Jonathan Cook, journalist

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Jonathan Cook, journalist the View from Nazareth - www.jonathan-cook.net Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist based in Bristol and Nazareth.

He is the author of three books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Blood and Religion (2006), Israel and the Clash of Civilisations (2008), and Disappearing Palestine (2008). His reports and commentaries have appeared in major newspapers, including the Guardian, Observer, New Statesman, International Herald Tribune and Le Monde diplomatique. He has also been a senior consultant with the International Crisis Group.

17/01/2025

Exhibit 1 in Biden's trial at the Hague for war crimes:

Netanyahu made clear he was going to carpet bomb Gaza - and drop the equivalent of a nuclear bomb on the tiny enclave. Biden went ahead and gave him all the bombs he needed.

17/01/2025

In the last hours before a ceasefire is supposed to go into effect, Israel pounds Gaza with bombs, increasing the chances of killing the hostages it claims it wants freed.

17/01/2025

Extraordinary moment during a Blinken press conference when reporter Sam Husseini is dragged from the room for asking a probing question.

A reminder that the corporate media is not a watchdog on power. It's a lapdog. Any doubts, just watch the other journalists' reaction.

Keir Starmer’s support for the Gaza ceasefire is riddled with lies. Estimates are that it will take 80 years to rebuild ...
16/01/2025

Keir Starmer’s support for the Gaza ceasefire is riddled with lies. Estimates are that it will take 80 years to rebuild the enclave. How is a 'sovereign and viable Palestinian state', or a 'better future', going to emerge out of ruins on that scale?

My latest article here: https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/keir-starmers-support-for-the-gaza

And who's been 'striking' those humanitarian zones, BBC?Is this more evidence of Raffi Berg in action?
16/01/2025

And who's been 'striking' those humanitarian zones, BBC?

Is this more evidence of Raffi Berg in action?

In a thoroughly mendacious statement, the Met police continue to claim, without evidence, that a protest march this Satu...
16/01/2025

In a thoroughly mendacious statement, the Met police continue to claim, without evidence, that a protest march this Saturday in London against the BBC over its continuing bias in covering Israel's genocide in Gaza poses a threat to a synagogue that is some distance from the meeting point outside the BBC and is not on the march route.

The route of this Saturday's march was approved months in advance with the police, and has been followed twice before. No incidents occurred on either occasion that indicate the march threatens in any way Jews attending the synagogue.

Not only is the Met lying, but in doing so it continues to conflate Israel with Jews, a clear example of antisemitism – and one entertained obviously at the highest levels of the force.

Unlike the Met, the protesters are not antisemitic. The marches always include a large bloc of Jewish demonstrators. How are Jews under threat from protesters for attending a synagogue some distance from the march, when Jews actually on the march are under no such threat?

The Met's claim is clearly preposterous as well as racist, but it does serve two purposes.

First, it provides a pretext to protect the BBC and strip the protest of its very rationale: focusing attention on the failings of the BBC.

Second, it legitimises a malicious, bipartisan political narrative smearing as antisemites those opposed to Israel's genocide, those angry at the UK's complicity in that genocide, and those despairing of the establishment media's failures to report the genocide.

The Met has created an extensive no-go zone around the BBC. In its statement, it threatens mass arrests for those who go near the BBC building – and arrests for anyone who publicises the long-agreed route of the march.

In a further sign that we are hurtling towards a police state, the Met's wording is such that it is unclear whether just criticising its decision could be interpreted as an arrestable offence.

https://news.met.police.uk/news/met-announces-further-conditions-for-palestine-solidarity-campaign-protest-492674

The Telegraph reports that Raffi Berg, the BBC's online Middle East editor, is threatening to sue Owen Jones, after Jone...
15/01/2025

The Telegraph reports that Raffi Berg, the BBC's online Middle East editor, is threatening to sue Owen Jones, after Jones' recent investigation revealed that there was near-revolt at the BBC over Berg's editorial interference.

Many staff there accused Berg of skewing the BBC's coverage, especially of the Gaza genocide, to present Israel in the best light possible.

Berg counts a top Mossad agent as “a close friend” and, like some starstruck teenager, has a framed photograph of Benjamin Netanyahu on his office wall.

Which alone ought to preclude him from overseeing the BBC's Middle East coverage, given that the corporation would never give that post to an equivalent Arab journalist – one who publicly counted a Palestinian militant as a close friend and had a framed photo of the late Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh on his wall.

However, the BBC has stood solidly behind Berg and its chief executive of news, Deborah Turness, who was also heavily criticised by staff for exhibiting strong bias towards Israel.

Here is piece of advice for Berg about his threatened defamation suit, though I guess he may not be interested in my opinion.

If his goal is to rebut accusations that he's been shilling for Israel at the BBC, is it really a good look to instruct – according to the Telegraph report – Mark Lewis as his lawyer? Lewis is a fanatical supporter of Israel who loves the country so much he moved there from the UK. He is the former director of UK Lawyers for Israel and has long taken on cases to protect Israel's image from critics.

Berg's hiring of Lewis would risk making his critics case for them, would it not?

More: https://archive.ph/xeBFh

Chris Hedges: "We ignore the freakish weather patterns and disintegration of the planet, retreating into our electronic ...
13/01/2025

Chris Hedges: "We ignore the freakish weather patterns and disintegration of the planet, retreating into our electronic hallucinations, pretending the inevitable is not inevitable.

This vast cognitive dissonance, fed to us by mass culture, makes us the most self-deluded population in human history. The cost of this self-delusion will be mass death."

More: https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/fire-weather

Israel's Haaretz newspaper reports that an Israeli drone assassinated two Palestinian cousins, boys aged 8 and 10, as th...
13/01/2025

Israel's Haaretz newspaper reports that an Israeli drone assassinated two Palestinian cousins, boys aged 8 and 10, as they were in the yard of the families' home in the West Bank getting ready for school. The Israeli army claims it was targeting militants suspected of laying improvised explosives.

Soldiers then smashed their way into the families' house, ransacked them, beat a paramedic trying to save the children, and pointed their rifles at one of the mothers as she tried to hold her son, forcing her back into the house.

Finally, the soldiers seized the boys' bodies, only returning them to the families many hours later.

Events like this have been happening to Palestinian families for many, many decades, invariably unreported by western media. Palestinian anger and resistance is then presented by that same media as irrational hatred and terrorism.

For decades Britain's Charity Commission has treated as charitable the fundraising activities of Zionist groups, like th...
12/01/2025

For decades Britain's Charity Commission has treated as charitable the fundraising activities of Zionist groups, like the Jewish National Fund, supporting Israel's theft of land from Palestinians and ethnic cleansing.

Finally, it has drawn a very feeble line at such groups raising money for Israeli soldiers serving in an army currently being investigated by the ICJ for committing genocide. The Chabad "charity" has been issued a warning.

Meanwhile, fundraising in the UK to assist other crimes against the Palestinian people actively continue with the Charity Commission's blessing.

For more on the Charity Commission's complicity with Israeli crimes, see here: https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/how-britain-dresses-crimes-israel-charitable-acts

The Commission's ruling here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/charity-issued-with-official-warning-over-support-for-foreign-military

A new Lancet study finds that Gaza has massively undercounted the numbers killed in Israeli attacks.The Lancet argues th...
10/01/2025

A new Lancet study finds that Gaza has massively undercounted the numbers killed in Israeli attacks.

The Lancet argues that the most likely death toll from traumatic injuries alone stood at more than 64,000 – *seven* months ago. Most of the dead were women and children. The figure will be far, far higher now.

The Lancet study specifically excludes those dying from other causes Israel is responsible for: such as starvation from its aid blockade; the spread of disease from its destruction of water and sanitation facilities; and the lack of medical treatment because Israel has destroyed all Gaza's medical facilities.

It was obvious that Gaza's hospitals and health ministry, which now barely function after Israel's 16-month rampage, long ago lost the ability to count the enclave's dead.

Every journalist who colluded in spreading Israel's obvious disinformation that the Gaza figures were inflated should be shamed to the end of their days. That very much includes the BBC's Middle East staff.

Violent, western-engineered regime change in Iraq, Libya, Syria.Media Lens on how each time “thousands of media commenta...
10/01/2025

Violent, western-engineered regime change in Iraq, Libya, Syria.

Media Lens on how each time “thousands of media commentators function, not as critical-thinking individuals, but as cookie-cutter cogs in a propaganda printing machine stamping the word ‘GOOD’ on the public mind.

“It is not that we are told what to think – they know we mostly just skim the headlines – we are told what to feel.”

More: https://www.medialens.org/2025/manufacturing-consent-for-regime-change-in-syria/

At a meeting of academic historians, professors voted by 428 to 88 to condemn Israel's destruction of Gaza's education s...
09/01/2025

At a meeting of academic historians, professors voted by 428 to 88 to condemn Israel's destruction of Gaza's education system, or what it terms "scholasticide".

Guess which side of the debate the New York Times took in its opinion pages? Its columnist is deeply worried by the vote because:

1. Historians have overlooked that Hamas supposedly hides in Gaza's schools, forcing Israel to destroy them.

2. The vote might rile up students into repeating their protests, just as divisions are "healing".

3. Historians should concentrate on critical thinking about "history" – presumably only in the abstract and about events long ago – rather than critical thinking about history being made right now and live-streamed to their, and our, phones.

4. Speaking out against the genocide will "politicise" academia, unlike staying complicitly silent in the face of a genocide.

5. Trump will be annoyed, and the vote might make him more vengeful against academia.

Yes, the NYT. "The paper of record."

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Videos

Juliet Stevenson's voice decrying the Gaza genocide echoes so loudly because very few in the arts community have dared to speak up. Her bravery underscores their cowardice.

Remember, Keir Starmer backed Netanyahu's policy of starving the people of Gaza – the reason the ICC has now charged the Israeli PM with crimes against humanity. Starmer's home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has a strong incentive to pretend she suddenly doesn't understand UK law.

Many years ago, I visited Auschwitz and a photo of a young girl staring at me from a wall broke my world. This short video just broke my world all over again.

'Did you just watch it?' a child asks in 2040 at the Gaza Genocide Museum. Yes, we watched hundreds of thousands of children being killed, maimed and starved – and we just kept watching.

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