Never mind the murder, here's the ant-war protest round up.

First you'll be glad to know that the BNP finally came out. For those of you who don't know the British National Party are the public face of British racism. They support the forcible repatriation of non-white immigrants from the UK and their members have the nasty habits of denying the holocaust and flinging Nazi salutes. They are however quite fun to watch during an Arab/Israeli war because they always go through a massive internal struggle to decided who they hate more, the Paki's or the Jews. You'll be glad to know that on January 11th they finally came to a decision and following the standard rule of racism they attacked the ones with the darkest skin by blaming the protests outside the Israeli Embassy on "third world immigrants brought here by the failed ideology of multiculturalism". In quite the twist of irony on the same day the BNP made their announcement London Zionist held a rally in Trafalgar square which with it's plethora of Union Flags and burly private security goons was only a couple of Seig Heils away from a BNP march.

As for the embassy demo itself what started out peacefully enough quickly descended into some of the most intense street fighting following a political demonstration seen since probably Mayday 2000. Everything started peacefully enough as around 50-60,000 people marched to the Israeli Embassy from Hyde Park then as everybody arrived to find themselves corralled into a space which was far to small tensions began to rise. First a group tried to gain entry to the Russian Embassy thinking it was the rear entrance to the Israeli Embassy. Obviously this group soon began to clash with police throwing shoes, paint and placards forcing the police to respond initially with batons before donning riot helmets and deploying circular (short) riot shields. During the course of this clash the windows of an adjacent Starbucks store were smashed presumably as a responses to the CEO's continued support for Zionist groups who fund illegal Israeli settlements. As news of this clash began to spread and the police started deploying officers in riot gear around the embassy tensions rose further with the protesters attacking the police with barrages of shoes, sticks, coins, batteries, paint, fireworks and even the crash barriers the police had erected to protect the embassy.

After a stand off of several hours in which saw another Starbucks store ransacked and injuries sustained by both police and protesters the police decided to move in and subdue the crowd. This was done by pushing a segregation line out from the gates of the embassy breaking the crowd up into two groups which were then pushed apart. The police did not have an easy time of this though as the crowd fought back using the police's own crash barriers, fists and sticks to repel multiple baton charges. Over the course of the next hour three police officer were knocked unconscious and several received what have been described as serious facial injuries. Eventually with the deployment of horses, vans and rarely used long riot shields the police were able to place a "kettle" around the two groups detaining around 3000 on "suspicion of causing criminal damage". For another hour or so the two groups were squeezed tight within the kettles until their desire to cause further trouble had dissipated. They were then released one by one to have their photographs taken and their names and addresses recorded.

Personally I didn't attended the demonstration which was probably a good thing because whent he showed it on the news I immediately started swearing at the TV shouting things like;

"Don't they know police batons only have purchase over the final 1.5ft? All they need to do is get the front row of the crowd to link arms and close the distance with the police line and they can stop a baton charge dead."
and
"For gods sake, if you're going to put the barriers in the road at least arrange them in triangles so you can filter the baton charges into single columns of police officers." I got the same effect watching the Last Castle the other day raising the question of why I couldn't have been born with a talent for something less illegal. All in all the cost of the demonstration was around £300,000 not including damage to property or loss of revenue to local businesses. This fact alone probably explains why the police promptly banned the Stop the War Coalition from holding any further demonstrations outside the Israeli Embassy and the STWC suddenly felt the need to go off an protest against BBC bias.

Even with these large London protest clear winners int he property damage stakes, behind the IAF obviously, are the Smash Edo campaign in Brighton. In amongst the houses and civilian businesses of this seaside town, roughly the size of the Gaza strip American arms manufacturer ITT operate a weapons factory under the name EDO MBM . One of the key products manufactured at the site are the bomb release mechanisms that the Israel's use to drop paveway bombs on the Palestinians from their F16's. To protest against Israels actions in Gaza nine protesters from the Smash Edo campaign broke into the factory and proceeded to put it out of action by destroying precision manufacturing equipment, computers and company files. Insurers estimate the damage at around £260,000 meaning those arrested will have to be tried in Crown court. This is where things could get very interesting because the Smash Edo campaign has been running for a number of years and has seen a number of smaller prosecutions for criminal damage. Every time one of these cases have come to court the defendants have let it be known they intend to run a defence of lawful excuse because EDO's products are used in the commission of war crimes. At this point the company withdraw their support the complaint collapsing the prosecution to avoid having the matter discussed in open court. Now with the amount of damage done if the company wants it's insurance payout they will have to go ahead with the prosecution meaning that Israels conduct in the Gaza war may well come up in front of a British Court. No doubt this is the excuse the protesters will use to explain why they hung around to get arrested rather then simply setting fire to the factory

Of course all this is in danger of being quickly forgotten in just two weeks because there have been wildcat strikes at 14 oil refineries and power stations across the UK as workers show their opposition to threats to their jobs.

Is this the definition of annoying?

Before the Christmas holidays I decided to take a break from my normally hectic schedule and watch the trilogy of Bourne films because I've never seen them. As if to prove I've never seen them I went out and managed to buy the first Bourne film and the third Bourne film. This meant I had to go out again and buy the second film. When I arrived at the shops I discovered I could buy all three of the films in a neat little box set for less money then it would cost to buy any of the three films individually. To make matter worse I got home to discover that the second film was, that night, being shown on TV for free.

Of course I still haven't had time to actually watch any of the films because I've been too busy filling in that "Has to council grown a braincell?" form. This odious 32 page, poorly punctuated, document is packed full of questions just crying out for smart mouth answers including; "Do you suffer from any serious mental impairment?" and "Is there anything else you would like to tell us?" and those are just the occasions where they bother to publish an actual question rather then simply just printing a series of possible answers asking you to guess. As with all other government forms it ends asking you to sign a declaration that all the information you have given on the form is correct and you understand that if it is not the courts may take action against you. I'm sure this last question is totally unnecessary under the principal that those who come to the law must do so with clean hands but I filled it in none the less just like I did on the last form. Besides I've checked the relevant legislation and discovered that there is no legal barrier whatsoever to the council authorising my application. Of course there are a number of procedures that could be used to block the application but rather then being a legal necessity these are mere procedures that only need to be invoked at the councils discretion. Therefore if the council chooses to invoke them I will have no option then to conclude they wish to pick a fight which doesn't need to be fought and they have no chance of winning.

In related news this week the council offered me a place in one of the 100 or so boxy new build flats that sprung up across the borough just as the mortgage market collapsed. This means that Croydon Council already have sufficient funds in their budget to fulfill their obligations but they are only prepared to do so if the money is paid to one of their cronies. I've also heard an rumour that Ms Sadie Belgrave is no longer in the employ of Mind in Croydon. For her this is a terrible shame because if she'd left when first instructed to do so she would have left facing a buoyant job market.

Corrections & Clarifications.

In yesterday's post I described the Diary of Anne Frank as "atrocity propaganda." This may have had led some people to believe that I think the diary is a work of fiction. This is not the case. Since it's publication in 1947 the diaries authenticity has been called into question on a number of occasions, mainly by right-wing nut bags like David Irvine and the BNP. As a result the text has been the subject of a number of court cases and multiple forensic investigations. The findings of these exercises are always the same. There is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that the text is anything other then the diary of a young Jewish girl written during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. It has features nothing more then the normal amount of editing and polishing involved in translating a private memoir into a published book. It is therefore as truthful as any 15 year old's diary can be expected to be.

The term "atrocity propaganda" was, to my knowledge at least, was coined by Israel Government spokespeople to describe any attempt by Gazans to describe injuries, deaths or damage to property carried out by the Israeli Defence Forces. Over the last week this rapidly became their stock response to any incident described by the UN or international journalists without any attempt to, or possibly to avoid a discussion of whether and how the event actually occurred. From this parrot like response I can only assume that the Israelis are defining "atrocity propaganda" as any attempt to promote information relating to an atrocity. As such the Diary of Anne Frank is a clear example of atrocity propaganda.

The correction I need to make bears no relation whatsoever to yesterday's post but I can't be bothered to chase up the person I made it to individually so I will simply post the correction here.

One of the ancillary protests that have sprung up in the UK over the Israeli/Gaza conflict has been against Lloyds TSB who as the war began refused to act as the clearing bank for a Palestinian aid charity called Interpal. Coming as it does at a time when Palestinian aid charities need all the help they can the timing of this decision to effectively shut down Interpal's operations has repeatedly been called into question. Yesterday I attempted to answer that question by saying something along the lines of;

"The United States have just slammed Lloyds TSB with a massive fine for breaking sanctions. Much as it pains me to say so your quarrel is with the US rather then Lloyds TSB."

What I meant to say was;

"For a number of years the United States have been investigating Lloyds TSB for breaking international sanctions against Iran. This court case recently came to an end with Lloyds TSB receiving a large(ish), pre-negotiated fine. The timing of this case coming to an end is the result of a number of reasons including, but not limited too; The prosecution had come to it's natural end, there was a desire to "clear the decks" before Bush stepped down as president and Britain's espionage games which were once almost endearing are now just getting embarrassing. The questions you should be asking yourself are; Why was one of Britain's dirtiest banks so keen to know all the sordid secrets of Iran's money laundering operations? and How badly do MI6 want an excuse to unload the Lloyds TSB brand?"

Apologises for any confusion but you know what it's like late at night and a bit drunk. Besides in this fools graveyard it's getting harder and harder to pretend I'm part of an active service unit. Now if anyone needs me I'm off to fill in a large form to enquire if my local council has managed to grow a braincell. That forms second question is "Are there any other names by which you're known?" so this may take some time.

Apparently callers to the BBC's complaint line are being greeted with the recorded message;

"If you wish to complain about the BBC's decision not to air the DEC's Gaza appeal please press 1." That is if the call at a time when the volume of complaints isn't so large that it has overwhelmed the switchboard leaving callers with nothing more then an engaged tone.

As for the appeal itself the other four terrestrial TV channels have broken with 46 years of tradition and will broadcast the two minute appeal on Monday without a consensus being reached. The BBC however are still pretending to stay strong in the face of political lobbying by refusing to broadcast the appeal. They are justify this decision by arguing that;

"We could not broadcast a free-standing appeal, no matter how carefully constructed, without running the risk of reducing public confidence in the BBC's impartiality in its wider coverage of the story. Inevitably an appeal would use pictures which are the same or similar to those we would be using in our news programmes."

This argument would of course have more credibility if the same editorial guidelines had been applied to the BBC's decision to air a new adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank while Israel's campaign in Gaza was at its peak. For those of you unfamiliar with the work it tells of the experiences of a teenage Jewish girl who, with her family, was forced into hiding after the Nazi occupation of Holland. Most people will know the story well because the book or the multiple adaptations to both stage and screen have long been heralded as an excellent way to introduce people to the Jewish experience of world war two through an enigmatic central character. It is one of the best and most famous examples of what the Israeli government have taken to calling "atrocity propaganda."
The five, 1 hour episodes of the series were aired on BBC1 in the 7pm time slot, straight after the evening news.

While this level of pro-Israeli bias in the BBC's reporting is shocking it is sadly not in anyway surprising. You see any journalist or news organisation (Israeli's included) who has the audacity to report on middle eastern affairs let alone question Israel's self-appointed right to kill as many Palestinians as they like soon come under the scrutiny of groups such as;

The Israel Project who describe themselves as a "trusted" non-governmental organisation based in Jerusalem dedicated to educating the press and the public about Israel. They provide reporters with all the information an motivation they will need to make sure Israel's point of view on any issue is well represented.

Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America who recruit and train local activists to monitor coverage of Arab/Israeli affairs and lobby media news outlets who they feel are being less then accurate in their reporting. Examples of corrections their activists have "won" are listed on their website including an incident where the New York Times ran a photograph of an Israeli child fleeing her home in Sedrot alongside the caption;

"Bat El Ifrah, 10, removed articles on Wednesday from her home in Sderot, Israel, as her family prepared to flee...Two children on a playground near the Gaza border were also wounded in the attack, which was in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza that killed seven Hamas policemen."

CAMERA activists had this "corrected" to read;

"A caption on Thursday with a photograph of a home in Israel hit by a Palestinian rocket described the events surrounding the attack imprecisely. While the rocket attack followed an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza, it was not known whether it was in fact in retaliation for the airstrike."

This "correction" is in itself incorrect because the only reason we know the rocket attack was carried out by Hamas is because they issued a claim of responsibility in which they clearly stated it was a retaliation for the Israeli airstrike.

More worryingly was the incident where CNN ran an article featuring the phrase;

"Israel at 60 is a place where creativity flourishes but where Palestinians are not allowed on West Bank roads reserved for Jews."

Which the self-appointed media monitors had changed to read;

"Israel at 60 is a place where creativity flourishes but where Palestinians are not allowed on West Bank roads reserved for Israelis."

This correction is particularly disturbing because Israel always asserts that Arab's in Israel enjoy full and equal democratic rights. For the campaign to get a distinction between Arab-Israelis and Jewish-Israelis changed to a distinction between Israeli's and non-Israelis would suggest that CAMERA doesn't believe that Arabs qualify a full Israelis.

Meanwhile in Israel itself the BBC seem to have been singled out for special attention for a perceived pro-Palestinian bias in their reporting of the most recent Gaza conflict. Some members of Israel's security services (Mossad) have even gone so far as to accuse the BBC of providing Hamas with material support as a form of ransom payment for the safe return of BBC journalist Alan Johnston. During the last week Eretz Nehaderet, an Israeli TV show, featured a Saturday Night Live style skit openly mocking BBC's reporters for showing a pro-Palestinian bias although this video has mysteriously disappeared from Youtube. So severe is Israels criticism of the BBC the situation looks like reaching the proportions of the incident in 2003 which followed the BBC's airing of a documentary entitled; Israel's Secret Weapons. This well researched and factually accurate documentary revealed that in spite of Israels refusal to sign up to Nuclear non-proliferation treaties and it's repeated calls that action needed to be taken against Iran "to prevent a nuclear Middle East" Israel itself was in possession of a full and functioning secret nuclear weapons program which is large enough to rival the nuclear arsenals of Britain or France. Israel's response to this program was to break off all contact with the BBC before arresting and expelling a BBC journalist for conspiring against the Israeli government, a move which puts Israel in a select group of paranoid and totalitarian regimes including Burma and North Korea.

With this level of animosity between the Israeli government and the BBC I can't help but thinking all those who are complaining about the BBC's DEC decision are simply doing Israels dirty work for them. Perhaps some of them may wish to contact the Israeli embassy to discuss the matter further.

Jonathan Ross is back from suspesion and already the BBC are in trouble. Again.

Back in 1963 many of the main British Non-Governmental aid agencies like the Red Cross, Oxfam, CAFOD and a few others you've mysteriously never heard of decided to set up an umbrella group called The Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC). The idea of this was to allow them to pool their resources, take advantage of tax breaks and better co-ordinate their responses to humanitarian disasters like the Asian Tsunami, the Burmese Cyclone and a myriad of civil wars like the ones going on in Somalia and Sudan. People in the UK will be most familiar with the DEC because of the fundraising appeals they show on all five terrestrial TV stations, normally just after the evening news. The most recent of these came in November 2008, as the British Government was being hammered by the Baby P murder case, with the purpose of raising money for refugees created by fighting between government troops and Rwandan rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This appeal was of course completely altruistic and had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact a senior Rwandan politician had just been arrested by German security services on a warrant issued by the French security services reopening the old question of whether French intelligence were responsible for the plane crash that triggered the Rwandan genocide.


In response to the long running humanitarian disaster in Gaza which has recently been much worse by the Israeli decision to bomb the place for three weeks the DEC has launched an appeal to help the some 10,000 Palestinians who have been made homeless and the 750,000 who are with no access to clean drinking water. This appeal has hit a little bit of a snag though because the BBC have refused to carry a fundraising broadcast on the grounds that;


"it will affect their impartiality in reporting an ongoing news story."


DEC appeals can only be shown on any TV station if it is broadcast on all TV channels following a consensus between all the broadcasters so by taking this step the BBC have managed to block the Gaza fundraising appeal going out on any British TV channel.

With all the fuss this has caused I think it is worth pointing out that following extensive "negotiations" with the police the Stop The War Coalition decided that there was no longer any point holding noisy and expensive demonstrations outside the Israeli Embassy. Instead they've decided to hold all future demonstrations on the issue outside the BBC offices in London on the wafer-thin pretext that the BBC's news coverage of the Israel/Gaza war has been unusually biased in favour of the Israelis. The decision to block the DEC appeal will of course raise questions in diplomatic circles about the BBC's coverage of the war and pour fuel on the flames of the STWC marchers anger ahead of Saturday's demo outside the BBC. This makes me think that MI5 have yet to gather as much information as it would like on young Muslim men and needs to invent another reason to gather them in one place so they can hand over their names and addresses and have their photographs taken for the database.


Anyway donations to the DEC's Gaza appeal can be made here at their website.

Israel - Gaza War Day 24: The Shooting Has Stopped

After 23 days of war that left 13 Israelis and almost 1300 Palestinians dead the guns have finally fallen silent over Gaza after both Israel and Hamas called independent, unilateral ceasefires. It is of course far to early to say that this war is over because with Israeli troops continuing to occupy positions within Gaza it would only take a previously unheard of militant group like Hezbollah in Palestine to inexplicably start the shooting again. Besides while the Israeli blockade of Gaza continues then the Israelis will always be at war with the Palestinians.

With this ceasefire coming just a day before the inauguration of the new President of the United States it is almost as if this had been Israels plan all along. Use the Christmas period as a cover to start a brutal war and kill as many Palestinians as possible before bringing everything to a halt just before the inauguration so the ceasefire can be dressed up as doing the US President a favour by not allowing the war to spoil his swearing in ceremony. This "favour" will of course have to be repaid at some point in the future probably in the form of increased US military aid to Israel.

The most embarrassing part of the whole facade was that last Friday, in what must be the Bush Administration's final act of thudding stupidity, the US State Department signed over to the Israelis a package of high end surveillance technology, military trainers and, most crucially, increased Israeli access to American intelligence sources in order to sweeten a deal that had already been done.

Think you know Gaza?

As the current ceasefire begins to take hold with the halt orders slowly filtering their way through Hamas' command and control structure it's time for a quick quiz to see how much you know about the current conflict.

Question 1; During the ceasefire period between June 2008 and Israel's military incursion in November 2008 how many rockets did Hamas fire into Israel?

A) 25,000

B) 157

C) 4

D) Zero.

Question 2; During the same period how many rockets in total were fired into Israel by non-Hamas groups?

A) 25,000

B) 1,000

C)157

D)19

Question 3; What did Hamas do to those militants that defied the ceasefire and fired rockets into Israel?

A) Celebrated them as national heroes, showering them with gifts and holding parades in their honour.

B) Celebrate them quietly by rewarding them with money.

C) Publicly execute them in a Sharia Law gore fest.

D) Simply put them in Prison.

Question 4; How did Hamas respond to Israel's military incursion of November 4th?

A) Call for Israel to be wiped of the map and for all the Jews in the world to be slaughtered

B) Send wave after waver of child suicide bombers into Israel in order to kill as many Jews as possible.

C) Simply ignore it.

D) Fire a salvo of rockets in protest and the issue a statement warning Israel that if the incident was repeated it would make it politically impossible for them to renew the six month ceasefire.

Question 5; How did Israel respond to Hamas' protests against the incursion?

A) Apologise profusely offer medical treatment to the civilians injured and compensation for the houses, wells and farms that had been destroyed in the attack.

B) Apologise and offer to lift the blockade of Gaza so Hamas could enforce the ceasefire more effectively.

C) Do nothing.

D) Launch another military incursion just ten days later.




How did you do?
Mostly D's: Congratulations you have a full and clear understanding of the current conflict.

Mostly C's: You don't take Israeli propaganda at face value but you still need to check some of the facts for yourself.

Mostly B's: You really shouldn't take the mainstream media at face value.

Mostly A's: Been working for the CIA long?

Now who says Democracy is a Joke.

Back in 2001 the UK government gave planning permission to plans to expand the Heathrow airport site by building a fifth terminal. In order to appease 8 years of protest over the issue the government announced that the building of this new terminal would not lead to the building of a third runway. Now just 9 months after the new Terminal 5 opened the government has announced that it is going to build a third runway along with a sixth terminal and a hub railway station to connect to Birmingham. The government feels this expansion is needed to project jobs through a huge infrastructure building project and allow Heathrow to increase it's capacity so it can maintain it's status as a European hub airport.

As these objectives can be achieved by simply building a high-speed rail link to the north of England and Scotland there is massive public and political opposition to the expansion plan with both the minority Conservative and Liberal Democrat Parties announcing that they will not support the idea. A significant proportion of the governing Labour party have also stated their intention to vote against their party leadership on the issue. In short this expansion plan has no chance whatsoever of passing a Parliamentary vote but the government, not wanting something like democratic process get in the way of their rule have come up with a solution. They're simply not going to allow Parliament to vote on the issue instead passing it directly onto the planning consultation stage. By an amazing coincidence the government have just changed the planning consultation process meaning that little issues like the ownership of private property no longer have to be resolved through the courts in accordance with the law because they can simply be disregarded if the minister in charge feels they represent an impediment to planning permission being granted. The government has also used the new parliamentary session to re-introduce it's plans to formalise the governments powers to bribe judges in Coroner cases. This of course was part of the anti-terrorism bill 2008 which was rejected by the House of Lords but they should be able to sneak it through under the guise of the Coroners and Justice Bill.

Meanwhile in the Israel - Gaza the death toll has risen to 13 Israelis and over 1000 Palestinians while the Egyptian peace talks are stalled over the issues of when and how Israeli troops will withdraw from Gaza and who will police the Gaza/Egypt border. The Israelis want the border to be policed by Israeli troops in the same way it has always been. Egypt wants it to be policed by Fatah who were defeated by Hamas in the Gaza civil war. Hamas want it to be policed by an international force operating under a United Nations mandate. The IDF have today taken the opportunity to show their contempt for the UN through the sick media stunt of shelling the main UN compound in Gaza and using white phosphorus shells to set fire to a UN run hospital. These atrocities give Israeli representatives plenty of opportunity to appear on television drawing comparisons between Hamas and the UN as if to say "You can't trust the UN, they're helping Hamas by trying to act as a politically impartial aid agency rather then helping Israel achieve it's aim of overthrowing the elected government of Gaza".

Oh and the IAF also took the time to bomb the Reuters news agency in Gaza so those troubling reports about the number of Palestinians being killed should dry up quite soon.

Bloody Fucking Yokels!

As part of the British Governments Community Rehabilitation Program we'd got them to the point where they have to make restitution for the loss of earnings I'd incurred as a result of their criminal activity. In order to put a figure on this restitution I initially considered enforcing the memorandum of understanding that they paid me £150 per hour for every natural hour that Ms Belgrave remained in their employ. However as this figure now stands in excess of £1.8million I decided to waive that earlier agreement in light of the current economic climate. Next I looked at the average salary being paid to civil servants to not sort out things like Zimbabwe and the Israel/Palestine conflict giving a figure of £50,000. Obviously because I bring win where they bring fail I couldn't possibly expect to be paid as much as them so I halved it again to £25,000. £1000 a year higher then the national average wage and seemingly the going rate for mickey mouse jobs with the government. I then back-dated the figure to 2005 in order to make up a historical shortfall and give a punitive element to the settlement figure.

Then back in December I filled in the relevant forms and submitted them to Croydon Council for processing. Never being ones to realise when a race is run they then passed these forms onto a Mr Mark Fowler (no not this one) who used an outdated version of the land registry to manufacture a reason for them to say No. This little error of judgement on their part is of course a shame because the sooner they show they are willing to be rehabilitated the sooner we can begin neatly rolling up the more serious aspects of criminality and stop wasting everybodies time and talents with pointless infighting. I can only assume that this mistake was made because the little darlings have yet to realise that it is a certainty that I will be extracting this sum out of the councils budget, the only choice they have is whether it will be taken productively or destructively. Of course what I will be doing now is up scaling the settlement figure and re-submitting the paper work in the hope that this time I will be able to deal with a grown up.

Incidentally over the Christmas period the Mayor of Croydon went and dropped dead. With a death certificate citing natural causes no evidence of foul play I can only assume that somebody had shown him just how much money the council lost the last time they tried using that nasty N word.

Yikes! here comes the Fuzz.

This afternoon I popped out to get some milk. As I left my house a car pulled away with the driver making the mistake of using a mobile phone while at the wheel. When I returned about ten minutes later an under-cover police, anti-robbery squad car had pulled over a BMW and several, non-uniformed officers were busy spoiling everyone's day by searching the vehicle and it's four young, Muslim, male occupants.

If the police have been doing this sort of thing across the capital over the last week then tomorrow's anti-war demonstration (assemble Hyde Park corner, 12:30pm) is going to be something of a lively affair with group of angry young Muslim's (A) rubbing up against group of smug, Labour party donating Zionists (B). For their part the Anarchists have called for their very own anti-authoritarian block which will stretch the demo and split police resources even further increasing the possibility of one almighty ding dong.

It's a shame then that the UN have already passed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire which Israel have already rejected so I wouldn't be too surprised if the IDF used the static created by this demo as a cover to escalate their offensive within Gaza. Plus in case nobody's noticed Britain is about to enter a long and painful recession so it would be a shame if everybody got themselves injured, exhausted or arrested before the real fun started and we finally get a chance to rid ourselves of this disastrous government.

Seeing as the police have taken the trouble to come round and cordially invite me to tomorrow's protest I might wander along for a bit of a look but I'm not really sure I can be bothered to drag myself into central London for 12:30 to spend a freezing afternoon being annoyed by the police.

Israel - Gaza War Day 11: Bored Now.

With white phosphorus shells in the air and troops on the ground it is becoming increasingly clear that no end to this war will come until Israel has reached it's quota of dead Palestinians. That means there's not much left for me to do except tally up the respective body counts.

At the moment this stands at 4 Israeli civilians, 5 Israeli soldiers and around 650 Palestinians although it is hard to get accurate reports out of Gaza itself because in spite of a ruling by Israel's own high court the Israeli Defence Force are still refusing to allow foreign journalists into Gaza. The main reason they are using to justify this ban is to prevent details of IDF troop movements falling into the hands of Hamas fighters so I think it is time for me to call it a day for now.

Israel - Gaza War Day 10: I'd hate to call a politican a liar but

Yesterday the Israeli government announced that it had no plans to occupy Gaza. As they were making this announcement the Israeli Defence Force continued to occupy positions within Gaza. So far over 550 Palestinians have been killed along with 4 Israeli civilians and 1 IDF solider. While Hamas rocket fire into Israel continues the IDF appear to be expanding their operations loosely following what anyone familiar with British Public Order Policing would describe as a "Key or F formation.". In this technique the security services (shown in black) identify a group of what we shall call dissidents (shown in Purple);

They then surround it with a cordon;

Next they will put a column of officers into the group of dissidents

Once the initial column has been established they will add officers to it who will eventually form to offshoot columns in a loose "F" shape.

This process will continue with the idea of breaking the group up into smaller, more manageable pieces much like a cancer slowly destroying an healthy organ.

Although I expect the IDF armed with tanks and machine guns to be more violent then a police force armed with batons and pepper spray the purpose of this tactic is to move slowly and peacefully in order to minimise the opportunity for confrontation making it a very difficult tactic to defend against. The problem with non-confrontational warfare of this sort is that it can go on for bloody ages providing sometimes years of "entertainment" as fighters from both sides try to outwit each other.

This means that the Israeli's end game could well end up with them bringing Gazan out of the controlled sectors one by one before decided whether they're a terrorist who gets sent to jail or a civilian who gets sent to a refugee camp. If this turns out to be the case then they should definitely turn the whole thing into a American Idol/ X Factor style TV talent show where the judging panel is made up by the three candidates in Israel's upcoming election. I can imagine it now;
"Up next Ben, Tzvipi and Ehud we have Mahmoud who's 12. Both his parents were killed in a recent air-raid and he wants to win so he can go and live with his grandparents in Egypt. Tonight he will be signing Paradise City by Guns&Roses!"

Israel - Gaza War Day 9: Time to make myself really popular.

Just as anti-war rallies across Europe were coming to an end, the televised FA cup game was entering it's second half and Britain was holding it's breath awaiting the announcement of the new Doctor Who Israel decided to launch it's land invasion of Gaza.

At around 18:30 GMT 4 columns of infantry and light armour crossed the northern Gaza border and have pushed down seizing control of the main North-South road to just south of Gaza city surrounding major towns and refugee camps as they went. So far the IDF have reported to have killed at least 20 Hamas fighters and Hamas have reported killing 5 Israeli troops and capturing a further 2 although Israeli reporting restrictions mean that neither figure can be confirmed. It has also been reported that at 20 civilians have been killed by the Israeli artillery barrage.

The timing of this ground assault is particularly interesting because over the last couple of days there has been a lot of telephone chatter and diplomatic rumor suggesting that in spite of the extreme provocation they've been under for the last two years Hamas were beginning to be able to politically justify a ceasefire while the legalities and practicalities of the Israel blockade are discussed. If the Israelis were aware of these rumours then it would appear that the IDF rushed their ground offensive in order to get their killing done while they could still justify it as a defensive action.

Israeli officials have warned that this invasion and occupation of the North of Gaza could last for days if not weeks and I think there are two ways in which the situation could develop. It could be an attempt to establish a bridge head within northern Gaza from which Israelis will gradually expand their occupation. It is more likely though that the IDF will hold their ground and lay siege to towns like Gaza City and Beit Hanoun giving them their own individual, miniture versions of the wider Gaza blockade. As the Israeli intelligence picture begins to clear of what the Hamas assets are in these locations those assets will be destroyed by air-strike, artillery fire and as a last resort commando raid. The doomsday scenario is that the IDF will dig in World War 1 style and not stop shooting until every last Gazan has either charged the Israeli machine guns or starved to death.

As the current tactics of the Israeli army in Gaza are looking worryingly similar to the tactics the British Army deployed to control the 2008 Climate Camp I think it is important to look at yesterday's anti-war demonstration in London.

The Stop The War Coalition held their traditional march from the Embankment, past the Houses of Parliament and up Whitehall where organisers encouraged people to throw shoes at Downing street which gave the police the perfect opportunity to don their anti-projectile protective clothing (Riot shields and Helmets to you guv). The march then ended with a rally in the great public-order holding pen known as Trafalgar square. As the rally began to wind down a group of around 2000 protesters broke away and started to head for "Embassy Land" in Kensington. As this scenario has been played out dozens of times before the police acted quickly deploying lines of officers to filter the crowd and bring them under control. Once the break out group had been corralled into a moving cordon they were led down the Regent Street underpass which is essentially a tunnel with high walls and a concrete roof. Having trapped the protesters in a confined space away from prying eyes the police baton charged them three times, cracking heads and pissing everyone off in what the police have describes as; "one 10-metre advance into the crowd to regain control of the protest, using recognised and proportionate tactics". Following the beating the protesters were allowed to continue to the Israeli Embassy where a hard-core of masked up demonstrators clashed further with the police. Snatch squads were not deployed and the number of arrests is said to be quite low although quite a few needed medical treatment.

Although I don't wish to criticize anyone who is prepared to stand up and be counted I'm not quite sure exactly what this piece of street theatre hoped to achieve after all the British Government has already proved itself to be so whipped on the issue of Zionism it can't even call it's own troops to order let alone question the actions of the IDF. In fact the whole performance may well have made things worse because images of protesters in faux-Islamic dress clashing with police makes it much easier for the Israeli government to portray their own anti-war protesters as terrorist sympathisers and crack down on them as threats to domestic security. Plus long after the bruises have healed and the photographs have faded the British Police with analysing events and running scenarios to find more effective ways to pacify protests from young Arab men. Then, as part of a future "Peace process", Shin Beit will turn round and say to Britain that they would recognise a two state solution just as soon as those young Arab men on the West Bank would stop rioting. Britain will then no doubt furnish them with pages of data on the subject and the Israeli's will reverse engineer it to find ways to make West Bank protests more violent so they can justify yet another defensive action in much the same way they've fully understood for years that the Qassam rocket attacks from Gaza are an anarchic response to the blockade rather then any serious attempt to threaten Israels security.

Given all that I personally think the best way to show solidarity with the Palestinians is to go down the pub and watch the football. After all Israel seems to be bedding down for a long war.

Israel - Gaza War Day 8 1/2: It's all kicked off.

In London there have been some clashes with the police outside the Israeli Embassy and the Israeli Defence Force have deployed an indeterminate number of troops an indeterminate distance inside the Gaza border. As yet it is not clear if this is a large scale invasion or a small scale incursion designed to establish a bridgehead.

As the situation is currently quite chaotic both here and there I will wait until tomorrow to see how the situation develops but I will say there has been a strong rumour doing the rounds that Hamas were moving to offer an unconditional ceasefire on either Tuesday or Wednesday next week so it appears the Israelis have moved to grab as much land as they can while they still justify it as a defensive operation.

Israel - Gaza War Day 8: It's starting to look a lot like Murder.

With Israeli forces stepping up their bombardment and death-toll on Gaza fast rising to 500 protests have broken out across the UK calling for an end to the the violence. Normally these demonstrations are attended by these guys;



As you can probably tell from the photograph they're a little bit Jewish. So Jewish in fact they part of a Orthodox community in North London. Aside from the usual pressures that Jewish and Muslim communities in the UK undergo every time time there's yet another Arab-Israeli war this community has had to endure the murder of one of their own. On New Years day neighbours discovered the bound and gagged body of an 83 year old in her locked house in Stanford Hill, North London. Although it could just be a massive coincidence that some very talented burglars murdered a woman in one of Britain's oldest Jewish neighbourhoods during the Israel-Gaza war this is the stuff that conspiracy theories are made of.

It could have been an anti-Semitic attack carried out by the Iranians as part of Hamas' "Day of rage against Zionist Targets worldwide". It could have been Mossad acting to silence a double agent. It could have been carried out by a CIA team attempting to smear the Iranians. Sadly though the murder was carried out by Britain's own MI5. If the use of their bound body in burglary gone wrong signature wasn't evidence enough they also took the trouble of owning up to it with a story about a toxic cloud drifting across the midlands, after originating in a town called Langley. The reasons why MI5 carried out this assassination are threefold in descending order of importance;

1. A story about a woman in her 80's being tortured and murdered in her own home by burglar's drags up painful memories for my grandmother making her and my life that little bit more stressful.
2. It allows MI5 to flood the normally closed and secretive community with police and other officers carrying out door to door enquiries.
3. It creates tension and disruption designed to discourage Jews from attending today's demonstrations. They can then flood the mainly Muslim demonstrators with Hamas and Hezbollah merchandise making it appear a pro-Islam demonstration. By polarising protests like this it makes it much easier to portray the Palestinian - Israeli conflict as some sort of Biblical battle between the forces of good and evil rather the slightly childish land dispute it really is.

Of course by assassinating a Jew Britain has also managed to send out the message; "Britain likes killing Jews!" It makes you wonder who is really running Britain's security services because surely they can't be so stupid they actually want to see the country implode?

Israel Gaza War Day 7: Friday

Not the most impressive title I'll grant you but over the last couple of days the main topic of discussion has been what day it will be today so you'll excuse me if I've not exactly been playing out of the top drawer recently.

One of the things I've missed was the IDF's release, three days ago, of this video which purports to show a precision Israeli air strike against a Hamas rocket launching team killing seven militants. The next day it emerged that rather then being militants loading rockets onto a truck to take them to a launch site the people killed were actually employees of a local family firm loading Oxygen cylinders onto a truck to take them to a local hospital. The secondary explosions you can see in the video are those compressed gas cylinders exploding. The release of photographs of the wrecked vehicle and interviews with the owner of the business prompted the IDF to accuse Palestinian militants of trying to "manipulate the media" in a repeat of an incident in the Lebanon war when they accused Lebanese militants of lying for announcing that the IAF had destroyed an ambulance with missiles when in fact the IAF had destroyed it with cannon fire.

Today the Israeli Defence Force has allowed foreign passports holders to leave Gaza. Officially this has been done in response to immense diplomatic pressure from the countries such as the US, Germany, Russia and the UK who have issued those passports. It may however simply be an attempt by the Israelis to control the flow of information leaving Gaza by removing people who may be tempted to contact their relatives in western countries. International journalists are of course banned from reporting within Gaza because the Israel much prefers them reporting from Israeli towns like Sderot using pre-approved IDF press releases.

Israeli air strikes within Gaza have settled into a routine 60 a day although it is hard to identify how many separate targets are being engaged because the IAF seem to have adopted the tactic of bombing a target and then returning ten minutes later to bomb the same target. This is reminiscent of an old terrorist tactic of detonating a car bomb in order to draw in first responders before detonating another car bomb to kill those police officers, fire fighters and ambulance crews in order to maximise civilian casualties. Confirming the number of individual strikes and casualties is made even more difficult by a seemingly endless naval artillery barrage.

More details are beginning to emerge of the senior Hamas official, Nizar Rayyan, who was killed in a Israeli air strike yesterday. As the head of Gazas military Rayyan is considered by Israel to be one of Hamas five key decision makers although as with the often killed "Head of Al Qeada in Iraq" I fear that rather then making the post disappear all Israel have done is create a vacancy.

Whatever his true position within the Hamas political structure Mr Rayyan sounds like a bit of a character. The 49 year old law graduate who always appeared in combat fatigues was known as "the teacher" for his work training suicide bombers including two of his own sons. He went on to marry three of the widows of bombers he'd trained and fathered 12 children. He, his four wives and five of his children were killed when a 1 tonne Israeli bomb struck their home in Jabaliya. The targeting of such a colourful personality does make me wonder if rather then using it's bombs to hit hard military targets Israel is using it's military muscle to play a sort of "Gazan Big Brother" picking off the local celebrities with the most interesting back stories in order to create a bit of telephone chatter to help the "viewers" solve some of the mysteries of everyday life. It does also make me ask the question; Is there nothing Britain's Channel 4 won't do for a bit of attention?!

Hamas are continuing to deploy military grade rockets deep into Israel. There have been no reports of any fatalities but there have been several of what the Israelis are calling minor injuries. In the skies over Croydon the black helicopters are back and not the civilian ones from the local heliport either. No this one's a much beefier American model that's being a bit vague about it's registration marks so Good Luck!

Israel - Gaza War Day 6: Rain and Tension.

Last night the Israel Defence Force (IDF) did not carry out a ground invasion of Gaza. This could be that there was never a invasion planned. It could be that dumping tonnes of cement dust, jet fuel and explosive residue into the atmosphere caused it to rain making Israel's military leadership concerned that as tank attack would quickly get bogged down in the mud. It could be that the Israeli political leadership decided that it would be incredibly difficult to diplomatically justify a land invasion. No doubt all these and other questions will all be answered to dramatic effect in the run up to Israel's election.

Meanwhile Israeli tanks are still in position along the Gazan border no doubt revving their engines, singing songs and making loud jokes about how they're going to get Ghilad back. All this is of course being done to raise tensions with Gaza in the hope that it will cause local forces to check and re-check their defences and in the process "lighting up" these defences as targets for the Israeli Air Force. In Gaza itself the IAF has suddenly discovered that their F-16's and Apache helicopters are in fact fitted with some of the latest laser-guided weapon targeting systems and have carried out a number of precision strikes including one on the home of a senior Hamas official who had publicly called from the resumption of suicide attacks within Israel. At the border crossing between Egypt and Gaza the IDF are reporting that they have allowed 19 truck loads of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Local sources are putting the actual number at closer to 4, raising the question of whether the IDF are just blatantly lying or are mis-counting support vehicles such as Land Rovers and Forklifts as truck loads of aid.

Rocket attacks have continued against civilian targets within Israel at the sort of ranges that would suggest that Hamas has begun to deploy it's stockpiles of military grade rockets alongside the traditional Qassams. As usual there have been no reports of any injuries or deaths although ironically 64 people were killed by fireworks in Thailand.

Now if anyone needs me I'm off to throttle the cat after he spent most of last night playing the hilarious game of mischievously licking my eyeball every time I went into REM sleep.