"Interest rates are losing their potency to aid the economy" - Jennifer Ryan (Bloomberg).
"Government spending has converted a private sector problem into a public sector financing problem" - Satyajit Das.
"The Treasury has decided to turn itself, in effect, into a catastrophe insurer" - the Economist.
"This is undeniably grim. Two or three quarters more like this and you're talking about depression, not recession" - Stewart Robinson (Aviva Investors).
"Britain is facing the deepest recession of any big industrialised economy, the International Monetary Fund signalled on Wednesday, as it said that the UK economy would shrink 2.8% this year... and the world economy will suffer its worst performance for more than 60 years" - Financial Times.
"... a once-in-half-a-century, probably once-in-a-century type of event" - Alan Greenspan.
"We are building the foundation stones of a recovery plan" - Gordon Brown.
Look here, Slack Jaw, as a primary architect of the Permanent Depression, should you not have considered the impacts of your economic policies just a shade earlier?
And check out their optimism.
Slack Jaw, Jack Straw, Mandy and Darling don't have a recovery plan.
Slack Jaw et al don't even have the foundation stones available to reconstruct their hyperreal recovery programme.
For Slack Jaw is still building the very stones themselves.
Still, and here is where the unintended consequences of a downturn might work in his favour, there are masses of unemployed Polish construction workers willing to be paid less than the minimum wage to create these foundations of an eventual pseudo-recovery.
The International Labour Organisation envisage that between 18 and 30 million jobs will be lost worldwide if this is merely a Recession.
If, the more likely prognosis by some distance, it is a Depression, then we are looking at over 50 million losing their jobs globally.
That would be normal people rather than bankers, of course...
One of the most entertaining aspects of the Recession/ Depression/ Permanent Depression triptych of Real Probabilities, is the disappearance of publicly available information.
It morphs, in mysterious circumstances, into publicly available disinformation.
They are dissing us as well as robbing us blind.
Government data and statistics have been manipulated in both the US and Britain over the last year at highly disturbing levels. The US election was one reason and Britain being the most fucked industrialised country another.
But this is not all...
Market prices are influenced by systemic tilting eg the banning of short selling of financial companies, in addition to all the everyday shenanigans like insider trading and cornering markets.
But this is not all, at all...
Mervyn King, another primary architect of this state of affairs who, astonishingly, is still in his job of governor of the Bank of England despite his Titanicesque stewardship of the central bank, says that there is another option on the poker table.
Namely, officials could buy up securities in Britain to fakely bolster the market hyperreality into a truly neohyperreal illusion of some magnitude.
We've got news for you...
According to our analytical data, this process is already underway.
Selective purchases have been undertaken to establish a fake floor in the Depression.
Perhaps these are the foundation stones Slack Jaw was wobbling on about?
Well, they are fake too.
Although we must restrict what we disclose in this place for proprietary reasons, the already fake level of the FTSE 100, for example, has been inflated by approximately 2% utilising officials' input since the index touched the 4000 level last week.
Although Slack Jaw and the Spooky Transylvanian-Looking One have allowed illicit and, in effect, public support for the stock market, their reconstruction will not withstand the next phase of this Depression.
"... it won't last long. The most probable mechanism for collapse will be the bond market. The combination of reappearing inflationary trends and a soaring budget deficit will cause "buyers' strikes" at Treasury bond auctions, sending interest rates through the roof. Indeed, the first such buyers' strike has already occurred, in Germany, where a €6 billion 10-year issue on January 7th was only 85% covered by bids. The rise in long term interest rates will choke off economic recovery while the resurgence of inflation caused by excessive monetary growth will force the Fed to reverse its policy and increase short term rates to some margin above inflation" - the Economist.
"The economy will at this point go into a second decline. The second decline will be concentrated in the real economy" - Martin Hutchison.
"[If overseas investors seek to sell their bonds], they will not only ruin the US economy but the value of their existing portfolio as well... At some point, government bonds will surely suffer a horrendous bear market" - Nick Carn (Odey hedge-fund).
"For the government to run simultaneously, monetary and fiscal policies that are breathtaking in their expansionism and expect to escape unscathed is a triumph of wishful thinking" - Martin Hutchison.
"Banks are stockpiling the cash or using it to purchase government bonds" - Satyajit Das.
"It is difficult not to marvel at the imagination that was implicit in this gargantuan insanity" - JK Galbraith (talking about the 'Great Depression').
We are living in remarkable financial times.
We should expect continued volatility.
We should expect a complete lack of incrementalism.
We should expect more instability.
We should expect extensive underground secrecy courtesy of Dark Pools and Basel II.
And Slack Jaw, with his zombied hand gestures, keeps telling us that this is a global problem and, in a sense, he is correct. But the roots of this crisis are in the free market economies, and it is they who are suffering, and will continue to suffer, the most (in the allegedly developed world, of course).
Iceland went bust, not Sweden.
Britain is the most recessed industrialised country, not France.
America is one fucked hyperpower, not China.
Meanwhile, half the world away, it is the Chinese, whose banking system has been the least demolished, who hold all the aces now, boyo...
At Davos this week, Wen Jiabao, quoting the Financial Times, "made scathing comments about "inappropriate macroeconomic policies" of some unnamed countries and the "unsustainable model of development characterised by prolonged low savings and high consumption". He attacked financial institutions' "blind pursuit of profit" and their "lack of self discipline.""
ObamaWorld offers us no respite - Tim Geitner is the new Treasury secretary.
As Geitner was part of the team that entirely misallocated the government handouts to date, we should expect equally informal financing from the man in the future.
No change. No hope, just more of the same...
Still, as Mr Berlusconi capably noted this week, Obama is black and not just tanned. The racist US machine will put up whoever is necessary in order to be able to resell the message.
Net-geners should expect Eric "Respect My Authority" Cartmen and Stewie Griffin as future presidential candidates.
"Attempts to regulate finance to make it safe often lead to dangers as clever financiers work around the rules" - the Economist.
"Ronald Cass, a former dean of Boston University School of Law, has argued in the Wall St Journal that Mr Madoff looks as if he broke plenty of laws that are already in force. His ability to mislead everyone around him "illustrates the limits of the law", not the need for more of it" - the Economist.
Run that pair of nonsenses by me again...
Clever (sic) financiers working around the rules are the foundation of this crisis.
So, the regulatory system has failed.
Although, no doubt, future "clever financiers" will also seek to circumvent any restrictions on their personally profitable psychopathy, their endeavours may be made considerably more awkward and less profitable.
How?
Twist the incentives.
After proper global regulation has been put in place, reward the regulators with million pound performance-related bonuses while market analysts, traders, brokers, investment bankers, hedge-funders etc have their salaries capped at a level of, say, £75,000 per annum.
Sorted.
With the incentives adjusted, we will experience markets that are semi-sustainable within eco-systemic pressures, to allow time to be bought to deliver a system that is open source, sustainable and made social for shared gain, rather than one that is privatised, patented and made proprietary for personal gain.
According to Eichengreen and Gordo, financial crises are twice as common as prior to 1914. This has absolutely nothing to do with the demise of the Gold Standard.
Nothing at all...
Ever since this date, capitalism has been one giant Ponzi scheme, no different in template from the one perpetrated by Mr Madoff.
Shareholder capitalism regressively redistributes assets "up the pyramid" by means of the boom-and-bust matrix of operation.
Consider yourself in three parallel hyperrealities...
In the first, your are an insider at a previous Davos, you attend all the right gatherings, and you are aware that a bull market cycle is to be engendered with immediate effect. The markets progress and profits are made by those who were "in the scheme" from the beginning. The second tier of participants are also financially rewarded, and word of mouth combined with a general state of financial bewilderment, results in more and more people buying into this fake market boom. Obviously, in the end, the really gullible individuals are buying overpriced assets that are guaranteed to decline in value.
In the second hyperreality, you set up a dodgy pyramid selling scheme in Albania. Poor people become stable financially within months, while the rich acquire fleets of the black Mercedes that populate Tirana's streets. Once again, the pyramid selling scheme implodes at the moment it reaches the most gullible.
The third hyperreality is Bernard Madoff...
If anybody is able to point out any operational differences between these situations, I'll gladly listen.
Swiss banks understand the Real value of money.
If you are one of the independently wealthy and you wish to store your financial assets in Switzerland, you are paid a negative rate of interest as the Swiss bankers understand that, eventually, all cash will be worthless - wheelbarrows of Deutschmarks buy loaves of bread, remember?
And, as this crisis deepens, Osmium Capital Management is offering to price in Gold for any clients wishing to sidestep the risk of the symbols of money.
As for the banks, pay me my money down.
The risks associated with Fat Wallets are greater than those linked with Stuffed Mattresses.
Everything is fake.
But we're bored of the fake and we need something more fake for stimulation.
The next bubble is in bonds, baby...
... government bonds.
And, besides all this stuff and nonsense, what's this whole truth thing anyway?
Football Is Fixed - We Reconstruct An Order On The Other Side Of Chaos :)
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Thursday, 29 January 2009
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
Gaza - A Panopticon For The Palestinians
Noam Chomsky: "On Saturday December 27, the latest US-Israeli attack on helpless Palestinians was launched. The attack had been meticulously planned, for over 6 months according to the Israeli press. The planning had two components: military and propaganda. It was based on the lessons of Israel's 2006 invasion of Lebanon, which was considered to be poorly planned and badly advertised. We may, therefore, be fairly confident that most of what has been done and said was pre-planned and intended.
That surely includes the timing of the assault: shortly before noon, when children were returning from school and crowds were milling in the streets of densely populated Gaza City. It took only a few minutes to kill over 225 people and wound 700, an auspicious opening to the mass slaughter of defenceless civilians trapped in a tiny cage with nowhere to flee."
Why are we not able to watch, on the telly, Kettering and their Palestinian charity shirt sponsors against Egyptian-owned Fulham in the FA Cup next weekend?
Noam Chomsky: "The meticulous planning also presumably included the termination of the assault, carefully timed to be just before the inauguration, so as to minimize the (remote) threat that Obama might have to say some words critical of these vicious US-supported crimes."
Why are FIFA taking action against Frédéric Kanouté for displaying the slogan "Palestina" in a recent Copa Del Rey match?
Noam Chomsky: "Two weeks after the Sabbath opening of the assault, with much of Gaza already pounded to rubble and the death toll approaching 1000, the UN Agency UNRWA, on which most Gazans depend for survival, announced that the Israeli military refused to allow aid shipments to Gaza, saying that the crossings were closed for the Sabbath. To honour the holy day, Palestinians at the edge of survival must be denied food and medicine, while hundreds can be slaughtered by US jet bombers and helicopters."
Why on earth would Kaká have left Milan for Abu Dhabi United?
Noam Chomsky: "The rigorous observance of the Sabbath in this dual fashion attracted little if any notice. That makes sense. In the annals of US-Israeli criminality, such cruelty and cynicism scarcely merit more than a footnote. They are too familiar. To cite one relevant parallel, in June 1982 the US-backed Israeli invasion of Lebanon opened with the bombing of the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, later to become famous as the site of terrible massacres supervised by the IDF (Israeli "Defence" Forces). The bombing hit the local hospital - the Gaza hospital -- and killed over 200 people, according to the eyewitness account of an American Middle East academic specialist. The massacre was the opening act in an invasion that slaughtered some 15-20,000 people and destroyed much of southern Lebanon and Beirut, proceeding with crucial US military and diplomatic support. That included vetoes of Security Council resolutions seeking to halt the criminal aggression that was undertaken, as scarcely concealed, to defend Israel from the threat of peaceful political settlement, contrary to many convenient fabrications about Israelis suffering under intense rocketing, a fantasy of apologists."
Why did the roof collapse, killing nine people, at Kaká's church, the Reborn in Christ Church, during his negotiations with Abu Dhabi United? Was it a Sign?
Noam Chomsky: "All of this is normal, and quite openly discussed by high Israeli officials. Thirty years ago Chief of Staff Mordechai Gur observed that since 1948, "we have been fighting against a population that lives in villages and cities." As Israel's most prominent military analyst, Zeev Schiff, summarized his remarks, "the Israeli Army has always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously...the Army, he said, has never distinguished civilian [from military] targets...[but] purposely attacked civilian targets." The reasons were explained by the distinguished statesman Abba Eban: "there was a rational prospect, ultimately fulfilled, that affected populations would exert pressure for the cessation of hostilities." The effect, as Eban well understood, would be to allow Israel to implement, undisturbed, its programs of illegal expansion and harsh repression. Eban was commenting on a review of Labour government attacks against civilians by Prime Minister Begin, presenting a picture, Eban said, "of an Israel wantonly inflicting every possible measure of death and anguish on civilian populations in a mood reminiscent of regimes which neither Mr.Begin nor I would dare to mention by name." Eban did not contest the facts that Begin reviewed, but criticized him for stating them publicly. Nor did it concern Eban, or his admirers, that his advocacy of massive state terror is also reminiscent of regimes he would not dare to mention by name."
Why are the mainstream media pretending that we have a January Transfer Market when, in Reality, we have an Abu Dhabi United Transfer Window?
Noam Chomsky: "Eban's justification for state terror is regarded as persuasive by respected authorities. As the current US-Israel assault raged, Times columnist Thomas Friedman explained that Israel's tactics both in the current attack and in its invasion of Lebanon in 2006 are based on the sound principle of "trying to 'educate' Hamas, by inflicting a heavy death toll on Hamas militants and heavy pain on the Gaza population." That makes sense on pragmatic grounds, as it did in Lebanon, where "the only long-term source of deterrence was to exact enough pain on the civilians -- the families and employers of the militants -- to restrain Hezbollah in the future." And by similar logic, bin Laden's effort to "educate" Americans on 9/11 was highly praiseworthy, as were the Nazi attacks on Lidice and Oradour, Putin's destruction of Grozny, and other notable attempts at 'education'."
Why is Rafa so "disturbed" and full of "venom" over his historical revisionism?
Noam Chomsky: "Like others familiar with the region, Middle East specialist Fawwaz Gerges observes that "What Israeli officials and their American allies do not appreciate is that Hamas is not merely an armed militia but a social movement with a large popular base that is deeply entrenched in society." Hence when they carry out their plans to destroy Hamas's "social wing," they are aiming to destroy Palestinian society."
Why, even Fernando Torres does not agree with his manager...
Noam Chomsky: "Hamas is regularly described as "Iranian-backed Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel." One will be hard put to find something like "democratically elected Hamas, which has long been calling for a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus" -- blocked for over 30 years by the US and Israel, which flatly and explicitly reject the right of Palestinians to self-determination. All true, but not a useful contribution to the Party Line, hence dispensable."
Why is Rafa cracking up?
Noam Chomsky: "Such details as those mentioned earlier, though minor, nevertheless teach us something about ourselves and our clients. So do others. To mention another one, as the latest US-Israeli assault on Gaza began, a small boat, the Dignity, was on its way from Cyprus to Gaza. The doctors and human rights activists aboard intended to violate Israel's criminal blockade and to bring medical supplies to the trapped population. The ship was intercepted in international waters by Israeli naval vessels, which rammed it severely, almost sinking it, though it managed to limp to Lebanon. Israel issued the routine lies, refuted by the journalists and passengers aboard, including CNN correspondent Karl Penhaul and former US representative and Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney. That is a serious crime -- much worse, for example, than hijacking boats off the coast of Somalia. It passed with little notice. The tacit acceptance of such crimes reflects the understanding that Gaza is occupied territory, and that Israel is entitled to maintain its siege, even authorized by the guardians of international order to carry out crimes on the high seas to implement its programs of punishing the civilian population for disobedience to its commands - under pretexts to which we return, almost universally accepted but clearly untenable."
Why the satanic beard, Rafa?
Noam Chomsky: "Who cares, for example, if the editors of Lebanon's Daily Star, generally pro-Western, write that "Some 1.5 million people in Gaza are being subjected to the murderous ministrations of one of the world's most technologically advanced but morally regressive military machines. It is often suggested that the Palestinians have become to the Arab world what the Jews were to pre-World War II Europe, and there is some truth to this interpretation. How sickeningly appropriate, then, that just as Europeans and North Americans looked the other way when the Nazis were perpetrating the Holocaust, the Arabs are finding a way to do nothing as the Israelis slaughter Palestinian children." Perhaps the most shameful of the Arab regimes is the brutal Egyptian dictatorship, the beneficiary of most US military aid, apart from Israel."
Why does PGMOB official Stuart Attwell always cover his mouth when talking to senior referees?
Noam Chomsky: "The new crimes that the US and Israel have been committing in Gaza in the past weeks do not fit easily into any standard category - except for the category of familiarity; I've just given several examples, and will return to others. Literally, the crimes fall under the official US government definition of "terrorism," but that designation does not capture their enormity. They cannot be called "aggression," because they are being conducted in occupied territory, as the US tacitly concedes. In their comprehensive scholarly history of Israeli settlement in the occupied territories, Lords of the Land, Idit Zertal and Akiva Eldar point out that after Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza in August 2005, the ruined territory was not released "for even a single day from Israel's military grip or from the price of the occupation that the inhabitants pay every day... Israel left behind scorched earth, devastated services, and people with neither a present nor a future. The settlements were destroyed in an ungenerous move by an unenlightened occupier, which in fact continues to control the territory and kill and harass its inhabitants by means of its formidable military might" - exercised with extreme savagery, thanks to firm US support and participation."
Why has Steve Bennett officiated at five out of the last 28 Premiership matches?
Noam Chomsky: "The US-Israeli assault on Gaza escalated in January 2006, a few months after the formal withdrawal, when Palestinians committed a truly heinous crime: they voted "the wrong way" in a free election. Like others, Palestinians learned that one does not disobey with impunity the commands of the Master, who continues to prate of his "yearning for democracy," without eliciting ridicule from the educated classes, another impressive achievement."
Why were there three changes of referee in the Premiership last weekend when most leading European leagues see one such instance every five years or so?
Noam Chomsky: "Since the terms "aggression" and "terrorism" are inadequate, some new term is needed for the sadistic and cowardly torture of people caged with no possibility of escape, while they are being pounded to dust by the most sophisticated products of US military technology - used in violation of international and even US law, but for self-declared outlaw states that is just another minor technicality. Also a minor technicality is the fact that on December 31, while terrorized Gazans were desperately seeking shelter from the ruthless assault, Washington hired a German merchant ship to transport from Greece to Israel a huge shipment, 3000 tons, of unidentified "ammunition." The new shipment "follows the hiring of a commercial ship to carry a much larger consignment of ordnance in December from the United States to Israel ahead of air strikes in the Gaza Strip," Reuters reported. All of this is separate from the more than $21 billion in U.S. military aid provided by the Bush administration to Israel, almost all grants. "Israel's intervention in the Gaza Strip has been fueled largely by U.S. supplied weapons paid for with U.S. tax dollars," said a briefing by the New America Foundation, which monitors the arms trade. The new shipment was hampered by the decision of the Greek government to bar the use of any port in Greece "for the supplying of the Israeli army."
Greece's response to US-backed Israeli crimes is rather different from the craven performance of the leaders of most of Europe. The distinction reveals that Washington may have been quite realistic in regarding Greece as part of the Near East, not Europe, until the overthrow of its US-backed fascist dictatorship in 1974. Perhaps Greece is just too civilized to be part of Europe."
Why does Howard Webb get every major match and isn't this just a little too much power in one policeman's hands?
Noam Chomsky: "There are good reasons why the voting record is consistently unreported and dispatched deep into the memory hole by the media and conformist intellectuals. It would not be wise to reveal to the public what the record implies about their elected representatives. In the present case it would plainly be unhelpful to let the public know that US-Israeli rejectionism, barring the peaceful settlement long advocated by the world, reaches such an extreme as to deny Palestinians even the abstract right to self-determination."
Why has Keith Harris finally admitted that there is no possibility of any club being sold in the current global financial climate that was absolutely not caused, in any way whatsoever, by free market capitalist ideologues?
Noam Chomsky: "The figures for killed and wounded are surely an underestimate. And it is unlikely that there will be any inquiry into these atrocities. Crimes of official enemies are subjected to rigorous investigation, but our own are systematically ignored. General practice, again, and understandable on the part of the masters.
The Security Council Resolution called for stopping the flow of arms into Gaza. The US and Israel (Rice-Livni) soon reached an agreement on measures to ensure this result, concentrating on Iranian arms. There is no need to stop smuggling of US arms into Israel, because there is no smuggling: the huge flow of arms is quite public, even when not reported, as in the case of the arms shipment announced as the slaughter in Gaza was proceeding."
Why is Richard Scudamore keeping very very quiet at the moment? It surely would have nothing to do with the new televisions deals, would it?
Noam Chomsky: "Israel abandoned Gaza in September 2005. Rational Israeli hardliners, like Ariel Sharon, the patron saint of the settlers movement, understood that it was senseless to subsidize a few thousand illegal Israeli settlers in the ruins of Gaza, protected by the IDF while they used much of the land and scarce resources. It made more sense to turn Gaza into the world's largest prison and to transfer settlers to the West Bank, much more valuable territory, where Israel is quite explicit about its intentions, in word and more importantly in deed. One goal is to annex the arable land, water supplies, and pleasant suburbs of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv that lie within the separation wall, irrelevantly declared illegal by the World Court. That includes a vastly expanded Jerusalem, in violation of Security Council orders that go back 40 years, also irrelevant. Israel has also been taking over the Jordan Valley, about one-third of the West Bank. What remains is therefore imprisoned, and, furthermore, broken into fragments by salients of Jewish settlement that trisect the territory: one to the east of Greater Jerusalem through the town of Ma'aleh Adumim, developed through the Clinton years to split the West Bank; and two to the north, through the towns of Ariel and Kedumim. What remains to Palestinians is segregated by hundreds of mostly arbitrary checkpoints."
Why will the Premiership title race go to the very last game again this season?
Noam Chomsky: "The checkpoints have no relation to security of Israel, and if some are intended to safeguard settlers, they are flatly illegal, as the World Court ruled. In reality, their major goal is harass the Palestinian population and to fortify what Israeli peace activist Jeff Halper calls the "matrix of control," designed to make life unbearable for the "two-legged beasts" who will be like "drugged roaches scurrying around in a bottle" if they seek to remain in their homes and land. All of that is fair enough, because they are "like grasshoppers compared to us" so that their heads can be "smashed against the boulders and walls." The terminology is from the highest Israeli political and military leaders, in this case the revered "princes." And the attitudes shape policies."
Why is the Premiership now a handicapped event?
Noam Chomsky: "The plans that Olmert sketched in 2006 have since been abandoned as not sufficiently extreme. But what replaces the convergence programme, and the actions that proceed daily to implement it, are approximately the same in general conception. They trace back to the earliest days of the occupation, when Defence Minister Moshe Dayan explained poetically that "the situation today resembles the complex relationship between a Bedouin man and the girl he kidnaps against her will...You Palestinians, as a nation, don't want us today, but we'll change your attitude by forcing our presence on you." You will "live like dogs, and whoever will leave, will leave," while we take what we want."
Why? Is it true that the Dalai Lama wishes an audience with Harry Redknapp?
Noam Chomsky: "As the crimes passed beyond what the carefully honed Israeli propaganda campaign was able to suppress, even confirmed Israeli hawks became concerned that the carnage is "Destroying [Israel's] soul and its image. Destroying it on world television screens, in the living rooms of the international community and most importantly, in Obama's America" (Ari Shavit). Shavit was particularly concerned about Israel's "shelling a United Nations facility...on the day when the UN secretary general is visiting Jerusalem," an act that is "beyond lunacy," he felt."
Why does Stevie G take such an interest in matters of the underworld variety?
Noam Chomsky: "Before, Israel had sensibly barred all journalists, even Israeli, while its crimes were proceeding in full fury. Israel's use of white phosphorus against Gaza civilians is "clear and undeniable," Amnesty International (AI) reported. Its repeated use in densely populated civilian areas "is a war crime," AI concluded. They found white phosphorus edges scattered around residential buildings, still burning, "further endangering the residents and their property," particularly children "drawn to the detritus of war and often unaware of the danger." Primary targets, they report, were the UNRWA compound, where the Israeli "white phosphorus landed next to some fuel trucks and caused a large fire which destroyed tons of humanitarian aid" after Israeli authorities "had given assurance that no further strikes would be launched on the compound." On the same day, "a white phosphorus shell landed in the al-Quds hospital in Gaza City also causing a fire which forced hospital staff to evacuate the patients... White phosphorus landing on skin can burn deep through muscle and into the bone, continuing to burn unless deprived of oxygen." Purposely intended or beyond depraved indifference, such crimes are inevitable when this weapon is used in attacks on civilians."
Why is Thaksin Shinawatra still allowed to own 25% of Abu Dhabi United when the latest Amnesty International report accuses his government of "systematic" genocide against Muslims in the south of the country?
Noam Chomsky: "Aggression always has a pretext: in this case, that Israel's patience had "run out" in the face of Hamas rocket attacks, as Barak put it. The mantra that is endlessly repeated is that Israel has the right to use force to defend itself. The thesis is partially defensible. The rocketing is criminal, and it is true that a state has the right to defend itself against criminal attacks. But it does not follow that it has a right to defend itself by force. That goes far beyond any principle that we would or should accept. Nazi Germany had no right to use force to defend itself against the terrorism of the partisans. Kristallnacht is not justified by Herschel Grynszpan's assassination of a German Embassy official in Paris. The British were not justified in using force to defend themselves against the (very real) terror of the American colonists seeking independence, or to terrorize Irish Catholics in response to IRA terror - and when they finally turned to the sensible policy of addressing legitimate grievances, the terror ended. It is not a matter of "proportionality," but of choice of action in the first place: Is there an alternative to violence?"
Why have Victor Chandler International decided to enter the spread betting sector at the onset of the Depression? Did they not learn when they last dipped their toes in the waters?
Noam Chomsky: "Israel has a straightforward means to defend itself: put an end to its criminal actions in occupied territories, and accept the long-standing international consensus on a two-state settlement that has been blocked by the US and Israel for over 30 years, since the US first vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for a political settlement in these terms in 1976. I will not once again run through the inglorious record, but it is important to be aware that US-Israeli rejectionism today is even more blatant than in the past. The Arab League has gone even beyond the consensus, calling for full normalization of relations with Israel. Hamas has repeatedly called for a two-state settlement in terms of the international consensus. Iran and Hezbollah have made it clear that they will abide by any agreement that Palestinians accept. That leaves the US-Israel in splendid isolation, not only in words."
Why are Victor Chandler International so concerned at the integrity of football?
Noam Chomsky: "After Israel broke the June 2008 ceasefire (such as it was) in November, the siege was tightened further, with even more disastrous consequences for the population. According to Sara Roy, the leading academic specialist on Gaza, "On Nov. 5, Israel sealed all crossing points into Gaza, vastly reducing and at times denying food supplies, medicines, fuel, cooking gas, and parts for water and sanitation systems..." During November, an average of 4.6 trucks of food per day entered Gaza from Israel compared with an average of 123 trucks per day in October. Spare parts for the repair and maintenance of water-related equipment have been denied entry for over a year. The World Health Organization just reported that half of Gaza's ambulances are now out of order" - and the rest soon became targets for Israeli attack. Gaza's only power station was forced to suspend operation for lack of fuel, and could not be started up again because they needed spare parts, which had been sitting in the Israeli port of Ashdod for 8 months. Shortage of electricity led to a 300% increase in burn cases at Shifaa' hospital in the Gaza Strip, resulting from efforts to light wood fires. Israel barred shipment of Chlorine, so that by mid-December in Gaza City and the north access to water was limited to six hours every three days. The human consequences are not counted among Palestinian victims of Israeli terror."
Why did Alan Shearer rewrite Reality in his assessment of Mike Dean's comedic performance in allegedly refereeing the game between Sunderland and Aston Villa?
Noam Chomsky: "Israel's senior diplomatic correspondent Akiva Eldar reports that shortly before Israel launched its full-scale invasion on Saturday Dec. 27, "Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshal announced on the Iz al-Din al-Qassam Web site that he was prepared not only for a 'cessation of aggression' - he proposed going back to the arrangement at the Rafah crossing as of 2005, before Hamas won the elections and later took over the region. That arrangement was for the crossing to be managed jointly by Egypt, the European Union, the Palestinian Authority presidency and Hamas," and as noted earlier, called for opening of the crossings to desperately needed supplies."
Why did Dave Whelan put all his ill-gotten gains into dodgy Icelandic banks?
Noam Chomsky: "Today, Israel could have security, normalization of relations, and integration into the region. But it very clearly prefers illegal expansion, conflict, and repeated exercise of violence, actions that are not only criminal, murderous and destructive but are also eroding its own long-term security. US military and Middle East specialist Andrew Cordesman writes that while Israel military force can surely crush defenseless Gaza, "neither Israel nor the US can gain from a war that produces [a bitter] reaction from one of the wisest and most moderate voices in the Arab world, Prince Turki al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia, who said on January 6 that `The Bush administration has left [Obama] a disgusting legacy and a reckless position towards the massacres and bloodshed of innocents in Gaza...Enough is enough, today we are all Palestinians and we seek martyrdom for God and for Palestine, following those who died in Gaza'.""
Why does Dave Whelan object to other's tilting markets for proprietary advantage when he employs such tactics himself?
Noam Chomsky: "One of the wisest voices in Israel, Uri Avnery, writes that after an Israeli military victory, "What will be seared into the consciousness of the world will be the image of Israel as a blood-stained monster, ready at any moment to commit war crimes and not prepared to abide by any moral restraints. This will have severe consequences for our long-term future, our standing in the world, our chance of achieving peace and quiet. In the end, this war is a crime against ourselves too, a crime against the State of Israel.""
Why is the collapse of the BSkyB linkage with pubs going to be so key to the next tv deal, to the Premier League's financial detriment?
Noam Chomsky: "There is good reason to believe that he is right. Israel is deliberately turning itself into perhaps the most hated country in the world, and is also losing the allegiance of the population of the West, including younger American Jews, who are unlikely to tolerate its persistent shocking crimes for long. Decades ago, I wrote that those who call themselves "supporters of Israel" are in reality supporters of its moral degeneration and probable ultimate destruction. Regrettably, that judgment looks more and more plausible."
Why was it so funny seeing psychopath Dick Cheney arriving for the inauguration of ObamaWorld - not "Renewing America" so much as "Rebranding America" - in his wheelchair? Why was this just so funny...?
Noam Chomsky: "Meanwhile we are quietly observing a rare event in history, what the late Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling called "politicide," the murder of a nation -- at our hands."
We are all Palestinians...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
That surely includes the timing of the assault: shortly before noon, when children were returning from school and crowds were milling in the streets of densely populated Gaza City. It took only a few minutes to kill over 225 people and wound 700, an auspicious opening to the mass slaughter of defenceless civilians trapped in a tiny cage with nowhere to flee."
Why are we not able to watch, on the telly, Kettering and their Palestinian charity shirt sponsors against Egyptian-owned Fulham in the FA Cup next weekend?
Noam Chomsky: "The meticulous planning also presumably included the termination of the assault, carefully timed to be just before the inauguration, so as to minimize the (remote) threat that Obama might have to say some words critical of these vicious US-supported crimes."
Why are FIFA taking action against Frédéric Kanouté for displaying the slogan "Palestina" in a recent Copa Del Rey match?
Noam Chomsky: "Two weeks after the Sabbath opening of the assault, with much of Gaza already pounded to rubble and the death toll approaching 1000, the UN Agency UNRWA, on which most Gazans depend for survival, announced that the Israeli military refused to allow aid shipments to Gaza, saying that the crossings were closed for the Sabbath. To honour the holy day, Palestinians at the edge of survival must be denied food and medicine, while hundreds can be slaughtered by US jet bombers and helicopters."
Why on earth would Kaká have left Milan for Abu Dhabi United?
Noam Chomsky: "The rigorous observance of the Sabbath in this dual fashion attracted little if any notice. That makes sense. In the annals of US-Israeli criminality, such cruelty and cynicism scarcely merit more than a footnote. They are too familiar. To cite one relevant parallel, in June 1982 the US-backed Israeli invasion of Lebanon opened with the bombing of the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, later to become famous as the site of terrible massacres supervised by the IDF (Israeli "Defence" Forces). The bombing hit the local hospital - the Gaza hospital -- and killed over 200 people, according to the eyewitness account of an American Middle East academic specialist. The massacre was the opening act in an invasion that slaughtered some 15-20,000 people and destroyed much of southern Lebanon and Beirut, proceeding with crucial US military and diplomatic support. That included vetoes of Security Council resolutions seeking to halt the criminal aggression that was undertaken, as scarcely concealed, to defend Israel from the threat of peaceful political settlement, contrary to many convenient fabrications about Israelis suffering under intense rocketing, a fantasy of apologists."
Why did the roof collapse, killing nine people, at Kaká's church, the Reborn in Christ Church, during his negotiations with Abu Dhabi United? Was it a Sign?
Noam Chomsky: "All of this is normal, and quite openly discussed by high Israeli officials. Thirty years ago Chief of Staff Mordechai Gur observed that since 1948, "we have been fighting against a population that lives in villages and cities." As Israel's most prominent military analyst, Zeev Schiff, summarized his remarks, "the Israeli Army has always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously...the Army, he said, has never distinguished civilian [from military] targets...[but] purposely attacked civilian targets." The reasons were explained by the distinguished statesman Abba Eban: "there was a rational prospect, ultimately fulfilled, that affected populations would exert pressure for the cessation of hostilities." The effect, as Eban well understood, would be to allow Israel to implement, undisturbed, its programs of illegal expansion and harsh repression. Eban was commenting on a review of Labour government attacks against civilians by Prime Minister Begin, presenting a picture, Eban said, "of an Israel wantonly inflicting every possible measure of death and anguish on civilian populations in a mood reminiscent of regimes which neither Mr.Begin nor I would dare to mention by name." Eban did not contest the facts that Begin reviewed, but criticized him for stating them publicly. Nor did it concern Eban, or his admirers, that his advocacy of massive state terror is also reminiscent of regimes he would not dare to mention by name."
Why are the mainstream media pretending that we have a January Transfer Market when, in Reality, we have an Abu Dhabi United Transfer Window?
Noam Chomsky: "Eban's justification for state terror is regarded as persuasive by respected authorities. As the current US-Israel assault raged, Times columnist Thomas Friedman explained that Israel's tactics both in the current attack and in its invasion of Lebanon in 2006 are based on the sound principle of "trying to 'educate' Hamas, by inflicting a heavy death toll on Hamas militants and heavy pain on the Gaza population." That makes sense on pragmatic grounds, as it did in Lebanon, where "the only long-term source of deterrence was to exact enough pain on the civilians -- the families and employers of the militants -- to restrain Hezbollah in the future." And by similar logic, bin Laden's effort to "educate" Americans on 9/11 was highly praiseworthy, as were the Nazi attacks on Lidice and Oradour, Putin's destruction of Grozny, and other notable attempts at 'education'."
Why is Rafa so "disturbed" and full of "venom" over his historical revisionism?
Noam Chomsky: "Like others familiar with the region, Middle East specialist Fawwaz Gerges observes that "What Israeli officials and their American allies do not appreciate is that Hamas is not merely an armed militia but a social movement with a large popular base that is deeply entrenched in society." Hence when they carry out their plans to destroy Hamas's "social wing," they are aiming to destroy Palestinian society."
Why, even Fernando Torres does not agree with his manager...
Noam Chomsky: "Hamas is regularly described as "Iranian-backed Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel." One will be hard put to find something like "democratically elected Hamas, which has long been calling for a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus" -- blocked for over 30 years by the US and Israel, which flatly and explicitly reject the right of Palestinians to self-determination. All true, but not a useful contribution to the Party Line, hence dispensable."
Why is Rafa cracking up?
Noam Chomsky: "Such details as those mentioned earlier, though minor, nevertheless teach us something about ourselves and our clients. So do others. To mention another one, as the latest US-Israeli assault on Gaza began, a small boat, the Dignity, was on its way from Cyprus to Gaza. The doctors and human rights activists aboard intended to violate Israel's criminal blockade and to bring medical supplies to the trapped population. The ship was intercepted in international waters by Israeli naval vessels, which rammed it severely, almost sinking it, though it managed to limp to Lebanon. Israel issued the routine lies, refuted by the journalists and passengers aboard, including CNN correspondent Karl Penhaul and former US representative and Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney. That is a serious crime -- much worse, for example, than hijacking boats off the coast of Somalia. It passed with little notice. The tacit acceptance of such crimes reflects the understanding that Gaza is occupied territory, and that Israel is entitled to maintain its siege, even authorized by the guardians of international order to carry out crimes on the high seas to implement its programs of punishing the civilian population for disobedience to its commands - under pretexts to which we return, almost universally accepted but clearly untenable."
Why the satanic beard, Rafa?
Noam Chomsky: "Who cares, for example, if the editors of Lebanon's Daily Star, generally pro-Western, write that "Some 1.5 million people in Gaza are being subjected to the murderous ministrations of one of the world's most technologically advanced but morally regressive military machines. It is often suggested that the Palestinians have become to the Arab world what the Jews were to pre-World War II Europe, and there is some truth to this interpretation. How sickeningly appropriate, then, that just as Europeans and North Americans looked the other way when the Nazis were perpetrating the Holocaust, the Arabs are finding a way to do nothing as the Israelis slaughter Palestinian children." Perhaps the most shameful of the Arab regimes is the brutal Egyptian dictatorship, the beneficiary of most US military aid, apart from Israel."
Why does PGMOB official Stuart Attwell always cover his mouth when talking to senior referees?
Noam Chomsky: "The new crimes that the US and Israel have been committing in Gaza in the past weeks do not fit easily into any standard category - except for the category of familiarity; I've just given several examples, and will return to others. Literally, the crimes fall under the official US government definition of "terrorism," but that designation does not capture their enormity. They cannot be called "aggression," because they are being conducted in occupied territory, as the US tacitly concedes. In their comprehensive scholarly history of Israeli settlement in the occupied territories, Lords of the Land, Idit Zertal and Akiva Eldar point out that after Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza in August 2005, the ruined territory was not released "for even a single day from Israel's military grip or from the price of the occupation that the inhabitants pay every day... Israel left behind scorched earth, devastated services, and people with neither a present nor a future. The settlements were destroyed in an ungenerous move by an unenlightened occupier, which in fact continues to control the territory and kill and harass its inhabitants by means of its formidable military might" - exercised with extreme savagery, thanks to firm US support and participation."
Why has Steve Bennett officiated at five out of the last 28 Premiership matches?
Noam Chomsky: "The US-Israeli assault on Gaza escalated in January 2006, a few months after the formal withdrawal, when Palestinians committed a truly heinous crime: they voted "the wrong way" in a free election. Like others, Palestinians learned that one does not disobey with impunity the commands of the Master, who continues to prate of his "yearning for democracy," without eliciting ridicule from the educated classes, another impressive achievement."
Why were there three changes of referee in the Premiership last weekend when most leading European leagues see one such instance every five years or so?
Noam Chomsky: "Since the terms "aggression" and "terrorism" are inadequate, some new term is needed for the sadistic and cowardly torture of people caged with no possibility of escape, while they are being pounded to dust by the most sophisticated products of US military technology - used in violation of international and even US law, but for self-declared outlaw states that is just another minor technicality. Also a minor technicality is the fact that on December 31, while terrorized Gazans were desperately seeking shelter from the ruthless assault, Washington hired a German merchant ship to transport from Greece to Israel a huge shipment, 3000 tons, of unidentified "ammunition." The new shipment "follows the hiring of a commercial ship to carry a much larger consignment of ordnance in December from the United States to Israel ahead of air strikes in the Gaza Strip," Reuters reported. All of this is separate from the more than $21 billion in U.S. military aid provided by the Bush administration to Israel, almost all grants. "Israel's intervention in the Gaza Strip has been fueled largely by U.S. supplied weapons paid for with U.S. tax dollars," said a briefing by the New America Foundation, which monitors the arms trade. The new shipment was hampered by the decision of the Greek government to bar the use of any port in Greece "for the supplying of the Israeli army."
Greece's response to US-backed Israeli crimes is rather different from the craven performance of the leaders of most of Europe. The distinction reveals that Washington may have been quite realistic in regarding Greece as part of the Near East, not Europe, until the overthrow of its US-backed fascist dictatorship in 1974. Perhaps Greece is just too civilized to be part of Europe."
Why does Howard Webb get every major match and isn't this just a little too much power in one policeman's hands?
Noam Chomsky: "There are good reasons why the voting record is consistently unreported and dispatched deep into the memory hole by the media and conformist intellectuals. It would not be wise to reveal to the public what the record implies about their elected representatives. In the present case it would plainly be unhelpful to let the public know that US-Israeli rejectionism, barring the peaceful settlement long advocated by the world, reaches such an extreme as to deny Palestinians even the abstract right to self-determination."
Why has Keith Harris finally admitted that there is no possibility of any club being sold in the current global financial climate that was absolutely not caused, in any way whatsoever, by free market capitalist ideologues?
Noam Chomsky: "The figures for killed and wounded are surely an underestimate. And it is unlikely that there will be any inquiry into these atrocities. Crimes of official enemies are subjected to rigorous investigation, but our own are systematically ignored. General practice, again, and understandable on the part of the masters.
The Security Council Resolution called for stopping the flow of arms into Gaza. The US and Israel (Rice-Livni) soon reached an agreement on measures to ensure this result, concentrating on Iranian arms. There is no need to stop smuggling of US arms into Israel, because there is no smuggling: the huge flow of arms is quite public, even when not reported, as in the case of the arms shipment announced as the slaughter in Gaza was proceeding."
Why is Richard Scudamore keeping very very quiet at the moment? It surely would have nothing to do with the new televisions deals, would it?
Noam Chomsky: "Israel abandoned Gaza in September 2005. Rational Israeli hardliners, like Ariel Sharon, the patron saint of the settlers movement, understood that it was senseless to subsidize a few thousand illegal Israeli settlers in the ruins of Gaza, protected by the IDF while they used much of the land and scarce resources. It made more sense to turn Gaza into the world's largest prison and to transfer settlers to the West Bank, much more valuable territory, where Israel is quite explicit about its intentions, in word and more importantly in deed. One goal is to annex the arable land, water supplies, and pleasant suburbs of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv that lie within the separation wall, irrelevantly declared illegal by the World Court. That includes a vastly expanded Jerusalem, in violation of Security Council orders that go back 40 years, also irrelevant. Israel has also been taking over the Jordan Valley, about one-third of the West Bank. What remains is therefore imprisoned, and, furthermore, broken into fragments by salients of Jewish settlement that trisect the territory: one to the east of Greater Jerusalem through the town of Ma'aleh Adumim, developed through the Clinton years to split the West Bank; and two to the north, through the towns of Ariel and Kedumim. What remains to Palestinians is segregated by hundreds of mostly arbitrary checkpoints."
Why will the Premiership title race go to the very last game again this season?
Noam Chomsky: "The checkpoints have no relation to security of Israel, and if some are intended to safeguard settlers, they are flatly illegal, as the World Court ruled. In reality, their major goal is harass the Palestinian population and to fortify what Israeli peace activist Jeff Halper calls the "matrix of control," designed to make life unbearable for the "two-legged beasts" who will be like "drugged roaches scurrying around in a bottle" if they seek to remain in their homes and land. All of that is fair enough, because they are "like grasshoppers compared to us" so that their heads can be "smashed against the boulders and walls." The terminology is from the highest Israeli political and military leaders, in this case the revered "princes." And the attitudes shape policies."
Why is the Premiership now a handicapped event?
Noam Chomsky: "The plans that Olmert sketched in 2006 have since been abandoned as not sufficiently extreme. But what replaces the convergence programme, and the actions that proceed daily to implement it, are approximately the same in general conception. They trace back to the earliest days of the occupation, when Defence Minister Moshe Dayan explained poetically that "the situation today resembles the complex relationship between a Bedouin man and the girl he kidnaps against her will...You Palestinians, as a nation, don't want us today, but we'll change your attitude by forcing our presence on you." You will "live like dogs, and whoever will leave, will leave," while we take what we want."
Why? Is it true that the Dalai Lama wishes an audience with Harry Redknapp?
Noam Chomsky: "As the crimes passed beyond what the carefully honed Israeli propaganda campaign was able to suppress, even confirmed Israeli hawks became concerned that the carnage is "Destroying [Israel's] soul and its image. Destroying it on world television screens, in the living rooms of the international community and most importantly, in Obama's America" (Ari Shavit). Shavit was particularly concerned about Israel's "shelling a United Nations facility...on the day when the UN secretary general is visiting Jerusalem," an act that is "beyond lunacy," he felt."
Why does Stevie G take such an interest in matters of the underworld variety?
Noam Chomsky: "Before, Israel had sensibly barred all journalists, even Israeli, while its crimes were proceeding in full fury. Israel's use of white phosphorus against Gaza civilians is "clear and undeniable," Amnesty International (AI) reported. Its repeated use in densely populated civilian areas "is a war crime," AI concluded. They found white phosphorus edges scattered around residential buildings, still burning, "further endangering the residents and their property," particularly children "drawn to the detritus of war and often unaware of the danger." Primary targets, they report, were the UNRWA compound, where the Israeli "white phosphorus landed next to some fuel trucks and caused a large fire which destroyed tons of humanitarian aid" after Israeli authorities "had given assurance that no further strikes would be launched on the compound." On the same day, "a white phosphorus shell landed in the al-Quds hospital in Gaza City also causing a fire which forced hospital staff to evacuate the patients... White phosphorus landing on skin can burn deep through muscle and into the bone, continuing to burn unless deprived of oxygen." Purposely intended or beyond depraved indifference, such crimes are inevitable when this weapon is used in attacks on civilians."
Why is Thaksin Shinawatra still allowed to own 25% of Abu Dhabi United when the latest Amnesty International report accuses his government of "systematic" genocide against Muslims in the south of the country?
Noam Chomsky: "Aggression always has a pretext: in this case, that Israel's patience had "run out" in the face of Hamas rocket attacks, as Barak put it. The mantra that is endlessly repeated is that Israel has the right to use force to defend itself. The thesis is partially defensible. The rocketing is criminal, and it is true that a state has the right to defend itself against criminal attacks. But it does not follow that it has a right to defend itself by force. That goes far beyond any principle that we would or should accept. Nazi Germany had no right to use force to defend itself against the terrorism of the partisans. Kristallnacht is not justified by Herschel Grynszpan's assassination of a German Embassy official in Paris. The British were not justified in using force to defend themselves against the (very real) terror of the American colonists seeking independence, or to terrorize Irish Catholics in response to IRA terror - and when they finally turned to the sensible policy of addressing legitimate grievances, the terror ended. It is not a matter of "proportionality," but of choice of action in the first place: Is there an alternative to violence?"
Why have Victor Chandler International decided to enter the spread betting sector at the onset of the Depression? Did they not learn when they last dipped their toes in the waters?
Noam Chomsky: "Israel has a straightforward means to defend itself: put an end to its criminal actions in occupied territories, and accept the long-standing international consensus on a two-state settlement that has been blocked by the US and Israel for over 30 years, since the US first vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for a political settlement in these terms in 1976. I will not once again run through the inglorious record, but it is important to be aware that US-Israeli rejectionism today is even more blatant than in the past. The Arab League has gone even beyond the consensus, calling for full normalization of relations with Israel. Hamas has repeatedly called for a two-state settlement in terms of the international consensus. Iran and Hezbollah have made it clear that they will abide by any agreement that Palestinians accept. That leaves the US-Israel in splendid isolation, not only in words."
Why are Victor Chandler International so concerned at the integrity of football?
Noam Chomsky: "After Israel broke the June 2008 ceasefire (such as it was) in November, the siege was tightened further, with even more disastrous consequences for the population. According to Sara Roy, the leading academic specialist on Gaza, "On Nov. 5, Israel sealed all crossing points into Gaza, vastly reducing and at times denying food supplies, medicines, fuel, cooking gas, and parts for water and sanitation systems..." During November, an average of 4.6 trucks of food per day entered Gaza from Israel compared with an average of 123 trucks per day in October. Spare parts for the repair and maintenance of water-related equipment have been denied entry for over a year. The World Health Organization just reported that half of Gaza's ambulances are now out of order" - and the rest soon became targets for Israeli attack. Gaza's only power station was forced to suspend operation for lack of fuel, and could not be started up again because they needed spare parts, which had been sitting in the Israeli port of Ashdod for 8 months. Shortage of electricity led to a 300% increase in burn cases at Shifaa' hospital in the Gaza Strip, resulting from efforts to light wood fires. Israel barred shipment of Chlorine, so that by mid-December in Gaza City and the north access to water was limited to six hours every three days. The human consequences are not counted among Palestinian victims of Israeli terror."
Why did Alan Shearer rewrite Reality in his assessment of Mike Dean's comedic performance in allegedly refereeing the game between Sunderland and Aston Villa?
Noam Chomsky: "Israel's senior diplomatic correspondent Akiva Eldar reports that shortly before Israel launched its full-scale invasion on Saturday Dec. 27, "Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshal announced on the Iz al-Din al-Qassam Web site that he was prepared not only for a 'cessation of aggression' - he proposed going back to the arrangement at the Rafah crossing as of 2005, before Hamas won the elections and later took over the region. That arrangement was for the crossing to be managed jointly by Egypt, the European Union, the Palestinian Authority presidency and Hamas," and as noted earlier, called for opening of the crossings to desperately needed supplies."
Why did Dave Whelan put all his ill-gotten gains into dodgy Icelandic banks?
Noam Chomsky: "Today, Israel could have security, normalization of relations, and integration into the region. But it very clearly prefers illegal expansion, conflict, and repeated exercise of violence, actions that are not only criminal, murderous and destructive but are also eroding its own long-term security. US military and Middle East specialist Andrew Cordesman writes that while Israel military force can surely crush defenseless Gaza, "neither Israel nor the US can gain from a war that produces [a bitter] reaction from one of the wisest and most moderate voices in the Arab world, Prince Turki al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia, who said on January 6 that `The Bush administration has left [Obama] a disgusting legacy and a reckless position towards the massacres and bloodshed of innocents in Gaza...Enough is enough, today we are all Palestinians and we seek martyrdom for God and for Palestine, following those who died in Gaza'.""
Why does Dave Whelan object to other's tilting markets for proprietary advantage when he employs such tactics himself?
Noam Chomsky: "One of the wisest voices in Israel, Uri Avnery, writes that after an Israeli military victory, "What will be seared into the consciousness of the world will be the image of Israel as a blood-stained monster, ready at any moment to commit war crimes and not prepared to abide by any moral restraints. This will have severe consequences for our long-term future, our standing in the world, our chance of achieving peace and quiet. In the end, this war is a crime against ourselves too, a crime against the State of Israel.""
Why is the collapse of the BSkyB linkage with pubs going to be so key to the next tv deal, to the Premier League's financial detriment?
Noam Chomsky: "There is good reason to believe that he is right. Israel is deliberately turning itself into perhaps the most hated country in the world, and is also losing the allegiance of the population of the West, including younger American Jews, who are unlikely to tolerate its persistent shocking crimes for long. Decades ago, I wrote that those who call themselves "supporters of Israel" are in reality supporters of its moral degeneration and probable ultimate destruction. Regrettably, that judgment looks more and more plausible."
Why was it so funny seeing psychopath Dick Cheney arriving for the inauguration of ObamaWorld - not "Renewing America" so much as "Rebranding America" - in his wheelchair? Why was this just so funny...?
Noam Chomsky: "Meanwhile we are quietly observing a rare event in history, what the late Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling called "politicide," the murder of a nation -- at our hands."
We are all Palestinians...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
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