Sim-O

I just heard Jeremy Bowen on Radio 4 talking about the Palestinian/Isreali peace talks…

There is a religious war developing in what has been essentially a nationalist conflict. You can make a deal with nationalists, it’s much harder to deal with people that believe they’re doing gods will.

Oh? As opposed to people that believe god gave them some land?

Come on Jeremy, the Palestinians have been fighting against a religious justification for the occupation of their land for generations.

(Posted using my phone so, please, excuse the spelling)

An immigrant has become the Prime Minister of a country of immigrants.

If an Aboriginal person became Prime Minister, now that would be news.

Jon Stewart notices some similarities between Bush and Obama.

Via Aaron

Well, bugger me. We’ve heard nothing from The Savior of the Middle East for months and then what a coincidence, up he pops just after Isreal board a civilian boat and shoot some people, with an idea about getting stuff through to Gaza.

Nice timing Tony.

Lenins’ Tomb…

[R]ecall that for weeks the Israeli state has been declaring that the aid flotilla constitutes a violent attack on Israeli sovereignty, though Israel has no sovereign right to police the borders of Gaza. They claimed that the convoy was bringing assistance to terrorists, and warned that it was being funded by the Turkish Muslim Brotherhood. They claim that such aid vessels help keep Hamas in power and Gilad Shalit (who he?) locked up. They claim that the convoy, rather than the blockade itself, constitutes a violation of international law. Israel’s ability to exhale falsehoods and absurdities seamlessly, poker-faced, and then to suddenly and without missing a beat alter its story when it becomes clear that not even its loyalist drones are gullible enough to believe it, is not unique but it has a unique pedigree. For the Israeli state is singular in its self-righteousness. This is built in to official doctrine and practise, entrenched in its forms of governmentality. It is always the victim, no matter what it’s doing today – whether slaughtering refugees in Sabra and Shatilla, or murdering sleeping families in Dahiya, from Nakba to Cast Lead – it is always on the precipice of being exterminated by a new wave of Arab Nazis. Given this, any effort to undermine its ‘defensive’ actions is an attack not only on its expansive notions of sovereignty, but on the ‘Jewish state’.

By the logic of Israel, any abridgment of its right to murder Palestinians constitutes an act of antisemitism, an existential attack on the Jewish people, whom they represent by proxy. Its job, then, is to do whatever it deems fit in discouraging and punishing said ‘antisemites’ while aggressively retailing whatever they do to an increasingly hostile world which, at any rate, they insist is driven by exterminationist antisemitism anyway. If the two ends – the violent preservation of Israeli supremacy in the Middle East, and the global PR – increasingly come into conflict, this is only because of a ‘new antisemitism’, not because of anything Israel actually does.

Read the whole thing.

How I see it.

A gang of men break into a house, the owner of the house goes at the intruders with whatever comes to hand, a broom handle maybe or a kitchen knife, and beats the fuck out of the intruders. The intruders are armed and start shooting, killing the owner and injuring other memebers of the household.

Whose side are you on?

For a more informed take on the situation, Craig Murray…

Because the incident took place on the high seas does not mean however that international law is the only applicable law. The Law of the Sea is quite plain that, when an incident takes place
on a ship on the high seas (outside anybody’s territorial waters) the applicable law is that of the flag state of the ship on which the incident occurred. In legal terms, the Turkish ship was Turkish territory.

There are therefore two clear legal possibilities.

Possibility one is that the Israeli commandos were acting on behalf of the government of Israel in killing the activists on the ships. In that case Israel is in a position of war with Turkey, and the act falls under international jurisdiction as a war crime.

Possibility two is that, if the killings were not authorised Israeli military action, they were acts of murder under Turkish jurisdiction. If Israel does not consider itself in a position of war with Turkey, then it must hand over the commandos involved for trial in Turkey under Turkish law.

In brief, if Israel and Turkey are not at war, then it is Turkish law which is applicable to what happened on the ship. It is for Turkey, not Israel, to carry out any inquiry or investigation into events and to initiate any prosecutions. Israel is obliged to hand over indicted personnel for prosecution.

The defeat of the BNP…

At two minutes past six last Friday morning, Nick Griffin walked to the front of the makeshift stage at the Goresbrook leisure centre in Barking, east London, and tried to make his voice heard above a braying crowd. The BNP leader had just suffered a humiliating defeat, beaten into third place by Labour MP Margaret Hodge in the constituency where he had promised to create a “political earthquake”.

But as he began a flustered and angry speech, Griffin already knew that worse was to come. Rumours had been circulating round the east London count for more than an hour that the party had not only failed to get its first MP, it was on the verge of an electoral disaster in the area Griffin had once described as the party’s “jewel in the crown”.

“Within the next five years, the indigenous people of London will be a minority,” barked Griffin, as jubilant Labour supporters taunted him with shouts of “Out, out, out!” “It is going to be too late for Barking, but it is not too late for Britain.” By then, though, no one was listening.

In the next 12 hours, Griffin’s worst fears were realised – and even exceeded. The party was thrashed in its two key parliamentary constituencies of Barking and Stoke Central. Its record number of council and parliamentary candidates failed to make a single breakthrough; and of the 28 BNP councillors standing for re-election, all but two were beaten.

Read the rest

Via Chicken Yoghurt

The BNPs’ foreign policy is quite simple: Neutrality.

Fair enough, there’s both pros’ and cons to being an officially neutral nation, but when it’s worded…

We would have no quarrel with any nation that does not threaten British interests. In this regard, a BNP government will:

– Reach an accord with the Muslim world whereby they will agree to take back their excess population which is currently colonising this country, in exchange for an ironclad guarantee that Britain will never again interfere in the political affairs of the Middle East or try to dictate to any Arab or Muslim country as to what their internal government form should be; and…

… you know that it isn’t just about not getting involved in others affairs.
Excess population? The muslims that have come to live in Britain aren’t ‘excess’ people from their own country. They haven’t been called in front of a local official, told that their country is full and handed a one way ticket to Blighty. Muslims have come here for many reasons, just like all the other immigrants of other colours and religions. They have also come on their own initiative, not on the orders of some mysterious Arab officialdom. I would guess that most of the muslims in this country are British born, too. Once again, we’re back to deporting British people because of the colour of their skin.

Only once poverty and deprivation amongst British people has been eliminated, can any thought be given to foreign aid — and even then, a BNP government will link foreign aid with our voluntary resettlement policy, in terms of which those nations taking significant numbers of people back to their homelands will need cash to help absorb those returning.

Foreign aid, when it is given to a country that needs it in return for taking people off our hands, isn’t aid. It’s a bribe to take some people off us.

Give it away, then. Let some one else make use of it.

How a nation deals with issues such as climate change, war, poverty and imigration don’t just have an effect in that nation. The vaery nature of the issues have an impact on other countries.

What the campaign Give Your Vote aims to do is give those people affected by, but cannot influence those decision, a voice.

If you intend not using your vote then you register with the campaign site and they will send you details of someone from Bangladesh, Afghanistan or Ghana and how they would vote if they were eligible and ask you to use your vote how they would. The press release also says…

The GIVE YOUR VOTE campaign will see:

The Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem and other manifestos launched in Kabul, Dhaka and Accra.

• Local language campaign posters of Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg being pasted on walls across the cities
• Questions on party policies from Britain’s new overseas constituents passed to UK candidates via their own constituents.
• Afghan, Bangladeshi and Ghanaian voters in the British poll will vote by sending a text message on election day to a local number. A registered UK voter will receive a message telling them how they can carry out that vote.
• In the three countries the campaign is called ‘USE A UK VOTE’ and will launch on 30th March following the collection of the first set of UK vote pledges.

Sounds like a noble thing. It brings the idea of a global democracy closer to a reality.

I won’t be using it, I know how I’m going to vote. I also have doubts as to how much real effect it will have. We shall see, eh?

Nadine Dorries seems happy to be seen to have someone making threats of violence against people for her, or so it seems by her silence on the subject. This is position that Nadine is putting herself in is not good, so I thought a she might need someone to have a quiet word in her ear.

Nadine isn’t going to listen to me, obviously, so off went a letter to my MP, Dr Evan Harris…

I am writing because a friend of mine, Tim Ireland, could do with your help.

For a fuller background to the story you will want to read the web pages listed at the end of this letter. It won’t take long, but the abridged version goes like this:

As one of the results of uncovering the source of a supposedly Islamist hit list of high profile people in The Sun newspaper, Tim has received serious threats of violence to him and his family from a group calling themselves ‘The Cheerleaders’. The ringleader of this group, and also of a music band called ‘The Fighting Cocks’ whose members have also been involved in this, is called Charlie Flowers. These groups know where Tim lives and have proved it by publishing his home address on the internet and there is no reason to doubt their sincerity with these threats.

Charlie Flowers has claimed that this campaign of harassment against Tim is being carried out on behalf of, amongst other people, Nadine Dorries, the MP for Mid-bedfordshire.

(the claim is here: http://barthsnotes.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/friends-of-the-cheerleaders-wade-in-with-evasions/#comment-12040)

Tim has contacted Nadine to get a denial that she is involved but a response is not forthcoming.

What I would like you to do is to speak with Nadine Dorries and maybe explain what sort of position she is putting herself in, and the reputation of MPs in general, by refusing to answer, or simply dismissing, this allegation that threats of violence are being issued in her name. I am quite sure I do not need to explain to you what that position is.

I look forward to your reply.

Background:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/sep/15/sun-alan-sugar-error
http://barthsnotes.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/dominic-wightman-the-story-of-an-encounter/
http://barthsnotes.wordpress.com/2009/09/26/harrassment-against-tim-ireland/
http://barthsnotes.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/friends-of-the-cheerleaders-wade-in-with-evasions/