Unapologetic Israel Free advocate

Galloway interviewed by the police

Parliament Member George Galloway via Reuters

Member of Parliament (MP) George Galloway, co-founder of the anti-war Respect Party in the
UK, has been interviewed by West Yorkshire Police after complaints regarding Israel free
comments he made to Respect activists at a meeting in Leeds on the 2nd of August, where
he urged the city of Bradford to reject all Israeli goods, services, academics and even tourists,
as reported at the BBC.
For more detailed information, click here and here.
According to Chief Superintendent Paul Money, George Galloway cooperated with the police
and was interviewed at Elland Road station under caution. West Yorkshire Police has said that
the case will be referred to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) when its enquiries are
completed.

George Galloway in Bradford, with a fellow activist for Respect/PHOTO CREDIT: The Guardian

To recap on the speech, this is what George Galloway said on the 2nd of August:
We have declared Bradford an Israel-free zone.
We dont want any Israeli goods; we dont want any Israeli services; we dont want any Israeli
academics coming to the university or the college.

We dont even want any Israeli tourists to come to Bradford even if any of them had thought of
doing so.
We reject this illegal, barbarous, savage state that calls itself Israel and you have to do the
same.
Mr Galloway has been a Bradford West MP since 2012.
Watch his speech here:

Galloway in Court
George Galloway will milk his questioning and possible court appearance for all its worth. He is,
after all, a consummate performer.
Even the people who despise George Galloway as many people do (especially his former
comrades) freely confess that he has excellent literary skills and that hes a performer of the
first order. Despite that, when you read rather than hear and see his words on paper or on
the Internet, Galloway-power lessens somewhat.
Indeed you quickly find that theres hardly any analysis, argumentation or even factual data in
what he says. And beyond the literary exhibitionism, theres no much politics either. This man
thinks with the blood and primarily appeals to people who think that way. He tends to appeal to
those who are politically simple-minded, Manichean and full of dreams of vengeance and power
hence Galloways Hitleresque style and (lack of) content.
Galloway will make the most of his court appearance. Indeed Galloway may replicate the RADA
skills he used during theGalloway v the US Senate (oil-for-food) hearings in 2005 (see image
above). And since judges, lawyers and prosecutors cant also rely exclusively on literary style,
rhetoric and polemics, its no wonder that Galloway sometimes comes across so well at such
appearances.
Because Galloway is a pathological exhibitionist, it wouldnt surprise the British public if he said
something even more extreme and racist about Israelis and Jews either before or during the
trial. In addition, since hes competing with David Ward MP to see whos the most immoderate
and perverse Bradfordian Islamophile of them all, this may well happen.

One very-often-used strategy Galloway employs is to accuse virtually all his critics of lying. Hes
done this very many times over the years, as evidenced in various YouTube videos. In fact,
apart from using his flamboyant literary skills, this seems to be Galloways first resort: especially
when hes being questioned. This is bizarre really since George Galloway along with Jeffrey
Archer is one of most well-documented liars in British politics. This must simply be a case,
then, of what psychologists call psychological projection. That is, a trait that Galloway
recognises in himself (compulsive lying) is projected onto virtually all of his opponents.
(See The Lies of George Galloway.)
George Galloway will be truly saddened by the fact that cameras arent allowed in British courts.

George Galloway at Ulster Hall Belfast:

DUP seek to deny use of council building
to MP
Belfast City Council is taking legal advice after unionists called for Respect MP George Galloway to be
stopped from speaking at the Ulster Hall.
But the outspoken critic of Israel hit back, saying being lectured on good relations by the DUP "is a bit like
being told to sit up straight by the Hunchback of Notre Dame".
The Respect MP for Bradford West has also threatened to sue the council if the Saturday Night with George
Galloway event on August 23 is not allowed to proceed.
The DUP has formally requested a review of the decision by council officers to grant the use of the Ulster
Hall for the speaking engagement.
Former Deputy Mayor Christopher Stalford insisted that his party and the UUP are not seeking to "curtail the
loathsome Galloway's freedom of speech".
"We are, however, seeking to deny him the use of a council facility to spew anti-Israel hatred," he said.
"He can hire another building elsewhere if he chooses."
Ulster Unionist Party councillor Jim Rodgers has also written to the City Council's Director of Development
about the booking, asking him to review it.
Neither Sinn Fein nor the SDLP commented on the matter yesterday.
But Alliance said Mr Galloway should be allowed to stage his event at the Ulster Hall where at least one of
its activists will be protesting against him.

Alliance deputy mayor Maire Hendron said Mr Galloway's comments about Israel were irresponsible, and had
led to increased tension.
"However, the Alliance Party has never endorsed censorship and been a vocal opponent to any attempts to
impose unnecessary restrictions," she said.
"Alliance will stand against any attempts to censor an event or individual simply because their views do not
match the views of the majority."
Former DUP leader Ian Paisley wearing the traditional red beret of paramilitary group the Ulster Resistance
in Ulster Hall
However, Alliance member Gary Spedding, who is also a Palestinian Solidarity activist, said he had written to
every councillor in Belfast urging them to oppose the event.
"Some people assume I would be on the same page as George Galloway but nothing could be further from the
truth," he said. "I feel it would be inappropriate for a man who recently declared his own constituency to be
an 'Israeli free zone' to be given a platform at an historic venue which is part-run or owned by the City
Council."
There have been reports that the Yorkshire Police are currently investigating comments made by Mr Galloway
urging people in Bradford to reject all Israeli goods, services, academics and tourists.
But yesterday, Mr Galloway said he has not been contacted by police. He also said he will not withdraw from
the event.
"To be lectured on good relations by the DUP is a bit like being told to sit up straight by the Hunchback of
Notre Dame," he said. "It's a commercial contract with the Ulster Hall, signed, sealed and will be delivered,
except on terms of very severe compensation.
"A great deal of money has already been spent, the tickets are going like hot cakes, so a great deal of
income would be lost and that would be a very bad deal for the taxpayers in Belfast."
The event had been booked by a third party promoter, who hired the venue from Belfast City Council and
takes responsibility for its planning and content. The council's programming policy does not preclude
political events organised by third party promoters.
A council spokesperson confirmed the issue is now being considered and legal advice is being sought.
George Galloway Belfast gig at Ulster Hall sells out in wake of DUP furore
Background
The Ulster Hall in Belfast city centre is no stranger to politics and controversy, and has a special place in
unionist history.
The 155-year-old building played host to anti Home Rule rallies at the start of the 20th century.
In 1986, the paramilitary group Ulster Resistance was announced by the DUP at the hall in opposition to the
Anglo-Irish Agreement. The rally was chaired by the Democratic Unionist Party member Sammy Wilson and
addressed by party colleagues Ian Paisley, Peter Robinson and Ivan Foster.
In the 1990s, it became the scene of a series of meetings of the Ulster Unionist Council over the Good Friday
Agreement. It also hosted a major Sinn Fein rally in 2002.

Older Entries

British Man Beats Up Anti-Semite George Galloway

Saturday, August 30th, 2014

British police have arrested a 39-year-old man, (not Jewish, were not sure if that surprises us or not) for
assault anti-Israel and anti-Semitic Member of Parliament George Galloway, who was hospitalized for broken
ribs and a head injury.
The attacker was identified as Neil Masterson.
Galloway has been released from the hospital, but it is doubtful that the attacker was able to beat some sense
into his head.
The MP, who has built his political career on loving Saddam Hussein and Hamas and hating Jews and Israel,
was posing for pictures in west London Friday night when the attacker jumped on him while calling him Hitler.
The assault appears to be connected with his comments about Israel because the guy was shouting about the
Holocaust, said Galloways spokesman. The name of his one-MP party is Respect, which indicates his
ignorance of the English language.
The partys name is a very contrived acronym for Respect, Equality, Socialism, Peace, Environmentalism,
Community and Trade Unionism. A more accurate acronym would be Racist, Extremist, Satanic, Pisher,
Ethnic=hatingt, Crude and Twisted.
Galloway has been under police investigation since his call earlier this month that the city of Bradford, which he
represents, be an Israel-free zone that would bar Israeli tourist and place a total ban on anything related to
Israel.
We wish Galloway a speedy recovery and hope that some of the medicine he needs is made in Israel.
Tags: Anti Israel, Anti Semitic, Britain, george galloway, Hitler, Holocaust, Jewish., MP
Posted in Antisemitism, Europe, Global, Holocaust, Jewish, News Briefs, UK | 101 Comments

Irish Jews Brace for Galloway Visit

Thursday, August 21st, 2014

The Jewish community in Belfast, Northern Ireland is bracing for violent backlash as the city prepares for an
appearance by radical British MP George Galloway on Saturday night.
Last month, Palestinian supporters smashed windows twice at the Belfast Hebrew Congregation following a
pro-Palestinian demonstration in the city. Now, representatives for Galloway say the 1,000-seat Ulster Hall is
sold out for the MPs appearance, part of a nationwide speaking tour titled Just Say Naw.
The evening, which sounds more like a stand-up comedy show than a serious address about national politics,
is ostensibly about Scotlands referendum next month but the firebrand Galloway is certain to repeat his
support for Hamas and critize Israel.
Galloway, who is currently under police investigation violating Britains racial vilification laws for declaring his
region Bradford an Israel-free zone, routinely accuses Israel of genocide against the Palestinians and calls
for Palestine, Palestine to be free, from the river to the sea.

At a meeting of Respect Party members earlier this month, Galloway said he has declared Bradford an Israelfree zone. We dont want any Israeli goods; we dont want any Israeli services; we dont want any Israeli
academics coming to the university or the college.
We dont even want any Israeli tourists to come to Bradford even if any of them had thought of doing so.
We reject this illegal, barbarous, savage state that calls itself Israel and you have to do the same, he said.
Earlier, in July, Galloway told a rally outside the Israeli embassy in London that it is torture for all of us to watch
what is going (in Palestine), and added that any ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians is not a
ceasefire, but merely a pause in the (Israeli) killing (of Palestinians).
The killing started long before (Operation Protective Edge), and will not stop until Palestine is free from the
river to the sea, Galloway told supporters.
It is not clear whether Galloway has instructed local hospitals to boycott Israeli medical devices, local
pharmacies to boycott low-cost medicines produced in Israel or residents of Bradford to trash the Intel
computer chips developed in Israel. There is no word on whether Galloway has thrown his mobile phone, with
its Israeli-developed technology, in the rubbish.
Tags: BDS, george galloway
Posted in Business and Economy, Israel At War: Operation Protective Edge, News Briefs, Politics, UK | 5
Comments

UK Parliament Member George Galloway Declares his

District Israel Free Zone
Saturday, August 9th, 2014

You have to hand it to George Galloway. Hes a one trick pony and he finds endless ways to trot out that pony
and show off that one trick.
The anti-Zionist Galloway most recently infamous for walking out on a debate for the prestigious Oxford
Debate Team when he learned his opponent was Israeli, is now declaring the district in England which he
represents an Israel Free Zone.
Theres nothing more to be said. Just watch the video:
Tags: george galloway, Israel Free Zone, Oxford Debate Club
Posted in News Briefs, Politics, UK | 116 Comments

George Galloway Declares Israel-Free Zone in British City

Thursday, August 7th, 2014

Hamas enthusiast and British Member of Parliament George Galloway has unilaterally declared the city of
Bradford an Israel-free zone that rejects all Israeli goods, services, academics and tourists.
He made the declaration ay a meeting of his Respect Party in Leeds, where en encouraged the city also to rid
itself of Israelis.

In his speech, seen in the video below, Galloway stated, We reject this illegal, barbarous, savage state that
calls itself Israel. And you have to do the same.
Tags: Anti Israel, anti-zionism, BDS, boycott Israel, Bradford, Britain, george galloway, Hamas, Israel
Posted in Antisemitism, Boycott, Europe, Global, Israel, Jewish, News Briefs, UK | 97 Comments

Why I Confronted George Galloway

Thursday, October 17th, 2013

This opinion piece appeared first in Great Britains Trending Central

I was one among dozens in February who packed the auditorium of Christ Church College, Oxford University to
hear that circus act of a man, the Member of Parliament for Bradford West, George Galloway, debate the evils
of Zionist apartheid. His speech littered with such witty remarks as Israel is not kosher, its not even halal
was mostly met with laughter. After all, the man is a joke. But some jokes are offensive others, racist.
Like many, I was left stunned by Galloways disgraceful actions. In walking out on my friend Eylon Aslan-Levy,
Galloway confirmed what we had all thought about him for a very long time. As Eylon put it: to refuse to talk to
someone just because of their nationality is pure racism.
The moment Hunter confronted Galloway
Galloway is a man who gives speeches toHezbollah rallies in Beirut, who has interviewedMahmoud
Ahmadinejad for Press TV and of course, has rather disturbingly implied support for Bashar al-Assad. Yet he
will refuse to have a constructive dialogue with a PPE undergraduate solely due to an accident of birth.
Because he happens to hold a specific passport. Because his parents are different.
Galloway refuses to recognise my national and civic identity. He denies my cultural existence. In effect, like
Hamas, he seeks the destruction of the State of Israel. This to me and many others is racism of the worst kind.
I couldnt just allow him to return to Oxford and pretend as if nothing happened last time after all, he is
notorious for denying some of his more outrageous statements (thank goodness for the internet).
By looking him in the eye and speaking to him in Hebrew, I wanted to show my fellow students that Galloways
continuing behaviour is completely inexcusable.
And how does Galloway reply? By implying that I am a fascist, of course. By equating my holding of the flag of
my homeland with English Defence League (EDL) thugs. By comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa. By
comparing Zionism to Nazism. The usual rubbish. The standard anti-Zionist spiel.
So Im a fascist? But George, youre the one who addresses the fascists of Hezbollah at their anti-Semitic
rallies. Youre the one who openly admired Saddam Husseins courage. And dont get me started on the Nazi
comparison. Comparing the Jewish people to the perpetrators of their attempted destruction is a classic and
recognised anti-Semitic trope.
Its funny that Galloway almost soiled himself when I approached him thinking there was a weapon under my
sweater. His hands were visibly trembling. I dont believe in violence against individuals but it can be argued
that those whom Galloway could count as fans most certainly do.
alloway looks close to losing it

I need not elaborate that Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East. I dont need to remind anyone
of the steps Israel has taken for peace in the last twenty years: Oslo, Camp David, unilateral withdrawals from
Lebanon and Gaza, a settlement freeze. Above all, it is unnecessary to stress how Israelis (like me)
continuously yearn for peace. I would have rather debated that with Galloway. He did not bother to hear what
Eylon had to say last time. In a speech far better than anything that hapless Member of Parliament could
spout from his big mouth, Eylon magnificently argued the case for the establishment of a Palestinian state as
part of a negotiated final-status agreement. That is the official policy of the current Israeli government and
nearly all governments preceding it since Oslo.
It is truly perverse that for its first event this term, a debating chamber internationally renowned for its respect
for free speech invited a man who denies that right to others on the basis of their nationality. Galloway
epitomises everything the Oxford Union stands against. It is disgraceful that he was invited. It is even more
disgraceful that he was sycophantically advertised as being one of the most impressive debaters in Britain. I
dont know any impressive debaters who walk out on their opponents. And I wouldnt dream of hosting him as
a guest of honour, especially in light of the offence he caused to the Oxford student community when he last
visited.
But as an important disclaimer, I must stress that I dont deny Galloways right to free speech. I stand for
constructive dialogue with others. My mocking imitation of Galloways behaviour was a statement to all, that on
the political issues which divide us most, both sides must be heard. One opinion must not silence another. This
is what debate means and the Oxford Unions invitation to Galloway is a slap in the face for all those who
believe in that principle.
Jonathan Hunter is a student at Oxford University and is now internationally renowned for giving
George Galloway MP an earful
Tags: English Defence League, Eylon Aslan-Levy, george galloway, Jonathan Hunter, Oxford
University,stunned by Galloways disgraceful actions, Zionist apartheid
Posted in Op-Eds | 17 Comments

Stiff-Necked Oxford Student Triumphantly Upstages

Galloway (VIDEO)
Wednesday, October 16th, 2013

SEE UPDATE AT END OF ARTICLE

Remember when that virulently anti-Israel British politician, George Gallowaywell there are so many ways to
end that sentence, but this article refers to Galloways storming out of a debate at Oxford University because,
as he so diplomatically announced before flouncing out of the room last February, I dont debate Israelis!
Well Galloway was just had by a young Jew from Oxford who made his own dramatic exit after brandishing an
Israeli flag, intoning: I dont debate racists!
First the background.
The topic for debate of the world famous Oxford University debating society, the Oxford Union, on February 21
was: Israel Should Withdraw Immediately From the West Bank.

After Galloway, a member of Parliament representing Englands far northern district of West Bradford,
completed his presentation of the pro side of that question, the person chosen to represent the anti position,
Oxford University student Eylon Aslan-Levy, rose to present.
As it happens, Aslan-Levy favors what he calls an end to the Occupation. But his problem was with the
timing desired: Immediately. He began his talk by referring to the failure, prior to the 2005 Disengagement, of
guaranteeing Israeli security as a condition of handing over territory. He barely got the following words out
before Galloways dramatic exit:
This is the lesson from the disengagement from Gaza in 2005, which I supported out of the same misguided
faith that the cards were in Israels hands. Israel uprooted over 8,000 settlers and evacuated the military but
without a pledge from the Palestinians not to fire rockets at Israeli towns over the very border to which Israel
had just withdrawn. We wanted peace: we got war. We mustnt make the same mistake again. [emphasis
added]
Aslan-Levy barely closed his mouth around those syllables, when Galloway ejaculated: You said we! Are you
Israeli?
When Aslan-Levy acknowledged that he was indeed Israeli, Galloway flung his coat over his shoulder, and
bellowed over it: Ive been misled, sorry. I dont recognize Israel and I dont debate with Israelis, and then
flounced out of the room, followed by his wife.
Fast-forward to Monday evening, October 14. The setting is again Oxford University and the forum again is
provided by the Oxford Union. This time there was no debate, it was just a talk by Galloway.
According to those who were present, Galloway spoke for over an hour, mainly maligning other British
politicians, telling the student audience, you couldnt split the difference between the left [expletive implied]
cheek and the right cheek.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was the prime recipient of Galloways verbal lacerations, but the usual
far left bugaboos of occupation, colonialism and bankers all score poorly in Galloways book and starred in
his talk. Taxation, on the other hand, is a dearly beloved concept. When Galloway completed his talk, the floor
was opened for questions.
After three questioners had their turn, Jonathan Hunter, an Oxford student, was selected as the fourth
questioner. Hunter rose from the audience, gesticulating, and speaking in fluent Hebrew.
As Hunter approached the table behind which Galloway was sitting, the politician warned, Dont come any
closer to me. Whats that up your jumper? Galloway pointed at a bulge beneath Hunters sweater. Hunter
told The Jewish Press, Galloways hands were shaking.
With Galloways fears voiced, Hunter reached under his sweater and brandished what he had placed there,
knowing he would not have been called on had it been publicly displayed before this moment:
This is an Israeli flag, Im an Israeli, Mr. Galloway.
You speak for fascists in Beirut [Hezbollah], you interviewed [former Iranian president] Ahmadinejad for Press
TV, but here Hunter was interrupted by Galloway who intoned, youre doing yourself a lot of harm here, son.

Hunter again refused to be cowed, and responded to Galloway, I think you did a lot of harm by not speaking to
my friend Eylon [Aslan-Levy, referring to the February debate], and not having a constructive dialogue with him,
and sir, I dont have a question for you, as you can see, because I dont debate with rascists. Thank you, sir.
With that, Hunter opened the Israeli flag, hoisted it up over his head, holding it aloft and streaming behind him,
he strode, stiff-necked, from the room.
Tags: Eylon Aslan-Levy, george galloway, Jonathan Hunter, Lori Lowenthal Marcus, Oxford Student
Liveblog, Oxford Union, Oxford University, stiff-necked
Posted in Global, Israel, News & Views, News Briefs, On Campus / Education, Politics, UK | 34 Comments

George Galloway Reveals: Israel Behind Chemical Attack

(Video)
Sunday, August 25th, 2013

George Galloway, the British pro-Hamas and pro-anything that can destroy civilization, has revealed to the
world that Israel supplied Al Qaeda with chemical weapons to use against Syrians in the civil war against the
Assad regime.
His accusations came the same week that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of
being behind the military coup in Egypt that ousted Muslim Brotherhood president Mohammed Morsi.
It is nice to know that Israel has so much power. It can engineer the end of a regime in Egypt. It can turn Al
Qaeda into a close ally and manipulate it to attack Assads loyalists.
Since Israel obviously runs the world, it is clear that Netanyahu is behind the entire peace process show, is
manipulating the Boycott Israel movement and is bankrolling the next mayor of New York City, no matter who
he will be.
Galloway could be laughed at as a jerk, which he is. No mainstream leader listens to him.
But mainstream is becoming an endangered species in Europe, where the growing anti-Zionist and antiSemitic population will believe anything and everything if Israel comes out stinking. That is why Galloway last
year won a surprise victory in a special election to win a seat in the British Parliament, representing a district
that has large number of Muslims.
In his speech on Friday, which was posted on a video by the Iranian governments Press TV, Galloway
commented on the chemical attack in Syria.
He declared, If theres been any use of nerve gas its the rebels that used it. If there has been a use of
chemical weapons it was Al-Qaeda that used the chemical weapons who gave al-Qaeda the chemical
weapons? Heres my theory, Israel gave them the chemical weapons.
Well, at least he said it was only a theory. Erdogan went one better, or one worse, by saying he had evidence
that Israel was behind the ouster of Morsi. And when the United States rejected his charges, Erdogan followed
up on Saturday that he was saddened that the White House chose to respond. His comments were directed
at Israel and not the Obama administration, he told a crowd in his home town.

What is it to the White House that it should respond? It should not have mentioned it; it should not had reacted
like this. As two members of NATO, that one ally shows this kind of approach to the other is not appropriate.
Galloway does not need evidence, false or not. All he needs is an audience, and his is growing.

George Galloway lashes out at 'despicable' police probe into his declaration that
Bradford was an 'Israel free zone'

Bradford West MP interviewed under caution by police over remarks

Earlier this month he claimed Israelis were no longer welcome in city
In response, the Israel ambassador visited the city on Monday
Mr Galloway says: 'I won't be silenced, I will keep speaking out'

Controversial MP George Galloway today vowed not to be 'silenced' after he was interviewed under caution by police for
publicly declaring Bradford an Israel-free zone in protest at the war in Gaza.
Speaking in Leeds earlier this month, the veteran Left-wing firebrand said Israelis were no longer welcome in the city where
he has a constituency. The remarks sparked outrage and hundreds of complaints to West Yorkshire Police.
Mr Galloway today lashed out at the police's decision to question him over the speech.
He said: 'This is an absolute and despicable attempt to curb my freedom of speech by people who appear to be quite happy
about the indiscriminate murder of Palestinians in Gaza.'
Mr Galloway added: 'I won't be silenced, I will keep speaking out against horrendous injustice.'

The police probe was sparked after Mr Galloway made a speech in Leeds in front of a Palestinian flag, lashing
out at Israel's policies in Gaza.
In one part of his speech, Mr Galloway said: We have declared Bradford an Israel-free zone.
We dont want any Israeli goods. We dont want any Israeli services. We dont want any Israeli academics coming to the
university or college.
We dont even want any Israeli tourists to come to Bradford even if any of them had thought of doing so.
We reject this illegal, barbarous, savage state that calls itself Israel. And you have to do the same.
The row escalated on Monday after Daniel Taub, Israel's ambassador to the UK, visited Bradford and held meetings with
local Jews and prominent councillors.
During his visit Mr Taub said: 'In the best spirit of Yorkshire, the real voice of Bradford knows that there has only ever been
one good boycott and that's Geoff Boycott.'
Scroll down for video

He also tweeted a picture of himself holding an Israeli passport outside city hall and another with an Israeli flag in the
Greengates area of the city.

The move was described as a 'deliberate provocation' by Zulfi Karim, secretary of the Bradford Council of Mosques.
Mr Karim said on Tuesday: 'For an ambassador to unfurl an Israeli flag by a Welcome To Bradford sign is a deliberate
provocation and not the behaviour I would expect of an ambassador of one of the world's most important countries.'

Mr Galloway has now been interviewed and the Crown Prosecution Service will decide whether any charges should follow.
The District Commander for Leeds, Chief Superintendent Paul Money, said: A 59-year-old man has been interviewed under
caution voluntarily following complaints made about the content of a speech given in Leeds earlier this month.
Once enquiries are completed the matter will be referred to the Crown Prosecution Service for their consideration.
Mr Galloway won a landslide victory in a byelection in the Bradford West constituency in 2012, which he dubbed the
Bradford Spring.

Speech delivered by George Galloway in the House of Commons

SpeechdeliveredbyGeorgeGallowayinthe
HouseofCommons
TransmittedbelowisalinktoaneloquentsixminutespeechdeliveredbyGeorgeGallowayinthe
HouseofCommonsintheleaduptoThursdaynightshistoricvoteagainstwarandinfavorof
Britishindependence.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36019.htm
IhavebeenpuzzledbythepostvotefrettingbyvariousBritishcommentatorsastothethreatwhich
thisassertionofindependencemayposetoBritainsspecialrelationshipwiththeUnitedStates.Indeed,
IhavelongbeenpuzzledbytheattachmentoftheBritishlitestothisspecialrelationship,since,in
recentyears,ithassoclearlybeenarelationshipofabject,bootlickingsubserviencemuchlike
Americasotherspecialrelationship,withIsrael,exceptthat,intheBritishcase,itistheAmerican
bootswhichhavebeenbeinglicked.
With237yearshavingpassedsinceAmericadeclaredindependencefromBritishrule,itishightimefor
BritaintodeclareindependencefromAmericandomination,andtheBritishpeoplecanbeproudthat,at
leastinthisinstance,theirdemocracyworkedandtheirelectedleaderyieldedtotheclearlyexpressedwill
ofhispeople.Laterhistoriansmayregardthisvoteasaturningpoint.
Bycontrast,itappearsatthispointthatneitherBarackObamanorFranoisHollandeintendstoseeka
legislativevoteofapprovalforanattackonSyriaortorespecttheclearlyexpressedwillofhispeople.At
leastoneofthesethreevenerabledemocraciesremainsfunctional.HatsofftotheBrits!

Iwilltakeadvantageofthismessagetoexpandslightlyonmycommentsintwoofmymessages
yesterday:
ONTHENOCONSEQUENCESSCENARIO
InmyreactiontoJohnKerrysstatementyesterday,Isuggestedasthebestcasescenarioano
consequencesscenariobasedonuniversalnonreactiontoAmericanmilitaryaction.Inretrospect,I
shouldhavequalifiednoconsequencesbyasidefromthedeathsanddestructionandafurther
degradationofAmericanrespectfortheruleoflaw,bothdomesticallyandinternationally.
Eveninthebestcase,thatwouldremainaheftypricetopayforsavingfaceforoneindividualandfew
canbelievethattheworldwouldnowbeholdingitsbreathifBarackObamahadneverutteredthewords
redline.
Between1739and1748,BritainandSpainfoughtawarbearingthecharmingnametheWarofJenkins
Ear,sinceitwasostensiblytriggeredbytheseveringofanearofRobertJenkins,thecaptainofaBritish
merchantship.If,aswemustallhope,Obamaslimited,symbolicattackonSyriadoesnottriggerachain
ofreactionsandcounterreactionslaWorldWarI,IwouldproposethatitberememberedastheWar
ofObamasFace.
ONFRENCHPRESIDENTIALBELLIGERENCE
Isuggestedyesterdayapossiblepsychopoliticalexplanationforthepeculiarenthusiasmformilitary
actionofNicolasSarkozyandFranoisHollande.Iwillnowsuggesttwootherpossiblepsychopolitical
explanations.Thethreearenotmutuallyexclusive.Theymaybecomplementary.
1.Dealingwithrecession,unemployment,budgetdeficits,nationaldebtandcutsinpensionbenefitsis
dreadfullydullanddepressingandoffersfewopportunitiesforadrenalinerushesorpublicpraise.A
littlemilitaryactionisfarsexierandmuchmorefunandalmostalwaysprovidesatleastatemporary
positivebumpinpopularitypolls.(However,withthelatestopinionpollsshowingtwothirdsofthe
FrenchpeopleopposedtoFrenchinvolvementinmilitaryactionagainstSyria,apositivebumpcannot
beguaranteedinthisinstance.)
2.Peoplewhoseekandachievepowerinanycountrytendtobedeeplyinterested(evenobsessed)
aboutexercisingpower.Particularlyindifficulteconomiccircumstances,itiseasyevenforthoseatthe
topofthepoliticalpyramidtofeelandbepowerlesswithrespecttothemostimportantaspectsof
theirjobs.Militaryactiontotherescue!Orderingdeathanddestructionissomethingheadsofstate
havethepowertodo(evenif,ininstanceslikethecurrentone,itwouldviolateinternationallawand
potentiallydomesticlawaswell)andistheultimatepowertrip.

UK police probes Galloway for anti-Israel

remarks

Britains MP George Galloway is put under police investigation for making anti-Israeli
comments and declaring his area of Bradford an Israel-free zone.
Speaking at a meeting of Respect Party activists in Leeds on August 2, Galloway slammed
Israel for the massacre of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and urged party members to issue a
boycott of Israeli goods, services, academics and tourists.
We have declared Bradford an Israel-free zoneWe dont want any Israeli goods. We
dont want any Israeli services. We dont want any Israeli academics coming to the
university or the college, Galloway told activists.
We reject this illegal, barbarous, savage state that calls itself Israel. And you have to do the
same, he added. The Respect MP had distinguished between Israel and the worlds Jewish
population earlier in the speech.
West Yorkshire police said they are currently investigating two separate complaints they
received over the comments attributed to Galloway.
Ron McKay, a spokesperson for the Respect Party who also attended the meeting, defended
Galloways comments on Thursday, saying they were quite reasonable.
The Israeli administration is engaging in mass murder, slaughter and war crimes,
McKay said.
The investigation comes as Londons Tricycle Theater has also ended its eight-year association
with a Jewish film festival over the Israeli war on Gaza.
Israel launched its recent military offensive on the Gaza Strip on July 8. Reports showed that
the Israeli regime has been using weapons containing British-made components in the war,
which has claimed the lives of at nearly 1,900 Palestinians, including 400 children.
Galloway took the Bradford West seat following a by-election in 2012. The co-founder of the
anti-war Respect Party was expelled from the Labour Party in 2003 after he fiercely rapped
former British Prime Minister Tony Blair for his decision to go to war in Iraq.

Galloway v The US Senate

George Galloway, Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, delivered this statement to
US Senators today (05/17/05) who have accused him of corruption
British MP George Galloway has told US senators who accused him of profiting from
Iraq oil dealings their claims were the "mother of all smokescreens".
Full Testimony 47 Minutes

You may need to update / download Free Real Player to view this video. Click on this link to
download. http://snipurl.com/a75b

G. Galloway: Email address: gallowayg@parliament.uk

Complete testimony of George Galloway

[Note: While many copies of Mr. Galloway's opening statement are available on the
Web, this is the only complete transcript of which I am aware. Unfortunately, the
United States Senate has declined to make the transcript of Mr. Galloway's testimony
available.]
Transcript provided by Simply Appalling
Blog http://www.simplyappalling.blogspot.com
Testimony of Mr. George Galloway, Member of the British Parliament, before the
U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee
Senators Norm Coleman and Carl Levin attending
SEN. COLEMAN: Mr. Galloway, I'm pleased to have you before the committee
today.
What I'm going to do is briefly summarize the evidence before we give you a chance
to give your sworn testimony.
The Oil-for-Food program was used to support those who were favorable to Iraq.
Former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin
Ramadan confirmed this.
I would think that you would admit that your efforts to oppose the sanction were well
received by the regime. I know it's been quoted to you many, many times--but your, I
would say, infamous statement to Saddam Hussein on January 21, 1994, where you
said to Saddam, "Your Excellency, Mr. President, I greet you in the name of many
thousands of people in Britain who stood against the tide and opposed the war of
aggression against Iraq and continue to oppose the war by economic means, which is
aimed to strangle the life out of the great people of Iraq."

You then went on to say you greet the Palestinian people, you went on to note that you
thought "the president would appreciate knowing that even today three years after the
war I still meet with families who are calling their newborn 'son of Saddam.'"
You went on ultimately at the very end to say, "Sir, I salute your strength, your
courage, your indefatigability, and I want you to know that we are with you." And I
believe it was in Arabic (????), which means "Until victory, until victory, until victory
in Jerusalem." And I also would note that you would say that you deeply regret those
comments and that the comments were not aimed directly at Saddam but were aimed
at the Iraqi people.
In the fall of 1999 you headed a two-month London-to-Baghdad bus trip to gain
support for lifting the sanctions on Iraq.
We have your name on Iraqi documents, some prepared before the fall of Saddam,
some after, that identify you as one of the allocation holders, that your allocations
were then used by Fawaz Zureikat, operating under the name of Meridian Petroleum
and Middle East Advanced Semiconductor to actually lift the oil.
We note too, based on the statements of former Iraqi officials as well as some
documents and in the cases of Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Alexander Voloshin
correspondence in documents, that allocation holders knew that surcharges or oil
allocations were paid to Saddam Hussein, and that allocation holders were aware of
this and were responsible for the payments.
We have also heard testimony regarding several documents retrieved from the Iraqi
Ministry of Oil that demonstrate how Iraq allocated oil to its friends and allies.
Exhibit 13, which you see displayed, (inaudible) Vladimir Zhirinovsky's dealing with
(inaudible) in Phase 11
That chart also lists Contract N1104 with Middle East Advanced Semiconductor.
Footnote 93. Your testimony regarding a SOMO commercial invoice dated June 27,
2002, that shows Middle East Semiconductor loaded 2,360,860 barrels of Iraqi crude

oil pursuant to SOMO crude oil sales contract N1104.

Exhibit 12. We heard testimony regarding correspondence between the executive
director of SOMO to the Iraqi Oil Minister providing details of contract N1104 and
listing your name in parentheses, next to Middle East Advanced Semiconductor and
Fawaz Zureikat, who we know lifted the oil. Again statements of detainees, including
former Vice President Ramadan, confirm that the name in parentheses--your name--is
the allocation holder.
Your testimony regarding Contract N1104, which was signed on December 12, 2001,
between SOMO and Fawaz Zureikat, president of Middle East Advanced
Semiconductor.
Your testimony regarding SOMO commercial invoice B13201 that shows Meridian
Petroleum lifted 1,014,403 barrels of Iraqi oil pursuant to SOMO crude oil sales
contract N923.
Exhibit 45. We heard testimony regarding SOMO chart entitled "Crude Oil Allocation
during Phase 9 Memorandum of Understanding" that indicates that contract N923 was
executed between SOMO and Mr. Fawaz Zureikat (slash) George Galloway (slash)
Meridian Petroleum.
Exhibit 9. We also heard testimony regarding the memo from the executive director of
SOMO to the Oil Minister requesting approval of contract N923. The document
includes an official Ministry of Oil stamp dated 1/15/2001 and provides details of a
contract N923 signed with Meridian Petroleum Company, (parens) Fawaz Zureikat
(dash) Mariam's Appeal, indicating that the allocation recipient of the contract N923
was Fawaz Zureikat - Mariam's Appeal.
Mr. Galloway, as I indicated in my opening statement, this is not a court of law. This
committee has simply made available information obtained during the investigation
from interviews with former Iraqi officials and Iraqi documents to lay out how the
Oil-for-Food program worked--how allocations were given to favored friends, how
allocation holders made substantial commissions on those allocations to oil
companies, what Ramadan called "compensation for support."

But another official in talking about another allocation holder said, "Of course they
made a profit. That's the whole point." Surcharges and oil contracts were given back
to the Saddam regime and were the responsibility of the allocation holder.
The evidence clearly indicates you as an allocation beneficiary, who transferred the
allocations to Fawaz Zureikat, who became chairman of your organization Mariam's
Appeal.
Senior Iraqi officials have confirmed that you in fact received oil allocations and that
the documents that identify you as an allocation recipient are valid.
If you can help provide any evidence that challenges the veracity of these documents
or the statements of former Iraqi officials, we'd welcome that input.
Mr. Galloway, you're appearing before the subcommittee without asserting any
privilege or immunity. Indeed, your appearance before the subcommittee is entirely
voluntary and on your own accord. No subpoena was issued to secure your
appearance.
You're appearing before the subcommittee concerning matters that do not arise out of
the performance of any of your official duties as a member of the British Parliament
but instead concern actions taken by you in your capacity as a private citizen.
Before we begin, pursuant to Rule 6, all witnesses who testify before this
subcommittee are required to be sworn.
At this time I'd ask you to rise and please raise your right hand.
[Swearing in]
SEN. COLEMAN: We'll be using a timing system today, Mr. Galloway. You have 10
minutes for an opening statement. If you need more time, we'll certainly accommodate
that, and you may proceed.
[Opening statement as given by Times Online]

GALLOWAY: Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither
has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one,
sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf.
Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a
lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last
week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without
ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without
ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever.
And you call that justice.
I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass
destruction.
I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda.
I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on
9/11 2001.
I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British
and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the
beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.
Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to
be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers
sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled
forever on a pack of lies.
Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to me in this dossier and I want to point
out areas where there are - let's be charitable and say errors. Then I want to put this in
the context where I believe it ought to be. On the very first page of your document
about me you assert that I have had 'many meetings' with Saddam Hussein. This is
false.
I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of
2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as "many meetings"

with Saddam Hussein.

As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as
Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him
guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring
about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I
met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons
inspectors back into the country - a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam
Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defense made of his.
I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and Americans governments and
businessmen were selling him guns and gas. I used to demonstrate outside the Iraqi
embassy when British and American officials were going in and doing commerce.
You will see from the official parliamentary record, Hansard, from the 15th March
1990 onwards, voluminous evidence that I have a rather better record of opposition to
Saddam Hussein than you do and than any other member of the British or American
governments do.
Now you say in this document, you quote a source, you have the gall to quote a
source, without ever having asked me whether the allegation from the source is true,
that I am 'the owner of a company which has made substantial profits from trading in
Iraqi oil'.
Senator, I do not own any companies, beyond a small company whose entire purpose,
whose sole purpose, is to receive the income from my journalistic earnings from my
employer, Associated Newspapers, in London. I do not own a company that's been
trading in Iraqi oil. And you have no business to carry a quotation, utterly
unsubstantiated and false, implying otherwise.
Now you have nothing on me, Senator, except my name on lists of names from Iraq,
many of which have been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government
in Baghdad. If you had any of the letters against me that you had against Zhirinovsky,
and even Pasqua, they would have been up there in your slideshow for the members of
your committee today.

You have my name on lists provided to you by the Duelfer inquiry, provided to him by
the convicted bank robber, and fraudster and conman Ahmed Chalabi who many
people to their credit in your country now realize played a decisive role in leading
your country into the disaster in Iraq.
There were 270 names on that list originally. That's somehow been filleted down to
the names you chose to deal with in this committee. Some of the names on that
committee included the former secretary to his Holiness Pope John Paul II, the former
head of the African National Congress Presidential office and many others who had
one defining characteristic in common: they all stood against the policy of sanctions
and war which you vociferously prosecuted and which has led us to this disaster.
You quote Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Well, you have something on me, I've never
met Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Your sub-committee apparently has. But I do know
that he's your prisoner, I believe he's in Abu Ghraib prison. I believe he is facing war
crimes charges, punishable by death. In these circumstances, knowing what the world
knows about how you treat prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, in Bagram Airbase, in
Guantanamo Bay, including I may say, British citizens being held in those places.
I'm not sure how much credibility anyone would put on anything you manage to get
from a prisoner in those circumstances. But you quote 13 words from Dahar Yassein
Ramadan whom I have never met. If he said what he said, then he is wrong.
And if you had any evidence that I had ever engaged in any actual oil transaction, if
you had any evidence that anybody ever gave me any money, it would be before the
public and before this committee today because I agreed with your Mr Greenblatt
[Mark Greenblatt, legal counsel on the committee].
Your Mr Greenblatt was absolutely correct. What counts is not the names on the
paper, what counts is where's the money. Senator? Who paid me hundreds of
thousands of dollars of money? The answer to that is nobody. And if you had anybody
who ever paid me a penny, you would have produced them today.
Now you refer at length to a company names in these documents as Aredio Petroleum.
I say to you under oath here today: I have never heard of this company, I have never
met anyone from this company. This company has never paid a penny to me and I'll

tell you something else: I can assure you that Aredio Petroleum has never paid a
single penny to the Mariam Appeal Campaign. Not a thin dime. I don't know who
Aredio Petroleum are, but I daresay if you were to ask them they would confirm that
they have never met me or ever paid me a penny.
Whilst I'm on that subject, who is this senior former regime official that you spoke to
yesterday? Don't you think I have a right to know? Don't you think the Committee and
the public have a right to know who this senior former regime official you were
quoting against me interviewed yesterday actually is?
Now, one of the most serious of the mistakes you have made in this set of documents
is, to be frank, such a schoolboy howler as to make a fool of the efforts that you have
made. You assert on page 19, not once but twice, that the documents that you are
referring to cover a different period in time from the documents covered by The Daily
Telegraph which were a subject of a libel action won by me in the High Court in
England late last year.
You state that The Daily Telegraph article cited documents from 1992 and 1993 whilst
you are dealing with documents dating from 2001. Senator, The Daily Telegraph's
documents date identically to the documents that you were dealing with in your report
here. None of The Daily Telegraph's documents dealt with a period of 1992, 1993. I
had never set foot in Iraq until late in 1993 - never in my life. There could possibly be
no documents relating to Oil-for-Food matters in 1992, 1993, for the Oil-for-Food
scheme did not exist at that time.
And yet you've allocated a full section of this document to claiming that your
documents are from a different era to the Daily Telegraph documents when the
opposite is true. Your documents and the Daily Telegraph documents deal with exactly
the same period.
But perhaps you were confusing the Daily Telegraph action with the Christian Science
Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor did indeed publish on its front pages a set of
allegations against me very similar to the ones that your committee have made. They
did indeed rely on documents which started in 1992, 1993. These documents were
unmasked by the Christian Science Monitor themselves as forgeries.

Now, the neo-con websites and newspapers in which you're such a hero, senator, were
all absolutely cock-a-hoop at the publication of the Christian Science Monitor
documents, they were all absolutely convinced of their authenticity. They were all
absolutely convinced that these documents showed me receiving $10 million from the
Saddam regime. And they were all lies.
In the same week as the Daily Telegraph published their documents against me, the
Christian Science Monitor published theirs which turned out to be forgeries and the
British newspaper, Mail on Sunday, purchased a third set of documents which also
upon forensic examination turned out to be forgeries. So there's nothing fanciful about
this. Nothing at all fanciful about it.
The existence of forged documents implicating me in commercial activities with the
Iraqi regime is a proven fact. It's a proven fact that these forged documents existed
and were being circulated amongst right-wing newspapers in Baghdad and around the
world in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Iraqi regime.
Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave
my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on
Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before
they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that
they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to
stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the
world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.
I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass
destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to
al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the
atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people
would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of
Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.
Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to
be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers
sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled
forever on a pack of lies.

If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world
had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor,
if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be
in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens.
You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of
billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.
Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were
in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went
missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and other American corporations
that stole not only Iraq's money, but the money of the American taxpayer.
Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the
country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where? Have a look at the
$800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the
country without even counting it or weighing it.
Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the
earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or
Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own
companies with the connivance of your own Government.
SEN. COLEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Galloway.
Mr. Galloway, can we start by talking about Fawaz Zureikat. Do you know the
individual?
GALLOWAY: I know him very well.
SEN. COLEMAN: In fact you were Best Man at his wedding?
GALLOWAY: I was.
SEN. COLEMAN: And at some point in time he became chair of Mariam's Appeals.
Is that correct?

GALLOWAY: He did. Yeah.

SEN. COLEMAN: And can you tell me when that occurred?
GALLOWAY: I think in late 2000 or early 2001.
SEN. COLEMAN: Before Mr. Zureikat was chair of Mariam's Appeal, who had that
position?
GALLOWAY: I was the founding chairman.
SEN. COLEMAN: Was there someone between you and --GALLOWAY: Mr. Hoffman (?)
SEN. COLEMAN: And do you recall when he had that position?
GALLOWAY: I don't.
SEN. COLEMAN: Mr. Zureikat was a significant contributor to Mariam's Appeals. Is
that correct?
GALLOWAY: He was the second biggest contributor. The main contributor was Sheik
Zayed, the ruler of the United Arab Emirates, which you've glossed over in your
report because it's slightly embarrassing to you. And the third major contributor was
the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, which you've equally glossed over because it's
embarrassing to you.
And both of those individuals are your friends.
SEN. COLEMAN: How much did Mr. Zureikat contribute to Mariam's Appeals?
GALLOWAY: Roughly 375,000 English pounds.
SEN. COLEMAN: About $600,000?

GALLOWAY: I don't know the conversion. But it's 375,000 Sterling.

SEN. COLEMAN: If you can, uh... By the way, Mr. Zureikat was your
representative--uh, designated representative--for the activities of Mariam's Appeals.
Is that correct?
GALLOWAY: For the activities of Mariam's Appeals. Yes.
SEN. COLEMAN: And when did he get that position?
GALLOWAY: I think late 2000.
SEN. COLEMAN: Late 2000. Looking at Exhibit 9--and I think you have the books
in front of you--that appears to be a document from the Ministry of Oil that testimony
has indicated that the signature is an accurate signature.
Do you have any reason to believe that that document is false?
GALLOWAY: Well, I have told you that I have never heard of Aredio Petroleum, and
I've told you that the Mariam Appeal never received a single penny from Aredio
Petroleum. So the information at the top of the page, if you've translated it accurately,
is false.
SEN. COLEMAN: Have you heard of Middle East ASI company?
GALLOWAY: Yes. That's Mr. Zureikat's company.
SEN. COLEMAN: I turn to Exhibit 12.
And that purports again to be a stamp of the Ministry of Oil of Iraq and this purports
to be showing the details of a contract signed with Middle East ASI company, Mr.
George Galloway and Fuwaz Zureikat. So Middle East ASI is Mr. Zureikat's
company?
GALLOWAY: Middle East ASI is Mr. Zureikat's company. He may well have signed

an oil contract. It had nothing to do with me.

SEN. COLEMAN: He was chair of Mariam's Appeals in 2000. I take it you knew him
well. Did he ever talk with you about his dealings with oil in Iraq?
GALLOWAY: He did better than that. He talked to everybody. He talked to every
English journalist that came through Baghdad--who he helped at our request to get the
interviews and to get to the places that they wanted and needed to go. He was
introduced to everyone as a major benefactor of the Mariam Appeal and as a
businessman doing extensive business in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.
SEN. COLEMAN: I'm asking you specifically, In 2001 were you aware he was doing
oil deals with Iraq?
GALLOWAY: I was aware that he was doing extensive business with Iraq. I did not
know the details of it. It was not my business.
SEN. COLEMAN: So this is somebody who was the chairman of committee that you
know well and you're not able to say that he was...
GALLOWAY: Well, there's a lot of contributors - I've just been checking -- to your
political campaigns.
SEN. COLEMAN: There's not many at that level, Mr. Galloway GALLOWAY: I've checked your website. There are lots of contributors to your
political campaign funds. I don't suppose you ask any of them how they made the
money they give you.
SEN. COLEMAN: Certainly not at $600,000 American.
But let me ask you again, just so that the record is clear--that it's clear on the record-that you're not contesting then the validity of Document 12, Exhibit 12. You're
indicating that Mr. Zureikat could have had dealings with Iraq. You're saying that at
that point in time you're not aware that he had oil dealings with Iraq?

GALLOWAY: First of all, I've only seen this document today. And I'm telling you that
insofar as my name is in a parenthesis the information in it is false.
I've no reason to believe that Mr. Zureikat's company didn't do that particular oil deal.
But this is your problem in this whole affair. There is nobody arguing that Mr.
Zureikat's company did not do oil transactions and many other--much bigger, frankly-business contracts with Iraq. There is nobody contesting that Mr. Zureikat made
substantial donations to our campaign against sanctions and war.
My point is--you have accused me, personally, of enriching myself, of taking money
from Iraq. And that is false and unjust.
SEN. COLEMAN: Mr. Galloway, do you recall an interview you had with a Jeremy
Paxman in April 23 of 2003,
[Addressing aide] Can we have a copy of the transcript of that?
I'd like to refresh your memory.
[To aide] Can you get a copy of that.
As we get you a copy, you were asked a question, talking about business dealings with
Mr. Zureikat in Iraq. And at the least the transcript that I have--and I'd ask you to let
me know if it's incorrect--your quote is, something about business in Iraq
"Well, I'm trying to reach him"--this is in 2003--"I'm trying to reach him to ask him if
he's ever been involved in oil deals because I don't know the answer to that." So in
2003 you're saying you don't know the answer to whether he was involved in oil
deals?
GALLOWAY: Well, I told you in my previous two answers--I knew that Mr. Zureikat
was heavily involved in business in Iraq and elsewhere, but that it was none of my
business what particular transactions or business he was involved in--any more than
you ask the American and Israel Public Affairs Committee [AIPAC] when they donate
money to you or pay for your trips to Israel, where they got the money from.

SEN. COLEMAN: So Mr. Galloway, you would have this committee believe that
your designated representative from the Mariam's Appeal becomes the chair of the
Mariam's Appeal, was listed in Iraqi documents as obviously doing business, oil deals
with Iraq, that you never had a conversation with him in 2001 or whether he was
doing oil business with Iraq.
GALLOWAY: No, I'm doing better than that. I'm telling you that I knew that he was
doing a vast amount of business with Iraq. Much bigger, as I said a couple of answers
ago, than any oil business he did. In the airports he was the representative of some of
the world's biggest companies in Iraq. He was an extremely wealthy businessman
doing very extensive business in Iraq.
Not only did I know that, but I told everyone about it. I emblazoned it in our literature,
on our Web site, precisely so that people like you could not later credibly question my
bonafides in that regard. So I did better than that.
I never asked him if he was trading in oil. I knew he was a big trader with Iraq, and I
told everybody about it.
SEN. COLEMAN: So in 2003, when you said you didn't know whether he was doing
oil deals, were you telling the truth at that time?
GALLOWAY: Yes, I was. I've never known until the Telegraph story appeared that he
was alleged to be doing oil deals. But his oil deals are about one-tenth of the business
that he did in Iraq. So I did better than telling people about his oil deals. I told them he
was doing much, much more than that.
SEN. COLEMAN: So Exhibit 14, which purports to be a contract with Middle East
Semiconductor, Contract M1214. Middle East Semiconductor, again, is Mr. Zureikat's
company, is that correct?
GALLOWAY: Yes, it is.
SEN. COLEMAN: So do you have any reason to believe that this document is false?

GALLOWAY: Well, the parenthesis, if the parenthesis implies--as you've been arguing
all morning that it implies--that this was being signed for by Middle East Advanced
Semiconductors in order to pass the money on to me, is false.
Mr. Zureikat and Middle East Semiconductors or any other company have never given
me any money. And if they had, you would have it up here on a board, and in front of
the committee here.
SEN. COLEMAN: I take it, Mr. Galloway, that in regard to any surcharges paid to
Saddam--I think it's Footnote 89, which refers to the surcharge for the contract,
focused on Mariam's Appeal-- you're saying that that document, first of all, any
contract between Iraq and Mariam's Appeals is false?
GALLOWAY: Well, Senator, I had gotten used to the allegation that I was taking
money from Saddam Hussein. It's actually surreal to hear in this room this morning
that I'm being accused of giving money to Saddam Hussein.
This is utterly preposterous, utterly preposterous, that I gave $300,000 to Saddam
Hussein. This is beyond the realms of the ridiculous.
Now. The Mariam Appeals finances have been investigated by the Charity
Commission on the order of Lord Goldsmith.
(You'll recall him, Senator. He's the attorney general. Practically the only lawman in
the world that thought your war with Iraq was legal, thought Britain joining your war
with Iraq was legal.)
He ordered the Charity Commission to investigate the Mariam Appeal. Using their
statutory powers, they recovered all money in and all money out ever received or
spent by the Mariam Appeal. They found no impropriety. And I can assure you, they
found no money from an oil contract from Aredio Petroleum--none whatsoever.
SEN. COLEMAN: And the commission did not look at these documents relating to
this contract with Iraq. Is that correct?-GALLOWAY: --No, but they looked better than that, Senator.--

SEN. COLEMAN: --I'm not asking you better. I'm asking the question whether they
looked at these documents.-GALLOWAY: --Senator, you're not listening to what I am saying. They did better than
that.
They looked at every penny in and every penny out. And they did not find, I can
assure you, any trace of a donation from a company called Aredio Petroleum, or,
frankly, a donation from any company other than Mr. Zureikat's company. That's a
fact.
SEN. COLEMAN: If I can get back to Mr. Zureikat one more time. Do you recall a
time when he specifically -- when you had a conversation with him about oil dealings
in Iraq?
GALLOWAY: I have already answered that question. I can assure you, Mr. Zureikat
never gave me a penny from an oil deal, from a cake deal, from a bread deal, or from
any deal. He donated money to our campaign, which we publicly brandished on all of
our literature, along with the other donors to the campaign.
SEN. COLEMAN: Again, Mr. Galloway, a simple question. I'm looking for either a
yes or no. Did you ever have a conversation with Mr. Zureikat where he informed you
that he had oil dealings with Iraq, yes or no?
GALLOWAY: Not before this Daily Telegraph report, no.
SEN. COLEMAN: Senator Levin.
SEN. CARL LEVIN (D): Thank you, Mr. Galloway.
Mr. Galloway, could you take a look at the Exhibit Number 12...
GALLOWAY: Yes.
SEN. LEVIN: ... where your name is in parenthesis after Mr. Zureikat's?--

GALLOWAY: Before Mr. Zureikat's, if I'm looking at the right exhibit-SEN. LEVIN: I'm sorry. I was going to finish my sentence -- my question, though. My
question was, where your name is in parenthesis after Mr. Zureikat's company.
GALLOWAY: I apologize, Senator.
SEN. LEVIN: That's all right. Now, that document--assuming it's an accurate
translation of the document underneath it--would you... you're not alleging here today
that the document is a forgery, I gather?
GALLOWAY: Well, I have no idea, Senator, if it's a forgery or not.
SEN. LEVIN: But you're not alleging.
GALLOWAY: I'm saying that the information insofar as it relates to me is fake.
SEN. LEVIN: I -- is wrong?
GALLOWAY: It's wrong.
SEN. LEVIN: But you're not alleging that the document...
GALLOWAY: Well, I have no way of knowing, Senator.
SEN. LEVIN: That's fine. So you're not alleging?
GALLOWAY: No, I have no way -- I have no way of knowing. This is the first time...
SEN. LEVIN: Is it fair to say since you don't know, you're not alleging?
GALLOWAY: Well, it would have been nice to have seen it before today.
SEN. LEVIN: Is it fair to say, though, that either because you've not seen it before or
because -- otherwise, you don't know. You're not alleging the document's a fake. Is

that fair to say?

GALLOWAY: I haven't had it in my possession long enough to form a view about
that.
SEN. LEVIN: All right. Would you let the subcommittee know after you've had it in
your possession long enough whether you consider the document a fake.
GALLOWAY: Yes, although there is a -- there is an academic quality about it, Senator
Levin, because you have already found me guilty before you -- before you actually
allowed me to come here and speak for myself.
SEN. LEVIN: Well, in order to attempt to clear your name, would you...
GALLOWAY: Well, let's be clear about something.
SEN. LEVIN: Well, let me finish my question. Let me be clear about that, first of all.
Would you submit to the subcommittee after you've had a chance to review this
document whether or not, in your judgment, it is a forgery? Will you do that?
GALLOWAY: Well, if you will give me the original. I mean, this is not -- presumably,
you wrote this English translation.
SEN. LEVIN: Yes, and there's a copy underneath it of the...
GALLOWAY: Well, yes, there is a copy of a gray blur. If you'll give me -- if you'll
give me the original ...
SEN. LEVIN: The copy of the original.
(CROSSTALK)
GALLOWAY: Give me the original in a decipherable way, then of course I'll...
SEN. LEVIN: That would be fine. We appreciate that.

GALLOWAY: Yes.
SEN. LEVIN: Now, at the bottom of this document, assuming -- assuming it's not a
forgery for a moment, it says "surcharge." Are we together?
GALLOWAY: Yes.
SEN. LEVIN: "As per the instructions of Your Excellency over the phone on 12/11/01
of not accepting the company's proposal unless they pay the debt incurred since phase
eight."
If, in fact -- if, in fact, Mr. Zureikat's company paid a surcharge or a kickback to the
Iraqi government in order to obtain an allocation of oil, would that trouble you?
GALLOWAY: Well, as it turns out, from your own testimony, that practically
everyone in the world, and especially the United States, was paying kickbacks.
SEN. LEVIN: My question... It troubles me a great deal. As you've heard from my
statement today, I'm very much troubled that we have an oil company that was
involved in this and we're going to go after that oil company.
Now let me ask you. I've expressed my view about Bayoil. So now let met ask you
about Mr. Zureikat's company.
If in fact Mr. Zureikat's company paid a kickback to the Iraqi government in order to
obtain this allocation, would you be troubled? That's my question.
GALLOWAY: Yeah. That's a good question. And will you allow me to answer it
seriously and not in a yes-or-no fashion? Because I could give you a glib-SEN. LEVIN: Providing you give us an answer, I'd be delighted to hear it.
GALLOWAY: Here's my answer and I hope it does delight you.
I opposed the Oil-for-Food program with all my heart. Not for the reasons that you are

troubled by, but because it was a program which saw the deathI'm talking about the
death now; I'm talking about a mass graveof a million people, most of them
children, in Iraq. The Oil-for-Food program gave 30 cents per day per Iraqi for the
period of the Oil-for-Food program30 cents for all food, all medicine, all clothes,
all schools, all hospitals, all public services. I believe that the United Nations had no
right to starve Iraq's people because it had fallen out with Iraq's dictator.
David Bonior, your former colleague, Senator, whom I admired very much--a former
chief whip here on the Hill--described the sanctions policy as "infanticide
masquerading as politics." Senator Coleman thinks that's funny, but I think it's the
most profound description of that era that I have ever read--infanticide masquerading
as politics.
So I opposed this program with all my heart. Not because Saddam was getting
kickbacks from it--and I don't know when it's alleged these kickbacks started. Not
because some individuals were getting rich doing business with Iraq under it. But
because it was a murderous policy of killing huge numbers of Iraqis. That's what
troubles me. That's what troubles me.
Now, if you're asking me, "Is Mr. Zureikat in some difficulty?" --like all the other
companies that it would appear paid kickbacks to the Iraqi regime--no doubt he is.
Although it would appear he's quite small beer compared to the American companies
that were involved in the same thing.
SEN. LEVIN: Now my question...
GALLOWAY: That's what-- I told you what troubles me.
SEN. LEVIN: I'm not asking you-- [crosstalk]
My question... Now that you've given us your statement about your feeling about the
Oil-for-Food program--My question is, Would you be troubled if you knew that Mr.
Zureikat paid a kickback in order to get an allocation of an oil contract? That's a very
simple question.
GALLOWAY: It's Mr. Zureikat's problem, not mine.

SEN. LEVIN: It would not trouble you?

GALLOWAY: It's Mr. Zureikat's problem, not mine.
SEN. LEVIN: And so that if a kickback, which was illegal under international--now
you may not agree with the U.N., but that's the international community that you're
attacking, which is fine. You're entitled to do that. You're entitled and I'll defend your
right to do it. But you're attacking a U.N. program--which is your right to do--which
was aimed at providing humanitarian assistance to try to alleviate the problems that
the sanctions provided--which is your right to do. But my question--which you are so
far evading--is, Would you be troubled if that U.N. Oil-for-Food program was being
circumvented by the kind of kickbacks which were taking place and being given to
Saddam Hussein in order to obtain allocations under that program if Mr. Zureikat
participated in that kickback scheme, which violated the U.N. sanc... You may not
have agreed with it, but it violated the program. Would it trouble you if he violated
that U.N. program in that way? That's my question.
GALLOWAY: Senator, there are many things-SEN. LEVIN: I know. Other things trouble you. But can you just give us a
straightforward answer? You've given us a long explanation of other things that
trouble you, which is your right. Now I'm asking you whether that troubles you.
GALLOWAY: It troubles me that it might put him in difficulty. It troubles me that it
might now lead to a prosecution of him. It troubles me that this will be further smoke
in the smokescreen. But I, root and branch, opposed this [SEN. LEVIN: I
understand...] Oil-for-Food program.
SEN. LEVIN: There were a lot of things you opposed, but you don't believe should be
circumvented in illegal ways. Isn't that-GALLOWAY: But, please, Senator! You supported the illegal attack on Iraq. Don't
talk to me about illegality-SEN. LEVIN: Sorry about that. I didn't. But that's beside the point. [Crosstalk] That's

beside the point. You're wrong in your-GALLOWAY: Well, I'm collectively talking about the Senate. Not you personally.
SEN. LEVIN: Well, that's okay. Let me go back to my question. I don't want to get
involved in-GALLOWAY: Why not? You want to talk about illegality?
SEN. LEVIN: No.
GALLOWAY: You launched an illegal war, which has killed a 100,000 people. You
want me to be troubled?
SEN. LEVIN: No, I want you to answer questions which are fairly put and directly in
front of you. Now I'll ask you one last--two last questions. If--if--Mr. Zureikat's
contribution to Mariam's Appeal came from the sale of oil--or his share of the sale
from oil--which he was able to obtain because he paid a kickback in violation of the
U.N. program. Would that contribution trouble you? That's my question.
GALLOWAY: Well, Senator-SEN. LEVIN: If you can't give a short answer, just-GALLOWAY: I'll give as short as I can, and I appreciate your fairness in this.
Fundraising for political purposes is seldom pretty, as any American politician could
testify. I took the view--I can be criticized for it, have been criticized for it--that I
would fundraise from the kings of Arabia whose political systems I have opposed all
my life in order to raise funds for what I thought was an emergency, facing a disaster.
And I did not ask Mr. Zureikat which part of his profits from his entire business
empire he was making donations to our-SEN. LEVIN: That wasn't my question. My question was, Would it trouble you if you
found that out?

It's okay. You're not going to answer. I want to go to my next question.

You're simply not going to answer. I will say, American politicians who find the
source of money after it's given to them is troubling--they find out something they
didn't know afterwards--frequently will--and hopefully, I think always--at least
frequently will return that money, will say they disagree with the source of the money.
Hopefully all of us will do that. But whether or not we all live up to that standard, you
clearly do not adopt that as a standard for contributions to Mariam's Appeal. You're
not going to look at the source of the money; you're just simply going to accept the
money, and you've made that clear.
I wanted just to ask you about Tariq Aziz.
GALLOWAY: Yeah.
SEN. LEVIN: Tariq Aziz. You've indicated you, you--who you didn't talk to and who
you did talk to. Did you have conversations with Tariq Aziz about the award of oil
allocations? That's my question.
GALLOWAY: Never.
SEN. LEVIN: Thank you. I'm done. Thank you.
SEN. COLEMAN: Just one follow-up on the Tariq Aziz question. How often did you
uh ... Can you describe the relation with Tariq Aziz?
GALLOWAY: Friendly.
SEN. COLEMAN: How often did you meet him?
GALLOWAY: Many times.
SEN. COLEMAN: Can you give an estimate of that?
GALLOWAY: No. Many times.

SEN. COLEMAN: Is it more than five?

GALLOWAY: Yes, sir.
SEN. COLEMAN: More than ten?
GALLOWAY: Yes.
SEN. COLEMAN: Fifteen? Around fifteen?
GALLOWAY: Well, we're getting nearer, but I haven't counted. But many times. I'm
saying to you "Many times," and I'm saying to you that I was friendly with him.
SEN. COLEMAN: And you describe him as "a very dear friend"?
GALLOWAY: I think you've quoted me as saying "a dear, dear friend." I don't often
use the double adjective, but-SEN. COLEMAN: --I was looking into your heart on that.-GALLOWAY: --but "friend" I have no problem with.
Senator, just before you go on--I do hope that you'll avail yourself of this dossier that I
have produced. And I am really speaking through you to Senator Levin. This is what I
have said about Saddam Hussein.
SEN. COLEMAN: Well, we'll enter that into the record without objection. I have no
further questions of the witness. You're excused, Mr. Galloway.
GALLOWAY: Thank you very much.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8869.htm

International Socialist Review Issue 44, November

December 2005

George Galloway's Boston speech, September 13, 2005

Paying a blood price for a lie

IN MAY of 2005, GEORGE GALLOWAY, newly elected British member of Parliament for the Respect Party,
came to Washington, D.C., to appear before a Senate subcommittee that claimedwithout ever talking to
himthat he had enriched himself through the scandal-plagued Iraq oil-for-food program.
What happened next was a rare political moment: to the surprise of the assembled senators,
congressional aides, and press, Galloway turned the tables on his accusers, calling attention to the
dishonesty and hypocrisy that led to the war in Iraq.
For ten days in mid-September, George Galloway returned to the U.S., speaking in cities across the
country, including in Washington, D.C., at the 300,000-strong demonstration against the war on
September 24. Galloway also debated Christopher Hitchens in New York. Anywhere from 400 to 1,200
people showed up for each event to hear his strong antiwar message. The tour was sponsored by The
New Press, the Center for Economic Research and Social Change, International Socialist Review, and the
National Council of Arab Americans.
Tour organizers faced considerable stonewalling from some liberal quarters that refused either to endorse
or promote the event. Galloways support for Palestine, his willingness to take a stand in favor of Iraqs
right to resist the occupation, and his third-party politics, were apparently too much for them to stomach.
In many cities, there was a virtual blackout on coverage of the tour.
Some particularly ugly attacks on Galloway appeared from journalists Greg Palast and LA Weekly
commentator Marc Cooper. Galloway responded to the attacks by Palast effectively
(www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=1&ItemID=8776):
Until a couple of days ago I hadnt heard of Greg Palast in years, the man who claims to have been
pursuing me with questions for two months. He has never phoned, written, emailed or made any other
contact with me, which is curiously reminiscent of the behavior of the U.S. Senate committee. Having now
forced myself to look at his pernicious writing, it seems like the deranged ramblings you might expect to
find pushed out from under the door of a locked ward. He claims to be a journalist. He clearly doesnt get
much work.
Alan Maass, editor of Socialist Worker, also responded (www.socialistworker.org/20052/560/560_03_Galloway.shtml), delving into why perhaps Galloway elicited such negativity:
Cooper is explicit about why antiwar activists cant be too radical, or they will frighten away Democratic
Party politicians, the movements only hope for having an impact. The peace movement, Cooper wrote
in LA Weekly following the September 24 demonstrations, can achieve its goals only by building a
political coalition broad enough, forceful enough and credible enough to provoke a policy sea change. A
huge proportion, if not the majority, of the Democratic Party has to be onboard.
In spite of that, however, Galloway was able to reach thousands. Had more forces gotten on board to
build the Galloway tour, it could have had an even bigger impact in terms of reigniting the antiwar
movement on a more solid footing.
A blog of the tour, audio recordings of several speeches,
and Galloways response to Greg Palast, can be found at www.isreview.org/gallowaytour.shtml. You can
also hear Galloways speeches, as well as read a transcript of his September 19 Chicago speech, at
www.traprock.org. Here we present Galloways first speech, delivered in Boston at Faneuil Hall on
September 13.

BROTHERS AND sisters, comrades and friends, ladies and gentleman. Thank

you very much for that wonderful introduction and that wonderful welcome.
And to my fellow speakers this evening, my congratulations on the contribution
you have made to this splendid meetingthe first meeting of a tour that will
take me up the East Coast of the United States, into Canada and into the
Midwest, and then down the West Coast, culminating in the great
demonstration for peace in Washington, D.C., on the 24th of September. I was
very proud that the first of these meetings should be in Boston, and especially
in this historic hallin this place that has been graced by the finest
revolutionaries that the world has ever seen, the freedom fighters who fought
to free this country from colonial rule.
My favorite parliamentarian in Britain is a man whose statue is the very first
statue that a visitor to parliament comes upona man called Charles James
Fox, who was expelled twice from the British Parliament. The first time he was
expelled for supporting the American Revolution, and the second time for
supporting the French Revolution. On that occasion, he tabled a resolution in
the house that admittedly was a little provocative, in which he congratulated
the people of France on the execution of their king and queen and looked
forward to the day when the same fate would befall all the crowned heads of
Europe. But every time he was expelled, he was returned to Parliament by the
people who supported these great causes.
Now, of course, if poor Mr. Fox were able to see the political class in the United
States today, and he was able to see George W. Bush, he may wonder at the
use to which the people of the United States of America have put their
freedom. But I believe that Fox would conclude that the fate and destiny of the
United States of America is for the American people alone, and that the support
for freedom, the support for revolution, and the support for the right of an
occupied people to be free must be unconditional.
You see, this is a subject to which we shall have to return, and I shall Im sure
be dealing with it in detail tomorrow night when I debate with the apostate
Christopher Hitchens. I mention this for two reasons. One, being of Irish
background myself, and two, because Im here in Boston where so many Irish
came. When the Irish masses rose up against the British Empire on OConnell
Street in Dublin and seized the general post office and proclaimed the Irish
republic, there was much chatter amongst the liberal-progressive classes in
Bloomsbury in London that these Irish revolutionaries were priest-ridden,
bomb-trotting, Celtic-Gaelic obscurantists, to whom they refused to give a
certificate of good character.
But the point, ladies and gentlemen, is not what the chattering classes of
Bloomsbury thought of the Irish revolutionaries, but what the Irish people
thought of the Irish revolutionaries. That is the point. You see, in such
circumstances, we in the occupying countries have only one choice to make.
Whether we are with the occupier, or whether we are with the rights of the
occupied to struggle to be free of that occupation. Thats the only question that
should concern us. This is a subject to which I shall return when I talk about
the struggle of the Iraqi people to free themselves from the foreign occupation

which has been illegally and violently imposed upon them.

But first I want to, at this time of the year, so close to the anniversary of the
great crime that was committed in the United States on 9/11 in 2001, I want to
deal with this broader question. You see, these airplanes on 9/11 may have
appeared to come out of a clear blue sky. But in fact, these monstrous
mosquitoes flew out of a swamp of bitterness, and hatred and enmity, which
exists against us, throughout the world, but most markedly in the Muslim
world. It is a swamp that we have flooded with new grievances on a regular
basis. And in that swamp mutates the kind of monsters who can believe that
killing thousands of innocent people in the United States of America, or killing
innocent people on buses and underground trains in London, is a way to punish
the guilty people in America and England.
This mutation is a powerful mutation. It is pregnant with dangers not only for
us, but also with real dangers for the people of the Muslim world themselves,
for as professor Keach just said to you, the main recruiter of support for this
mutation is not bin Laden. It is not any of the Islamist obscurantists who wish
to feed upon it. The greatest recruiter, the greatest creator of this hatred,
bitterness, and enmity are the leaders of Great Britain and the United States
themselves. And you see, the British Parliament was recalled just days after
9/11. I was lucky enough to speak in that debate, and if youll forgive me
quoting myself, this is what I said. If we handle this crisis the wrong way, we
will create 10,000 new bin Ladens. Is there a sentient being left in this land
who believes other than that we did handle it the wrong way, and that we
created not 10,000 new bin Ladens, but hundreds of thousands of new bin
Ladens throughout the Muslim world? This is the problem we must confront.
Instead of draining the swamp of the bitterness and hatred by reversing the
policies and the prejudices that watered that swamp, we embarked upon a
course of action that deepened, ever-deepened, that swamp. And so we made
a bad situation worse. So we made even more people hate us even more
intently. What kind of policy is that? How can it be a policy toward terrorism if
that policy creates more terrorism? How can it be a policy toward making us
safer if it actually puts us in greater danger? How can it be a policy to move
forward, when it is a policy that takes us back?
You see, I listened to Mrs. Bush and Mrs. BlairMrs. Bush IIIm coming to
Mrs. Bush I later. I listened to them in a synchronized radio broadcast in which
they invited us on the first anniversary of 9/11 to remember those
heartbreaking messages of love and farewell left from their mobile phones by
those American women on those airplanes, on the answering machines of their
loved ones. They asked us never to forget those heartbreaking messagesas if
we could. But as I said at the time, just because Afghan women dont have
mobile telephones, and their families dont have answering machines, it doesnt
make their deaths delivered form the sky any less obscene than those
American women killed on 9/11.
But when I said it, as I looked around the Parliament at the powerful people to
whom I was saying it, I knew that for them that apparently self-evident truth

was not a truth at all. We have to face up to this, for the rich and powerful
people who rule our countries and our world, the blood of some people is more
valuable than the blood of other people. The blood of American and British and
Israeli and Western people for them is worth more than the blood of poor,
Black, Muslim people from other parts of the world. Nobody counted the dead
in Afghanistan.
Nobody is holding a minute silence for the dead people in Fallujah. Nobodys
raising money at charity concerts for the massacred in Jenin in Palestine. They
dont count the same. This is an undeniable truth, which may yet be ungrasped
by most of our own people, but was long ago grasped by the people of the poor
world, and most precisely by the people of the Muslim world. The people of the
Muslim world know that we care more about Israelis than we care about
Palestinians; that we care more about Americans than we do about Afghans;
and that we care more about British people than we do about Iraqis. And they
are mad as hell about that. They are mad as hell about that.
Now, at the time of 9/11, people asked me. OK, well if not this, what? If not
the unleashing of overwhelming deadly force by the richest and most powerful
countries in the world against the poorest and most ragged people on the
earth, then what? What would drain this swamp? And I said, there are three
things in particular that we need to do. First is to stop the unending,
bottomless, and unconditional support for General Sharons Israel and its
occupation of the Palestinian people, and its dispersal of the Palestinian people
around the world. This is a key question, and in the United States you have to
grasp thisand even some people in the antiwar movement have not grasped
this. This Palestine question is the flaw at the heart of the Wests attitude to the
East, of the non-Muslims attitude to the Muslim world. You see, the double
standards that are so brazenly obvious to the Arabs, to the Muslims, and to
many othersbut not alas to our legislatorsare at the core, a cancerous core,
of this crisis in relations between East and West.
Iraq was broken on the wheel of economic sanctions because of the need to
demonstrate the unacceptability of the acquiring of other peoples territory by
force. It was broken on the wheel of sanctions, and a million Iraqis diedmost
of them children. Most of them died before they even knew they were Iraqis
but dying for no other reasons but that they were Iraqis on the grounds that
no regime must be allowed to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Iraq was
broken because of the need to impose the authority of the resolutions of the
UN Security Council.
But Israel has occupied other peoples territory by force for decade after decade
after decade. Israel we knowthanks to the whistle blowing of the brave Israeli
hero Mordechai Vannunu, who spent nearly two decades in solitary confinement
for telling usIsrael is in possession of hundreds of nuclear weapons and the
missiles with which to land them on any and all Arab capitals. Israel sits on top
of a mountain of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Israel has broken
more UN Security Council resolutions than all of the other countries in the

world put together. Yet Israel is not subject to economic sanction or invasion.
Thanks to the United States of America, Israel is endlessly rewarded with
money and weapons and political and diplomatic support, precisely for its
breaking of these resolutions. We may not see it that wayindeed, in the
United States it seems to me precious few people see it that way. But I can tell
you in the Arab world, in the Muslim worldaround the worldthat double
standard is as plain as can be.
The second thing that had to be done to drain this swamp was to end the
agony of the Iraqi people. I went to Iraq in 1993 and 1994. I had never been to
Iraq before. It was the only Arab country I had not visited. I would not have
been welcome there if I had, indeed I would have been arrested as a known
and vociferous opponent of the Iraqi dictatorship. I used to be demonstrating
outside the Iraq embassy in London when British ministers and businessmen
were going in and out selling them guns and gas. I never take any lectures
from anybody about the dictatorship in Baghdad. But you see, when I went
there in 1993 and 1994before there was any oil-for-food program, when
there was mass starvation in the land, when the suffering was literally
unbearable to watch, which is why so few Western politicians went there to see
itI saw mass funerals of little children, who were dying at the rate of one
every six minutes of every day and night. I listened at the door of the labor
ward in a hospital in Baghdad as a woman gave birth by caesarian section
without anesthetic, for there was no anesthetic to be had.
When I went there in 1993 and 1994, I was very clear, as was a brave
American politician called David Bonnier, a Democratic Party congressman,
once the chief whip on the hill. I havent heard of him in a long time, I assume
hes out of politics now. He described this policy as infanticide masquerading as
politics. And that is exactly what it was. I argued after 9/11, that as well as
changing course on the issue of Palestine, we had to end this crucifixion of the
people of Iraq because we have fallen out with the dictator that we helped into
power, we armed, we made strong, we encouraged to attack Iran, and invaded
to halt the Islamic revolution of the Ayatollah Khomeini.
And the third thing we would have had to have done, is to stop propping up the
puppet presidents and the corrupt kings who rule the Muslim world almost
without exception from one end to the othernot one of whom would be in
power for five minutes if it were not for the military, political, diplomatic, and
financial support of your country and mine. Which is why Muslim people dont
know whether to laugh or cry when they hear George Bush and Tony Blair
talking about liberty. The masses in Pakistan, for example, who one day had a
general who had seized power in their country, who wore a uniform, who was
subjected to an arms embargo, who was suspended from the British
Commonwealth, who was routinely described, indeed memorably described, by
President Bush just before his first election, when he was asked in that
wonderful question and answer session about the names of world leaders with
whom hed have to be dealing in a few weeks.

Bush was asked who was the ruler of Pakistan. And he said, The general. And
the interviewer asked, Do we have a name here? General who? And Bush
answered, We just call him the general. Well, of course, very soon they
stopped calling him the general. He stopped being a military dictator who had
seized power illegally, exiling and imprisoning his opponents. He became not
General Musharraf, but President Musharraf, a great and wise statesman who
must be given all the weapons and all the help he needed to follow
Washingtons orders all the more precisely. Indeed, he was even allowed to
acquirewhat?nuclear weapons, the very pursuit of which (fruitless as it
turned out) had led to Iraq being crucified and a million Iraqis slaughtered.
Or we could look elsewhere. We could look next door to Palestine, to the great
state of Egypt. Mr. Hitchens and Co. tell us that one of the fruits of the attack
on Iraq is that theres now democracy in countries like Egypt. Where last week,
the president, who has ruled for twenty-four years, was reelected with 88.6
percent of the vote, in a rigged election where he chose who was allowed to
oppose him, where he controlled all of the media, and where he even
imprisoned his main opponent just a few months before the election. As a
matter of fact, President Hosni Mubarak got more votes in this democratic
election than he got in what he admitted was a rigged election six years ago.
He got 84.6 percent of the vote in the rigged election, and 88.6 percent of the
vote in the free and fair election, just to encourage the other rulers to go down
that route.
But of course, we didnt do any of these things. We didnt stop rewarding
Sharon, we stepped up the rewards to Sharon. We didnt stop killing Iraqis. We
killed even more of them. We didnt stop propping up the dictators in the
Muslim world, we enhanced and increased our support for those dictators.
Indeed, let me give you the surprising news: The security forces of Colonel
Muammar Qadhafi are now being trained at Sandhurst, Great Britains West
Point. His army officers are being trained at Sandhurst, and his intelligence
officers are being trainedgod help themby the British intelligence services,
MI5 and MI6so Qadhafis done for. Now, did Qadhafi become less of a dictator
after the attack on Iraq? Who are these security forces being employed
against? Is Qadhafis army to defend him against an external aggressor, or is it
for use against his own people to keep Qadhafi in power, and likewise his
intelligence services. We know the answer very clearly to these questions. So
what do you think the Libyan people think when they hear Tony Blair talking
about liberty and freedom, when they know that Qadhafis forces are being
trained by Tony Blairs military and intelligence apparatus?
So we did all the wrong things, and we made the world an even more
dangerous place than it already was.
And that brings us to Iraq. You know, if democracy means anything, it must
mean the holding to account of political leaders for mistakeslets be charitable
and call them mistakesas big as this one. Everything that George Bush, Norm
Coleman, and the American and British political class told us turned out to be a
lie. And everything the antiwar movement told us turned out to be right. They

told us that Iraq had links with al-Qaeda. It turned out to be a lie. But its
certainly true today.
Every al-Qaeda supporter in the world is descending like spores on the open
wounds weve created in Iraq. And just like in Afghanistan, later to travel
around the world and practice what theyve learned in Iraq. They told us that
hundreds of thousands of foreign soldiers invading and occupying an Arab
Muslim country would reduce Islamist fundamentalism. I said at the time, you
know, if you believe that, you really need medical help. Is there anybody
outside the Oval Office or 10 Downing Street who believes now that Islamist
extremism is less as a result of what weve done?
They told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Im not even going to
waste your time by developing that point. Because the worst lie that they told
is the one I want to focus on. They told us that the Iraqi people would welcome
these foreign invaders with flowers and with rice. But instead the Iraqi people
have welcomed the foreign invaders with something much hotter and much
more sharp. Thats where Cindy Sheehan and the other military families in the
U.S. and in Britain come in. Because you see its their sons who are paying the
blood price for that lie. And it wasnt that they werent warned. The antiwar
movement warned them repeatedly that if you invade Iraq you will be opening
the gates of hell. The Iraqi people will fight you with their teeth if necessary, to
repel your invasion.
And to think otherwise is to be guilty of a racist fantasy. That alone of all the
people on the earth, the Iraqis would welcome foreign armies to invade their
country, occupy it, and begin to loot and steal their things. What kind of people
would welcome such a thing? Is there a people on the earth who would
welcome such a thing? If, god forbid, somebody landed in my country, some
foreign army invaded my country, occupied it, installed a puppet government
there, and proceeded to steal its things, every self-respecting person in Britain
would fight that occupation to the best of their ability, and thats whats
happening in Iraq, exactly whats happening in Iraq.
And thats why we have to be clear about this question. Im coming to an end
now, making an appeal to you for clarity on this question. Its what I said right
at the beginning of this speech. Its not our duty to design the Iraqi resistance,
or to design whatever political settlement will emerge when the foreign
occupiers leaveas they will have to leave. We have only one choice to make
as citizens of the U.S. and of Great Britain. Its one that George Bush coined for
us when he said, Youre either with us or against us. Well, youre either with
your country going around the world, invading other peoples countries,
occupying them and stealing their things, or youre against it. And if youre
against it, you must be there on the 24th of September in Washington, D.C., to
tell the world that you are all against it. Thank you very much indeed.

http://isreview.org/issues/44/gallowayspeaks.shtml

George Galloways style of communication explained

Andrew Scott Crines uses an analytical framework to dissect what makes George Galloways
style of political communication so effective. Galloway mainly uses emotional rhetoric and has a
dramatic/performative style of delivery. Moreover, his style is packaged to appeal to a specific audience whilst
repelling the more deliberative mainstream.
In a recently published journal article, I analysed George Galloways style of political communication, his target
audience, and how he fits in with the broader political discourse in British politics. This article was
complimented by a paper I delivered to the University of Leeds as part of the political leadership workshopin
October 2012. Both revealed that Galloways style of communication can be analysed through an oratorical and
rhetorical evaluation that scrutinises his delivery and content.

Appeals to a specific audience

(Credit: David Hunt)
The first thing to consider is how political communication is analysed. Importantly, rhetoric and oratory are
distinct but similar. Rhetoric is the content of a speech, oratory is its delivery. Together they represent two sides
of the same coin. There are three rhetorical devices which are used to analyse speeches. These are ethos
(character/credibility), pathos (emotion), and logos (logic). Moreover, there are three similar oratorical devices,
which are judicial (analytical/forensic), deliberative (legislative), and epideictic (performative/dramatic). These

devices are asymmetrical and are often used by politicians interdependently, however the political analyst can
use them separately to deconstruct a speech or speaking style. By using this analytical framework, I was able
to discern that Galloway drew mostly from pathos-driven rhetoric with epideictic oratory. By combining these
styles of communication he is able to appeal to the expectations of his chosen audience.
However before doing this it was first necessary to appreciate Galloways political context as an Anti-Political
Establishment (APE) rhetorician. Such speakers tend to be those who have a small but identifiable audience
and/or support base that is loosely distinct from the mainstream. The establishment is broadly defined as
mainstream Westminster elites. Respect, UKIP, the Greens, the SNP, and the other nationalist parties stand in
opposition to this establishment because they claim an unrepresented audience elsewhere. In Galloways
case, this tends to be younger Muslim men, hard left statists, and elements of the anti-war movement. This
support base is by no means definitive, however its composition are often eschewed by the modern Labour
Party and certainly by the Tories or Lib-Dems. As a result this loose distinction provides a support base
sufficient for Galloway to target his rhetoric.
Galloways anti-war rhetoric derives from the evolution of the Respect party, which sought to tap into the
opposition surrounding the Iraq War in 2003. The origins of the Respect party provided a specific demographic
that appeared to be unrepresented by the mainstream elite. Because of the size of this audience, Galloway
strives to maintain its broad cohesiveness by positioning himself with their ideological aspirations. More
specifically, opposition to the mainstream for its own sake whilst defending against western involvement in the
middle east and beyond. Importantly, the more mainstream anti-war protestor tends to express their opposition
through mainstream parties. However, Respects support base expects anti-war rhetoric that anticipates
specific personal characteristics from its leaders. For example, Galloway repudiated claims that he wrote a
letter in which he denied drinking alcohol and claimed to have fought for Muslim interests all his life. Despite
this, his credibility with some of similar values certainly grew. Indeed, his character as a morally upstanding
individual who defends the interests of those being attacked by the west is key to growing his credibility with
that specific group. Moreover, he also pre-emptively defends against the drumbeats for war with Iran which he
suggests are getting louder, and the escalating provocations by Western capitals are developing a logic of
their own. This is appealing to his supporters because they have come to expect this form of defensive rhetoric
which simultaneously critiques the West. In terms of rhetorical devices, Galloways style necessitates emotive
language. Moreover, because of his character as an anti-western, anti-imperialist defender of a particular
understanding of freedom, he is able to use such rhetoric to draw from previously demonstrated credibility to
influence his audience.
But alongside his rhetorical style we must also briefly consider his oratory. Whilst most politicians tend to use
deliberative oratory, Galloway firmly uses the performative style. This is because it gives him an opportunity to
demonstrate his ideological righteousness against his chosen opponents. By having an other to perform
against, Galloway eschews the conventions of normal political debate whilst attacking his opponents using
romantically formulated rhetoric. He uses a combination of pathos-driven perfomative-oratory to allude rather

than specify. Such allusions enable him to imply that I am a better Pakistani than he [the Labour candidate] will
ever be. God knows whos a Muslim and who is not. These implications enable him to refrain from
conventional political debate with opponents. Put simply, this reminds the electorate of his ethos as a moral
individual with values and beliefs that should be characteristically appealing.
To summarise, Galloways rhetoric is textured in the language of emancipation, for the underprivileged,
dispossessed and disenfranchised; however its solutions can also be traced back to the far-left thinking of the
new left, much of which is authoritarian. The language of absolutes is packaged to appeal to a specific
audience whilst repelling the more deliberative mainstream. This is a deliberate technique because it grows the
anti-political establishment image of both Galloway and the party which vital in order to set themselves apart.
The continued success of Galloways style of communication depends firmly upon his ability to maintain that
image of difference with his supporters.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the British Politics and Policy blog, nor of
the London School of Economics. Please read our comments policy before posting.
About the Author
Andrew Scott Crines is a Teaching Fellow in Foreign Policy and British Politics at the University of Leeds,
specialising in oratorical and rhetorical analysis across British Politics. Dr Crines has written a monograph
entitled Michael Foot and the Labour Leadership, and is currently editing a volume with Dr Richard Hayton
(Leeds) on Oratory in the Labour Party. a.s.crines@leeds.ac.uk

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/george-galloways-style-of-communication/