BBC & Gaza - Just Not Right-wing Enough

Good work by the chaps at the BBC to prevent aid agencies getting the airtime that is desperately required to help the people of Gaza:

The BBC has refused to broadcast a national humanitarian appeal for Gaza, leaving aid agencies with a potential shortfall of millions of pounds in donations.

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), an umbrella group for 13 aid charities, launched its appeal yesterday saying the devastation in Gaza was "so huge British aid agencies were compelled to act".

But the BBC made a rare breach of an agreement dating to 1963, saying it would not give free airtime to the appeal. Other broadcasters followed suit. Previously, broadcasters had agreed on the video and script to be used with the DEC, to be shown after primetime news bulletins.

The BBC, which has been criticised in the past over alleged bias in its coverage of the Middle East, said it did not want to risk public confidence in its impartiality. A BBC spokesperson said: "The decision was made because of question marks about the delivery of aid in a volatile situation and also to avoid any risk of compromising public confidence in the BBC's impartiality in the context of [a] news story."

Impartiality before humanitarian aid? Clearly the BBC is a hotbed of radical leftism.

Gaza Twitter....

Do you have a Twitter account??  If so, ultimatejosh and AliveinGaza are taking questions via Twitter to pass on to their correspondent in Gaza.  If you have any questions, simply send them to their Twitter accounts which I have conveniently hyperlinked above!  One load of submitted questions have already been answered here.

The War on Gaza - The Finest Propaganda Campaign in History

The war on Gaza is not only a humanitarian disaster of massive proportions, it has also witnessed a propaganda campaign on a scale not witnessed before. The amount of mis-information, half-truths and, let's be frank, lies that have emerged over the past few weeks has meant that the casual viewer has been presented with an incomplete picture of the events in Gaza and what led up to them. This is the direct result of an attempt by the Israeli government to win the media battle and convince the international community that their assault on the innocent people of Gaza was entirely justified. It is a media battle that the world's media has been happy to play along with.


Ever since the start of the campaign, Israel has ensured that a spokesperson is free to talk to as many of the networks as possible to put their side of the story across. Barely a day has gone by without either Mark Regev or Major Avital Leibovich bombarding us with their 'truth' about the assault on Gaza. And yet, most of their words have been accepted as fact, without much in the way of interrogation. They have been able to make their accusations and claims entirely unchecked without providing a shred of evidence to support anything they have said. And the reason why they have been able to get away with this is down to the methods that the Israeli government has used to manage their message.


Take the reporting from Gaza. Or rather, the lack of reporting from Gaza. Since the beginning of the war on Gaza, journalists have not been allowed to provide independent verification of the claims of the Israeli government. Every time a claim is made by the Israeli state, there is no way to verify their accuracy. We only have the word of Israeli state officials to go on, and since when has a mouthpiece of the state been trustworthy? Of course, the Israeli government has been extremely pleased with the way the propaganda campaign on the media has been waged. They were said to be delighted with certain aspects of the BBC's coverage. The appearance of a BBC correspondent in a flak jacket in Israel certainly did much to convey the idea that Israel was under siege. Little wonder the Israeli government was so pleased.


One of the greatest fallacies about the war on Gaza has been the accusation that Hamas broke the terms of the ceasefire and have been launching hundreds of rockets into Gaza every day. Whilst it is true that rockets have been launched into Israel on a regular basis, there was a noticeable difference in the number of rockets fired from Gaza before the ceasefire and during. During the ceasefire, the number of rockets launched into Israel dropped dramatically. Hamas largely adhered to the terms of the ceasefire and ensured that their military arm did not fire rockets into Israel. There were, however, various other groups in Gaza who continued to fire rockets across the border, groups that are essentially hostile to Hamas and were keen to provoke Israel into launching an assault in the hope it would weaken Hamas. However, these groups were dealt with and those responsible for the launching of rockets were locked up. Despite the fact that Hamas were observing the ceasefire, on November 4th Israel launched a raid into Gaza and killed six Hamas 'militants'. It was after this point that rocket fire into Israel reached pre-ceasefire levels. And this is the point often neglected by the media. I have observed many BBC correspondents say to Israeli officials that no-one argues that Hamas broke the ceasefire, when it is entirely the case that Israel broke the terms of the ceasefire. But such is the power of the propaganda machine, this has been accepted as fact.

And not only has this been accepted as fact, but various little details seem to have been ignored by much of the media. For example, on 23rd December, Hamas offered to renew the ceasefire but, as Israel had already drawn up their plans to assault Gaza, it was rejected. Not only was that offer ignored, but it is barely mentioned that Ismail Haniyeh offered a ten year ceasefire with Israel. There may well be competing voices within Hamas but, like all political groups, there are a wide range of viewpoints. But, again, such things are barely worthy of mention in the West, particularly given the idea that has been spread around that Fatah and Fatah alone are worthy of our support. Given the West's habit of supporting corrupt and incompetent parties across the globe, this support for Fatah is perhaps unsurprising. Fatah, after all, had done very little for the Palestinian people before their election defeat, a defeat mainly as a consequence of the corruption that ran throughout Fatah.

But this is not the worst of the mis-information put out by the media and the Israeli state. Take the attacks on the UN buildings in Gaza. After the first schools were hit, Israeli representatives went on TV and claimed that the responsibility for these crimes lay with Hamas, not with Israel. Now, it would appear, the victims of the crime are responsible for what happened to them. Compare this with standard right-wing rhetoric that is hostile to what it sees as the perpetrator being the ‘victim’. Remember all the times they have treated that idea with disdain and then wonder how they can claim (straight faced) that the murder of civilians by their bombs, their rockets, their military, is somehow not their fault, but that of Hamas. Strange, no?


Not only did they claim that the fault of their military murdering innocent civilians was not there fault, they also went on to claim that Hamas were using installations such as the schools to launch attacks on Israel. One spokesperson even claimed they 'booby-trapped' a building containing civilians. The spokesmen showed no remorse, no pity. And then what do we discover a few days later, when more than forty innocent people have died? That there were no Hamas fighters there and it was a 'mistake'. Too late for all those brothers who lost sisters, mothers who lost children, children who lost parents. Just a shrug of the shoulders from the Israeli government and then they move on. The dead becoming merely an inconvenient statistic that undermines their rhetoric about not wanting a war with the Palestinian people. What is this if it is not?


Despite their unfounded accusations, it is not as if Israel has abided entirely by international conventions. Whilst largely ignored or dismissed by much of the media, there is growing evidence that war crimes have been committed by the IDF. These crimes include:

• attempting to bulldoze houses with civilians inside;
• killing civilians trying to escape under the protection of white flags;
• the use of indiscriminate force in a civilian area and the firing of white phosphorus shells.
• using powerful shells in civilian areas which the army knew would cause large numbers of innocent casualties;
• holding Palestinian families as human shields;
• attacking medical facilities, including the killing of 12 ambulance men in marked vehicles;
• killing large numbers of police who had no military role.

Even the United Nations’ most senior human rights official suggested that Israel may have to answer for war crimes in the wake of their assault on Zeitoun. Of course, the chances of Israel actually being prosecuted for these war crimes is minute. Especially as the propaganda campaign by the Israeli government has been so successful in pushing out its message. Will there seriously be any support for an independent inquiry into Israeli war crimes? And, if there is an inquiry, what are the chances of Israel being censored as a result? Zero. Because, as always, the United States will ride to the rescue and ensure that the Israeli government are well protected. Besides, by then the assault will be forgotten about by the media and will make little difference for those in Gaza who have suffered at the hands of the IDF. And as for the change of government in America, is there anyone who seriously believes that Obama will launch a radical shift in foreign policy? With a Clinton as Secretary of State? The suffering of the Palestinians will continue and the Israeli propaganda machine will continue unabated.

Israel Using Human Shields

From The Guardian:

Amnesty International says hitting residential streets with shells that send blast and shrapnel over a wide area constitutes "prima facie evidence of war crimes".

"There has been reckless and disproportionate and in some cases indiscriminate use of force," said Donatella Rovera, an Amnesty investigator in Israel. "There has been the use of weaponry that shouldn't be used in densely populated areas because it's known that it will cause civilian fatalities and casualties.

"They have extremely sophisticated missiles that can be guided to a moving car and they choose to use other weapons or decide to drop a bomb on a house knowing that there were women and children inside. These are very, very clear breaches of international law."

Israel's most prominent human rights organisation, B'Tselem, has written to the attorney general in Jerusalem, Meni Mazuz, asking him to investigate suspected crimes including how the military selects its targets and the killing of scores of policemen at a passing out parade.

"Many of the targets seem not to have been legitimate military targets as specified by international humanitarian law," said Sarit Michaeli of B'Tselem.

Rovera has also collected evidence that the Israeli army holds Palestinian families prisoner in their own homes as human shields. "It's standard practice for Israeli soldiers to go into a house, lock up the family in a room on the ground floor and use the rest of the house as a military base, as a sniper's position. That is the absolute textbook case of human shields.

"It has been practised by the Israeli army for many years and they are doing it again in Gaza now," she said.

UN School in Gaza - No Rockets Fired From School

Couldn't find this anywhere other than a small section of The Independent, and even then it wasn't on their website. So I had to resort to scanning the section:

So after all the talk of 'booby-traps' and Hamas rockets, Israel has admitted to the UN that no firing originated from the school.  So what to do about the 43 dead??  Say sorry?

Israel Using White Phosphorus?

That is certainly one accusation doing the rounds:

Israel is believed to be using controversial white phosphorus shells to screen its assault on the heavily populated Gaza Strip yesterday. The weapon, used by British and US forces in Iraq, can cause horrific burns but is not illegal if used as a smokescreen.

As the Israeli army stormed to the edges of Gaza City and the Palestinian death toll topped 500, the tell-tale shells could be seen spreading tentacles of thick white smoke to cover the troops’ advance. “These explosions are fantastic looking, and produce a great deal of smoke that blinds the enemy so that our forces can move in,” said one Israeli security expert. Burning blobs of phosphorus would cause severe injuries to anyone caught beneath them and force would-be snipers or operators of remote-controlled booby traps to take cover. Israel admitted using white phosphorus during its 2006 war with Lebanon.

The use of the weapon in the Gaza Strip, one of the world’s mostly densely population areas, is likely to ignite yet more controversy over Israel’s offensive, in which more than 2,300 Palestinians have been wounded.

The Geneva Treaty of 1980 stipulates that white phosphorus should not be used as a weapon of war in civilian areas, but there is no blanket ban under international law on its use as a smokescreen or for illumination. However, Charles Heyman, a military expert and former major in the British Army, said: “If white phosphorus was deliberately fired at a crowd of people someone would end up in The Hague. White phosphorus is also a terror weapon. The descending blobs of phosphorus will burn when in contact with skin.”

Medical Aid For The Palestinian People

Two good shouts from Ten Percent:

1. You can donate money to be used as medical aid for the Palestinians here
2. And a story that has been missed by large sections of the media....is the Israeli action part of an attempt to secure gas supplies?

The War on Palestinians

So, Israeli propaganda dominates the airwaves. Israeli officials are wheeled out to proclaim that their murder of nearly 500 Palestinians and the launch of over 800 strikes is a 'defensive action'. It is barely possible to watch the news as these officials trundle out lie after lie with straight faces, apparently convinced of their own lies. The lie that Israeli action is defensive being just one of a whole pack of lies which the Israeli government know will be almost impossible to disprove. Still, if nothing else, the propaganda offensive has been 'impressive'.

One thing must be kept in mind when watching any news coverage of this murderous attack on Gaza. International journalists are not allowed into Gaza to verify any of the claims of the Israeli government. Even though the Supreme Court has ruled that the government cannot ban foreign correspondents, they remain banned. As a result, it makes it impossible to verify the claims of the government, a fact they are all to aware of. Take this morning's attack on a mosque in Gaza. On various networks, officials have been interviews and claimed that the strike was unfortunate, but that munitions are routinely stored in civilian locations across Gaza and, this implies, the strike was justified. One question is never asked: where is the proof? If the mosque contained munitions, why not provide the proof? Why not tell us where exactly these munitions were stored? Why? Because it is part of a blatant attempt to convince the people of the world that this mass murder, this attempt at ethnic cleansing, is in someway justified.

Every civilian death is seen as suspicious. Every civilian death is blamed on the Palestinian people. Oh, they say they blame Hamas, but by claiming that the Palestinians allow munitions to be stored on their properties, they are essentially saying that any Palestinian civilian that is killed is responsible for their own murder. It is ironic, nay perverse, that so often, the very same people who claim that the Palestinians (the victims) are at fault and that the Israelis (the perpetrators) are deserving of our sympathy, are the very same ones that proclaim that individuals should take the responsibility for their actions and not blame external factors. Why are Palestinians not deserving of this? Why, in this case, should the murderers not take responsibility for their actions? Which the victim suffer whilst the perpetrator has excuses made in their favour? It is the great double standard at the heart of much of the rhetoric that emanates from certain sections of the political spectrum.

And why should we believe what the Israeli government says anyway. Their propaganda has already been exposed for what it is only this morning. Footage that was uploaded on YouTube to prove the accuracy of the Israeli assault has now been revealed as a disgraceful piece of propaganda. Instead of missiles being loaded onto the targeted truck (as the Israeli government claimed), oxygen cylinders were being prepared for distribution. As a result of this action, eight Palestinians were killed. And yet, this video clip is being used as an example of how the Israelis are so careful in their targeting. And, given the lack of journalists in Gaza, one wonders how many other examples are waiting to emerge from the woodwork.

Despite the horrors that are being conducted in Gaza, one must remember that these are the actions of a corrupt elite that are in power in Israel. They are not representative of the people of Israel. The Communist Party of Israel and Hadash have been organising demonstrations in Tel Aviv in protest against the assault on Gaza and the continuing siege. There have been reports that over 10,000 people have taken to the streets in protest against Israeli action. And their bravery in expressing their right to free speech is underlined when considering the disgusting language of some of the extreme elements in Israeli political life:

Israel Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman said that "in the same way that the Israeli government knows that it is impossible to stop the operation in Gaza until Hamas is eradicated, [the government] must act against those Israeli citizens who are not loyal to the State of Israel."

"The demonstration in Sakhnin in which ten thousand protesters are participating proves that their loyalty is to Hamas and to those who want to destroy Israel."

Ironically those that really seek to destroy Israel are quite possibly the Israeli government themselves. After all, does anyone seriously believe that these attacks will put a stop to the extremists in Gaza? Does anyone really believe that the children who witness the deaths of their mothers, fathers, brother, sisters at the hands of Israeli rockets, will not turn their hatred on Israel? It would be foolish to think that they wouldn't. Each rocket that lands in Gaza produces another extremist. Another person intent on destroying Israel. Another suicide bomber intent on killing Israeli civilians. Until the Israeli government realises this simple fact, the cycle will continue. Unless, of course, that is what they want. To keep the people of Israel living in fear. Well, they may just get their wish.

I'm Coming Back

Yes, after a brief (ok, long) break from MOA due to other stuff going on in my life, I will be back here blogging shortly. In the meantime, I have branched out into a couple of other areas which will enable readers to keep up to speed with what is going on in my head. Firstly, you can join my network on Delicious where I will catalogue any links that are of interest to make it just that little bit easier to build up evidence that may be used to smite the feeble trolls. Anyways, you can join my network here. And you can also follow me via Twitter which will be updated with various quick thoughts when I don't have the opportunity for full on posts, as well as informing you when I have added a new post (like now!). You can follow my Twitterings here.

Posting will resume shortly.......

Georgian Forces Targeted Civilians

The evidence keeps on piling up that the Georgian forces committed atrocities in South Ossetia. If only the mainstream media had scrutinised the situation more thoroughly instead of just believing whatever the Georgian dictator said:

President Mikhail Saakashvili has denied that Georgia's armed forces committed war crimes during their attack on South Ossetia in August.

Evidence obtained by the BBC in the breakaway region suggests Georgia used indiscriminate force, and may have targeted civilians.

Witnesses said tanks had fired on an apartment block, and civilians were shot at as they fled the fighting.

The upcoming protests will certainly be interesting.

Georgia - 'Aid Lacks Transparency'

According to Transparency International:

Transparency International Georgia today criticised a lack of transparency and local consultation ahead of a conference on 22 October, where decisions on hundreds of millions of dollars of international aid to Georgia will be made. Representatives of donor nations, multilateral institutions and the Georgian government will gather in Brussels for the conference, which is co-chaired by the European Commission and the World Bank and comes in the wake of the Georgian-Russian conflict in August 2008.

Commenting on the opaque decision-making process, Tamuna Karosanidze, Executive Director of Tbilisi-based TI Georgia said, “Aid given behind closed doors lacks accountability, to the taxpayers of donor nations as much as to the citizens of Georgia. The lack of transparency in giving this aid makes it less likely that money will reach those most in need. If donors want aid to support Georgia’s development, they must ensure that this aid is transparent and democratically accountable.”

Decision-making at the conference will be based on a “Joint Needs Assessment”, an extensive document drawn up by a mission coordinated by the World Bank and the United Nations. The Joint Needs Assessment estimates that Georgia will require USD 3.25 billion (€2.38 billion) over the next three years in budget support, social sector support and infrastructure development. This is more than Georgia’s government plans to spend in 2009, and the equivalent of nearly one thousand dollars for every person living in the country.

“Allocating these huge sums behind closed doors on the basis of a secret document does not set a good example for Georgian democracy to follow,” continued Karosanidze. “If Georgia’s citizens can have no say in how this money will be spent, democracy in Georgia will be weakened rather than strengthened. Aid will only be received positively in Georgia if Georgian citizens are confident that it will be well spent, which is something that only wide-spread civic involvement and transparency can achieve.”

Hmmm. Have you read 'The Shock Doctrine' by Naomi Klein? Perhaps there might be a reprint in the offing with a new chapter on the Georgian scam. Meanwhile:

TBILISI, Georgia — A political opponent of Mikheil Saakashvili, the president of Georgia, called on Monday for mass protests on Nov. 7, the first anniversary of a government crackdown on demonstrators that left 500 people injured.

The opponent, Levan Gachechiladze, who lost to Mr. Saakashvili in presidential elections in January, urged demonstrators to gather in front of the Georgian Parliament in Tbilisi, the site of last year’s violence.

Making his announcement about the protest on the Parliament steps, Mr. Gachechiladze said the purpose would be to call Mr. Saakashvili to account for Georgia’s losses in the August war against Russia over the disputed enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. He has also accused the government of tainting the results of parliamentary elections and presidential elections.

“The opposition is going to renew the waves of protest and ask President Saakashvili to take responsibility for his actions last year,” Mr. Gachechiladze said.

It will be interesting to see if these protests are as brutally put down. Particularly as there appears to be a new neo-liberal drive. Of course, if there is any trouble, it will be down to Russian interference (notice 'American interference' is almost non-existent). Events on 7th November will be very interesting indeed.

No Justice for Chagossians

The evil empire is victorious once more:

Exiles of the Chagos Islands have had the right to return to their homeland overturned by the House of Lords.

The government won its appeal against a court decision that had ruled in favour of 2,000 former residents of the British Indian Ocean territory.

They were evicted in the 1960s when the colony was leased to the US to build an airbase on the atoll of Diego Garcia.

Lord Hoffmann said the case's subtext was funding - the UK may have had to pay for rebuilding their community.

'Funding'?? Well, we can't have that can we?

Palestine - Still a Dirty Word

It's amazing to think that it is considered a slur on your character if you have too much sympathy with the plight of the Palestinians:

Republicans in south Florida predict a 10% spike for McCain in the Jewish vote over the 24% polled by Bush in 2004. Their campaign line is that if Obama wins he will be the first pro-Palestinian US president since the foundation of the state of Israel. The Democrats hit back with leaflets showing Obama by Jerusalem's Wailing Wall wearing a yarmulka.

The fact that any candidate accused of showing sympathy with the impoverished and dispossessed still feels the need to distance himself from the most needy and align himself with the most powerful tells you all you need to know about the race for the presidency. 

Obama? Linked to Terrorism?? What About the Republicans?

Now, I am no great fan of Obama. Let's face it, he is still going to protect the capitalist system, despite its obvious failings. However, the very idea that he supports terrorism, whilst Sarah Palin and John McCain are somehow free from such associations, deserves some scrutiny. After all, they are members of a party that have strengthened Osama Bin Laden beyond even his wildest dreams. They fell for the trap and every single day they have provided more and more propaganda for Bin Laden's ideology. They have done the terrorists job for them and, in any other country, these leaders would be tried for treason. And yet bizarrely, their support for terrorism has been overlooked. A McCain victory would be a dream come true for Bin Laden. More aggression, more proof that the West wants to destroy Islam. What more could he ask for?

But that is not all. John McCain has stood shoulder to shoulder with a renowned terrorist in the Americas. A terrorist who wields immense power. A terrorist who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of ordinary people. A terrorist who is financially supported by the current Republican administration. So where is the proof for this outlandish claim? Well..........

John McCain and Sarah Palin - The Terrorist's Choice

After The War Comes The Opportunity

It is no surprise to learn that the American government is lining up potential investors in Georgia:

The US Department of Commerce is working with two private American-Georgian business associations to stage a trade summit in Tbilisi in late October. The initiative is part of a general effort to bolster investor confidence in Georgia.

The Bush administration has been a leading backer of Georgia as the Caucasus country rebuilds following Russia’s August invasion. The US Congress has already approved an administration-sponsored aid package worth as much as $1 billion. The idea for the business summit reportedly came from the "highest level" in Washington, and it is seen as a means to stimulate private-sector interest in Georgia’s economic recovery.

While the guest list for the summit has not been publicly released, organizers note that some Fortune 500 companies, as well as large private equity firms, have expressed an intention to attend. According to a partial list of confirmed companies made available to EurasiaNet, investors are considering multi-million dollar projects in several sectors including hydro-power production, power transmission, wind energy, hospitals and wine. The summit will be chaired by Deputy Commerce Secretary John Sullivan. In addition to organizing the Tbilisi summit, the US Trade Office is pushing Congress to expand Georgia’s eligibility for duty-free imports to the United States.

According to Tamara Koziridze, a deputy economic minister, the Georgian government is "hoping" that summit will bring new investment into the country. "We hope very much it will be productive in the sense that companies with a real interest in Georgia will participate and will have sufficient follow up," Kovziridze said.

What a fantastic opportunity for corporate America. Multi-million dollar contracts will be signed, huge swathes of the Georgian economy will be handed over to American companies and American hegemony in the region will be confirmed. It's almost like the US wanted Georgia (one of the fastest growing ecnomies in the region) to start a war it was bound to lose if only to pick up the pieces and have a tasty slice of future growth with the aid of a neo-conservative, anti-democratic Georgian leader. Good work chaps.

The Rich Need YOUR Help

Here's an interesting little paradox. Here we are, in the midst of an economic crisis where all the talk is of things getting worse before they get better. Amidst all this talk of crisis, there is re-assurance from both the Conservatives and the Conservatives Lite...sorry, Labour, that the rich must pay the price for their failures. Fine words. Question is, when taxpayers are bailing out the rich to a massive degree, are the rich really hurting? Well, it appears not according to this story in today's Guardian which highlights just how much the rich are really hurting:

Super times for superyachts as billionaires buy into maritime bling
Monte Carlo boat show finds demand for floating palaces higher than ever

While others panic about the financial crisis, this weekend's Monaco Yacht Show proved that the mega-rich have never been richer. Yacht brokers describe an eastern European new rich, boosted by oil wealth, keen to outdo their rivals. Middle Eastern viewers and occasional Latin Americans are following suit.

As the number of multi-billionaires grows, the superyacht industry is enjoying such a boom that demand for the most expensive models outstrips supply. Boats built to personal specifications have grown to such vast proportions that the labels superyacht and megayacht are no longer enough. Those on the dockside now talk of the gigayacht - multi-storey, 120-metre floating mansions that resemble cruise liners. The cost of the biggest new boats exceeds €200m.

So, are the rich really paying the price? Or is it the average tax payer?

Jewish Terrorists Attack Academic

'Self-hating' Jew is often a term applied to those that criticise Israeli policies, so why not also apply it to those ultra-rightist Jews that attack their fellow Jews? Like the nasty characters that carried out this attack:

A well-known Israeli critic of Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, Zeev Sternhell, has been slightly wounded in a bomb attack.

Police suspect ultra-nationalists Israelis were behind the attack.

Professor Sternhall has also strongly opposed the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, describing it as immoral and ineffective.

Earlier this year, Professor Sternhall was awarded the prestigious Israel Prize for political science.

Mr Sternhell suffered minor shrapnel wounds in one leg.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said several assailants were waiting for Mr Sternhell shortly after midnight on Wednesday outside his home in Jerusalem.

Reports say police investigators found posters in Mr Sternhell's neighbourhood offering a reward of $320,000 to anyone who kills a member of Peace Now, an Israeli group that campaigns against settlement building to which the academic belongs.

A New Holocaust in Italy?

Ethnic cleansing is still going on in Italy, and the media turns a blind eye:

Last night in Milan, in the ex Falck steelworks of Sesto San Giovanni (Milan) Ciprian, a young Roma boy of 13 was burnt alive. He lived with his family in conditions of intolerable marginalization and poverty. His family were unable to return to Romania, where they own nothing, and were therefore prisoners of marginalization in Sesto San Giovanni. A candle fell on the makeshift bed where the boy slept and he perished in the flames. The Roma families in Sesto San Giovanni have no electricity, therefore no safe heating and lighting. They make do the best they can to avoid freezing to death. They are offered no assistance at all, just repression from the police. The firemen, who arrived at the scene after midnight, found the boy’s charred body. How much longer will we carry on considering these bodies “accidents” and not victims? How much longer will we deceive ourselves we are innocent?

Another holocaust is brewing. Once more ethnic cleansing is making its mark on Europe. Isn't it time that a few more people spoke out about the despicable rise of fascism in that beautiful country?

The World Turns Upside Down (But The Tories Are Still Lying Scum)

So, in the time since I last posted on a regular basis, what the fuck has been going on?? First Bush nationalises large chunks of the banking sector, making him the biggest socialist in history (tongue firmly in cheek). Then the Tories have the nerve to accuse the Labour party of being obsessed with de-regulation. Now this is certainly true but really, the Tories??? I'm trying to recall a time in the past when the Tories urged for more regulation.........nope, can't think of a single example. Bless them, it must be hard for the poor loves to be anti-free-market and pro-free-market at the same time. Duplicitous swines.

Bolivia, Venezuela - Coups in Waiting?

It certainly appears that whilst the public are distracted by moose shooting censorship lovers and the second coming, the US government is once more attempting a spot of covert regime change in South America. As RickB has already noted over at Ten Percent, both Venezuela and Bolivia have now expelled their American ambassadors as a result of apparent attempts by the American government to remove these governments from power. It has also emerged that the American government may have been supporting officers within the Venezuelan army who are hostile to Chavez. According to The Guardian, Chavez said:

'...several Venezuelan military officers had been detained following an investigation by his intelligence services. During his televised address he played a recording of purported conversations between the alleged conspirators.

Earlier, the defence minister, General Gustavo Rangel Briceño, and a pro-Chávez TV host, Mario Silva, named several senior officers from the navy, air force and national guard as suspects.'

Not content with supporting anti-government forces in Venezuela, the US government has further attempted to smear Chavez by once more linking him to the Colombian drug trade and the FARC. Again, from The Guardian:

Separately, the US treasury accused three members of Chávez's inner-circle of materially assisting the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), leftist guerrillas who traffick cocaine and are considered terrorists by the US and EU. Hugo Carvajal Barrios and Henry Rangel Silva are senior intelligence officials and Ramón Rodríguez Chacin was interior minister until this week when he unexpectedly resigned, citing personal reasons.

Venezuela's government acknowledges talking to Farc to negotiate hostage releases but denies funnelling weapons or drug money.

Visiting Britain this week, the US drugs czar, John Walters, repeated claims that Venezuela and Bolivia were taking over from Colombia in the export of cocaine.

It would be funny if it wasn't so serious. After all, the US government also play a key role in supporting terrorist organisations in Colombia. Despite Uribe's well documented links to human rights abuses, as well as his links to right-wing terrorists operating within his borders, the US government continues to fund his government to the hilt. If Chavez is guilty of aiding a 'terrorist organisation' in Colombia, Bush is equally guilty. And yet, in this world of inverted mirrors and perverse logic, Chavez is the threat and Bush is the solution. And if anyone thinks that Bush Terror Inc will cease trading come 2009, I am afraid they are very much mistaken.