I’m not sure we’ve ever seen anything quite like this.
The lengths still being gone to to defend or protect the Israeli government and its various international collaborators, after seven months of devastation in Gaza, are extraordinary.
I already spoke about the masks being off months ago – but it’s gotten so much more brazen, ugly and obvious since then.
From the most blatant acts of censorship in full public view to violent crackdowns on colleges and students, significant parts of the established power structure are clearly so committed to the project that they don’t even care about the terrible optics.
Fellow writer James Boswell summed it up most aptly in a comment on a recent YouTube short I posted about the harsh suppression of student protesters in the US. Quoting the legendary musician Frank Zappa, he wrote: “The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater…”
That appears to be where we are.
I want to talk about one act of extraordinary censorship in particular before moving on. And this was LBC radio in the UK, which took the extraordinary step of removing presenter Sangita Myska from her show in mid April – and replacing her with Jewish TV celebrity Vanessa Feltz.
Sangita, who had conducted a string of fiery interviews with Israeli officials and spokespeople since October, in which she’d often exposed obvious lies or made people look stupid, was removed from her programme without any explanation.
And in no time at all, Vanessa Feltz was being wheeled in to LBC amid slightly over-the-top pomp and fanfare.
Things like this have presumably been happening elsewhere too: but probably not as blatantly as a professional and objective journalist with significant credentials being replaced with a TV celebrity – and, at that, a critic of Israel’s Gaza operations being replaced by a tabloid-level Jewish ‘personality’ with established pro-Israel biases.
In the clips below you can see Myska grilling Israeli spokesperson Eylon Levy, as contrasted to Feltz kicking Peter Oborne out of an interview on TalkTV for mentioning genocidal language by some Israeli officials.
Petitions to restore Sangita to the airwaves, no matter how many signatories they receive, will fall on deaf ears: as it is patently obvious what the LBC management was being controlled or influenced by.
Far less high profile, but perhaps not entirely unrelated, if anyone tried visiting this website, BurningBlogger.com, during the two weeks between April 19th and roughly May 3rd, you would’ve noticed it wasn’t here.
The matter appears to be resolved for now: and I won’t go into details, as I don’t want to cause any problems with my hosting company or domain provider.
I am not going to state categorically that censorship had something to do with this site being gone for two weeks: though, given my history with censorship and deplatforming, I am naturally very awake to these things.
I will say only that my hosting company is based in Germany: and Germany has been cracking down harder than most on perceived criticism of Israel or questioning of the events of October 7th.
Which of course this website has been doing ever since the Hamas attack occurred in October. The site going offline seemed to happen not long after this article was posted, concerning alleged execution of children in Gaza.
This widespread doubling down for the extreme right-wing government in Israel has included shutting down peaceful academic events, including one that Greek economic expert Yanis Varoufakis was due to speak at. The former Greek Finance Minister wasn’t even allowed to enter the country.
And even, rather perversely, freezing the bank accounts and assets of a Jewish peace organisation.
So absolute has German defense of Israel’s actions been that comments have been made about how ‘Germany Is Seizing Jews’ Money Again’.
In Germany, pro Palestine gatherings have been outlawed and protesters have been in some cases arrested. The seizure of the Jewish peace group’s assets meanwhile was in violation of the law, and the bank’s demand to know the names and details of all the group’s members was in breach of EU privacy laws.
An example of this crackdown against even Jewish activists is the case of, as highlighted by Novara Media back in March, ’56-year-old Israeli-German psychoanalyst Iris Hefets… arrested for breaching the blanket ban on pro-Palestine protests by holding a one-woman action on Hermannplatz in Berlin.’
Here’s video of German authorities in Berlin dealing with protesters.
It’s all been pretty extraordinary.
And when Yanis Varoufakis says that ‘Israel has morally bankrupted the West’, it is obvious he is right.
Not much in recent years has been as viscerally perverse as the sight of legions of heavily armed law enforcement being sent to shut down peaceful protests on US college campuses, even invading university buildings via second-floor windows as if this were a counter-terrorist operation.
Seriously, it looked like scenes from the Iranian Embassy Siege in 1980.
Violating American students’ supposed right to protest or right to freedom of expression or assembly, the Dystopian scenes were even openly lauded by some American news anchors and media commentators.
Some even compared student protesters to Hamas itself or likened them to terrorists.
As I’ve said here for years now, this equating of protesters to terrorists is a tactic they’ve been developing for some time. As far back as fifteen years ago, even Occupy Wall Street protesters were being likened to terrorists.
And as I wrote here a year ago, there’s a war on protesters and protest in general being conducted by elements of both the media and the authorities.
The scenes in the US are not isolated. In the Netherlands, for example, once a bastion of free speech and liberal values, pro Palestinian protesters have also been heavily cracked down on. The video below shows Dutch armored police with dogs dealing with peaceful protesters.
Then again, the Netherlands is in political flux, with Israeli asset Geert “What We Need is Zionism for Europe” Wilders recently within a hair’s breadth of being in charge of the country.
All in all, even after seven months of destruction and humanitarian disaster, it looks like most of the Western establishment in all its forms is still very much playing its part to defend the total psychopathy in Gaza.
And the mass death.
Thanks a lot for that. And I think you’re right. As for quoting ‘Newton’s 3rd Law. Hegelian dialectics’, a bit high brow maybe 🙂 But fitting from a scientist.
Sorry to hear you’ve been having (possible) censorship issues again. But you know what they say: if you’re taking flak that means you’re over the target. Meanwhile, my site just gets algorithmically suppressed which is far less glamourous!
Thanks very much for the hat tip btw. Really appreciate it. Incidentally about a week or so ago, my own site suddenly got a whole bunch of traffic from Germany just for one day. Not sure what was really happening because they didn’t search any particular article/s. Anyway, your countless references to Germany in the article above just got me wondering if there might be any connection at all. Probably just coincidence.
The news from Rafah sounds truly horrific. In truth I think these endless atrocities are producing a bit of a numbing effect. Perhaps purposefully so. Different perhaps if you see the images, but I always try to avoid them. But just relentless accounts of diabolic war crimes and each one somehow partially covers over the last one. As George Galloway said, “I’m so old I can actually remember when Israel denied blowing up hospitals!” Gallows humour is sometimes vital. But what the hell has happened to us that we are not only witnessing this but that our government is complicit not only in silence but actually enabling it? A genocide in plain view.
You can’t really put it any better than Aaron Bushnell: “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.” So true. And honestly, it’s not enough.
Of course, he did something that no-one should ever feel the need to do – a terrible, terrible, desperate act, although one of unimaginable courage. Yet even his shocking sacrifice has seemingly changed nothing at all. That was not the case 50 years ago when protests of a similar kind happened in Vietnam. The whole world was shocked back then. Which once again is a big measure of how far we have fallen.
Not sure how to round off this comment, which is going on a bit. Apologies. I’ll try to add a note of optimism. Newton’s 3rd Law. Hegelian dialectics. Actions and reactions. It’s the nature of the universe that when you try to force something one way it also pushes you back. And there is pushback. Plenty of it. On the college campuses. The peace marches. The independent left MPs standing in the coming GE. And corners of the internet like this one, which in spite of all the suppression have survived and are flourishing. So let’s appreciate our own growing resistance to the uniparty and the war machine. For just keeping on keeping on, please accept a very heartfelt virtual pat of the back, my friend!