A Western Publication (London Review of Books) fails to reiterate the Western narrative

 The London Review of Books has an article, "War Crimes", asking if Israel might be committing war crimes in their war against Hamas in the Ghaza. The article starts with concluding that Hamas is guilty of multiple war crimes and should be prosecuted, but asks if Israel might also be guilty of war crimes, and fails to find a strong negative answer to that question, in heinous violation of the official Western narrative that Israel is entitled to self defence and there is nothing Israel can do that could possibly be considered a war crime: the Israelis have come in peace to the Philistines over and over and were always met with violence, and the Israeli response to that unprovoked violence can never be considered a crime of any kind under any circumstances.

Much of the non-Western media accuse Israel of war crimes for destroying the Ghaza. The Western media all agree that Israel has done absolutely nothing wrong: all of the Ghaza support Hamas who killed more Israelis than ever since the creation of Israel, more than anyone since the Nazis (well, not according to the Gray Zone, who say the Israeli Occupation Forces, not Hamas, killed many of those killed on 7 October, but the Gray Zone are mostly ignored, or, if not ignored, disparaged as liars by the Western Media).

The Russians taped and broadcast repeatedly the EU official saying that no Russian media will be allowed in the EU. The West will never allow any non-Western news to be broadcast in the West. Russia were banned in February, 2022. But then in December, 2022, the PRC news, PressTV news, and Al Jazeera were also banned, since none are Western. Only Western news may be seen anywhere in the West, they have every other news blocked.

If one somehow has access to Western and non-Western news, one gets two contradictory versions of what really happened, and since both might be lying, one has no way of knowing for certain what the truth is anymore: Is Israel guilty of war crimes, as the non-Western media say, or only Hamas, as all the Western media reiterate? Is Israel responsible for the many deaths of civilian women and children in the Ghaza, or is it all Hamas who won't let them leave, or is it Egypt who won't let them leave? And will Israel allow any food or water into the Ghaza, or will they starve the citizens there?

I guess we'll see when the truce ends. 

London Review of Books fails to stick with the Western narrative

 Seymour Hersh was a prize winning senior journalist at the New York Times and New Yorker. Until he wrote a factual but critical article about President Obama's destruction of Libya, whereupon he was fired by both and unable to get anything published in the US.

Then he managed to get an article or two published in the London Review of Books. But then the UK government ordered them to stop, and stop they did.

So I was surprised to find the article "On Non-Violent Resistance" which includes:

At the heart of this intractable tragedy is the inability of a colonial and occupying power (and its enablers) to accept a people’s rejection of their subjugation and their determination to fight against it. Whatever form this resistance has taken – and it includes a long history of non-violence and civil disobedience as well as armed struggle – Israel has responded with a disproportionate use of force and disregard for the human toll.

This is strictly banned in the Official Western Narrative, which is that the Israelis came in peace but were met with violence by the Philistines. Again and again, the narrative goes, the Israelis offered peace but again and again the Philistines responded with violence. Somehow, the London Review of Books managed to stick in the opposite narrative, which is mostly banned: the Israelis came with massive force that the Philistines could not resist, so they mostly tried non-violent ways to resist and were killed for trying. And the Western narrative is that Israel has the right to self-defence, which includes killing or imprisoning without trial any non-violent Philistine protestors they wish.
 

US/Israel Plans for Ghaza

 It seems that many years ago, the US and Israel decided to relocate all the Philistines in Ghaza to other countries. One teeny problem: they couldn't find any countries willing to take them. The US and Israel are now pressuring Egypt to take them, but Sisi keeps refusing.

The ceasefire seems likely to last one more day, then the carpet bombing will probably resume. So far, the Ghaza count is more than 14,000 dead civilians, mostly women and children. Pro-Israel sites say one cannot trust the Ghazans, they lie, all those killed were proven terrorists. Maybe a very small number of civilians killed, but nowhere near 14,000. The UN observers also figure the 14,000 is wrong, it's far too low. The bombing left many missing under the rubble and not counted, so the real number is probably higher.

When the bombing resumes, the US and Israel will blame Sisi for all the Ghaza civilian deaths since he did not let all the women and children go to Egypt. Israel remain totally innocent, Israel are just practicing self defence, totally necessary and justified. And this will be the only version on the Western news.

The Philistines being released are all convicted terrorists on the Western news, even though most were uncharged, let alone convicted, and many were arrested as small children.

I heard them say on US news that 'The terrorists burned many Israelis to death on 7 October.' Only the Grayzone say that it was the Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) shooting Hellfire missiles that burned the Israelis to death to prevent their being taken hostage: the Israeli Hannibal Policy is to kill captive Israelis and their captors to prevent their being taken hostage.

Two more days of 'ceasefire'

Reports are that the Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) are still shooting a few Ghazans, but no carpet bombing. Saudi and the UAE put up field hospitals. Some food and fuel is being allowed into Southern Ghaza, after weeks when almost all was blocked: two trucks of food per day to feed more than 2 million people, but now hundreds of trucks are getting in. For two more days. Then Israel promise to resume carpet bombing and doing their best to empty the Ghaza of Philistines.

Some ask if Türkiye will continue to let Israel exterminate all the Philistines in Ghaza, but Türkiye have done nothing but riot in favour of the Philistines. The Türkiye military could fight the Israel military, but have never done so; none of the Arab militaries could do any damage to the Israeli military, though they've tried a few times, but they all seem to have learned better.

Israel want all of Ghaza, and plan a massive canal from Aqaba to Ghaza that will dominate the Suez and allow Indian  exports to make it easily to Europe and compete with the PRC. Probably a new, Israeli name for what used to be Ghaza.

And blame the deaths of the women, children, and elderly men in Ghaza on the Arab countries that refuse to accept all of them, never blame Israel for anything if you're the Western media.

Ceasefire, so now what?

 Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire starting Friday, 24 November 2023. Some food and fuel and gas is getting in, and the UAE is setting  up a field hospital since most of the existing hospitals, declared as faux hospitals that were really Hamas military bases by Israel and the US, have been destroyed. Not clear if the ceasefire will last past Tuesday, or how much food and water and fuel will be allowed.

Western news say that all reports of Palestinian civilian casualties are from Hamas and not to be trusted, probably almost all deaths were Hamas terrorists.

Pictures never seen on Western media show lots of dead Palestinian babies, probably more total than the Palestinian authority reported, but one cannot see those pictures in the Western media.

There was very little food in Ghaza on Thursday, 23 November, Thanksgiving in the US, but no turkey for the Ghazans.

And not clear if food or water or fuel will be allowed into Ghaza after 27 November.

No one seems willing to help the Ghazans and incur the wrath of Israel and the US, and Israel want Ghaza cleansed of all Palestinians ASAP.

Undoing the Belt

 Once upon a time, there was a Silk Road. Every silkworm was in China, and the rest of Eurasia wanted silk, so traders travelled to China and brought silk to the rest of Eurasia. Then China went isolationist: if it was made in China, it should only be sold in China to Chinese, and Chinese must only buy Made-in-China products. China has gone from internationalist to isolationist to internationalist many times in the 5,000 or so years of recorded Chinese history.

Now the PRC wants to rebuild the old Silk Road in what they call the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). And the US will do anything to stop them.

Hence the Ghaza: a huge canal from Aqaba to Ghaza that will overshadow the Suez, with the Ghaza as a major port (Gaza is a mistransliteration of the Arabic). This will be part of a new India-based trading partnership that (the US and India hope) will surpass the BRI.

But first, the Ghaza must be cleansed of all Philistines (David would have approved).

Thanksgiving

 Last Thursday, 23 November, was Thanksgiving in the US.

When I was married, every Thanksgiving I had Roast Turkey with my wife.

After she divorced me, every Thanksgiving I have Wild Turkey all alone.

In 1997, my father, who was suffering from dementia, told me to quit my job in West Virginia and move back to Texas.

'How can I move back to Texas? What would I live on?'

My father couldn't remember why it was important for me to move back to Texas, he just knew it was very important. I figured it was the dementia talking. Silly me. So I stayed in West Virginia.

Then my wife filed for divorce and I was sentenced to pay 125% of my income or go to gaol for Life without Parole. My wife told the judge she had a VVIP boyfriend, I was insanely jealous and a member of the National Rifle Association, and with my computer skills I would soon find out her boyfriend's name and would kill him. Since the Clinton Law makes Divorce Court a criminal court, not a civil court, the West Virginia Judge's order that I must pay my wife 125% of my total income made me a felon, since I could not pay the full amount.

Before, Divorce Court was a civil court where, if you were outside the state where you owe money on a civil case, the court cannot collect. But criminal court can collect, and Clinton proposed, and the Congress agreed, that Divorce Court should be a Criminal Court with far more power to gaol divorced men until they have paid every penny the Divorce Judge orders them to pay, and if jealous husbands are gaoled, their wives' boyfriends will be safe.

After the West Virginia Judge sentenced to to Life without Parole, I managed to get out of the US where US Law cannot easily grab me as it would have done had I remained in the US. My wife got the house, all the money I had in the bank, the car, and it was not nearly enough, I owed a lot more and was a heinous felon for not paying my ex all the judge ordered, which was 200% of my assets and income.

So for Thanksgiving, I had Wild Turkey, not roast turkey with my ex nor turkey hash at the West Virginia Prison for Divorced Men.

Comment on "New York Times on Hamas"

 I noted that the New York Times say that, ever since the UN General Assembly voted to give the surviving Jews in Western Europe a sliver of land in the soon-to-be-decolonised British Palestine back in 1948, the Jews responded by offering peace to the Philistines who invariably responded to that offer with violence. This same message appears, by law, throughout the Western press. One can be arrested in many Western countries for waving the Philistine flag. 

It is not altogether clear from where this message was dredged, or how this message continues to fill all the Western media, print and broadcast. The Books of Samuel make it clear that the Israelis, upon entering Philistine, began killing off the native Philistines. The Book of I Samuel 18:7 denigrates Saul for only killing off thousands of Philistines while his successor David killed off tens of thousands, and now the Israelis are killing off more than 10,000 Philistines a month and are hoping to manage to reduce the Philistine population of Gaza to zero ASAP.

I understand the US and India want a major canal from Aqaba to Ghaza to enable goods from India to make it more easily to Europe in order to compete with the PRC, and Ghaza will be developed into a major shipping hub (Gaza is a mistransliteration of the Arabic.) Then the US hope to put pressure on India to stop buying Russian energy, since India is a major customer and has the Russian economy doing better then when Russia were selling all their energy to Europe at below-market price in a futile attempt to try to buy Europe's friendship. 

 Getting the Indian economy inextricably tied to the European and American economies and severed from Russia will, the US hope, choke the Russian economy enough that Russia will no longer be able to support their current military, now ranked by some as #1 in the world. Without any trade with India, the Russian military should drop several notches, and the Ukraine, with massive inputs of Western weapons, will be able to expel the Russians from the Donbass and Crimea. (Fat chance, but the US keep hoping.)

New York Times on Hamas, October 2023 onward:

 The official Western perspective was provided by the New York Times on 21 November 2023: after WWII, the UN ordered that a tiny bit of Arabia should be given to the survivors of the Holocaust in Western Europe. The Israelis, according to the New York Times, again and again offered to live in peace with the Philistines, and again and again the Philistines responded just as they did in the Book of Kings, with unprovoked violence against the Israelis.

Israel in the News

Watching the non-Western news, people see Israeli atrocities, dead Palestinian babies, homes destroyed with the families dead underneath the rubble, people with horrible injuries from the airstrikes, tank shelling, Israeli soldiers invading hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, and refugee camps. Hard to believe the Israelis are the 'good guys'.

Watching the Western news, one sees dead, burned Israeli babies (fake pictures according to The Gray Zone). Dead, dismembered Israeli babies (also fake according to The Gray Zone). One never sees a dead Philistine baby, a destroyed Philistine home with the innocent civilians killed under the rubble. One sees the homes of terrorists taken out by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), one sees faux hospitals that are really Hamas military bases, so no babies, no patients, no medical personnel inside, just Hamas militants who were hatching plots to kill Israelis before the IOF managed to take them all out.

Newscasters working for news stations in Russia or Al Jazeera or other Global South countries wonder how Westerners can see the news without being horrified at what Israel are doing, but on Western stations, Israel are only defending themselves against brutal terrorists whose only goal is to murder every Jew everywhere in the world, but, so far, they have only had limited success on 7 October 2023. Since then, the terrorists have been almost totally unsuccessful: Israel has killed thousands of Hamas terrorists including hundreds of senior Hamas commanders while losing fewer than 60 IOF troops. The Western media admit that Israel have accidentally killed a very few Philistine civilians, but almost everyone killed by Israel has been a hardened terrorist, and those innocents accidentally killed were all being used by Hamas as involuntary human shields.

So how could anyone sympathise with the Philistine terrorists against the innocent Israeli civilians they have been murdering? A question no Western station can answer, a question that has no answer in the West.

The IOF murdering babies in hospitals? The Western news assure us this is all terrorist propaganda, the US government have verified beyond any possible doubt that there are no schools, no hospitals, no mosques nor churches nor refugee camps anywhere in Gaza, all are proven Hamas military bases from which the terrorists would have streamed out and murdered thousands of Israeli civilians had the IOF not taken prompt, decisive action to stop them.

See? The IOF found no doctors, no patients, not one baby anywhere in the so-called al-Shifa 'hospital,' only terrorists and their huge stockpile of weapons with which to attack Israeli civilians. No one watching the Western news could possibly believe that al-Shifa was really a hospital when all the evidence proves it was no such thing. Not one baby was found in al-Shifa, so don't watch non-Western media, and if you see the dead babies taken from their incubators by the IOF, know this is all fake, there was not even one baby in al-Shifa when it was liberated by the IOF. And the so-called hospital had no incubators until the IOF brought one, just in case there really were some babies that needed an incubator.

Please don't read The Gray Zone. For one thing, reading it is illegal in the West; for another, it would only confuse those whose entire understanding of the War in Gaza is based on Western news.

Support for Palestine/Israel???

One poll, widely promoted by alternative news, shows only 30% of Americans support Israel. Like most other attempts at 'facts', other polls show most Americans support Israel. Judging by comments on Arcamax, a huge majority support Israel, all have heard how Israel gave the Palestinians in Gaza fertile farms, greenhouses, wells, homes, etc., etc., but the Palestinians destroyed everything touched by a Jewish hand, leaving themselves with no way to produce food, hence 50% of all Gazans are now malnourished, and all their own fault.

That Israel cut off water and fishing and shoots farmers trying to grow crops is well documented but must never be mentioned. It's all the fault of the Palestinians in Gaza.

Then, after destroying their own livelihood, the Palestinians in Gaza viciously murdered 1,400 innocent Israeli civilians and say they'll keep doing it.

If one reads The Grayzone, many of the Israelis killed were in the Israeli Occupation Force (IOF), in a fort that had no guards and the gates unlocked, so not exactly civilians. And a lot of the civilians were killed by the IOF to prevent their being taken hostage. But few read The Grayzone, and of those few, not all believe what they read there.

So what can Israel do except remove every Palestinian from the Gaza? The Israelis are willing to let the Palestinians in Gaza who can prove they are not in Hamas go to Egypt; however, Egypt have only accepted those who have passports, so they would just be briefly passing through Egypt on their way to whatever other country passport they hold, and very sick or badly injured Palestinians only accepted for treatment then return to Gaza.

If Egypt refuse to admit them, Israel feel the only way they can be safe from brutal, unprovoked attacks is to exterminate all the Palestinians in Gaza. The choice is up to Egypt and maybe other Arab states who would agree to accept all those Palestinians in Gaza who can prove they are not part of Hamas.

And a lot of Americans figure this is the only way Israel can be safe, and strongly support Israel. If Palestinian women and children have to die to keep Israel safe, that is entirely the fault of the Palestinians, the Israelis are blameless, only protecting themselves from future brutal, unprovoked attacks.

Of course, a lot of American denounce killing Palestinian civilians, women and children, as genocide.

But we have no idea what the actual numbers are.

Narratives on Gaza

Before, as an effectively monolingual English speaker, I got my information from the standard English-language sources: the US was bringing peace, freedom, democracy, and prosperity to the Axis, Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and the Ukraine, and are now working to help Israel prevent genocide of all the Jews in Israel, and maybe the entire world.

Hamas, we have been told, are determined to exterminate every last Jews, they are Antisemitic monsters, worse than Hitler, and they must be stopped. All of Gaza strongly support Hamas, all want to exterminate every last Jew, and if they do not agree to stop when politely asked, what choice do Israel have? If Israel (with Western support, of course) don't stop them they will continue until every last Jew is dead.

As Steve Malzberg says, in 2005, Israel left Gaza with massive infrastructure. Had they used it, Gaza would now be a very prosperous portion of Israel, but instead, because of their hatred for every thing Jewish, Hamas destroyed the farms, greenhouses, wells, and everything the Jews left them that had made Gaza a rich, prosperous Jewish settlement.

But today there are alternative narratives. So which narrative is the most plausible? One can see that Israel built a wall around Gaza, and allows in just enough food to keep most of those inside alive, although half are malnourished. Is that all the fault of Hamas and the Palestinians in Gaza, or is that because, for many years, Israel limited what could go into Gaza (to prevent terrorist attacks: apparently, food can be used for terrorist attacks)?

Israel kept three battalions of Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) guarding those walls, three battalions that were absent on 7 October (Why???). Israel limited fishing and farming. Israel say that was because Hamas used everything they could lay their hands on to build terrorist weapons to attack Israel. So all those in Gaza were confined with inadequate food, housing, water,  medicine, etc., etc. Whose fault is that? Again, Israel say it's all the fault of Hamas and the Palestinians in the Gaza, but that other narrative is that Gaza was a concentration camp, and given the documented deprivations, saying 'concentration camp' must only be used for Nazi concentration camps seems a bit disingenuous.

So, given that Israel were keeping more than 2 million Gazans in a concentration camp, given that Israel has thousands of Palestinian prisoners who have never been charged with any crime, did Hamas try to kidnap thousands of Israelis as a way to protest the appalling living conditions Israel forced on them? Or did they just murder 1,200 and  kidnap another 240 because they are Antisemites who hate every Jew?

Israel and all he Western media  report that Hamas brutally murdered those 1,200, beheading babies, killing about 80% of the Israelis they saw, including many babies, and kidnapping about 20%.

The Grayzone report that the IOF were responsible for most of those 1,200 Israelis killed during the raid, which was just a kidnapping raid. That the reports of babies brutally murdered by beheading and being burned to death are just lies by an Israeli disinformation agent. That Israel show absolutely no desire to rescue any hostages but want to kill them all so Hamas cannot hold them hostage, then hold Hamas entirely responsible for their deaths, since, had Hamas not kidnapped them, Israel would never have killed them so they could not be used to pressure Israel.

The two narratives then continue with the Israeli raid into Gaza. The Western/Israeli narrative is that they have found massive Hamas armaments that were about to be used to kill Israelis, but Hamas were stopped just in the nick of time. Hamas have lost more than 5,000 terrorists, including many top leaders, while the IOF have lost fewer than a dozen troops and few, if any, innocent civilians have been killed by the IOF.

The other narrative is that Hamas have lost few, if any, troops, the Israelis are only murdering civilians while Hamas are deep in bunkers, popping up to shoot anti-tank weapons and popping back down and disappearing from the range of Israeli weapons, so Hamas have lost very few of their members while the IOF have lost hundreds of troops and many tanks.

So what to believe?

Most Americans (that I've read posting on Social Media) agree that Hamas are anti-Semitic terrorists who would murder every last Jew in the world if they could, while Israel is doing all they can to minimise civilian casualties. They read that Israel are sending food, medicine, and everything the Palestinians in Gaza need to stay alive.

But if one reads the alternative narrative, or what people in the Global South post on Social Media, Israel is allowing less food, per capita, than the Nazis gave their concentration camp prisoners. Yes, the Israelis filmed some soldiers carrying an incubator into a hospital, but the hospital has been cut off from all electricity, so it's not clear how the hospital can possibly use the incubator, or how a single incubator is enough for dozens of premature babies.

So you pays your money and you takes your choice of narratives.

Wikipedia and Concentration Camps

 The Wikipedia article on Concentration Camps notes that the term ‘Concentration Camp’ was first used by the UK to describe facilities in South Africa during the Boer Wars. Since no enemy army ever overran and liberated any of those British South African Concentration Camps, we have only rumours and one photograph of an emaciated woman, with the claim that the UK military went from Boer farmhouse to Boer farmhouse and, if the farmer were not home, he was assumed to be fighting against the British, so they put his family in a Concentration Camp where they would not be fed until the farmer surrendered. But no solid proof that this is true.

The term was also used by the Americans who said they confined Japanese in ‘Concentration Camps’ during WWII.

Wikipedia say that many now agree that the term ‘Concentration Camp’ should only refer to Nazi Concentration Camps, the British and American facilities must be referred to as ‘internment camps’.

Again, there are rumours the British Concentration Camps were as bad as the Nazi Concentration Camps, and one former inmate told me about an American Concentration Camp where he said that the guards were ordered to starve the prisoners but they refused to ‘chust follow orders’ and, against all orders, let the prisoners farm and grow enough food to feed themselves when the guards had been ordered to keep the prisoners confined to their cells 24/7 and feed them only the government provided food that was enough for about 500 or so calories per person per day. I have only the former inmate’s testimony that he had plenty to eat in the Concentration Camp only because the guards violated their orders and made sure the prisoners grew plenty of food for themselves when the guards had been ordered not to allow this.

But only the Nazi Concentration Camps were liberated by armies that hated the Nazis and who then revealed all the horrors the Nazi guards had been ordered to conceal. So we have no idea what the worst of the British or American Concentration Camps were really like, we only have unverifiable rumours.

The Nazis did feed their prisoners, not enough, so they slowly starved to death. Then, as they starved, their immune systems failed, they contracted serious infections and spread those infections to the guards, so the Nazis ordered that any prisoner too weak to work or who looked sick was to be killed and then cremated. This tended to include women and children who could not perform heavy manual labour and who were immediately murdered and cremated. And we have solid proof of the Nazi crimes, but only because their enemies liberated their Concentration Camps and publicised those crimes.

Which brings us to Gaza. First, the Israelis banned all food. Then they agreed to allow about 5 trucks a day, less than what the Nazis fed their prisoners. ‘The Nazis starved their prisoners, but the Israelites are letting plenty of food into Gaza, so it is not at all the same, it is totally wrong to call it a Concentration Camp,’ say people like Steve Malzberg, which Wikipedia sort of insists is correct: Wikipedia say that the term Concentration Camp should only be applied to Nazi Concentration Camps with huge gas chambers for mass executions and mass crematoria to dispose of all the corpses.

Wikipedia say, “Don’t call the British or American or Israeli Concentration Camps ‘Concentration Camps’, call them ‘internment camps’.”

I heard Malzberg say, ‘The Palestinians in Gaza are not confined by the Israelis, they are free to leave, they are only stopped by Hamas, so one cannot even call Gaza an Israeli internment camp since the people are all free to come and go, it is only Hamas, not Israel, who are keeping them in Gaza.’

Sounds good, only it’s completely false. Israel only allows those who can prove they are not Hamas to exit into Egypt, but Egypt will only accept Palestinians with other passports to transit to that other country, and very sick Palestinians to come to Egypt for treatment. Egypt do not want two million Palestinians coming to Egypt. And Israel do not want two million Palestinians living in Gaza.

Israel are killing about 10,000 Gaza Palestinians a month, all of them Hamas terrorists, even the women and new-born babies. Israel assure us they have not killed a single civilian, all those killed were supporting the Hamas terrorists. Hamas call their bases ‘hospitals’ but Israel reveal the truth, they are military bases, not hospitals, so Israel have not bombed a single hospital, nor a mosque, nor a school, nor a church, all were Hamas military bases and legitimate targets. In fact, all of Gaza is a Hamas military base and so a legitimate target, and Israel will probably continue to kill at least 10,000 of those ‘Hamas terrorists’, most of them women and small children, every month until the Gaza is completely cleansed of all terrorists.

So Gaza is not a concentration camp, and Israel are not committing any war crimes, Israel are just making the world a better, safer place for everyone by tracking down and neutralising terrorists.

Concentration Camps

I was watching a program with a debate over what the heck is a 'Concentration Camp'? It seems some Congresswoman had said that some undocumented aliens coming into the US over the southern border were being put in concentration camps. Stephen D. Malzberg derided her, saying 'Concentration Camps', by definition, must have gas chambers and crematoria, and that did not apply to the places she was calling 'Concentration Camps'. Malzberg has no knowledge of history.

First, a German confined in what was called a 'Concentration Camp' in Germany in the 1930s described it as a minimum security prison (and his description is misused by Holocaust Deniers). The German Concentration Camps did not become Death Camps until the 1940s, mostly after 1941, but they were still called Concentration Camps when they were used as minimum security prisons for German Aryan prisoners.

Second, when the US declared that the Japanese who had been born in the US (and their parents who came from Japan years ago) were not Japanese-Americans but Japanese enemy agents to be confined for the duration of the war, and maybe longer, the name of the confinement facilities was 'Concentration Camps,' and these camps still exist, and some are now being used to confine some of the undocumented persons crossing the southern US border.

Malzberg has a popular show on Newsmax, and he makes things very simple for his audience, simple, popular, and historically incorrect.

Since those confinement facilities for Japanese de-Americanised Americans were called Concentration Camps during WWII, and are still listed as Concentration Camps in the history books and still retain the name on the Federal description, I think it is not outrageous or even wrong to call them Concentration Camps.

Which leads to the charge that the Gaza is a Concentration Camp, something Malzberg strongly denies. About 50% of those confined in Gaza are malnourished. Gaza has no gas chambers, no crematoria (the religions inside Gaza mostly insist on burials), but the US examples and the German examples from the 1930s show that one can have a Concentration Camp with neither gas chambers nor crematoria. Gaza isn't that minimum security a prison, and there is mass malnutrition, so it can be compared to the American Concentration Camps and to the German Concentration Camps before 1941 (after 1941, German Concentration Camps became Death Camps, where prisoners were starved and forced to do hard labour until they could no longer work, then gassed and cremated; Gaza wasn't that bad until October of 2023, with inmates now being executed in mass, but Malzberg would say bombing and shooting and dropping gas from aeroplanes isn't the same as the Nazi gas chambers, and the dead are not being cremated in mass crematoria, so no comparison, definitely not a Concentration Camp).

We know all about the Nazi Concentration/Death Camps because they were liberated, first some of the Eastern-most Concentration Camps were liberated by the Red Army of the USSR, and then some of the more Westerly Camps were liberated by the Western Army of the US and UK (and a few Free French troops). So we know all about the horrors.

We don't know much about the US Concentration Camps since they were never liberated by an enemy Army that publicised their crimes. I spoke to an inmate who told me the guards were told to keep the prisoners confined to their cells, and they had enough food to feed the inmates an adequate diet for about three months that was to last a year. The US guards at his Concentration Camp, not good at 'just following orders', took up a collection from among themselves (the Japanese-American prisoners had all their money confiscated before being confined), bought seeds and eggs and agricultural equipment, and had the prisoners farm the Concentration Camp grounds. They ran through the food that was supposed to last a year in three months, but by that time the first crops and chickens were available, and, being good farmers, the Japanese-American prisoners managed to feed themselves.

I know what happened at that one American Concentration Camp because a survivor told me, but he did not know what happened at any of the other Concentration Camps, and, again, no enemy army liberated any of the Camps, so we don't have any verified horror stories. Only the one example where the guards begged the prisoners not to tell anyone that they were allowed to farm and feed themselves since that had been strictly prohibited. (I learned this 40 years after the Camps were closed from a man who had been a young Japanese-American boy confined in an American Concentration Camp during WWII.)

Is there such a thing as the truth about 7 October and what is happening in Gaza since 7 October???

The Western establishment, main-stream media (MSM) assure us that Israel are winning the war against Hamas, that Israel have killed many, many Hamas militants and senior commanders while losing almost no members of the Israeli Occupation Force (IOF). I saw on Fox News Israeli soldiers leading and protecting civilians as they were being moved from the combat zone in the north of Gaza to the safe, peaceful south of Gaza, so the IOF have minimised civilian casualties, with only minimal collateral damage as they destroy the Hamas militants who murdered more than 1,400 Israelis on 7 October.

But I have also seen the analyses by The Grayzone and Alastair Crooke.

The Grayzone have an article: “October 7 testimonies reveal Israel’s military ‘shelling’ Israeli citizens with tanks, missiles.” This says that many of the 1,400 Israelis killed on October were killed by the Israeli Occupation Force (IOF), which have a policy of not allowing any Israeli to be taken hostage: if necessary to prevent Israelis from being taken hostage, kill everyone, both the militants trying to take Israelis hostage and the hostages. They have another article, “Source of dubious ‘beheaded babies’ claim is Israeli settler leader who incited riots to ‘wipe out’ Palestinian village,” which says the claim that Hamas beheaded many babies is unproven and almost certainly false.

Alastair Crooke has a video, “Israel vs Gaza: The elephant in the room,” which says that the IOF have actually killed many civilians but few, if any, Hamas militants, and have suffered far worse losses than Israel admit or the Western MSM report.

So who are more likely to have an accurate report of what is happening in Gaza after 7 October and what happened on 7 October, the MSM or The Grayzone and Alastair Crooke?

Israel War in the News

The basic history is that the Ottomans lost WWI, and the UK and France split up the Ottoman Empire in Asia as colonies, with the British Mandate saying all of Palestine and Transjordan were for UK Jews. Hitler wanted to deport German Jews, not kill them, but the UK said that Palestine was only for UK Jews, not for European Jews, leaving Hitler to The Final Solution.

But the British Jews were only about 30% of the population before WWII. They didn't live peacefully, they kept trying to kill the British colonial officers and liberate Palestine. The Jews figured dealing with the Palestinians was for after they had full control.

After WWII, the US shipped all the Western European Jews to Palestine in 1948, and got the UN to vote to create Israel. The Western European Jews went to war with the Palestinians, Egyptians, Jordanians, and others, and the UN voted to divide things along the front lines of the battle on the date of the vote. Jordan got the West Bank and Egypt got Gaza. And everyone managed to live with that.

When Egypt claimed the Suez Canal, Eisenhower was president. Israel, the UK, and France were joining forces to return the Suez to UK/Israeli control, but Eisenhower said it belonged to Egypt, and that was that.

Peace continued until 1967 when Israel attacked the Egyptian and Jordanian forces before announcing war, and managed first, to destroy the Egyptian and Jordanian Air Forces completely, then with complete air domination, easily defeated Jordan, Syria, and Egypt and took over the West Bank and Gaza and the Golan Heights and a bit of Southern Lebanon as part of Israel.

Israel gave citizenship to about 2 million Palestinians, and said all other Palestinians are illegal aliens with no rights, and all must leave.

Israel 'mows the lawn' from time to time, bombing and killing Palestinians to teach them never to think about challenging Israel's right to all of Israel. They can be imprisoned without charges, other than being in Israel illegally (sort of). They can be shot for no particular reason, and nothing happens to the Israeli police or settler who shoots them.

Those 2 million Palestinian citizens mean it is not Apartheid, since Apartheid meant that no one with even one drop of non-European blood could ever be a citizen of South Africa.

But then, on 7 October 2023, Hamas managed to blow up part of the wall surrounding Gaza and thousands of Hamas soldiers attacked Israel.

There were usually three battalions of Israeli soldiers guarding Gaza, but all were withdrawn for a Jewish Festival.

What, exactly, happened, no one has a clue. Israel say they have many photographs proving Hamas beheaded many Israeli babies, and cooked many in the oven and made their parents listen to them scream as they died. But we must take Israel's word for this, they say the proof is too gruesome to let anyone see any of it. Hamas say they attacked and mostly killed Israeli soldiers caught sleeping in unguarded and unlocked military fortresses, but in shooting, they accidentally killed some civilians, including a few babies, but mostly they killed soldiers and people who were shooting at them.

The Western news say that Israeli statement is irrefutable proof that Hamas beheaded and roasted as many babies as they could find, raped all the women they could catch, then took 240 hostages and murdered every other Israeli they could find. Plus, Hamas fired a lot of rockets, more than Iron Dome could handle, and it is fairly certain that about 1,400 Israelis died in the Hamas attack and about 240 were taken hostage.

Israel say the shelling on Gaza will be non-stop until all hostages are released, but it is not so easy to release hostages while being shelled (but somehow, Hamas managed to release two hostages).

Reliable witnesses say that mosques, schools, hospitals, churches, and ambulances have been bombed.

The Western media say that all were bombed by Hamas, or were not really schools, hospitals, churches, or ambulances, they were Hamas headquarters, so Israel has behaved perfectly, they have done absolutely nothing that could possibly be considered a violation of the Laws of War.

But that's the Western media.

The non-Western media mostly say that Hamas may have committed a war crime on 7 October, but that they were provoked by Israel and one must understand they had no other way to address the way Israel could keep killing Palestinians without ever risking a single Israeli life.

But since October 7, Israel have been bombing schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, and ambulances in Gaza, and these are all war crimes according to the non-Western media.

There is absolutely no agreement on whether the Western Media is the unvarnished TRVTH and the non-Western media a pack of lies, or the opposite.

British Mandate for British Jews: 1973, Yom Kippur, Ramadan

 From 1967, Israel included everything from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, plus the Sinai, plus part of Syria and Lebanon. The USSR were on the side of the Arabs. The US were on the side of Israel. The USSR secretly provided Egypt with anti-aircraft batteries and Syria gave the USSR Mediterranean Naval Bases. 

On Yom Kippur in the Christian year 1973, during Ramadan, Sadat, the president of Egypt, ordered the Egyptian army to break their Ramadan fast early and attack Israel. This was totally unexpected by Israel who figured the Arabs were all fasting for Ramadan and were not allowed to engage in war, and Israelis were observing Yom Kippur, a time when the Israeli military are not ready to fight.

Israel sent their warplanes, expecting to quickly destroy the Egyptians as they had in 1967. Some of their air force were shot down, the rest fled back to Israel. Egypt got back the Sinai, Syria got back the Golan Heights.

But Sadat was leading the Egyptian Army and left the anti-aircraft battery unprotected. An Israeli force managed to capture and destroy the anti-aircraft battery, Israel again had full dominance of the air, and quickly recaptured the Sinai, the Golan Heights, and was moving toward Damascus and Cairo. The USSR looked like they were going to intervene, but Nixon was in a bad crisis, hiding in his office, and Kissinger was running the US government. Kissinger put the US on DEFCON 1: ready for nuclear war. The USSR backed down. Israel again had everything from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea plus the Egyptian Sinai plus the Syrian Golan Heights.

Eventually, Egypt and Jordan signed peace treaties with Israel and got US aid. Egypt reduced ties with the USSR and the US saw to it that Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula. So someone shot Sadat.

Now Israel have absolute control over everything from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, under the total protection of the US, and that is also backed by NATO nations: Germany has made it illegal to wave the Palestinian flag and arrested people for so doing. All US and NATO and EU news channels strongly support Israel.

1948 - 1967

The UN offered the British Mandate to the Palestinians in 1948: agree to Jewish domination or get out. 

Only the West Bank and Gaza were left to Palestinians, everything else was under Jewish domination and those Palestinians who could not accept that were told to leave. They were also told the lie that, as civilians, they must leave to stay safe while the Arab Armies freed Palestine and returned it to Muslim control. So they left, and most have never been allowed to return to the homes they left in 1948. Many are still in refugee camps in places like Syria and Lebanon and Jordan with the key to their homes in Israel hanging on the wall of their refugee accomodations.

Of course, Israel hated giving the Palestinians the West Bank that includes the Temple Mount. Also the spot from which Mohammed is said to have ascended to heaven and where one can still see his footprint. So a bit of a problem.

But in 1967, Israel bombed the air forces of neighbouring countries, saying they feared an attack. Then they attacked with total control of the air, and with that total control they easily defeated the Arab Armies, and declared all of Israel, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea to be Jewish, with 2 million Arabs accepted as citizens and all other Arabs expected to leave, but they had nowhere to go.

Since 1967, Israel have made life as unpleasant as possible for all those Arabs not accepted as citizens in the hope they would leave, only no one would take them. Arab countries said, 'Don't come here. Fight for Palestine!' 

Kind of like what happened to the Jews in Germany from 1933 to 1937. 

A lot like what happened to the Jews in Germany from 1933 to 1937. 

Only we hadn't quite had a Kristallnacht--the night when Germany said it was no longer illegal for a German to kill a Jew--for the Palestinians. At least in 1967.