The whole world is going to Hell in a handcart and there doesn’t appear to be a single leader who will stop the carnage and Israeli war crimes being carried out in occupied Palestine. Admittedly, it can look as if Israel gets the blame for everything these days, but then it is always at the violent epicenter of world affairs and displays open contempt for international laws and conventions. Its proximity to virtually every incident of global disunity cannot be a mere coincidence.
The recent far-right riots in England and Northern Ireland, for instance, are being fueled by Israel Defense Forces cheerleader and man-on-the-run Tommy Robinson, a founder of the far right and now outlawed English Defense League (EDL). Robinson’s relationship with Tel Aviv is hazy but there are direct links between violent thugs like him and pro-Israel lobby groups.
If he was told to create mayhem in the UK on a scale that would knock Israel out of the headlines then it worked. But only until the next Israeli war crime came along, in which 100 Palestinian civilians were killed while sheltering in a school in Gaza and taking part in the morning prayer. Still, anarchy in the UK did take the pressure off the Zionist State for a few days while extreme efforts were made to demonize Britain’s weary Muslims and their beleaguered communities.
Peace initiatives were praised and interfaith groups came together urging more patience and tolerance. Even far-right poster boy Nigel Farage MP felt compelled to condemn the violence that he had incited just a few days earlier.
Attempts to goad Muslims into violence largely failed miserably.
Instead, peace initiatives were led by local Imams, because the one thing that unites good people within all communities is the desire to live in peace and harmony.
Such a desire has generally been expressed on an annual basis ever since the US dropped atom bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan in 1945. Politicians and ambassadors gather together every year at a global event as significant as Holocaust memorial day to remember the slaughter of 80,000 civilians in a few seconds at the tail end of World War Two.
It is important that we do remember such things, as former British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was reminded forcefully after he missed a vital part of the D-day commemorations in northern France earlier this year. He was condemned widely for this, and he went on to lose last month’s General Election.
The 79th anniversary event of the bombing of Nagasaki, commemorating the day when the city was laid to waste by a single atom bomb, took place on Friday, 9 August. Dignitaries from more than 150 countries and territories around the world attended. Since 2022, Russia and Belarus have been dropped from the guest list because of the invasion of Ukraine and its was decided this year to withdraw an invitation to Israel, which was hardly surprising when you consider it is being investigated for genocide and other war crimes.
The reaction to this decision was extraordinary. The US and UK ambassadors claimed that the Nagasaki mayor’s decision not to invite Israel wrongly equated the country’s war against the Palestinians in Gaza with the invasion of Ukraine.
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s self-defense [sic] is not morally equivalent,” US ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel thundered in an emailed statement. He might be right; moral equivalence, after all, is often subjective. However, Israel has broken international law, as Russia undoubtedly has, and does so on a daily basis. The occupation state has destroyed Palestinian educational facilities and hospitals, as well as historic buildings of great significance and places of worship. Civilian infrastructure in Gaza has been decimated, including tens of thousands of homes.
Moreover, Israel has bombed refugee encampments after ordering the Palestinians to move to such “safe zones”. Thousands of detainees have been taken to camps in Israel and tortured, sexually abused and humiliated. We know what war crimes have been committed by the morally-repugnant IDF, of course, thanks to the gratuitous, almost pornographic selfies and videos that soldiers have shared on social media.
The recent gang rape of a Palestinian man by ten Israeli soldiers and one military attack dog, for example, was shared with the world in a graphic video. We know that Russia is no friend of journalists, but it’s not the regime in Moscow which has murdered more than 150 of my colleagues since last October alone, nor killed babies in incubators or is starving an entire civilian population. To cap it all, Israel has killed at least 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mainly women and children, and wounded 90,000 more. An estimated 10,000 are missing, presumed dead, under the rubble of their homes. Indeed, according to an estimate by The Lancet medical journal, Israel has slaughtered upwards of 200,000 people over the past 10 months.
That, Ambassador Emanuel, is what your government has done.
But you’re right; Russian and Israeli actions are not the same. Israel’s are much, much worse and go well beyond so-called “self-defense”, a right which does not exist for an occupation state like yours against the people living under its illegal occupation.
The US and UK were apparently joined by France, Italy, Germany, Canada and Australia in withdrawing their ambassadors from the Nagasaki commemoration ceremony. In other words, the G7 nations put their support for genocidal Israel ahead of their relations with Japan, a strategically important ally.
The craven ambassadors addressed a letter to the city authorities in July stating that “it would become difficult for us to have high-level participation” if Israel was excluded in Nagasaki. I imagine that it would be difficult for peace-loving, law-abiding nations to have any sort of participation if Israel had turned up.
Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki confirmed his refusal to invite Israel, citing the security threat posed by potential protests against the Zionist regime’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. In June, the Japanese city addressed a letter to the Israeli government calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
I stand with Mayor Suzuki. He deserves our support and praise for not only doing the right thing, but also for exposing how savagery and bestiality is rewarded in the shameful and shameless West.
-British journalist and author Yvonne Ridley provides political analysis on affairs related to the Middle East, Asia and the Global War on Terror. Her work has appeared in numerous publications around the world from East to West from titles as diverse as The Washington Post to the Tehran Times and the Tripoli Post earning recognition and awards in the USA and UK. Her article appeared in MEMO.
