Shadow World

Writer @andrewfeinstein will be showing @ShadowWorldFilm in Leeds on Monday 27/3 at 5pm followed by a Q&A

'World-Ending Maneuvers? Inside the Nuclear-Weapons Lobby Today' @WilliamHartung & Hekmat Aboukhater tomdispatch.com/world-ending-m…

I just signed the petition calling on Chancellor @RachelReevesMP not to scrap the Winter Fuel Allowance for MILLIONS of struggling pensioners - just as energy bills are about to go up again! Will you add your name too? 38d.gs/pt4l

Another reason for the West’s uncritical support of Israel in Gaza, Saudi/UAE in Yemen & Ukraine. Never forget that these defence companies are amongst the biggest contributors to political parties, & ex-politicians/generals make millions from them once they leave office

US to provide Ukraine with up to $250m in arms and equipment theguardian.com/us-news/2023/d…

If anyone knows what apartheid looks like it is the people of South Africa. Very impressive.

Israel routinely used one of its biggest and most destructive bombs in areas it designated as safe for civilians in Gaza during the first six weeks of the war, a visual analysis by The New York Times found. See the full visual investigation here. nyti.ms/47gUOgF

Two years ago today the world lost the extraordinary Archbishop Desmond Tutu: How we could do with him today, speaking truth to power

Repulsive monsters.

Jewish community leaders have said that President Ramaphosa has reassured them that Pretoria does not intend severing diplomatic ties with Israel.  Adverts on/off? You choose. In a meeting with the community leaders, Ramaphosa also denounced anti-Semitic behaviour towards Jewish people in South Africa — “including the boycott of Jewish-owned businesses” — as well as Islamophobia. He also condemned Hamas for its attack on Israel on 7 October and demanded it return the Israeli hostages it took in that attack and is still holding. Leaders of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) and SA Zionist Federation (SAZF) said after meeting Ramaphosa on Wednesday that he “re-iterated Dirco’s public position that there was no intention to sever diplomatic ties between Israel and South Africa.” This position appeared to contradict the ANC support of a resolution passed in Parliament last month calling on Pretoria to sever relations with Israel because of its bombardment of Gaza. The government had indicated already that it regarded this resolution as purely advisory and was not obliged to implement it. But the SAJBD’s statement was the clearest sign that it does not intend doing so.

Israel’s attack on Gaza provokes revulsion from so many because it seems impossible to rationalise it. It feels like a reversion. It lays bare something primitive and ugly about the West’s behaviour that has been obscured for more than 70 years by a veneer of “progress”, by talk about the primacy of human rights, by the development of international institutions, by the rules of war, by claims of humanitarianism. Yes, these claims were invariably bogus. Vietnam, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Ukraine were all sold based on lies. The true goal of the US, and its Nato sidekicks, was plundering the resources of others, maintaining Washington as the global top dog, and enriching a western elite. But importantly, the deception was sustained by an overarching narrative that dragged along many westerners in its wake. Wars were to counter the threat of Soviet communism, or Islamic "terror", or a renewed Russian imperialism. And as a positive corollary, these wars claimed to be liberating oppressed women, protecting human rights, and fostering democracy. None of that narrative overlay works this time. There is nothing humanitarian about bombing trapped civilians in Gaza, turning their tiny prison enclave into rubble, reminiscent of earthquake disaster zones but this time an entirely man-made catastrophe. Even Israel does not have the gall to claim to be liberating the women and girls of Gaza from Hamas as it kills and starves them. Nor does it pretend to be interested in democracy promotion. Rather, Gaza is full of “human animals” and must be “flattened”. And it has been all but impossible to make Hamas, a group of a few thousand fighters penned into Gaza, appear a credible threat to the West’s way of life. Hamas cannot send any kind of warhead into Europe, let alone in 45 minutes. Their prison camp, even before its destruction, was never the plausible heart of some Islamist empire ready to overrun the West and subject it to "sharia law". In fact, it has been barely feasible to refer to these past weeks as a war. Gaza is not a state, it has no army. It has been under occupation for decades and under siege for 16 years – a blockade in which Israel has counted the calories allowed in to maintain low-level malnutrition among Palestinians. As the American Jewish scholar Norman Finkelstein has noted, Hamas’ breakout on 7 October is better understood not as a war but as a slave revolt. And like slave rebellions throughout history – from Spartacus’ against the Romans to Nat Turner’s in Virginia in 1831 – it was inevitably going to turn brutal and bloody. Are we on the side of the murderous prison guards? Are we arming the plantation owners? Read more from my latest article, 'Are we the baddies?’ Western support for genocide in Gaza means the answer is yes, here: middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel…

Alexei Sayle's Alternative Alternative Christmas Message (via @skwawkbox). “And they lie. And they lie. And they lie.”

I will be showing ⁦⁦@ShadowWorldFilm⁩ followed by a Q&A in Leeds on Monday 27/3 at 5pm

No wonder Raytheon CEO said events in Ukraine & Yemen were good news for his shareholders, just bedore the Russian invasion! Find out more about this extreme war profiteering in @ShadowWorldFilm & theshadowworldbook.com

The global trade in arms is a cesspit of corruption which enriches the very politicians, military leaders, defence company executives & dodgy intermediaries, from banks & lawyers to arms dealers, who ensure it remains largely unregulated & above the law #takeonthearmstrade

@WorldPeaceFdtn The arms trade is an abhorrent trade that causes much death, destruction and misery globally. It fuels conflicts and results in the death of innocent civilians, such as the 377,000 deaths in the war on Yemen #takeonthearmstrade #RDAT

The arms trade is one of the key drivers of war, driving militarised, violent responses to conflict around the world. #takeonthearmstrade @WorldPeaceFdtn

The arms trade is probably the most corrupt business sector globally, doing massive amounts of harm before weapons are even used. That is one reason we need to #TakeOnTheArmsTrade