Murdoch's hunger for power is a looming threat to democracy

No2Genocide
28 Feb 2010, 4:33AM

let us be quite clear that Murdoch's primary interest is commercial

Judging by Fox News and Rupert Murdoch statements, his political agenda cannot be ignored.
For example, Rupert Murdoch's political agenda regarding Israel, as been evidence, such as his statement on Receiving AJC National Human Relations Award, March 4, 2009 [see http://www.ajc.org/site/c.ijITI2PHKoG/b.5018279/k.7184/AJC_Honors_Rupert_Murdoch.htm], in which not once the Israeli violation of Palestinians were mentioned, though it was only a few weeks after the Israeli slaughter of Gaza.
Similarly, the Rupert Murdoch owned Australian led the charge in defending Israel?s war crimes. After the October 19 UN Human Rights Council vote endorsing the Goldstone report, the Australian editorial on October 21 called the vote ?A poisonous outcome? [see http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/a-poisonous-outcome/story-e6frg71x-1225788094737].
The danger of Rupert Murdoch's commercial interests are compounded by his political agenda.

[note this comment had 45 recommendations before it was deleted by a moderator.

This is no ripping yarn, but a murder to fan more conflict

From Haim Brasheeth

 An Excellent article, Mr. Milne!

The poisonous eddies radiating outward from Israel after the Dubai murder, seem to further prove the sea-change, after the Gaza carnage. Israeli brutalities, illegalities and continued oppression of the Palestinians, accepted for so long as some god-given right, or a strange kind of natural disaster, one to be regretted but always overlooked, are now no longer seen as such, but as the Israeli-made disaster of cogent, if brutal colonial policies in Jerusalem, broadly accepted and backed in Israel by a docile and divided polity, which has lost its human compass. Without any prophetic skills, one can foresee the continued decline in support for this racist, immoral and increasingly illogical brutal regime of occupation, across the globe, and an environment in which every ?success? of the Israeli military machine is indeed a deep and radiating failure, another faultline in the thin ice on which Israel has been skating for so long.

The fact that civil society in Israel - the political parties, the media, academia, the arts and professions ? are still very strongly in support of whatever their government is concocting, is indeed a mark of the deep sickness of the Israeli polity. While is reminds one of South African whites a the height of apartheid, it is obviously much more far-reaching and its implications are far wider than those of apartheid. While apartheid south Africa was behind much of African in-fighting during some decades, the apartheid policy was never hellbent on expelling the black population; it was content to oppress and exploit them. The Zionist colonising agenda is a completely different one, a more extreme and finite approach. It would be unfortunately correct to point out that the Jewish population of Israel, and most Jews elsewhere, have bought into this toxic mix of racism and nationalism, peppered as it is with religious fundamentalism to boot. This was also either overlooked or even embraced by other countries, as their elite saw in Israel a bulwark against sprawling Islam, in a typical, orientalist mindset. There are now serious signs that this whole edifice is crumbling.
The important variant on South Africa is the global field in which Israel is batting, being a bridesmaid of entrenched conflicts, and the catalyst of western military intervention just about everywhere; Iran is just one example where the war prepared against a country which MAY in the future have nuclear weapons, is whipped into frenzy by a country that has had them for decades. Will the western nations continue to follow Israeli dogma like lemmings?

One year on, we need progress in Gaza

 From no2genocide

28 Dec 2009, 5:20PM

Every person opposing war crimes should publicly condemn the Israeli wanton destruction and phosphorous attacks at Palestinian civilians in Gaza. It is disgrace to attack those who condemn it and those who did so in this debate should apologise.

The Israeli wanton destruction of neighbourhoods in Gaza was a war crime. Similarly, Israel's use of white phosphorous against Palestinian civilians in Gaza was a war crime and thus Lt. Col. David Benjamin, who is thought to be behind this, is therefore a war crime suspect.

Crimes under international law are defined in treaties and also in customary international law. Violations of fundamental humanitarian rules applicable in all types of conflict entail individual criminal responsibility under customary law. They encompass crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. Other crimes not necessarily committed as a war crime or crime against humanity are torture and enforced disappearance.

I believe Israel is committing each of these crimes.

Those in this discussion who fail to condemn the Israeli siege of Gaza, should be aware that it constitutes collective punishment of a civilian population, which is prohibited in international humanitarian law under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Denying civilians the food, fuel and medicine needed to survive, is a policy amounting to collective punishment. Israeli officials acknowledge that the siege amounts to collective punishment.

Article 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention places a duty on an occupying power to ensure the food and medical supplies of the population, as well as to permit and facilitate the consignments of humanitarian relief. A deliberate refusal to permit access to these supplies constitutes collective punishment or an illegal reprisal against the civilian population

Vanunu: our duty to speak up

 From BTBLondon

@midvarshekertirchok

Re land theft, the land around Beilin was where the Hasmoneans defeated the Greek-Syrian armies over 2,000 years ago, and recently commemorated again in the festival of Chanukah. If arabs don't like the Jews being in that part of the world i understand it, but it's not exactly theft now is it?

If restoration of land rights lost in battle up to  2000 years ago is to be the basis for current legal rights we have some interesting effects.

First of all are the restoration of the whole of the USA (indeed all of the Americas), Australia etc. to the native peoples the Europeans kicked out. Indeed, I suspect there are some people in Powys who would have a claim to my London house after their distant ancestors unfortunate defeat by the Romans.

This is why the Geneva conventions were incorporated into international law to stop this chaos, conventions that Israel breaches every day in the occupied territories and indeed in 48 Israel in the Galilee and elsewhere. Unlike the NPT [Nuclear Proliferation Treaty] Israel cannot opt out of these.

Vanunu was kidnapped, again in breach of national and International law, and imprisoned. On release, oppressive restrictions were placed on him for vindictive not 'security' reasons.

If Israel wants to be treated like a civilised state it needs to start acting like one. Until then refusing to do business or have normal contact with it and its institutions is a requirement for global civil society

Palestinians must prepare for statehood

The Palestinian Authority is taking a unilateral approach to institution-building. It's a policy that demonstrates maturity

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/02/palestinian-statehood-institution-building?commentpage=2

03 Nov 09, 12:26pm 

wordsareimportant
You claimed:

A murderous ... who should and will be rejected by 99.9% of all Israelis, Jews and Americans. And in Israel, he will be put in jail, not given a medal and a tickertape parade.

The evidence contradicts your claim:
Teitel was NOT put in jail when he admitted [probably bragged] in 1997 that he killed 2 Palestinians. He was released without trial! Furthermore despite his own admission and his statement, during his investigation re the double murder, that he came to Israel precisely to carry out attacks against Palestinians, in 2003 he was formally notified that the Police had dropped their investigation!

Teitel has said that in June 1997 he killed an Arab taxi driver and a Palestinian shepherd. Two months later, the Shin Bet security service arrested him; he said during his investigation that he came to Israel precisely to carry out attacks against Palestinians, in revenge for suicide bombings.

Source "From Dentist's Son to Jewish Terrorist" http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1125243.html

It is NOT unusual to Israelis to terrorise Palestinians with impunity. In fact, there is evidence of Israeli mass murderers of Palestinians enjoying protection from the state and public adulation. For example, another American born, Baruch Kappel Goldstein, massacred dozens of Palestinians. On February 25, 1994, Goldstein fired at hundreds of defenseless praying Palestinians in Hebron, killing 52 and injuring more than 100. A plaque near the grave reads "To the holy Baruch Goldstein, who gave his life for the Jewish people, the Torah and the nation of Israel." The gravesite became a pilgrimage site.

His followers were able to make their contribution to the mass killing in Gaza earlier this year:

In addition to the official publications, extreme right-wing groups managed
to bring pamphlets with racist messages into IDF bases. One such flyer is
attributed to "the pupils of Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg" - the former rabbi at
Joseph's Tomb and author of the article "Baruch the Man," which praises
Baruch Goldstein, who massacred unarmed Palestinians in Hebron. It calls on
"soldiers of Israel to spare your lives and the lives of your friends and
not to show concern for a population that surrounds us and harms us. We call
on you ... to function according to the law 'kill the one who comes to kill
you.' As for the population, it is not innocent ... We call on you to ignore
any strange doctrines and orders that confuse the logical way of fighting
the enemy."

Source 'IDF rabbinate publication during Gaza war: We will show no mercy on the cruel', Haaretz, 26 January 2009 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1058758.html

Some of the crimes committed by the Israeli army are recorded in the Goldstone report and no Israeli has been brought to justice.

no2genocide

 

Alan Johnson sacking David Nutt

31 Oct 09, 12:39am

Every person courageous to state inconvenient truth is inspiring. I dare say that had we had courageous people like Professor David Nutt we might have never attacked Iraq on false claims of 45 minutes and non-existence Weapons of Mass Destruction.

This week inconvenient truth was published in the Israeli paper, the Jerusalem Post:

We're fighting off the world with the Holocaust; witness Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the UN with his Auschwitz props. "We won't go like lambs to the slaughter again," vowed his protégé, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, in a cabinet discussion of the Goldstone report.
...
This is what we tell ourselves and the world, and, in the face of what we did and are still doing in Gaza, it has become intolerable. We are not the 6 million. The 6 million were powerless Jews three generations ago; we cannot wrap our abuses of power in their tragedy.

From Rattling the Cage: Some victims we are at:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1256740787801&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

No2Genocide

No2Genocide (3)

28 Oct 09, 10:54am

·         The article's highlighted disastrous consequences of declaring a Palestinian state under occupation are frightening. Yet, I fear it would be even worse.

The life of most Palestinians under the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is unbearable. Declaring a Palestinian state under occupation would only intensify the Israeli systematic destruction of Palestinian lives.

To add to orwellwasright, regarding Israel's policy of total destruction - the Dahiyah Doctrine:

On 10 February 2008, Meir Sheetrit [then the Israeli Interior Minister] said:

"... I would bomb neighborhoods, etc…. We did it in Lebanon in 2006; we wiped out a whole neighborhood, the Dachya, including tall buildings, sometimes with people in it ..."

A few months after his threat, the Israeli military wiped out not one but many whole neighbourhoods in Gaza.

I hope Sheetrit and other Israeli government ministers would indeed be brought to justice, as suggested in the Guardian article http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/27/olmert-could-face-warcrimes-arrest with the subtitle Prosecution of Israelis likely, says solicitor