US corporations and military planners welcome the ‘legal maneuver space’ Israel has opened up for them to profit from warfare that slaughters and starves civilians
The Financial Times revealed this month that a cabal of Israeli investors, one of the world’s top business consulting groups and a think-tank headed by former British prime minister Tony Blair had been secretly working on plans to exploit the ruins of Gaza as prime real estate.
In an interview with US journalist Chris Hedges, Albanese, an expert in international law, concluded: “The genocide in Gaza has not stopped, because it is lucrative. It’s profitable for far too many.”
Albanese lists dozens of major western companies that are deeply invested in Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people.
This is not a new development, as she notes. These firms have exploited business opportunities associated with Israel’s violent occupation of the Palestinian people’s lands for years, and in some cases decades.
The switch from Israel’s occupation of Gaza to its current genocide hasn’t threatened profits; it has enhanced them. Or as Albanese puts it: “The profits have increased as the economy of the occupation transformed into an economy of genocide.”
The special rapporteur has been a growing thorn in the side of Israel and its western sponsors over the past 21 months of slaughter in Gaza.
That explains why Marco Rubio, Trump’s secretary of state, announced soon after her report was issued that he was imposing sanctions on Albanese for her efforts to shed light on the crimes of Israeli and US officials.
Revealingly, he called her statements – rooted in international law – “economic warfare against the United States and Israel”. Albanese and the UN system of universal human rights that stands behind her, it seems, represent a threat to western profiteering.
Window on the future
Israel effectively serves as the world’s largest business incubator – though, in its case, not just by nurturing start-up companies.
Rather, it offers global corporations the chance to test and refine new weapons, machinery, technologies, data collection and automation processes in the occupied territories. These developments are associated with mass oppression, control, surveillance, incarceration, ethnic cleansing – and now genocide.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair implied that those who choose not to be vaccinated should be discriminated against by remaining under lockdown restrictions if the UK’s June 21st “freedom day” is to be accomplished.
During an interview with ITV News, Blair was asked if he would delay the June 21st deadline, when all social distancing, mask mandates and other lockdown rules are supposed to come to an end.
Blair said that if the data suggested the June 21st date was at risk, the government should “look again at distinguishing between those people who are vaccinated and those people who aren’t because it really makes no sense to treat the two groups as if they’re the same.”
The former Labour leader then attempted to offer a rebuttal to those who would describe this as discrimination, but only succeeded in affirming that he is advocating for discrimination against the unvaccinated.
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair tells me ahead of the June 21st deadline @BorisJohnson should start to distinguish between those who have been vaccinated and those who haven’t.
“If someone simply chooses not to get vaccinated, I mean frankly that’s their choice, you’re not discriminating against them, they’ve chosen not to do it,” said Blair.
In other words, Blair is suggesting that people who haven’t taken the vaccine should be punished by remaining under lockdown rules while the rest of the population gets their freedoms back.
Blair’s agenda in advocating discrimination against the unvaccinated isn’t surprising given that he has been aggressively pushing the use of vaccine passports for almost a year.
Back in January, Blair asserted that Britain should take the lead in presiding over a global vaccine passport system.
“It’s going to be a new world altogether,” Blair proclaimed, adding “The sooner we grasp that and start to put in place the decisions [needed for a] deep impact over the coming years the better.”
In the first years of his presidency, Assad was warmly welcomed in London and even met the Queen. The British Syrian Society brought dozens of MPs to Syria before the war, and beyond official British visits, a glance at the society’s events page shows a who’s who of the UK’s top business, political and social elite.
When the war began, however, the government was not interested in talking or listening, as Cameron appeared to be driven by a Blair-esque desire for righteous wars. Yet, MPs historically defeated Cameron and the Foreign Office’s push in 2013 to launch attacks on Syria, seeing a lack of strategy in the endgame.
A 2017 BBC Panorama investigation showed how UK aid money was being diverted to terrorist funding in Syria without basic checks and balances. Jonathan Foreman’s book Aiding and Abetting previously argued that British aid in general has proved counterproductive because of a lack of proper research and application.
The recent MEE revelations about British propaganda efforts in Syria further undermine the UK’s rationale for its divisive policy, casting a grim light on its supposed neutrality in foreign conflicts.
Questioning UK policy
Several former British ambassadors to Syria were opposed to the UK’s foreign manoeuvring during the early days of the war, before all hell broke loose and Syria spiralled into a regional conflict. So what was the UK’s endgame? Was it to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, or just weaken him – or was it complete regime change?
The UK’s actions certainly have not contributed to stability. This is all the more alarming, as more than any other Western country, the UK had forged close ties with the Syrian government, with dozens of MPs visiting Syria before the war broke out. Many diplomats and military officials with knowledge, experience and insights into Syria have questioned the UK’s policy.
The UK has been obsessed with the ‘Assad must go’ notion, which has inhibited rational policy
Joshua Landis, a leading Syria expert in the US, wrote in 2011 that the Syrian government would likely survive, and that there would have to be a negotiated way out of the conflict.
Similarly, the late Patrick Seale, whose books on prewar Syria top the reading list on the Levant, argued that the opposition was not united and regime change would fail, citing the need for a negotiated path.
Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s adviser, Ed Husain, argued the same narrative in 2011. But these warnings were not heeded. Instead, the UK took an exceptionally hostile approach to Syria, without looking to the consequences.
Confused and hostile
The UK arguably led the US into going headstrong into Syria, even as Libya had begun to unravel. Former US President Barack Obama, in an Atlantic interview, launched an astonishing attack on former UK Prime Minister David Cameron, arguing that he took his eye off the ball without finishing the job in Libya, and then moved on to Syria, urging war there.
David Lesch, author of The New Lion of Damascus, has told me several times that after his meetings with both the UK and US leaderships in the early days of the war, it was the British who seemed confused and more hostile towards Damascus.
Former British Prime Minister David Cameron speaks at a Syria donors’ conference in central London in 2016 (AFP)
In the first years of his presidency, Assad was warmly welcomed in London and even met the Queen. The British Syrian Society brought dozens of MPs to Syria before the war, and beyond official British visits, a glance at the society’s events page shows a who’s who of the UK’s top business, political and social elite.
When the war began, however, the government was not interested in talking or listening, as Cameron appeared to be driven by a Blair-esque desire for righteous wars. Yet, MPs historically defeated Cameron and the Foreign Office’s push in 2013 to launch attacks on Syria, seeing a lack of strategy in the endgame.
Then and since, the UK has been obsessed with the “Assad must go” notion, which has inhibited rational policy. Anyone who suggests the opposite is declared an “Assadist” or regime supporter. The then chairman of the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Crispin Blunt, had written in The Telegraph that removing Assad was not the solution. The chairman of the Defence Committee, Julian Lewis, also argued similarly on the BBC and the Guardian.
They clearly did not see an overall policy or strategy in Syria. If the two most fundamental oversight committees in Parliament were not convinced that says a lot.
‘Politics by other means’
Military leaders studying Clausewitz are taught that “war is a continuation of politics by other means”. Once the war had peaked, the UK’s former defence chief told CNN that it would be better to let Assad win and negotiate.
REVEALED: The British government’s covert propaganda campaign in Syria
Other leading generals, including Sir Simon Mayall, a former UK top military adviser in the Middle East, have suggested that UK policy was hampered by “wishful thinking” and ignorance. Former army chief General Richard Dannatt said the solution lay in working with Assad to talk and end the war.
Two decorated former heads of British special forces, Jonathan Shaw and John Holmes, both told me previously how wrong the UK had been with regards to Syria. Former British ambassador Sir Roger Tomkys also told me that the UK was wrong in jumping the gun to oust Assad, and three former ambassadors have voiced publicly their opposition as well.
The UK’s support of clandestine groups that were terrorists, coupled with propaganda support to spread divisions and hatred, inflamed the war in Syria. There has never been a proper strategy; far from it.
ANSWER: Yes. Tony Blair is out there pitching for another Brexit referendum as Prime Minister Theresa May, who also did not want to exit the EU, will be unable to secure a parliamentary majority and this seems to be an intentional plot to overturn BREXIT. Even the propaganda they use with regard to trade is misrepresenting the entire scheme. Britain is FAR BETTER off under BREXIT than remaining within the EU. Any trade deal is subject to the veto of any one of 28 member states. Britain CANNOT reach an independent trade deal for its own people for the French have always vetoed Britain. Let’s face the facts. Britain loses EVERY major case in the European court. This is all about protecting governments – not about what is best for the people. Britain will collapse with the EU if it does not break the chains which bind it.
by Tyler Durden
MCViewPoint 
