Baroness Tonge suggests israeli actions to blame for ‘reigniting’ hatred against Jewish people

Fmr Lib Dem peer faces calls to be removed from Lords over ‘antisemitic’ post on Pittsburgh shooting

Adam Forrest
The Independent

© Presse Association
Baroness Jenny Tonge quit the party in 2016

Baroness Tonge suggests Israeli actions to blame for ‘reigniting’ hatred against Jewish people

Baroness Tonge has been accused of antisemitism over a social media post in which she blamed the Israeli government for the hatred behind the mass shooting in Pittsburgh that claimed the lives of 11 people.

The independent peer – who resigned from the Liberal Democrats in 2016 – criticised the country on Facebook in the immediate aftermath of the attack on the Tree of Life synagogue.

She wrote: “Absolutely appalling and a criminal act, but does it ever occur to Bibi and the present Israeli government that it’s actions against Palestinians may be reigniting antisemitism?”

“I suppose someone will say that it is antisemitic to say so?”

Plenty of people on social media did say so, condemning her remarks and urging fellow peers to remove her from the House of Lords.

More than 3,000 people have signed a change.org petition demanding her expulsion from the chamber.

The politicians was a Liberal Democrat MP between 1997 and 2005. After losing her seat in Richmond Park, the party made her a life peer.

But in 2016 she was suspended over allegations of antisemitism, leading her to quit the party.

The charity Campaign Against Antisemitism said the Liberal Democrats, having secured her seat in the Lords, should now “actively campaign for her removal”.

James Cox, the Lib Dems’ parliamentary candidate for Bristol West, also tweeted: “If there is a way to remove her from the Lords it should be pursued immediately.”

The historian and screenwriter Alex von Tunzelmann said her remarks following the Pittsburgh tragedy were “outrageous, antisemitic and deeply stupid”.

Michael Dickson, executive director of educational organisation Stand With Us, told The Jewish Chronicle: “The rock cold heart of Baroness Jenny Tonge was on display for all see. Following the slaying of Jews in synagogue at prayer, she excuses the motivation of the murder, never missing an opportunity to defame the world’s only Jewish country.”

Labour MP Jess Phillips said she was “appalled by the blatant propaganda and antisemitism on display”.

In 2016 Baroness Tonge chaired an event in parliament at which speakers reportedly compared Israel to Isis, and suggested Jewish people were to blame for the Holocaust.

The same year the independent peer claimed Israel’s treatment of Palestinians was a “major cause” behind the rise of Isis.

She said Israel was “creating a generation of terrorists”.

Adam Forrest is a freelance journalist who writes regularly for The Big Issue UK, covering current affairs and human interest stories

Comment: Is the Baroness wrong? Not only does Israel’s action vis a vis the Palestinians breed hatred within for the “sh*tty little country”, it actively supports terrorist groups who oppose their geopolitical enemies.

• Israel blocks vital water disinfection equipment from entering Gaza
• Netanyahu – destroyer of both Israel and the Palestinians
• Anti-Zionism on the rise in UK as a result of Israel’s barbarism
• What ‘Israel’s right to exist’ means to Palestinians
• Israel seeks ethnic cleansing of Palestinians
• Israel admits it is assisting Syrian rebels in overthrowing Assad
• Syria chief negotiator: Israel cooperates with ISIS by moving military aid into Syria through Golan Heights
• Knesset MP says no secret army cooperates with Al-Nusra Front, IDF chief denies

UK Was Aware of Saudi Plot Against Khashoggi Weeks in Advance

Jamal Khashoggi was about to disclose details of Saudi Arabia’s use of chemical weapons in Yemen when he was killed.

UK Was Aware of Saudi Plot Against Khashoggi Weeks in Advance: Report
By TeleSur

Saudi Arabia told the U.K. about their plan of abducting Khashoggi three weeks before the incident took place. The MI6 warned them against carrying out the said operation.

The murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi was about to disclose details of Saudi Arabia’s use of chemical weapons in Yemen when he was killed, as reported by the Sunday Express, a source close to him told the media outlet Friday.

This revelation was made as different intelligence sources disclosed that the U.K. was made aware of the entire plot by Saudi Arabia three weeks before the incident took place on Oct. 2.

Intercepts by GCHQ of internal communications by the kingdom’s General Intelligence Directorate revealed orders by a “member of the royal circle” to abduct the troublesome journalist and take him back to Saudi Arabia. The report does not confirm or deny whether the order came from the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

They were supposed to abduct Khashoggi and take him back to Riyadh but could take other actions, if the journalist created problems.

“We were initially made aware that something was going in the first week of September, around three weeks before Mr. Khashoggi walked into the consulate on October 2, though it took more time for other details to emerge,” the intelligence source told the Sunday Express Friday.

“These details included primary orders to capture Mr. Khashoggi and bring him back to Saudi Arabia for questioning. However, the door seemed to be left open for alternative remedies to what was seen as a big problem. We know the orders came from a member of the royal circle but have no direct information to link them to Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. Whether this meant he was not the original issuer we cannot say.”

The MI6 had warned their Saudi counterparts to cancel the mission. “On October 1 we became aware of the movement of a group, which included members of Ri’āsat Al-Istikhbārāt Al-‘Āmah (GID) to Istanbul, and it was pretty clear what their aim was.

“Through channels, we warned that this was not a good idea. Subsequent events show that our warning was ignored.”

Sunday Express also obtained an anonymous interview from a close friend of Khashoggi’s who revealed that the journalist was about to obtain “documentary evidence” of Saudi Arabia’s use of chemical weapon in its proxy war in Yemen.

Iran has previously claimed that the kingdom had been supplying ingredients that can be used to make the nerve agent Sarin in Yemen but Khashoggi was possibly referring to phosphorus which can be used to burn bones. Last month it was claimed that Saudi Arabia had been using U.S.-supplied white phosphorus munitions against troops and even civilians in Yemen.

Jamal Khashoggi was a Washington Post columnist who left Saudi Arabia a year ago due to the widespread crackdown on dissent by the crown prince which saw imprisoning of a large number of dissenters and activists in Saudi Arabia.

The journalist went to Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 .to get papers for his marriage and never seen after that. Turkey maintained that he was killed inside the consulate by Saudi authorities but the latter denied any allegations against them for almost three weeks before finally accepting that he indeed was murdered but alleged it to be a rogue operation about which the crown prince had no knowledge.

The case of Khashoggi created an international uproar and diplomatic scandals where many countries are deciding to impose sanctions on the country and many companies severed their ties with Saudi Arabia.

According to the latest updates, the European Union is considering a ban on arms sale to Saudi Arabia and other sanctions. The EU will make a joint decision on how to punish the kingdom, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday in Istanbul after Russia-Turkey-France-Germany summit on Syria. A similar sentiment was expressed by France’s Emmanuel Macron.

This article was originally published by “TeleSur” –

Will the US and UK Seek a Palace Coup Against Mohammed bin Salman?

As pressure continues to mount over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Washington and London are weighing their next moves

By Mark Curtis

October 26, 2018 “Information Clearing House“ –  As Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) comes under increasing pressure over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, policymakers in Washington and London have one overriding priority: to preserve the House of Saud, a military and economic ally in which they have invested so much. Yet, if Mohammed bin Salman cannot be retained, the UK and US will likely work to ensure some face-saving transfer of power to one of his relatives.

It has already been reported that members of the ruling family have begun discussing the possibility of replacing the crown prince. But there is also a little-known precedent for a Western role in the removal of a Saudi leader.

Promoting a palace coup

Declassified British files show that Britain previously covertly supported a palace coup in Saudi Arabia involving Mohammed bin Salman’s forebears in the House of Saud. The coup occurred as long ago as 1964, but has eerie echoes to the present. It helped then Crown Prince Faisal oust his older brother King Saud, who had ruled since 1953 and was backed by the British to preserve the House of Saud.

Faisal, like bin Salman now, had by the late 1950s become the real force in Saudi Arabia and was running the government. But in December 1963, King Saud attempted to reassert his power by deploying troops and guns outside his palace in Riyadh. A tense standoff with forces loyal to Faisal continued into 1964, when Saud demanded that Faisal dismiss two of his ministers and replace them with the king’s sons.

However, crucial support for Faisal was provided by the National Guard, the then 20,000-strong body responsible for protecting the royal family. The commander of the National Guard at the time was Prince Abdullah, who would later become king until his death in 2015, when he was succeeded by his half-brother, King Salman – the father of Mohammed bin Salman.

Who was the force then behind the Saudi Arabian National Guard? Then, as now, it was Britain, which had a military mission in the country following a Saudi request in 1963. The declassified files show that two British advisers to the National Guard, Brigadier Kenneth Timbrell and Colonel Nigel Bromage, drew up plans on Abdullah’s express wish for the “protection of Faisal”, “defence of the regime”, “occupation of certain points” and “denial of the radio station to all but those supported by the National Guard”.

These British plans ensured Faisal’s personal protection, with the aim of ensuring that full power would be transferred to him, which duly occurred when Saud was forced to abdicate.

Preserving the House of Saud

Britain backed the 1964 palace coup for a particular reason: It viewed King Saud as incompetent and opposed to introducing the political reforms necessary to keep the House of Saud from being overthrown. Frank Brenchley, the charge d’affaires in the British embassy in Jeddah, wrote that “the sands of time have steadily been running out for the Saudi regime”, the major factor then being the nationalist revolution in neighbouring Yemen and the intervention of Egyptian troops there, which challenged Saudi authority in Arabia.

Brenchley noted that, in contrast to Saud, “Faisal knows that he must bring about reforms quickly if the regime is to survive. Hampered everywhere by a lack of trained administrators, he is struggling to speed evolution in order to avert revolution”.

British training of the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG), including arms exports to it, was greatly expanded after 1964. Today, Britain has dozens of military personnel advising the SANG and a major project helping it with “communications”. The SANG’s role remains overwhelmingly focused on promoting “internal security” – that is, preserving the House of Saud.

The US has an even bigger training and “modernisation” programme for the SANG – worth $4bn – and is now more likely to play a similar role to that of Britain in 1964.

Echoes in Yemen

What also has echoes from the past is that in the mid-1960s, Britain was conniving with the Saudis in a war in Yemen that was as brutal as the present one. A popular coup in September 1962 by republican forces deposed the imam, Muhammad al-Badr, who had been in power for a week after the death of his father, a feudal autocrat who had ruled since 1948. The imam’s forces took to the hills and declared an insurgency, while Britain and Saudi Arabia soon began a covert war to support them that lasted throughout the 1960s.

The British establishment’s fear was that the popular republican government in Yemen, backed by Nasser’s Egypt, would threaten the House of Saud and spread to the other British-controlled feudal sheikhdoms in Arabia. By the time the war fizzled out in 1969, the death toll might have been up to 200,000. Then, as now, human lives were seen as insignificant to London and Riyadh when compared with high policy.

The British-backed palace coup in 1964 also reinforced the role of Wahhabist ideology in the country. In March 1964, the Saudi religious leadership (the ulema) issued a fatwa sanctioning the transfer of power to Faisal as being based on sharia law; two days later, King Saud abdicated.

Reflecting on the coup, then British Ambassador Colin Crowe noted that “what may also be seriousin the long-term” about the transfer of power to Faisal, “is the bringing of the ulema into the picture, and they may exact a price for their support”. His comments proved prescient as the alliance between Wahhabism and the House of Saud would go on to promote extremism, involving the backing of terrorist forces, in various places around the world.

The friend and ally

The British government has condemned Khashoggi’s killing and supports an investigation. But it is still referring to Riyadh as a “friend and ally” and emphasising its “important strategic partnership” involving the military and trade. But how likely is it that a Saudi leader with blood on his hands can really keep up the pretence to the Western public that things are improving in the region?

London and Washington may end up preferring a repeat of 1964: to put another “Saudi” in power. Yet, much better for Saudis and the world would be something altogether different, as recently argued by Madawi Al-Rasheed: allowing people the experience of participating in government and decision-making, including freedom of speech, in a gradual transformation of Saudi Arabia into a democratic system.

In this, London and Washington will need a revolution in their thinking to become part of the solution rather than remaining part of the problem.

Mark Curtis is a historian and analyst of UK foreign policy and international development and the author of six books, the latest being an updated edition of Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam.

This article was originally published by “MEE” –

UK Sending Its Police to Train in Israel: Here’s Why It Should Bother You

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(ANTIMEDIA Op-ed) — According to the Independent, government sources say a British team is set to travel to Israel in the near future to learn Israeli counterterrorism enforcement strategies. The proposed move comes amid a spate of terrorist activity in the United Kingdom, as well as concerns about the British authorities’ response time and ability to counter terrorist attacks.

However, as the Independent notes:

“There are, of course, significant differences between political violence in the UK and Israel. The murders and maiming in the streets of Britain are in pursuit of a murderous Islamist jihad with a variety of justifications offered including retaliation for the war against Isis in Iraq and Syria. In Israel and the occupied territories it is justified as part of the struggle for Palestinian nationhood against Israel.”

The Jerusalem Post cites police involvement as being integral when it comes to “turning the tide” in Jerusalem’s battle against terrorist activity. More than 3,500 police officers are reportedly involved in multiple units, constantly patrolling and on guard with undercover officers on site at all times.

Considering this, it is curious that the United Kingdom would want to learn police tactics from an occupying force that suppresses its local population. Why would the United Kingdom want to create a similar environment and heavily arm its police force? And to what end?

How a Map of Palestine Drove the American Neocolonial Elite Mad

By Juan Cole
Source

I mirrored a map of modern Palestinian history that has the virtue of showing graphically what has happened to the Palestinians politically and territorially in the past century.

Andrew Sullivan then mirrored the map from my site, which set off a lot of thunder and noise among anti-Palestinian writers like Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, but shed very little light. (PS, the map as a hard copy mapcard is available from Sabeel.)

The map is useful and accurate. It begins by showing the British Mandate of Palestine as of the mid-1920s. The British conquered the Ottoman districts that came to be the Mandate during World War I (the Ottoman sultan threw in with Austria and Germany against Britain, France and Russia, mainly out of fear of Russia).

But because of the rise of the League of Nations and the influence of President Woodrow Wilson’s ideas about self-determination, Britain and France could not decently simply make their new, previously Ottoman territories into mere colonies. The League of Nations awarded them “Mandates.” Britain got Palestine, France got Syria (which it made into Syria and Lebanon), Britain got Iraq.

The League of Nations Covenant spelled out what a Class A Mandate (i.e. territory that had been Ottoman) was:

“Article 22. Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognised subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory [i.e., a Western power] until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory.”

That is, the purpose of the later British Mandate of Palestine, of the French Mandate of Syria, of the British Mandate of Iraq, was to ‘render administrative advice and assistance” to these peoples in preparation for their becoming independent states, an achievement that they were recognized as not far from attaining. The Covenant was written before the actual Mandates were established, but Palestine was a Class A Mandate and so the language of the Covenant was applicable to it. The territory that formed the British Mandate of Iraq was the same territory that became independent Iraq, and the same could have been expected of the British Mandate of Palestine. (Even class B Mandates like Togo have become nation-states, but the poor Palestinians are just stateless prisoners in colonial cantons).

The first map thus shows what the League of Nations imagined would become the state of Palestine. The economist published an odd assertion that the Negev Desert was ’empty’ and should not have been shown in the first map. But it wasn’t and isn’t empty; Palestinian Bedouin live there, and they and the desert were recognized by the League of Nations as belonging to the Mandate of Palestine, a state-in-training. The Mandate of Palestine also had a charge to allow for the establishment of a ‘homeland’ in Palestine for Jews (because of the 1917 Balfour Declaration), but nobody among League of Nations officialdom at that time imagined it would be a whole and competing territorial state. There was no prospect of more than a few tens of thousands of Jews settling in Palestine, as of the mid-1920s. (They are shown in white on the first map, refuting those who mysteriously complained that the maps alternated between showing sovereignty and showing population). As late as the 1939 British White Paper, British officials imagined that the Mandate would emerge as an independent Palestinian state within 10 years.

In 1851, there had been 327,000 Palestinians (yes, the word ‘Filistin’ was current then) and other non-Jews, and only 13,000 Jews. In 1925, after decades of determined Jewish immigration, there were a little over 100,000 Jews, and there were 765,000 mostly Palestinian non-Jews in the British Mandate of Palestine. For historical demography of this area, see Justin McCarthy’s painstaking calculations; it is not true, as sometimes is claimed, that we cannot know anything about population figures in this region. See also his journal article, reprinted at this site. The Palestinian population grew because of rapid population growth, not in-migration, which was minor. The common allegation that Jerusalem had a Jewish majority at some point in the 19th century is meaningless. Jerusalem was a small town in 1851, and many pious or indigent elderly Jews from Eastern Europe and elsewhere retired there because of charities that would support them. In 1851, Jews were only about 4% of the population of the territory that became the British Mandate of Palestine some 70 years later. And, there had been few adherents of Judaism, just a few thousand, from the time most Jews in Palestine adopted Christianity and Islam in the first millennium CE all the way until the 20th century. In the British Mandate of Palestine, the district of Jerusalem was largely Palestinian.

The rise of the Nazis in the 1930s impelled massive Jewish emigration to Palestine, so by 1940 there were over 400,000 Jews there amid over a million Palestinians.

The second map shows the United Nations partition plan of 1947, which awarded Jews (who only then owned about 6% of Palestinian land) a substantial state alongside a much reduced Palestine. Although apologists for the Zionist movement say that the Zionists accepted this partition plan and the Arabs rejected it, that is not entirely true. Zionist leader David Ben Gurion noted in his diary when Israel was established that when the US had been formed, no document set out its territorial extent, implying that the same was true of Israel. We know that Ben Gurion was an Israeli expansionist who fully intended to annex more land to Israel, and by 1956 he attempted to add the Sinai and would have liked southern Lebanon. So the Zionist “acceptance” of the UN partition plan did not mean very much beyond a happiness that their initial starting point was much better than their actual land ownership had given them any right to expect.

The third map shows the status quo after the Israeli-Palestinian civil war of 1947-1948. It is not true that the entire Arab League attacked the Jewish community in Palestine or later Israel on behalf of the Palestinians. As Avi Shlaim has shown, Jordan had made an understanding with the Zionist leadership that it would grab the West Bank, and its troops did not mount a campaign in the territory awarded to Israel by the UN. Egypt grabbed Gaza and then tried to grab the Negev Desert, with a few thousand badly trained and equipped troops, but was defeated by the nascent Israeli army. Few other Arab states sent any significant number of troops. The total number of troops on the Arab side actually on the ground was about equal to those of the Zionist forces, and the Zionists had more esprit de corps and better weaponry.

[The nascent Israeli military deliberately pursued a policy of ethnically cleansing non-combatant Palestinians from Israeli-held territory, expelling about 720,000 of them in 1947-48, then locking them outside, bereft of their homes and farms and penniless.

The final map shows the situation today, which springs from the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank in 1967 and then the decision of the Israelis to colonize the West Bank intensively (a process that is illegal in the law of war concerning occupied populations).

There is nothing inaccurate about the maps at all, historically. Goldberg maintained that the Palestinians’ ‘original sin’ was rejecting the 1947 UN partition plan. But since Ben Gurion and other expansionists went on to grab more territory later in history, it is not clear that the Palestinians could have avoided being occupied even if they had given away willingly so much of their country in 1947. The first original sin was the contradictory and feckless pledge by the British to sponsor Jewish immigration into their Mandate in Palestine, which they wickedly and fantastically promised would never inconvenience the Palestinians in any way. It was the same kind of original sin as the French policy of sponsoring a million colons in French Algeria, or the French attempt to create a Christian-dominated Lebanon where the Christians would be privileged by French policy. The second original sin was the refusal of the United States to allow Jews to immigrate in the 1930s and early 1940s, which forced them to go to Palestine to escape the monstrous, mass-murdering Nazis.

The map attracted so much ire and controversy not because it is inaccurate but because it clearly shows what has been done to the Palestinians, which the League of Nations had recognized as not far from achieving statehood in its Covenant. Their statehood and their territory has been taken from them, and they have been left stateless, without citizenship and therefore without basic civil and human rights. The map makes it easy to see this process. The map had to be stigmatized and made taboo. But even if that marginalization of an image could be accomplished, the squalid reality of Palestinian statelessness would remain, and the children of Gaza would still be being malnourished by the deliberate Israeli policy of blockading civilians. The map just points to a powerful reality; banishing the map does not change that reality.

Goldberg, according to Spencer Ackerman, says that he will stop replying to Andrew Sullivan, for which Ackerman is grateful, since, he implies, Goldberg is a propagandistic hack who loves to promote wars on flimsy pretenses. Matthew Yglesias also has some fun at Goldberg’s expense. [Otherwise, like most other major US institutions, our press is corrupt on this issue.]

People like Goldberg never tell us what they expect to happen to the Palestinians in the near and medium future. They don’t seem to understand that the status quo is untenable. They are like militant ostriches, hiding their heads in the sand while lashing out with their hind talons at anyone who stares clear-eyed at the problem, characterizing us as bigots. As if that old calumny has any purchase for anyone who knows something serious about the actual views of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu or . . . Avigdor Lieberman, more bigoted persons than whom would be difficult to find…

CCTV released by Met does NOT show Petrov and Boshirov “in the vicinity” of #Skripal’s house

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Rob Slane
The Blogmire

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The images and timeline released by the Metropolitan Police on September 5th, when they formally accused two men of the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal, contain a number of problems and oddities. These include:

• The fact that very few of the images have the original timestamps on them, but rather have the Metropolitan Police’s own timings.
• The fact that there is an unaccounted for, yet vital, 42 minutes between the image of the men at the entrance to Summerlock Approach (said to be 13:08), and the image of the men at the train station (said to be at 13:50:56). Why is this vital? Because it not only takes just 5 minutes, rather than 42 to get from the one location to the other, but also because it potentially places the men within a few minutes walk of Sergei and Yulia Skripal within that 42 minute timeframe.
• The fact that only stills were released, rather than actual footage (public appeals for witnesses involving CCTV usually show actual footage – why not in this case?).

But there is one crucial image which I would like to focus your attention on: CCTV Image 5 (at the top of this piece). This is one of the few pictures that is properly timestamped (11:58:48), although I have to say I’m highly sceptical that the two men could have got to that location by that time, given that The Met says they were at the station at 11:48:20. It takes over 12 minutes at a quick walk, and so unless they ran some of the way (and neither picture gives the impression that they are in a particular hurry), I think it highly likely that one or other of these times is incorrect.

The reason this image is particularly crucial is that it is the only image shown to the public, which can be said to connect the men (albeit extremely tenuously) to the claim made against them by the Met. None of the other images do this at all.

If I happened to be a juror at the trial of these two men, and I was presented with the other images, my reaction would largely be “so what?” (this is of course pure fantasy, since the Blair Government, in its infinite wisdom, tore up centuries of legal practice to allow such trials to be held without a jury on the grounds of that mindless buzz phrase, “national security”). Here are some images showing them entering and leaving the UK. So what! Here are some images of them arriving in and departing from Salisbury. So what? Here are some images of them walking around the town. Actually, this one is not so much a “so what?”; more a “hang on a minute, are you telling me they went walkies around the town after allegedly carrying out the most audacious (and stupid) assassination attempt ever seen in Britain?”

Without the Wilton Road image, none of these other images would mean diddly squat. That image, assuming it to be authentic, is the closest The Met comes to backing up its claim against them. But as we shall see, it actually turns out to be no more convincing than the others.

As I said in my previous piece, it is crucial to understand what the claim being made by The Met against the two men actually is. Here goes:

“That between approximately 12:10pm and 12:40pm on 4th March, the two men named as suspects – Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov – walked up to the house of Sergei Skripal at 47 Christie Miller Road, Salisbury, and there applied a high purity, military grade nerve agent to the handle of the front door in an attempt to assassinate Mr Skripal.”

(Note: see the previous piece if you want to know why there is a 12:10-12:40pm window).

Now let’s turn back to the statement made by The Met on 5th September. This is what they said:

“CCTV shows them in the vicinity of Mr Skripal’s house and we believe that they contaminated the front door with Novichok.”

The big question that arises from this claim is this: What is this CCTV footage, which apparently shows them in the vicinity of Mr Skripal’s house? There are two basic possibilities:

Firstly, it could be that there is indeed CCTV that shows them close to Mr Skripal’s house (i.e. within a few yards of it), and perhaps which even shows them applying something to the door handle.

Secondly, it could be that The Met is simply referring to the CCTV of the men on the Wilton Road, which they released in the statement.

The second is almost certainly the case, for the following reasons:

1. If there is CCTV footage of the two men near (or at least nearer the house), why not show that rather than the Wilton Road image?
2. If such footage does exist, why does The Met only “believe” that the two men contaminated the door handle with something called “Novichok” as opposed to “know” that they did so (note: Porton Down does not call it “Novichok”, but rather “a Novichok or related agent”)?
3. When you read The Met’s statement of 5th September, it is fairly clear that the reason the Wilton Road image is there, is that it is precisely this image which is being used to back up the statement about the men being in the vicinity of the house (i.e. they say: “Image five shows the suspects ten minutes later – at 11.58 – on Wilton Road, Salisbury, we say, moments before the attack”).

This is deeply misleading. The Shell garage on the Wilton Road could plausibly be said to be in the vicinity of 47 Christie Miller Road if we were talking about the two locations in terms of Salisbury as a whole. But it can in no way be said to be “in the vicinity” of 47 Christie Miller Road, if it is being spoken of in connection with a highly specific claim about an assassination attempt at the door of the house. The claim is that they were at the door. The image, assuming its authenticity, shows them on a different street, many hundreds of yards away.

This sort of sloppiness and looseness has been the hallmark of the investigation from day one, and has been the reason why so many have come to treat the official claims with scepticism.

Let me caveat this, however, by saying that I don’t believe Boshirov’s and Petrov’s claims either. The chief reason for this is that The Met says they arrived in Salisbury at 14:25 on the Saturday, and this was not disputed by them in their interview with Margarita Simonyan. What they did claim, however, is that they came to visit Stonehenge, but were unable to do so due to the bad weather. This was kind of true. Stonehenge was indeed closed that day due to bad weather. However, had it opened that day, it would have closed at 17:00 with last admissions at 15:00. Getting to Salisbury at 14:25 with the hope of then going to see Stonehenge by 15:00 is not very plausible – even if it had been good weather.

But as I’ve said previously, it is largely irrelevant whether Boshirov’s and Petrov’s account is credible. It is The Met that has accused them, and it is therefore for The Met to come up with credible evidence to back up their claim. Showing an image of the two men in broad daylight, on a completely different street, hundreds of yards away from the alleged crime scene, does not do it. Worse still, claiming that this image “shows them in the vicinity of Mr Skripal’s house” – which it manifestly does not – is deeply misleading.

If The Met has more conclusive footage (footage that is, not another still), actually showing the two men in the vicinity of the house, they should release it. Until they do, we can assume the claim that “CCTV shows them in the vicinity of Mr Skripal’s house” is referring to the Shell garage on the Wilton Road, which since it is not in fact in the vicinity of the house, is misleading. We can therefore continue to treat their claims with the scepticism that they have so far deserved, and to believe that there is another explanation altogether for Boshirov’s and Petrov’s two Salisbury trips; an explanation that neither the British or Russian Government seem very eager to come clean on.

Criticism of Israeli Policy Is Not Anti-Semitic

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Jeremy Corbyn (Alexandros Michailidis via Shutterstock)

by James J. Zogby

I was provoked to write this discussion of what is and what isn’t anti-Semitism by an article in Ha’aretz on the “controversy” created by the awarding of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to George P. Smith. According to the reporting, Smith is not only a brilliant scientist whose work has helped lead to the creation of new drugs that can treat cancer and a range of autoimmune diseases, he is also an outspoken supporter of Palestinian rights and a critic of Israeli policies.

The Ha’aretz piece notes that Smith has long been “a target of pro-Israel groups” and is listed on “the controversial Canary Mission website”—used by supporters of Israel to harass and silence critics.

As I read through the article looking for evidence of Smith’s sins, I found quotes saying that he “wished ‘not for Israel’s Jewish population to be expelled’ but ‘an end to the discriminatory regime in Palestine.’” At another point, Ha’aretz quotes from an op-ed written by Smith condemning Israeli policies in Gaza which he concludes by expressing his support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) calling it “Palestinian civil society’s call for the global community of conscience to ostracize Israeli businesses and institutions until Israel repudiates [their violence against Palestinians] and the Palestinian people, including the exiles, achieve full equality with the Jews in their shared homeland.”

I read all of this in the context of this worrisome campaign that is unfolding here in the United States to silence critics of Israel or the exclusivist vision of Political Zionism. It is a well-funded multi-pronged effort, one component of which is the shadowy Canary Mission website that publishes the names, photos, and backgrounds of pro-Palestinian students and professors—terming them anti-Semites or supporters of terrorism. It does so with the expressed purpose of harming their careers. The Canary Mission list is also used to taint and smear these activists to intimidate politicians from engaging with them. And the lists have been used by the Israeli government to deny entry to, in particular, Palestinian Americans or progressive Americans Jews seeking to see family, study, teach, or simply visit that country.

Although the Canary Mission has done its best to keep its operations, leadership, and funding secret, recent articles published in the Jewish press have revealed that the project has been financially supported by some mainstream American Jewish philanthropic entities.

In addition to the Canary Mission there is the campaign that seeks to criminalize support for BDS or to penalize supporters of the movement to hold Israel accountable for its systematic violations of Palestinian rights. This effort is massively funded by the likes of Sheldon Adelson and we now learn, also from a recent expose in a prominent American Jewish newspaper, by millions of dollars funneled to the campaign from the Government of Israel.

Then there is legislation currently pending in Congress designed to make boycotting Israel a crime, complementing the 25 states that have already passed laws denying salaries, contracts, or benefits to individuals who support BDS.

Finally, in a replay of the effort that pressed the UK’s Labour Party to define criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic, Trump’s appointment to lead the Civil Rights Office at the U.S. Department of Education has made clear his intent to investigate anti-Israel activism on college campuses as forms of anti-Semitism. And there is legislation pending in Congress—the Antisemitism Awareness Act. Both this bill and the action by Kenneth Marcus at the Education Department seek to extend the definition of anti-Semitism to include criticism of Israel.

In reflecting on these developments, there are several observations that should be made: anti-Semitism is real, ugly, and dangerous; criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism; and the effort to conflate the two not only silences needed debate, it distracts from the effort to root out real anti-Semitism, a scourge that has created great pain and enormous suffering in human history.

Anti-Semitism is hatred toward Jews—individually and as a group. It is also the attribution of evil intent or negative qualities to individuals or a group just because they are Jews. On the other hand, criticism of Israeli policy is not anti-Semitic. When Smith has criticized Israel’s massacres at the Gaza border or its systematic denial of equal rights and justice to Palestinians, he is not attributing this behavior to their religion or even suggesting that this behavior is due to their being Jews. For example, he is not saying “Israel is oppressing Palestinians because that’s the way Jews behave.” Nor is he saying that all Jews, as a group, are responsible for these actions—this would be anti-Semitic.  He said no such thing. The only reason to target Smith and those, like him, who critique the policies of the state (that by the way are not supported by all Israelis or Jews, worldwide) is to silence their voices.

This idea that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic (what is now called “the new anti-Semitism”) is decades old. It has received a push, in recent years, by the campaign to add to the definition of anti-Semitism any criticism that singles Israel out and doesn’t apply the same standard to other countries. This is, at best, a far-fetched effort to shield Israel. While it’s proponents claim that it targets only those who single out Israel for criticism, what they really seek to do is single out Israel as the one country that can’t be criticized.

It is also important to note that there is evidence that in, too many instances, the struggle to combat real anti-Semitism takes a back seat to the effort to shield Israel. For example, while some pro-Israel groups targeted Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party charging him with tolerating anti-Semitism, they ignored the virulent anti-Semites operating on the right-wing of UK politics. This led many Labourites to conclude that the real target was Corbyn’s unrelenting support for Palestinian rights. Much the same could be implied from Benjamin Netanyahu’s embrace of far-right anti-Semitic European leaders, because they were strong supporters of his government.

The bottom line is that this entire effort is designed not to combat anti-Semitism but to silence criticism.  And in the process of doing so enormous damage is done to: legitimate, well-deserved and necessary criticism of Israeli policies; the reputations of individuals like Smith and student activists who speak out because they are outraged by the injustices visited upon Palestinians; and the struggle against the scourge of real anti-Semitism.

James J. Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute.

Unipolar Moments Never Last More Than a Moment

American leaders, politicians, policymakers and pundits are fond of talking about the “Unipolar Moment” and “Hyper Power” position that they imagine the United States enjoys in the world.

Totally lacking from this fantasy are any inconvenient historical facts.

The US Unipolar Moment (insofar as it existed at all) lasted less than a decade from the break-up of the Soviet Union at the end of December 1991 to June 15, 2001. The US “moment” barely made it into the 21^st Century.

On that epochal day of June 15, 2001, two major events happened. First, US President George W. Bush gave a speech in Warsaw pledging to integrate the three tiny Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania into NATO as a prime strategic goal of the United States.

That very same day, Russia and China created with four Central Asian nations the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO): The most populous and powerful international security organization in history.

This year, the SCO doubled in population by adding India and Pakistan at the same time – two major nuclear powers with a combined population of 1.5 billion people. That means the SCO now includes more than 3 billion people, around 40 percent of the human race.

From the moment the SCO was created – dedicated from its inception to preserve and protect a multipolar world from the domination of any one power, the US unipolar moment was dead and gone.

This reality was confirmed less than three months later when al-Qaeda’s terror attacks of September 11, 2001 killed almost 3,000 people. More Americans died that day than in the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

George W. Bush should have been impeached for his gross incompetence. Instead his popularity soared. Imagining the Unipolar Moment (or Era) to be still in full flood he invaded Afghanistan later that year and Iraq less than two years later. The United States is still endlessly stuck in those unending wars.

The patterns of history – totally ignored by the US media, pundit-ocracy and political world – in fact teach this lesson consistently. Over the past half a millennium, there have been several unipolar moments for great powers seeking to reign supreme over the world and they all collapsed after only a few years.

When Habsburg Spain and its allies decisively defeated the huge fleet of the mighty Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, Spain’s imperial domination over Europe seemed assured. But in fact Spain was already embroiled in a Dutch revolt that started in 1568. Over the following decades, it became even more exhausting than the current US deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq.

King Philip II of Spain’s dream of domination was totally buried only 17 years after Lepanto with the destruction of his giant Armada fleet to conquer England in 1588.

France rose next. Its domination over Europe appeared to be sealed with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. But by the mid-1660s, glory-crazed Louis XIV, the so-called “Sun King” had already repeated the Spanish mistake and bogged his country down in half a century of endless wars in what is now Belgium, the Netherlands and southern Germany. France’s unipolar moment lasted less than 20 years.

The British came next. Even after winning the Napoleonic Wars against France, they knew they could not rule the world alone and were forced to share it with the far more conservative major monarchies of Europe – Russia, Austria-Hungary and Prussia.

Finally in 1848, the kings of France, Austria-Hungary and Prussia were all rocked or topped by liberal popular revolutions. The British thought then, as the Americans did in 1989-91, that their Unipolar Moment had finally come and would last for eternity. The whole world would look to London for guidance and wisdom.

It didn’t: By 1871, Prussia under its Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismarck had united Germany, smashed France, by then Britain’s ally and humiliatingly swept the British out of any continental pretensions of power and influence.

When asked what he would do if the tiny British Army ever invaded North Germany, Bismarck replied that he would send the police to arrest it.

After the defeat of Imperial Germany in World War I, Britain seemed to enjoy another hyper-power moment. The isolationist United States and the Soviet Union both temporarily withdrew from the world stage.

However, that British fantasy did not even last until the rise of Hitler in 1933. Two years earlier in 1931, Imperial Japan had occupied Manchuria – a huge chunk of Northeastern China: British military leaders were forced to admit to Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald there was nothing they could do about it. Britain’s unipolar moment had lasted only 12 years – from 1919 to 1931.

Once these historical facts are understood, it is easy to see why the US Unipolar Moment only lasted even less time than Britain’s 20th century one had – less than a decade.

Since 2001, the United States has bankrupted and exhausted itself, just as Habsburg Spain, Bourbon France and post-Victorian Britain did before it in futile, doomed and ludicrous attempts to deny and roll back the inevitable tides of history.

That should come as no surprise: As Friedrich Hegel warned us, “The only thing that we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.”

By Martin Sieff
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Jewish, pro-Israel groups attack Labour’s call for arms sales freeze

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The Board of Deputies of British Jews and Labour Friends of Israel have strongly criticised the motion passed at Labour Party conference this week calling for a freeze in arms sales to Israel.

According to the Jerusalem Post, Marie van der Zyl, president of the Board of Deputies, strongly defended UK arms sales to Israel, highlighting “military cooperation” between the two governments.

“Israel is situated in a region of unique turmoil and threat, faced with implacable enemies determined to kill civilians and ultimately destroy Israel in its entirety,” she said.

Van der Zyl added: “It is absolutely right to provide arms for the country’s defence,” she continued, adding that an arms embargo could threaten British jobs and security.

“Decreasing military cooperation, including arms sales, could endanger British civilians and assets in both the Middle East and in the UK”.

Read: Labour government would recognise Palestine as soon as it takes office, says Corbyn

The Board of Deputies president condemned the motion, which was overwhelmingly adopted by a show of hands from delegates, as “irresponsible” and “misguided”.

Meanwhile, the director of Westminster-based lobby group Labour Friends of Israel, Jennifer Gerber, called the motion “deeply disturbing but sadly unsurprising”.

“One-sided resolutions, denunciations of the world’s only Jewish state, antisemitic conspiracy theories and an abject failure to recognise the existential threats posed to Israel, show that this is a party which is no longer remotely serious about peace,” she said.

UK’s Labor Party Passes Motion to Ban Arms Sales to «Israel»

Local Editor

Delegates of the UK Labor Party voted Tuesday to ban arms sales to the “Israeli” entity over its abuses against the Palestinians. This party policy that could be translated into official government policy if and when the party is elected to lead the United Kingdom.

The motion was passed at the party’s annual conference in Liverpool.

The unprecedented resolution noted that “the majority of Palestinian people were forcibly displaced from their homes” during the Nakba and condemned the “aggressive attempt to rewrite history and erase the victims of the 1948 war.”

It called for an “independent international investigation into ‘Israel’s’ use of force against Palestinian demonstrators,” an “immediate and unconditional end to the illegal blockade and closure of Gaza,” and “a freeze of UK Government arms sales to ‘Israel’”.

The motion noted that amongst those martyred during the Palestinian protests of recent months are paramedics, journalists, women, and children, while than half of the injured were hit with live fire by snipers as they approached the border with the “Israeli” entity.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) Chair Hugh Lanning said: “We have witnessed extraordinary scenes of solidarity today and the Labor Party has done the right thing by recognizing the longstanding injustice of the entity’s violation of Palestinian rights.

PSC handed out more than a thousand Palestinian flags at the conference. In remarkable scenes, many hundreds of delegates stood and waved their flags inside the conference hall when the motion was debated and chants of “Free Palestine!” were clearly heard.

PSC director Ben Jamal said: “This incredible show of support and this historic motion demonstrate the strength of feeling at the grassroots of the party. Labor members want to show real solidarity with Palestinians

The issue was in the top four of all issues discussed Tuesday in Liverpool. The vote to debate Palestine was fourth after housing, school systems, and justice for the Windrush generation. It gained more votes than the issues of Brexit, and the National Health System (NHS).

During the debate on Palestine, the party deliberated on UK arms sales to the “Israeli” entity, voting to end them until an independent investigation into the murder of more than 180 protesters in Gaza since March 30 can be carried out.

Though conference votes are not binding on leaders, Jeremy Corbyn, a supporter of the Palestinian cause, has promised to recognize Palestine as a state if his party comes to power.

The anti-Semitism charges against Corbyn were rejected by him, his supporters, and Palestinians citing the entity’s attempt to shut down any criticism of its policies and abuse against Palestinians and its occupation of their land.

But not all Palestinians are overjoyed with the new policies. Some are critical of the UK’s stand on the Oslo agreement which supports the creation of two states. For UK-based Palestinian author and academic, Ghada Karmi said during a Palestine Solidarity meeting that Labor cannot go on supporting a “defunct idea”. She also asked the party to stop being apologetic about the “Israeli” entity’s atrocities and to confront the entity and call out its actions against Palestinians.

According to Hazem Jamjoum, a Palestinian-American academic, the British empire helped create the so-called “state of ‘Israel’”; hence, it has a greater responsibility to support Palestine. He also warned that the entity’s impunity regarding apartheid, racist laws and ethnonationalism is creating precedents all over the globe, which is witnessing an increasing identity-based nationalism in many countries.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team