BBC Sabotaging Press TV Broadcasts

The British Broadcasting Corporation is showering Afghan cable networks with lucrative deals to cut broadcastings of Iran's English-language news channel, Press TV.

The Press TV bureau in Kabul was informed on Wednesday that "a number of BBC employees have recently contacted the cable networks' union in Herat to persuade them into breaking contract with Press TV and blocking all satellite transmission of its programs."

"The BBC reportedly offered to triple the union's pay once it agrees to strip Press TV of its broadcasting rights in Herat," the bureau added.'

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'Cabbing' for Israel?

The latest revelations come only a few months after another Channel 4 “Dispatches” report, by Peter Oborne, showed how large numbers of MPs were stooging (or "cabbing") for Israel.

Mr Oborne reported that a majority of Conservative MPs and half the shadow cabinet are signed-up Friends of Israel, and millions of pounds flow into the bank accounts of MPs and parties, although only a fraction of these “contributions” are visibly accounted for. Sir Richard Dalton, a former British diplomat who served as consul-general in Jerusalem, observed: "I don't believe, and I don't think anybody else believes, these contributions come with no strings attached".'

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I Don't Mean to Say I Told You So, But...

Probably the most controversial claim in my work with John Mearsheimer on the Israel lobby is our argument that it played a key role in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003. Even some readers who were generally sympathetic to our overall position found that claim hard to accept, and some left-wing critics accused us of letting Bush and Cheney off the hook or of ignoring the importance of other interests, especially oil. Of course, Israel's defenders in the lobby took issue even more strenuously, usually by mischaracterizing our arguments and ignoring most (if not all) of the evidence we presented.

So I hope readers will forgive me if I indulge today in a bit of self-promotion, or more precisely, self-defense. This week, yet another piece of evidence surfaced that suggests we were right all along (HT to Mehdi Hasan at the New Statesman and J. Glatzer at Mondoweiss). In his testimony to the Iraq war commission in the U.K., former Prime Minister Tony Blair offered the following account of his discussions with Bush in Crawford, Texas in April 2002. Blair reveals that concerns about Israel were part of the equation and that Israel officials were involved in those discussions.'

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UK Baroness: "The Constant Accusation of Anti-Semitism to Silence Israels Critics is Vindictive"

They Have No Shame

In January, while Israel's military was pulverising Gaza for 22 days and nights and incinerating its women and children with phosphor bombs, the Liberal Democrat Party in the UK published an article by its Friends of Israel wing, entitled 'Israel has no option but to defend itself against Hamas and Iran'.

According to this, "Israel is fighting in Gaza to stop the firing of rockets at towns and cities well within Israel’s internationally recognized, pre-1967 borders. These rockets are not home-made fireworks; they are sophisticated weapons, which often kill innocent people. They are fired without precision..."

So sophisticated are the rockets, in fact, that only 1 in 400 actually kills somebody. But rockets never were the issue. There are no rockets coming out of the West Bank. Yet the illegal Israeli occupation there continues and so does the ethnic cleansing, the land theft, the illegal settlements, the colonization, the demolition of Palestinian homes, the throttling of the economy, the abduction and 'administrative detention' of civilians and the massive block on freedom of movement. There is no let-up in the oppression of West Bank Palestinians who DO NOT fire rockets, and no sign of an end to their misery.

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'Israel Still Arming Georgia'

South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity says Georgia has started to boost its military might, importing weapons from Israel and France. According to Kokoity, the import of Israeli arms began after the last August war between the country and Russia, RIA Novosti reported on Wednesday. In a move to advance its military capability, the country recently bought 8 warships from Israel, he added. Kokoity also said that Georgia had signed contracts with France to equip the country's air force with espionage and electronic warfare systems such as anti-aircraft system and mid-range mobile radars.

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Name and Shame British “Friends of Israel”

In the 23 days of the Israeli war on Gaza that began on 27 December 2008, 1300 Palestinians have been killed by the Zionist war machine, including 417 children and 108 women, and a further 5320 have been injured. In the same period, 13 Israelis were killed. That is a ration of 100:1, excluding the injured.

In the meantime, Israel’s network of stooges in the British Parliament have been fighting a rear-guard action to justify the slaughter of Palestinians. You will find them justifying Israeli crimes at every opportunity and prevaricating to avoid action against Israel, such as sanctions in the wake of Israel’s targeting of United Nations compounds in Gaza, for example. They are apologists for murder.

Israel’s stooges in Britain are spread far and wide and can be found at every tier of the British establishment. They include Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Foreign Secretary David Miliband, former Prime Minister Tony Blair and many other serving and former holders of political office.

At the core of Israel’s network of stooges are the “Friends of Israel” groups in the three main political parties:

Labour Friends of Israel

Conservative Friends of Israel and

Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel.

Below is a list of officials of the “Friends of Israel” groups in the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democratic parties. It is by no means exhaustive. Conservative Friends of Israel, for example, say that about 80 per cent of the party’s MPs and MEPs belong to the group.

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