3w30PbNdjC4PSMw4p93po9tgnWz-KYX5zauTDdYmJM6QU5RhwdXcgq5caO21xTLb3vdy7JBSnMCeXu2iQaQeLV7vgzvDdUM7VRjltKQaeGiCJRV-QpLf1YFYOxDJK8c2aGCnxo2Yz-KA/s2048/Gaza%20demo%201.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="2048" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzA1R3hFxeC6S_6L4aG2dAlyC849rSs3XmbPRP2Rk4xNzXp3Ss3w30PbNdjC4PSMw4p93po9tgnWz-KYX5zauTDdYmJM6QU5RhwdXcgq5caO21xTLb3vdy7JBSnMCeXu2iQaQeLV7vgzvDdUM7VRjltKQaeGiCJRV-QpLf1YFYOxDJK8c2aGCnxo2Yz-KA/s320/Gaza%20demo%201.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: times;">This mendacious narrative is now being stoked by a growing state authoritarianism, with Home Secretary Suella Braverman not only castigating those demonstrating for Palestine, but even <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/waving-a-palestinian-flag-on-british-streets-may-not-be-legitimate-suella-braverman-warns-12981988">threatening prosecution</a> of those waving a Palestinian flag.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Palestinians, and those speaking up for them, are also being harangued by news anchors and interviewers demanding their immediate condemnation of Hamas.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It’s the primary media opening: “do you condemn?” As though actual suffering Palestinians and their backers are expected to assume blame and express contrition; as if Palestinians and their followers have no such regard for human life.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It further serves to normalise the lie that Israel is intent on only wiping out Hamas, rather than erasing all Palestinians. It's also, as <a href="https://x.com/hzomlot/status/1713494947435888801?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">Palestinian Ambassador/Head of Mission to the UK Husam Zomlot</a> encountered, used as a crude media trope to portray the problem as one of internal Palestinian political divisions and their ‘refusal’ to acknowledge such.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This is all bad faith interrogation, not rational explorative journalism. The first thing to be said in any such exchange should be, “I reject the premise of your question and the duplicitous motive behind it.”</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">One might also ask of such inquisitors: “have you ever thought of condemning your own state-serving media in turning a blind-eye to the West’s horrific crimes, including its long-time harbouring of Israel’s terror state?”</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">From its priority headlines to its <a href="https://x.com/johnwhilley/status/1711511377452425554?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">tributing of Israel’s flag</a> on public buildings, BBC reports are overwhelmingly loaded in favour of Israel. Israeli victims have highlighted names, extended stories, media empathy. Palestinians are numbers, <a href="https://x.com/caitoz/status/1713418630933995584?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">‘collateral’</a> losses, <a href="https://x.com/medialens/status/1713227887589924921?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">anonymous victims</a>, their stories attenuated, their terrors <a href="https://x.com/jonathan_k_cook/status/1712975313397747776?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">reduced</a> to 'anxieties'.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Public empathy for Palestinians is further undermined by <a href="https://x.com/jonathan_k_cook/status/1713696480165233146?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">loaded media language</a> such as </span><span style="font-family: times;">“Hamas-run” hospitals and other facilities.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;">BBC reporters will talk of Hamas massacres. But they will never speak about the bombing of Gaza apartments and the deliberate mass killing of civilians as Israeli massacres. The taking of civilians as hostages by Hamas is elevated as a crisis issue. In contrast, thousands of Palestinians, including hundreds of children, have been effectively abducted by Israel under <a href="https://www.btselem.org/administrative_detention">Administrative Detention</a> and locked away for years, with barely a murmur of media concern. </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><span style="font-family: times;">The Guardian’s </span><a href="https://x.com/jonathan_k_cook/status/1713850923481473126?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA" style="font-family: times;">running order of ‘priority’</a><span style="font-family: times;"> news and stories shows no better judgement. It has even <a href="https://x.com/kennardmatt/status/1713877409110385113?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">fired</a> its most esteemed cartoonist for caricaturing Netanyahu, killer of 3000 Palestinians.</span><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Whatever images of bombed and suffering Gazans being aired - and how could the barbaric extent of it ever be truly hidden - the ‘predominant concerns’ still prevail: Israel’s own ‘fears’, ‘security’, fate of hostages, and ‘right to protect itself’.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It’s a narrative laden with qualified sympathy for Palestinians: ‘yes, we see your suffering, but you must see the ‘greater imperative’of Israel’s ‘sole right to retaliate’ and act in its own ‘higher interests’.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://x.com/medialens/status/1712843569654866346?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">Armchair warriors and siren tabloid</a> voices insist that, whatever the cost in human life, Gaza <i>must</i> be invaded, the need for Israeli revenge sated.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> To suggest otherwise is simply unthinkable. </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">So how do Palestinians protect themselves? Where should they flee? Into the sea? Into the wilderness of Sinai? To these questions, there are no answers, practical or moral. All that matters is military execution of Israel's ‘superior’ aims. </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This is the Western hierarchy of suffering. And it’s coupled with the implicit requirement that Palestinian victims must condemn themselves in order to see the ‘problem’ of their ‘own making’.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It’s all redolent of an ingrained colonial-imperialist mindset, speaking down to a ‘lesser’ people, the ‘other’, those who have dared to break out of their prison cage.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">If only the late, great Edward Said were still here to witness <i>this</i> chapter of the Palestinian catastrophe and deconstruct the media/cultural racism underlying it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">How easy to condemn. How false to use it as harassment, entrapment and smear, as Palestinians like <a href="https://x.com/hzomlot/status/1711387200804315348?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">Zomlot</a>, and Palestinian supporters like <a href="https://x.com/Channel4News/status/1711056931912110255?s=20">Jeremy Corbyn </a>have had to endure.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This is the default line of warmongering Western leaders, posturing liberals and a public assaulted by the same moralising media propaganda.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Real, honest and constructive condemnation is always underwritten by two further essential elements: the need to see and understand the core causes of <i>why</i> such violence and suffering occurs; and a sincere moral effort to use that understanding in an effort to help <i>prevent</i> further war, violence and suffering.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In a textbook illustration of such, the honourable Israeli journalist <a href="https://archive.ph/2023.10.14-171059/https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-10-09/ty-article-opinion/.premium/israel-cant-imprison-2-million-gazans-without-paying-a-cruel-price/0000018b-1476-d465-abbb-14f6262a0000">Gideon Levy</a> reminds us that it is Israel’s own relentless crimes against Palestinians and the brutal subjugation of Gaza that has brought about this desperate breakout, boiling point reaction, and, conveniently, the regime’s biggest ever pretext for wiping out Gaza.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://x.com/medialens/status/1712843569654866346?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA"></a></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">With the mass, indiscriminate bombing of every civilian and all infrastructure, Israel’s demonic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrine">Dahiya Doctrine</a> is now being played out to full and hellish effect.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p5" style="color: #dca10d; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As Israel readies to completely level Gaza and expel its entire population, all this criminal calamity is being excused by Western capitals and its amplifier media in the name of ‘righteous vengeance’. And as the violence-ridden post-9/11 world has shown, that only leads to more war, terror and death.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">While Palestinians resist in whatever ways they can, we can at least serve their cause by helping to expose this pernicious narrative: in calling-out the loaded, virtue-signalling politics of condemnation; in taking, without fear of further specious condemnation, the unequivocal side of the oppressed, not the oppressor; and in saying clearly that Palestinians who are responding with arms aren’t just doing so for the sake of it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Nothing happens in isolation. All the horrors we’re now witnessing are the direct consequence of Palestinian displacement, imprisonment, occupation and siege, the continuous Nakba.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Tragically, there will be<a href="https://x.com/rogerwaters/status/1712978707864797522?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA"> no end to the killing until true efforts are made to establish a system of equal political and civil rights under one state for all</a>.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As this <a href="https://x.com/alanrmacleod/status/1712980820221112688?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">vital video</a> of the Palestinian catastrophe and ongoing persecution shows, all serious condemnation should be informed by a need to understand the fundamental roots of the crisis, as the basis of any eventual and just resolution.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">.........................</span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">Further reading:</span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">For those trying to comprehend the extent of UK and Western complicity, please see <a href="https://www.jonathan-cook.net/2023-10-13/gaza-britain-israel-crimes/">Jonathan Cook’s</a> excellent analysis: Lawless on Gaza: why Britain and the West back Israel’s crimes.</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2023/10/15/list-of-war-crimes-and-crimes-qualifying-as-genocide-committed-by-israel-in-gaza-since-7th-october-2023/">Yanis Varoufakis</a> has also compiled a specific list of internationally-defined war crimes committed by Israel since<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>7 October. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> <br /></span></span></p><p style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-51281587993470625452023-06-21T06:17:00.001-07:002023-06-21T06:44:17.631-07:00Scotland for Palestine - all along the waterfronts<p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhALxvMDLAIXPsMZQDWKW7BG_ZUK8irEHfrcUY55raZwU-vfR70u1o3FQC1dDhJXRWiCPfRo2hd-jVgbv4W8tO5BqqakDoYgsq0B1S05c3vSXOg1j0dQmSMbtDNZrsaopgPiDSTfg9knWDlriWlM4gr8p3l-WRXSAfVsb1yJGUW3uXUP-HcsbuVid7MkQ/s1024/handala.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="682" data-original-width="1024" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhALxvMDLAIXPsMZQDWKW7BG_ZUK8irEHfrcUY55raZwU-vfR70u1o3FQC1dDhJXRWiCPfRo2hd-jVgbv4W8tO5BqqakDoYgsq0B1S05c3vSXOg1j0dQmSMbtDNZrsaopgPiDSTfg9knWDlriWlM4gr8p3l-WRXSAfVsb1yJGUW3uXUP-HcsbuVid7MkQ/s320/handala.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><p></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">A small ship of humanity will soon drop anchor in the River Clyde. </span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">Sailing around various European ports, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handala">Handala</a>, a vessel funded and launched by the <a href="https://freedomflotilla.org/">Freedom Flotilla Coalition </a>(FFC) is to <a href="https://twitter.com/gazafflotilla/status/1670400854468317184?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA">dock in Glasgow</a> (24th - 27th June 2023) as part of its continuing ‘For the Children of Gaza’ voyage to the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/14/a-guide-to-the-gaza-strip">stricken Strip</a>. </span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p2" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"></span><br /></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">The <a href="https://freedomflotilla.org/who-we-are/">international-based</a> expedition is the latest courageous attempt to break Israel’s illegal blockade of the long-suffering Palestinian enclave. </span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p2" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"></span><br /></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">Previous maritime efforts have been brutally intercepted and hijacked in international waters by Israeli forces, most notably with the<a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230531-13-years-since-israels-attack-on-the-gaza-bound-aid-ship-the-mavi-marmara/"> infamous storming of the Mavi Marmara</a> in 2010, in which 10 civilians were murdered and over 50 more injured. Israel has never accepted responsibility, or been held to proper account, for this appalling massacre. </span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p2" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"></span><br /></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">Thirteen years later, much of the same high-seas piracy can be expected. One hopes and prays for the crew's safe passage. But before any such showdown, the FFC's tour of Euro harbours is serving to build public awareness of Gaza’s terrible situation. </span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p2" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"></span><br /></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">Contrary to Israel’s oft-repeated claim to have ‘withdrawn’ from Gaza in 2005, the regime still controls every access point for its over 2 million inhabitants, one of the most densely populated places on earth. </span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">Encircled and controlled by land, air and sea, an imprisoned people are denied the most basic rights to life, including the freedom to sail to and from their own shores. </span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">Consequently, Israel remains, <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/coiopt/2022-10-19/Report-COI-OPT-14Sept2022-EN.pdf">according to the UN</a> and other major <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/document/ihl-occupying-power-responsibilities-occupied-palestinian-territories#:~:text=The%20ICRC%20considers%20Gaza%20to,of%20the%20border%20with%20Egypt).">human rights bodies</a>, the primary occupying force, directly responsible for the protection and well-being of Gaza’s people:</span></span></p><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span></span></span><blockquote><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent;">“Although Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2005, the Commission notes that Israel continues to occupy the territory by virtue of the control it exercises over, inter alia, the airspace and territorial waters of Gaza, as well as its land crossings at the borders, supply of civilian infrastructure, including water and electricity, and key governmental functions such as the management of the Palestinian population registry.”</span></blockquote></span></div><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">In flagrant denial of its legal obligations, Israel has continued to bomb, punish and contain the population, with merciless disregard for international law. </span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p2" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"></span><br /></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">In particular, this latest flotilla is seeking to highlight the plight of Gaza’s children. </span></span><span style="font-family: times;">As the <a href="https://freedomflotilla.org/our-2023-mission/">Coalition’s explanatory info</a> reminds us, over half of Gaza’s population are children and minors. They endure chronic </span><span style="font-family: times;">shortages of basic human resources, including drinkable water, nutritious food, normal medical supplies, decent schooling, safe homes and ongoing electricity. Years of relentless bombing by Israel has left thousands injured and homeless, an entire generation scarred and traumatised. </span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p2" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"></span><br /></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">During the recent March of Return protests along Israel’s weapons-laden fence, the <a href="https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/news/media-centre/press-releases/gaza-protests-one-year-on---almost-3-000-children-injured-in-gaz">regime showed no restraint</a> in shooting dead 49 defenceless children and injuring over 6000 more, half of them requiring serious hospital treatment. </span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span>Other <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-kills-children-doctors-horrific-nighttime-massacre">horrific crimes</a> include the May 2021 mass bombing of Gaza, which saw <a href="https://www.ochaopt.org/poc/24-31-may-2021">256 killed, including 66 children</a>. Nine</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 16px;"> members of the Abu Hatab family, all women and children, were <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-kills-children-doctors-horrific-nighttime-massacre">killed at</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 16px;"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-kills-children-doctors-horrific-nighttime-massacre"> Gaza City’s Beach refugee camp</a>.</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 16px;">In addition, 2022 saw the largest number of Palestinians killed <a href="https://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20230108_the_occupied_territories_in_2022_largest_number_of_palestinians_killed_by_israel_in_the_west_bank_since_2004">in the West Bank </a>since 2004, a level likely to be surpassed, with over 120 killed <a href="https://www.map.org.uk/news/archive/post/1477-more-than-120-palestinians-killed-in-the-west-bank-as-israeli-military-and-settler-violence-surges">in the first half of 2023</a>, including the murder of two-year-old </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://twitter.com/DCIPalestine/status/1665719832329822209">Mohammad Tamimi</a>, shot in head by Israeli soldiers.</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">More children have been killed this year in indiscriminate bombing raids over Gaza's tightly-packed streets and houses. </span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent;">Six died in May during Israel’s air attacks, part of the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/6/palestinians-mourn-two-year-old-toddler-killed-by-israeli-forces">twenty seven murders </a>of children (to early June) this year alone across the West Bank and Gaza.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></span></div><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/6/palestinians-mourn-two-year-old-toddler-killed-by-israeli-forces"></a><br /></p><p class="p3" style="color: #dca10d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">The callous indifference of the Israeli regime, with its daily slayings in the West Bank and regular <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/mowing-lawn-israels-latest-massacre-gaza-and-lies-behind-it">‘mowing the lawn’</a> in Gaza, is mirrored only by the cowardly complicity of its international allies in turning a blind-eye to such atrocities. </span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p2" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"></span><br /></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">Hopefully, <a href="https://www.scottishpsc.org.uk/gaza/freedom-flotilla-s-handala-in-glasgow-will-challenge-siege-of-gaza">the Flotilla’s visit to Glasgow</a> will help highlight the true extent of Israel's violence, shame a service media into reporting it, and generate even greater support for Palestine from Scotland’s shores. </span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"><b>Waters of the Clyde</b></span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: times;">In similar spirit, along the same banks of the River Clyde, the admirable Roger Waters has just performed his magnificent This is Not a Drill </span><a href="https://www.heraldscotland.com/life_style/arts_ents/23565944.roger-waters-powerful-provocative-new-show/" style="font-family: times;">show</a><span style="color: black; font-family: times;">. </span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="295" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/e6ajnba08e4" width="326" youtube-src-id="e6ajnba08e4"></iframe></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">Accompanying an evocative Waters/Pink Floyd catalogue - with nods to his own Scottish heritage - the performance featured a stunning set of mass-screen images, from anti-war statements and indictments of neoliberal capitalism, to Israel's brutal apartheid wall, and the relentless suffering of Palestinians. </span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">In another great expression of solidarity, Waters and his tour management gave special dispensation for two groupings to campaign within and around the arena: one in support of Palestine and the Flotilla sailing; the other against the wicked incarceration of <a href="https://twitter.com/DEAcampaign">Julian Assange</a>. </span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p2" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"></span><br /></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">In brave defiance of the Israel lobby’s <a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1662069724681842693?s=20">spurious claims</a> in trying to close down his concerts, it was <a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1664891229207764994?s=20">inspiring to witness</a> Waters sending out such resolute messages from <i>this</i> waterfront to Palestinians living under occupation</span><span style="font-family: times;"> and siege between<i> their</i> river and sea. </span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p2" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"></span><br /></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">And in an exemplary display of how to confront the establishment forces trying to take him down - as they did to the great humanitarian hope and <a href="https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1670826089692688384?s=20">Palestine advocate Jeremy Corbyn</a> - Waters has shown the most shining resolve in denouncing the lobby's mendacious efforts to smear him and his show as ‘antisemitic’. </span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p2" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"></span><br /></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="color: #1d2228;">In a truly <a href="https://www.doubledown.news/watch/2023/june/6/roger-waters-explosive-interview">remarkable piece-to-camera for Double Down News</a>, Waters provides a veritable blueprint for how to handle his assailants, and the lying charlatans trying to get him cancelled. If anyone is in any remaining doubt about the futility of trying to appease the pro-Israel crowd, please watch this masterclass in assertive resistance. </span></span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="color: #1d2228;"><br /></span></span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="color: #1d2228;">Nor, facing the same establishment vilification, is Waters sparing in his condemnation of the prevailing proxy-war propaganda, denouncing the Western arms advocates with his damningly reprised <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=roger+waters+the+lockdown+sessions+the+bravery+of+being+out+of+range&source=hp&ei=_JCRZJHKNtCdgQbB3LewCw&iflsig=AOEireoAAAAAZJGfDPm7PHwYPNGq-KPmH6T7nKktV-z8&ved=0ahUKEwiRuNvU4tH_AhXQTsAKHUHuDbYQ4dUDCAw&uact=5&oq=roger+waters+the+lockdown+sessions+the+bravery+of+being+out+of+range&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyBQghEKABMgUIIRCgATIFCCEQoAEyBQghEKABMgUIIRCgATIECCEQFToLCC4QgAQQsQMQgwE6EQguEIAEELEDEIMBEMcBENEDOgsIABCABBCxAxCDAToLCC4QigUQsQMQgwE6CwguEIAEEMcBENEDOhEILhCKBRCxAxCDARDHARCvAToLCAAQigUQsQMQgwE6BQguEIAEOggILhCxAxCABDoFCAAQgAQ6CAguEIAEELEDOg4ILhCABBCxAxDHARDRAzoICAAQgAQQsQM6CAguEIAEENQCOggILhDUAhCABDoICAAQigUQhgM6BggAEBYQHjoHCCEQoAEQCjoFCAAQogQ6CAghEBYQHhAdUABYxacBYOurAWgBcAB4AIABbIgBmCSSAQQ0Ny42mAEAoAEB&sclient=gws-wiz#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:9cab77a7,vid:W8eoCPeyrM4">The Bravery of Being Out of Range</a>.</span></span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="color: #1d2228;"><b>Spreading support in Scotland</b></span></span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p2" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"></span><br /></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSnA3RY96jXj5rg9lEL15765NcJ9K-k4XzRwKgmasruhlbNL8Ww6le17AfJAG_hMnPUoOPPgia4r3VDPxnbq4v70_rbyr_qlKMFP4u30_IiH6zX3nbO1caX0r3Myays2Irt8zWwmWuhpd29AWeUGeR2mx7xuMcZDvXSDC5o1wiOupBqKw424Lh0ieoTMS_/s680/Asa.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="421" data-original-width="680" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSnA3RY96jXj5rg9lEL15765NcJ9K-k4XzRwKgmasruhlbNL8Ww6le17AfJAG_hMnPUoOPPgia4r3VDPxnbq4v70_rbyr_qlKMFP4u30_IiH6zX3nbO1caX0r3Myays2Irt8zWwmWuhpd29AWeUGeR2mx7xuMcZDvXSDC5o1wiOupBqKw424Lh0ieoTMS_/s320/Asa.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></span></div><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">With fortunate timing, Waters’ heroic show has also coincided with the release of <a href="https://twitter.com/AsaWinstanley/with_replies">Asa Winstanley</a>’s outstanding new book, <a href="https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/weaponising-anti-semitism/">Weaponising Anti-Semitism</a>, a quite brilliant, forensic account of how the same dark forces deployed their fabricated narrative to bring down Corbyn. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">Again, like Waters, Winstanley perfectly understands the need to take a critically offensive, rather than pleadingly defensive, position against such reactionary elements. </span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p2" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"></span><br /></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">This vital message was further reinforced by Winstanley in joining Scottish-based journalist <a href="https://twitter.com/yvonneridley/with_replies">Yvonne Ridley</a> (member of a <a href="https://www.arabnews.com/node/315232">2008 flotilla</a> that did make it to Gaza), Israeli dissident <a href="https://twitter.com/ronnie_barkan/with_replies">Ronnie Barkan</a>, and a <a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1657157215499812865?s=20">host of other fine activist/cultural voices</a> in a recent series of pro-Palestine public meetings across <a href="https://twitter.com/scottishpsc/status/1655566657501241346?s=20">Glasgow</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/scottishpsc/status/1655567109882097664?s=20">Edinburgh</a> and other Scottish locations. </span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p><div style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">In marking the <a href="https://twitter.com/AliAbunimah/status/1656375811115479047?s=20">cold-blooded execution</a> of esteemed Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, <a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1656582240996868097?s=20">Ridley</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1656575907643944961?s=20">Winstanley</a> also talked about the false and distorted language used by ‘mainstream’ media in serving to shield the public from the regime’s true criminality. </span></div><div style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Israel only gets to commit such acts knowing that it can expect impunity from its international patrons, and silence from a craven media.</span></div><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">Another key theme to emerge from Barkan's and other discussions was just how tenuous Israel's hold over the Palestinians is becoming, as it lurches towards an even more extreme form of theocratic fascism, and potential implosion, much to the alarm of its liberal Zionist defenders. </span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">Of course, the zealous capacities of the Israel lobby, and establishment at large, cannot be understated. </span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWZfySWkyf0Ip2IIGE-P8kZbXpC6PenmlNYurs-_Cl4EkhkIzBakTJHqeNIZQ_4FJ4m8ekD2lPsosOHe-o3N3fKYujJKewItgCplsmPNwqa4BLhBS-R_vQ7AAzaVP9Gk4uR3gQAihxDQpUlFz25umVM-2ohVAW88mbXX4gNdfKZzCKfUCpm1YpqyL8dw/s3508/starmer%20letter.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3508" data-original-width="2481" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWZfySWkyf0Ip2IIGE-P8kZbXpC6PenmlNYurs-_Cl4EkhkIzBakTJHqeNIZQ_4FJ4m8ekD2lPsosOHe-o3N3fKYujJKewItgCplsmPNwqa4BLhBS-R_vQ7AAzaVP9Gk4uR3gQAihxDQpUlFz25umVM-2ohVAW88mbXX4gNdfKZzCKfUCpm1YpqyL8dw/s320/starmer%20letter.jpeg" width="226" /></a></span></span></div><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"><div><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></div>Witness Keir Starmer’s own ruthless purging of the Labour left, coupled with his display of unconditional service to Israel. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">Indeed, Starmer’s own <a href="https://twitter.com/Naomi4LabNEC/status/1666709053223890947?s=20">shameful letter</a> denouncing Waters as ‘antisemitic’, despite all obvious evidence to the contrary, shows just how low this establishment-approved figure has descended as a McCarthyite witch-hunter, <a href="https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1670106910710812673?s=20">flag-bearing jingoist</a> and <a href="https://labourlist.org/2022/08/starmer-declares-labours-unrelenting-support-for-ukrainian-sovereignty/">warmongering authoritarian</a> in the Blairite mould. </span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">Nor, alas, does there appear to be any sincere or decisive support for the Palestinian cause here from the SNP-led Scottish government. Despite Humza Yousaf's marital family ties to Gaza, the </span></span><span style="font-family: times;">new First Minister has paid mere lip-service to the issue, <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230418-scotlands-new-first-minister-refuses-to-call-israel-an-apartheid-state-even-though-he-has-family-in-gaza/">even refusing to endorse</a> open declarations from <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/">Amnesty</a>, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/07/19/israeli-apartheid-threshold-crossed">Human Rights Watch</a> and <a href="https://www.btselem.org/topic/apartheid">B'Tselem</a> that Israel is an apartheid state. </span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Yet, as with the breaking of apartheid South Africa, it is sustained <i>grass-roots</i> activism that's driving the Palestinian case - all, of course, as supplementary support to the Palestinians' own agency and rightful resistance. </span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Backed by <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/10/commission-inquiry-finds-israeli-occupation-unlawful-under-international-law">international law</a>, <a href="https://artistsforpalestine.org.uk/category/artists-boycott/">increasing artistic boycotts</a>, and <a href="https://bdsmovement.net/news/global-south-rising-for-uninvestigateapartheid">growing support from the global south</a>, the same critical tipping point is coming for this unsustainable entity. </span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Indeed, as the internal contradictions of Israel’s fortress system plays out, the crisis of its settler-colonial project is becoming all too apparent for many disillusioned Jews, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/jews-leaving-israel-disillusion-long-time">now leaving Israel for Western shores</a>, and for many, too, <a href=" https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/third-young-us-jews-see-israel-genocidal-poll-finds">watching with growing detachment from them</a>.</span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The sight of any such return for occupied, corralled and exiled Palestinians may seem a more distant prospect. But it is no less a reality than the receding horizon of Israel's failed state. </span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The search for <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/one-state-solution "><i>one </i><i>land</i></a> of equality, dignity and democracy for all goes on, as the only real, just and durable solution. </span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As it does, </span><span style="font-family: times;">we can take good heart from the</span><span style="font-family: times;"> resilient body of pro-Palestine solidarity organisations, human rights campaigns and other stalwart supporters here in Scotland advocating for that one true country. </span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="yiv9905793797s2"><span style="font-family: times;">In the same onward spirit as Roger Waters' tour, the Flotilla's crew will soon set sail from Glasgow in its brave endeavour to break the siege of Gaza, a fatal waterfront where fishermen risk their livelihoods, and very lives, in taking their boats beyond <a href="https://www.btselem.org/gaza_strip/20190211_gaza_fishermen_plight_due_to_israeli_restrictions">Israel’s illegally-imposed nautical limit</a>. </span></span></p><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTd-EfLoXncE3z5Nq4Qf1pjVvKZWOMAH_w8p_23MvSFv0Fr4ac8l3VQYf2Icl4K-KFICbvQSSTN39j8yUVcDV1omOUtwnlZ_DCLb1y2bFKoJ4IyxMiJWJ-nbM2m5K56IHm5G25np1Z2C5KNQKMp-Nmn06V3Ism7VJ3qfcbpMVf-us2C8mGOYEdFFAKaaTL/s274/beach%20Bakr%20boys.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="184" data-original-width="274" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTd-EfLoXncE3z5Nq4Qf1pjVvKZWOMAH_w8p_23MvSFv0Fr4ac8l3VQYf2Icl4K-KFICbvQSSTN39j8yUVcDV1omOUtwnlZ_DCLb1y2bFKoJ4IyxMiJWJ-nbM2m5K56IHm5G25np1Z2C5KNQKMp-Nmn06V3Ism7VJ3qfcbpMVf-us2C8mGOYEdFFAKaaTL/s1600/beach%20Bakr%20boys.jpeg" width="274" /></a></div>And who can forget <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/gaza-beach-massacre-commemorated-child-survivors/13844">Israel’s brutal slaying of the four little boys</a> in 2014 - <span style="color: black;">nine-year-old Ismail Muhammad Subhi Bakr, ten-year-old Ahed Atef Ahed Bakr, ten-year-old Zakariya Ahed Subhi Bakr and eleven-year-old Muhammad Ramez Ezzat Bakr - </span>playing football on Gaza’s beach?</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">In memory of them and all the other small souls taken by this savage regime. </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Wishing those aboard the good ship Handala a safe passage, much publicity for their worthy expedition, and best wishes in their honourable quest to save Palestinian lives. </span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: 12px;"> </span></div><p class="yiv9905793797p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p></div>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-5873188906529325842023-03-10T14:27:00.001-08:002023-03-10T23:45:30.201-08:00Continuity conversations or decisive action: will SNP members seize this moment to make independence a reality?<div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Nicola Sturgeon's sudden resignation, prompting the current SNP leadership contest, has now revealed multiple seeping conflicts, hitherto contained by her once highly-disciplined party machine. It feels not so much the end of an era, as the unravelling of an entire, self-entitled fiefdom. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times;">Behind the SNP's ultra-polished presentation, Sturgeon’s exit from office and literal rush from the resignation podium resembles the flight of a prime suspect from the crime scene, with forensic investigators left picking over the real reasons for her hasty departure.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">And as the political intrigues and </span><a href="https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/police-quizzed-senior-snp-members-29314477" style="font-family: times;">police enquiries</a><span style="font-family: times;"> unfold, she leaves behind not just a deeply-riven party, but a paltry record. </span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times;">Beyond the gushing plaudits from party peers, teary staffers and celebrity acolytes, this is </span><span style="font-family: times;">a corporate-captured party that's <a href="https://www.conter.scot/2023/2/15/downfall-how-class-contradictions-ended-sturgeons-dismal-rule/">not only failed to drive serious progressive change, but taken Scotland backwards</a> in cravenly neoliberal and reactionary ways. </span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times;">Contrary to crafted claims and media spin, Sturgeon has presided over a dismal </span><span><span style="font-family: times;">domestic record - on health care, social justice, poverty reduction, homelessness, drug deaths, and much more. She has overseen the basement-price privatisation of the country's abundant wind resources. Her big promise of a National Public Energy Agency in 2017 </span><a href="https://www.thenational.scot/politics/23357303.snp-lack-clear-vision-scotlands-renewable-future/" style="font-family: times;">came to nought</a><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">.</span></span><span style="font-family: times;"> She has yet to account for her tragic covid-mishandling, in sending infected old souls into care homes, having followed the same disastrous course as Johnson’s UK government. She introduced a <a href="https://www.scottishlegal.com/articles/controversial-hate-crime-bill-passed-at-holyrood">Hate Crime Act </a>so authoritarian and invasive of free speech, it's <a href="https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/scotlands-hate-crime-law-yet-26140222">still awaiting</a> full implementation. The Sturgeon inner circle also connived in the most devious ways to smear, stitch-up and imprison Alex Salmond. The scandals following that momentous failure include a trail of missing party money, corrupt cover-ups and possible criminal charges. After the mass support she inherited from Salmond, post 2014, Sturgeon has somehow managed to split her party, with mass members leaving, lost and disenchanted at the extent of centralised control. We've also seen the calamitous pushing of a Gender Recognition Reform bill, causing major upheaval, wasting parliamentary resources, and alienating mass sections of the female populace. Sturgeon departs office, too, bent in </span><span style="font-family: times;">prostration to the US/UK/NATO war machine, including, quite alarmingly, having come out as the <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/border/2022-03-09/sturgeon-nato-shouldnt-rule-out-no-fly-zone-over-ukraine">foremost proponent of a no-fly-zone</a> over Ukraine. And, most damningly, after multiple election wins and a pile of prized mandates, she leaves with precisely nothing to show for the cause or deliverance of independence. All told, a</span><span style="font-family: times;"> truly bereft social, economic and political legacy.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Humza Yousaf now carries the justified label of Sturgeon’s ‘continuity candidate’. He has co-piloted and inherits her lamentable policies, while also pledging to pursue her obsessive and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>failed GRR bill through the courts. Most dutifully, he now carries the baton on Sturgeon's wilful independence evasions. Like his 'brilliant mentor', Yousaf talks effusively about 'building for independence' rather than showing any proactive plan for achieving it. If elected, he will also kick the proposed special party conference on independence into the same wildly overgrown grass. Instead of seizing the moment with imaginative initiatives, </span><span style="font-family: times;">Yousaf and his 'gradualist' cohort are fervently trying to dampen down expectations, insisting there's no quick route to independence. We might call this the 'catch-22 path to indy': independence can only be achieved, they claim, by showing continued good governance, convincing a settled majority of people to make it a priority; but this requires the SNP's continued tenure as proof of that good governance, rather than ever prioritising and campaigning to deliver independence. Thus, the '<i>success</i>' of SNP devolution means that it will always supplant the actual <i>need</i> for independence. Sturgeon's evasions and party power safely continued. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Which all means business-as-usual for the Westminster and Holyrood gravy-trainers, <a href="https://archive.is/2023.01.23-091657/https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/23268235.anti-terf-misogyny-contaminated-snp/?ref=twtrec">none of whom have advanced independence one iota</a>. With her once ‘heir apparent’ Angus Robertson out of contention, citing ‘family duties', all Sturgeon's 'graduate gradualists' have now fallen in line for Yousaf. The endorsements have been dutifully ringing out, from British state asset Stewart McDonald - now pitching 2050 as the next indy 'target date' - to Nicola cheerleaders Alyn Smith, Ian Blackford and Mhairi Black. Behind them, t</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;">he entire party hierarchy and <a href="https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2023/02/the-cheats-election/">backroom machine</a> have been working feverishly to install Yousaf. And</span><span style="font-family: times;"> with Sturgeon's own spouse and troubled party CEO, Peter Murrell, overseeing an already <a href="http://robinmcalpine.org/this-farce-is-now-a-national-embarrassment/">deeply compromised</a> </span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;">election process, the Sturgeon 'handover' would appear to be imminent. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span>However, it's possible that, with Yousaf damaged by his mishandling of the gay marriage vote issue, and viewed more widely as an unpalatable figure by the general public, SNP members may opt for the 'more presentable' Kate Forbes. <span style="font-family: times;">In contrast to Yousaf, Forbes is a model of probity, who didn't at any time seek to hide her 'contentious' religious beliefs. Yet her open admission that she <a href="https://twitter.com/c4ciaran/status/1627745647356006400?s=46&t=st2cYwDNnkGlLzoNIspVbg">would have voted against gay marriage - but would never challenge the existing legislation</a> - has been a ‘principle too far’ for many of the Nicola/Yousaf notables and staffers. <a href="https://twitter.com/StewartMcDonald/status/1627786298382589959?s=20">McDonald’s</a> own ‘regretful distancing’ from Forbes typifies the rejection. Incredibly, many also <a href="https://archive.is/2023.02.21-135149/https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/23336504.kate-forbes-may-breached-snp-rules-transphobia/ ">wanted Forbes suspended</a> for ‘violating’ the party’s code on ‘misgendering’, having dared to insist that a trans woman is really a biological male who identifies as a woman. After a week or so of this controversy, Forbes seemed to have 're-set' her campaign with fluent hustings performances. </span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-family: times;">Yet none of this can mask the real problems of her candidacy. </span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-family: times;">The first main concern with Forbes isn't her personal theology - that's her rightful choice - it's her neoliberal conformity. </span>How many of those Humza followers incensed over Forbes' religious conservatism ever thought to question her <i>economic</i> conservatism? Alongside Sturgeon, Forbes has faithfully embraced the whole <a href="https://jonathonshafi.substack.com/p/as-the-world-changes-the-snp-stands">Growth Commission doctrin</a>e, as pushed by Andrew Wilson, Charlotte Street Partners and the party's other corporate 'elect'. As we've seen, there's been nothing remotely left-thinking or radical flowing from this unholy alliance. In office, the</span><span style="font-family: times;"> ‘solid financial figure’ of Kate Forbes is really just another kind of minister serving the same rigid 'church' of neoliberal orthodoxy. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">The other key problem is</span><span style="font-family: times;"> Forbes' rather less than 'sacred' commitment to independence. H</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;">ow many of either her own backers or Humza detractors have sought to question Forbes' crucial failure of 'commitment' to the independence cause?</span><span style="font-family: times;"> Beyond well-delivered hustings lines, there's</span> nothing from the Forbes lectern that takes us anywhere beyond the same Sturgeon-Yousef continuity gospel. Again, the Humza camp's</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">‘immutable red lines’ here seem more drawn on 'principles' of identity than on the party’s own supposed principal task of indy deliverance.</span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Ash Regan, in contrast, is a soft-left progressive with perhaps<span class="Apple-converted-space"> more </span>radical potential. One watches and hopes - though, after Sturgeon's showbiz anointment, policy failures and abuses of high office, we should be forever wary of placing any kind of undivided trust in any leader. Parties and their heads should be seen as openings for change, not bodies and figures to be lionised.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;">However</span><span style="font-family: times;">, unlike Yousaf and Forbes, Regan</span><i style="font-family: times;"> has</i><span style="font-family: times;"> laid down a </span><a href="https://twitter.com/AshReganSNP/status/1632525176528072707?s=20" style="font-family: times;">credible marker for immediate and decisive action on independence</a><span style="font-family: times;">, with firm intentions to establish an independence convention on day one of her election, and to re-connect the Yes movement. With no prospect of the British state ever conceding a Section 30 referendum consent, Regan wishes to treat all forthcoming elections as effective ballots for independence, with any 50+1 majority deemed validation for initiating formal negotiations with Westminster. Regan is also the only candidate to declare </span><a href="https://twitter.com/richardjmurphy/status/1630838089294794752?s=46&t=KuUo_VjYJYAxKcydnWm3EA" style="font-family: times;">for a separate currency</a><span style="font-family: times;">, as the essential medium of financial independence. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Whatever the Humza naysayers and Unionist establishment may claim, all of this is completely viable. The immediate task is to make the actual effort in taking it to a new pivotal point, in testing the electorate, gaining majority consent and facing down the British state. If we sit forever in fear of doing something, we end up with a relentless nothing. Only Regan displays any serious sign of being prepared to move the dial. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Predictably, Regan has been subjected to sustained attack by the gradualists. She's also been demonised by the party’s ‘trans-set’ over her open refusal to back the GRR bill - which lead to her principled ministerial resignation. In effect, the Yousaf axis will sacrifice the most proactively promising candidate for independence over fear of their own party positions, and on the altar of identity politics. </span><span style="font-family: times;">The relentless hounding of MP Joanna Cherry, an advocate of Regan, in defending women’s rights, is a similar example of this pernicious intolerance.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">Aside</span> from her stance on GRR, the Humza backers’ other great antipathy to Regan concerns her ‘collusion’ with the wider Yes movement, most notably in extending an effective olive branch to Alex Salmond and Alba. One of Regan’s other 'cardinal crimes' was to be seen talking to indy stalwart, Common Weal author and SNP critic <a href="http://robinmcalpine.org/ ">Robin McAlpine</a>.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">It’s remarkable to think that a party supposedly birthed as the primary agent of independence could be so virulently hostile to such independence forces.</span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Nor is it any seeming coincidence that many of the SNP's trans advocates aren't seriously interested in independence - or in wider leftist causes - at all. The party has become a safe career haven, instead, for identity causes. And for all their casting of those opposed to GRR as 'social conservatives', the inverse truth is that the current face of ‘trans rights’ itself looks much more like a manifestation of neoliberal market individualism - ‘<i>my</i> atomised freedoms’, ‘<i>my</i> product choice’, ‘<i>my</i> personal branding’, '<i>my</i> pronouns', ‘<i>my</i> identity on demand’ - than any coherent leftist collectivism or class-based politics. Alas, much of the left itself have fallen for this posturing agenda. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Lamentably<span style="font-family: times;">, trans activism has morphed into an irrational anti-science, a defiance of science, which refuses to recognise the immutable biological reality of the human species.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The entire 'trans issue' has not just been politicised, but evangelised as a ‘progressive crusade’, with many leftists<span class="Apple-converted-space"> caught in the seductive net.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> Now</span> captured and turned into a baying 'cause', it has served neither susceptible gender-affected people, nor considered the legitimate concerns and established rights of women. </span></span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">It's depressing to see those offering rational, educational and considerate reminders of what constitutes an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=94HFMSm-JBo">adult human female</a> being scorned as 'TERFS' and 'transphobes'. Many trans people do, of course, experience fear, anxiety and marginalisation. Yet, are we to believe that women's groups, asserting their own valued rights and protections, really harbour deep hatred of, or wish harm upon, trans people? <a href="https://twitter.com/joannaccherry/status/1632771936324337664?s=20">Are trans people really being denied equality before the law</a>? Did Sturgeon and those pushing GRR really not see the massive implications for women in turning trans 'social identity' into self-decided legal ID? </span></span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Even </span><a href=" https://www.holyrood.com/inside-politics/view,cofounder-of-stonewall-calls-for-calm_14648.htm" style="font-family: times;">Stonewall's formative campaigners</a><span style="font-family: times;"> have come to warn that adding the 'T' to 'LGB' has distorted their original cause, threatened women's enshrined rights, and offered no true empathy or support for trans people at large. </span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;">Many m</span><span style="font-family: times;">ajor organisations, including Ofcom and the BBC, have also now </span><a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/11/the-battle-for-stonewall-the-lgbt-charity-and-the-uks-gender-wars " style="font-family: times;">withdrawn</a><span style="font-family: times;"> from Stonewall’s ‘Diversity Champions’ scheme, concerned at its over-intensive ‘training’, and the perceived breaking of their own 'impartiality' codes. The Scottish Government still eagerly approves and funds Stonewall.</span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">As others leaving the organisation came to see, Stonewall has made a disastrous decision in seeking to compare the historic persecution and social suffering of LGB people with the more specific problems faced by contemporary trans people.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> They are quite different groupings, with diverse experiences, views and concerns. <span class="Apple-converted-space">As understood by many across this spectrum, g</span>ender dysphoria-affected people, particularly developing children and young adults, require, most importantly, compassionate care and supportive guidance, not the invasive prescriptions of trans ideologues.</span> With dark irony, the toxicity now over GRR has only subjected many vulnerable trans people to even more anxious exposure. </span></span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-family: times;">It's also worth noting here that, unlike the laudable Equal Marriage bill brought by Alex Salmond in a free parliamentary vote, GRR was pushed through by Sturgeon on a whipped instruction. In bravado voice, Yousaf now claims he's 'standing up' to the British state, by pledging to challenge the UK's Section 35 veto over GRR and 'defend Holyrood from Westminster power grabs'. Of course, the real way to do that is to deliver independence, which nullifies any such threats at source. Yet that holds little attraction or immediacy for much of the</span></span><span style="font-family: times;"> Humza base. Their ‘priority’ for a First Minister couldn’t be any clearer: GRR before independence. In similar vein, the Green-SNP coalition isn’t likely to survive any Regan or even Forbes victory.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-family: times;">Whatever the arguments over Westminster's blocking of this bill, the whole SNP/Green-driven GRR legislation has now been exposed as legally ill-conceived, ideologically loaded, and <a href="https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/23256763.gender-recognition-reform-polls-people-say/">carrying little public support</a>. As such, it should be abandoned in lieu of real collective health-based, ethical and social evaluations - perhaps even, as Regan suggests, given over to a citizens assembly for proper, diligent consideration. Again, i</span><span style="font-family: times;">t's remarkable to think that the 'politically astute' Sturgeon could ever have made</span><i> this</i><span style="font-family: times;"> such a hill issue to die on. Is Yousaf's continued, zealous pursuit of it now leading him up the same slippery slope?</span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228;"><span style="font-family: times;">Amid all this caustic debate, it’s worth returning to just why the case for independence is such a vital and urgent concern. We're locked into not just perpetual Tory rule - including the right-wing penury potentially to come of Starmer's now establishment-captured Labour - but inside a form of political occupation precisely designed to normalise our lower expectations of change. </span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228;"><span style="font-family: times;">Power maintained from on high is change denied to those below. We need to bring the enabling institutions of power down to the lowest possible level of civil participation and control. Westminster rule and the entire British establishment is predicated on the precise opposite of true democratic engagement and reform. Nothing radical can flow from the sclerotic accord we so readily accept as 'devolution'. </span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228;"><span style="font-family: times;">Raising our expectations and political game in breaking-up this hegemonic construct would not only empower people in Scotland to run their own affairs - including the inviolable rights and ability to shape and determine all the aforementioned issues - it would, in ending the shackling Union, generate a whole new impetus for meaningful change across these broader, afflicted isles. </span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Ultimately, for SNP-voting members, it comes down to a question of priorities: do you </span><i style="font-family: times;">really</i><span style="font-family: times;"> want independence; and how might your vote help expedite it? It should be demonstrably clear by now that a Yousaf tick means continuity Sturgeonism, with independence being consigned to the same infinite wilderness of 'process' and 'conversation'. A Forbes vote might bring relatively more 'rightful attention' to the matter, but with little indication of serious action. In contrast, only an endorsement for Regan offers any kind of hope in raising independence to immediate prominence. Even if the Regan strategy remains to be tested through the ballot box and thereafter, her pledge to hold an immediate convention, draw-in supporting civil and political forces, and directly confront the institutions of the British state, offers a crucial new opening for party members and fellow Yes advocates. It's a straight choice between making independence a coming reality or another set of false promises blowing in the devolution wasteland. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></div><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></div>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-51633237415124335782023-01-16T17:45:00.000-08:002023-01-16T17:45:30.417-08:00Ukraine and the sabotaged Minsk Accords: the duplicity of European diplomacy<div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Please view and read these truly damning accounts of German and French bad-faith ‘diplomacy’ over the Minsk peace and security accords.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">They reveal how in 2014/15 and beyond, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande knowingly played along in a pretence peace and regional security deal with Russia and Ukraine, all the while working to a stalling agenda which would allow time for built-up, NATO-backed Ukrainian forces to escalate their war on the Russian-identifying Donbas. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">We also learn how then Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko played his own duplicitous part in the sham ‘negotiations’.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Alas, we’re now witnessing the tragic consequences of this dark 'statecraft'. In what will come to be seen as an historic act of betrayal, Europe’s leading figures were now engaged in a complicit strategy not to broker peace, but to prevent it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Building on <a href="https://johnhilley.blogspot.com/2023/01/only-supply-of-real-revelatory-truths.html">decades of US/NATO provocation</a>, and the US-driven coup of 2014, the Minsk subterfuge laid the way open for Russia’s eventual, and arguably inevitable, 2022 invasion. Instead of cultivating this vital opportunity to settle the Donbas issue and avert further conflict - as Zelensky himself was elected on an overwhelming mandate to do in 2019 - we’re now watching the calamitous spectacle of full-scale war and mass, useless loss of life.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Predictably, none of the grand deceit behind these ill-fated accords, or Ukraine's green-light escalation of war on the Donbas from 2014, are being covered by the Western 'mainstream' media. No longer can the same past reporting of Ukraine’s deadly assaults on these regions, and the neo-Nazi forces leading them, be seriously aired, as they no longer fit the US/Western proxy war narrative.</span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Again, it’s being left to truly independent outlets and journalists to shine a critical light on these vital deceptions and their disastrous fallout. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjwSNiCSpnw">Aaron Maté: European Leaders ADMIT Ukraine Peace Deal Was A Sham (Youtube video)</a><br /><br /></div></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://scheerpost.com/2023/01/08/patrick-lawrence-europe-and-the-legitimization-of-deception/">Patrick Lawrence: Europe and the Legitimization of Deception</a><br /><br /></span></div>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-84776479585879468252023-01-10T08:26:00.001-08:002023-01-10T08:28:20.110-08:00Only the supply of real revelatory truths will help end the US/NATO proxy war in Ukraine<p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">January 2023, and with war in Ukraine now entering its <a href="https://mronline.org/2022/03/16/russia-ukraine-war-began-in-2014-not-2022/">ninth year</a>, the prospects for any realistic resolution and avoidance of many more uselessly sacrificed lives looks continually dim.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Such pessimism is underscored by the reality that so much of the public still wouldn't even know that an armed conflict, with thousands of deaths, has been going on there since 2014, rather than 2022. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Nor, thanks to an almost uniform media war narrative, would they have the slightest comprehension that the present crisis has been over three decades in the making, culminating in Russia's invasion. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">How much more convenient to maintain the simplistic demonisation story of 'Putin the crazy', leading his country into an 'impetuous' and 'unprovoked aggression' against an 'innocent bystander' state. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Never have the antecedents of a war, with so much at stake for people and planet, been so resolutely avoided. Never have the core causes of a conflict been so wilfully misrepresented. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As </span><a href="https://medium.com/@benjamin.abelow/western-policies-caused-the-ukraine-crisis-and-now-risk-nuclear-war-1e402a67f44e" style="font-family: times;">Benjamin Abelow</a><span style="font-family: times;"> helpfully contextualises it in a recent, essential read: </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><blockquote>“The underlying cause of the war lies not in an unbridled expansionism of Mr. Putin, or in paranoid delusions of military planners in the Kremlin, but in a 30-year history of Western provocations, directed at Russia, that began during the dissolution of the Soviet Union and continued to the start of the war.”</blockquote></span></div><p></p><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="yiv7457450761s1">Staggeringly, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/20/us/politics/congress-aid-ukraine.html">cost of US 'support', mainly high-end weaponry</a>, to Ukraine has now <a href="https://mate.substack.com/p/their-blood-our-bullets-the-us-cold?utm_source=twitter&sd=pf">passed the $100 billion mark, a "cold, hard calculus" by the Washington war machine: "their blood, our bullets."</a> </span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="yiv7457450761s1"><br /></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">In a superb new article, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/russia-ukraine-us-invasion-paved-how">Jonathan Cook</a> lays out the epic deceptions behind this media-peddled proxy war narrative, and how the US is funding and pursuing another "forever war":</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><blockquote> <span style="background-color: transparent;">“Last month, the US Congress approved a mammoth top-up of largely military "support" for Ukraine, bringing the official total to </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/24/us-house-approves-ukraine-aid-including-arms-after-zelenskyy-visit.html" style="background-color: transparent;"><span class="s1" style="color: #dca10d;">some $100bn</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent;"> in less than a year, with doubtless much more of the costs hidden from public view. That is far in excess of Russia’s total </span><a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1203160/military-expenditure-russia/" style="background-color: transparent;"><span class="s1" style="color: #dca10d;">annual military budget</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent;"> of £65bn. Washington and Europe have been </span><a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/19/politics/us-weapons-ukraine-intelligence/index.html" style="background-color: transparent;"><span class="s1" style="color: #dca10d;">pouring weapons</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent;">, including ever </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/now/video/biden-insists-patriot-missile-system-is-not-escalatory-but-defensive-158379589519" style="background-color: transparent;"><span class="s1" style="color: #dca10d;">more offensive ones</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent;">, into Ukraine. Emboldened, Kyiv has been shifting the field of battle ever </span><a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-ukraine-war-vladimir-putin-drone-attack-hits-russias-engels-airbase-for-second-time-in-a-month/" style="background-color: transparent;"><span class="s1" style="color: #dca10d;">deeper into Russian territory</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent;">. US officials, like their Ukrainian counterparts, speak of the fight against Russia continuing until </span><a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/us-ukraine-russia-war-military-help/" style="background-color: transparent;"><span class="s1" style="color: #dca10d;">Moscow is "defeated" </span></a><span style="background-color: transparent;">or Putin toppled, turning this into another "forever war" of the very kind Biden had just forsworn - this one in Europe rather than the Middle East.</span><span style="color: black;">”</span></blockquote></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="yiv7457450761s1">This is an administration intent on leading and prolonging an untenable, expansionist war rather than securing an achievable, enduring peace; a militarist-minded monolith gorging its profits-soaring arms corporations rather than aiding its struggling and destitute citizens with basic food and heat. </span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="yiv7457450761s1"><br /></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="yiv7457450761s1">Likewise for Washington’s lackey UK and EU states, its populations now facing historic cost of living and energy crises. </span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="yiv7457450761s1"><br /></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="yiv7457450761s1">Across Europe, citizens are now coming to terms with the harsh realities of disconnected cheap energy supplies from Russia, and their new geo-economic dependency on price-inflated US gas. Rendered a taboo story by the Western media, is there any remaining doubt about the real perpetrators and beneficiaries of the bombed Nord Stream gas pipelines? </span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">In </span><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-will-match-record-ukraine-support-in-2023" style="font-family: times;">2023, Britain will match</a><span style="font-family: times;"> its 2022 £2.3 billion military-related spending to Ukraine. While Johnson before him helped <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/05/06/boris-johnson-pressured-zelenskyy-ditch-peace-talks-russia-ukrainian-paper">deliver the West's decisive block</a> on any proto-peace deal, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/11/19/sunak-says-uk-will-support-kyiv-promises-arms-and-weapons">Sunak has followed with unwavering support</a> for the war, pledging to sign the cheques for zealot Zelensky's now bombastic demands for increased weaponry. </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">All told, it's an ongoing political imposition of mass, unnecessary suffering, loftily proclaimed as 'worth it' so that the 'good war' can continue. 'Our great moral sacrifice' paying for 'their noble fight to the death'. Was there ever a more cynical selling of such a mendacious proxy war? </span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">As so many disastrous US/Western 'interventions' and war fundings have shown: </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="font-family: times;"><blockquote>“There is <a href="https://twitter.com/wallacemick/status/1612771491078103041?s=20&t=hdAb-Clu262woVMWIWBCmQ">no military solution</a> to the crisis in Ukraine. The policy of flooding Ukraine with weapons will lead to a greater loss of life and destruction.”</blockquote></span></span></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Beyond the relentless blanket of Western war propaganda being fed to a duped public sits a veritable wealth of revelatory information and critical analysis helping to reinforce that essential truth. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Rather than the death-sustaining supply of rockets and guns, this output should be viewed as real aid, a truly life-caring and educational form of support, gifted in the actual service of peace and human security against the insatiable lies of war-obsessed leaders, posturing politicians and service media. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As Western publics slowly start to understand the staggering nature and scale of the US/NATO deception, it's only the greater supply and distribution of <i>these</i> resources that will help bring about the necessary pressure for an eventual end to this appalling, nuclear-threatening war, with some hopefully durable resolution, and help avert future escalations of Empire-driven violence. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Please read and disseminate widely. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/russia-ukraine-us-invasion-paved-how">Jonathan Cook: Russia-Ukraine war: How the US paved the way to Moscow's invasion </a> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://medium.com/@benjamin.abelow/western-policies-caused-the-ukraine-crisis-and-now-risk-nuclear-war-1e402a67f44e"><span style="font-family: times;">Benjamin Abelow: How the West Brought War to Ukraine</span></a></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://mate.substack.com/p/urging-peace-with-russia-top-us-general"><span style="font-family: times;">Aaron Mate: Urging peace with Russia, top US general challenges DC's proxy war</span></a></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/11/18/nato-expansion-and-the-origins-of-russias-invasion-of-ukraine/"><span style="font-family: times;">Branco Marcetic: NATO expansion and the origins of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine</span></a></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/11/18/nato-expansion-and-the-origins-of-russias-invasion-of-ukraine/"></a></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://jacobin.com/2022/10/cuban-missile-crisis-ukraine-war-nuclear-brinksmanship">Branco Marcetic: Today’s Hawkish Discourse Makes the Cuban Missile Crisis’s Nuclear Brinkmanship Seem Sane</a> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="color: black; font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=NSZyKYitC3M">Who Blew Up Nord Stream (YouTube video)</a></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="color: black; font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.medialens.org/2022/wicked-leaks-part-1-how-the-media-quarantined-evidence-on-nord-stream-sabotage/">Media Lens: Wicked Leaks – Part 1: How The Media Quarantined Evidence On Nord Stream Sabotage</a> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="color: black; font-family: times;"><a href="https://thetricontinental.org/the-united-states-is-waging-a-new-cold-war-a-socialist-perspective/">The United States is Waging a New Cold War: a Socialist Perspective</a> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="color: black; font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2022-10-27/cheerleaders-us-imperialism/">Jonathan Cook: How the left became cheerleaders for US imperialism </a></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://mate.substack.com/p/their-blood-our-bullets-the-us-cold?utm_source=twitter&sd=pf">Aaron Mate: "Their blood, our bullets": the cold, hard calculus in Ukraine</a> </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><a href="https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/12/22/the-mcproxy-war-continues-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/"><span style="font-family: times;">Caitlin Johnstone: The McProxy War Continues: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix</span></a></div><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/10/27/ukra-o27.html"><span style="font-family: times;">Andre Damon: US expands military presence near Russian border </span></a></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/can-europe-afford-to-turn-a-blind">Jonathan Cook: Can Europe afford to turn a blind eye to evidence of a US role in pipeline blasts?</a> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="color: black; font-family: times;"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/growing-risk-nuclear-armageddon-cannot-be-ignored">Ali Abunimah: The growing risk of nuclear armageddon cannot be ignored</a> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="color: black; font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.transcend.org/tms/2022/10/the-time-to-negotiate-peace-in-ukraine-is-now/">Transcend Media: The Time to Negotiate Peace in Ukraine Is NOW</a><b> </b></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="color: black; font-family: times;"><a href="https://unherd.com/2022/10/will-america-end-zelenskyys-dream/">Thomas Fazi: Will America end Zelenskyy’s dream?</a> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="color: black; font-family: times;"><a href="https://fair.org/home/us-medias-intellectual-no-fly-zone-on-us-culpability-in-nord-stream-attack/">Bryce Greene: US Media’s Intellectual No-Fly-Zone on US Culpability in Nord</a> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="color: black; font-family: times;"><a href="https://mate.substack.com/p/the-endless-proxy-war-by-design">Aaron Mate: The endless proxy war, by design<b> </b></a></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="color: black; font-family: times;"><a href="https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/10/17/on-ukraine-the-us-is-on-the-hook-to-find-a-way-out/">Jack F Matlock Jnr: Why the US must press for a ceasefire in Ukraine</a> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://twitter.com/onlinepaleng/status/1581678666144108544?s=46&t=2tANJB3eGO6TEk760fKhDQ"><span style="font-family: times;">Clare Daly: MEP Clare Daly: "Why don't we support Palestine with weapons as we supported Ukraine?"</span></a></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2022/12/08/adl-ukraines-azov-battalion-far-right/"><span style="font-family: times;">Alexander Rubinstein: The ADL issues statement declaring Ukraine’s Azov Battalion no longer ‘far-right’</span></a></div><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BGBIk0d8KY">John Mearsheimer: The World After the Ukraine War </a></span></p>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-27583467745652526932022-09-16T08:05:00.005-07:002022-09-16T09:00:33.903-07:00The Passing<p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Few families will not have been affected in some way by the loss of a loved one. Friends and acquaintances of a departed person will also feel varying forms of sadness. And it is also perfectly human to lament the loss of public figures we have never met.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">But while not unreasonable, in the latter sense, for people to feel natural sympathy over the Queen’s passing, how much of that public 'grieving' is conditioned by a lifetime of establishment messaging?</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">From the BBC's <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=92&v=K_H9eobuKnw&feature=emb_logo">sombre announcement</a> t</span><span style="font-family: times;">o its blanket effusions over the life of the Queen, and coming of the King, we’re seeing not just the media marking of monarchs, but the mass inculcation of elite ideology.</span></p><p class="p5" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Or, as <a href="https://www.medialens.org/2022/imposed-insanity-royalty-propaganda-and-the-coming-catastrophe/">Media Lens</a> more aptly put it, “imposed insanity”:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“…it is no accident that corporate editors and journalists are united now in expressing deep affection for the late Queen. When everyone clearly feels obliged to say the same thing, it means they are deferring to a key requirement of elite control.”</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And what a system of hierarchical power she has been the head of:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“The Queen sat atop this unjust system of extreme inequality, just as her eldest son, King Charles, does now. She was the figurehead of an unhealthy and divided British society, corrupted by hereditary wealth, degraded by the racist and exploitative legacy of Empire, and scarred by a highly-stratified class structure in which most people are struggling to obtain a decent standard of living.”</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This passing is not just about 'honouring' the long life of a famous old lady.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: times;">It’s about what’s being passed on </span><i style="font-family: times;">of</i><span style="font-family: times;"> that old lady’s life.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It’s about the transferring of high titles, major power and vast wealth. And, whatever one might feel for the late Mrs Windsor, it’s this kind of passing that should be commanding our most critical attention.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Most of those queueing subjects<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and others wishing to 'honour' the Queen won’t likely be swayed in their views. There’s no doubting the genuine depth of royal feeling. </span><span style="font-family: times;">Yet this shouldn’t preclude others from more rational observance.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As one such </span><a href="https://archive.ph/2022.09.14-064750/https://www.thenational.scot/politics/21404627.kevin-mckenna-uk-regressed-18th-century-parody/" style="font-family: times;">observer</a><span style="font-family: times;"> affirms:</span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;"> “there is nothing of this distorted masquerade of 18th-century feudal entitlement that can be considered reasonable. [...</span><span style="font-family: times;">This] is about much more than an eccentric pageantry of death. Much of it is about reinforcing the Union and along with it the idea that unearned privilege and wealth is normal and that influence can be assumed rather than earned.”</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: times;"></span><p></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It may be deemed 'constitutional', but the hasty accession of Charles as King, inheriting his mother’s staggering wealth, and passing his own prized estate to his son, while families struggle to feed and heat themselves, has revealed not only the grotesque nature of undemocratic class power in Britain, but the cloying servility of a Palace-affiliated media in failing to call it out.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">One can but wonder at the level of conformity required of journalists - some still, perhaps, harbouring a degree of anti-royal feeling - to dutifully partake in the charade.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://twitter.com/karl_was_right/status/1570314755167997952?s=46&t=A8ihAsdQ8ZuypTelVtJfXA">Comparisons</a> with North Korea are weirdly relevant here.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Many have called protests around the process of the Queen’s death and accession of Charles 'disrespectful'. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">But this is to avoid the all-vital context over what we should be <i>prepared</i> to respect. If her passing, remembrance and funeral had been made a purely private family affair, there would be no such demonstrations.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">But given what’s really being played out here - mass political propaganda in overt promotion of the monarchy - people have a moral duty, as well as every civil right, to express their open opposition and disrespect.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/queen-elizabeth-ii-her-legacy-21st-century-britain-never-looked-so-medieval/281898/">Jonathan Cook</a> observes:</span></p><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><blockquote>“There are reasons a critical gaze is needed right now, as the British public is corralled into reverential mourning. The wall-to-wall eulogies are intended to fill our nostrils with the perfume of nostalgia to cover the stench of a rotting institution, one at the heart of the very establishment doing the eulogising. The demand is that everyone shows respect for the Queen and her family and that now is not the time for criticism or even analysis. Indeed, the Royal Family have every right to be left in peace to grieve. But privacy is not what they, or the establishment they belong to, crave.” </blockquote></span></div><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The arrests and 'moving on' of those peacefully protesting this establishment deceit is a deeply disturbing threat to civil liberties, and an omen of even deeper authoritarian purges to come.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Likewise, beyond all the emotionalism over the Queen's passing in, and apparent love of, Scotland, it's clear that her dying, cortège procession and palace/church resting there has been used as the most blatant <a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1569329995209707520?s=46&t=A8ihAsdQ8ZuypTelVtJfXA">political promotion</a> of <a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1569300518719180801?s=46&t=A8ihAsdQ8ZuypTelVtJfXA">continuity Unionism</a>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And, yes, the Queen surely did love Balmoral. She owned it!<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Tom Nairn’s definitive book <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Nairn">The Enchanted Glass: Britain and its Monarchy</a> </span><span style="font-family: times;">shows how royalty entrenches its authority and populist hold through the faux mystification of atavistic ritual. It’s a potent account of Ruritarian-themed 'Ukania', all too familiar now in the media’s cringing death gaze and fixations on archaic royalism.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This will be a new, modified monarchy, the courtiers and media scribes now attest. But, as the whole proclamation and accession panoply has shown, it’s still a medieval institution <a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1569260645044097024?s=46&t=A8ihAsdQ8ZuypTelVtJfXA">fit </a></span><a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1569260645044097024?s=46&t=A8ihAsdQ8ZuypTelVtJfXA"><span style="font-family: times;">for the 11th rather than 21st century</span><span style="font-family: times;">.</span></a></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;">For historian <a href="https://twitter.com/markcurtis30/status/1568879227558043648?s=46&t=PVkVJ_nqtcYozyHEgocA2Q">Mark Curtis</a>:</span></p><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1419; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent;">“</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1419; white-space: pre-wrap;">The 'tradition' and rituals are important because the system can't <i>rationally</i> explain to people why they should accept an absurd, undemocratic, privileged oligarchical system that works against their interests. It has to appeal to the mystical, connections to something bigger.</span>” </blockquote></span></div><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The ending of this old person's life on earth has, in this sense, become something of a 'higher accession', a kind of media deification, with BBC live-streaming of Westminster Hall, 'The Queue' and its miles-long line of devotees all discussed in adulatory tones as a process of almost divine consecration. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The disjunction between this veneration of a 'higher royal entity' and the 'ordinary' old human grandmother we've been told to love and cherish couldn't be more stark. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Yet while much of the 'royal enigma' was shattered by various scandals and crises during Elizabeth’s latter reign, the BBC shibboleths of 'service', 'duty' and 'continuity' still prevail. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1419; font-family: times; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1419; font-family: times; white-space: pre-wrap;">All the narrative buzzwords,<span style="color: black; white-space: normal;"> 'resilient</span>', <span style="color: black; white-space: normal;">'selflessness</span>' and 'constant' now being trotted out</span><span style="font-family: times;"> have been repeated consistently in public comments. Indeed, as peddled by court 'journalists' like <a href="https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1570712805791399936?s=20&t=7giQTcbPo0MXD1frLV4aaw">Nicholas Witchell</a>, these have been the BBC's working lexicon in mitigating and rehabilitating the damaged Windsor family.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">You will not, on the other hand, hear a BBC correspondent talking about the resilience and continuity of undemocratic royal power and enduring class privilege. It's as</span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> if being a 'continuity Queen' could never have been about the self-serving, continuous preservation of her own family, wealth and power.</span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1419; font-family: times; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">To see the King, his siblings and son (Harry being granted '<a href="https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/prince-harry-wear-military-uniform-28003972">special dispensation</a>' at another vigil) march in full uniformed, sword-swinging regalia behind the Queen’s gun carriage coffin is another potent reminder of how bonded the monarchy is with British militarism, both accorded the same sacrosanct deference by the establishment BBC.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">How much of the spectacle-gazing public will be aware of this same <a href="https://twitter.com/declassifieduk/status/1568232000447811584?s=46&t=q7XD87r_nVxNVuZ7B4K6UA">King’s active part</a> over the years in engaging despotic sheiks and torture regimes on behalf of arms companies?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBKOFQhI0xA7d6HV3xQ1BflZyVRpYNVKjVuFltpK7OKMVcCJKEazkKG_tnOO1KxvTBRIpmBdup1lkNsb0OwcFTHZOcxhAbmmjFxZ8W0rIbn5IdfyOlQ3puo_hAmp4XzQD3JaY6gg9iuMDcPTA3n7K9vQ9-A5mFDJKqh6ocaWluPQK4jwxklNUEzHnZcQ/s691/Screenshot%202022-09-15%20at%2016.37.00.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="691" data-original-width="578" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBKOFQhI0xA7d6HV3xQ1BflZyVRpYNVKjVuFltpK7OKMVcCJKEazkKG_tnOO1KxvTBRIpmBdup1lkNsb0OwcFTHZOcxhAbmmjFxZ8W0rIbn5IdfyOlQ3puo_hAmp4XzQD3JaY6gg9iuMDcPTA3n7K9vQ9-A5mFDJKqh6ocaWluPQK4jwxklNUEzHnZcQ/s320/Screenshot%202022-09-15%20at%2016.37.00.png" width="268" /></a></div><p></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Again, the BBC will never mention, even in passing, just how much the 'ceremonial' royals “<a href="https://twitter.com/declassifieduk/status/1569265686676905991?s=46&t=PVkVJ_nqtcYozyHEgocA2Q">are key to the UK propping up dictators and promoting arms exports.</a></span><span style="font-family: times;">”</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Nor should we forget that the Queen bestowed her highest personal honour on mass warmonger Tony Blair, directly responsible for the deaths of over 1 million souls and systematic carnage in Iraq.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As with the UK/West's proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, the BBC’s approval and promotion of imperialist militarism and monarchism is taken as one and the same endeavour.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And while the widely-felt strength of public indifference and antagonism over the passing Queen across ex-colonial and Commonwealth lands may get a passing nod from the BBC, it remains ever selective in its <a href="https://twitter.com/phantompower14/status/1569788151333273601?s=46&t=A8ihAsdQ8ZuypTelVtJfXA">deferential commentary</a>, and </span><span style="font-family: times;">ultra-careful never to lay out the <a href="https://twitter.com/markcurtis30/status/1569958395750359040?s=46&t=A8ihAsdQ8ZuypTelVtJfXA">multiple imperialist crimes</a> carried out <a href="https://twitter.com/declassifieduk/status/1569598106232037377?s=46&t=A8ihAsdQ8ZuypTelVtJfXA">under her reign</a>.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Another kind of passing here concerns the media ignoring of widespread <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20220618163655/https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/15/scottish-support-for-monarchy-falls-to-45-poll-reveals">republican feeling</a> in Britain. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The campaign group <a href="https://twitter.com/republicstaff/status/1568535177269317634?s=46&t=q7XD87r_nVxNVuZ7B4K6UA">Republic</a> have called the unelected accession of Charles “an affront to democracy”. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">At least a quarter of the UK public <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/british-abolish-monarchy-survey-queen-b1851243.html">want the monarchy abolished</a>. That figure rises to around two thirds for 18-24 year-olds. Support for the monarchy in Scotland, just prior to the Queen’s passing, stood at <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20220618163655/https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/15/scottish-support-for-monarchy-falls-to-45-poll-reveals">a lowly 45 per cent</a>. </span><span style="font-family: times;">It’s hard to see that climbing now with an even less popular monarch.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUciixvRuhqSClFBSr7o_EjS7IX-ddHPaYAXeNicLGxB1ZKeMcl4BKKQiHc2v1UylK9LERd8kPzJmxfO5_EBL3J59EIHcuJIJa6cxsaJNDz-gO0YluQy8npykUcM2019SYgag4h7acq53EN5QWeWz75xNAOIMbuunbPBLYrJ1jfRbwBg7PNJTozE1Xtg/s609/E3E68690-3A25-40F8-8B4B-AE9FF3440B1B_1_201_a.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="362" data-original-width="609" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUciixvRuhqSClFBSr7o_EjS7IX-ddHPaYAXeNicLGxB1ZKeMcl4BKKQiHc2v1UylK9LERd8kPzJmxfO5_EBL3J59EIHcuJIJa6cxsaJNDz-gO0YluQy8npykUcM2019SYgag4h7acq53EN5QWeWz75xNAOIMbuunbPBLYrJ1jfRbwBg7PNJTozE1Xtg/s320/E3E68690-3A25-40F8-8B4B-AE9FF3440B1B_1_201_a.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">A clear majority of young people in the UK want to ditch the monarchy. That entire demographic, along with a sizeable section of older people, calling for a republic has been effectively cancelled by the BBC. </span><span style="font-family: times;">Amid the great mourn-fest, you will search in vain for any such proportionate viewpoint.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Think about the dark implications of this deliberate exclusion. </span><span style="font-family: times;">Why are this legitimate set of opinions being denied fair media exposure? In passing over that notable section of public sentiment, the BBC is abrogating its own proclaimed codes of impartiality and balance. And no BBC or other 'mainstream' journalist seems prepared to question it. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;">Obedient subservience and establishment 'decorum' must be maintained. The daily workings of an entire country have been unnecessarily disrupted, from the cancelling of football matches and closure of shops to the shutting down of hospital departments and cancellation of cancer surgeries. Again, it's considered 'disrespectful, even 'contemptible', to reject the '<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-demise-of-her-majesty-queen-elizabeth-ii-national-mourning-guidance">mourning guidance</a>' or refuse to conform. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;">We are in the grip of an hysterical social policing, feeding an already infantilised political culture, an irrationalism intended to keep the populace politically subdued, enslaved subjects rather than true citizens. It's actually darkly fascinating to watch how the passing of one human soul can foster so much deception. </span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">But it’s in another great passing, the brazen passing of wealth and riches, that we get to glimpse a further concealed face of the monarchy. As a penetrating assessment by <a href="https://twitter.com/laura__clancy/status/1568282976391237635?s=46&t=J68tG9A593IEgHct25KTaQ">Laura Clancy</a> shows, it also exists as a major corporate entity:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“A crucially overlooked way to understand the monarchy, though, is as a corporation: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48NGZ5VtzLM"><span class="s1" style="color: #dca10d;">the Firm</span></a>, out to maximise profit and maintain its global corporate empire. The monarchy is often dismissed as a traditional, out-of-touch, backwards-looking institution with no place in contemporary Britain. This, however, is to fundamentally misunderstand the way that monarchical power works. Rather than an aristocratic relic of a pre-bourgeois era, the British monarchy has worked its traditional privileges into the heart of British capitalism.”</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Like other corporations, much of its 'assets' are of the 'off-shore' kind, and even more privileged in its tax exemptions:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“One of the most telling examples of the royals’ entanglement with modern financial capitalism lies within the Paradise Papers. Alongside other global corporations like Apple and Nike, the Duchy of Lancaster (the British sovereign’s private estate) was <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41878305"><span class="s1" style="color: #dca10d;">found to have investments</span></a> in two offshore financial centres: the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. </span><span style="font-family: times;">Despite legally being a common law corporation, the crown is exempt from much taxation. The sovereign grant, which funds some of the monarchy’s activity, is exempt from income tax. The crown is also </span><a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/royal-legacy/david-mcclure/9781910198650" style="font-family: times;"><span class="s1" style="color: #dca10d;">liberated from inheritance tax</span></a><span style="font-family: times;"> on ‘sovereign to sovereign bequests’, meaning assets can pass down the bloodline without alteration or loss of wealth.”</span></blockquote><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The Duchy of Cornwall, passed by Charles to his son and heir William, now provides a cash-cow revenue for the new Prince of Wales. In another revealing piece at the NYT, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/13/world/europe/king-charles-wealth.html">Clancy calculates</a>:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“The conglomerate’s holdings are valued at roughly $1.4 billion, compared with around $949 million in the late queen’s private portfolio. These two estates represent a small fraction of the royal family’s estimated <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielshapiro/2021/03/10/inside-the-firm-how-the-royal-familys-28-billion-money-machine-really-works/?sh=4fdbf8d42bcc"><span class="s2" style="color: #dca10d;">$28 billion fortune</span></a>. On top of that, the family has personal wealth that remains a closely guarded secret.”</span></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: times;">Behind all the charity-raising, the environment-championing facade, the Royal Family, 'The Firm', is actually a major business, a firm in the most literal sense, deeply-embedded in the profit-driven world of corporate capitalism.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">Again, it's 'testament' to the establishment's grip and influence over public discourse that the holding of so much wealth can be permitted, and defiantly hidden, by this family while so many other families across the land have to choose between freezing and hunger. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">And, as the food-banks close in dutiful observance of the Queen's funeral, we can be sure that the huge, wasteful bill for it won't be coming from those bulging royal bank accounts. </span></p><p><a href="https://twitter.com/Jonathan_K_Cook/status/1568264675367997440" style="font-family: times;">Jonathan Cook</a><span style="font-family: times;"> has made a timely 'proclamation' of his own for urgent opposition to the enforced grieving, hurried accession, and all this blatantly undemocratic passing of power.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In the same vein, he asserts, this is no less an urgent time to be defending our own sacrosanct free speech and assembly. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Because, if we're not careful, it won't be long before we see the remainder of our own elementary rights passing away.</span></p>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-76990165555275659792022-08-22T08:54:00.004-07:002022-08-23T05:14:26.443-07:00Crisis Britain: the inhumanity of an all-killing capitalist disorder<div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><i><blockquote>"When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another such that death results, we call the deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call his deed murder. But when society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or bullet; when it deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under conditions in which they cannot live – forces them, through the strong arm of the law, to remain in such conditions until that death ensues which is the inevitable consequence – knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual; disguised, malicious murder, murder against which none can defend himself, which does not seem what it is, because no man sees the murderer, because the death of the victim seems a natural one, since the offence is more one of omission than of commission. But murder it remains. I have now to prove that society in England daily and hourly commits what the working-men's organs, with perfect correctness, characterise as social murder, that it has placed the workers under conditions in which they can neither retain health nor live long; that it undermines the vital force of these workers gradually, little by little, and so hurries them to the grave before their time. I have further to prove that society knows how injurious such conditions are to the health and the life of the workers, and yet does nothing to improve these conditions. That it knows the consequences of its deeds; that its act is, therefore, not mere manslaughter, but murder..."</blockquote></i></div></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/condition-working-class-england.pdf">Friedrich Engels, 1845</a></span></div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times;">At what point can the state's mass disregard for human life be deemed '<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_murder">social murder</a>'? <span style="font-family: times;">W</span><span style="font-family: times;">hen does a ‘cost of living crisis’ tip over into a full-scale crisis of hegemony for the ruling class? And</span> what kind of civil</span><span style="font-family: times;"> resistance to that inhuman system might this crisis yet unleash? </span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Rocketing prices, double-digit inflation for the first time in forty years, massive energy hikes, overwhelmed food banks running out of supplies, and the prospect of even more spiralling fuel bills from October. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Welcome to crisis Britain, the latest in a long history of capitalist crises where the seeming 'resolution' always involves the intensified brutalisation of the poorest. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">As the usual 'market rules' and 'corrections' play out, there’s a gathering mood of public anguish, rising hostility, and even the serious prospect of civil insurrection.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span><br style="font-family: times;" /><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Yet we're still being encouraged to focus on the fallout effects of the crisis rather than the true structural causes.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">Unlike affordable goods on supermarket shelves, distracting narratives are in plentiful, cheap supply.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">We've had the whole tortuous Truss-Sunak hustings promotion, picking over whether or not tax cuts can 'alleviate' the economic burden. Tell that to poverty-waged and benefits-struggling families now having to decide over heating or food for their kids. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">In the same vein, two exponents of the primary greed-protecting party - one an extravagant <a href="https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/sunak-enters-rich-list-with-730m-fortune">multi-millionaire</a>, the other a <a href="https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/liz-truss-heading-1870s">new zealot Thatcherite</a> threatening the most basic trade union rights - continue to peddle the patronising sham of 'levelling up', all without the slightest challenge or derision from a service media.<br /><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">There’s also the standard blame game of Ukraine. After <a href="https://www.stopwar.org.uk/article/prolong-and-provoke-the-us-and-uk-approach-to-the-war-in-ukraine-2/">provoking Russia’s invasion, an ever-expansionist US/UK is now intent on prolonging</a> this disastrous, human-sacrificing and economic-impoverishing war, conveniently casting Putin as responsible for the energy crisis, global wheat shortage and ‘starvation of the world’. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Amid the epic war propaganda, how many ever question the UK's obscene level of military 'aid' to Ukraine (<a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9477/">£2.3 billion, to date,</a> including a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61990479">£1 billion increase collected from "departmental underspending"</a>) via profit-soaring arms corporations? All for intensified killing rather than peace-seeking solutions, while denying humane interventionist spending at home.</span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">And, of course, we have Brexit, relentlessly cast as the 'primary cause' of the crisis. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Whatever the apparent issues over border controls, product supplies and labour shortages, none of this gets to the true heart of why the poorest always have to suffer the most from capitalist disruptions.</span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Beyond the Europhile hype, are we seriously to believe that a deeply-neoliberal, <a href="https://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/ceo-captured-states-final_0.pdf">corporate-dominated</a>, NATO-aligned, <a href="https://twitter.com/wallacemick/status/1560608353075748864?s=20&t=2mnjG_8sDxYbzQNvChYCFQ">war-pushing</a> EU would ever offer any kind of radical deliverance from poverty economics?</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">The readiness of a shrill liberal class to invoke Brexit as the ‘great calamity’ driving this crisis speaks volumes about its own vital role as 'office manager' to neoliberal orthodoxy.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">What can never be seriously discussed as the elemental issue in all such crises is corporate greed. We can never have capitalism itself in the dock.<br /><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/39cc3cb6-b054-438b-819d-e391c0701e44">Shell</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/bp-records-highest-profit-eight-years-2021-2022-02-08/">BP</a> and <a href=" https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/british-gas-owner-centrica-profits-063954233.html">Centrica</a> are among the mammoth corporations recently posting vast profits.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Yet while such announcements have elicited a torrent of public anger from people contemplating alarming fuel and cost of living rises, we're still being discouraged from<span class="Apple-converted-space"> asking truly critical questions of the system at large.</span><br /><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">How could it be that human lives will be extinguished, people will literally die, because they cannot afford warmth for their bodies?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">In what kind of ‘rational’ system do people go hungry when <a href="https://www.sustainweb.org/news/may22-millions-facing-food-poverty-as-supermarkets-announce-record-profits/">billions are being banked</a> by a <a href="https://www.studysmarter.co.uk/explanations/economics/microeconomics/uk-supermarket-oligopoly/">few mega-grocers</a>?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">What sort of 'civilised' order would permit such a tiny elite to own and control all the basic resources of life?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nhs-risk-death-cold-energy-bills-b2148305.html"><span class="Apple-converted-space">NHS h</span>eads have now written an urgent letter</a> to the government warning of a humanitarian crisis and unprecedented levels of death this winter for those without adequate heating.<br /><br />Alongside the multiple thousands already sacrificed to ‘<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20220416105040/https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/01/perfect-storm-austerity-behind-130000-deaths-uk-ippr-report">austerity measures</a>’ and <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/covid-death-toll-uk-today-b2122034.html">covid negligence</a>, is this not the latest glaring indication of the capitalist state's capacity for socialised killing?</span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><i></i><br /></p><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">This is the same <a href="https://scheerpost.com/2021/03/02/hedges-the-age-of-social-murder/">all-knowing, callous commissioning of social murder</a> as the elite’s insatiable warmongering, pandemic criminality, and killing of the planet.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlj-BCcyDdzVdEC0f45tYT2yvpZiYgVrPTwTdcbUhfzVR957f7KcNMqurR3VefQ84nHGGpirXIP7Hulmvqc4qiTmhVHt59RumVICfR4IumozXzKRulNZ8xpV1qlkWYczOFqjv6SG0xI9v10JsrdxNM0hpySooWBvSSFNukFVbew10g4GaYP1EDNjIj0g/s1075/D2C495EC-DD62-4942-8476-A3B4031BD5AD_1_201_a.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Chris Hedges: The Age of Social Murder" border="0" data-original-height="486" data-original-width="1075" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlj-BCcyDdzVdEC0f45tYT2yvpZiYgVrPTwTdcbUhfzVR957f7KcNMqurR3VefQ84nHGGpirXIP7Hulmvqc4qiTmhVHt59RumVICfR4IumozXzKRulNZ8xpV1qlkWYczOFqjv6SG0xI9v10JsrdxNM0hpySooWBvSSFNukFVbew10g4GaYP1EDNjIj0g/w320-h145/D2C495EC-DD62-4942-8476-A3B4031BD5AD_1_201_a.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://scheerpost.com/2021/03/02/hedges-the-age-of-social-murder/">Chris Hedges: The Age of Social Murder</a></span></i></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">Perversely, fearing adverse public reaction, we even now have the bosses of energy companies <a href="https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/price-cap-should-be-frozen-at-current-rate-say-energy-bosses">urging</a> more government support for customers, a clear case of the state having to subsidise rather than curb </span></span><span style="font-family: times;">profit-grabbing corporations.</span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">While RMT and other struggling public sector workers have been forced into strike action, n</span><span style="font-family: times;">othing of these corporate demands are being scrutinised by a compliant media. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Nor is the interventionist role of Transport Minister Grant Shapps, working <a href="https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/rmt-responds-to-grant-shapps/">to ensure there's no resolution</a> of the rail dispute on reasonable, union terms. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">As responsive mass industrial action unfolds, it's been instructive to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9ZQLI500hA&t=196s">watch</a> the establishment's <a href="https://twitter.com/withygrove/status/1560894251642355713?s=21&t=mwEFdftkJhh9iOS35yP1UA">struggling efforts</a> to handle the <a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1560691479097769984?s=21&t=mwEFdftkJhh9iOS35yP1UA">highly capable</a> and popular rail union representative Mick Lynch.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Not only is Lynch calling for fair, inflation-matching pay, urging protection of existing rail services, and making the laudable case for rail nationalisation, he’s framing it all in an intelligible class politics about need versus greed. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">The ruling class are looking after <i>their</i> interests, <a href="https://twitter.com/eiecampaign/status/1560277795552763906?s=20&t=9ufY-F14ZvJ3BEr_DDwNMw">he asserts</a>, it's time we, the working class, started looking after <i>ours</i>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">Indeed, <a href="Network Rail chief https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/government/network-rail-chiefs-dominate-top-public-pay-packets-28-01-2022/">Network Rail chiefs</a> themselves have consistently <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/highest-paid-public-sector-workers-166385">dominated</a> the public sector high earner table. Its chief executive <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-gb/lifestyle/travel/network-rail-boss-defends-c2-a3590000-salary-as-45000-rail-workers-strike-over-pay/ar-AA10N4og">Andrew Haines</a> is currently on a whopping £590,000 annual salary, following a recent <i>rise </i>of £46,000.</span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Meanwhile, the public have been bombarded with reports about the 'disruptive' and 'irresponsible' conduct of striking workers. And yet, enamoured in no small part by Lynch's own media performance, sympathy and support for their actions<a href="https://www.counterfire.org/news/23365-strong-support-for-second-wave-of-railway-strikes"> remains strong</a>.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">This, in turn, is forcing a hostile media to move with expedient caution; still pushing the same 'need to curb union militancy' line, yet seeking to be ‘onside’ with the angry public mood. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Such is the process of hegemony - cultivating both social division and consent for repressive measures. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">As Malcom X<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>famously <a href="https://twitter.com/history/status/966351923220762624?lang=en-GB">put it</a>:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: times;">“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”</span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Yet, after the staggering handouts to business friends during covid, and now corporate energy bonanza, the grasping of ‘crisis wealth’ by the few is now so brazen, the political defence of it so naked, that the whole neoliberal edifice itself is coming under crisis examination.</span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">For those desperately seeking alternative political goods, alas, there will be no delivery from Keir Starmer’s Labour.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">The very minimum policy pledge from Labour to the energy crisis would have been to nationalise the big five energy companies. Predictably, there's not even a murmur of it from Starmer. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">One might also note here the posturing of Nicola </span><span style="font-family: times;">Sturgeon, <a href=" https://twitter.com/bbcpolitics/status/1561312591531675648?s=21&t=nN3jcvpNuMADSz3iLTllDw">now calling for UK energy nationalisation</a> despite having <a href="https://jonathonshafi.substack.com/p/the-snp-and-the-corporate-lobby">ditched</a> a much-hailed conference commitment to form a National Energy Company for Scotland. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">True independence - if ever delivered - will require energy sovereignty as well as political sovereignty.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div><p class="p3" style="color: #dca10d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><a href="https://twitter.com/bbcpolitics/status/1561312591531675648?s=21&t=nN3jcvpNuMADSz3iLTllDw"></a><br /></p><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">As with a corporate-captured SNP, a now hollowed-out Labour party has shown its abject refusal to offer any radically different agenda. Disgusted members have been <a href="https://twitter.com/lowkey0nline/status/1559831092827389953?s=21&t=K1LGFj8NRgIJnoJPIC15gg">responding accordingly</a>. <br /><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">It’s also why <a href="https://wesayenough.co.uk/">Enough Is Enough</a>, endorsed by Jeremy Corbyn,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> is</span> now displacing Starmer’s neo-Blairite party, rising as a real crisis-facing movement.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">And with this has come a new class assertiveness in handling establishment forces. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">W</span><span style="font-family: times;">hen media interviewers seek to portray striking rail, cleansing and other vital workers as 'greedy', 'irresponsible', and 'holding the country to ransom', Lynch and other union leaders are not only pointing to members' paltry wages and basic needs, but the real rampant greed of corporate elites and basic immorality of capitalist life.</span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As </span><a href="https://twitter.com/francesleach_/status/1557428013431668738?s=20&t=5y4he6Un-MWFYJoct_ilyg" style="font-family: times;">Eddie Dempsey</a> <span style="font-family: times;">illustrates</span>, "<span style="font-family: times;">if we woke up tomorrow and the billionaires were gone, there’d be no change to the running order of our daily lives. If the same happened to the workers, the country would grind to a halt. And they know it."</span></p></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">This is a renewed and welcome class politics, confident in its radical voice, re-energised by the historical understanding that everything people ever gained in life had to be struggled for </span><span style="font-family: times;">in the face of unmoving authority.</span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In a truly rational order it would be elementary to hold in common trust the core things that sustain human life. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">But so entrenched is the ideology of neoliberalism these past decades that privatisation has been normalised as a ‘public good’ rather than a charter for unconfined greed.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The only 'rational' course for corporate capitalism is ever-expanding profit. It's why, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-big-oil-knew-about-climate-change-in-its-own-words-170642">long knowing the risks of climate change</a>, Exxon, British Petroleum and the rest of Big Oil have been able to plunder the earth, decimate populations and take us to a point of environmental abyss. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It's the same inbuilt 'logic' with the US/UK/NATO war machine and corporate-driven weaponry. Relentless production, expansion and human misery. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In every such case, it's people who 'must' suffer and die while a greedy few profit from death and destruction.</span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And with a war propaganda machine now in overdrive,</span><span style="font-family: times;"> public conformity is being cultivated on an even greater scale, while any 'recalcitrant' voices can expect to be 'ghosted', '<a href="https://twitter.com/Jonathan_K_Cook/status/1559920023413587968?s=20&t=2z4g6nivuboX2zZVAusRMA">algorithmed</a>' or closed down completely.</span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">But is wider obedience to that dominant orthodoxy now unravelling? </span><span style="font-family: times;">As people contemplate this latest capitalist winter of discontent, is </span><span style="font-family: times;">a disillusioned and weary public more readily</span><span style="font-family: times;"> seeing through the veil of political lies? Has the flaunting of corporate</span><span style="font-family: times;"> greed while people face increasing hardship created a new space for meaningful resistance?</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">Is there a coming 'October revolution'? </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It's always important to remember the ruthless energy and resources of the ruling class in co-opting, infiltrating, undermining and breaking-up any real radical formations. Remember the fate of Occupy? </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Yet the same enduring issues and challenges remain. Whatever form any such resistance takes, it must have as its central aim true <i>systemic</i> change, rather than token amelioration of this latest capitalist crisis. It must be guided by a true politics of compassion that puts people and environment before profit and wealth. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Indeed, the old schemas for socialistic change don't even cover what's truly required any more. What’s really needed is not just the nationalising, but the </span><i style="font-family: times;">humanising</i><span style="font-family: times;"> of all our vital resources - energy, food, health, transport and so much more - garnered, organised and distributed in sustainable and equitable ways.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;">Instead of energy 'price caps', we need the urgent imposition of wealth caps, from ending the vast billions appropriated by corporations and <a href="https://twitter.com/Jonathan_K_Cook/status/1561731724811423744?s=20&t=Ki_MWPxKKeqYAhy6NlyNyA">obscene rises</a> for leading CEOs, to slashing the extravagant salaries of public sector directors and top <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-62133808">BBC figures</a>, as well as questioning the remunerations of all those lofty presenters castigating workers for daring to demand a decent living wage. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">In truth, there is no 'cost of living crisis'. The poorest have always faced a daily crisis of existence. What we see before us, unfolding on a now vast and existential scale, is a cost of greed crisis. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Only a systemic understanding and tackling of <i>that</i> crisis will permit the wellbeing, and very presence, of human life on this plentiful but now greedily threatened planet.</span></div><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px; text-align: left;"><b></b></p>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-29486599293195614972022-03-29T05:14:00.007-07:002022-04-02T14:00:28.165-07:00War in Ukraine: the many faces of BBC misinformation and state propaganda<p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><i>Whether you're Soaraway Sun<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><i>Or <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=mass+destruction&rlz=1C9BKJA_enGB760GB760&oq=mass+destruction&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3j69i60j69i61.9935j1j9&hl=en-GB&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8">BBC</a> One</i></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><i>Misinformation is a weapon of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><i>Of mass destruct[ion]</i></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">With so much at stake now for the world even beyond the immediate theatre of war in Ukraine, the need for reliable and trusted information could not be greater. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Yet with continuing suffering and all the accumulating dangers of military escalation, public understanding and responses to the crisis are being formed by political forces with a war narrative to sell, and a media all too willing to package and present it. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And, lamentably, the BBC stands at the forefront of that daily enterprise in war propaganda.</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;">The selective and loaded reporting of news and images</span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Despite mass expansion of the media landscape, most people still get their immediate news, information and primary impressions from 'mainstream' sources. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And with large swathes of the public still consuming news and current affairs in brief, attenuated forms, the power of 'long-cherished' institutions like the BBC in shaping popular opinion and public sensibilities cannot be underestimated.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The sheer volume of news coverage on Ukraine, in stark contrast to the little or absent reporting of major conflicts and crises elsewhere, has helped build an almost unassailable consensus in support of the US/Western/NATO war agenda. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And the BBC's role as state media has been crucial in projecting that view. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Live and continuous reporting of fleeing refugees and bombed cities have helped entrench support for Ukraine in the public mind. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">For most, it's a powerfully emotional message to digest, and, generated by a 'trusted' BBC, an even harder one for many to question.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">But what the BBC is really being 'trusted' to generate here, by the state forces it serves, is compliant approval of the war message. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This isn't to dispute the BBC's right to report such events, or doubt the authenticity of public empathy for war-afflicted people. That's all to be expected and commended. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Rather, it's to ask why the BBC offers such a pre-framed view of that suffering, and to think about how it's filtered, received and accepted as an essentially 'good-guys-bad-guys' conflict. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It's also to question why the BBC has given such precedence to covering Ukraine, rather than places like Yemen, where the UK itself is deeply engaged in an illegal and brutal war, and to ask how that, in turn, helps frame notions of 'deserving' and 'undeserving' victims. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/23/un-yemen-recovery-possible-in-one-generation-if-war-stops-now">377,000 lives have been lost</a> in Yemen's seven-year conflict. Imagine the public impact if the BBC were doing daily/nightly live news reports of the killing and devastation there, showing Britain as a lead aggressor. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In contrast to what the British public see in Ukraine, it's remarkable that <a href="https://humanappeal.org.uk/news/2018/10/42-of-the-uk-don-t-know-there-is-a-war-in-yemen-finds-uk-ngo-human-appeal-and-yougov">almost half</a> don't even know there's a war raging in Yemen, and that Britain is <a href="https://twitter.com/Vicki__Thomas/status/1504919879345913865?s=20&t=0bHueGvB2F7YQA1rwv06HA">directly involved</a>, in active support of a despotic Saudi regime.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">While hushed on that dark alliance, consider, in contrast, the BBC's effusive case for assisting Ukraine in <i>its </i>war. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And this all comes with the 'embedded' and unconstrained support of its war correspondents. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">BBC presenters, from those inside Ukraine, like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfvFKUmoGrM&t=21s">Quentin Somerville</a>, to those reporting from Russia, like <a href="https://twitter.com/BBCSteveR/status/1508119317451259905?s=20&t=iykLb9C34XR9X6JEh5titw">Steve Rosenberg</a>, will commonly vent their own thinly-veiled pro-Ukraine sentiments and antipathies towards Putin. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In one such report on the funeral of a Russian soldier, <a href="https://twitter.com/BBCSteveR/status/1504152489892982793?s=20&t=iykLb9C34XR9X6JEh5titw">Rosenberg concludes</a>: <span>"Yet it was Russia’s army that attacked Ukraine, on the orders of President Putin. To restore Russian power, and to force Ukraine into Russia’s orbit."</span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Perhaps. Or maybe Russia's war aims are more protectionist than imperialist in intent. Whatever the case, what licence does an 'impartial' BBC journalist have to imprint his own loaded view on the matter? </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Another harrowing report shows <a href="https://twitter.com/sommervilletv/status/1502000265490227206?s=20&t=iykLb9C34XR9X6JEh5titw">Somerville</a> following Ukrainian troops around the carnage of Kharkiv, including<span> disturbing footage of him walking with</span><span> scant regard past Russian soldiers lying dead in the snow. He goes on</span> to denounce the 'familiar'<span> "Russian attack playbook", apparently used in Syria and now in Ukraine. </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Terrible as the scenes of Russian devastation are, could one imagine Somerville walking through the carnage of US/UK bombed Fallujah, <a href="https://original.antiwar.com/bas_spliet/2020/07/13/how-natos-war-crimes-brought-chaos-to-libya/">Libya</a>, or the obliterated streets of<a href="https://declassifieduk.org/yemen-the-war-the-world-forgot/"> Sanaa</a>, pronouncing 'this is the West’s attack playbook'?</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The BBC's diplomatic editor </span><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60855280">Paul Adams</a> also lavished praise </span><span style="font-family: times;">on Ukrainian president Zelensky in his speeches to international parliaments calling for intensified military backing. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Replete with adulatory platitudes on Zelensky from militarist-siding bodies <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/ourbeeb/why-is-bbc-presenting-rusi-as-objective-analysts-of-middle-east/">RUSI</a> and Chatham House, it offers not the slightest contrary voice to the message that Britain and the West must give increased and urgent weaponry to Ukraine. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">No space is offered in his report to figures warning of the dire consequences of deepening Western militarism, Zelensky's requested 'no-fly zone', or the potential for nuclear conflict arising from such a scenario. No critical insights are offered on Zelensky himself. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It is straight stenography.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">With similar purpose, the BBC's World Service has just been awarded an extra £4.1 million to help 'counter Russian propaganda.'</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Again, it's an illustration of the prevailing war hysteria that this goes virtually unnoticed as an act of brazen <i>UK</i> state </span><a href="https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1506930422848053248?s=20&t=gMdxPYs2OqGhfeGnQuV2wQ" style="font-family: times;">propaganda</a><span style="font-family: times;">.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It's as though the BBC has been placed again on a 1940s-type war footing, running Pathe-style news and 'unifying' information. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The power of the BBC here as state media lies in its ability to generate awareness and support for a particular state 'cause', while limiting awareness and understanding of the UK's own wars and criminality elsewhere.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">All the public need to know is that there's an 'us' side' and there's a 'them' side in this conflict. And that the 'side of goodness', the 'free and civilised' West, must, at all costs, prevail. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;">Absence of contextual background to the Ukraine conflict</span></b></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The BBC offers, in these regards, almost no serious background explanation on the root causes of the war in Ukraine.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Given the immense implications for the world at large, the absence of key historical context is a wilful abrogation of the BBC's supposed ‘duty to inform’. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Key issues requiring open discussion - the Cold War fallouts and <a href="https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early">the West's</a></span><a href="https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">"not one inch eastward"</span></a><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early"> pledge</a> to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990, the broken promises and subsequent </span><span style="font-family: times;">NATO expansion, the 2014 US-promoted Maidan coup, Ukraine's own military offensive in the Donbas, and consequent Russian security concerns/responses - have all been, effectively, rendered 'off-topic' across the BBC.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The conflict, instead, has been simplified and packaged as a straight case of Russian aggression. </span><span style="font-family: times;">We see maps of advancing forces and drone footage of wasted cities, b</span><span style="font-family: times;">ut little or no serious consideration of why Russia has resorted to such drastic action. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><span style="font-family: times;">Those seeking deeper understanding are required to search </span><a href=" https://johnhilley.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2022-03-07T06:38:00-08:00&max-results=7" style="font-family: times;">beyond</a><span style="font-family: times;"> the 'mainstream'. </span><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">In one outstanding piece, </span><a href="https://original.antiwar.com/scott/2022/03/02/the-history-behind-the-russia-ukraine-war/" style="font-family: times;">Scott Horton</a><span style="font-family: times;"> lays out an entire chronological history of how successive US administrations, from the Gorbachev era onwards, brought the world to this critical confrontation. </span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And, as Horton concludes: </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">"It never had to be this way. Putin and his men obviously are responsible for the decisions that they have made and the blood on their hands. But the fact remains that it is the U.S.A. which has picked this fight so far from our shores."</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Whether one accepts this assessment or not, the point is that it isn't actually being made available by the BBC <i>for</i></span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> public consideration</span><span style="font-family: times;">. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">That Russia's invasion </span><span style="font-family: times;">is</span><i style="font-family: times;"> </i><span style="font-family: times;">an illegal aggression is not in doubt. But so are the many more disastrous aggressions, invasions, coups and war crimes carried out by the US/UK/NATO all across the globe. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">While the BBC is all too eager to pronounce repeatedly on Russia's criminality, it remains dutifully silent on the West's. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Also, beyond what should be an acknowledgement of all such crimes, the BBC shows no readiness to consider any deeper distinction in what may be driving these respective forces: namely, that Russia may </span><span style="font-family: times;">be primarily interested in <i>protecting</i> its sphere of influence, while the US is primarily interested in <i>expanding</i> <i>its</i> sphere of power.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Amid the hyper-demonisation of Putin and Russia, it's abundantly clear that <i>this</i> particular framing will not be raised, examined or discussed by the BBC<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Instead, we are assailed daily about the fear of an 'insane Putin' and what he might yet unleash. Yet no serious consideration is given to the <i>truly</i> insane system of US-led political-corporate militarism that, as Horton and rational others so ably show, has brought about this and other such crises.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Nowhere on any BBC platform will you find serious probing of these primary questions and causal issues. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Again, it's a clear abrogation of the BBC's 'pledge' to offer impartial, balanced and expansive information. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;">Selective choice of analysts, commentators and organisations<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">BBC presentation of the conflict in Ukraine is, instead, heavily framed through selective UK/Western-sided commentary. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span>Every BBC platform, from its main news bulletins, to its 'flagship' Newsnight programme is replete with figures giving their unchallenged views on backing Ukraine, the need for military aid and how best to break Putin. </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span>In one such example, Kirsty Wark's 'varied' <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015pcp">Newsnight</a> guest list comprised</span> Ukrainian Ambassador to the UK, </span><span style="font-family: times;">Vadym Pristaiko, ex</span><span style="font-family: times;">-UK Ambassador to Georgia, Alexandra Hall Hall [sic], and Vice Chair of European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs, </span><span style="font-family: times;">Zeljana Zovko.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This was followed by Wark's interview with 'renowned' academic Francis Fukuyama, in which he expounds on the 'new potential' for liberal democracies, and 'forecasts' a winning outcome for Ukrainian forces in the current war (another 'end of history' moment, one must assume).</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In all, hardly a 'balanced' assembly of viewpoints offering diverse or challenging illumination of the conflict. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Likewise, in a BBC <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0015g29/question-time-2022-17032022">Question Time</a> programme, four members of the 'wide-ranging' panel - war historian, Max Hastings, Tory MP, Suella Braverman, 'New Labourite' MP, Wes Streeting, and the Reverend Richard Coles - all offered 'humbling' platitudes on being in the presence of the other studio guest,<a href="https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/why-nato-should-make-ukraine-a-member-stewart-mcdonald-and-lesia-vasylenko-3526429"> Ukrainian MP Leisa Vasylenko</a>, as she made the case for more Western weaponry. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Beyond token misgivings, none equivocated over her case for further UK/Western military involvement, or dared denounce her more dangerously irresponsible appeal for a 'close the skies', 'no-fly zone', an action that would initiate WWIII and provoke a likely nuclear confrontation. Alarmingly, much of the audience itself seemed highly primed for this very escalation.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Again, in its choice of guests and normalisation of liberal militarist voices, the BBC acts as an essential amplifier of state war-speak.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Another particular BBC outlet of note here has been Radio Scotland's Lunchtime Live, which is awash, daily, with 'expert' guests from <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/ourbeeb/why-is-bbc-presenting-rusi-as-objective-analysts-of-middle-east/">RUSI</a>, Chatham House, <a href="https://www.iiss.org/">International Institute for Strategic Studies</a>, and multiple other military-minded bodies. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In one such case (22 March 2022), <a href="https://theprofessionalsecurityofficer.com/it-is-dangerous-to-walk-alone-by-philip-ingram-mbe/">Philip Ingram</a> MBE, ex-military officer/NATO planner and now 'security consultant', </span><span style="font-family: times;">was given free and uncontested space to <a href="https://greyharemedia.com/russia-and-ukraine-the-chemical-and-biological-threat-with-a-touch-of-nuclear/">reiterate</a> his warnings of 'imminent' chemical weapons attacks by Putin.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As in this 'interview', no attempt is made by BBC presenters to preface the right-wing/militarist leanings of such figures. </span><span style="font-family: times;">Nor is any effort made to question their claims and perspectives. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As with Ingram, such </span><span style="font-family: times;">'exchanges'</span><span style="font-family: times;"> have a simple unanimity of purpose in exploring every possible way to support Ukraine and break Putin. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This comes with an almost total absence of anti-war figures and organisations. Not even in 2003, in the wake of '9/11' and approach to the invasion of Iraq, has the denial of such opposition voices been so pronounced as it is today over Ukraine. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">That's a remarkable feat of compliance and 'unlearned lessons' for a BBC so heavily invested in selling and defending Britain's leading part in that historic crime. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;">Speaking as 'one': the BBC's use of partial pronouns</span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Given its charter-defined commitments to 'impartiality' and 'balance', it's remarkable how readily the BBC uses subjectively-identifying language to validate UK state actions.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">BBC presenters will, thus, routinely ask: 'can we' do more militarily?; or 'why can't we' send more heavy weaponry?; or, they will talk about 'our role' and 'our responsibilities' in the conflict. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In similar vein, BBC reports will use terminology like 'the Russian state', or, 'the Russians say', but rarely 'the British state', or 'the British say'. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Again, this is much more than incidental semantics. The language consistently deployed is that of an assumed equivalence of purpose between the British state and the British public, and the BBC's assumed right to speak on 'our' behalf. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Further variations of BBC 'one-speak' may include lines like:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: times;">'Johnson doesn't believe Putin', rather than 'Johnson <i>says he</i> doesn't believe Putin'; or,</span><span style="font-family: times;"> 'Biden believes Putin may use chemical weapons, rather than 'Biden </span><i style="font-family: times;">claims</i><span style="font-family: times;"> to believe that Putin may use chemical weapons'. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This language and tone is routinely adopted in open and subtextual form across all BBC formats, serving to validate the words of 'our' state/leaders over the words of 'their' state/leaders. </span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It's the default 'us' voice of the BBC, accepting what 'our side' say as taken, and assuming to speak on 'our' behalf, </span><span style="font-family: times;">a subtly effective form of propaganda, eliciting the notion that, whatever differences of public opinion may prevail, 'we' still speak and act as 'one' entity. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And at times of war and heightened conflict, such language takes on even more vital resonance.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;">Selective omission in BBC reporting<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">BBC state media, like other 'mainstream' platforms, have also gone remarkably quiet over aspects of the Ukrainian situation that may serve to undermine the UK/Western war narrative.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In February 2014, BBC <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY&feature=emb_imp_woyt">Newsnight's Gabriele Gatehouse</a> ran an impressive film piece on Ukraine's neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, the Right Sector, and other elements of neo-Nazism within the Ukrainian state. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It was shown following the overthrow of the Ukrainian government in the 2014 US- backed Maidan coup, though that key terminology goes unmentioned. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The film interviews a number of neo-Nazi factions, discusses their central role in the Maidan events, and how neo-Nazi elements are now deeply-embedded within the state apparatus, holding, as Gatehouse worryingly concludes, powerful sway over a number of ministries.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As events unfold in Ukraine, with an even stronger Azov force leading the fighting, and much of those elements now even more politically entrenched, their role in the current conflict would, one might assume, merit serious re-visiting. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Yet you will look in vain now for any in-depth BBC investigations of such matters. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">If Newsnight thought it important enough to run such stories on prevalent neo-Nazism back then, why isn't it just as, or more, important to investigate the military, political and cultural standing of such elements now? </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The BBC's <a href="https://twitter.com/bbcrosatkins/status/1506988213637890048?s=21">Ros Atkins</a>, increasingly tasked as its 'go-to fact-checker', sought to dismiss the extent of neo-Nazi influence in Ukraine in a short </span><span style="font-family: times;">piece of 'analysis'. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Conveniently, it omitted any mention of the 2014 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfD_CaSIxmQ">Maidan as a US-backed coup</a>, denied the actual growth of neo-Nazi politics in the country, ignored US engagement of it, and gave voice only to academics who questioned the current extent of neo-Nazism in Ukraine. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Consider, in contrast, this academic analysis by Professor <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/americas-collusion-with-neo-nazis/">Stephen Cohen</a>:</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">"The significance of neo-Nazism in Ukraine and the at least tacit official U.S support or tolerance for it should be clearly understood:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This did not begin under President Trump but under President George W. Bush, when then Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko’s “Orange Revolution” began rehabilitating Ukraine’s wartime killers of Jews, and it grew under President Obama, who, along with Vice President Joseph Biden, were deeply complicit in the Maidan coup and what followed. Then too the American mainstream media scarcely noticed. Still worse, when a founder of a neo-Nazi party and now repackaged speaker of the Ukrainian parliament </span><span style="font-family: times;">[Andriy Parubiy] </span><span style="font-family: times;">visited Washington in 2017, he was </span><a href=" https://www.alternet.org/2017/06/john-mccain-and-paul-ryan-hold-good-meeting-veteran-ukrainian-nazi-demagogue-andriy/" style="font-family: times;"><span class="s1" style="color: #dca10d;">widely feted</span></a><span style="font-family: times;"> by leading American politicians, including Senator John McCain and Representative Paul Ryan. Imagine the message this sent back to Ukraine—and elsewhere.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Fascist or neo-Nazi revivalism is underway today in many countries, from Europe to the United States, but the Ukrainian version is of special importance and a particular danger. <i>A large, growing, well-armed fascist movement has reappeared in a large European country that is the political epicenter of the new Cold War between the United States and Russia</i>—indeed a movement that not so much denies the Holocaust as glorifies it." (Emphasis added.)</span></p></blockquote><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This is not to suggest, even for Cohen, that most Ukrainians, or all parts of the Ukraine state, are neo-Nazi. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju1VGcngefsvOPfOtCV4a0FE97P-c36iiKa5uwG_coFMv1wr_JaCdtwLsxqPOeBJvA-7ARAYleCgtp4Y262inRBBSDTsi_iinNkad0UKjVLoczgOUBLBQgiIi2sHy-GVROniNY-D30n5SHrPW-B6kfax_pBJZno74b8HrEkhYlidVWMM3ysHjMlpQfvw/s1818/DAF80BC6-91ED-44CA-968F-9616124FAEC4_1_201_a.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1818" data-original-width="1013" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju1VGcngefsvOPfOtCV4a0FE97P-c36iiKa5uwG_coFMv1wr_JaCdtwLsxqPOeBJvA-7ARAYleCgtp4Y262inRBBSDTsi_iinNkad0UKjVLoczgOUBLBQgiIi2sHy-GVROniNY-D30n5SHrPW-B6kfax_pBJZno74b8HrEkhYlidVWMM3ysHjMlpQfvw/s320/DAF80BC6-91ED-44CA-968F-9616124FAEC4_1_201_a.jpeg" width="178" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: times;">But Cohen, like many others, most certainly does allege that Ukraine harbours very particular and dangerous forms of neo-Nazism. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Where amid all the BBC focus on Ukraine is the information that the </span><a href="https://twitter.com/malarkeyindeed/status/1500466732045008899?s=21" style="font-family: times;">adulation of infamous Ukrainian Nazi associate Stepan Bandera</a><span style="font-family: times;"> and other such figures still <a href="https://twitter.com/edolinsky/status/1456563661896564740?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1456563661896564740%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Felectronicintifada.net%2Fcontent%2Fisrael-lobby-group-adl-rehabilitates-hitlers-accomplices-ukraine%2F35021">runs deep within the Ukrainian polity</a>. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">How much of the BBC-relying public will be </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfD_CaSIxmQ" style="font-family: times;">told of</a><span style="font-family: times;"> the Azov's leading role in cutting off and attacking the Donbas, or of its principal part in a massacre of Russian-identifying demonstrators in Odessa?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">And how many will understand that Zelensky's own mandated efforts to end the war in Donbas was largely scuppered by a 'No Capitulation' response from Right Sector, Azov and other right-wing forces? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Zelensky not only duly capitulated, but went on to</span><a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/04/nazis-ukrainian-war-russia/" style="font-family: times;"> commend such figures</a><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">with Ukraine's highest military award.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Might BBC audiences, likewise, be surprised to learn that, perversely, these same far-right militias are also now being </span><a href="https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1504953417445355521?s=20&t=_gk8wut5R6cFSpnerE_AKg" style="font-family: times;">‘rehabilitated’</a><span style="font-family: times;"> by leading parts of the pro-Israel lobby?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">And are the BBC ever likely to inform its viewers that </span><a href="https://twitter.com/markcurtis30/status/1505942147538862082?s=20&t=0bHueGvB2F7YQA1rwv06HA" style="font-family: times;">UK military equipment</a><span style="font-family: times;"> is going directly to these very same Azov forces? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">In all, even a public that considers itself 'reasonably well-informed' remains largely unaware of such matters. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">The BBC's consistent omission of key information and investigation of such issues amounts, in itself, to a vast exercise in state media propaganda. </span></div><div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;">Denying the agency of other state media</span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">On 18 March, 22 days into the war, Ofcom, the UK media regulator, announced it was removing RT's broadcasting licence and banning it from Britain's airwaves. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The decision came alongside <a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1504976853265784837?s=21 ">sweeping purges by Silicon Valley big-tech</a> companies on 'pro-Russian' platforms across social media.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In an 'explanatory' piece for the BBC, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-60791890">Amol Rajan</a> sought to specify the 'distinction' between RT and the BBC, claiming, in essence, that:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">RT is a 'state broadcaster', which is funded by and serves the state, while the BBC is a 'public broadcaster', funded by and serving the public.</span> </p></blockquote><blockquote><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">RT is run by a TV organisation which is funded by the Kremlin, while the BBC is funded by the licence payer.</span> </p></blockquote><blockquote><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Ofcom have decreed that RT cannot broadcast because, while it can be funded by the state, it cannot be controlled by a political body.</span> </p></blockquote><blockquote><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The BBC is not controlled by a political body, and is, therefore, unlike RT, a legitimate broadcaster.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p></blockquote><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">A seemingly robust account from the <a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1187665018336305152?s=20&t=Ite4asGVsUht7Lw8VOLGew">'ever-reliable'</a> Rajan. Yet the purported 'distinction' is fatuous on each count:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The BBC is funded through a state-legislated levy - the licence fee - making it still, essentially, a state-funded body.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The BBC's proclaimed 'status' as a 'public-serving', rather than 'state-serving', body is nothing more than institutionalised ideology. RT, or any state media, could just as easily proclaim the same 'public service' mission.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And if Russian state media is run on a one-party line, British state media can be said to be run on a similarly approved two-party line.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;">What's so telling here is the BBC's own state-serving role in trying to peddle this 'distinction'. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7V7XilZ5Y6IIdwQ17wZLeJLs5__mr5yt4Ab863iE4aoItH25AgiNAG0aP1Y75r63bRE69mFVd-gcm8DzBDF3-Ln2LA36SilgKa3KK5wlHvzD0I3fVw2bdO1G4nGcxlOUoV4z7RW4FE_WLAu8L8BT8epfcvCs1-qVldJiGZTXp7K3g4dU74uhUyQxL9g/s1341/B325D50A-49E8-4DC7-834C-DEEE6424EFED_1_201_a.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1341" data-original-width="1296" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7V7XilZ5Y6IIdwQ17wZLeJLs5__mr5yt4Ab863iE4aoItH25AgiNAG0aP1Y75r63bRE69mFVd-gcm8DzBDF3-Ln2LA36SilgKa3KK5wlHvzD0I3fVw2bdO1G4nGcxlOUoV4z7RW4FE_WLAu8L8BT8epfcvCs1-qVldJiGZTXp7K3g4dU74uhUyQxL9g/s320/B325D50A-49E8-4DC7-834C-DEEE6424EFED_1_201_a.jpeg" width="309" /></a></div><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Are the public, which the BBC supposedly serves, <a href=" https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1504760704443863048?s=21 ">to be told</a> by an 'impartial' broadcaster - and so-called 'independent' regulator handing out licences - what kind of media they should be accessing?</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And why, only now, have RT been barred from holding a broadcast licence? </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This decision illustrates the combined capacities of the BBC, Ofcom and the establishment at large, in using this crisis moment to purge an official enemy, and in serving to control what can count as 'public information'.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Seeking to project itself as a 'true and trusted' 'public' service, while intensifying its 'protective warning' in this insidious way, takes the BBC to a new level of Orwellian deception. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In helping to 'other' Russian state media, the BBC reveals its own dutiful function as an arm of state propaganda.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;">Populist cultivation of the UK/Western war agenda</span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The BBC has played a vital role in crafting cultural support for the UK/Western narrative on Ukraine, by </span><span style="font-family: times;">concentrating public attention on refugees and charitable endeavours. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Again, all seemingly laudable. Yet authentic public concern for suffering and displaced people is being weaponised to advance a much darker war agenda. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And the focus on <i>selective</i> refugees, to the exclusion of others, has been used to attach a 'higher' Western/European 'morality' to that message. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Any distinction between 'standing with Ukrainians' and 'standing with Ukraine' is being irretrievably lost in the hubris of war-talk, displacing public willingness to question how this conflict actually happened, and, crucially, how, beyond the 'militarist solutions' so feverishly advanced, real political and life-saving alternatives might be pursued. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">With unprecedented levels of </span><a href="https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/liberal-derangement-and-new-world-order?fbclid=IwAR3LQyWJhhiiWziNuOBuCvVtCYrLiEbUbwfbGxiNDrY3AIWWiBWB1mCTJww" style="font-family: times;">infantilised liberal hysteria</a><span style="font-family: times;"> and the 'othering' of Russians, some might look to the BBC here for some greater sense of rationality. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">But the Corporation's populist war-speak is every bit as irrational and loaded. Indeed, in many cases, more so.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">An</span><span style="font-family: times;"> 'impartial' BBC has allowed 'open-season' on the vilification of Russia. It has also given <a href="https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1508361445720956928?s=21">open encouragement</a> to citizen mercenaries going to Ukraine, an unimaginable reportage in the case of anyone seeking to resist oppressive forces elsewhere, such as Israel's crimes in Gaza.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The BBC's Jeremy Vine has now assumed the unfettered role of a US-styled 'shock-jock', with his obsequious jingoism and shared empathy with war-demanding callers - as well as his more <a href="https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1499323059618168833?s=20&t=jvlN9Cr0Xmoyh3vaKqa-BA">disturbing call</a> for death to Russian soldiers. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Typically, Vine’s daily topics will be formed around contrived Western talking points, such as 'Putin's partition of Ukraine' (28/3/22). Consider, in contrast, the likelihood of such a discussion on 'Biden’s manipulation of Ukraine'.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">All this highly partial reporting and loaded tone indicates not just overt bias, but a ready incentive to attack those trying to question any escalation of the violence.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It's saying, in effect, show <i>reactive</i> </span><span style="font-family: times;">empathy for those suffering, but don't let it extend into any kind of <i>proactive</i> </span><span style="font-family: times;">concern which asks how the suffering actually came to occur, or tries to do something to prevent any more of it happening. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Again here, anti-war figures and organisations have never been more intimidated and marginalised.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Standing resolutely against the hysteria, <a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1507382423151124516?s=20&t=h4vrNgMWHxFc75HW8sniOQ">Yanis Varoufakis</a> has made a brave and intelligent effort in questioning the 'whole sea of yellow and blue hypocrisy' </span><span style="font-family: times;">surrounding the conflict. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">His purpose is not to excuse the invasion, or deny the value of humanitarian support, but to speak clearly about the West's leading culpability in creating the crisis, and, beyond all the hyped emotionalism, to offer rational assessments on real, achievable ways forward for all concerned.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In offering similar perspectives and resolutions, <a href="https://original.antiwar.com/scott/2022/03/02/the-history-behind-the-russia-ukraine-war/">Horton</a> is, likewise, all too aware of the hysterical reactions and ridicule anti-war voices face:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><p></p><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">"Of course in the current political climate any statement or position that contains anything better than the most overly simplistic, “other side”-bashing, fearmongering point of view is spun from on high as not just “pro-Russian,” but also “obviously-secretly-controlled-by-Russia” because what other explanation for someone not believing the hype could there possibly be?"</span></blockquote><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In this toxic atmosphere, such views are being denied legitimate airing by the BBC. </span><span style="font-family: times;">Indeed, the social opprobrium one is likely to experience in even drawing critical attention to that denial of space only deepens the McCarthyite effect, hardening public compliance and escalation of the war narrative. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Anyone defying the dominant line is likely to be cast as a 'Putin apologist', accused of spreading 'Russian-speak', or, even in its crude 'left-liberal' contrivance, denounced - like Varoufakis - for resorting to '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=KCRYG7Z48Vk">Westsplaining</a>'. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">All this is being made possible by a populist media in thrall to power. And, from behind its 'higher mantle', the BBC is playing just as zealous a role in spreading</span><span style="font-family: times;"> groupthink 'understanding' of the war. The threat of 'respondent' Western violence is, thus, re-framed as 'noble supportive militarism'. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As <a href="https://greenwald.substack.com/p/bidens-reckless-words-underscore?s=r&fbclid=IwAR2qF5Q1AvKA7l-95O8uFjRKSax0CaI1SuzqulsF4hhDb1XYs1ua0n9NAVs">Glenn Greenwald</a> warned, following Biden's stumbling utterances invoking 'regime change' in Russia, </span><span style="font-family: times;">the US/UK's deeply dangerous escalation of words, as well as actions, is leading us closer to a potentially disastrous nuclear miscalculation.</span><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">And the force most responsible for driving this calamity, he asserts, is clear: </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">"The U.S. is, by definition, waging a proxy war against Russia, using Ukrainians as their instrument, with the goal of not ending the war but prolonging it."</span></blockquote><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;">But for what purpose, asks Greenwald: </span></p><blockquote><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">"Hovering above all of these grave dangers is the question of <i>why</i>? What interests does the U.S. have in Ukraine that are sufficiently vital or substantial to justify trifling with risks of this magnitude? Why did the U.S. not do more to try to diplomatically avert this horrific war, instead seemingly opting for the opposite: namely, discouraging Ukrainian President Zelensky from pursuing such talks on the alleged grounds of futility and rewarding Russian aggression, and not even exploring whether a vow of non-NATO-membership for Ukraine would suffice?"</span></p></blockquote><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Again, none of this mendacious agenda, or the momentous dangers emanating from 'our side', is being given serious attention by the BBC. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">But, as with the darker interests and aims of such forces, that's all part of the BBC's own historical and enduring purpose: to foster ideas of British 'foreign policy' as essentially 'benign', in the ongoing service of Western militarism. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Could the BBC ever bring itself to shine a damning light on '<i>our</i>' state, a state directly responsible for the mass slaughter in Iraq and so much other killing around the world?</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Could it ever come to ask what moral right <i>this</i> murderous state has to question another state's aggressive actions? </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Could it ever ask <i>itself</i> how<i> </i>BBC<i> </i>state media can claim moral superiority over any other state media? </span></p><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Could the BBC, in a spirit of atonement, ever consider leading <i>this</i> state, the state it so closely represents, in a day of remembrance for all those crimes against humanity?</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Every illustration of how the BBC is running the British state's propaganda war over Ukraine, Russia and elsewhere suggests that we are a long way from any such independent thought, honest reflection or true public service. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /><br /></p></div></div></div>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-58449452834047113962022-03-17T10:22:00.008-07:002022-03-17T17:29:11.266-07:00Ukraine crisis: the Western war machine has taken us on a calamitous journey towards global confrontation, economic chaos and environmental disaster<p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As talks between Russia and Ukraine continue in 'upbeat' mood, Ukrainian president Zelensky is,<a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220308-in-nod-to-russia-ukraine-says-no-longer-insisting-on-nato-membership"> reportedly, intimating</a> that his country will not now seek to join NATO.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> He is <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220308-in-nod-to-russia-ukraine-says-no-longer-insisting-on-nato-membership">also</a> said to be 'open to compromise' on the issue of <span style="background-color: white;">Donetsk and Lugansk, </span>the two breakaway regions in the east. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">If true, these crucial concessions would resolve the two key Russian demands. And with Russia now firmly in control of the Donbas, anyway, it looks like Ukraine would come out of any negotiations having conceded on both major counts.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">All of which leaves us wondering whether this disastrous invasion, war and mass killing could all have been avoided had Zelensky and his Western patrons acted to settle these issues beforehand.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Alongside the call for Russian troops out of Ukraine, the case for Ukrainian neutrality is precisely the position taken by Stop the War and other such voices. So why have Western politicians, military leaders and 'mainstream' media failed to make that same peace-seeking case? </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As <a href="https://www.counterfire.org/articles/analysis/23049-the-path-to-war-ukraine-russia-and-nato">John Rees</a> observes:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;"><span>"</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #555555;">There is no sense in which Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine can be justified. But there are also no grounds for eradicating the historical fact of Ukraine’s de facto alliance with NATO. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #555555;">What is unconscionable is that NATO led Ukraine to believe it could join with NATO in close collaboration without a Russian reaction, even though it knew this to be untrue from at least 2009. And what is beyond acceptable is that it did not tell Ukraine that when such a reaction took place NATO had no intention of coming to Ukraine’s aid. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #555555;">This is how we have arrived at a Russian invasion of Ukraine with no military response from the West. And this war fever without war explains the tsunami of unhinged chauvinism coming from the British establishment and its international counterparts." </span></span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Yet, contradicting his 'readiness to compromise', Zelensky is still making <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/zelensky-speech-congress-today-ukraine-b2037281.html">lofty pleas to the US Congress</a> for greater Western weaponry and the imposition of a 'no-fly zone', risking an even greater global conflagration and </span><span style="font-family: times;">Dr Strangelove-type </span><span style="font-family: times;">nuclear showdown.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">While Biden has, so far, ruled out any such direct NATO move into Ukraine, the US-led 'international community' continue to pile in armaments, urging Zelensky on. As <a href="https://www.counterfire.org/articles/analysis/23049-the-path-to-war-ukraine-russia-and-nato">Rees</a>, succinctly puts it:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">"The West are willing to fight Putin to the last drop of Ukrainian blood. Rhetoric is cheap and plentiful in exactly the opposite proportions to actual military deployment."</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Having <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppD_bhWODDc">walked Ukraine along this "primrose path"</a>, pushing it into a fight with Russia they knew it could never win, and which they would never directly intervene in, the West are still lauding Zelensky - for the moment.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">But the cooling effect may soon come as he moves from 'heroic defiance' to realistic accommodation and matters of political survival.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Alas, any hopeful ceasefire and settlement will come too late for dead and suffering Ukrainians, and for the many Russian lives lost too. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Nor, as the killing continues, are Ukrainian voices more critical of Zelensky and his Western promoters being given an ample airing. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">There can be no complete hiding the West's calamitous interference, manipulations and provocations in Ukraine's affairs, past, present and ongoing, as this deeply insightful account by <a href="https://multipolarista.com/2022/03/14/ukrainian-leftist-war-russia-us/">Ukrainian writer Yuliy Dubovyk </a>explains:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;"><span>"</span><span style="background-color: white;">You see, the US government has meddled in Ukraine for decades. And the Ukrainian people have suffered because of this. </span><span style="background-color: white;">The overwhelming support that Western governments and media outlets have poured out for Ukraine</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><a href="https://multipolarista.com/2022/02/27/us-nato-expansion-ukraine-russia-intervene/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px -1px 0px 0px inset, rgb(145, 0, 0) 0px -2px 0px 0px inset; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; margin: 0px; opacity: 1; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;">since Russia invaded on February 24</a><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;">is not actually motivated by concern for the Ukrainian people. They are using us to advance their political and economic interests. </span><span style="background-color: white;">We know this because Washington overthrew our government twice in a decade, imposed neoliberal economic policies that made our country the poorest in Europe, and has fueled a devastating civil war that in the past eight years took the lives of 14,000 Ukrainians and wounded and displaced many more."</span></span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Yet very little of this key context is ever permitted into Western media reporting or discussion of the conflict. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And with the West's propaganda war and mass censorship preventing any widespread comprehension of the background to the crisis, a hyped-up public are left with no ready perspective on how the 'other side' see it, or how it might yet be resolved. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/16/diana-johnstone-for-washington-war-never-ends/">Diana Johnstone</a>, in a penetrating account of the historical and present issues, points out:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">"For Russian leaders, their military “operation” is intended to <i>prevent</i> the Western invasion they fear. They still want to negotiate Ukrainian neutrality. For the Americans, whose strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski boasted of having lured the Russians into the Afghanistan trap (giving them “their Vietnam”), this is a psychological victory in their endless war. The Western world is united as never before in hating Putin. Propaganda and censorship surpass even World War levels. The Russians surely want this “operation” to end soon, as it is costly to them in many ways. The Americans rejected any effort to prevent it, did everything to provoke it, and will extract whatever advantages they can from its continuation."</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The whole 'attack on the civilized West', and 'stand with Ukraine' playbook has, thus, been cynically pushed by the US-led corporate war machine, drawing the public into NATO's 'security' narrative, raising the temperature with China as well as Russia, and normalising the madness of continued nuclear weaponry.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Whatever the immediate developments on talks, or other outcome, laments <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/15/chris-hedges-waltzing-to-armageddon/">Chris Hedges</a>, incalculable damage has now been done, driving up Western militarism, causing massive economic dislocation, immense human suffering, and deepening the environmental emergency:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">"Putin played into the hands of the war industry. He gave the warmongers what they wanted. He fulfilled their wildest fantasies. There will be no impediments now on the march to Armageddon. Military budgets will soar. The oil will gush from the ground. The climate crisis will accelerate. China and Russia will form the new axis of evil. The poor will be abandoned. The roads across the earth will be clogged with desperate refugees. All dissent will be treason. The young will be sacrificed for the tired tropes of glory, honor and country. The vulnerable will suffer and die. The only true patriots will be generals, war profiteers, opportunists, courtiers in the media and demagogues braying for more and more blood. The merchants of death rule like Olympian gods. And we, cowed by fear, intoxicated by war, swept up in the collective hysteria, clamor for our own annihilation."</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Further required reading on how we reached this grim point, and the dangerous fallout yet to come:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/16/diana-johnstone-for-washington-war-never-ends/">Diana Johnstone: For Washington, War Never Ends</a></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://multipolarista.com/2022/03/14/ukrainian-leftist-war-russia-us/">Multiporarista:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Ukrainian leftist criticizes Western war drive with Russia: US is using Ukraine as ‘cannon fodder’</a></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.counterfire.org/articles/analysis/23049-the-path-to-war-ukraine-russia-and-nato">John Rees: Russian aggression is real, but so is NATO duplicity in Ukraine</a></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/15/chris-hedges-waltzing-to-armageddon/">Chris Hedges: Waltzing to Armageddon</a></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-32240048788087706682022-03-13T15:03:00.016-07:002022-03-13T16:35:13.064-07:00Ukraine: the urgent need for rational resolutions rather than irrational escalations<p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Incendiary calls for all-out military responses to Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine are mounting at an alarming rate.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We are now witnessing <a href="https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1502247460999249924?s=21">unprecedented</a> levels of media propaganda and war hysteria.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgHis64n6v8cMoMfm1ofSg0TrP0ItmfXF4SHPIOlN7_UVTnCXlfchUfK3_EljJExXq-DXqMx2zHSH8Ptox7v2aXxlQHKosJR2UUg89JG9YS4aC-8V8-VreMYLKS8TInD-zHQ-rJzjfdhkeQcIzEDrNQvRkzi0u8jCiuFejGYfQRb6yDcIlGdVVjvuF_pg=s1312" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="883" data-original-width="1312" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgHis64n6v8cMoMfm1ofSg0TrP0ItmfXF4SHPIOlN7_UVTnCXlfchUfK3_EljJExXq-DXqMx2zHSH8Ptox7v2aXxlQHKosJR2UUg89JG9YS4aC-8V8-VreMYLKS8TInD-zHQ-rJzjfdhkeQcIzEDrNQvRkzi0u8jCiuFejGYfQRb6yDcIlGdVVjvuF_pg=s320" width="320" /></a></div><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1502063995838246933?s=21">Piers Morgan</a> has intensified the war cries by invoking the 'now-or-never' deployment of 'mighty' NATO.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjDu8BM1Bah6NEaJZ6CdXF__ZPf16w_5xYo5Gv1s-CJi7pUIIQqQBMJX0Ne8AKIfceX7VhiBKiDk-57KVo1jnwmrFLYR403GqJJiLVl9OSAy4wRN7CagNP16QHv1zXOKo4dh3ha7KIhqUKhBJQ-Rx9UflAvQFa1nXBx4Txko1cQ5Fa98MPzUAGB5gaasA=s1327" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="662" data-original-width="1327" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjDu8BM1Bah6NEaJZ6CdXF__ZPf16w_5xYo5Gv1s-CJi7pUIIQqQBMJX0Ne8AKIfceX7VhiBKiDk-57KVo1jnwmrFLYR403GqJJiLVl9OSAy4wRN7CagNP16QHv1zXOKo4dh3ha7KIhqUKhBJQ-Rx9UflAvQFa1nXBx4Txko1cQ5Fa98MPzUAGB5gaasA=s320" width="320" /></a></div><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://twitter.com/itvborderrb/status/1501542514037526529?s=21">Nicola Sturgeon</a> has even surpassed Boris Johnson, as well as <a href="https://twitter.com/potus/status/1502353759455821833?s=21">Biden's</a> own clear message of non-NATO intervention into Ukraine,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>in urging that a 'no-fly zone' - an effective declaration of war on Russia, and start of World War III - be kept as an available option.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjjLrTJi4Bpi7kFkfnmR3fmOJRqEgMr0Qi8sh5OBx7ySN55JPLnW0RGQ1lHW-kVpUT3713sY_8x6tETrhtnMS8pBU_FR4FVeVgbaPIA1xPRaacF3P_9w_QJxcHSkzTZfBkH0Sw072PTKvvqyZJb57iQ7qZGmn11tqNsGf7mMkK4_Hs6J4Okpfg3FgBtmQ=s1592" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1592" data-original-width="1339" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjjLrTJi4Bpi7kFkfnmR3fmOJRqEgMr0Qi8sh5OBx7ySN55JPLnW0RGQ1lHW-kVpUT3713sY_8x6tETrhtnMS8pBU_FR4FVeVgbaPIA1xPRaacF3P_9w_QJxcHSkzTZfBkH0Sw072PTKvvqyZJb57iQ7qZGmn11tqNsGf7mMkK4_Hs6J4Okpfg3FgBtmQ=s320" width="269" /></a></div><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Watching, listening or reading almost any form of 'mainstream' news right now renders it all but impossible to gain anything but a one-sided view of events, and slanted opinion.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The BBC is an unconstrained UK/NATO propaganda platform, even its 'once-reputed' <a href="https://twitter.com/AliAbunimah/status/1502420564643823619?s=20&t=05Ov0OLlVU1KuSDsKXQ62g">World Service</a></span><span style="font-family: times;"> now reduced to "straight-up stenography." </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Those seeking more 'thoughtful' coverage and analysis from outlets like </span><a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1502233376769835013?s=21" style="font-family: times;">Channel 4 News</a><span style="font-family: times;"> are also being dismally failed, its presenters registering the same Western-toned jingoism, its reports still safely boundaried and dutifully framed. </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">With this has come the most authoritarian purge ever seen across social media, overseen by US-backed big-tech.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span>Google/YouTube have announced a complete </span><a href="https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1502403517780213764?s=21">global ban</a><span> </span><span>on all 'pro-Russian' outlets and content.</span><span> </span><a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/11/22972911/youtube-rt-russian-sputnik-block-state-media-globally">This includes</a><span> the worldwide removal of RT and Sputnik, the<a href="https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1502541075776520193?s=21"> taking down</a><span> of <a href="https://twitter.com/AbbyMartin/status/1502681715428380678?s=20&t=dXEblB1kGkYUBT62-rGWYQ">Abby Martin's</a> entire Breaking the Set archive, </span>and</span> attempts to <a href="https://twitter.com/potus/status/1502353759455821833?s=21">curtail</a> the landmark film Ukraine on Fire by esteemed director Oliver Stone.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Every facet of Russian life, history and culture is now being attacked and </span><a href="https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/instruments/piano/young-russians-banned-international-competitions/" style="font-family: times;">cancelled</a><span style="font-family: times;"> - even <a href="https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1502644265444331520?s=20&t=bcM39fJHQ9xvdeKtrnfLKg">Tolstoy</a> and </span><a href="https://twitter.com/CraigMurrayOrg/status/1501675639400718343?s=20&t=vIi5T2XzzCObpp07RB9Fmg" style="font-family: times;">Tchaikovsky</a><span style="font-family: times;">! </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/russia-ukraine-war-western-ban-cats-dostoevsky-totalitarianism">Joseph Massad</a> captures it well:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">"The Russophobic campaign straddles the entire western political spectrum, and it is fully endorsed by western liberals and cultural elites... [Having] unified western conservatives and liberals in the US and Europe, I feel confident in saying that most likely if you scratch many a white liberal, you will find a white supremacist Cold Warrior."</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And, of course, there is no shortage of Euro-backed provocative propaganda </span><a href="https://twitter.com/AliAbunimah/status/1502976641970094086?s=20&t=QHQdzvxaRaQ_uR0y-7AvNA" style="font-family: times;">coming directly out of Kiev</a><span style="font-family: times;">.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">T</span><span style="font-family: times;">his is a war being waged on our very capacity to see, understand and think about the war being waged in Ukraine itself.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;">'Just make it stop, deal with the problem, find a solution'<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">People, understandably, consumed by this relentless barrage of news and harsh images, the terrible killing, the human suffering, will say: 'it must just stop, people are dying, something must be done, what's the solution?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Yet how often have we come to hear these kind of plaintive cries and questions? </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Recall 'the problems' of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Remember the framing and the anxious, notably liberal interventionist, calls: 'what do we do' about the 'threats' coming from these places - all of which turned out not to be about actual threats, but pretexts for Western invasion, aggression and expansion. </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The framing over Ukraine as a 'problem' for the West and its peoples is no different. Powerful forces unleash war and conflict, with no apparent ways out, and the public are left wondering how to 'find solutions' to it all.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The 'task' is rendered all the more perplexing because, failed by the media, people have little or no understanding of how things actually get to these critical points. But they're encouraged, nonetheless, to 'partake' in the same 'problem-solving' narrative.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The sequence and presentation of 'the problem' in this case runs, essentially, thus: </span><span style="font-family: times;">the West/NATO create a gathering, dangerous problem with its expansionist push on Ukraine and Russia's front line; after years of signalled discontent, </span><span style="font-family: times;">Russia finally responds to the problem by massing troops along its border; the West/NATO ignore this final warning, foreclosing any immediate chance of off-setting the problem, seeing, instead, ways of exploiting the self-made problem by goading Russia into a bogged-down invasion; Russia duly invades, either miscalculating this entrapment, or calculating that it has no other answer to the problem; the West/NATO are now in full narrative control, presenting Putin </span><i style="font-family: times;">as</i><span style="font-family: times;"> the problem, and urging public support for their further militaristic response </span><i style="font-family: times;">to</i><span style="font-family: times;"> it; duly framed, a deceived and gaslit public embrace this version of the problem, seeing adherence to the West/NATO as their own dutiful way of serving to resolve it; h</span><span style="font-family: times;">aving been effectively excluded from all the key context and information allowing actual comprehension of the problem, they either succumb to the available wall of establishment/media 'information', or resign themselves to never knowing or understanding how the problem ever came about; b</span><span style="font-family: times;">oth types of public compliance/acceptance suit the Western/NATO narrative in its ongoing misrepresentation and cultivation of the problem.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It's very easy from this point to excite and harness an already heightened public into the most dangerous and irrational forms of war-talk. </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And, of course, that righteous narrative is ever-mindful to avoid any indictment or denigration of 'our own' criminal elite. </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It's still truly sobering to think how, in this febrile atmosphere, Putin can be so massively demonised, while Blair, Bush and their coteries, responsible for illegal invasions and much greater crimes against humanity, are being protected and feted. </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Likewise, how easily popularised memes like 'mad Putin' and the 'new Hitler' come to displace coherent readings of the situation. Indeed, how readily <a href="https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1498491107902062592?s=20&t=4H928RfBg-F_9YcEqylC3g">informed analysts </a>themselves become excluded from view and damned as 'Putin apologists'.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In resisting such compliance, and in real problem-solving vein, it's vital that we do seek out the contextual background to such crises.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In short, there can be no meaningful resolution without meaningful understanding of what needs to be resolved.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;">Rationality and resolutions<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And this requires us, with rational mind, to confront the fundamental problem driving the war in Ukraine: US/NATO. </span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Rather than a body that should have been consigned to Cold War history following the fall of the Soviet Union and end of the Warsaw Pact, NATO has grown to become the world's most dangerous force in raising the bar for big state confrontation, 'hot-war' and the prospect of nuclear annihilation. </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The rational response would be to dismantle NATO, returning us to the immediate post-Cold War openings and possibilities of peaceful dividends.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">But that level of rationality, in the service of reducing tensions and creating stability, cannot be contemplated by Western elites, and the corporate-military interests it serves. We're locked, instead, into the intractable doctrine of zero-sum Western militarism, neoliberal capitalist expansion and ultimate imperialist control of the globe.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In this scenario, Russia and China, now encircled by US/NATO bases, will see no rational sense in ever risking incursions into<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>its perceived spheres of influence, its very security - just as the US responded in 1962 over the Cuban missiles crisis. </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">All of which goes some way to explaining why, even against any rational reading of how Russia may now likely get bogged down in an Afghanistan-like quagmire, it still opted to invade Ukraine.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Assuming the likely continuation of NATO aggression by its US/Western sponsors, and conversant Russian resistance to it, the next best level of hope is for some rational form of concession and accommodation. </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">At the very minimum, this, for Russia, would require an authentic </span><span style="font-family: times;">declaration of neutrality for Ukraine, and some form of </span><span style="font-family: times;">independent/autonomous status for the Russian-identifying <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/content/conflict-ukraines-donbas-visual-explainer">Donbas</a> region, including Crimea. </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/9/what-is-the-minsk-agreement-and-why-is-it-relevant-now">Minsk 2</a> has now been rendered obsolete by the invasion. But it still contains the fundamentals of any new agreement. </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">With strong internal support from the populations of </span><span style="font-family: times;">Donetsk and Luhansk, Moscow's formal recognition of them, and now obvious military presence, Russia has these areas firmly within its geopolitical and economic sphere. What, after Ukraine's relentless, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/RealScottRitter/status/1503005766336274432?s=20&t=Uj5G2ALYlOWJm2b2fih6QA" style="font-family: times;">Western-armed/trained</a><span style="font-family: times;">, and failed, assault on them for eight years is to be gained now from its ongoing war there?</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Formal relinquishing of any NATO membership would also remove the more existential issue of Russia's border security. Like the rational acceptance of 'lost' land, this will require realistic acceptance of Russia's 'higher' security concerns. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">So, what would Ukraine get in return from any such accord? </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Most immediately, it would offer some chance of a Russian withdrawal. It would save countless lives. It might allow the</span><span style="font-family: times;"> return of fleeing refugees to possibly still-intact homes. It could see Ukrainians securing and</span><span style="font-family: times;"> re-shaping their state. It may encourage t</span><span style="font-family: times;">he building of a new political landscape which understands the precarious nature of its position between two nuclear superpowers, planning accordingly for independent, peaceful relations. It would also avoid Ukraine having to</span><span style="font-family: times;"> expend the 2 per cent plus of its GDP, as expected of NATO membership, on wasteful and dangerous militarism.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Any process of de-Nazification in Ukraine, as insisted on by Russia, is a longer-term task. And, of course, it comes with recognition of such dark forces in other countries. But Ukraine could make meaningful efforts to acknowledge its own deep harbouring of Nazi elements and ideology. </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Only three states voted against a <a href="https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/us-ukraine-vote-against-anti-nazism-unga-resolution">recent UN resolution</a> calling for Ukraine to end the glorification of Nazis and neo-Nazi forces within its country: tiny Palau, the US, and Ukraine itself. Both Washington and Kiev could make a useful start in rescinding that decision.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><b>Zelensky: leader or led?</b></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The question, ultimately, here for Ukrainians is whether it is rational to sue now for peace, save lives, protect homes, live in a secured, neutral state and relinquish futile claims to already-taken provinces; or to continue in devastating war-mode, sacrificing thousands more lives, greater infrastructure and the chance of regaining their country.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">But why, many will say, </span><span style="font-family: times;">should</span><span style="font-family: times;"> Ukraine succumb? Isn't this just the surrendering of sovereignty and caving to Russian force? Perhaps. Yet why should patriotic ideals and spurious claims to land supersede more rational accommodations and the protection of human life? </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Russia can only take Kiev if it 'razes it to the ground', <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-russia-can-only-take-kyiv-if-it-razes-it-to-the-ground-president-volodymyr-zelenskyy-says-12563859">Zelensky proclaims</a>. Is he, himself, being grounded here in asserting this 'ground-zero' option? </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It should be remembered that Zelensky was elected largely on a promise to resolve the fighting in Donbas, and to secure some kind of nominal peace with Russia. Yet, in pandering to right-nationalist pressures not to implement the articles of Minsk 2, thus continuing the conflict, Zelensky is really in no moral position to talk about sacrificing any more people or places. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In truth, Zelensky in office has been driven by a more familiar set of <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20220212050943/https://amp.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/revealed-anti-oligarch-ukrainian-president-offshore-connections-volodymyr-zelenskiy">base</a> interests and political motivations, in playing the populist field,<a href="https://carnegiemoscow.org/commentary/79972"> cultivating</a> capitalist oligarchs and reaching out to a ready array of US patrons; just as Putin represents and manages his own matrix of capitalist oligarchy. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And, as all the high-stake power-play and elite competition manifests into conflict and war, it's the civilian and poorest classes in both countries who, as ever, become the real sacrificial fodder.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It's remarkable how Zelensky has been cast as a figure of heroic resistance, rather than a Western-promoted pawn who has potentially gambled his country away. How readily he waxes Churchillian to Western political audiences. How eagerly they cheerlead him on to war. Wouldn’t the real heroic act here be to resist the rhetoric, and lofty encouragement, in the quest for real peace, life and stability? </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">It's highly questionable whether Zelensky has the true political stature and integrity to make that crucial call. The tragedy is that it will take so much more death and destruction before Ukraine comes to this inevitable point anyway. </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><b>Just treatment and resolutions for all</b></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">Nor do we ever hear such invocations of sovereign rights and choices for other attacked states, such as</span></span><span style="font-family: times;"> the long-suffering peoples of Iraq, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luuXoqtSPuk">Afghanistan</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/Lowkey0nline/status/1503011174283161605?s=20&t=Bi0LAqVJ-FlKK1Pk3KW6QA">Libya</a>, Syria and Yemen, staggering catastrophes of the West's, NATO's and their allies' making, populations decimated, <i>their</i> states and rights violated, <i>their</i> plight all but ignored by a Western-centred media. </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">Any country, any invaded or occupied people, has a legally-defined right to resist such aggression. Ukraine certainly does. </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/10/25/forum-how-can-palestinians-legally-fight-occupation">But so do</a> occupied, besieged and suffering Palestinians - even where that right is always more difficult to enact. </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">Where is the 'international community's' lofty support for them? Where is the offer of mass weaponry. Where are the blanket sanctions? Where is the emergency aid for those relentlessly bombed and trapped in the prison of Gaza? And why are those Palestinians resisting their oppressors forever labelled 'terrorists', while Ukrainian resistance is deemed patriotic heroism?</span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">All aggressions should be condemned, the perpetrators of all human suffering through state-inflicted violence brought to account. </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">And it is beholden on honest media and observers of all state violence to provide consistent, open and searching accounts of how such violence comes to be visited on all those peoples. </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As the killing across Ukraine intensifies, taking the lives of Ukrainians and Russians alike, any hope of a meaningful outcome to the conflict can only emerge from proper understanding and presentation of its core causes. </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Further to</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><a href="https://johnhilley.blogspot.com/2022/03/shedding-light-on-ukraine-crisis.html" style="font-family: times;">previous suggested reading</a><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">and viewing, much can be learned from this latest listing of informed explanations, analyses and efforts towards some hopeful, rational resolution.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://vimeo.com/332524840">Oliver Stone (director) film: Ukraine on Fire</a></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wests-hands-ukraine-bloody-putins/279897/">Jonathan Cook: The West's Hands in Ukraine Are As Bloody as Putin's</a></span></p><p class="p4" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 2px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p class="p5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 2px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/08/patrick-lawrence-the-casualties-of-empire/">Patrick Lawrence: The Casualties of Empire</a></span></p><p class="p6" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://scheerpost.com/2022/03/07/chris-hedges-worthy-and-unworthy-victims/?fbclid=IwAR1LrKE9HAvVj6EKMZUq7zmJsxk75rbl27V7tdPjW0wurmIUgQ0iGACkmns">Chris Hedges: Worthy and Unworthy Victims</a></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/07/ukraines-grim-choice-why-surrender-may-be-the-honorable-option/?fbclid=IwAR1lo_l406IXXdO__N9da9lz_n0wJrdC9Ahyok-qOEmuOxUm031tKwBSoIs"><span style="font-family: times;">Jonathan Steele: Ukraine's Grim Choice: Why Surrender May be the Honorable Option</span></a></p><p class="p6" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p6" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.blackagendareport.com/praise-whataboutism">Margaret Kimberley: In Praise of "Whataboutism"</a></span></span></p><p class="p6" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/navigating-our-humanity-ilan-pappe-on-the-four-lessons-from-ukraine/">Navigating our Humanity: Ilan Pappé on the Four Lessons from Ukraine</a></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://twitter.com/doubledownnews/status/1501509584086839297?s=21">Joe Glenton: Former NATO Soldier's Alternative Guide to the War on Ukraine</a></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://declassifieduk.org/ukraine-neo-nazis-pictured-with-uk-made-rocket-launchers/">Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis: Ukrainian neo-Nazis Pictured with UK-made Rocket Launchers</a></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/ukraine-russia-war-media-bias-study/279847/">Alan MacLeod: Its Different, They’re White: Media Ignore Conflicts Around the World to Focus on Ukraine</a></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1501981269701373952?s=20&t=0xlO82inDGBwSj88WN-rCg">Alan MacLeod: A short history of the United States deliberately bombing hospitals [Thread]</a></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://declassifieduk.org/eight-dangers-of-the-new-cold-war/">Declassified UK, editorial: Eight Dangers of the New Cold War</a></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://scotgoespop.blogspot.com/2022/03/let-us-resolve-that-this-crisis-must-be.html">James Kelly: Let us resolve that this crisis must be the last time humanity ever faces a nuclear war scare. That means total nuclear disarmament<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></a></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://jonathonshafi.substack.com/p/the-snp-and-the-no-fly-zone">Jonathon Shafi: The SNP and the No Fly Zone</a></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1502751778177171456?s=20&t=2TE4CrLJeOmpvEzoQPnY3Q"><span style="font-family: times;">Communist Party of Britain: Statement on Ukraine</span></a></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/russia-ukraine-war-western-ban-cats-dostoevsky-totalitarianism" style="font-family: times;">Joseph Massad: Western rush to ban everything Russian, from cats to Dostoevsky, smacks of totalitarianism</a></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luuXoqtSPuk"><span style="font-family: times;">Clare Daly: Ukraine War Speech</span></a></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-70304248176249992892022-03-07T06:38:00.007-08:002022-03-07T16:15:12.405-08:00Fuelling the Ukraine crisis: the perils of liberal militarism <p style="text-align: center;"></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;"><i>“Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”</i></span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">Leading Nazi, Hermann Goering, <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/war-games/">speaking</a> privately to Gustave Gilbert, US intelligence officer and psychologist, during the Nuremberg trials.</span></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">As war in Ukraine deepens, calls across the West for punishing responses and vengeful attacks grow by the day. The invasion of Ukraine, we are warned, is an 'attack on all of Europe', and on <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/vladimir-putins-monstrous-invasion-attack-civilisation/">Western 'civilization</a>' itself. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Rather than working with rational intent to de-escalate the crisis, the US/UK/EU/NATO is rushing every piece of armoury at hand into Ukraine. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The dangers and folly of this policy could not be more stark. Not only does it prolong warfare, with multiple more deaths and casualties, but the contagion of ugly war-talk renders any possible negotiation and resolution evermore difficult.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Western 'military analysts', safe in academic offices and media studios, are 'biting at the bit' to 'take-on' Putin. While grudgingly accepting, for the moment, the perilous risks of a so-called 'no-fly-zone', some <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220305205730/https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/05/no-fly-zones-ukraine-war-escalation">urge</a> that it must still be 'kept on the table'.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Indeed, American public support for what would, effectively, be a declaration of war on Russia, a World War III, is already <a href="https://twitter.com/emmavigeland/status/1499853569461301248?s=21">alarmingly high</a>. </span><span style="font-family: times;">US demonstrators are marching for the same </span><span style="font-family: times;">'</span><a href="https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1500642842632671232?s=21" style="font-family: times;">close the sky</a><span style="font-family: times;">' policy, </span><span style="font-family: times;">the actual dark consequences of such still, apparently, hidden behind these benign-sounding terms. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Ramping-up the rhetoric are a range of media-feted parliamentarians, such as <a href="https://twitter.com/Lowkey0nline/status/1498935495023374336?s=20&t=9ery-dc5zIFUX3QDs27FnA">Tobias Ellwood</a>, MP, and member of the MoD-funded 77th Brigade, effectively calling for war with Russia.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Yet the most dangerously siren voices for retaliatory action, escalation and open war are coming not from the usual right-wing quarters, but from the forces of 'respectable' liberal militarism.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The implicit and increasingly explicit case for war is being propagated with no apparent caution or restraint across the popular press and airwaves.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The <a href="https://twitter.com/alanrmacleod/status/1500410074354921472?s=21">New York Times</a> is even prepared to peddle already-exposed fake news in service of the 'Ukranian cause'.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In further weapons-porn hype, the <a href="https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/deadly-raf-beast-mode-fighter-26398067?fbclid=IwAR1xGLz0HdhlS8GKG3BSexUy8A8-oSVHefdG7JGRgOSE30lj6G5OT2HkcKI">Daily Record</a> proclaims: </span><span style="font-family: times;">'Deadly RAF ‘beast mode’ fighter jets that will ‘make Putin sweat’ arrives in UK'</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The BBC’s Jeremy Vine - past <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/02/05/jeremy-vine-arms-dealers-dinner_n_6620034.html">guest speaker</a> to the arms industry - used his own daytime TV show to impart this astonishing <a href="https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1499323059618168833?s=20&t=z5-xoJa9Uewg-YNqk43HVw">message </a>to a caller:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“Bill, the brutal reality is, if you put on a uniform for Putin and you go and fight his war, you probably deserve to die, don’t you? That’s life! That’s the way it goes.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></blockquote><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The BBC's own refusal to censure Vine, as they certainly would others, for this appalling comment speaks volumes about the current atmosphere of jingoistic war fervour.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Putin ‘dead or in the dock’, <a href="https://www.medialens.org/2022/doubling-down-on-double-standards-the-ukraine-propaganda-blitz/">vented Neil Mackay</a>, in another callous and ignorant rant on the ‘imperative’ need to ‘break the Russian people’. Incredibly, Mackay seemed completely unconstrained and unconcerned about advocating the actual breaking of international humanitarian law in punishing an entire people.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Derogatory <a href="https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1500080098845806596?s=21">'Mad Vlad' </a>sloganising offers no useful language either, in understanding the roots of this crisis, or, more pressingly, how we might ever find a constructive dialogue for negotiating a way out of it.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And look no further than the lamentable posturings of <a href="https://twitter.com/kennardmatt/status/1499066183936614402?s=20&t=KTEECLzHfNE7lRdtblrHqw">Paul Mason</a> to see how vociferously the ‘no-alternative-to-militarism’ narrative is being propagated by the 'cruise-missile left', particularly against the no-war left.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As with Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere, the crisis in Ukraine has shown how public support for war is garnered. States make the calls. Governments marshall the forces. Armchair generals ratchet-up the fear. Right-wing hawks and 'think-tanks' ‘hype and authenticate’ their claims. But it takes the essential voices of liberal militarists to normalise and popularise the case for escalations and war.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The ‘international rules-based order’ may be the motif for self-appointed US global policing, invasion and control, but it’s the 'moral' liberal evocation of it in rationalising ‘militarist solutions’ that’s so crucial in selling it to the public. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The liberal ‘mainstream’ media, in particular, has not only been vital in disguising the roots of the conflict in Ukraine - while waxing in racist tones on the tragedy of war in '<a href="https://twitter.com/imraansiddiqi/status/1497607326487826435?s=20&t=M-P_L__ESAb9U1QEnpufnA ">civilized</a>' Europe - but in hyper-charging us in readiness for another ‘necessary intervention’.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Amid the corporate media-led mass <a href="https://twitter.com/jonathan_k_cook/status/1500601896352026631?s=21">hysteria</a> now in support of 'hallowed' Ukraine, you will not hear of that state's relentless shelling and killing of the Russian-identifying people of Donbass. You won't hear of President <a href="https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1500477462848888835?s=21">Zelensky's</a> oligarch banking connections, and anti-democratic acts, including the closing down of three media stations last year. And you certainly won't hear of Ukraine's <a href="https://twitter.com/benjaminnorton/status/1500667111294877707?s=21">neo-Nazi militarism</a>, incorporation of it's neo-Nazi <a href="https://declassifieduk.org/uk-commanders-in-ukraine-met-neo-nazi-linked-national-guard-to-deepen-military-cooperation/">Azov Battalion</a>, and its <a href="https://twitter.com/aliabunimah/status/1497318799938396168?s=21">deep regard</a> for Nazi-collaborating figures like Stepan Bandera.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Across the BBC and ‘mainstream’ media, what should be the legitimate reporting of suffering citizens has turned into a blatant exercise in <a href="https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1500752366223646721?s=20&t=6lMcT_Vdy3z23UtDGmcR0A">heart-tugging</a> propaganda. And, of course, the scale and intensity of such outpourings has <a href="https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1500752366223646721?s=20&t=tu-n9l4a5KA15NSEhd3S5g">never been matched</a> in the reporting of human suffering in Yemen, Palestine, Fallujah and other places of Western led/supported war and carnage.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The siren amplifications of liberal militarist talking points and imagery are not only obscuring and deflecting such state violence, but, as over Ukraine, fuelling the case for further violence. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><b>Why did it come to this critical point, and who benefits?</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It should be noted, firstly, that addressing the 'blame issue' is not some academic or wasteful abstraction. It matters considerably, both as a means of locating the essence of the problem, and any possible resolution of it.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/us-military-escalation-against-russia-would-have-no-victors/">For Chomsky</a>:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">"It’s easy to understand why those suffering from the crime may regard it as an unacceptable indulgence to inquire into why it happened and whether it could have been avoided. Understandable, but mistaken. If we want to respond to the tragedy in ways that will help the victims, and avert still worse catastrophes that loom ahead, it is wise, and necessary, to learn as much as we can about what went wrong and how the course could have been corrected."</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In considering the causes of the present conflict, <a href="https://youtu.be/ppD_bhWODDc">John Mearsheimer</a>, leading figure of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mearsheimer#:~:text=Mearsheimer%20is%20the%20leading%20proponent,nature%20of%20statesmen%20and%20diplomats.">Realist school</a> of international relations - and no obvious leftist - is studious in his analysis and unequivocal in his conclusions: the West, in its relentless policy of eastward NATO expansion, is "principally to blame" for the current crisis in Ukraine. It's decision to "double-down" with the same militaristic responses, has, Mearsheimer asserts, been a further act of disastrous proportions. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">His projections: Ukraine, played and sacrificed as a pawn state by the West, will be wrecked; the possibility of a neutral Ukraine is lost for the foreseeable future; Russia, with much more of an existential stake in this war, will persevere and 'win'; and Putin himself, backed by a resilient-minded Russian public, may weather the political storm and survive.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">One needn’t subscribe to Mearsheimer’s particular field of scholarship to recognise the import of his reading, or the plausibility of his suggestions.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Even with other possible turns, we can be clear here on the basics: core responsibility for this situation rests with the West; the crisis was avoidable; and the fallouts will see considerable human suffering for many years to come.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><b>What of the West's own apparent 'calculus'?</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Biden made explicit statements days before the invasion, assuring the world that it was "imminent"; days away. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Many, including most of the left, disbelieved this call, having, quite rationally, come to suspect anything being peddled by 'intelligence sources'.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">But, of course, it does now appear that Biden <i>was</i> stating an actual truth. The invasion did happen. And on the nominal timeline Biden claimed.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Which begs an even more critical question: having such pre-knowledge of the invasion, what did the US and other Western powers actually do to help prevent it?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Indeed, it goes further than this. We now have <a href="https://twitter.com/bbcnewsnight/status/1496986149277085696?s=21">credible claims</a> that the invasion <a href="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/ukraine-putin-lying-ukraine-russia-invasion-kyiv-122905776.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAGrU0qfcLhUGUy0zJYEz1hNT3j85oD535GD_9ryZjVRR0-G6Eo25ajrMV5mw7CUOl5Z5He0GIN1ooM2Yvf1R7pIh0cdoD_iPKXfbInTKMmofTF0m62Krj3LnQukYKEDf8T_L0R396KbHROe77N8mlKpqFTyqudgJulmENL8DykAq">was decided upon</a> some two months beforehand.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">So if Biden and US intelligence knew of such Russian plans to invade at this much earlier point, as seems likely - and while supposed ‘representations’ to Moscow were being made by Macron and others - why was no more substantive diplomatic effort made to offset it?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Some welcome, if still token, 'mainstream' questioning of the dominant narrative here has emerged, <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/russia-s-ukraine-invasion-may-have-been-preventable-n1290831?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma">asking whether the US/West failed</a> to see the coming<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>crisis and act responsibly:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">“…the abundance of evidence that NATO was a sustained source of anxiety for Moscow raises the question of whether the United States’ strategic posture was not just imprudent but negligent.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Was the US, having walked Ukraine down this cul-de-sac, with no immediate prospect of joining the NATO club, so averse to losing face with Moscow that it just kept ramping-up the threats, hoping to call Putin’s military bluff? A credible interpretation. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">But what if US readings and motives were more mendacious than simply negligent or hubristic? </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Did the US deliberately stand back and <i>allow</i> the invasion to happen, encouraging Russia into a trap? </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Did Biden and the intelligence agencies calculate that the US, NATO and their backers would stand to benefit from the fallout, with Putin completely maligned by the 'international community', and Russia severely weakened? </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This mirrors the same 'lead them on', 'let them bleed' strategy followed by the US over the Soviet Union's invasion and prolonged occupation of Afghanistan.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">For now, we can but speculate. As with Afghanistan and elsewhere, clear evidence of such may yet unravel. But what we have, for the moment, is damning enough. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/us-military-escalation-against-russia-would-have-no-victors/"><br /></a></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/us-military-escalation-against-russia-would-have-no-victors/">For Chomsky</a>:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times;">"The fact is, to be honest, that we do not know why the decision was made, even whether it was made by Putin alone or by the Russian Security Council in which he plays the leading role. There are, however, some things we do know with fair confidence, including the record reviewed in some detail by those just cited, who have been in high places on the inside of the planning system. In brief, the crisis has been brewing for 25 years as the U.S. contemptuously rejected Russian security concerns, in particular their clear red lines: Georgia and especially Ukraine. There is good reason to believe that this tragedy could have been avoided, until the last minute."</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p4" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As Chomsky notes, we may never learn just how misguidedly or deceitfully the West configured the situation. </span></p><p class="p4" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p4" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">But<i> it is</i> clearly evident which particular forces stand to gain f<i>rom</i> the present outcome. </span></p><p class="p4" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p4" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">NATO is now massively 'validated' and strengthened. Finland, having lived in neutral peace on Russia's border, for the first time now contemplates joining NATO. Sweden is making similar overtures, professing the same 'anxious need' to be ‘safely’ within NATO's orbit.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In <a href="https://www.thenational.scot/politics/19958939.russian-invasion-ukraines-fight-scotlands-fight--/">other such responses</a>, Scotland’s SNP administration and camp followers are now even more deeply-wedded to Atlanticist policies and full NATO membership. Under independence - if Sturgeon ever decides to seek it - we are also now likely to see a shift on nuclear arms and stealthy abandonment of 'sacrosanct pledges' to close Faslane.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Again, as Mearsheimer and others show, none of this offers the remotest prospect of peace and stability. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Rather than recognising the increasing insecurity and dangers of NATO expansion, we're seeing the precise reversal of what's needed: the urgent abandonment of NATO - a volatile threat and relic of the Cold War - and emergency removal of nuclear weapons.</span></p><p class="p5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p4" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Meanwhile, existing<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>NATO member countries will now plunge even more of their GDP resources into arms spending. And, of course, the corporate weapons suppliers are revelling in their stock market surge and new orders.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Clearly, the West has vested interests in spreading fear and insecurity. Like a mafiosa-expanding business, it seeks political, economic and military control of the entire 'neighbourhood'. NATO is, in effect, a protection racket.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><b>Real diplomacy, solidarity and routes to peace</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Imagine, instead, if the vast energies of states, governments, international bodies, think-tanks, academics, policy-makers, media outlets and other civil institutions were harnessed towards real, dedicated diplomacy, finding compromises and seeking peace, instead of militarism, arms spending and war. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The term ‘diplomacy’ itself has now been rendered meaningless, a token posture. True, vigilant diplomacy, working quietly, efficiently and unconstrained behind the scenes, could have settled these issues decades ago, avoiding what we’re now seeing in Ukraine.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">Likewise, from Starmer's NATO-pledging Labour to the rabid war-peddling Guardian, an entire field of liberal politics, media and culture is now completely in lock-step to the ideologies and prescriptions of militarist 'resolutions'. </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Predictably, we even have menacing efforts now to </span><a href="https://twitter.com/richardhanania/status/1500192254887022593?s=21" style="font-family: times;">censor and cancel</a><span style="font-family: times;"> Mearsheimer for daring to analyse the conflict in Ukraine and offer a critical assessment. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Goering gave a chilling insight on how easy it is for leaders and states to lead people to war. But today, the rush to war is predicated much more vitally on the persuasive energies of the liberal class in service to those powers. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The ease with which the populace is seduced into hateful denigration of the 'other', pitch-fork responses and all-out war owes so much more to what's being propagated as righteous liberal militarism. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Any serious acts of human support, in averting further death and suffering in Ukraine, and laying some ultimate groundwork for stability and peace, must involve standing in resolute resistance to these dangerous forces. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">___________________</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 2px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><i>Update: 7 March 2022</i></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 2px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 2px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Extract from Bryce Green: <a href="https://fair.org/home/calling-russias-attack-unprovoked-lets-us-off-the-hook/">Calling Russia’s Attack ‘Unprovoked’ Lets US Off the Hook</a></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 2px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;"></span></b></p><blockquote><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 2px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;">‘The strategic case for risking war’</span></b></p><p class="p5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">“It’s impossible to say for sure why the Biden administration took an approach that increased the likelihood of war, but one <b>Wall Street Journal </b>piece from last month may offer some insight.</span></p><p class="p6" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The <b>Journal</b> (<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/strategic-case-risking-war-ukraine-russia-invasion-putin-national-security-nato-europe-eu-11640186454"><span class="s1" style="color: #dca10d;">12/22/21</span></a>) published an op-ed from John Deni, a researcher at the <a href="https://fair.org/home/media-ignore-government-influence-on-facebooks-plan-to-fight-government-influence/"><span class="s1" style="color: #dca10d;">Atlantic Council</span></a>, a think tank <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2017/05/19/us-funded-atlantic-council-shills-nato-autocrats-erdogan/"><span class="s1" style="color: #dca10d;">funded</span></a> by the US and allied governments that serves as NATO’s de facto brain trust. The piece was provocatively headlined “The Strategic Case for Risking War in Ukraine.” Deni’s argument was that the West should refuse to negotiate with Russia, because either potential outcome would be beneficial to US interests.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">If Putin backed down without a deal, it would be a major embarrassment. He would lose face and stature, domestically and on the world stage.</span></p><p class="p6" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">But Putin going to war would also be good for the US, the <b>Journal</b> op-ed argued. Firstly, it would give NATO more legitimacy by “forg[ing] an even stronger anti-Russian consensus across Europe.” Secondly, a major attack would trigger “another round of more debilitating economic sanctions,” weakening the Russian economy and its ability to compete with the US for global influence. Thirdly, an invasion is “likely to spawn a guerrilla war” that would “sap the strength and morale of Russia’s military while undercutting Mr. Putin’s domestic popularity and reducing Russia’s soft power globally.”</span></p><p class="p6" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In short, we have part of the NATO brain trust advocating risking Ukrainian civilians as pawns in the US’s quest to strengthen its position around the world.”</span></p></blockquote><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-57184978192556134542022-03-03T09:15:00.005-08:002022-03-14T10:03:09.640-07:00Shedding light on the Ukraine crisis - essential readings on Nato, Russia and the control of media information <div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Russia's invasion of Ukraine is an illegal and brutal act. As with all invasions, all war, the human consequences are depressingly familiar. At times like these, we express our sympathy for suffering and displaced people. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We are seeing extensive coverage of the upheaval in Ukraine. We are getting wall-to-wall reports on approaching Russian forces. We're hearing much political condemnation and media amplification of it. But what we aren't getting, yet should be entitled to, is balanced information, probing analysis and open discussion on <i>why</i> this situation has come about.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Nor does the massive extent of that coverage remotely compare with reporting of the violence visited by the 'West' and its friends on the peoples of Yemen, Palestine and other 'far-off' places. The crimes committed by, and on behalf of, the US/UK/NATO in places like Libya and Syria are rendered, likewise, invisible.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The trauma of fleeing Ukrainians is also deemed of higher importance, with appalled politicians and reporters lamenting how 'they're European', 'just like us'. 'Distant', non-white refugees, many, like the crammed, imprisoned population of Gaza, with no means of escape, receive no similar attention, sympathy or help. There's a useful word for this disparity: racism.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The level of shrill, war-beating jingoism over Ukraine is on a scale with the dangerous hysteria post-9/11, announcing the 'War on Terror', leading to the catastrophic invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and their ongoing, calamitous fallouts.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As then, we are being led to support escalations, interventions and potential outright war based on false and contrived claims. An entire, cartoonish narrative depicting Putin as a ‘madman/the new Hitler’ has been normalised as ‘rational’ comment. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Almost nothing of the actual historical context of this crisis, vis-a-vis the Cold War, wilful NATO expansion and Russia’s security issues, is being aired by the 'mainstream' media. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">And to 'step out of line' by questioning the prevailing narrative is to be deemed a 'Putin apologist'. We are being propagandised, misled and gaslighted on a truly epic scale.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In alarming addition, blanket banning of 'state-serving' Russian media is being imposed by the EU and other 'freedom-protecting' entities. No such labels are being applied to the state-serving BBC. Ursula von der Leyen, Google and Facebook are now telling us what's 'right' for us to read and view.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">All across social media, writers, journalists and sites deemed 'sympathetic' to Putin and/or Russia - now, effectively, indivisible - are being purged, curbed and 'ghosted'. We are not only at a volatile moment in international affairs, but an Orwellian one in authoritarian responses.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It is only through the remaining, for now, gateway of alternative media that any truly open, critical and independent discussion and background to this crisis is reaching the public.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Below is a selection of essential reading and viewing, serving to inform and correct for the multiple omissions and distortions. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As the one-dimensional news providers, right-wing/centrist 'think-tanks', selective 'security analysts', liberal militarists and other siren voices for war continue to dominate the studios, press and airwaves, we still have, at least, these vital<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>chroniclers and observers of how we got here, the perilous state we're now in, and how any serious template for all-inclusive peace and stability can ever come from it.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/russia-ukraine-war-invasion-madman-script-same">Jonathan Cook</a>: Russia-Ukraine war: A different invasion, the West's same 'madman' script</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=John+Meirsheimer+2015&&view=detail&mid=AF2AFF03E2BD167B184FAF2AFF03E2BD167B184F&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3DJohn%2BMeirsheimer%2B2015%26FORM%3DVDRESM">John Mearsheimer</a>: (video from 2015, foretelling the crisis. Full version <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4">here</a>)</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20220228235613/https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/28/nato-expansion-war-russia-ukraine">Ted Galen Carpenter</a>: Many predicted Nato expansion would lead to war. Those warnings were ignored</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-stop-world-war-iii/34936">Ali Abunimah</a>: How to Stop World War III</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ&feature=youtu.be">Vladimir Pozner</a>: How the United States Created Vladimir Putin</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2022/02/23/diana-johnstone-us-foreign-policy-is-a-cruel-sport/">Diana Johnstone</a>: US Foreign Policy Is a Cruel Sport</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2022/02/28/the-consequences-of-humiliating-russia/">Michael Brenner</a>: The Consequences of Humiliating Russia<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://scheerpost.com/2022/02/24/hedges-the-chronicle-of-a-war-foretold/">Chris Hedges</a>: Chronicle of a War Foretold</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2g95ndif134&feature=emb_imp_woyt">Ali Abunimah and Rania Khalek</a>: Ukraine War Exposes US Hypocrisy, Double Standards & Racism</span></p><p class="p3" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://asawinstanley.substack.com/p/who-are-ukraines-moderate-rebels?s=r">Asa Winstanley</a>: Who are Ukraine's "Moderate Rebels?"</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/MediaLensUK/posts/4887548531282264">Media Lens</a>: Statement</span></p><p class="p3" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://greenwald.substack.com/p/war-propaganda-about-ukraine-becoming?utm_source=url">Glenn Greenwald</a>: War Propaganda About Ukraine Becoming More Militaristic, Authoritarian, and Reckless</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2022/02/27/putins-nuclear-threat/">Scott Ritter</a>: Putin's Nuclear Threat</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href=" https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/nato-an-obstacle-to-peace-in-europe-and-elsewhere">John Wight</a>: Nato's an obstacle to peace in Europe and elsewhere</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/boycotting-russia-compulsory-while-boycotting-israel-punished">Tamara Nassar</a>: Boycotting Russia compulsory, while boycotting Israel is punished</span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/russia-ukraine-war-media-bias-west-blatant-racism">Peter Oborne</a>:<b> </b>Let's call out the West's bias over Ukraine for what it is - blatant racism</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://multipolarista.com/2022/03/02/iraq-war-condoleezza-rice-russia-invasion-ukraine/">Benjamin Norton</a>: Iraq War architect Condoleezza Rice condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as war crime</span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://twitter.com/johnpilger/status/1498096605030805505?s=21">John Pilger:</a> (map of encircling Nato forces)</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://twitter.com/lowkey0nline/status/1497642892680118272?s=21">Lowkey</a>: (tweet on selective media reporting of Ukrainian civilian resistance)</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1497845288337297412?s=21">Jonathan Cook</a>: (tweets on George Monbiot's smearing of leftists, and failings as a foreign policy analyst)</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://twitter.com/aliabunimah/status/1497318799938396168?s=21">Ali Abunimah</a> (tweet thread on the history and continuity of neo-Nazi forces in Ukraine)</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1497200280575774723?s=21">Caitlin Johnstone</a>: (tweet thread: "f the actions of NATO powers had nothing to do with the attack on Ukraine then why have western experts been warning for years that the actions of NATO powers would provoke an attack on Ukraine?")</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/russia-ukraine-war-west-corner-putin-how">Joseph Massad</a>: Russia-Ukraine war: How the West backed Putin into a corner</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">_______________________________________________________________</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Updated, 4 March 2022</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://www.medialens.org/2022/doubling-down-on-double-standards-the-ukraine-propaganda-blitz/">Media Lens</a>: 'Doubling Down On Double Standards – The Ukraine Propaganda Blitz'</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p></div>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-32732820011462405592022-01-23T07:04:00.005-08:002022-02-02T13:37:36.388-08:00Double deception of the public as teetering Tories move to purge the BBC and lofty liberals rush to defend it<h3 style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEipvVEWrwmmCftO6UqzfEcTKilWXsutOfuuF9aCBMLZ9Cw-RZRDXhSzFpORBFuF7qDMqSg0XJWMxOBEVNnsvRaCrpV6v60_Fjh6sp045XvA4Ii4hvZCbwAlttmPoj1rMVB_yVaQyoX0x4aZieBjCN3D74t53n_KhBu0wxmj6_ImT-bBsXht-0LHKJN65Q=s650" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="650" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEipvVEWrwmmCftO6UqzfEcTKilWXsutOfuuF9aCBMLZ9Cw-RZRDXhSzFpORBFuF7qDMqSg0XJWMxOBEVNnsvRaCrpV6v60_Fjh6sp045XvA4Ii4hvZCbwAlttmPoj1rMVB_yVaQyoX0x4aZieBjCN3D74t53n_KhBu0wxmj6_ImT-bBsXht-0LHKJN65Q=s320" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;">Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries's <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-60014514">announcement </a>of a coming end to the BBC licence fee is an obviously cynical effort to distract attention from her now completely disgraced leader and a government in mounting crisis.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">But those rushing to defend the BBC as a bastion of 'balance' and 'impartiality' are also<span class="Apple-converted-space"> serving to gaslight and deceive the public</span> by shrouding essential truths about the state broadcaster. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">The claim that the BBC is being punished by Johnson for 'holding him and his government to account' is utterly risible. The BBC has played no significant part in exposing this corrupt and criminal administration. On the contrary, as <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/no-10-lockdown-parties-media-are-either-woefully-incompetent-or-complicit">Jonathan Cook</a> shows, its leading 'correspondents' have consistently failed to reveal the deeply-known truths about its illegal and tawdry conduct, keeping safe and secure the privileges of '<a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/no-10-lockdown-parties-media-are-either-woefully-incompetent-or-complicit">access journalism'</a>. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Yet Tory abuses and contempt for the public is now so blatant that even Johnson's most '<a href="https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1481587400887447556?s=20">favoured confidante', Laura Kuenssberg</a>, can <a href="https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1481298248195350528?s=20">no longer excuse or mitigate </a>his crimes.<br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Liberal-minded objections to Tory party pressure on the BBC not only miss these gross journalistic failures, they also overlook the BBC's much more essential function as a protector of the <i>system</i>, not just of this or any other government.<br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">This includes the BBC's:</span></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Upholding of all state and political structures as fundamentally fit, democratic and decent. BBC Question Time is itself a respectful 'mirror' to Westminster's weekly 'show' of 'democratic accountability'. The suggestion that we actually live in a state of <i><a href="https://twitter.com/markcurtis30/status/1480802766448693249?s=20">oligarchic</a></i> rule could never be aired or entertained by the BBC. </span></li><li><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Reverential promotion and cultural reinforcement of British militarism. In its <a href=" https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/e/hms-queen-elizabeth-and-stinking-load-codswallop-bbc">reporting</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1483032581058744321?s=21">features</a> on UK weaponry, the BBC acts as an effective spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence, and PR platform for the corporate arms industry. </span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;">Solid <a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/07/bbc-j10.html">support</a> for all UK, US and wider Western-led wars, 'interventions' and <a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1483011841706053636?s=21">coups</a>, most notably over <a href="https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-how-biased-is-the-bbc-17028">Iraq</a>, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. As historian <a href=" https://twitter.com/markcurtis30/status/1482635253785284609?s=20">Mark Curtis</a> notes: </span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;">"Many intelligent people still believe the BBC promotes "impartiality in news & current affairs", and not just those personally earning millions from it. The reality - that on UK foreign affairs, BBC is basically straight propaganda, easily demonstrated - shows we have a way to go."</span></span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Unstinting reverence for the institutions of monarchy, promotion of the royal family and mitigation of its crises. Anti-royal and republican feeling, though widespread, is routinely excluded as a valid public viewpoint.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Default castigation of all official foreign enemies, from the ‘threat/menace' of Russia, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60032711">China</a> and Iran, to the denigration of anti-neoliberal </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">states</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> like Venezuela and Cuba. </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;">The BBC's current <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60030615">amplification</a> of UK/US/NATO talking points on Ukraine is a key case in point, headlining Russia's 'aggressive intent', <a href="https://original.antiwar.com/ted_snider/2022/01/05/six-things-the-media-wont-tell-you-about-ukraine/">omitting vital context</a>, and giving <a href="https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1484302835525300226?s=20">primary airtime to Western-supporting commentators</a> and 'think-tanks' like <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/ourbeeb/why-is-bbc-presenting-rusi-as-objective-analysts-of-middle-east/">RUSI</a>.</span></span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Soft treatment/selective reporting of official allies. Contrast the kind of deferential coverage of Saudi Arabia and other brutal Gulf states to that reserved for North Korea. We're being <a href="https://twitter.com/markcurtis30/status/1481523139620311042?s=20">"info-bombarded"</a> on Russian 'aggression' in Ukraine, but not UK/Saudi bombing of Yemen. Likewise, BBC North America correspondents may carry reports of social dislocation and violence across the US, but will always hold its system, leaders and 'Shining House on the Hill' in mystical awe. The <a href="https://www.palestinecampaign.org/how-israel-exerts-its-influence-on-the-bbc/">revelation</a> that BBC executives "wait in fear for the phone call from the Israelis" tells a similar kind of story about states to be 'more carefully treated'. And never forget the BBC'S disgraceful refusal to air the <a href="https://twitter.com/Lowkey0nline/status/1296112546269876224?s=20">Gaza Appeal</a>.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Leading role in taking down any serious internal political threat to the established order, the most infamous example being the BBC's key part in the <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveNickSmith/status/771840984388894720?s=20">brutal smearing </a>and removing of Jeremy Corbyn, an effective British coup.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Omission and <a href=" https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1480509317946220544?s=21">marginalisation</a> of radical voices, as in the BBC's blanket silence over the prosecution and persecution of true journalist, Julian Assange.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Rearguard response over any threat to the Union, as seen in the <a href="https://www.medialens.org/2014/scotlandshire-bbc-scotland-coverage-of-the-independence-referendum/">loaded</a> BBC coverage of the Scottish Independence referendum of 2014.</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Very belated efforts to acknowledge the climate emergency, and continuing failure to address the true forces behind it. Why is there still no serious discussion of corporate-driving capitalism as the principal cause? This massive omission takes us well beyond any notion of the BBC as 'neutral observer'. </span></span></li></ul></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">The paradox of this latest Tory assault on the BBC is that it is attempting to call time on the signature institution helping to preserve the principal ideas and interests of the ruling class. Yet, while Johnson <i>et al</i> may regard themselves as born-to-rule Etonians with deep roots in the establishment, their first and most self-serving concern is political survival.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">While much of the liberal-left appear reluctant to join in any Tory kicking of the BBC, all those blue-tick liberals and vast-salaried BBC employees now rushing to the barricades in it's defence have very little incentive to see the real purpose of the body so fulsomely rewarding them.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;">Such defenders <a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1483782186943799298?s=20">insist</a> that as the BBC receives complaints of bias from both left and right - or any other opposing sides of an issue - it 'must be doing something correct';<i> ergo</i>, it cannot be biased. This facile 'logic' amounts to 'testing' a proposition by way of measuring relative claims about it, rather than any rational evaluation of the proposition itself.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> Claim</span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: times;">, if you will, that the BBC is not institutionally biased, but at least attempt to do so with real argument and rigorous evidence. </span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-size: medium;">Nor do such lines of defence account for the vast differentials of influence brought by major lobby forces in contrast to standard public complaints. The pro-Israel lobby maintain relentless pressure on the BBC to uphold its views and interests. Does this demonstrate, in any meaningful sense, that the BBC is somehow anti-Israel? Or could it, more obviously, signify a level of pressure and intimidation intended to ensure it never actually <i>does</i> go against Israel's interests? </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-size: medium;">Tory attacks on the BBC amount to the same kind of pre-emptive calculus: we're powerfully watchful, on your case, and can cause you grief, why take the chance of upsetting us? </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: 400;">Other liberal warnings over the Tory assault on the licence fee reduces us to a dismal</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times; font-weight: 400;"> </span><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: 400;">‘choice’ between 'Murdoch or the BBC', as if the only possible provider of our daily diet of news and information could ever come via corporate media or state media. </span></span><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: 400;">Where, in this 'debate' over the BBC and 'new future' of public media are the wider options on truly independent journalism and its potential funding? </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">With dark irony, the very liberal class which so eagerly lined up with the BBC to destroy the Corbyn left now seek that same left's support in <i>saving</i> the BBC. Understandably, it's not readily forthcoming.</span></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span>It's deeply revealing how those now running appeals for the BBC's 'rescue', while proclaiming its 'inherent values' of 'balance' and 'impartiality', seem so comfortably contained in their liberal bubble.</span><span> How </span></span><span><span style="font-weight: normal;">many will be aware of, or have ever consulted, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-how-biased-is-the-bbc-17028">academic studies</a> laying out the BBC's support for establishment interests and positions? How many </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">will have ever read or invoked critical writers like<a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1483018083971256321?s=20"> </a></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1483018083971256321?s=20">MediaLens</a></span> <span style="font-weight: normal;"><span>on such matters? </span></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">Deeply-conditioned and career-dependent, could any ever contemplate calling the BBC, as </span><a href="https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1482996849527173125?s=20" style="font-weight: normal;">John Pilger</a><span style="font-weight: normal;"> so incisively does, "the most refined propaganda service in the world"? </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Much easier to live in a state of passive compliance, shielded from uncomfortable explorations and self-reflections. </span></span><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;">This 'learned restraint' in ever even daring to imagine the BBC as anything other than 'benign Auntie' demonstrates its very efficiency as an establishment institution, serving to nullify 'abnormal' thought, foster conformity and displace awkward questions. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Thankfully, many still see through the posture and deceptions, resiliently posing the real questions. As MediaLens </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">concisely</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> ask here: "<a href="https://www.medialens.org/2022/save-the-bbc-in-whose-interests/">Save the BBC? In whose interests?</a>"</span></span></div></h3>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-29275905468767942422022-01-03T16:03:00.004-08:002022-01-03T17:37:21.293-08:00War criminal Blair's knighthood should NOT be revoked - he deserves to be 'honoured' by a criminal establishment<div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">New Year 2022 commences with one of the most egregious acts of elite contempt for public sensibilities one could ever imagine. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Tony Blair has been awarded a special knighthood - </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"><span style="font-family: times;">Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 17px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"> - </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"><span style="font-family: times;">elevated now</span></span><span style="font-family: times;"> to the highest echelons of the British establishment.<br /><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">One can but wonder how the families of one million dead Iraqi souls will receive this shameless announcement. The UK state's contempt for them is multiple times greater than its blatant disregard for the British public.<br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><blockquote><a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1477253198561878022?s=20">For services to British imperialism and mass murder</a>, arise 'Sir Tony'. A state that should be expressing atonement for its historic crimes has conferred its highest award on someone responsible for a million Iraqi deaths. A truly depraved establishment.</blockquote></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Calls are now circulating for Blair's knighthood to be revoked. Though well-meaning, they are deeply misguided. Intent on shaming and punishing Blair, they turn any similar damning attention away from the very system that has conferred this award on him.</span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">One leading <a href=" https://www.change.org/p/the-prime-minister-tony-blair-to-have-his-knight-companion-of-the-most-noble-order-of-the-garter-rescinded">petition</a> urges, in deferential tones, that "Her Majesty" rescind Blair's knighthood. Yet it's the monarch and her offices that hold direct responsibility for making this particular award. Are we to believe that she and her court advisers had no understanding of Blair's actions over Iraq and the resultant furore this blatant patronage would cause?</span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Lamentably, such calls only help validate the Honours system, while lamenting the 'damaged constitution' and showing continued homage to the institution of monarchy.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> <br /></span><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Instead, we should be using this announcement not only to denounce Blair, but the ways in which the entire establishment peddles such rewards, providing cover for its villainous own.<br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><blockquote>War criminal Blair's elevated knighthood from the establishment should <a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1477418304511827971?s=21">NOT</a> be opposed. It helps shine a double damning light on both him AND the rotten 'honours' system. Saying that he's 'not deserving' of the royal system only serves to validate the system itself.</blockquote></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">The argument that Blair's 'recognition' 'makes a mockery' of the honours process is deeply blind-sided, serving to excuse the monarch's central role. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">It fails to make what should be an obvious connection between the political crimes of figures like Blair and an institution that has given vital authority to the vast imperialist crimes which so many leaders of an ultra-militarist British state has inflicted on the world.<br /><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">And while the public express due outrage over 'Sir Tony', those bestowed with royal honours might now be more honestly reflecting on how they see themselves in wearing the baubles of Empire. Will any, one wonders, be so conscientiously inclined to send theirs back?<br /><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">What kind of system-preserving propaganda manages to have us, and perhaps even some of them, outraged only about the recipient of this award rather than the very institution giving it?<br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><blockquote>Of course, why WOULDN'T a debased establishment protect and honour one of its debased own? The <a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1477333490186305538?s=21">real question</a> is whether all those already 'honoured' will ever see their own compliance, relinquish their tainted 'honours' and expose that debased system.</blockquote></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Blair's all-knowing part in bringing mass death and suffering to the Middle East cannot be dissociated from an institution that has given its own royal stamp of approval to every murderous regime in the region. The same corporate-produced bombs and armaments visited on Iraqi and other innocents by Blair have been dutifully endorsed and promoted by this same militarist-invested family. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Objecting to warmonger Blair's elevation by a blood-soaked establishment is a bit like expressing indignation over a local crime boss being rendered a 'made man' by the mafia.</span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Meantime, while Blair is being feted and living it up on his life of crime, Julian Assange, the figure who did most to expose such heinous actions, is festering in high-security Belmarsh jail, an alarmingly opposite form of 'reward' reserved by the establishment for this <i>true</i> public servant.</span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Where is the due media attention and public backlash against this scandalous anomaly? <br /><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">It's also of dark happenstance that Blair's New Year award coincided with the late Archbishop Tutu's state funeral. The moral and humanitarian gulf between the two could not be wider.<br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><blockquote>With <a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1477409508045606912?s=21">perverse irony</a>, on the day of the great Desmond Tutu's funeral, war criminal Blair was given a knighthood. While hypocritical Western leaders laud Tutu, protect Israel and denounce #BDS, Tutu refused to share the same platform as Blair, supported Palestinians and backed BDS.</blockquote></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Rescinding Blair's knighthood may bring understandable satisfaction in 'taking down' an unrepentant war criminal. It may even help bring closer the hopeful day he and his cohorts get sent to The Hague. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">But it won't bring forward any fuller indictment of the actual system that facilitated his actions and the palace forces that sought to decorate and protect him. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Perversely, if this award <i>is</i> ultimately revoked, the 'validity' of the honours system and notion of a 'listening' monarch will actually be enhanced. Conversely, the more such 'honours' are conferred on infamous figures like Blair, the more an already depraved system will be further debased, delegitimised and threatened with extinction. </span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">All of which renders 'Sir Tony' the most welcome and deserving knights of the rotten realm.<br /><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">It's not just Blair that needs to be exposed and brought to justice, it's the whole nexus of elite institutions and the system of thought control that allows their <i>collective</i> crimes to be hidden and sanitised.</span></div>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-39038156905608249692021-08-29T05:44:00.030-07:002021-08-30T03:07:25.471-07:00Beyond the 'mainstream' framing and distortion, key readings on Afghanistan<div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span><i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: times; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLdZrZOQEok29rjBuW8SfFppMSh7-Y2TQUKRID433ObSIZ8BHs61JDO3LqgzrwjzjApA37ZLxckOEfnnL6DOAkjmx6EaTvbrvfKS4fV-UobYT_3Lac5iCD7QieKUZZjGrj0UTA6TjFslYn/s290/retreat+1.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="174" data-original-width="290" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLdZrZOQEok29rjBuW8SfFppMSh7-Y2TQUKRID433ObSIZ8BHs61JDO3LqgzrwjzjApA37ZLxckOEfnnL6DOAkjmx6EaTvbrvfKS4fV-UobYT_3Lac5iCD7QieKUZZjGrj0UTA6TjFslYn/w329-h307/retreat+1.jpeg" width="329" /></a></div><span style="font-family: times;">Down centuries echo<br />New false cries<span class="Apple-converted-space"> <br /></span>Of honour won<br />Last duty done<br />From land of conquest</span></i></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: times;">Hasty exit</span></i></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: times;">Empire's legions crash and run</span></i></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span style="font-family: times;">Hubris hushed</span></i></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: times;">Trumpets silenced</span></i></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: times;">Liberal hats still urging on</span></i></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: times;">High-tech helmets chased by turbans </span></i></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: times;">Righteous mission over-spun</span></i></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><i>Weight of our so</i><i> moral burden</i></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: times;">Imperial bondage theirs to learn</span></i></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: times;">Great Game upended</span></i></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: times;">Deathly merchants</span></i></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><i>Spent armoury of</i><i> lies and guns</i></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><i style="font-family: times;"><br /></i></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0piexoIR_LSMPtQons2qP0o0wCMTSYW0s8m8Hp_DGwRDb02eoufb9jnotVkIHULnBE-alHLXWM-tdHUGJkTq55NAqIebwYhGO48a3lxhNSYgInUJBApbxsxSf4_4ZPaWgAzhrnPeCbgL-/s1160/retreat.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="773" data-original-width="1160" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0piexoIR_LSMPtQons2qP0o0wCMTSYW0s8m8Hp_DGwRDb02eoufb9jnotVkIHULnBE-alHLXWM-tdHUGJkTq55NAqIebwYhGO48a3lxhNSYgInUJBApbxsxSf4_4ZPaWgAzhrnPeCbgL-/w336-h251/retreat.jpeg" width="336" /></a></div></div><h4 style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">T</span><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;">he rapid fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban has been widely treated by the Western political class and 'mainstream' media as a disastrous turn of events. </span><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></h4><h4 style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;">In truth, beyond the tragic human carnage and sordid abandonment, the humiliating retreat of US, UK and other NATO forces represents a positive historic outcome in setting back the tyranny of imperialist invasion, occupation and plundering of states around the globe.</span></h4><h2 style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></h2><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;">And, whatever troubling governance to come for Afghanistan, it reaffirms the ultimate right of determination for indigenous peoples over rapacious external forces. </span></div><h2 style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></h2><h4 style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1428789036022476809?s=21">Glenn Greenwald</a> makes the elementary point:<br /></span><br /></span></h4><h4 style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">"<span style="font-weight: normal;">Afghanistan belongs to the people of Afghanistan, not the U.S. and NATO.</span>"<br /><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></h4><h4 style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">In their chaotic retreat, we now glimpse the true extent of the interventionist deceit and madness of this warmongering mission.</span></span></h4><h2 style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></h2><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;">Or maybe not so mad for some. For when it comes to the motivations and manoeuvres of power, there's always mercenary method in that madness. <br /></span></span><span><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;">For twenty years, this crazy <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/08/27/how-the-taliban-chased-the-west-out-of-afghanistan/">2.26 trillion dollar</a> invasion and occupation, resulting in <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan">at least 241,000 deaths</a>, has served the interests of corporate arms companies and their political sponsors. <br /></span></span><span><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;"><span><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;"><span>That interfering madness will continue in Afghanistan, as elsewhere, in whatever devious form.</span></span></span></div><h2 style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></h2><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;">Yet, as with Vietnam and the fall of Saigon, the liberation of Afghanistan and easy capture of Kabul illustrates the latest historic failure of imperial invasion and regime change as a model of control.</span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">As those who ran and worked for the occupation clamber onto the last exiting planes, we see the true fragility of that entity and its spurious claims: the false narratives of 'state building' and 'democratisation'; the so-called 'quest for peace and stability', while relentlessly bombing the country and murdering its people; the proclaimed 'concern' for educating, protecting and advancing women and girls. </span></div><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">If only our media had been telling people the truth about the 'winning war'. If only the public had been properly informed about the systemic corruption and capricious nature of the West's puppet regime. If only, as with real journalists like <a href="https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1427929346262642688?s=20">Julian Assange</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1429188218424078338?s=20">Wikileaks</a>, they had been exposing the mass war <a href="https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1431906971792261123?s=20">crimes</a> of the US and its political<a href="https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1430772999804755968?s=20"> allies</a>. <br /><br /></span></div><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">As the <span class="s1" style="color: #dca10d;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/1725411122663433189/3903815690560824969#">l</a><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58372437">ast UK troops</a></span><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58372437"> and UK Ambassador</a> left Afghanistan, British state media could only <a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1431888473808687105?s=20">echo</a> the platitudes of 'honourable service' trotted out by Boris Johnson and military officials, failing even to mention the deaths, displacement and suffering of the Afghan people. </span></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Thankfully, beyond the amplifier BBC and other power-serving media, we have a wealth of informed, probing and truthful journalism to rely on. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Please read and share:</span></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="s1" style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: times;">Jonathan Cook<br /><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/afghanistan-taliban-surge-us-pentagon-lies-exposed"><span class="s2">How the Taliban surge exposed Pentagon's lies </span></a></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="s1" style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: times;">Lowkey <br /><a href="https://www.doubledown.news/watch/2021/august/20/good-riddance-to-the-war-on-terror-lowkey-on-afghanistan"><span class="s2">On Afghanistan </span></a><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="s1" style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: times;">Yvonne Ridley<br /><a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210820-what-can-the-taliban-offer-the-women-of-afghanistan/"><span class="s2">What can the Taliban offer the women of Afghanistan?</span></a><br /><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="s1" style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: times;">John Pilger<br /><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2021/08/24/john-pilger-the-great-game-of-smashing-nations/"><span class="s2">The Great Game of Smashing Nations</span></a><br /><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="s1" style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: times;">Joe Glenton<br /><a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6fMX72z8gp8&feature=youtu.be"><span class="s2">Former British Soldier DESTROYS Official Afghanistan Narrative</span></a><br /><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="s1" style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: times;">Claudia Webbe, MP<br /><a href="https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/afghanistan-was-war-without-just-cause-and-simply-continuation-western-imperialism"><span class="s2">Afghanistan was a war without a just cause, and simply a continuation of Western imperialism </span></a></span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Vijay Prashad</span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="s2" style="text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/08/27/how-the-taliban-chased-the-west-out-of-afghanistan/"><span style="font-family: times;">How the Taliban Chased the West Out of Afghanistan</span></a></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Phil Miller and Mark Curtis</span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="s2" style="text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-08-25-four-failed-wars-must-finally-force-the-uk-to-adopt-an-ethical-foreign-policy/"><span style="font-family: times;">Four failed wars must finally force the UK to adopt an ethical foreign policy</span></a></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="s1" style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: times;">Ali Abunimah<br /><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/what-israel-hopes-gain-americas-afghan-disaster/33766"><span class="s2">What Israel hopes to gain from America's Afghan disaster </span></a><br /><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="s1" style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: times;">Julie Hollar<br /><a href="https://fair.org/home/media-rediscover-afghan-women-only-when-us-leaves/"><span class="s2">Media Rediscover Afghan Women Only When US Leaves</span></a><br /><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Gavin Lewis</span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="s2" style="text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2021/08/afghanistan-the-abomination-of-white-mans-burden-and-fake-feminist-narratives/"><span style="font-family: times;">Afghanistan: The Abomination of “White Man’s Burden” and Fake Feminist Narratives</span></a></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Alex Rubinstein</span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="s2" style="text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="https://realalexrubi.substack.com/p/did-the-us-support-the-growth-of"><span style="font-family: times;">Did the US Support the Growth of ISIS-K?</span></a></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="s1" style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: times;">Mark Curtis<br /><a href="https://curtisresearch.org/the-great-game-the-reality-of-britains-war-in-afghanistan/"><span class="s2">The Great Game: The Reality of Britain's War in Afghanistan </span></a><br />(from 2011)</span><br /></span></p></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><br /></h2>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-28051647153752113972021-08-09T17:13:00.001-07:002021-08-09T17:17:16.011-07:00Outcome of complaint to BBC regarding use of ’Salmond inquiry’<p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The following is an account of my complaint to the BBC over its use of the term 'Salmond inquiry'. As can be seen, the correspondence was conducted via the BBC's complaints process, on up to the final level of the Executive Complaints Unit. Readers can form their own judgements as to the merits of the complaint, mitigations offered by the BBC, and reasoning behind the final deliberations.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">7 March 2021</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">To BBC Complaints Team</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As a viewer, I wish to make a formal complaint about the BBC's widespread, highly misleading and politically-loaded use of the term "Salmond inquiry". As a supposed public-informing, impartial news organisation, you should be well aware that the correct title of this inquiry is<b>:</b> Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Even if you were to adopt a 'shorthand' reference it would more appropriately be the "Sturgeon inquiry", since it is the conduct of the First Minister and her government that is being investigated.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Please explain why the BBC has maintained its use of this false and biased wording.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In the interests of fairness and clarity all use of "Salmond inquiry" should be terminated and a public correction made on all BBC platforms on which it has been used.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I intend to pursue this matter until satisfactorily rectified.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I look forward to your reply.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Kind regards</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">John Hilley<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">.......................</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">8 March 2021</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 2px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;">Reference CAS-6582036-B9J0L2</span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Dear Mr Hilley,</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Thank you for contacting us regarding general BBC News output.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We’re naturally very sorry when we hear that members of our audience have been disappointed by any aspect of our news services and how they're delivered.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We have noted here that you feel it is inappropriate for BBC News to refer to the current events happening in Scotland as the "Salmond Inquiry", and that you feel the use of this term could be indicative of bias.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">All that being said we do value your feedback about this. All complaints are sent to senior management and we’ve included your points in our overnight report.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">These reports are among the most widely read sources of feedback in the company and ensures that your concerns have been seen by the right people quickly. This helps inform their decisions about current and future content.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Thanks again for taking the time to get in touch.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Kind regards,</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Abbie Crawford.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">BBC Complaints Team </span></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints"><span style="font-family: times;">www.bbc.co.uk/complaints</span></a></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">.......................</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">8 March 2021</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I am not satisfied that the actual content of my complaint or its resolution has been adequately dealt with. Please elevate my enquiry, have an appropriate person look at it and provide me with a serious response.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">John Hilley</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">.......................</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">8 March 2021</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We are sorry to learn you weren’t satisfied with our earlier response and appreciate that you felt strongly enough to contact us again. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Although we aim to reply at this next stage within 20 working days (four weeks), we hope you will understand that sometimes we are unable to respond by then. We will let you know beforehand if we think it may take us longer. For full details of our complaints process please visit: <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/how-we-handle-your-complaint"><span class="s2" style="color: #dca10d;">https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/how-we-handle-your-complaint</span></a>.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Please don’t reply to this email because it’s an automated acknowledgement sent from an account which can’t receive replies. If you do need to get in touch, please use our webform instead at <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints"><span class="s2" style="color: #dca10d;">www.bbc.co.uk/complaints</span></a>, quoting your reference number. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">......................</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">18 March 2021</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Dear Mr Hilley,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Thank you for getting back in touch with us regarding our news coverage.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I’m sorry you had to come back to us and I appreciate why. We always aim to address the specific points raised by our audience and regret any cases where we’ve failed to do this. Your previous reply didn’t tackle the exact issue you raised and we’d like to</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>offer you a new response here. The following should now be considered your first reply.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We have been clear throughout our reporting about the nature of the inquiry and the allegations against First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. We have also made clear in our reporting that Alex Salmond was cleared of all charges brought against him.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I can assure you that BBC News aims for the highest journalistic standards in our reporting of all issues – to be fair, accurate and impartial. We appreciate you feel the phrase ‘Alex Salmond inquiry’ is an inappropriate choice to use in our news coverage.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Thanks again for taking the time to get in touch.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Kind regards,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Lisa Pigott</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">BBC Complaints Team </span></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints"><span style="font-family: times;">www.bbc.co.uk/complaints</span></a></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">..........................</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">19 March 2021</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Dear Lisa Pigott</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Thanks for your response.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Lamentably, this second reply, the first of which you rightly acknowledge was inadequate, is just as evasive and inadequate as the first reply - just more patronisingly so.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I am not disputing that BBC reports on the inquiry include reference to the allegations against Nicola Sturgeon, or that mention was made of the acquittal of Mr Salmond in the criminal trial.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The problem is with the actual headline framing of that inquiry, and the loaded impression it gives suggesting that Mr Salmond’s conduct is under investigation rather than the conduct of the First Minister, her government and associated others.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Now that I’ve had two replies failing to answer the specific question of <i>why</i> “The Salmond inquiry” has been used by the BBC, I wish to elevate the matter for further consideration.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I look forward to your reply.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Kind regards</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">John Hilley <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">.....................</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">8 May 2021</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Your Reference CAS-6582036-B9J0L2 <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We are contacting you to apologise that we’ve not been able to reply to your complaint within the time period we aim for. Although we manage this for most complaints, we regret it’s not been possible so far because we have been dealing with a higher than normal number of cases.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">If you wish to refer this delay and the substance of your complaint to the BBC’s regulator Ofcom, you can do so online at <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/how-to-report-a-complaint/bbc-tv-channel-radio-station-bbciplayer"><span class="s3" style="color: #dca10d;">https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/how-to-report-a-complaint/bbc-tv-channel-radio-station-bbciplayer</span></a> or by post to: Ofcom, Riverside House, 2a Southwark Bridge Road, London SE1 9HA. Please include for Ofcom your latest correspondence from and to the BBC and any BBC case reference numbers which you have been given.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s4" style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: times;">Full details of the BBC’s complaints process can be found by visiting <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/how-we-handle-your-complaint">https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/how-we-handle-your-complaint</a>, and full details of Ofcom’s complaints process are available at <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/information-for-industry/guidance/procedures">https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/information-for-industry/guidance/procedures</a>.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In the meantime we appreciate your patience and will respond as soon as we can.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Kind regards</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">BBC Complaints Team</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">www.bbc.co.uk/complaints<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">………………………</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">To Ofcom</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">9 May 2021</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I have been engaging with the BBC Complaints Team over the BBC's repetitive use of the term "Salmond inquiry" (reference: CAS-6582036-B9J0L2).</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As you will see from the enclosed correspondence, I am still awaiting a fuller response on the matter, feel unhappy with the seemingly unwarranted delay, and do not expect any substantive change of view. The Complaints Team have advised that I am in a position to complain about the delay and forward the substance of it to your office.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The main body of my complaint is attached. However, I would like to add some further contextual comment.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The complaint was initially raised during the course of the Holyrood Parliament's Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I had pointed out the misleading use of "Salmond inquiry" during that process, and the false impressions it may have caused for viewers.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">However, this was before Mr Salmond decided to launch his Alba Party on 26 March 2021.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It is of concern that the loaded impressions caused by the concerted use of "Salmond inquiry" may have impacted and carried on into coverage and discussion of Mr Salmond's electoral campaign. I have no reason to believe that the BBC made any decision to postpone or end its use of "Salmond inquiry" during this time.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Please also note that the term “Salmond inquiry” has been used widely across BBC TV, radio and online platforms. See also, for example, Radio 4, 19 March 2021, <a href="https://twitter.com/bbcr4today/status/1372817055448248320?s=21"><span class="s3" style="color: #dca10d;">https://twitter.com/bbcr4today/status/1372817055448248320?s=21</span></a></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I would, therefore, submit that widespread and ongoing use of the term has had an additionally damaging effect on Mr Salmond's political and personal standing in a major election.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In short, the repetitive use of this term has been false, biased and damaging.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I trust you will consider closely the BBC's editorial judgement in using the term, the detrimental effect it has had on Mr Salmond, and whether the BBC should make appropriate forms of correction and apology to viewers on the matter.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I look forward to your further thoughts.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Kind regards</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">John Hilley</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">………</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">BBC News items cited:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Glenn Campbell: The Alex Salmond inquiry and the political stink at Holyrood</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 2px;"><span style="font-family: times;">24 February 2021</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-56188765</span></p><p class="p5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Salmond inquiry: MSPs sceptical about 'forgotten meeting'</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">3 March 2021</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-scotland-56251990</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Radio 4<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">19 March 2021</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://twitter.com/bbcr4today/status/1372817055448248320?s=21</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p4" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1368478844785688582?s=21"><span style="font-family: times;">https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1368478844785688582?s=21</span></a></p><p class="p6" style="color: #dca10d; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/1368478844785688582?s=21"></a><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">.........................</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">From BBC</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">6 July 2021</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Dear Mr Hilley</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Reference CAS-6582036-B9J0L2</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Thanks for getting back in touch with us about BBC News. Apologies for the rather lengthy delay in replying. We have been presented with several challenges to maintaining our regular service over this period, but we are sorry we’ve taken a while to get back to you. We appreciate you’ve been in touch with us a couple of times more recently looking for a response to your email of 19 March.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We also appreciate that you were dissatisfied with the two responses you’ve previously received from us regarding your concerns about the use of ‘Salmond Inquiry’.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">You unfortunately didn’t provide the transmission details for any instances of hearing/seeing ‘Salmond Inquiry’ used by BBC News. We should have explained that we require such details in order to be able to fully investigate and respond in detail to complaints, as is set out in our Complaints Framework -<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/sites/default/files/2020-06/BBC_Complaints_Framework.pdf"><span class="s3" style="color: #dca10d;">https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/sites/default/files/2020-06/BBC_Complaints_Framework.pdf</span></a>. We apologise that we haven't done so before now.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We have checked back through BBC News output and ‘Holyrood inquiry’ was used on the days Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon appeared in front of the MSP committee, which was 26 February and 3 March respectively. We were unable to find any references to ‘Salmond Inquiry’ on those days or the day you made your initial complaint - 7 March. That being the case (and we appreciate it was now a few months ago), if you can provide any transmission details such as programme names, dates and times, we will be able to investigate further.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Our apologies once again for the delay in getting back to you.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Kind regards,</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">.................</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">6 July 2021</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">CAS-6582036-B9J0L2</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Dear BBC,</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Thanks for your response.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The term 'Salmond inquiry' has, as noted, been used extensively across BBC platforms.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Some examples:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Glenn Campbell: The Alex Salmond inquiry and the political stink at Holyrood</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 2px;"><span style="font-family: times;">24 February 2021</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-56188765</span></p><p class="p5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Salmond inquiry: MSPs sceptical about 'forgotten meeting'</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">3 March 2021</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-scotland-56251990</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Alex Salmond inquiry - BBC News</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c37dlp2j85vt/alex-salmond-inquiry</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Radio 4<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">19 March 2021</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://twitter.com/bbcr4today/status/1372817055448248320?s=21</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">How is Holyrood's Alex Salmond inquiry going?</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-53090858.amp</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Salmond inquiry will not publish women's messages</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-55910549.amp</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Scottish government blocks two Alex Salmond inquiry witnesses</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-55019830.amp</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Civil servant deleted 'forgotten' Salmond inquiry text</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-54707592.amp</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I trust these will assist in your investigations.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Regards</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">John Hilley</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">.........................</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">21 July 2021</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Dear Mr Hilley</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Thank you for getting back in touch again. We appreciate the information you’ve provided; it has helped us to better understand your concerns and investigate, and we've now discussed your complaint with senior news editors at BBC Scotland. Please also accept our apologies again for the delays in responding previously, and for not requesting this information sooner.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">‘Alex Salmond inquiry’ or ‘Salmond inquiry’ are the shorthand terms that have been widely used to refer to this inquiry, not just by the BBC but by the press, other broadcasters and the public etc.; for example:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://news.stv.tv/politics/sturgeon-misled-parliament-salmond-inquiry-finds?top</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://news.sky.com/story/salmond-inquiry-new-details-emerge-as-committee-finds-sturgeon-misled-parliament-12250307</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.itv.com/news/2021-03-19/nicola-sturgeon-not-surprised-by-partisan-leak-from-salmond-inquiry</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/alex-salmond-inquiry-seriously-flawed-scottish-government-document-handling-processes-review-to-be-published-in-june-3241720</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/nicola-sturgeon-alex-salmond-inquiry-23570691</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.thenational.scot/news/19171740.nicola-sturgeon-hits-leak-alex-salmond-inquiry-report/</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.ft.com/content/cb91ecb9-e604-434c-93ea-a7288845e6d8</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,msps-establish-new-committee-for-alex-salmond-inquiry_9817.htm</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">https://www.scottishlegal.com/tag/salmond-inquiry</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In being consistent in our use of this terminology in our headlines and the news topic created for this story, given that it was the shorthand by which the inquiry was widely known, we believe this aided navigability and audience comprehension.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Our reporting included extensive detail on the inquiry’s remit, the evidence heard, the inquiry’s findings and the reaction, at the various stages of the inquiry, from across the political spectrum. For the avoidance of doubt, we don’t agree that our reporting suggested Mr Salmond’s conduct was the subject of the inquiry or that this terminology was misleading or politically loaded as you suggest.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We hope this is helpful in explaining our approach, and thanks again for getting back in touch. This concludes Stage 1 of our complaints process. This means we can’t correspond with you further here. If you remain unhappy, you can now contact the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU). The ECU is Stage 2 of the BBC’s complaints process. You’ll need to explain why you think there’s a potential breach of standards, or if the issue is significant and should still be investigated. Please do so within 20 working days of this reply.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Full details of how we handle complaints are available at <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/handle-complaint/"><span class="s3" style="color: #dca10d;">http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/handle-complaint/</span></a>.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">How to contact the ECU:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We’ve provided a unique link for you in this email. This will open up further information about how to submit your complaint. You’ll be asked for the case reference number we’ve provided in this reply. Once you’ve used the link and submitted your complaint, the link will no longer work.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This is your link to contact the ECU if you wish:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Click Here</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Kind regards</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">BBC Complaints Team</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">......................................</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">23 July 2021</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Reference CAS-6582036-B9J0L2 </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Dear ECU</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Further to my above-referenced complaint to the BBC, which was dealt with under Stage 1 of the process, I now wish to elevate the matter for the ECU's consideration.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In their final response to me, the BBC complaints officer has defended the frequent use of 'Salmond inquiry' by citing other broadcast and press media use of the term:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">"‘Alex Salmond inquiry’ or ‘Salmond inquiry’ are the shorthand terms that have been widely used to refer to this inquiry, not just by the BBC but by the press, other broadcasters and the public etc."</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">But this is a false argument. Unlike other broadcasters and print media, the BBC must make judgements based on its own code of conduct. It must, according to its own regulatory guidelines, act with due impartiality. What other media do and say in these regards is irrelevant to how the BBC is to be judged on such matters.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I have set out in my complaint examples of how widely the BBC used this term, and the damaging effect it had on Mr Salmond.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I repeat my original point that 'Salmond inquiry' gave a false and loaded impression about who and what was under investigation. Mr Salmond wasn't. The Scottish Government under Ms Sturgeon was. Why did the BBC, with a duty to use neutral terms and language, decide to use a 'shorthand' which conveyed the notion that Mr Salmond was the main subject of this inquiry?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">One may also consider, as illustration, the titles and 'shorthand' adopted for other notable inquiries. For example, the Chilcot inquiry, or the Grenfell inquiry, or the Hillsborough inquiry. These provide impartial signifiers of what those inquiries are/were about or/and the person designated to lead them.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In contrast, if you say 'Salmond inquiry', that person becomes the implicit issue of such an inquiry. They are deemed to be the principal subject of that inquiry by implication and association.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">There can be little doubt that the BBC's widespread use of this term helped influence public perceptions in ways that were detrimental to Mr Salmond's personal and political standing. And note that this term was still in use by the BBC as Mr Salmond launched a parliamentary election campaign under his newly-formed Alba party.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">For these reasons and those offered in my earlier submission, I hope you will give due consideration to this complaint. I look forward to reading your deliberations.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Kind regards<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">John Hilley</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">.....................</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">9 August 2021</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Executive Complaints Unit<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Mr J Hilley<br />Email: ...........</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">9 August 2021<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Dear Mr Hilley<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;">Ref: CAS-6582036<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;">Your complaint about the use of the term “Salmond Inquiry”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I am writing to let you know the outcome of the Executive Complaints Unit’s investigation into your recent complaint about the use of the phrase <i>“The Salmond Inquiry” </i>to refer to the Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">You described the phrase as <i>“highly misleading and politically-loaded”</i>. I have understood your complaint to refer to BBC News in general rather than any specific item broadcast or published by the BBC and so I have considered this as a General Complaint which is defined as <i>“a criticism which has been made in the expectation of a reply and which looks for an acknowledgement of fault or a change in the way the BBC does things, but which is not about a particular item broadcast or published by the BBC”. </i>The full details of the BBC’s complaints process are set out in the BBC Complaints Framework and Procedures.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">You have said the terminology used <i>“helped influence public perceptions in ways that were detrimental to Mr Salmond’s personal and political standing” </i>and I understand the point you are making. However, the BBC’s coverage (whether on radio, television or online) has to be judged in context. It is not, in my view, reasonable to assume the audience will draw the kind of negative inference you have suggested solely on the basis of one phrase. The impression the audience takes away will also be influenced by the content of each report, and that means taking account of the information which is given and the context in which that information is set.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I have reviewed some of the examples you gave in your complaint of 6 July where the phrase <i>“Salmond Inquiry” </i>was used and it seems to me there was sufficient context for the audience to understand the nature and scope of the inquiry and its terms of reference. For example, the first article you cited was headlined <i>“The Alex Salmond inquiry and the political stink at Holyrood” </i>but the opening paragraphs clearly set out Mr Salmond’s allegations against the Scottish Government:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><i></i><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span style="font-family: times;">In his evidence to the Scottish Parliament, he accuses some of the most powerful people in the country of plotting to remove him from public life and send him to jail.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></i></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><i></i><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span style="font-family: times;">He points the finger at key figures in the Scottish government and the SNP - both of which he used to lead - and suggests they have been aided and abetted by Scotland’s prosecution service, the Crown Office.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></i></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><i></i><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span style="font-family: times;">His successor as first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, insists Mr Salmond has not produced a ‘shred of evidence’ to back up his allegations. Unless he can do so, she suggests, he should stop making them.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></i></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The second example you provided (<i>“Salmond inquiry: MSPs sceptical about ‘forgotten meeting’”</i>) lists the questions facing Nicola Sturgeon and summarised her evidence to the Committee. I am satisfied readers would have understood she defended her actions and those of her government but admits mistakes were made. I do not agree readers would infer from this that it was actually Mr Salmond’s conduct which was under investigation rather than that of the First Minister and her government.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I have listened to numerous BBC Radio Scotland news bulletins and they used various phrases which explained the nature of the inquiry. For example on 26 February, the day Mr Salmond gave evidence:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span style="font-family: times;">1.00pm: In the next half hour, Alex Salmond’s giving evidence to the MSPs investigating the Scottish Government’s handling of harassment complaints.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></i></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span style="font-family: times;">4.00pm: Alex Salmond gives evidence to the Holyrood Committee investigating the mishandling of sexual misconduct complaints against him.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></i></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span style="font-family: times;">10.00pm: The former First Minister, Alex Salmond, has said that he has no doubt that his successor Nicola Sturgeon has breached the ministerial code. He made the claim during an appearance before a Holyrood Parliamentary Inquiry examining the Scottish Government’s botched handling of sexual harassment allegations made against him three years ago.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></i></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">I don’t propose to transcribe any further examples but the reports I have reviewed provided sufficient context for the audience to understand the nature of the inquiry, and who and what was being investigated. I do not share your concern about the impression the audience would have taken away when reference was made to the <i>“Salmond Inquiry” </i>when this is considered alongside the content of each report. In my opinion, the use of a well-established shorthand description of the Committee’s inquiry was editorial justified to inform the audience about the subject matter and, when it was used, the phrase was set in the appropriate context to avoid the kind of negative impression of Mr Salmond you have asserted.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">In conclusion, I do not believe there has been a breach of any BBC standard or policy and I do not believe it is necessary for the BBC to take any further action. There is no further right of appeal against this decision within the BBC’s complaints process but if you do wish to take the matter further, it is open to you to ask the broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, to consider your complaint. Ofcom does not usually consider general complaints of this kind but you can find details of how to contact Ofcom and the procedures it will apply at the following website: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv- radio-and-on-demand/how-to-report-a-complaint. You can also write to Ofcom at Riverside House, 2a Southwark Bridge Road, London SE1 9HA, or telephone either 0300 123 3333 or 020 7981 3040.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Yours sincerely<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: times;">Colin Tregear<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Complaints Director<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">--------------------</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><b>Comments</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">A not unexpected outcome. But one in which we get to see how loaded BBC terms and language are adopted and justified through diversionary and evasive argument.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It is worth noting, firstly here, some of the assumptions made in Mr Tregear's comments.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It is not necessarily the case that the context of these reports - as in relating to the actual terms and remit of the inquiry - will have been clearly understood by viewers from the accounts/passages cited by Mr Tregear. Reporting of the proceedings, exchanges and comments made by witnesses and others does not, in itself, provide particular or consistent guidance on the inquiry's actual terms, or who/what was being investigated. Mr Tregear's assertion that the public will not have been unduly influenced by use of 'Salmond inquiry' when viewing these reports is based on nothing more than his own subjectively-formed interpretations.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">However, this is not the principal<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>issue of concern here.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Mr Tregear mounts a ‘straw man’ line of defence by arguing that the reports provided adequate content and context on what the inquiry was about, citing parts of such reports as apparent 'evidence'. However, the actual complaint was <i>not</i> based upon the accuracy of such content, or whether viewers had been sufficiently appraised of the context. It was concerned specifically and solely with the use of 'Salmond inquiry' itself as a headline and shorthand reference. Whatever the accuracy or otherwise of the story and reporting, 'Salmond inquiry' is still a misleading and inaccurate piece of terminology. In effect, the ECU have validated the use of 'Salmond inquiry' based not on the relevance and validity of the term, but on the 'substance' of the stories/reports under which the term itself has been used. That seems to me a rather disingenuous evasion of the principal complaint.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The use of terms like 'Salmond inquiry' may seem of relatively minor concern. Yet, in an abbreviated, short-attention-primed news environment, the adoption and repetition of such constructions allows for an all-too-ready, power-friendly framing of issues. Headlines<i> do</i> matter. Shorthand terms <i>do</i> influence the ways in which information is received, interpreted and retained by a viewing public. And it seems forever convenient that an 'impartial' BBC will utilise language and phrasing that appears 'passively neutral', yet conveys loaded inference and meaning. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As ever, the main purpose of raising and documenting such complaints lies not in any expectation of a favourable outcome, but in helping to illustrate the ways in which the BBC functions and protects itself as a key arm of the establishment. </span></p>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1725411122663433189.post-48642645119377431742021-07-11T05:36:00.002-07:002021-07-11T05:40:46.730-07:00Latest from Plague Island: the "moral emptiness and epidemiological stupidity" of Johnson and Javid <p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">After 18 months of serial negligence, the latest decision by Boris Johnson and Savid Javid to let the Covid-19 virus finally rip through a still largely unvaccinated population confirms the true extent of this government's depravity.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The dark implications of their policy have been laid out in a<a href="https://twitter.com/reicherstephen/status/1413085489272401921?s=21"> damning statement</a> at The Lancet by a group of eminent scientists.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8DBzyVJvRNunyTACygG4JM3SdzjGnI5Y8O_utn7AL0PzrEadrousxLmzRHhKN2-dPMMyrJfohn_XU0tNK0RIQ9EYW8gp1_ZctruB7Ll2DoUAzbUuRYuhwkcPFN9nFiA0Q_bw3NcL2qJYJ/s1502/97B26CA2-D859-4397-A03B-542025E9F418_1_201_a.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1502" data-original-width="1294" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8DBzyVJvRNunyTACygG4JM3SdzjGnI5Y8O_utn7AL0PzrEadrousxLmzRHhKN2-dPMMyrJfohn_XU0tNK0RIQ9EYW8gp1_ZctruB7Ll2DoUAzbUuRYuhwkcPFN9nFiA0Q_bw3NcL2qJYJ/s320/97B26CA2-D859-4397-A03B-542025E9F418_1_201_a.jpeg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">As Professor <a href="https://twitter.com/reicherstephen/status/1413087551079034883?s=21">Stephen Reicher</a> concludes: "This is pure toxic ideology."</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOpg1KlnA1giwVxdWlV6T_q8lHvaEsxnfoEt6Uo3HIoHvLmvkk2_2Tb2xCofBnM6K8HmRoWMC1KGsDrRkkUpF2Ds-exnxcrJPMaqbgvW0x1VVH3LWq5e642wIorqBAq-myX24_2KygrY4N/s1548/1E672E33-4991-49CF-BB11-E047E9E3AC16_1_201_a.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1548" data-original-width="1311" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOpg1KlnA1giwVxdWlV6T_q8lHvaEsxnfoEt6Uo3HIoHvLmvkk2_2Tb2xCofBnM6K8HmRoWMC1KGsDrRkkUpF2Ds-exnxcrJPMaqbgvW0x1VVH3LWq5e642wIorqBAq-myX24_2KygrY4N/s320/1E672E33-4991-49CF-BB11-E047E9E3AC16_1_201_a.jpeg" /></a></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">One can but wonder at the sheer scale of the death and suffering this savage elite has already unleashed on a vulnerable and unsuspecting population. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">This decision now seals their abandonment.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Nor can we but lament the ethical complicity <a href=" https://twitter.com/allthecitizens/status/1413778435785232386?s=20">of leading government scientific advisers</a> in failing to distance themselves from Johnson’s folly.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">We may also reflect woefully on the blanket lies and propaganda used to sell these new disastrous directives to a demoralised and fatigued country.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The whole 'coming together' and 'celebratory unlocking' after the last 18 months has been played as a cynical distraction from government culpability.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Mass hysteria over England's part in the Euro football event has been <a href="https://twitter.com/helenmallam/status/1413734004516401158?s=21">used by Johnson</a> for the same populist purposes, part of the spurious hubris in lieu of 'Freedom Day'.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">There will be no 'freedom day', alas, for the many young people who will now fall sick to long Covid, or those still dying from this fast-spreading Delta variant and the mutations it will generate. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKyAKO9xMfjTlobpv81p5GjU7UnSklfy0eM5ImC7eEraf68Ji_wkTFg9pQuocfpKMBkyVhEkDHhWMAeRNmXl-hEgYjWZ6rxCrxYGHkH8NBR0C0rBGmRK1jysw7zu1XFbP-C8qSSWjvc__B/s994/map.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="994" data-original-width="892" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKyAKO9xMfjTlobpv81p5GjU7UnSklfy0eM5ImC7eEraf68Ji_wkTFg9pQuocfpKMBkyVhEkDHhWMAeRNmXl-hEgYjWZ6rxCrxYGHkH8NBR0C0rBGmRK1jysw7zu1XFbP-C8qSSWjvc__B/s320/map.jpeg" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: times;">There will be no 'coming home' for many more victims of Tory negligence.</span><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Regions of the UK, notably central Scotland, now represent the highest infection rates in Europe. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">The UK now rightly deserves the title Plague Island.</span><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Head of the World Health Organisation, Mike Ryan, has <a href="https://twitter.com/gabrielscally/status/1412911843631411203?s=21">referred</a> to the UK's latest policy decision as "moral emptiness and epidemiological stupidity.”</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">Indeed. </span><span style="font-family: times;">Johnson, Javid and the rest of their crazy cohort can never say they weren't availed of such informed advice and ready warnings. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">May there come a day when it is all used as key evidence in a test of this government's actual criminality.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-eOo7whdpipQvcb2gbc7JBqJpsF-RipUxJ3xhLzwBgJGHqMkd_GQqMgAC34AHWCjsTXmhtlMlxjlUrSFUMm8oW3uJFPbccofGbDZViTpc5bLRB_6gxu3Xh6fGXbTvJ6OVvljjDEYdHLHa/s1534/3AE83377-E82C-47BD-BAC0-377392C9717E_1_201_a.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1534" data-original-width="1317" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-eOo7whdpipQvcb2gbc7JBqJpsF-RipUxJ3xhLzwBgJGHqMkd_GQqMgAC34AHWCjsTXmhtlMlxjlUrSFUMm8oW3uJFPbccofGbDZViTpc5bLRB_6gxu3Xh6fGXbTvJ6OVvljjDEYdHLHa/s320/3AE83377-E82C-47BD-BAC0-377392C9717E_1_201_a.jpeg" /></a></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p></div>John Hilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10072819649049077782noreply@blogger.com0