Iraq feels Blair's growing pains

The Independent has run with titbits from the Mail on Sunday's serialisation of some former No.10 spin doctor's memoirs about his time as Alastair Campbell's deputy. Lance Price has been accused of "betrayal" by, of all people, the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell. I can't fully understand what's happened here but apparently Lance Price, that's the deputy spin doctor chap, wrote a book, presented it to the cabinet and No.10 and they made him tone down some bits. Well he seems to have toned them up again for Mail on Sunday readers' consumption. Here's

How Downing Street changed the diary

ORIGINAL VERSION:

"I couldn't help feeling TB was rather relishing his first blooding as PM, sending the boys into action. Despite all the necessary stuff about taking action 'with a heavy heart', I think he feels it is part of his coming of age as a leader."

CENSORED VERSION:

"I couldn't help feeling TB had mixed emotions about sending the boys into action. He said he did it with a 'heavy heart' but at the same time, he must have known it would happen some time and maybe it's part of the coming of age as a leader."

ORIGINAL VERSION:

'"Fucking Welsh', repeated many times by TB."

CENSORED VERSION:

"TB f-ing and blinding about the whole thing."

ORIGINAL VERSION:

"No 10 were very edgy because apparently we've promised News International we won't make any changes to our Europe policy without talking to them."

CENSORED VERSION:

"No 10 were very edgy because apparently News International are under the impression we won't make any changes without asking them."

One leading Labourite is quoted thus

We are very surprised at what he has done. We are even more surprised that he chose to give it to The Mail on Sunday, which is not exactly the most supportive of the Labour Party

Nor was News International until Blair started reporting for it.

BBC plays dead

Or maybe it's not playing. This is how the Guardian reports the BBC's response to Blair's attack on them reported by Rupert Murdoch.

The BBC and Downing Street were striving yesterday to avoid reopening old wounds after Rupert Murdoch said the prime minister had criticised the corporation's coverage of Hurricane Katrina as "full of hatred for America and gloating"

So the BBC glosses over smears on what precious little integrity it (or its staff) has.

How long can Blair stay on as PM?

From the UK's Independent on Sunday.

Britain has long been a democracy characterised by one man one vote. Unfortunately the man is Rupert Murdoch. As part of America's democratic tradition, Presidential and Vice-Presidential hopefuls have televised debates where they tell the public what they're going to do if elected. They struck me as a bit silly. I remember Gore and Bush's first debate. The analysts on Gore's side were well pleased because he appeared intelligent and Bush, according to the feedback, seemed a bit stupid. Then, prior to the second debate, the feedback had been refined. Gore appeared to be a bit too clever and Bush seemed kind of sweet in his stupidness. Well here in the UK we don't have the televised debate. Our Prime Ministerial hopefuls go over to New York and tell Rupert Murdoch what they will do for him should they be elected. The one who is perceived as offering the most favours to Murdoch gets the support of Sky TV, the Sun and the Times newspapers and their sister Sundays: the News of the World and the Sunday Times.

Well now in a grotesque piece of grovelling sycophancy, Blair has told Rupert Murdoch of his dismay over the BBC World Service's coverage of Hurricane Katrina. The front page of the Independent is headed Blair tells Murdoch: 'gloating' BBC is 'full of hatred for America'.

In an extraordinary disclosure that will acutely embarrass Mr Blair, the world's most powerful media mogul revealed details of a private conversation that took place in New York on Thursday.[Which just goes to show how disrespectful Murdoch is to Blair.]

Addressing a conference of influential media figures in the United States, Mr Murdoch said the Prime Minister had told him he had been shocked at the way the BBC had handled the disaster.

"Tony Blair... told me yesterday that he was in Delhi last week and he turned on the BBC World Service to see what was happening in New Orleans, and he said it was just full of hate at America and gloating about our troubles," the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation said.

The BBC is a publicly owned corporation that many people love to hate. It has a remit to be balanced and challenging and to provide a voice to interests that, because of the dictates of media proprietors and commerce, might not otherwise have a voice. It mostly, indeed clearly, leans to the Government's position on all issues and lets dissent slip through the net only occasionally. Since the Lord Hutton affair (it was an affair in its own right) in the wake of the David Kelly suicide, where Lord Hutton against all evidence to the contrary, blamed the BBC for David Kelly's suicide, the BBC has been as pro-Government as it could possibly be whilst maintaining any semblence of credibility as a serious and impartial public service broadcaster. If you doubt that, just watch Jeremy Paxman's reaction to George Galloway's election win and the BBC's outrageous response to over a hundred complaints.

Well now look where their appeasement's got them. According to the Independent's report the BBC has issued a "withering response" to Blair's remarks which, frankly surprises me, and the Tories have stepped in to defend an organisation they used to routinely bash if they thought that they were insufficiently right-wing.

In the same edition of the Indie there's an article that has Blair threatening to stay in power if his Chancellor, Gordon Brown, doesn't back him over "reform" of public services, which is taken to mean flogging off bits of the National Health Service but which could well mean selling or giving the BBC to Murdoch. Isn't it about time the question of who rules Britain was taken out of Blair's and Murdoch's hands?

It's that debate again

I've read this blog post a few times now but I just read it again and then the comments and its well worth a look at. It's by a Hitchens fan who is desperately disappointed at his performance in the debate. It's shallow in parts, for example he believes that Galloway shot himself in the foot when he suggested that 9/11 was explained by America's support for Israel. Now that might not be the full explanation of 9/11 but it certainly goes a long way towards an explanation. So the guy is just a tad superficial but he seems earnest and that's what makes his post on this of interest.

Hitchens was terrible. He stammered and mumbled his way through the debate, which lasted almost two hours. Occasionally pursuasive, but mostly unsteady, his arguments often lacked direction and veered off on tangents which though powerful on the pages of a magazine or webpage, were no match for Galloway’s soapbox bluster. I didn’t score each of the rounds, but I would say Galloway won each and every one of them. At the end, when it looked like Hitchens was about to make a comeback, he shot himself in both feet and a couple of other orifices to boot, by appearing to defend Bush’s handling of the New Orleans flood crisis by springing to the defense of the troops who were belatedly deployed to the scene.

But this misses the point about this phase of Hitchens's career. He doesn't get paid now to articulate a principled stand. He gets paid to support Bush. That's what makes these allegations against Galloway so ridiculous. Suppose it's true that Galloway is personally corrupt. Hitchens's corruption is part of a group corruption. He can't condemn Bush's handling of anything, though he might hint at condemnation now and then.

The comments to the post are also very informative of ways of thinking about this debate, the war and politcal positions in general. Here's a comment from a chap called JohnG that sums up what's wrong with the post and the pro-war "argument" in general:

# johng Says:
September 15th, 2005 at 7:44 am

This just seems incoherent and a bit sad:

“Among Galloway’s ugly bombast tonight were such gems as his blatant support of the murderous Iraqi insurgency”

This is a suprise? Its what the argument is all about. If its an illegal invasion and occupation then people have a right to resist it. And the horrors now unfolding are connected to a war being waged not just by the insurgency but by the coalition and its backers (one imagines Blair ‘there is a connection but its a twisted connection’). This is called ‘ugly bombast’, which is apparently ‘blatant’.

“…his claims that the US and the UK were the two rogue states in the world”

Given that ‘rogue state’ simply means any state that opposes the US and its partners (and from a part of the world where big powers can get away with arm-twisting), Galloway here simply asks us to take the phoney pretext seriously. Perhaps Galloways invoking of a few passages from St Augustine’s confessions would be preferred. St Augustine uses essentially the same argumentative move.

“…his accusations that Britain and America sent Islamists to Afghanistan”

So is the vast apparatus set up by the US with its partners inside and outside the Islamic world to do precisely this not allowed to be spoken about? Amply documented in a range of historical accounts incidently. Its tasteless perhaps? In New York? In the US?

“his singling out of US support for Israel as the reason for September 11 while standing less than a couple of miles from Ground Zero almost four years to the day since the attacks took place”

Perhaps it would have been better if he made the rather obvious point somewhere else? Is this the famous cultural relativism you guys like to go on about? Would anyone seriously suggest that US support for Israel has not historically generated political currents which Bin Laden draws on?

Just perplexing. Oh and then apparently there was the Hitlerian way he gripped the lecturn. If this is the best pro-war liberals can do one wonders why they criticise Hitchens. I suspect that the problem is not Hitchens. Its difficulties in sustaining a coherent argument. I do detect a split in reactions to this. There are those who react to the crisis of their position by dropping leftist language and simply embracing Bush. And there are those who try and distance themselves from Bush but still support the war.

I have to admit its interesting to watch.

I grabbed this stuff from Lenin's Tomb to which I post occasionally. As I reached for the url I noticed that at the time of writing, Lenin's Tomb has generated 413 comments on this. I should be so lucky. For a blow by blow almost transcripted account see Justin Raimondo at antiwar.com.

Jewish Chronicle: "it is possible to be fiercely anti-Zionist without a trace of anti-Semitism"

So says Tony Klug in his review of John Rose's "The Myths of Zionism" in last week's Jewish Chronicle. Many thanks to John Rose for sending me a copy of the review together with his original reply and the shortened reply that was actually published by the JC.

Here's the review with notes of my own in [brackets]

John Rose, not to be confused with Steven, Hilary or Jacqueline — Roses by other names [but, be warned, of similar politics] — does not perch on the fence: "Zionism," he asserts, "is the problem; its removal is the precondition for peace in the Middle East. It is the precondition for Arab-Jewish reconciliation in Palestine. That is the only possible conclusion to this book."

But it is not so much the conclusion as the premise and indeed the whole theme of the book. In his own words, Rose is an "ageing, Trotsky-supporting, anti-Zionist veteran from the 1968 student revolution." And it shows. To the extent that his aim was to make a contribution to "a debate on the Marxist Left" and to fortify the views of like-minded others, he has doubtless succeeded admirably. But the title alone is enough to ensure that the readership which could make a difference — the subscribers to the alleged myths — won’t get further than the cover. [especially if the promoters of said myths discourage them from doing so]

Rose cites some information gems, from the startling, "By the 9th century, Hebrew had become a leading international language," owing to the role of Jewish traders, through the arresting, "a quarter of the supporters of the International Solidarity Movement are Jewish," to the challenging, "a scholarly consensus is slowly and very reluctantly emerging amongst the archaeologists of modern Israel, that the buildings [Solomon’s Temple] never existed."

The book itself is a testament to how it is possible to be fiercely anti-Zionist without a trace of anti-Semitism. [actually that is big of him but it's also fashionable and easy to say when you're not actually defining zionism.] On the contrary, the author’s concern is that Zionism is the source of a lot of modern-day antipathy towards Jews, especially in Arab countries. He also reminds us that some of the early British pro-Zionists (Lloyd George, Balfour, even Churchill) had anti-Semitic tendencies, while some of Zionism’s strongest opponents were eminent Jews (Montagu).

The book has a number of serious flaws. One is the underlying assumption that a movement is valid only if it is free of myths. Very few nationalisms, religions, cultures or political ideologies would survive such a test. [This is tosh. It's the mobilisation of myth to establish a spurious legitimacy that makes zionism dependent on myths. We're not talking about the children of Lir here, or Romulus and Remus. We're talking about myths that make for a unique demand for self-determination for a people who do not, or at least, did not predominate in the territory it's nationalist movement demanded control of.] Another is that Rose posits a very selective, narrow, bleak version of Zionism, extremist, racist and inhumane: "Zionism sees a static, unchanging and hostile world where Jews can find no peace…," he says, also citing "the Zionist claim that all Palestinian land truly belongs to the Jews" and that Arabs and Jews cannot live together.

Certainly there are Zionists who take such positions but there are others who repudiate such views. [no names of course] Rose appears to find this inconceivable and comes close to debunking myths of his own making.

In his manifest determination to reach certain conclusions, Rose sometimes presents evidence that could just as easily point in the opposite direction. In the chapter "Eighteen Centuries of Jewish Suffering," the numerous instances of emancipation in European countries having failed the Jews is a notable example. Unintentionally, it makes an impressive case for Zionism as a plausible response to endemic anti-Semitism.[Damn it! Now I'm have to read the book again and it's 15 quid. I thought that the point he was making was that the so-called "lachymose" view of Jewish history was bogus and that there were instances of Jewish emanicipation in tandem with the rise of republicanism, liberalism, the Rights of Man, etc. and that in some ways zionism was as much a reaction (in every sense) to those progressive movements as it was to anti-semitism. But I really will have to read it through again.]

The book’s most serious weakness is that it pretends to have a solution. "Removing Zionism" is the other side of the coin that seeks to deny the existence of the Palestinian people. [Bollocks is it. Zionism is an ideology and a system that holds that Jews worldwide have more right to Palestine than the native people of Palestine. The Palestinians are a people. This is Klug pretending to believe that John Rose is calling for the removal of the Jews or the removal of the Israelis. He is calling for de-zionisation. That is an end, not to the Jewish or Israeli presence but an end to Jewish colonial rule.] Maybe one day the two national movements will merge or disappear. In the meantime, progress to peace depends crucially on both peoples coming to terms with the national imperative of the other. Any proposal which ignores this, however well-intentioned, cannot be taken seriously. Propagating
fallacies and indulging the illusions of either side will serve only to doom the long-suffering peoples of the region to further agony.[So there we have it. John Rose, as well intentioned as he is, emerges as a significant barrier to peace and a cause of agony. But being born in a certain place at a certain time may carry with it a "national imperative" whatever that means but zionism is not national in the sense of a people coming from a specific place being Palestinian is. Zionism is a choice, not an imperative. You can support or you can reject it. Being born in Palestine or coming from there is not a choice but when zionism is the choice the existence of a free and equal Palestinian people is negated or a least seriously hindered.]

Dr Tony Klug is a Middle East analyst and vice chair of the Arab-Jewish
Forum.

So here is John Rose's response.

May I thank the JC for the review of my book, The Myths of Zionism, by Dr Tony Klug (August 8th) which recognised it as a "testament" of how to be fiercely anti-Zionist "without a trace of anti-Semitism". I am also delighted that he highlighted some of the book’s "information gems" - the basis of key chapters.

The point about Hebrew as an international trading language in the 9th century is that it underlines the significance of the Jewish merchant class that led Jewish communities for many centuries in medieval Europe. This crucial fact casts a very different light on Herzl’s erroneous view of "Eighteen Centuries of Jewish Suffering’ as a justification for the Zionist enterprise.

The point about Israeli archaeology failing to discover evidence for Solomon’s Temple is part of a wider view that the "United Monarchy of David & Solomon", ie "Ancient Israel", may similarly be biblical myth. This matters because of the cynical way "secular" Zionist leaders like Ben Gurion politically manipulated the bible. For example, in 1936, he told Britain that "the Bible is our Mandate" for a Jewish state in Palestine. Religious nationalism has its roots way beyond the Zionist fringe.

I take Tony Klug’s criticisms of my book very seriously, though I was surprised that he mocked the book’s Marxist perspective and assumed that it prevented a wider readership. Would he, (or for that matter JC readers), really disagree with Marx’s famous formulation concerning England/Ireland that ‘a nation that oppresses another can never itself be free’? Does this argument not apply even more today to Israel/Palestine, especially when the oppressor nation, Israel, is armed to the teeth by the US, the world’s only imperial super-power?

And here's what they actually published which I think probably does justice to the main points that John Rose makes.

May I thank the JC for the review of my book, The Myths of Zionism, by Dr Tony Klug (August 8th) which recognised it as a "testament" of how to be fiercely anti-Zionist "without a trace of anti-Semitism". He also highlighted some of the book’s "information gems". These are the basis of key chapters, which, for example, challenge Zionism’s lachrymose view of Jewish history as well as Ben Gurion’s outrageous claim that the Bible gave him a mandate for a Jewish state in Palestine.

I was surprised, though, that Tony Klug mocked the book’s Marxist perspective. Would he really disagree with Marx’s famous formulation concerning England/Ireland that "a nation that oppresses another can never itself be free"? Does this argument not apply even more today to Israel/Palestine, especially when the oppressor nation, Israel, is armed to the teeth by the US, the world’s only imperial super-power?

What surprises me here is the way that John Rose let Tony Klug get away with manipulating the concepts of peoplehood and ideology or, if you prefer, the way he (Klug) conflates a society (an involuntary group like the Palestinians) with an association (a group of choice like the zionist movement).

Teach Israel's children about Israel's ethnic cleansing

Here's an article from yesterday's Ha'aretz by Gideon Levy, suggesting that the kind of ethnic cleansing, without which Israel would not exist, should be taught in schools by way of a field trip to Tel Rumeida. Such a trip might act as an antedote to the "compassion" felt by so many Israelis for the withdrawl of the Gaza settlers.

About 500 Palestinian families once lived here; now barely 50 are left. What is going on here, far from the public eye, isn't just a cruel 'transfer,' but a reign of terror imposed by the settlers on the handful of residents who haven't left yet. This is where they built a settler stronghold that grew to frightening proportions, a multi-story building constructed with state sponsorship, surrounded now by a virtual ghost town, save for the small group of residents still clinging to their homes despite all the horror visited upon them by these violent lords of the land, these unwanted neighbors.

Still someone has to pay for making the desert green again.

Hitchens v Galloway on Democracy Now!

You can see the whole debate on the Democracy Now! website. The most non-political point that I could make here as that as the evening wore on, Hitchens's accent grew more American and, well, strange. At times he was almost singing his words. In his opening statement he sounded his normal public (that, in the UK, is posh) school self. But listen to the whole thing. I'm guessing he was drunk. Many leftists have been dismayed and angered by Hitchens's conversion from some kind of libertarian leftist to an apologist for the Bush regime. He even praised the US authorities handling of New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. I'm actually finding it painful to see his self-destruction. It doesn't, for me, invoke a political parallel. To me it looks like Paula Yates (the late Mrs, or was it Lady? Geldoff) sinking deeper into heroin and alcohol addiction and ultimately death. That what he's doing. Hitchens is dying a death. Galloway, by contrast, was on vintage form. He even managed to suggest that US policies in the Middle East were in some way to blame for 9/11 and 7/7. Much of the audience hated him for it but that is simply testimony to his courage. I'm actually listening to Hitchens now. He is denouncing Galloway as having cashed on the "oil for food" programme. He is asking "how can he show his face here?" This is the man who requested the debate in the first place. What a shmock, or shmuck if you're in America.

If you listen to or watch this, compare it with the Finkelstein/Dershowitz debate. As Finkelstein refrained from interrupting Dershowitz's opening remarks, no matter how outrageous, so Galloway refrained from interrupting Hitchens's opening shots. Now compare Hitchens's conduct through Galloway's opening with Dershowitz's response to Finkestein's opening remarks. Just as Dershowitz kept on interrupting Finkelstein, so Hitchens interrupts Galloway until Galloway objects.

I'll update this later because there are various links that one might want to visit to firm up on this or that detail mentioned by Hitchens and/or Galloway.

War criminal at the UN

According to Ha'aretz, Ariel Sharon used his speech at the UN to address his own Likud party, not as an election pitch but a farewell speech.

Sharon's aides promised the speech would not be directed at the Likud Central Committee, and indeed it sounded like the prime minister's statement of farewell to his party. This is not the way people in the Likud talk, and Sharon appeared to understand that he has no chance of winning in the Likud and must embark on a new political way. This way heads toward the center, toward a public that wants peace and quiet and is willing to give up more territories in addition to the Gaza Strip. The speech in Hebrew, on prime time television, was intended to convey this message to every home in Israel.

Apparently Sharon's speech borrowed heavily from both Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin before him. There references to peace "for our children and grandchildren" and an

apology for choosing the army and war as a way of life, which was forced on him instead of the farmwork he loved.

But then he went and spoiled it by lobbying Tony Blair for his war criminal henchmen.

Alluding the arrest warrant issued in Britain against Major General Doron Almog, he said to Blair: "I want to visit Britain, but I'm not sure I can, because of my 32 wonderful years in the army. I remember British prisons are not so pleasant."

After "apologising" for "choosing" wars that were "forced" on him, he then described his war criminal career as "wonderful." No change there then.

Defeat in the Apple for the Rightist formerly known as Hitchens

So the "grapple in the Apple" has taken place. Hitchens and Galloway have had their debate in New York. You can hear it here if you can find your way through an extremely scrappy site. Even friends of Hitchens, and even one who compares Galloway to Hitler, are saying that he lost this one.

Another General, another flight from justice

Following the flight of General Doron Almog from justice in the UK many people will have been reminded of another general, General Pinochet of Chile, and his flight from the UK. Well now the Guardian has run an article on how Pinochet was in the pay of British Aerospace (BAe), the UK's biggest arms supplier.

Covert payments to Pinochet-linked groups are listed on documents compiled by the Chilean authorities and obtained by the Guardian. They record large payments from BAe as recently as last year.

There were some major differences between the Almog case and that of Pinochet. Pinochet's was an extradition hearing and it was held by the appeal court that he couldn't be extradited because he was an acting head of state when he committed his offences. Almog is wanted by the UK, not a third country. Also, he can't claim head of state or prime minister status. That latter is how General Sharon wriggled off the hook with the Belgian authorities who wanted to charge him with war crimes.

Where the Pinochet case does bear comparison with the cases of Israeli war criminals iS that, with this BAe case, we now find that only is Pinochet to go unpunished, he is being rewarded. Isn't this the case with western approaches to Israeli war criminals? We don't just let them off the hook, we applaud them in our media and reward them with preferential trade arrangements and America provides billions of dollars in aid, loans and loan guarantees. These payments and guarantees are often specifically for Israel to commit still more war crimes.

And it's going to get worse before it gets better. For two days now, Ariel Sharon has been enjoying red carpet treatment at the UN, the supposed guardian and guarantor of international law. The bringing of legal actions, even failed actions, against Israel's war criminals should bring hope to their victims, mostly Palestinians, and their supporters, so this féting at the UN shouldn't be too demoralising. But this hospitality, not to mention sycophancy, accorded to a war criminal could signify the beginning of the end for the UN.

Jews against Jews for Jesus

Here's a fascinating article in the Bartholomew's notes on religion blog. There are about 6,000 messianic Jews in Israel.

Messianic Jews are Jews who have become Christians, but who maintain a Jewish identity and worship in a Jewish style.

Well apparently a community of about 30 of them in the southern Israeli desert town of Arad are being victimised by an orthodox Jewish group called the Gur Chasidim.

Gur Chassidim (or "Gur Hassidim") is dominant within Agudat Israel, a body which represents many Ultra-Orthodox Jews, and has a long history of militancy that goes back to nineteenth-century Poland.

Please go to Bartholomew's blog to read the whole thing. It has the current situation together with links to historical information about both the messianic Jews and their Israeli and orthodox Jewish oppressors.

One on Almog I should have prepared earlier

For all I have read about the case against war criminal, General Doron Almog, I have only just looked at the site of Hickman Rose, the firm that brought the case against him. There's something bothering about this:

This unprecedented arrest warrant against a senior Israeli soldier was issued after years of failed efforts to obtain justice through the Israeli judicial system. Because of the failure of the Israeli judiciary to combat impunity, PCHR, acting for victims in Gaza, built a file of evidence with the help of Hickman & Rose Solicitors to pursue a case against him (and others) in the UK in accordance with the legal principle of universal jurisdiction over war crimes.

Drawing on the work of Norman Finkelstein, I posted earlier about how Israel strives to justify its unjusitfiable conduct via its Supreme Court. Is it possible that Israel might bring charges against these people so that they can be let off lightly by the Israeli courts and then the, say, British can say they went through due process? I don't know, but another genie is out of the bottle so we can be pleased about that.

Eye Eye!

Lenin's Tomb has made it to a mention in Private Eye over the purging of the IEM website of an entry headed The politics of weather 3: the shyness of experts. It's actually in the first article of the 16/9 to 29/9/2005 edition that came out today. Not that you could find it on line, it only publishes a small selection of jokes and cartoons from the print edition. "For the "serious" stuff, you'll just have to buy the magazine..." To read the article, go to the Tomb. It's author is China Miéville.

Almog should still worry

Apparently Doron Almog will have problems in Switzerland should he turn up there on a "humanitarian mission." Check this article from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.

Swiss law provides for the search for and prosecution of those responsible for ordering or commiting grave breaches of international humanitarian law. This legislation is based on the obligations set out in article 146 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 1949 (the Fourth Geneva Convention). The authority to investigate such acts is granted to the Swiss Military Attorney General. Switzerland also enjoys particular status as the depository of the Geneva Conventions.

Meanwhile Daniel Machover, the hunan rights lawyer leading the charge (ouch!) against Almog said:

There needs to be a criminal investigation of the actions taken by Israeli embassy staff. They are not located here to assist Israelis to evade British justice.

Mr Machover also called for a police inquiry into how the information was leaked to the Israeli embassy and how the Israeli diplomat got through various layers of security at Heathrow to board the plane.

It could well have been someone fairly junior in the UK police or judiciary who tipped the Israelis off in the first place but for various Israelis to get Heathrow security onto the plane must have required someone (at least one) at a very senior level. This is scandal. Will it run? That rather depends on the tenacity of the lawyers and on media interest in this.

Israeli war crimes suspect tipped off: whodunnit?

Questions are now being asked as to who tipped off the Israelis about the intention to arrest one of their generals, Doron Almog, and charge him with war crimes. There are other questions too. The Israeli military attaché in London boarded the plane to advise Almog to stay put. How did he get through Heathrow's security staff and systems. Daniel Machover wants the police to investigate the whole shebang. And he's not alone:

Amnesty International criticised British police yesterday for failing to execute the warrant. "He could have been arrested; under UK law there is no reason for not arresting him once he's on UK soil," the human rights group said. Mr Almog was due to visit Jewish communities in Birmingham, Leicester and London to raise money for a centre for disabled children. His son Eran, 20, is severely disabled.

See that last bit. "His son Eran, 20, is severely disabled." And yet dad, it seems, goes out causing death and hideous injury to those Israel deems to be racially (sorry, religiously, culturally, nationally, linguistically) inferior. He then bleated to Channel 4 tonight that he was on a humanitarian mission.

More in the Guardian.

BBC's pro-Israel bias not in doubt

I've just been reminded of the BBC's response to a recent complaint of mine about their pro-Israel bias. Towards the end of August just gone, there was a suicide bombing. It came two days after Israel killed five unarmed Palestinians. Three seem to have been innocent teenagers. The BBC didn't mention the suicide bombing in the context of the Israeli attack. I wrote and complained and they wrote back saying that they couldn't put it in that context because as yet no one had claimed responsibility or said why they had done it. Now consider the report on the suspected war criminal, General Doron Almog.

The warrant relates to the bulldozing of more than 50 houses in the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, when Maj Gen Almog was head of Israel's Southern Command.

It was seen as retaliation for an assault by Islamic militants on an Israeli Army post that left four soldiers dead.

Does the BBC really expect people not to notice this clear bias in favour of Israel? I'll dig up the Beeb's email to me later and post it.

UPDATE: Here's that letter from the BBC "explaining" why they didn't suggest that the recent suicide bombing was retaliation for the killing of five Palestinians two days previously:

Dear Mark

Thanks for your email. No group has officially claimed responsibilty
for the suicide bombing or declared it as being in retaliation for the
recent deaths in Tulkarm which we reported fully below.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4182410.stm

Thank you for your interest in the BBC News website.

Incidentally they knew I had already read their report on the five Palestinians being killed by Israel because I complained that they had run with the Israeli version of events regarding Tulkarm, only adding a Reuters report that all five victims were unarmed and three were innocent teenagers. Also, note the expression "recent deaths", not Israeli killings. Palestinians die and Palestinians kill. So there, Israel can do no wrong.

Israeli war crimes suspect avoids arrest at Heathrow

Ha'aretz has just reported how an Israeli general stayed on his arrival plane at Heathrow airport, until it became his departure plane, because the Israeli government tipped him off that he was going be arrested as a suspected war criminal. Apparently a law firm specialising in human rights has made a case against General (res.) Doron Almog.

The warrant was issued based on one incident - demolition of a home in Rafah - but the attorneys also seek to investigate allegations concerning Almog's involvement in three other cases: the killing of a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy (Nouha al-Maqadam, March 3, 2003); the killing of three young men in northern Gaza on December 30, 2001; and the bombing of the Daraj neighborhood in Gaza on July 22, 2002, which killed Hamas' military head Salah Shehadeh and 14 other Palestinians.

Lawyer Daniel Machover sees a bright side to this escape.

Machover told Haaretz on Sunday that his clients and his firm "were deeply sorry that Almog slipped away from the British justice system, but the fact that he feels that he cannot stand up to it, is at least significant in showing that there is no immunity for war criminals in Britain."

Full story - Ha'aretz

UPDATE - The BBC has now picked up on this story. Unlike the Ha'aretz story, the BBC carries Israel's justification for one of the war crimes Almog is suspected of having committed.

It was seen as retaliation for an assault by Islamic militants on an Israeli Army post that left four soldiers dead.

Seen as retaliation by who? The Beeb also quoted former legal adviser to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Robbie Sable, as saying that it was unlikely Maj Gen Almog would have been arrested.

Courts in organised countries do not act on malicious litigation and this was definitely malicious litigation.

The question I'd want to ask is, who tipped the Israelis off? Was it the police? the government? who?

This is also posted at Lenin's Tomb.

MCB advises Blair on Genocide Memorial Day

In what looks like a remarkably mischievous article the Sunday Times has a report headed "Ditch Holocaust day, advisers urge Blair". Here are some snippets:

Advisers appointed by Tony Blair after the London bombings are proposing to scrap the Jewish[!?] Holocaust Memorial Day because it is regarded as offensive to Muslims.

Jewish. Holocaust Memorial Day? It seems like only yesterday that the UK media were describing HMD and the holocaust itself as a multi-faith affair.

Holocaust Day was established by Blair in 2001 after a sustained campaign by Jewish leaders to create a lasting memorial to the 6m victims of Hitler. It is marked each year on January 27.

Not so multi-faith then.

Sir Iqbal Sacranie, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain said: "The message of the Holocaust was 'never again', and for that message to have practical effect on the world community it has to be inclusive. We can never have double standards in terms of human life. Muslims feel hurt and excluded that their lives are not equally valuable to those lives lost in the Holocaust time."

Ibrahim Hewitt, chairman of the charity Interpal, said: "There are 500 Palestinian towns and villages that have been wiped out over the years. That’s pretty genocidal to me."

My goodness, this reporter's brave. Does Murdoch know?

A Home Office spokesman said it would consider the proposals for a separate Genocide Day for all faiths but emphasised that it regarded the Holocaust as a "defining tragedy in European history".

Which isn't quite the same as what the zionists are saying. Take Mike Whine, a director of the British Board of Deputies

Of course we will oppose this move. The whole point is to remember the darkest day of modern history."

Not just European, modern. And what about Louise Ellman, Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside and a Holocaust Memorial trustee

These Muslim groups should stop trying to evade the enormity of the Holocaust.

Or perhaps these zionist groups should stop minimising the suffering of others including the victims of zionism.

Wherefore is this this state different from all the other states?

I'm almost finished reading Norman Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah lately and something just leapt at me from the first page of the conclusion.

In many respects, Israel's record, as distilled from thousands of pages of human rights reports, is quite singular. "What renders Israel's abuses unique throughout the world," B'tselem observes, "is the relentless efforts to justify what cannot be justified." The Israeli Supreme Court has "rationalised virtually all controversial actions of the Israeli authorities" (Hebrew University professor David Kretzmer). For example, in a 1997 ruling "unprecedented in the world" (Amnesty International), the Supreme Court legalised hostage taking. [As Finkelstein himself points out, they have since rescinded this but only because the hostage taking didn't work!].......Israel was "the only country in the world," according to B'tselem, "where torture was legally sanctioned."

So next time someone asks why poor little Israel is being singled out, those are some of the reasons that should spring to mind. And that's before we get into troubling little issues like colonial settlement, ethnic cleansing and racist rule.

Regarding Beyond Chutzpah, it's taking me forever to read it because, whilst it is very readable, I keep using it for reference so I go back over bits to cross check them with their sources and so on. So that's my recommendation; it's an enjoyable read, it comprehensively destroys whatever reputation "human rights lawyer" Alan Dershowitz had and it's very useful for reference. Unlike the first edition of the Holocaust Industry, another highly recommended read, it's well indexed.

Israeli Ex-Chief Rabbi: Katrina punishes Blacks

I got a bit of flak for reporting on, first Christian and then Jewish, zionist claims about Katrina being a punishment for America on account of the Gaza disengagement. Now Israeli and Jewish media have run with the story with Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel Insider, the Jewish Chronicle and the Jerusalem Post all on the case.

The idea of Katrina as god's wrath has certainly gained momentum. It's not just more media picking up on the story. The first article I noticed was in the Jerusalem Newswire which is a mouthpiece of the Christian zionist movement. It's easy to dismiss as a fringe outlet as Christian zionism has traditionally been an embarrassment to the mainstream zionist movement. Binyamin Netanyahu was a laughing stock for enjoying a "prayer breakfast" with a bunch of Christian rightists back in the 1980s but, of course, that was pre-Bush (not to mention pre-Reverend Blair). Anyway, the next article I saw was via a link to the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Now that is the foremost zionist organisation in America but still the zionists could marginalise that one on the grounds that AIPAC and its news wing have a disclaimer. You know the one: Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider[,AIPAC, Lenin's Tomb, etc.] Well now a former Chief Rabbi of Israel has said that hurricane Katrina was indeed a punishment from god. And it's not just that America pressed Israel to disengage from (whilst retaining control of) Gaza. Former Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rav Ovadiah Yosef blamed the blackness of the New Orleans poor for the disaster that befell them. Believe me, look.

black people reside there (in New Orleans). Blacks will study the Torah? (God said) let’s bring a tsunami and drown them."

"Hundreds of thousands remained homeless. Tens of thousands have been killed. All of this because they have no God," said the rabbi.

At the moment the Anti-Definition (sic) League is calling on the rabbi to apologise to America. They issued a statement calling the rabbi's remarks "outrageous...disturbing...insensitive... beyond the acceptable limit for national dialogue. In fact they called them just about everything but racist.

I don't think Pat Robertson will be entering the fray. I've just read that he stands make a few dollars more on the back of the disaster.

With the Bush Administration's approval, Robertson's $66 million relief organization, Operation Blessing, has been prominently featured on FEMA's list of charitable groups accepting donations for hurricane relief. Dozens of media outlets, including the New York Times, CNN and the Associated Press, duly reprinted FEMA's list, unwittingly acting as agents soliciting cash for Robertson. "How in the heck did that happen?" Richard Walden, president of the disaster-relief group Operation USA, asked of Operation Blessing's inclusion on FEMA's list. "That gives Pat Robertson millions of extra dollars."

God sure does work in mysterious ways.