American Jews are falling out of love with Israel

Norman Finkelstein was on BBC Hardtalk recently, the topic being discussed – American Jews are falling out of love with Israel.

Finkelstein argued that American Jews are now so unhappy with the murderous and quite frankly indefensible actions of Israel, that they want to distance themselves from that country.

Watch out, the Hardtalk presenter Sarah Montague looks to be an Israeli hasbara agent.

Dr. Finkelstein is adept at putting zionists firmly in their place, even beating the trump card of the holocaust, as this old blog piece testifies.

And if you still want more, I’ll direct you to read “On the Crisis of Zionism” an article on the much discussed Peter Beinart book. You know when Rolling Stone magazine starts covering Palestine it’s getting to be a pretty mainstream issue in America.

Recently Hebrew graffiti denouncing Zionism was sprayed inside Israel’s own Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in occupied Jerusalem:

Translated into English, the above reads as:

“The war of the Zionist regime is not the war of the Jewish people”

This is REAL journalism – Julian Assange interviews Hezbollah leader Sayyid Nasrallah

This is what I call real journalism, as Julian Assange interviews Hezbollah leader Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah on RT.

Watch the video above & here’s my views below:

In no way will any parts of this interview be aired in the U.S. or mainstream corporate media.

The crack-down on the internet is spurred from many quarters, one of them is to censor content such as this.

There’s no Arabic word for “Take-Away food” (I wonder if you spotted it?) otherwise the translation was very good.

I’ll let you make your own conclusions on the interview, from a man who is denied air time on the western media. We cry loudly about the great freedom of speech we have and at the same time block Al-Manar from broadcasting and even blocking their twitter account – thanks Israel.

The interview has had wider ripples across the British media.

The sandal wearing, recycled bean eating readership of The Guardian were treated to a hatchet job by Luke Harding who was given prominent positioning on the Guardian website to attack Assange as a “useful idiot” for Russia.

I haven’t seen so many bad elements of journalism incorporated into one article since The News of The World went out of business.

Firstly there is an element of competition between two rival media outlets, and if one side gets a big scoop, the other has to respond by dismissing it. Sadly, it’s becoming an ugly side of journalism that is becoming much more common.

For those with a memory will remember that The Guardian did it with the Murdoch Phone-hacking Scandal, running it for weeks on end. Not that it shouldn’t have been reported but there was a clear “conflict of interest” underpinning Britain’s second-best selling Newspaper (The Guardian) attacking Britain’s best selling Newspaper (The News of the World) until it was shut down.

The second bad journalism element is the “personel vendetta” that I charge The Guardian with running.

Less then two years ago The Guardian was working with Julian Assange and calling him a hero.

I’m sure everyone here remembers reading the Wikileaks stories on The Guardian website.

Now after a public falling out they are calling Assange “Russia Today’s Useful Idiot”.

Bitterness is never an attractive quality.

Simplicity will defeat complexity – shout out to the israeli encryptors!

Rambo – How an Anti War Book became a Hollywood Pro War Blockbuster

The film “Rambo” is a classic tale of how a anti-war book written about the post Vietnam era in America is hijacked by Hollywood to glorify violence and war, the exact psyche of the American system, that the author David Morrell examined in his 1972 novel “First Blood”.

If, like me you were a child of the Eighties, then you grew up on a diet of “big gun americana” movies, I’m talking about Stallone & Schwarzenegger and everything that promoted the american way.

It didn’t matter how crap the quality of your pirated VHS version was, Rambo was on heavy rotation where ever I went.

Years later I found out it was based on a book, and decided to have a read of it.

What I found out as a child barely into my double digits was that the film was far removed from the book.

Rambo first learns about the death of one of his former soldier buddies, the film doesn’t mention what the book did, and that was he died from cancer – the after effects of the american army spraying millions of litres of Agent Orange into the jungles of Vietnam.

Why would the American army – do a such a thing?

Yeah the Vietnamese were the bad guys, but why would the americans also kill their own soldiers (thought a 8 year old Akh).

Another example was that if you’ve actually watched the film, ask yourself how many people actually die?

The answer is one

The sheriffs deputy that gets hit with a rock and falls out of the helicopter (that’s what happened, I’m not making it up)

The book was far more brutal, Rambo killed literally every single figure of authority, or that represented the police or the army that he came into contact with, even the dogs weren’t spared.

Eventually the Colonel that Rambo served under in Vietnam is called up to reach out to his creation and after that speech he persuades Rambo to give up and escorts him out…and that’s where the film ends.

True to form, reading the book I was absolutely shocked as to what the ending was….and I only found out this week that the ending was actually filmed, but it didn’t make the final cut as it didn’t go down well with the test audiences.

Why would it?

After all Uncle Sam’s boys would never kill themselves.

I cross posted words from John Pilger last year when he spoke about Hollywood approving american imperialism, whilst portraying itself as the aggrieved party.

Years later to satisfy Hollywood’s bloodlust, Rambo III was made, this time Rambo was siding with the Afghan Mujahideen against the USSR.

Of course this served as great propaganda at the time with the americans happy to slowly bleed the russians, with the Afghan Mujahideen being in the firing line.

I was over the moon to see Rambo fighting alongside the Mujahideen and kicking some russian ass, after all, isn’t that exactly what the power of a lobby should be? to use the mass media to win hearts and minds?

There was no book for Rambo III, but I sat glued to the end credits, and found that the film wasn’t made on location in Afghanistan, but filmed in israel, and what was even worse, nearly all the Afghan Mujahideen were played by israeli’s too.

I found out at a very young age that you shouldn’t believe what you see in the media. Perhaps Rambo left an indelible mark on my psyche too…who really runs Hollywood?

Muhammad Ali – Why Did You Become A Muslim?

The Akh found this footage of boxing great Muhammad Ali, being asked why he became a Muslim, if he followed Islam strictly and if he was as good a Muslim as he was a boxer.

Unfortunately today’s boxers don’t have the mental capacity to answer such questions.

Muhammad Ali stood up as a Muslim and as a black man in America to demand his rights.

What a shame that people like Amir Khan can’t do the same, it’s only when he gets violated by the yanks does he decide to speak up.

Goes to show, this “house muslim” mentality that our people have been brainwashed with gets you nowhere.

You can make the devil all the money he needs, you can shuck and jive to his tune, try demanding the god given rights you should have, you’ll get a smack in the face and reminded of your place in the pecking order.

There’s a good little monkey, sit in your halls amongst yourselves debating til the cows come home.

Please do carry on the lip service, you don’t know how badly we need you to perfect yourselves and feel holier than thou.

In the meantime, we’ll continue to slaughter you, taking your land and all of it’s resources.

Ain’t the devil happy?

Sharon Horgan’s “Mecca Suicide Bombers” Jibe on Have I Got News For You – Joke or Insult?

BBC’s Have I Got News For You is yet again at the centre of a potential Islamophobic row, when presenter Sharon Horgan made the jibe about “The Mecca of suicide bombers….is Mecca”.

Should Muslims turn the other cheek and accept it is a light hearted, off the cuff joke?

Or is it yet another example of a publicly funded body taking the blatant piss out of one of it’s most maligned and under pressure communities?

The Akh has actually been to a recording of the show, and all the presenter does is to READ off an autocue machine, so this “joke” was pre-written by the programme’s writers – all Horgan did was read it out.

Then again, the BBC loves a bit of moral midgetry, remember that old thing called free speech?

Frankie Boyle certainly does, cracking a joke comparing Palestine to a cake being “punched to pieces by a very angry Jew” will get you rebuked.

Prejudice against Muslims has “passed the dinner-table test” and has become socially acceptable in the UK, even the Chairman of the Conservative party recognises this as a fact.

If we cannot accept bigotry in any shape of form, then why do Muslims have to learn to take a joke?

The Queen might be in Ireland, but who’s better, the Taliban or the IRA?

Have you always wanted to know who was the ultimate freedom fighter/terrorist group? This video breaks down exactly what would happen if the Taliban and the IRA were to go up against one another.

Despite what you think, the IRA have never really gone away, this weeks bomb threat proved that, and the whole world has been fighting the Taliban for more than ten years and they are still alive and kicking.

Now I like the IRA, but I also like the Taliban.

But which ones better?

There’s only one way to find out.

Cue the video from deadliest warrior and FIGHT!!!

Does Al Qaeda Really Exist? – Revisiting Adam Curtis’s Power of Nightmares

Al Qaeda related news has been the number one media scare story for more than a decade. In the face of much more tangible threats in the past – like the IRA, the Soviet Union and even Nazi Germany – British governments did not encourage the people to behave like hedgehogs.

So why roll up into a ball now in the face of what is a serious but in no way an overwhelming threat to our nation and our freedoms?

The Akh has been revisiting the brilliant documentary series by Adam Curtis, titled “The Power of Nightmares”, from which the most telling clip above is taken from. What that documentary stated was not that there was no threat, but rather the nightmare vision of a uniquely powerful hidden organisation waiting to strike our societies is an illusion, in effect, a way of creating the terror threat.

The question the series tried to answer was why contemporary politicians and other elites, like the media, want you to feel frightened – to behave and feel like a hedgehog trapped on a motorway – when the reality and the scale of the threat is actually very different.

In December 2004, Lord Hoffman, standing in the House of Lords made the following speech:

“The real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values, comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these”

This can be found on hansard’s records in paragraphs 94-97

Like Lord Hoffman I am optimistic, I’m sure we will survive not only “al Qaeda” but also the politics of fear.

Of course when the fear goes and people see just how much the threats have been exaggerated then there will be a further loss of trust in politicians and their authority.

Yet there are those who say the Al Qaeda group doesn’t exist at all, that they’re an invention of the Government designed to keep the population frightened, and to ensure that the pliant masses accept higher military spending.

But where’s the evidence to support their claims?

Shortly before his untimely death, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that “Al Qaeda” is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan.

Terror Expert Jason Burke, author of Al Qaeda, one of the most quoted books on the subject, is also in the video excerpt above (1.08 in) he states;

“The terrorist group al-Qaeda in fact does not exist. It was made up in January of 2001 in order to prosecute Osama bin Laden in his absence. In order to prosecute bin Laden there had to be an organization like the Mafia for which he was a part of. Under the law if such an organization exists then the head of the organization can be prosecuted under the law. So in order to bring the prosecution they made up the organization and called it al-Qaeda. But the organization is fiction. It doesn’t exist. It’s all a huge fraud.”

and then adds;

“The idea which is critical to the FBI¹s prosecution that bin Laden ran a coherent organisation with operatives and cells all around the world of which you could be a member is a myth. There is no Al Qaeda organisation. There is no international network with a leader, with cadres who will unquestioningly obey orders, with tentacles that stretch out to sleeper cells in America, in Africa, in Europe. That idea of a coherent, structured terrorist network with an organised capability simply does not exist.”

Marion E. (Spike) Bowman was serving as the Deputy General Counsel at the FBI and he to said something very similar to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on July 31, 2002:

“…al Qaeda is far less a large organization than a facilitator, sometimes orchestrator, of Islamic militants around the globe. These militants are linked by ideas and goals, not by organizational structure. The intent is establishment of a state, or states ruled by Islamic law and free of western influence. Bin Laden’s contribution to the Islamic jihad is a creature of the modern world. He has spawned a global network of individuals with common, radical ideas, kept alive through modern communications and sustained through forged documents and money laundering activities on a global scale.”

Then serving as the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Ian Blair stated:

“Al Qaeda is not an organization. Al Qaeda is a way of working … but this has the hallmark of that approach. Al Qaeda clearly has the ability to provide training … to provide expertise … and I think that is what has occurred here”

At the very same time, the Neo Conservative ideology spoused by Leo Strauss was spreading their ideas and their myth of America as a revolutionary force that can spread democracy and freedom around the world, but infact were a convenient disguise for a much more ruthless and anti-democratic exploitation of the world.

“We are not hostile to the United States. We are against the system, which makes other nations slaves of the United States, or forces them to mortgage their political and economic freedom. They needed an enemy. So, they first started propaganda against Usamah and Taleban and then this incident happened. You see, the Bush administration approved a budget of 40bn dollars. Where will this huge amount go? It will be provided to the same agencies, which need huge funds and want to exert their importance.”

Osama bin Laden’s interview with Ummat, a Pakistani daily, published in Karachi on September 28, 2001. It was translated into English by the BBC World Monitoring Service and made public on September 29, 2001.

Many of us believe that business and corporate interests shape the world and that all ideas and political ideology are just froth on the surface that disguise the real, hidden forces underneath.

The neoconservatives and the Islamists believe the complete opposite – that ideas can fundamentally change the world. In the neoconservatives’ own words: “Ideas do have consequences.”

I don’t believe either of these positions. I think the reality is far more complex – that ideas do have widespread effects but not in the way those who developed them necessarily intended. They are taken up, used and distorted by many other forces which include business and corporate interests.

There is a synergy, a fit, between the neoconservatives’ particular individualistic version of democracy and the neo-liberal economic policies that suit American business interests, that is at the detriment to the rest of the Muslim world.

Channel 4’s The Promise – Can It Change Opinions Like The Roots Did?

For the last four weeks, Channel 4 have been showing a weekly factual drama directed by Peter Kosminsky titled “The Promise” , which looks at the Nakba – the great catastrophe of losing their land for the Palestinian people.

This is the first and only time I can recollect that such a programme has been put together, which showed all of the zionist terrorist activities undertaken to murder the indigenous population and drive the British army out of Palestine.

The programme was at times both challenging and unwatchable, the scenes of the stern gang and the irgun pulling Palestinians out of their homes and machine gunning them down and blowing them up with impunity as they ethically cleansed the land, is a well documented fact, but one that has never been recreated on screen.

The Promise is available to view until the end of March, you can do so on Channel 4’s Youtube page.

Almost a generation ago, a mini series titled “Roots” was aired in America. It told the story of generations of Muslim African’s who were captured and bought to America as slaves.

That programme too dealt with a past that most white americans simply didn’t want to acknowledge, yeah sure it happened, but let’s leave the past in the past, simply because race is still a divisive issue.

It was due to this mini series based on Alex Haley’s book that got people talking about white america’s brutal legacy in the slave trade, so it got me thinking, would “The Promise” have a similar impact?

After all we have been taught to view history as what happened last week.

Those pesky Palestinians threw a firework over the border, so the Israeli’s can go in and drop a 1,000lb daisy cutter and flatten the entire neighbourhood.

The context of people’s grievances are never shown.

That is precisely what The Promise did, it showed the actions of the zionist movement in the mid 1940’s through a soldier serving in Palestine and twinned it with a modern day story of his grand daughter in today’s occupied territories.

It’s precisely the actions committed more than 60 years ago that continue to have their ramifications felt across Palestine and the occupied territories today.

That’s why The Akh feels that both Peter Kosminsky and the commissioners at Channel 4 should be applauded in getting this programme created and aired.

I have read the comments that have been posted on the official site with interest.

It doesn’t surprise me anymore how fast and how strongly the zionist hasbara comes out to fight for their corner.

They’re going to town on this series to try and point out it’s so called one sidedness and misinformation, so if you have watched the series, go and drop a comment thanking Channel 4 and fight back against the zionist campaign of misinformation.

Grand Theft Auto Producer Navid Khonsari To Make “1979 – The Game” Based On Iranian Revolution

Ever needed to play a computer game where Muslims were the good guys – instead of being crudely stereotyped as the terrorist baddies?

Well pretty soon you’ll be able to do just that as the world renowned producer of the Grand Theft Auto series, Navid Khonsari is making a game based around the the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

“Games are really a reflection of the real world and it does not really make a difference what somebody says is good or bad — it is a matter of perspective”

Navid Khonsari spoke to RT about his new project dealing with American-Iranian relations some three decades ago – a new game about the takeover of American embassy in Tehran called “1979: The Game”.

The Akh may break his self imposed video gaming exile for this one, it better be available on Commodore 64.

Storyville: Pablo Escobars Hippo’s

Vodpod videos no longer available.

As my interesting watch for this week, I’m recommending the BBC Storyvilles documentary on drug dealer and self promoted man of the people Pablo Escobar.

Recounting the absurd and paradoxical history of Colombia’s thirty-year struggle with international drug trafficking, at once a farce and a tragedy, as seen through the eyes of the extravagant pet of the most powerful drug baron in history: a hippopotamus named Pablo.