Part 2 - The Training Session
Part 3 - An Anti-Semitic Trope
Part 4 - The Takedown
Started watching this series on the soup thread, interesting and astonishing that this has been developing and building momentum under everyone’s noses. Do we know if there’s been any follow up official or otherwise on this since it was released?
What dya reckon gavstar?
Originally posted by @Goatboy
Originally posted by @gavstar
Started watching this series on the soup thread, interesting and astonishing that this has been developing and building momentum under everyone’s noses. Do we know if there’s been any follow up official or otherwise on this since it was released?
What dya reckon gavstar?
As to whether or not there’s been any follow up? I’m going to guess no.
I’d say that was a pretty safe bet.
Originally posted by @Goatboy
Originally posted by @gavstar
Originally posted by @Goatboy
Originally posted by @gavstar
Started watching this series on the soup thread, interesting and astonishing that this has been developing and building momentum under everyone’s noses. Do we know if there’s been any follow up official or otherwise on this since it was released?
What dya reckon gavstar?
As to whether or not there’s been any follow up? I’m going to guess no.
I’d say that was a pretty safe bet.
Does it make me anti-semitic that I want someone to follow it up?
I think so. You can cancel it out though by sitting at home in striped pyjamas and watching Schindler’s List on loop.
Fuck. I’d been doing so well all these years managing not to be.
Well, Mark Regev has apologised. The Foreign Office, unbelievably enough, considers the matter closed. Emily Thornberry had this to say:-
“It is simply not good enough for the Foreign Office to say the matter is closed. This is a national security issue.” As well as calling for an inquiry, she said the embassy official should be withdrawn.
A more interesting comment comes courtesy of an unnamed former minister in the Cameron government.
“British foreign policy is in hock to Israeli influence at the heart of our politics, and those in authority have ignored what is going on.
“For years the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) and Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) have worked with – even for – the Israeli embassy to promote Israeli policy and thwart UK government policy and the actions of ministers who try to defend Palestinian rights.
“Lots of countries try to force their views on others, but what is scandalous in the UK is that instead of resisting it, successive governments have submitted to it, take donors’ money, and allowed Israeli influence-peddling to shape policy and even determine the fate of ministers.”
Hmmm. Thanks pap, that certainly answers my question. The lack of reaction is more infuriating to me than the actual events that were exposed. I wonder how far the rabbit hole goes.
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It’s interesting how widespread that lack of reaction is. I’ve made the point in the other threads, but the US has expelled diplomats on the basis of much much less, and yet few in the UK establishment seems that arsed, which is reflected on this site to an extent too.
Personally, I think that the lobby has succeeded on one front; making the situation very difficult to discuss for all but the most clued up or brave.
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This is where I fall down, still trying to learn about the history between Israel and Palestine, let alone how it’s affecting international relationships and foreign policy.
That probably hasn’t happened by accident. World history and Israeli history covering the same period are like oil and water. Oddly enough, it’s Israeli historians that’ll give you a better understanding, some of the most pro-Zionist historians provide some of the most damning stuff.
These days, a comment on say, the Guardian saying that the Israelis thieved Palestine, wouldn’t have much of a shelf-life, if it was allowed at all. Yet, there are pro-Israeli historians that are proud of these moments, want them entered into a storied history.
This malarkey started way back in the late 1800s. It has had a huge effect on world events, probably the most significant being the Balfour Declaration. Already a hugely organised political force in the US, adherents of political zionism negotiated that declaration in return for bringing the US into the war. Following the end of the Great War, much of today’s problems were created at the Paris Peace conference; political zionists had an influence there, particularly in the allocation of League of Nations Mandates.
We could have had a secular, united Syria there and then. What we’ve had is nigh on a century of instability in the region and a disastrous situation for Palestinians, who have the choice of being a second class citizen on their own land or enjoying some semblance of rights somewhere else. Their plight really should be the first item on the news every night. It isn’t, because until recently, we’ve had very little media plurality, coupled with the fact that our main broadcaster is so damn watched, listened to or read, who haven’t been interested since Hutton.
Shame, if this anything to go by:-
Astonishing.
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Cheers @cobham-saint .
My astonishment stems from the implications here. Allow me to put some meat on the bones.
Since Israel’s creation, the so-called Right of Return, allowing anyone of Jewish background to emigrate to the country has been controversial. First, there is no corresponding rule for the Palestinian diaspora. Second, it seemed to work more along racial lines than religious ones. It was not until 1984, 46 years after the declaration of the State of Israel, that black Jews were admitted under the policy.
Within its tight framework, one thing that I will say for the Israelis is that before now, political views have not come into the entry requirements calculation. Some of the most strident and articulate criticism of policy has come from journalists that live in the country, Southampton Uni alumnus Jonathan Cook, being a particularly good example. He would undoubtedly fall into this net if he was trying to emigrate now.
It is voices like Cook, people hailing from places where political dissent is common, moving to a place where it’ll now keep you out of the country, that have given the rest of us the everyman opinion on Israel.
What happens when people like him shuffle off the mortal coil, and no-one else can move in? It is already a highly propagandised state that uses its education system for political indoctrination. What happens when there are virtually no competing voices?
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Thanks for the shout out @pap . To be honest there isn’t anything I can argue with here.
This is unfortunately a country (of our design?)'which needs to take a good long hard look at itself but won’t…
(edit: & the country needs to stop playing on the persecution of its diaspora in the past and look at what they are doing to the non Jewish population - ooops, is that an elephant in the room?)
It’s not really a country of our design, more of obligation.
Even before you consider the long term implications of the Balfour Declaration, it was singular at the time. We stated that we were in principle, committed to establishing a Jewish state in Palestine, somewhere the British Empire did not control.
We were eventually granted the League of Nations mandate to look after Palestine, and thus, the prospect of that declaration became reality.
In the abstract, Balfour seems ridiculous. Why does it matter if the British Empire thinks a piece of the Ottoman Empire should be turned over to foreign settlers?
In reality, Britain got something for it. Knee deep in an attritional war against superior and better trained forces, the British made the Balfour Declaration because of the groundbreaking strides in political influence that political zionism had made in its first 29 years in US society.
The movement had already scored victories through letter writing campaigns. It promised to use the same tactics to swing public opinion in favour of the US entering the war.
It succeeded, the British Empire ended up getting the Palestine mandate. The rest is both history, present and future.
The tragedy is that the will of the people was ignored. In 1919, during the Paris Peace Conference, the findings of a hugely important report were deliberately suppressed until decisions were irrevocable.