Friday 18 July 2014

Israel's historical abuse still being hushed

Moving, artistic tribute to the Bakr children,
murdered by Israel on Gaza's beach
As the ground invasion and wicked attack on Gaza intensifies, including the wilful massacre of four small boys - a fifth died later - on Gaza's beach, Alexei Sayle offers this most fitting analogy: 'Israel is the Jimmy Savile of nation states'.

The Zionist mindset conceals its own deep psychosis. But much else in Israel's disturbing development has come from learned behaviour.

America, Israel's principal 'parent', has spoiled, protected and indulged this occupying, apartheid state now for over six decades, from defending its multiple violations at the UN, to its Congress handing over an unconditional $3billion a year 'allowance', while Israel struts around like a bragging coward killing, abusing and terrifying the neighbourhood.

Britain, likewise, has played the complicit role of silent, coddling mother, occasionally chiding the Israeli 'bad boy', but never willing to raise the alarm over its monster progeny. With its own part in a massive arms network, no worried 'we need to talk about Israel' realisation here. 

Israel has grown to watch and copy the rapacious parents, invading, occupying and mass-murdering for selfish, imperialist gain all across the globe.   

Little wonder we're seeing such naked abuse from this now fully-grown regime, through its violent birth act of purging Palestinians to its 'family model' of settler occupation; from its military chauvinism to its bleating plea that the world understand its 'plucky defensiveness' and 'victimhood'. 

Rather than deal with these posturing delusions, the West has once again turned on the real victims, telling Palestinians they've only themselves to blame. As Seumas Milne comments:
But instead of demanding a halt to Israel’s campaign of collective punishment against what is still illegally occupied territory, the western powers have blamed the victims for fighting back. If it weren’t for Hamas’s rockets fired out of Gaza’s giant holding pen, they insist, all of this bloodletting would end. “No country on earth would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders,” Barack Obama declared, echoed by a mostly pliant media. Perhaps it’s scarcely surprising that states which have themselves invaded and occupied a string of Arab and Muslim countries in the past decade should take the side of another occupier they fund and arm to the hilt.
Parentally approved, Israel displays the same disregard for those it has invaded, robbed and colonised, a brutality manifest in much of its citizenry, as it gloats and cheers above Sderot at the spectacle of Gazans being massacred.

And the target of their macabre celebrating is more of Gaza's tiny children, as in this harrowing report from Peter Beaumont:     
Salem Antez, 29, approached with a purple plastic bag and opened it, its contents terrible. "This is my son," he said and nothing else, tears tracking down his face. Mohammad, another family member explained, was two. The other dead were Abed Ali, 24, and Mohammad Ibrahim, 13.
But while a certain number of deaths are reported, the vast bulk of the over 1500 of Gaza's and the West Bank's murdered children remain peripheral and nameless, their terrorist killers and military methods still given due deference.

And isn't it darkly apposite - given the BBC's own hierarchical harbouring of abusers - that Israel should be getting particular institutional protection from that same British state media?

Now clamouring to appear 'more balanced' after thousands protested its gross bias, Ali Abunimah has reminded the BBC of its still-running 'Israel responds' line, its utter distortion over the 'ceasefire issue' and other loaded narrative, saying: 'I would strongly recommend the BBC do some journalism'.

Ever keen to 'intervene', proclaiming their 'responsibility to protect' others, Israel's political patrons are massively responsible for failing to protect Palestinians. As serial abusers themselves, how could it be otherwise?      

But how can a supposedly 'impartial' media continue to shield and mitigate the actions of this craven bully? The answer, basically, lies in the establisment-serving acronym 'BBC', and an institutionally understood fear of overly-criticising Israel.  

As ex-BBC Middle East correspondent Tim Llewellyn confirms:
The BBC is now culturally and socially stuck in the Zionist frame. Whether this is fear of the Zionist lobby and its many friends in the three British political parties, sheer inbuilt prejudice, ignorance of the facts, history and nuances that every reporter, producer and editor should by now know, I am not sure. I suspect a combination of all three.
Such is the intimidating presence of the Israel lobby, and the apprehensions of senior BBC editors awaiting that call from the Israeli embassy.

How much longer can this dark compliance continue? The horror of those football-kicking kids being ruthlessly blown apart on Gaza's beach should be enough in itself to foster mass-media condemnation and real political action. Some worthy journalists are recording such graphic, terrible detail. But the core problem - the illegal occupation - and sheer historical scale of Israel's criminal abuse is still being dutifully hushed. 

---------------------------------------------------------- 

* Updated detail via Amena Saleem (Facebook):

The slaughter of Gaza's children, from morning till nightfall, on Friday 18th July:

Five-month-old baby Faris Juma al-Mahmoum was among those killed by 'heavy and indiscriminate' Israeli shelling in southern Gaza. Rizk Ahmad al-Hayk, aged 2, was killed by air strikes in Gaza City, Sarah Muhammad Bustan,13, was also killed in Gaza City. Three siblings, Ahmad Ismail Abu Musallam, aged 14, Walaa Ismail Abu Musallam, aged 13, and Muhammad Ismail Abu Musallam, aged 15, were killed... when their apartment building was shelled in northern Gaza. Eight members of the Abu Jrad family, including four children were killed when a missile struck their home in Beit Hanoun. The children were 6 month old Musa Abd al-Rahman, Haniyah Abd al-Rahman Abu Jrad, Samih Naim Abu Jrad and Ahlam Musa Abu Jrad. Imad and Qassim Alwan, both children, were killed as a result of artillery shelling in eastern Gaza City.

------------------------------------------------------------------

* Update:
Names of the victims of Israeli terror.
          

No comments: