John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE UNZ REVIEW

 

“The New Russian Government, A much-needed evolution but not a revolution”

___________________

Response to a comment which referred to the Guardian newspaper as very “left wing”

The Guardian is a terrible newspaper nowadays.

But it is not accurate to describe it as “left wing,” not at all.

Using that description is playing the Guardian’s own game.

The newspaper uses a great deal of window dressing that makes it appear “leftish” and progressive, features and filler material about minorities and women and the unfortunate. I suppose it’s intended to connect with the newspaper’s historic past and to provide a kind of sugar coating for what it truly advocates.

The Guardian’s heart and soul are pretty close to Tory in spirit. That is revealed through its choice of news stories covered, the slant given the stories, its editorials, the various public figures given regular favorable publicity, and even its highly-controlled and restrictive comment policies. Liberals don’t censor. The Guardian does, heavily.

It virtually led the howling mob attacking Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn, and it used some really underhanded techniques, like running little human-interest items about British Jews who were afraid and were going to leave Britain to take up residence somewhere else. It did this several times in the course of its campaign. Once, the person’s destination was even Germany. Of course, any Jewish person who had anything unpleasant to say about Corbyn was given space to say it.

The paper raised no objections to direct interference in British domestic politics by several Israeli politicians, including Netanyahu, who chimed in on Corbyn and anti-Semitism, and he was even mistaken in the facts he cited.

The Guardian is staunchly pro-Israel and pro-American empire, the two, of course, being tightly associated.

The Guardian has supported all of America’s bloody Neocon Wars and coups. It never raises any doubts or questions about matters like the externally-induced horrors in Syria. President Assad is always treated with disdain. Syria, in the Guardian’s manufactured reality, uses poison gas against its own people and deserves cruise missile attacks.

It has no problem with America’s torrent of invective and threats and sanctions against Iran, a country which has done in fact nothing wrong. It has no problem with severe war-like sanctions being used against tens of millions of innocent people to cause starvation and to deprive them of medications, vicious actions taken by the United States against Iran and Venezuela.

It despises Putin and Russia. It literally sometimes prints gutter-quality literature on those topics. It stands shoulder-to-shoulder with those who insist Putin has virtually invaded Ukraine and seized Crimea. And of course, he or his henchmen shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine, even though the Prime Minister of Malaysia says that is not the case.

It has no problem with NATO, closely under American direction, running tanks up against the Russian border, sending risky, intrusive spy flights towards Russian airspace, doing armed cruises on the Black Sea, and carrying on with large-scale practice sea battles in the Baltic.

As far as The Guardian is concerned, the Salisbury Skripal Affair with Putin directly responsible for it – that indigestible mass of Theresa May accusations containing not a single proven fact – is a settled matter of history. It occasionally makes an effort to warm up the kettle, burning new bits flogged by security service outlets.

The Guardian played a sizable role in building up the public-relations image of that good friend of Netanyahu’s, the tyrant Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. He was to be a dynamic and progressive new force in the Middle East. It even used chirpy little features about a few upper-class women being allowed to drive now to emphasize his fine qualities between executions, kidnappings, and launching wars.

It has attacked and lied about Julian Assange, one of the truest heroes of our time and a great investigative reporter/editor. But you see, Assange’s work works against America’s appalling injustices, and that just isn’t allowed. And it worked against candidate Hillary Clinton, world’s leading purveyor of Russophobia, killer of Libyans and Syrians as Secretary of State, and a favorite of Guardian editors.

I could cite many examples of how dreadful the Guardian has become, but here is my favorite:

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/05/21/john-chuckman-comment-absurd-lengths-to-which-our-press-goes-to-attack-russia-britains-guardian-holds-hate-russia-day-today-some-of-its-stuff-is-so-ham-fisted-it-reads-like-1959-

John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY GILAD ATZMON IN UNZ REVIEW

“For the 0.5% Not the 99.5%”

“Our Labour leadership candidates have attended to whims uttered by a tiny privileged voice while ignoring at least 99.5% of the British public.

“Instead of returning to universal anti racist politics consistent with so-called ‘Labour values,’ the compromised contenders for party leadership bow to the demands made by the Board of Deputies…”

There is some important truth here.

Labour leadership candidates Emily Thornberry and Jess Phillips literally make your toes scrunch uncomfortably up inside your shoes when you read some of their squishy, self-serving pleas being passed off as principles.

But I regard their words and behavior more a matter of sheer political incompetence than anything else. Incompetence is to be found in politicians far more than is commonly realized.

As well, of course, we have corruption, as we saw with Tony Blair, who literally became wealthy in gratitude for his helping kill a million Iraqis to please Aerial Sharon. Tony’s “New Labour” meant a party dedicated to lobby funds and strongly pro-Israel policies. Tony helped lead the charge against Corbyn, too.

We saw no complaints about “anti-Semitism in Blair’s heyday. Somehow, after he left power, anti-Semitism just suddenly exploded inside the Labour Party the way Athena exploded from the forehead of Zeus. Extraordinary.

I long defended Corbyn as a decent and humane politician – qualities frequently missing in the profession – and I still believe that of him. The idea that he was ever “anti-Semitic” is bitterly laughable. And as a matter of fact, we have very little active anti-Semitism today in the West, and much of what self-serving Jewish fraternal organizations call anti-Semitism and enter as incidents in their computer records is just fair criticism of the barbaric policies of Israel, a heavily armed state abusing the powerless.

The whole campaign against Jeremy Corbyn was McCarthyism resuscitated in the service of a new cause. It should have been confronted exactly that way. Truth well-spoken can still be a powerful weapon. We have far too little of it in Western politics.

In the end, Corbyn did prove weak vis-a-vis the Israel lobby, but that’s easier to judge from the outside than when you are being libeled and insulted and pelted with eggs week after week.

The lobby uses an old established principle. Throw enough crap at the wall, and some it will stick. It is a standard principle of the advertising industry and has always been instinctively applied by groups like Germany’s 1930s Brownshirts.

The lobby and Israel do not want fairness and decency anywhere near the affairs of Israel. You are not allowed to be fair. You must be totally for Israel and against anyone Israel regards as undesirable.

That was Corbyn’s unforgivable sin, being fair. And he could not be allowed near power. And talk about external interference, several Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, got directly involved in British party politics over the period of Corbyn’s leadership.

Israel – like a major part of racist cowboy America, notably all of Trump’s crowd holding pick-up truck meets in Walmart parking lots – simply has no use for genuine liberals or progressives.

Why?

The essence of being a genuine liberal is deep regard for human and democratic rights. Obviously, Israel could not exist as it is today were liberal views to hold any sway.

And the same goes for America’s imperialism abroad and its defense of the Plantation System in many parts of the world, as we see repeatedly in Latin America.

There almost are no liberals in America or Israel.

You do not even have a country in fact when you have an empire. Empire and military and security concerns dominate and provide most of the attractive career paths for talented people, crowding out everything else. The privileged rule, and ideology replaces thought. Resources are dedicated to war and secret security.

And what is Israel but a privileged strategic colony of the American empire? One pretending to represent high principles when the truth is literally the opposite. Israel’s best friends in the region are tyrants – Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince or Egypt’s Generalissimo – who keep their people suppressed and bloodied. Israel calls democratic organizations like Hamas “terrorists” for the same reason people such as Corbyn are attacked.

Some democratic values. But we do live in a world where painting the roses red has become an accepted practice. We see that in every word and activity of Donald Trump or Boris Johnson. And there are uncomfortable echoes today of what authoritarian states always busy themselves with doing.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CRAIG MURRAY IN CONSORTIUM NEWS

 
“The Most Unpopular Government in UK Political History

“The disillusionment will be on the same scale as Boris Johnson’s bombastic promises”

 
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/12/14/the-most-unpopular-government-in-uk-political-history/?unapproved=391014&moderation-hash=f0686a8bd6f9945f044d0711f33dc1ea#comment-391014

This is a good summary of forces set in motion by Britain’s election of Boris Johnson, a summary coming from Craig Murray, a writer worth reading.

It seems almost beyond understanding that a man like Boris Johnson, caught various times recently lying and misrepresenting things – a man even with an instance of a police call concerning domestic violence at his girlfriend’s flat not long before the election – and a man with a long record of schoolboy crassness and name-calling, should be given a mandate.

But you have only to look at the United States to see a comparable example in Donald Trump, a man who should actually embarrass America with his bellowing crassness.

Our Western “democracies” are so feeble.

With 43.6 % of the people’s votes, Johnson is said to have a “landslide” victory. Donald Trump actually received a minority of 46.4 % of the people’s votes.

Such are the outcomes of our custom-tailored democratic institutions.

In Johnson’s case, I believe two major circumstances worked for his “landslide.”

First, Britain was bone-achingly tired of more than three years of previous government leaders’ words and schemes over BREXIT. For all that time, you could not look at a newspaper without seeing articles and reports on the subject.

It was an extremely complex, technical subject demanding more time and effort to grasp than most people could possibly give, the very reason the earlier Conservative leader, David Cameron, should never have held such a referendum.

Tiresome, to say the least. Johnson simply threatened to be done with it all, one way or another.

Second, over much the same period – although four years instead of three – Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party has been under almost constant assault by special interests.

Another very long, wearying effort. Corbyn, essentially a decent man of traditional liberal and progressive values, was called names and challenged regularly by outlandish accusations. Libelous at times. We saw even the direct interference in British politics of several political leaders from another state, Israel.

Corbyn’s sense fairness and balance were not wanted in that part of the world. Intensely so.

He survived the assault but was weakened, and many would say he failed to stand up to accusers as forcefully as he should have. Even supporters do tire of that kind of response.

Both men – Trump and Johnson – have set their attention to major, society-changing efforts, destructive efforts in the view of many observers, yet they do so without even that fundamental democratic concept of clean and fair support from a majority.

Donald Trump literally threatens the stability of the much of the world’s trade and economy with tariffs and a massive sanction regime and telling both friend and opponents how they should be conducting their affairs. And that is all apart from his many military threats and open support for coups and the theft of other countries’ resources.

Boris Johnson displays many similar views and attitudes. He is Donald Trump with an Eton accent and a boyish smile instead of a grimly-set jaw. The traditional “special relationship” between Britain and the United States is about to be given a whole new meaning.

John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS (AND REMOVED BY AN EDITOR)

 

“Dumped by Liberals over anti-Semitism allegations, Hassan Guillet explores options

“Montreal candidate says he was ‘shocked’ by party’s decision”

 

Hassan Guillet, a former Muslim Imam turned politician, seems from his pictures and words a very decent and sympathetic man, one without hate.

Just because a special-interest service organization has characterized something he said or wrote in the past as anti-Semitic definitely does not make it so.

Keep in mind that over the last couple of years, an intense campaign has been waged in Britain by just such service organizations against Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, one of the fairest and most decent men in politics. He is as far from being prejudiced as you can get.

But he has a history of also being fair and balanced towards Palestinian interests, and that undoubtedly earned him a long and ferocious attack using never-proved assertions of anti-Semitism. The attacks at a couple of points even had Israeli politicians, including the Prime Minister, butting into the internal political affairs of Britain with their comments. Corbyn had a determined enemy.

Well, Jeremy Corbyn was able to withstand the assault. He had to fight for months, but he had lots of support and an admirable personal record of standing for principles.

Hassan Guillet was not able to withstand the assault made against him.

Hassan Guillet’s political party leader, Justin Trudeau, appears to have made no effort concerning charges against a man who had been his personal choice as candidate in a particular constituency. He simply dropped Guillet upon hearing from a prominent service organization, surprising even the candidate.

We do know from his behavior as Prime Minister that Justin Trudeau is a rather squishy kind of man when it comes to standing up for anything against the powerful. His support for every major aspect of Donald Trump’s ugly, chaotic foreign policy is a very disheartening case in point.

And we had revelations about Trudeau, who likes advertising himself as a supporter of transparency in government, and his behind-the-scenes efforts for the legal difficulties of a certain large Canadian engineering company, a set of events which saw him drop an honest minister who spoke out about her concerns and treatment during those events. Canada’s Ethics Commissioner has ruled Trudeau clearly violated the Conflict of Interest Act.

So, with that quality of leadership behind him, Hassan Guillet stood little chance. He was out almost immediately, leaving him embarrassed and disappointed. We have no knowledge about the exact nature of the charges against him because CBC chose not to explain them.

That seems unfair both to Hassan Guillet and to readers who really want to understand something like that, when recent history, the case of Jeremy Corbyn, tells us clearly that such charges can be made without real substance in an effort to destroy a politician.

There’s an awful lot of Islamophobia in politics today. America’s current President actually bellows ugly remarks directly from the White House, a place where he is supposed to represent all the people.

Just look at the vicious charges and name-calling in the United States against two new Muslim women politicians, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.

Already there are plans afoot to work against them in the next election. These women have expressed legitimate criticism of Israel’s often shocking behavior. I’ve read nothing we could call hate, but they are accused of it almost daily.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN MOON OF ALABAMA

 

“The Leaden Lady Steps Down

“It was high time for this to happen

“Theresa May has announced she is to stand down as Prime Minister on 7 June following months of mounting pressure over her failure to deliver Brexit”

 

It was indeed high time that Theresa May leave her office.

She is the second worst prime minister in modern British history.

It is just embarrassing what she has put Britain and the entire EU through over Brexit.

And it’s not just what she’s done around Brexit.

It’s also her utterly servile posture towards American imperialism.

Good God, that whole ugly, made-up Skripal Affair with no evidence ever supplied and no one allowed to even talk to the “victims?”

All to increase the amount of Russophobia in the world and please the American government?

Making the most horrific charges in public without evidence against a major world leader?

And imagine wasting countless billions on the new Trident missile submarines and two huge aircraft carriers when the county’s basic health services are in peril and British railroads can’t even maintain good service? Some priorities.

Her appointment of Gavin Williamson as Defense Minister, a man who made some even more insane statements in public than Donald Trump? Well, at least she sacked him, but surely a five-minute interview should have confirmed him unfit to hold any cabinet post, much less defense?

She ranks second worst only to David Cameron, who created, needlessly and foolishly, the entire Brexit crisis.

Imagine thinking you can hold a general referendum on a devastatingly complex matter like Brexit, one which baffles experts?

Never mind its being called democratic, it was just plain stupid, in the extreme, asking people to vote on an immensely consequential matter with little understanding of it.

And at a time when xenophobia, never too far from Britain’s public consciousness, was rearing its ugly head. Something guaranteed to drive “leave” votes for the wrong reasons.

But Boris Johnson? The fart in a church service? As Prime Minister?

Britain really has had some terrible leadership for decades.

Good old Tony Blair and his lying and cheating help to illegally invade Iraq and kill a million people. Unlike May and Cameron, Blair was “effective” in getting what he wanted. It’s just that what he wanted was completely evil.

 

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN RENTOUL IN THE INDEPENDENT

 

“Jeremy Corbyn ran a brilliant election campaign last year – but he won’t be able to do it again

“The Labour leader seems to have lost the relaxed, friendly style that worked so well”

 

Well, we’ve had every kind of cheap and dishonest attack on Corbyn, I didn’t think a new angle was possible.

But here it is, and what an amazing creation it is.

A loss of being relaxed!

If true, I wonder why that might be?

Do you think month after month of being attacked for nothing might have something to do with it?

Being called names, having your integrity questioned?

And this IS a man of integrity, a rare thing in national politics.

All this because the terrible men running Israel now hate Corbyn, and they hate him precisely because of his integrity.

Those brutal men have absolutely no integrity, and anyone honest makes them very uncomfortable.

__________________

As I’ve written in response to another article, the wonderful Jimmy Carter, someone whose integrity we all understand, was widely called an “anti-Semite” in Israel and in Israel-echoing circles of the United States. It was almost like calling Jesus an “anti-Semite.”

No current politician reminds me more of Carter than Corbyn.

The truth is most people, if given the chance to see and study someone, can recognize character.

Corbyn’s got it. And you’d be hard-pressed finding someone with less of it than Netanyahu, the man this noisy, small minority attacking Corbyn support.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY RICHARD SEYMOUR IN THE INDEPENDENT

 

“No, this Netanyahu row won’t destroy Corbyn – it will only make him stronger

“Still hovering around forty per cent in most polls, the smears against the Labour leader can’t change the fact that millions of people clearly want what the party is offering”

_____________________

Response to a comment, referencing Jimmy Carter in a favorable way, from someone who obviously does not like Corbyn:

 

Just stunned at your comment.

Carter indeed is a man of peace, much like Corbyn.

And, also like Corbyn, he is a man of truth.

And boy, does anyone with those two qualities suffer in politics.

Carter wrote a book criticizing Israel’s movement towards apartheid.

He was labelled, time and again, in Israel by prominent figures and by American Israel-echoing organizations, as an “anti-Semite” for having done so.

Ridiculous, of course.

It’s not so far from labelling Jesus as an “anti-Semite.”

Carter also is the only man of his stature – and as ex-president, ex-nuclear engineer, and ex-nuclear submarine commander, he should know – to absolutely confirm Israel’s illegal and lied-about nuclear weapons.

Carter was quoted saying Israel, at the time of the quote, had about the equivalent of 150 nuclear warheads. As you can imagine, he’s not liked in Israel for that also.

But Carter was a man of remarkable integrity for someone who was a politician. There is no politician active today who is more like Carter in that respect than Jeremy Corbyn.

And, of course, that’s just why Corbyn has been shamefully abused by special interests, over and over.

If anyone doesn’t like seeing truth told about what they are doing, it is a leader like Netanyahu.

The classic example of this kind of social/political pattern is the character Dr Stockman in Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People” when he tries to tell the truth about his town’s lucrative health baths being dangerously contaminated. Stockman’s fate is the fate of those who tell the truth more times than not, but I think nowhere more so than in politics.

 

John Chuckman

 

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

 

What is the row over Jeremy Corbyn and antisemitism about?

____________________________

Response to a comment, “Antisemitism has been weaponised by those in the right of the Labour party, Labour friends of Israel and the right wing media to bash Corbyn, following on from the previous Red Corbyn campaign”:

 

Absolutely.

It is nothing else.

Corbyn is not liked by the Israel Lobby, a very real force today in British affairs.

Their kind of man is Tony Blair or Owen Smith.

Blair’s ugly influence on the general public, despite many efforts by the corporate press to revive his rotting political carcass, has been destroyed. He’s widely regarded as the liar and mass killer that he is.

Owen Smith still tries, but he has always been an ineffectual and rather arrogant politician, and it was his demotion, after again trying to tell the Party leader what to do, that brought all this latest wave on.

The campaign against Corbyn has been almost continuous from his first election, just with little splutters of greater or lesser intensity.

Every Britain should ask, is it right that our democratic government and corporate press are so influenced by unproven claims from a relatively small group – a group, which never offers proof of anything and which, moreover, very much has an agenda of its own?

They also should ask, if it is true that there is so much anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, why didn’t the beloved Tony Blair root it out and create a benign environment long ago?

It couldn’t explode into being overnight, as it were, yet that is the nonsense idea contained in all of these vicious attacks on a decent man. It’s very much akin to believing in demon possession.

This is a fraud, a very unpleasant fraud, and it is using the ugly tactics supposedly discredited long ago after the fall of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his career-destroying “commie” witch hunt.

But the tactics, in fact, have not been discredited. They still work. Throw enough crap on the walls, and some of it sticks, always. That principle is as true today as ever, and it is employed just as frequently by special interest groups and governments as it was in Joseph Goebbels’ day.

That is precisely the approach of Theresa May and Boris Johnson with their accusations of poisoning, an event which for all the world seems never to have happened. If it indeed did, we have been given not a scrap of proof regarding any aspect of it. Yet the shouting and charges just keep being hurled.

Corbyn is under attack only for his fair-minded views on Israel-Palestine, but it would never do for his opponents to say that openly since its sounds ridiculous, so we have this ugly McCarthyite campaign either to intimidate him or to unseat him, something Owen Smith, of course, already has tried doing.

Of course, over the long-term, piling on unsupported charges of “anti-Semitism,” much like the crying of “Wolf!” by the unpleasant boy in the fairy tale, only serves to bring the day when most people will simply respond with, “So what?”

AFTERNOTE:

No one can doubt that Jeremy Corbyn is one of the most decent and thoroughly liberal-spirited politicians in the western world, and you might think he would be welcomed and greeted for that very quality, but you would be wrong. That quality is precisely why he is so hated by apologists and lobbyists for Israel.

People who do not keep up with public and international affairs may not be aware of what a term of contempt “liberal” has become in Israel. It is used almost like a four-letter word, sputtered out with contempt. Liberals are widely hated for the very qualities which define liberalism: belief in human rights and dignity and the rule of law. Clearly, the Israel we see at work could not function under such assumptions.

What you find in Israel very much parallels what you find from America’s Alt-right. On its Internet sites, the Alt-right almost cannot bring itself to use the word “liberal,” regularly substituting (pathetically childish) pejoratives like “libtards” and “snowflakes.” There obviously is no meaningful discussion possible with such people, and that is exactly the way they want things to be.

So, we have some very dark forces at work in our world, forces openly expressing contempt for fairness and decency and rule of law, forces pushing away debate or discussion, forces exhibiting extreme contempt for large groups of others, forces who want what they want regardless of how they obtain it. I do believe that gets pretty close to defining fascism.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN RENTOUL IN THE INDEPENDENT

 

“Recent events make it likely that Labour will win both seats in the by-elections next week, meaning Jeremy Corbyn will remain leader – a disaster for the Labour Party”

How does John Rentoul manage to keep employed as a columnist?

Somehow in Rentouland – just a hop, skip, and a jump down the road from Cloudcuckooland – winning by-elections is bad for a party, a party which should instead be working to rid itself of its present leadership.

Well, I do know the answer to my own question.

Because The Independent just salivates about bringing the disgusting Tony Blair – in the form of one of his acolytes if not himself in the flesh – back to power, and writers like John Rentoul do the yeoman’s work of writing-up pages of lame arguments in favor of it.

That moral pigmy and complete sell-out to special interests, Blair, gets almost daily coverage in the paper, as do some of his cult followers.

Blair’s recent insane speech about the public rising-up against Brexit and stopping it – such words from the very man who ignored the greatest peace demonstrations in British history to charge ahead in his secret partnership with Bush to destroy Iraq – was given embarrassing over-exposure by the paper with many images on the same page as links to the same dreary stuff, as though it were statesmanlike material of the greatest possible importance being featured.

And why does anyone in the least wonder that Trump attacks the corporate press?

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

 

‘The creation of the state of Israel was fundamentally wrong’

 I know The Independent is trying to be quite provocative here, but the truth is, there is nothing wrong with Livingstone’s statement. It is not hateful, it is painfully accurate.

Many, many thoughtful people have said more or less the same thing.

It has absolutely nothing to do with anti-Semitism.

It is simply a reflection of all the misery and turmoil Israel, as a state, has generated since 1948.

Albert Einstein himself – often called a Zionist – had a highly qualified view of Israel. He liked the idea of displaced Jews finding homes in the Holy Land, but wrote very forcefully against the kind of state we have seen emerge, one governed only for the benefit of Jews and with a powerful army. He was strongly against that happening.

One of the leading early Zionists, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, established a terrible principle called “the iron wall” which was completely adopted by re-created Israel. The principle is that Jews should show only an iron wall to their neighbors in the Middle East.

How can anything good come of that? Well, it cannot, and it hasn’t.

Had Israel been founded along lines Einstein advocated, the whole story might well have been different, but it did not. It adopted “the iron wall” and has treated its neighbors pretty much with contempt, and nearly endless aggression, since 1948.

The Six Day War, we know from various historical sources including blunt observations from de Gaulle, was deliberately created by Israel. It had calculated and knew that it could win handily against divided and poorly-led Arab states enticed into war. There were a whole series of provocations laid out, and Israel got just what it wanted in terms of land, and the Arabs were left looking like failed aggressors against poor little David. It was a military and propaganda triumph.

The results are what we see today: millions living as prisoners with no rights or future, slow-motion depopulation of the captured territories in favor of new owners, the outright theft of people’s homes and farms week-in and week-out, the disruption of ancient life patterns through walls (built on other people’s land) and countless barriers, the theft of many other resources such as oil from Syria’s Golan Heights or gas from a seabed which should belong to Gaza, theft of precious water supplies through many diversions and projects, and a very great deal more.

How can that kind of state behavior ever produce peace or anything else good? Of course it cannot. It is not meant to do so.

The truth is Israel is not even a very good place for many Jews in which to live. It is an awfully inefficient economy, always heavily subsidized. Prices are terribly high. It is difficult to afford a home. Good jobs are not plentiful. You must see your children in the army, and enforcing the ugliness of the occupation. And you must accept all the noise and ugly violence that goes on. The wealthy class in Israel, many or most of whom are dual-citizens, do very well and are safe in the idea they can easily migrate if required or desired.

Israel has attacked every neighbor that it has, some numerous times. It is always making threats, as against Iran, and the threats are unwarranted because Iran has attacked no one in its modern history and does not threaten Israel. Various modern leaders have demanded American attack every place from Iraq to Iran, and they very much got their way in Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Likely a million have died, and for what?

Well, in the end, re-created Israel is a fact, even if a mistake, and the world can accept it if only it can play by the rules, return to the Green Line, and live in peace with its neighbors. This is the view of people like Uri Avnery whom I support. But voices like his are extremely rare in Israel. So what hope is there ever to see peace and progress with dark figures like Netanyahu or Sharon? None.

Israel will only respond to pressure from Western states, and that is why it is completely right to criticize and try to alter the political environment which allows Israel’s bloody excesses to flourish. It is not anti-Semitism, it is human decency, and I am sure most Jewish people really understand that but feel fearful of saying so.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RINF

 

Recently, there has been a steady drumbeat at The Guardian and other British papers on this subject with columnist after columnist writing fantastical stuff about “the Left’s anti-Semitism problem.”

And this comes after a long campaign to vilify Jeremy Corbyn himself – a thoroughly decent man, after his becoming leader of the Labour Party – as weak, out-of-date, and ineffectual, quoting day after day such wonderfully credible sources and paid hacks as Tony Blair. This campaign reached the sickening point of the Prime Minister’s publically insulting Corbyn and refusing to apologize, but of course we know David Cameron is a corrupt and unreliable political figure.

The government of Israel thoroughly dislikes Corbyn – as it dislikes Donald Trump, disliking them both for being independent-minded and fairly honest speakers – and it is making the force of its views felt in indirect, behind-the scenes pressures on many matters such as rules against criticizing Israel and making advocacy of BDS illegal.

Of course, the “anti-Semitism” referred to in these efforts is not what most people in the world would regard as anti-Semitism, the actual hatred of Jewish people because they are Jewish.

No, instead it is an unwarranted negative labelling of those who criticise Israel or who advocate BDS, both legitimate and ethical exercises of free speech in a supposedly free country. This is anti-Semitism only in the phony propagandists’ sense that criticising the former Soviet Union might have been labelled hatred of Russians.

This really is depressing since our political system is based on free speech and open views, and Israel unquestionably does things regularly and before our eyes that most of us have long ago have been taught are immoral and wrong.

Israel refuses to change anything that it does, any of its abusive and violent and law-breaking policies, but increasingly it also expects people in other lands to be pressured by unjust laws and rules into shutting up their objections.

It is definitely poor, short-term thinking to push things in this fashion and generate an even greater sense of injustice.

This does tell us, along with other measures of recent years, just how desperate Israel is becoming over honestly-expressed public opinion in the rest of the world.

So King Canute is going to command the waves on the sea to stop, and we do come to a ridiculous and unsustainable place, the very same place motivating Israel’s unreasonable demands.

John Chuckman

POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN

Sorry, but Cherie Blair has always been a bizarre and repulsive personality.

From sounding off like the proverbial fish wife to her 7,000 dollar hair-dos.

From begging Hillary Clinton to meet a filthy rich monarch to yawning in public with the Queen present.

From appearing in her dressing gown on Downing Street to making almost spastic movements at times.

I don’t know which is worse, her or low-life Tony.

But I do know no couple except America’s Borgias, the Clintons, ever deserved each other more.

I collect special political images, and here is Cherie at her best/worst:

http://chuckmangrotesques.blogspot.ca/2010/10/blairs-tony-and-cherie-looking.html

http://chuckmangrotesques.blogspot.ca/2008/09/blog-post_7098.html

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN

Why not indeed?

Jeremy Corbyn says something intelligent almost every time he opens his mouth.

That fact alone – quite apart from whether you agree with him each time – puts him head and shoulders above the mealy-mouthed David Cameron.

There are aspects of Corbyn that remind me of the giants of Europe a couple of generations ago.

Today the political landscape of Europe is littered with sad mediocrities like Cameron and Hollande.