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UK’s Starmer and Lammy Prepare Ground for Dubious “Peace Plan”

Stuart Littlewood — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 14:58:46 +0000

Public opinion and party pressure have forced Sir Keir Starmer and David Lammy to speak warm words about Palestinian statehood. But these guys are a Zionist double-act and will do the Palestinians no favours if they can help it.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, addressing the UN Conference on The Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, said it was “660 days since the Israeli hostages were first cruelly taken by Hamas terrorists. There is no possible justification for this suffering.” Lammy had spent most of that time deliberately misinterpreting the Genocide Convention and insisting that no genocide was being committed.

“Our support for Israel, its right to exist and the security of its people is steadfast,” he said. Considering Israel’s massacres and other crimes against humanity since the first day of its statehood in 1948 this frequently repeated statement has never convinced anyone.

“However, the Balfour declaration came with the solemn promise ‘that nothing shall be done, nothing which may prejudice the civil and religious rights’ of the Palestinian people’…. This has not been upheld and it is a historical injustice which continues to unfold.” True, but he misquotes Balfour even here. That part of the declaration actually reads: “… it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine….”

The Balfour declaration also came with dire warnings. Lord Edwin Montagu, the only Jew in the Cabinet at the time, called Zionism “a mischievous political creed, untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom”. Lord Sydenham remarked: “What we have done, by concessions not to the Jewish people but to a Zionist extreme section, is to start a running sore in the East, and no-one can tell how far that sore will extend.”

Well, we know now. And it will stain Britain’s reputation forever.

Lammy continued: “Hamas must never be rewarded for its monstrous attack on October 7.” Of course, he said nothing about Israel having been continuously rewarded for its monstrous attacks on Palestinians over the last 77 years and will likely be rewarded again for its genocide.

“It [Hamas] must immediately release the hostages, agree to an immediate ceasefire, accept it will have no role in governing Gaza and commit to disarmament.” Coincidentally Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have also called on Hamas to disband. Along with a number of other countries they’ve just signed a statement saying, “Hamas must end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority, with international engagement and support, in line with the objective of a sovereign and independent Palestinian State.” Quite how this squares with international law isn’t clear, and no-one explains. It is for the Palestinian people to decide who governs their sovereign state.

Lammy: “His Majesty’s Government therefore intends to recognise the State of Palestine when the UN General Assembly gathers in September…. unless the Israeli government acts to end the appalling situation in Gaza, ends its military campaign and commits to a long-term sustainable peace based on a two-state solution. Our demands on Hamas also remain absolute and unwavering.” So what happens if Israel actually complies, or appears to comply? Does HMG then see no reason to recognise statehood? That would suit Israel very well. Note that there’s no requirement in all this for Israel to immediately end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, which is central to the whole problem. So the Starmer-Lammy proposal purposely misses the point.

Lammy maintains “there is no better vision for the future of the region than two states. Israelis living within secure borders, recognised and at peace with their neighbours, free from the threat of terrorism. And Palestinians living in their own state, in dignity and security, free of occupation.” Just a minute: how about Palestinians, whose land this is, “living within secure borders, free from the threat of Israeli terrorism and occupation”, the terrorists being (as if he didn’t know) the Israelis and their backers the US? Furthermore, UK leaders have banged the drum about a two-state solution for decades without ever describing what it would look like – especially now that Israel has been allowed to establish irreversible ‘facts on the ground’ that make a proper, workable Palestinian state almost impossible.

“The decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians cannot be managed or contained,” he says. True, and that’s been obvious for decades.

“It must now be resolved.” True, and that too has been obvious for decades.

That same day, 29 July, Prime Minister Starmer was delivering “words on Gaza” from Downing Street.

“On the 7th of October 2023 Hamas perpetrated the worst massacre in Israel’s history. Every day since then, the horror has continued.” He makes it sound like the 660 days of horror have been Hamas’s doing.

“Ceasefire must be sustainable and it must lead to a wider peace plan, which we are developing with our international partners. This plan will deliver security and proper governance in Gaza and pave the way for negotiations on a Two State Solution”. Yes, but under international law Palestinians should not have to ‘negotiate’ their freedom and independence, it’s theirs by right regardless of what other nations think or say.

“Our goal remains a safe and secure Israel, alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state.” Oh dear, the same old lopsided spiel. Parity isn’t on the West’s agenda.

“Now, in Gaza because of a catastrophic failure of aid, we see starving babies, children too weak to stand: Images that will stay with us for a lifetime.” The horror is not due to “a catastrophic failure of aid” but failure over the years to end Israel’s illegal occupation and, in particular, its cruel 18-year siege and blockade of Gaza and the sickening practice of ‘mowing the grass’. The UK especially has been complicit in enabling Israel to maintain its stranglehold.

Starmer: “I’ve always said we will recognise a Palestinian state as a contribution to a proper peace process, at the moment of maximum impact for the Two State Solution.” UK governments have been saying that for years. Britain was supposed to grant Palestinians provisional statehood under its Mandate responsibilities back in 1923 and failed to do so. We’ve been ducking the issue ever since while eagerly recognising Israeli statehood with their terrorist militia and Ben-Gurion’s plan to take over the entire Holy Land by force.

“This is the moment to act,” Starmer continued. “So today – as part of this process towards peace I can confirm the UK will recognise the state of Palestine by the United Nations General Assembly in September unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, agree to a ceasefire and commit to a long-term, sustainable peace, reviving the prospect of a Two State Solution. And this includes allowing the UN to restart the supply of aid, and making clear there will be no annexations in the West Bank.” This is unbelievable vague and gives Israel endless wriggle-room. Much of the West Bank, of course, is already annexed. To give peace any kind of chance conditions must include Israel withdrawing its squatters, quitting all annexed lands and ending its illegal military occupation forthwith.

Starmer ends with the familiar mantra: “Our message to the terrorists of Hamas is unchanged and unequivocal. They must immediately release all the hostages, sign up to a ceasefire, disarm and accept that they will play no part in the government of Gaza.” No mention of the Israeli terrorists disarming and no ban on Likud (Netanyahu’s demented party) from any future government of Israel.

Starmer and Lammy never use the terms ‘international law’ or ‘justice’. Don’t they understand that there can be no peace without justice? Perhaps they do but won’t admit it because their friends and allies Israel and the US, for selfish strategic reasons, don’t want peace and never have.

Starmer and Lammy compromised and untrustworthy

Starmer told The Times of Israel, “I support Zionism without qualification”. Lammy has made similar declarations. The Ministerial Code and Principles of Public Life state very clearly (seer ‘Integrity’): “Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might seek to influence them in the performance of their official duties.” How do they get away with it?

So it’s hardly surprising that Lammy and Starmer show no concern for the 7,200 Palestinian hostages, including 88 women and 250 children, held in Israeli jails on 7 October under appalling conditions. Over 1,200 were under ‘administrative detention’ without charge or trial and denied ‘due process’. Or the fact that in the 23 years up to October 7 Israel had been slaughtering Palestinians at the rate of 8:1 and children at the rate of 16:1. Actual figures: Palestinians killed by Israelis 10,651 including 2,270 children and 6,656 women. Israelis killed by Palestinians 1,330 including 145 children and 261 women (source: Israel’s B’Tselem). Were they and their friends in Israel expecting Palestinians to take all that lying down?

Our dynamic duo were not so appalled by the sight of “starving babies and children too weak to stand” that they provided protection for the British-flagged aid vessel Madleen and the Handala bringing much-needed supplies to Gaza. They allowed these vessels to be hijacked in international waters, their cargo stolen and crews abducted by Israel’s thugs, just as the Mavi Marmara, the Al-Awda and other mercy ships had been similarly assaulted. Israeli piracy is the new normal in the eastern Mediterranean and Western nations don’t give a damn. The British government are more than happy, though, to instruct the RAF to fly surveillance missions over Gaza in support of Israel’s genocide programme and to continue sharing intelligence with the apartheid regime.

And if their concerns about the suffering and devastation were ever genuine, why didn’t they proposed forming a UN multi-nation intervention force to take over the Gaza crossings to ensure aid gets through as it should? They have now been shamed and their ‘no genocide’ stance utterly discredited by two of Israel’s own human rights organisations – B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights – who declare that Israel is indeed committing genocide in Gaza and its Western allies have a legal and moral duty to put a stop to it. B’Tselem’s summing-up of the situation is worth sharing:

Since October 2023, Israel has shifted its policy toward the Palestinians. Its military onslaught on Gaza, underway for more than 21 months, has included mass killing, both directly and through creating unlivable conditions, serious bodily or mental harm to an entire population, decimation of basic infrastructure throughout the Strip, and forcible displacement on a huge scale, with ethnic cleansing added to the list of official war objectives.

This is compounded by mass arrests and abuse of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, which have effectively become torture camps, and tearing apart the social fabric of Gaza, including the destruction of Palestinian educational and cultural institutions. The campaign is also an assault on Palestinian identity itself, through the deliberate destruction of refugee camps and attempts to undermine the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

An examination of Israel’s policy in the Gaza Strip and its horrific outcomes, together with statements by senior Israeli politicians and military commanders about the goals of the attack, leads to the unequivocal conclusion that Israel is taking coordinated, deliberate action to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip. In other words: Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The term genocide refers to a socio-historical and political phenomenon involving acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Both morally and legally, genocide cannot be justified under any circumstance, including as an act of self-defense.

Genocide always occurs within a context: there are conditions that enable it, triggering events, and a guiding ideology. The current onslaught on the Palestinian people, including in the Gaza Strip, must be understood in the context of more than seventy years in which Israel has imposed a violent and discriminatory regime on the Palestinians, taking its most extreme form against those living in the Gaza Strip. Since the State of Israel was established, the apartheid and occupation regime has institutionalized and systematically employed mechanisms of violent control, demographic engineering, discrimination, and fragmentation of the Palestinian collective. These foundations laid by the regime are what made it possible to launch a genocidal attack on the Palestinians immediately after the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023.

The assault on Palestinians in Gaza cannot be separated from the escalating violence being inflicted, at varying levels and in different forms, on Palestinians living under Israeli rule in the West Bank and within Israel. The violence and destruction in these areas is intensifying over time, with no effective domestic or international mechanism acting to halt them. We warn of the clear and present danger that the genocide will not remain confined to the Gaza Strip, and that the actions and underlying mindset driving it may be extended to other areas as well.

The recognition that the Israeli regime is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, and the deep concern that it may expand to other areas where Palestinians live under Israeli rule, demand urgent and unequivocal action from both Israeli society and the international community, and use of every means available under international law to stop Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.

The post UK’s Starmer and Lammy Prepare Ground for Dubious “Peace Plan” first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Stuart Littlewood.

Genocide is Psychopathy

Kim Petersen — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 15:02:20 +0000

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau declares, “I am a Zionist.”

Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of a particular group. When it is your country, your troops, your government and its officials committing genocide, many people will stubbornly refuse to acknowledge such a fact. Such is the propagandic effect of patriotism that it erodes critical thought processes and even causes people to overlook extreme evil.

On 28 July 2025, NPR wrote, “Two prominent Israeli rights groups on Monday said their country is committing genocide in Gaza, the first time that local Jewish-led organizations have made such accusations against Israel during nearly 22 months of war.”

The genocide is undeniable as Afkār noted, “Since October 7, 2023, Israeli cabinet ministers, political figures, military officers and media pundits have openly and endlessly incited for the destruction of Gaza and its Palestinian inhabitants.”

Moreover, Israel is trying to spin this genocide as a necessary transfer of the Gazan population: “In recent months, Israel has shifted its messaging on Gaza, acknowledging that it has rendered the territory unlivable and is pushing for the removal of its surviving population. ”

What explains the thinking that leads to the carrying out of such a hideous crime?

Psychopathy is a personality disorder rooted in a lack of empathy and remorse, manipulation, and antisocial behavior. That clearly describes people committing genocide and people aiding and abetting genocide.

Thus, people perpetuating or enabling the commission of a genocide fit the definition of psychopaths.

It is undeniable that Israeli Jews are committing genocide in Palestine. Their prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is therefore a genocidaire and a psychopath, as well as the many supportive establishment types in Israel. (For more on this read Hamid Dabashi’s After Savagery) The genocide of Gazans has much support among Jewish Israelis. This begs the question of whether psychopathology is widespread among Israeli Jews?

And, when a state or agency knowingly aids and abets Israeli Jews in committing genocide against the Palestinians, then such complicit governments and responsible authorities ought also to be considered genocidaires and psychopaths. Legally, as well:

… one can be held liable for aiding and abetting genocide, even if one does not share the specific genocidal intent of the principal perpetrator.

The Rome Statute contains a provision about criminal responsibility that is not found in either of the U.N. ad hoc tribunal statutes or the Genocide Convention but which further illuminates the mens rea of genocide. Under Article 30 of the Rome Statute, “knowledge” and “intent” are the two components of mens rea. A person has “intent” when the person “means to engage in the conduct” and “means to cause that consequence or is aware that it will occur in the ordinary course of events.” (Grant Dawson and Rachel Boynton, “Reconciling Complicity in Genocide and Aiding and Abetting Genocide in the Jurisprudence of the United Nations Ad Hoc Tribunals,” Harvard Human Rights Journal, 21, 2008: 250.)

Consequently, Israel is not alone in executing its genocide of Palestinians. Countries are called upon to “Stop Arming Israel and Abetting Its Crimes.” Among those governments supplying armaments to Israel are the US and Europeans (“How top arms exporters have responded to the war in Gaza,” and that “European countries use 3rd-party countries to keep arming Israel: British journalist,” “Australia,” “Report suggests arms still flow from Canada to Israel despite denials,” “Infrastructure of genocide: the case confronting Dutch support for Israel’s war machine,” etc) giving political cover, the companies seeking profit from the genocide. Hence, their actions reveal them to be genocidaires.

Many of the common people in many of these countries are opposing the genocide-supporting stance of their governments; for example, Sweden, Netherlands, Canada, even in the US, and worldwide. The leaders are out of touch with masses of their citizens.

Therefore, Canada’s Mark Carney, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Keir Starmer, Germany’s Friedrich Merz, Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen, and others are joining avowed Zionists Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump. Are Netanyahu and Trump really the people other country’s “leaders” should follow in making common cause to wipe Palestinians off the map?

Why is this psychopathy exhibited as a common trait among many Western government heads?

Worse, it seems to point to there being something inherently malevolent in the so-called democratic systems of these countries, such that it promotes psychopaths into leadership positions.

The post Genocide is Psychopathy first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.

Canada’s Complicity Laid Bare

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 14:43:00 +0000

We will not have any form of arms or parts of arms be sent to Gaza, period.
— Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, March 20 2024

It was a cynical lie. Now we have the evidence.

A damning new report from the Arms Embargo Now coalition traces hundreds of shipments of Canadian-made weapons and military tech that continued to reach Israel during its ongoing genocidal assault on Gaza.

Bullets. Explosives. Aircraft parts. High‑end surveillance and targeting systems. All from here — from factories in Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, the GTA, Halifax — to the runways and ports in Israel that feed Israel’s war machine.

Most of us already understood this was happening. Individual contracts and bits of evidence kept slipping through the cracks. But every time they did, the government would play whack-a-mole. This report ends that game. We now have ironclad evidence that Canadian weapons never stopped flowing to Israel. It shows a sustained, ongoing pipeline that continues to this day. It also exposes how the government systematically deceived Canadians about arming Israel.

In the frantic first three months after October 7th, the Trudeau government quietly approved a record-breaking number of export permits to Israel. Then you — and tens of thousands of people like you across the country — roared in protest. The pressure worked. By March 2024, then Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly announced a “pause” on new permits. She publicly insisted that no more arms would reach Gaza.

However Joly’s “pause” froze only new licences, leaving every previous permit untouched. Ottawa tried to soothe the public, claiming the ongoing shipments were only for “non-lethal” or “defensive” goods (i.e. Iron Dome parts, bullet-proof vests). In reality, a steady stream of lethal cargo kept moving: bullets, explosives, aircraft and helicopter parts, F-35 targeting tech. All funnelled from 21 suppliers in seven Canadian cities to Israeli arms companies like Elbit Systems.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t some bureaucratic oversight. It is a calculated breach of the Export and Import Permits Act, the Arms Trade Treaty, and the ICJ’s warning not to aid genocide.

Ottawa’s claim that it was no longer arming Israel served as a diplomatic fig leaf: soothing words that hid uninterrupted weapons shipments. This report rips that fig leaf away. The government must now own its complicity and decide — end the exports, or stand exposed before the world.

This report also shows something else: the power of civil society. A small group of researchers — activists with day jobs, family responsibilities, and limited resources — spent hundreds of hours digging through tax records, shipping manifests, flight records, and obscure government PDFs. They followed the paper trail and uncovered the reality that our government was trying to hide.

In the UK, a similar report created a political scandal that is still reverberating. This Canadian report is arguably even more damning and the potential impact is enormous—if we seize this moment.

On Tuesday, CJPME, Independent Jewish Voices, World Beyond War, and the Palestinian Youth Movement held a press conference in Parliament to share the findings. You can watch the recording of the press conference here.

The post Canada’s Complicity Laid Bare first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East.

Before, During, and After Savagery

Kim Petersen — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 15:11:21 +0000

“But the state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jew; it was created for the salvation of Western interests.”

— James Baldwin, “Open Letter to the Born Again” (September 29, 1979). Quoted in Hamid Dabashi, After Savagery: Gaza, Genocide, and the Illusion of Western Civilization (Haymarket Books, 2025): 159.

Baldwin’s assessment is shared by many others, such as Noam Chomsky, who discussed in his book (The Fateful Triangle, 1999 edition) Israel’s role as a “strategic asset.” (p. 69, 70, 103, 137) However, others, such as Jean Bricmont and Diana Johnstone countered that assessment in a 2024 article, “The Myth of Israel as ‘US Aircraft Carrier’ in Middle East.” They write:

But the crucial evidence, totally missing from their analysis, is the slightest example of Israel actually serving American interests in the region.

If no examples are given, it’s simply because there are none. Israel has never fired a shot on behalf of the United States or brought a drop of oil under U.S. control.

We can start with a common sense argument: If the U.S. is interested in Middle East oil, why would it support a country that is hated (for whatever reasons) by all the populations of the oil producing countries?

Bricmont and Johnstone attribute the unstinting US support of Israel as being influenced by money injected into the US political arena by the Jewish lobby, in particular AIPAC.

The question of which side leads in determining US support for Israel is debatable. What is indisputable is that the US and Israel are in lockstep despite all the violations of international law by Israel (US is a serial violator of international law, as well), despite several massacres carried out by Israel, and despite the mightily ramped up genocide being perpetrated by Israeli Jews against Palestinians currently.

Genocide and the understanding of what unleashes the bloodshirtiest of human actions is the subject of Hamid Dabashi’s After Savagery, scheduled for release by Haymarket Books on 30 September — while the savagery is ongoing. The urgency for a worldwide response calls for informing those unaware or those insouciant to the Jewish Israeli genocide that is being perpetrated on Palestine (It is not just a genocide in Gaza, as a 1 July 2025 Al Jazeera headline makes clear: “Israel has killed 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7, 2023.”). After Savagery, however, is not just about the genocide in Gaza, it is about why some humans commit genocide. So After Savagery is also about “before savagery.” What are the conditions that lead to savagery today. And most importantly, how genocide can be prevented from happening.

Dabashi quotes many sources to attest to the genocide that is happening now in Palestine.

“What we are seeing in Gaza is a repeat of Auschwitz,” says the Burmese genocide expert and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Maung Zarni. “This is a collective white imperialist man’s genocide,” he further explains. (154-155)

Asked to describe what he witnessed in Gaza, Dr. Perlmutter replied, “All of the disasters I’ve seen, combined—forty mission trips, thirty years, Ground Zero, earthquakes, all of that combined—doesn’t equal the level of carnage that I saw against civilians in just my first week in Gaza.” And the civilian casualties, he said, are almost exclusively children. “I’ve never seen that before,” he said. “I’ve seen more incinerated children than I’ve ever seen in my entire life, combined. I’ve seen more shredded children in just the first week … missing body parts, being crushed by buildings, the greatest majority, or bomb explosions, the next greatest majority. We’ve taken shrapnel as big as my thumb out of eight-year-olds. And then there’s sniper bullets. I have children that were shot twice.” (103-104)

“Yes, it is genocide,” has affirmed Amos Goldberg, a professor of Holocaust history at the department of Jewish history and contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: “It is so difficult and painful to admit it, but despite all that, and despite all our efforts to think otherwise, after six months of brutal war we can no longer avoid this conclusion.” (142)

Dabashi traces the roots of Zionism to a longstanding settler-European colonialism. And the author lays bare the insidiousness of Zionism and how this racism impacted Palestinians:

Today, the birth of Palestine as a “question” rather than a nation-state marks precisely the birth of Palestine as a constellation of refugee camps. The land was stolen from Palestinians, the state stealing the land was a European settler colony garrison state that rules over Palestinians with cruelty, the rules for the inscription of life were dictated to Palestinians in draconian terms, and the camps as the fourth inseparable element are precisely where generations of Palestinians are born and raised, before being killed by the Israeli military. (127-128)

Part of this racism towards Muslims, of which the majority of Palestinians are, is the use of term “Muselmann.” Writes Dabashi, “This is perhaps a mini encyclopedia of European ignorance, Islamophobia and antisemitism all wrapped up in an attempt to unpack the word ‘Muselmann,’ but in fact loading it with more racist dimensions.” (120) And the new Muselmann, is the Palestinian, “the Untestifiable, the human animal, as Israeli warlords have said.” (xxvi)

Zionist Israel and its racism and discrimination is compellingly described. My colleague B.J. Sabri and I needed no convincing of Israeli racism.¹

And this racism, not exclusive to Israeli Jews, points to “what ultimately matters for the world at large is the categorical inability to fathom a Palestinian as a human being.” (96) Thus, “Witnessing this savagery in Gaza, we can clearly link the Jewish Holocaust to the Palestinian genocide, and see genocidal Zionism as the logical colonial extension of European fascism.” (xv)

Before Savagery

Many personages appear in After Savagery, such as, to name a few, Sven Lindqvist, Frantz Fanon, Joseph Conrad, and James Baldwin who opposed racism; Edward Said, Giorgio Agamben, Ghassan Kanafani and his Danish wife Anni Kanafani (née Høver), Mario Rizzi, Mahmoud Darwish who spoke to the beauty of Orientalism and Arab culture; others such as Ilan Pappe and UN special rappateur Francesca Albanese who denounce unflinchingly the depredations of Israeli Jews against Palestinians. Dabashi delves deeply into the Eurocentric perspective on colonialism, borne of Western philosophy and figures like Immanuel Kant, Hegel Heidegger, and others who thinking was impoverished by being shackled by their own racism.

Dabashi writes:

“According to Hegel, Africans, or any other people, can only become civilized to the degree and so far as they abandoned their own cultures and convert to Christianity, founding a state according to Christian principles.” (91)

How are “we” to escape the indoctrination of feted philosophers and the inculcation of Western thought? How do “we” humanize Palestinians? The mere fact that the humanity of Palestinians requires affirmation for so many people points to the pervasiveness of racist Eurocentric narratives.

After the unbridled savagery in Gaza, it is not only European philosophy that reaches its ignoble ends. We need equally to think of the modes of knowledge production about Gaza itself, about Palestine, as the simulacrum of the world outside the purview of the discredited Eurocentric imagination. We no longer need to worry about the critique of Orientalism. We need to think of how to produce knowledge about Gaza and Palestine and the rest of the world. We need to reverse the anthropological gaze, to produce an anthropology of Zionism and Western Philosophy. (105)

The book covers a lot of ground. It delves deeply into ontology, epistemology, semantics, literature, art, filmmaking, poetry, politics, religion, exilism, and — especially — philosophy. After Savagery is not focused solely on the here and now of what is transpiring in historical Palestine. The book goes into the history, background, and philosophy that enables genocide. The book is scholarly and is well footnoted. If that is what the reader is looking for, then Hamid Dabashi’s After Savagery is well worth the read.

NOTE:

The post Before, During, and After Savagery first appeared on Dissident Voice.

1 Kim Petersen and B.J. Sabri, Defining Israeli Zionist Racism, Dissident Voice: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.

Dystopian Killing Fields and Starvation in Gaza

Binoy Kampmark — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 07:32:58 +0000

Starvation as a way of life. Starvation as a way of death. Starvation as policy, justification and vengeance. As the state of Israel hums along frittering, scratching and violating international human rights conventions, the chroniclers are kept busy on the morgue’s relentlessly growing inventory and peace’s loss. Of late, a vast number of humanitarian organisations have decided to express their collective outrage in a statement at what is happening in Gaza.

The statement as run by Doctors Without Borders on July 23 is stark: “As the Israel government’s siege starves the people of Gaza, aid workers are now joining the same food lines, risking being shot just to feed their families. With supplies now totally depleted, humanitarian organisations are witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste before their eyes.” Two months after the implementation of the controlled aid scheme by Israel, utilising the grotesquely named Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, over 100 organisations were “sounding the alarm and urging governments to act: open all land crossings; restore the full flow of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items, and fuel through a principled, UN-led mechanism; end the siege; and agree to a ceasefire now.”

Outside Gaza, and even within the Strip, abundant supplies of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items and fuel sat untouched. Humanitarian organisations had been prevented from accessing them. “The Government of Israel’s restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death.” A paltry figure of 28 trucks a day were being allowed into the Strip.

The relevant gore is recounted: massacres at food sites in the Gaza Strip are impossible to ignore; the figures from the UN suggest that 875 Palestinians had been slaughtered while seeking sustenance as of July 13. The frequency of these “flour massacres” is also receiving comment from those in the employ of the operation being run by GHF, policed by private contractors and the IDF. Retired US special forces officer Anthony Aguilar, who resigned from working with the GHF, told the BBC that he had “witnessed the Israeli Defense Forces shooting at crowds of Palestinians.” During his entire career, he had never seen such “brutality and use of indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population, an unarmed, starving population.”

The NGO statement goes on to note the rise of cases of acute malnutrition, most prevalent among children and the elderly. (The World Food Programme has warned that one in three Gazans do not eat for days at a time, with 90,000 women and children requiring treatment.) “Illnesses like acute watery diarrhea are spreading, markets are empty, waste is piling up, and adults are collapsing on the streets from hunger and dehydration.”

In the face of this, international law’s decrees appear like the neglected statues of a distant land. The three sets of Provisional Measures Orders from the International Court of Justice, handed down since 2024, have warned Israel to observe its obligations under the UN Genocide Convention and address the humanitarian crisis in the Strip. In its modifying order of provisional measures handed down on March 28, 2024, the ICJ instructed Israel to “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address famine and starvation and the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in Gaza”. These include the provision of “food, water, electricity, fuel, shelter, clothing, hygiene and sanitation requirements, as well as medical supplies and medical care” and “increasing the capacity of land crossing points and maintaining them open for as long as necessary”.

The latest concession from Israel to deal with this engineered humanitarian catastrophe is a promise to open humanitarian corridors to permit UN convoys into the Strip. In addition to that, COGAT, the Israeli military agency overseeing humanitarian affairs in Gaza, has announced that Jordan and the United Arab Emirates will be permitted to parachute humanitarian aid to those in Gaza. UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has made a small team of British military planners and logisticians available to assist Jordan in this endeavour. On July 27, the IDF also released a statement claiming it had made the first airdrop including “seven packages of aid containing flour, sugar, and canned food”. These efforts, in their practical futility, are a reiteration of the humanitarian airdrops conducted by the US military and Jordan’s air force in March last year.

These drops will do little to alter the cruel, strangulating model of aid delivery in place, emboldening the fittest recipients capable of outpacing their adversaries. Those recipients will also be fortunate not to be injured or killed by the dropped packages, instances of which were recorded in March last year. “Why use airdrops,” asks Juliette Touma, chief spokeswoman for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, “when you can drive hundreds of trucks through the borders?” Using trucks was “much easier, more effective, faster, cheaper.” Precisely why using them is so unappealing to the IDF.

Instead of focusing on isolating Israel, its allies prefer piecemeal approaches that prolong the suffering of the Palestinians. Measures such as those announced by Starmer to “evacuate children from Gaza who need medical assistance, bringing them to the UK for specialist and medical treatment” only serve to encourage the Israeli war machine. The aid drops serve to do much the same. The objective is one of inflicting a sufficient degree of harm that will encourage the eventual depopulation of the enclave. Israel’s allies, with intentional or unintentional complicity, will clean up.

The post Dystopian Killing Fields and Starvation in Gaza first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

Debunking Israeli Propaganda in Times of Genocide

Paul de Rooij — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 15:02:39 +0000

We live in interesting but brutal times. It is evident that myths are biting the dust with long held narratives dissolving when exposed to the harsh and bloody reality. Nowhere is this more evident than with all the myths that propped up Israel for many decades. Israel was portrayed as a fragile yet resilient little country living in a “bad neighbourhood.” But now, given Israel’s incessant wars, much of this mythology is being jettisoned; it is no longer needed when arrogance, hubris and sadism drive the Israeli ethos. The image of the little David is giving way to a vengeful genocidal creature infused with a dash of the Old Testament….

Below is a discussion of some of the collapsing myths. Myths are built on narratives which in turn are built on descriptive words. Much of the discussion centres around clarifying the deceptive nature of words, which in turn will expose the false narratives.

Rabble really

The army is venerated in Israel, and a lot of effort is put into glorifying the military; there are festivals with singers, balloons, and blue and white pom-poms galore.¹ American Jewish girls go giddy when meeting the tanned and smiling soldiers. Of course, if one glorifies the military, then all the units can only be “élite”; even the lowliest soldier is given a sergeant rank; and of course they must be “the most moral ” in the world. It is also known by its incongruous acronym: IDF.

Contrast the glamorous image of the Israeli military with its actions in Gaza, West Bank and beyond. Israeli snipers are targeting children – extra-points for pregnant women (you can even purchase a T-shirt with “one shot, two kills ” logo on it). Soldiers are cheering when blowing up hospitals, universities, mosques, schools,…. it is no secret, it is all visible in Telegram videos or on Al_Jazeera’s newscasts. To make matters worse, GHF, the so-called Israeli “humanitarian ” group, dispenses food and water in Gaza today in such a way as to concentrate refugees, and then target them.² Soldiers are looting everywhere, and even one unit has been set up with the express intention of looting areas they’ve conquered. Looting is tolerated throughout, and even made part of its tactics on the ground.³

The Israeli military is engaged in genocide and doesn’t hide the fact. Groups of soldiers engaged in ecstatic dancing chanting “death to the Amalek ” – a biblical term for the one to be killed en masse; including women and children.⁴ Early in October 2023, the Israeli military put a 95-year-old veteran of the infamous 1948 massacres on tour to lecture the soldiers. Dressed in a military uniform, he engaged in some motivational speeches: “Be triumphant and finish them off and don’t leave anyone behind. Erase the memory of them. Erase them, their families, mothers and children. These animals can no longer live.”⁵ The pronouncements made by the military official rabbis are even worse. And one cannot forget (former Minister of Defence) Yoav Gallant’s statement: “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”⁶

The Israeli airforce regularly drops huge bombs in the middle of densely populated refugee camps. According to Euromed, the total number of bombs dropped on Gaza are equivalent to all the bombs dropped on several of the major cities during WWII. And in order not to waste bombs, Israeli warplanes which couldn’t drop their ordnance in Iran during the June 2025 attack were instructed to bomb Gaza. Israelis also never miss an opportunity to profit from such events; Israelis flock to the border area to sit on sofas to witness the bombing spectacle. These war tourists have to pay extra for a cappuccino.

Israeli sadism only escalates; everyday there must be a new turn of the screw – it is not satisfied with merely bombing or shooting civilians. The latest Israeli military order is that from now on Palestinians will not be allowed to bathe in the sea.⁷ Israeli snipers, warships… will target civilians entering the sea. One Telegram video shows a gleeful Israeli soldier using mortar bombs to target civilians sitting on a beach.

The Israeli military used to be well organised and soldiers operated on the basis of strict orders. Today, the ethical rot has set in at all levels. Officers and lower soldiers alike murder, steal, torture everywhere. Soldiers perpetrate heinous crimes in full camera view, yet the perpetrators expect full impunity.

Simply put: the Israeli military can no longer be referred to as an army, but it must be described for what it actually is: a criminal rabble.

Israeli way of war

Israelis like to say that they “live in a bad neighbourhood.” In fact, it is so bad that Israel has bombed most of its neighbouring countries numerous times and attempted to murder most of the leadership in those countries.⁸ “Decapitation strikes” are deemed a great success and yet another proof of the Israeli cunning and prowess. Another target are the potential or actual negotiators. The Israeli military has murdered several negotiators in Lebanon, Gaza, Tehran (Ismael Haniyeh), and during the June 2025 attack against Iran the lead negotiator with the Americans was also murdered. And then Israel declares “ceasefires ” that impose conditions on the victims, but Israel continues to murder and bomb – there have been over 1,000 violations of the so-called ceasefire in Lebanon. Drones and warplanes fly overhead without regard to any declared ceasefire. Maybe all this is not surprising given the official Israeli (especially Netanyahu’s) disdain for “peace” which is considered to be a dirty word; they prefer “conflict management.” Ceasefires are merely meant to provide time for the Israeli military to reorganise and then bomb and murder in their “business as usual” fashion.

The Israeli military’s brutality even gets pompous sounding names like the Dahiya Doctrine. This refers to the levelling of the Dahiya neighbourhood in Beirut 2006 – it is a disproportionate level of violence “in response” to Hezbollah daring to resist the Israeli attack. And of course, Israelis justify this by seeking to reestablish “deterrence” which is yet another fraudulent military concept.⁹ But then the Israeli military applies other fraudulent and morally reprehensible doctrines, e.g., the Hannibal directive. This directive orders the Israeli military to kill Israeli Jews who may have been captured by Palestinians or other enemies. Officials prefer to kill Israelis rather than to have them taken as hostages. In fact, about half of the Israeli civilians killed on 7 October 2023 were killed by the Israeli military.¹⁰

The Israeli military justifies its actions because it is “at war.” The resistance in Gaza has no tanks, airplanes, etc. Thus the best equipped army in the world is attacking a mostly defenceless population; maybe it is a bit of a stretch to call this a “war.” Norman Finkelstein, the great historian, once made the same point and suggested that the Israeli “mowing the lawn ” attacks should be referred to as “massacres.” That is a rather more accurate and succinct descriptor; in the current historical context “genocidal actions” is perhaps more accurate.

Squatters really

A mythology surrounding the early Israeli colonists became pervasive early on. The brave sun tanned pioneers were “making the desert bloom”¹¹ conveying the notion that they were just taking over empty and unproductive land. The word that went along with this myth was that the Jewish interlopers were “settlers ” – another rather neutral word that has no association with the native population they came to displace. For some time while communal living had romantic appeal, settlers lived in kibbutzim. Young Europeans would flock to experience this only to find out a less glamorous picture often involving corruption and sexual abuse.¹²

After the 1940s, the program of ethnic cleansing saw hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages razed to the ground or simply taken over. Many Israelis took over houses and even helped themselves to furniture, carpets, etc. The takeover of houses is an on-going project with zealot usurpers using advanced mapping technology to target houses, especially in East Jerusalem. While a Palestinian family is out of a house doing normal daily chores, they find upon their return that their house has been taken over, and it is impossible to eject the squatters because the police sides with the latter.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s saw a wave of land confiscation in the West Bank, and the building of “settlements ” on top of hills. The real zealots went to Al Khalil/Hebron to take over houses, hotels, and other buildings.¹³ They even set about closing off streets so they could go undisturbed to the Ibrahimi mosque which also had been usurped by the zealots. The zealots’ aim is to constantly steal houses, and to make the life of ordinary Palestinians intolerable.

Other settlements were built as suburbs of Jerusalem or as cities with all the amenities provided at subsidised rates. Purpose-built “apartheid” roads connected these developments to the main Israeli cities, but also were meant to sever the links between Palestinian communities. And although the residents of such places are portrayed as mere suburbanites, they often clash with Palestinians when they seek to annex more land. Although annexation is such a neutral word, it hides the violence dispensed by the suburbanites to achieve their aims. The Jews recently arrived from Venezuela sought to expand the borders of their development and requested the zealots to do the dirty violent work.¹⁴ The condition for this assistance was that new arrivals would also participate in the violent eviction and usurpation of the neighbouring Palestinian land. Even the “suburbanites ” participate in violence; the soldiers are on standby to protect the usurpers.

It is important to avoid propaganda-tainted language, and to use words that clearly describe a reality and associated power relationships. For this reason many words cry out for an alternative description. The word “settler” demands a more accurate substitution, and the word “squatter” would certainly be a more suitable and accurate descriptor. It is time to stop calling the armed violent young men who harass and brutalise Palestinians in the West Bank “settlers”!

Where has “proper” gone?

Israel always has been a country with flexible and expanding borders. Yet, when it suited them, they would make a distinction between “Israel proper” and the occupied areas. The implication was that there could be negotiations regarding the occupied areas, there couldn’t possibly be negotiations about anything in Israel proper – this was conceded land, and there was nothing to talk about. And the “proper” areas expanded! After the wars of 1948, 1967, 2006… the borders of Israel “proper” expanded to incorporate newly stolen land.¹⁵ What the current batch of wars have revealed is that there is no more talk about “Israel proper”, and the reason for that is that Israel is expanding at present – stealing land in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and the West Bank. While the borders keep expanding, the “proper” hasn’t incorporated the newly usurped land.

A feature of the “Israel proper” concept is that Israel desires to have buffer zones or no-man’s land between its “recognised” borders and its neighbours. But the buffer zones have to be on Lebanese or Syrian soil; the buffer is never on the Israeli side. The Israeli military has created a no-man’s land on the border with Gaza, but all the bulldozed land and acreage sprayed with herbicide is on the Palestinian side of the military-imposed border. And if the UN feels that it needs to conduct some face-saving military patrols, then the UN can defend Israel by sitting in the Lebanese “buffer zone”; UNIFIL shouldn’t even dream of sitting right on the border or having its soldiers cross into Israel for some R&R.

Never again?

All western societies have been indoctrinated with holocaust mythology; one constant refrain has been “never again”. Fair enough. But if any lessons were learnt then this slogan should apply to all; it should read Never again for Everybody. The Gazan population certainly should not be the victim of genocide today – yet there is no doubt that that is exactly what is going on. A brief perusal of the so-called “holocaust studies centres” around the world reveal that they have been silent during this period – they are immersed in studying the 1940s; there seem to be no lessons for the current situation. One such centre features a large “Find memory; Find humanity” slogan on its website, yet (July 2025) has absolutely nothing to say about the genocide in Gaza. It is all about selective memory and humanity.

Pogroms were violent attacks against a religious or ethnic group in the Russian Empire and usually depicted as criminal in nature. Yet today young armed Israeli Jews regularly invade Palestinian villages and towns and brutalise or murder the native population. If violence was deemed intolerable in the past, then why the silence about the ongoing pogroms in the West Bank today?

Careful what you wish for

Several so-called influencers, the contemptible creatures appearing on TikTok/Instagram, etc., called for genocide in Gaza. One of the influencers went so far as to state that if there were a button to get rid of all the Palestinians, he would press the button.¹⁶The calls for genocide are also commonly found at the podium of the Knesset. The wife of an Israeli soldier, hysterically shouted from podium not to let the sacrifice of her husband’s effort (having to work overtime) be wasted, and thus “don’t stop before…” the Israeli army exterminates all Palestinians.¹⁷

Israeli society is rather warped, and it is constantly polled about all sorts of unusual issues. One of the recent questions was “are Palestinian children in Gaza innocent?” 75% of the respondents said “no.” In one motivational speech given to the soldiers about to invade Gaza, a high ranking officer also stated “the children are not innocent” – this follows Deuteronomy’s edict to kill the women and the children.

After the first hearing about Gaza was held at the ICJ (26 January 2024) at a demonstration in London, dozens of counter-demonstrators wearing Israeli flag capes were chanting “no ceasefire.” By this time several hospitals and universities had already been destroyed. Is this what the counter-demonstrators wished to continue?

Maybe a thought experiment will demonstrate the extreme hypocrisy of these influencers and counter-demonstrators. Imagine that a Palestinian influencer were to ask for a button get rid of all Israeli Jews, or that a Palestinian politician were to utter a similar statement. What do you think the reaction would be? The ultimate hypocrisy is for Jews who bow to the mere mention of the holocaust to call for genocide against Palestinians.

While the London police did nothing to suppress the counter-demonstrators yelling support for the genocide, they do actively suppress pro-Palestinian statements against the genocide! In a recent video, the police in Scotland are even tearing down Palestinian flags.¹⁸ And in the US, Trump is actually suppressing all protests and commentary against Israeli brutality by labelling it as antisemitism.

My holy vs. your holy

About one thousand mosques and several churches have been obliterated since 2023.¹⁹ Some of the mosques/churches were centuries old and could be deemed cultural heritage sites – of course, they didn’t receive a UNESCO label because Israel blocked such designations.²⁰ The media tends to ignore the destruction of mosques or refers to Israeli justifications for their destruction. The few christian churches bombed in Gaza did elicit mention, and after the bombing of a Catholic church even Pope Leo XIV stated that “he was deeply saddened…” by the loss of life.²¹ What makes the Pope’s comment memorable is the fact that he didn’t mention that it was Israel that bombed the church. Anonymous bombs just seem to fall out of the sky.

While the intentional destruction of Palestinian holy sites or mosques doesn’t seem to merit any mention, when a synagogue is damaged this elicits a major outcry. But to highlight the double standard, the establishment of a synagogue, or purportedly finding a reference to a Tomb or mere place of sojourn by a well known rabbi, then Israeli Jews consider this to be a claim to the land. Thus an enterprising religious scholar found a reference to a Tomb of Rabbi Ashi in Lebanon, then this became a land claim.²² Israelis grab any justification to steal yet more land however flimsy the claim to the land may be.

Mind their comfort please

The many wars that Israel has waged recently have outraged many around the world giving rise to demonstrations and the like. Yet, the frequent media concern is with the “comfort ” of Jews witnessing the demonstrations! Although Israel is conducting a genocide, Jews should feel comfortable and not reminded of sordid events. Even a bake sale meant to raise funds for Gaza was deemed to interfere with Jewish comfort.²³ Did white South Africans living in Europe object to anti-apartheid demonstrations on the basis that it made them feel uncomfortable? Fat chance! However, in the current context several governments have appointed “anti-semitism ambassadors ” who will work to ban demonstrations or manifestations of support for the Palestinians. Maybe a case can be made that supporters of the Israeli genocide in Gaza or the unprovoked attack against Iran should be made to feel uncomfortable.

Western values and Israel

Much is made of “western values” purportedly freedom of speech, association, respect for the rule of law, and respecting immigrants. These values are what makes Europe a “garden” and everywhere else a “jungle.”²⁴ These values have also been used to justify the continued EU assistance to Ukraine, and thus war. Russia has invariably been castigated for not observing “western norms.” But, when it comes to genocidal Israel and its violent tendencies, the same insufferable politicians are silent or connive to send weapons and assistance to Israel.

Europe is meant to absorb huge migrant flows, yet Israel imposes a discriminatory migrant policy – only Jews need to apply. Israel’s incessant wars are creating migrant flows that inevitably end in Europe, and no European official seems willing to point this out. What we witness instead is that European officials travel to Egypt to offer enticements for Egypt to absorb Palestinian refugees; a few years ago the same gang offered several billion Euros to Erdogan to reduce the Syrian and Iraqi migrant flows.

Myopic history

Reading the mainstream media one would get the impression that Palestinian history started on 7 October 2023. Everything before that doesn’t seem to merit mentioning. All the “mowing the lawn” military operations aren’t a thing of the past, they are in a memory hole. The Goldstone report documenting the mass crimes committed in 2009 is also in the memory hole. Of course, it is too much to expect the mainstream media to even mention relevant history that goes back a few more years. The media don’t report on the caged nature of Gaza, surrounded by razor wire and watchtowers. And as Dov Weissglas, the advisor to Ariel Sharon, stated the residents of Gaza would be kept “on a diet” – that is, Israeli bureaucrats would calculate the minimum caloric intake needed to survive, and they would allow just this amount of aid to trickle into Gaza.

Watch our words!

While it is important to use accurate words to describe Israeli state policy, it is also important for pro-Palestinian activists to change the words they use to refer to the current reality. One finds that the word “occupation” is used often to describe the Israeli military, and even to the extent that it is used as a synonym. Similarly, the “apartheid” descriptor is used without much reflection, e.g., apartheid wall, apartheid roads, etc. Both occupation and apartheid indicate a co-existence with the native population. Apartheid meant coexisting economically, but living separately – there was an interaction between blacks and whites. The word occupation suggests that it is temporary, and that interaction is possible. But the genocide in Gaza indicates that Israel prefers erasing the Palestinians, and that way ending the occupation. The three strategists drawing up the path of the wall built in the West Bank were explicit about the temporary nature of the structure. It would remain in place to control the Palestinian population, but they foresaw that the wall will be removed once the Palestinian population has been expelled.

There is another problem with the word “apartheid.” While much effort was placed to declare that Israel was guilty of the “crime of apartheid,” it only referred to the “occupied territories.” The third class status of Palestinians living in Israel was unmentionable to those drawing up the legal case. Apartheid was deemed a crime on one side of the line, but just fine on the other side (in “Israel proper”).

Worse than 1960s apartheid in South Africa

The so-called West slowly adopted some sanctions and divestment of South Africa beginning in the 1970s; the public had engaged in some form of boycott of South African products before that. Ronnie Kasrils, the great anti-apartheid fighter and member of the African National Congress, stated that the situation now for the Palestinians is worse than that experienced by the black population at the height of the oppressive apartheid years. While Western countries grudgingly sanctioned and divested from South Africa, one wonders when will there be some official opposition to Israel’s genocidal actions.

Tough times for the propagandists

The Israelis and their supporters spent much effort painting Israel as a valiant little country trying to become a success story surrounded by hostile neighbours. Israelis were portrayed as pioneers thriving despite the odds. The propagandists working for Israel had appropriated victimhood, and justified Israel’s actions as “self defence.” Alas, all this mythology has been ruined because Israeli officialdom chose to wage wars, expel the native population, commit genocide in Gaza, attack Iran, attack Yemen, and steal yet more land from its neighbours. It requires more than lipstick to doll up this pig. Today Israeli propaganda relies on threats, and strong armed techniques to censor and muzzle dissent. Much of this is done by control over the media which seems to work in tandem with Israeli propagandists. Student protestors are threatened and even imprisoned; conscientious journalists are fired….

For all moral world citizens, the task is to oppose all the ghastly things Israel does every day, to reject their sorry justifications ( “self defence”); reject the portrayal of Israel’s proclaimed enemies (demonising Hamas, and the Palestinians in general); reject the portrayal of the Israeli military (why should anyone want to be an “ally” of this country?), reject Israel as a ethnocracy where rights and status are determined by whether or not one is Jewish (reject “Jewish democracy” if it excludes or discriminates against segment of the population; it is not much different from “white democracy” during South Africa’s apartheid years). In many ways, if one appeals to “western values”, the mantra often repeated by western officialdom, then one must also be willing to judge Israeli’s actions and institutions by the same standard. Just because Israel holds a gay pride parade doesn’t make them a beacon of shared values. Our opposition can start with acts as simple as challenging the manager of our local supermarket why they stock Israeli avocados and oranges; indeed, the boycott against apartheid in South Africa started by boycotting their oranges. But these are small steps when bolder action is needed – it is long overdue.

Notes:

The post Debunking Israeli Propaganda in Times of Genocide first appeared on Dissident Voice.

1 Erin Axelman and Sam Eilertsen’s Israelism shows this cultural phenomenon.

2 Nir Hasson, Yaniv Kubovich and Bar Peleg, “’It’s a Killing Field’: IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid,” Haaretz, 27 June 2025.

3 MEE Staff, “Report reveals vast loot Israeli soldiers took from Gaza, Lebanon and Syria,” Middle East Eye, 28 February 2025. And Oren Ziv, “Rugs, cosmetics, motorbikes: Israeli soldiers are looting Gaza homes en masse,” +972 Magazine, 20 February 2024.

4 Evidence presented in January 2024 at the ICJ.

5 Rayhan Uddin, “Israel-Palestine war: Israeli veteran, 95, rallies troops to ‘erase’ Palestinian children”, Middle East Eye, 14 October 2023.

6 For a collection of genocidal statements made by Israeli officials or members of the Knesset see: “Specific Intent of Genocide: Statements made by Israeli officials indicating their clear intent to exterminate Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” Euromed, 21 Oct 2024. A much longer list could be obtained by quoting influential rabbis in Israel.

7 Nagham Zbeedat, “’Are They Going to Ban the Air Next?’ | IDF Reiterates Ban on Gazans Entering the Sea, Last Remaining Source of Relief for Many Palestinians”, Haaretz, 13 July 2025.

8 At last count ten countries in the area had been bombed; the most recent ones are Iran and Yemen. Imagine if, say, Belgium, didn’t get along with its neighbours, and set about bombing them to the same extent – this would require bombing all of Europe.

9 The great scientist and organiser of Peace Studies programs, Anatol Rapoport, stated that the notion of deterrence is a sham because it fails due to a fallacy of composition (post hoc, propter ergo hoc). Deterrence is like the talisman effect. That is, a man was wearing a large talisman, and had this exchange with his friend:
“why are you wearing that talisman?”
“it is to keep the elephants at bay!”
“But I see no elephants.”
“You see, the talisman works!”

10 Yaniv Kubovich, “IDF Ordered Hannibal Directive on October 7 to Prevent Hamas Taking Soldiers Captive”, Haaretz, 7 July 2024. Subtitle: “there was crazy hysteria, and decisions started being made without verified information: Documents and testimonies obtained by Haaretz reveal the Hannibal operational order, which directs the use of force to prevent soldiers being taken into captivity, was employed at three army facilities infiltrated by Hamas, potentially endangering civilians as well.”

11 The “making the desert bloom” sham is wonderfully exposed in Michel Khleifi and Eyal Sivan’s “Route 181: Fragments of a Journey in Palestine-Israel”, 2003.

12 The late Israel Shahak exposed the kibbutz sham. He revealed in one of his lectures the exploitative nature of the kibbutz, the fact Palestinian labourers wouldn’t be hired, and the sexual harassment of the volunteers. Often the kibbutzim were built on stolen Palestinian land.

13 One should read about rabbi Moshe Levinger and his zealot followers to appreciate the level of brutality involved in stealing Palestinian land.

14 Article in Haaretz, but unfortunately the link to the article has expired.

15 When the Israel-Hezbollah 2006 war ended, Israeli engineering units moved the razor wire fences several hundred meters into Lebanese territory. A few days later a United Nations surveyor entered the coordinates of the fence to demarcate the newly UN approved border – it is called the Blue Line.

16 Here is one example, “Two Nice Jewish Boys” advocating for genocide in Gaza.

17 t.me/mintpress_news/7228

18 Craig Murray, “The Big Chill,” Craig Murray’s website, 17 July 2025. View the video at the bottom of the article.

19 Indlieb Farazi Saber, “A ‘cultural genocide’: Which of Gaza’s heritage sites have been destroyed?”, Al Jazeera, 14 January 2024.

20 UNESCO members who vote for the heritage site designations must be UN-states, and since the Palestinians aren’t a state, they have no standing at the UNESCO deliberations. There have been appeals to include the Church of the Nativity, Al Aqsa mosque, and a few others, but they all were blocked by the Israelis. Source: UNESCO official talking at SOAS, a university in London.

21 Ayah El-Khaldi, “Pope Leo under fire for ‘vague’ statement on Israel’s bombing of Gaza Catholic church”, Middle East Eye, 18 July 2025.

22 “Israeli settlers storm purported rabbi’s shrine in Lebanon”, Middle East Eye, 7 March 2025.

23 James Crisp, Bake sales for Gaza could stoke Jew hatred, EU warns
Fundraisers for Gaza make ‘Jews feel uncomfortable’, says Europe’s anti-Semitism tsar, 14 July 2025.

24 Just to borrow from a statement made by Josep Borrell, the former Foreign Minister of the EU.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Paul de Rooij.

The Civilized World Must Act Immediately over Mass Starvation in Gaza

Gideon Polya — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 13:32:38 +0000

Over 23 horrific months the people of Gaza (47% children before the present Gaza Massacre) have suffered bombing, shooting, burying under rubble, near-total devastation of homes and infrastructure, and substantial deprivation from water, food, shelter, fuel, electricity, medicine, and medical care. The mass murder of 680,000 Gazans by violence and imposed deprivation has now transmuted to man-made famine and mass starvation that has galvanized the global conscience.

As estimated from data published by a succession of expert epidemiologists in the leading medical journal The Lancet, 136,000 Gazans died violently by 25 April 2025 with a “conservatively estimated” 4 times that number (544,000) dying from imposed deprivation for a shocking total of 680,000 deaths that is under-reported 10 fold by Western Mainstream media. In impoverished countries about 70% of avoidable deaths from deprivation are those of under-5 year old infants (see Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” that includes an avoidable mortality-related history of every country). It is estimated that the 680,000 dead Gazans (28% of the pre-war Gaza population of 2.4 million) included 380,000 under-5 year old infants, 479,000 children in total, 63,000 women and 138,000 men (Gideon Polya, “Gaza Genocide By Numbers: Apply BDS Over 0.7 Million Gaza Deaths From Violence And Imposed Deprivation”, 4 July 2025 ).

Now the surviving Gazans are suffering man-made famine and mass starvation while the world looks on. This crime has been perpetrated many times in history, notably in the “forgotten” WW2 Bengali Holocaust (WW2 Indian Holocaust, WW2 Bengal Famine; 6-7 million Indians deliberately starved to death in 1942-1945 for strategic reasons in Bengal, Bihar, Assam and Odisha by the British under fervent Zionist Winston Churchill with food-denying Australian complicity) (for details of this and some 70 other genocide and holocaust atrocities see Gideon Polya, “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial & the crisis in biological sustainability”).

The World’s major powers must (a) order Apartheid Israel to immediately leave the Occupied Palestinian Territories (as demanded by the International Court of Justice), (b) immediately provide life-sustaining food and medical services to Gaza (as demanded of any Occupier for its Occupied Subjects “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” by Articles 55 and 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention), and (c) immediately impose rigorous Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and all its racist supporters, notably the US and neo-Nazi Germany, until reparations and war crimes trials are delivered.

28 countries (all European except for Japan) have issued a statement demanding aid to Gaza, an immediate end to the killing and condemning the Zionist Israeli-imposed killing, deprivation, starving and ethnic cleansing of Gaza and Palestine. Words are cheap but something is better than nothing. Of these 28 countries (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK) only 9 actually recognize the State of Palestine (Cyprus, Iceland, Ireland, Malta, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Slovenia, and Spain). France will recognize Palestine at the September UN General Assembly.

Notably absent from this list of 28 concerned countries were the Zionist-perverted and fervently pro-Apartheid Israel US, neo-Nazi Germany and the perpetrator, nuclear terrorist and genocidally racist Apartheid Israel itself. The US has supplied most of Israel’s weaponry, supplied the bombs and bullets that have killed 28% of Gaza’s pre-war population, and vetoed any action by the UN Security Council. Neo-Nazi Germany has supplied 30% of Israel’s weapons imports and like the US, the UK and Australia has a rotten record of persecuting humanitarians demanding human rights for Palestinians.

Australia is second only to the US as a fervent supporter of Apartheid Israel and is complicit in the Gaza Genocide in 20 ways and lies for Apartheid Israel in 35 ways but has merely applied sanctions against 2 far-right Israeli extremist politicians – something is better than nothing. The Zionist-perverted and fervently pro-Apartheid Israel US, UK, German and Australian Governments assiduously refrained from criticizing Apartheid Israel for the nearly 2 years of the Gaza Massacre and actively sought to hide the horrors of the Gaza Genocide by hysterical and false campaigns alleging “antisemitism” by anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish humanitarians demanding equal and full human rights for the sorely oppressed Palestinians.

Australians are repeatedly told by Zionists and the fervently pro-Zionist Australian Labor Government and Coalition Opposition that there has been an asserted increase in “antisemitism” in Australia. A Jewish Zionist “Antisemitism Envoy” and a Christian Egyptian Australian “Islamophobia Envoy” were appointed to inform the government. Antisemitism occurs in 2 equally repugnant forms, anti-Jewish anti-Semitism and anti-Arab anti-Semitism (including Islamophobia) but these 3 key terms (and indeed about 80 related terms) were not mentioned in the recently released “[Antisemitism] Special Envoy’s plan to combat antisemitism” sent to the Australian Government.

I individually addressed the following Letter to major Mainstream Australian media under the Subject heading “Aussie anti-Jewish anti-Semitism against anti-racist Jews” and copied it to all Federal and Victorian State MPs (however, it was not published and the Silence has been Deafening in Australia):

Dear Editor,

For 3 decades I have been researching “deaths from violence and imposed deprivation” of subjugated peoples in the global South due to European-imposed war and hegemony, with the findings reported in a thousand huge and exhaustively referenced articles and 9 huge books (this including massively updating editions). However Google the phrase “deaths from violence and imposed deprivation” and you will find that the West simply doesn’t want to know, even though UN demographic data show that 1,500 million people have died avoidably from deprivation since 1950, 70% of them under-5 infants.

Data published by expert epidemiologists in the leading medical journal The Lancet indicate that 136,000 Gazans died violently by 25 April 2025 with a “conservatively estimated” 4 times that number (544,000) dying from imposed deprivation for a shocking total of 680,000 deaths. In Australia (as well as the US and UK) this carnage has been under-counted by a factor of 10 and deliberately masked by a massive “antisemitism hysteria” campaign that now threatens a McCarthyist curb on free speech in Australia. Also ignored by Mainstream Australian media and politicians are 30 ways Aussie anti-Jewish anti-Semitism against anti-racist Jews (anti-Zionist Jews) is entrenched in Zionist-perverted Australia (cc Mps).

Yours sincerely, Dr Gideon Polya

The post The Civilized World Must Act Immediately over Mass Starvation in Gaza first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Gideon Polya.

Impotent Effusions: The Joint Statement on Gaza

Binoy Kampmark — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 07:04:36 +0000

Impotence takes various forms. Before the daily massacres, incidents of starvation and dispossession of Palestinians taking place in the Gaza Strip with primeval cruelty, international impotence in the face of actions by the Israeli state has become a mockery of itself. The calls to end the war in Gaza grow in number, even among Israel’s allies, but little in substance is being done about it. What matters are statements that speak to a wounded conscience that do little to alter anything on the ground.

One such statement, released on July 21, proved to be yet another one of those flossy effusions made by, as Macbeth might have said, idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The idiots numbered many: 28 international partners, including the foreign ministers of 27 states and, obviously not wanting to miss out, the EU Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management. All, bar Australia, were from Europe. “We, the signatories listed below, come together with a simple, urgent message: the war in Gaza must end now.”

The statement goes on to mention the drearily obvious. “The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity.” The “drip feeding of aid and inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of food and water” deserved condemnation. The deaths of over 800 Palestinians (the numbers are most certainly higher) while seeking aid was “horrifying”. Even here, the language lacked rage. Israel’s “denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable.” The government “must comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law.”

To that end, Israel was called upon to restore the flow of aid and enable the work of the United Nations and humanitarian NGOs to resume in the Strip. This is obviously something that the Netanyahu government is conscious of avoiding, given the systematic program of controlled starvation and deprivation being inflicted.

To add balance, the statement also notes the plight of the Israeli hostages still held by Hamas, their continued detention also something to be condemned. They were to be immediately and unconditionally released with a negotiated ceasefire being the best way of doing so.

The signatories do go so far as to acknowledge the dangers and intentions of Israel’s administrative measures that seek “territorial or demographic change in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The E1 settlement plan announced by Israel’s Civil Administration, if implemented, would divide a Palestinian state in two, marking a flagrant breach of international law and critically undermine the two-state solution.” The West Bank is also recognised in similar light, with the signatories urging a cessation to the violence taking place against Palestinians and a halt to the building of settlements across the territory “including East Jerusalem”.

These statements are always interesting for what they omit. No toothy measures to address the maltreatment of Palestinian civilians are stipulated, other than an encouragement of “a common effort to bring this terrible conflict to an end”. A benign, most unthreatening promise is made: the prospect of taking “further action to support an immediate ceasefire and a political pathway to security and peace for Israelis, Palestinians and the entire region.” This may be code for recognition of a Palestinian state, fanciful given the systematic pulverisation of the people who would inhabit it. The signatory list also omits Germany and, most importantly of all, the United States, Israel’s arch guardian and evangelical sponsor.

The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, gave us a flavour of feelings in Washington about the signatories in a post on X. “How embarrassing for a nation to side [with] a terror group like Hamas & blame a nation whose civilians were massacred for fighting to get hostages released.” In another post that made a vague shot at justifying the unjustifiable, the ambassador absolved Israel in its conduct; only the militant group Hamas deserved exclusive blame. The nations in question had “put pressure on @Israel instead of savages of Hamas! Gaza suffers for 1 reason: Hamas rejects EVERY proposal. Blaming Israel is irrational.”

The Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar, ever lurking in the twilight of alternative reality, reasoned the statement away, much as relatives would the views of a demented, unloved aunt. “If Hamas embraces you – you are in the wrong place.” Praise from the group was itself “proof of the mistake they [the signatory countries] made – part of them out of good intentions and part of them out of an obsession against Israel.”

While the various foreign ministers were flashing their plumage of principles and international humanitarian law, the Israeli Defense Forces had busily commenced an operation on a part of Gaza they have yet to level: Deir al-Balah. Given its importance as a humanitarian hub that still houses UN staff and guesthouses, more slaughter is imminent.

Till Israel assumes the status of a pariah state it seemingly craves to become, its rogue army confined and depleted, its economy humbled and isolated, the industrial appetite for slaughter and dispossession will only continue. The Palestinians will be left to be relics of moral anguish, banished to the footnotes of bloodied history along with many more statements of concern and sheer impotence.

The post Impotent Effusions: The Joint Statement on Gaza first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

BBC isn’t Failing. Its Job is to Obscure the UK’s Partnership in Israel’s Genocide

Jonathan Cook — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 14:50:14 +0000

After months of a confected furore over a BBC documentary supposedly demonstrating pro-Hamas bias, followed by the shelving of a second film on Gaza, an independent review found last week that the broadcaster had not breached impartiality guidelines.

A long list of complaints against Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone – all pushed for months by the Israel lobby, and amplified by the British establishment media – were dismissed one after the other by Peter Johnston, director of the editorial complaints and review body that reports to the BBC director general.

Not that you would know any of this from the eagerness of BBC executives to continue apologising profusely for the failings the corporation had just been cleared of. It almost sounded as if they wanted to be found guilty.

The row is now set to drag on for many months more after Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, announced it too would investigate the programme.

All of this is exactly what the Israel lobby and the billionaire-owned media had hoped for.

The aim of manufacturing this protracted storm in a teacup was twofold.

First, the furore was designed to distract from what the documentary actually showed: the horrors facing children in Gaza as they have had to navigate a tiny strip of land in which Israel has trapped them, bombed their homes, levelled their schools, exposed them to relentless carnage for 21 months, destroyed the hospitals they will need in time of trouble, and is starving them and their loved ones.

Second, it was intended to browbeat the BBC into adopting an even more craven posture towards Israel than it had already. If it was reluctant before to give Palestinians a voice, now it will avoid doing so at all costs.

True to form, executives hurriedly removed How to Survive a Warzone from its iPlayer catch-up service the moment the lobby went into action.

Dangerous consequences

The BBC’s ever greater spinelessness has real-world, and dangerous, consequences.

Israel will feel even freer to intensify what the International Court of Justice already suspected back in January 2024 was a genocide and what leading genocide and Holocaust scholars have subsequently concluded is a genocide.

There will be even less pressure on the British government to stop partnering Israel in its genocide by supplying weapons, intelligence and diplomatic cover.

The enduring row will also hand a bigger stick to Rupert Murdoch and other media moguls with which to beat the BBC, making it cower even further.

Signs of the BBC’s defensiveness were already all too evident. While it was waiting for the Johnston report, the corporation ditched a separate documentary, Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, on Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s hospitals and murder of some 1,600 health workers.

It has since been shown by Channel 4.

The BBC argued that – even though this second programme had repeatedly passed its editorial checks – airing it risked contributing to a “perception of partiality”.

What that bit of BBC gobbledygook actually meant was that the problem was not “partiality”. It was the perception of it by vested interests – Israel, its apologists, the Starmer government and the British corporate media – who demand skewed BBC coverage of Gaza so that Israel can carry on with a genocide the British establishment is utterly complicit in.

In other words, truth and accuracy be damned. This is about Israel – and the Starmer government – dictating to the BBC the terms of what can be said about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

Caving in to pressure

Which brings us back to the Johnston report. The only significant finding against the BBC was on a single issue in its documentary on Gaza’s children, How to Survive a Warzone.

The film had not disclosed that its 13-year narrator was the son of an official in Gaza’s Hamas-run government.

Even in the current febrile atmosphere, Johnston found no grounds to uphold the manifold accusations of a breach by the BBC of impartiality rules. Nothing in the film, he concluded, was unfair to Israel.

Instead, he stated that it was a breach of “full transparency” not to have divulged the child-narrator’s tenuous connection to Hamas through his father’s governmental work.

Paradoxically, the BBC’s coverage of Johnston’s findings has been far more inaccurate about the child-narrator than the original documentary. But there has been no uproar because this particular inaccuracy from the BBC squarely benefits Israel.

On the News at Ten last week, reporting on the Johnston report, presenter Reeta Chakrabati claimed that the film’s narrator was “the son of an official in the militant group Hamas.”

He is nothing of the sort. He is the son of a scientist who directed agricultural policy in Gaza’s government, which is run by Hamas.

There is zero evidence that Ayman Alyazouri was ever a member of the militant wing of Hamas. He doesn’t even appear to have been a member of its political wing.

In fact, since 2018 Israel had set up a system to vet most officials in Gaza like Alyazouri to ensure they were not linked to Hamas before they were able to receive salaries funded by Qatar.

Johnston himself concedes as much, noting that the programme makers failed to inform the BBC of 13-year-old Abdullah’s background because their checks showed Alyazouri was a civilian technocrat in the government, not involved in its military or political arms.

The team’s only failing was an astounding ignorance of how the Israel lobby operates and how ready the BBC is to cave in to its pressure tactics.

In reality, Johnston’s finding against the BBC was over little more than an editorial technicality, one intentionally blown up into a major scandal.

Johnston himself gave the game away when he noted in his executive summary the need for “full transparency” when the BBC makes programmes “in such a contested setting”.

In other words, special, much stricter editorial rules apply when the corporation intends to make programmes likely to upset Israel.

From now on, that will mean that, in practice, such programmes are not made at all.

Glaring double standard

The double standard is glaring. The BBC aired a documentary last year, Surviving October 7: We Will Dance Again, offering eyewitness testimony from Israeli survivors of 7 October 2023 at the Nova music festival, where hundreds of Israelis were killed during Hamas’ one-day break-out from Gaza.

Did the BBC insist that the backgrounds of the Israelis interviewed were checked and disclosed to the audience as part of the broadcast? Were viewers told whether festivalgoers had served in the Israeli military, which for decades has been enforcing an illegal occupation and a system of apartheid over Palestinians, according to a ruling last year by the world’s highest court?

And what would it have indicated to audiences had the BBC included such contextual information about its Israeli eyewitnesses? That their testimonies had less validity? That they could not be trusted?

If it was not necessary to include such background details for Israeli eyewitnesses, why is it more important to do so for a 13-year-old Palestinian?

And even more to the point, if the BBC needs to give details of 13-year-old Abdullah Alyazouri’s background before he can be allowed to read a script written by the programme makers, why is the BBC not also required to give important background about Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he appears in reports: such as that he is wanted for arrest by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

Exactly how trustworthy a narrator of events in the devastated enclave does the BBC consider Netanyahu to be that it does not think this context needs including?

Both-sidesing genocide

The gain from this manufactured row for the Israel lobby – and for a Starmer government desperate to silence criticism of its complicity in genocide – were set out in stark detail last week by the makers of the second documentary, about Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s health sector.

In an article in the Observer newspaper, they recounted a series of startling admissions and demands from BBC executives made in script meetings.

The corporation insisted that Doctors Under Attack could not be aired so long as the award-winning investigative reporter leading the programme, Ramita Navai, was given top billing. They demanded that she be downgraded to a mere “contributor” – her role effectively disappeared – because she had supposedly made “one-sided” social media posts criticising Israel for breaking international law.

She was considered unacceptable, according to the BBC, because she had not been “supportive enough of the other side”: that is, of Israel and its military carrying out systematic war crimes by destroying Gaza’s hospitals, as documented in great detail in her film.

In a statement to Middle East Eye on its decision to shelve the documentary, the BBC spokesperson stated that, after Navai appeared on its Today radio programme and “called Israel a ‘rogue state that’s committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing and mass murdering Palestinians’, it was impossible for the BBC to broadcast the material without risking our impartiality.

“The BBC holds itself to the highest standards of impartiality and it would never be acceptable for any BBC journalist to express a personal opinion in this way. We believe this is one of the reasons we’re the world’s most trusted news provider. We were left with no choice but to walk away.”

Seen another way, offering apologias for genocide, as the BBC has been doing for the past 21 months, is apparently a requirement before the corporation is willing to give journalists a platform to criticise Israel.

Also revealing is who the state broadcaster looks to when deciding how to apply its editorial standards.

BBC executives told the film-makers they should not reference the United Nations or Amnesty International because they were supposedly not “trusted independent organisations”.

Meanwhile, the corporation openly and obsessively worried to the film-makers about what fanatically pro-Israel lobbyists – such as social media activist David Collier and Camera, a pro-Israel media monitoring organisation – would say about their film on Gaza.

The team were told BBC News executives were “very jumpy and paranoid” about coverage of Gaza.

This follows a long and dishonorable tradition at the state broadcaster. In their 2011 book More Bad News from Israel, media scholars Greg Philo and Mike Berry reported a BBC producer telling them: “We all fear the phone call from the Israeli embassy.”

If you had been wondering why the BBC has been reflexively both-sidesing a genocide, here is a large part of the answer.

Skewed coverage

A damning report by the Centre for Media Monitoring last month analysed in detail the BBC’s Gaza coverage in the year following Hamas’ one-day attack on 7 October 2023.

It found a “pattern of bias, double standards and silencing of Palestinian voices”.

These included the BBC running over 30 times more victim profiles of Israelis than Palestinians; interviewing more than twice as many Israelis as Palestinians; asking 38 interviewees to condemn Hamas but asking no one to condemn Israel’s mass killing of civilians, or its attacks on hospitals and schools; and shutting down more than 100 interviewers who tried to refer to events in Gaza as a genocide.

Only 0.5% of BBC articles provided any context for what was happening before 7 October 2023: that Israel had been illegally occupying the Palestinian territories for decades and besieging the enclave for 17 years.

Similarly, the BBC has barely reported the endless stream of genocidal statements from Israeli political and military leaders – a crucial ingredient in legally determining whether military actions constitute genocide.

Nor has it mentioned other vital context: such as Israel’s invocation of the Hannibal directive on 7 October 2023, licensing it to kill its own citizens to prevent them being taken captive; or its military’s long-established Dahiya doctrine, in which the mass destruction of civilian infrastructure – and with it, the likelihood of slaughtering civilians – is viewed as an effective way to deter resistance to its aggressions.

In the specified time period, the BBC covered Ukraine with twice as many articles as Gaza, even though the Gaza story was newer and Israeli crimes even graver than Russian ones. The corporation was twice as likely to use sympathetic language for Ukrainian victims than it was for Palestinian victims.

Palestinians were usually described as having “died” or been “killed” in air strikes, without mention of who launched those strikes. Israeli victims, on the other hand, were “massacred”, “slaughtered” and “butchered”.

None of these were editorial slip-ups. They were part of a systematic, long-term skewing of editorial coverage in Israel’s favour – a clear breach of the BBC’s impartiality guidelines and one that has created a permissive environment for genocide.

Journalists in revolt

Journalists at the BBC are known to be in revolt. More than 100 signed a letter – anonymously for fear of reprisals – condemning the decision to censor the documentary Doctors under Attack. They said it reflected a mix of “fear” and “anti-Palestinian racism” at the corporation.

The BBC told MEE: “Robust discussions amongst our editorial teams about our journalism are an essential part of the editorial process. We have ongoing discussions about coverage and listen to feedback from staff, and we think these conversations are best had internally.”

The journalists, it seems, would prefer that these discussions are had out in the open. They wrote: “As an organisation we have not offered any significant analysis of the UK government’s involvement in the war on Palestinians. We have failed to report on weapons sales or their legal implications. These stories have instead been broken by the BBC’s competitors.”

And they added: “All too often it has felt that the BBC has been performing PR for the Israeli government and military.”

They could have added, even more pertinently, that in the process the BBC has been doing PR for the British establishment too.

A former BBC press officer, Ben Murray, last week gave broader context to the meaning of the corporation’s famed editorial “impartiality”. His role, he wrote, had been a rearguard one to placate the Times, Telegraph, Sun, and most of all, the Daily Mail.

Those establishment outlets are owned by corporations and billionaires heavily invested in the very oil, “defence” and tech industries Israel is central to lubricating.

BBC executives, Murray noted, “were rightfully fearful of these publications’ influence, and often reacted in ways to appease them. Their task was to protect the BBC’s funding model, and by extension, their prestigious jobs and generous salaries.”

None of this went against the grain. As Murray pointed out, most senior BBC staff enjoyed private educations, have Oxbridge degrees, and have been “fast-tracked up the corporate ladder”. They see their job as being “to reinforce and maintain establishment viewpoints”.

Editorial smokescreen

If this weren’t enough, senior BBC staff also have to look over their shoulders to the British government, which sets the corporation’s funding through the TV licence fee.

The government, no less than the BBC, needs to keep its main constituencies happy.

No, not voters. Ministers, keen for favourable coverage, similarly dare not antagonise Israel-aligned media moguls. And equally they cannot afford to alienate powerful US administrations that pledge an undying, unshakeable bond to Israel as it projects western power into the oil-rich Middle East.

Which is precisely why Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, was only too keen to jump on the Daily Mail bandwagon in calling for heads to roll at the BBC over the supposed “failings” in its Gaza coverage.

“It makes me angry on behalf of the BBC staff and the whole creative industries in this country,” she said, apparently oblivious to the fact that many BBC journalists’ fury is not over the confected scandals generated by the Israel lobby and billionaire-owned media.

They are appalled at the corporation’s refusal to hold Israel or Nandy’s own government accountable for the genocide in Gaza.

In such circumstances, the BBC’s professed commitment to “impartiality” serves as nothing more than a smokescreen.

In reality, the corporation acts as an echo chamber, amplifying and legitimising the interests of media tycoons, the British government and the Washington consensus, however much they flout the foundational principles of international law, human rights and basic decency.

Anybody who stands outside that circle of influence – such as the Palestinians and their supporters, anti-genocide activists, human rights advocates, and increasingly the UN and its legal organs, such as the International Criminal Court – is assumed by the BBC to be suspect.

Such voices are likely to be marginalised, silenced or vilified.

The BBC has not failed. It has done exactly what it is there to do: help the British government conceal the fact that there is a genocide going on in Gaza, and one that the UK has been knee-deep in assisting.

The post BBC isn’t Failing. Its Job is to Obscure the UK’s Partnership in Israel’s Genocide first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.