Unintended Irony In New York Times Over Civilians Killed By Kiev Regime's Military Offensive in E. Ukraine

The New York Times ran the following article title on its website homepage July 28th: "Enmity and Civilian Toll Rise in Ukraine," with the subhead: "After the tragedy of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, the deaths of roughly 800 civilians in eastern Ukraine have gone virtually unnoticed by the outside world." 

Well, thank YOU for noticing, New York Times. Of course, "outside world" is merely a cover-up euphemism for U.S. bloc governments and media. The New York Times often plays this disingenuous game of calling something "little noticed" when it itself has failed to report something. It's a slippery dodge of their responsibility.

Actually I've been "noticing" the Ukrainian civilians killed, as readers of my previous essays here can see. Last time I checked I was in this world and outside Ukraine. But the Times did say "virtually unnoticed," so ok.

No, I take that back. Isn't Russia "outside" Ukraine? RT in America has certainly covered the death and destruction rained down on the civilian population in the newly-declared Republics in east Ukraine. Of course that's just "Russian propaganda," so it doesn't count as part of the world either, I guess.

Israel has outdone Petro "Candyman" Poroshenko and his regime, killing over a thousand Palestinians, and wounding or maiming about 4,000, in just a few weeks, not months as in Ukraine. I haven't been able to write at length about the horror show going on in the Gaza concentration camp that much. The propaganda being put out by the Israelis, their global propaganda network, and their most important lackeys, the U.S. government and political class, is just so sickening that it is hard to write without getting apoplectic. And I don't write at my best when I'm apoplectic. But others have covered this well, especially at democracynow.org. I urge my readers to check out the coverage and interviews there on the latest overt Israeli war against the Palestinians.

U.S. Scheming to Make Ukrainian Separatists Helpless Against Aerial Attacks

The U.S. military and unnamed secret police agencies are planning to strip the breakaway Republic of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine of the ability to defend itself from aerial attacks launched by the Western-installed Kiev regime. (The secret police agencies are referred to as “American intelligence” in U.$. media accounts, and probably include the CIA and various military spy agencies like the NSA, and the National Reconnaissance Office, which handles spying by U.S. satellites.) The recent downing of two Kiev regime attack jets by the separatists, days after the ill-fated Malaysian airliner was shot down while recklessly overflying an active war zone, has raised worries in Washington, the Imperial City, about the ability of their newest client regime to impose its will and its writ over the breakaway territories. The plan is to provide targeting information on the location of anti-aircraft missiles so the Kiev regime could attack them. The CIA and U.S. military are arguing that Putin Must Be Stopped or else he’ll be “emboldened.” They want to provide the targeting information, as does Secretary of State John “I Used To Kill Vietnamese” Kerry. So they’ve begun a pressure campaign to convince President Hamlet- I mean Obama- to give the plan the green light. [1]

Taking away people's ability to defend themselves is a moral crime.

The Kiev regime refers to the eastern separatists as “terrorists,” which these days means people who should be summarily murdered, who deserve nothing but death. Pair this with the insistent U.S. demands that Moscow cut off the separatists cold, leaving them at the mercy of Western forces, and you see how sinister this all is. Hundreds of noncombatant civilians have already been killed in the eastern area of Ukraine by the Kiev regime, most by aerial and artillery bombardment. Deprived of the means of self-defense against aerial attack, the population of the breakaway regions will be mercilessly bombarded, like Guernica was bombarded by the fascist forefathers of the Kiev coupists, or like Gaza is being bombarded today.

U.S. militarist fanatics like Senator “My Arms Still Hurt From Vietnam” McCain are demanding that the U.S. rush arms to the Kiev regime. (Madman McCain has never met a foreign affairs problem he didn’t want to solve by bombing.) And the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military officer in the U.S., General Martin Dempsey, is talking like someone who just stepped out of a time machine from 1950, seeing a Russian attempt to take over the world. At an imperialist gabfest called the “Aspen Security Forum” staged in the state of Colorado, Dempsey threat-mongered that “You’ve got a Russian government that has made a conscious decision to use its military force inside another sovereign nation to achieve its objectives.” [The U.S. would never do that!] “They clearly are on a path to assert themselves differently not just in Eastern Europe, but Europe in the main, and towards the United States.” (July 24^th.) [2]

The truth is, Russia has been reactive. It has been reacting to the U.S.-EU takeover of Ukraine.

In addition to his innate imperialist instincts automatically trying to create “threats” to provide pretexts for his own nation’s aggressive imperialism, Dempsey no doubt sees an opportunity to pound the table for more money for the Pentagon. This has been going on relentlessly since a few years after World War II ended in 1945. In that time, the U.S. has poured trillions of dollars into the insatiable maw of its military-industrial complex.

Of course, if the U.S. and its Eurolackeys hadn’t subverted the previous elected Ukrainian government, causing the fissures in Ukrainian society to fracture and split the country, the current “crisis,” which Western apparatchiks and propagandists mendaciously insist on blaming Russia for, wouldn’t exist. By now, having repeated their own agitprop daily for months, they have probably brainwashed themselves into believing it, if they didn’t at the outset. The imperialist adventurism of the U.S. created the present situation, and with colossal gall, the U.S. then accuses Russia of imperialist adventurism and “interference” in Ukraine! Russia is seen to have aggressive ambitions far beyond its borders- not the U.S.! Just as in the Cold War, dark insinuations of Russian intentions to invade and take over Europe are bruited about, to justify U.S. aggressive expansionism.

Psychologists and psychiatrists have a word for this: projection. Others might call it simply hypocrisy, or chutzpah. Whatever one calls it, it makes for a politically sleazy, tawdry, disgusting spectacle. Unfortunately it also costs some of “the little people” their lives, people caught in the pot the political power-mongers set aboiling.

The U.S. does not think Russia has any right to have national interests. Therefore the U.S. has every right to drive Russia completely out of a country right on Russia’s own border. The U.S., on the other hand, is convinced it has a right to rule every square inch of the earth it possibly can. Those “aggressive” Russians need to learn that if they want to be a respectable member of “the international community” (the club of U.S. lackeys).

1] An opening salvo in the pressure campaign is a page one story in the Sunday, July 27^th (maybe Saturday on its website) New York Times, the preeminent bulletin board where the American ruling class and power elites post messages. The story is referenced in footnote [2]. The NYT calls their acting as a transmission belt for anonymous messages from unnamed “sources” “journalism.” It’s the sort of “journalism” that helped lead the American public by the nose, like a dumb donkey, into the invasion of Iraq.

2] The New York Times characterized Dempsey’s hyperventilating thusly: “The shooting down of the Malaysian Airlines plane, on top of Russia’s earlier shipments of heavy weaponry, were a perilous escalation of the crisis that threatened to menace all of Europe and the United States, General Dempsey said.” (“U.S. Could Help Ukraine Target Rebels’ Missiles,” Sunday, July 27^th, pages 1 and 8, second to last paragraph.) Threatened to menace all of Europe and the United States. Shades of the Red Peril!

Posted to NYT website Saturday, July 26^th, as “Pentagon Plan Would Help Ukraine Target Rebel Missiles.”

From The Horse’s Mouth (And He Even LOOKS Like a Horse Too)

U.S. Secretary of State John “I’m a Hawk Now!” Kerry has been attacking Russia over the destruction of a Malaysian airliner flying where it had no business being, namely over a war zone in eastern Ukraine, where just three days earlier a military transport plane was shot down by a missile. Kerry says it’s the Russians’ fault because they allegedly gave the missile system to the secessionists (ignoring the fact that the rebels have seized many weapons from Ukrainian armories and captured others) and trained them. (Many of the separatists are military veterans who were already trained in the past, as Kerry no doubt knows.) Kerry talks as if the shoot-down of the airliner was a deliberate act, outrageous, even though he himself presented smoking gun evidence it was an accident, that the separatists thought they had shot down another military transport.

Here’s Kerry on television attacking the separatists for shooting down the airliner, aired on Sunday, July 20, 2014:

“We know that very shortly thereafter, separatists were bragging in the social media about having shot down a transport plane,” Kerry said on Fox “News” Sunday, one of FIVE TV yak shows he made the rounds of that morning. “We know that the so-called defense minister of the People's Republic of Donetsk, Mr. Igor Strelkov, actually posted a bragging social media posting of having shot down a military transport. And then when it became apparent it was civilian, they pulled it down from social media.” [Emphases added.]

What could be clearer? “Separatists bragged” they “...shot down a transport plane,” “...shot down a military transport.”

And there’s more: the U.S. State Department confirmed that Kerry was referring to a post from Strelkov’s profile on Russia’s version of Facebook, called Vkontakte. The post, uploaded approximately 30 minutes after the Malaysia Airlines flight crashed, talked about a military transport plane being shot down.

So it WAS AN ACCIDENT, right Kerry? Right? Well, right or wrong?

“We have warned them – not to fly ‘in our sky’,” the post stated. In other words, there was a declared no-fly zone in which planes were subject to being fired on. (Kind of like Israel declaring a blockade on Gaza, and attacking ships that try to sail there anyway. Or declaring a limit on how far from shore fishermen can go, and firing on their boats. And the U.S. considers that just fine, even though Israel isn’t under naval bombardment, isn’t under aerial attack, isn’t besieged, isn’t being invaded as east Ukraine is. In other words, the separatists are actually defending themselves from attack, not blockading and crushing a foreign population.)

Strelkov’s post was subsequently deleted, leading Kerry and others to conclude that it was removed after Strelkov realized that it was a civilian plane. Yet Western political bosses, apparatchiks, and the complicit medias of their nations are carrying on as if the separatists deliberately shot down a civilian airliner. Even though the evidence they themselves present prove the opposite. Same with the audio intercepts the new Billionaire Boss of Ukraine Petro O. Poroshenko presented to “prove” the shoot- down was a terrorist act. The tapes prove the opposite- namely that the separatists thought they’d hit another military transport, and when they arrived at the wreckage, were dismayed to discover otherwise, resulting in cursing and expressions of astonishment at the route the plane had taken.

The fact that Kerry and Poroshenko can use evidence which directly contradicts their position and pretend it proves their point starkly illuminates the degree of their cynicism and contempt for facts and honesty.

There is blame to go around here. But most of it belongs on the irresponsible Malaysian Airline System that recklessly and negligently endangered its passengers, the Kiev regime, for its months-long war against the “terrorists” who defy their “authority” (power), and perhaps some on an ill-trained separatist air defense crew which didn’t check if their target was broadcasting a civilian ID from its transponder.

Now there’s a question nobody asked. Was the transponder properly broadcasting? Given the incompetence and fecklessness of Malaysian Airline System, I wouldn’t take it for granted. But it is also true that the separatists were surprised that a civilian airliner would be flying over the area, after warnings not to, from the separatists, and even from foreign aviation authorities in the U.S. and Europe. Other airlines were avoiding the area, some for months, and a Kiev regime military transport was shot down just three days earlier. What sort of dimwitted airline company would ignore all that?

None of which is to deny the tragedy of it. Whereas the tragedy of hundreds of Ukrainians killed in the months-long military offensive that Western-installed Kiev Billionaire Boss Poroshenko is ignored. And the tragedy of Palestinians being slaughtered once again, their homes, hospitals, schools, mosques, and sole power plant in the Gaza concentration camp destroyed, isn’t a tragedy to the politicians, apparatchiks, and propagandists of the Western power structure, but a political problem and a public relations problem ONLY. (A half-sentence throwaway line in an Obama statement feigning “concern” notwithstanding.) Palestinians in the Gaza concentration camp are down to three hours of running water- not a day, once every THREE days. Perhaps epidemics of typhoid and typhus will soon cut down the population of Palestinians, as the Nazis found effective in eliminating Russian POWs and concentration camp inmates. Actually Israel has been causing disease among the Palestinians for years now. They do this by taking most of the water from the aquifers in the West Bank, selling a little back to the Palestinians, and forcing the Palestinians to make do with rainwater captured in cisterns, which causes diseases, especially in children, including kidney failure. The “settlers” use 7 times as much water per person as Palestinians in the West Bank are allowed.

As I mentioned in a previous essay, there HAVE been cases of deliberate shooting down of civilian airliners. There was the U.S. Navy shooting down of an obviously civilian Iranian jetliner, minutes after take-off from Tehran, in a known civil air corridor, ascending, its transponder broading its ID as a civilian airliner, during murderous Reagan regime. Reagan rewarded the captain of the guilty ship with a medal, and blamed the Iranians for the crime. And the U.S. Navy shot down TWA Flight 800 over Long Island Sound, either accidentally, or deliberately as part of a false flag “terrorist atrocity” operation that fell apart. [1]

Israeli jets chased and downed a Libyan airliner of the Sinai desert, which Israel had conquered from Egypt in 1967. And Korean KAL-007 (as in James Bond, Double-O-Seven) was shot down overflying strategic Soviet missile sites, after “straying” many hundreds of miles off course, “inexplicably.” Actually it was very explicable, as a number of books and articles made clear. The U.S. wanted to force the Soviets to activate their air defense systems, so as to better plan how to defeat those systems in order to destroy the Soviet Union’s nuclear deterrent force. The Korean plane was bait to force them to do that. The shoot-down was propaganda icing on the cake. Literally within minutes (maybe seconds) of the downing, a global anti-Soviet propaganda campaign swung into action. By the way, Richard Nixon had been booked on that flight but was warned off. Not so John Birchite Congressman Larry MacDonald. Apparently he couldn’t be trusted to keep his mouth shut if the plane was shot down, obviously considered a real possibility by the U.S. criminal deep state masterminds of the operation. I should add that South Korea at the time was a military dictatorship totally obedient to U.S. orders. I would hope that today no South Korean airline would participate in such a reckless, criminal scheme.

1] Numerous witnesses saw the bright missile streak rising from the ocean skywards and blowing apart the jet. The recovered wreckage had indisputable signs of a missile strike. Yet the FBI suppressed and distorted the witnesses’ accounts to orchestrate a coverup. Bizarrely, the CIA then put out a nutty video purporting to show that what the witnesses saw was flaming wreckage falling DOWN, not the trail of a missile going UP, and they were all mistaken. As if people don’t know the difference between up and down. The CIA is not a law enforcement agency. The CIA is not an airline crash investigation agency. So what the hell was the CIA doing creating and putting out this video? In other words, the CIA’s act smacked of that of a guilty criminal trying to allay suspicion. The CIA would have been better to keep its damn mouth shut instead of attracting attention to itself. Shades of the JFK assassination! Hence the suspicion that this was perhaps planned as a staged “terrorist event,” but only went halfway through, just as part of the JFK assassination plot was aborted- the planned U.S. invasion of Cuba after “Castro agent Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated the president.” The CIA created a “legend” for Oswald portraying him as a Castro agent. Evidently they couldn’t get the U.S. military and other elements of the U.S. power structure to go along with that part of their plot.

                          Aww come on, John, it was an accident. Not like those Vietnamese you killed with your own hands.

Ukraine, Gaza, and The Political Uses of Selective Outrage

The reaction of the power structures of the U.S. bloc to the shooting down of a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine contrasts nicely to their complete silence- indeed ignoring- of the deliberate murder of four Palestinian boys playing soccer on a Gaza beach by an Israeli gunboat the day before. Or for that matter the killing of around 700 Palestinians in the past few weeks in what NPR calls an Israeli “incursion” (there’s euphemism for invasion for you) or “fighting between Hamas and Israel.”

There is an overriding FACT that must be stressed in the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner- that IT WAS AN ACCIDENT! This is proven by the intercepted communications released by the Kiev regime that they have been waving like a bloody flag that they say are between the Ukrainian rebels and one of the rebel commanders, and with a Russian intelligence Colonel. It is clear from the recordings that the rebels thought they were shooting down a Kiev regime military transport, and were surprised to find Malaysian airliner markings on the wreckage when they got to the scene. The BBC played excerpts, with translations, of these recordings. (The details are below.) A New York Times reporter interviewed on the BBC said there were “very many bombings in the area” by the Kiev regime’s air force. Given that the area is under aerial attack, and the rebels shot down a Kiev military transport just a week earlier over the same area, it is not surprising that such an accident would occur. Other airlines previously rerouted their planes to avoid overflying the area, two of them having done so months ago (CBS reported), and others within the last few weeks. Malaysian Airlines, obviously incompetent and cheap, to save money on fuel probably, refused to do so. Now the Malaysians are saying they had every right to fly over the area, it’s perfectly normal to do so. [1]

The FAA issued a warning on April 3^rd prohibiting U.S. carriers from overflying parts of eastern Ukraine. The European Aviation Safety Agency also issued a warning to airlines. Yet Malaysian Airline System flew right over an area that has been under aerial bombardment for months and over which a military transport jet had been shot down by a missile just three days earlier on July 14th. [2]

Even their own evidence that it was an accident didn’t stop the Western stooges installed in power in Kiev from screaming “terrorism!” “atrocity!” and “crime!”

Western media are wringing their hands in grief over the 300 or so people killed on the Malaysian jet. They’ve barely uttered a peep about the hundreds of eastern Ukrainian civilians killed by aerial and artillery bombardments of their towns and villages by the Kiev regime.

And here’s an irony that apparently escaped Ukraine kingpin, “president” Petro. O. “I’m a Billionaire From Selling Candy!” Poroshenko: in 2001, Ukraine shot down a civilian airliner and lied, denying it did, until soon forced to fess up. [3] So accidents DO happen, contrary to his immediate insistence that the downing of the plane was a deliberate act of “terrorism.” For good measure, right-wing Australian prime minister Tony Abbott, who was elected on a platform of making global warming worse, demonstrated his bona fides as a U.S. stooge and political handmaiden by attacking the shoot-down as a “crime.” His Malaysian counterpart ran cover for the irresponsible, inept, penny-pinching state airline company by insinuating criminality and vowing to get to the bottom of it. (I say penny-pinching because flying over the war zone was a shorter path to the plane’s destination.)

It’s germane to mention some deliberate downings of civilian jetliners at this point. The Israeli air force chased and shot down a Libyan airliner over the Sinai desert (Egypt). The U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian airliner which was flying in a civilian commercial air corridor over the Persian Gulf. Both of these acts were deliberate. [4]

In the last couple of days we have been fed a new propaganda theme, such as by the BBC: the awful disrespect towards the bodies of those killed in the Malaysian plane. This “disrespect” apparently consists of the fact that all the corpses weren’t IMMEDIATELY scooped up and delivered to the Netherlands. The BBC (and U.S. corporate establishment media) hasn’t even whispered about the fact that ambulances can’t even go to villages in Gaza under Israeli bombardment because the Israelis deliberately shoot at the ambulances to drive them back. Or that patients are being killed in hospitals by Israeli bombardment. 46 schools and 7 hospitals in Gaza have been bombed, and as usual, Israel is targeting UN facilities for attack.

But the failure of a ragtag militia to immediately collect hundreds of bodies strewn over a wide area- as if there are mortuary workers and facilities there to handle it- that’s an outrage.

Contrast all this with an actual deliberate crime that Israel committed a day earlier, July 16^th, in Gaza, when using one of their gunboats they deliberately killed four young boys playing football. (Called soccer in the U.S.) It was a broad daylight attack witnesses by numerous journalists in a hotel on the beach. A first shot missed them, and the boys started running. A second shell finished them off. The journalists said the boys were clearly recognizable to the naked eye as children from hundreds of yards away, on a big empty beach. Obviously the crew of the gunboat would have binoculars, not to mention sophisticated surveillance equipment, plus aerial surveillance. Israel has been issuing blanket statements blaming all civilian deaths in Gaza on Hamas, since Hamas won’t surrender. The U.S. agrees and calls the bombings of 7 hospitals, 46 schools, numerous mosques, hundreds of homes, ambulances and the power plant “self-defense.”

So how did the Western media handle this? Well, it wasn’t uniform- except in the U.S. The pretense that it must have been unintentional was maintained, despite numerous journalist eyewitnesses. NBC wouldn’t allow its own reporter, who saw the attack, to report it, and immediately yanked him out of Gaza, obviously to put him on ice. (NBC was forced to reverse the decision thanks to the empowering nature of the Internet, which provides an alternative means of communicating news outside the monopoly corporate propaganda system.)

BBC didn’t use words like “horrifying” and “awful” for this incident. No imputations of criminal intent were made by it or the other organs of Western propaganda. There hasn’t been a weeklong propaganda campaign beating the drums and rallying “the world” to oppose Israel in righteous outrage, as they’re trying to do against the Ukrainian separatists and Russia.

So we have, on the one hand, a tragic accident in a war zone that has been under attack from months by a regime that calls the people it is killing “terrorists.” That accident is branded as “terrorism” and a “crime.” On the other hand, a powerful nation is attacking an already-besieged people, has killed as of this writing about 800 (75-80% of whom were civilians, according to the UN), has wounded over 3,000, is bombing the hospitals, schools, and UN facilities, and the reaction of the U.S. and its stooge nations and their media is- gee, isn’t Hamas awful! They’re firing rockets at Israel.

Selective outrage and selective indifference. And the explanation lies in cynical power politics.

1] The BBC aired long descriptions of wreckage and bodies, personal items on the ground, from Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times. “There’ve been many bombings by Ukrainian jets in the area recently” she says, apropos of saying locals thought the explosion was “just another bombing.” “It’s a very confused situation on the ground.” Tavernise describes the plane “crashing practically on top of their village, I mean it was very close.” [Tavernise’s emphases.] BBC, July 18, 2014, the day after the shoot-down.

The Kiev regime put forth three tapes of what they said were intercepted calls between the rebels and Russia. The Kiev regime is pretending the tape prove the downing was a deliberate act of terrorism. Assuming the tapes are genuine, in fact they prove the shoot-down was an accident. (BBC played excerpts showing that- a fact BBC then ignored.) The rebels thought they’d shot down a military transport plane, then discovered when they went to the wreckage site that it was a civilian plane, resulting in cursing, not jubilation. There was mystification as to why a civilian plane was flying over a war zone.

One call is between a rebel commander and a Russian intelligence Colonel 30 minutes after the shoot-down. The rebel reports that they shot down “a plane,” and men have been dispatched to investigate. No mention of a civilian jetliner. The Russian asks about “Pilots? Where are the pilots?” clearly thinking it was a military plane and the pilots may have bailed out.

Another call, allegedly between “a rebel commander and one of his officers” was played with translation by the BBC: “What was it doing in the Ukraine’s territory?” “That means they were carrying spies. They shouldn’t be flying. There’s a war going on!” Then BBC “News editor” Dina Newman in the BBC studio comments on the tapes: “There seems to be genuine surprise when they realize that a civilian plane was shot down and they cannot understand why the civilian plane was flying over an area where there was war going on.” [Her emphases.] She mentions “a lot of swear words” that BBC didn’t translate.

The fact that this key “evidence” of “guilt” put forth by the Kiev regime proves the shoot-down was an accident is deftly elided by U.S. media. Meanwhile Western political rulers from Obama on down are waxing wroth and fulminating over the “outrage” and “crime.” Tragedy would be the correct, that is, accurate and honest, word. But politicians deal in cynical manipulation, thus speak propaganda, not accurate and honest words.

2] Obama’s immediate response to the shoot-down of the Antonov military transport, an act of self-defense by the separatists fighting for their self-determination and their own nation- they declared themselves a new Republic, not part of Russia- was to heap harsh new sanctions on Russia. OBAMA: “Given its continued provocations in Ukraine, today I have approved a new set of sanctions on some of Russia’s largest companies and financial institutions.”

3] On October 4, 2001, Ukraine shot down a Siberian Airlines Tupolev TU-154 civilian airliner on its way to Tel Aviv, using an S-200 missile to do the deed. The Ukrainian regime at the time lied about it and denied it, before eventually ‘fessing up and saying it was an “accident.” But you didn’t know this

because you’re relying on the “news” media to keep you informed. Big mistake. You have to spent thousands of hours of your own time, unpaid, reading all kinds of esoteric sources, to keep up on things. Or rely on others who do. This interesting incident was in Aviation Week & Space Technology, a U.S. trade journal for military and civilian aircraft manufacturers. It ran in the July 21, 2014 issue, “Malaysian 777 Shoot-Down Another Big Blow,” p. 12.

4] For the U.S. Navy crime, see “Vincennes: A Case Study,” Proceedings Magazine, U.S. Naval Institute, August, 1993. Also see “U.S. Forces Down Plane of Bolivian President in Attempt to Kidnap NSA Whistleblower,” July 5^th, 2013, for more on air piracy by the U.S. and the U.S. Navy shoot-down of TWA Flight 800.

Propaganda Campaign over Downed Malaysian Jet Provides Cover for Latest Israeli Massacre

72 Palestinians were slaughtered by the Israeli army in an assault on a very poor residential area in the Gaza concentration camp.

These were not “militants” or “terrorists” or people firing rockets. These were Palestinian civilians.

Heavy Israeli artillery shelling prevented ambulances from going in.

Israel has as of this writing killed over 500 Palestinians in the Gaza concentration camp and wounded over 3,100, who lack medical care.

Israeli Premier Binyamin Netanyahu says Israel didn’t choose to attack Gaza, but it “was forced on us.” Yeah, like Poland forced Hitler to invade it. Really, it is the same. Hitler staged “provocations,” including murdering concentration camp inmates, dressing them in German uniforms, and claiming Poland had killed them on the border. Israel did (and does) it a bit differently, killing Palestinians, rounding up hundreds, trashing and demolishing homes, until Hamas was provoked into shooting some rockets onto Israeli territory. That gave Netanyahu the pretext to start aerial and naval bombardments of Gaza, and now another invasion.

Israel shells a hospital, again, killing patients while they were in surgery. Al-Aksa hospital. The genuine atrocities Israel is committing elicits no response from the propaganda system of the U.S. bloc, which is daily trying to stoke outrage over the accidental downing of a Malaysian airliner flying over a Ukraine war zone, where it had no business being.

Israel is sadistically using illegal flechette explosives, which explode in the air and spew thousands of tiny steel darts which rip human flesh and embed themselves in people’s bodies, making treatment and removal difficult. (Especially when the hospitals are being bombarded, ambulances targeted on the streets, and medical supplies have run out.)

The establishment U.S. media are acting as accomplices, indeed as aiders and abetters, to Israel’s war crimes.

“Hamas exploits journalist as human shields!” Israel announced. Israel further said that therefore it wasn’t responsible for journalists killed by Israel. The next day they murdered a journalist. So obviously this was premeditated murder.

Ambulances and journalists have been specifically targeted by Israel.

Meanwhile, U.S. politicians and the government give complete support to Israel. One line you hear from government officials from Obama and Kerry on down, and then dutifully parroted by a media chorus of propagandists is “no nation would tolerate rockets being fired at it.” (Apparently Palestinians should tolerate mass arrests, killings, bombings of hospitals, etc.) Another line is “Israel has the right to defend itself.” So war crimes, deliberate murders of civilians, etc., is “self-defense.” This is truly sick stuff.

But "the world's attention" (i.e. a massive propaganda campaign is going on) is focused on the accidental downing of a Malaysian airliner stupidly flying over a war zone. (The FAA banned flights over eastern Ukraine, and normal airlines stopped overflying the area weeks and even months ago.) The Kiev regime has been bombing towns and cities from the air, so naturally the rebels in the east attempt to shoot down planes. The Malaysian jet was flying at 33,000 feet, so it was just a blip on a radar screen. A blip that would be the same as the Kiev regime's military transport plane the rebels shot down a few weeks ago.The Kiev regime released intercepted rebel communications that prove they didn't know it was a civilian jet until they went to examine the wreckage. Naturally, the regime and their backers in the U.S. bloc government and commercial media are cynically ignoring that fact and presenting it as a deliberate atrocity, to "rally the world against Russia." (The way the U.S. media has been carrying on, you'd think Putin personally launched the anti-aircraft missile.)

I'm working on a longer piece about this travesty, and the sickening double standard of ginned up outrage, so typical of Western imperialist hypocrisy when it comes to life and death.

The Score So Far in Latest Israeli Attack on Gaza: 238 to 1

That’s the tally of dead bodies that Israel has racked up so far. Hamas’ 1,000 rockets, about which much hysteria is beamed to international publics through Israeli-aligned Western propaganda systems, has killed a grand total of ZERO Israelis. The sole Israeli death so far was caused by a mortar shell. So much for the “terror” being inflicted on the Israeli population, according to U.S. Emperor Obama, who apparently doesn’t think the Palestinians have human feelings. I would say the relentless Israeli bombardment with their U.S.-provided arsenal, is creating a lot more fear among Palestinians than what the Israeli public is experiencing. In fact, anyone in Israel experiencing more than anxiety is a scaredy-cat. The vast majority of the rockets fired into Israel land on dirt, too far from anyone or anything to do any damage or cause any casualties. Furthermore, their U.S.-financed Iron Dome missile defense system is reportedly shooting down a sizable fraction of those rockets. Finally, Israelis have air raid shelters to go to- Palestinians don’t.

As for the wounded, there are over 1,600 on the Palestinian side, about a dozen on the Israeli. 50 Palestinian children have been killed in ten days by Israel’s oh-so-accurate aerial attacks. (Israeli shills have boasted about how accurate they are- so let’s take them at their word and not assume the slaugher of civilians is “accidental” or “mistaken”.) The UN says 80% of the Palestinian dead were civilians. (But everybody knows the UN is anti-Semitic, right?)

But let us review how this started. Three Jewish colonizer teenagers were kidnapped. One called the police on his cellphone and reported they had been seized. It turns out that the police then heard gunshots over the phone. This fact was suppressed on orders of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, under Israeli censorship laws that give the government the power to muzzle the media, using the standard excuse, “security.” Then for several weeks a frantic, bogus “search” ensued, which was a pretext for the Israeli army and secret police to smash into hundreds of Palestinian homes (destroying property and looting some, for good measure), round up several hundred Palestinians, and KILL eleven Palestinians. This cynical operation of a bogus search for “missing” teens has been kept hidden by the venal U.S. establishment media, who are NOT subject to Israeli government censorship. (Apparently the self-censorship imposed by their own iron ideological discipline serves just as well as government control.)

Eventually civilian Israeli colonists found the three slain teens’ bodies, buried near the surface. At least that’s the story they’re telling us now. (Could be true.)

Then, not satisfied with the eleven Palestinians already killed by Israeli “security forces,” “settlers” tried to kidnap an 8-year old Palestinian boy, slashing his throat in the process (superficially- photos have been published) then finding a 16 -year old Palestinian victim, who they sadistically burned alive (according to the Israeli autopsy). After that, Israeli “Border Police” brutally beat the face and head of the victim’s 15-year old cousin at a protest against the murder.

Naturally, the puppet “Palestinian Authority,” at this point virtually a wholly-own creature of the U.S., was passive through all this. (The PA’s “security services” are creations of and proteges of the CIA, which trains and guides them) Finally Hamas responded to the provocation the arrests of numerous Hamas members, including the Speaker of the Palestinian parliament, by firing rockets at Israel. Literally just at the country. Apparently these homemade rockets can’t hit the broad side of a barn.

This gave Israel the excuse it was looking for to start its third aerial bombing campaign on the Gazan open air concentration camp in 6 years.

Since then, another 221 (as of today) Palestinians have been killed, and over 1,600 wounded, some grievously maimed or burned, trapped in a prison with a dearth of medical supplies, much less advanced treatment and rehabilitation facilities. There are already numerous amputees.

Netanyahu’s main motive is to break up the newly-formed coalition government between Hamas and the PA. Israel reacted hysterically to this tentative Palestinian unity. Naturally Israel wants to keep the oppressed Palestinian population divided.

A couple of days ago, U.S. Secretary of State John “Skull and Bonesman” Kerry called Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and told him to call Netanyahu to cook up a scheme to guard the Israelis on the public relations flank. They came up with a “ceasefire” deal, without telling Hamas, which Hamas rejected, as the three conspiring parties knew they would. [1]

Sure enough, Netanyahu followed up by saying Hamas had “shut the door” to a diplomatic “solution.” In other words, he can pretend HE TRIED to stop bombing Gaza, after over a thousand air sorties, plus naval bombardment, but Hamas JUST WON’T LET HIM. So he has NO CHOICE to continue the slaughter and destruction, and maybe invade again for good measure.

How very clever!

Not that Hamas isn’t playing right into Netanyahu’s hands. But in a way, he’s playing into theirs too. Their refusal to say uncle, their continued defiant (if militarily futile) rocket firing at Israel, builds up their stature in the eyes of Palestinians, who see them resisting (at great cost to the Palestinians) Israeli occupation, imprisonment, and endless oppression. So once again Israel undercuts the very puppet PA regime it relies on to deliver the Palestinian people to the surrender table. (I’m being a bit unfair to the PA; it’s more complicated than a simple puppet relationship, largely because the PA has to try and maintain SOME credibility with the people it misrules as surrogate for Israel and the U.S., but it will take up too much time and space to explain all the nuances here.)

The fundamental “problem,” from the point of view of Israeli imperialism and its U.S. and European backers, is that the Palestinian people stubbornly refuse to surrender. They refuse to recognize their status as a defeated people doomed to be perpetually oppressed. The “peace process” has always been a disguised surrender process- but the Palestinians won’t surrender. Thus, they must be made to suffer until they resign themselves to defeat. Oddly, they persevere, despite their hopeless situation. It’s enough to remind one of Jewish perseverance over the centuries. (Is that idea “anti-Semitic”? Ask a Zionist!)

1] For an explanation of why the phony “ceasefire” deal arranged by Israel and Egypt behind Hamas’ back was rejected, the history of Israeli treachery and double crosses, and a deeper understanding of the Palestinian situation and perspective, see the interviews with Norman Finkelstein and with Haaretz journalist Amira Hass -two people of unusual personal integrity, principle, and grit. “After Palestinian Unity Deal, Did Israel Spark Violence to Prevent a New ‘Peace Offensive’?” Democracy Now! interview with Finkelstein, July 15^th, and “With 192 Dead in Gaza, Is Lasting Ceasefire Possible Under Israeli Occupation?” Democracy Now! interview with Amira Hass, July 15^th.

Notes for another essay:

7/17/14 Israeli gunboat slaughters 4 children, cousins, ages 9-11, in broad daylight on a beach in Gaza. This was done in full view of the international media, whose personnel were in a hotel right on the beach. First the gunboat blew up a shack on the beach, then 30 seconds later lobbed a shell at the fleeing kids, killing four of them, wounding others, and wounding a man, with shrapnel. The beach was otherwise empty, and the children were clearly children playing soccer, visible to the reporters’ naked eyes hundreds of yards away (and certainly easily identifiable to the Israelis with their binoculars an sophisticated surveillance equipment).

BBC covers up these details, instead feeding us Israeli president Shimon Peres’ propaganda. Slying combining crocodile tears with shifting the blame onto the Palestinians, Peres, a lifelong Zionist bigwig and top overseer of the creation of Israel’s nuclear arsenal, said this:

“It wasn't intentional and we are really sorry to see four children being killed. I think the air force [sic-this particular atrocity was by an Israeli navy gunboat] is taking the maximum care not to hit children. And it was an accident because it was an area that we warned would be bombed, because there was a great concentration of weapons. And unfortunately they didn't take out the children.”

First, it very obviously WAS intentional, as numerous eyewitnesses from the international media can attest. Second, the Israelis aren’t sorry at all. They have been killing Palestinian children, deliberately, for decades. They don’t want them to grow up. This is part of their population control of the Palestinians, along with stunting their growth by limiting food supplies (“keeping them on a diet,” in their own cynical insider phrase).

Third, there were NO weapons there, much less “a great concentration.” And finally he blames the Palestinians, for not hiding their children in an underground bunker or something, I guess. Reminds one of the sneering, laughing comment by one of the U.S. Apache helicopter murderers in the infamous “collateral murder” video that Chelsea Manning gave to WikiLeaks. After shooting up a van full of children, he says to his fellow crewmen something like That’s what they get for bringing their children to a firefight.” (This was the murder of a Reuters camera crew walking in Baghdad, along with other civilians. You can search youtube.com for “collateral murder video” for numerous versions of it.)

The attack on Gaza is what the Israeli military police state calls “mowing the lawn,” the need to periodically stomp down on the Palestinian people.

For two eyewitness journalists’ accounts, see “Witness to a shelling: first-hand account of deadly strike on Gaza port,” the guardian, 16 July 2014, and an interview with New York Times photographer and eyewitness Tyler Hicks, “Horror on Gaza Beach: New York Times Photographer Witnesses Israeli Killing of 4 Palestinian Boys,” Democracy Now!, July 17^th.

Malaysian Airliner Crashes Over Ukraine- A Provocation or a Blunder?

A Malaysian airliner went down today over eastern Ukraine, an area where the Kiev client regime of the U.S. and EU has been waging a military offensive to wipe out what it calls "terrorists" (secessionists and rebels, presumably backed by Russia). The U.S. is already putting it out in whispers into friendly media ears that a surface to air missile brought the civilian airliner down. Putin mentioned the plane crash/shootdown
during a phone call with Emperor Obama of the U.S.

Two main possibilities suggest themselves here. 1) Rebels made a bad mistake or did something stupid. It certainly couldn't benefit them to commit such an atrocity. 2) The Kiev regime arranged a shootdown to blame it on the "terrorists" (shooting down airliners is the kind of thing "terrorists" do, right?).

Under 2), there are a few possibilities. Kiev's "National Guard," filled with fascists, could have done the deed. Or it could be a false flag operation, just as the snipers who killed numerous policemen and rioters during the siege of government buildings in Kiev that led to the overthrow of the previous elected president of Ukraine, were a false flag operation, as revealed in an intercepted phone call between the Estonian foreign minister and EU poohbah Catherine Ashton. [1]

Just a few days ago the Kiev regime apparently lobbed an artillery shell into Russia, killing a Russian citizen, then denied they did it. They seem to be trying to provoke a Russian invasion (which they've been screeching about for months) in order to bring in more Western military might. An arranged airliner atrocity by "terrorists backed by Russia" could be a provocation, as well as providing useful agit-propaganda material as a bonus.

And Emperor Obama has just announced sanctions against various Russian companies, trying to cut them off from the U.S.-dominated international financial system. Interesting coincidence of timing, but it's too soon to speculate if there's a connection. Obama announced the new sanctions as punishment for Russia "interfering" in Ukraine, and its failure to order the rebels to surrender.

Speaking of shooting down civilian airliners, the U.S. bloc has a long and nasty history of that sort of thing. The U.S. infamously sponsored the Cuban exile fascist terrorists Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, who planted a bomb on a Cuban civilian airliner, killing all 78 people on board. In particular, the senior George Bush protected them, both as CIA director, and later as Emperor of the U.S., but the protection is extended by the entire police state of the U.S. and most of the establishment media. Under Emperor Reagan, the U.S. navy ship Vincennes infamously deliberately. shot down an Iranian jetliner over the Persian Gulf. And Israel shot down a Libyan civilian jetliner over the Sinai desert. The U.S. and Israeli-backed South African apartheid regime used a decoy radio beacon to lure the plane of Mozambican president Samora Machel into a mountainside. And speaking of false flag ops, the U.S. military had a plan to shoot down a CIA drone aircraft disguised as a civilian airliner, using a fake U.S. MiG, and pretend the Castro regime did it, as a pretext for a U.S. invasion.

1]  See "Ukraine Snipers Worked For U.S. Puppet Government, Estonian Foreign Minister Told Ashton," where you can listen to the phone call and read an analysis of it.

Israel Racks Up 101 Dead Palestinians- Hamas Rockets Kill Zero So Far

So what is the focus of the U.S. media? Hamas rocket fire, of course. Par for the course.

As usual, the Hamas rockets land almost entirely ineffectually. Israel, on the other hand, thanks to its U.S.-supplied F-16 fighter jets and U.S.-supplied munitions, is lethally effective. For good measure, Israel has been shelling Gaza from the sea.

Entire families have been wiped out. A cafe blown off the face of the earth, killing terrorist World Cup fans watching Television. (They must be terrorists, right? Anyone Israel or the U.S. kills is by definition a posthumous terrorist. Actually Israel called that one a “mistake.” On the other hand, they whispered in various reporters’ ears that they were targeting a single man allegedly present. Well he shouldn’t be using people as human shields! He should stand in the middle of nowhere with a target on his back! Actually Gaza is so tightly packed with people, there are no areas where a bombardment by air and sea, as Israel is conducting, wouldn’t kill “human shields” that “terrorists hide behind.”)

On top of 101 dead Palestinians (about half women and children), over 700 have been wounded- and the Gaza hospital lacks medical supplies.

The U.S. calls all this “self-defense” by Israel. The U.S. Secretary of State, the unbearable blowhard Skull and Bonesman John Kerry thundered that “no nation!” would or could tolerate rockets fired at it. (Actually plenty of nations have had to tolerate that, and worse. Victims of U.S. aggression, for example. And Lebanon, attacked repeatedly by Israel. But never mind. No point going once again through the futile exercise of illuminating the breathtaking hypocrisy and utter contempt for historical facts of the U.S. imperialist overlords.)

Israel has called up 40,000 reservists and is massing its army on the border with Gaza in preparation for a land invasion. Israel’s “intelligence” head has openly proclaimed the need to occupy Gaza for a spell, to root out Hamas.

A standard trope of Israeli propaganda (repeated by their supine parrots, the U.S. media) is that Hamas rocket fire is “indiscriminate.” “Indiscriminate” is code for inaccurate. It’s Israel that is killing people indiscriminately. It actually tacitly admits this by its standard justification line: “Hamas is using human shields! Hamas hides behind the civilian population! (Ergo, we have to blow up their shields.)”

Not to defend Hamas- those fanatics have brought down pointless suffering and death on the Palestinians in the Gaza open air concentration camp since the Israelis threw in the towel on “settling” Gaza. They had 10,000 army troops to defend 8,000 colonizers. Ariel Sharon The Slaughterer made a pragmatic decision that the cost wasn’t worth it. Instead he decided to concentrate on driving the Palestinians out of conquered East Jerusalem and expanding the colonial effort in “Judea and Samaria” (the West Bank to the world outside of Israel and Zionist circles). Hamas at that point made the very poor decision to lob ineffectual rockets into Israel. This provided a pretext for Israeli attacks, and also a propaganda coup for Israel, which could say “You see? We withdrew from Gaza and they respond with attacks on our civilians. They don’t want peace.” This also helped harden the attitude of the Israeli public towards Palestinians. Probably 90% of the Israeli public at this point viscerally despises the Palestinians, and some large percentage would be glad to see them exterminated.

Now Hamas, with its suicidal bravado, is giving Israel another excuse to butcher Palestinians and once again reduce their pathetic infrastructure to rubble. (This will be the third time in 6 years Israel has done this. They also do it to Lebanon every decade or so.)

Let’s recap how the current situation started. Parties unknown kidnapped and shot dead three Israeli teenaged colonists, burying their bodies. Israel blamed Hamas, presenting no evidence; Hamas denied it. (Without evidence, we cannot know who did it, but as I previously wrote, it doesn’t have Hamas’ M.O. That by itself doesn’t rule out Hamas.) Israel went on a rampage in the West Bank to try and find the missing teens, arresting around 400 Palestinians and killing 7 in the process- already double the number of missing Israelis. In response, rockets were fired from Gaza, perhaps by Hamas, perhaps by a fringe group. When after several weeks, the bodies of the teens were found, Jewish colonists kidnapped a 16 year old Palestinian boy, Muhammad Abu Khdeir, and burned him alive (as an Israeli autopsy discovered- burns in the air passages of the victim established that). Subsequently his teen cousin, who was visiting from Florida and is an American, was savagely beaten unconscious by Israeli police at a demonstration by Palestinians angry over Khdeir’s murder. (The Israelis claim he had a slingshot. Well, ok then, beat him unconscious!) Only because the beating was captured on video did anything come of this. The U.S. mildly objected, so Khdeir was put under house arrest and fined. (Fine before conviction- that must be another Israeli innovation in repression.) Well, that’s more than the U.S. did when Rachel Corrie was murdered by an Israeli army bulldozer driver, obvious acting under orders, or when scores of American sailors and killed and wounded when Israel tried to sink the U.S.S. Liberty in 1967, so maybe that’s progress. (Not really.)

It doesn’t matter what the Palestinians do- their situation is hopeless. Israel respond to peaceful Palestinian protests the same way it responds to Palestinian violence- with violence. And in fact it has always done so, and that is well documented, including by Israelis. So the fact that the Palestinians are an oppressed people cannot be denied.

And the U.S. imposes its usual double standard. Violence is fine to achieve its ends. When it doesn’t like a regime, it will support violence against that regime, as it did earlier this year in Ukraine. The U.S. has supported numerous guerrilla and terrorist groups historically. But the Palestinians aren’t even allowed to join international organizations without suffering reprisals by the U.S. and Israel. They are supposed to docilely participate in the charade called “the peace process,” which is nothing more than the creeping Bantustanization of the Palestinians. Recall that during the 8 years of the “Oslo process” under the mass murderer Bill Clinton, the colonizer population doubled. Which put the lie to the idea that the Israelis were negotiating a handover of the West Bank (much less East Jerusalem, although to this day those lies are repeated, along with the claim that Arafat ruined everything).

Meanwhile the cynical, feckless, and cruel Arab regimes once more do nothing to help the Palestinians, instead spouting anti-Semitic crap to dupe their credulous publics. Thus the worst of both worlds- anti-Semitism with no actual opposition to Israeli imperialism and repression, but in fact secret connivance. The Saudis in particular are secretly tight with Israel. Jordan is an Israeli ally in all but official name. And Egypt has been a co-repressor of the Palestinians with Israel for decades.

But the new Egyptian military dictator, Sisi, is all heart. He decided to allowed badly wounded Palestinians (no one else) to pass through the Rafa border crossing into Egypt for medical care. Otherwise the blockade of Gaza by Egypt stands. (Palestinians have to dig tunnels, like moles, to get even basic supplies. Israel is now bombing those tunnels- again.) A whole 20 ambulances- 20! have been sent by Egypt to the border.

Thanks, Sisi! What a guy!

How Many Eyes for an Eye Will Israel Want This Time?

Well, it’s over. And it’s just starting.

The drama of the missing and presumed kidnapped Israeli teenagers, who disappeared in the West Bank hitchhiking home from religious school, has concluded Act One with the discovery of their bodies in a shallow grave near Hebron by civilian searchers. Act Two will be the intensification of the violent Israeli response, which has already claimed the lives of seven young Palestinians (including minors), the rounding up and imprisonment of hundreds (who of course are being subjected to Israel’s version of non-torture torture), mass raids and destruction of property and the demolition of several homes already with all their inhabitants’ earthly belongings inside- homes of two men Israel blames for the killings of the three teens. [1]

The shooting of the Israeli Jewish teens was “brutal,” a “brutal” killing. The shooting of 7 (and counting) Palestinians isn’t “brutal,” aren’t “shootings,” aren’t even killings, in the active verb sense. Palestinians are merely “killed,” as if by a falling tree branch. “Seven Palestinians have been killed” by some unnamed force, is how U.S. and much of the Western media describes it- when they even mention it, which they do barely at all.

"There can be no forgiveness for the killers of children and those who sent them. Now is the time to act," Israel's economy minister, Naftali Bennett, said in a statement.

The “liberal” British paper the Guardian went into detail about the grief and pain of Israelis over the fate of the three youths. They also got around to mentioning what the Israeli military and police were doing in the meantime to the Palestinians, in a brief paragraph, the tenth:

“The hunt for the three missing youths has seen several hundred Palestinians rounded up in a massive operation – often without charge or connection to the kidnapping – and five [as of that writing] Palestinians, including a number of minors, killed.” Check out the anonymizing phrase, “a number of minors.”

That’s it on Palestinian losses and suffering. Then the article returns to the business of focusing on Israeli’s pain, and descriptions of weeping. [1]

Which I am not scoffing at. I am pointing out the selective empathy, where the people of the nation backed by the West is populated by feeling human beings, and their victims, the Palestinians, are ciphers at best and terrorists at worst. The deaths and maimings of Palestinians are mere statistics. The destruction of tens of thousands of Palestinian homes not worthy of mention, except occasionally one at a time as an aside. Focusing on the handful of Israeli Jews who are occasionally killed, and the mostly impotent rockets landing on Israeli soil, paints the picture of the Israeli Jews as the victims of the Palestinians- a grotesque and vulgar inversion of reality that Western publics have been indoctrinated with over decades. Here is an example of lying by selective emphasis, and denying, ignoring, and deemphasizing what needs to be kept concealed to sustain the grossly misleading, fundamentally mendacious narrative.

The Guardian even serves up a quote from a neighbor of the slain teens which neatly inverts reality, and offers nothing to contradict or correct her utterly twisted and delusional statement: "When the Arabs are doing the killing the world stays silent, it is always Israel [who is criticised]."

In some alternate universe, that is. Maybe she’s living in one of those hidden extra dimensions physicists like to speculate about.

Obama issued this fulmination: "The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms this senseless act of terror against innocent youth." Namely the Jewish youth. On the Palestinian youths and young adults killed by the Israeli army, not a peep. But then, there never is when Palestinians are killed, as thousands have been over the years by Israel. But why would the U.S., a nation that has murdered millions, complain about that. It only denounces killings by official enemies.

This one-sided outrage has to be called propaganda. If there was genuine humanitarianism and morality operating here, the U.S. media and government wouldn’t be ignoring the slayings of Palestinians. The Western Establishment is continuing its decades-long policy of hostility and demonization of Palestinians and complete backing of Israel.

The head of the U.S. parrot government of “Great” Britain weighed in. British prime minister David Cameron emitted this: "I am deeply saddened by the news that the bodies of the three Israeli boys ... have been found ... This was an appalling and inexcusable act of terror perpetrated against young teenagers. Britain will stand with Israel as it seeks to bring to justice those responsible." Nothing ever said about any of the 7 Palestinians killed. On top of the tens of thousands killed by Israel starting in 1948, I might add. (And not only by Israel, but by Egypt and the U.S. satrapy Jordan too. And of course the U.S. has killed some too, for good measure.)

Israel’s Nazi-type tactics of mass roundups, property destruction, and random murders are simply mentioned in passing, neutrally, by Western media, and ignored by the governments. Not worth paying attention to. The fate of three teenaged colonists is of burning import.

The Israeli political bosses are continuing to insist, as they have since the teens first went missing, that Hamas is “responsible,” they did it, they’re guilty, indeed in the words of Binyamin Netanyahu, the Remorseless One, the culprits are “wild beasts.” (I.e. subhuman and thus worthy of summary execution.) He issued a bone-chilling threat: "Hamas is responsible, and Hamas will pay."

Hamas, as it has all along, continues to deny they kidnapped, and killed, the teens. Hamas is in the difficult position of trying to prove a negative. The Israelis, for their part, have offered no evidence or factual assertions to back up their claim that Hamas is guilty. Nor do they need to, since as far as Western elites (government and media) are concerned, Hamas has zero credibility so their denials can be discounted. Hamas is, after all, branded a “terrorist” organization by the U.S. and its Eurolackeys. Once an organization or individual is categorized as “terrorist,” accusation equals proof, no evidence or facts required. Thus the accusations of those with the power of life and death becomes a conviction carrrying a death sentence. The chief executive is a self-appointed judge, jury, and executioner. (Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu being two examples of this.) Mere assertion of guilt is proof of guilt. Then the state carries out the “sentence”- generally death by assassination.

Now, I have no idea whether Hamas, as an organization, planned and carried out the kidnapping and slayings of the three teens, or if people associated with Hamas, or lower-ranking members, did it without higher authorization, or if Hamas wasn’t connected with it at all. Let us keep in mind that this occurred in the West Bank, around Hebron. Hamas is in Gaza. The “Palestinian Authority” and Israel itself control the West Bank. (“Judea and Samaria,” in Israeli-speak, a term, redolent of ancient Holiness, which should leave no doubt about their intention to absorb as much of that conquered territory as is practical for them to do.) Secondly, coming so soon after a new unity government between Hamas and the PA, the timing would be profounding counterproductive. Israel has been at pains to keep the Palestinians divided (a divided people are easier to oppress and rule), and went ballistic when the unity agreement was announced just a few weeks before the kidnapping. This has given Netanyahu a pretext to try to smash up the unity government. Thirdly, Hamas has never been shy about taking credit for their acts of violence against Israel and Israelis, on the principle of The Deed as Propaganda. They build up their credibility and reputation (and thus support) among Palestinians by advertising their attacks. An act like this in which they claim to have no responsibility does not bring them any political benefit. It only brings ferocious Israeli assaults. The only theory I can think of which would explain Hamas behaving in such a way would be a desire by them to bring Israeli punishment on Palestinians to radicalize them. But Palestinians hardly need to be convinced to hate Israel at this point. And as I’ve pointed out, the downsides are considerable.

Another possibility, and I am not saying this is what happened, just that it is a hypothetical possibility at least, is an Israeli false flag operation or a manipulation of a radical group or individuals put up or steered to doing this in order to have a pretext to try and violently break up the Palestinian government. I doubt it, but given the ruthlessness and cynicism of governments generally, and certainly of the Israeli government, it can’t be ruled out categorically, although I would put the probability as very low, like one percent or less. [3]

Another benefit for Netanyahu and Israel from the martyrdom of the three teens is it allows a psychological/emotional/propaganda pushback against the Boycott, Divestiture, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which just scored a victory when the Presbyterian church, in a close vote, voted to sell stock in criminal corporations that supply Israel with important weapons of repression, namely Caterpillar (armored home demolition bulldozers), Motorola, and Hewlett-Packard (electronic surveillance and police state computer equipment). This event received prominent play in the New York Times, and evoked howls of outrage and moral indignation from the usual prominent agents of Israel in the U.S. Indeed, some of these American agents, acting as emissaries for the Government of Israel, offered the Presbyterian leadership an audience with Netanyahu himself (apparently this is to be seen as a great privilege) if they would NOT EVEN TAKE A VOTE on divestiture. This oh-so-generous offer was declined by the Presbyterians, and the vote was duly held.

Already Jewish vigilantes, apparently deciding that seven dead Palestinians aren’t enough, have kidnapped, tortured, and murdered a 16-year-old Palestinian boy, whose badly burned body was found. Israeli air raids have been intensified. (A pregnant woman was wounded in one.) The Palestinian firing of rockets into Israel from Gaza, which started as a reaction to the massive Israeli sweep in the West Bank and has continued in defiance of Israeli air raids, is used, as it always is, as the “reason” for Israeli bombing runs (with free jets and bombs supplied by the U.S.).

Past kill ratios of Jews to Palestinians have ranged from 10 to 1 to 100 to 1. Since the current ratio is only up to about 3 to one, there’s a way to go yet before Israel’s thirst for revenge is slaked.

Whatever the Palestinians do, their situation is hopeless. Peaceful protest, negotiation, violence, terrorism, diplomacy- all is futile. Their fate is heartbreaking.

1] “Bodies of three missing Israeli teenagers found in West Bank: Naftali Frankel, Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach were kidnapped while hitchhiking back from their religious schools,” the Guardian, June 30, 2014.

If you follow Israeli media, you’d have learned that the Israeli police made a huge blunder. One of the teens managed to call the police on his cellphone and tell them he was kidnapped. They just blew it off, didn’t bother locating the call. Cellphones can be located even when they’re off. A number of officers have been replaced at the police call center, including supervisors who blew off the teen’s call. See “Police officers dismissed in wake of botched kidnapping call: Committee probe finds severe misconduct in handling of emergency hotline center on night three teens were kidnapped in West Bank; Police commissioner calls failure 'unforgivable,'” Haaretz, June 30, 2014.

3] Given what we know about what governments HAVE done, we would be foolish to rule out any possibility. The assassination of the president of the U.S. in 1963 by the “security services” with the collaboration of others is a prime example. Remember, also, that entrenched fascist elements of the U.S. state, guided by none other than Richard Cheney, planted nano-thermite explosives in the World Trade Center twin towers and in 7 World Trade Center, blowing them up September 11, 2001, a day that should live in infamy for reasons still unknown to most Americans, indeed to most people on this planet, thereby killing most of the almost 3,000 people who died on that day, plus another 1,000 who subsequently died from illnesses contracted from working in the ruins without respirators, thanks to the homicidal lies by the Bush regime and its Environmental “Protection” Agency head, Christine Todd Whitman, a member of the New Jersey landed gentry, horsewoman, and former Governor of that state, that the air was safe to breathe, which it obviously was not. The ruins in fact gave off noxious fumes that could be smelled miles away, for several months, and that caused me for one to cough. The very notion that pulverized lead, asbestos, concrete, and numerous hazardous substances contained in computer equipment and etc. crushed to dust in the explosions and collapses, was somehow harmless, is ludicrous on its face. So the kind of ruthless people who rule many nations are certainly not inhibited about sacrificing their own citizens in pursuit of their political goals.

This should not surprise or shock anyone. What, after all, is war, but the sacrifice of the citizens for the Great Glory of the Rulers? (Yes, we can make exceptions for defensive wars, but in those cases only one side is fighting in self-defense.)

For the details of the demolitions at the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, see the documentary by 9/11 Architects for truth.

Obama Proposes Solution to Tidal Wave of Central American Waifs Arrested in U.S.

Deport ‘em faster.

That’s his solution.

Since October, over 50,000 children and teenagers have entered the U.S. from the three Central American hellholes created directly by the U.S.: Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. In each case, those societies have been brutally maimed by U.S. power which destroyed the democratic developments in each and has imposed fascist state terror regimes. Life in them has now degenerated to the point of complete non-livability.

Hence the mass, desperate migration of refugees.

Ignoring international and human rights law, the U.S. ships these kids back to the lethal environments they fled.

Obama has asked Congress for $2 billion to fast track deportations of these youths. The money would be much better spent instead on social and economic development for those nations the U.S. destroyed with its creation and indoctrination of depraved militaries there.

Yeah, it makes SUCH a big difference to elect Democrats in the U.S.!

Medea Benjamin’s Arm “Wakes Me Up Every Single Night in Pain”*

Thank Barack Hussein Obama for that, honey. He’s the guy who had the Egyptian secret police break your arm in the Cairo airport. He owes Sisi a favor for that. (Just a very personal reason for the Obama regime to support the Egyptian military tyranny, in addition to the “American interests,” that is, the reasons of state that the American populace need to be kept ignorant of. But if you know how to translate the euphemisms, you can find out the reasons of state in rags like Foreign Affairs, the organ of the New York City-based Council on Foreign Relations, where members of the U.S. imperialist nomenklatura hang out between their stints committing crimes inside the U.S. government.)

I wonder which secret police agency will grab the honor of informing the Emperor of Benjamin’s condition? They’ll probably be tripping over each other to be the first.

Medea Benjamin committed the crime of interrupting one of Obama’s propaganda speeches with pointed questions shouted concerning his violence. Of course the establishment media made sure to keep her punishment a secret from people who are still dumb enough to rely on it for news. I can imagine a very different reaction of the “thuggish” Putin had done such a thing.

*Medea Benjamin in her own words on WBAI Pacifica Radio, July 1^st, 2014, 6:47 pm EST.

See “Obama Has Egyptian Military Regime Break American Peace Activist's Arm,” March 8, 2014, for proof Obama indeed is responsible.