Not a Normal Country

Some will call this anti-Semitic

On 10^th November an Israeli sponsored account, which spreads state propaganda, tweeted the following:

This account, Israel News Flash, tweets propaganda as "Breaking News". Account tweets are then copied to people like Tommy Robinson, Trek Fatah, KT Hopkins and dozens more by twitter account of Charlie Green who's profile shows that he is an ex diplomat.

The young Palestinian boy in this picture is one of the 80+ Palestinians, mainly teenagers, shot dead by the Israelis since the latest troubles, which started at the beginning of October. During this period 10 Israelis have also been killed. On 13^th November2015 Two more Israelis were killed and one Palestinian was shot dead and over 100 were injured by live bullets at a demonstration. The Palestinians say that majority of the victims of Israeli policy of shoot to kill were unarmed and at the wrong place at the wrong time. A closer inspection of the knife placement in this picture can only strengthen the Palestinian version. The shoot to kill  policy isn’t new but what is new is that it has now been legalised. The Palestinians of any age including children can now be shot and killed for any descent including for stone throwing. Young children, as young as 6/7, can be described as terrorists and imprisoned.

Its not that Israel didn’t imprison children before, it did, however, now it can put them in front of military courts and prison them as terrorists. Furthermore, Israel continue to apply British colonial era practice of demolishing homes of Palestinians, accused of so called terrorist/ descent activity, rendering whole families homeless.

We in the west are  bombarded daily with rhetoric, by trolls on social media, newscasters and politicians like Boris Johnson, that Israel is a modern western democracy. Also that she is the only democracy in the Middle East. Yet I can’t think of a time when this so called democracy wasn’t involved in the suppressive and discriminatory behaviour towards the Palestinians and others living under her rule. This behaviour has been universally condemned, well almost universally. In fact Israel is the only country in the world which has broken/ ignored as many UN resolutions as the years of her existence. Not forgetting a bunch of resolutions which have been vetoed by the United States of America. No wonder Israel behaves like a villainous Mini Me and continues to apply the most brutal, discriminatory and apartheid practices against the Palestinians, Arabs and other minorities.

The fact is that Israel didn’t evolve as an organic nation but more like a creation of science fiction. What I mean is that Israel didn’t come to being because the people had always lived there and had gained independence and nationhood like many of the nations in existence today. Israeli story is more akin to a science fiction where aliens land from another planet. Like the Science Fiction, Israelis were given permission to settle in Palestine by the earth power, which at the time happened to be the British. Then in the fashion of sci fi they turned on the power that gave them sanctuary and the indigenous locals. They went on a terrorising spree of killing and expulsion of not only the indigenous population but also the British Imperialists.   

Israel’s relation with fiction has continued throughout her existence. From divine right to supposed ancestral home to reliant on Hasbara to spread fictional rhetoric. Israel and her supporters spread the rhetoric of being a modern democracy with civilised values. However, when it comes to the reality the picture is anything but that. It is a portrait of dark colonialism and suppressive apartheid. Where mistreatment of minorities, migrants, Palestinians in the occupied territories and in Gaza is a daily reality. Where exists a deliberate policy of discrimination, use of deadly force and suppression. Where intolerance shows in the shape of imprisonment, racial abuse of African migrants. Where claims of gay friendly atmosphere are made but gay pride is attacked and you will have no open doors for sanctuary to gays fleeing persecution. Where criticism of state is banned and so is flying of Palestinian flag. Where you will be denied visa to visit, even to co religious, if state considers that you have been involved in the activity of criticising the state of Israel and her policies of suppression.

Fiction, lying, racism, discrimination, use of deadly force iaren’t limited to rogue elements, it is the official state policy. It starts from the top with the Prime Minister Netanyahu, his advisors, spokes persons, cabinet ministers and the Knesset. We all know the racist broadcast by Netanyahu during the elections, warning that Arabs are voting in droves. His most daring fiction came with attempts to rewrite the history and to rehabilitate Hitler by shifting the blame for holocaust on to the Palestinians and Muslims. It seems that he has started to believe his own Islamophobic propaganda and that can’t be good sign for a person leading a country.

 Israel and Netanyahu are aided and abetted by a group of fiction writers and propagandist. They hold onto the scripted lies and spread the fictional idea of Modern Western Democracy. More often than not they also share Israeli Ideals of racism, discrimination, inhumanity and war. Whether it is the Gatestone institute, Bill Maher, Tommy Robinson, Henry Jackson Society and Douglas Murray, they all spread Islamophobia, racism against the refugees and advocate bombing of other countries. Others include new atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and self declared reformed radical Maajid Nawaz.

The hypocrisy of people like Douglas Murray and others is breathtaking. They cry that Syrian and other refugees coming to Europe of ½ billion people will affect Jodeo-Christian culture of Europe (even after acceptance of the refugees Muslims will only be approx 3.5% of the European population). The same people who oppose resettlement of refugees in Europe fervently support the Netanyahu’s policy of importing co-religious to already overpopulated occupied territories of Palestine, where settlers now make approx 30% of the West Bank/ occupied territories.  

These fiction writer Israeli supporters conveniently ignore at least 50 pieces of Israeli legislation, discriminating against the 20% of the “Israel proper” population of Arabs, affecting their family life from Marriage to buying a house. Then there are Palestinians living in the occupied territories in the West Bank. They face daily barrage of bullets, abuse and humiliation, not only from the ever present security forces but also from the armed settlers. The settlers have not only stolen their land, both residential and farming, they have the audacity to claim that they are doing favours by employing Palestinians as slave labour. These settlers are an extremist bunch on par with the IS, Indian RSS and Myanmar’s extremist Buddhists. Settler’s extremism and radicalism is many time greater than Maajid Nawaz’s greatly embellished radicalism.

We must remember the 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza, who have been subjected to an ongoing medieval style siege. They are surrounded from all sides with no prospects in Gaza and have no chance to escape to better their lives. Along with the walls and barbed wire, they are monitored from Military ships, drones and from time to time bombed by military jets. Last year over 2000 including 500 children of Gaza were killed and hundreds of homes were destroyed by what could only be described as mad army. Their lives, livelihoods, health provisions, education, ability to farm and build homes are all subject to control. There homes, hospitals, schools, mosques, power stations and even beaches have been bombed by Israel. They don’t even have control of the safe water supplies.

Israel’s apartheid system is often compared with the South African system but in reality it is worse. As brutal and suppressive it was the South African regime didn’t use tanks and fighter jets against the black population. It did not invade neighbouring countries or sent bomber jets to invade and bomb. It didn’t have the walls erected or watch towers installed. It didn’t kill people at the mass scale as Israel does. It didn’t arrest and imprison children at the unprecedented rate. It didn’t make it legal to shoot and kill stone throwing children, It didn’t classify children and others protesting against the inequalities as terrorists. It didn’t classify the whole swaths of population as terrorists. It didn’t use military courts instead of the civil courts. It didn’t implant 600,000 foreign settlers in already heavily populated areas and armed and trained  them to kill.

During his latest visit to the United States this week, Netanyahu has once again stated that Israel is the only safe space for his co-religious. This is a slap in the face of all western democracies and their freedoms, which has allowed his co-religious people to flourish without any kind of discrimination. The dangerous nature of oppressive policies of Israel are sometimes criticised by some free thinking politicians like the Swedish Foreign Minister speaking after the Paris attacks. Yet this unlikely country continues to receive political support from our politicians and most importantly monitory and military support from the US.  

Democracy, Media and the Pressure Groups

Voting in Labour Leadership Elections closed at mid day yesterday. This has been an historic election in many ways. First of all it is the first leadership election with no block vote for the Trade Unions or the MPs. A truly democratic system of one member one vote is not only open to the Labour Party members but also to the wider electorate who could sign up to be party supporters. This revolutionary idea allows party to test the popularity of the elected leader. This election is also historic as it is likely to break from party’s recent past and allow it to reconnect with the masses and the democratic principles of “Government of the people by the people, for the people”. Furthermore, hopefully it will revive the founding principles of the welfare state and equality for all. Whatever the result on Saturday, the Labour party will have to change from a mare reflection of the Tory party, to a radical force with alternative ideas.

These leadership elections will also be remembered for the dirty tricks, not only of the establishment, the Tory party members, Blair and Blairites and the media. Everyone who took part in the dirty campaign has their own reasons. Recent labour leadership is worried about the scrutiny of their actions/ inactions during their reign. The establishment is worried about loosening of their stranglehold on power. The Tory party is worried about having a proper opposition, questioning their ideological policies of austerity, failure to invest for growth and using the same old trick of selling public assets to balance the books. The elections will also be remembered for excessive column inches and air time used to smear attack and undermine one candidate. However, they could not find anything in Jeremy Corbyn’s personal life or 30 year of public service to attack him. They were forced to admit that he is a nice and principled man. However, their attempts to attack him on various policy discussion papers and economic proposals were scuppered when number of economists including Noble Prize winner supported his plans.   

When all else, including Jeremy Corbyn’s vest and dress sense and all the jibes of Trotskyite, etc failed, dirty tricks were deployed. Some people latched onto his support for the Palestinian cause and desire for a dialogue to end the conflict and suffering of Palestinians. Allegations of Anti-Semitism, racism and bigotry started to fly. This attack was started by the Jewish Chronicle and was immediately picked up by the cabal of “literati”, “journalists”, think tanks”; the so called “liberal left”. Soon there were blogs, articles, tweets and media repeated the same allegations. One ex Tory minister and the Sun columnist, Louise devoted a good part of a month on this propaganda. When she and her colleagues at sister newspaper the Times couldn’t find a shred of evidence against Jeremy Corbyn to support their allegations, they resorted to attacking his supporters. They abused their positions as “journalists” to malign the unsuspecting public for supporting a principled man.   

This shows the depth of depravity some people will go to protect their interests. The unholy alliance between so called liberal left and Tories and suspect nationalist and racist groups isn’t new. They don’t have any principled position and they would forge alliances with anyone to achieve their goals of creating disorder. They support disorder around the world and at home by promoting views of interventionist policies and attacking migrant communities at home and in the West. They would support Tory government and Blairites in return for support of their views. In other words they are not Liberals, leftists or even Tories, they are just a pressure group with their own aims. They aim to silent people by insinuations, harassment, often bare faced lies and bullying.

The result hasn’t been declared but these people including media pundits are developing new narratives to attack Jeremy Corbyn. One of the common question is that can he be a Prime Minister. They did the same to Ed Milliband and attacked his personality. They forced him, a Jewish man, to eat a bacon sandwich and then ridiculed it. They succeeded in persuading him to hide his stated left leaning policies to develop rhetoric similar to the Tories. The result, public was left confused which resulted in a massive defeat for the Labour. We are now left with unprecedented austerity cuts with lasting effects on our lives. The Tories have always cut the essential services and sold public assets to balance the books. For example they cut youth services and then sold school playgrounds leaving our youth nowhere to go.

It is the Left which always had vision of welfare of the masses and investment for growth. They created National Health Service to make it available to all. They invested in the Education to give everyone chance to improve their lives. They cleared the slums and improved living conditions by investing in Public Housing and duties on Councils to house homeless and those in need. They brought rent controls and minimum standards for housing. They brought equality legislations to include all minority groups. They introduced welfare state and benefits for those in need including growing families, unemployed, infirm and disabled. They invested in industries including ship building, mining, aeronautical, steel, etc. They invested in the defence industries and the defence forces and introduced nuclear technology. On the other hand the Tory governments, instead of investing and modernising to make it competitive, sold or closed these industries and helped to diminish the manufacturing industries. 

Whatever happens on Saturday, Jeremy Corbyn has already started a debate and conversation with the masses to present an alternative to the same old same old. If he wins he will need our support to succeed in his mission. Don’t be distracted by the questions such as whether Jeremy Corbyn is Prime Minister material or whether he wants to be the Prime Minister, as the general elections are years away. What is important is the need to help him develop alternative policies to that of austerity, diminishing public services and welfare state. We need someone to take us away from the tried and failed interventionist and military adventures and to advocate diplomacy and dialogue to resolve conflicts at home and abroad.

Finally, a plea to the Journalists, I know you love spin and analysis but wont it be refreshing to see a politician with straight answers to straight questions. So please don’t resort to usual dirty tricks respect democratic choice for public good. Public is yearning for change from the same old deceptive rhetoric, you know it makes sense. There is no point making the same plea to the liberal left and other pressure groups as they are hell bent on peomoting disorder.