Showing posts with label Britain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Britain. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Crowd jeers suicidal jumper to his death
JEERING onlookers goaded a teenager in Britain to jump to his death, undermining police efforts to talk him down, and then took pictures of the body. Yesterday as 17-year-old Shaun Dykes prepared to jump from the top of a multi-storey carpark in Derby, northern England, spectators allegedly shouted to him: "How far can you bounce?", the UK's MailOnline reports.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
UK Magistrate Censured Over Niqab
"Britain's Judicial Communications Office that speaks for the Lord Chief Justice has censured a magistrate for refusing to deal with a face-veiled Muslim woman, The Telegraph reported on Wednesday, January 9."
Sunday, January 6, 2008
UK living standards outstrip US
"LIVING standards in Britain are set to rise above those in America for the first time since the 19th century, according to a report by the respected Oxford Economics consultancy."
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Jews central to UK Labor scandal
"A campaign financing scandal in which two of the principal players are Jewish is dealing a heavy blow to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s already weakened administration."
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Abrahams, Lord Levy and Mendelsohn: Some People Never Learn the Lesson
"The Labour Party did not learn its lesson following the Lord Levy ‘Cash for Honours’ scandal. Once again they let the supporters of Israel take care of their material needs, argues Gilad Atzmon."
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Britain's Brown on a down after bruising week
"British Prime Minister Gordon Brown faced more discouraging polls Saturday after a bruising week that brought his honeymoon period to a grinding halt. A string of setbacks have rocked his government and surveys suggest his initial burst of popularity since taking over from Tony Blair in June is well and truly over."
Friday, November 23, 2007
E-mail snub to Israel by Prince Charles' aides sparks furor
"Senior aides to Britain's Prince Charles said there is "no chance" the prince would ever visit Israel as such a visit would boost Israel's international image. The aides wrote the comments, in August E-mails, after outgoing Israeli ambassador to Britain Zvi Heifetz extended an invitation to the prince via principal private secretary Sir Michael Peat and deputy private secretary Clive Alderton."
We fret over Europe, but the real threat to sovereignty has long been the US
"American influence has had far more portentous consequences. As Timothy Garton Ash recently remarked on these pages, people in Britain are subject to some of the most extensive official surveillance in the world. One excuse for this is the threat from terrorism. Would this threat be as great without our participation in the Iraq war? And would Britain have participated in that war had it not been so accustomed to following Washington's foreign-policy lead?"
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Britain is a US client state and should not forget it, says the neocons' oracle
America's dogs wear America's collar OR else! And, America wears Israel's collar.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Now is the time for clarity over Iran
Conflict isn't inevitable, it's not even likely ... yet. It is still possible to build alliances to wean Tehran from the bomb and America from an attack
by Mary Riddell, The Observer - November 4, 2007
The drums of war are beating. In America, talk of a strike against Iran grows louder. In Israel, hardliners claim Tehran is close to getting the bomb. In Bahrain, host to the US Fifth Fleet, the state's foreign minister imagines doomsday. 'We don't want to wake up and see our skies dark, our sirens blaring,' he says.
Last summer, the prospect of attack was negligible. Now a leading London risk analyst puts the likelihood at 30 per cent, and others think that estimate conservative. A security specialist at Chatham House tells me he 'cannot imagine George W Bush not doing something' if he thinks Iran is close to acquiring a nuclear weapon.
This is not about some distant tomorrow. If Bush launches an offensive, he is likely to act early next year, before the US presidential election campaign begins. The opening salvos of the Third World War could be fired within months. Catastrophe has rarely looked so close or felt so distant.
In Britain, there is barely a ripple of protest or fear. News that bacon sandwiches can cause cancer has provoked more alarm than any meltdown incubating in Washington or Tehran. The spectre of a nuclear-armed Iran has failed to ignite public fears on either side of the Atlantic, partly because people have heard it all before. Hundreds of thousands have died in Iraq in a war waged to wipe out non-existent WMDs.
This time round, the intelligence is just as thin, but the Tehran weapon, unlike the phantom Baghdad bomb, is a real and dreadful prospect. If developed, it will ignite an arms race in the Gulf states with consequences too ominous to imagine. But such a threat cannot be eradicated by war. It is no more possible to bomb knowledge out of existence than it is to crush 'terror' by conventional force. A pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear installations would plunge the Middle East into a war without boundary or end.
Undaunted, US hawks have advanced a second casus belli. Shia militias allegedly armed by the Iranian government are targeting American and British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran's Revolutionary Guards have been officially labelled 'terrorists', and there is talk of surgical hits against their bases. This war, though no less disastrous, is the kind that Americans could sign up to. And so might others. Unnamed Pentagon sources are reported to be saying that the British are 'on board' for such a mission.
One of Gordon Brown's closest allies told me recently that it was 'nonsense that Britain had agreed to write the US an open cheque on Iran'. No doubt that's true. But, equally, both Brown and David Miliband, perhaps mindful of the real threat to British troops, have declined to endorse Jack Straw's view that an attack on Iran is 'inconceivable'. Brown's inscrutability is, in other ways, not surprising. As Professor Ali M Ansari of Chatham House says, the Prime Minister is determined 'not to be Tony Blair', with all the global grandstanding that implies. So Brown, officially, is 'ruling nothing out'.
This caution seems not to mask any secret dissent from American policy. Despite Bush's recent, and inflammatory, US sanctions against Iran, Brown considers him a multilateralist in search of an international solution. A meeting last week with the moderate State Department third-in-command, Nicholas Burns, may have reassured the Prime Minister further at the start of a crunch month.
Reports by the IAEA nuclear regulator, Mohamed ElBaradei, and by Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, seem likely to conclude that Tehran is not bending to international will to stop uranium enrichment. Moves towards a third round of UN sanctions are already foundering on Russian and Chinese objections.
In the absence of UN consensus, Brown will push for tougher European measures. Europe, with its close trade and banking links, is ideally placed to squeeze Tehran, especially now that the rogue elite is switching from dollars to euros. But Germany and Italy are likely to drag their feet, and Brown has no wish, insiders say, to 'thump his chest and say he's the man who can deliver Europe'.
Well, someone's got to. A united Europe is vital in weaning Tehran away from the bomb and America away from war. Instead, as the EU dithers, the only coalition of the like-minded appears to be the Bush administration, Britain and a sabre-rattling France. Despite dispiriting signs, disaster is not yet assured. Russia does not want a nuclear Tehran. Iran has nothing to gain from a collapsed Iraq. Professor Michael Cox of the LSE believes that, for Bush, a costly and reckless war is still 'plan B and not plan A'.
In addition, Ahmadinejad is a pre-modern despot, not a leader for the future. The West, obsessed by his external threat, has done shamefully little to highlight the internal danger of a cruel and audacious President. Not long ago, he informed students at Columbia University that there were no gays in Iraq, while omitting to explain why, in that case, he was busy executing them. Wider condemnation of such atrocities might, at the least, forge some bonds with Iranian moderates hoping to win next March's parliamentary elections and so pave the way to eject Ahmadinejad in 2009.
That outcome, though, is by no means certain. Democrats may be debarred from standing, and Ahmadinejad holds many aces. Oil at almost $100 a barrel props up the economy he has wrecked and buys him time for more brinkmanship. Any US aggression will rally Iran's people behind him. Surviving under their own delusional tyrant beats being bombed by someone else's.
Meanwhile, Bush lacks time and opposition. Barring Barack Obama, every leading presidential hopeful is ready to take a whack at Iran. Already, blue touchpapers are smouldering along the Iran-Iraq border, where any atrocity against coalition soldiers could be a curtain-raiser to war. It's also possible, according to Professor Paul Rogers of OpenDemocracy, that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards will fire the starting gun by a provocative act, such as seizing US sailors.
It is still conceivable that the Iran stand-off ends with a more peaceful world in which the nuclear nations look to their own hypocrisies (Trident included) and forge a new global compact on non-proliferation. But, first, the US will have to negotiate with Iran, no strings attached. A carrot-and-stick approach could work, but the carrot-and-bomb variant merely ratchets up the chance of cataclysm.
That is why war against Iran remains inconceivable. Gordon Brown and all leaders of good faith should say so. That marker against a ruinous conflict would find echoes in all the more sane corners of the world. Besides, the time for ambiguity is running out. Someday soon, the Prime Minister may find there is no fence left to sit on. Within the next few months, Britain could be asked to give the nod or wink required to sanction B2 bombers to fly out of UK bases in Diego Garcia and Fairford, Gloucestershire.
And then Britons would be on the streets, with billboards and loud-hailers, protesting against a folly that could make Iraq, for all its blood and heartbreak, seem a sideshow. War on Iran is not inevitable. It is not even probable. But the threat drifts closer every day. This is the greatest looming crisis in the world. And the West is staring at it, eyes tightly shut.
by Mary Riddell, The Observer - November 4, 2007
The drums of war are beating. In America, talk of a strike against Iran grows louder. In Israel, hardliners claim Tehran is close to getting the bomb. In Bahrain, host to the US Fifth Fleet, the state's foreign minister imagines doomsday. 'We don't want to wake up and see our skies dark, our sirens blaring,' he says.
Last summer, the prospect of attack was negligible. Now a leading London risk analyst puts the likelihood at 30 per cent, and others think that estimate conservative. A security specialist at Chatham House tells me he 'cannot imagine George W Bush not doing something' if he thinks Iran is close to acquiring a nuclear weapon.
This is not about some distant tomorrow. If Bush launches an offensive, he is likely to act early next year, before the US presidential election campaign begins. The opening salvos of the Third World War could be fired within months. Catastrophe has rarely looked so close or felt so distant.
In Britain, there is barely a ripple of protest or fear. News that bacon sandwiches can cause cancer has provoked more alarm than any meltdown incubating in Washington or Tehran. The spectre of a nuclear-armed Iran has failed to ignite public fears on either side of the Atlantic, partly because people have heard it all before. Hundreds of thousands have died in Iraq in a war waged to wipe out non-existent WMDs.
This time round, the intelligence is just as thin, but the Tehran weapon, unlike the phantom Baghdad bomb, is a real and dreadful prospect. If developed, it will ignite an arms race in the Gulf states with consequences too ominous to imagine. But such a threat cannot be eradicated by war. It is no more possible to bomb knowledge out of existence than it is to crush 'terror' by conventional force. A pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear installations would plunge the Middle East into a war without boundary or end.
Undaunted, US hawks have advanced a second casus belli. Shia militias allegedly armed by the Iranian government are targeting American and British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran's Revolutionary Guards have been officially labelled 'terrorists', and there is talk of surgical hits against their bases. This war, though no less disastrous, is the kind that Americans could sign up to. And so might others. Unnamed Pentagon sources are reported to be saying that the British are 'on board' for such a mission.
One of Gordon Brown's closest allies told me recently that it was 'nonsense that Britain had agreed to write the US an open cheque on Iran'. No doubt that's true. But, equally, both Brown and David Miliband, perhaps mindful of the real threat to British troops, have declined to endorse Jack Straw's view that an attack on Iran is 'inconceivable'. Brown's inscrutability is, in other ways, not surprising. As Professor Ali M Ansari of Chatham House says, the Prime Minister is determined 'not to be Tony Blair', with all the global grandstanding that implies. So Brown, officially, is 'ruling nothing out'.
This caution seems not to mask any secret dissent from American policy. Despite Bush's recent, and inflammatory, US sanctions against Iran, Brown considers him a multilateralist in search of an international solution. A meeting last week with the moderate State Department third-in-command, Nicholas Burns, may have reassured the Prime Minister further at the start of a crunch month.
Reports by the IAEA nuclear regulator, Mohamed ElBaradei, and by Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, seem likely to conclude that Tehran is not bending to international will to stop uranium enrichment. Moves towards a third round of UN sanctions are already foundering on Russian and Chinese objections.
In the absence of UN consensus, Brown will push for tougher European measures. Europe, with its close trade and banking links, is ideally placed to squeeze Tehran, especially now that the rogue elite is switching from dollars to euros. But Germany and Italy are likely to drag their feet, and Brown has no wish, insiders say, to 'thump his chest and say he's the man who can deliver Europe'.
Well, someone's got to. A united Europe is vital in weaning Tehran away from the bomb and America away from war. Instead, as the EU dithers, the only coalition of the like-minded appears to be the Bush administration, Britain and a sabre-rattling France. Despite dispiriting signs, disaster is not yet assured. Russia does not want a nuclear Tehran. Iran has nothing to gain from a collapsed Iraq. Professor Michael Cox of the LSE believes that, for Bush, a costly and reckless war is still 'plan B and not plan A'.
In addition, Ahmadinejad is a pre-modern despot, not a leader for the future. The West, obsessed by his external threat, has done shamefully little to highlight the internal danger of a cruel and audacious President. Not long ago, he informed students at Columbia University that there were no gays in Iraq, while omitting to explain why, in that case, he was busy executing them. Wider condemnation of such atrocities might, at the least, forge some bonds with Iranian moderates hoping to win next March's parliamentary elections and so pave the way to eject Ahmadinejad in 2009.
That outcome, though, is by no means certain. Democrats may be debarred from standing, and Ahmadinejad holds many aces. Oil at almost $100 a barrel props up the economy he has wrecked and buys him time for more brinkmanship. Any US aggression will rally Iran's people behind him. Surviving under their own delusional tyrant beats being bombed by someone else's.
Meanwhile, Bush lacks time and opposition. Barring Barack Obama, every leading presidential hopeful is ready to take a whack at Iran. Already, blue touchpapers are smouldering along the Iran-Iraq border, where any atrocity against coalition soldiers could be a curtain-raiser to war. It's also possible, according to Professor Paul Rogers of OpenDemocracy, that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards will fire the starting gun by a provocative act, such as seizing US sailors.
It is still conceivable that the Iran stand-off ends with a more peaceful world in which the nuclear nations look to their own hypocrisies (Trident included) and forge a new global compact on non-proliferation. But, first, the US will have to negotiate with Iran, no strings attached. A carrot-and-stick approach could work, but the carrot-and-bomb variant merely ratchets up the chance of cataclysm.
That is why war against Iran remains inconceivable. Gordon Brown and all leaders of good faith should say so. That marker against a ruinous conflict would find echoes in all the more sane corners of the world. Besides, the time for ambiguity is running out. Someday soon, the Prime Minister may find there is no fence left to sit on. Within the next few months, Britain could be asked to give the nod or wink required to sanction B2 bombers to fly out of UK bases in Diego Garcia and Fairford, Gloucestershire.
And then Britons would be on the streets, with billboards and loud-hailers, protesting against a folly that could make Iraq, for all its blood and heartbreak, seem a sideshow. War on Iran is not inevitable. It is not even probable. But the threat drifts closer every day. This is the greatest looming crisis in the world. And the West is staring at it, eyes tightly shut.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Saudi king accuses UK of ignoring tip-off which could have stopped London bombings
by UK Daily Mail - October 29, 2007
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has attacked Britain's record on terrorism - and accused the Government of ignoring a tip-off which may have averted the 2005 London bombings.
In an astonishing attack, the monarch claimed his country had passed on information that could have stopped the atrocity but it was ignored.
The King's outspoken comments were made in a BBC interview ahead of a state visit to the UK this week.
His presence in the country is already mired in controversy with protestors planning mass demonstrations and Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable boycotting an official function.
In a scathing critique of the ongoing battle against terrorism, King Abdullah said the fight needed much more effort by countries such as Britain and that al Qaida continued to be a big problem for his country.
"We have sent information to Great Britain before the terrorist attacks in Britain but unfortunately no action was taken. And it may have been able to maybe avert the tragedy," he said, speaking through an interpreter.
Liberal Democrat acting leader Vince Cable yesterday took the highly unusual step of announcing that he would be boycotting a visit which, he said, should not be taking place.
It also emerged today that Foreign Secretary David Miliband has pulled out of a meeting with Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud.
But his decision was nothing to do with the controversial visit as he has gone on leave after he and his wife Louise adopted a new baby.
A mass demonstration is planned outside the Saudi embassy in London later in the week in protest at the kingdom's human rights record.
Mr Cable said that he was boycotting the visit - which begins formally tomorrow - in protest at the corruption scandal over the infamous Al Yamamah arms deal.
In a letter to the Saudi ambassador, he said: "I have introduced three debates in Parliament this year expressing serious concerns over the Al Yamamah contract and the corruption allegedly involved.
"I have, in my arguments, also been very critical of members of the Saudi royal family and the Saudi record on human rights, including its maltreatment of British citizens.
"In my opinion, it is quite wrong for the British Government to have proposed a state visit at this time."
It is normal practice for opposition party leaders to be invited to attend the main events involved in a state visit, including the state banquet hosted by the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
Lib Dem leadership candidate Chris Huhne backed Mr Cable's boycott, saying: "The accolade of a full state visit is quite wrong. We are feting the reactionary leader of a society that discriminates against women, tortures prisoners, conducts public executions, amputates limbs as a punishment, and bans freedom of expression, assembly and religion. Saudi Arabia's human rights record is atrocious.
"Our intimate relationship with this regime is also corrupting our own institutions. It was Saudi pressure that forced the abandonment by the Serious Fraud Office of the criminal inquiry into bribery over the al-Yamamah contract, the biggest arms deal in history.
"A report by the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons has even been suppressed, which has never happened before.
"Gordon Brown and the Labour Government have come a shamefully long way from the brave morning in 1997 when Robin Cook as Labour's first foreign secretary promised an ethical dimension to our foreign policy."
Mr Cable's decision follows the controversy which erupted last year when Tony Blair halted a long-running Serious Fraud Office inquiry into the £40 billion Al Yamamah deal signed by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.
Mr Blair argued that Saudi security co-operation in the fight against international terrorism could be jeopardised if the investigation continued.
Critics however claimed that he was more concerned that Britain could lose out on a fresh £20 billion contract to supply the Saudis with 72 Eurofighters.
The Conservatives branded Mr Cable's boycott as "juvenile gesture politics", while the Foreign Office said only that it was a matter for the Lib Dem acting leader.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said that the decision to invite King Abdullah now reflected the "long-standing friendship" between the two nations.
She said that British and Saudi interests were "intertwined and inseparable" across a range of issues from counter-terrorism to ensuring stability in the Middle East.
King Abdullah faces further controversy later in the week. Left-wing Labour MP John McDonnell said that protesters would be staging a mass demonstration outside the Saudi Embassy on Wednesday.
"The British people will be aghast at the Government entertaining on a state visit one of the most prominent anti-democratic and human rights- abusing leaders in the world," he said.
"Why is it that in the same breath the Prime Minister condemns the lack of democracy in Burma and the abuse of human rights in Zimbabwe but remains silent when it comes to the Saudi dictatorship?"
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has attacked Britain's record on terrorism - and accused the Government of ignoring a tip-off which may have averted the 2005 London bombings.
In an astonishing attack, the monarch claimed his country had passed on information that could have stopped the atrocity but it was ignored.
The King's outspoken comments were made in a BBC interview ahead of a state visit to the UK this week.
His presence in the country is already mired in controversy with protestors planning mass demonstrations and Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable boycotting an official function.
In a scathing critique of the ongoing battle against terrorism, King Abdullah said the fight needed much more effort by countries such as Britain and that al Qaida continued to be a big problem for his country.
"We have sent information to Great Britain before the terrorist attacks in Britain but unfortunately no action was taken. And it may have been able to maybe avert the tragedy," he said, speaking through an interpreter.
Liberal Democrat acting leader Vince Cable yesterday took the highly unusual step of announcing that he would be boycotting a visit which, he said, should not be taking place.
It also emerged today that Foreign Secretary David Miliband has pulled out of a meeting with Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud.
But his decision was nothing to do with the controversial visit as he has gone on leave after he and his wife Louise adopted a new baby.
A mass demonstration is planned outside the Saudi embassy in London later in the week in protest at the kingdom's human rights record.
Mr Cable said that he was boycotting the visit - which begins formally tomorrow - in protest at the corruption scandal over the infamous Al Yamamah arms deal.
In a letter to the Saudi ambassador, he said: "I have introduced three debates in Parliament this year expressing serious concerns over the Al Yamamah contract and the corruption allegedly involved.
"I have, in my arguments, also been very critical of members of the Saudi royal family and the Saudi record on human rights, including its maltreatment of British citizens.
"In my opinion, it is quite wrong for the British Government to have proposed a state visit at this time."
It is normal practice for opposition party leaders to be invited to attend the main events involved in a state visit, including the state banquet hosted by the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
Lib Dem leadership candidate Chris Huhne backed Mr Cable's boycott, saying: "The accolade of a full state visit is quite wrong. We are feting the reactionary leader of a society that discriminates against women, tortures prisoners, conducts public executions, amputates limbs as a punishment, and bans freedom of expression, assembly and religion. Saudi Arabia's human rights record is atrocious.
"Our intimate relationship with this regime is also corrupting our own institutions. It was Saudi pressure that forced the abandonment by the Serious Fraud Office of the criminal inquiry into bribery over the al-Yamamah contract, the biggest arms deal in history.
"A report by the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons has even been suppressed, which has never happened before.
"Gordon Brown and the Labour Government have come a shamefully long way from the brave morning in 1997 when Robin Cook as Labour's first foreign secretary promised an ethical dimension to our foreign policy."
Mr Cable's decision follows the controversy which erupted last year when Tony Blair halted a long-running Serious Fraud Office inquiry into the £40 billion Al Yamamah deal signed by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.
Mr Blair argued that Saudi security co-operation in the fight against international terrorism could be jeopardised if the investigation continued.
Critics however claimed that he was more concerned that Britain could lose out on a fresh £20 billion contract to supply the Saudis with 72 Eurofighters.
The Conservatives branded Mr Cable's boycott as "juvenile gesture politics", while the Foreign Office said only that it was a matter for the Lib Dem acting leader.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said that the decision to invite King Abdullah now reflected the "long-standing friendship" between the two nations.
She said that British and Saudi interests were "intertwined and inseparable" across a range of issues from counter-terrorism to ensuring stability in the Middle East.
King Abdullah faces further controversy later in the week. Left-wing Labour MP John McDonnell said that protesters would be staging a mass demonstration outside the Saudi Embassy on Wednesday.
"The British people will be aghast at the Government entertaining on a state visit one of the most prominent anti-democratic and human rights- abusing leaders in the world," he said.
"Why is it that in the same breath the Prime Minister condemns the lack of democracy in Burma and the abuse of human rights in Zimbabwe but remains silent when it comes to the Saudi dictatorship?"
British (Muslim) MP detained at US airport
Mr Malik said he had also been stopped and searched last yearBBC - Oct 29, 2007
Britain's first Muslim minister, Shahid Malik, says he is "deeply disappointed" that he was detained by airport security officials in America.
The international development minister was stopped and searched at Washington DC's Dulles airport after a series of meetings on tackling terrorism.
Mr Malik, MP for Dewsbury, West Yorks, had his hand luggage checked for explosives when returning to Heathrow.
He said the same thing happened to him at JFK airport in New York last year.
On that occasion he had been a keynote speaker at an event organised by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), alongside the FBI and Muslim organisations, to talk about tackling extremism and defeating terrorism.
'Respect needed'
Mr Malik said he had received numerous apologies and assurances from the US authorities after that incident.
But he was again searched and detained by DHS officials on Sunday.
Mr Malik said two other Muslims were also detained.
"I am deeply disappointed," he said.
"The abusive attitude I endured last November I forgot about and I forgave, but I really do believe that British ministers and parliamentarians should be afforded the same respect and dignity at USA airports that we would bestow upon our colleagues in the Senate and Congress.
"Obviously, there was no malice involved but it has to be said that the USA system does not inspire confidence."
Friday, October 5, 2007
The US, UK and Israel Are Just Colonies
by Henry Makow Ph.D. - Oct 5, 2007Hardly a day goes by without an article on the Internet blaming Israel for the war in Iraq. The power of the Jewish neo-cons is analogous to that of Jewish Communists in the FDR era. Caroll Quigley wrote, "the power that these energetic left-wingers exercised was never their own power or Communist power but was ultimately the power of the international financial coterie." ("Tragedy and Hope", p.954)
In my review of "The Red Dragon" last week, I presented the hypothesis that there is only one imperial power in the world: the central banking cartel. Because it creates money out of nothing, it is obliged to buy everything it can. It hides behind the mask of British, American, French or Japanese imperialism, Nazism, Zionism, Communism, etc. but essentially the same people instigate and finance all wars, and profit from them, at the expense of humanity.
See my "Hitler Used Rothschild Banker's Typewriter")
The fundamental agenda appears to be that of the "The Protocols of Zion" (a "forgery" with amazing prescient power) "to undermine all collective forces not our own" by which they mean all nations, races, religions and family. They intend to sow chaos until an exasperated and exhausted humanity succumbs to their world "super government."
According to "Red Dragon" author L.B. Woolfolk, this ethnic-Jewish dominated "Money Power," operating through the Bank of England and countless corporate fronts, tied up most of the world's wealth as early as 1864.
They are colonizing the world, including the so-called imperialist powers. The most draconian repressive measures are taking place in England, the headquarters of this cabal. They created Israel not as a Jewish homeland but as seat of their future Masonic world government. They instigated the Holocaust to force Jews to support Israel. The Holocaust may have been used to mask the true character of WWII: an attack on Christian European civilization in general by a satanic heretical Jewish sect (the bankers) .
The US has been a colony of this financial power for a long time. In 1919, Col. Edward House, a Rothschild agent, spoke of using the League of Nations for the [quote] "peaceful return of the American colonies to the dominion of the Crown." House writes: "The League is in substance the Empire with America admitted on the same basis as our other colonies."
The "Crown" is a euphemism for this private cartel. Col. House boasts that the "Crown" used U.S. Treasury loans intended for war purposes to buy up oil fields in California, Mexico and Latin America.
"The war has made us custodians of the greater part of the world's raw materials... [We] now largely control the oil fields of the world and thereby the world's transportation and industry."
WE HAVE BEEN COLONIZED
According to Wikipedia, "colonizing nations generally dominate the resources, labor, and markets of the colonial territory, and may also impose socio-cultural, religious and linguistic structures on the conquered population."
We have not been invaded by a foreign army but by foreign capital. As Col. House intimates, they own a controlling interest in industry, and have used that position to buy the politicians, the media and education.
House described how their "entire system of thought control" was working relentlessly for the adoption of the League. But he could be referring to the Iraq War, Global Warming, the EU, or North American Union, today. I urge you to read this document because their tactics haven't changed.
Back in 1919, Col. House used Canadians and Brits to persuade Americans to join the League. He also used the elite-sponsored YMCA, Red Cross, and Salvation Army.
"The League's praises are thundered by our press, decreed by our college presidents, and professed by our professors. Our authors, writers and lecturers are analyzing its selected virtues... we have enlisted 8000 propagandists for the League. We have organized international and national synods, committees, conferences, convocations, conventions, councils...to herald the birth of the League as the dawn of universal peace."
"Agriculturalists, bankers, brokers, accountants, chemists, and all other functional groups capable of exerting organized professional, business, financial or social pressure are meeting to endorse the League in the name of peace, progress and prosperity...Our film concerns are preparing an epoch-making picture..."
"In short, our entire system of thought control is working ceaselessly, tirelessly, ruthlessly, to ensure the adoption of the League. And it will be adopted, for business wants peace, the righteous cannot resist a covenant, and the politicians, after shadow boxing for patronage purposes, will yield valiantly [is this a threat?] lest the fate of the wanton and willful pursue them."
COLONIZATION OF THE MIND: FAST FORWARD
Today, the bankers are fomenting war between Zionism and Islam as part of their world colonization plan. Iran is being targeted for its oil wealth, independence and belief in God.
As in the past, they use all available means of "thought control," Jewish or non-Jewish. Most people can be tricked by a slogan or bought for the price of a steady job.
Because they control the media, neo-cons haven't felt the wrath of the American people for Iraq; and are beating the drums for war with Iran.
Recently, the President of Iran was a guest speaker at Columbia University where angry Jews picketed him. The President of the University, Lee Bollinger, called him "an evil petty dictator." Bollinger, who is a Jew, apparently cleared his speech with the Israel Lobby.
Here is an example of how a university supposedly dedicated to truth has been subverted by organized Jewry to foment war. Throughout history, organized Jewry has been accused of being a Fifth Column. Unorganized Jewry needs to repudiate Organized Jewry!
Of the eight Ivy League universities, only Dartmouth has a President who is a white non- Jewish male. Four have Jewish presidents. The other three have militant feminists. (Feminism, today's version of Communism, envisages a total transformation of society.)
Let's see how this "system of thought control" works. At Princeton, Shirley Tilghman succeeded Judith Rodin, a Jewish feminist who is now President of the Rockefeller Foundation.
Tilghman is not Jewish but, according to an alumnus, she "has pursued an activist feminist agenda to remake Princeton into a liberal paradise ...Princeton is rife with political correctness, multiculturalism, and liberal groupthink."
In 1945," Dartmouth president Ernest M. Hopkins declared that his "is a Christian college founded for the Christianization of its students." In the 1970s and 1980s, Dartmouth entrusted "the Christianization of its students" to two Jewish presidents. In the 1990s, Harvard and Yale also selected presidents with Jewish backgrounds. By 1993, Jews headed five of the eight Ivy League institutions prompting some wags to refer to the "Oy Vei" League.
Whether it's education, media or business, the central bankers regard Jews are trustworthy agents. This is not a racial thing. Jews that forget their task are fired. For example, Lawrence Sommers , the President of Harvard was replaced by a desiccated feminist (non-Jewish) after he dared to opine that men had superior scientific ability.
Of course the Freemasons are a prime example of a largely non-Jewish organization secretly devoted to subverting Western Civilization. In England, they have spawned a "charity" called "Common Purpose" which has recruited prominent people (educators, judges, cops, churchmen) entrusted to uphold democracy, sovereignty and the rule of law to undermine all three. They are run out of the office of the Deputy Prime Minister of the UK!
CONCLUSION
The New World Order is an extension of the imperialism of the "Crown", a clique of Jewish bankers and their Gentile accomplices devoted to "absorbing the wealth of the world" (in Cecil Rhodes words) and enslaving the human race.
We are being colonized by this financial power. The bogus "War of Terror" obviously is directed against us. It is the naked fist of this imperialism. Our jobs are outsourced; our resources are exported. Illegal aliens divide our political culture and dilute our job market. The education system is used for mass indoctrination. News is controlled. Entertainment is filled with trivia, drugs, violence and pornography. Obviously our masters wish to arrest our development.
In every colonial situation, the political and cultural elite consists of people who serve the occupying power. Thus, let's judge people not by their race, but by the service they perform for the invisible invader. And let's not confuse them with the real imperialist "Money Power."
The sooner we see ourselves as colonized, the sooner we can declare our independence.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
UK plans to pull 1,000 troops from Iraq
by DAVID STRINGER & QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA - Oct 2, 2007
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Britain's prime minister announced plans Tuesday to withdraw more than 1,000 troops from Iraq by year's end, and Iraq said it will take over security from British forces in the southern Basra province within two months.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown was on an unannounced visit, which also was to include a session with U.S. Commander David Petraeus before the British leader flies to Basra to meet with his forces and military leaders in the oil-rich region in the deep south of Iraq.
U.S. and Iraqi authorities have aired concerns that a British drawdown could jeopardize the region's rich oil resources and the land supply routes from Kuwait to Baghdad.
But Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said his forces "are prepared to take over security of Basra within two months and we will."
"Basra will be one of the provinces where Iraqi forces will completely take over security," he said after the meeting in his Green Zone office.
Brown confirmed al-Maliki's plans and said, "as we move to overwatch, we can move down to 4,500." Brown, who said he was optimistic the troops would be home by Christmas, spoke at the Green Zone residence of Britain's top commander in Iraq, Gen. Bill Rollo.
Brown added that any further decision on British troop withdrawals would be made next year.
British troops vacated their last remaining downtown Basra base last month, accelerating calls from the British public to reduce force levels further.
Britain currently has about 5,500 soldiers based mainly at an air base on the fringes of the southern city of Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad.
Britain's Defense Ministry said rocket and mortar attacks on their base at Basra airport had fallen sharply in the last month, with only a few attempted strikes.
Karim al-Miahi, the head of the Basra security committee and a member in the provincial council said, "The withdrawal of the British forces has had a negative effect on security in the city. Iraqi forces still are not able to control the situation which has deteriorated over the past three weeks. There has been an increase in assassinations of police and religious leaders. As for the areas around the British base, the situation is more stable. Shelling there has stopped."
Abdul-Maunim Karim, 50, a retired sailor who lives near the presidential palace now vacated by the British, agreed the area was quieter because the shelling had stopped. "But throughout the city violence remains at about the levels before the British troops left."
Ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair was greeted with a salvo of mortars as he made a final visit to the camp before leaving office in June. Soldiers at the time reported as many as 10 strikes a day.
Military leaders hope that Britain will remain in charge only of training Iraq troops and border guards, securing key supply lines and responding to emergencies when called on by local commanders.
The planned troop reduction in Basra came as the country saw record low casualty numbers for September, suggesting U.S.-led forces are making headway against extremist factions and disrupting their ability to strike back.
The U.S. military toll for September was 65, the lowest since July 2006, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press from death announcements by the American command and Pentagon.
More dramatic, however, was the decline in Iraqi civilian, police and military deaths. The figure was 988 in September — 50 percent lower than the previous month and the lowest tally since June 2006, when 847 Iraqis died.
The Iraqi death count is considered a minimum based on AP reporting. The actual number is likely higher, as many killings go unreported.
While civilian deaths were sharply lower last month, Baghdad remained the center of violence in percentage terms. For this year, 54 percent of all sectarian killings occurred in the capital and suburbs. That figure declined to just above 49 percent in September. For the year, the next two most violent regions were the provinces of Diyala and Nineveh.
The number of civilian deaths in Baghdad, 487, also far outstripped any other region in September. Next highest was Diyala province, an al-Qaida sanctuary immediately north and east of the capital, where 124 civilians were killed.
AP tallies civilian, Iraqi military and Iraqi police deaths each day as reported by police, hospital officials, morgue workers and verifiable witness accounts. The security personnel include Iraqi military, police and police recruits, and bodyguards. Insurgent deaths are not included.
On Tuesday, 10 people were killed, including two women, a child and three police officers, in four separate attacks. A suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle at a police checkpoint near Khalis, 50 miles north of Baghdad, killing six people and wounding 10. Also, two roadside bombs exploded earlier in Baghdad, killing three people and wounding nine others.
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Britain's prime minister announced plans Tuesday to withdraw more than 1,000 troops from Iraq by year's end, and Iraq said it will take over security from British forces in the southern Basra province within two months.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown was on an unannounced visit, which also was to include a session with U.S. Commander David Petraeus before the British leader flies to Basra to meet with his forces and military leaders in the oil-rich region in the deep south of Iraq.
U.S. and Iraqi authorities have aired concerns that a British drawdown could jeopardize the region's rich oil resources and the land supply routes from Kuwait to Baghdad.
But Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said his forces "are prepared to take over security of Basra within two months and we will."
"Basra will be one of the provinces where Iraqi forces will completely take over security," he said after the meeting in his Green Zone office.
Brown confirmed al-Maliki's plans and said, "as we move to overwatch, we can move down to 4,500." Brown, who said he was optimistic the troops would be home by Christmas, spoke at the Green Zone residence of Britain's top commander in Iraq, Gen. Bill Rollo.
Brown added that any further decision on British troop withdrawals would be made next year.
British troops vacated their last remaining downtown Basra base last month, accelerating calls from the British public to reduce force levels further.
Britain currently has about 5,500 soldiers based mainly at an air base on the fringes of the southern city of Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad.
Britain's Defense Ministry said rocket and mortar attacks on their base at Basra airport had fallen sharply in the last month, with only a few attempted strikes.
Karim al-Miahi, the head of the Basra security committee and a member in the provincial council said, "The withdrawal of the British forces has had a negative effect on security in the city. Iraqi forces still are not able to control the situation which has deteriorated over the past three weeks. There has been an increase in assassinations of police and religious leaders. As for the areas around the British base, the situation is more stable. Shelling there has stopped."
Abdul-Maunim Karim, 50, a retired sailor who lives near the presidential palace now vacated by the British, agreed the area was quieter because the shelling had stopped. "But throughout the city violence remains at about the levels before the British troops left."
Ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair was greeted with a salvo of mortars as he made a final visit to the camp before leaving office in June. Soldiers at the time reported as many as 10 strikes a day.
Military leaders hope that Britain will remain in charge only of training Iraq troops and border guards, securing key supply lines and responding to emergencies when called on by local commanders.
The planned troop reduction in Basra came as the country saw record low casualty numbers for September, suggesting U.S.-led forces are making headway against extremist factions and disrupting their ability to strike back.
The U.S. military toll for September was 65, the lowest since July 2006, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press from death announcements by the American command and Pentagon.
More dramatic, however, was the decline in Iraqi civilian, police and military deaths. The figure was 988 in September — 50 percent lower than the previous month and the lowest tally since June 2006, when 847 Iraqis died.
The Iraqi death count is considered a minimum based on AP reporting. The actual number is likely higher, as many killings go unreported.
While civilian deaths were sharply lower last month, Baghdad remained the center of violence in percentage terms. For this year, 54 percent of all sectarian killings occurred in the capital and suburbs. That figure declined to just above 49 percent in September. For the year, the next two most violent regions were the provinces of Diyala and Nineveh.
The number of civilian deaths in Baghdad, 487, also far outstripped any other region in September. Next highest was Diyala province, an al-Qaida sanctuary immediately north and east of the capital, where 124 civilians were killed.
AP tallies civilian, Iraqi military and Iraqi police deaths each day as reported by police, hospital officials, morgue workers and verifiable witness accounts. The security personnel include Iraqi military, police and police recruits, and bodyguards. Insurgent deaths are not included.
On Tuesday, 10 people were killed, including two women, a child and three police officers, in four separate attacks. A suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle at a police checkpoint near Khalis, 50 miles north of Baghdad, killing six people and wounding 10. Also, two roadside bombs exploded earlier in Baghdad, killing three people and wounding nine others.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Should we consider a boycott of Israeli academic institutions? Yes
Tom Hickey, chair of the University and Colleges Union
Faculty of Arts and Architecture, University of Brighton, Brighton BN2 1RA
http://www.blogger.com/T.Hickey@bton.ac.uk
Tony Blair's appointment as Middle East peace envoy is intended to invigorate the peace process. Tom Hickey thinks boycotting universities might encourage the Israeli government to reach a settlement, but Michael Baum believes collaboration is a more effective way forward .
The proposal adopted by the University and Colleges Union congress to discuss whether it should boycott Israeli academic institutions has caused a furore. The House of Lords set aside time for a full debate, and the British government dispatched a minister to reassure its Israeli counterparts. Whole page advertisements rapidly appeared in national newspapers condemning the decision. The great and the good were mobilised. Irrational, one sided, anti-semitic, and counterproductive were some of the accusations levelled against us for deciding to debate.
As the motion's mover, I have been subjected to sustained vilification. Eminent American professors, and supporters of Israel, have threatened to bankrupt and to destroy the careers of any union members who support a boycott. The conflation of a boycott proposal and a proposal to debate the appropriateness of a boycott clearly serves the purpose of those who wish to deflect attention from the substantive issue: the plight of people suffering under occupation.
So why has the union brought this predictable condemnation down on its head? Delegates decided that we could not ignore what is being done in the Occupied Territories, or the systematic denial of educational opportunities and academic freedom to Palestinian students and scholars. Some BMA members have also expressed concern about the complicity of the Israeli Medical Association in the occupation.1
Occupation
The territories, occupied since 1967, have been colonised by Israeli settlements built on illegally confiscated land. The area has been disaggregated and rendered ungovernable by road networks for Israeli use only. Houses are demolished as collective punishments, and there is regular shooting and shelling. Farmers are separated from their land, and the supply of water sharply discriminates between the needs of Palestinians and those of Israeli settlers.
In these circumstances, there can be no normal educational provision. Tutors and students face delays, harassment, and humiliation at checkpoints, visa and travel restrictions, and enormous problems of infrastructural decay and underfunding. Work for most inhabitants is all but non-existent, and 46% of the population is suffering from or vulnerable to food insecurity.2
Academic institutions
In all of this, there is strong evidence of the complicity of Israeli academic institutions.3 No Israeli college or university has publicly condemned what is being done in the Occupied Territories in the name of every Israeli citizen. Some Israeli educational institutions have established campuses for settlers on illegally confiscated land; others conduct archaeological digs on land from which Palestinian farmers have been expelled.
Some Israeli colleagues have spoken out against the occupation. But these are the heroic few. They risk their professional careers and being ostracised.
Our boycott debate is accused of infringing academic freedom. It does so, and that is to be regretted. The pursuit of scientific and artistic advance without hindrance is indeed crucial for human improvement. But academic freedom is not an absolute value taking precedence over all else. The values of human life and dignity are the ultimate objectives, and sometimes these may not be entirely compatible with the principle of untrammelled academic freedom.
We are also accused, hypocritically, of interfering with free speech. But it is our opponents who are trying to prevent such a debate from taking place.
Unfair to Israel?
We are accused of unfairly singling out Israel—the Jewish state—and hence of being anti-semites. We are asked why we do not propose a boycott of other states whose policies are barbaric and inhuman, such as China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Zimbabwe.
But whether a boycott is appropriate in such places depends on the merits of each individual case. In the case of Israel, we are speaking about a society whose dominant self image is one of a bastion of civilisation in a sea of medieval reaction. And we are speaking of a culture, both in Israel and in the long history of the Jewish diaspora, in which education and scholarship are held in high regard. That is why an academic boycott might have a desirable political effect in Israel, an effect that might not be expected elsewhere.
Anti-semitism?
The accusation of anti-semitism is both absurd and offensive. Accusing those who criticise Israel of being anti-semites presumes an identity of interests between Israel and all Jewish people, wherever they may be. This is illogical and contrary to the facts. Most people who spoke in favour of the motion at the our congress are Jewish, as are the members of the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine. The response of Israel's defenders is to say that such people are not proper Jews—that they are "self-hating Jews." Jewishness thus becomes transformed from a cultural or religious identity into an ideological position.
Boycott
The result of the debate in our union may not be a decision to boycott. If that is the outcome, however, it will not be because most members are unconcerned about the plight of the Palestinians. It would be because an alternative, and equally effective, proposal for their aid and support, and for opposition to the policies of the Israeli state, had emerged.
Moreover, the boycott would be of Israeli academic institutions only. We would not sever links with our Israeli colleagues, which would be counterproductive. Individual and group collaboration and publication on joint projects could continue, as long as such projects were not formally sponsored by Israeli institutions.
The fundamental issue is not a boycott as an end in itself. It is how to raise the current outrages to national and international prominence. Whether an institutional boycott is the most appropriate tactic will remain an open question. What is not, and cannot be, open is whether it is appropriate to debate and discuss the pros and cons of the tactic.
If Israeli academic institutions are complicit in the inhuman and dehumanising treatment of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, doing nothing (or nothing effective), would also make us complicit, if only by default. We cannot turn away and say, "Business as usual."
Competing interests: None declared.
Where do you stand on the issue? Vote in our poll at www.surveymk.com//s.aspx?sm=zrDgLYed7wn_2fe_2bcR2lC4Pw_3d_3d
References
1. Summerfield D, Green C, Karmi G, Halpin D, Cutting P, et al . Israeli boycotts: gesture politics or a moral imperative? Guardian 2007 Apr 21. www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,,2062435,00.html
2. World Food Programme. Projected 2007 needs for WFP projects and operations. Occupied Palestinian Territory. www.wfp.org/appeals/projected_needs/documents/2007/ODC.pdf
3. British Committee for the Universities of Palestine. Why boycott Israeli universities? London: BRICUP, 2007.
Faculty of Arts and Architecture, University of Brighton, Brighton BN2 1RA
http://www.blogger.com/T.Hickey@bton.ac.uk
Tony Blair's appointment as Middle East peace envoy is intended to invigorate the peace process. Tom Hickey thinks boycotting universities might encourage the Israeli government to reach a settlement, but Michael Baum believes collaboration is a more effective way forward .
The proposal adopted by the University and Colleges Union congress to discuss whether it should boycott Israeli academic institutions has caused a furore. The House of Lords set aside time for a full debate, and the British government dispatched a minister to reassure its Israeli counterparts. Whole page advertisements rapidly appeared in national newspapers condemning the decision. The great and the good were mobilised. Irrational, one sided, anti-semitic, and counterproductive were some of the accusations levelled against us for deciding to debate.
As the motion's mover, I have been subjected to sustained vilification. Eminent American professors, and supporters of Israel, have threatened to bankrupt and to destroy the careers of any union members who support a boycott. The conflation of a boycott proposal and a proposal to debate the appropriateness of a boycott clearly serves the purpose of those who wish to deflect attention from the substantive issue: the plight of people suffering under occupation.
So why has the union brought this predictable condemnation down on its head? Delegates decided that we could not ignore what is being done in the Occupied Territories, or the systematic denial of educational opportunities and academic freedom to Palestinian students and scholars. Some BMA members have also expressed concern about the complicity of the Israeli Medical Association in the occupation.1
Occupation
The territories, occupied since 1967, have been colonised by Israeli settlements built on illegally confiscated land. The area has been disaggregated and rendered ungovernable by road networks for Israeli use only. Houses are demolished as collective punishments, and there is regular shooting and shelling. Farmers are separated from their land, and the supply of water sharply discriminates between the needs of Palestinians and those of Israeli settlers.
In these circumstances, there can be no normal educational provision. Tutors and students face delays, harassment, and humiliation at checkpoints, visa and travel restrictions, and enormous problems of infrastructural decay and underfunding. Work for most inhabitants is all but non-existent, and 46% of the population is suffering from or vulnerable to food insecurity.2
Academic institutions
In all of this, there is strong evidence of the complicity of Israeli academic institutions.3 No Israeli college or university has publicly condemned what is being done in the Occupied Territories in the name of every Israeli citizen. Some Israeli educational institutions have established campuses for settlers on illegally confiscated land; others conduct archaeological digs on land from which Palestinian farmers have been expelled.
Some Israeli colleagues have spoken out against the occupation. But these are the heroic few. They risk their professional careers and being ostracised.
Our boycott debate is accused of infringing academic freedom. It does so, and that is to be regretted. The pursuit of scientific and artistic advance without hindrance is indeed crucial for human improvement. But academic freedom is not an absolute value taking precedence over all else. The values of human life and dignity are the ultimate objectives, and sometimes these may not be entirely compatible with the principle of untrammelled academic freedom.
We are also accused, hypocritically, of interfering with free speech. But it is our opponents who are trying to prevent such a debate from taking place.
Unfair to Israel?
We are accused of unfairly singling out Israel—the Jewish state—and hence of being anti-semites. We are asked why we do not propose a boycott of other states whose policies are barbaric and inhuman, such as China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Zimbabwe.
But whether a boycott is appropriate in such places depends on the merits of each individual case. In the case of Israel, we are speaking about a society whose dominant self image is one of a bastion of civilisation in a sea of medieval reaction. And we are speaking of a culture, both in Israel and in the long history of the Jewish diaspora, in which education and scholarship are held in high regard. That is why an academic boycott might have a desirable political effect in Israel, an effect that might not be expected elsewhere.
Anti-semitism?
The accusation of anti-semitism is both absurd and offensive. Accusing those who criticise Israel of being anti-semites presumes an identity of interests between Israel and all Jewish people, wherever they may be. This is illogical and contrary to the facts. Most people who spoke in favour of the motion at the our congress are Jewish, as are the members of the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine. The response of Israel's defenders is to say that such people are not proper Jews—that they are "self-hating Jews." Jewishness thus becomes transformed from a cultural or religious identity into an ideological position.
Boycott
The result of the debate in our union may not be a decision to boycott. If that is the outcome, however, it will not be because most members are unconcerned about the plight of the Palestinians. It would be because an alternative, and equally effective, proposal for their aid and support, and for opposition to the policies of the Israeli state, had emerged.
Moreover, the boycott would be of Israeli academic institutions only. We would not sever links with our Israeli colleagues, which would be counterproductive. Individual and group collaboration and publication on joint projects could continue, as long as such projects were not formally sponsored by Israeli institutions.
The fundamental issue is not a boycott as an end in itself. It is how to raise the current outrages to national and international prominence. Whether an institutional boycott is the most appropriate tactic will remain an open question. What is not, and cannot be, open is whether it is appropriate to debate and discuss the pros and cons of the tactic.
If Israeli academic institutions are complicit in the inhuman and dehumanising treatment of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, doing nothing (or nothing effective), would also make us complicit, if only by default. We cannot turn away and say, "Business as usual."
Competing interests: None declared.
Where do you stand on the issue? Vote in our poll at www.surveymk.com//s.aspx?sm=zrDgLYed7wn_2fe_2bcR2lC4Pw_3d_3d
References
1. Summerfield D, Green C, Karmi G, Halpin D, Cutting P, et al . Israeli boycotts: gesture politics or a moral imperative? Guardian 2007 Apr 21. www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,,2062435,00.html
2. World Food Programme. Projected 2007 needs for WFP projects and operations. Occupied Palestinian Territory. www.wfp.org/appeals/projected_needs/documents/2007/ODC.pdf
3. British Committee for the Universities of Palestine. Why boycott Israeli universities? London: BRICUP, 2007.
Monday, July 23, 2007
British map in Iran crisis 'inaccurate'
So, in other words, the Iranians were right - the British troops which were detained in March, WERE in Iranian waters after all. And, it only took them 4 months, and after Tony Blair's departure as Prime Minister, to fess-up. Imagine my complete (lack-of) surprise.
Global Research - July 22, 2007
Herald Sun
A BRITISH map of the northern Gulf where Iran seized 15 naval personnel in March was not as accurate as it should have been and Britain was fortunate Iran did not contest it, a review into the crisis said.
The parliamentary report also said Britain's Foreign Office should name the person who let two sailors sell their stories to the media, a decision widely criticised for handing a propaganda coup to Britain's enemies and embarrassing serving troops.
The report by the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) said the Foreign Office's overall approach could not be faulted, but it said efforts should have been made to contact key Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani sooner.
Iranian Revolutionary Guards seized 15 British personnel in the northern Gulf in March sparking a 13-day standoff that ended when Iran's President freed them, a day after Larijani spoke to a senior adviser to then Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Mr Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, is regarded as a pragmatist more amenable to exploring a bargain with the West than hardliner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Britain first applied to speak to Mr Larijani seven days into the crisis.
Britain insists the personnel were in Iraqi territorial waters on a UN-backed mission when they were seized.
Iran says the British sailors had strayed into its territory.
A British Ministry of Defence map published during the crisis showed a territorial water boundary extending from the Shatt al-Arab waterway that separates Iran and Iraq out to sea.
However experts say no maritime boundary between the two countries has been agreed and the line was based on a 1975 land boundary that could have shifted over time if the centre of the waterway had moved due to natural causes.
“We conclude that there is evidence to suggest that the map of the Shatt al-Arab waterway provided by the Government was less clear than it ought to have been,” the report said.
“The Government was fortunate that it was not in Iran's interests to contest the accuracy of the map.”
'Uncertainties'
Britain and Iran provided different coordinates for the location of the capture.
The report did not make a definitive conclusion on the accuracy of the map or whether the sailors were in Iraqi or Iranian waters.
It quoted Martin Pratt, director of research at the International Boundaries Research Unit at Durham University, as saying that if the British coordinates were correct, it was difficult to see how Iran's claim could be legitimate.
“Nevertheless, there are sufficient uncertainties over boundary definition in the area to make it inadvisable to state categorically that the vessel was in Iraqi waters,” he was quoted as saying.
He said the map was “certainly an oversimplification” and could be regarded as “deliberately misleading”.
The Foreign Office said it was pleased the report praised its overall approach.
It was considering some recommendations and leaving others for the Ministry of Defence to address.
The Ministry of Defence also said it would study the report.
Compiled by members of parliament, the report said it was “wholly unsatisfactory” that a previous report into the affair had been unable to say who was responsible for authorising payment for the stories of the personnel after they were freed.
“We recommend ... the (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) set out who specifically took the decision to authorise the naval personnel to sell their stories to the media,” it said.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Why do we hate Muslims?
by Gilad Atzmon
When I came over to Britain some thirteen years ago, I found a very tolerant place. I was amazed to see so many people of so many colours, not just living together in peace, but living in full harmony. At Essex University, the institute where I was doing my postgraduate studies, everyone was enthusiastic about post-colonialism. The Brits, so it seemed to me at the time, were repenting over their embarrassing colonial past. I was mildly impressed but not totally overwhelmed. At the end of the day, it isn’t that difficult to denounce your grandfather’s crimes.
I was amazed to see Turks and Cypriots running grocery shops side by side in Green Lane. My first roommate was a Palestinian M.A. student from Beit Sahour, it all felt natural. It didn’t take long before I fell in love with the town and decided to make it into my permanent home.
At the time, Britain was very different from the place I came from. In my homeland the human landscape was officially reduced into two types. In a manner of crude binary opposition there was always a clear division between the ‘Good’ and the ‘Bad’, the ‘us’ and the ‘them’, the ‘West’ and the ‘East’ or just the ‘Jews’ and the ‘Arabs’. In the place I came from, peace couldn’t even be seen on the horizon. But in the London of the 1990s, there was no such dichotomy. Painfully enough, this has changed. On a daily basis our media outlets repeat the idiotic question: “Why do they hate us so much?” By now it is rather clear, the binary opposition between ‘us’ and ‘them’ has made it into an integral part of the British discourse as well.
When I moved over in the early 1990s, British politics was very boring. John Major was in power. But then, not before long, a young, dynamic, visionary politician removed him from office. This politician is a man who has managed in just ten years to demolish one of the most harmonious societies in the West. Tony Blair, the great new Labour promise, had been running the country for a decade; he managed to drag this country into every possible conflict, and to escalate minor conflict to crisis levels. He has managed to lie repeatedly to his people, his parliament and his cabinet, he has launched an illegal war that cost over 700,000 innocent civilian lives. He obviously failed to see the impact those wars may have on his multi-ethnic society at home.
Blair has just left the PM office, thank God for that, however, this country is now on the brink of moral collapse. Its civil rights system is under severe threat. Politicians of all parties are calling for tougher detention laws. The possibility of mass deportation of new immigrants doesn’t look like a remote nightmare. Yet, most worrying is the role of the ‘free’ media in this country. The leading papers and TV are succumbing quite willingly to the official Government line of thinking. It’s something that reminds me too much of the recruited media in my doomed homeland, the place I left thirteen years ago.
I find myself wondering, how dare the media ask ‘why do they hate us?’ Don’t they know the answer? Don’t we know the answer? Weren’t we the ones who demolished Iraq? Wasn’t it our PM, Tony Blair, who gave a green light to the Israelis to flatten Lebanon? Wasn’t it Tony Blair’s government who dismissed the democratically elected Hamas in Palestine? Wasn’t it Blair who allowed the Israelis to starve Gaza?
For those who still fail to realise, to kill is rather simple, to turn towns into piles of rubble isn’t that complicated either. Yet, to raise a child may take a few years, to build a city takes hundreds of years and to establish harmony between human beings takes thousand of years. We should stop lying to others and to ourselves. We know perfectly well why they hate us, they have some good reasons, as things stand momentarily, we are the ones who are killing them en mass. It is us who demolish their towns and kill their kids.
Thus, rather than raising the pathetic question, ‘why do they hate us?’ we’d better evade our self-righteous mode, and ask ourselves, ‘why do we hate them so much?’ or even, ‘why do we hate so much?’ in general.
To bring peace to London, Glasgow, Britain and the West is to look in the mirror, to look into our severe and devastating wrongdoings, to repair the damage made by Blair, Bush and company, to revise the dream of ecumenical Western society. It is possible. It is within our capacity. We have been just there not that long ago. I remember it very well, it was only thirteen years ago, I felt it when I landed in Britain.
When I came over to Britain some thirteen years ago, I found a very tolerant place. I was amazed to see so many people of so many colours, not just living together in peace, but living in full harmony. At Essex University, the institute where I was doing my postgraduate studies, everyone was enthusiastic about post-colonialism. The Brits, so it seemed to me at the time, were repenting over their embarrassing colonial past. I was mildly impressed but not totally overwhelmed. At the end of the day, it isn’t that difficult to denounce your grandfather’s crimes.
I was amazed to see Turks and Cypriots running grocery shops side by side in Green Lane. My first roommate was a Palestinian M.A. student from Beit Sahour, it all felt natural. It didn’t take long before I fell in love with the town and decided to make it into my permanent home.
At the time, Britain was very different from the place I came from. In my homeland the human landscape was officially reduced into two types. In a manner of crude binary opposition there was always a clear division between the ‘Good’ and the ‘Bad’, the ‘us’ and the ‘them’, the ‘West’ and the ‘East’ or just the ‘Jews’ and the ‘Arabs’. In the place I came from, peace couldn’t even be seen on the horizon. But in the London of the 1990s, there was no such dichotomy. Painfully enough, this has changed. On a daily basis our media outlets repeat the idiotic question: “Why do they hate us so much?” By now it is rather clear, the binary opposition between ‘us’ and ‘them’ has made it into an integral part of the British discourse as well.
When I moved over in the early 1990s, British politics was very boring. John Major was in power. But then, not before long, a young, dynamic, visionary politician removed him from office. This politician is a man who has managed in just ten years to demolish one of the most harmonious societies in the West. Tony Blair, the great new Labour promise, had been running the country for a decade; he managed to drag this country into every possible conflict, and to escalate minor conflict to crisis levels. He has managed to lie repeatedly to his people, his parliament and his cabinet, he has launched an illegal war that cost over 700,000 innocent civilian lives. He obviously failed to see the impact those wars may have on his multi-ethnic society at home.
Blair has just left the PM office, thank God for that, however, this country is now on the brink of moral collapse. Its civil rights system is under severe threat. Politicians of all parties are calling for tougher detention laws. The possibility of mass deportation of new immigrants doesn’t look like a remote nightmare. Yet, most worrying is the role of the ‘free’ media in this country. The leading papers and TV are succumbing quite willingly to the official Government line of thinking. It’s something that reminds me too much of the recruited media in my doomed homeland, the place I left thirteen years ago.
I find myself wondering, how dare the media ask ‘why do they hate us?’ Don’t they know the answer? Don’t we know the answer? Weren’t we the ones who demolished Iraq? Wasn’t it our PM, Tony Blair, who gave a green light to the Israelis to flatten Lebanon? Wasn’t it Tony Blair’s government who dismissed the democratically elected Hamas in Palestine? Wasn’t it Blair who allowed the Israelis to starve Gaza?
For those who still fail to realise, to kill is rather simple, to turn towns into piles of rubble isn’t that complicated either. Yet, to raise a child may take a few years, to build a city takes hundreds of years and to establish harmony between human beings takes thousand of years. We should stop lying to others and to ourselves. We know perfectly well why they hate us, they have some good reasons, as things stand momentarily, we are the ones who are killing them en mass. It is us who demolish their towns and kill their kids.
Thus, rather than raising the pathetic question, ‘why do they hate us?’ we’d better evade our self-righteous mode, and ask ourselves, ‘why do we hate them so much?’ or even, ‘why do we hate so much?’ in general.
To bring peace to London, Glasgow, Britain and the West is to look in the mirror, to look into our severe and devastating wrongdoings, to repair the damage made by Blair, Bush and company, to revise the dream of ecumenical Western society. It is possible. It is within our capacity. We have been just there not that long ago. I remember it very well, it was only thirteen years ago, I felt it when I landed in Britain.
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