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Anglozionism

The United Kingdom: Zionism’s Covert Nerve Center

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by Kit Klarenberg via The Cradle

Britain’s century-long commitment to Zionism and collaboration with Israel today plays a frequently overlooked role in perpetuating the oppression and genocide against Palestinians.

Photo Credit: The Cradle

Britain’s role in sustaining the Zionist entity

On 9 February, British Defense Minister James Heappey informed parliament that Israeli military operatives are “currently … posted in the UK,” both within Tel Aviv’s diplomatic mission “and as participants in UK defense-led training courses.” This hitherto unacknowledged arrangement amply demonstrates how, despite recent calls from officials in London for Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to exercise restraint in its genocide of Gaza – if not institute a ceasefire – the UK remains international Zionism’s covert nerve center.

Mere days earlier, Heappey likewise admitted that nine Israeli military aircraft landed in Britain since Operation Al Aqsa Flood on 7 October last year. Investigations by independent investigative website Declassified UK show that Royal Air Force aircraft have flown to and from Israel in the same period, along with 65 spy plane missions launched from the UK’s vast, little-known military and intelligence base in Cyprus.

The purpose of those flights and who and/or what they carried are a state secret. Freedom of Information requests have been denied, Britain’s Ministry of Defense has refused to comment, and local media is by and large silent.

Nonetheless, in July 2023, British ministers admitted that the UK’s training of Israeli military personnel includes battlefield medical assistance, “organizational design and concepts,” and “defense education.” It is unknown if that “education” has in any way informed the slaughter of more than 30,000 Palestinians since 7 October.

British military presence in occupied Palestine

Yet, indications that London has long provided a highly influential guiding hand to Tel Aviv in its oppression and mass murder of Palestinians are unambiguous, even if hidden in plain sight. For example, in September 2019, the Israeli air force participated in a joint combat exercise with its British, German, and Italian counterparts.

The Israelis deployed F-15 warplanes for the purpose, which have been blitzing Gaza on a virtually daily basis since 7 October, indiscriminately flattening schools, hospitals, businesses, and homes and killing untold innocents.

A year earlier, in October 2022, it was quietly admitted in parliament that London maintains several “permanent military personnel in Israel,” all posted in the British Embassy in Tel Aviv:

“They carry out key activities in defense engagement and diplomacy. The Ministry of Defense supports the HMG Middle East Peace Process Programme in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel. The program aims to help protect the political and physical viability of a two-state solution. We would not disclose the location and numbers of military personnel for security reasons.”

‘Joint activity’

Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have openly and repeatedly boasted of their personal role in blocking Palestinian statehood. We are thus left to ponder what these British operatives are truly concerned about – it certainly isn’t protecting “the political and physical viability of a two-state solution,” as that entire project was evidently never “viable,” by design. It could be those “permanent military personnel” who are present under the auspices of a highly confidential December 2020 military cooperation agreement inked by London and Tel Aviv.

British Ministry of Defense officials describe the agreement as an “important piece of defense diplomacy,” which “strengthens” military ties between the pair while providing “a mechanism for planning our joint activity.”

Its contents are nonetheless concealed not only from the public but also from elected lawmakers. Speculation can only abound that the agreement compels Britain to defend Israel in the event it is attacked. Such suspicions are only compounded by the visible presence of the UK’s elite SAS forces in Gaza today.

As a December 2023 investigation by The Cradle revealed, this apparent deployment is protected from media and public scrutiny by a dedicated Ministry of Defense-issued D-notice, as are other ominous indicators Britain is shaping the theater and setting the stage in West Asia for a full-blown, protracted region-wide war.

This included an as-yet-failed effort to pressure Beirut into allowing armed British soldiers total, unrestricted freedom of movement within Lebanon, along with immunity from arrest and prosecution for committing any crime.

The monarchy’s departure from neutrality

At countless protests the world over in solidarity with Palestinians since last October, demonstrators have brandished banners and signs imploring US President Joe Biden to impose a ceasefire in Gaza, if not order Netanyahu to seek peace. It is a noble demand, yet potentially misdirected. The true power to halt Tel Aviv’s current push to fulfill Zionism’s genocidal founding mission may not lie in Washington DC but in London – specifically, Buckingham Palace.

An extraordinary and largely unremarked upon development since Israel’s military assault on Gaza began has been the British monarchy’s shameless abandonment of “political neutrality” over Israel.

Queen Elizabeth II, publicly at least, refrained from commenting on current affairs or appearing to take “sides” on any issue throughout her 70-year reign. However, her recently coronated son has apparently, without fanfare, comprehensively shredded that longstanding convention.

King Charles the Zionist

Within hours of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’s eruption, King Charles openly condemned Hamas, saying he was “profoundly distressed” and “appalled” by the “horrors inflicted” by the resistance group and its “barbaric acts of terrorism.” Hamas is not recognized as a terrorist entity by a majority of countries internationally, while the BBC – which has relentlessly manufactured consent for genocide in Gaza every step of the way – rejects the designation’s use.

In the years immediately prior to taking the throne, Charles made his Zionism abundantly clear, breaking with his mother’s unspoken policy of not visiting Israel, secretly attending the funerals of former Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. In the latter instance, in 2016, he also visited the graves of his grandmother, Princess Alice, and her aunt, Grand Duchess Elisabeth, in a cemetery on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives, near the world’s largest Jewish cemetery. Both were Christian Zionists.

The Jerusalem Post approvingly dubbed Charles’ Zionist sympathies and familial connection to the Mount “a problem for Palestinians,” arguing he has a clear view of “who the city and the country belong to.” Meanwhile, the Times of Israel has hailed him as “a friend” to Jewry “with special and historic ties to Israel.” One such “tie” was an intimate friendship with Britain’s former chief Rabbi and President of United Jewish Israel Appeal, Jonathan Sacks.

Educational indoctrination

Among other proselytizing acts, Sacks oversaw and advocated a number of operations intended to indoctrinate schoolchildren of all ages in Zionism, often under the bogus aegis of countering “antisemitism” in classrooms and on campuses. It may well be no coincidence then that the Department for Education has softly unveiled a multimillion-pound effort to train “staff and learners” at British schools, colleges, and universities to “identify and tackle incidents of antisemitism.”

A noble endeavor, one might argue. But it is evidently in keeping with Sacks’ pet projects. Among the program’s key stated objectives is “providing education staff with the necessary tools to hold and facilitate discussions on the historic and current conflicts [in West Asia] and tackling disinformation … including on the situation in Israel following the terrorist attacks on 7 October.” It also intends for universities to “demonstrate practical commitment to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.”

Manufacturing and maintaining the Zionist entity

Most British universities have accepted the highly controversial IHRA definition under direct government threat of funding cuts if they refused. The definition’s validity and legitimacy have been widely challenged, including by academic David Feldman, one of its authors. In 2017, he expressed grave concerns that “this definition is imprecise,” falsely equating Judaism and Israel with an overwhelming focus on the latter, producing “a danger that the overall effect will place the onus on Israel’s critics to demonstrate they are not antisemitic.”

The initiative is unambiguously concerned with stifling criticism of Israel and its occupation while ensuring British youth are, from the earliest, most formative age, propagandized in its support.

His Majesty’s government clearly believes in Tel Aviv’s future endurance, and is in for the long haul, in terms of helping preserve the Mephistophelian project. There can surely be no greater proof that the current crisis in West Asia was made in London

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‘No military solution’ for Israel in Gaza or Lebanon: Israeli Official

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via The Cradle

After five months of fighting, Israel has been unable to defeat Hamas’ Qassam Brigades or push Hezbollah away from the Lebanese border


Israeli forces on the border with Lebanon on 11 October, 2023. (Photo Credit: Ayal Margolin/Flash90)
Former Deputy Chairman of the Israeli National Security Council, Eran Etzion, stated that “there are no military solutions” to the wars Israel is fighting in the south against Hamas and the north against Hezbollah and that the Israeli government is lying, Al-Mayadeen reported on 2 March.
Etzion told Hebrew Channel 13 that “it is not a coincidence that the government did not solve the Hamas problem in the Gaza Strip after five months of war,” explaining that it “created unrealistic expectations for the battle in the south and continues to do so regarding the northern front.”
He explained that “no change will occur, even if the fighting continues for a year in this way, and even in the most optimistic circumstances, and the government knows that.” 
 “There are no short wars, neither in the north nor in the south, and there are no purely military solutions to our problems, neither in the north nor in the south,” Etzion concluded.  
“The Israeli public must realize this and wake up from its expectations … The government must stop lying to the public.”

Al-Mayadeen adds that political affairs analyst for Channel 13, Rafif Drucker, stated that pushing Hezbollah away from the border was only a “dream” the army had now woken up from. The Israeli military “is now unable to invade Lebanon and establish a belt up to the Litani River, or to remove all Hezbollah elements from the border,” and “what is happening in Gaza is evidence of that.”
On 29 February, The Wall Street Journal acknowledged that “Israel is still far from its declared war aim of eliminating Hamas as a significant military and political entity.”
“Fighting the enemy is like a game of whack-a-mole,” an Israeli reservist in Khan Yunis with the 98th Division told the paper. He said many soldiers feel the army has no plan and wonder why they are fighting. “It will be very hard to destroy Hamas,” he concluded.
Part of the difficulty lies in destroying Hamas’s vast tunnel network, which it uses as military headquarters and to move across Gaza’s cities, protect its leaders, hide Israeli captives, manufacture weapons, and conduct hit-and-run attacks.
“Until you take all of this away from Hamas, you won’t be able to beat it,” said Guy Aviad, a researcher on Hamas and a former Israeli officer.
Hamas also continues to have significant manpower despite suffering significant losses. Hamas leaders in Gaza have told Egyptian officials that although the group’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, has lost at least 6,000 men killed, another 24,000 still remain.

Democracy as Mob Rule

Plotting to Assassinate Trump and Use Iran as Cover?

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via RT

The FBI has alleged that an Iranian intelligence agent is recruiting operatives in the US to help kill current and former government officials who were involved in the January 2020 assassination of Tehran’s top general.

Majid Dastjani Farahani is wanted for questioning in connection with the plot to target US officials, the FBI’s Miami office said in a post on X (formerly Twitter). An FBI wanted poster for the 41-year-old Farahani claims that he has acted or purported to act on behalf of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security while recruiting individuals for operations in the US.

Farahani is engaged in “lethal targeting” of US senior officials, including members of former President Donald Trump’s administration, to take revenge for the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, the FBI claimed. Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike near the Baghdad International Airport while traveling to meet with Adil Abdul-Mahdi, Iraq’s then-prime minister. Washington said at the time that Soleimani was complicit in attacks on US diplomatic and military sites in Iraq and Syria.

Some Iranian officials made no secret of their desire to avenge Soleimani’s death by killing Trump and other US leaders, such as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the military commanders involved in the assassination. “God willing, we are looking to kill Trump [and] Pompeo,” an IRGC aerospace force commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh told a state-run broadcast outlet last year.

John Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security advisor, has been the target of multiple Iranian assassination plots, according to US authorities. The federal government has provided 24-hour security details for Bolton and another senior Trump aide, Robert O’Brien, reportedly at an annual cost of about $12 million, because of potential threats from Iran.

The US Department of Justice indicted an alleged IRGC operative, Shahram Poursafi, in August 2022, claiming he had tried to arrange the murder of Bolton. He allegedly arranged to pay his recruits $300,000 to carry out the killing. “Iran has a history of plotting to assassinate individuals in the US it deems a threat, but the US government has a longer history of holding accountable those who threaten the safety of our citizens,” Larissa L. Knapp, an assistant director in the FBI’s national security branch, said at the time.

Farahani recruited individuals with connections to “religious sites, businesses and other facilities” in the US to do surveillance work, the FBI said.

Scamdemic - Corona Virus

UK: Not Covid but Murder by Midazolam

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by Ben Bartee via Armageddon Prose
Excerpt

Australian politician releases evidence of potential government murder of tens of thousands of hospitalized elderly to pad COVID death numbers

National director of the United Australia Party, Craig Kelly, has some shocking, if not surprising, allegations against the NHS in Great Britain.

Via Slay News:

“A bombshell new report has sent shockwaves around the world after an investigation into the high numbers of “Covid deaths” during the pandemic uncovered evidence that tens of thousands of elderly people were actually murdered to boost the mortality rates.

The data produced for the report indicated that people were being euthanized using a fatal injection of Midazolam.

The cause of their deaths was then listed as ‘Covid,’ indicating that the virus was killing far more elderly people than it was.

The explosive data from the report was made public by Australian politician Craig Kelly, the national director of the United Australia Party.

The report obtained official UK government data on death rates and causes.

The data appears to show that vast numbers of elderly were murdered with an injection of the end-of-life drug Midazolam.

According to Kelly, the patients were euthanized in order to boost ‘Covid deaths’ and ramp up public fear to garner support for lockdowns and vaccines.

While alerting the public about the data, Kelly declared that it exposes ‘the crime of the century.’”

From the pre-print report, “Excess Deaths in the United Kingdom: Midazolam and Euthanasia in the COVID-19 Pandemic”:

“Macro-data during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom (UK) are shown to have significant data anomalies and inconsistencies with existing explanations. This paper shows that the UK spike in deaths, wrongly attributed to COVID-19 in April 2020, was not due to SARS-CoV-2 virus, which was largely absent, but was due to the widespread use of Midazolam injections which were statistically very highly correlated (coefficient over 90 percent) with excess deaths in all regions of England during 2020…

The widespread and persistent use of Midazolam in UK suggests a possible policy of systemic euthanasia.”

Midazolam, a benzodiazepine (the same class of drugs that includes Xanax and Valium), is often used to sedate hospitalized patients in the ICU. It’s also — and anyone who has extensive firsthand experience with benzos like me can attest to this — extremely hazardous, especially when it’s mainlined directly into the bloodstream, as it alleged to have happened at scale, as standard operating procedure for hospitalized COVID patient, in British hospitals throughout 2020 and 2021.

Via MedicinePlus:

“Midazolam injection may cause serious or life-threatening breathing problems such as shallow, slowed, or temporarily stopped breathing that may lead to permanent brain injury or death. You should only receive this medication in a hospital or doctor’s office that has the equipment that is needed to monitor your heart and lungs and to provide life-saving medical treatment quickly if your breathing slows or stops. Your doctor or nurse will watch you closely after you receive this medication to make sure that you are breathing properly. Tell your doctor if you have a severe infection or if you have or have ever had any lung, airway, or breathing problems or heart disease. Tell your doctor and pharmacist if you are taking any of the following medications: antidepressants; barbiturates such as secobarbital (Seconal); droperidol (Inapsine); medications for anxiety, mental illness, or seizures; opiate medications for cough such as codeine (in Triacin-C, in Tuzistra XR) or hydrocodone (in Anexsia, in Norco, in Zyfrel) or for pain such as codeine, fentanyl (Actiq, Duragesic, Subsys, others), hydromorphone (Dilaudid, Exalgo), meperidine (Demerol), methadone (Dolophine, Methadose), morphine (Astramorph, Duramorph PF, Kadian), oxycodone (in Oxycet, in Percocet, in Roxicet, others), and tramadol (Conzip, Ultram, in Ultracet); sedatives; sleeping pills; or tranquilizers.”

That’s a lot of fatal contraindications for an older Western population statistically likely to be taking a lot of pharmaceutical drugs.

I’m no doctor — mere “conspiracy theorist,” “domestic terrorist” journalist I am, and proudly so — but one need not have attended medical school to suss out that benzodiazepines are very rarely well-conceived medical interventions, least of all intravenously for an elderly patient already struggling to breathe on a ventilator.

If, indeed, the accusations are true, midazolam would have been a perfect method of execution, as it’s frequently used in such settings (so as not to arouse suspicion) and attributing the cause of death to the midazolam rather than COVID is a difficult task — especially in the context of willful ignorance. In international relations terms, this dilemma is termed “fog of war,” a reference to the difficulty of assigning proper attribution to the source of an attack in real time under battlefield conditions.

Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

Saving Ukrainians from Themselves

Medvedev: Ukraine Split Btw Russia, Poland, Romania

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EPIC: Medvdev just unveiled a new map of Ukraine split between Poland, Russia, Romania and Hungary, declaring:

“Ukraine is undoubtedly part of Russia!” 
”The territories on both banks of the Dnieper River are an inalienable part of Russian strategic historic borders,” he said, using his preferred term for what is usually known as ‘sphere of influence’ in geopolitics. “All attempts to change them by force, to cut its living body, are doomed.”

Saving Europeans from Themselves

Is Transnistria Indicative of Russia’s Western Border Plan ?

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via Voltairnet

When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, states were created according to the regional divisions of the USSR. However, Transnistria, which was annexed to Moldova by the Soviet administration after World War II, declared independence five days after the dissolution of the USSR.

Moldovans dreamed of the American way of life, while Transnistrians pursued Mikhail Gorbachev’s model: to build a nation that was both democratic and communist. Furious, the United States tried to destroy this country in 1992 by recruiting a Romanian army under the command of NATO special advisor Colonel Howard J. T. Steers [1]. Boris Yeltsin’s Russia abandoned it, but the Transnistrians defended themselves and won their freedom.

Today, social benefits and salaries of public sector employees are not paid by Chisinau (Moldova), which does not recognize the independence of the Dniester Moldovan Republic while still claiming that Transnistrians are its citizens.

While an agreement had been reached between Moldova and the unrecognized Moldovan Republic of the Dniester (Transnistria) for it to have access to both the European Union market and the global market, Chisinau issued new standards at the beginning of 2024. Transnistrian companies, which trade with 90 countries, must be registered in Moldova in order to transit their goods through it. However, they cannot do so because the Moldovan banks refuse it to them. Nor can they do so via Ukraine due to the war.

Throughout the month of January, demonstrations were held in Tiraspol to protest against this economic strangulation. Two-thirds of Transnistrians have triple Moldovan /Transnistrian/Russian citizenship. 1,500 to 2,000 Russian troops make up a permanent peace mission in the DMR.

On 21st February Transnistrian President Vadim Krasnosselski convened all deputies in an extraordinary Congress for the first time in 18 years. Ukraine, which had tried to assassinate the Transnistrian president last September, immediately sent its ambassador, Paun Rogovei, to ensure that the situation did not escalate. On February 27, the U.S. State Department dispatched Christopher W. Smith, an assistant to Undersecretary Victoria Nuland.

On February 28, the Congress of Deputies met and appealed to Russia for help, but did not ask for annexation to the Federation, even though its citizens had done so in 2006 in a referendum with 97% of the votes cast and its government had done so in 2014 when Crimea was annexed.

In 2019, the Rand Corporation, a think tank of the US military-industrial complex, had drafted a plan to weaken the Russian rival by forcing it to intervene in Ukraine, then in Transnistria [2]. The plan was introduced in the House of Representatives on September 5, 2019.

In January 2022, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell visited the Ukrainian-Transnistrian border to meet with the European Union Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine (EUBAM). The objective was to plan for the current crisis [3].

Notes:

[1] “En 1992, les États-Unis tentèrent d’écraser militairement la Transnistrie“, par Thierry Meyssan, Réseau Voltaire, 17 juillet 2007.

[2] “Ukraine: It Was All Written in the Rand Corp Plan”, by Manlio Dinucci , Global Research, Voltaire Network, 8 March 2022.

[3] “Josep Borrell sets up siege of Donbass and Transnistria”, Voltaire Network, 10 January 2022.

Anglozionism

Israel Is Losing Its Greatest Asset: Acceptance

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by Thomas F. Friedman via The New York Times

Ed. Note: It must be serious when even Thomas Friedman of New York Times is saying “Israel is losing”. It means is losing.

I’ve spent the past few days traveling from New Delhi to Dubai and Amman, and I have an urgent message to deliver to President Biden and the Israeli people: I am seeing the increasingly rapid erosion of Israel’s standing among friendly nations — a level of acceptance and legitimacy that was painstakingly built up over decades. And if Biden is not careful, America’s global standing will plummet right along with Israel’s.

I don’t think Israelis or the Biden administration fully appreciate the rage that is bubbling up around the world, fueled by social media and TV footage, over the deaths of so many thousands of Palestinian civilians, particularly children, with U.S.-supplied weapons in Israel’s war in Gaza. Hamas has much to answer for in triggering this human tragedy, but Israel and the U.S. are seen as driving events now and getting most of the blame.

That such anger is boiling over in the Arab world is obvious, but I heard it over and over again in conversations in India during the past week — from friends, business leaders, an official and journalists both young and old. That is even more telling because the Hindu-dominated government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the only major power in the global south that has supported Israel and consistently blamed Hamas for inviting the massive Israeli retaliation and the deaths of an estimated 30,000 people, according to Gazan health officials, the majority of them civilians.

That many civilian deaths in a relatively short war would be problematic in any context. But when so many civilians die in a retaliatory invasion that was launched by an Israeli government without any political horizon for the morning after — and then, when the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, finally offers a morning-after plan that essentially says to the world that Israel now intends to occupy both the West Bank and Gaza indefinitely —it is no surprise that Israel’s friends will edge away and the Biden team will start to look hapless.

As Shekhar Gupta, the veteran editor of the Indian newspaper ThePrint, put it to me: “There’s enormous love and admiration for Israel in India. But a war with no end will strain it. Initial shock and awe apart, Netanyahu’s war is damaging Israel’s greatest asset: the widely held belief in the invincibility of its army, the infallibility of its intelligence services and the justness of its mission.”

Each day brings new calls for Israel to be banned from international academic, artistic and athletic competitions or events. That so much of it is hypocritical in singling out Israel for censure — while ignoring the excesses of Iran, Russia, Syria and China, not to mention Hamas — is true. But this Israeli government is doing things that make it too easy. Many of Israel’s friends are now just praying for a cease-fire so that they don’t have to be asked by their citizens or voters — especially their youth —how they can be indifferent to so many mounting civilian casualties in Gaza.

In particular, many Arab leaders who privately want to see Hamas destroyed, who understand what a warped and destructive force it is, are being pressured from the streets to the elites to publicly distance themselves from an Israel that is unwilling to consider any political horizon for Palestinian independence on any border.

Or, as Netanyahu put it in the morning-after plan he issued last Friday: Israel will keep security control over Gaza, the territory will be demilitarized, the strip’s southern border with Egypt will be sealed much more tightly in coordination with Cairo, the United Nations agency that provides primary health and education services for Palestinian refugees will be disbanded and education and administration will be completely overhauled. Civil administration and day-to-day policing will be based on “local elements with administrative and management experience.” Who will pay for all of this and how local Palestinians will be enlisted to perpetuate Israel’s control is not explained.

I have realsympathy for the strategic dilemma that Israel faced on Oct. 7 — a surprise attack by Hamas that was designed to make Israel crazy by murdering parents in front of their children, children in front of their parents, sexually abusing and mutilating women and kidnapping infants and grandparents. It was pure barbarism.

La Resistance - One by One

Must Watch to the End: Vox Populi, Vox Dei

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Sky News interviews George Galloway after Rishi Sunak dubbed his sweeping by-election victory “beyond alarming”

GALLOWAY: “We’re talking about little Rishi Sunak in the fag end of his prime ministership. 

Don’t talk to me as if he has come down from the Mount with tablets of stone. As if the things he says are meant to awe me.”

At the end, the crowd around Galloway starts chanting, “Free, free Palestine” and Sky News cuts away.

Uncategorized

Islam, A Short Introduction

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by Hikaru Kitabayashi

Islam. Its followers are Muslims. Its Holy Writings are written in Classical Arabic, but it also accepts the authority of the Old and New Testaments written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, where they are not in conflict with the teachings of Mohammed. Many of its followers are Arabic speaking, but not all Arabs are Muslim. At the time of Mohammed, certain important Arab tribes practiced Judaism. Most eventually converted to Islam, but until the establishment of the Israeli political entity, a sizeable group in Yemen still practiced Judaism. Likewise, many Arabic speaking people were Christian. Most Christian Arabs converted, but, in certain Arabic speaking countries such as Egypt and Palestine, a large minority remain Christian.

Islam is not a religion only of Arabic-speaking people. Many Muslims speak English as a first language and many others Russian. Of the world’s six largest Islamic countries, only Egypt uses Arabic as its national language. The other five, in order of population, are Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, and Turkey. Muslims do not speak one common language, they do not have a common ethnicity, they do not share a common unique culture, but they reside as citizens in every major and most minor countries in the world.

To reiterate, Islam is a world-wide religion, as is Christianity and, on a much smaller scale, Judaism. Yet, Islamophobia is real, especially in Europe. It manifests itself in insulting Islam in print and on the street. In countries like France Islamophobic dress codes are legislated for those following Islamic nation fashions but there are no comparable rules restricting the fashion choices of some of the less common sects of Judaism or Christianity. In certain parts of Europe, Islamophobia also manifests itself in taking children away by force from their families to be raised in non-Islamic environments.

But why Islam? Islamophobia seems to have its origins in the Crusades. In 1095, Pope Urban II initiated the Crusades for a combination of purposes. One was as a means of defeating a so-called anti-Pope who was ruling in Rome with the support of various Christian states. Another purpose was to force the Orthodox Churches of eastern Europe and the Middle East to accept papal authority. A third was economic. The Crusades were portrayed as useful employment for upper class young men in primarily France and surrounding countries, whose talents were limited to cursing, playing with dogs, hunting deer, and killing each other when they had nothing better to do. Moreover, whoring, murder, and property theft would all be forgiven. Crusaders could sin abundantly and still be guaranteed a place in heaven. What could be better?

Thus, the Crusades began and never truly ended. Every generation of European history since 1095 has seen European conflict with the Muslim world; the epicenter of interest has always been Jerusalem, even when the actual fighting took place in other parts of the Islamic world. Generation after generation, the main actors changed but the essentials remained the same.

So, in 1095, the hatred of Islam, Islamophobia, took shape with the blessing of the Pope. Feeding on the blood of ages, it has remained strong ever since. As for its godfather, Pope Urban II, like many other supremely successful promoters of human slaughter, he was made a saint. Saint Urban, the patron saint of Islamophobia. And, whether in heaven or hell, wherever he might be, may he find satisfaction in the lives he’s wrecked.