Killing fields of Gaza: A lesson in hypocrisy
Under Starmer's government my country now participates in the very same genocidal acts by supplying arms to the Israeli Zionists. This is not only a betrayal of the Palestinian people but a desecration of the memory of those who died to stop such horrors. If Starmer and his ministers possessed a shred of conscience, they would walk among the graves at Normandy and confront the reality of their current participation.
Let us be clear: Zionism is not Judaism. An ideology that has far more in common with Nazism than its adherents admit. The Zionist-Nazi Pact of 1933 — the Haavara Agreement — was a marriage of convenience, serving both the Nazis and the Zionists. The Zionists ignored the plight of ordinary Jews. Only the wealthy escaped to Palestine in exchange for ninety per cent of their assets. The poor were abandoned to the death camps. Over six million Jews and many million non-Jews perished at the hands of Nazis and their Zionist collaborators. Yes, Zionists. They aided the Nazis in evading trade embargoes and many fought alongside the Nazis and Italian Fascists in WW2.
Among the fallen in Normandy are young Jews who died fighting both Nazism and the very ideology now murdering children in Gaza. In 2025, as bombs rain upon Gaza, the world indulges in a grotesque exercise of hypocrisy. The killing of Palestinians finally reached such a scale that international bodies could not ignore it, yet diplomacy continued to churn out words and those who could, did nothing to stop it.
Between October 2023 and May 2024, Israeli forces killed at least 34,568 Palestinians and wounded 77,765 more — over five per cent of Gaza's population. Fourteen thousand five hundred of the dead were children, more than in all the world's conflicts over the previous four years combined. Twenty-five thousand tonnes of explosives — equivalent to two nuclear bombs — were dropped on Gaza. The ICJ declared the allegations of genocide 'plausible' — a word that speaks volumes in its ambiguity. Amnesty International stated unequivocally that Israel 'committed genocide'. Legal scholars concurred. Yet, in a display of pure Orwellian doublethink, the United States described these allegations as 'unfounded'. The same US that claim to uphold human rights continue to arm Israel, a lesson in hypocrisy.
The mechanics of genocide proceed in plain sight: hospitals, schools and water systems are systematically destroyed. Starvation is wielded as a weapon and entire towns and their inhabitants have been destroyed. Survivors speak of an apocalypse, of being made subhuman and the language of extermination is now routine among Israeli officials. The Zionists, like their former Nazi allies to justify murdering Jews, have dehumanised their Palestinian victims.
Unlike the Nazi genocide, the genocide in Gaza is 'live-streamed', documented, analysed and condemned, yet uninterrupted. The international system, designed to prevent such horrors, is ignored. Legal judgments are made but never enforced. Moral pronouncements are rendered meaningless by political expediency. The Palestinian struggle is the latest chapter in a long Zionist settler-colonial project of ethnic cleansing which started in 1948. But still the killing continues, shielded by the same powers that once swore 'never again'.
The truth is not hidden but rendered irrelevant, discarded by those with the power to ignore it.
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Observer
4 days ago
- Observer
Killing fields of Gaza: A lesson in hypocrisy
As a citizen of the UK I write this with profound dismay. My country once stood against Hitler's tyranny, sacrificing thousands of young lives to halt the Nazi machinery of genocide. Our WW2 soldiers, many not yet twenty, now lay dead on the fields of Normandy, their white gravestones stretching to the horizon. Under Starmer's government my country now participates in the very same genocidal acts by supplying arms to the Israeli Zionists. This is not only a betrayal of the Palestinian people but a desecration of the memory of those who died to stop such horrors. If Starmer and his ministers possessed a shred of conscience, they would walk among the graves at Normandy and confront the reality of their current participation. Let us be clear: Zionism is not Judaism. An ideology that has far more in common with Nazism than its adherents admit. The Zionist-Nazi Pact of 1933 — the Haavara Agreement — was a marriage of convenience, serving both the Nazis and the Zionists. The Zionists ignored the plight of ordinary Jews. Only the wealthy escaped to Palestine in exchange for ninety per cent of their assets. The poor were abandoned to the death camps. Over six million Jews and many million non-Jews perished at the hands of Nazis and their Zionist collaborators. Yes, Zionists. They aided the Nazis in evading trade embargoes and many fought alongside the Nazis and Italian Fascists in WW2. Among the fallen in Normandy are young Jews who died fighting both Nazism and the very ideology now murdering children in Gaza. In 2025, as bombs rain upon Gaza, the world indulges in a grotesque exercise of hypocrisy. The killing of Palestinians finally reached such a scale that international bodies could not ignore it, yet diplomacy continued to churn out words and those who could, did nothing to stop it. Between October 2023 and May 2024, Israeli forces killed at least 34,568 Palestinians and wounded 77,765 more — over five per cent of Gaza's population. Fourteen thousand five hundred of the dead were children, more than in all the world's conflicts over the previous four years combined. Twenty-five thousand tonnes of explosives — equivalent to two nuclear bombs — were dropped on Gaza. The ICJ declared the allegations of genocide 'plausible' — a word that speaks volumes in its ambiguity. Amnesty International stated unequivocally that Israel 'committed genocide'. Legal scholars concurred. Yet, in a display of pure Orwellian doublethink, the United States described these allegations as 'unfounded'. The same US that claim to uphold human rights continue to arm Israel, a lesson in hypocrisy. The mechanics of genocide proceed in plain sight: hospitals, schools and water systems are systematically destroyed. Starvation is wielded as a weapon and entire towns and their inhabitants have been destroyed. Survivors speak of an apocalypse, of being made subhuman and the language of extermination is now routine among Israeli officials. The Zionists, like their former Nazi allies to justify murdering Jews, have dehumanised their Palestinian victims. Unlike the Nazi genocide, the genocide in Gaza is 'live-streamed', documented, analysed and condemned, yet uninterrupted. The international system, designed to prevent such horrors, is ignored. Legal judgments are made but never enforced. Moral pronouncements are rendered meaningless by political expediency. The Palestinian struggle is the latest chapter in a long Zionist settler-colonial project of ethnic cleansing which started in 1948. But still the killing continues, shielded by the same powers that once swore 'never again'. The truth is not hidden but rendered irrelevant, discarded by those with the power to ignore it.
Observer
6 days ago
- Observer
Hopes for migrant deal as Macron wraps up UK state visit
LONDON: London and Paris were working on Thursday to thrash out a deal on undocumented migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats on the last day of the French president's state visit to Britain. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and France's Emmanuel Macron posed for the cameras outside Downing Street, as they headed inside for a summit with senior ministers focused on that issue and other shared concerns. They include the volatile situation in the Middle East, continued support for Ukraine and a "reboot" of defence ties including joint missile development and nuclear co-operation. The two leaders agreed on Wednesday that there was a need for a "new deterrent" to curb the small boat crossings. The issue has become a major headache for Starmer's year-old Labour government as support for the upstart anti-immigrant Reform UK party soars. The UK would tackle undocumented migration with "new tactics" and a "new level of intent", Starmer said in summit opening remarks, adding: "We will agree the situation in the Channel cannot go on as it is." A so-called "one in, one out" migrant deal, details of which were reportedly still being discussed, would see migrants sent back to France in return for the UK accepting a similar number of migrants with strong asylum cases. As the leaders met, the UK Coastguard said a number of the small boats headed to southeast England had been sighted in the Channel. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage meanwhile posted a video and photo on X from another boat showing the scene in the waterway between Britain and France -- one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. Describing it as a "classic" scenario over the past five years when the sea was calm, he described seeing "about 70 people on board being escorted all the way over by the French Navy" with UK Border force "waiting for the handover". The mooted migrant-exchange scheme, which has sparked "serious concerns" among some other European nations, could initially involve around 50 people a week, French daily Le Monde reported. More than 21,000 migrants have made the Channel crossing in rudimentary vessels this year alone. During a meeting with Macron on Wednesday, Starmer outlined his government's policies to tackle issues such as illegal working, a Downing Street spokesperson said. Illegal employment opportunities are one of the "pull factors" France claims has made the UK particularly attractive to migrants. Thursday's summit follows two days of events spanning pomp and politics, trade and culture for Macron and his wife Brigitte. The French first couple were welcomed on Tuesday by King Charles III and Queen Camilla with a horse-drawn carriage procession, a 41-gun salute and a banquet at Windsor Castle, west of London. — AFP
Observer
30-06-2025
- Observer
Defence hike: Europe is making a big mistake
Leaving Brussels by train, the Audi factory is one of the first things you see. Made up of gray, rectangular buildings, the site was long one of Belgium's biggest car producers. Slick and productive, it was a fitting symbol for the capital of Europe. Early this year, however, it succumbed to the industrial crisis overtaking the continent and was unceremoniously shut down. Spots of graffiti are already visible on its once pristine walls. In recent months, the story of the Audi factory has become the story of Europe. Both are down on their luck, in danger of being swept away by the century's new geoeconomic tide. In Brussels, the response to the predicament has been equally in tune with the times — as part of a wider military revamp, ministers claim, the former car factory should be turned into a weapons producer. Such a relaunch, proponents say, would aid Europe's strategic autonomy and create 3,000 new jobs. Across Europe, policymakers are converging on the same strategy, hoping to kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, increased military spending would make Europe safe from Russia and independent from America, at last securing its superpower status. On the other hand, it would revive Europe's ailing industrial sector, under pressure from Chinese competitors and rising energy costs. Pumping money into the military, so the argument goes, is the way to fight the twin crises of geopolitical vulnerability and economic malaise. These hopes are likely to prove delusive. Europe's militarisation push, suffering problems of both scale and efficiency, is unlikely to work on its own terms. But it carries a bigger danger than failure. By focusing on defence at the expense of all else, it risks taking the European Union not forward but backward. Rather than a major advance, breakneck rearmament could well amount to a historic mistake. Europe's new approach is usually given an older name: military Keynesianism. Originally, the concept referred to the tendency of mid-century governments to counteract economic downturns through increases in military spending — a combination supposedly first pioneered by the Nazis in the 1930s, then globalised by the Americans in the 1940s. More recently, the term has been applied to President Vladimir Putin's war economy in Russia. Yet it is far from clear whether Europe's current efforts warrant such a description. For one, the continent is simply undergoing a return to military spending levels before 1989. At its peak in the 1960s, for instance, German military expenditure reached just under 5 per cent of gross domestic product; Chancellor Friedrich Merz's target, announced last week, is 3.5 per cent. Such a restoration hardly qualifies as a great leap forward — certainly not matching the concept of the 'Zeitenwende", or 'turning point", that has been used to describe the change in approach. The public benefits of the strategy — the Keynesianism part — remain equally unclear. Though Germany has slightly eased its debt rules, European policymakers remain reluctant to run up budget deficits. More money for the military will strain already tight budgets, taking away from social programmes, infrastructural development and public utilities. Instead of military Keynesianism, a better comparison for Europe's defence bonanza is the Reaganism of the 1980s, in which increased military spending and social retrenchment went hand in hand. There are more problems with the remilitarisation push. For one, many former industrial sectors will acquire a vested interest in war-making abroad — hardly as reliable a source of profit as consumers buying cars. And more money for the military doesn't necessarily mean better results, either. As the economist Adam Tooze notes, Europeans collectively lavish ample sums on their 'zombie armies' and receive strikingly little in return, both in terms of manpower and material. No European company, for example, ranks in the top 10 defence companies by turnover. Then there is the quintessentially European problem with coordination. With tanks and hardware already expensive, the costs of continental rearmament will be multiplied by the union's decentralised decision-making, in which nations separately vie for contracts. Glimpses of such inefficiency are visible in the stalling efforts at shell production for the war in Ukraine. On top of this muddle, the first payouts of Europe's splurge are likely to go to American producers while European factories get up and running. In a telling irony, the initial beneficiaries of the potlatch will be not European but American. These logistical constraints should be weighed alongside the cultural limits to remilitarisation in Europe. In response to calls for renewed mobilisation, for example, one German podcaster spoke for many: 'I'd rather be alive than dead.' Even so, European policymakers are determined to sell rearmament as a condition for the continent's entry into the 21st century. Last week's Nato summit, at which almost all members pledged to raise military spending in the next decade to 5 per cent of GDP produced a pageant of such views. The number of wars around the world, with a fresh one recently threatened in Iran, supposedly underlines the need for Europe to be a fighting continent once more. This strategy, officials claim, combines military independence with commercial revival. Neither of these outcomes is likely. On its current course, Europe is headed for neither military Keynesianism with a social dividend nor a defence strategy suitable for an aspiring superpower. Rather, it risks getting the worst of both worlds: a meager economic recovery without long-term prospects for growth, and sumptuous payouts to a defence sector that would not allow Europe to match its peers. A quick journey to Brussels, where the Audi factory still stands empty, should suffice to convince visitors of this truth.
