Fascism is a difficult concept for many Arabic speakers or Muslims. The point about Fascism for them is that they were opposed to the Jews and therefore many Arabic speakers or Muslims might even find Fascism attractive. And who can blame them the way Israel is behaving and has behaved since WW2?: Denial of human rights, war crimes, genocide while nobody holds them to account for their excessive murders.
What I’m suggesting is that Israelis are the new Fascists.
Fascists were about the denial of democracy and doing all the things that the Israelis are doing now. The crimes that the Israelis are accused of are crimes from WW2 that were created in an attempt to ensure that such behaviour would never happen again. And yet here it is that the Israelis are committing these crimes.
The Jews to the German Nazi Fascists of WW2 were regarded as less than human and so they did not need to be afforded human rights. We see that this is the same today with Israelis and Palestinians.
Supporters of Israel’s Gaza genocide should be regarded as aiding and abetting genocide. What else can they possibly be?
Many of our grandparents and further back ancestors fought the Nazi Fascists of WW2 for a better world. In their memory, we should not permit this Fascism to exist.
07.10 13/5/24 Added ‘ancestors’ at final para. Added more tags. 15/5/24 Reordered last paragraph.
“People have stayed in Rafah thinking it’s safe and hoping that global pressure would stop an invasion. But now we are abandoned by the world and everyone feels betrayed and let down,” one aid worker said.
A Palestinian who died as a result of Israeli attacks is brought to Al Aqsa Martyr’s Hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza on May 12, 2024. (Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“It’s a real diplomatic punch,” a former Israeli diplomat said. “Israel would have to take it very seriously.”
“I’d make this the lead story in every paper and newscast on the planet,” said Bill McKibben. “If we don’t understand the depth of the climate crisis, we will not act in time.”
“If someone is speaking more about ‘violent encampments’ than they are about violent genocide of the Palestinians, they have a problem reflective of deep and dangerous biases,” said one supporter.
Just Stop Oil activists demonstrate in Parliament Square, Westminster, central London, to demand the government immediately halt all new oil, gas and coal projects in Britain, October 30, 2023Image of InBedWithBigOil by Not Here To Be Liked + Hex Prints from Just Stop Oil’s You May Find Yourself… art auction. Featuring Rishi Sunak, Fossil Fuels and Rupert Murdoch.
Rees-Mogg claimed this was “nonsense” and that no fossil fuel subsidies were handed out. He argued that they were tax breaks not subsidies and that the two were “completely different”, before cutting off the interview telling Vince to “do your homework”.
The energy boss did, and hit back with a video in which he explains how tax breaks are subsidies, as laid out in a piece of Brexit legislation passed when Rees-Mogg himself was Brexit Minister.
Vince refers to a piece of Brexit legislation, the Subsidy Control Act 2022, which replaced EU laws with new British legislation which he said lays out that tax breaks are in fact counted as subsidies.
In the video Vince said: “It begs the question, Mr Mogg, were you not paying attention when you were Brexit Minister passing pieces of legislation, did you not know that it was EU rules that say that tax breaks are subsidies and UK rules as well, both inside and outside the EU? Have you not done your homework?”
The New Economics Foundation has estimated that oil and gas extractors could receive up to £18.5bn in tax relief between 2023 and 2026, while the UK government gave fossil fuel companies £20bn more in support than renewables from 2015 to 2023, research found.
Campaigners have said that owners of the Rosebank development, a massive new, controversial oilfield in the North Sea, are set to receive around £3bn in tax breaks from the UK government.
The british green energy industrialist was praised online for his comeback.
A professor of law wrote on X: “Indeed, and a tax break can also be a subsidy (provided that it is specific) under the rules of the blessed WTO, which Rees-Mogg used to praise so highly. It’s Rees-Mogg who did not do his homework here.”
An emerging complaint the corporate media have against the nationwide—and now international—peace encampments is that many student protesters won’t speak to them. The problem, pundits and reporters say, is that these encampments have designated media spokespeople, and other protesters often keep their mouths shut to the press.
Peggy Noonan (Wall Street Journal, 5/2/24), based, apparently, on talking to no protesters, concluded that “they weren’t a compassionate group. They weren’t for anything, they were against something: the Israeli state, which they’d like to see disappear, and those who support it.”
Conservative pundit Peggy Noonan (Wall Street Journal, 5/2/24) said of her trip to the Columbia University encampment:
I was at Columbia hours before the police came in and liberated Hamilton Hall from its occupiers. Unlike protesters of the past, who were usually eager to share with others what they thought and why, these demonstrators would generally not speak or make eye contact with members of the press, or, as they say, “corporate media.”
I was on a bench taking notes as a group of young women, all in sunglasses, masks and kaffiyehs, walked by. “Friends, please come say hello and tell me what you think,” I called. They marched past, not making eye contact, save one, a beautiful girl of about 20. “I’m not trained,” she said. Which is what they’re instructed to say to corporate-media representatives who will twist your words. “I’m barely trained, you’re safe,” I called, and she laughed and half-halted. But her friends gave her a look and she conformed.
Peter Baker (Twitter, 5/4/24), the chief White House correspondent for the New York Times, supportively amplified the former Ronald Reagan speechwriter’s claim, saying the protests are “not about actually explaining your cause or trying to engage journalists who are there to listen.”
A reporter for KTLA (4/29/24) complained that his news team was not granted access to the encampment at UCLA, and Fox News (4/30/24) had a similar complaint about the New York University protest:
Fox News Digital was told that the outlet was not allowed inside, and only student press could access the gated lawn. A local ABC team and several independent reporters were also denied. However, Fox News Digital witnessed a documentary crew and a reporter from Al Jazeera reporting inside the area.
One has to wonder: What could make activists suspect that the network that produced “Anti-Israel Agitators: Signs of ‘Foreign Assistance’ Emerge in Columbia, NYU Unrest” (4/26/24), “Pressure Builds for Colleges to Close or Shut Down Anti-Israel Encampments Amid Death Threats Toward Jews” (4/26/24) and “Ivy League Anti-Israel Agitators’ Protests Spiral Into ‘Actual Terror Organization,’ Professor Warns” (4/21/24) wouldn’t give them a fair shake?
Organized structure
A New York Times news report (5/2/24) ties protests to the US’s official enemies, despite “little evidence—at least so far—that the countries have provided material or organizational support to the protests.”
What is clear is that the student protesters across the country have organized a structure where many participants who are approached by media defer to appointed media liaisons (Daily Bruin, 4/27/24; KSBW, 5/3/24; Daily Freeman, 5/4/24; WCOS, 5/4/24).
For Baker and Noonan, this is evidence that the protests are at best not serious, and at worst not democratic. Indeed, corporate media, at every turn, have attempted to sully calls to halt a genocide as some kind of perverted anti-democratic extremism (Atlantic, 4/22/24; New York Times, 4/23/24, 5/2/24; Washington Post, 5/6/24, 5/6/24; Free Press, 5/6/24).
But why would such a communications structure even be considered unusual? Most organizations that corporate journalists cover have dedicated spokespeople to handle media inquiries, while others stay silent. Noonan’s experience is no different than how many street reporters interact with the cops; ask a cop for a comment and you’ll get sent over to the public information officer. You’ll rarely if ever see a news story that complains or even notes that a government or corporate employee directed a reporter to talk to the press office.
It’s true that in the worlds of business and bureaucracy, restrictions on employee speech can hamper investigative reporting (FAIR.org, 2/23/24). But the media discipline at these encampments seems more like a way to keep the message clear. Vox-pop free-for-alls at these encampments could make it harder for news consumers to figure out what the protests are about; the demands and the aims of the movement might be muddled if every participant sounded off into the nearest reporter’s microphone.
With the current media strategy, Baker and Noonan really don’t have to wonder what the messages are: The encampments want their campuses to divest from Israel, and now students are protesting their administrations and the police violence against free speech and assembly. They are not entitled to the time of every individual protester.
It’s also all too easy for corporate reporters or right-wing commentators to find one loose cannon at a protest who can be prompted to go off-message during an interview, giving media outlets the ability to paint protesters generally as unhinged and ignorant. The fact that the Gaza encampment protesters have such a structure in place is a sign of political maturity, because they have found a way to keep the message simple and unified.
“The college kids are showing a precocious message discipline to reporters hostile to the substance of their protest,” Chase Madar, a New York University adjunct instructor, told FAIR.
Insinuating illiberalism
Baker and Noonan don’t express alarm that student reporters covering the protests have been subjected to extreme violence by the police (CNN, 5/2/24, 5/2/24), a very real form of state censorship. Nevertheless, Noonan and Baker insinuate that an aversion to speak to the corporate press signifies the movement’s illiberalism.
Perhaps establishment media are a little bitter that student reporters at places like Columbia University’s WKCR are doing a better job of covering the unrest than some salaried professionals in the media class (AP, 5/3/24; Washington Post, 5/4/24; Axios, 5/4/24).
If anything, what Baker and Noonan are lamenting is that the discipline of the students is making it harder for corporate media to misrepresent, ridicule and embarrass students who are protesting the US-backed genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. They’re telling on themselves.
Featured image: Fox News depiction (4/30/24) of the Columbia University encampment it complained it had been shut out of.
British spy planes have recorded up to 1,000 hours of footage over Gaza, including from the day Israel assassinated three UK aid workers.
A British Shadow R1 spy plane in flight. (Photo: RAF)
UK government refuses to give details of spy flights but Declassified independently obtains information
British spy plane landed at Israel’s major air force base, Nevatim, in February
UK’s Shadow R1 spy plane can supply intelligence for ‘target acquisition’
ICC could investigate British ministers over complicity in war crimes
The Royal Air Force (RAF) has flown 200 surveillance flights over Gaza since December, it can be revealed.
The UK government refused to give any details about the flights which began on December 3 but Declassified has independently constructed a timeline.
The extraordinary number of missions over the past five months works out at well over a flight per day and continues as Israel invades the supposedly “safe” southern city of Rafah.
March saw the highest number of British spy flights over Gaza with 44 missions.
The new information comes amid speculation that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is set to issue arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers. British officials could also face prosecution for complicity in war crimes, including defence secretary Grant Shapps.
All the British spy flights have taken off from RAF Akrotiri, the UK’s sprawling air base on Cyprus, and have been in the air for around six hours.
…
Flightpath of a British Shadow R1 spy on its way to Gaza. (Screengrab: RadarBox)
