Lauren Booth - unbiased?

That's the ever delightful Lauren Booth in full flow at a demonstration in Blackburn, just listen to her words...

"We have a message for Israel ... this is it now... No more stories about self-defence, no no no that's over because you, you are the fanatics in the Middle East, you are the nation of hate and you are the criminals..." Then listen to the lies about the leukaemia causing missiles and the chemical weapons "to blast away the bones and the eyes from the sockets" and of course her demands "We are angry and we want Israel out of this country"

Why was this demonstration not mentioned by the BBC or any other mainstream UK media? I only found it via a link from Biased-BBC. The BBC covered the rival pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protests in London over the same weekend and mentioned the left-wing pro-Palestinian rally in Manchester but did not cover what may have been the largest Islamic protest march in the UK since the Bradford book-burnings against Salman Rushdie and free speech some twenty years ago. Why? What are the BBC trying to hide from the British public?

To answer the inevitable questions - Yes I know that the video is a BNP produced video. No I don't support the BNP. Yes I do know that some/many of the BNP would probably hate me as much as they hate Muslims. I am posting this video because I can find no other video of this event on the Internet and that is odd and because the politics of the people filming this event make no difference to the words of those attending this rally.


This is the same Lauren Booth who I blogged about here showing how nice and full Gaza supermarkets were whilst she bleated that "there is not a family here in which someone is not in desperate need of work, shelter or food. This is a humanitarian crisis on the scale of Darfur." This pre-dates the Israeli action in Gaza.

This is the same Lauren Booth who gets a ready ear from the UK news agencies and is treated as an unbiased humanitarian despite being the holder of a Hamas issued Palestinian passport

Incidentally if Palestine isn't free then how come they can issue passports? Can they in fact issue passports?


Now let's look at Lauren Booth's Free Gaza movement. Their website is interesting, especially their Mission Statement. Their "Points of Unity says:

"All participants in the Free Gaza Movement accept the following principles and practices:

1. We respect the human rights of everyone, regardless of race, tribe, religion, ethnicity, nationality, citizenship or language.

2. The lawful inhabitants of all territories occupied by Israel since June 5, 1967 must have unimpeded access to international waters and air space, in conformity with all UN resolutions and international law.

3. The lawful inhabitants of all territories occupied by Israel since June 5, 1967 have the right to control all entry and exit to and from those territories without Israeli interference.

4. Israel must withdraw its military presence from all territories occupied since June 5, 1967 and revoke all legislation, regulations, directives and practices that apply differently to different populations living in those territories.

5. Israel must demolish all barriers built to restrict passage in all territories occupied by Israel since June 5, 1967.

6. We recognize the right of all Palestinian refugees and exiles and their heirs to return to their homes in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories; to recover their properties, and to receive compensation for damage, dispossession and unlawful use of such property. This is an individual and not a collective right, and cannot be negotiated except by the individual.

7. We agree to adhere to the principles of nonviolence and nonviolent resistance in word and deed at all times."

So just concerned with Israel returning to the 1967 borders. However the start of the Mission Statement runs:

"May 2008 marks the 60-year anniversary of the Nakba, "the catastrophe", when the overwhelming majority of Palestinians were forcibly evicted from their ancestral homeland to create the state of Israel. In contravention of International law, human rights, and basic principles of morality, Israel continues to deny these refugees and their descendants their right to return home. Israel has neither acknowledged nor attempted to amend this historic injustice that gave birth to the Jewish state. Instead, more than 5 million Palestinian refugees languish in refugee camps, while their homes, farms, and properties are inhabited by Jewish immigrants who arrived in Palestine from around the globe.

The historic illegal appropriation of Palestinian land, home and heritage is at the heart of the Middle East conflict. It has given rise to the largest ongoing refugee population in the world. It paved the way for subsequent land theft in 1967, and the ongoing ethnic cleansing that has squeezed Palestinians in the West Bank into ghettos and bantustans surrounded by 27-foot walls, sniper towers, and military guards. It has created the open-air prison of Gaza with an impoverished and overcrowded population of 1.4 million inhabitants.

This tragic event has dispossessed and disinherited Palestinians all over the world; and a destitute population of refugees with only their memories of Palestine, crumbling property deeds, and an undaunted will to return. "

Consistent?

One final point Free Gaza state that

"The historic illegal appropriation of Palestinian land, home and heritage is at the heart of the Middle East conflict. It has given rise to the largest ongoing refugee population in the world."

A larger refugee problem than in Darfur? Are you sure? You know Darfur where 400,000 people have been killed in this region of the Sudan since a 2003 outbreak of violence between the government-backed Janjaweed militias and the secular "rebels" of the region. A larger refugee problem than in the Congo where 5.4 million people have been killed since the civil war began in 1998? Have these people any idea of what is happening in the rest of the world or do they only "care" about the "poor Palestinians", and if so why?