organization:british parliament

  • ’Good for the world’ ? Facebook emails reveal what really drives the site
    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/05/facebook-emails-analysis-user-data-parliament

    Analysis : documents show internal discussions focused on exploiting developers’ hunger for user data to increase revenue The central mythos of Facebook is that what’s good for Facebook is good for the world. More sharing, more friends and more connection will “make the world more open and connected” and “bring the world closer together”, Mark Zuckerberg has argued, even as his company has been engulfed by scandal. But confidential emails, released Wednesday by the British Parliament, reveal (...)

    #Facebook #algorithme #domination #bénéfices #données #BigData #marketing #profiling

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6625f4b1b29656088ae84916383d2574d14b162f/821_507_3161_1896/master/3161.jpg

  • UK Labour enables assaults on free speech | The Electronic Intifada

    https://electronicintifada.net/content/uk-labour-enables-assaults-free-speech/25576

    On 28 August this year, the New Statesman published an interview with Jonathan Sacks, Britain’s former chief rabbi, in which he described Jeremy Corbyn, the country’s main opposition leader, as “an anti-Semite.”

    By way of evidence, Sacks cited comments made by Corbyn in 2013, when the Labour leader and long-standing supporter of Palestinian rights allegedly criticized Zionists for failing to understand English irony. An editorial in the same issue of the London magazine claimed that “Corbyn’s remarks conflated a political position and an identity.”

    Even the traditionally Labour-supporting New Statesman, then, was endorsing the anti-Semitism charge.

    My initial reaction to these accusations was to dismiss them. How could anyone believe such nonsense?

    I have known and worked with Corbyn since the late 1970s. I cannot think of any other prominent politician who, throughout their entire adult life, has worked as tirelessly against racism in every form.

    But on reflection, I think a more considered response is necessary. We need to look carefully at any such allegations. Theoretically, at least, they just might be true.

    Corbyn’s remarks were made in reference to an earlier speech by Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian Authority’s ambassador to the UK. Hassassian spoke in the British Parliament on 15 January 2013.

    We don’t have access to Hassassian’s entire speech but Richard Millett, a pro-Israel activist, recorded it at the time.

  • Balfour’s original sin -

    British colonialism prepared the way for Israeli colonialism, even if it didn’t intend for it to continue for a 100 years and more

    Gideon Levy Oct 28, 2017 6:50 PM
    read more: https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.819539

    There was never anything like it: an empire promising a land that it had not yet conquered to a people not living there, without asking the inhabitants. There’s no other way to describe the unbelievable colonialist temerity that cries out from every letter in the Balfour Declaration, now marking its centenary.
    The prime ministers of Israel and Britain will celebrate a huge Zionist achievement this week. Now the time has come for some soul-searching as well. The celebration is over. One hundred years of colonialism, first British and then, inspired by it, Israeli, has come at the expense of another people, and that is its endless disaster.
    The Balfour Declaration could have been a just document if it had pledged equal treatment of both the people who dreamed of the land and the people dwelling there. But Britain preferred the dreamers, hardly any of whom lived in the country, over its inhabitants who had lived there for hundreds of years and were its absolute majority, and preferred to give them no national rights.
    Imagine a power promising to turn Israel into the national home of the Israeli Arabs and calling for the Jewish majority to suffice with “civil and religious rights.” That’s what happened then, but in an even more discriminatory way: The Jews were an even smaller minority (less than a tenth) than Israeli Arabs are today.
    Thus Britain sowed the seeds of the calamity whose poisonous fruits both peoples are eating to this day. This isn’t a cause for celebration; rather, on the 100th anniversary of the declaration, it’s a call for repairing the injustice that was never even recognized, not by Britain and of course not by Israel.
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    Not only was the State of Israel born as a result of the declaration, so was the policy toward “the non-Jewish communities” as stated in the letter by Lord Arthur James Balfour to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild. The discrimination against the Arabs of Israel and the occupation of the Palestinians are the direct continuation of the letter. British colonialism prepared the way for Israeli colonialism, even if it didn’t intend for it to continue for a 100 years and more.
    Israel 2017 also pledges to grant “civil and religious rights” to the Palestinians. But they don’t have a national home. Balfour was the first to promise it.
    Sure, Britain spread these promises around in those years, the years of World War I, contradictory promises including to the Arabs, but it fulfilled them only to the Jews. As Shlomo Avineri wrote in Haaretz’s Hebrew edition on Friday regarding the context and implications of the Balfour Declaration, its main purpose was to minimize American-Jewish opposition to U.S. participation in the war.
    Whatever the motive was, following the Balfour Declaration, more Jews immigrated to this country. Immediately on their arrival they acted like overlords, and they haven’t changed their attitude toward the non-Jewish inhabitants to this day. Balfour let them do this. Not by chance did a small group of Sephardi Jews living in Palestine oppose Balfour and seek equality with the Arabs, as Ofer Aderet wrote in Haaretz on Friday. And not by chance were they silenced.
    Balfour let the Jewish minority take over the country, callously ignoring the national rights of another people that had lived in the land for generations. Exactly 50 years after the Balfour Declaration, Israel conquered the West Bank and Gaza. It invaded them with the same colonialist feet and it continues its occupation and its ignoring of the rights of the inhabitants.
    If Balfour were alive today, he would feel comfortable in the Habayit Hayehudi party. Like MK Bezalel Smotrich, Balfour also thought the Jews have rights in this country and the Palestinians don’t and never will. Like his successors on the Israeli right, Balfour never concealed this. In his speech to the British Parliament in 1922, he came right out and said it.
    On the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, the nationalist right should bow its head in thanksgiving to the person who originated Jewish superiority in this country, Lord Balfour. Palestinians and the Jews who seek justice should mourn. If he hadn’t formulated his declaration the way he did, maybe this country would be different and more just.

    Gideon Levy

  • IS received secret funding from Gulf states : British parliament report | Middle East Eye
    http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/received-secret-funding-gulf-states-british-parliament-report-conclud

    A British parliamentary report released on Tuesday has concluded there is “historical evidence” the Islamic State (IS) group received funding from within Arab Gulf states.

    In evidence submitted to the foreign affairs select committee, the Ministry of Defence said: “[There] is historical evidence of financial donations to Daesh [IS] from within Gulf states. Furthermore, it is understood that family donations are being made to Daesh, through the unregulated Alternative Value Transfer Systems (AVTS).”

    AVTS include ways of globally transferring money that includes little information about the individuals involved in the transaction – examples include the open source online currency Bitcoin.

    Au cas où certains l’ignoreraient encore... #syrie

  • NATO powers move to exploit refugee crisis to intensify bombing of Syria - World Socialist Web Site

    http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/09/07/syri-s07.html

    http://www.kennys.ie/mapping-a-critical-introduction-to-cartography-and-gis.html

    NATO powers move to exploit refugee crisis to intensify bombing of Syria
    By Alex Lantier
    7 September 2015

    Even as tens of thousands of Syrians flee to Europe, the NATO powers are proposing to step up the bombing of their war-torn country and the drive for regime change in Syria.

    According to a report in the Sunday Times, British Prime Minister David Cameron is seeking the support of sections of the Labour Party for a plan to address the migrant crisis that involves bombing Syria and destroying the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The plan would be voted upon in the British Parliament in October.

    #guerre #moyen-orient #otan #migrations #réfugiés #asile #europe

  • British Parliament votes overwhelmingly to recognize Palestinian state
    http://mondoweiss.net/2014/10/parliament-overwhelmingly-palestinian

    […] I wanted to pass along Sir Richard Ottaway’s speech. A strong supporter of Israel, the Conservative M.P., 69, who represents a London district, said that the country has made him “look like a fool” with its recent settlement announcement and that he is voting for the motion because of that landgrab. “I have to say to the Government of Israel that if they are losing people like me, they will be losing a lot of people.”

  • 100 responsables chrétiens palestiniens demandent au Royaume-Uni de reconnaître la Palestine « Les chrétiens ont le devoir de résister à l’oppression » | Haaretz

    http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.620135

    Letter sent by over 100 Palestinian notables on eve of vote in the House of Commons on non-binding motion that the U.K. recognize Palestinian state.

    Senior Palestinian Christian leaders sent a letter to members of the British parliament on Friday, calling on them to support a motion that the United Kingdom should recognize the Palestinian state.

    The non-binding motion, presented by Labor MP Grahame Morris, will be put before the House of Commons on Monday.

    “Christians have a duty to resist oppression,” the Christian leaders said in the letter. "We believe the international community and particularly Europe has not done enough in order to achieve a just and lasting peace. You cannot continue holding our right to freedom and self-determination as an Israeli prerogative.

    “We have a natural right to be free and Europe has a moral, legal and political duty to hold Israel accountable and support Palestinian non-violent initiatives to end the Israeli occupation, including the recognition of the State of Palestine on the 1967 border with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

    The letter was signed by over 100 Palestinian church leaders, diplomats, and civil society leaders and organizations, including Patriarch Emeritus Michael Sabbah, former Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Atallah Hanna, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, and Bishop Mounib Younan, head of the Lutheran Church in Palestine and Jordan and head of the World Lutheran Federation.

    “Until when will you continue accepting Israel’s violations of your own resolutions?” the letter continued. "Until when will you allow that the prospects of peace will continue to be destroyed by Israeli colonization? Until when should we be allowed to be treated as foreigners in our own homeland?

    “Ending Israeli occupation is the only way for Palestinians, Christians and Muslims, to enjoy a life of prosperity and progress. It is also the surest way to secure continued Christian presence in this, our Holy Land, and to grant Israel the security that it continues to demand. Without Justice there can be no peace nor security.”

    The church leaders point out that “the only way to defeat extremism and terrorism in our region is to bring justice for all, starting by ending the historic injustice inflicted against the Palestinian people, an open wound that continues to bleed as the hopes for an independent Palestinian state are more elusive due to the expansion of Israeli settlements and the many restrictions imposed on our own people, including forced displacement.”

    The motion will have no practical significance, if passed, but its supporters say it will send a powerful message.

    “The U.K. recognizing Palestine could give decisive momentum to more EU states following suit,” Morris said.

    “Recognition now would be a clear and legitimate message that Britain and others recognize Palestinian rights and that the illegal settlement enterprise has no validity.”

  • Edward Snowden revelations prompt UN investigation into surveillance
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/02/edward-snowden-un-investigation-surveillance

    The UN’s senior counter-terrorism official is to launch an investigation into the #surveillance powers of American and British intelligence agencies following Edward Snowden’s revelations that they are using secret programmes to store and analyse billions of emails, phone calls and text messages.

    The UN special rapporteur Ben Emmerson QC said his inquiry would also seek to establish whether the British parliament had been misled about the capabilities of Britain’s eavesdropping headquarters, GCHQ, and whether the current system of oversight and scrutiny was strong enough to meet United Nations standards.

    The inquiry will make a series of recommendations to the UN general assembly next year.

    In an article for the Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/02/guardian-terrorism-snowden-alan-rusbridger-free-press, Emmerson said Snowden had disclosed “issues at the very apex of public interest concerns”. He said the media had a duty and right to publish stories about the activities of GCHQ and its American counterpart the National Security Agency.

    “The astonishing suggestion that this sort of responsible journalism can somehow be equated with aiding and abetting terrorism needs to be scotched decisively,” said Emmerson, who has been the UN’s leading voice on counter-terrorism and human rights since 2011.

  • How the Commons can break the silence over Halabja

    The British Parliament is set to debate the political recognition of Saddam Hussein’s campaign against the Kurds as genocide. With the threat of chemical weapons in Syria a declared ’red line’, the need to properly understand and account for the legacy of the largest chemical attack against a civilian population remains as pressing as ever.

    http://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/gary-kent/how-commons-can-break-silence-over-halabja

    #Iraq #Syria #Halabja #Kurds #kurdish