Dempsey Woodley

Lefty geek sports nut. Photoshop cowboy. Humourist. Vaxed & Boosted, Views are my own. He/Him. Follow me!

[Dempsey Woodley @BigDMC]

Honestly, the Lords pitch was abysmal. It made for a very poor contest that almost invalidates the bowling stats. They must do better. No excuses. #EngvsNz

[Dempsey Woodley @BigDMC]

@SimeonBrownMP Overworked, underpaid and under-resourced nurses voted to strike. You're not negotiating in good faith. Blaming the NZNO twists the truth to suit your anti-union and anti-worker ideology. NZNO is delivering what it constituents voted for (take a leaf mate). This strike is on you.

[Dempsey Woodley @BigDMC]

I just signed - will you join me? https://t.co/j88PZpI00e via @actionstation

[Dempsey Woodley @BigDMC]

This. https://t.co/Sj1r7l82gW

[Dempsey Woodley @BigDMC]

Bring back Fozzie! #NZvsArg

[Dempsey Woodley @BigDMC]

Call the Wah Wah Wambulance #UpTheWahs

[Helen Clark @HelenClarkNZ]

Demise of #Newshub newsroom makes it even more vital that #TVNZ & #RNZ are supported to be quality public broadcasters. Free to air tv news is expensive & more advertising has gone online. Democracy needs quality public interest radio & tv. https://t.co/K0pqfKHgFd

[Helen Clark @HelenClarkNZ]

It’s an old & easily recognisable tactic: paint the economic outlook as bleak as you can, & then use that as an excuse for draconian public spending cuts. Countries need strategic leadership which follows a longer term course to economic & social stability https://t.co/NJHzleBzxc

[Dempsey Woodley @BigDMC]

@StrayDogNZ Create a crisis... then private business is painted as the solution.

[Dempsey Woodley @BigDMC]

@StrayDogNZ I believe that the key reason why the Government isn't prepared to put more money into KiwiRail's Cook Strait ferry project is because they're building a case for at least a partial sale of KiwiRail... that's what RW governments do.

[Dempsey Woodley @BigDMC]

@pilcher_pat @Jaccslife

[Dempsey Woodley @BigDMC]

@winstonpeters for PM in a @labour led government. Your legacy is waiting #nzpol #nationalnotfittogovern

[Jonathan Cook @Jonathan_K_Cook]

The missing context for what's happening in Gaza is that Israel has been working night and day to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people from their homeland since even before Israel become a state – when it was known as the Zionist movement.

Israel didn't just cleanse Palestinians in 1948, when it was founded as a Western colonial project, and again under cover of a regional war in 1967.

It also worked to ethnically cleanse Palestinians every day between those dates and afterwards. The aim was to move them off their historic lands, and either expel them beyond Israel’s new, expanded borders or concentrate them into small ghettoes inside those borders – as a holding measure until they could be expelled outside the borders.

The 'settler' project, as we call it, is a misnomer. It's really Israel's ethnic cleansing programme. Israel even has a special word for it in Hebrew: 'Judaisation', or making the land Jewish. It is official government policy.

Gaza was the largest of the Palestinian reservations created by Israel's ethnic cleansing programme, and the most overcrowded. To stop the inhabitants spilling out, Israel built a fence-barrier in the early 1990s to pen them in. Then when policing became too hard from within the prison, Israel pulled back in 2005 to the outer perimeter barrier.

New technology allowed Israel to besiege Gaza remotely by land, sea and air in 2007, limiting the entry of food and vital items like medicine and cement for construction. Automated gun towers shot anyone who came near the fence. The navy patrolled the sea, stopping boats straying more than a kilometre or two off shore. And drones watched 24 hours a day from the sky.

The people of Gaza were sealed in and largely forgotten, except when they lobbed a few rockets over the fence – to international indignation. If they fired too many rockets, Israel bombed them mercilessly and occasionally launched a ground invasion. The rocket threat was increasingly neutralised by a rocket interception system, paid for by the US, called Iron Dome.

Palestinians tried to be more inventive in finding ways to break out of their prison. They built tunnels. But Israel found ways to identify those that ran close to the fence and destroyed them.

Palestinians tried to get attention by protesting en masse at the fence. Israeli snipers were ordered to shoot them in the legs, leading to thousands of amputees. The 'deterrence' seemed to work.

Israel could once again sit back and let the Palestinians rot in Gaza. 'Quiet' had been restored.

Until, that is, last weekend when Hamas broke out briefly and ran amok, killing civilians and soldiers alike.

So Israel now needs a new policy.

It looks like the ethnic cleansing programme is being applied to Gaza anew. The half of the population in the enclave's north is being herded south, where there are not the resources to cope with them. And even if there were, Israel has cut off food, water and power to everyone in Gaza.

The enclave is quickly becoming a pressure cooker. The pressure is meant to build on Egypt to allow the Palestinians entry into Sinai on 'humanitarian' grounds.

Whatever the media are telling you, the 'conflict' – that is, Israel's cleansing programme – started long before Hamas appeared on the scene. In fact, Hamas emerged very late, as the predictable response to Israel's violent colonisation project.

And no turning point was reached a week ago. This has all been playing out in slow motion for more than 100 years.

Ignore the fake news. Israel isn't defending itself. It's enforcing its right to continue ethnically cleansing Palestinians.

[Dempsey Woodley @BigDMC]

@thepaulego @7Days_NZ Sorry to bomb your thread but I’m desperate. I gigged with you a few times back in the day. https://t.co/qA4dFvQinY

[Dempsey Woodley @BigDMC]

@jimmycarr Jimmy. So sorry for crashing a thread. I’m a desperate dad. I was in Hastings NZ Municipal Theatre a few months ago laughing with you. Now I’m in a Vietnam Mental Hospital with my unwell boy and I need to get him home. Please help. Just a share will do.
https://t.co/rDLoagxbQT

[Dempsey Woodley @BigDMC]

@RichardHulse Sorry to bomb your thread but I can’t seem to Dm you

[Dempsey Woodley @BigDMC]

@RichardHulse This is Dempsey. I need help. This is my boy. Even just a share. I’m in the hospital with him, Its harrowing. We need to get home. https://t.co/rDLoagxbQT

[Dempsey Woodley @BigDMC]

This

[SAF_84 @seanyf84]

@FIFAWWC Zambia 🇿🇲 goalkeeper got a 2nd yellow when the first card should’ve been rescinded

[Dempsey Woodley @BigDMC]

@billbennettnz And the challenge begins.

[Dudley Benson @DudleyBenson]

RT if you’re a cis white male who doesn’t expect an apology from Marama Davidson