MiG-25 ‘Foxbat’
Soviet troops are entering the carnage in Syria on behalf of ‘President’ Assad (I put quotes around that because you can’t be president of a country that fails to function). Click here for a report about their role.
If Russia is directly intervening, it is not the first time and shows Russian continuity of Soviet policy in the region. Read the rest of this entry »
Paul Larudee and Peter Eyre on Press TV Iran
Judge a man by the company he keeps – in this case judge Jeremy Corbyn by his association with these two – as mentioned in this previous post.
Others have already written extensively about these characters, but they have not made the link to Corbyn, who has shared platforms with them. Read the rest of this entry »
Jeremy Corbyn at PRC Event
There has been a focus on Jeremy Corbyn’s links to the group Interpal – see here – but I can reveal his close association with another group that could give nightmares to the UK security chiefs required to brief him; The PRC.
The Palestine Return Centre was exposed earlier this year in a Sunday Telegraph investigation into a cluster of extremist groups in a building in North London. Of the PRC, they said: Read the rest of this entry »
Jeremy Corbyn
“Jawad’s case is, I believe, a miscarriage of justice”
A miscarriage of justice; that’s how Jeremy Corbyn described the conviction of Jawad Botmeh, sentenced to 20 years in prison for terrorist offences, in a letter to Botmeh’s employer.
There is a chasm of difference between ‘miscarriage of justice’ and failing to get off on a technicality. That difference seems lost on Corbyn.
Botmeh’s conviction is discussed in a lot more detail in an earlier post – click here – but here are a few salient details: Read the rest of this entry »
Jeremy Corbyn
Samar Alami
Jawad Botmeh
Much has been made of Jeremy Corbyn’s associates in recent weeks but no attention has been given so far to his dedicated support and campaigning inside and outside parliament for, two terrorists convicted in relation to bombings which maimed 20 people in the UK. Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Politics, Middle East
The Bristol City Council resolution in June 2010 condemning Israel and urging sanctions, a boycott and disinvestment (see here) needs to be seen in context; the other countries and issues that have earned such an extreme measure of condemnation.
As one councillor put it in that debate:
We cannot run away from this problem, we have a responsibility
And in the words of another
I believe in human rights and international law and when I see those rights being attacked day after day…I think we have an obligation to speak out
Well, they certainly spoke out on Israel; disgraceful, despicable, outrageous, horrendous, barbarism, murderers, state terrorism, piracy, racism, villains, inhuman, rogue state, horrific, apartheid was what they said – see here for a previous post about that with video of the debate. But as for the context; it just doesn’t look good. Read the rest of this entry »
Category; Politics, Middle East, Bristol
Time to revisit something from 2010. In June of that year an Israel boycott motion was passed by Bristol City Council (click here for the motion).
I watched the debate on a webcast and found it monumentally depressing. I edited the webcast (keeping all the speakers who spoke on the topic and all their points).
Here’s that video: Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Politics, Middle East
So, Jenny Tonge has been set adrift from the Liberal Democrats, as I predicted – see here for more on Jenny Tonge and the Liberal Democrats.
The story was carried on Radio 4 with an interview with Tonge and little context or background – listen here to the honey-tongued hatemonger. Read the rest of this entry »
Category; Middle East, Media
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
There has been fevered discussion about who was responsible for the killing of an Iranian nuclear engineer this week; click here for a news report, or click here, or click here or here.
I say discussion, but actually everything I have read has assumed that Israel was involved; the only point of discussion is whether America was involved too. That’s lazy journalism; I cannot work out why no-one has mentioned another player in the region – Saudi Arabia.
There are at least three reasons why they should have joined Israel and America in the list of possibles: Read the rest of this entry »
Category; Literature, Middle East, Politics
Professor Roger Luckhurst
For academics to lure media interest their theories need to be catchy and controversial. Radio 3 had a discussion recently on the dangers that arise when academics appear on the media.
Roger Luckhurst is a good example of what can happen to scholarship when the media calls. He’s Professor in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Birkbeck, University of London. See here for biography. The media calls him, a lot, and he has a theory that’s leakier than a wedding marquee on an August Bank Holiday. Read the rest of this entry »
Category; Media, Middle East
Facts are relative to context. No news report can be encyclopaedic enough to encompass every view and every nuance. Broadcast media especially are broad-brush and, at their best, leave an impression rather than swamping the audience with facts.
But news must be anchored in facts, and sometimes it seems the distance to that anchor is so great that the report becomes adrift.
Take the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 on 10th June 2011. Read the rest of this entry »
Category; Media, Middle East
Sir Sherard Louis Cowper-Coles KCMG LVO has been discussing Israel and the peace process on BBC Radio 4 (following comments by his former boss, Foreign Secretary WIlliam Hague).
Sir Sherard certainly has experience of the Middle East (click here); until recently the Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan he formerly served, amongst other roles, in Cairo, Saudia Arabia, Kabul, and as UK Ambassador to Israel.
His comments on the Today programme – click here (9/2/11 at c.8:50am) are revealing on the extent of the delegitimisation of Israel. There is a creeping acceptance that Israel does not have an automatic and accepted right to exist and in that sense differs from every other nation on earth. Read the rest of this entry »
Category; Middle East, Politics
Almost 30 years ago an Argentinian military oligarchy went to war with Britain over the Falkland Islands to divert its people from domestic issues.
Those same pressures are at work in the Middle East today and we should be concerned.
Category; Rowan Laxton, Criminal Law, Anti-Semitism, Middle East
© Daily Telegraph
Professor Geoffrey Pullum has been speaking up for Rowan Laxton on his blog. It’s interesting to read the views on the subject of a distinguished American academic living in the UK especially as he’s had the benefit of a phone conversation with Laxton himself… Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Politics, Middle East, Anti-Semitism
It’s hard to feel sorry for a man because he’s been elevated to the House of Lords, but I do.
That man is Monroe Palmer – click here for a profile. The reason I feel sorry for him is that I can’t help wondering whether his elevation is an act of enormous cynicism by his party, the Liberal Democrats: That they have installed him as a counterbalance to Baroness Jenny Tonge. Read the rest of this entry »
