ON Monday morning both the broadcast and newspaper media were swamped by the anniversary of October 7 last year and the attack by Hamas on Israel. Yet little or no coverage raised the question of why Mossad, the famed Israeli intelligence agency, failed to predict this attack. Some people suggest that Israel knew but wanted the attack to go ahead so it would justify the massive attack on Gaza that followed!
There was little coverage of the war that Israel has waged on Gaza and Lebanon since, which has killed more than 40,000 people, most of them women and children. Indeed a recent report in The Lancet suggests the real number of deaths may be more than 100,000 when all the bodies are recovered.
READ MORE: Steph Paton: As the world remembered October 7, it also continued to look away
None of the media remind us that the International Criminal Court has ordered Israel to take steps to prevent genocide in Gaza, or suggest that Israeli officials should be met with arrest warrants rather than warm welcomes by ministers like Angus Robertson in Scotland or Keir Starmer and David Lammy in England.
There is also little coverage of the fact that the origins of this war go back 75 years to the illegal occupation of Palestinian land by Israel.
But then there is also little coverage in the mainstream media of how Israel has bought influence over politicians in Britain and the US. It is no surprise that the Westminster government has been not only pro-Israel in its attitudes but has been supplying arms to Israel and flying intelligence missions for them from Cyprus.
As a Labour MEP in 1994, the first lobbyists to visit my office were the major arms company British Aerospace, who told me they were a Labour company and they had a missile plant in my constituency! I told them I would be working to have the plant redeployed into useful work instead of killing people. This of course was one of the reasons I was expelled by Labour.
READ MORE: Pro-Palestine activists smash windows and spray Glasgow building over 'Israel links'
It is also increasingly difficult to get coverage of alternative critical views about the genocide in Gaza and journalists have been detained under the terrorist legislation, such as Craig Murray in Scotland. Also the demonstrators against the arms plant in Glasgow have been put in prison for more than a year.
Finally, Scotland has a special interest in the resolution of the genocide in Gaza and Lebanon and of course the war in Ukraine. Both have the potential to erupt into a wider war which could lead to nuclear war, and don’t forget Israel has more than 200 nuclear weapons.
The UK nuclear deterrent is of course based in Scotland on the Clyde, so would be a primary target in any tactical nuclear war. This should be a reminder to all Scots that they should not only call for an end to both wars but to demand Scottish independence so that we are not sacrificed in the interests of the UK and US and Israeli war interests.
Hugh Kerr (former MEP)
Edinburgh
IN Tommy Sheppard’s column on Monday he writes about the reasons why the SNP failed at the election, and has the nerve to say those who held their nose and voted Labour were one reason for SNP’s defeat (Few thought Labour would be so bad but SNP still have work to do, Oct 7). I can’t believe he still does not get it. Here it is nice and simple. When the SNP walked out of Westminster, support for them and independence rose. When independence was ignored, support fell. So clearly the reason for the SNP defeat was the SNP doing nothing for independence.
Sadly Tommy seems unable to admit that, as doing so would be starting a path to independence, which again, clearly, this version of SNP do not want to do.
Shameful nonsense from Tommy.
William Robertson
via email
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