Lies, Lies, and Palestine
The most recent issue of Q Magazine has an interview with Radio 4’s John Humphreys. There’s no other reason I would have bought a magazine with U2 on the cover (other than to read Bono’s latest preposterous chest-beating, of course).John Humphreys, for anyone that doesn’t know, is the main interviewer for BBC radio 4’s Today programme. He’s a man that continually interrupts the politicians that he interviews, won’t let them get away with their two-faced, mealy-mouthed, half-arsed attempts at lying.
This is what he said in that interview:
“There are three types of politicians. Those who never lie; those who are economical with the truth when it comes to the possibility of embassing the government; and then there are those that don’t give a bugger what they do.”
Humphreys doesn’t give us the proportions.
The day I read this interview was the day the Israeli government invaded Gaza with tanks, rockets and soldiers.
The day before, in the paper, I’d read US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice saying she had “no plans to travel to the region at this point”. She refused to answer questions on whether a ground offensive was justifiable. Basically, the reason she wasn’t going to Israel to broker a ceasefire was because she knew there was going to be a ground invasion, that she had to stay safely out of the way.
She knew; she knew but she lied.
This is how it works in politics. Powerful people tell lies, papers report what they say, people die, then we all forget the lie.
I would hazard a guess that most politicians, in the words of Humphreys, ‘don’t give a bugger what they do.’
We’re all taught about lies when we’re young – witness the collective (and harmless) lie that is Santa Claus. So about the time we’re old enough to discover there’s no Father Christmas, we ought to realise the power of lying and apply it to our understanding of the world – as the joke goes, “how can you tell when a politician is lying? His lips are moving.” We’re not four years old, there isn’t really a fat man in a red suit, and let’s be realistic enough to question what we’re told by those in authority.
After John Humphreys gave Tony Blair an on-air grilling over New Labour ‘sleaze’ in 2000, he wasn’t given access to the PM for four years. That’s what you get for questioning; arguably Humphreys survived those four years with a greater level of dignity, honour and integrity than Blair.
Condoleeza Rice had no plans to travel. And Israel is, somewhat nobly and for all of us, “fighting the war against international terror,” so says an Israeli spokesman. ‘The War on Terror’ itself, the modern-day Father Christmas, a huge umbrella of a lie which serves to justify any manner of slaughter, bloodshed, torture and – yes – terror. Isn’t shelling a UN school terror? Killing civilians, murdering women and children, isn’t that terror? Israel have a long-term relationship with terror, despite the handy and frequently-trotted out cry of ‘anti-semitism’. The list of Israeli massacres (mainly in Lebanon but frequently in Palestine) is long. Look them up, count up the thousands of dead bodies, every one of them qualified and justified by a lie.
20 Israelis have been killed in and around Gaza in the last ten years (20 too many). In contrast, this week alone, 600 Palestinians have been killed, including the 40 civilian refugees killed in the school bombing. An Israeli ambassador responded to this bombing by saying, “Israel makes every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties.” Which is, of course, a lie.
Maybe, as with Santa Claus, people over the age of four still need something to believe in. Need to believe that those self-serving wretches in suits (and dress suits) are acting in our best interests. What a world it would be if we didn’t believe a thing they said.
I just went to see the exhibition of anti-war art and photography at the Barbican in London. Beautiful, harrowing, powerful stuff, as clear a statement about war as you can get. Spain, China, Vietnam, Iraq – and coupled with what’s happening in Gaza right now, I couldn’t help a feeling of futility and desperation. And chanting slogans outside the Israeli Embassy (I went there too) seems so puny compared to the media-trumpeted lies of the powerful.
Thank goodness we have people like John Humphreys: “The one I want to interview is the Queen. Would I stick the boot in? Of course I would!”
Now looks like a good time to be sticking the boot in to the Israeli government, the US administration which funds it and the conservative media apologists who support it.
Not forgetting, of course, a well-aimed boot for Middle East Peace Envoy Tony Blair, who this week was awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom – the country’s highest civilian award – by George W Bush. Presumably for his outstanding success as Middle East Peace Envoy.
Boff Jan 2009
12 Jan, 2009 | chumba
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