Today’s pro-Palestine protest was joined by a few of the Zionist Federation regulars plus a contingent of their new allies: the Jewish Division of the EDL.
How the author of death and destruction on an epic scale
and, notably under false pretences,
can’t face a few unarmed protesters simply disagreeing with him:
Says Rifat : I called the BBC today and registered an official complaint and had them open a case # for it. I was on the phone with them for quite some time and let them know many points and that I was on the ship when we were attacked as well. I then followed this up with a written complaint on the forms on their website, and also submitted it to the blog page. FYI, my follow-up written comments are below
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“I was on the Mavi Marmara ship when we were brutally and illegally attacked by the Israeli military in international waters. The episode of Panorama: “Death on the Med” was nothing more than a disgusting piece of Israeli propaganda to put it very mildly. At 2:20 into the show, Jane Corbin states quite bluntly “We got hold of new Israeli military video of the operation”. Yes, that’s exactly it; ISRAELI MILITARY VIDEO. So the only question is, was Jane Corbin in particular and the BBC in general a willing puppet and mouthpiece of the Israeli military or were they just duped into it?? And which of these two possibilities is worse, I’m not even sure.
This Israeli military video and narrative dominated the entire episode. Panorama did not see it fit to refer to the illegality of this piratical attack, involving killing, injuring, hijacking, kidnapping and theft, in international waters. Nor did it challenge any Israeli spokespeople with the illegality of this or question them on it. Further, the program and its so-called reporter did not question the illegality of the Israeli siege on Gaza either, which has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians.
The program referred to “thousands of rockets” being fired from Gaza into Israel but of course fails to mention the bombardment of Gaza with banned white phosphorous and other weapons that killed over 1400 civilians.
The program and its producers which can undoubtedly only have an agenda, did not question the Israeli spokespeople on why they confiscated all of our footage and tapes if they have nothing to hide. On the contrary, Panorama went ahead and appallingly used doctored tapes given to them by the Israeli military, and presented these as fact.
Why didn’t Panorama mention any of the other ships in the flotilla, or mention that citizens from over 40 countries and various religions (including Jews, Christians and even atheists) and ethnicities participated in it and that many organizations collaborated with IHH on this flotilla? Instead, Panorama was despicably trying to play on people’s fears due to their ignorance of Islam and portray this flotilla as being driven by extreme “Islamists”. There were many British citizens aboard the ship as well, but for some strange reason, Panorama opted not to show a single one of them.
Why didn’t Panorama mention the autopsy reports or challenge the Israeli spokespersons on the fact that the dead victims were shot many times and at close range, thus negating the claim of ‘self-defense’ by the Israeli commandos? More importantly, why didn’t Corbin challenge the simple fact that when you attack and board a civilian ship in the dead of the night with fully armed commandos, helicopters, live rounds, warships and Zodiac boats, the self-defense argument is automatically negated because YOU ARE BEING THE AGGRESSOR.
Why wasn’t the footage shown of the Israeli assaults on the activists? We were able to continue broadcasting for a short period of time even as the Israeli military tried to execute a blackout on their crimes after they started attacking, and some of us were able to smuggle footage out that was uploaded on the internet. This footage shows the Israeli commandos killing the activists, but this was probably incompatible with the agenda that BBC has in mind. Why wasn’t this footage shown and why weren’t the Israelis questioned on this, in the same manner Corbin was showing the Israeli footage to Bulent Yildrim and questioning him on it?? Or do the Israelis get a free pass?
The true evil, Nazi-like, fascist, racist nature of the Israelis came through loud and clear when approximately 26-27 minutes into the show, the Israeli spokesperson incredibly stated “I don’t think the force was excessive”. Within an hour, they had committed a massacre killing 9 people and wounding dozens. How many more before the Israelis think the force is excessive?! And in the same clip, we see there is no response by Panorama’s reporter to this outrageous statement, and no pressing further as to why the deaths of 9 innocent civilians is so cheap to him. Merely meek, repugnant, submissive complacency by Panorama.
As someone who’s been involved with the media for many years now and who helped established a media watchdog group in the USA that was quite influential, I can honestly say that this is one of the shoddiest pieces of “journalism” I have ever seen.”
By JONNY PAUL
06/24/2010 22:27
One of UK’s largest unions votes for boycott, expelling Israeli envoy.
One of Britain’s largest trade unions passed a motion at its annual conference in Bournemouth last week accusing Israel of lying over the Gaza flotilla incident and has called for a complete boycott of Israel and for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador, it was confirmed on Thursday.
The emergency motion was introduced on the third day of the annual conference of UNISON, the largest public sector union with around 1.4 million members. It said Israel was “brazenly lying” over the flotilla incident, as it “attempted to define it as an attempted lynch mob of its troops by passengers on the boats. “This is a further sign that Israel does not respond to words of condemnation, only action will have any effect,” the motion states.
One attendee said that the few Unison members who spoke against the motion were heckled.
UNISON member Lilach Head, a care worker from Devon, spoke against the motion and was heckled. She said the atmosphere was intimidating and the vote was called before more people could speak against it.
“Only three people were able to speak against the motion, there were six others waiting but then the vote was called. There was no hope,” she said.
The union will now support a full boycott of Israel – economic, cultural and sporting; it has joined the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign and will suspend ties with the Histadrut.
In addition to these measures, UNISON is calling for Britain to expel the Israeli ambassador.
“Conference reaffirms the support for an economic, cultural and sporting boycott of Israel and call on Unison to join the scores of unions around the world who have endorsed the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. Further to that as an immediate sanction for the illegal attack on the flotilla, we call on the government to expel the Israeli ambassador,” the motion states.
The union had already banned a organization that promotes Israeli-Palestinian trade union cooperation from having a stall at its conference.
UNISON’s deputy general secretary, Keith Sonnet, a pro-Palestinian activist and patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign – a fringe group that advocates a one-state solution and major player in the boycott and delegitimization campaign against Israel – wrote to Trade Union Friends of Israel (TUFI) saying the union was unable to offer the organization a stall because “we have no ongoing work with the TUFI, nor are we affiliated to the organization.”
“More than 2,000 delegates to UNISON’s national conference, representing our 1.4 million members, did indeed carry a motion condemning the Israeli attack on the Gaza freedom flotilla, in which nine people were reportedly killed,” a union spokesperson told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
“The motion noted that the boats were carrying much needed humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza [and that] the passengers on the boats were civilians.”
Asked if the wording and the sentiments expressed in the motion were a fair and honest reflection of the views of the members, the spokesperson said: “Our 2,000 delegates were well aware of the words in the motion before it was carried. We have constantly called for an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza and have pushed the case for a peaceful settlement – including an end to the bombings, on both sides.”
Asked how the motion would be implemented, the spokesperson said: “Our international committee will be taking forward the actions called for in the motion when it meets in the next couple of weeks.”
“Again, this is making accusations before the facts have been established and an investigation into this tragic incident have been completed,” said Stephen Scott, director of TUFI. “The outrageous attack on their fellow trade unionists in the Histadrut, who have called for a lifting of the blockade restrictions and the resumption of final-status peace talks, is counterproductive.
The Israeli embassy in London said the motion was “misleading” and “dishonest” and an “outrageous attempt” by anti-Israel activists to manipulate the union to serve their agenda.
“We categorically reject this misleading and dishonest motion. This is yet another outrageous attempt by anti-Israel elements to manipulate a union into serving their agenda.
“At a time when public sector workers face unprecedented challenges to their jobs and conditions, it is bizarre that the union’s leadership is focusing an emergency meeting on an overseas situation of which they are so clearly ignorant and prejudiced,” the spokesman said.
The Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine (TULIP), a movement working to unite trade unions and non-governmental organizations to counter boycott calls of Israel, said the motion presented an “utterly one-sided view” and could have easily been written in Iran.
“UNISON continues to speak with two voices,” said TULIP spokesman Eric Lee. “On the one hand, the union’s official policy remains support for a two-state solution, which was reaffirmed by the union leadership – and the union has actually done some good work on the ground, promoting Jewish-Arab peace and reconciliation.
“However, this resolution was hastily drafted and even more hastily adopted; it contradicts the union’s own long-standing position and instead presents an utterly one-sided view of the conflict. It fact, it so demonizes Israel that it could easily have been written in Teheran,” Lee added.
source
By Stuart Littlewood* | Sabbah Report | http://www.sabbah.biz
In the run-up to Britain’s general election we’ve heard next to nothing about Middle East policy from the three main party leaders in their much-publicised debates on TV.
They have studiously avoided all mention of the outrage in the Holy Land and the way it impacts so directly on world peace.
The plight of the Palestinian people ever since Britain abandoned its mandate responsibility, and their endless struggle for freedom from Israel’s military occupation, threatens our safety but word of it never passes their lips. And the programme bosses appear to block questions on the subject.
Early in the campaign I received a message from a local Liberal Democrat MP saying: “I urge everyone to get to Norwich and help elect our fantastic candidate Simon W.”
But hang on… before rushing to volunteer I wanted to know just one thing. What was Mr W’s personal stance on Middle East policy and especially Israel’s 43-year illegal occupation of the Holy Land?
Frankie Boyle has lashed out at the BBC, branding them ‘cowardly’ and ‘cravenly afraid of giving offence’ after censuring one of his jokes.
In an angry open letter, the comedian hit back at the BBC Trust for apologising for a gag he felt drew some small attention to the ‘apartheid’ in Palestine.
The corporation’s governing body yesterday issued an apology for the joke Boyle made on Radio 4’s Political Animal two years ago. A listener took their complaint that the gag was anti-Semitic – although appearing on a show hosted by the Jewish Andy Zaltzman – all the way to the top.
They ruled that the gag was a ‘serious’ breach of BBC rules and said: ‘It said: ‘As a result, the committee wished to apologise to the complainant on behalf of the BBC for any offence the remark may have caused him and other listeners to the programme.’
However, Boyle says the Palestinian situation is a suitable topic for satire and defended the joke.
Here is the full text of his response:
Obviously, it feels strange to be on the moral high ground but I feel a response is required to the BBC Trust’s cowardly rebuke of my jokes about Palestine.
As always, I heard nothing from the BBC but read in a newspaper that editorial procedures would be tightened further to stop jokes with anything at all to say getting past the censors.
In case you missed it, the jokes in question are: ‘I’ve been studying Israeli Army Martial Arts. I now know 16 ways to kick a Palestinian woman in the back. People think that the Middle East is very complex but I have an analogy that sums it up quite well. If you imagine that Palestine is a big cake, well…that cake is being punched to pieces by a very angry Jew.’
I think the problem here is that the show’s producers will have thought that Israel, an aggressive, terrorist state with a nuclear arsenal was an appropriate target for satire. The Trust’s ruling is essentially a note from their line managers. It says that if you imagine that a state busily going about the destruction of an entire people is fair game, you are mistaken. Israel is out of bounds.
The BBC refused to broadcast a humanitarian appeal in 2009 to help residents of Gaza rebuild their homes. It’s tragic for such a great institution but it is now cravenly afraid of giving offence and vulnerable to any kind of well drilled lobbying.
I told the jokes on a Radio 4 show called Political Animal. That title seems to promise provocative comedy with a point of view. In practice the BBC wish to deliver the flavour of political comedy with none of the content. The most recent offering I saw was BBC Two’s The Bubble. It looked exactly like a show where funny people sat around and did jokes about the news. Except the thrust of the format was that nobody had read the papers. I can only imagine how the head of the BBC Trust must have looked watching that, grinning like Gordon Brown having his prostrate examined.
The situation in Palestine seems to be, in essence, apartheid. I grew up with the anti apartheid thing being a huge focus of debate. It really seemed to matter to everybody that other human beings were being treated in that way. We didn’t just talk about it, we did things, I remember boycotts and marches and demos all being held because we couldn’t bear that people were being treated like that.
A few years ago I watched a documentary about life in Palestine. There’s a section where a UN dignitary of some kind comes to do a photo opportunity outside a new hospital. The staff know that it communicates nothing of the real desperation of their position, so they trick her into a side ward on her way out. She ends up in a room with a child who the doctors explain is in a critical condition because they don’t have the supplies to keep treating him. She flounders, awkwardly caught in the bleak reality of the room, mouthing platitudes over a dying boy.
The filmmaker asks one of the doctors what they think the stunt will have achieved. He is suddenly angry, perhaps having just felt at first hand something he knew in the abstract. The indifference of the world. ‘She will do nothing,’ he says to the filmmaker. Then he looks into the camera and says, ‘Neither will you’.
I cried at that and promised myself that I would do something. Other than write a few stupid jokes I have not done anything. Neither have you.
Frankie Boyle
Read more: http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2010/04/30/10922/frankie_boyle%3A_bbc_are_cowards#ixzz0mgR0GtKa
TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2010 AT 9:27PM GILAD ATZMON
In case you didn’t know, in Britain the Holocaust is part of the National Curriculum. Thanks to the ‘The Holocaust Educational Trust’ our children are guaranteed to learn how bad the Nazis were. This is probably much easier for our kids to acknowledge than to look into the ways in which the embarrassing legacy of the British Empire reverberates throughout almost every contemporary disastrous conflict on this planet. It is deemed far easier for our kids to learn about Anne Frank than to absorb the fact that Britain is directly responsible for the robbery of Palestine and the Palestinian ordeal. Learning about Auschwitz is also far easier than accepting the devastating reality created by Britain’s latest illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a colossal crime which has cost more than 1.5 million innocent lives so far. Thanks to The Holocaust Educational Trust we can brush history and our current crimes aside. Learning about the bad Nazis is far easier on our children than learning about the complicity of Britain in the holocaust. I guess that toughening British immigration laws to stop Jews escaping to Britain in the 1930s is not a prominent chapter in our kids’ text books.
read on
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Jerusalem Quartet Concert at London’s Wigmore Hall is Disrupted & Radio 3’s Live Broadcast is Terminated
I have a confession to make. I nearly didn’t make it. Yesterday I put my watch and car clock forward but forgot to do so for my mobile and radio alarm! Result was that I got up an hour later than intended! Fortunately I managed to get the next train to Victoria and despite further loss of time as I was (twice) misdirected, I got there only 10 minutes late.
There of course is London’s Wigmore Hall, home to the more discerning of nature’s liberals. Except that scratch a liberal and you will often find an angry conservative!
Jointly organised by members of Brighton PSC and J-Big (Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods) we ensured that the performance by the Jerusalem Quartet, the Israeli Army’s faithful musicians, didn’t go unchallenged.
Because in Scotland a similar protest in Edinburgh has resulted in 5 protestors being bizarrely charged with racism (it’s either anti-semitism or a non-existent Israeli nationality!) it was important that this protest included a Jewish contingent.
Along with an irate old lady who wanted to gain immediate entrance, despite being late, I was kept waiting for a pause in the proceedings. Fortunately our very own opera singer, Debbie Fink of J-Big, decided that she would try and enliven what was frankly a pretty dismal and boring performance by Israel’s finest. As her voice rose in harmony with the vultures on stage it seemed that at first people thought it was part of the show. However Debbie soon received a red card which quite fortunately enabled me to gain my entrance, apologising of course for my late arrival and any disruption that that might cause.
Having gained my seat, the Quartet quickly decided to resume playing. After rehearsing what I was going to say, I stood up after about 5 minutes later and proceeded to tell the JQ that they were the cultural ambassadors of Apartheid Israel and its Army whom they perform for.
Now I confess I don’t claim to understand those who pay to come and listen to musicians with blood on their hands. But then I don’t understand why Wagner was what he was. However I always thought that listening to classical music made you more not less peaceful. Instead as I began to contribute to the concert’s proceedings people began to get animated and started hitting me with their programmes! Not that I was hurt and nor did it distract me from the message I was getting across but it illustrates the Zionist mentality. Security however was quickly off the mark and I was, well not dragged but escorted off the premises, with one of the heavies shouting ‘fuck off’ at my back, to which I could but reply that that wasn’t very nice! The Police quickly entered but to my consternation and amazement did nothing. Given what had happened in Scotland I expected to be arrested. Instead I was merely thrown out into the street.
The next two to be evicted were members of Brighton PSC and the final evictee an activist in ISM. As we were gathering at a nearby café, a member of the audience came over to us to congratulate us on our protest which made us even more pleased. And when we learnt that the live broadcast by Radio 3 (which included Debbie’s initial operatic rendition) had been terminated we were even more over the moon.
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