While the media is focussed on Ferguson and has Hamas and IS as “fillers”, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is quietly continuing his “thing” in Ukraine. Jay H. Ell is really uncertain what Vlad’s “thing” is but he feels it is to restore Russia and thereby his good self to it’s old glory. Jay H. Ell is confident that he cannot really succeed as he has blogged recently, “Putin The Last Russian Tzar, “Putin Pulls Out The Old USSR Playbook” and “Putin - Fools Russian Where Angels….”. In short he is an anachronistic, imperialistic, totalitarian, blustering, narcissistic, swaggering bully - the anti hero who is so charismatic you cannot but fail to take notice of him and his actions.
Someone should tell him the Soviet Union really did lose out and the Yeltsin/Gorbachev period was not a blip on the world screen. What happened in the early nineties really did herald the unraveling of the old USSR empire and even worse most of the Comrade States upped and left or wanted to leave for the other side. The unkindest cut of all was that neighbor Ukraine wanted out as well.
The most intolerable circumstance for Vlad has to be that no-one is taking any notice of him at all at the moment. Jay H. Ell can reliably infer that, presently, his media ratings suck. But cheer up Vlad because Jay H. Ell feels that you are newsworthy and that you are, in this unfair media world, being wrongly ignored. You are causing unnecessary havoc in Ukraine, you are about to bring avoidable financial hardship on the Russians and you are a brat on the world scene where you do have disproportionate influence as you are still a permanent vetoing member of the UN Security Council. But the hard truth is that you are now a regional power not a superpower just like that nerd Obama called it.
However, Vlad have no fear you are still a somebody from a country that once was a Superpower so the media will be back when they run out of their current crises or if you and your East Ukrainian terrorists shoot down another Malaysian commercial plane. In fact the Ukrainians have captured ten Russian paratroopers in the Donetsk area and the Russians have moved in with troops and artillery in what National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, believes might be a counteroffensive. So if Vlad, who by some like Pat Buchanan is considered a political genius, goes for it hammer and tongs in Ukraine, and what with Michael Brown’s funeral bringing closure to Ferguson and a ceasefire in Gaza, the boys and girls from the media might just be ready to put Putin back in prime time.
PUTIN’S PICKLE
Jay H. Ell postulates that Putin is not nearly as sure of himself and what to do next as he leads us all to suppose. He has to be balancing the impact sanctions have already had on the Russian economy and what newer ones may herald, especially as the latest sanctions are more broad sweeping and have the EU fully behind them. As Jay H. Ell has reported Russia’s economy is in a parlous state with foreign capital hemorrhaging, including some belonging to Putin’s plutocrat friends. The Russian interest rate and inflation are up so why all this bravado? One fact is for certain till he finds a suitable way out he will proceed with his childish Imperialistic games and grandstand to his still adoring electorate.
WHERE THE DISPUTE IS AT NOW
After a lull period Putin suddenly decided, in late August, that he needed to become “humanitarian" and invade East Ukraine at the same time. Two hundred trucks with supposed aid for the beleaguered pro Russian East Ukrainian dissidents had artillery added to them. This latter fact was confirmed by NATO.The trucks were supposed to be escorted by the Red Cross but the latter refused as, according to the Wall Street Journal, they did not want to be caught in the crossfire. So the Russian trucks just proceeded illegally into Ukraine.
This “invasion” has been accompanied by another amassing of 18,000 Russian troops on the border and more trucks with munitions. In fact Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has accused Russia of sending troops across the border to start a second front. Poroshenko who is due to meet Putin with EU representatives in a few days has expressed “extraordinary concern”. According to Business International the Ukrainian military have reported that a group of Russian soldiers, disguised as “separatists” have invaded the South East Ukraine. This is the area, named Donbass, where the Russian speaking Ukrainians have already declared independence from Ukraine. The Ukrainian military have claimed to have repulsed the “Russian” attack. NATO has reported that the Russians have been firing into Ukraine from without and within its actual borders.
Needless to say the Russians deny all of this.
THE RUSSIAN PLAYBOOK FROM NOW ON
The well worn USSR playbook demands that there will be an encounter, such as the one that has just occurred in Donetsk, where the Russian supported Ukrainians cannot “defend” themselves against “overwhelming" Ukrainian forces and they will be “rescued” from the “aggressors” by the Russians who then stay to keep the peace. And/or the Russians halt the war when the pro Russians are losing and then demand a ceasefire and self determination for the Eastern Ukrainians etc etc. The amazing part of persisting with this charade is that who the hell, at this stage of the game, believes a word of it. Apparently there are enough Russians who do.
Now where Putin is correct nobody is going to send troops in but the pressure to arm the Ukrainians will grow. They let Putin take Crimea realizing that it would be a whopping debt to the Russian treasury. However, Obama has more financial levers that have to start meaningfully impinge on the Russian electorate. Putin has to know that Russia’s internal plight might eventually turn the xenophobic cheers into jeers and tears. Putin is trying to balance his aggression in the hope that Ukraine and the West will give him some bone that he can declare victory on. His pathetic response to ban Western food imports will hardly improve his status in Russia. Also, the longer this lasts the bigger the mess and the harder it is for Putin to back down. The shelves in the supermarkets are beginning to empty in Russia. Interestingly enough cheese is one of the first shortages noticed, The spineless Swiss Government are looking for ways to increase the amount of cheese they can supply to Russia.
In all of this the Ukrainian army are acquitting themselves extremely well. They have retaken towns, laid siege and certainly stopped the Russian separatists march. Obama has to face a realistic choice as to whether to arm Ukraine or not. It would make sense to but would up the anti and inflame the paranoid Putin. Obama’s style is the least military intervention possible. Many a foe has taken that for weakness but he has a steely resolve and he will continue putting the screws on Putin economically.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
At the end of the day this all boils down to Putin’s ego. He has started a dangerous game of chicken. A game that realistically he cannot win. He is irrelevant to world issues at the moment. If he hadn’t chosen to play for such high stakes perhaps he could have acted as a senior statesman in a chaotic planet. The rest of the world has no desire to fight with Russia and in fact have a stake in its stability. There are enough problems without him going off on a neo colonial tangent.
The more one sees of the world and the tragedies unfolding the more it becomes evident how important leadership is and how much of the destiny of mankind is in the hands of so few. What is also so sad is, that in order to have a country’s injustice exposed there as to be enough interest to the viewership of a fraction of the world’s population that has the disposable income to purchase the “better soap”. Russia still hasn’t reached the neglect that Darfur is condemned to endure because there is still leverage in recreating it as a bogeyman that can arise from the ashes. They have after all just had the winter Olympics and will have the World Soccer Cup in 2018 so they are long way from nonentity status.
The big question is when do the Russians realize that their new Tzar he is not only not wearing a shirt he has no clothes on at all. According to an insightful piece in the “New Republican” if Putin goes all that will happen is that another Putin/Dictator/Tzar will be put in, (pardon the pun), his place. Putin, like all the all leaders of Russia before him, regardless of the totalitarians they replaced in the promise of “democracy” had obliterated their opposition and became Putins themselves. If this is true Russia is condemned to an ongoing cycle of xenophobic totalitarian rulers.
Jay H. Ell simply refuses to believe that there isn’t some leader that will break the centuries old dictatorial reign of Russia. Surely a country that has produced Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Solzyhenitsyn Chekov, Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Rimsky - Korsakov to name a few can find a head honcho that isn’t a totalitarian fascist.
There are several issues that are emerging from the tragedy of a police officer shooting an unarmed African American teenager that need to be woven together to make sense of this disaster. This cause celebre involves the role of the media in moulding public opinion and defining the public agenda, the issue of race and inequality in the USA 60 years after the passage of Civil Rights Legislation, allegations of police brutality and behavior, and the process of the USA justice system.
THE MEDIA
Firstly, the American media, and with them the world media, have deserted Gaza for a new story du jour. The Gaza saga is far far from over and that, coupled with the march of IS, with even a beheading of an American are barely making the news. So the “medium is the message” as Marshall McLuhan claimed 60 years ago. Characteristically they, the “media” run a story 24/7 for a limited period of time and then they up and move onto the next one, Jay H. Ell believes this decision is on the basis of ratings, present or future.
The pitching of tents into Ferguson cannot be only on the basis of “police brutality” or even race per se as on July 17, 2014, over 2 weeks after Hamas started firing rockets, and a week after Israel responded with “Protection Edge” there was a senseless shameless police killing of a pathetic 43 year old New York black man, a father of 6, whose alleged offense was selling single cigarettes. The whole episode was on video leaving very little for the imagination. It is only now over a month later that this will go to a Grand Jury to hear evidence as to whether the Police Officer should go to trial.
So the media as a whole, for better or worse, consciously or unconsciously, select a story and almost to the channel punt it till kingdom come, more often than not favoring one side against the other. There can be gross humanitarian violations taking place as they were in May 2001, in Timor for example, when Chandra Levy, a Congress intern, of Representative Gary Condit, disappeared. Team media moved into a tiny Californian town, Modesto, and interviewed everyone from Condit’s barber to the Mayor of the town. Levy’s family believed that Condit had murdered Levy as she was causing problems for him as a result of an affair between the two. The day to day reality show continued and speculation included that Mrs. Condit had eliminated Levy. This all only really ceased when the media finally upt and went to New York to report the story, thus far the drama of the century, of 9/11. Nothing was ever heard again of the Levy saga, even the finding of Levy’s remains and the conviction of her real murderer was scantily reported.
That was the day Jay H. Ell finally came to terms with the fact that the Fourth Estate had sold its soul to the selling of soap. He had read Tom Fenton’s, book “Bad News”.Fenton had been the CBS senior overseas correspondent for four decades and had seen a decline in the reportage of news as more and more stories were spiked as they could result in the viewers flipping channels. This all came about as the news in the networks became a cost center. Up until then the news was subsidized by the other programming. He famously reported that he had stories on the danger of Osama Bin Laden overlooked as who would be interested in that obscure sounding name? Now the cable news channels are totally dependent on advertising and therefore ratings 24/7 so his conclusion that, as a whole, the networks and the channels had abdicated their responsibility to the American people rings true.
That doesn’t mean that, on some occasions, the agendas of soap sale are at odds with “the truth”. However, that latter fact hardly inspires confidence in the former guardians of society. In the meantime if Israel want to flatten Gaza it would not get too much coverage at the moment because the media are camped out in Ferguson, Missouri.
RACE.
The American Melting Pot and Perceptions of Reality
One of the great ironies of the great American Society, a nation of immigrants, is that although, the Irish, the Italians, the Scandinavians, all the Europeans, East and West, the South Americans and the Asians, for example, have integrated into the “melting pot”, the almost indigenous, former slaves, the African Americans are still on the fringe. Now that the media have taken us to Ferguson, Missouri where there has been another shooting of an unarmed African American teenager by a white policeman the festering sore of race has once again been brought to the fore.
Even in the year 2014 the African Americans and the “whites” view the happening in Ferguson totally differently. According to a Pew survey 80% of African Americans believe the issue is about race and well below 30% of the "whites" have come to this conclusion.
Attacks on the poor
As a background to race relations in general the Republicans have conducted, on a State level, a remorseless campaign to reverse the advances of civil rights legislation particularly in relation to voting rights by making it more and more difficult for the African Americans to vote. (Blog: Why The Republicans in 2014 - Its The Plutocrats, Obamacare and Voter Suppression Stupid). This is coupled on a National level of “blaming” the poor for being poor. There is Paul Ryan’s “Givers and Takers” and Romney’s infamous statement that became the mantra of the Republican Party to the effect that 47% of the country would never vote for him, Romney, as they want government handouts. The Supreme Court are leaning more and more to do away with Affirmative Action and Voter Right Protection. There is open contempt for the African American President Obama as epitomized by Fox’s Bill O’Reilly all but screaming at Obama that he achieved what he did because of Affirmative Action and he O’Reilly accomplished his success all on his own.
So there is a national tide of anger, stoked by the Republicans towards the poor in general and the African Americans indirectly.
The Reality
All this aggression accompanies the current statistics showing that the percentage of legally poor is 27% among the African Americans and 12% in the “white” group. Also the myth of the “Great American Dream” of rags to riches appears to be just that. Study after study has shown that if you are born poor you stay poor and the situation is worse in the USA than in certain European Countries. There is also investigation after investigation showing, for example, that educational opportunities and employment prospects are more disadvantageous to persons of color. There is likewise more likelihood of arrest for the same crime, profiling by the police for questioning and far more probability of long jail time for minor drug offenses amongst the non white community.
Race prejudice in Ferguson, Missouri
To get more specific for the town of Ferguson, Missouri there is an activist group, the ArchCity Defenders that provide pro bono defense for those who cannot afford hiring a lawyer. They have stated that the tensions between the African American citizens and the local police go beyond the Michael Brown cataclysm. They maintain that for revenue purposes the African American population is victimized. They have issued a report that found that, “Clients reported being jailed for the inability to pay fines, losing jobs and housing as a result of incarceration, being refused access to the courts if they were with their children or family members and being mistreated by bailiffs, prosecutors, clerks and judges. For traffic tickets they can languish in jail for weeks”.
The ArchCity examination continues, “Court fees and fines are the second largest source of revenue for Ferguson. There is a perception, backed by statistics, of the black population, that are pulled over in greater numbers, than their percentage population warrants and that they are being targeted to pay these fines.” The Executive Director of ArchCity, Thomas Harvey, stated that this situation in Ferguson has created a real tension between the City and the majority of the population.
Bearing in mind that only five of the seventy - five law enforcement officers in a town are African American that has a population that consists of 70% of that ethnic group is a recipe for disaster. And that disaster has just happened.
A take way lesson is how when an African American police captain Ronald Johnson was placed in charge of the angry, sometimes violent, protests the mood of the crowd changed. Johnson could empathize with them. However, he was still a cop whose job was to maintain law and order so he arrested and used tear gas when he thought it was appropriate.
THE POLICE.
Police in any society have massive power. They are the arbiters of whether or not the behavior of any citizen could be violating the law and on the basis of their determination they can immediately deprive a citizen of freedom. Contrary to the mantra that you are innocent till proven guilty in fact it is vice versa. Ask anyone who has challenged even a traffic ticket in the belief that they were not speeding and see the response of the learned judge!
When one analyzes more serious controversies such as whether the death of a suspect is justified the argument assumes a greater dimension. Under normal circumstances the probe is conducted by the police department itself as to whether the fatal response was justified. A devastating analysis of police investigations into nearly a hundred and twenty five killings by the police in Wisconsin has become part of the public record. This research was conducted by a Michael Bell whose son was shot in Kenosha Wisconsin ten years ago. He learned that in not one of the 125 deaths investigated, by the police themselves, was any culpability placed on the police. He believed that this had to be absolutely impossible bearing in mind some of the evidence relating to some of the deaths.
He explained that his enquiry was spurred by an African American who approached him and said, “If they can shoot a white boy like a dog imagine what we are going through”. The father Lieutenant Michael Bell who, ten years later, is finally receiving his day in the media had maintained that his son was unlawfully shot in the public arena. Lieutenant Bell felt that the Ferguson incident could be racially motivated.
For the seventy percent of Americans who believe that the police always act with propriety and are protectors all the time, they have to realize that others see them,essentially, as instruments of oppression. Jay H. Ell has some experience of this phenomenon in South Africa when the black society only saw the police as their persecutors. (Blog: Mandela - Day To Day Memories of Apartheid). While Jay H. Ell was white, as an opponent of the regime, he never felt comfortable in the presence of the police. There were to many occasions where he was at a meeting or even a social gathering that they arrived en masse either to harass or intimidate. Jay H.Ell had personal knowledge of police slipping marijuna into the pockets of suspects and then pretending that they had found it there.
So Americans better get with the program that while the majority of the police evoke the feeling of security for most of us there is sizable minority who mainly see them as persecutors. They need to reexamine why the jury acquitted O. J. Simpson so expeditiously. The principle reason, Jay H. Ell believes, was that an investigating office Mark Furman was proven to be a liar when he claimed that he wasn’t a racist. The predominately African American jury could identify with this type of set up. The racist cop had lied to get a conviction.
The police in Ferguson have not exactly excelled themselves in this incident. They were reluctant to give the name of the policeman involved and were highly secretive in releasing any information about the events. They also allowed Mr. Brown’s body to lie, uncovered, in the street for four hours after the shooting. They published untested evidence about the victim being a shoplifter in an effort to besmirch his character in an episode, even if true, that had no bearing on his death.
THE US JUSTICE SYSTEM.
Jay H. Ell has pointed out some of the differences between the American Justice System and those of the rest of the Western World. (Blog: “Pistorius Trial - Comparing USA and South Africa). The US system is far more politicized as the prosecutor and the Judges are elected by popular vote. The public and the media weigh in from the word go. The “victim’s family” is also considered an “interested party” to whom justice must be served. In those countries whose law is based on the Roman Dutch tradition the crime is against the State and the family’s opinions as to what should be done and what sentence is appropriate, however tragic the circumstances may be, are irrelevant. Most significantly there is no sub judice law in America. In other countries no evidence and opinion as to its significance or any matter related to the trial can be debated lest it influence the outcome. Here the First Amendment trumps all of that.
In America there is a media free for all. There is a divided opinion already as to whether or not the officer acted appropriately on that fateful night. Witnesses give interviews with and without their lawyers. The Brown family and or their legal representation give press conferences. The media weighs in and comments on each bit of evidence.
The public attempt to influence the outcome. There are marches in the streets demanding justice, the removal of the prosecutor and disturbances that result in a police response that exacerbates further anger. Politicians are placed under pressure. The President as well as the Attorney General have been pulled into the debate.
There are conflicting jurisdictions and the State and the Federal Government each are conducting their own independent investigations. The County Prosecutor is holding a Grand Jury deliberation, which allows him to conduct the enquiry in secret as opposed to a preliminary hearing where the evidence as to whether there is “probable cause” to go to trial is in the public domain. The Prosecutor has challenged the Missouri Governor to fire him. And on and on.
In short the process is muddied before it even starts.
THE MESSAGE OF IT ALL
If nothing else this whole catastrophe illustrates the anger of the African American population towards the system. Justice Ginsberg has recently maintained that America has a real racial problem. The white population just don’t get it. You are also dealing with a milieu where the public are very much involved in the justice system. In case America has forgotten there were lynchings in the South, not so long ago for far less than Officer Darren Wilson was alleged to have done to Michael Brown. It was only 60 years ago that the people of color were able to vote and the Southern States with the Supreme Court backing are trying to take that right away again. The Republicans are maintaining that it is the African Americans fault that they are poor and stating they are bone lazy and are “takers”.
Time and again incidents like these arise and on this occasion the media decided to make the Ferguson convulsion their focus and place it front and center in the American psyche. Unless the ratings remain high they will pack up and go to the next crisis du jour before this important circumstance is fully aired. The media have failed once again spotlighting mindlessly the sensational - the protests per se - without examining the real issues, including their own role in the hapstance. In addition the good faith efforts of black leaders to protest peacefully and constructively seek change have not received enough attention.
This country, the leader of the free world, needs serious discussion as to its problems not tabloid journalism. If a wake up call is needed, according to a Rasmussen poll only 20% of Americans consider the media very trustworthy.
Reality has been suspended as the world concentrates its attention on Israel’s alleged atrocities in the recent flare up in Gaza with all else that is going on around. Jay H. Ell has blogged about the biased attitude of the media, UN key figures, “human rights” supporters and unashamed fascists and anti-Semites in their attack on Israel, but would also like to emphasize the big picture - the Islamic fundamentalist march to the Caliphate. The Caliphate is the continuation of the Muslim empire under Sharia law.
Jay H. Ell makes no apology for continually blogging on the crisis, cynically precipitated by Hamas, as he is coming to the realization that the Israeli - Hamas conflict is part of the fundamentalist Sharia Muslim onslaught. Israel in the Middle East represents even more than being the State of the hated Zionist Jews. It is the personification of every value system that Sharia law opposes. The Muslim Sharia fundamentalists have made their move, realigning the whole Middle East political deck, at least for the moment, with the “conservative” Arab world shunning Hamas and ISIS in the latter’s bid to take over the Muslim world.
COMES DOWN TO REALITY - IT IS “ABSURD”.
Back to suspended reality as Ms. Pillay’s UN Human Rights Committee has elected Canadian law expert William Schabas to probe war crime allegations against Israel. Schabas has been told by the Canadian Free Press to recuse himself as he has previously stated that he wanted to see Netanyahu and former Israeli President, Peres, before the World Court charged with war crimes. A Geneva based Human Rights Watch Group demanded his removal. The Executive Director of the UN Watch Group stated, “You cannot spend several years calling for the prosecution of someone and then act as his judge. It is absurd.”
In addition to all Schabas’s anti Israeli views he maintained that former Iranian Premier Ahmadinejad was not an inciter of global anti semitism. The inaptly named, Schabas, has very close ties with Iran, Hamas’s sponsor. He was the Ph D. supervisor of Kamran Hashemi, a key propagandist in the Iran’s Foreign Ministry. Even Richard Goldstone, the biased UN Commissioner,who was the initial UN investigator into Israeli war crimes in 2008 and who subsequently recanted, has stated that Schabas is hopelessly partisan. And on and on. However, there is a script and it will be stuck to regardless of substance. Before the whole disaster unravels Israel has to fight to survive against the mindless media, key UN personnel, the humanitarians, the professed anti-Semites and fascists and the Jihardi.
Jay H. Ell believes that the key battle field is in the Court of Public opinion where Israel should charge Hamas with war crimes. It is in this arena that a sensitive to public approval Israeli administration has strived to be on the right side of history and humanity for the past 65 years. (Read Abba Eban’s speeches since 1948 while facing the onslaught against Israel and his arguments portraying the Jewish State as an upholder of liberal Western democracy). Also as Jay H. Ell has blogged Hamas’ s case for war crimes is strong on generalities and weak on specifics. Whereas Israel’s is strong on both generalities and specifics.
THE HAMAS AND ISIS REALITY
So, while this Theatre of the Absurd plays out, meanwhile back at the Hamas ranch. Hamas has no historical connection with the Palestinian struggle and was only established in 1988. It is part of the coalition that wishes to establish a Caliphate Islamic State in the Middle East. It has as part of its stated agenda, the destruction of Israel and the establishment of an Islamist Caliphate in the Middle East that would include the area that currently constitutes the State of Israel. This agenda is actually word for word the same agenda as ISIS or IS.
ISIS and more recently IS - anyone calling them the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria as opposed to the Islamic State will receive 70 lashes, - has shocked the world by their naked barbarism and uncompromising fundamentalism, in pursuit of an Islamic Caliphate perpetuating Sharia Law in the Middle East. They see themselves as the vanguard of a worldwide struggle to dominate first Islam and then the world. (But more of that later). Hamas is part of this group. Yes this self same “persecuted” group, who squandered the Palestinians opportunity for an independent State and mercilessly sacrificed Palestinian lives for their Caliphate objectives, have as part of their Covenant, a world wide Islamic Caliphate. ISIS, not surprisingly has openly supported Hamas.
So much for the “oppressed” Hamas.
The most ironic twist to this whole recent “war” between Israel and Hamas is that if the latter gain everything they want in negotiations, Gaza will still be far worse off then when Sharon, unilaterally, handed Gaza to the Palestinians in late 2005.
But as Jay H. Ell has blogged, till he is blue in the face, this was not a war for the rights of Palestinians but a sociopathic exercise to smear Israel as war criminals and delegitimize and break the Israeli regime.
ISIS or IS AND ITS CORE BELIEF SYSTEM AND SHARIA LAW IN EUROPE.
IS’s, who wants 70 lashes?, has as its central belief system Sharia Law. It is gaining more and more support both within the Middle East and without. In the Middle East this objective is achieved through naked violence and in Europe it has been through stealth, growth and manipulation of the liberal society that the Muslims have immigrated to. According to a web site, “Sharia Law in Europe”, Sharia Law is challenging the Judea - Christian way of life in several of their host countries. Utilizing freedom of expression and protection of religious rights they have large areas under their control in France, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Holland and Austria. Characteristic of so many ideologies through the ages that use freedom and the rule of law to obtain control they exhibit none of these selfsame characteristics when in power.
In France the French police no longer control a large number of the 13 million Muslims who reside in areas around the big cities. Likewise in Denmark, in the area known as Tinbjerg surrounding Copenhagen the Muslim hierarchy are demanding to police “their own”, according to Sharia Law. In Spain there are already areas being patrolled by Sharia police. The impact of Muslims in Holland is so great that the commonest name in its four largest cities is Mohammed. In Austria, there is even an instance of a lower court convicting an Austrian for breaking Sharia law for the following statement:
“We all know that Mohammed married Aishia when she was six years old and consummated the marriage when she was nine. Now what do we call this behavior if not pedophilia?”.
SHARIA LAW AND THE UK.
It is in the UK that Sharia law has made the greatest gains. Since 2008 over a 100 Sharia Courts have been instituted in the UK. There are more Muslim Imams in the UK than Christian Pastors. In 2011 the militant Muslims began demanding that Sharia Law be instituted in the towns with a Muslim majority in England. In an East London Muslim enclave they are have posters plastered up stating, “You are now entering a Sharia controlled zone, Islamic law enforced”.
In 2011 David Cameron, the Prime Minister of the UK stated, inter alia: “Mulitculturalism has been a failure. We have tolerated these segregated communities that run completely counter to our values”.
So this battle is being fought in the Western world as well as in the Middle East where in effect a minority of Islamists are set on creating a world wide Caliphate. Simultaneously there is resurgence of anti- Semitism world wide but especially in Europe.
IS, SHARIA LAW AND CHRISTIANITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST.
It is in the Middle East that the gloves are off. Because if the fundamentalists don’t control Islam there how can they can control the world. The swiftness and the decisiveness with which IS has acted has left even Iran in a state of shock. The Iranian move to control the Muslim world has to take a back seat in this the march of an even more radical fundamentalism. It is thus not surprising that Iran has joined the chorus of "sanity" in fighting IS. Even Assad’s Syria seem a happy alternative to this mad crew that have murdered, tortured and displaced tens of thousands of individuals.
They have been merciless with regard to the Christians in the area. The recent focus of Christian persecution has been on the Iraqui Yazdis, an ancient Christian sect, who have been the victims of naked genocide and those who have escaped are existing under the most brutal of conditions. However, the bottom line is that there has been a systematic expulsion, murder and victimization of Christians in Middle East for at least the past decade. Not so long ago they represented 20% of the population and now they are less than five percent.
The only international figure that has focussed on this massive demographic change is the former Chief Rabbi of the UK Lord Jonathan Sacks. He has warned of the threat to the whole Judea Christian value system that is taking place in front of our eyes and the systematic elimination of the Christian communities in the Middle East.
So it is not only Israel and its existence that is facing extinction but the whole Judea - Christian way of life in the Middle East and in those European countries that have centuries of civilization.
BACK TO HAMAS AND ISRAEL.
So in the recent Hamas -Israeli clash there is no dispute as to who started it, and if the Israeli’s take the plunge in charging the Palestinian authority with war crimes there will be no dispute as to the fact that Hamas callously subjected their Palestinian brethren to involuntary martyrdom. Hamas and IS’s common objective is Sharia law for the Middle East. Both of them see a unitary Palestinian State under Sharia law. If there is any dispute as to this assumption, let the media question them as to whether this is true or not. More to the point let them answer this question at the Hague.
However, because of the four Musketeers, the media, the humanitarians, key UN personnel and the unashamed anti Semites and fascists the whole focus is on Israel and their alleged war crimes as opposed to the threat of Muslim fundamentalism that is facing the world.
The UN Human Rights Committee have gone ahead with appointing a commission to investigate Israeli war crimes in a war they never started. There is no thought given to the genesis of this dispute and the malicious and provocative manner Hamas has acted. No thought to the wealth of evidence that they had munitions in hospitals, used human shields, and fabricated allegations, for example. No thought to the fact that that Hamas is part of the rebel fundamentalist drive to change the world’s value system and that they are not operating in a vacuum. The key UN office bearers are only focussed, for whatever reason, on only one end, on supporting the narrative that Israel are war criminals in the league of the Nazis.
RATIONALE OF BACKING HAMAS CLAIMS
In backing Hamas one has to program out the march of the Caliphate. One has to ignore what is happening in Europe and Hamas’s ally IS and their campaign to reduce all opposition and all women and children to chattels subject to unchallenged abuse.
One has to put on the blinkers and ignore who started this war and who was really responsible for the high civilian death rate and the rubble that remains of what was once Gaza. One has to ignore what has transpired in this region since 1948 when Israel has never ever had a moment where some or other Islamic entity was not attacking it. One has to forget that the best Hamas could gain for Palestine from this war and the negotiations that would inevitably follow was a situation far worse than they had in 2005 where they were on the brink of independence.
So acting with these denial mechanisms one then has to argue what other recourse did the Palestinians have in order to have their aspirations met but to start this war. The argument then proceeds that inevitably there would be civilian casualties but as Hamas, might expect, these would be due to Israeli war crimes! This is what Ms. Pillay of the UN Human Rights believed from early on and said so and then appointed a known Israeli antagonist to investigate what he had already concluded way back - that Netanyahu and Peres should be charged with war crimes.
In addition, the rationale for Hamas's aggression is justified as a result of Netanyahu’s behavior in relation to settlements which Jay H. Ell, and at one stage over 50% of the Israelis, were against. This argument is as lame as rationalizing Hitler’s actions as understandable and correct on the basis of the punitive rapacious conditions Germany was subjected to at the Peace of Versailles following World War 1. While the comparison on its face is grossly unfair to Netanyahu, nothing but nothing justifies what Hitler did or Hamas and IS are doing now for that matter.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
Jay H. Ell does not believe that what the Muslim fundamentalists are perpetrating is what the majority of the Muslims in the world aspire to. There are estimated to be as many as 1.5 - 2 billion Muslims in the world. A quarter of these are in India and Indonesia. So there are a few 100 million Muslims, mainly in the Middle East, high jacking the religion without as much as a murmur from the rest. Even amongst the perpetrators the majority of their constituents have to bearing this crusade under sufferance - certainly, at least the women and children.
Currently there is a world wide fundamentalist Muslim move for the introduction for intolerant radical Sharia Law. The battle is being fought with several strategies. In the Middle East it is by mindless violence, naked brutal executions and sacrifices of lives - whatever the market will bear. Hamas and IS have exactly the same stated objectives. It is an infamy for Hamas to state that they are fighting for Palestinian rights when they systematically threw away those very rights that Sharon granted them in 2005. In pursuit of their messianic goals they willingly, cheerfully and cynically have sacrificed human life on both sides.
The Israeli - Hamas clash is center stage in the world wide struggle for dominance of value systems. Let us say for argument sake Israel loses the struggle in the court of public opinion and this somehow translates to Hamas creating Sharia law in Palestine with the Israelis joining the Christian Yazdis on the mountains. Which of the four groups of protagonists of Israel’s demise will be the happiest? - the media, the humanitarians and their NGO’s, the self admitted fascists and anti semites or IS and its allies?
So Jay H. Ell’s message is, “Be careful what you wish for and stop playing games”. In the good old days this used to be called anti -semitism but now hairs are being split and the contention is that the well meaning NGO’s, their followers and their media backers have chosen the Israeli crisis, amongst all the other instances of devastating denial of human rights that are being perpetrated throughout the world today, as their battleground for the institution of morality.
ONE FINAL NOTE.
Ms. Pillay and her UN Human Rights Committee smart -aleckily appointed George Clooney’s wife, Alma Alamudin, to their loaded Commission to investigate Israel’s alleged war crimes. Now Ms. Alamudin is reported to be a highly capable jurist with clients such as the King of Bahrain. She has participated in low level UN Commissions. She has had jurist experience as being a clerk, for short periods, of US Supreme Court Judge Sotomayer and a few World Court Judges. Notwithstanding all of this there is little doubt that Ms. Pillay was more than influenced by the fact that Ms. Almadudin has catapulted into the public eye as she has just married international heart throb George Clooney.
Ms. Pillay received the slap in the face she deserved in putting Clooney’s wife publicly in such an awkward position without consulting her first. Ms. Alamudin refused due to “pressure of work”. The latter diplomatically and ambivalently stated that, “She is horrified at the situation in occupied Gaza, particularly the high number of civilian casualties,and strongly believes that there should be an independent investigation and accountability for the crimes that have been committed”.
Without being too pedantic in analyzing Ms. Almadudin’s reply she had to be mindful if Hamas’s objective of Sharia law was universally implemented she would be under a death sentence for marrying Clooney.
TO TRY TO GET BACK TO REALITY.
There is little doubt that sooner or later there will be a deal between Hamas, The Palestinian Authority, (PA), and Israel. Each side will claim victory even though Israel will not settle until Gaza is demilitarized and or there are adequate checks and balances put into place to prevent a stockpile of munitions and a labyrinth of tunnels from being burrowed into Israel. Regardless of the conditions of the armistice Hamas and the PA will have achieved what they set out to with this senseless homicidal and suicidal clash - Israel being charged with war crimes.
Israel should take the initiative and charge Palestinian Authority with war crimes, as a result of which, hopefully one can move from the world of Alice in Wonderland to the land of reality.
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There is no doubt that a desperate financially and politically bankrupt Hamas precipitated this recent war with Israel for propaganda purposes and propaganda purposes solely. Furthermore, Jay H. Ell has maintained that they, colluding with Abbas, had one objective in mind with their unleashing of this purposeless slaughter and destruction, namely charging Israel with war crimes. (Blogs: “Israel Should Charge Palestine With War Crimes”, “Hamas Narrative: Women and Children First - To Die That Is” and “Abbas and Arafat - The Same DNA - So Let’s Get Real").
Hamas unashamedly started the contretemps with only one central strategy, to fire at Israeli citizens and simultaneously put their own citizens at risk of death. In addition they have spent years building tunnels to invade Israel with the express purpose of killing children and non combatants. In pursuit of their objective, in this recent conflict, they placed munitions amongst civilians in several hospitals, schools and mosques and initiated their rocket firing from there. However, everyone but Hamas is said to be to blame for the carnage, mutilation and senseless deaths of civilians that followed. They are already, as Jay H. Ell predicted, laying charges of war crimes against Israel.
The media, with the choir of key UN Office bearers and do gooders in tandem together with the declared anti-Semites and fascists buy the simplistic narrative that if there were so many fatalities and rubble on the Gaza side and so little in Israel, then Israel is ipso facto guilty of war crimes. (Blog: “Soft Balling Media Need Some Hard Balls For Hamas”). Hamas, as matters stand at the moment, have achieved their cynical intent and have won the public relations battle.
One gets a feeling of deja vu of holocaust denial when listening to the debate on this subject.
WAR CRIMES ISSUES
Before proceeding to war crimes per se it is essential to point out to UN Secretary General Bang Ki-Moon and Ms Pillay of the Human Rights Committee that they have a responsibility to recommend actions under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter against Hamas for their flagrant aggression of a sovereign state.
There are two separate issues to face when trying to get to who is culpable and who is not. In the first, what is the overall culture, ethics, behavior and attention to Codes of Conduct of War and the UN Charter of each of the protagonists. Secondly, an examination of all incidents where malfiscience is alleged should be investigated to apportion blame. While these two parameters may overlap they are distinct because one could have rogue combatants on one side effecting single instances of wrongdoing. Often the latter are then utilized to characterize the total behavior of the country.
The Palestinian Authority, (PA), Foreign Minister has stated that this time Israel will not escape punishment and he has already had discussions with the Prosecutor at the Hague World Court. The Foreign Minister added he had clear evidence of Israeli war crimes. The PA said that they were going to send Medical Teams into Gaza to document war crimes. It is interesting to note that it is the PA and not Hamas that is making all these moves as Jay H. Ell maintained they would in his Blog, “Israel Should Charge Palestine With War Crimes”. The whole purpose of a series of moves prior to the Hamas attack was to ensure that the PA had governmental authority to represent Hamas, as the latter as a terrorist organization has no locus standi in world bodies. On cue, Ms Pillay, Head of the UN Human Rights Committee, who Israel has accused of bias for some time, decided that Israel should be probed by the major powers. She had already initiated a Human Rights Investigation into Israel’s war crimes only after a week of Hamas’s unanswered rocket firing and Israel had just begun its return fire.
INSTANCES OF ALLEGED WAR CRIMES
Then there are actual allegations surfacing. The Human Rights Watch Group allege that they have evidence of an instance where Israel fired on fleeing citizens and executed six Palestinians in cold blood. For the rest no specific allegations from the Palestinians other than 3 instances that are dealt with below as Israeli allegations.
From the Israeli side there are numerous instances, backed up by videos, of shooting from densely populated areas, munition piles in hospitals, staging deaths at hospital and a funeral where a killed suicide bomber still had his vest on and blew up the funeral attendees. Reports include one by an Italian journalist that it was a misfired Hamas rocket that hit the UN school killing 17 children, not an Israeli missile as was alleged and was subject of a major outpouring of UN and media invective against the Israeli Defense Force, (IDF). Another account details that a Jihadi missile hit the Shifa Hospital killing 16 and yet another that it was a Hamas rocket that crashed into a Shati refugee camp killing 10 children. A prominent Greek Orthodox Church Archbishop, Alexios, has declared that Hamas fired rockets from his compound that was sheltering numerous Palestinians seeking refuge. There are credible reports of the death of a 160 Palestinian youths in the construction of the tunnels. Also there is the publication of detailed official Hamas documents of where the tunnels would ultimately surface and that their main objective were kindergartens were children would be killed.
So there is enough going around to feed into anyone’s belief system as to who the criminals are. But every one of these allegations needs to be tested so that the simplistic narrative, “That you killed more of our citizens so therefore you are guilty of war crimes”, can be dissected.
WHY ISRAEL NEEDS TO CHARGE THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY AT THE HAGUE
There is a reluctance by Israel to take this step. One can only assume that there have to be instances of IDF wrongdoing. It would be amazing if there were none. Israel has comprehensive data of both sides offenses, places where rockets were fired from, time lines and on and on that would prove their argument. There could also be an Israeli fear that such an action would be de facto acknowledgement that Palestine is a State, which they could be under the 1947 UN Resolution that gave Israel statehood. However, Israel is loosing the propaganda war as epitomized when the Methodist Church think they have grounds to side with Hamas because it is politically correct to do so. (Blog: ISIS, Sharia Law, Hamas Terrorism and the Methodist Church). Netanyahu has nothing to lose by taking this plunge.
The media, as a group, are not seeing it Israel’s way at all. In fact they are a crucial last bastion of Hamas support as the latter stand more and more alone in a sea of Jihadi terror. The Arab and Western nations have supported Israel. When this is viewed historically commentators will wonder why, the media almost as one, were so biased and irresponsible in their reportage. (Blog: “Soft Balling Media Need Some Hard Balls For Hamas”).
Investigations and Commissions are useless at pursuing the truth, whoever may be conducting them, as they are replete with conclusions and very thin on process and are not subject to cross examination. The UN Human Rights Committee have already set up a Goldstone 2 after Goldstone 1 backtracked on the key conclusions of his first Commission but only after the damage was already done.
Only court proceedings will allow for a full exhaustive laying out of facts and allow for an investigation of isolated instances in addition to the conduct and objectives of each of the combatants. It is Jay H. Ell’s belief that Israel has a water tight case. While they will never convince everyone, holocaust deniers are on the whole considered part of the lunatic fanatic fringe. Even if the Court somehow rules against them the facts will be there for all to see.
What is at stake here is Israel’s whole raison d’être, its whole belief system which is one of valuing life over death that is central to this dispute. Their emphasis on the rule of law and the dignity of the individual, is in the dock. Its morality while conducting this war which is a cornerstone of the ethos Israel was founded on needs to be proved or disproved. This is a war between two paradigms equal rights for all versus a fascist murderous authoritarian paternalistic way of life or more appropriately death.
In case anyone has forgotten the 1948 UN Resolution was to set up a two State solution. Hamas has one objective and one objective only and that is to create a one State Palestinian theocracy and this war was nothing but a propaganda exercise, at the expense of Palestinian and Israeli life, limb and property. Hopefully, it will weaken Hamas and free up a host of those who wish the Palestinians well and have been far from happy at Netanyahu’s efforts at solving the Palestinian “problem”. However, Netanyahu’s behavior is not an excuse for this unashamed premeditated carnage and destruction, anymore than to say a victim deserved to be savagely raped because she was wearing a low cut dress and a miniskirt, while being overly flirtatious.
MORE OF THE SAME SINCE 1948
Hamas, the aggressor and the loser, is once again refusing a ceasefire unless certain political conditions are met. This has been the pattern of Israel’s enemies since 1948 when initially it was the Arab States and now it is the Jihadis. Abba Eban in 1948, first appealed to the Security Council to sanction the aggressors who refused a ceasefire unless Israel, a sovereign state, limited its immigration. Israel had already agreed to not immediately admit 11,000 holocaust survivors that were holed up in British internment camps in Cyprus. Talk about deja vu over and over again as this scenario has been repeated and repeated over the next 65 years,.
In addition there is the appalling callous behavior Hamas has displayed towards its own Palestinian citizens. Hamas besides smashing the infrastructure provided by the Israelis that could have provided an economy for so many of its citizens have used the billions in aid to build bunkers for themselves purchase munitions and construct tunnels to invade Israel. As Dennis Ross, Clinton’s Middle East negotiator has just written in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, entitled, ”Hamas could have chosen peace but instead made Palestinians suffer”. He addressed Hamas just before Israel’s unilateral withdrawal of Gaza and told them of their unique opportunity to promote Palestinian aspirations. Hamas rejected Ross’s advice and as Israel withdrew they began bombing bus stations. Hamas then instituted attack after attack on the border crossings to Israel. This forced Israel to close them. They are now demanding, as a provision for a ceasefire, that Israel reopen them to support their narrative that the Israeli occupiers are the ones that initiated their closure in the first place ….
Yet the media lowdown is that Israel are the war criminals.
TO PREVENT HAMAS WAR CRIMINAL DENIAL ISRAEL NEED TO GO TO THE HAGUE
So Israel has to place on record, as obsessively as it was forced to document the holocaust, its right to defend itself against those, whose unashamed objective is to wipe them of the face of the earth, without they themselves being accused of genocide, being guilty of war crimes and being Nazis. In addition it needs to contrast the way it conducts warfare in defense of its survival as opposed to those who seek to obliterate its existence. In the process it needs to outline its Judea - Christian ethic. One way would be in an open court where they could place their case on record. The recording of the Holocaust has its roots in the Nuremberg trials. It all won’t be pretty but even in the Holocaust there were the collaborators and the Kapos in the death camps. The museums and the Spielbergs can follow.
With these issues settled those that want to see an equitable two state solution will be once again free to do so.
Just one point. Jay H. Ell is sick and tired from hearing from Hamas apologists that what the Israelis are experiencing is minimal. One extremely influential British TV anchor, Jon Snow, reported that Israel were subject to nothing but fireworks. Anyone who is in contact with an Israeli knows this constant bombardment, that is 30% more than the Nazi air attack on London, is totally disruptive of life, nerve racking and terrifying for life and limb. It is all very well from the comfort of a campus, news studio or a living room to pontificate, thereby feeding into the storyline that Israel’s situation is nothing compared to the Palestinian tragedy. These critics should redirect their anger at Hamas who are directly answerable for the plight of all these citizens.
ISIS DENIAL
It would be fascinating to learn of the Israeli vilifiers’s attitude towards ISIS who are merely a logical extension of the thought processes of Hamas. All ISIS is aiming to do is establish the value system of the Muslim fundamentalists. The ISIS argument would run like this to be in sync with Hamas.
“All we want is our land back that the British and the French divided up and gave to their infidel lackies. This is Muslim Sharia territory. If you want bodies we will give you bodies. Instead of stoning women for wanton glances we will put them in the way of your fire. Women children too are dispensable and those who are too ugly to marry off at three we will put in front of our rockets as we fire at the ungodly. Infidel soldiers that we capture, instead of summarily executing them they too can be put in our field hospitals that we fire from…..”
No need to worry the media and the Hamas sympathizers wouldn’t buy that garbage. Or would they?
