Israel

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Israel’s Latest Lie Is That It Has ‘No Choice’ But To Attack Iran

Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 16/04/2024 - 12:42pm in

Tags 

USA, Israel, Iran, News

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

https://medium.com/media/7d211184966559667a062dac16ffab4f/href

In an article titled “Israel vows to retaliate against Iran for missile attacks,” Axios reports that the Israeli defense minister has informed his American counterpart that Israel “has no choice” but to attack Iran for the retaliatory strike it launched in response to Israel’s deadly attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus.

“Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant told Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin Sunday that Israel has no choice but to respond to the unprecedented missile and drone attack launched by Iran over the weekend,” reports Axios, citing an anonymous US official and another unnamed source.

The state of Israel has been churning out massive lies on a daily basis for the last six months, but this whopper could wind up being the most consequential.

Antiwar.com on Twitter: "Report: Israel Tells US It Has No Choice But To Respond to IranIsraeli TV reports that Israel's War Cabinet has decided it will attack Iran, but it's unclear how or whenby Dave DeCamp@DecampDave #Israel #Iran #Gaza https://t.co/bcs6DQgDsb pic.twitter.com/x3C51NQcse / Twitter"

Report: Israel Tells US It Has No Choice But To Respond to IranIsraeli TV reports that Israel's War Cabinet has decided it will attack Iran, but it's unclear how or whenby Dave DeCamp@DecampDave #Israel #Iran #Gaza https://t.co/bcs6DQgDsb pic.twitter.com/x3C51NQcse

Obviously Israel has a choice as to whether it continues to escalate a conflict it initiated with an extreme act of aggression. This fraudulent apartheid ethnostate is so accustomed to crying victim every minute of every day that it will even pretend to be the victim of its own conscious decisions.

As professor Jason Hickel put it on Twitter, “People need to understand that Israel *does not* need to retaliate. Iran’s action was a telegraphed response to Israel’s bombing of its consulate, which killed 16 people and violated the Vienna Convention. Iran says they now consider the matter closed. Israel must de-escalate.”

Iran’s deputy foreign minister Ali Bagheri has made it clear that if Israel launches another attack against Iran, this time Iran’s response will be instantaneous instead of a twelve-day grace period with Tehran giving neighboring countries and the United States a 72-hour advance warning to ensure minimal damage to Israel.

Abas Aslani on Twitter: "Iranian DepFM Ali Bagheri says that #Iran will respond to a new mistake by #Israel "in seconds, not in days or hours". He said, "This time, they will not have 12 days". https://t.co/nKzXZncz4P / Twitter"

Iranian DepFM Ali Bagheri says that #Iran will respond to a new mistake by #Israel "in seconds, not in days or hours". He said, "This time, they will not have 12 days". https://t.co/nKzXZncz4P

Predictably, the Biden administration is doing its usual phony schtick where it pretends to be a passive witness to all this, with National Security spokesman John Kirby telling the press that the White House plans to just “wait and see what the Israelis decide to do.”

But as foreign policy analyst Tariq Kenney-Shawa noted of Kirby’s statement, “Israel will be using US-supplied weapons, will have to coordinate with US forces throughout the region, and will depend on the US for missile defense when Iran responds.” So the fact that the US won’t be actively planning the attack with Israel doesn’t mean the US won’t be involved in it on a fundamental level.

If Israel’s escalatory attack happens, it will be because Washington allowed it to. If the US informed Israel that it will instantly lose its pricey US weapons supplies and Pentagon support if it attacks Iran, Israel would discover very quickly that it does in fact have a choice as to whether or not to proceed.

https://medium.com/media/497752da3cdc952f5ad9f7a4ea87bfea/href

In an article for Foreign Policy titled “Netanyahu Wants War With Iran. Biden Can Prevent It.”, Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi argues that while Biden’s unconditional support for Israel is often described as a continuation of longstanding US policy, it has actually been a rather dramatic break from the norm. Presidents like Reagan, both Bushes, and Obama have not hesitated to give Israel’s arm a twist whenever they found it necessary to advance US interests in the region; this new policy of just letting Tel Aviv do whatever it wants while providing unconditional support is actually without precedent in the White House.

Both Israel and the US are pretending to be powerless in this situation, when in reality they’re both anything but. They’re like two muggers getting ready to mug someone and saying “If only there was something we could do to stop this terrible mugging!”

Israel absolutely can choose not to accelerate toward a terrifying war between extremely powerful militaries, and the US absolutely can choose to pump the brakes. The fact that neither of them are doing so is just what it looks like when you live under a globe-spanning empire that is fueled by human blood.

______________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Featured image via Adobe Stock.

Israeli media: Israel ‘totally defeated’ – and terrified of Iran

Source close to discussions about Iran says millions would be fleeing Israel if they knew what was being said

Israeli media are often far more honest about what their country is doing – and what is going on in it – than western ‘mainstream’ media are about the same issues. While UK ‘msm’ still maintain the lie that Hamas ‘beheaded babies’ and raped women on 7 October, Israeli media sometimes freely discuss the truth – and frequently and openly write about the ‘immense’ numbers of Israelis killed that day by the Israeli military.

And now, Israeli media are discussing two further truths that will not be aired by UK broadcasters or printed by UK papers.

First, Haaretz – one of Israel’s major dailies – has splashed a headline concluding that Israel has lost – totally lost – the ‘war’, the genocide, it has been raining down on the innocent civilians of Gaza. Lost so badly that Israel cannot be secure – and will not either regain by force the captives taken by Hamas, or end its pariah status:

And second, journalists with sources close to the Israeli regime’s discussions about Iran – which yesterday achieved a measured but compelling attack on Israel in retaliation for Israel’s bombing of Iran’s consulate in Damascus – are saying openly that those discussions are so terrifying that if the Israeli populace knew what was being said, millions of them would be flooding Israel’s main international airport to try to get out of the country:

The UK government, opposition and media are incorrigibly dishonest about Israel’s genocide and its terrible consequences for the millions of innocents in Gaza and the West Bank – and the ruination of both Israel’s and the West’s always-thin pretence as democratic, humane and law-abiding. But the truth is out there – and will percolate through.

If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.

VIDEO: Nicaragua takes on Germany over Gaza genocide- an interview with Carlos Argüello Gómez

Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 16/04/2024 - 3:22am in

Nicaraguan lawyer and diplomat Carlos Argüello Gómez speaks to The Grayzone about his case against the German government for its facilitation of Israel’s genocide in the besieged Gaza Strip, its potentially historic implications, and its similarities to the successful case he argued for the ICJ in 1986 which brought massive penalties against the United States for its illegal dirty war on Nicaragua at the time. A full transcript follows.   Max Blumenthal: Why did Nicaragua feel compelled to bring this […]

The post VIDEO: Nicaragua takes on Germany over Gaza genocide- an interview with Carlos Argüello Gómez first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post VIDEO: Nicaragua takes on Germany over Gaza genocide- an interview with Carlos Argüello Gómez appeared first on The Grayzone.

Amal Clooney’s Silence on Gaza Shows the Limits Of Liberalism

Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 15/04/2024 - 11:02pm in

Amal Clooney, the internationally acclaimed lawyer, is a liberal icon. She and her organization, the Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ), never shrink from pronouncing their global verdicts on human rights matters. And yet, despite being Lebanese and of Palestinian descent herself, Time magazine’s 2022 Woman of the Year has maintained complete silence on Israel’s continued bombardment of those very countries – a crime other human rights experts have labeled a genocide.

It has now been six months since the October 7 attack, Israel’s wholesale destruction of Gaza and its attacks on Lebanon, yet Clooney has made no public statement on the matter, either in public or on social media, despite mounting calls for her to do so.

 

Condemning Enemy Nations, Ignoring Crimes of Friends

Born in Lebanon to a Druze Lebanese father and a Sunni Muslim mother of Palestinian descent, Clooney’s family sought refuge in the United Kingdom after the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War. After practicing law for many years in the U.K. and U.S. in 2016, she founded the CFJ alongside her film star husband, George. “​​We founded the Clooney Foundation for Justice to hold perpetrators of mass atrocities accountable for their crimes and to help victims in their fight for justice,” the pair explain on their website.

Today, the CFJ works in over 40 countries. This includes many countries the U.S. treats as enemy nations or candidates for regime change. Clooney and her foundation have taken strong stances against many of those nations. She has demanded that Russia be prosecuted for war crimes. “Ukraine is, today, a slaughterhouse. Right in the heart of Europe,” she told the U.N. Security Council in 2022. The following year, the CFJ filed three cases in Germany. The cases accused Russia of many war crimes, including leveling a civilian building in a missile strike on Odesa, killing 40 people, unlawfully detaining, torturing and killing four Ukrainians in the Kharkiv region, and sexual violence and looting in the Kiev region. The CFJ is also suing the Venezuelan government over alleged human rights abuses.

In 2016, Clooney condemned Iran and North Korea for serially abusing their citizens’ human rights. She did this at a conference in the United Arab Emirates, attended by the country’s ruler, Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi. Far from criticizing the UAE’s dismal human rights record, she praised the government and merely offered friendly “advice” to the emirate on how it could improve.

And yet, the Clooney Foundation has been entirely silent regarding arguably the dominant human rights issue of our time. A search for the words “Israel,” “Gaza,” and “Palestine” on both its website and its Twitter account elicits zero relevant results.

While we cannot expect either Clooney or her organization to work on every country simultaneously, it has disappointed many of Clooney’s admirers that neither has even put out a statement about the country of her birth and the country of her ancestry being torn apart by a Western-backed power.

Even when directly questioned about it, George Clooney appeared to dodge the question, stating:

The whole area [the Middle East] is just on fire, and it is heartbreaking all the way around. All you can do is pray that there is some version of this that comes to some peaceful end soon. But I don’t see it happening in the very near future, and I don’t think anybody does.” 

This relative silence on Gaza contrasts with other major Western human rights organizations, who have vociferously condemned the state of Israel. Amnesty International, for example, wrote that “there are alarming warning signs of Genocide given the staggering scale of death and destruction” and that “The collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population by Israeli authorities is a war crime – it is cruel and inhumane.” This sentiment was shared by Human Rights Watch, which noted that “The Israeli government is using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the Gaza Strip, which is a war crime.”

 

Friends in High Places

Why have Clooney and her foundation shown little to no interest in Palestine (or Lebanon)? Firstly, the CFJ is sponsored primarily by large liberal institutions, such as the Ford Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and foreign sources like the German and Swedish Postcode Lotteries, none of whom have shown any interest in pro-Palestine activism.

Moreover, Clooney herself has close connections to many in the Democratic Party establishment, including some of the most hardcore pro-Israel zealots anywhere. In 2016, she and her husband hosted a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton with Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban at their mansion. Tickets for the event cost $34,000 each.

Saban is one of America’s most influential political donors but considers himself a “one-issue guy.” “And my issue is Israel,” he once said. He has also called for “higher scrutiny” of Muslim Americans, suggesting they are a threat to the country’s security, and branded Muslim-American Democrats such as Keith Ellison “anti-semites.” Clinton, who describes herself as an “emphatic, unwavering supporter” of Israel, wrote Saban an open letter promising to stamp out the spread of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement by any means necessary.

Amal ClooneyGeorge and Amal Clooney, right, pose with Hillary Clinto and Bryan Lourd and Bruce Bozzi at at an event at the Clooney home in Hollywood. Photo | Instagram

Moreover, Clooney has accepted a number of U.K. government posts – positions that rarely go to radical outsiders but rather to those firmly inside the establishment beltway. Those posts include being appointed to the Attorney General’s Office Public International Law Panel, meaning she represented the British government in domestic and international courts. The government also appointed her the U.K. Special Envoy on Media Freedom and the Deputy Chair of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom.

One senior position Clooney publicly rejected, however, was to serve on the United Nations Human Rights Council inquiry looking into Israeli war crimes in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge (2014). When pressed to explain her decision, she simply cited a scheduling conflict (while refusing to condemn Israel), stating:

I am horrified by the situation in the occupied Gaza Strip, particularly the civilian casualties that have been caused, and strongly believe that there should be an independent investigation and accountability for crimes that have been committed… I am honored to have received the offer, but given existing commitments – including eight ongoing cases – unfortunately could not accept this role. I wish my colleagues who will serve on the commission courage and strength in their endeavors.”

 

“Moral Mercenary”

The refusal to investigate Israeli war crimes is especially notable, given that Clooney has made her career taking controversial posts concerning the Middle East. She previously served as an advisor on Syria to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. She currently represents hundreds of Yazidi survivors of ISIS massacres and is in the process of suing cement maker Lafarge. The lawsuit alleges that the French company provided material support to the terrorist group, which kept many Yazidi women as slaves.

In 2014, she defended Abdullah al Senussi, the Former Chief of Intelligence under Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. The International Criminal Court charged Senussi with crimes against humanity, who was alleged to have overseen torture, assassinations and public executions.

Perhaps most surprising, however, was her appointment as legal advisor to King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain during the Bassiouni Commission – a royal investigation into the events of the Arab Spring. The people of Bahrain briefly participated in their own popular anti-government uprising before the monarchy called in Saudi, Emirati and Kuwaiti forces to crush the revolt, killing hundreds and injuring or torturing thousands more. In this instance, Clooney worked on behalf not of the oppressed but of the monarchy, presumably attempting to absolve it of any blame or responsibility for the crackdown on civil liberties, leading one commentator to dub her a “moral mercenary.”

 

Silent on Genocide

It is barely in doubt that Israel is currently engaged in some of the most egregious crimes against humanity seen anywhere in the 21st century, from genocide to attacks on schools, hospitals, mosques and churches to the deliberate targeting of journalists and other civilians, to the leveling of entire cities and the systematic starvation of a people.

And despite this, Amal Clooney, who presents herself as a champion of progressive, liberal values and human rights, has had nothing to say about it. This is doubly noteworthy, given her country of birth and her ancestry. As an ethical leader with a considerable audience, any pronouncement she utters on the issue would likely make a significant impact.

Palestine is so often, however, the rocks on which the moral and ethical underpinnings of liberalism are dashed. While Western liberals constantly speak in the language of human rights, using them as a weapon against enemy states and even justifying the bloodiest military interventions on their basis, they fall silent when allied nations carry out similar barbaric actions.

This “progressive except for Palestine” mentality is pervasive across the Western world and highlights the profound limits of modern liberalism. While foreign leaders like Vladimir Putin, Nicolás Maduro or Xi Jinping (or even domestic ones such as Trump) are considered beyond the pale for their transgressions on human rights, beltway politicians like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama are held up as heroes. This is despite their crimes, which range from using jihadists to overthrow the most prosperous country in Africa to bombing seven countries simultaneously.

It should, therefore, be of little surprise that Clooney and her foundation have remained tight-lipped about the current slaughter. Those who are shocked by their inaction underestimate the moral bankruptcy of modern liberalism.

Speaking on a panel with Michelle Obama and Melinda Gates (two other liberal icons), Clooney outlined the “real driving force” behind her work.

“My son drew a picture the other day of a prison, and he was like, ‘Putin should be here,’” she said before continuing:

I do think about in a few years when they’re more than five when they start to learn about some of these issues that we’re talking about and what’s happening in the world… When they ask us, ‘What did you do about this? What did you say about that?’ I’ve thought about what will my answer be, and I hope it will be a good one.”

If Clooney’s son ever asks her what she was doing as Israel carried out war crimes across the Middle East, she will also have a clear answer: she was silent on genocide.

Feature photo | Amal Clooney speaks during a conference called “Press Behind Bars: Undermining Justice and Democracy” at the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters, Sept. 28, 2018. Craig Ruttle | AP

Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.orgThe GuardianSalonThe GrayzoneJacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.

The post Amal Clooney’s Silence on Gaza Shows the Limits Of Liberalism appeared first on MintPress News.

Stop Pretending Biden Is Some Passive Witness To Israel’s Warmongering

Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 15/04/2024 - 10:38pm in

Tags 

Iran, News, War, Israel

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

https://medium.com/media/976c0daf6cbe5cf0a4a73a4bc7bd7a81/href

The more I think about it the more obnoxious I find the Biden administration’s “Gee whiz, I sure hope Israel doesn’t drag us into a giant war in the middle east” posturing and the imperial media’s facilitation of it.

CNN has a new article out titled “As Iran attacks Israel, Biden confronts an escalating Middle East crisis he had hoped to avoid,” which is a genre of story that has been coming out in slightly different iterations again and again for the past six months. Every time Israel does something that makes things more dangerous in the middle east with the assistance of the United States, the American press fall all over themselves to inform the world that the president really doesn’t want this to happen and that his feelings are very upset about it.

“For President Joe Biden, an attack on Israel launched from Iranian soil amounts to a scenario he’d greatly sought to avoid since the start of the current Middle East conflict,” writes CNN, saying the strikes “heighten the risk of a wider regional conflict that could directly draw in the United States, along with other countries.”

“Israel will respond to Iran’s attack, but the scope of that response has yet to be determined,” CNN reports, citing an anonymous Israeli official.

Assal Rad on Twitter: "-Iran was *responding* to Israel's attack on its embassy, this framing makes it seem like Iran initiated an attack-If Biden wanted to avoid a crisis he could have supported a ceasefire, instead he gave Israel no red line, aided atrocities in Gaza and shattered international law pic.twitter.com/83bmPIDOgd / Twitter"

Iran was *responding* to Israel's attack on its embassy, this framing makes it seem like Iran initiated an attack-If Biden wanted to avoid a crisis he could have supported a ceasefire, instead he gave Israel no red line, aided atrocities in Gaza and shattered international law pic.twitter.com/83bmPIDOgd

And it’s just such an obscene insult to our intelligence to suggest that the Biden administration is some kind of passive witness to all this, sitting around wringing its hands hoping Israel doesn’t do something so horrible that the United States will have no choice but to leap into World War Three in defense of its dear ally. It’s insulting in that it asks us to believe the US would have no choice but to enter into a war of unimaginable horror if Israel acts belligerently enough, and it’s insulting in that it asks us to ignore the fact that Biden could have ended this insane cycle of escalation with one phone call to Israel at any time over the last six months.

Being asked to accept that the Biden administration is just standing there hoping Israel doesn’t ignite the worst war in middle eastern history is like seeing a dog owner letting their rottweiler run around biting people all over the neighborhood and saying “Yeah he just does what he likes, I just hope he doesn’t kill anybody.”

It’s like, no. Stop that. You’re not just crossing your fingers and hoping Israel doesn’t do something monstrous, you’re letting them do whatever they want because that’s what you’re choosing to do. Israel’s entire existence is as dependent on US support as a scuba diver is on their oxygen tank, and as such the White House has essentially limitless leverage it can use to make Israel do as it pleases — and it has done so in the past. Hell it’s done so during this very Gaza assault, successfully commanding Israel to stop cutting off Gazan telecommunications and to start letting more aid trucks in to the enclave.

If Biden truly didn’t want Israel to be turning the middle east into a hurricane of death and fire, he would stop it. He would put the damn dog on a leash.

Megan K. Stack on Twitter: "This administration's many leaks to the press about Israel always manage to make it sound like Biden is being held against his will and blinking twice to signal he needs help pic.twitter.com/qo0M1KUjOc / Twitter"

This administration's many leaks to the press about Israel always manage to make it sound like Biden is being held against his will and blinking twice to signal he needs help pic.twitter.com/qo0M1KUjOc

The western press have a well-established track record of consistently framing US wars as these traps that Washington just clumsily stumbles its way into, like there’s some giant Macaulay Culkin-like deity sneaking around laying tripwires to force the Pentagon to regime change Libya or whatever. After a certain number of wars you have to figure that a regime is starting a bunch of wars because it’s just a warmongering regime, though — and the US has been involved in a whole, whole lot of wars. Nobody’s that clumsy or that unlucky; it’s like believing your husband when he tells you he keeps slipping and falling with his man parts inside the lady parts of various coworkers.

The most powerful empire that has ever existed is not just passively sitting there praying that big bad Israel doesn’t force it to go to war with Iran. That is not happening. All the violence and chaos that’s happening in the middle east right now is happening because the US empire wants it to happen, and because the people who steer that empire are psychopathic ghouls. And don’t let the crooked manipulators of the western mass media tell you otherwise.

______________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Feature image official White House photo (public domain).

Exclusive: Unite bans anti-racist documentary – after first offering to support

‘Resistance Street’ film premieres in London this week – but not in Unite buildings, against the wishes of Unite officers and reps

The Unite union has continued its trend under general secretary Sharon Graham of banning left-wing films and books by blocking showings on its premises of a new documentary by Richard David – despite its equalities directors first offering maximum help.

‘On Resistance Street’ trailer

The film was shot over a two year period in England, Belfast and New York and features renowned musicians, bands, writers and commentators looking at the role music plays in the fight against Fascism and racism. Siobhan Endean, Unite’s equalities director, initially responded to David’s approach:

Thank you for your email that you sent to our Executive Council. My role is working in the field of equalities within unite and I would be very keen to help you as much as I can. You asked for an email address for our general secretary it is [redacted]  I would also be very grateful if you could share a link to your film, and I will see what can be done to support the film.

However, within a short time this willingness to help was withdrawn, prompting the film’s creators to write directly to Sharon Graham:

Dear Sharon,
I am writing to you as the writer-director of the new British feature-length documentary ‘ON RESISTANCE STREET’, which received its sold-out international premiere in Belfast, at the Queen’s Film Theatre on October 19th 2023.

The film was a two year independent production, shot in England, Belfast and New York. It is an in-depth examination of the role which music has played historically in the fight against Fascism, racism, bigotry and Right Wing ideology.

As such it contains contributions from a wide array of musicians, Trade Union leaders, activists, authors, historians and commentators. These include members of The Sex Pistols, Steel Pulse, Aswad, Stiff Little Fingers, The Levellers, The Men They Couldn’t Hang, The Defects and The Outcasts. There are also contributions from contemporary British artists such as the East London based Grime Star Lady Shocker, who performs individually but is also a founder member of the
ground-breaking ‘Female All-stars’ Grime collective.

Other contributors include: Matt Wrack FBU Leader, Weyman Bennett, national co-ordinator of ‘Stand Up to Racism’, Chris Salewicz, biographer of Joe Strummer and Bob Marley, Anti-Fascist author and historian Rick Blackman, feminist historian and author Louise Raw, Clash ‘Rude Boy’ movie star Ray Gange, leading female Black Lives Matter activist Chantelle Lunt, Terri Hooley, founder of ‘Good Vibrations Records in Belfast, Mexico City Trade Union leader Fernando Luna, New York State Union organiser Dan Gniewekei and others.

The film also shows as to how a new Trade Union, was created in Mexico City, with between 3-400 members, this after a year of online video call consultations, between British, American and Mexican members of an online Clash fans group named ‘Clash Fans Against The Right’. The members involved were full-time Union officers in their own countries. That group was founded by myself and Robin Banks, in direct response to Boris Johnson’s ludicrous and deeply cynical claim that The Clash were one of his ”Two favourite bands”, that obscene announcement contained inside an official Conservative Party political broadcast in November 2019.

That social media group has since evolved into a real life Anti-Racism organisation named ‘Resistance Street’, which has staged live music events in London, Liverpool, New York and Belfast over the last two years. These events also featured many political speakers including Trade Union leaders like Matt Wrack. In its third section, ‘On Resistance Street’ traces that evolution and shows how social media can be harnessed and utilised powerfully on behalf of the Left, when people pool their intellectual and creative strengths.

The film was produced by myself and Robin, the lifelong friend of The Clash’s Mick Jones, who was immortalised in the band’s song ”Stay Free”. A song written by Mick himself and about their friendship. Robin and I were both friends of the late Joe Strummer, whose lyrics and quotes appear at various stages of the film.

This letter is sent in direct conjunction with a recent proposal which originated via friends of mine who are Unite Officers and Shop Stewards in Southampton, the city in which UK production was based. This followed another sold-out Southern regional premiere screening at Solent University Film Theatre on November 17th. The proposal was that there would be a special screening of the film for Unite members, Anti-Racism activists and other members of Trade Unions at the Unite-The Union HQ in Southampton.

I have personally attended previous Anti-Racism documentary screenings at the HQ, which were well supported and successfully received, audience-wise. Secondly, it was proposed that following that initial event, this could act as springboard for a series of special screenings in Unite HQ’s across the country.

Both Robin and myself were only too delighted at this proposal, given it had always been our hope that special political screenings could materialise via agreements with Trade Unions.

Many people who have seen ORS, have commented on its in-depth educational value. The film not only chronicles music’s role in this battle as stated, but charts the entire drift towards the political Right in America, Europe and Britain, as we confront the present. As such, the ascendancy of Trump, the Brexit campaign and the British and European Far Right are all documented, with emphasis on the now alarming authoritarian stances of the current Conservative government in Britain.

We emphasise that given our own political convictions formed over a lifetime, we were absolutely perfectly happy to see this screening and the proposed series across the country, take place with us making not a single PENNY of profit from it all.

We have now been informed that this proposal is not possible, in direct relation to a relatively recent motion passed by the Unite-The Union National Executive.

As you are well aware, that motion has forbidden the screening of any documentary films in Unite-The Union buildings, unless they are specifically to do with working conditions, wage disputes and industrial relations.

The officers and Shop Stewards concerned were truly shocked by this motion. So are we. Firstly, such films are few and far between and are only likely to be made if they were commissioned by Unions individually or the TUC.

Secondly and more importantly, this decision was taken without consultation of your regional political education officers, general membership or indeed the Unite-The Union Community section. As such, we believe this amounts to a Stalinist-style decision and one which stands directly at odds with the overall principles and history of Anti-Fascism and Anti-Racism in Britain.

It is a decision which consequently denies workers/members the opportunity to watch a film like this inside a recognised Union environment. It is a decision which raises serious questions concerning your Union’s commitment to Anti-Racism in general and which constitutes a gross act of cultural censorship.

Working class cultural activism and creativity should be an absolutely integral part of any genuine political education programmes. Particularly when it is based inside energies challenging racism in Britain.

The Shop Stewards and officers all voiced that belief and it is one we share and endorse completely. We are of course aware of the furore caused via screenings or potential screenings of the Jeremy Corbyn film ‘The Big Lie’.

We shall not comment further on that, other than to say until we hear differently, we have to assume that this motion was passed as a knee-jerk, supposedly politically expedient reaction, to all that. If you are of the view that there are other bona-fide reasons behind the motion, we would very much like to hear what they are.

In light of all this, we are now requesting the following:

  • That your National Executive convenes to formally re-assess this decision.
  • That in doing so, the Executive democratically consults fully with your regional political education officers and only reaches a final decision after such consultations.

If this does not happen, we believe it makes an utter mockery of their supposed role and programmes. We also believe strongly that there should be further extended consultations with appropriate representatives of Unite The Union-In The Community, this also on a regional basis.

It is our conviction that the current decision cuts right to the heart of supposed ‘democracy’, as related to fundamental ethics and principles of Trade Unionism within ‘Unite-The Union’. We believe this decision should be reversed. We believe that these matters will attract widespread attention and public interest within the public domain. With that in mind, we request a formal response from yourself at the earliest possible point.

In Solidarity.
Richard David
Robin Banks

The pair received a response from Sarah Carpenter, Unite’s newly-promoted (without proper process, according to union insiders) ‘Executive head of operations’. The reply, while anodyne in its language, confirmed that Unite has no intention of reversing its ban – and did not address any of the makers’ concerns about the political motivations behind it:

Dear Richard and Robin,

Thank you for your letter which you sent to the General Secretary on 18 December. The GS is currently involved in industrial disputes and has asked me to respond.

Your letter rightly refers to a decision made by the union’s Executive Committee (made up of lay members, elected democratically by and from the wider membership), which was debated and agreed by them at their meeting in September 2023. This decision was ‘That Unite should not use its premises or resources to show or promote any external films or other content that does not relate to our industrial agenda to support the pay, terms and conditions of our members and/or support existing Unite policies. In this context the Union should be especially careful to avoid appearing to endorse any material which causes unnecessary offence to members.’

This would mean that we cannot show any films unless there is a clear link to our industrial agenda. The film you have produced looks fascinating and I am pleased to see that you have found venues where this can be shown. However, from the information you have sent I do not see that there is a link to our industrial agenda, and so we are not able to use Unite premises or resources to show or promote this film.

Carpenter has been accused, acting on Sharon Graham’s behalf, of threatening a soon-to-retire regional official with the loss of his pension bonus if he did not cool his support for the people of Palestine against Israel’s genocide – and of cancelling showings and readings of films and books showing the pro-Israel lobby’s sabotage of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party and exposing abuse by Starmer’s Labour toward left-wing party members.

Sharon Graham has been alleged by Unite insiders to have:

Her supporters also prevented debate and votes on Gaza at a March meeting of the union’s elected executive.

Apart from the issue of Gaza, her tenure as Unite boss has also been marked by a string of other allegations – which neither she nor the union has denied – including destruction of evidence against her husband in threat, misogyny and bullying complaints brought by union employees. She is also embroiled in both an employment tribunal for discrimination and a defamation lawsuit brought by Irish union legend Brendan Ogle for the union’s treatment of him and comments made about him by Graham and her close ally Tony Woodhouse.

‘On Resistance Street’ will receive its London premiere at The Gate Picturehouse Cinema in Notting Hill on
Wednesday April 17th. That will be followed by a short theatrical run across Britain. The film will then feature in a wide number of national and international Film festivals.

If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.

Anyone Who Wants The US To Attack Iran Is An Enemy Of Humanity

Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 15/04/2024 - 12:26pm in

Tags 

USA, News, War, Israel, Iran


Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

https://medium.com/media/e9f333f515876746ad6366a1304ce09b/href

Anyone who wants the US and its allies to attack Iran is a psychopath. People who want to unleash a war of that scale upon our species should be rejected from our society as aggressively as child molesters and Nazis.

A new CNN report says multiple Biden administration officials “saw Iran’s attacks on Israel Saturday as disproportionate to Israel’s strikes in Damascus that prompted the retaliation.”

There are zero reported fatalities as a result of the Iranian retaliation. The Israeli strikes on the Iranian embassy in Damascus killed 16 people, including multiple high-level Iranian military officials. To see Iran’s response as “disproportionate” is to admit you believe Israeli lives are worth literally orders of magnitude more than Iranian lives.

And it was at an embassy, for god’s sake. Israel can assassinate 16 people while shattering decades of diplomatic norms, and in the eyes of the US that’s still not as bad as Iran creating a few potholes in an Israeli street.

And anyway how obscene is it that these shitstains can babble about proportionality at all after backing Israel’s mass atrocities in Gaza? When Iran attacks the response needs to be proportionate, but when Israel incinerates Gaza over October 7 it’s “LMAO fuck around and find out, laughcry emoji, Israeli flag.”

Caitlin Johnstone on Twitter: "No no you don't understand, this time Germany is rounding up Jews to FIGHT antisemitism. https://t.co/uyhMBUmAfX / Twitter"

No no you don't understand, this time Germany is rounding up Jews to FIGHT antisemitism. https://t.co/uyhMBUmAfX

After six months of mass murder and chaos the only thing that looks more absurd than the claim that Israel is morally superior to other nations in the middle east is the claim that the United States is morally superior to other nations in the world.

No matter how low your opinion was of western power structures and western civilization, if you’ve been watching events of the last six months with sincerity it will have sunk even lower by now.

The Spectator Index on Twitter: "BREAKING: NBC News reports that 'President Joe Biden has privately expressed concern that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to drag the U.S. more deeply into a broader conflict' / Twitter"

BREAKING: NBC News reports that 'President Joe Biden has privately expressed concern that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to drag the U.S. more deeply into a broader conflict'

It’s so obnoxious how the mass media are helping the White House pretend this is something the Biden administration is just passively sitting around hoping doesn’t happen, as though the US hasn’t had the power to end all this every single day for the last six months.

It’s just an easily quantifiable fact that the Trump administration was vastly less warlike and murderous than the Biden administration has been. This doesn’t mean Trump wasn’t warlike and murderous. It doesn’t even mean Trump wouldn’t have been doing more or less the same evil things that Biden has been doing if he’d won in 2020. But it does mean the entire mainstream liberal narrative about what Trump is and what Biden is has been complete bullshit this entire time, which necessarily means the whole mainstream narrative about the US political system is a lie.

It’s possible that as the United States was first beginning to move toward planetary hegemony there were some empire managers operating in good faith who sincerely believed US unipolarity could be a force for achieving world peace. It’s doubtful that everyone constructing this monstrosity has been an evil, mustache-twirling cartoon villain who wanted to see nonstop violence, oppression and nuclear brinkmanship inflicted upon populations around the globe. But that’s what wound up happening.

And of course it did. The belief that a regime can take over the world by any amount of force necessary and create peace and prosperity for all was always a poorly reasoned fantasy of deeply unwise minds. Of course there are going to be populations who refuse to be subjugated, and some of them are going to have nuclear weapons, and others will have conventional weapons but defend their sovereignty tooth and claw. Most of the violence and cold war brinkmanship you see in international conflicts today is a direct result of this dynamic.

The US-centralized empire’s foreign policy is one long and unrelenting war against disobedience. It simply is not possible to bring the entire human species under one single power umbrella without copious amounts of violence and tyranny. If we keep going along this trajectory, the empire’s war on disobedience is going to lead to nuclear armageddon someday.

______________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Featured image via Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED)

Greenstein takes police to court this week for return of seized electronics

Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 15/04/2024 - 8:53am in

Jewish anti-Zionist arrested by police in ‘fishing expedition’ in December still not charged, but computer and hard drive still not handed back to him

Tony Greenstein

Left-wing Jewish activist Tony Greenstein is taking the police to court this week in a bid to secure the return of a computer, hard drive and other electronics seized by anti-terror police last December when they raided his home and arrested him for a single tweet commenting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Four months later, Greenstein has still not been charged with any offence.

Greenstein, a well-known anti-Zionist prominent in the fight for Palestinian freedom and human rights, explained:

Just before Xmas I was arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 in a dawn raid on my flat. My ‘offence’ was not planning a terrorist act but the tweet below which it was suspected was supporting Hamas. In 2021 the political wing of Hamas was proscribed.

After nearly 4 months I have still not been charged and I am under  ‘investigation’.

The Police removed my computers, mobile and just about any electronic device they could find.

At the two interviews I had, and contrary to legal advice I gave full answers to their questions, I was questioned solely about the tweet below, two posts on my blog and a speech on Youtube.

This is clearly and obviously a case of the Police using ‘Terrorism’ as a means of suppressing free speech in support of the Palestinians in Gaza undergoing genocide. The Police could, if they so wished, charge Cameron and Sunak with aiding and abetting the commission of war crimes under the International Criminal Court Act 2001 ss.52/53.

However as we know the Police are increasingly acting as the enforcement agency for the government in their desire to suppress Palestinian activism.

The theft of my computers has had an enormous effect on e.g. my ability to comply with my statutory duty to keep accounts for the charity of which I’m a trustee, the Brighton Trust and many other effects. I have had to purchase new computers to continue to e.g. publish my blog and undertake necessary work not least having access to the medical records of my son who is autistic.

Although many files were saved on the cloud there are others which I can’t access.

I have no idea whether or not the Police will eventually charge me but one thing is clear. They do not need my computers to charge me as my views are all in the public domain and accessible on The Internet.

What the Police are engaged in is an intelligence gathering exercise, a fishing expedition.

My solicitor advises me that the action I have brought to force the Police to return my property is almost unheard of. I do not have great hopes that in a case such as this the Magistrates will defy the Police and do what is just and equitable. Nonetheless I believe that I should make the attempt. If unsuccessful I will take it to appeal as what the Police are doing is stringing out their ‘investigation’ and in the meanwhile punishing me even if I am not prosecuted.

It would be of enormous help, since this is a highly political case, for there to be a full public gallery and maybe a demonstration outside the courts.

At a time when the Police are even arresting the ‘wrong sort of rabbi’ for ‘inciting antisemitism’ (burning an Israeli flag – thus equating Jews with Israel) we must resist what is the road to a police state.

If you are free this Thursday 2 pm you I invite you to attend the court. I cannot guarantee it will even be heard, as last time it was adjourned but your presence might also be of help in that regard.

So if you live in the Brighton area and aren’t otherwise engaged please come.

Greenstein’s case has been listed for 2pm on Thurs 18 April at Brighton Magistrates’ Court. Supporters able to attend should get there early:

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Pics/vid: Liverpool comes out three times for Gaza – Grand National, city and Waterloo

Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 15/04/2024 - 8:19am in

City sees whole weekend of solidarity and activism

Liverpool and Merseyside saw a whole weekend of solidarity with the Palestinians against Israel’s genocide over the last couple of days – beginning with a demonstration at Aintree racecourse for the Grand National.

Protesters, including members of Merseyside’s Jewish community, received a positive reaction from most racegoers as they braved windy weather to wave banners and Palestinian flags:

Sunday saw a large march through the city centre – numbers that have remained undiminished through the long months of Israel’s ongoing war crimes against Palestinian civilians – including a group of women holding ‘bloodied’ bundles representing the around eighteen thousand children murdered in Gaza:

And on Sunday night, around a hundred activists – gathered at Da Gurka restaurant in Waterloo to share food, lift spirits and raise thousands of pounds for Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Israel is losing the PR war badly, its murderousness and arrogance as it slaughters tens of thousands of civilians, mostly women and children, and tries to starve two million more, appalling the world and prompting millions to turn out on the streets every week. The flailing of its far-right regime is now putting the whole world in danger as it tries to provoke a regional war and bring the US into open aggression against the Muslim nations around it.

Free Palestine. Justice for Gaza and the West Bank.

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The Palestine Congress

Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 15/04/2024 - 2:07am in

Tags 

Gaza, Israel

Thank God for the German Hate Police! Or heil … or whatever the appropriate salutation is for these unsung heroes. They just saved us all from “hate” again!

Yes, that’s right, once again, democracy-loving people here in New Normal Berlin and all across the New Normal world were right on the brink of being exposed to “hate,” and would have been exposed to “hate,” had the Hate Police not sprang into action.

You probably have no idea what I’m talking about.

OK, what happened was, some pro-Palestinian activists organized a “Palestine Congress,” and attempted to discuss the situation in Gaza, and call for solidarity with the Palestinians, and so on, right here in the middle of Berlin, the epicenter of European democracy, as if they thought they had a right to do that. The German authorities were clearly intent on disabusing them of that notion.

Early Friday morning, hundreds of black-clad Hate Police descended on the congress location. Reinforcements were called in from throughout the nation. Metal barricades were erected on the sidewalks. Hate Police stood guard at the entrance. The German media warned the public that a potential “Hate-Speech” attack was now imminent. Berliners were advised to shelter in place, switch off their phones and any other audio-receptive communication devices, and wad up little pieces of toilet paper and ram them deep into their ear canals to prevent any possible exposure to the “hate.”

Sure enough, minutes into the congress, the anticipated “Hate-Speech” attack was launched! A Palestinian activist — Salman Abu Sitta — who had written an article that allegedly “expressed understanding of Hamas,” and thus had already been placed on the official German “No-Speak” list, started speaking to the congress on Zoom or whatever. Or … it isn’t quite clear whether he actually started speaking. According to a Hate Police spokesperson, they raided the congress because “there is a risk of a speaker being put on the screen who in the past made anti-Semitic and violence-glorifying remarks.”

Anyway, the Hate Police stormed the venue, pulled the plug, dispersed the crowd, and banned the rest of the “Palestine Congress,” which was scheduled to continue on Saturday and Sunday. Then they arrested a Jewish guy who was wearing a Palestinian-flag-kippah, presumably out of an abundance of caution.

But the “Hate-Speech” attack wasn’t over yet. It was one of those multi-pronged “Hate-Speech” attacks, or at least it involved one other prong. Earlier that morning, or perhaps while the Hate Police were still neutralizing the threat at the venue, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, a prominent British surgeon, who had volunteered in Gaza and was due to speak at the congress, was intercepted by the Berlin Airport Hate Police, refused entry into Germany, and forced to return to the UK. The Airport Hate Police informed the doctor that he was being denied entry in order to ensure “the safety of the people at the conference and public order,” Abu Sitta told the Associated Press.

Kai Wegner, Berlin’s mayor, presumably feeling a bit nostalgic for the fanatical days of 2020 to 2023 when one could persecute “the Unvaccinated” with total impunity, took to X to celebrate the Hate Police’s thwarting of this “Hate event.”

The pro-Palestinian activist community also took to X and expressed their displeasure. Yanis “Vaccinate Humanity” Varoufakis, who was one of the organizers and was scheduled to speak, was particularly incensed over the new German “fascism,” which apparently he has just now noticed, despite the fact that it has been goose-stepping around in a medical-looking mask for the last four years.

Yanis was not alone in his outrage. An increasing number of mainstream German journalists, authors, academics, and other members of the professional “progressive” classes are stunned that the new totalitarian society that they fanatically ushered into being during the so-called “Covid Pandemic” era — or stood by in silence and watched it happen — is now unleashing its fascistic force against them.

Which, OK, I get it. I mean, if I had just spent the last four years behaving like a Nazi, you know, persecuting “the Unvaccinated,” demonizing everyone who refused to wear the insignia of my fascist ideology on their face, and parroting official propaganda like an enormous Goebbelsian keyboard instrument, or just stood by in silence while other people did that, I would probably want to act like that never happened, and pretend that Germany was suddenly going “fascist” over the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and just memory-hole the whole “Covid” thing.

I would probably be highly motivated to do that — if that were how I had behaved for the past four years — so that I didn’t appear to be a fucking hypocrite who will start clicking heels and following orders the moment the authorities declare another fake emergency and jack up the Fear.

Sorry … I’ve been trying to be less vituperative, but this memory-holing bullshit makes me go ballistic. If there is one demographic that I do not need to hear sanctimonious exhortations to speak out against the global crackdown on dissent from, it’s recently ex-Covidian-Cult leftists.

In any event, thank God for those Hate Police! If it weren’t for them … well, just imagine the horror, if the activists at that Palestine Congress had been allowed to express their opinions about Israel. They might have even said the word “genocide,” or made reference to a “river” and a “sea.”

Who knows what that kind of unbridled “hate” could lead to? Perhaps the end of democracy. Maybe even World War III.

###

CJ Hopkins
April 14, 2024

DISCLAIMER: The preceding essay is entirely the work of our in-house satirist and self-appointed political pundit, CJ Hopkins, and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Consent Factory, Inc., or its staff, or any of its agents, subsidiaries, or assigns. If, for whatever inexplicable reason, you appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to support it, please go to his Substack page, or his Patreon page, or send a contribution to his PayPal account, so that maybe he’ll stop coming around our offices trying to hit our employees up for money. Alternatively, you could purchase his satirical dystopian sci-fi novel, Zone 23, or Volumes I, II, and III of his Consent Factory Essays, or any of his subversive stage plays, which won some awards in Great Britain and Australia. If you do not appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to write him an abusive email, feel free to contact him directly.

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