People Make Gaza - people of Glasgow stand with Palestine

George Square, Glasgow
(with a little People Make Gaza 'addition')

There was yet another tremendous turnout in Glasgow yesterday in support of the suffering people of Gaza.

Isn't it remarkable to think that, here in the heart of our Merchant City, while so many people are gathered from the furthest part of the Empire to enjoy the Games, the people of Gaza are under lock-down, not only being bombed, maimed and terrorised, but unable even to flee their slither of besieged land.

As yet another UN school crammed with civilians is assaulted, the third in ten days, it's been hard coming to terms with the horror of their situation.

Observing the images and imagining the terror, I still have feelings of incomprehension over how even such a ruthless, violence-addicted state could actually kill so many civilians, so many children, in UN refuges, schools and hospitals.

And with that sense of bewilderment, another question: how do they get away with it?

As Obama and Cameron issue their unctuous pleas for a ceasefire, forced to declare their grudging 'concern' over the humanitarian toll, the ships are still cruising into Haifa laden with US bombs and armaments for final, terrifying delivery into Gazans' homes. Disgracefully, Britain assists with drones, armoured vehicles, ammunition and other murderous technology.

And what, as despairingly, to be said of the BBC and wider media which, while relaying the terrible images from Gaza, still speak obsequiously of a 'two-sided war', still implying Palestinian blame, still failing to raise the key contextual issues of the occupation and siege? 

Just beyond George Square lies Nelson Mandela Place, an emblem of how Glasgow stood in solidarity during many of the darkest years of South African apartheid.

Yesterday, protesters stood in front of the City Chambers as a reminder of what has to be done now for occupied and apartheid-inflicted Palestinians, notably the adoption of real boycott and sanctions measures. 

While Glasgow council should be doing much more for Palestine, many of the city's people already are.

And their admirable support makes at least one thing clear and comprehensible to this writer: that there will - however desperate things seem for the people of Gaza and the West Bank - be a day of justice and liberation for Palestine, a day when innocents will no longer be bombed and murdered, but able to leave their imprisoned land, to travel and return with dignity to their homes, to have the same basic human rights as others.

Hopefully then many of them will stand here in our city as a welcome and free people.

Gaza: West's weasel words while the slaughter goes on

Gaza's hell on earth

The murder of Gaza goes appallingly on, with the wicked, wilful targeting of a UN school.
 
Ben White provides another morning update (via facebook):

According to ‪#‎Gaza‬'s MoH, Israel has killed 1,363 Palestinians and wounded a further 7,680 (as of 02.00 local time 31 July) - the death toll includes 315 children. Overnight attacks were significantly less intense than previous days. Wednesday, Israeli attacks killed an estimated 130, including 30+ victims of two separate strikes on a UN school and market. These incidents have only added to the growing chorus condemning Israeli war crimes - for example, Amnesty International yesterday stated that "artillery should never be used against targets in crowded civilian areas". Citing the UNHRC inquiry, Amnesty urged accountability for those responsible for war crimes. By Tuesday, Israeli strikes had damaged 133 schools & 23 health facilities; destroyed or damaged 8,590 housing units. The UN OCHA's latest briefing includes the following: "To 29 July, at least 68 families have lost three or more family members in the same incident, for a total of 360 fatalities; 140 men, 73 women and 147 children." Meanwhile, the Israeli military death toll reached 56 soldiers and officers (in addition to three civilian fatalities).

The US has 'condemned' Israel's bombing of the UN school. Predictably, their short, strangled words have been matched by precisely no political action against Israel. No emergency gathering of international allies to organise sanctions. No freezing of assets. No arms embargo.

Just imagine the response had this and other such massacres been carried out by Iran or Syria.
 
While US/EU sanctions are immediately slapped on Russia over MH17, Israel continues its mass atrocities with international impunity.     
 
And bear in mind that such 'condemnation' over the school bombing comes amid reports that Obama and Kerry are 'furious' with Netanyahu. As Jonathan Cook comments (facebook, 29 July 2014):

Look at this. The US is reported to be "fuming" at Israel's stinging personal criticism of John Kerry for his failed efforts to broker a ceasefire tailored precisely to Israel's "needs". So how does a fuming Washington respond, you know the one that is an honest broker in the peace process?

The Guardian quotes Tony Blinken, a senior White House national security advisor, "coming to Kerry's defence":

"Israel has no better friend, no stronger defender. No one has done more to help Israel achieve a secure and lasting peace."

Well, that put Israel in its place!

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/28/israel-gaza-us-ceasefire-diplomacy-criticism-kerry

The UN has also called Israel's attack on the UN school and murder of sleeping children "outrageous and unjustifiable", demanding "accountability and justice".
 
Noble words. But, again, will that 'outrage' ever translate to meaningful action against Israel? Might this and all the other atrocities perpetrated against children and other civilians, in schools, hospitals, markets and homes, result in an immediate referral to the International Criminal Court and call for sanctions?
 
What's the point of 'compassionate concern' when it's unmatched by determined efforts to stop the perpetrator of such crimes? 
 
Israel is engaged in a massive hasbara exercise to portray the attack on Gaza as a 'war on Hamas'.  And, despite their 'condemnations', Obama/Cameron and a 'critical' media dutifully project this key distortion.
 
Thus could the compassionate-speaking Jon Snow still berate Palestinian/Hamas official Osama Hamdan by demanding: 

 'They are only attacking you because you continue to attack them'. 

BBC reporter Ian Pannell's vivid report from the UN school was, likewise, deeply compromised by this astonishing line:

'The debate will begin immediately about who is responsible for this.'

Even in their endeavours to highlight the suffering in Gaza, Snow, Pannell and others help maintain the fiction of a 'two-sided war', rather than specify a desperate resistance against a siege and occupation which has the resilient support of Palestinians at large.
 
If it was a 'just' a war on Hamas, why blow up Gaza's only power station and other key infrastructure? If it was a purging of Hamas and the tunnels, why bomb all those hospitals? 
 
As Cook confirms, the dark truth is that the killing of civilians, particularly children, is actually a central part of Israel's plan, just as it was in 2008/9.

Regev and his co-propagandists must maintain the 'Hamas, not civilians' line for international appearance. But while the weakening of Hamas is vital, the real task is to kill as many civilians as possible, and terrify an entire people into submission.
 
The same murder and containment also continues across the West Bank, as people rage in the streets in solidarity with their fellow Palestinians in Gaza.
 
And in Israel too, writes Cook, the Palestinian minority are being increasingly targeted by vigilante mobs and experiencing new levels of political hatred in a massive backlash over Gaza. 
 
None of this mass murder and apartheid oppression will ever end without real action, rather than facile words. Gaza needs emergency aid. But suffering Palestinians also, just as urgently, need political aid to stop Israel, end the siege and break the occupation.

Yet, what prospect or worth of such 'assistance' from the US/UK, states up to their own necks in criminal militarism and the filthy arms economy that's helping to annihilate Gaza? 

As Ali Abunimah reports:

Hours after Israel shelled yet another UN school sheltering internally displaced families and a marketplace in Gaza, killing dozens of people, an unnamed defense department official revealed to CNN that the US had approved an Israeli request to tap into the one billion dollar weapons stockpile the US keeps in Israel.

Where's all the compassionate journalists ready to challenge Western politicians on that side of the 'war' in Gaza?

Jon Snow on Gaza - worthy compassion, but where's the context?

Jon Snow has made a compassionate statement on the terrible suffering in Gaza, based on what he's just witnessed there.
 
In another moving blog piece, he also, on the plane back to London, reflects on his own degrading treatment when crossing the checkpoint back into Israel, and all he'd seen of Gaza's pain, experiences unprecedented in his journalistic career, causing him to weep.
 
This is admirable, honest comment, and, as Gaza is being mercilessly bombed, welcome output for those doing all they can to highlight and support the Palestinian cause. 
 
So it seems churlish to somehow rain on Snow's parade, and all those approving him. But how much of this deeply sincere feeling is being matched by the essential effort to explain why that suffering is going on?
 
During his first appearance back doing Channel 4 News, Snow pondered the seeming despair at getting a ceasefire, and wondered whether the US is 'any longer' serving the role of 'honest broker'.

Listening to that casual aside should have brought a real moment of clarity for viewers, a realisation that while Snow is saying worthy things about Israel's gross humanitarian violations, he's saying virtually nothing about how they're managing to get away with it through continued US/Western support.

This is not just a 'facet' of the 'conflict'. It's central to understanding why the occupation, siege, settlements and overall misery for Palestinians goes relentlessly on. And yet, it's forever politely circumvented.  
 
Snow was also keen to point out the gross mis-match in each sides' capabilities, noting that, while Gaza has nothing to resist Israel's vast air power, Israel has the 'brilliant' Iron Dome defence system, financed by the US. 

Again, having partially alluded to US military aid, it was a moment which could have been used to develop real contextual discussion of the US as Israel's murderous patron in giving it $3 billion every year. Instead, Snow proceeded with the usual speculations on what Kerry's diplomatic endeavours might achieve.       
 
In his video piece, Snow speaks of a necessary 'preparedness to listen, and watch and read'.

But surely journalists like Snow must also have a duty to read and watch and listen to what's long been recorded about the true reasons for the murder of Gaza.

And if he did,  it wouldn't, with dutiful moral heart, take much additional effort to amplify the truth that America is not an 'honest broker'. It is financing and backing Israel to the hilt. Therefore, it's the problem.

I've been watching good people across social media these past days, outraged over Israel's killing, asking others to help make Snow's video and blogs go viral. And why shouldn't they/we show this war on children, in helping to shame Israel and bring maximum attention to Palestinian suffering?

But just imagine the impact of such output if it was accompanied by Snow probing US/UK political elites and developing critical exchange on this essential question:

Why has America been allowed to portray itself for so long now as an 'honest broker', when, in fact, it's acting primarily in Israel's expansionist military and political interests?

And here's another for good measure:

Why have we, the media, permitted and contributed to this gross illusion of the US as 'benign facilitator' for so long?

Snow and Emily Maitlis on Newsnight are among the very few to have 'taken-on' Mark Regev recently. And that's commendable. But we're at a point of rising awareness now over Israel's shameless criminality that locking horns with Regev is no longer the same 'badge' of brave interviewing.

Real bravery would be in taking-on the Obama/Kerry/Cameron 'diplomatic' circle and indicting them over their own centrally criminal roles in allowing the murder of Gaza and Palestine to continue.     
 
Alas, neither the content of Snow's blog or his video made it to the Channel 4 News programme. If even that kind of compassionate dispatch can't slip past the commissioning editor, what chance, or willingness, of telling these real vital truths?

Do not disturb - Israel just want a little hush

As the death toll in Gaza pushes over 1000 souls, propagandist-in-chief Mark Regev tells the BBC that Israel really just wants some 'peace and quiet'.

It takes a remarkably callous mind to make such a comment. But then, this is Mr Regev, a veritable study in the darkest art of twisted denial.

His words give alarming insight into how a 'war'-supporting Israeli public has been conditioned to view itself as 'victims' of a 'rowdy neighbour', and the long-entrenched indifference as to why Palestinians are making a 'noise'. 

Support for attacking Gaza is underpinned by relentless promotion of the 'Hamas menace next door'. But, it's also about a privileged society feeling itself 'unduly disrupted'. As Israelis go about their lives, it's really saying, 'look, we took your land, we locked you in, deal with it, just keep quiet'.

Ceasefire 'quiet time' on the Med

Just why do those Palestinians refuse to be bombed without making a fuss?

After all, doesn't a kindly Israeli military give all those sleeping families in crowded blocks of flats a generous three-minute warning to quietly waken the kids, gather some belongings and get downstairs before having their homes obliterated?

Most often not even that. They just kill them in-situ, sparing any more 'unnecessary upheaval'. 

Mass military power and deliberate targeting of children in their beds. Despite witnessing such terror, the BBC are still calling this annihilation of civilians a 'two-sided' 'war'. That description suits Israel perfectly, keeping talk of a siege and occupation to an audible minimum.         

Whisper this quietly too in case it disturbs Israeli sensibilities: the BBC's Jon Donnison has just secured confirmation - from Israel itself - that Hamas played no actual part in the abduction of three Israeli teenagers - Israel's supposed 'motive' for purging the West Bank and unleashing its violence on Gaza. But rather than use this scoop to create a huge political din, the BBC have, so very thoughtfully, kept it hushed.

Meanwhile there's been political and media outrage over MP David Ward's refusal to keep obediently quiet about Palestinians being wiped-out. Ward had the audacity to explain why a people imprisoned, brutalised and murdered for decades just might realise a desperate need to defend themselves.

As detailed in a fine article from blogger Tim Holmes, the vitriol unleashed against Ward, and (renewed) calls for his party suspension, tell us much about the base racism that shrieks about Israel's right to defend itself with vast weaponry, but could never remotely murmur such support for occupied Palestinians. 

The vocal extent of British government 'concern' can be heard in Defence Secretary Philip Hammond's 'urging' that Israel may now be in danger of failing to uphold 'their western values'.  

And the posturing doesn't get much better from our 'best media', with the Guardian's tortured editorial on 'the causes' of this conflict - tracing back only to 2005, apparently - Jonathan Freedland again gazing 'through Israel's eyes', and this kind of facile militarist spin from 'IDF'-approving Trevor Royle in the Sunday Herald:

In Gaza and across the Palestinian territories, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) are also fighting against determined opponents in the shape of Hamas, only in their case they are also defending their homeland. Israeli operations have two aims: to destroy the tunnels used for smuggling weapons from Egypt and to smash the sites from which missiles are fired into Israel. Because Hamas places these sites near mosques and hospitals, civilian casualties are inevitable; unless there is a ceasefire the numbers will soon top 1000. IDF commanders claim that they are using legitimate tactics and that they will only stop when Hamas stops firing its missiles into Israel. The matter is also complicated by Hamas's absolute refusal to recognise the state of Israel and by the Palestinians' visceral dislike of Israeli settlement programmes.

Royle's piece is riddled with distortion. But, like a good liberal, he still worries about the human cost. So, while he can't bring himself to denounce Israel's mass civilian killing and condemn the 'IDF' outright, he seeks semi-silent cover in advocating 'restraint':

Meanwhile, the fighting continues and the atrocities keep happening. I'm all in favour of a country doing its utmost to defend itself from outside attack, but I'm also absolutely against seeing women and children paying the price. It's time for the IDF to show some courageous restraint.

Not even the horrific images of shelled civilians, broken children and rubble-reduced neighbourhoods has induced a word of serious censure from Obama, Cameron and such 'responsibility to protect' journalists.

This is the staggering apologetics of our politicians and media when it comes to Israel's mass war crimes, the most complicit obstacle to peace and deafening quiet of all.

Freedom Come All Ye, weans of Glasgow, Gaza and beyond

It's been nice being out and around my Games-hosting city of Glasgow, taking in the sunshine and warmth of its hospitable people.

The Commonwealth is an elite fiction - big wealth is never held in common - helping to maintain monarchic-loaded notions of an enduringly benign Empire. Hopefully a Common Weal, rather than Commonwealth, may be a future game in town.

It's been a corporate bonanza too, and, some nice sporting infrastructure aside, we need to look much harder at what social 'legacies' such gatherings really do bring to people, such as those in deprived Dalmarnock who have seen their area taken apart for the Games. But, for all that, it's still good just to simply indulge the happy atmosphere.  

The opening night saw a sweet-jar mix of panto-cringe, gallus humour, gay assertion and some beautiful Glasgow-spirited performance, from camp kailyard, whirling teacakes and Irn Bru props (go figure, global viewers) to the much more authentic Amy Macdonald leading Glasgow punters in a great song and 'flashmob' dance around George Square.

We had all the baton idolatry too, of course, and the strange, republican-churning sight of the Queen addressing her subjects from the old 'Jungle' side of the stadium. And, before that, wee council czar Gordon Matheson with a welcome speech so intensely stated he could have been raising an emergency motion at a party conference. 

More pleasing was Billy Connolly's lovely, quiet meander up the Clyde and around his old city, waxing kindly on its harsh struggles, industrial backstory and relentless generosity. We also had a serene little Proclaimers re-scored ballet, Nicola Benedetti's exquisite violin strains to Loch Lomond, and, most memorably for me, South African township-raised soprano Pumeza Matshikiza with an inspiring rendition of Hamish Henderson's radical anthem Freedom Come All Ye.

Around the Merchant City, built on the blood profits of war, empire and slavery so lamented in Henderson's song, a nice festival buzz, as with Glasgow Green's fun-filled stages, tented stalls, picknicking families and kids running happily with their ice cream cones.

Behind all the security lockdown and upheaval, there really is, beyond the cliche, a sense of 'come-on-in' welcome, a quiet, courteous confidence that, one hopes, translates appropriately on September 18. 

Yet, amid the happy reverie, returning thoughts on the weans. My weans. Your weans. Our weans. All the weans. For aren't all the weans our collective weans? Yes, indeed, the poverty-stricken African weans those celebrities at the Games ceremony asked us to support through UNICEF. But also, not so readily highlighted these last bittersweet days, the weans in Gaza, right now being mercilessly bombed by a violence-addicted state. Aren't they also much-deserving weans?

 

It's too late, tragically, for nearly two hundred of those weans, now wilfully murdered. And what survival or life for the more than three thousand Gazan weans now terribly injured? 

Israel's war on children has continued unabated, including the massacres around Al-Shejia, the bombing of a UN shelter in Beit Hanoun and other UNWRA schools. To think of the lost, broken and forever traumatised kids across Gaza and the West Bank who can't run freely like those weans on the Green, living without the wanton terror of an occupier's bombs.

Freedom Come All Ye, go the words, maybe a song for a new-coming republic of humanity, here in Scotland and beyond. A place where we act not as subjects, but as true commonwealth-deciding citizens, raising our children in a state of economic wellbeing and moral decency, free from brutal warmongering, helping them to understand the need for other children to live likewise.

Doctors and scientists support Gaza, denounce Israel

The shocking death and injury toll in Gaza mounts. As Ben White documents (via facebook):  

According to Gaza's MoH, as of 04.30 on morning of 24 July, Israel has killed 718 Palestinians, and wounded a further 4,563. Just overnight, Israeli attacks have killed at least 23, including 10 members of one family. The death toll for Wednesday was 73, with intense (and ongoing) strikes on the Khazaa and al-Fakhari areas of Khan Younis. A new briefing by UN OCHA yesterday said that Israel's atta...ck has, so far, damaged 90 schools, destroyed or severely damaged 2,655 homes, otherwise damaged a further 3,175, and damaged 18 health facilities. The UN agency put civilian fatalities at 77% of the total Palestinian death toll, including 161 children. Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza are now completely without power, while hundreds of thousands more are rationed up to five hours of electricity a day. A particularly horrific insight from Gaza's MoH yesterday - over 17 days, Israel committed war crimes in 44 massacres of families that killed 226 Palestinians. Also yesterday, a Palestinian from Husan village nr. Bethlehem died of his wounds after being shot in the head by Israeli forces during a protest against the Gaza massacre, the third Palestinian killed in the West Bank this week. Meanwhile, 3 more Israeli soldiers were confirmed killed in Gaza by the authorities, bringing the total Israeli military death toll to 32 (in addition to 2 Israeli civilians and 1 Thai worker).

With Israel now facing a UN war crimes investigation, an  admirable range of international doctors and scientists have produced an open letter in the Lancet detailing the appalling suffering in Gaza, and denouncing Israel's wicked onslaught.

The letter begins:

We are doctors and scientists, who spend our lives developing means to care and protect health and lives. We are also informed people; we teach the ethics of our professions, together with the knowledge and practice of it. We all have worked in and known the situation of Gaza for years. 

On the basis of our ethics and practice, we are denouncing what we witness in the aggression of Gaza by Israel.

We ask our colleagues, old and young professionals, to denounce this Israeli aggression. We challenge the perversity of a propaganda that justifies the creation of an emergency to masquerade a massacre, a so-called "defensive aggression". In reality it is a ruthless assault of unlimited duration, extent, and intensity. We wish to report the facts as we see them and their implications on the lives of the people.

Please read the letter in full and share widely:
 
An open letter for the people of Gaza 

A letter has also appeared in the Guardian denouncing the BBC's relentless distortion:

We are concerned at the very partial nature of BBC reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While some reporters have shown great bravery in war zones, much home-based journalism lacks context and is unable to report the Palestinian perspective. The attacks on Gaza are presented by Israel and the BBC as being directed at militants, while for Palestinians they are an extension of military rule and collective punishment by a brutal apartheid state.

This inability to report the reality of the Israeli occupation has been repeatedly shown by academic studies and reports, including that led by Quentin Thomas, commissioned by the BBC, which noted the "failure to convey adequately the disparity in the Israeli and Palestinian experience, reflecting the fact that one side is in control and the other lives under occupation", and said: "In short, we found that BBC output does not consistently give a full and fair account of the conflict." (Thomas, 2006: 4-7) The BBC has failed to act on any of these findings.

The search for peace is not well served by giving the public such a partial and limited view. We ask now that the BBC produce a televised, public debate to discuss how to redress the deficiencies in its coverage to offer a better account of the sources of this conflict and therefore how it might be resolved. 

Professor Greg Philo, Professor Avi Shlaim, Professor James Curran, Professor Natalie Fenton, Professor Julian Petley, Professor Ilan Pappe, Professor John Dugard, Professor Etienne Balibar, Professor Graham Murdoch, Professor Alan Riach, John McDonnell MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Christine Grahame MSP, Juliet Stevenson, Roger Waters, Alice Walker, Breyten Breytenbach, Mike Leigh, Ken Loach, John Pilger, Mairead Maguire, Bella Freud, Frank Barat, Mustapha Barghouti, Gerda Stevenson, Pam Parsons, Mike Berry, Aimee Shalan, Hugh Lanning, Shamiul Joarder, Diana Buttu, Linda Ramsden, Jeff Halper, Hatim Kanaaneh, Karma Nabulsi, Paul Laverty, Gilbert Achcar, John Hilary

While its hospitals are bombed, Gaza is relegated as news

The 'most moral army in the world' have bombed two hospitals in Gaza, Al-Wafa and Al-Aqsa, killing doctors and patients lying in intensive care unit beds. That, in itself, should be enough to see Israel vilified by the 'international community'. 
 
Yet, with over 600 now dead, the vast majority civilians, families, children, it seems that even the deliberate murder of sick people in hospital wards can be allowed as the 'unfortunate consequence' of Israel's 'right to defend itself'. 
 
The admirable Dr Mads Gilbert has talked about how Al-Shifa hospital is managing to go on in the face of Israel's wicked onslaught. He commends the enduring, determined spirit of the Palestinian people. Dr Mads is a shining example of caring humanity.
 
In shameful contrast, Obama, Cameron and most of the Western political class remain loyal to Netanyahu. Not even the wilful shelling of hospitals could invoke a moral or political about-turn. Indeed, the US Congress has just voted 100-0 to continue supporting Israel.
 
Predictably, calls for an arms embargo against Israel have also been been shunned. And how could it be otherwise, with America and Britain up to their necks in running guns and arming Israel.   
 
Complementing the political silence, Gaza has been editorially relegated down the 'news' table. At the top, every facet of the Malaysian plane disaster has been seized upon, as, following the establishment line, the BBC and other media turn the screw on Russia.
 
The murder of innocents on a passenger plane is, of course, worthy of serious political and media attention. But why has this story, the issue in Eastern Ukraine and vilification of Putin superseded the story of Israel's mass atrocities in Gaza? 

Just what more, one wonders, must befall an already bombed and massacred people before the West and its service media mount the same indictment and denunciation of Netanyahu and the Israeli state? 
 
The demotion of Gaza and the cosy consensus on Ukraine/Russia can be seen in almost every selected ordering of BBC news.

As Media Lens tweet:

18 Palestinians killed in Gaza this morning but Costa Concordia gets BBC live feed. Keeping the massacre low-profile http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28428224

Alongside its main news programmes, Newsnight, for example, has headlined and pored over every detail of the plane crash, the 'diplomatic fallout' and Putin's 'culpability', while Gaza gets the 'and now in other news' treatment.
 
Last night's edition was a case in point. The leading story and bulk of the programme covered the plane issue and multiple angles on Russia's implied 'blame' (despite the US itself announcing "no direct [Russian] involvement"). This was followed not by Gaza, but, continuing the 'focus on deviant Russia' theme, a major feature and interview with the wife of murdered Russian dissident Akexander Litvinenko. It then returned to the plane story with a long piece from the Netherlands on tributes to the bereaved and an interview with a Dutch MEP in which presenter Kirsty Wark explored the possibilities of imposing greater sanctions on Russia. 
 
When we finally got to Gaza - slotted-in before some polite BBC 'self-examination' (featuring Sir Peter Bazalgette, President of the Royal Television Society and former producer of Big Brother) on whether the faces of dead people should be shown on TV, and a piece on FIFA corruption and England's World Cup woes - there was no film report from Gaza, just the briefest resume of unfolding events, headed by news of the US suspending flights to Tel Aviv because of a Hamas rocket, and mention of the death toll. Noting that Kerry and Ban Ki-moon were heading for more 'rounds of talks', Wark went straight to US 'peace negotiator' and former US special envoy Martin Indyk, all too typical of the pro-Israel diplomat class given prime attention by Newsnight.   
 
A flavour of the exchange: 

Wark: You left just three weeks ago, and when you left you said you were battered by the whole situation. Did you simply give up?

Indyk: [patronising laugh] I said battered but unbowed. No, we didn't give up. We reached a point where the parties themselves gave up. The Israelis suspended the negotiations because the Palestinians had decided to reconcile with Hamas, which is not interested in negotiations and devoted to Israel's destruction, so there wasn't anything more that we could do...

Wark: But if you thought it was hopeless three weeks ago, what do you think of it now? Do you think the Israelis were right to start this offensive in Gaza?

Indyk: They didn't start the offensive...

Wark: [stumbling] Sorry, to take the offensive into Gaza with a ground invasion, and air power as well.

Indyk: Yeah, the offensive was started by Hamas rockets into Israeli cities...

[...]

Wark: You talk about chronic conflict. The figures are more than 600 dead on the Palestinian side, more than 30 dead on the Israeli side. But let's just look at these UN figures. Of the Palestinians who have died, the UN says 75 percent are civilians, we've got 25 from one family, 100 children, two hospitals. Is that disproportionate?

Indyk: You know, I'm not here to offer judgement on these kinds of things...

Wark: But people are making judgements. The French foreign minister has called it a massacre and the opposition leader Ed Miliband in Washington said that Israel was wrong to go into Gaza. Do you think that Israel should have held back this time?

Indyk: Look, I don't know what you want from me, I'm not here to make judgements on either side...

Wark: But you're a man who knows the area well...

Indyk: But let me finish my answer...I do not believe that...Netanyahu was a man who wanted to go into Gaza on the ground, he was seeking ways to achieve calm before that, but the rocketing of Israeli cities and the attacks through the tunnels were such that it got to the point where he couldn't get a ceasefire, so he decided to move in and try to destroy the tunnels...

Wark: But is it going to make Israel more secure? Right now Israel looks isolated...is Israel going to be more secure by making more enemies of young Palestinians?

Indyk ends with more ponderous rhetoric on the 'need for peace', a ceasefire and the 'key issue' of how to stop Hamas rockets.

So much for someone 'not here to offer judgement on these kinds of things'.

But what of Wark's own judgement of these issues? On the surface, we heard her citing the humanitarian crisis, the disproportionate killing and a certain international concern. But consider the much more vital points Wark could have put to Indyk.     
 
She could have confronted him on America's direct arming and consistent support of Israel, its posture as a 'neutral' actor in a spurious 'peace process', and Indyk's own questionable role as a 'peace envoy'. 
 
She could have reminded him that it is Israel which has repeatedly violated the 2012 ceasefire by relentlessly killing farmers, fishermen and other civilians in Gaza.

She could have asked him why the Palestinians should accept a stitched-up ceasefire and return to the same state of imprisonment without any prospect of change. 

She could have reminded him that Gaza remains under military lockdown and an illegal siege, as defined by the UN. She could have specified the settlements and the Occupation. 

She could have pointed out that, contrary to Indyk's apologetics for Netanyahu, this latest offensive was, indeed, initiated by Israel as a deliberate exercise to break the Hamas-Fatah unity government.

Rather than ask if Israel was wrong to go into Gaza 'this time', she could have asked whether there had ever been a 'right time' for such murderous attacks and gross violations.

Why, also, the vital concern over whether such aggression makes Israel, rather than Palestine, 'more secure'?
 
And, unlike the previous discussion on Russia's punishment and her suggestions to the Dutch MEP on planned sanctions, Wark could have specifically asked Indyk what kind of emergency international punishment should now be enacted against Israel, including the options of deep sanctions and an arms embargo.

Precisely none of this was mentioned, for unlike the demonisation of Putin and treatment reserved for official enemies like Russia, presenters like Wark know precisely how far to tread when it comes to 'criticising' Netanyahu, Israel and its Western protectors.