Tag Archives: israel

History lesson – WMD

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This is an object lesson in how to get WMD. Don’t worry, you won’t get in trouble or anything. Well, this chap didn’t.
Public records, released under FOI for a 2006 BBC TV Newsnight programme and discussed in a New Statesman article, showed how the ~1960 Israeli government managed to get its hands on nuclear weapons materials.
The BBC reported that the programme has shown “Secret sale of UK plutonium to Israel “ Secret indeed. Even secret from government ministers and quite probably the sitting Prime Ministers, and over the objections of Defence Intelligence, the MOD and – sometimes – the Foreign Office.
The New Statesman has the fullest account. Read it.

Kelly and his colleagues .. (i.e. the Defence Intelligence staff who mounted a pretty spirited attempt to uncover what was going on and try to block it) .. however, found their views were being challenged. Chief of the challengers was Michael Israel Michaels .. who was a senior official at the science ministry under Lord Hailsham during the Macmillan government, and went on to serve at the technology ministry under Benn. He was also Britain’s representative at the IAEA.(my emphasis) quotation is from New Statesman

Mr Michaels was in fact so keen on the idea of supplying Israel with bomb-making materials that he just carried on doing it, even after Tony Benn became Energy Secretary. Michaels just didn’t think to bother ministers with the knowledge.

Mr Benn told the programme that civil servants in his department kept the deals secret from him and his predecessor, Frank Cousins.
He had always suspected that civil servants were doing deals behind his back, but he never thought they would sell plutonium to Israel. He told Newsnight: “I’m not only surprised, I’m shocked. It never occurred to me they would authorise something so totally against the policy of the government. (From the BBC)

“Michaels lied to me, I learned by bitter experience that the nuclear industry lied to me again and again.” He thought Wilson may not have known that Britain was helping Israel to get the bomb. (From the Guardian)

Astonishingly, Michaels had the effrontery to complain to the BBC Trust about the programme, rather than to give disbelieving thanks that he hadn’t been arrested for treason.
From the Trusts’s ruling on his complaint about Newsnight

Summary of the finding
The complaints concerned an investigation carried out by Newsnight, and presented by Michael Crick, that looked into the British government’s involvement in assisting Israel with its development of nuclear weapons in the 1950s and 1960s. The item was based on recently released government papers suggesting that Michael Michaels, a senior civil servant and the British government’s representative at the International Atomic Energy Agency, had acted with dual loyalties when he had ensured the supply of plutonium and other radioactive materials to Israel without the knowledge of the Minister responsible, and possibly without the Prime Minister’s knowledge.
Both complainants felt that the inclusion and repetition of Mr Michaels’ middle name (Israel) was unnecessary and, therefore, anti-Semitic.
They also objected to the suggestion that he had dual loyalties, which they felt implied disloyalty……..
The Committee concluded as follows:
The use of Mr Michaels’ middle name did not breach the guidelines on harm and offence.
It was satisfied that there was no intention to endorse a stereotype, and it was not anti-Semitic. In general, the use of the name had been as a form of shorthand to highlight Mr Michaels’ association with Israel.
With regard to “dual loyalties”, the Committee was satisfied that there was sufficient evidence put forward to suggest that Mr Michaels might indeed have had dual loyalties in his dealings with Israel. However, the Committee concluded that this was not the same as suggesting that Mr Michaels had been disloyal.
The Committee also felt that the report had raised the possibility that the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, might have known about the shipment to Israel. The item therefore did not breach guidelines on impartiality…
The Committee did not uphold the complaints.

Brainless in Gaza

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Odd that the people on rapture-ready discussion boards – who hate supposedly- fellow-Christian Catholicism with a passion – identify themselves almost completely with Israel.

I find it’s amazing in how with all the bombs going into Israel (sp?) only 4 people as of yesterday had been killed. It that doesn’t speak to God’s hand over his people and how he protects and will defend us. I don’t know what does. (from bakerhorsepower on a particularly disturbing typical thread on Rapture Ready)

(Original h/t fstdt)

That thread has a whole editorial about how God is 100% with Israel. Just like the writer above who talks about his/her god protecting and defending “us”, God can’t tell the difference between Israelis and fundies, either, apparently. So he’s protecting Israeli lives, in the mistaken belief they are really American Protestant fundamentalists.

(RR posters don’t see greater firepower and many more armaments and soldiers as having anything to do with the disproportion in numbers of dead people between Israelis and palestinians. It’s all down to god’s smiting choices.)

How ironic then that another post sees this very same God as protecting Palestinian babies by killing them.

Despite some tough competition, this is possibly the most distasteful post I have ever read, even by the abysmal standards of Rapture Ready.*

It’s headed by a picture of a young blonde woman with a bunch of flowers – looking winsomely off to the middle distance, maybe imagining the rapture – with a picture of a couple of innocent-faced young blonde kids in the post’s footer. Which makes the content all the more chilling:

A great thought!!
I have been upset about the innocent children in all of the fighting in Gaza….but this thought came to me….these little children that are dying would have been taught Islam and hate…this way they have a chance to go to heaven!! It’s terrible that they are dying and my heart is sad….but when I was talking to God this thought came to me….the ones that are dying are going to be able to go to heaven….instead of growing up and following Islam…so, something good is coming out of this…. (by someone who calls herself “cbressler1976 ^^Heavenbound^^”)

Two exclamation marks on “A great thought”. Maybe the punctuation mark is evolving to fill the sentience vacancy created by people like cbressler1976. These stray exclamation marks are trying to draw our attention to the criminal misuse of the word “thought” in the only way that they know how.

You’d think that this post must make the hairs on even Rapture Ready posters’ necks stand on end. Far from it. It brings in lots of lurve from her fellow raptards.

That is an excellnt point. It is always good to have an eternal perspective. (says wvborn56)

Really. I am not making these up. (I decide to take that comment as really being massively sarcastic, in the face of the evidence. Because I have to retain some will to live.)

Very good thought, on the other hand their parents think they are with “allah” and enjoying 72 virgins. But we know they rest with Jesus. Too bad their kids can’t tell them they are worshiping a fake god. The kids know more than the “teachers” of islam. (adds rapturecalldan)

Even I can’t fool myself that “very good thought” is sarcasm, given the rest of that comment.

To recap: these people see the deaths of real babies and children as good, because the kids won’t grow up to be Muslims.

No, even more stunning than that, if that were possible. They see the deaths of any non-fundy babies as good.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I remember, at first, feeling soooo sorry for all the little children who had died in the tsunami (sp) in 04, I think???? Then, it just hit me like a ton a of bricks–those little children, had they grown up, may never have come to know the Lord, and now they can be w/ Him. (from Mommytoa3rdgradeboy)

So this woman – who defines herself entirely in relation to her own child, if her sig means anything – feels nothing except delight in the deaths of other “3rdgradeboys” who don’t share her religion and nationality.

This tsunami tale is an opportunity for cute little cbressler1976 to also show her soft and caring feminine side:

It’s good to know that they are in a better place..

On a temporary basis, I am going to pretend that this dangerous insanity constitutes a coherent worldview and address some of their “points”

How many chosen people can god have? If the Bible can’t lie, then it must be the Jews. Hence, there is at least some logic in the bible-bashers thinking god wants Israel to win (although, given history of Jewish persecution, if that’s what comes from being god’s favourite, I’m bloody glad I’m a heathen)

But I am more than confident that there’s nothing in the Bible about raptards being the chosen people. So, why wouldn’t god think he’d also be doing the raptards’ kids a favour by smiting them?

They are saying that God is smiting Asian children and Palestinian children (some of whom are of course from Christian families) FOR THEIR OWN GOOD. So, why is their god being so mean to Jewish children by forcing them to live without letting them become fundies?
And, surely that means that god should be all for abortions, then? He must be doing foetuses a big favour.

Why is their god cruelly forcing the fundies’ children to live, given that heaven is so great and that they would be spared the danger of sin, if he just took them now?

Let me repeat, in true shock and awe. These are people who can rage endlessly and mightily over the foetus’ right to life and they consider the deaths of real human children to be a good thing.
*************************************
(*I’ve messed about with the links so as not to give RR any link hits. You can access the threads by reverse-messing with the urls. I don’t normally bother but this stuff is so emetic that I can’t bring myself to even leave a link in.)

Waahaaa

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Rogue state fosters terrorism. That isn’t what the media are saying about Israel’s actions, despite the fact that a rational look at the situation in Gaza would support this conclusion. Every Israeli action of this kind drives the Palestinians further into the camp of extremists, as every other alternative is denied them.

A strange conflict arithmetic appears. Over 300 Palestinians dead, and 3 Israelis at yesterday’s count. The 3 Israeli casualties appeared as a rolling news banner, as if dead people are significant. Rightly so. But Palestinian casualties are treated as numbers, approximated and spurious. We are being hypnotised into seeing a hundred to one as some sort of equality of death, as if the value of a non-Israeli life is somehow one-hundredth that of an Israeli life.

On the rolling news broadcasts, images of Palestinians screaming and crying in grief are shown among a confusion of images of demonstrations and mass panic street scenes and Koran waving. At best, a local Englishman explains their situation in a half-screen box. Any attempt to follow what he is saying is disrupted by the flickering voiceless images of Palestinian chaos. The message is “You cannot understand these people. They are nothing like you.”

Israelis are interviewed in the circumstances of normality. Standing by their cars, discussing the events in English and expressing their concerns in the context of normal conversation. Israeli politicians are interviewed in modern well-set up studios. They say things that us Europeans tend to disagree with but they are recognisably like us. Reporters stand outside their comfortable hotels and discuss the day’s tallies and discuss Israeli reactions.

The overall impression seems to construct view of the Israelis that seems well nigh taken for granted in the US – that they are just like the people in USA or Europe or Canada, it’s just that they are insanely being bombarded by a load of Islamo-fanatics who hate their freedom and democracy and advanced way of life, etc.

Hmm. It’s not as if this is deliberate news management or anything. (Yes, “I am being sarcastic”, to quote Homer Simpson.) I initially thought it was just a side effect of the world’s journalists naturally gravitating towards interviewees who speak their language and can be easily reached from their hotels. And I was pretty depressed that, in the supposed age of the citizen journalist, traditional factors like accessibility and language and official control of information sources still frame the “news” so decisively.

But, it’s not just that.

“Israel is not currently permitting international journalists to cross into Gaza” (From the BBC report of a journalist who is Gaza resident)

Well, it’s not apparently permitting international medical aid to pass through the Mediterranean – as it admitted ramming a boat doing just that or it didn’t, according to UPN, according to which news source you believe – so it’s hardly going to allow foreign journalists into Gaza.

Hence, you can read lots stories like this in the New York Times.

A piercing shriek went up and a young woman fainted as the body, wrapped in a white shroud, was brought into the packed funeral hall.
On Tuesday, this fast-developing modern port city about half way between Gaza and Tel Aviv buried its first victim of a rocket attack: Irit Sheetrit, a 39-year-old mother of four

But, as far as I can see there very few people reporting for the Western media from within Gaza. Here’s one, a worker for an Islamic charity, writing on the BBC about the psychological effect of this on the children and about how hospitals are overwhelmed with the number of injured and dead people.

At the hospital I saw something I have never seen before – dead bodies outside on the floor. Everyone in Gaza has a relative or a friend killed or injured after these attacks.

Here’s another from the Guardian on a family that lost 5 daughters in one bombing raid. They lived in a refugee camp. Their lives were already shit and then they lost 5 daughters in one raid, while they were sleeping.

The Israeli strategy is based on a an insane belief that they will undercut support for Hamas by going ape on the Palestinians till they drop support for Hamas. This shows a level of ignorance about history and human psychology that seems almost wilful. The news management might have a fair amount of success in shaping how the USA sees and responds to this tragedy. But it is hardly going to convince the rest of the world. It’s not going to convince the people of Gaza of anything except the need to oppose Israel at any cost. It is not going to convince any Arab countries that they have any solution to the question of the Palestinians beyond slow burn genocide.

In the process, the Israelis are recruiting for Hamas, they are recruiting for Al Qeda. And, if the international community fails to put a stop to what they are doing, it is doing the same.

EnRaptured

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The makers of the Rapture Ready Index are getting really quite upset about the prospect of Obama’s winning. (Make it so. Please, make it so.)

So upset that they seem to see Obama in a rapture-causing category almost all of his own.

…If Obama should win in November, I plan to issue the most dire warning I’ve ever issued during the history of this ministry.

That will be pretty damn dire then. Isn’t that their whole raison d’etre? Issuing dire warnings? And this will be the most dire.

I admit to being too dumb to understand the whole “dire warnings” thrust of the Index. Aren’t these people counting the minutes until they get raised up to heaven on a big cloud? Is their Index supposed to list bad things or good things, from their perspective?

In fact, if they really believe that an Obama victory will issue in the end of the world, then why are they condemning the “liberal” media for supporting him? Shouldn’t they be welcoming him for supposedly hastening their coming move upstairs?

Why are they supporting the emetic McCain/Palin combo, then?

(Well, not quite. They barely mention McCain. All their hopes seem to be on Palin, who is much scarier even than McCain to my godless self – and quite a threat to moose, wolves and polar bears, too, apparently.)

Of course, they manage to get in a sly insinuation that Obama is a mysteriously secret Muslim. This is utterly confusing, apart from obviously being the worst kind of nonsense, although it seems to be believed by a fair proportion of the people on their chatboards. How can such people both blame Obama for the words of his former Christian pastor and still see him as a Muslim? (Quite apart from their bizarre assumptions that “Muslim” is just a euphemism for “being a suicide bomber” and would self-evidently disqualify anyone from the presidency.) But, again, if they really believe this, shouldn’t they be welcoming it, following what I hesitate to call their logic?

Rapture Ready’s avid enthusiasm for the prospect of the destruction of humanity is expressed perfectly in another disturbing piece on the same page, which complains that the US is stopping the rapture by failing to support Israel:

The perfect prophetic storm is upon this last-time generation. To understand the darkly serious truth of America’s tinkering in the matter of forcing Israel to make human peace with its enemies, we must delve heavily into the relevant prophetic Scriptures.

(If only the US would force Israel to “make human peace.” ) They reckon that America and the UN are interfering in god’s plan for Israel.

…America’s and the Quartet’s (U.S., E.U., U.N., and Russia) attempts to force the making of a Palestinian nation upon land that is Israel’s by divine right.

I’m not going to be too snide about people with absolutely no education in history, let alone modern international politics. These are tough subjects and I am already marvelling that people as mentally challenged as the RR gang can write sentences and use the Internet.

I am going to challenge “god’s plan.” Either their god wants the world to be scourged of us evil humans or he doesn’t. If he does, but is too idle to do it himself, shouldn’t they be welcoming any potential anti-christ figure who fills the bill? If god wants the US to support Israel right into the jaws of Armageddon, why can’t he bloody do it himself?

Look, RR people. I wouldn’t dare suggest you try reading history books or anything. But there are plenty of other holy books that you could take as literally true. You could take the Eddas or the Mabinogion or the Baghavad Gita or the Dao de Jing (however they are spelled.)

I’m not saying that you still couldn’t do serious damage if you believed in any of these books as accurate prophecies but at least the rest of us would get a break for a few centuries while you worked up an appropriately life-destroying worldview.

Bush finally made a good decision

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Wisdom and a desire to avert a full-blown Third World War aren’t characteristics normally associated with George Bush. So it was a shock – but an enormous relief – to see that Bush’s refusal to go along with an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities seems to have saved the world for a bit longer at least.

The Guardian reported today that

Israel asked US for green light to bomb nuclear sites in Iran
US president told Israeli prime minister he would not back attack on Iran, senior European diplomatic sources tell Guardian

The Guardian article says that

the US position was unlikely to change as long as Bush was in office

(That’s not very long then.)

Anti-Israel does not equal anti-Jew

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Atheist defends Dawkins. Shock, horror. (OK, not.) Still the Times has an unpleasant piece by Daniel Finkelstein in which he distorts something Dawkins said in the Guardian in order to misrepresent Dawkins as anti-semetic.

So Dawkins, a liberal hero, believes, er, that Jews control world power. And, judging from the Guardian, it is now a part of mainstream debate to say so. Perhaps you think I am over-reacting, but I am a little bit frightened.

Well no. What Dawkins actually said is that atheists need some organisation analogous to the Jewish lobby, which had proved its success by the fact that it had managed to

more or less monopolise American foreign policy as far as many people can see.

It seemed obvious to several commentators that
(a) US foreign policy seemed more than a little pro-Israel;
(b) this is not even explicable in terms of the US’s own national interests (oranges versus oil, as one commentator remarked);
(c) it reflects the influence of pro-Israeli American lobbyists and people in power.

This is a huge leap away from saying that Jews monopolise world power, as the blog headline and comments said. However, this misrepresentation of Dawkins was taken by some Times commentators as a given. And stuck together with a self-evidently ludicrous claim that Dawkins wanted to take children away from their parents if the parents taught them religion. To make a general attribution of Dawkins really being a Nazi.

I know. I know. This sort of thing doesn’t even bear recognising as a rational discourse. But still, I think it is worth repeating ad nauseam that opposing Israel does not make one a Nazi.

The Jews suffered terribly in Germany. Why didn’t they get given Germany? They didn’t suffer anything at the hands of the Palestinians. Why did they get Palestine? Well, partly because they carried out a prolonged terrorist campaign against the British government to get it.

Terrorist campaign, note. The British government gave in.

If the USA had not been committed over decades to supporting everything that Israel did, ignoring the complaints of the Palestinians as their land was taken and they were turned into refugees in their own country, there would be no insane jihadists now.

The only quarrel I would have with Dawkins in this is that atheists don’t have an agreed agenda beyond removing religious influence from the public sphere. What else would be the point of atheist lobbyists? Remember the herding cats thing? The capacity to think independently is the strength of rational people, not their weakness.