It Was The British Government That Laid The Groundwork For The Start Of The Ethnic Cleansing Of Palestinians

Israeli Forces Are Killing Palestinian Children Living Under Illegal Occupation With Increasing Frequency.

The Israeli military and border police forces are killing Palestinian children with virtually no recourse for accountability.
Last year, 2022, was the deadliest year for Palestinian children in the West Bank in 15 years, and 2023 is on track to meet or exceed 2022 levels.
Israeli forces had killed at least 34 Palestinian children in the West Bank as of August 22, 2023.
Human Rights Watch investigated four fatal shootings of Palestinian children by Israeli forces between November 2022 and March 2023.

Bill Van Esveld, associate children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch, said: “Israeli forces are gunning down Palestinian children living under occupation with increasing frequency, Unless Israel’s allies, particularly the United States, pressure Israel to change course, more Palestinian children will be killed.”

In all cases, Israeli forces shot the children’s upper bodies, without, according to witnesses, issuing warnings or using common, less-lethal measures such as tear gas, concussion grenades, or rubber-coated bullets.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported in January 2023 that “since December 2021, soldiers are allowed to shoot at Palestinians who are fleeing if they had previously thrown stones or Molotov cocktails.”

Israeli authorities have used excessive force against Palestinians in policing situations for decades.
The authorities have routinely failed to hold their forces accountable when security forces kill Palestinians, including children, in circumstances in which the use of lethal force was not justified under international norms.
( Human Rights Watch, 28.08. 2023 )  ..  hrw.org

Spitting On Christians Is An Old Jewish Tradition.
Israel’s minister in charge of crime and policing, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has said it’s not a crime for Israeli Jews to spit on Christians.
The Jewish holiday of Sukkot saw an increase in abuses on Christians by Israelis according to Christian leaders in Jerusalem.
Spitting on people of a minority religion would be considered a hate crime in most countries, but for the Israeli government it is simply ‘an old Jewish tradition’.
( Middle East Monitor, 05.10. 2023 )  ..  middleeastmonitor.com

As Israel Pounded Gaza, Keir Starmer Regurgitated The Robotic Recitations About Israel’s Right To Defend Itself. 

It was Britain that gave the colonial project that morphed into the state of Israel its initial blessing via the Balfour Declaration in 1917, to create the conditions for the establishment of a Jewish “national home” in historic Palestine, where Jews constituted less than 10% of the population at the time.

This laid the groundwork for the start of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
And at every step of the way, as Israel has consolidated its power and oppression, Britain’s blessing has been on hand.
Israel’s latest attempt to wipe out Gaza is no different.

This carnage has never been about Israel defending itself.
The onslaught on Gaza, just like every other time, is another excuse to implement the strategic objective of annihilating the Palestinians, or as Israel calls it, “mowing the lawn”.
And as a British Palestinian, it will forever be etched in my memory how my fellow citizens were being mercilessly slaughtered, and the British political class gave Israel its full-throated, unconditional support.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak offered multiple versions of the same moral backing, from “full solidarity” to promising to always “stand” with Israel.
The lobbying group Conservative Friends of Israel was once described as “the largest organisation in Western Europe dedicated to the cause of the people of Israel”.
It consequently makes the unwavering championship of Israel among the Conservative hierarchy unsurprising.

But the Labour Party is now operating on the same spineless wavelength.
As Israel pounded Gaza, party leader Keir Starmer regurgitated the robotic recitations about Israel’s right to defend itself.
The former human rights lawyer then insisted Israel has the “right” to withhold power and water from Gaza, even as UN experts made clear the imposition of sieges that endanger lives of civilians are prohibited under international law.

The fish ostensibly rots from the head.
Shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry could not answer whether Israel cutting off power supplies to Gaza is in line with international law.
On Israel’s evacuation orders that have displaced thousands of Palestinians, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy failed to condemn them.
As Labour councillors across the country resigned en masse to protest against their party’s complicity, Starmer’s feeble letter in response made no mention of a ceasefire and maintained the line simply that Israel has the right to defend itself.

And when the time comes to hold Israel to account for its harrowing war crimes, Britain will inevitably shield it from any accountability and block the attempts of the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, as it did in 2021 and this year respectively.
All whilst the mass murder of Palestinians continues unabated.
Nobody should be under any illusions: Britain is dripping in the blood of Palestinian massacres and it will never wash.
( Hamza Yusuf, 21.10. 2023 )  ..  declassifieduk.org

Resource-Rich African Nations Are Often Left Grappling With The Consequences Of Corruption And Exploitation.

In the heart of Africa, where the earth is rich with diamonds, lies the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a land steeped in beauty and turmoil.
This nation, endowed with vast natural resources, has become a tragic illustration of how global greed and geopolitical agendas can ravage a country.

The year 1997 marked a pivotal moment in this narrative as Israeli diamond businesses began penetrating the Congolese market.
This incursion coincided ominously with a rapid destabilisation of the country.
By 1998, the DRC was plunged into a vortex of conflict and chaos, underscoring the disastrous impact of external economic interests in politically fragile regions.
This was not merely a coincidence but a stark demonstration of how pursuing natural resources can trigger and exacerbate regional instability.
The echoes of this turmoil continue to resonate, revealing the deep scars left by these exploitative engagements.

The recent history of the DRC intertwines with controversial figures like Dan Gertler and Beny Steinmetz, who have become emblematic of the intricate dance between resource exploitation and international politics.
Gertler’s dealings in the Congo led to U.S. sanctions that the Trump administration controversially lifted, and Steinmetz’s conviction in a mining scandal in Guinea are not isolated incidents.
Instead, they reflect a larger, more systemic pattern of Israeli involvement in African mining, particularly in the Congo, a manifestation of a global practice where resource-rich African nations are often left grappling with the consequences of corruption and exploitation.

Israel’s foray into the Congolese diamond industry marks a significant chapter in its economic narrative.
Since entering the diamond trade in Congo in 1997, Israeli companies have carved out a dominant position, contributing substantially to Israel’s economy.
As of 2016, cut diamonds accounted for an astounding 23.2% of Israel’s total exports, making them the country’s most significant export product and constituting 12% of the world’s diamond production.

The activities of Israeli businessmen in Africa, particularly in cases like Gertler and Steinmetz, prompt a critical examination of the intersection between Zionism, Israeli foreign policy and African geopolitics.
These instances, occurring within a broader context of resource exploitation, reflect the complex nature of Zionism as it intersects with global economic and political agendas.
Israel’s foreign policy, often seen as an extension of its national ideology, raises questions about the role and influence of Zionism in shaping these international engagements.
( Khafre Jay, 22.11. 2023 )  ..  orinocotribune.com

They Massacred Arab Babies.

The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, June 12, 1948.
Ronald Monson in Jerusalem.

Jewish mortar bombs were coming over the Damascus Gate, bursting with shuddering explosions in narrow alleys, when I visited the Jacob E. Spoffore Memorial Hospital, American Institution, close by the Gate today (Wednesday).
I had come to visit the Arab orphans from Deir Yassin.
I carried no sweets, because their nurse, Miriam Bedrossian, doesn’t think sweets are good for year-old babies.
Miriam had cared for these 15 babies since they were brought to the refuge a few days after the massacre of their parents last March.
There were 16, but one died of wounds, aged nine months.

To see grave-faced, black-eyed Bahir playing with her doll in her cot, coffee-hued Yunis dealing with his bottle, and little Emine registering her two-tooth smile, you would think that such mites would be safe, even should drunken savages be turned loose upon them.
But not a bit of it!
A British burial party recovered their brothers and sisters, and other babies like them, from the death well of Deir Yassin, where the soldiers of Zion had cast them.
Searchers also recovered the bodies of their mothers and fathers.

From this hospital ward to the shambles of the destroyed village of Deir Yassin seems a long way, but the Via Dolorosa these bits of humanity travelled is only about seven miles long
I make no apologies for retelling this horrible story.
It happened.
All should know what happens in war, and the world should know the guilty.

Deir Yassin was a little Arab settlement surrounded by Jewish settlements some three miles beyond the outskirts of the Holy City, about a mile off the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv road.
For years, pictures and stories of it had featured in Jewish propaganda handouts as evidence of how harmoniously Arabs and Jews could live together.

It was true.
The Jews and the Arabs lived in that area on the best of terms.
The Jews were exceedingly good to the Arabs, and the Arabs liked the Jews.
Then came the disturbances.
Arab and Jew began undeclared war.

On March 9 Abdul Kader el Hosseini, Arab Liberation Army leader, was killed in fighting in the village of Kastel.
Next day, Friday, a Moslem religious holiday, Arabs bore his body to the Mosque of Omar, in the Old City, for burial.
Hundreds of Arab irregular army men from the villages around Jerusalem attended the ceremony, leaving the villages insecurely guarded.

Deir Yassin was one of the villages left without sufficient protection.
Jews saw their opportunity.
Men of the army of Zion attacked Deir Yassin at 10 a.m. that day.
They easily overcame the opposition.
They killed 20 Arab defenders, and entered the village, tossing grenades into houses.

They killed old men, women, and children with bayonets.
For three hours the slaughter went on.
Babies were killed in front of their mothers.
Mothers’ throats were slit.
Some were beheaded.
A group of men and women, some of the women obviously pregnant, were lined up and shot.
The blood-lusting Jewish soldiery desecrated the bodies of pregnant mothers with knives.

When they had murdered 264 villagers, the Jews called a halt.
They rounded up four truckloads of survivors of all ages and both sexes, tossed the bodies of the dead into the village well, and drove off with the survivors.
The victorious Jews drove the survivors through Jewish areas as exhibits of victory while Jews spat upon them.
The parade continued, with breaks, for two days.
Then the captors drove the survivors to the vicinity of the Italian hospital, in the new Jerusalem, and released them.

Exhausted mothers, some clasping babies, trudged to the Lion Gate leading to the Arab quarter of the Old City, where an Arab women’s charitable organisation collected them and cared for them.
On hearing the news, King Abdullah sent food and clothing and £500, and ordered the Transjordan Legation to care for them.

So Bahir, Yunis, and Emine came to the refuge of Spofford Hospital.
Taha, 18 months, who was wounded, is recovering.
None of them, nor the 11 other surviving babies, will ever know their fathers. and few of them their mothers.

A Bullet pinged through a glass door of the ward as I was there.
Nurse Bedrossian decided to move her charges downstairs for greater safety.
The cots were taken down.
But hardly had the move been completed when bullets shattered both glass doors of the lower ward.
Then the firing died down, and the nurse decided she could leave the babies downstairs.

Her greatest lack, she told me, was fuel for heating the babies’ bottles.
Her kerosene was almost exhausted.
But that matter is now being attended to.

The massacre of Deir Yassin is now part of the history of this sorry war.
But there is no evidence that the Jewish State has made any inquiries to discover who instigated it, or made any attempt to punish the guilty.
Until the Jewish State has done that, Arabs, and others, must believe that the Jewish Ieaders have condoned it.
( Ronald Monson in Jerusalem, The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, June 12, 1948 )