For several years now, I have been writing these regular blog posts with one end in mind: to help open a door for readers and encourage them to step through. I select issues, usually those that dominate western media coverage and represent a consensus that we might term the Great Western Narrative, and try to show how this narrative has been constructed not to inform and enlighten but to conceal and deceive.
June 5, 2018 marks the 51st anniversary of the Israeli Occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.
ALEPPO, SYRIA – On Saturday, over seventy tribal leaders from the regions of Aleppo, al-Raqqa and al-Hasakah met in the Syrian government-controlled city of Deir Hafer near Aleppo at a summit titled “Syrian tribes against foreign intervention and the American presence on Syrian soil.” According to reports, the tribal leaders – whose territory is either partially or entirely under occupation by the United States and its proxy military, known as
Head of the Popular International Committee to Support Gaza, Dr Essam Yousef, called on the international community to pressure Israel to immediately release the passengers of a ship that set sail yesterday from Gaza heading to Cyprus in an effort to break the 12 year siege of the enclave.
Israeli occupation forces flanked the ship as it reached nine nautical miles from Gaza’s shores only for them to force it on to the Israeli port of Ashdod to the north of Gaza.
Fathi Harb should have had something to live for, not least the imminent arrival of a new baby. But last week the 21-year-old extinguished his life in an inferno of flames in central Gaza.
It is believed to be the first example of a public act of self-immolation in the enclave. Harb doused himself in petrol and set himself alight on a street in Gaza City shortly before dawn prayers during the holy month of Ramadan.
In part, Harb was driven to this terrible act of self-destruction out of despair.
60 Palestinians were killed in Gaza on May 15, simply for protesting and demanding their Right of Return as guaranteed by international law.
50 more were killed since March 30, the start of the ‘Great March of Return’, which marks Land Day.
Nearly 10,000 have been wounded and maimed in between these two dates.
‘Israel has the right to defend itself’, White House officials announced, paying no heed to the ludicrousness of the statement when understood within the current context of an unequal struggle.
Much has been said about US President Donald Trump leaving the Iran deal: that this is in blatant disregard of basic rules of the international law on treaties and that this is the behavior of the bully, profoundly disrespectful towards the other partners in the treaty – France, Great-Britain, Russia, China and Germany.
And last, but not least, that this comes down to a declaration of war against Iran.
In many ways this is indeed a historical setback.
The consequences of Trump’s decision will be felt for decades to come.
On 14 of May 1948 Israel declared unilaterally her independence in a foreign land called Palestine, supported by a UN Resolution sponsored by the UK (the United Nations “Partition Plan of Palestine” at the end of the British Mandate (euphemism for British ‘colony’), was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 29 November 1947 as Resolution 181 II). 1948 was also the year of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Is it appropriate for NDP Members of Parliament to be working for “greater friendship” with a country that is killing and maiming thousands of non-violent protestors?
Would it have been appropriate for any elected member of the party to be a “friend” with South Africa’s government during the apartheid era?
The gaping chasm between reality and unreality is exemplified by recent contrasting statements about journalism from two veteran reporters. On the one side we have Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s Middle East editor, who enjoys a public image of principled honesty and a supposedly fierce commitment to news balance and impartiality.
