What kind of lowlife guy would say “If someone throws stones at a dog, the government is not responsible” when asked about the torching murder of two small children, as Indian politician General VK Singh did? Racist & supremacist ideas certainly but there’s a whole lot of things in his unsavory biography that would explain his loathsome mentality.

Singh was trained in the 1970s as a US Army ranger for counterinsurgency commando operations (psycho stuff) & most of his military career was spent in special forces roles. He rose to the rank of 4-star general in the Indian army & was army chief of staff from 2010 to 2012.

The caption to this photo read: “A Palestinian man closes his shop during clashes between Israeli troops & Palestinian protesters in the West Bank town of al-Ram, north of Jerusalem. Ten Israelis have been killed over the last month, mainly in stabbing attacks. On the Palestinian side, 48 people have been killed.” So let’s fill in the blanks in a narrative where the omissions matter more than what is said. You’re not writing a book when you caption a photo but you ought to include the relevant.

That guy from communist China hanging out with Betty is enjoying feudalism far too much. How ever will this play in Chinese media when people there are living in underground cages & working in sweatshops?

This is what happens when you go backward in history & take up capitalism in its barbaric phase while everybody else is trying to get rid of it. A socialist would have taken a cab. And there’d be no £40 billion worth of business deals.

When asked about China’s deplorable human rights problems, Xi Jinping (the president) answered there “was always room for improvement.” You could say that–when speaking your mind gets you hung. Cameron whistled his way through that brief discussion since why should barbaric human rights practices interfere with business? And he didn’t want anybody bringing up England’s wars.

CBS news coverage tonight of the West Bank focused on the Israeli settlement in Hebron which they portrayed romantically & as besieged by Palestinians. Not even a hint about the aggressive history of that settlement, the encroachments on Palestinian lands & rights, apartheid divisions in Hebron, or the inescapable reality that the damn thing is illegal under international law. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, establishing settlements in occupied territory is illegal.

We have our work cut out for us to build solidarity against the mountain of shameless lies. Not to be daunted! Just build the hell out of BDS. (Barcode beginning 729)

After exposés about the UN role in Haiti, the DR Congo, & in Gaza, nothing lowdown surprises us about the character of the UN. All that world peace talk just so much baloney. In a flurry of diplomatic grandstanding, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met yesterday with Netanyahu in Jerusalem & then dashed off to hold a press conference with Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.

At the press conference Ban denounced “hateful discourse” on both sides & said Israel’s response to Palestinian knife attacks added to the “already difficult challenges of restoring calm” & building a two-state solution. Like Abbas before him, Ban warned of the dangers of the conflict escalating into a religious war. Sounding like a Presbyterian minister who just landed from Mars, he “urged Palestinians to stop knife attacks & violent protests” & asked Israel to stop demolishing homes & erecting walls. Since when did protests demanding the end of occupation, civil liberties, & that Israel stop demolishing whole villages become “violent”? Just because Palestinians are the ones marching?

Are Ban & Abbas really that stupid or is that the kind of nonsense you talk when you’re running interference for Israel & US interests in the region & trying to pretend you’re a disinterested diplomat brokering peace? Or the president of Palestine when you haven’t been elected?

In discussions with Abbas, Ban said he was deeply concerned about “repeated provocations at the holy sites in Jerusalem which have fueled the current outbreak of violence.” Why the hell is he talking to Abbas about that? Why isn’t he screaming bloody murder to Netanyahu about Israel’s military siege of Al-Aqsa mosque?

Ban also expressed concern about statements from Hamas & Islamic Jihad praising “such heinous attacks” with inflammatory rhetoric. “Such heinous attacks” presumably means the alleged stabbings by Palestinians. So why’s he talking to Abbas about it? More importantly, why isn’t he raising hell about Israel’s occupation of Palestine; the blockade & repeated bombing attacks on Gaza; the calls by Israel for vigilante terrorism by its civilians; the military occupation of the Noble Sanctuary; Israel refusing to return the bodies of Palestinians they shot down to their families for burial; demolishing Palestinian homes; & martial law & new apartheid walls in East Jerusalem? What’s more heinous–defending yourself with a slingshot & knife or attacking unarmed people with tanks, bulldozers, tear gas, grenades, & AK-47s?

The role Israel plays as a military fortress against democracy in the Middle East & in maintaining US economic & political control means they’re pulling out the big guns militarily & for propaganda. Our man Ban & his cohort Abbas are there to serve Israel, not world peace, & they should both be escorted out of the West Bank on a rail.

There’s only one way to counter all this melodramatic rubbish & that is to build the economic, cultural, & academic boycott of Israel & continue to hold rallies demanding no aid of any kind to apartheid Israel, end the occupation, lift the blockade of Gaza.

(Photo by Alaa Badarneh/EPA)

Is incoherence & inconsistency in media only a problem when they report on violence against the oppressed? This photo is family members carrying the bodies of a 2½-year-old toddler & 9-month-old baby who were burned to death in an arson attack in Faridabad near New Delhi, India. Both were of the Dalit caste & the accused arsonists from the upper-caste Rajput community. Their mother Rekha Kumar suffered serious burn injuries as did their father Jitender Kumar while trying to save his family.

Where is that speculation coming from asking if a new Intifada is beginning among Palestinians? It suggests the violence is initiated by Palestinians & Israel is responding–an idea that plays right into the hands of Israeli propaganda.

If Intifada means self-defense against Israeli violence & resistance against oppression & colonialism, then Intifada began for Palestinians in 1948 & has never ended. When the term is used to connote increased & spontaneous aggression & violence among Palestinians against Israel, that is an adroit manipulation.

Palestinians have a right to defend themselves by any means necessary & their struggle demands the fullest solidarity from men & women of good will all around the world. Long live Intifada!

The Israeli rampage against Palestinians, which began with the siege of Al-Aqsa mosque, is a turning point in the Palestinian struggle for justice. The pogrom escalates ethnic cleansing of Palestinians & strengthens military occupation of East Jerusalem while holding the destruction of BDS & international solidarity in the crosshairs.

Netanyahu adamantly denies Israel is trying to destroy or ‘change the status quo’ at Al-Aqsa mosque & actually has the effrontery to accuse Palestinians of inciting violence at the mosque. Media operates as the Greek chorus for Israeli propaganda & peddles this rubbish as the gospel truth.

Israel has in fact instituted several new repressive measures that directly change the status quo at Al-Aqsa. For months, men under 50 years-old were denied freedom of religion & could not pray in the mosque but had to kneel in the public streets; Israeli soldiers militarily occupied the Noble Sanctuary compound where the mosque is & ushered extremist vandals into the mosque for “touring.” These were violations not only of the agreement between Israel & the Jordanian trust governing the mosque but a denial of religious freedom to Palestinians.

Now, East Jerusalem, where the mosque is located, is under martial law & on lockdown. That means Palestinians from the West Bank won’t be allowed to enter the area in order to worship at the mosque. Israel also built a 15-foot wall between Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem & newly constructed Zionist settlements; Palestinians will have to show identification to leave their own neighborhoods. There are hundreds of Israeli police prowling the streets hunting down Palestinians & dozens of new military checkpoints. For media to parrot Netanyahu that these are not ‘changes to the status quo’ at Al-Aqsa is to mock the intelligence of the public.

Certainly one of the most despicable & dangerous of the new repressive measures is Israel’s decision that the bodies of alleged Palestinian assailants shot dead by Israeli forces will be buried in secret & will no longer be returned to their families for burial. Consider the possibilities for Israeli criminality! For summarily executing unarmed Palestinians; for leaving no forensic evidence of what actually happened; for depriving families of the right to mourn & honor their own.

These are Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank directing fire at unarmed Palestinian protesters. The caption to this photo read “Jews armed themselves with everything from guns to broomsticks, rattled by a wave of Palestinian attacks that have shaken the country.” The cynicism of that caption appalls. What’s with the broomsticks when Netanyahu is urging them to arm themselves & when they’re backed up with firepower from one of the best armed militaries in the world?

This is no time to be daunted. Build the economic, cultural, & academic boycott of Israel & demand no aid of any kind to apartheid Israel. To stand in solidarity with Palestinians, international solidarity will have to double down in our activities. We have an immense task to counter media lies.

(Photo by Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP/Getty Images)

We expected the caption to this photo to read: ‘Palestinian terrorist charges Israeli bulldozer with knife” but that must have seemed a little over the top even to the Guardian-UK. Yahoo might still try to pull it off.

What the caption does say is that the activist is running toward the bulldozer when the dust cloud clearly shows the damn thing is moving against him. That doesn’t require a dust pattern expert to detect. It describes this encounter as coming after the activist & fellow protesters tore down a section of the apartheid fence between Israel & Gaza. In one of its peculiar non sequiturs (trying to pack as many lies into one caption as it can), it says Israel has set up more military checkpoints in occupied East Jerusalem. Those alleged stabbers have the city on edge. And military occupation is calming who?