Mick Hartley

From MEMRI: excerpts from an Al-Jazeera television interview on the London bombings, with Palestinian National Council member Mamoun Al-Tamimi:

“As for Britain’s humanism, Winston Churchill once said: ‘Defend freedom, for it is the reason for our existence.’ After Hitler’s fall in Germany, Winston Churchill ordered the army and the air force to continue bombing. The bombings continued three weeks after Hitler’s fall, and military historians say that the casualties sustained by Germany after Hitler’s fall were greater than the casualties from the war. Germany had 25 million casualties, and in Britain there were 18 million dead. In other words, Britain totally annihilated Germany after Hitler’s fall.

“That is Britain’s humanist side. We have suffered from Britain’s humanist side since the turn of the century, since 1880 or 1881. Ever since, we have been suffering because of Britain. Britain uprooted the Palestinian people from its land and planted a Jewish entity. It brought over riffraff and gave them Palestine, uprooting children and women from their homes and their fields, without any food or clothing. Britain divided up the area and sowed the seeds of civil strife. It created mini-states which collaborated with it. Britain occupied Iraq. We are still suffering disasters because of Britain.” […]

“Britain caused infinite destruction to the Iraqi people. Now that the political and social map of Iraq has been completed, there will be no civil society there. He said that there was no civil society in the days of Saddam. Is there civil society now in Iraq?

“Today there are massacres, murder, car bombs, martyrdom-seekers, battles of attrition – there is total confusion. Is there civil society now? Have we lost our minds?! In the days of Saddam there was stability, calm; there was a government, a people, funding, a state, and institutions. All of this has been [taken away] by imperialism, in the guise of culture and humanism – while they are really the least cultured and humane in the world.”

Powerful stuff. Maybe he could get a job with the Guardian.