Aligned With Israel’s Propaganda Strategy’: BBC Correspondent Challenges the BBC Director General
Last November, we reported
on an incisive and courageous email that had been sent on 24 October
2023 to Tim Davie, the BBC’s Director General, by Rami Ruhayem, a
Beirut-based BBC correspondent. Basing his arguments on considerable
evidence and rational analysis, Ruhayem was highly critical of the BBC’s
pro-Israel coverage of Gaza since the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023.
A former journalist for the Associated Press, Ruhayem has worked as a journalist and producer for BBC Arabic and the BBC World Service since 2005. He wrote:
‘Words like “massacre”, “slaughter”, and “atrocities” are being
used—prominently—in reference to actions by Hamas, but hardly, if at
all, in reference to actions by Israel.
‘When the BBC uses such language selectively, with the standard of
selection being the identity of the perpetrators/victims, the BBC is
making a statement—albeit implicit. It implies that the lives of one group of people are more valuable than the lives of another.’ (Our emphasis)
As we pointed out at the time, this is extremely serious. The
state-mandated BBC News organisation is essentially channelling Israeli
propaganda that excuses its war crimes while demonising Israel’s
victims, the Palestinian people.
Similar points were made in a 2,300-word letter
sent in November 2023 to Al Jazeera by eight BBC journalists who,
fearing reprisals, requested anonymity. They accused the BBC of:
‘failing to tell the story of the Israel-Palestine conflict
accurately, investing greater effort in humanising Israeli victims
compared with Palestinians, and omitting key historical context in
coverage.’
They said that the BBC is guilty of a ‘double standard in how
civilians are seen’, given that it is ‘unflinching’ in its reporting of
alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine..............
26 July 2024 09:02 BST
| Last update:7 hours 20 mins ago
Every empire falls. Its collapse becomes inevitable once its rulers lose all sense of how absurd and abhorrent they have become
There is only one country in the world right now, in the midst of Israel’s slaughter in Gaza,
where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is guaranteed dozens of
standing ovations from the vast majority of its elected
representatives.
That country is not Israel, where he has been a hugely divisive figure for many years. It is the United States.
On Wednesday, Netanyahu was back-slapped, glad-handed, whooped and
cheered as he slowly made his way - hailed at every step as a conquering
hero - to the podium of the US Congress.
This was the same Netanyahu who has overseen during the past 10 months the slaughter - so far - of some 40,000 Palestinians, around half of them women and children. More than 21,000 other children are reported missing, most of them likely dead under rubble.
It was the same Netanyahu who levelled a strip of territory -
originally home to 2.3 million Palestinians - that is expected to take 80 years to rebuild, at a cost of at least $50bn...............
The uncounted hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza being killed by Israel
-by Eva Karene Bartlett *(blog title updated from original published; blog version slightly longer)
Earlier this month, the Lancet published an article estimating
that the total number of Palestinian civilian deaths caused directly
and indirectly by Israeli attacks since October 2023 could be nearly
five times higher than the official death toll, and could reach “up to 186 000 or even more.”
It noted that “this would translate to 7.9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip.”
According to the piece, the latest available count of Palestinians
killed – 37,396 – is far too low, based on the fact that it is still
unknown how many more lie under the rubble, how many are missing but not
accounted for among the dead, and how many will perish due to
starvation, dehydration, or diseases.
“Even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be
many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as
reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases,” it noted.
However, even this Lancet estimate of nearly 200,000 dead might be
only half the actual number of Palestinians killed, according to some
counts...............
No. 2024/57 19 July 2024 Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem The Court gives its Advisory Opinion and responds to the questions posed by the General Assembly THE HAGUE, 19 July 2024. The International Court of Justice has today given its Advisory Opinion in respect of the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. It is recalled that, on 30 December 2022, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted resolution A/RES/77/247 in which, referring to Article 65 of the Statute of the Court, it requested the International Court of Justice to give an advisory opinion on the following questions:
“(a) What are the legal consequences arising from the ongoing violation by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, from its prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and from its adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures? (b) How do the policies and practices of Israel referred to . . . above affect the legal status of the occupation, and what are the legal consequences that arise for all States and the United Nations from this status?” In its Advisory Opinion, the Court responds to the questions posed by the General Assembly by concluding that:
the State of Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful;
the State of Israel is under an obligation to bring to an end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible;
the State of Israel is under an obligation to cease immediately all new settlement activities, and to evacuate all settlers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory;
the State of Israel has the obligation to make reparation for the damage caused to all the natural or legal persons concerned in the Occupied Palestinian Territory;
all States are under an obligation not to recognize as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by the continued presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory;
international organizations, including the United Nations, are under an obligation not to recognize as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory; and
the United Nations, and especially the General Assembly, which requested the opinion, and the Security Council, should consider the precise modalities and further action required to bring to an end as rapidly as possible the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Reasoning of the Court After concluding that it has jurisdiction to render the requested opinion and that there are no compelling reasons for it to decline to give an opinion (paras. 22-50), the Court recalls the general context of the case (paras. 51-71) and addresses the scope and meaning of the two questions posed by the General Assembly (paras. 72-83). The Court then assesses the conformity.....................
Israeli Newspaper Confirms IDF Employed 'Hannibal Directive' on October 7
IDF soldiers were reportedly ordered to "turn the area around the border fence into a killing zone."
by Jake Johnson
The Israeli newspaper Haaretzreported Sunday
that Israel's military repeatedly employed a protocol known as the
"Hannibal Directive" during the October 7 Hamas-led attack in an attempt
to prevent the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers—even if it meant putting
the lives of army captives and civilians at risk.
Haaretz
found based on documents and interviews with soldiers and senior
Israeli officers that Hannibal—an operational order developed in 1986
that "directs the use of force to prevent soldiers being taken into
captivity" by enemy militants—was used "at three army facilities
infiltrated by Hamas, potentially endangering civilians as well."
During the first hours of the Hamas-led attack, according to Haaretz, Israeli soldiers were given an order: "Not a single vehicle can return to Gaza."....
Bombshell NYT Expose Details War Crimes By American-Led Volunteer Force In Ukraine
The last many weeks (or even months) of Ukraine coverage by
mainstream media has seen a major shift. One might observe that Western
reporters are actually starting to do their jobs for a change, and
digging into to 'inconvenient' truths and stories which a year ago no
outlet would have touched amid the general pro-Kyiv euphoria.
A military correspondent with The New York Times has issued the newest bombshell report this weekend which shines a spotlight on not just Ukrainian troops but American and foreign fighters who've volunteered with pro-Kyiv forces and have committed potential war crimes. The report, titled Killings of Surrendering Russians Divide an American-Led Unit,
reveals how US troops are participating in units which conduct
extra-judicial killings of Russians who have legitimately surrendered.
Much of the eyewitness accounts come from a German volunteer identified as Caspar Grosse, a medic in an all-foreign unit led by an American who says he witnessed clear war crimes and that his conscience has forced him to speak out...................
I guess you remember how a
few years ago, the media called everyone who refused to wear a mask or
get vaccinated a ‘grandma killer’. To protect the elderly, to save every
minute of their lives – that was all what mattered.
Here is something to think about: Last week, I stumbled upon an article in a Dutch mainstream newspaper
which declared in a technical and deliberate way that the ‘mysteriously
persisting excess death’ has certain advantages: it saves the state
hundreds of millions of costs of taking care for old people. I checked
my calendar. An April fools’ joke maybe? No – it was no joke..............
Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential
Published:July 05, 2024
By June 19, 2024, 37 396 people had been
killed in the Gaza Strip since the attack by Hamas and the Israeli
invasion in October, 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, as
reported by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
the UN, and WHO. These data are supported by independent analyses,
comparing changes in the number of deaths of UN Relief and Works Agency
(UNRWA) staff with those reported by the Ministry,
The Ministry has had to augment its usual reporting, based on people
dying in its hospitals or brought in dead, with information from
reliable media sources and first responders. This change has inevitably
degraded the detailed data recorded previously. Consequently, the Gaza
Health Ministry now reports separately the number of unidentified bodies
among the total death toll. As of May 10, 2024, 30% of the 35 091
deaths were unidentified.
Some
officials and news agencies have used this development, designed to
improve data quality, to undermine the veracity of the data. However,
the number of reported deaths is likely an underestimate. The
non-governmental organisation Airwars undertakes detailed assessments of
incidents in the Gaza Strip and often finds that not all names of
identifiable victims are included in the Ministry's list.
Armed
conflicts have indirect health implications beyond the direct harm from
violence. Even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to
be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such
as reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases. The total
death toll is expected to be large given the intensity of this
conflict; destroyed health-care infrastructure; severe shortages of
food, water, and shelter; the population's inability to flee to safe
places; and the loss of funding to UNRWA, one of the very few
humanitarian organisations still active in the Gaza Strip.
In
recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the
number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four
indirect deaths per one direct death
to the 37 396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that
up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current
conflict in Gaza. Using the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of
2 375 259, this would translate to 7·9% of the total population in the
Gaza Strip. A report from Feb 7, 2024, at the time when the direct death
toll was 28 000, estimated that without a ceasefire there would be
between 58 260 deaths (without an epidemic or escalation) and 85 750
deaths (if both occurred) by Aug 6, 2024.10...............
b
************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
*******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
“The situation there is more horrific
than anything we’ve heard about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.” This is how
Khaled Mahajneh describes the Sde Teiman detention center
as the first lawyer to visit the facility. More than 4,000 Palestinians
whom Israel arrested in Gaza have been held at the military base in the
Naqab/Negev since October 7; some of them have subsequently been
released, but most remain in Israeli detention.
Mahajneh, a Palestinian citizen of
Israel, was initially approached by Al Araby TV, which was seeking
information about Muhammad Arab, a reporter for the network who was
arrested in March while covering the Israeli siege of Al-Shifa Hospital
in Gaza City. “I contacted the Israeli army’s control center, and after
providing them with a photo and an ID card of the detainee, as well as
my official power of attorney document, I was informed that [Arab] was
being held at Sde Teiman and that he could be visited.”
When Mahajneh arrived at the base on
June 19, he was required to leave his car far away from the site, where
an army jeep was waiting to transport him inside. This was “something I
had never encountered on any previous visit to any prison,” he told
+972. They drove for about 10 minutes through the facility — a sprawling
network of trailers — before arriving at a large warehouse, which
contained a trailer guarded by masked soldiers.....
A trans-identified male has been found guilty of rape after sexually
attacking a woman during a night out. Lexi Secker, previously known as
Alexander Secker, was said to have committed the crime when he was
“living as a man.”
The assault is said to have taken place in Blunsdon, Wiltshire, in
April of 2023. While details are extremely limited, it is known that
Secker began identifying as woman in the period between the assault and
his court hearings.
But in a statement on the arrest, Wiltshire Police referred to Secker
as a “person convicted of rape,” adding that he was recorded as a male
by police but “tried as a woman” in court.
In subsequent coverage by the BBC, feminine pronouns were
used for Secker. A photo of the criminal was noticeably absent from
reports on the conviction, which had sparse details on the incident
beyond noting he had been remanded into custody awaiting sentencing............
Earlier this month, the Canadian Parliament’s National Security and Intelligence Committee (NSICOP) released an 84-page, special report on alleged foreign interference in Canada’s “democratic processes and institutions”.
Initially, the committee delivered its special report to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on March 22 of this year.
As a result of mounting controversy around allegations of foreign
interference in Canada, NSICOP then publicly released a heavily redacted
version of its special report.
How can an evidence-free report be “damning”?
Predictably, Canada’s corporate media described the report as “shocking“, “explosive” and “damning“. They did so despite the fact (which the media ignored) that the report is totally devoid of evidence.
I’ve read the report twice. I did so from the perspective of a
litigator. That is, to assess whether NSICOP’s allegations were
supported by persuasive evidence, I brought to bear my extensive
experience in evaluating evidence........
In
2007, Orlando residents were furious to discover that an FBI informant
had organized a neo-Nazi rally through one of the city’s mostly black
neighborhoods a year earlier.
“To come into a
predominantly black community, which could have resulted in great harm
to the black community? I would hate to be part of a game,” Orlando City
Councilwoman Daisy Lynum said at the time, calling for a “full-scale investigation” into the matter.
However, an FBI agent testified that his informant participated in the event, but didn’t organize it. The city’s uproar passed without a public investigation, full-scale or otherwise—until now.
Thanks to a trove of previously unpublicized law enforcement records and interviews with several players involved, Headline USA can reveal that the Orlando neo-Nazi rally was indeed organized by the FBI.
The Orlando event also seems to have been part of a larger program to
hold Nazi rallies across the country. And according to FBI records, the
bureau sponsored those events despite knowing they led to an increase in
the number of card-carrying Nazis in America.
Moreover, the FBI’s Nazi rallies led to a much larger operation to target right-wing groups. Dubbed “Primitive Affliction,”
the operation featured a motorcycle front group, rogue undercover
agents, Outlaw bikers, Satanists, bomb-makers and a fugitive on the lam
in Mexico.......
High Court Rules Ultra-Orthodox Men Are Subject to Draft, Threatening Netanyahu’s Coalition
The ultra-orthodox parties in Netanyahu’s government condemned the ruling
Israel’s high court ruled
that men in the ultra-Orthodox community are subject to conscription on
Tuesday. The community, known as the Haredim, is politically powerful,
subsidized by the citizenry, and until now had been unaffected by the
mass mandatory enlistment. This is a heavily contentious issue as more
than 600 Israeli soldiers have been killed and thousands more wounded in
Gaza, and the ruling could spell trouble for Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s fragile ruling coalition.
The court’s decree, which was unanimously supported by all nine
justices, says “At the height of a difficult war, the burden of
inequality is more than ever acute.” It also stipulates that, if they
refuse military service in the absence of a formal exemption,
ultra-Orthodox men studying at Yeshivas will lose their taxpayer
funding.
The secular and non-Orthodox population including men and women have
long been subject to mandatory enlistment, “[serving] three and two
years respectively as well as reserve duty until around age 40,” the Associated Press notes.
Naturally, they view the previous status quo as discriminatory.
Whereas, for decades, the Haredim have vehemently opposed military
service while enjoying their exemption. The dispute has boiled over now
as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been bogged down in the Gaza
slaughter campaign, while concurrently Tel Aviv seems ready to
drastically escalate the burgeoning war with Lebanon.
Opposition parties on the left and right have praised the
long-awaited change in policy. The Movement for Quality Government
issued a statement calling the high court decision “a historic triumph
for the rule of law and the principle of equal military service burden.”
The same party led the petition to the court and has now implored
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to immediately draft Haredi men.....................
By Roman Shumov, aRussian historian focused on conflicts and international politics
The Prigozhin paradox: What was Russia’s Wagner PMC and how did its June 23 mutiny happen?
The now fighting group was the stuff of legend
before it came out of the shadows. Then like Icarus it flew too close to
the Sun
On June 23, 2023, one of the most mysterious events in modern Russian
history kicked off. Units of PMC Wagner – at the time a highly
combat-ready but also historically unusual component of the Russian
Armed Forces – withdrew from the theater of operations in Ukraine.
Restaurateur and musician
The
story of the Wagner mutiny cannot be told without the story of the
people behind the creation of the PMC. The main figure is Yevgeny
Prigozhin, a St. Petersburg businessman who rose from humble beginnings
to become a wealthy tycoon. His youth was turbulent, and in the early
1990s, as the USSR collapsed, he went into business, far removed from
military affairs. Prigozhin was a restaurateur. He started by selling
hot dogs, but quickly acquired money and ambition and began to open
restaurants in St. Petersburg to suit all tastes and budgets. By the end
of the 1990s, Prigozhin ran a chain of restaurants and a catering
company, and was well known to the establishment of the city on the
Neva. When Vladimir Putin, also from St. Petersburg, became president of
Russia, Prigozhin found more success. He was involved in organizing
catering in schools and then in the army, construction and other
projects. The businessman tried to keep a low profile, but in the 2010s
became increasingly involved in politics.......
It
takes a profound cruelty to support raining tens of thousands of tons
of military explosives onto a giant concentration camp full of children.
It takes outright malignant narcissism to expect everyone to accept
this, and to act wounded and indignant when they don’t.
Zionism
is like the exact opposite of people who identify as “spiritual but not
religious”; it’s religion stripped bare of all spirituality until it’s
nothing but a shitty political ideology that’s ultimately really about
land, western imperialism, and geostrategic control.
People feel
called to religion because there’s something in all of us that tells us
this world isn’t quite what it seems, like there’s some wondrous mystery
lurking just below the surface (really what they’re experiencing is an
uncomfortable dissonance with the delusion of egoic consciousness and an
impulse to try and awaken from it, but that’s a story for another
time). So they look to their religion to tell them how to have a living
spirituality that gives them what they’re craving, and, if they are
involved in certain Christian or Jewish sects, they’ll be told that they
can obtain what they long for by getting passionately engaged on issues
regarding the military and geopolitical objectives of a small country
on the other side of the planet.
