Noam Chomsky's latest article (at In These Times) tackles the pretexts of the Bush administration's aggressive foreign policy, the role of NATO, and Obama's foreign policy. In the following passage, Chomsky summarises the controversies surrounding newly discarded plans for anti-missile systems in Europe and the hypocrisy of the U.S. stance on nuclear weapons.

A few weeks ago the Obama administration announced a readjustment of U.S. anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe. That led to a great deal of commentary and debate, which, as in the past, skilfully evaded the central issue.

Those systems are advertised as defense against an Iranian attack. But that cannot be the motive. The chance of Iran launching a missile attack, nuclear or not, is about at the level of an asteroid hitting the Earth — unless, of course, the ruling clerics have a fanatic death wish and want to see Iran instantly incinerated.

The purpose of the U.S. interception systems, if they ever work, is to prevent any retaliation to a U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran — that is, to eliminate any Iranian deterrent. In this regard, antimissile systems are a first-strike weapon, and that is understood on all sides. But that seems to be a fact best left in the shadows. [...]

The present nuclear stand-off with Iran summons the Cold War’s horrors—and hypocrisies.

The outcry over Iran overlooks the Obama administration’s assurance that the Indo-U.S. nuclear agreement is exempt from the just-passed U.N. resolution on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which India greeted by announcing that it can now build nuclear weapons with the same destructive power as those in the arsenals of the world’s major nuclear powers, with yields up to 200 kilotons.

And, over the objections of the United States and Europe, the International Atomic Energy Agency called on Israel to join the NPT and open its nuclear facilities for inspection. Israel announced it would not cooperate.

Read more here.

Obama’s Cairo speech

What he did say was largely inoffensive, what he failed to say …

Fisk writes

About the Venue

[P]lease note that Obama has chosen Egypt for his latest address to the Muslims, a country run by an ageing potentate – Hosni Mubarak is 80 – who uses his secret police like a private army to imprison human rights workers, opposition politicians, anyone in fact who challenges the great man's rule.

And that: …

The Egyptian Organisation of Human Rights, a separate group, discovered that 10 of the 29 died after torture. In one case, rights groups acquired a videotape of a prisoner being anally raped with a stick by a police officer. Other videos show one of Mubarak's political opponents – a woman – being sexually molested by a plain-clothes police officer in a Cairo street.

As for the speech itself: …

when Obama said that some governments, "once in power, are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others", there was a roar of applause from the supposedly obedient audience. […] As the Palestinian intellectual Marwan Bishara pointed out yesterday, it is easy to be "dazzled" by presidents. This was a dazzling performance. But if one searched the text, there were things missing.

There was no mention – during or after his kindly excoriation of Iran – of Israel's estimated 264 nuclear warheads. He admonished the Palestinians for their violence – for "shooting rockets at sleeping children or blowing up old women in a bus". But there was no mention of Israel's violence in Gaza, just of the "continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza". Nor was there a mention of Israel's bombing of civilians in Lebanon, of its repeated invasions of Lebanon (17,500 dead in the 1982 invasion alone). Obama told Muslims not to live in the past, but cut the Israelis out of this. […]

For a man who is sending thousands more US troops into Afghanistan – a certain disaster-to-come in the eyes of Arabs and Westerners – there was something brazen about all this. When he talked about the debt that all Westerners owed to Islam – the "light of learning" in Andalusia, algebra, the magnetic compass, religious tolerance, it was like a cat being gently stroked before a visit to the vet. And the vet, of course, lectured the Muslims on the dangers of extremism, on "cycles of suspicion and discord" – even if America and Islam shared "common principles" which turned out to be "justice, progress and the dignity of all human beings".

There was one merciful omission: a speech of nearly 6,000 words did not include the lethal word "terror". "Terror" or "terrorism" have become punctuation marks for every Israeli government and became part of the obscene grammar of the Bush era.

An intelligent guy, then, Obama. Not exactly Gettysburg. Not exactly Churchill, but not bad. One could only remember Churchill's observations: "Words are easy and many, while great deeds are difficult and rare."

Chomsky notes that:

Obama's June 4 Cairo address to the Muslim world kept pretty much to his well-honed "blank slate" style -- saying very little of substance, but in a personable manner that allows listeners to write on the slate what they want to hear. CNN captured its spirit in headlining a report "Obama looks to reach the soul of the Muslim world."

Whereas John Pilger - Smile on the face of the tiger [Please read in full]

President Barack Obama made his “historic” speech in Cairo, “reaching out to the Muslim world”, reported the BBC. “Just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” said Obama, “does not serve Israel’s security.” That was all. The killing of 1,300 people in what is now a concentration camp merited 17 words, cast as concern for the “security” of the killers. This was understandable. During the January massacre, Seymour Hersh reported that “the Obama team let it be known that it would not object to the planned resupply of ‘smart bombs’ and other hi-tech ordnance that was already flowing to Israel” for use in Gaza.

Chomsky on Israeli settlement expansion

Chomsky wrote the following about the planned expansion of Israeli settlements in Palestine:

Washington's position was presented most strongly in Hillary Clinton's much-quoted statement rejecting "natural growth exceptions" to the policy opposing new settlements. Netianyahu, along with President Peres and in fact virtually the whole Israeli political spectrum, insists on permitting "natural growth" within the areas that Israel intends to annex, complaining that the US is backing down on Bush's authorization of such expansion within his "vision" of a Palestinian state.

Senior Netanyahu cabinet members have gone further. Minister Yisrael Katz announced that "the current Israeli government will not accept in any way the freezing of legal settlement activity in Judea and Samaria.” (Ha'aretz, May 31). The term "legal" in US-Israeli parlance means "illegal, but authorized by the government of Israel.” In this usage, unauthorized outposts are termed "illegal," though apart from the dictates of the powerful, they are no more illegal than the settlements granted to Israel under Bush's "vision."[…]

If Obama were serious about opposing settlement expansion, he could easily proceed with concrete measures, for example, by reducing US aid by the amount devoted to this purpose. That would hardly be a radical or courageous move. The Bush I administration did so (reducing loan guarantees), but after the Oslo accord in 1993, President Clinton left calculations to the government of Israel. Unsurprisingly, there was "no change in the expenditures flowing to the settlements," the Israeli press reported: "[Prime Minister] Rabin will continue not to dry out the settlements," the report concludes. "And the Americans? They will understand" (Hadashot, Oct. 8; Yair Fidel, Hadashot Supplement, Oct. 29, 1993).

Obama administration officials informed the press that the Bush I measures are "not under discussion," and that pressures will be "largely symbolic" (Helene Cooper, NYT, June 1). In short, Obama "understands." […]

[A]ll of these discussions about settlement expansion evade the most crucial issue about settlements: what Israel has already established in the West Bank. The evasion tacitly concedes that the illegal settlement programs already in place are somehow acceptable (putting aside the Golan heights, annexed in violation of Security Council orders) -- though the Bush "vision," apparently accepted by Obama, moves from tacit to explicit. What is in place already suffices to ensure that there can be no viable Palestinian self-determination. Hence there is every indication that even on the unlikely assumption that "natural growth" will be ended, US-Israeli rejectionism will persist, blocking the international consensus as before.

Netanyahu says that West Bank settlements are to expand.

News that manages to be both unsurprising and almost unbelievable. The West Bank settlements, which are considered illegal under international law, are to expand.

"I have no intention to construct new settlements," Binyamin Netanyahu was quoted by officials as telling his cabinet on Sunday.

"... but it makes no sense to ask us not to answer to the needs of natural growth and to stop all construction," he added.

Whereas Obama said to Netanyahu just days earlier …



As for Netanyahu vowing to remove makeshift outposts in the West Bank that the Israeli government itself considers illegal …

A few links

Robert Fisk discusses the semiotics of conflict reports - 'Civilians pay price of war from above', which gives Al Jazeera's report, 'US probe 'confirms' Afghan deaths', greater resonance. The use of language by US officials is spookily similar to that of the Israeli government’s justification of the Israel Defence Force's activities. The story itself is receiving little or no attention from mainstream British news organisations.

Dave’s Part assesses the perceived moving left of Labour under Brown -'SDP, the second time as farce'.

'Monbiot meets... Hazel Blears' is extraordinary. It might not sound that interesting but wait for Blear's reaction to Monbiot's question about Islam Karimov, the brutal dictator of Uzbekistan. At about 7:02 comes a moment of near David Brent proportions awkwardness.

An overlooked story from Michael Crick's Newsnight blog

If you are still hungry for interesting and informed reading matter, A Very Public Sociologist is a pretty good place to look. I recently discovered that they have linked The Polemical Report (it is listed in the ‘Counter-Hegemonies’ section), which I am pretty pleased about. Thank you if you are reading this A Very Public Sociologist team.

CNN lies & United Nations inquiry into the war in Gaza

It has come to my attention that some readers are visiting The Polemical Report having been directed to an earlier post via the ‘from the blogs’ feature, that Sphere provide, on the CNN international website. The article on CNN, which I reluctantly link, is misleading*. The emphasis of the CNN report seems to be the cost of the damages to United Nations property rather than the deaths of innocent people.

CNN say that the UN report recommends that the IDF should “take better precautions”. This a carefully selected quote that underplays the overriding message of the UN report. CNN’s assessment suggests that the IDF were merely careless rather than wilful. It also repeats the claims made Israel Defence Minister Ehud Barak without questioning the validity. Frankly, they omit important facts and mislead. CNN is guilty of lying by omission.

Here are a few things that CNN neglects to mention.

• CNN neglects to mention finding 16 of the UN report, “The board conclude that the IDF [Israeli Defence Force] carried out a direct and intentional strike in to United Nations premises.” The deliberate actions of the IDF resulted in the deaths of unarmed civilians seeking shelter.
  

• CNN neglects to mention the use of white phosphorus.
  

• CNN neglects to mention finding 21 of the UN report, which finds the IDF responsible for deaths within around a school, a well-known designated shelter.

• CNN neglects to mention finding 22 of the UN report which establishes that is no evidence to support the IDF’s claims that Hamas had booby-trapped the school and that Hamas was firing from the school’s grounds.
  

• CNN neglects to mention finding 63 of the UN report, which find that the cause of death and injury of children within another UN designated shelter was the IDF.

• CNN neglects to mention the limited scope of the investigation, which will likely mislead those unacquainted with the facts.

The content of the UN report, which details the bombings of schools, a hospital and deaths of civilians, is merely the tip of the iceberg.

UPDATE
*Since originally posting this, the CNN report has changed. The CNN report now contains quotes from Israeli President Shimon Peres. The statements made by Shimon Peres are false. Peres said, "We’re outraged because they didn't mention Hamas". This is a bald-faced lie. The UN report not only mentioned Hamas but also blamed Hamas for causing damage in one of the incidents that the report looked at. What is more, the statements made by Peres now dominate the CNN report and are largely repeated without contest. CNN is guilty of contextual lies. Misleading the electorate to the extent of Israeli aggression and Palestinian suffering is a harmful and ignoble cause.

If you have not already done so, check out my original post. If you are interested in finding out more about CNN and its reporting of Israel and Palestine then I recommend that you watch Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land.

More posts relating to the United Nations and Israel from The Polemical Report.

To see the 23-page summary that the media coverage is based on, follow the link to ‘Secretary-General’s Summary of the Report of the United Nations Headquarters Board of Inquiry into certain incidents in the Gaza Strip between 27 December 2008 and 19 January 2009’

United Nations inquiry into the war in Gaza

* If you were directed to this post by CNN, please read 'CNN & United Nations inquiry into the war in Gaza'.

A UN investigation, which looked only at deaths, injuries and damage at UN sites in Gaza during the three-week conflict, found that Israel was responsible for at least seven attacks on UN operations. The UN report comes in the wake of an Israeli internal investigation that concluded that the during the Gaza offensive the army ‘maintained a high professional and moral level’.The full 184-page investigation report by the UN board of inquiry has not been made public, press reports are based on a 23-page summary. 

Al Jazeera - 'UN blames Israel for Gaza attacks'

The UN report, commissioned by Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary-general, said the Israeli military intentionally fired at UN facilities and civilians hiding in them during the war and used disproportionate force. […]

A total of 53 installations used by the United Nations Relief and Works agency (UNRWA) were damaged or destroyed during Israel's Gaza campaign, including 37 schools - six of which were being used as emergency shelters - six health centres, and two warehouses, the UN agency said. […]

Israel's 22-day war on Gaza left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, including around 400 children, Gaza health officials said, along with 13 Israelis. […]

It also said one of the incidents, when a World Food Programme warehouse in the Karni industrial zone in Gaza was damaged, was largely caused by a rocket "most likely" fired by Hamas or another Palestinian faction and condemned those responsible for using such "indiscriminate weapons" to cause deaths and injuries.

The Guardian - 'UN report accuses Israeli military of negligence in Gaza war'

[The report summary] said: "The board concluded that IDF [Israeli Defence Force] actions involved varying degrees of negligence or recklessness with regard to United Nations premises and to the safety of United Nations staff and other civilians within those premises, with consequent deaths, injuries, and extensive physical damage and loss of property." […]

Israel's foreign ministry attempted to pre-empt the report today, saying the Israeli military had already investigated its own conduct during the war and "proved beyond doubt" that it did not fire intentionally at UN buildings. It dismissed the UN inquiry.

"The state of Israel rejects the criticism in the committee's summary report, and determines that in both spirit and language the report is tendentious, patently biased, and ignores the facts presented to the committee," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

It said the inquiry had "preferred the claims of Hamas, a murderous terror organisation, and by doing so has misled the world".

Unfortunately, secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, refuses to act on the 11th recommendation of the report, which calls for an “impartial inquiry mandated, and adequately resourced, to investigate allegations of violations of international humanitarian law". This would require Israeli cooperation and would be harder for Israel to dismiss. However, such an enquiry into human rights abuses is seemingly deemed impolitic by Ban Ki-moon.

The UN inquiry into the Israeli war in Gaza comes in the wake of another recent UN report that is critical of Israel’s actions in Palestine; it calls for Israel to “end Palestinian demolitions in Jerusalem”. UN Radio – ‘End Palestinian demolitions in Jerusalem, UN tells Israel’

Of the 70 square kilometers of east Jerusalem and the West Bank annexed by Israel, the report says, only 13 per cent is zoned for Palestinian construction and this was mostly already built up. […]

The UN said it was particularly concerned about areas facing mass demolition, including an area south of the old city, where the threatened destruction of 90 houses would lead to the displacement of a thousand Palestinians.

More posts relating to the United Nations and Israel from The Polemical Report.

100 Days: Barack Obama has taken some steps in the right direction - but let’s not kid ourselves

Unless connected to their predecessor, presidents are able to enjoy the luxury of blaming their predecessor for a while. Obama may have extended this period through some impressive political posturing. The disclosure of the memos authorising detainee abuse was inevitable due to an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit, releasing the memos early allows Obama to distance himself from their contents.

The closure of Guantánamo Bay is to be welcomed, but it too seems more likely to be politically motivated rather than morally. Its geographical proximity and historical connotations means that it carries considerable symbolic value beyond its terror suspect prison status both in the US and elsewhere. Nowhere will the symbolism resonate more greatly than Cuba, it was, after all, once Cuban land before US ‘intervention’.

New relations with Cuba are, so far, tiny steps in the right direction. The archaic trade embargo, a hangover from the cold war, is still in place. In fact, all that has been undone are additional restrictions brought in by George Bush Junior. Nonetheless, Obama’s move away from Bush’s stance on Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and Europe is to be welcomed. Welcomed but not exaggerated.

His burgeoning presidency has seen some less contestable successes, for example, allowing wider research on stem cells is unquestionably the right move. The planned departure of US troops from Iraq, on the other hand, is an unquestionable fudge.

Obama is all too willing to make concessions when he deems it politically expedient. His pledge to speak “truthfully about the Armenian genocide” was avoided through deliberate obfuscation. His calls for peace in the Middle East feel like empty platitudes. The subtext of past speeches has revealed him to be reluctant to criticise Israel. Given that Israel's coalition government is particularly right-wing and the shift rightwards of Israel’s Labour party, it seems peace can only come at the expense of Palestinians.

Obama has not had it all his own way, Europe rejected sending more troops to Afghanistan and refused an economic stimulus package on Obama’s terms. Nor will he have it all his way in the future: Pakistan is becoming increasingly unstable. North Korea seems as defiant as ever having fired ballistic missiles. Afghanistan’s impending national elections will likely trigger greater disturbance in the region.

His nation awaits a much-vaunted health care reform plan.

Obama's 100 days - the mad men did well

John Pilger has written an excellent exposition on ‘Obama's 100 days’. Below is a select extract.

In his first 100 days, Obama has excused torture, opposed habeas corpus and demanded more secret government. He has kept Bush’s gulag intact and at least 17,000 prisoners beyond the reach of justice. [...]

All over the world, America’s violent assault on innocent people, directly or by agents, has been stepped up. During the recent massacre in Gaza, reports Seymour Hersh, “the Obama team let it be known that it would not object to the planned resupply of ‘smart bombs’ and other hi-tech ordnance that was already flowing to Israel” and being used to slaughter mostly women and children. In Pakistan, the number of civilians killed by US missiles called drones has more than doubled since Obama took office. […]

He is proceeding with Bush’s provocation of placing missiles on Russia’s western border, justifying it as a counter to Iran, which he accuses, absurdly, of posing “a real threat” to Europe and the US. […]

Perhaps the biggest lie – the equivalent of smoking is good for you – is Obama’s announcement that the US is leaving Iraq, the country it has reduced to a river of blood. According to unabashed US army planners, as many as 70,000 troops will remain “for the next 15 to 20 years”. […]

Lawrence Summers, Obama’s principal economic adviser, is throwing $3trn at the same banks that paid him more than $8m last year, including $135,000 for one speech. Change you can believe in. […]

At a stroke, he has seen off serious domestic dissent to war, and he brings tears to the eyes, from Washington to Whitehall. He is the BBC’s man, and CNN’s man, and Murdoch’s man, and Wall Street’s man, and the CIA’s man.

For more on Obama’s first 100 days see:

• 'Barack Obama has taken some steps in the right direction - but let’s not kid ourselves he still has some way to go.'

For more on Obama click here.

Israeli internal investigation concludes that the during the Gaza offensive the army ‘maintained a high professional and moral level’.

Al Jazeera reports that ‘Israel defends army's Gaza conduct’.

An internal Israeli investigation has concluded that the country's military acted in accordance with international law during the recent war in Gaza.  […]

The army "maintained a high professional and moral level while facing an enemy that aimed to terrorise Israeli civilians", the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), as the military in Israel is called, said in a statement.

It said it conducted five separate investigations into some of its actions during the war, including attacks on and near UN and international facilities and the use in densely populated areas of white phosphorous, a chemical agent that causes severe burns. […]

Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland, reporting from Jerusalem, said both Israeli and international human rights groups have criticised the internal investigation.

"They said a couple of weeks ago that it was completely inappropriate that an army should be investigating itself," she said.

 

"The other question is how these findings will be received by the Israeli public ... and they as a whole have been lulled into this narrative according to which the Israeli army is the most moral army in the world.

 

"So in a way, this report will be falling on very willing ears - it will be telling the Israeli public a version of events that they want to hear."

Up to 1,300 Palestinians, mostly women and children, were killed during the 22-day assault on the Gaza Strip.

Thirteen Israelis, 10 of them soldiers, were killed during the same period.

Meanwhile, in the US, Hilary Clinton has been in discussion with the House Foreign Affairs Committee.  

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has reiterated the US position that it will not deal with or fund a Palestinian government that includes Hamas until certain conditions are met.

 

Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday that Hamas must renounce violence, recognise Israel and agreed to "previous obligations" of the Palestinian Authority.

She said it appeared that Hamas had "no intention" that this would happen but said the US wanted to "leave open the door". […] 

Clinton also had heavy criticism for the Pakistani government, saying it was "basically abdicating to the Taliban" in agreeing to the imposition of sharia law in parts of the country.The comments on Pakistan come in the wake of suspected US military attacks in Pakistan.  

The comments on Pakistan come in the wake of suspected US military attacks in Pakistan.  

UPDATE

Al Jazeera is now giving greater prominence to the comments on Pakistan.

The not always reliable Russia Today offers a slightly different account of the reaction to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Geneva speech on racism.

The not always reliable Russia Today offers a slightly different account of the reaction to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Geneva speech on racism. – ‘Jews divided over Ahmadinejad ahead of UN Assembly’.

While the majority were denouncing the presence of the Iranian president, there was also a small group of Jewish people that welcomed his message and called for diplomacy.

Members of Jews United Against Zionism demonstrated behind barricades calling for an end to Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory. They consider Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a peaceful leader and say he deserves more respect from the West.

“President Ahmadinejad, who I personally spoke to for hours – we met him many times – he insists he has nothing against the Jews. He respects, protects them,” Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss from Jew United Against Zionism said.

Although the reportage of the activities of a minor pressure group, whose membership is estimated to be a few thousand, may well be illustrative of bias if given excessive prominence it nonetheless serves to highlight the complexities of the story. Too few news organisations have clearly delineated the distinctions between Zionism and Judaism. They may well be related, but the two are different. Choosing not to report on the actions of these unrepresentative few may well be justifiable in terms of newsworthiness. Needless and inflammatory exaggeration on the other hand cannot.

If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s comments were part of a ‘vitriolic’ ‘rambling polemic’, are the words of Israel's deputy PM better?

If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s comments made during his speech were part of a ‘vitriolic’ ‘rambling polemic’, are the words of Silvan Shalom, Israel's deputy prime minister, any more conducive to building an international consensus on racism?

"What Iran is trying to do right now is not far away at all from what Hitler did to the Jewish people just 65 years ago," Shalom said at the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp, hours before a Holocaust memorial ceremony.

Iran "is trying to do everything they can in order to wipe Israel off the map and at the same time to undermine the moderate Arab Muslim regimes in the Middle East." [...]

Robert Gibbs, a White House spokesman, said that Barack Obama, the US president, was strongly opposed to Ahmadinejad's comments.

"This is hateful rhetoric. It is, I think, one of the reasons why you saw the administration and the president determined that its participation in this conference was not a wise thing to do."

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, condemned Ahmadinejad's "speech of hate" and called for a "firm and united" reaction from the European Union.

A view on the walkout.

Antony Lerman - ‘Ahmadinejad, Durban and another fine mess’

Iran's president may have derailed the UN meeting. But rather than walk out, delegates should have stayed to argue their case […]

[The meeting] appears to have been completely derailed by a publicity-seeking, not especially powerful politician, desperately campaigning for re-election as president. And meanwhile, the millions whose lives are utterly blighted by racial discrimination, violence and hatred are relegated to a footnote. Part farce, part tragedy? Seeking refuge in humour doesn't seem an entirely inappropriate way of responding when none of it seems to make any sense.

Some who stayed in their seats clapped and cheered. In whose interests? Did the anti-Israel rhetoric at the 2001 Durban anti-racism conference help alleviate the plight of the Palestinians one iota? No. The last eight years have seen a gross deterioration in their position. Did the attempt to brand Zionism a form of racism help bring closer an end to the aggressive settlement policy on the West Bank? No. It continued apace. And with the new rightwing dominated government now in power in Israel, that policy looks likely to intensify. The Palestinians, who deserve no less than a complete and immediate end to occupation and all the repressive policies and human rights abuses that go with it, lost out then and will lose out again. […]

[T]he boycotts by the US, Canada, Israel, Italy and others only hand a kind of victory on a plate to those who want to hijack the conference for their own, narrow political purposes. Since when has the UN been a children's tea party? It can't help for powerful countries to give the impression that they cannot make the arguments that need to be made against Ahmadinejad and his ilk. And these arguments need to be addressed to a wider world audience. And in whose interests is it for Israel to be playing the victim? Israel too is perfectly capable of making its arguments. What on earth will withdrawing its ambassador from Switzerland achieve? When the dust settles, it will be easy for other states to ask: "Why should we entertain the likes of a far right racist like your foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman?"

Crass journalism muddles already murky understanding.

UPDATE

The Guardian article I criticise now appears on the Guardian website in an edited form having recognised its inaccuracies and been corrected.  It now contains the following clarification:

This clarification was published on Tuesday 21 April 2009.

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, deviated from his prepared speech to the UN racism conference, omitting the phrase "the ambiguous and dubious question of the Holocaust". The original text was given to journalists by the Iranian mission to the UN, and was included in the report below in good faith.

The post quotes parts of the Guardian article that have subsequently been corrected.

My original post read as follows

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a contentious figure. Contemptible statements have been attributed to him – and contested. In short, many view him as an anti-Semite. This claim emerges primarily from his pronouncements on the Holocaust and Israel. He allegedly denies the Holocaust and argues that Israel should be ‘wiped of the map’. The claims made in his defence are that his words were poorly translated, taken out of context, exaggerated and manipulated. This is certainly true, to some extent.

It is interesting to note that even the Guardian, arguably the most left leaning British broadsheet, opted not to report the apparent applause for parts of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech to the United Nations. They preferred to focus on the less appealing aspects of his speech.

When he did speak, he was even more vitriolic than they had feared. In a rambling polemic, Ahmadinejad questioned the reality of the Holocaust, accused Israel of genocide and spoke of a wide-ranging Zionist conspiracy, triggering pandemonium and a coordinated walkout by Britain and other EU states.

This is not true. Ahmadinejad had not ‘questioned the reality of the Holocaust’ ‘triggering pandemonium and a coordinated walkout by Britain and other EU states’. If he did question the reality of the Holocaust in this speech, it was after the walkout. If he did question the reality of the Holocaust in this speech, I am yet to find evidence as an entire transcript is not yet available*. The BBC news ‘In quotes: Ahmadinejad speech’ provides no evidence of Holocaust denial in this speech. It is worth reiterating, if he did question the reality of the Holocaust in this speech, it was after the walkout.

It is true that Ahmadinejad accused Israel of genocide and spoke of a wide-ranging Zionist conspiracy. Talk of genocide of Palestinians came after the walkout had begun.

I am not arguing about the contents of Ahmadinejad’s speech, its merits or its demerits (although I may do at a later date). Nor am I arguing in defence of him or his regime – just type ‘Iran’ into Human Rights Watch to see Iran’s hall of shame. I would welcome greater exposure of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s deplorable actions. It is the opportunism and needless exaggeration that I deplore. Crass journalism muddles our already murky understanding. The report should be balanced rather than put through a filter that makes the story less edifying.

For supporting evidence follow the links in - 'Walkout at Iran leader's criticism of Israel'

* See UPDATE below

For more on this story see

• 'The not always reliable Russia Today offers a slightly different account of the reaction to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Durban speech on racism'.

• 'If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s comments were part of a ‘vitriolic’ ‘rambling polemic’, are the words of Israel's deputy PM better?'

• 'A view on the walkout'

UPDATE

The complete speech is now available on youtube

Walkout at Iran leader's criticism of Israel

See footage of the walkout at Iran leader's speech on racism at UN conference - BBC news - 'Walkout at Iran leader's speech'.

Mr Ahmadinejad, the only major leader to attend the conference, said Jewish migrants from Europe and the United States had been sent to the Middle East after World War II "in order to establish a racist government in the occupied Palestine".

He continued, through an interpreter: "And in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine." […]

Two protesters, wearing coloured wigs, disrupted the start of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech - followed by a mass walkout of Western delegates.

Al Jazeera - 'Israel criticism sparks UN walkout'

[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continued,] "The UN security council has stabilised this occupation regime and supported it in the last 60 years giving them a free hand to continue their crimes," he told delegates at the Durban Review Conference hall in Geneva. [...]

"The Iraqi people have suffered enormous losses ... wasn't the military action against Iraq planned by the Zionists ... in the US administration, in complicity with the arms manufacturing companies?". Many delegates who remained in the hall applauded Ahmadinejad's comments. […]

Alan Fisher, Al Jazeera's correspondent at the conference, said Ahmadinejad had reiterated his views on Israel, especially over its 22-day war on Gaza. He said: "At the time [of the offensive] he said what was going on in Gaza was a genocide ... this was an opportunity for him to say that at a world forum. "There are people in the hall who believe that what Ahmadinejad was saying is correct - that is why there is such a split here." […]

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, condemned Ahmadinejad's "speech of hate" and called for a "firm and united" reaction from the European Union. Jonas Gahr Store, Norway's foreign minister, said the Iranian leader's comments had "run counter to the very spirit of dignity of the conference ... he made Iran the odd man out".

The speech by Ahmadinejad, who is a frequent critic of Israel and has cast doubt on the extent of the killing of Jews during the Second World War, coincided with Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, which begins at sundown on Monday.

The United States, Canada, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands, had earlier said they would not attend the conference amid fears Ahmadinejad would use the summit to propagate anti-Semitic views. […]

The UN organised the summit to help heal the wounds left by its last racism conference in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, when the US and Israel walked out after Arab states sought to define Zionism as being racist.

The Guardian - 'Britain walks out of conference as Ahmadinejad calls Israel 'racist''.

France's foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, speaking before Ahmadinejad's speech, said "we will not tolerate any blunder or provocation" from Ahmadinejad, who has referred to the Holocaust as a myth and called for Israel to be "wiped off the pages of history". […]

The Foreign Office said in a statement, also released before the speech: "The United Kingdom has argued strongly for the concluding document to contain adequate language on Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism. We will find unacceptable any attempt to use the Durban process to trivialise or deny the Holocaust, or to renegotiate agreements on the fight against antisemitism." […]

Ahmadinejad's speech and press conference will be carefully scrutinised for his tone towards the US after Barack Obama's recent overtures to Tehran. The Iranian president has ruled out compromise on Iran's nuclear programme, but has occasionally raised hopes of a thaw in US-Iranian relations, as he did yesterday when he insisted that an Iranian-American journalist, sentenced by an Iranian court to eight years in prison on espionage charges, should be guaranteed the full right to defend herself in her appeal. The Iranian government today urged Obama not to comment on the case.

Human Rights Watch publishes report on Gaza Strip

Human Rights Watch publishes report based on witness reports, testimony from victims and case reports from Palestinian human rights groups. Al Jazeera's assessment below.

Human Rights Watch has accused Hamas of killing at least 32 members of rival political factions and people accused of collaborating with Israel during the Israel's war in the Gaza Strip earlier this year. […] "Hamas should end its attacks on political opponents and suspected collaborators in Gaza, which have killed at least 32 Palestinians and maimed several dozen more during and since the recent Israeli military offensive," it said.

Hamas criticised the report as unfair. Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for the Palestinian political faction, said the Human Rights Watch (HRW) report neglected to mention the reasons behind the disorder in Gaza that allowed the abuses to occur, namely Israel's bombing of police stations and prisons. "This report, with all its details, is inaccurate and hastily-released, it lacks information and harms the policies of Hamas movement in Gaza Strip," Barhoum told Al Jazeera. "We always aim at enforcing the law and respecting freedoms."

The Human Rights Watch report said fighters believed to be affiliated with Hamas tracked down and executed 18 Palestinians, apparently suspected of being Israeli collaborators, who escaped from Gaza's main prison after it was bombed on December 28. […]

"The [Hamas] government has opened an investigation into these killings, but it is not yet completed," al-Nunu said. He said 11 police officers had been dismissed after the Israeli war, and could face criminal charges for alleged involvement in the mistreatment of a detainee. […]

"The widespread practice of maiming people by shooting them in the legs is of particular concern," the report said. It said that 49 people had been shot in the legs, while 73 Palestinian men had their legs and arms broken during the course of the 22-day conflict. Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Gaza, said he had heard numerous accounts of human rights abuses by a number of Palestinian groups during, and immediately after, the war. […]

The international rights watchdog also said "repressive measures" have increased against Hamas members in the occupied West Bank, which is controlled by Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah-aligned Palestinian president. "Western governments that support and finance the Fatah authorities in the West Bank have remained publicly silent about the arbitrary arrests and torture against Hamas members and others," Joe Stork, HRW's deputy director for the Middle East, said. The HRW report said Palestinian rights groups in the West Bank recorded 31 complaints of torture by police, as well as the death of at least one person in custody, and the arbitrary detention of two journalists considered to be pro-Hamas.

“In relation to Iraq I tried every other option [to invasion] there was”. It was Blair's classic lie, which passed unchallenged.

John Pilger on Blair’s current role – ‘Fake faith and epic crimes’.

In a separate indictment, former Judge of the New Zealand Supreme Court E.W. Thomas wrote: “My pre-disposition was to believe that Mr. Blair was deluded, but sincere in his belief. After considerable reading and much reflection, however, my final conclusion is that Mr. Blair deliberately ands repeatedly misled Cabinet, the British Labour Party and the people in a number of respects. It is not possible to hold that he was simply deluded but sincere: a victim of his own self-deception. His deception was deliberate.” […]

Protected by the fake sinecure of Middle East Envoy for the Quartet (the US, EU, UN and Russia), Blair operates largely from a small fortress in the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem, where he is an apologist for the US in the Middle East and Israel, a difficult task following the bloodbath in Gaza. […]

On 8 February, Andrew Rawnsley, the Observer’s former leading Blair fan, declared that “this shameful period will not be so smoothly and simply buried”. He demanded, “Did Blair never ask what was going on?” This is an excellent question made relevant with a slight word change: “Did the Andrew Rawnsleys never ask what was going on?” In 2001, Rawnsley alerted his readers to Iraq’s “contribution to international terrorism” and Saddam Hussein’s “frightening appetite to possess weapons of mass destruction”. Both assertions were false and echoed official Anglo-American propaganda. In 2003, when the destruction of Iraq was launched, Rawnsley described it as a “point of principle” for Blair who, he later wrote, was “fated to be right”. He lamented, “Yes, too many people died in the war. Too many people always die in war. War is nasty and brutish, but at least this conflict was mercifully short.” In the subsequent six years at least a million people have been killed. According to the Red Cross, Iraq is now a country of widows and orphans. Yes, war is nasty and brutish, but never for the Blairs and the Rawnsleys. […]

Ginny Dougary of the Sydney Morning Herald and the Times. Dougary recently accompanied Blair on what she described as his “James Bondish-ish Gulfstream” where she was privy to his “bionic energy levels”. She wrote, “I ask him the childlike question: does he want to save the world?” Blair replied, well, more or less, aw shucks, yes. The murderous assault on Gaza, which was under way during the interview, was mentioned in passing. “That is war, I’m afraid,” said Blair, “and war is horrible”. No counter came that Gaza was not a war but a massacre by any measure.

Robert Fisk: How can you trust the cowardly BBC?

Robert Fisk passionately denunciates the BBC Trust's decision to criticise Jeremy Bowen's coverage of the Middle East.

[The BBC Trust] is now a mouthpiece for the Israeli lobby which so diligently abused Bowen. [...] If you allow yourself to bow down before those who wish you to deviate from the truth, you will stay on your knees forever.

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