The Empire’s Balfour Declaration and the Suez Canal

Churchill's KarmaLeave a comment

For the average British pro-Palestinian human rights activist, the Balfour Declaration, published ninety- five years ago on the 2nd November 1917, is only mentioned in passing in their publications or agitations. For them, the declaration seems to have drafted in, one autumn day most likely alongside the brown and crimson leaves for then to triumphantly and jubilantly land on Lord Balfour’s, the British foreign secretary, desk. For them, it is more convenient to strongly imply that the Palestinian predicament began when the young United Nations partitioned Palestine on the 29th November 1947 or when the British Empire’s Palestine mandate officially ended on 15th May 1948. For them, the fact that up to 400,000 Palestinians under the Empire’s watch were ethnically cleansed between these latter two dates literally doesn’t warrant a footnote.[1]

This is certainly the impression given by reading the literature of “revolutionary socialists” as well as other supposedly pro-Palestinians. In his book “Imperialism and Resistance”, “revolutionary socialist” John Rees argues Continue reading →

British Culpability in the Killing of the American Ambassador in Libya.

Churchill's KarmaLeave a comment

Inevitably and tragically the United States has once again experienced a blowback of a policy not of its sole provenance.

On the evening of 11th September 2012 the American ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, was killed in Benghazi alongside three other Americans apparently during demonstrations against an internet video clip defaming the Prophet Muhammad, the Islamic religion’s last prophet. His killing was also on the heels of the announcement that al-Qaeda’s second in command, Abu Yahya al-Libi had been taken out by an American drone.

The ambassador is officially said to have died of asphyxiation after an armed group stormed the compound of the American mission. Currently the finger of blame points to an Islamist-Salafi militia, Ansar al-Shari’ah, as the culprits behind the fatal deed.[1]

Members of the militia had originally and quickly taken up arms during the uprising against Gadhaffi’s rule. Gadhaffi had made wild threats on television against the demonstrators and western media erroneously and falsely reported that his troops were committing rape crimes and employing foreign “African” mercenaries to do his violent bidding. Yet the only known foreigners in the early period of the uprising were the captured British MI6 agents.

Overlooked during this period was not only the racist lynching of black Libyans and Sub-Sahara African migrant workers Continue reading →

The Guardian, New Statesman and the Balfour Declaration.

Churchill's KarmaLeave a comment

“The settler owes the fact of his very existence, that is to say his property, to the colonial system.” Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth.[1] 

Imagine if China, for one reason or another suddenly replaced or supplanted the United States as Israel’s main diplomatic, financial and military benefactor. That the Chinese then provided Israel with all it required to continue the occupation and usurpation of Palestine and to further consolidate its illegal undertakings…What would we then make of American journalists or writers who then incessantly never fail to remind us of the culpable Chinese support for Israeli criminality while simultaneously totally ignoring, possibly even whitewashing the 40 years when the United States was Israel’s main benefactor?

Between 1917 and 1948 Great Britain more than any other nation helped to lay the diplomatic, governmental, military and economic foundations for Israel yet if one were to peruse British writing on Palestine, especially the writings of the supposed pro-Palestinians, one would naturally presume that the Palestinian predicament only began on the 15th May 1948 when the British Mandate officially ended and the State of Israel was declared. Continue reading →

British Colonial Strategy and the 9/11 Blowback.

Churchill's KarmaLeave a comment

Osama bin Laden gained his reputation as a militant Islamist during the Western backed counter-insurgency – so-called “jihad” – against the Soviet Union’s invasion ofAfghanistanin the 1980’s

The main strategy employed by the West during this campaign to contain and repel the Soviet invasion was to recruit Islamists from around the world[1] in a war against ‘godless communism’.

Needless to say, this alliance or collusion between the West and Islamist did not originally arise with the invasion ofAfghanistanby Soviet troops. Its provenance can easily be traced back to the challenges faced by British Imperialism in the earlier part of the twentieth century. Continue reading →

Obama-bashing and the British urge to intervene in Libya

Churchill's Karma1 Comment

The current war on Libya largely led by Britain and France once again highlights the shortcomings of the British anti-war movement.

In the run up to the war on Iraqin 2003 and many years afterwards, many of the leading individuals within this movement circumvented the fact that Britainwas invading Iraqfor its own interests. Instead they mischievously popularised the notion that Tony Blair was beholden to George W. Bush. The latter, they strongly claimed, was dragging the former along into this illegal venture.[1]

Blair, they inveterately argued, was not a co-partner, co-conspirator and co-leader in this military enterprise but a mere “poodle”.[2] The poor soul had his innate and natural sincerity taken advantage of by big bad George W. Bush; he was seduced by the power of a photo-op on the Oval office’s green lawn and at times he was even “stabbed in the back” for Continue reading →