User:NSH001

Mearsheimer: "people in the West don’t want to hear it"
I think your description of the American position in December 2021 and in the run-up to the war in February 2022 is correct. But it’s also important to emphasize—and people in the West don’t want to hear it, but it is true—that the Russians were desperate to avoid a conflict. The idea that Putin was chomping at the bit to invade Ukraine so he could make it part of Greater Russia, it’s just not a serious argument. The Russians did not want a war, and they did, I believe, everything possible to avoid a war. They just couldn’t get the Americans to play ball with them. The Americans were unwilling to negotiate in a serious way. Period. End of story.

The full discussion is available here.

"Nato isn’t defending Ukraine. It’s stabbing it in the back"
See Jonathan Cook, [https://www.jonathan-cook.net/2023-07-14/nato-ukraine-stab-back/ Nato isn’t defending Ukraine. It’s stabbing it in the back], Middle East Eye, 14 July 2023. Quote: "Do not expect this conundrum to be highlighted by a western establishment media that seems incapable of doing anything other than regurgitating Nato press releases and cheering on bigger profits for the West’s war industries."

"The Biden-Schumer Plan to Kill More Ukrainians"
See: Quote:"President Joe Biden is refusing to fold a losing hand as he bets with Ukrainian lives and U.S. taxpayer money. Biden and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer propose to squander the lives of tens of thousands more Ukrainians and $61 billions of federal funds to keep Biden’s disastrous foreign policy failure hidden from view until after the November election. The $61 billion will make no difference on the battlefield except to prolong the war ... and the physical destruction of Ukraine. It will not “save” Ukraine. Ukraine’s security can only be achieved at the negotiating table, not by some fantasized military triumph over Russia."

Broken promises
From the Stephen Cohen Lecture, “The Ukrainian Crisis: A New Cold War?” on the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of the Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies Program, Fairfield University, February 5, 2015

And there was more: there was diplomacy, but it was an American diplomacy marked by broken promises and concessions made by the Russians that were not reciprocated. Let me give the young people in the room an example they probably don’t know about. After the United States was attacked on 9/11, the first world leader to call President Bush was Putin. He said, “George, it’s horrible. We’re with you. Tell us what we can do. We have major military assets in Afghanistan; they’re yours. We have a fighting force. We have terrific intelligence. We have transit bases; it’s all yours.” And since Bush was going to send a land force to dislodge the Taliban, Bush took this. And it cost Putin a lot at home. His security people didn’t like this, but he did it anyway. And Putin saved a lot of American lives in that war. Mark that down. What did he get in return? Trivia question. Within two years I think, Bush had expanded NATO right to Russia’s borders. And, equally fateful, Bush took the United States unilaterally out of what was called the anti-ballistic missile treaty, which had been the most stabilizing nuclear treaty in the history of the world because it prohibited the kinds of missiles that can eliminate the other side’s retaliatory response.

About me
My name is Neil Hall. I am a Quaker and like most Quakers am concerned with peace (see Quaker Peace Testimony) and equality (see Social responsibility).

I have a degree in mathematics from the University of Warwick and am an Associate of the Institute of Actuaries. I am retired from actuarial work but still maintain my membership of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries as a retired member.

Current recreations include marathon running and cycling (updated: a series of small but annoying medical problems has prevented me running any marathons in the last few years).

I am also a volunteer visitor with the Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group and support several other organisations which help refugees and asylum seekers. I think the practice of imprisoning refugees or asylum seekers, who have committed no crime, is an obscenity. Updated: I have been a volunteer visitor since 1996, but am no longer visiting, as I finally found the experience so emotionally draining, and depressing, that I needed to take a break.

For more about help to Jewish refugees, see Peter F Kurer, "Thoughts for the Week: A helping hand", 8 March 2018.

With grateful thanks to PJ Harvey

 * , giving BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day, based on and.
 * See also:
 * Sources on Assange

Media lies
"One of the hopeful things that I've discovered is that nearly every war that has started in the past 50 years has been the result of media lies. The media could have stopped it if they had searched deep enough, if they hadn't bought into government propaganda, they could have stopped it. What does that mean? That means basically populations don't like war and populations have to be fooled into war, populations don't willingly, with open eyes, go into a war. So if we have a good media environment, then we'll also have a peaceful environment." – Julian Assange, speaking from inside the Ecuadorian Embassy.

John Pilger (1939–2023)
Some quotes, all from the same source (my emphasis in bold): "(1) In the 1970s, I met one of Hitler’s leading propagandists, Leni Riefenstahl, whose epic films glorified the Nazis. We happened to be staying at the same lodge in Kenya, where she was on a photography assignment, having escaped the fate of other friends of the Führer. She told me that the “patriotic messages” of her films were dependent not on “orders from above” but on what she called the “submissive void” of the German public.

Did that include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie? I asked. “Yes, especially them,” she said."

"(2) In my lifetime, the United States has overthrown or attempted to overthrow more than 50 governments, mostly democracies. It has interfered in democratic elections in 30 countries. It has dropped bombs on the people of 30 countries, most of them poor and defenceless. It has attempted to murder the leaders of 50 countries. It has fought to suppress liberation movements in 20 countries.

The extent and scale of this carnage is largely unreported, unrecognised, and those responsible continue to dominate Anglo-American political life."

"(3) – citing Harold Pinter "U.S. foreign policy is best defined as follows: kiss my arse or I’ll kick your head in. It is as simple and as crude as that. What is interesting about it is that it’s so incredibly successful. It possesses the structures of disinformation, use of rhetoric, distortion of language, which are very persuasive, but are actually a pack of lies."

Pinter was a friend of mine and possibly the last great political sage – that is, before dissenting politics were gentrified. I asked him if the “hypnosis” he referred to was the “submissive void” described by Leni Riefenstahl.

“It’s the same,” he replied. “It means the brainwashing is so thorough we are programmed to swallow a pack of lies. If we don’t recognise propaganda, we may accept it as normal and believe it. That’s the submissive void.”"

Source:

The film they don't want you to watch!
Remember, boys and girls, Big Brother says you're not supposed to watch this film! Especially if you live in Holborn and St Pancras!
 * (59 mins)

Why Holborn and St Pancras? Watch this: The One Video Keir Starmer Doesn't Want You To See (7:49mins). Even better, watch this interview: The anti-apartheid activist who could stop the UK’s likely next PM (1 hour 50 minutes).

"Keir Starmer is a snake"
Fascinating conversation between Roger Waters and Andrew Feinstein: “Keir Starmer is a Snake” Roger Waters & Andrew Feinstein on Israel, Genocide, Labour & Antisemitism, 27 June 2024 (31:30 mins).

Syria
"The erosion of the whole memory/immediacy of the question of imperialism and the need to counter it, as I understood it back when I was young in the UK, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Many younger people in the west today think that imperialism/anti-imperialism is “tired old dogma” or whatever. Or, they talk glibly, in re Syria, about “dual imperialisms”– that is, Russian along with US/Western– without any appreciation of the relevance of the history of western imperialism in the M.E. region or the significance of the fact that Russia is in Syria as the invited ally of the legitimate government of Syria while the US/Saudi/western forces are there to disrupt, hobble, or topple the country’s entire governing system, in the continuation of plans that the Zionists and Americans have pursued for many decades now."
 * Here's a quote from Helena Cobban on Syria, written in April 2017, but even more relevant today (my emphasis is in bold; italic emphasis is in the original; I've also corrected a small spelling mistake):


 * Full article here. In addition, Cobban has been writing for many years on Syria (and the Middle East in general). Link to all her blog posts on Syria here.


 * . Ortiz makes it very clear how ridiculous is the picture painted by western media of the current situation in Syria. Not surprising really, when said media are ignoring the crucial point identified by Cobban. Note especially what she has to say about the White Helmets, the liberation of Aleppo, and the treatment of women in Syria
 * Article (28 January 2021) from Peter Ford, who served as British ambassador to Syria from 2003 to 2006. Quote: "It’s important to grasp the moral enormity of this. [US Ambassador James Franklin] Jeffrey did not stoop to deploying the standard cant about theoretical ‘humanitarian exemptions’ (which don’t work in practice) or about aiming only at Assad’s capacity to do harm. No, for him, the purpose of sanctions was and is to strangle the Syrian economy and if that should mean causing ordinary Syrians to queue for bread or gasoline for hours, or be unable to revive factories and recover jobs, or rebuild and re-equip hospitals, or import vitally needed medical goods… well that’s just collateral damage and it’s all for the greater good of pursuing U.S. interests. What Feltman and Balian are proposing is to ease off on some of this strangulation in return for political concessions. There is a term for this: it’s called . (my emphasis)"

"The New York Times been continuing its wilful hiding of the political facts around the fighting in Syria’s Idlib province. ... Gall’s report– like the whole stream of humanitarian tearjerkers the NYT has published about Idlib over the past year– made zero mention of the force that has been controlling Idlib for the past few years, against which the Syrian army and its allies have been fighting. It is an alliance of genocidally takfiri*/jihadi militias led by the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). ... Why is it important that responsible journalists should mention the fact that the Idlib enclave is under the control of fairly heavily armed Al-Qaeda-affiliated militias? For a number of reasons: If zero mention at all is made of the fact that the enclave is controlled by armed militias, it makes it easier for journalists and those whom they misinform to believe that the Syrian forces and their allies are just gratuitously and cruelly targeting locations and facilities inside the enclave that are very frequently described as “hospitals”, “day-care centers”, etc. Of course, to target such facilities makes zero military sense (unless they are co-located with military installations, which they definitely should not be.) Yes, mistakes, excesses, and “collateral damage” occur in any war; and any war is always horrendous for the residents of the war zone. But if there is zero mention of the presence of any armed formations in the enclave, then the narrative of the Syrian army being gratuitously violent easily takes hold (reinforcing the regime-changers’ longstanding argument that the Syrian government is so uniquely evil that it needs to be toppled asap.)– Source: Helena Cobban, "US corporate media and the suffering in Syria (contd.)", Just World News, 20 February 2020."
 * Another quotation from Helena Cobban on Syria:

My comment: Note the propaganda technique being used to construct yet another variant of the warmongering narrative.

"It's never been this bad"
This piece was originally commissioned by an editor at The Guardian, who asked me to write about the wave of retaliation and censorship of political expression in solidarity with Palestinians that we’ve seen in the past two weeks. Amid my work as an attorney on some of the resulting cases, I carved out some time to write the following. Minutes before it was supposed to be published, the head of the opinion desk wrote me an email that they were unable to run the piece. When I called her for an explanation she had none, and blamed an unnamed higher-up. That a piece on censorship would get killed in this way—without explanation, but plainly in the interest of political suppression—is, beyond the irony of the matter, a grave indictment of the media response to this critical moment in history.

Source:

"The World Is Being Blinded To What’s Happening In Gaza"
From Caitlin Johnstone, 15 October 2023

"Internet blackouts, the war on journalism, propaganda, influence operations, bans on demonstrations and online censorship are all happening for the same reason: to keep the public from forming a truth-based understanding of what’s happening in Gaza. Because if the public did form a truth-based understanding of what’s happening in Gaza, they wouldn’t consent to what’s happening there."

More from Caitlin, 14 January 2024:

"You don’t need to believe anything I’m saying on faith. If you just keep in mind what I said and start watching the patterns for yourself while seeking out the truth day by day, you will see it for yourself. You will see the same patterns emerging over and over again, year after year. Over and over again you will see the US and the states that are aligned with it acting with extreme aggression toward non-US-aligned powers in ways that benefit the US-centralized power structure, and you will see the western press deceiving the world about what’s happening. The next Official Bad Guy you see dominating western press coverage on international affairs will be a non-US-aligned power, and if you apply diligent research and critical thinking you will find that they are not presenting an accurate picture of what’s happening."

As usual, Caitlin points out the obvious, 30 Jan 2024

"Defunding UNRWA over a handful of alleged Hamas members who don’t even work there anymore makes no sense from a humanitarian perspective or a military perspective, but it makes a ton of sense from a genocidal perspective."

"The night Israel killed my family"
Reem A. Hamadaqa, 15 June 2024, Mondoweiss: "I saw Ahmad holding Maryam, my 8-year-old niece, dead. Her long blonde hair swung, blood covering all of her little face, her eyes, her nose, her ears. She bled out. Anas, a 3-year-old, did not bleed a drop of blood. We thought he was asleep. His face and hands were still warm. He was like an angel. My sister held her two lifeless babies for the whole night in her arms. She kept trying to check their breath the whole time. She called the ambulance in vain."

My comment: This is only a tiny, tiny, tiny part of the horror of Israel's genocide. Reem lost 14 members of her family in one night (2 March 2024).

"F*** You, We Aren’t Leaving" (writing from the encampment)
By Danaka Katovich, co-director of CODEPINK: Women for Peace, 6 May 2024

"Refaat was insanely funny. And I think of him a lot at the encampment because he loved Chicago and deep dish pizza. And because a lot of my professors have stopped by to support us here, and I couldn’t fathom losing them like Refaat’s students lost him. They’ve taught me to ask the right questions about the world and guided me into a more meaningful life where I can appreciate what’s in front of me. What happens when they’re all gone? Every university in Gaza was destroyed and thousands of educators murdered in cold blood." (my emphasis)

Even the BBC can't hide everything from you (although it tries very hard)
Dr Sam Attar, back home in Chicago, who plans to return to Gaza: "Then there was the man in his 50s, forgotten in a room, having had both legs amputated.

He had lost his kids, his grandkids, his home," Sam recalls, "and he's alone in the corner of this dark hospital, maggots going out of his wounds and he was screaming: The worms are eating me alive please help me. That was just one just one out of… I don't know, I just I stopped counting. But those are the people I still think of because they're still there."


 * -- Fergal Keane, The US doctor who cannot forget what he saw in Gaza, BBC, 28 April 2024

"There is no military solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict"
"In times like this, it is our role as Israeli war resisters to do all we can to prevent deadly escalation, an all-out war and the re-occupation of the Gaza strip. It is also our role to say loud and clear, in the Middle East and internationally, that there is no military solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict – this Gaza crisis is proving us right. The only stable solution to the conflict is a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians."

Source: Gaza: You can help war resisters make this crisis into a turning point, Refuser Solidarity Network, 11 October 2023.

Also: watch this young Israeli woman (Atalya Ben Aba) explain why she is refusing to be conscripted into the IDF. 14 December 2023.

I'm a sucker
... for unsung heroes. Here's an article by a sports journalist (a rugby specialist, which probably explains the headline):

Aylwin's piece is obviously heavily based on Chrissie Wellington's Wikipedia article, which I wrote. Aylwin has done a good journalistic job of paraphrasing and condensing Chrissie's article (with some useful additions of his own) into 500 words. So if you're willing to pay for access to the Telegraph's site (or already have access), please do go and vote for Chrissie. She won't win, of course (the unsung hero again), but it would be nice to see her getting some recognition. In any case, it's good to see that there exists at least one journalist who actually gets the point about Chrissie. As Aylwin wrote, "The trouble with Wellington is that you’ve either never heard of her (most people), or you see her as, well, the greatest sportsperson quite possibly in the world ever, but certainly in the UK. No Brit has dominated their sport like Wellington."

Update: Chrissie came 64th (out of 100). But the main point I draw from this exercise is that the result is more dependent on the media coverage, than on any objective assessment of the athletes' achievements. Andy Murray is indeed a deserving winner; at least as far as I can tell, he is the only one who comes close to (but still doesn't quite reach) the standards of fitness and determination shown by Chrissie. Also note the lack of women: only 3 in the top 20, the highest being Jessica Ennis-Hill at #12, and only 17 in the entire shortlist of 100.

It baffles me that people still believe, or are so easily swayed by, what they read in the press or broadcast media. In the case of sport, it's relatively harmless, except for the systemic bias against women; but when the exercise of military force is involved it's quite a different matter, the most obvious example being the invasion of Iraq, and the results have always been catastrophic.

The Obscenity
If anyone is in any doubt about the obscenity of immigration detention (see About me above), please watch last night's (4 September 2017) BBC Panorama here (58 mins). A shorter version is here. GDWG statement here.

Follow up. Worth noting that the BBC avoids assigning higher-level responsibility for this horror. Usually I prefer cool, contemplative thoughts, but sometimes things are so vile that only a rant will do. And if you want a rant, they don't come much better than this (2min 20sec).

Press coverage


 * Finally, a public inquiry is being held, scheduled to run from November 2021 to March 2022

Jeremy Corbyn is No Antisemite

 * I strongly recommend watching the whole video, as Graeber has an exceptional talent, stemming from his deep knowledge and understanding, for bringing his subject alive. His recent death is a huge loss to the whole world.
 * Normally two links would be enough here (but plenty more are available if you look for them). I'm adding this one because Big Brother (Twitter) seems to have decided you can't be allowed to see it (I hate censorship, especially of good work that doesn't fit the standard warmongering propaganda narrative):
 * Quote: "It is with the heaviest of hearts that I have to write, yet again, about being a Jewish member of the Labour Party in Jeremy Corbyn’s constituency. So let me tell you at once that it has been terrible, almost unbearable. We have had to watch a wholly false, but soon unstoppable, invention of charges of antisemitism against our MP, with our own views as Jewish members completely ignored." [my emphasis]
 * Despite the efforts to suppress this information, a very similar version of this article made it into the Islington Tribune as a letter.
 * For much more about how appalling the lying was, and still is, please see here.
 * Quote: "It is with the heaviest of hearts that I have to write, yet again, about being a Jewish member of the Labour Party in Jeremy Corbyn’s constituency. So let me tell you at once that it has been terrible, almost unbearable. We have had to watch a wholly false, but soon unstoppable, invention of charges of antisemitism against our MP, with our own views as Jewish members completely ignored." [my emphasis]
 * Despite the efforts to suppress this information, a very similar version of this article made it into the Islington Tribune as a letter.
 * For much more about how appalling the lying was, and still is, please see here.

A commendably restrained response
... to Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis:
 * Robert A. H. Cohen, "Archbishop Justin, you need some new Jewish friends", Writing From the Edge, 7 December 2019.

Illegal annexation

 * "The annexation of occupied territory is a serious violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the Geneva Conventions, and contrary to the fundamental rule affirmed many times by the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly that the acquisition of territory by war or force is inadmissible. The international community has prohibited annexation precisely because it incites wars, economic devastation, political instability, systematic human rights abuses and widespread human suffering." For the full statement, see:

Hysteria
"The current hysteria engulfing the British Labour Party resolves itself into a pair of interrelated, if discrete, premises: Anti-Semitism in British society at large and the Labour Party in particular have reached crisis proportions. If neither of these premises can be sustained, then the hysteria is a fabrication. In fact, no evidence has been adduced to substantiate either of them; on the contrary, all the evidence points in the opposite direction. The rational conclusion is that the brouhaha is a calculated hoax—dare it be said, plot?—to oust Jeremy Corbyn and the principled leftist politics he represents from British public life. But even if the allegations were true, the solution would still not be to curb freedom of thought in the Labour Party. At its worthiest, the Left-Liberal tradition has attached a unique, primordial value to Truth; but Truth cannot be attained if dissentients, however obnoxious, are silenced. Given the fraught history of anti-Semitism, on the one hand, and its crude manipulation by Jewish elites, on the other, an objective, dispassionate assessment could appear beyond reach. Still, it must be attempted. The prospect of a historic victory for the Left might otherwise be sabotaged as, thus far, Corbyn’s supporters, whether it be from fear, calculation, or political correctness, dare not speak the name of the evil that is afoot."
 * Source: Also available on Finkelstein's blog, dated 25 August 2018. (The advantage of the version on Finkelstein's blog is that the links to, and backlinks from, the footnotes work correctly.)

As always, Finkelstein is well worth reading. A long article, but essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what is really going on.

Nice things about Wikipedia
Some things Wikipedia does well:
 * Bunce Court School – a heart-warming (and surprising) story, against the background of some of the worst atrocities imaginable.
 * Female genital mutilation – well, this is hardly a pleasant topic, but it shows how Wikipedia can sometimes work very well indeed. I don't think you can find a better treatment (of roughly the same length) of this subject anywhere else, either on the internet, or in published writing.

For the avoidance of doubt, I also think there is a dark side to Wikipedia. Perhaps I will add something about that later.

The wisdom of youth
“What I can't work out about this place,” she says, “is whether they're genuinely oblivious to what their policies are doing, whether they're so out of touch that they honestly don't see how much damage it's doing, or whether they just don't care.”

— Source: Mhairi Black (age 20), quoted in

Essential viewing

 * Helen Bamber - Borders of the mind :"They still wait for the knock at the door." For more details, see Helen Bamber.
 * Rachel Corrie Tribute (8:58 mins) from Stay Human, Or Die trying!
 * Honest Government Ad | Julian Assange. "Authorized by the United Bitches of America". (v funny, but true, like all the best comedy)
 * The World Today with Tariq Ali - The Propaganda Wars (28 mins) examples of how news is distorted in mainstream media
 * CBS News. Excellent 9-minute interview with Noura Erakat on the "lethal use of force against noviolent protesters who did not pose a threat to Israel".
 * Read Fisk's excellent article for more on this massacre:
 * Propaganda Another excellent 9-minute video, on how propaganda originated and how society is manipulated.
 * Abby Martin on the Importance of Challenging Corporate Media, München, 17 May 2018 (28 mins)
 * Caitlin Johnstone: "This is what war propaganda looks like in the era of social media. It will never look ugly. It will never directly show you its real intentions. If it did, it wouldn’t work. It can’t just come right out and say “Hey we need to do horrible, evil things to the people in this country on the other side of the world in your name using your resources, please play along without making a fuss.” It will necessarily look fresh and fun and rebellious. It will look appealing. It will look sexy."
 * Gaza. Una mirada a los ojos de la barbarie (in Spanish with English subtitles, directed by Carles Bover and Julio Pérez, 18 mins) Don't watch if the sight of blood, or spilled intestines, or heads split open, or dead bodies makes you faint.
 * Gaza. Una mirada a los ojos de la barbarie (in Spanish with English subtitles, directed by Carles Bover and Julio Pérez, 18 mins) Don't watch if the sight of blood, or spilled intestines, or heads split open, or dead bodies makes you faint.

... and non-essential viewing
I watched American Sniper the other night and it really is the most puerile propaganda imaginable.

[...]

Reading the US reviews of American Sniper is a good way to remind ourselves not only of the critical role Hollywood plays in popularising lies about the West’s recent history and in sanitising our crimes, but also of the vital role the mainstream media play in giving these simplistic and duplicitous fables an aura of ethical complexity and intellectual respectability.
 * Source: Jonathan Cook, Why do critics love American Sniper?, 26 January 2015.

... more non-essential viewing

 * Wonder Woman is a hero only the military-industrial complex could create at Mondoweiss, 7 July 2017. As usual, another brilliant analysis by Jonathan Cook. Even better than his review of American Sniper.

"Speaking Peace on the BBC"
Ask yourself – when is the last time you saw an anti-war voice, as opposed to a pro-war ‘military’ or ‘security’ expert, asked by the BBC to comment on a Middle East development? Yet the majority of people in this country are against the war.

There is no doubt at all that when you make anti-war or anti-government points on the BBC the whole body language and line of questioning indicates that you are some sort of isolated extremist.

Antisemitism

 * Useful pamphlet by April Rosenblum
 * piece by Robert Fisk on the history of antisemitism in Algeria, The Independent 22 January 2011

Cutting through the confusion about Israel/Palestine
... a letter by Richard Forer, a former member of AIPAC, 21 June 2010 (useful reading list at the end).

"If truth is the first victim of war ..."

 * from the preface to Arrigoni's book

If truth is the first victim of war, it is then Israel's absolute priority to assassinate it, before, during and after the conflict. Our duty as activists, and more generally as human beings, is to document and tell the truth for the sake of freedom and justice, and then bring it to the table of world public opinion, and then serve it as a meal, the more difficult to digest the better.

For tomorrow, so as to stay human.

Vittorio Arrigoni

The port (or its rubble)

Gaza City

15th July 2009


 * originally published 2009 in Italian as Gaza: Restiamo Umani

"Israel will not sign a peace deal"

 * I have reformatted and copy edited the following quote for clarity - NSH001

For me two things come out clearly from these painful documents (some of them have parallel data in the US embassy cables on Wikileaks). First it is not that the Palestinian officials are traitors but merely (and this is bad enough) mistakenly and passionately going through motions hoping against all odds that by talking and compromising more they could achieve a tiny fraction of what we are entitled to. The second observation is that Israel will not sign a peace deal regardless of how low and ridiculous the concessions on the Palestinian side:
 * hunt down resisters (abandoning the internationally recognized rights of resistance to occupation even unarmed one),
 * give up on most settlements built illegally on Palestinian lands,
 * allow Israel sovereignty over nearly 1/3rd of the occupied old city of Jerusalem,
 * give up on the refugee rights,
 * allow Israel to keep looting natural resources in the West Bank,
 * give Israel the right to control our airspace,
 * and even assure a statelet devoid of sovereignty. Not even tourism income would be allowed in this emasculated state.

Some critics asked: if, as the documents show, the Palestinian negotiators were willing to accept all of this then WHY did Israeli politicians hold out?

The answer is obvious to anyone who ever faced Zionism. They believe (rightly or wrongly) they can get 100% so why should they settle for 91% or even 99% especially when the ceiling of the Palestinian requests kept dropping in the past 22 years (since they accepted in 1988 to let Israel keep most of the looted parts of Palestine 1948). Today, Israel's three main sources of income are dependent on a continued conflict and occupation: the $6.5 billion military and security exports, the $6 billion US and other western direct aid, and $3 billion from the captive markets in the West Bank and Gaza. All three would be threatened with end of conflict even if Israel gets to keep most of its stolen loot. Israeli officials are keen to keep negotiations going to avoid an anti-Apartheid scenario and for PR and normalization to keep pumping more money and more settlers into the remaining small shrivelling Palestine because it is economically profitable.

"apartheid-by-permit"
But look at the statistics and leaf through the pile of demolition orders lying on the table in front of Abed Kasab, head of the village council in al-Jiftlik, and it all looks like ethnic cleansing via bureaucracy. Perverse might be the word for the paperwork involved. Obscene appear to be the results.

In nearby al-Jiftlik village, Israel has refused permits to build a school, insisting that families should either move or bus their children more than an hour each way to Tubas. In peaceful response, the teachhers of al-Jiftlik started holding classes in a large village tent. Last year, al-Jiftlik finally constructed a real schoolhouse, which students will use until Israel tears it down. [...] About 4,500 Palestinians live in Fasayil and al-Jiftlik combined. That's nearly the total population (6,300) of Israeli settlers in the whole of the Jordan Valley. And yet, that small number of settlers, living in 36 settlements, controls the land where tens of thousands of Palestinians reside. ... Just 4% of the valley remains for its 50,000 Palestinian inhabitants. That includes the city of Jericho and a few built-up Palestinian villages, but leaves next to nothing for agricultural use. This has been devastating for the agriculture-based society and explains the mass exodus of Palestinians even after Israel's overtly violent expulsion tactics ceased.

A poem
 In Gaza, children, you learn that the sky kills and that houses hurt. You learn that your blanket is smoke and breakfast is dirt.

You learn that cars do somersaults clothes turn red, friends become statues, bakers don’t sell bread.

You learn that the night is a gun, that toys burn breath can stop, it could be your turn.

You learn: if they send you fire they couldn’t guess: not just the soldier dies - it’s you and the rest.

Nowhere to run, nowhere to go, nowhere to hide in the home you know.

You learn that death isn’t life, that air isn’t bread, the land is for all. You have the right to be Not Dead. You have the right to be Not Dead. You have the right to be Not Dead.

Another poem
 I have dreams. I know not if it is day or night. God told me :
 * I do not divide up the land.
 * Whatever their race
 * Hatred and jealousies
 * Will not flourish if divisions
 * Between countries are no more.
 * With Jesus as your guide,
 * He will show you the way.

I have dreams. I know not if it is day or night. God told me:
 * Worship and value all that is genuine.
 * and reject insincerity.
 * Whatever their race
 * If anyone needs help
 * Show Compassion.
 * Reject the political sham.
 * With Jesus as your guide
 * He will reveal the inner truth.
 * and see through the veil of deceits.

I have dreams. I know not if it is day or night. God told me:
 * In the world there is no illegal immigration.
 * Whatever their race
 * All on earth
 * are sister and brother.

And another poem: Show Me An Old Rebel
 Do not show me a young rebel, whose eyes are bright and whose tail is bushy.

Young rebels are fine and good, but they are merely doing what the young are meant to do.

Show me an old rebel. One who keeps punching when his hands are arthritic, when her hair is white, when his friends are all dead, when her knees are shot, when it hurts him to pee, when her shoulders are so bad that it would be much easier to punch down than to punch up.

Show me an old rebel who keeps standing up after being knocked down over and over again, year after year, decade after decade, who after the thousandth blow merely spits out a tooth and says “Son, you have no idea what you’re dealing with, do you?”

Are you a young rebel? Are you Sticking It to The Man? Are you upsetting the gray brainiacs and knocking over their word castles?

That is fine. Youth will youth.

But show me a young rebel who became an old rebel, who stuck with it through the setbacks and the beatings and betrayals, who watched the hippies become yuppies and the protesters become pundits and still kept a fire lit amid the monsoons of infiltration and the hurricanes of heartbreak. Who will close their tired eyes for a final time without ever once having cast them to the ground or peered up in imploring subordination.

That, my friends, that is a true spirit.

If you are still a fiery rebel even as everything is ripped away from you, I will be humbled and awed by you, because I will know that you will carry that with you to the grave. And I will know that whatever you find on the other side will be met with that same defiant glare.

And I will sing your song when you are gone.

Robert Burns: Sic a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation
 Fareweel to a' our Scottish fame, Fareweel our ancient glory; Fareweel to e'en our Scottish name Sae fam'd in sang and story. Now Sark rins tae th' Solway sands, An' Tweed runs t' th' ocean.. Tae mark whaur England's Province stands: Sic a parcel of rogues in a nation!

What force or guile could not subdue Thro' many warlike ages, Is wrought now by a coward few For hireling traitor's wages. The English steel we could disdain, Secure in valour's station. But English gold has been our bane: Sic a parcel of rogues in a nation!

Oh, would or had I seen the day That treason thus could sell us! My auld grey head had lien in clay, Wi' Bruce and loyal Wallace! But, pith and power, till my last hour, I'll make this declaration: We were bought and sold for English gold! Sic a parcel of rogues in a nation!

One more poem: For Refaat Alareer
 in Gaza on Wednesday.

Well, as much as you can kill a poet, anyway. Kill a poet and his poems fight on. That poet is still at the bastards.

A poet may have hands like velveteen mittens, but he can fight on even if he has no hands at all.

A poet may have a home made of zip-ties and tarps, but he can fight on even if he sleeps on rubble.

A poet can fight on even if he’s got no legs. A poet can fight on even if he’s got no arms. A poet can fight on even if he’s got no teeth. A poet can fight on even if he’s got no eyes. A poet can fight on even if he’s got no hope. A poet can fight on even if he’s got no life. A poet can fight on even after he has drawn his last breath, even after they’ve returned him to earth’s womb, even after his possessions have been divided among his loved ones, even after the flesh has gone from his bones, even after there’s no memory of him besides the poems he left behind.

Poets can midwife a new world into being. Poets can give people a vision to fight for. Poets can change reality. Poets are powerful. That’s why people kill them.

I saw a video of two young boys strolling through Gaza nursing some tea in a paper cup, gossiping like the two old men they might never get to be.

And there’s a bee burrowing a hole in my door and a siren going off in my head, because the drones never stop in Gaza, and because there are bodies popped open by girders, buried under ruins rained down on by hellfire, near where mothers lie awake weighing whether it would be better to live without her children or for her kids to live without her, and we know this alarm won’t stop until the explosions stop, until the screams stop, until the bleeding stops, until healing begins, until justice is served, until the bastards are beaten, until a healthy world has been born.

Refaat, until there is justice, I will throw my marker at them too.

Another poem
 Welcome to the empire Where genocide is self-defence and peace rallies are genocide Where war criminals are the victims and the hospitals are Hamas Where calls for freedom are hateful and ceasefires are anti-semitic Where civilians get called terrorists and real terrorists get Nobel Peace Prizes Where the propaganda is journalism and the journalism is propaganda Where the democracy is real and the apartheid is imaginary Where the corporations are people and the people are corporate resources

Welcome to the empire Whose bombs are humanitarian and whose provocations are invisible Whose veterans are heroes and whose victims are forgotten Whose wars are always just and whose enemies are always Hitler Whose cause is always righteous and whose critics are always Russian Whose sufferings are unforgivable and whose crimes are erased from history Whose atrocities are always an unfortunate accident and whose enemies kill civilians for fun Whose disastrous interventions are always innocent mistakes no matter how often they happen

Welcome to the empire Ever the victim of unprovoked attacks from the people it has been strangling Ever the shining city on a hill of human corpses Ever the defender of the poor helpless plutocrats of Wall Street Ever the saviour of the families incinerated by missiles made by Raytheon Ever the protector of natural resources in the soil of foreign nations Ever the upholder of the rules-based order of a world with a boot on its throat

Welcome to the empire The empire loves you with a heart made of dollars and oil The empire watches over you through your smartphone and your computer The empire is your only friend The empire is the only one who will ever love you You can’t leave You can’t get rid of the empire

Reading lists

 * on the joint U.S.–Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip, commonly (but inaccurately) known as the Gaza War:
 * from here, for easy reference before it gets archived (15:53, 24 January 2009 (UTC))


 * 1) Anthony H.Cordesman, ‘The War in Gaza: Tactical Gains or Strategic Defeat,’ Center for Strategic & International Studies,  January 9,2009
 * 2) Henry Siegman, 'Israel’s Lies,' London Review of Books, 29 January 2009
 * 3) John J. Mearsheimer 'Another War, Another Defeat,'  The American Conservative, January 26, 2009
 * 4) Richard Falk, ‘Winning and Losing in Gaza,’ The Nation, February 9, 2009.
 * 5) David Bromwich, 'Self-Deception and the Assault on Gaza', Huffington Post, January 16, 2009
 * 6) Gideon Levy, 'The next step,’ Haaretz 24/01/2009
 * 7) Avi Shlaim, 'How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe,’ The Guardian, 07/01/2009
 * 8) Tom Segev, ‘Cruel and meaningless wars,’ Haaretz, 23/01/2009
 * 9) Eric Hobsbawm, 'On Gaza', London Review of Books, 15/09/2009
 * 10) Geoffrey Wheatcroft, 'How Israel gets away with murder,' The Independent, 11/01/2009
 * 11) Gershom Gorenberg, 'The Ignored Choices in Gaza,’ The American Prospect, January 7, 2009


 * ''updated and expanded version here


 * follow up


 * and not just Gaza


 * Reading list on the (even worse) 2014 atrocities in Gaza
 * User talk:Nishidani/Reading and listening list on the July–August 2014 Gaza assault


 * Chomsky's recommended reading list
 * from January 2009

Inspiration

 * Brings tears to my eyes to see the very best in the world in action, whether it be Paula Radcliffe, David Rudisha, Chrissie Wellington, or this guy:
 * Danny MacAskill (I thought this was in Glasgow when I first saw it; it's Edinburgh of course)
 * The Voice of Freedom (صوت الحرية), inspiring song from Midan Tahrir in Cairo here.
 * Oh this world (يا هالعالم). Some highly talented Palestinian children playing musical instruments and singing.
 * 15 February 2003 anti-war protest in London. One of the most inspiring days of my life, to be among around 2 million people (my estimate) doing the right thing. If you want to see a picture of me on this march, buy a copy of this book: Hurndall, Tom. The Only House Left Standing: The Middle East Journals of Tom Hurndall. Trolley Ltd. 2012 ISBN 978-1-904563-51-8.
 * Interview with this wonderful old Jewish Israeli lady, Yael Kahn (22 mins). Includes a short video clip of her arrest at one of the starting points of the 4 November 2023 London protest against the genocide in Gaza. Discusses her growing up in Israel, how she became an anti-Zionist, the opposition she faced from her family, how her father changed his viewpoint, and how she was able to travel to Israel to say her final goodbye to him before he died. She is now banned for life from Israel, but her inner peace and happiness is obvious.

Scientists on Wikipedia
My late father was a scientist, and my education had an emphasis on science and mathematics, so my editing includes biographies of scientists.


 * WikiProject Biography/Science and academia/Science Hall of Fame
 * WikiProject Biography/Science and academia/Science Hall of Fame 2

I also edit biographies of Quakers and peace activists. Note that there is significant overlap between all three groups.

Other subjects I edit
Some of the main topic areas I edit, besides the biographies listed above, include:
 * Scottish articles, especially those relating to the area where I grew up. (Note that, although I grew up in Scotland, and have a Scottish first name, I come from an English family and consider myself English.)
 * Triathlon, especially biographies of women triathletes.
 * Aboriginal Australians (mostly technical fixes)
 * Templates and other technical stuff (mostly from my account, see below)
 * Articles on the Basque Country, the Basque people and their language.

But I will also edit almost anything interesting that I happen to come across.

Retrieving dead links from web archives
Try:
 * http://www.webcitation.org/
 * http://www.archive.org/

Checking for dead links

 * Checklinks

CSS classes

 * Wikipedia:Catalogue of CSS classes

Bias categories discussion

 * Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 February 9

Other accounts

 * I also own an alternative account, NSH002, which is intended to be used for repetitive edits (for example, with AWB) to avoid cluttering up my contributions record on this account. I also use the NSH002 account for more technical edits.
 * There are 5 more accounts at NSH003, NSH004, NSH005, NSH006 and NSH007. The first two of these are now-blocked vandalism-only accounts that were used by someone else in an attempt to vandalise Wikipedia while appearing to do so in my name. The last three currently act as doppelganger accounts to prevent this happening again, but it is possible I may in future use one of them to test what happens using Wikipedia's default user settings. I might create a few more accounts in this series, just to be safe.
 * NSH001 is my Single Unified Login (SUL) identity. I have user pages on the following wikis:
 * Commons
 * Meta
 * For my user pages on other language wikis, see the bar on the left.