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No children under three killed by Hamas . . ? Brief thoughts re Nasrallah speech

Middle East
#1

Larry Johnson has been wobbling all over the place lately but still has some credibility, I think. His website uses statistics sourced by Haaretz that suggest that absolutely no very young children were killed, by anyone, in Israel.

There is a very large number of ‘N/A’ however, so perhaps the baked and beheaded are concealed within that category. Forgive my sarcasm, part of my general propaganda reflux reaction.

He also provides links to a couple of other solid stories, some of them a few days old now.

So far, apart from a few talking heads on Al-Jazeera immediately afterward, I’ve not seen any serious analysis of Hassan Nasrallah’s speech today. I guess that might take a day or two although I expect the Hasbara and their useful idiots will be putting some stick about.

I watched the whole thing apart from the first 15 minutes. My impression was that it was very measured. I was struck by how he only mentioned the state of Israel and the United States by name (as enemies). He was clearly very focused on not providing any tinder for the above-mentioned disinfo campaigns. Support is high for Palestinians in European and other countries (and Blinken is playing at being emollient. Biden? Who knows? Most of all himself).

Unless I am mistaken I don’t recall him naming any leaders by name e.g. Netanyahu. He was content to repeatedly refer to the Israeli regime as ‘stupid’ but that’s about as far as it went.

Nasrallah was somewhat scathing of bought-and-paid-for Middle Eastern states, he was careful to distance Iran from Hamas and the other active participants in the conflict, and he implied that the diversion of great chunks of the IDF to the Lebanon border was a triumph in itself.

I suspect the above is a rather poor precis :wink:

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#2

Thanks for this KE it will do fine to be going on with :slightly_smiling_face:. Your comment on the Hasbara seems to apply even more to the events of October 7 themselves. Need to wait for the truth to seep.

Robust interview with Ritter - he isn’t really interviewed, just prompted every once in a while as every question seems to require context - interestingly his view of the endgame here is optimistic, he thinks a Palestinian state might be the outcome.

Seems a bit fanciful to me given the entrenched nature of Israel and its US-serving role in the middle east.
However his reasons are the weakness of the US and Israel in terms of ability to fight on several fronts simultaneously. Israel because its army of reservists are not in shape for fighting down rabbit holes and amongst the rubbled buildings that the bombs have created; loss of military confidence, he points out that both Hezbollah and Hamas have the advantage over the ‘best in the world’ Merkava tanks and have so far turned 22 of them over (at $4m a pop apparently). He envisages Netanyahu will be ousted and the new regime, not beholden to the US will prefer the security offered by a Palestinian state that will obviate the need for Hamas (and give resistant Palestinians something to lose), backed up by international guarantees, traditionally spurned by hawkish Israeli leaders.
Facing a much broader and braver coalition of Palestinian supporters including oil producers the US, drained by support for Ukraine, will need to be realistic, he says. He points out there have been some statements already from Biden and Obama that didn’t chime with the usual extreme warring noises.

Meanwhile the restraint shown by Hezbollah (already engaged around the Lebanese border, which Israel could do without) and Iran both of whom need to attend to staving off economic catastrophe suggests this won’t escalate easily. He thinks there will have been talks with the US aimed at keeping the conflict confined. At some point Hezbollah will draw a line in the bloodshed and make a direct threat and this may be connected to a similar line drawn across the pond in terms of $ support for Israel.

I’ll believe it when I see it but he does bring the salient facts to the equation. If Netanhayu tumbles it will be a good start. Part of Ritter’s calculation is that the failure of Israel’s security, Natanyahu’s only ‘plus’, is a deep blow to Israel’s psyche and might go beyond the present slipup, if that’s what it was (Ritter doesn’t buy the collaboration angle on Oct 7 at all, though he mentions credible reports of much earlier IDF engagement than reported and much of the indiscriminate killing being a result of panicky reservists).

Despite his deep knowledge of all these matters a btl comment suggests that in expressing definite hope, he is neveretheless “thinking like an American”.
I guess that’s where I am on Ritter’s view. The stars might be aligning to give hope for a more lasting peace at the end of this - but will that be enough to shift deep entrenchement of the US and Israel? For the US it would be tantamount to the abandonment of its middle east, New American Century project. If Ritter’s right they might see it as a better option than losing control completely.

I hope Ritter is right and he knows 10^6 times what I do, but with Nutty Yahoos(*) running both countries I can’t see it.

(*) © CJ I think

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#3

I listened to a guy on Press TV whose name I forget, however his analysis seemed to me to be spot on. He was talking about the rockets fired by Hezbollah.

His point was Hezbollah were just making a point that they could hit Israhell. That could well be the line in the sand referred to by @Evvy_dense above. He stressed that they only targeted the military. He also said Hezbollah have some much more sophisticated weaponry than Hamas, and plenty of it too. He did say they had killed several Israeli soldiers (my commentary: Hezbollah have given the IDF a bloody nose once before). Like Nasrallah, very considered and measured.

I’m not sure if Press TV rerun their broadcasts but if they do and I can find a link I’ll post it.

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#4

Thanks @Evvy_dense
but I don’t think it was me - could have been Rhis?

cheers

#5

Maybe @PatB then?

#6

Nasrallah’s speech today was very measured. So has RT and PressTv coverage of the conflict. Al Jazeera have given better coverage of the slaughter in Gaza, with the caveat that Qatar hosts the biggest American military base in the world.

There are now about 70 western warships in the eastern Med and Red Sea, including two US aircraft carrier convoys. This is the largest western military build-up there’s ever been in the region.

Maybe this huge number of military personnel want to sing Kumbaya and dance with the dusky skinned people?

This morning Hezbollah launched their biggest assault against Israel in living memory.

At the moment I’ve no idea how this is going to pan out (apart from the mounds of dead bodies). I suppose all you can say is that we are witnessing a seismic shift in world history.

I should also add that there have been a lot of demos worldwide, by Jewish people, in support of Palestine.

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#7

Hi @RobG . I should have added that the Press TV report I referred to above added what is quite an obvious situation. The guy pointed out that US aircraft carriers sitting in the Med, are a very large and slow moving target and Hezbollah’s weapons have more than enough range to hit these. Perhaps that is exactly what the Beltway nut jobs want. Poke the bear until it bites back and that starts World War III.

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#8

Alastair Crooke

3 Nov 2023

#9

Here’s an update on the list of those killed on 7 October. Never mind ‘under three’, I haven’t seen any under 5 here, though there are some without pictures and/or ages given. The vast majority are of fighting age, many of them serving soldiers. Since every adult in Israel is required to serve in the military and is then on reserve for the rest of their lives I guess the real innocent victims are the children under 18, hard to spot as they are.

15 Thai workers and 10 Nepali students figure among ‘Israel’s dead’ and its tough on them too.

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#10

How nice it is to have the names of all those killed by those terrible tewwowists even though half or more were killed by ‘friendly fire’.

Of course those animals living in abject poverty, no right to freedom of movement, no right to live in their own homes, no right to electricity or water, don’t deserve names. Or perhaps, the list might embarrass Sunak, Biden and Blinken as it approaches 10,000. Oh yes. I forgot. Those psychopaths have no shame.

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#11

For several days now there has been no new messages on this topic. While the world watches genocide unfold on almost every news channel even, as biased as it is, the BBC. Where are all the voices of outrage on 5F?

Perhaps we are all too busy on protest marches, trying to organise some aid, or countering bot pro-Israhell propaganda on other sites. Or are we just so sickened by events, by British politicians response, the failure of other Arab states, Mahmoud Abbas, and the media coverage, that all words fail us?

Please tell me!

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#12

There’s not a lot of argument here on this issue Pat, so I tend to post more on the information side and read what others post in the same vein.
I like to add to what I post, but been a bit busy for that.

Some stuff I tucked away FWIW.
Cheers

In honour of Caitlin Johnstone who has picked up a Facebook ban - apparently for not breaking any guidelines other than mentioning Hamas without calling them terrorists and giving a faint idea that they might not be terorrists after all.

9/11/23 Dismantle Israel And The Entire US Empire, Caitlin Johnstone
(Link sould be searchable via headline, this was an email circular)
Israel has once again released an audio clip of what it claims is an intercepted Hamas phone call in order to rebuff accusations of war crimes, this time allegedly featuring a Hamas fighter boasting about how many ambulances he’s able to use for transportation in response to criticisms of a deadly Israeli airstrike on an ambulance convoy.

The last time Israel released such an audio file in an attempt to exonerate itself, language experts cited by the UK’s Channel 4 News said the clip was not credible due to the “ language, accent, dialect, syntax and tone” in the clip, and audio analysts with an organization called Earshot “found that this recording was manipulated and cannot be used as a credible source of evidence.”

Another FAIR roundup of Pro-Israeli bias in US media
6/11/23 Conflating Jewish and Pro-Israel Is Wrong and Misleading, Ari Paul

30/10/23 Netanyahu Accused of ‘Genocidal Intentions’ in Gaza After ‘Holy Mission’ Speech
… Netanyahu isn’t the only Israeli leader who has made what critics have called genocidal statement in recent weeks. Israeli President Isaac Herzog asserted earlier this month that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, while Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowed to “eliminate everything” there.

Ariel Kallner, a member of parliament from Netanyahu’s Likud party, urged a “Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of '48,” a reference to the forced expulsion and ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Arabs from Palestine during the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1947-48.

Tally Gotliv, another Likud lawmaker, demanded “not flattening a neighborhood,” but “crushing and flattening Gaza without mercy.”

… More than 800 international lawyers, jurists, and legal scholars have signed an open letter stating that “we are compelled to sound the alarm about the possibility of the crime of genocide being perpetrated by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

Raz Segal, a leading Israeli Holocaust scholar, has called his country’s assault on Gaza “a textbook case of genocide.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/netanyahu-genocide

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#13

Busy with R/L I’m afraid. Mother has dementia and she needs to move in with us. Been lurking however.

Some thoughts and observations.

Abbas is WEF. Alongside Bibi.
Who is next?
Lots of other thing going under the radar including huge food issues for amongst others, Egypt.
If you’re going to protest this weekend and you have kids, leave them with Nana.

Stay safe all

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#14

Ev’s spot on there, Pat.

I believe many here at 5F have been paying attention to this atrocious matter, and railing against the Upstart State (US) for many, many years. Post Israeli ‘withdrawal’ from Gaza (2006), and the rise of Hamas’ popularity (as championed by the US to foil the resolutely secular ‘partner for peace’ that was the PLO) the immiserated Palestinians have been subjected to brutalities that far exceed the day-today barbarisms they have had to endure for getting on a century. Beginning in earnest with the psychopathic conduct of the IOF during Cast Lead, those ‘mowing the lawn’ forays into Gaza have been occurring with depressing frequency. Hitherto, all those murderous campaigns conducted by the US were by and large framed within the unique context of THAT ‘conflict’ - - true, with the rise of Hamas, the US has been pushing the notion that its enemy is the same Islamist foe that is said to threaten ‘western values’ abroad. But with this current, and evidently massively up-scaled assault on Gaza and its defenceless population (I believe we are witnessing the playing-out of the ‘final solution’), we are, I believe, seeing a novel framing of the ‘conflict’ – that is, it is being portrayed as a battle between dark-skinned head-chopping baby-baking savages whose supporters abroad have no allegiance to the countries in which they find themselves, and a deeply moral pale-skinned people who have simply reached the end of their tether – of course in the main, just as is always the case when the US embarks on a ratchetting-up of its demented murderous behaviour, 7th Oct is cited as a year zero - - pointing to the exhaustive historic/documentary record that unequivocally shows the US to be a monstrously callous entity is pretty much a waste of time – as I have found over, and over again. The lines are drawn between Arab and Jew, Left and Right, Black and White, and other divisions too, no doubt – but that which really ought to be the clincher, Right and Wrong, seldom if ever gets a hearing – and so long as that overwhelming historic/documentary record remains by and large submerged, I don’t see any change coming soon.

The stage has been set in the main and elsewhere, with shit-stirrers such as Fox, Daubney, Robinson et al setting-up this weekend’s Remembrance ceremonies as a battleground for the 2 groups outlined above. I’m hoping that the events pass without too much aggro – but I’m not too hopeful - - I reckon the Inhumans that hold sway on Earth are deliberately pitching those groups at one and other with the evil intent of causing maximum discord and unrest in western states. Why? Because imo THEY are simply evil incarnate.

On reflection what I wrote is the usual ranty stuff I write.

On the active side, I am involved with a strong and growing group of academics, technicians, staff and students here trying to effect some change in the imbalanced messaging coming from the university executive - - obviously, whilst Gazans are being subjected to unrelenting hell as we speak, what we are doing is small fry in the extreme – but we can only do that which we can do - - the attendant feeling of impotence is almost unbearable – but again, that’s absolutely nothing when one considers the suffering of those poor people.

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#15

I looked up the UK definition in their guidelines:

" What is a proscribed organisation?

Under the Terrorism Act 2000, the Home Secretary may proscribe an organisation if they believe it is concerned in terrorism, and it is proportionate to do. For the purposes of the act, this means that the organisation:

** commits or participates in acts of terrorism*
** prepares for terrorism*
** promotes or encourages terrorism (including the unlawful glorification of terrorism)*
** is otherwise concerned in terrorism*

  • What is meant by ‘terrorism’ in the proscription context?*

“Terrorism” as defined in the act, means the use or threat of action which: involves serious violence against a person; involves serious damage to property; endangers a person’s life (other than that of the person committing the act); creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or section of the public or is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.

The use or threat of such action must be designed to influence the government or an international governmental organisation or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and must be undertaken for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause."

Everything which Israel has done against Palestinians and Ukraine has done to Russian speakers in East Ukraine since 2014 amounts to terrorism in the above definition - but of course no Home Secretary would use discretionary powers to proscribe “their” friends!

( As an aside it’s interesting that HMG considers the Home Secretary to have plural qualities much like the King! - see the use of the word “they” above!)

When you look at the proscribed organisations, apart from Northern Irish groups, and the Wagner Group all the rest look like the entries in the little black book of an islamaphobe - almost all unknown to the world.

As usual the Rule of Claw empowers a small group or just one person to create laws which can result in the imprisonment of innocents for years ( in this case up to 14 years!)

In Israel we are now looking at Israeli laws which make it a criminal offence to merely read listen to or watch stuff ( even the truth ) about Hamas:

https://electronicintifada.net/updates

" Israel’s parliament passed an amendment to its Counter-Terrorism Law that introduces “consumption of terrorist materials” as a new criminal offense. Adalah, a group that advocates for the rights of Palestinians in Israel, called it “one of the most intrusive and draconian legislative measures ever passed by the Israeli Knesset which invades the realm of personal thoughts and beliefs and significantly amplifies state surveillance of social media use.”

  • how long will it be before this gets slipped into the UK Government’s arsenal of anti-human legislation?

cheers

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#16

Quite! Miri AF has just published an interesting take on this threat to our liberties (ha!) and how trouble tomorrow may be used as impetus. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XmWx2EIVdoI

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#17

My ‘journey’ and destination too @CJ1. Not much of a journey but the furthest I could travel without actually moving.

There seems no way for a government that actively conducts terrorist activity to to define it away. For the most part the governments like UK, Israel here, and the US get away with intense political and legal downward pressure to prevent the professions (media, legal) from pointing out the glaring hypocrisy - not even that, brazen duplicity. I remember seeing this law in 2000 or before (before 9-11, remember, driven by no imperative) and imagining that lawyers would either ridicule it off the books because of its obvious contradictions, or laugh it out of the courts when it got there. “With the greatest respect, that means the government are engaged in terrorism too, your Honour!”
Innocent fool that I was!
Professions like the legal one and the media (near the top of the table where the power lies) are lucrative careers and ‘professionals’ want to keep it that way.
And Governement sits atop with a foot on the pedal.

But in this visit to the Terrorism Act, I got off at the other stop from you CJ.
The Part I is concerned with defining terrorism. It (Section (1) (i)) goes through the usual stuff, violence, threats oh and to property too, etc. Even that’s comical as I’ve never seen a horror film about damage to property, and obviously many governments are thereby terrorists too.

But it’s the next part that there is a total departure from logic and sense.

Surely, defining

“the purposes of terrorism”

can’t logically be done without defining terrorism first?

Well it can if you’re setting laws for blind, deaf and dumb lawyers and police to apply.

Behold:

“(5) In this Act a reference to action taken for the purposes of terrorism includes a reference to action taken for the benefit of a proscribed organisation”

So “terrorism” means x,y or z.

But in the SAME definition, “purposes of terrorism” means…

…the purposes of x, y, and z?

No! For the purposes of this Act - nonsensically - you have to consult a list of “proscribed organisations”.

Therefore the government creating this law can never be accused under this law of supporting the purposes of terrorism, because they don’t designate friendly terrorist governments as terrorists. Even Liz Truss would probably not do that.

The government have redefined the word “purpose” so that “purposes of terrorism” does not have the normal meaning of either “purposes” or “terrorism”.

I don’t know how often this had been used but it was used last week/this week against the two female Palestinian supporters whose blown-up inserts of clothing worn at a protest allegedly depicting hangliders was enough for a police and BBC public call to have them arrested (they went to police voluntarily).

The same police that fruitcake Braverman claims are leftwing happily spoke of ‘terrorist activity’ based on this zoom-lensed eight square inches of attire in a crowd. They were able to do that because of Part I, Section I (i) (5) above. The “proscribed organisation”.
F-all to do with terrorism in the ‘normal meaning’ - and completely misleading.

Meanwhile the UK can give or send £billions in/for weapons of mass-destruction to Israel, and not fall foul of the law - at least not the way the courts are, with rebel judges non-existent.

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#18

Stuck in R/L for the most part here too, late stages of divorce (gawd I hope so, anyway). While commenting elsewhere once in a while am lurking at 5F pretty much daily.

The 1111 thing is a worry. Nasrallah is giving another speech. A bunch of Middle East leaders are gathering in Saudi eg Pres Assad, and an attack of some kind has got to be a possibility. Especially now KSA and USA aren’t buddies anymore.

And of course the potential for bad things in London.

The Israeli information aggression, as VVP termed it very neatly earlier in the week, is acute, and yet their narrative is still full of holes. The HAMAS ambulance trope, for example, keeps being put out there, the ostensible voice recording, now a clip surfaces in which a paramedic tends to a wounded fighter, passes his weapon to someone else nearby who immediately starts firing in what is implied to be the direction of the IDF. How do we know the medic IS a medic? We don’t, except he’s wearing a red tabard.

“See: we have no choice but to blow up hospitals and snipe at the Red Crescent.”

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#19

I suspect the get out clause is the use of the word “organisation”. That would exclude governments and their departments, militaries, etc.

The “consumption of terrorist materials” offence could just about apply to anything - that’s probably the idea. I seem to recall that in The Children Of Men, book not film, possession of (or even seeing) seditious materials is a grave offence and therefore Theo doesn’t admit, when questioned, that a copy of an activist leaflet came through his letter box, only that he had “heard about it”.

Bringing the government into disrepute is becoming quite a common catch-all offence in Anglosphere and elsewhere. They are, after all, democratically elected, hence not to be ridiculed. Shades of the Thai lese majeste regulations…

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#20

I agree countries cannot be proscribed under the Act . But what I was looking at was whether Israeli actions or threats could be called “terrorism” as defined under UK legislation - given the use of the passive voice it focuses on the actions or threats rather than on who’s doing it ( which is then the proscribing part subject to a Minister’s sole discretion). As such the actions and threats over the last few weeks against Gaza is definitely terrorism as defined by the UK Gov. and Israeli State terrorism as defined by most of the World. Of course the Rule of Claw in most nations will mean Israel cannot be accused and in practice in the ICC it will never be exposed to criminal penalty because of political corruption of that entity.

cheers

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