Last week the National Secular Society and an ex-councillor won a high court ruling which said that it was unlawful for councils to hold prayers as part of a council meeting.

The practice of Bideford council in Devon to have prayers on meeting agendas was challenged and Mr Justice Ouseley concluded

”The saying of prayers as part of the formal meeting of a council is not lawful under section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972, and there is no statutory power permitting the practice to continue.”

However the ruling (which applied to councils in England and Wales) has been overturned, Communities secretary Eric Pickles has signed a general power of competence which means that councils can do anything a private citizen can do as long as it is not illegal, so prayers can be included on council agendas. Pickles said that the high court ruling had been “illiberal” and “should be seen as a wake-up call” he added:

“the public sector has been used to marginalise and attack faith in public life. We are striking a blow for localism over central interference, for freedom to worship over intolerant secularism, for Parliamentary sovereignty over judicial activism, and for long-standing British liberties over modern-day political correctness.”

Pickles also said

“Public authorities – be it Parliament or a parish council – should have the right to say prayers before meetings if they wish.”

However what Eric Pickles says about public prayers goes against what The Bible says. Matthew chapter 6 verse 1 (Matthew 6:1) contains the Sermon on the Mount given by Jesus who, it is safe to say, is more of an authority on christianity then Eric Pickles, the Good News Translation of Matthew 6:1 says:

“Make certain you do not perform your religious duties* in public so that people will see what you do. If you do these things publicly, you will not have any reward from your Father in heaven.”

(* The New King James Version says “charitable deeds” not “religious duties” – see below.)

Verses 5-6

“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites! They love to stand up and pray in the houses of worship and on the street corners, so that everyone will see them. I assure you, they have already been paid in full.  But when you pray, go to your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you.”

Eric Pickles is very keen on promoting christianity but not so keen on reading what Jesus actually said, he should be telling councillors to seek out a quiet corner to say their prayers not to say them at public meetings.

—————————————————————————–

The New King James Version of the above are as follows

Matthew 6:1

“Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven”

Matthew 6:5-6

And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. ⁶ But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

There has been a lot of anger directed towards Russia and China because both countries vetoed a United Nations security resolution condemning Syria’s crackdown on anti government protesters. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said  “What happened yesterday at the United Nations was a travesty” she added that Russia and China had “neutered“ the security council.

Few would disagree that something has to be done to stop the violence in Syria but let us remember that it was only last December that it was the United States that was casting votes vetoing UN resolutions which criticised Israeli settlement building on Palestinian land. This time it was Russia condemning the United States for being isolated. Vitaly Churkin Russia’s UN ambassador called for negotiations and then made no attempt to disguise who he was referring to when he said said “There is one delegation” which believes things will “miraculously” sort themselves out on their own. This is of course not the first time that the US has vetoed resolutions condemning Israel aljazeera reports that

“since 1972 the United States has been the single, solitary veto on 42 Security Council resolutions condemning Israeli violations of international law or human rights.”

Another would have been added had a Palestinian bid for statehood gone to a vote but

“US diplomats managed to secure enough abstentions from the Security Council’s 15 members to deny the Palestinians [the required] nine votes, thus saving the US from having to veto.”

At Prime ministers question time yesterday (18th January) David Cameron refered to Labour MP Dennis Skinner as a ‘Dinosaur‘. Dennis Skinner had asked if Cameron was going to appear before the Leveson inquiry into Press ethics (a perfectly reasonably question) Cameron finished his answer by saying:

I often say to my children, ‘No need to go to the Natural History Museum to see a dinosaur. Come to the House of Commons at about half past twelve.’

David Cameron (left) & George Osborne

It can be argued that this was not a reference to Skinners age (he is 80 next month) but to his ideology, he is a member of Labour’s socialist Campaign Group of MP’s  and is often described as ‘old Labour’.
But there is something not right about Cameron, an ex public schoolboy born with a silver spoon in his mouth, saying something like this to Skinner a former mineworker and Cameron does have previous on this issue, he once accused Dennis Skinner of not living in the real world but living in ‘dinosaurland’and in June 2010, after Dennis Skinner had said there should be no increase in the Civil List, (money the government gives to the royal family) chancellor George Osborne (another ex public schoolboy)  replied that Skinner should consider early retirement to save costs. That  would actually increase spending, Dennis Skinner would be paid his pension and his replacement would get the full MPs salary. Osborne’s reply also goes against what his own party leader wrote in The Sun in November 2011 when Cameron said

“We are all living longer so yes, people will have to work longer”

Both Cameron and Osborne received rousing cheers from conservative back benchers for their responses.

If Skinner had been in his twenties or thirties would Cameron have called him a dinosaur? I don’t think so. Would he have described Tony Benn (who has similar left wing views to Skinner) as a dinosaur? No. Dennis Skinner can take whatever David Cameron and the rest of the Tories can throw at him but he deserves better, he has been an MP since 1970 and was a miner for 21 years before joining parliament.  He started in the coal mines when he was 17 (at the same age David Cameron was at Eton and about to go to Oxford University and join the Bullingdon club) and only left when he became MP for Bolsover. He is younger then the queen (born in 1926) but can anyone imagine Cameron saying

No need to go to the Natural History Museum to see a dinosaur. Just watch the queen’s speech on Christmas day.

No, me neither.

While Cameron and Osborne both had privileged backgrounds; (Cameron is the grandson of Sir William Mount, 2nd Baronet is a descendent of King William IV and a fifth cousin of the queen, Osborne is the heir to the Osborne Baronetcy) Dennis Skinner’s father was sacked from his job as a miner after the General strike in 1926. Skinner is not scared of rebelling against his own party (for example he has voted against trident, against detention for 90 days and against the Iraq war) Osborne’s only act of rebellion came when he changed his name from Gideon to George saying “It was my small act of rebellion” – and I thought Che Guevara was a rebel.

Stephen Lawrence was  an 18 year old black student who was attacked and killed by a gang of up to six white youths in Eltham in south east London in April 1993, before stabbing him while he waited for a bus they shouted racist abuse at him and his friend who was also attacked but survived. The original police investigation was was dogged by incompetence and there was an underlying feeling of cynicism and racism towards the victims.  Two men have just been convicted of the murder of Stephen Lawrence but up to four other involved in the attack have still not been convicted.

With the guilty verdict of two men for murdering teenager Stephen Lawrence in London in April 1993 many people are paying tribute to his parents Doreen & Neville Lawrence for their perseverance ensuring their son got justice after eighteen years of campaigning (although at least three men involved in the murder have still not been convicted).

Also being credited is the Daily Mail, on 14th February 1997 under the headline MURDERERS the Mail named and published photographs of each of the suspects and accused them of being the killers of Stephen Lawrence adding “if we are wrong let them sue us”

Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre has recorded a video  in which he says the “headline had almost subconsciously been brewing in my mind for some time” and decided to run with it when “the coroner’s jury had taken just thirty minutes to decide unanimously that Stephen had been unlawfully killed – the victim of a completely unprovoked racist attack by five white youths“

Neville and Doreen Lawrence have acknowledged the help the Mail played in publicising the case, Doreen Lawrence said ”If the Mail hadn’t been publicising what was happening around Stephen and getting it out there, a lot of people wouldn’t have known about the injustice around him as a young man” and Neville Lawrence said

“The fact that the Mail – which is a very influential newspaper – went out on a limb for us showed how committed you were to the case. Not a lot of editors would have done that. Not a lot would have chanced it.“

The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and the Financial Times all praise the Daily Mail for its role in securing the convictions.  But while Paul Dacre describes the two convictions as “a glorious day for Neville and Doreen Lawrence……for the police……for British Justice……for the politicians……for British newspapers” Doreen Lawrence was more restrained ”How can I celebrate when my son lies buried?”

The Daily Mail can also take some credit for the setting up of the MacPherson Inquiry in 1999 (a public inquiry into the original Police investigation) which found the Police investigation into the murder to have been incompetent and officers had committed fundamental errors which meant that nobody stood trial for the murder for nearly two decades; the inquiry also found the Metropolitan Police to be ‘institutionally racist’. One outcome of the inquiry was the scrapping of the 800 year old double jeopardy law which meant that a person could not be put on trial for the same crime twice.

However it is also true to say that the Daily Mail, while sympathetic to the Lawrence family, did originally not believe the story was worth much coverage. A Guardian leader column published the day after the Mail’s front page accusation against the five men in 1997 claimed

“the Mail’s coverage of the shameful killing had been somewhat peripheral. The murder was only mentioned in three stories in the last year before the inquest, only six the previous year, and just 20 since the murder was committed”. The Guardian goes on to say ”while hoping the guilty would be caught, [the Mail] was quick to sneer at the supporters campaigning for the Lawrence family: ‘What is not helpful is the gusto with which the more militant of the anti-racist organisations have hijacked this human tragedy…….is there not also something contemptible about professional protesters who capitalise on grief to fuel confrontation?”

Peter Bottomley, member of Parliament for Eltham at the time of the murder, also spoke about media indifference to the murder speaking to the BBC news channel he said ”Some of the police reaction did have a racist bias to it and they weren’t the only ones” he then says that a white woman had been shot in Hertfordshire and the shooting received national coverage but when Stephen Lawrence was murdered “there was no [media] reaction at all” andwhen he asked why “the media said to me in effect ‘you know what it’s like in south east london’…the media jumped to the same conclusion that perhaps some of the police had”

It later turned out that Neville Lawrence had worked as a plasterer on Paul Dacre’s London home when it was being redecorated but Dacre denies this was the reason the Mail launched a campaign for justice he says that it was “the sickening sight on the TV news of those men strutting and staggering as they left the court… swearing, F-ing and blinding in defiance, it was the catalyst.”

With an election approaching in 2012 President Obama and Republican Presidential candidates have been attempting to prove that they support Israel more then their rivals.  On 20th December the United States blocked a United Nations resolution criticising Israel’s settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories. Israeli newspaper Haaretz said:

“Fourteen frustrated members of the UN Security Council pointed a finger at the United States Tuesday for blocking any condemnation of Israel’s accelerated settlement construction in Palestinian territory.”

British UN ambassador Mark Lyall (who also spoke for EU members France, Germany and Portugal) said:”Israel’s security and the realization of the Palestinians’ right to statehood are not opposing goals…..but they will not be achieved while settlement building and settler violence continues.” South Africa’s UN ambassador Baso Sangqu said Israeli settlement construction was “the main impediment for the two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” and that settler attacks against Palestinian civilians increased 50 percent this year. Haaretz also add that:

“While the United States was not mentioned by name, the diplomats anger was clearly directed at Washington which vetoed a resolution in February backed by the 14 other council members that would have demanded an immediate halt to all settlement building.”

When asked to explain the US position State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland  said:

“We declined to join that statement for all of the usual reasons……our longstanding policy remains that we don’t recognize the legitimacy of the continued Israeli settlements, but we don’t think statements in the UNSC are the way to pursue the goal of getting these parties back to the table.”

The current UN security council presidentis Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin and according to Haaretz “Clearly referring to the United States, Churkin said dismissively that one delegation believes things will “miraculously” sort themselves out on their own.

The Palestinian delegation at the UN said they were

“encouraged by the latest positions of the international community with regards to the Palestinian right to self-determination and Israel’s illegal settlement policy” and urged the US to “to join the international community in supporting a meaningful right to self-determination for the Palestinians, and to firmly stand by its policy against Israel’s illegal settlement activities.”

US support for Israel is of course well known, despite being a first world country Israel is the largest recipient of US overseas aid and much of that ‘aid’ is military equipment. To give a few recent examples; The Wall Street Journal reports that US military aid to Israel was due to jump to $3 billion in 2011 up from $2.78 billion in 2010 which was itself a record high. Obama has also requested from Congress $205 million to fund Iron Dome a rocket defence shield which will shoot down missiles fired from Gaza or Lebanon.

The US is already committed to a ten year $30 billion package of military aid to Israel signed by George W. Bush in 2007. “Uniquely, officials said, the….deal allows Israel to spend 26.3 percent of the aid on arms from Israel’s domestic defence industry; the rest of the money must be spent on American equipment.” Although the US was also selling weapons to Saudi Arabia Israel received promises that it “will keep its “qualitative edge” regionally in military technology”. In true Orwellian double speak “Officials called the aid a long-term investment in peace” and presumably managed to keep a straight face whilst saying it.

Israel can rely on the United States for protection from UN resolutions criticising its policies,  since 1972 the US has been the single solitary veto against 42 UN security resolutions condemning Israel. This would have become 43 if a Palestinian bid for statehood had gone to a vote but

“US diplomats managed to secure enough abstentions from the Security Council’s 15 members to deny the Palestinians nine votes, thus saving the US from having to veto”.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu “thanked Obama for…….speaking out against any UN bid to declare a Palestinian state.”

On the 21st September 2011 Obama made a speech at the United nations where, amongst other things, he said ”the Palestinian people deserve a state of their own.” But as far a Palestinian ambitions went that was about it. Under the headline ”Obama gets a Kosher seal of Approval” Haaretz said the speech was ”probably the warmest pro-Israel speech ever given at an annual UN General Assembly meeting by any U.S. president, bar none”, Israel’s far-right foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman“was literally gushing with praise”

Writing for Aljazeera MJ Rosenberg  claims that

“This [Obama] administration has been the most one-sided supporter of everything Israel asks for since 1948. There is no competition. Not even George W Bush comes close….Since 2009, 1,600 Palestinians (overwhelmingly civilians and over 400 children) have been killed by the Israeli army. Thirteen Israelis have been killed over the same period. Despite that, Obama devoted 120 words of his speech to Israeli suffering (even going so far as to cite the Holocaust) and not one word to Palestinian suffering.”

He added that “Israel’s thuggish far-right foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, told reporters that: “I am ready to sign on this speech with both hands.”

Palestinians were (obviously) not happy, a protest was held in Ramallah outside the office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas protesting against Obama’s opposition to their bid for statehood, the protestors held up signs saying “Obama the hypocrite” and another claiming Obama was siding with “killers against victims”

However Obama’s UN speech was still not good enough for some people,in recent weeks Republican Party candidates have been queing up to show their support for Israel and condemning President Obama for not supporting Israel enough during his presidency. Governor Mitt Romney said that

“In his inaugural address to the United Nations, the President chastised Israel……He’s publicly proposed that Israel adopt indefensible borders. He’s insulted its Prime Minister.” He then added ”I will travel to Israel on my first foreign trip……I want the world to know that the bonds between Israel and the United States are unshakable.”

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann accused Obama of “weakness” which has “emboldened the Palestinians“, she added

“A Bachmann administration will recognize that Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people, My administration will fully recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital. My administration will also recognize Israel’s 1980 annexation of the Golan Heights and any settlements, which Israel, as a sovereign state, chooses to annex.”

Governor Rick Perry said that

“American-Israel policy…[is]…a deeply personal issue for me. I feel a special connection to Israel, dating back nearly 20 years when I first visited the Holy Land……I walked in the footsteps of the heroes of Masada, a fortress of defiance symbolizing their loyalty to freedom more than life itself.” (* See Below).

Former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich said that the Palestinians were an “invented” people and sees no difference between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority

“These people are terrorists. They teach terrorism in their schools. They have textbooks that say, ‘If there are 13 Jews and nine Jews are killed, how many Jews are left?”

(Palestinian textbooks do not say this Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports “Three researchers…..said the example Gingrich cited in the Dec. 10 Republican debate does not exist in the texts. Gingrich’s office did not respond to two emailed requests for further comment.” )

If anyone can bare to read it there is a long list of statements by Republican Presidential candidates at the The Israel Project website. Apart from a couple of quotes by Congressman Ron Paul  who asks “Why do we have this automatic commitment that we’re going to send our kids and send our money endlessly to Israel?” and says he believes in “a non-interventionist foreign policy“  all candidates speak of how much they love Israel and that Obama has let Israel down.

__________________________

* Masada is an ancient fortress over looking the Dead Sea. The legend is that a group of Jews left Jerusalem and in 68CE overcame the Roman soldiers at Masada, they were later joined by other Jews from Jerusalem and attacked the Romans in the surrounding area. In 72CE the Romans laid siege to Masada and rather then be captured the 960 Jews in the fortress committed a mass suicide. The Israeli Tourism ministry website says that Masada “symbolize[s] human endurance” where “Jews chose death over captivity“. This is probably the version of events that Rick Perry meant when he spoke of the ‘heroes of masada‘. The reality is very different.

There is only one source for the Masada legend, the book “Flavius Josephus’s Books of the History of the Jewish War against the Romans” (usually shortened to ‘The Jewish War‘) written by Josephus in about 75CE. (Josephus was himself Jewish and had taken part in the revolt giants the occupying Romans before joining the Roman side.) The Jews he describes at Masada did arrive from Jerusalem but were actually expelled from the city by other Jews (stopping off at Ein Gedi on the way – see below). Few of those who died at Masada actually committed suicide, each man killed his wife and children, lots were then drawn and ten men chosen to kill the survivors, lots were drawn again to decide who would kill the other nine. The last man was to set fire to the fortress and then kill himself.

Haaretz writes that Nachman Ben-Yehuda of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem has written two books on “what he calls the manipulation of Masada to suit a fledgling Jewish state desperately short of heroes.” Archaeological digs did not begin in earnest until the 1960s, when it was overseen by Yigal Yadin, a fervent nationalist. “I won’t say there was outright lying about the findings,” Ben-Yehuda said. “But those archaeologists knew exactly what to emphasize and what to play down.”

According to Ben-Yehuda

“When we carefully examine ……. the Great Revolt [against Roman rule] and Masada, a portrait of heroism …… is simply not provided. On the contrary. The narrative conveys the story of a doomed (and questionable) revolt……….of large-scale massacres of the Jews, of different factions of Jews fighting and killing each other, of collective suicide (an act not viewed favourably by the Jewish faith) by a group of terrorists and assassins whose “fighting spirit” may have been questionable.”

He also says

“If truth be told, what he[Josephus] describes is not a story of bravery, nor is it pleasant…….they were brigands who, en route to the fortress killed 700 Jews in nearby Ein Gedi. How come that never gets mentioned in the narratives?” Ben-Yehuda is ”scathing about Professor Yadin’s conclusions, and says these were systematically modified to support the story of Josephus…..the Sixties excavators were disappointed that they found so little to confirm the last stand and mass suicide”

However not everyone gets the message, when Masada became a UNESCO world heritage site in 2001 education minister Limor Lavant said that “”Here we have a heritage of courage, of choosing a terrible death rather than submitting to slavery”

For a real and more modern ‘Masada Story’ look no further then Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon. In his bookThe Fateful Triangle Noam Chomsky explains that when the Israeli army overran the Ain el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in south Lebanon after 5 days of fighting, the Israeli Soldiers

“are reported to have “found many of the defenders had committed suicide, a grisly Palestinian replay of the fate of the ancient Jewish warriors of Masada”"

(The Fateful Triangle (1999)p.313 (The quote: “found many of the defenders…..” is from The Baltimore Sun 28th June 1982))

“A sustainable private sector recovery built on a new model of economic growth”

“It is my deeply held belief that a genuine and long-lasting economic recovery must have its foundations in the private sector” 

and that the budget would offer

“a stable and consistent platform for a private sector recovery.”

The message was clear; the defecit would be reduced by cutting government spending and the private sector would lead the recovery providing jobs to those public sector employees who are made redundant.

This has not happened and nor was it ever going to happen.

Richard Murphy (the director of tax analysts at Tax Research) argues that the private sector will remain depressed as long as the cuts regime stays in place and will not, as the government hopes, employ those people laid off by the public sector

“These newly redundant people will remain unemployed unless the state creates work opportunities for them. Doing so might prove cheaper in the long run than leaving them unemployed. If they are in work, they will………generate tax revenue, which in turn will reduce the deficit and so the cost of borrowing. In other words, ­borrowing now will pay for itself.”

He also says  that the

“logic of cutting government spending now when we have no jobs for those we make unemployed makes no sense at all”

if government spending is increased

“more jobs are created, revenue flows to government, benefit spending falls and government debt goes down with it……The answer is simple: if we want to get out of the mess we’re in we spend. It’s the only way to reduce government debt at this stage in the economic cycle. It worked in the [19]30s. It will work now. Nothing else will.”

He was not the only one speaking out against cutbacks the union UNISON published an alternative budget  in which they say that the way to cut the deficit

“is not by cutting jobs, benefits and services – but by tackling real waste and making tax fairer…..Significant sums could be raised without affecting the incomes of the majority if we made sure the financial sector and the super-rich paid a fairer share.”

They predict that over £70 billion could be raised by making taxation fairer a Major Financials

Transactions Tax (or Robin Hood tax) could raise up to £30 billion alone.  Money can also be raised by

“reforming tax havens and residence rules to reduce tax avoidance by corporations and non-domiciled residents”

(according to a Yougov poll “75% think it is too easy for very rich people to get out of paying a fair level of tax” – even among wealthy households - with an income of over £100,000 a year – over 50% agreed with the statement.). UNISON also quote a MORI poll which found that 53% of the public say “spending on public services should be maintained, even if it means increasing the income tax I pay”

The Green Party also advocated a Robin Hood tax and say that

“Cutting investment now could lead to a double-dip recession”

and also wanted to

“Raise taxation from its current very low level of only 36% of GDP – for example it exceeded 40% in all Mrs Thatcher’s years in office. The fiscal gap is not caused by too much public spending but by taxation dropping to unacceptably low levels.”

The cuts introduced by the coalition were ideological, if the Conservatives had won the election in 2010 and there had been no defecit at all they would still have made cuts in government spending. That’s what Conservative governments do.

All this with Nick Clegg and his party ditching anything decent they stood for before the election and becoming nodding donkeys in agreement with a Tory government.

On the 18th October 2010 The Daily Telegraph published a letter from 35 business leaders. The signatories included the chairman of Asda, the managing director of Microsoft UK, the chief executive of BT and the chairman of Carphone Warehouse

“They are joined by 12 ­chairmen or chief executives of FTSE 100 companies, a further 11 from FTSE 250 firms and the bosses of some of Britain’s leading private businesses.”

The letter began

“It has been suggested that the deficit reduction programme set out by George Osborne in his emergency Budget should be watered down and spread over more than one parliament. We believe that this would be a mistake.”

and ended

“each writing in our personal capacity, we would encourage George Osborne and the Government to press ahead with his plans to reduce the deficit. In the long run it will deliver a healthier and more stable economy.”

‘A healthier and more stable economy’ yeah right. Maybe they could get out of their plush boardrooms and tell that to the 2.64 million unemployed.

The New Internationalist magazine gives a more accurate assesment:

“their intention in driving through public sector cuts is plainly political and ideological: to reduce the size of the state and to clear the way for a few private sector companies who will cherry-pick the bits that will make them rich and leave the rest. There will be profits for some, probably already wealthy, people – and considerable social and economic loss for many, many more.”

However if anyone reads the article Farah says nothing like that, he says that

“It’s one thing feeling like you should be nominated but actually getting nominated is another. I was disappointed last year. I had a great year and felt I should have been nominated. But I wasn’t.“

“have a virtual army of destitute friends and relatives they are expected to share with, they do not typically experience a sustained rise in their standard of living……….once the ransom is divided up, the middling amount received by the average …[pirate]…is quickly either spent or bled away by family and friends”.

The ransom is divided up between 20-30 or more pirates and then there are “creditors” (or a committee of creditors) who fund piracy missions up front and will want their slice of the cash as well interpreters who take part in negotiations; then there are weapons & ammunition, food, fuel, Land Cruisers and skiffs to ferry supplies all of which eats into the ransom payment. And then there’s khat, a narcotic shrub chewed incessantly by Somali’s. Bahadur estimates that when the German owned MV Victoria was held for 72 days in 2009 the pirates spent a whopping $109,440 on khat alone ($1,520 per day). However like all good corporations the man at the top gets well rewarded; in the case of the Victoria hijacking the pirate gang leader may well have taken home over $620,000 which goes a long way in any country.

There is another group who make money from Piracy and they also seem to be quite happy that ships remain defenceless against attack – insurance companies. According to the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW)

“the insurance industry has an interest in the continuation of piracy, which is an important revenue source. Insurers are therefore unlikely to make demands on shipping to comply with guide lines which would eventually serve to cut off this important income stream.”(4)

“It is therefore not in their interest for piracy to stop altogether”(5)

The DIW also say that many of the relevant players such as the pirates, the insurance industry, and international navies (see below) do not have any incentive to stop piracy.

“In fact, there is a relatively stable relationship between these groups, many of whom share a clear business interest in maintaining piracy at its current level”. [Piracy] “creates opportunities for businesses around the world; thereby further reducing incentives to bring piracy to an end.”(5)

The DIW add that “The total cost of piracy off the Horn of Africa including public and private counter-piracy efforts is estimated to be in the region of US$7-12bn”(5). However ”from the costs caused by piracy, only 20% goes to Somalia”(6) the rest of the money is spent on increased insurance premiums, re-routing of ships to avoid pirate areas, higher pay for crew members when they sail by the Horn of Africa, prosecution of pirates (which came to $31million alone), naval forces off the Somali coast and private security firms who shipping companies may employ to protect ships. Insurance companies will also involve private security firms in negotiations and they are tasked with air-dropping the ransom to the pirates, their daily rates can run into thousands of dollars. The point here is from the costs caused by  Somali piracy most of the money is spent in the western economy, one Captain Farrington of the Royal Navy commented “this is a business where everyone makes money”.(5)

The chances of being attacked by Somali pirates are actually very small. The German Institute for international and Security affairs (SWP) say that 16,000 to 20,000 ships pass the Horn of Africa every year but only between 40 and 100 (less then 1%) are victims of successful pirate attacks.(7) The SWP ask why are western nations willing to commit warships and personnel at great cost (Oceans Beyond Piracy put the cost of naval deployment off Somalia at $2 billion(8)) instead of trying other methods to counter piracy, such as a naval coastguard based in Puntland a self-governing (and relatively peaceful) region of Somalia. They could also encourage shipping companies to make their  vessels more ‘pirate proof’ but the DIW say that “many ship owners are choosing not to spend the money to institute even the cheapest of practices recommended by the navy, like putting barbed wire on ships.”(5)

There are three naval operations working to tackle piracy emanating from Somalia; the EU & NATO launched operations to protect shipping in late 2008 and the Combined Task Force was set up in January 2009 with the United States as the main contributor. There are also vessels from countries as diverse as China, Iran, Malaysia & Russia independent of the above three multinational missions. But are they there solely to tackle Somali piracy?

The SWP suggest that one reason for the presence of western navies off the Horn of Africa is control of the Indian Ocean “in an era where competition over dwindling resources will increasingly shape international relations this motive cannot be dismissed out of hand”.(7) The Horn of Africa and Gulf of Aden connect the markets of Europe and Asia (in particular India and China) and China is looking to expand its influence in Africa. According one retired Vice Admiral, the Indian Ocean holds “the key to the world’s seas, particularly the sea routes to the Pacific,” and is particularly “decisive for the future power constellations in Asia, above all between India and China.”(6)

Sending warships to the Indian Ocean also gives international Navies “a welcome opportunity to demonstrate their importance”(7). The DIW argue that because of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq the profile of land forces has been far greater then that of the worlds navies and success in tackling piracy is an opportunity to raise the profile of a states navy, ”success for the world’s navies in Somalia demonstrates their continued importance and hence the importance of continued naval funding”.(5) Added to this

“China is seeking to add a serious naval component to its armed forces and gain experience by participating in international operations far from home waters” and the European Union “has the chance to test its collective military capabilities in its first naval operations”.(7).

However even if the impact of western navies in countering piracy is small or barely noticeable their deployment may well be regarded as a success because “navies have defined counter-piracy missions in such a way that ‘success’ is inevitable and significant change unlikely to result”, hindering but not ending piracy maybe seen as ‘success’.(5) “If piracy continues, navies will be able to say that they do not have the resources to end the Somalia problem, and that the failure is then not the failure of naval missions, but the failure of broader policy.”(5)

Has the large naval presence made a difference to the amount of ships being attacked? Unfortunately no. The DIW quote figures from the International Maritime Bureau, there were 108 pirate attacks in 2008, 216 in 2009, 218 in 2010(5) and there have been 208 attacks so for in 2011 (up to 22nd October) (9) the trend is definitely up. “Overall” the DIW say  “pirate activity appears to not to have been significantly influenced by the presence of the naval forces.”  The presence of foreign warships has however improved the delivery of food aid to Somalia but “it does not appear that extensive naval counter-piracy efforts have had a deterrent impact on piracy. The main effect seems to have been to move piracy further away from Somalia’s shores”.(5)

(1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15265864

(2) http://www.eyefortransport.com/content/maritime-piracy-costs-global-community-12-billion-year

(3) http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-04-23-somalia-donors_N.htm

(4) http://www.diw.de/sixcms/media.php/73/diw_wr_2010-23.pdf

(5) http://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.358500.de/dp1033.pdf

(6) http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/fulltext/57866

(7) http://www.swp-berlin.org/fileadmin/contents/products/research_papers/2011_RP03_mrs_ks.pdf

(8) http://oceansbeyondpiracy.org/sites/default/files/documents_old/The_Economic_Cost_of_Piracy_Summary.pdf

(9) http://www.icc-ccs.org/piracy-reporting-centre/piracynewsafigures

(10) http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1892366,00.html

“Just today, Gaza terrorists launched 22 rockets into Israel, while 50 Gazans entered Israel for medical treatment.comments?”

@Filly Stein directed this tweet at another twitter user @xv_brigada (hence the word “comments?”) and this was an exact copy of a tweet posted earlier the same day by @IDFSpokesperson (the twitter account of the Israeli army).

I responded by asking:

“so Israeli hospitals treat Gazans? isn’t that what hospitals are for to treat the sick/injured?”

@FillyStein replied

“hand on heart would Hamas treat injured Israelis if boot on other foot? Honestly now…”

I was going to reply to this but decided not too, a quick glance at @FillyStein’s previous tweets show that he or she is fanatically pro-Israel and his/her tweets could’ve been written by Benjamin Netanyahu himself. There is more chance of convincing someone that the earth is flat then of @FillyStein acknowledging that Israel may have done something wrong. (@FillyStein gives their name as Evelyn a unisex name so I don’t know if they are male or female)

However on 22^nd September @FillyStein posted another tweet to me and @xv_brigada :

“Hamas believes that sick R human shields – see Hamas leaders hiding out under Shifa…[al-Shifa hospital in Gaza]…during Cast Lead”

When I read this I thought I should reply.

To take @FillyStein’s points one by one. “Just today…[21st August 2011]…Gaza terrorists launched 22 rockets into Israel“, well also on the 21st August the Gaza strip endured another day of Israeli closure, Palestinians endured another day of occupation without their own state, the residential dwellings destroyed by Israel during Cast Lead still lay in ruins, and people left homeless during the onslaught were still living in tents, 80% of Palestinians were requiring humanitarian aid and any boat that tries to bring them aid just get attacked by the Israeli army on the high seas all on the 21st August – I could go to talk about the refugees and land confiscation but I’ll leave it there.

As for @FillyStein’s boast that “50 Gazans entered Israel for medical treatment” well so what? Isn’t that what hospitals are for to treat sick & injured people regardless of ethnicity or nationality? Or is @FillyStein saying that we should fall on our knees and praise Israeli hospitals for not being racist and treating Palestinians as well as Israelis. I would guess that right now many people from many different countries are being given treatment in British hospitals but I don’t go around the world telling everyone about it and I certainly wouldn’t post it on twitter.

@FillyStein says “hand on heart would Hamas treat injured Israelis if boot on other foot? Honestly now”        Hamas do not treat injured Israelis – doctors and nurses do. If an injured Israeli was brought to a Gaza hospital I would guess that a Palestinian doctor would treat them because that’s what doctors do and it is why they enter the medical profession.

For an example of a Palestinian doctor treating Israelis look up Dr. Ezzeldin Abu al-Aish. Dr Abu al-Aish was a Palestinian living in Gaza but worked as a gynaecologist at Israel’s largest hospital, Tel Hashomer near Tel Aviv and look what Israel did to him and his family.  During operation Cast lead three of his daughters were killed by Israel tank fire. He often gave reports over the telephone to Israel’s Channel 10 TV of what was happening in Gaza (Israel had banned journalists from entering to the strip). His immediate reaction to the death of his daughters was broadcast on Israeli television and can be seen here (note the reaction of the Israeli presenter who is visibly moved). His reaction to this tragedy was to write a book called ‘I Shall not Hate’ of which Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel said “This story is a necessary lesson against hatred and revenge.(1 See Below)” An investigation by the Israeli army concluded that the death of the doctors children had been a ‘mistake’, there had been no firing from his house (contrary to what the Israeli army had first claimed) and there was no Hamas arms cache at his home, Dr Abu al-Aish gave a typical response “we all make mistakes” he said “and we don’t repeat them.”(2)

If there is any reason why a Palestinian doctor would not treat anyone it is not because they might be an Israeli but  because they don’t have the resources because of Israel’s closure and according to al-Jazeera the US and Israel put pressure on the Palestinian Authority not to send supplies to the Gaza strip.

@FillyStein says that “Hamas believes that sick R human shields – see Hamas leaders hiding out under Shifa…[hospital in Gaza]… during Cast Lead” This was a claim made by Yuval Diskin the head of Shin Bet theIsraeli intelligence service who told the Israeli cabinet that  members of Hamas were hiding in hospitals and disguising themselves as medical staff. Khaled Hassan, the director of Shifa hospital said these claims were “complete lies….if Diskin has proof he should show it.” he added that members of the media and red Cross move freely around the hospital “If there were [Hamas] activists here, they would have photographed them by now“. Hassan also said “”I just hope that Diskin is not attempting to lay the groundwork for an inhumane attack on hospitals. That would be complete madness.” Well that is what he may have been doing; In a report entitled Rain of Fire Human Rights watch describe Israel’s use of white phosphorus during Cast Lead including an attack on al-Quds hospital saying:

“The [hospital] administration building and top two floors of the main hospital building were gutted by fire caused by air-burst white phosphorus munitions. The hospital is clearly marked and there does not appear to have been fighting in that immediate area at the time“(3)

If @FillyStein really wants to know about human shields he should look at the Amnesty International report which said that the Israeli army

“repeatedly took over Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip forcing families to stay in a ground-floor room while they used the rest of their house as a military base and sniper position – effectively using the families, both adults and children, as “human shields” and putting them at risk.” (page 48)

Before @FillyStein accuses me of being biased or having an agenda against Israel let me say that I have spent nearly one year in Israel including six months on a kibbutz and three months working on a moshav on the Golan Heights. (Which is actually part of Syria but never mind).

If @FillyStein ever addresses another of their tweets to me I don’t know if I’ll bother replying. I don’t mind engaging with people and having a debate but @FillyStein just repeats anything the Israeli army or government say without questioning it at all. In this persons mind all the media is biased against Israel, every government is biased against Israel,  Israel is unjustly criticised when it kills Palestinians in ‘self defence’ but these same people remain silent when Palestinians kill Israelis.

@FillyStein’s own tweets (the ones not copied from other people) are pretty pathetic; a recent example – directed at Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas – “I am Abbas I lie as easily as I breathe” is pretty dull and a bit childish; if I want to know what dull right wing Israeli’s are saying I’ll just listen to their prime minister.

——————————-

(1) Not everyone was as sympathetic. At a press conference shortly after his daughters deaths Dr Abu al-Aish was saying there is no difference between Israeli’s and Palestinians and that the two people can live together. He had to stop when a man and a woman burst in to the room and shouted “Who knows what you had in your house?” implying that Dr Abu al-Aish was either hiding weapons or his home was being used by Hamas gunman, they then shout “if there hadn’t been fire coming from the house they [the Israeli army] wouldn’t have hit it” there is a video of the press conference here. The man and the woman (who says she has a son in the Israeli army) enter after 48 seconds, watch to the end to see Dr Abu al-Aish being surrounded by alot of embarrassed Israeli’s.

(2) @FillyStein might like to compare Dr Abu al-Aish to the Israeli doctor Baruch Goldstein. Goldstein was a New York born orthodox jew who moved to Israel in 1983 and served as a phycisian in the Israeli army, according to some reports while he was in the army he refused to treat injured arabs. On the 25th February 1994 Dr Baruch Goldstein walked into a mosque in Hebron and opened fire with an assault rifle killing 29 Palestinians worshipping inside the mosque. (I can’t imagine Dr Abu al-Aish doing anything like this). Why is this Hebron massacre significant? Because three months later on April 6th 1994 the first suicide attack was carried out in Israel, the attack in Afula killed eight people and was in retaliation for Goldstein’s massacre. The next time there’s a suicide attack in Israel say a little thank you to Dr Baruch Goldstein.

(3) According to  Amnesty international white phosphorus

“is extremely dangerous for humans as it causes deep burns through muscle and down to the bone, continuing to burn until deprived of oxygen. It can contaminate other parts of the body, or even people treating the injuries, poisoning and irreparably damaging internal organs. Burn victims suffering a relatively small percentage of burns – 10 to 20 per cent – who would normally survive, often die if the burns are from white phosphorus.“(page 28) “Israeli forces made extensive use of white phosphorus, often launched from 155mm artillery shells, in residential areas, causing death and injuries to civilians. Homes, schools, medical facilities and UN buildings – all civilian objects – took direct hits.”(page 27)