If you keep a close eye on reports from the Middle East you might be wondering why you haven’t seen news broadcasts and pages of coverage on the BBC and CNN and in the Guardian and New York Times about these attacks that are harming Palestinians.
Perhaps this insightful blog post will explain why there has been no coverage about this outrageous onslaught. It is food for thought about the media and its agendas.
Following the revelation that the mass murders in Norway were carried out by a white Nordic man rather than Islamists, hours of radio time and a good amount of TV broadcast time were devoted to trying to make a number of people feel stupid for having initally suggested the attack had been perpetrated by Islamist terrorists.
Plenty of bloggers and media talking heads, whose worldview favours the notion of mass immigration, seized on the news that an Anders and not an Ahmed had carried out the atrocities in Oslo and on Utoya and posed effectively the same question in a range of variations:
Why do we always assume Muslims are behind every terrorist outrage?
The idea for this was to make people feel stupid and guilty for having made an incorrect assumption, to make them feel bigoted and prejudiced for jumping to conclusions.
But the fact of the matter is the reason so many people rushed to the Islamist terrorist conclusion is that in recent years so many attacks and foiled attacks have been carried out by people citing passages from the Qur’an as justification for their attempts to kill people they view as infidels. Whether it is exploding themselves on tube trains and buses, engaging in a concerted copycat effort two weeks later, plotting to blow up shopping centres, trying to kill people outside nightclubs with car bombs, attempting to denotate explosives in shoes or ignite underpants over the Atlantic, drive a car bomb into an airport terminal building or plotting to mix liquid chemicals together in coordinated fashion on a number of jets simultaneously, the common theme of this incredibly disproportionate number of attacks and attackers is Islamism.
This has been re-emphasised today with the updated news that the two German nationals arrested at Dover and charged at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court with collecting or possessing data likely to be useful in a terrorist act, Christian Emde, 28, and Robert Baum, 23, are fanatical Muslim converts.
So it should come as no surprise that suddenly all those ‘right on’ voices determined to apply the labels of racist, xenophobe and bigot to people less ‘internationalist’ than themselves seem to have gone rather quiet again. And they will remain so until there is another rare non-Islamist assault on civilians. It is a safe bet that the phone ins on Five Live, LBC and other stations will not be editorially re-focused to ask why so many fanatical Muslims are hell bent on attacking western countries and killing as many people as possible. It doesn’t fit in with their narrative of telling us how wrong we are to rightly point out the Islamist threat dwarfs all others.
There are a number of threats this country faces, foreign and domestic, and it is not racist or bigoted to state the fact that the biggest and most determined of those threats comes from fanatical Muslims who subscribe to the Islamist mindset. The evidence supports it.
Osama Bin Laden has been killed in a US military operation.
At least that is what President Obama has announced. The narrative goes that US Special Forces attacked a compound in Abbottabad, in the far north of the country, less than half a mile from Pakistan’s military academy. Several people were killed and a helicopter was blown up after ‘technical failure’.
The bottom line is that Bin Laden was allegedly killed during the firefight and that ‘US forces took possession of Bin Laden’s body’. There then followed exactly the kind of media frenzy that sows confusion and question what they are being told, which is strange considering the US military were given the go signal to attack the compound as long ago as the day of the Royal Wedding and have had plenty of time to plan their media operation to ensure there was no confusion…
At 5:38am Reuters was reporting that a
US official says Bin Laden’s body is being handled according to Islamic practice and tradition
At 6:38am this morning CBS tweeted that:
“Aljazeera correspondent in Kabul says Osama Bin Laden’s body taken to Bagram base. Journalists could be called in to inspect it .”
At 7:52am US General Jack Keane told the BBC’s Today programme that it was
“appropriate” that Bin Laden was killed by US forces. “I’m glad we’re bringing a body back [to the US] as to opposed to him walking back.”
By 8:45am Associated Press in Washington was
‘quoting a US official as saying Osama Bin Laden’s body has been buried at sea.’
What is clear is that until there is an independent post mortem and we have independent corroboration of the information coming from the White House along with a more clear view of the body than the image below being retailed by Associated Press (a Photoshopped image), there will always be a suspicion that we are not being told the whole truth about what has apparently been done in our name.
This rapid story and swift conclusion before all the questions have been answered would be seen by many as just a bit too convenient for a struggling President. Previously many Democrats had been claiming President Bush would do exactly this, and roll out Bin Laden’s body just before an election campaign got into gear. How ironic that it has happened on Obama’s watch. EU Referendum makes a similar point about the paucity of hard evidence, as Dr Richard North surmises:
Nevertheless, in the absence of anything in the way of independently verifiable evidence, all we seem to have is an unsupported claim by a tarnished president. However, since US presidents never lie, and have never been mistaken about anything, we can safely believe everything we are told.
A piece in yesterday’s Economist is noteworthy for that magaine’s continuing blinkered assessments of the reach and influence of the European Union.
The Charlemagne column offers us what its author probably thinks is an insightful article titled ‘No time for doubters’, which argues that Europe must do more to support Arab democracy, out of self-respect and self-interest. As always, whenever there is a crisis the Euroweenies always emerge and declare that ‘Europe’ must do something. We are told that:
WHEN people took to the streets of Tunis, France offered to help President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s security forces. When they filled the squares of Cairo, Italy praised Hosni Mubarak as the wisest of men. And when they were slaughtered in Tripoli, the Czech Republic said catastrophe would follow the fall of Muammar Qaddafi, Malta defended Libya’s sovereignty and Italy predicted that the protests would lead to an Islamic emirate.
With every new Arab uprising, some European country has placed itself on the wrong side of history. So it is no surprise that the European Union has been slow to tell regimes to listen to demands for democracy and to condemn violent suppression.
Well, what do you expect? The European Union has as much place lecturing others on democracy as the Taliban has lecturing others on the wonders of Hinduism.
When are people like the author of the Charlemagne column going to get it through their thick heads that the EU is not democratic? If anything the EU acts in much the same way as Ben Ali, Mubarak and Gaddafi, selecting its own leaders and imposing laws and regulations on the people of member states through entities that are unelected and unaccountable. Too many EU leaders have respected the autocrats of north Africa and have coveted the kind of power they have wielded until now.
So when Charlemagne’s author pens comments such as the one below, it is clear he either doesn’t ‘get it’ or is simply helping to hold the EU’s anti democratic line:
Yet it is hard to avoid the suspicion that too many European countries are still more worried about stability in the Middle East than about democracy.
For sure EU leaders love globe trotting and telling the world about the wonder of democracy. But they sure as hell don’t practice what they preach. Out of all the member states only Ireland held a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty’s package of measures to dramatically increase the power of the EU at the expense of national sovereignty. That’s democratic? The cosy stitch up by the political class serves no one’s interest but theirs, but they believe their own bullshit and think they are some kind of model democratic structure.
In truth the EU is only a model for a modernised version of the totalitarian autocracy being thrown off by the people in north Africa. The only difference being the illusion of democracy where in truth none exists. Which is why comments such as the one below are worthy of such contempt:
A better test of European diplomacy will be whether, in the longer term, the EU can help north African countries establish lasting democracies. Europe has a wealth of experience in helping to reform former totalitarian states.
Reform them into what, precisely? There is a risk here that if north Africans listen to such garbage they will soon be engaging in yet more violent actions. The erosion of democracy across the EU member states has been a gradual process, where each night a few extra bricks have quietly been laid on a steadily growing wall separating us from self determination. If the north Africans implemented an EU model as it currently stands, people would soon realise they have been conned. Charlemagne almost gets it right when he writes:
So far the revolts of 2011 have been strikingly free of Islamist, anti-imperial and even anti-Israeli ideology. Such sentiments could yet be stirred if Europe appears to be colluding with hated rulers.
Or if the people realise that the European method simply replaces one set of hated rulers with another outside the reach of democratic accountability. What then? From the tender shoots of a desire for democracy we will see grow a thorny bush of Islamist fervour as the corruption of democracy becomes all too apparent – and the only available outlet for rebellion is offered by the Islamists, who will say only embracing their godly ways can satisfy the wishes of those who risked their lives to throw off dictatorship.
Indirectly, Europe’s slow burn coup d’etat could in the future have the effect of driving people into the arms of the extremists. Which is a pity, not least because it should be having the effect of making people in the member states rise up and take control back from those who have stolen it.
Watching Mehdi Hasan on television has long given me a sense of the man’s intolerance for anyone who disagrees with him.
But that intolerance has previously manifested itself in a different way, something I was unaware of. The clip below demonstrates Hasan’s casual bigotry and disdain for non Muslims, and his misplaced sense of moral superiority. What a thoroughly unpleasant individual.
He may use his frequent BBC appearances spout the usual buzz words such as ‘equality’, ‘diversity’, ‘multi-culturalism’ and ‘Islamophobia’ but we can now see what exists behind the carefully moderated public face. No wonder he is the pride of the New Stateman.
(Hat tip: commenter in another thread)
A tireless effort by campaign group UN Watch has led to what is being described as the unprecedented international condemation of Richard Falk, who has consistently exploited his position as a special rapporteur at the UN’s Human Rights Council to justify and deny Hamas and Al Qaeda terrorism.
As the UN Human Rights Council’s permanent investigator of alleged Israeli violations in the Palestinian territories, Falk has had a largely unscrutinised position from which to satisfy his unquestioning vilification of the Israelis. As his target was Israel he was indulged by the left wing media as his outbursts fitted their narrative.
But it now seems that after years of Falk’s rampant Israel bashing and partisan bias towards Hamas, spreading slurs and distortions and the asserting as fact claims that have later been debunked, the penny has finally dropped among his UN colleagues and the media that he is a deluded and unreliable propagandist. It follows his promotion of 9/11 conspiracy theories and attempts to exonerate Al Qaeda of any involvement in the terrorist atrocity, instead claiming the US government was responsible for the attack.
A guest post by Clive Francis
Dear Mr Cameron
How Conservatives Now Help Jihad
Better than anybody you must know just how earnest and intent are the jihadists on indiscriminate mass murder in this country. They fundraise, plot, recruit and want nothing better than to die for their cause, taking with them as many innocent Britons as possible. They are plainly at war with us and you recognise this in the frequent changing of your Security Alerts.
For jihadists, Britain is one of the very best places in the world to be and they recognise just how utterly constrained and impotent Britain is in the way it currently tries to deal with them. What a haven for terror this country has created and indeed, nurtures.
Whilst our police and security services do a marvellous job they operate under completely unworkable constraints. Time and again, judicial decisions have demonstrated that the European Convention frustrates and prevents any sensible security framework being developed to deal with this novel and undeclared form of war on our country. Britain is only in this mess because of the European Convention.
Before taking office you recognised this and undertook in your manifesto to introduce a Bill of Rights that would take precedence over anything pronounced in Strasbourg.
The Tory manifesto for the last election said:
You now have the required mandate from the country to negotiate the return of these powers and honour your manifesto pledges.
However there is no noticeable sign that any progress on these promises is being made. Consequently our security services are being put under a huge and demoralising strain which can do nothing but hamper and negate their efforts.
In short many lives are currently and constantly being put at risk because of the apparent inaction of this government. Why? Is this the way to safeguard the people who trust you?
It is one thing for the Lib Dems, for the sake of the Coalition, to incur political opprobrium by breaking their manifesto pledges but is quite another matter for the Conservatives to hazard British lives and limbs by breaking theirs.
Yours sincerely
Clive Francis
(With Acknowledgements to The Spectator)
Leg Iron at Underdogs Bite Upwards is in fine form today. The ‘news’ that Islamist terrorists have plans to attack us this Christmas inspires some wry observations. Instead of being frightened, he suggests, try some derision:
They plan to cause chaos at Christmas. Have they looked at this place over Christmas? Chaos starts in November and we don’t sober up until March. Well, okay, that might just be me and a few friends. The West is obsessed with a) global warming and b) deciding whether winter tyres should be made compulsory in view of the persistently cold weather.
We have windmills where there’s no wind, solar panels in a country where it’s dark for half the year and cloudy for the other half, a government that spends its time calling each other names when it’s not engaging in fraud, spying or illicit sex. We have students protesting about fees they aren’t really ever going to pay and we have people telling us that eating is bad for us. We have people turning up at hospitals with the Winter Squits in case they become dehydrated, because they don’t have taps at home. They are admitted to hospital, thus spreading the Winter Squits all over the hospitals and to every place that patients are discharged to, while claiming smokers and fat people are crippling the NHS. Banks have no money, shops have no food, the post office can’t deliver because of a little bit of snow and murderers sue their employers when they get fired after conviction.
They want to bring us chaos? The old saying ‘ like taking coal to Newcastle’ comes to mind.
There’s a lot more besides. Take a look at the whole thing.
The journalist sister-in-law of Tony Blair, Lauren Booth, recently revealed she had converted to Islam. It’s her choice. But in response to questions raised asking how she could square her new Islamic faith and the subjugation of women with her views on women’s rights, Booth wrote:
So let’s all just take a deep breath and I’ll give you a glimpse into the other world of Islam in the 21st century. Of course, we cannot discount the appalling way women are mistreated by men in many cities and cultures, both with and without an Islamic population. Women who are being abused by male relatives are being abused by men, not God. Much of the practices and laws in “Islamic” countries have deviated from (or are totally unrelated) to the origins of Islam. Instead practices are based on cultural or traditional (and yes, male-orientated) customs that have been injected into these societies.
Booth readily admits to not having read the Qur’an so her knowledge of Islam is negligable. But on the basis of her fanatical fondness for and relationships with some Palestinians she offered the comment above.
Now watch the video below. Just to be clear, as the reporter says before the clip is played, the Governor of Khartoum said this woman had been punished under Sharia Law – not a cultural or traditional custom, but a tenet of the Islamic faith. There is no justification for this kind of barbarism, certainly not the ‘crime’ of wearing trousers under one’s proscribed garments.
The double bomb attack in Stockholm yesterday provides us with yet more evidence that appeasement of those determined to harm us doesn’t work. Across Scandinavia there are radicalised Muslims who feel nothing but hatred and contempt for their hosts and the west in general.
This has been exhibited by reports of Islamist youths wearing t-shirts declaring that in ’2030 Sweden is ours’, which demonstrates that integration is not the aim of those granted residence in that country.
In addition, Sweden’s intelligence service (SÄPO) has also reported that Islamist immigrants have been engaging in terrorism and attending terrorist training camps back in Somalia. SÄPO was warning as recently as the summer that young Swedes in Somalia could take part in terrorist attacks ‘in the near future.’ We shall know soon enough if that prediction came true this weekend.
Western countries have been too free and too easy doling out passports and residency permits to people claiming to be in need of asylum. Part of the thinking is that if we show how kind and generous we are we’re less likely to come under attack from Islamists. Supposedly we are setting an example. But all the evidence shows this approach is scoffed at by the Islamists and they say it shows we are weak and deserving of attack. The only thing that gives these religio-political lunatics any pause for thought is strength, resolve and a determination to defeat the threat they pose.
All too often the intelligence services discover that many people granted asylum then pitch up in their countries of origin, from where they have supposedly fled in fear of their lives, and are engaged in fighting, terrorism or radicalisation. Instead of immediately blacklisting these people to prevent their return, thanks to the self loathing liberal elite they are still permitted freedom of movement in the countries they intend to turn into theatre of terror. So is it any wonder we end up with a fifth column within our countries that are hell bent on killing as many innocent people as possible?
If we do not wise up and change our approach in order to deal with these people in uncompromising fashion then we can expect more of the same in weeks, months and years to come.
Update: Depressingly yet unsurprisingly reports now suggest the bomber previously lived in the UK, in Luton, and studied at the University of Bedfordshire. It will be interesting to see if taxpayers subsidised his study. Thanks to our utterly useless political class, their idiotic immigration policies and their sucking up to extremist preachers of hate, this country is the rallying point for every homocidal Islamist in western Europe. Whenever an Islamist carries out an act of terror anywhere in the west it must now be par for the course to look through his history to see where in the UK he lived, studied or attended a mosque run by hatemongers, in order to piece his story and connections together.
Rejoice! Forget the American Dream. Another country is the place to be. Oh yes.
Britain!
Yes, move over America, it’s time to celebrate the British Dream! Britain is the new land of opportunity. Britain is where anything can happen and pretty much does. Britain is the land where you can pull yourself up by your sand covered bootstraps and secure wealth beyond your wildest dreams. Britain is where you are not held to account for your criminal behaviour and desire to partake in atrocities against its people. Britain is where after all this the self loathing liberal elite will blame themselves for your actions and ensure you will continue to be coddled by the state for life at the expense of its people. Britain is where you can hit the jackpot for being nothing more than a parasitic ne’er do good. Congratulations! Welcome to our land of craven appeasment and moral inversion where, like Binyam Mohamed, all you need to get on is malice aforethought and a violent intent.
A healthy dose of realism from the head of our rapidly dwindling and increasingly ineffective armed forces. General Sir David Richards has said that the West cannot defeat al-Qaeda and militant Islam. Well, yes and no.
Fighting a conventional campaign against an opponent that by necessity uses unconventional methods will result in the failure we are seeing. And it is pointless talking about defeating militant Islam when the politicians and judiciary in this country indulge their agents, and kid themselves that by appeasing them or showing benevolence we can convince them to turn their attentions away from us to something else.
The Islamists sneer at such weakness and draw strength from it because it convinces their warped minds that their aims are righteous and favoured by Allah. The only thing they understand is strength. Anything else spawns their contempt. As such we must be uncompromising in our fight against them. Our politicians do not understand this enemy. They do not understand that there can be negotiation because the only thing the Islamists want is our defeat and fealty to a global Islamic state.
We are engaged in asymmetric warfare with this aggressor. Until the politicians accept the reality and stop trying to fight symmetric battles against them, even mere containment cannot be assured. Our politicians seem incapable of learning the lessons of the past, therefore condemning us to repeat the mistakes of yesteryear. We cannot buy these Islamists off. All we can do is keep killing them so their capability is limited.
That was the comment a youngster in front of me made to her father earlier this evening. She could not have been any older than 12 or 13 years old. But she was clearly so angered by the behaviour of a group of thugs calling themselves Muslims Against Crusades, who burnt a large poppy and protested against British troops during the two-minute silence, she decided she felt hatred for Muslims.
I did not hear the father’s response. Having returned home and seen the reports and images of these so called protesters, their faces contorted into hate filled expressesions, it is easy to understand why that little girl said what she did.
Why should people in this country have to tolerate the poisonous presence of Islamist extremists who take what this country has to offer but despise it in return? People who select a solemn occasion dating back decades that now marks the sacrifice of altogether too many young men and women who lost their lives in wars to defeat tyranny, and use it to slander young men and women who serve their country today.
It is they, not the men and women of our armed forces, who are the terrorists. It is they who engaged in fighting with police. It is they who sought to offend people with their ignorant protest deliberately aimed to spark a reaction. It is they who demand Britain conforms to their warped medieval vision of an Islamic caliphate. It is they who conveniently ignore the fact that the majority of people who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan have died at the hands of similarly aggressive and hate filled Muslims.
Who was it blowing up hundreds of innocent people at a time in markets and bazaars around Baghdad and other towns and cities? It wasn’t our armed forces. It was Sunni slaughtering Shia and Shia slaughtering Sunni. In Afghanistan who was it cutting the throats of people for having educational qualifications or bringing medical aid to civilians? Who murdered people for playing music or supporting the idea of girls attending school? Muslim terror writ large. It was the product of intolerance, hatred and a view that their form of the Islamic faith was somehow more correct than any other.
Where were these London based poppy burning pieces of scum when that was happening? Most likely they were talking big behind closed doors while shitting themselves at the idea of standing up to their ‘brothers’. Too terrified to stand against the real terrorists in their supposed Muslim homelands, they chose the coward’s way and picked a disciplined target that is trained to operate within the rule of law and would not represent a threat to them. Men and women who helped tidy up after the carnage dispensed by the adherents of the laughably self titled ‘religion of peace’.
The real victims of these hypocritical zealots will be those Muslims who have no truck with extremism and just want to live their lives here in peace, but who will be tarred with the same brush. Yet more Muslim casualties of Muslim violence. Ironic, no? Perhaps they need to put a whole lot of distance between themselves and these vile parasites in our midst.
It was only ever going to be a matter of time before the truth emerged. Hamas has confirmed for the first time today that between 200 and 300 members of the organization’s military wing (fighters, terrorists) were killed during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead offensive in the Gaza Strip in 2008. (Hat tip: Media Backspin)
Hamas previously denied those figures which were consistent with the numbers initially reported by the Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Unit immediately following the operation. The terrorists turned dictators claimed at the time that less than 50 of its fighters had been killed and labelled all other deaths as civilian, claims that were accepted without question by the flawed and biased Goldstone Report commissioned by the United Nations.
If the first casualty of war is truth then Hamas is the go-to group for lies, distortions and fabrications. Even when finally conceding that Israel was not only targeting armed fighters but doing so much more effectively than previously admitted, Hamas’ Interior Minister, Fathi Hamad couldn’t stop himself from spouting yet another big porky. In response to a question about Al Qadea involvement in Gaza he trotted out this little gem:
“We are moderate people, and we don’t like extremists or fanatics,”
Beyond parody. Presumably the photograph above is of one of their peace campaigners, taken in between throwing Fatah members from rooftops and then sending death squads after their Fatah rivals. But perhaps Hamad became more truthful as he added:
“We don’t need weapons or Jihad fighters – anyone who wants to help us can send money.”
Indeed, Hamas is doing altogether rather too well when it comes to smuggling rockets and explosives into Gaza in readiness for yet more attacks on Israel. They just need to keep paying for them to be supplied.
Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed, a cause célèbre of the BBC because of his story of torture under interrogation, has been granted permanent residency in Britain.
Despite possessing a story about his movements so full of holes a colander is watertight in comparison, and despite trying to return to Britain (where he was already seeking asylum) from an extended trip to the heroin and jihadist training capital of the world (Afghanistan and Pakistan) supposedly in order to get off drugs (stop laughing a the back) he attempted to use a forged passport (although allowed into Britain with his own). Now despite this questionable activity this Ethiopian Islamist has been granted permission to remain permanently in the UK.
But for a tiny molecule of common sense from a judge, we would not even know about this decision as Binyam Mohamed’s legally aided team of lawyers sought an injunction to keep the decision secret from the British public.
What kind of insane desire to self destruct leads a country to give people, who offer nothing but a threat to its citizens, the right to live among them?
Committing a criminal act as serious as using a false passport to enter Britain should have instantly excluded Binyam Mohamed’s existing asylum claim. It raises serious questions about what his intentions were, something that has never been explained. With Afghanistan already being in a state of sustained conflict in 2o02, Mohamed’s reasoning for going there in the first place doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. The media focus on his claims of UK complicity in his alleged torture while in US custody has ensured Mohamed’s own actions have largely been ignored.
In just about every civilised country the first responsibility and priority of a government is the protection of its citizens. In Britain the protection of the citizenry comes some way down the priority list. Instead in Britain the slavish adherence to nonsensical human rights laws and the pervasive influence of the sopping wet liberal bleeding heart guilt mongers, who feel they must atone daily for our history of colonialism and further their desire to sweep away national borders, sees decisions such as this handed down on a regular basis.
Make no mistake, these decisions are made by an out of touch elite that can afford to live well insulated from the effects of those decisions. An out of touch elite that views Britain as a small, insignificant country with delusions of power and influence that is crass and insulting to their supposedly enlightened and internationalist worldview.
So it is that Britain continues to self destruct. So it is that the Britain of just two generations ago, where the population was bound by common values and identity, is transformed into a haven for the world’s flotsam and jetsom – many of whom despise our values and have no interest in sharing our identity. So it is that Britain leaves itself wide open to attack from those extremists who seek to speed our destruction, while the authorities sweep away the privacy and rights of the host population.
Such insanity cannot be allowed to continue. But our political class is not interested in addressing these concerns because what matters to us does not matter to them. As such we will continue to be exposed to avoidable risks. So we can expect to see more examples of this insanity as Britain slowly unspools and loses all vestiges of what defined it as a sovereign nation.
Just to reinforce the point made in the last posting here. Another night in Ashkelon, another rocket attack launched by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza, another story of terrorist aggression against Israel that is ignored by the BBC. The largest news gathering organisation in the world has decided this isn’t news, so we have to rely on local sources to find out what’s really going on.
Many people demand that Israel turn the other cheek. They say that retaliating against such attacks only escalates the violence. The problem is a failure to strike back tells the terrorists that they can act with impunity and without consequence. Hamas will not act against those perpetrating the rocket attacks – it actually encourages them.
What of the international community? The United Nations is utterly useless, a point rammed home by the fact Hezbollah in southern Lebanon has not only rearmed after its last conflict with Israel, under UN supervision and against UN resolutions, it now has a larger and more lethal arsenal than it had before. Predictions of an Israeli spring offensive this year, faithfully trotted out by the media as part of the Israel aggression narrative, proved to be false. Incidentally, the piece also reminds us why Israeli troops boarded ships heading for Gaza, after previous inspections turned up weapons caches en route to the terrorists.
As a backdrop to all this, Iran continues to develop a nuclear weapons capability and issues threats that it will raze Tel Aviv to the ground if Israel acts to stop the nuclear proliferation. The UN Security Council which said it would stop Iran developing such a weapons capability talks, talks then talks some more while the centrifuges continue to spin.
Then there is Syria, once again engaging in a customary round of sabre rattling where the talk is of war, not peace. Its President, Bashar Assad, also tries to stop the facts about the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister being revealed by threatening to side with Hezbollah if they are found to be responsible. The absence of this kind of context keeps people in ignorance about Israel’s side of the story.
We may very well ask the BBC why it makes such partial editorial decisions, but we will not be furnished with an explanation. We will just continue to be told to fork out £142.50 per annum to be informed, educated and entertained in the manner the BBC sees fit – and take their word for it that they are impartial, even though they use our money to fight in court to suppress publication of the Balen Report we paid for, into their Middle East coverage that has been called into question for bias against Israel. Go figure.
When it comes to Israeli retaliation for terrorist attacks launched against innocent civilians, BBC journalists either don’t get it, or do get it but have an anti-Israeli agenda to service.
Retaliatory actions by Israel get full coverage from our public service broadcaster as you can see here.
But as always there is only a passing explanation for the action, which is inevitably played down when, by sheer luck, the terrorist attack only causes property damage and fails to kill any Israelis. There was no report on Friday about the rocket attack. It was ignored. Why? The murderous intent behind the attacks by Palestinian terrorists is completely ignored by the BBC reporter filing the story.
And no opportunity to engage in naked moral equivalence is missed as reports are rounded off with a regular effort to portray the conflict as one sided and position the terrorists as underdogs:
Correspondents say such attacks are almost always ineffective, with rockets mostly landing in open fields.
Oh well, that’s alright then. Presumably that’s why attacks such as these aren’t reported and their impact explained, because the weapons those nice Palestinians use aren’t as effective.
One Thai farmer in Israel has been killed in the past year.
See it’s only one person, so what’s the big deal?
Dozens of Palestinians, some of them civilians, have been killed in attacks from Israel over the same period.
See? The Israelis are worse. Those nasty Israelis just launch these raids for fun and kill lots of oppressed Keffiyeh wearing chaps going about their lives. It’s an outrage isn’t it? Do you understand? Palestinians = good, Israelis = bad. You can trust us on this, we’re the famously impartial BBC for heaven’s sake. You know that because once in a blue moon we might actually publish an article telling you the Israelis perspective.
That would be the BBC that also fails to put these matters into context for readers. After all, where was the report about the four rockets and two mortar rounds that were fired at Israel just one week ago? Or the terrorist team that was intercepted just days earlier as they tried to get into Israel from their supposed ‘prison camp’ to commit another attack? We have to rely on local media for such information because the BBC can’t be relied upon to present the full picture.
Is it any wonder that we see comments such as these from people whose ignorance of the reality of life in Israel is matched only by their hatred of the Israelis who are determined to hold the line and strike back against their attackers? People who fail to note that Hamas, which controls Gaza through fear and repression, refuses to engage in direct peace talks with Israel, that even the Arab League supports, citing yet more excuses for maintaining their hateful violence.
Make no mistake, Israel often does things that are wrong or indefensible, things that are rightly condemned. But it must not be forgotten that the state of Israel has an obligation to combat the continuous threats it faces from people whose only goal is the destruction of Israel and the death or expulsion of the Jews from that land – a land the Jews had inhabited well before the time of Christ.
Israel can be excused for thinking that with friends like David Cameron it doesn’t need enemies. It can also be excused for wondering how a man with an Eton and Oxford education can be so lacking in critical faculties.
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, in his desire to cosy up to Turkey and continue the enlargement of the very EU he tries to claim he is sceptical of, has made not one but two false assertions in his speech in Ankara today. The first concerned the flotilla of vessels that aimed to break the blockade of the port in Gaza, about which he said:
The Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable.
It was not an attack at all. Israeli defence forces effected a boarding of a number of vessels to inspect their cargo. The crew of one vessel, Turkish nationals, decided to attack the boarding party with a variety of weapons. It was only when this violence continued that the Israeli personnel had to use lethal force to defend themselves. This is borne out by video evidence. The distinction is important and Cameron’s assertion is wrong and unjustified. Then he continued on the Gaza theme:
Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp.
The fact is aid and goods do flow into Gaza from Israel. Israel has attempted to stop certain materials that can have military application from being channeled to Hamas – a terrorist organisation. Perhaps Cameron has forgotten that Egypt also has restrictions on goods and people crossing its border into Gaza. If Gaza is a prison camp, then it is remarkably well equipped if overcrowded. The latest mobile phones, computers and consumer items are all available – although Palestinian profiteers are controlling supplies of some basics in order to drive up prices and increase their own earnings.
Cameron is either ignorant or he is peddling deliberate deceptions to ingratiate himself with the Turks. Either way the rhetoric only serves in inflame opinion against Israel, which continues to face aggression from groups such as Hamas, countries such as Syria, Lebanon and Iran and their proxies such as Hezbollah. Presumably Turkish aggression against the Kurds and border incursions into Iraq to attack PKK targets are fine. It seems on Planet Cameron only Israel should be berated when it stands up to terrorism.
Notably absent from Cameron’s soft soaping of Israel’s opponents was any mention of Hamas’ criminal and terrorist behaviour. Nothing was said about the Fatah members who were thrown from rooftops in Gaza by Hamas fighters. Nothing was said about Palestinians who fled to Israel for protection and received hospital treatment after being attacked by Hamas members. No, the only aggressor and party worthy of vilification in that part of the world is Israel and Cameron has demonstrated he will put expediency before honesty.
According to the official record 10,726,614 UK citizens voted for a Conservative government in May. Instead they got Cameron’s cabal of conservatives in name only. Forget the heir to Blair line. These political pygmies with their own peculiar brand of schoolboy politics are the heirs to David Owen.
Ironically Labour got it right by calling Cameron a chameleon. Unfortunately he changed colour to a pinkish yellow rather than the deep blue conservatives had hoped for. This country swapped one left of centre government for another left of centre government. The Conservative logo was a flag of convenience, nothing more.
One wonders how long the grassroots will stomach this hijack of their party and coup by the Tory wets, whose approach and behaviour handed Blair his triumph in 1997.
He talked a great game in opposition but when it comes to walking the walk, David Cameron is to be found sitting with his legs firmly crossed. And while he is striking that pose his team at the Home Office are sat down with their arms firmly crossed.
Barely two weeks ago the kitten heeled, tough talking, Tory Home Secretary, Theresa May was explaining to a confused nation why two men considered terrorist risks to the United Kingdom, Abid Naseer and Ahmed Faraz Khan, were to be allowed to remain in this country. It was their human rights you see. Being sent back to Pakistan apparently risked their well-being, despite other members of Naseer’s gang happily trapsing back to Islamabad without a care in the world.
Theresa May said she was disappointed, but had no plans to appeal the decision of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission to halt their deportation.
Fast forward to this week and there is a sense of deja vu in the air. In opposition, David Cameron and other senior Tories led criticism of the Labour government for allowing radical preachers into Britain to stir up hatred on lecture tours. Yet one of the worst of the lot, Zakir Naik, is being allowed to enter Britain and do the self same thing by the Home Office. He is guilty of inciting hatred against the United States and while praising Osama bin Laden said that: ‘if he is terrorising America the terrorist… I am with him. Every Muslim should be a terrorist’.
The response of the Home Office? It has indicated that it was not planning to ban Naik from entering Britain.
How can it be that the Home Office – albeit under the control of Labour – sought desperately to ban a democratic Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, from entering this country because he intended to show a film that purportedly linked verses from the Qur’an to terrorism; yet seeks to take no action to prevent the arrival of Zakir Naik, a twisted Islamist who lauds terrorism and seeks to whip up hatred against non-Muslims with language designed to incite people? The Home Office, like the police, is only capable of taking on the soft targets and shies away from the tackling the real troublemakers. It is pathetic.
Perhaps given this evidence we should take it as given that Cameron is just another mouthpiece politician. Having strutted around with his chest stuck out like a gooney bird, berating the Labour government for its ludicrous decision making, he is following suit in typically hypocritical fashion.
Remember how we were implored to vote for change? Do you see much difference on display? For all his showbiz style grandstanding Cameron is showing that he has no intention of protecting this country’s interests from people who seek to harm us. Maybe it’s ideological, but maybe it’s because he needs to grow a pair.
News of the arrest of two American women dubbed ‘Jihad Janes’ show that Islamist terrorists are going back to the 80s in their attempts to carry out terror and murder. In seeking to use proxies whose profile would not ordinarily raise suspicion among security services, terrorists are going back to a technique used in the UK by Nizar Hindawi.
Hindawi was a Jordanian Arab who started a relationship with an Irish woman named Anne-Marie Murphy. In 1986, while six-months pregnant carrying Hindawi’s child, Murphy was duped into believing she and Hindawi would be getting married and honeymooning in Israel. Hindawi bought her a ticket for an El-Al Israeli airlines flight to Tel Aviv and said he would meet her there because he had to travel via Jordan.
On instruction by his Syrian handlers, Hindawi gave Murphy a bag to take with her containing a bomb, which she knew nothing about and that was only discovered in security checks minutes before check in closed. 395 people would have died if the attack had been successful.
These Jihad Janes, Colleen LaRose and Jamie Paulin-Ramirez (who it seems may have been released on bail in Ireland), are enhanced versions of Anne-Marie Murphy. They were bored. They were lonely. They were in search of companionship, excitement, a sense of belonging and desperate for validation. They were susceptible to the charms of men ultimately intent on terror, who it seems actively sought them out on the internet. They were chosen specifically because they do not stand out as a potential security risk.
Women like LaRose and Paulin-Ramirez make it possible to put distance between the instigators of terror and the intended victims. But unlike Murphy, they are not unwitting proxies used to transport bombs. They are acting in the full knowledge of what they are doing. They have been groomed to be sympathetic to the Islamist cause and radicalised with a fervour to commit acts of terror.
The big worry here is that if this is happening in the United States, you can be sure it is happening in the UK. We have in this country, by the government’s own admission, a pool of radicalised Islamist young men who want to see acts of terror perpetrated on the streets of Britain. We have already seen Islamic converts such as shoe bomber Richard Reid and 7/7 suicide bomber Germaine Lindsay turn to terrorism.
How long before we start seeing British women revealed as Jihad Janes, caught doing the bidding of vicious homocidal maniacs who have sought them out, developed relationships with them and radicalised them to assist in or commit atrocities?
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