Israeli soldiers are ordered to treat crowds of Palestinians gathered to receive humanitarian aid in Gaza as a “hostile force” and communicate with the desperate aid seekers by opening fire, according to a new report citing soldiers who were deployed in Gaza. Haaretz, echoing reporting by Palestinians and humanitarian groups on the ground, reports that Israeli soldiers are told to shoot at…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Israel is a paper tiger. What was it? Three days of Iran going through first gear before Tel Aviv was pleading for a ‘coalition of the willing’ to step in and join in with their targeting of Tehran?
How revolting.
But let’s go back to the playground for a moment.
The feared school bully, a thuggish kid named Benjamin, — known for targeting small and often weak pupils — picked a very public, middle-of-the-playground fight with a kid that was actually capable of defending themselves.
This is where the phrase a “schoolboy error” must come from.
Benjamin, somewhat shocked by the other kids’ resistance, took no more than a few swift-but-decisive uppercuts before screaming for back up from his gang. Donny came rushing to Benjamin’s aid, Keith scratched his head and called for calm, and Manny is still looking under the stairs for his white flag.
Benjamin’s friends were shocked by just how easy it was to land a hefty blow on their leader’s chin, particularly with his reputation for an impenetrable defence.
Benjamin the bully’s reputation as the toughest kid in the school was shattered, made worse by the undeniable fact that he actually started this fight in the first place.
But what lots of onlookers never realised was while everyone was watching Benjamin get a bit of a well deserved kicking, the rest of his thugs were still picking on the poor, starving and defenceless kids gathered elsewhere.
You see, while global mainstream media had all of us looking towards Tehran and Tel Aviv, genocidal Israel has stepped up its killing spree of the Palestinian people, in Gaza.
Hundreds and hundreds of innocent civilians — suffering from starvation and patiently waiting for food rations for their families — have been callously slaughtered by Israel, in just the last few days.
While the tit-for-tat exchange between Israel and Iran, and the bizarre intervention from the (barely) human cheesy Cheeto in Washington may well have provided something for the world’s media to fixate upon, it also provided a perfect distraction for Benjamin, butcher of Gaza.
Israel will fight tooth and nail to ensure the Middle East is riddled with instability because without it, Israel cannot claim victimhood, and without victimhood, Israel is nothing.
Keir the capitulator, a gormlessly loyal servant of Zionist Israel, has had a shocker of a week.
Labour has made no secret of their utter contempt for disabled people. If you think that is a controversial statement, why the hell are you even reading this?
When they’re not snooping through your bank account, stripping away your support, slashing your pitiful benefits, they’re looking for new and imaginative methods to kill off the disabled people of Britain in ways that not even Iain Duncan Smith dared to dream.
I am absolutely sick to death of hearing about “concessions”, “rebels”, and “significant revisions”, because it’s entirely fucking meaningless media speak designed to convince you into believing that we have a functioning democracy where the powerful are held to account by elected representatives.
They’re not. Not under this government, the one before, the one before that, or any government stretching back throughout my lifetime.
There are no “concessions” to be made. A two-tier benefits system for disabled people to match the two-tier policing and the two-tier healthcare provision just doesn’t sit well with me an nor should it with any person with a single shred of moral fibre.
There are very few “rebels” because the “concessions” they have made for weak Keir Starmer will still see millions of disabled people being unfairly punished by a callous and inhumane government, hellbent on satisfying its shadowy string-pullers and appealing to enough knuckle draggers to see them over the line at the next general election.
Labour’s Welfare Bill is set to sully the party’s already-battered public image even further. There are no positive optics when you’re shafting poor, disabled, and vulnerable people in broad daylight.
Labour’s Welfare Bill is a stunning masterclass in miscalculation, self-sabotage and moral failure. The bastards are robbing billions of pounds from disabled people and dressing it up as ‘pragmatic reform’, while claiming that they are magically fixing a broken system.
Can you believe the brass neck of this remorseless, red Tory scum?
Labour’s Welfare Bill is a deliberate choice to target the most vulnerable to plug an apparent budget hole. Nobody really believes it is fiscally responsible to push 400,000 disabled households in the direction of Food Banks, do they?
Before I go and hide somewhere cold for the next few days, can I make a radical suggestion?
The weather forecast for the next few days will undoubtedly be enjoyable for some people. Personally, I cannot stand it, and I know lots of Fibromyalgia sufferers struggle to keep cool, particularly when they’re stuffed to the eyeballs with anti-depressants like Pregablin.
These extremely rare weather events are no longer rare, but undoubtedly extreme.
If we think it is a good idea to help people to heat their homes during cold weather spells in the winter, why aren’t we talking about warm weather payments for people, young and old, that need additional financial support to help them keep their homes cool during the summer months?
Perhaps a Freedom of Information Act request would tell us how many MPs have public-subsidised air conditioning in their offices, both in Westminster and their constituencies?
I’m sure they, the pampered elite, wouldn’t expect you to work in extreme heat on a building site, or in a kitchen, or a hospital, or a call centre, while they’re sat in their offices with their private bits slowly turning to ice, would they?
Featured image via Rachael Swindon
This post was originally published on Canary.
On 30 June, the UK High Court ruled that the government’s decision to continue exporting F-35 fighter jet components to Israel is lawful, despite Labour acknowledging that these parts could potentially be used in violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) in Gaza. This decision has sparked significant criticism from human rights organisations and legal experts who argue that it undermines the UK’s commitment to upholding international law and human rights.
The case was brought forward by the Global Legal Action Network and the Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq, with support from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam.
They contended that the UK’s continued supply of F-35 components, which are part of a global spares pool accessible by Israel, makes the UK complicit in potential IHL violations committed by the Israeli military in Gaza.
UK industry makes 15% of every F-35, with the value of UK components in Israel’s F-35s estimated by CAAT to be well over £500m. This is by far the most significant part of the UK arms trade with Israel. At least 75 UK companies are involved in manufacturing components. For example, BAE Systems makes every rear fuselage for the F-35 and also makes its active interceptor system. Leonardo makes its targeting lasers and L3 Harris makes the weapons release cables.
Israel is using its 45 F-35s intensively to bomb the Palestinian people in Gaza, including using horrifically destructive 2,000lb bombs. By March this year, Israel had carried out 15,000 flight hours with the F-35 since the start of the war, using the planes in “beast mode”, with extra munitions attached to the wings.
In their 72-page ruling, Lord Justice Males and Mrs. Justice Steyn stated that such matters are political and best left to the executive branch and Parliament, not the courts. They emphasised that the issue at hand was whether it is appropriate for the court to mandate the UK’s withdrawal from a multilateral defense collaboration, which ministers consider vital to national and international security, due to the possibility that UK-manufactured components might be used in serious IHL violations.
Critics argue that this ruling effectively allows the UK government to prioritise political and economic interests over its legal and moral obligations to prevent complicity in potential war crimes.
Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT’s) Media Coordinator Emily Apple said:
This is a cowardly ruling that absolves any responsibility from the court to rule on the UK government’s compliance with international law. International law exists to keep all of us safe. It should be the founding principle of our arms export criteria, not one the government can pick and choose when to implement.
Successive governments have claimed that our arms export licensing criteria are the most robust in the world. This claim is now in tatters.
This court ruling vindicates Palestine Action. Palestine Action are not terrorists – they have the courage our courts clearly lack. It shows the only option open to us is to take direct action against the arms trade, to stop the genocide profiteers in their tracks. We cannot rely on our institutions to uphold international law, we can only rely on ourselves and the power we have to create change.
When our government and our courts fail us, it is down to us, ordinary citizens, to take action. We cannot wait for the history books to vindicate us. We cannot wait for Israel to obliterate Gaza and the West Bank. We cannot wait and watch while Israel kills more Palestinian children with 2000lb bombs dropped by F-35s. We will not stand by and we will not stay silent while the government prioritises its relationship with a genocidal state and arms dealers’ profits over Palestinian lives.
Furthermore, the government’s limited investigation into potential IHL breaches by Israeli forces raises concerns about the thoroughness and impartiality of its assessments.
Despite reports of at least 56,000 Palestinian deaths, the government identified only one case—the April 2024 World Central Kitchen strike—as a possible IHL violation. This narrow focus fails to account for the broader pattern of civilian casualties and destruction in Gaza.
theguardian.com
The ruling also highlights the UK’s significant role in the F-35 program, with British manufacturers supplying approximately 15% of the aircraft’s components. This involvement not only ties the UK economically to the program but also raises questions about the influence of defense industry interests on government policy decisions.
Human rights organisations and legal experts have expressed deep concern over the implications of this ruling. The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) said:
We are disappointed by the High Court’s refusal to grant permission for judicial review, but recognise the significant steps made in the course of this case so far. The Court accepted the government’s own finding that Israel is not committed to compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL). The Court accepted that there is a clear risk that UK-manufactured F-35 components may be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of IHL in Gaza. These findings are profoundly serious, and without Al-Haq’s claim the government may well have continued to deny these facts.
Yet despite those acknowledgements, the Court held that the legality of the UK’s decision to continue F-35 exports is not a matter that the courts can properly decide. We believe that the Court was wrong in law to conclude that the Geneva Conventions, the Genocide Convention, the Arms Trade Treaty, or customary international law are non-justiciable. The government must be held to account – in the Courts and in the court of public opinion – on these well-evidenced risks of atrocity crimes.
ICJP commends the efforts of Al-Haq, the Global Legal Action Network, interveners in this case, and those who provided their eyewitness testimony. Without them, the troubling reality may not have been exposed: that the UK government can acknowledge the risk of war crimes, admit the likely involvement of British-supplied weapons, and still continue exports to the perpetrators – shielded from judicial scrutiny.
ICJP remains committed to pursuing all available legal avenues to end the UK’s complicity in serious violations of international law. We have worked to support this case for over 18 months and will continue to do so should an appeal be launched.
In light of this decision, there is a growing call for greater transparency and accountability in the UK’s arms export policies. Critics urge the government to reassess its commitments and ensure that its actions align with its legal and moral obligations to prevent complicity in serious violations of international humanitarian law.
Featured image via the Canary
By Steve Topple
This post was originally published on Canary.
This content originally appeared on The Grayzone and was authored by The Grayzone.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
We know the Western mainstream media are on Israel’s side in its settler-colonial genocide of Palestinians. But following Bob Vylan’s anti-genocide chants at Glastonbury, they barely even pretended to be professionals. And they definitely didn’t include, for balance, the “popular Israeli slogan” calling for the murder of a whole ethnic group: “Death to Arabs”. And they certainly didn’t highlight that Israeli soldiers have long carried out this promise, killing as many people in Palestine and beyond as they can get away with.
Bob Vylan has long spoken up for Palestine and other victims of Israeli aggression, especially during the ongoing genocide, and Glastonbury was no exception.
Bob Vylan’s frontman chanted “death, death to the IDF”, referring to the Israeli occupation army currently committing genocide in Gaza. He has clarified that he doesn’t regret his words.
The Mail, however, twisted this on its front page to make it look like the chant referred to all Israelis – not just the ones engaging in heinous war crimes:
The headline is a total fabrication. “Death to the IDF” is not “Death to Israelis”.
This is a straight-up libel on the front page of a national newspaper. @BobbyVylan should sue. pic.twitter.com/YVGPX3RFlF
— Asa Winstanley (@AsaWinstanley) June 29, 2025
The Spectator sought to paint it as antisemitic, an assertion that was antisemitic itself for ridiculously suggesting Jewish people and the actions of the Israeli state are somehow the same.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, meanwhile, took this even further, suggesting he had been “glorifying violence against Jews”. But as one community note put it, the “religious makeup” of the IDF is irrelevant. It is an organisation which has been openly terrorising civilians, so there is genuine, justifiable anger against it:
The IDF is an institution, not a person.
Calling for its 'death' is calling for its activities to be curtailed.
Pretending it calls for 'violence against Jews' is plainly fraudulent. pic.twitter.com/tKP4z0szpp— simon maginn (@simonmaginn) June 29, 2025
The IDF is an army carrying out a GENOCIDE against unarmed civilians including babies and children
“Death to the IDF” is, therefore, a reasonable thing to chant
— Tom London (@TomLondon6) June 29, 2025
There are many Israelis, meanwhile, who have refused to serve in the IDF or to help it continue its genocide in Gaza:
A number of Israelis refuse to serve. The only morally acceptable thing to do if you are Israeli is refuse and go to prison for it. https://t.co/mri5Y54m6V
— Philip Proudfoot (@PhilipProudfoot) June 29, 2025
There are also IDF members who have openly spoken about its genocidal crimes:
The Israeli soldier who said he felt like a "Nazi" while stationed in Gaza during the First Intifada (https://t.co/hiO7DMph2P) could be expelled from @harvard. Not for violently suppressing an unarmed uprising, but for describing his behavior as Nazi-like, a clear violation of… pic.twitter.com/pZTKb4luYB
— Zachary Foster (@_ZachFoster) June 29, 2025
Now the full piece in English. It’s a must read. @nirhasson @bar_peleg @yanivkub https://t.co/qg6EI8MmTH pic.twitter.com/OChxpVK3b4
— Breaking the Silence (@BtSIsrael) June 27, 2025
Israeli soldiers themselves have been flaunting their crimes on social media (and even dating apps). There is a massive video database. This is on top of crimes like bombing hospitals, cutting electricity, or assassinating media workers. The video footage isn’t just in occupied Gaza either. It’s in the occupied West Bank too. It’s a clear pattern of proud self-documentation from the occupying power.
IDF soldiers paint ‘death to Arabs’ on the walls of hospitals in Gaza after illegally occupying them for military bases.
Forgive me if I’m not upset by the chants at Glastonbury. https://t.co/hufKF5nVyd
— Alternate Media Watchers (@AltMediaWatch) June 29, 2025
Where Bob Vylan called out a genocidal army, the fascists supporting that army love calling for the death of a whole ethnic group which spans 22 countries. An annual hate march takes place on Jerusalem Day in Israel, and large groups of people chant “death to the Arabs”, “may their villages burn”, and other criminal slogans.
Israeli judges have let off Israeli terrorists who’ve attacked Palestinians while saying “Death to Arabs”. In the US, senator has said “I think we should kill ’em all” when talking about Palestinians. Western counter-protests have seen pro-Israel forces chanting “death to Arabs”. Israeli football hooligans in Europe have also chanted “death to Arabs”. And when a Jewish terrorist in the US tried to murder Israeli Jews because he thought they were Palestinians, one of the victims responded (thinking the gunman was a Palestinian) by saying “Death to Arabs”.
An Israeli song calling for the deaths of anti-genocide celebrities Dua Lipa, Mia Khalifa, and Bella Hadid, meanwhile, became a chart topper.
Every accusation is a confession https://t.co/2WdMoGwrz6
— Mr Barbican (@paulewart23) June 29, 2025
The big problem with the “death to Arabs” slogan is that it’s more than just words. Because the settler-colonial fascists who have been genociding Gaza (while attacking any country in the Middle East willing to stand up for it) have been acting on the slogan. And that is the story we should be emphasising amid all the manufactured outrage about Bob Vylan’s words at Glastonbury.
Featured image via the Canary
By Ed Sykes
This post was originally published on Canary.
A leaked email has reportedly shown the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) calling on its branches not to show public support for Palestine Action. It is despite the group’s public support for Palestine Action, and it’s organising of a demo for them. This comes as the British state – in cahoots with the pro-Israel lobby – seeks to proscribe the group, smearing their non-violent ethical stand as terrorism.
Palestine Action has scared the establishment because it has successfully challenged Britain’s complicity with the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza with its accessible and effective techniques.
Journalist Asa Winstanley has revealed an apparent request from PSC director Ben Jamal for branches ‘not to share or sign statements’ about Palestine Action. The reason, Jamal said, was to avoid ‘jeopardising the organisation’ or ‘putting members and followers at risk’.
Winstanley is one of many who have faced the misuse of British state power during the ongoing genocide, as authorities have increasingly sought to suppress criticism of Israel’s settler-colonial occupation and war crimes in Palestine. Counter-terrorism police unlawfully raided Winstanley’s home in 2024, with the Central Criminal Court ruling only last month that authorities had to return “all computers, phones and devices” that they’d seized many months before.
While @Pal_action is fighting for its life against proscription, @PSCupdates threatens its branches with consequences if they support them.
I’ve obtained an internal PSC email which shows @BenJamalpsc has ordered his branches:
“We will not allow any branch to jeopardise the…
— Asa Winstanley (@AsaWinstanley) June 29, 2025
While PSC usually says the right things on Palestine, it does not share Palestine Action’s philosophy of direct action. The letter gave PSC branch officers “comprehensive guidance on how [branches] should handle the possible proscription”. It began by saying:
the Home Secretary’s plans are an outrageous attack on the movement and… we are doing everything in our power to campaign against this proscription taking place.
It also gave a link to a petition and e-action opposing proscription efforts.
However, in preparation for the possibility that proscription does happen, it warned against:
Publicly inviting support, for example through a social media post, wearing clothing which indicates support, or arranging a meeting where a member of a proscribed organisation speaks or a speech indicating support for the organisation
These could soon be “criminal offences which can carry prison sentences of up to 14 years”.
The letter continued by saying:
PSC’s position is clear – we will not allow any branch to jeopardise the organisation and the movement by taking such actions in the name of PSC. It is vitally important for all branches to understand this and to act accordingly – ensure that no branch communications profess support for a proscribed organisation, that no events are planned in support of a proscribed organisation, and that no clothing or signs are used which profess support for a proscribed organisation.
All of us must follow this guidance, not because we agree with the proscription of Palestine Action, but because not to do so would have catastrophic consequences for individual members, branches, PSC as an organisation and the movement as a whole.
Although the PSC doubts “the offence of support for a proscribed organisation can be applied retrospectively”, it clarified:
Please DO NOT share your own statements or comment on this issue… Branches SHOULD NOT be signing public statements or open letters on this or any other issue… Putting out content framed such as ‘we are all Palestine Action’ which may be legal to say now but could be illegal by next week, puts your members and followers at risk if they repeat or repost your content after proscription takes effect.
It argued that:
There are numerous very strong ways to oppose the government’s plan to proscribe Palestine Action as detailed above, so there is simply no reason to take unnecessary risks that do not achieve any actual results.
And it added:
Any individual who feels they cannot adhere to these guidelines and intend to continue to openly support Palestine Action after proscription, cannot do so in the name of your branch or PSC.
The question now is, will PSC supporters prefer to stick their necks out for Palestine Action? Because some certainly believe members and leaders have different feelings about Palestine Action:
When I was active in PSC, the biggest gap between the leadership and the membership was in their attitudes to Palestine Action. I imagine that's why somebody leaked this. https://t.co/kywx45DYrJ
— Heather Mendick (@helensclegel) June 29, 2025
The PSC’s national secretary Ben Soffa recently faced scrutiny for apparent links with Zionists. And there have been several critiques of the organisation taking overly timid or controversial positions to preserve its relative acceptability in establishment circles. This has led some to suggest the group represents “controlled opposition“.
Since the leak, PSC has come out and organised a demo:
EMERGENCY DEMO: Defend The Right To Protest, Don't Ban Palestine Action
Wednesday, 2 July, 6PM
Outside Parliament, London
Join us to protest this government's attacks on the right to protest and to demand that MPs vote against the plans to proscribe Palestine Action. pic.twitter.com/PNqIFstKRT
— Palestine Solidarity Campaign (@PSCupdates) June 30, 2025
Home secretary Yvette Cooper’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action will have made her pro-Israel donors happy, while generating panic in some more fearful groups. But Palestine Action has received solidarity from countless human rights and other high-profile groups. It has also raised over £200,000 for its legal resistance to Cooper’s efforts.
An urgent hearing took place at the High Court today, with the group’s co-founder Huda Ammori applying for a judicial review. On Friday 4 July, meanwhile, there will be another hearing to determine if a temporary blockage of the ban can occur while Palestine Action waits to see (around the week of 21 July) if its legal challenge can go forwards.
Featured image via the Canary
By Ed Sykes
This post was originally published on Canary.
The High Court has granted an urgent hearing for Palestine Action’s legal challenge to threatened proscription.
In a hearing which concluded on the morning of Monday 30 June at the Royal Courts of Justice, Mr Justice Chamberlain granted the application for an urgent hearing and set the date for Friday 4 July at 10:30am to consider permission for a judicial review of the Home Secretary’s decision to make an order to add direct action group Palestine Action to the list of proscribed organisations under Schedule 2 of the Terrorism Act 2000, alongside ISIS and Al Qaeda.
Birnberg Peirce submitted the judicial review claim on behalf of Ms Huda Ammori, a 31-year-old woman of Palestinian and Iraqi heritage and one of the founders of Palestine Action. Supporting witness statements have been submitted by human rights experts Amnesty International, Liberty, and the European Legal Support Centre about concerns about the unlawful misuse of anti-terror measures to criminalise dissent and the impact of any proscription on fundamental rights to freedom of speech and expression and rights to protest.
This comes as a senior civil servant speaks out about concerns about the proposal within the Home Office and the Labour peer Baroness Helena Kennedy KC – founding head of Keir Starmer’s own chambers, Doughty Street Chambers – describes it as “extraordinary” and “going down the old Trump road”, with the Labour peer, former Justice Minister Lord Falconer and member of Starmer’s Shadow Cabinet also stating that the action at RAF Brize Norton would not justify proscription.
The claim seeks to quash any decision to proscribe Palestine Action and any resulting order putting this into effect on the following grounds: ultra vires/improper purpose; error of law; irrationality; consideration of irrelevant factors/failure to consider relevant factors; breach of policy; breach of the Human Rights Act 1998; discrimination and Public Sector Equality Duty; and breach of natural justice.
The Home Secretary’s decision to rush the order through Parliament, by laying the draft order today, Monday 30 June and holding the votes on Wednesday 2 July, could see the order come into effect as soon as Friday 4 July. The application requests interim relief to prevent the Home Secretary from bringing any order into force until Mr Justice Chamberlain has made his ruling, which could be handed down on Friday or in the following weeks, with the submission urging that the “order must not be made and/or not come into effect until her [the claimant’s] challenge is heard and determined”.
Interim relief may involve an injunction prohibiting the Home Secretary from making the order, after any Parliamentary approval, pending determination of the Claimant’s legal challenge.
The Claimant’s lawyers had written last week to the Home Secretary to request that she refrain from laying her order seeking to proscribe Palestine Action until the substantive issues raised in the pre-action correspondence had been addressed, but the Secretary of State has not, to date, agreed to that course of action. The court has promptly directed an urgent hearing to consider the requested interim relief pending the determination of the judicial review.
Palestine Action’s lawyers argue that “irreparable harm would flow from a proscription order coming into effect”, not just to the Claimant or to Palestine Action but to its many thousands of supporters in the general public, who would be “left with no means of seeking relief against unlawful executive decision-making”. This risks a breach of natural justice and procedural fairness and the right of access to court under Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights by allowing “the Home Secretary to formulate an order in such a way as to effectively oust judicial review through the timing of the order”.
They contend that “there has been a failure of the duty to inform the Claimant of the basis on which it is proposed to restrict her rights through proscription” and to “afford her the opportunity to make representations before any decision to restrict her rights”. The submission also states that while “extensive consultation has taken place with the Israeli Government and arms companies…. no opportunity has been provided for other groups affected or concerned by the proposal to proscribe Palestine Action, including Liberty, Amnesty International and other civil society organisations”.
Commenting on the court’s decision to grant the urgent hearing, the claimant and co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, said:
The court’s decision to grant an urgent hearing this week is indicative of the vital importance of what is at stake in this case, including the far-reaching implications any proscription of Palestine Action would have on fundamental freedoms of speech, expression and assembly in Britain. This is the first attempt in British history to criminalise direct action, political protest, as terrorism, mimicking many authoritarian regimes around the world who have used counter-terrorism to crush dissent. This would set an extremely dangerous precedent, with repressive impacts right across the Palestine movement.
I have been left with no choice but to request this urgent hearing and to seek either an injunction or other form of interim relief because of the Home Secretary’s decision to try to steamroll this through Parliament immediately, without proper opportunity for MPs and Peers to debate and scrutinise the proposal, or for legal and human rights experts and civil society organisations to make representations, or for those of us who would be denied fundamental rights as a result and criminalised as ‘terrorists’ overnight, including the many thousands of people who support Palestine Action. The only groups we know the Home Secretary has consulted is the Israeli Embassy, the arms companies we’ve disrupted, and pro-Israel lobby groups such as We Believe in Israel claiming this proposal is a “direct result” of their representations to Government to have us banned.
Spraying red paint on war planes is not terrorism. Causing disruption to the UK-based arms factories used by Israel’s largest weapons firm, Elbit Systems, is not terrorism. The terrorism and war crimes are being committed in Palestine by Israel, which is being armed by Britain, and benefitting from British military support. Direct action has a long history in Britain – Suffragettes, Anti-Apartheid activists, Greenham Common and anti-Iraq War campaigners, including those who defended by the Prime Minister Keir Starmer himself for using the same direct action methods he is now seeking to proscribe as ‘terrorism’.
Featured image via the Canary
By Steve Topple
This post was originally published on Canary.
The fighting between Israel and Iran, sparked by an illegal and entirely unprovoked attack by Israel, has abated for the moment. After the United States did what Israeli Prime Minister hoped it would do and bombed Iran’s underground nuclear facilities, including the one at Fordow with bunker buster weapons, U.S. President Donald Trump told Israel to stop its attacks and reinforced that order when Israel sent dozens of bombers toward Iran shortly after the ceasefire was enacted, claiming a response to two Iranian missiles.
The entire battle, fought on the basis of a fictional threat of Iran being close to acquiring a nuclear weapon, demonstrated how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can manipulate intelligence, politics, and ignorance in the U.S. to provoke American action.
The post What Comes Next Following The US-Israeli War On Iran? appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
The Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi, expressed on 29 June his “doubt” that Israel will adhere to the ceasefire with Iran, indicating Tehran’s preparedness to respond to any violation.
The comments came during a phone call with Saudi Arabia’s Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman.
“We have serious doubts about the continuation of the ceasefire and are prepared to respond to any aggression,” Mousavi was quoted as telling the Saudi war chief.
“Israel and the United States have proven their lack of commitment to any international rules and norms,” he went on to say. “We did not initiate the war, but we responded to the aggressor with all our might and are prepared to deliver a decisive response in the event of repeated attacks.”
The post Iran’s Army Chief Expresses ‘Serious Doubts’ Israel Will Adhere To Ceasefire appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
This content originally appeared on The Grayzone and was authored by The Grayzone.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on The Grayzone and was authored by The Grayzone.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a truce between Israel and Iran following nearly two weeks of open warfare.
Israel began the war, launching a surprise offensive on June 13, with airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, missile installations, and senior military and scientific personnel, in addition to numerous civilian targets.
In response, Iran launched a wave of ballistic missiles and drones deep into Israeli territory, triggering air raid sirens across Tel Aviv, Haifa and Beersheba and numerous other locations, causing unprecedented destruction in the country.
What began as a bilateral escalation quickly spiraled into something far more consequential: a direct confrontation between the United States and Iran.
The post The Strategic Fallout Of The Israel-Iran War appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
The roar of fighter jets echoed across the Parisian suburbs as demonstrators marched through the streets of Seine-Saint-Denis. On Saturday, June 21, several thousand protesters wound their way from Bobigny toward Le Bourget airport, demanding an end to what they called the “business of death” at one of the world’s largest arms exhibitions.
Marchers carried banners reading “Their wars, their profits, our deaths, stop the genocide in Palestine.” The crowd included Palestinian youth from across Europe alongside French trade unionists, pro-Palestinian activists, and left-wing groups.
The Paris Air Show, known in France as the Salon du Bourget, draws hundreds of thousands of visitors every two years to present the latest in aerospace technology.
The post Thousands Protest At Paris Air Show Over Israeli Participation appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
Nearly all U.S. Senate Republicans and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania on Friday evening blocked a resolution that reiterated Congress’ authority to declare war and would have ordered President Donald Trump to stop taking military action against Iran without congressional approval. Every other member of the Democratic Caucus and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) supported holding a final…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
I’m always consumed by the same question: How will this endless, brutal spectacle of killing finally end? Will it be like a movie — justice prevailing, liberation won, goodness triumphing over evil? Will the ending even be worthy of the horrors we’ve endured? Or will it all fade away in an open-ended scene, full of unknowns, unanswered questions, and the absence of closure?
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
ANALYSIS: By Eugene Doyle
Setting aside any thoughts I may have about theocratic rulers (whether they be in Tel Aviv or Tehran), I am personally glad that Iran was able to hold out against the US-Israeli attacks this month.
The ceasefire, however, will only be a pause in the long-running campaign to destabilise, weaken and isolate Iran. Regime change or pariah status are both acceptable outcomes for the US-Israeli dyad.
The good news for my region is that Iran’s resilience pushes back what could be a looming calamity: the US pivot to Asia and a heightened risk of a war on China.
There are three major pillars to the Eurasian order that is going through a slow, painful and violent birth. Iran is the weakest. If Iran falls, war in our region — intended or unintended – becomes vastly more likely.
Mainstream New Zealanders and Australians suffer from an understandable complacency: war is what happens to other, mainly darker people or Slavs.
“Tomorrow”, people in this part of the world naively think, “will always be like yesterday”.
That could change, particularly for the Australians, in the kind of unfamiliar flash-boom Israelis experienced this month following their attack on Iran. And here’s why.
US chooses war to re-shape Middle East
Back in 2001, as many will recall, retired General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of NATO forces in Europe, was visiting buddies in the Pentagon. He learnt something he wasn’t supposed to: the Bush administration had made plans in the febrile post 9/11 environment to attack seven Muslim countries.
In the firing line were: Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon, Gaddafi’s Libya, Somalia, Sudan and the biggest prize of all — the Islamic Republic of Iran.
One would have to say that the project, pursued by successive presidents, both Democrat and Republican, has been a great success — if you discount the fact that a couple of million human beings, most of them civilians, many of them women and children, nearly all of them innocents, were slaughtered, starved to death or otherwise disposed of.
With the exception of Iran, those countries have endured chaos and civil strife for long painful years. A triumph of American bomb-based statecraft.
Now — with Muammar Gaddafi raped and murdered (“We came, we saw, he died”, Hillary Clinton chuckled on camera the same day), Saddam Hussein hanged, Hezbollah decapitated, Assad in Moscow, the genocide in full swing in Palestine — the US and Israel were finally able to turn their guns — or, rather, bombs — on the great prize: Iran.
Iran’s missiles have checked US-Israel for time being
Things did not go to plan. Former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman pointed out this week that for the first time Israel got a taste of the medicine it likes to dispense to its neighbours.
Iran’s missiles successfully turned the much-vaunted Iron Dome into an Iron Sieve and, perhaps momentarily, has achieved deterrence. If Iran falls, the US will be able to do what Barack Obama and Joe Biden only salivated over — a serious pivot to Asia.
Could great power rivalry turn Asia-Pacific into powderkeg?
For us in Asia-Pacific a major US pivot to Asia will mean soaring defence budgets to support militarisation, aggressive containment of China, provocative naval deployments, more sanctions, muscling smaller states, increased numbers of bases, new missile systems, info wars, threats and the ratcheting up rhetoric — all of which will bring us ever-closer to the powderkeg.
Sounds utterly mad? Sounds devoid of rationality? Lacking commonsense? Welcome to our world — bellum Americanum — as we gormlessly march flame in hand towards the tinderbox. War is not written in the stars, we can change tack and rediscover diplomacy, restraint, and peaceful coexistence. Or is that too much to ask?
Back in the days of George W Bush, radical American thinkers like Robert Kagan, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld created the Project for a New American Century and developed the policy, adopted by succeeding presidents, that promotes “the belief that America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the preeminence of US military forces”.
It reconfirmed the neoconservative American dogma that no power should be allowed to rise in any region to become a regional hegemon; anything and everything necessary should be done to ensure continued American primacy, including the resort to war.
What has changed since those days are two crucial, epoch-making events: the re-emergence of Russia as a great power, albeit the weakest of the three, and the emergence of China as a genuine peer competitor to the USA. Professor John Mearsheimer’s insights are well worth studying on this topic.
The three pillars of multipolarity
A new world order really is being born. As geopolitical thinkers like Professor Glenn Diesen point out, it will, if it is not killed in the cradle, replace the US unipolar world order that has existed since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Many countries are involved in its birthing, including major players like India and Brazil and all the countries that are part of BRICS. Three countries, however, are central to the project: Iran, Russia and, most importantly, China. All three are in the crosshairs of the Western empire.
If Iran, Russia and China survive as independent entities, they will partially fulfill Halford MacKinder’s early 20th century heartland theory that whoever dominates Eurasia will rule the world. I don’t think MacKinder, however, foresaw cooperative multipolarity on the Eurasian landmass — which is one of the goals of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) – as an option.
That, increasingly, appears to be the most likely trajectory with multiple powerful states that will not accept domination, be that from China or the US. That alone should give us cause for hope.
Drunk on power since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has launched war after war and brought us to the current abandonment of economic sanity (the sanctions-and-tariff global pandemic) and diplomatic normalcy (kill any peace negotiators you see) — and an anything-goes foreign policy (including massive crimes against humanity).
We have also reached — thanks in large part to these same policies — what a former US national security advisor warned must be avoided at all costs. Back in the 1990s, Zbigniew Brzezinski said, “The most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran.”
Belligerent and devoid of sound strategy, the Biden and Trump administrations have achieved just that.
Can Asia-Pacific avoid being dragged into an American war on China?
Turning to our region, New Zealand and Australia’s governments cleave to yesterday: a white-dominated world led by the USA. We have shown ourselves indifferent to massacres, ethnic cleansing and wars of aggression launched by our team.
To avoid war — or a permanent fear of looming war — in our own backyards, we need to encourage sanity and diplomacy; we need to stay close to the US but step away from the military alliances they are forming, such as AUKUS which is aimed squarely at China.
Above all, our defence and foreign affairs elites need to grow new neural pathways and start to think with vision and not place ourselves on the losing side of history. Independent foreign policy settings based around peace, defence not aggression, diplomacy not militarisation, would take us in the right direction.
Personally I look forward to the day the US and its increasingly belligerent vassals are pushed back into the ranks of ordinary humanity. I fear the US far more than I do China.
Despite the reflexive adherence to the US that our leaders are stuck on, we should not, if we value our lives and our cultures, allow ourselves to be part of this mad, doomed project.
The US empire is heading into a blood-drenched sunset; their project will fail and the 500-year empire of the White West will end — starting and finishing with genocide.
Every day I atheistically pray that leaders or a movement will emerge to guide our antipodean countries out of the clutches of a violent and increasingly incoherent USA.
America is not our friend. China is not our enemy. Tomorrow gives birth to a world that we should look forward to and do the little we can to help shape.
Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
A watershed moment in the fight to hold corporations accountable for complicity in Israel’s war crimes: A.P. Møller Maersk has become the first global shipping company to halt the transport of goods to and from Israeli settlements after facing increasing pressure from the Mask off Maersk campaign. This marks a seismic shift in corporate accountability, and in the shipping and logistics industry as a whole.
Maersk announced on its website this month that it would cut ties with Israeli settlements in the West Bank, stating that it had “strengthened [its] screening procedures in relation to Israeli settlements, including aligning [their] screening process with the OHCHR database of businesses involved in activities in the settlements”.
The post Mask Off Maersk Campaign Successfully Pressures Shipping Giant appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
Iran’s Guardian Council ratified a bill on 26 June to suspend all cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The move came a day after parliament overwhelmingly approved the measure in response to Israeli and US attacks on the country’s nuclear sites.
France and Russia have both warned against the move, urging Iran to maintain cooperation with the UN agency and avoid escalating the nuclear standoff further.
The law halts all IAEA inspections, oversight, and reporting, and will remain in effect until Iran receives guarantees for the safety of its nuclear facilities and personnel, along with recognition of its enrichment rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The post Iran Ratifies Ending Cooperation With United Nations Nuclear Watchdog appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
The BRICS, the influential bloc of emerging geopolitical powers, demanded an immediate end to the cycle of violence in West Asia following the recent attacks against Iran. The group also pushed for the establishment of a zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in the region as a whole, a crucial measure to ensure long-term stability,
The Brazilian government, the current president of the bloc, issued the forceful statement on Tuesday, June 24. The statement responds directly to the recent United States and Israeli military attacks against Iran, events that have dangerously escalated regional tensions.
The post BRICS Demands End To Violence In West Asia appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
Counter-terrorism police have arrested four people in connection to the protest by Palestine Action at RAF Brize Norton, in which two activists on scooters spray painted two British military planes with red paint and evaded security and police.
Three have been arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. Another was arrested of assisting an offender.
The embarrassment caused to the government by the recent Palestine Action incursion at Brize Norton, has led rapidly to the announced proscription of Palestine Action. Keir Starmer explicitly referred to the spray-painting of the planes as “vandalism”, not ‘terrorism’ and many Parliamentarians including former Justice Secretary Lord Falconer, have stated that the protest may be criminal damage, but not terrorism.
The post Counter-Terrorism Police Arrest Four People After Paint Sprayed On Planes appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
Thousands of people in Enfield signed a petition asking their local council to divest from companies complicit in Israel’s genocide against Palestinians. But in a 24 June council vote, the Labour-Tory axis in charge rejected their constituents’ request outright.
This comes as Enfield’s independent left has been stepping up as the main opposition to the establishment parties’ domination in the area. Enfield Community Independents (ECI) responded to the council’s decision by saying:
We look forward to the May 2026 local elections and removing existing councillors from their position and allowing a proper debate on divestment to be held.
The Canary previously outlined that at least 81 local government pension funds invest in complicit companies, and that Enfield Council apparently “invests more than £53 million of workers’ pension funds in companies complicit in human rights violations, apartheid and genocide in Palestine”.
As independent media outlet Enfield Dispatch reported, “campaigner Chris Kaufman addressed a full council meeting at Enfield Civic Centre”, pointing out that other councils (like Waltham Forest and Islington) had “the same constraints” as Enfield Council but had committed to:
lawfully exit from financial relationships with companies that may facilitate breaches of international law
Labour council leader Ergin Erbil, however, refused to do this. His justification was that he and others had to “make rational and sensible decisions” regarding pension fund investments. And he claimed the council was acting “responsibly and transparently”.
Conservative opposition leader Alessandro Georgiou added that:
It is near impossible even if we wanted to, to disentangle ourselves from every single body, company and organisation that has traded with Israel.
Responding to the council’s decision, ECI leader Khalid Sadur said that:
The level of debate at the Divestment meeting on 24 June highlighted the level of partisan politics present on the existing Council and the failure of councillors to address real issues ahead of party interests.
Sadur previously ran 2024 general and local election campaigns with an anti-war, anti-austerity platform, and has received Jeremy Corbyn’s endorsement. Despite working with a low budget, ECI surprised the local political establishment and now represents the main opposition to Labour-Tory domination in the area.
The ECI statement challenged Erbil’s claim that the council was behaving “responsibly and transparently”. It stressed that:
Investing in companies which are potentially complicit with human rights violations or human rights abuses places additional risk on the pension fund valuation.
It also said:
At present, the Council does not publish details of its fund investments to scheme members or the wider public…
If councillors are performing their fiduciary duty correctly and there is nothing to hide, there should be no excuse for not publishing quarterly fund holdings and ensure this existing breach is resolved.
ECI also referred to the council’s “Pension Scheme Advisory Board Guidance”, claiming that the Pensions Committee had a duty to:
request a specific review of geopolitical risk from fund managers on the ongoing crisis in the Middle East and its impact on the existing fund valuation.
There could be “significant losses” from investments if Israel faces sanctions for its “human rights abuses and breaches of international law”. And ECI insisted that councillors’ failure to consider this meant that “research and
analysis” were not informing their decisions.
The Scheme Guidance it referred to also makes clear that councillors should prioritise beneficiaries’ interests over their own personal views. By rejecting the divestment request “without first consulting and hearing the views of scheme members”, ECI stressed, councillors were in breach of this guidance.
When Kaufman introduced the petition at the council meeting, he asked councillors to consider the “moral and ethical question”:
Is it right for Enfield’s pension funds to be used to fund war crimes in any way?
“Each of you must decide”, he said. “Can you look the other way whilst the planes zoom and dive?” He added:
Don’t leave your consciences at the door. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu said ‘If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.’
He finally urged councillors “to listen to the people of Enfield” and take action.
But they decided to look the other way, leave their consciences at the door, and choose the side of the oppressor. And they chose to ignore the people of Enfield.
Kaufman told Enfield Dispatch that councillors were:
washing their hands of their responsibilities. They keep implying this idea that to look after people’s pension funds means maximising returns and forgetting any morality and ethics and they’ve shown themselves in their true colours.
Indeed, only seriously misanthropic people could argue that it’s “rational and sensible” to sideline human rights. But it seems such people thrive in Britain’s current political system. And that’s why it’s so important for residents to expose their wrongdoing and organise to defeat them.
In Enfield, people have already begun to stand up as a community against councillors’ unethical behaviour. And if this continues, Sadur promised:
come May 2026 they’re no longer going to fill that council chamber
We believe the speakers in the video below to be Labour’s Ergin Erbil and Tory David Skelton.
— Enfield Community Independents (@EnfieldAction) June 27, 2025
By Ed Sykes
This post was originally published on Canary.
There is not much more that can be said about the unfathomable levels of devastation the genocide in Gaza has reached. Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, has been chronicling the genocide and joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to shed light on the current situation in Gaza, including parts from her upcoming report on the profiteers of the genocide.
Israel’s siege on the Palestinians is leaving the population starving, and Albanese lambasts other nations for not stepping up and completing their obligations under international law.
The post Chris Hedges Report: Starvation And Profiteering In Gaza appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
A judge in a federal court in Sydney, Australia has ruled against the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) for wrongly dismissing a radio presenter after she shared an instagram post from Human Rights Watch that accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon in Gaza.
Judge Darryl Rangiah awarded journalist Antoinette Lattouf AU$70,000 and possibly more in damages on Wednesday in a case that undermines an organized campaign in Australia, like in many countries today, that is attacking legitimate critics of Israel’s conduct in Gaza as being anti-semitic.
Senior ABC executives had testified at trial that they had been flooded with complaints — even though none of the contested content had been discussed on air — and that pressure had mounted to get rid of the presenter, which they did.
The post Australian Reporter Wins Suit Against ABC Over ‘Anti-Semitic’ Post appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has once again asked for proceedings for his criminal trial to be postponed, just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump called for the entire trial to be cancelled, deeming it a “witch hunt.” According to Haaretz, Netanyahu’s attorney made the request on Thursday, citing Israel’s war with Iran and other “regional and global developments” in a court…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
A watershed moment in the fight to hold corporations accountable for complicity in Israel’s war crimes: A.P. Møller Maersk has become the first global shipping company to halt the transport of goods to and from Israeli settlements after facing increasing pressure from the Mask off Maersk campaign. This marks a seismic shift in corporate accountability, and in the shipping and logistics industry as…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Amid heavy criticism over President Donald Trump’s unprovoked strikes on Iran, several top ranking Democrats have introduced a war powers resolution that effectively greenlights military action against the country, while posturing over a seemingly feigned opposition to Trump’s operation. The resolution, introduced this week, orders Trump to remove U.S. troops from any hostilities against Iran…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
A 17-second clip showing a cloud of smoke emanating from an explosion in an urban area is viral on social media with claims that it shows Iran being bombarded by Israel. Some claim the video of the explosion is from Ahvaz in Iran, while others claim it shows an explosion at the Bushehr airport.
The conflict between the two escalated after Israel targeted Iran’s nuclear and military structures from warplanes and drones on June 13; Iran soon retaliated with strikes. Since then, several unverified visuals have been circulating on social media platforms with claims they are from either of the two countries .
A June 22 report by News18 titled, “Bushehr Airport Hit By Israel As Explosion Rocks Iran Province Housing Nuclear Site,” featured a screengrab from the above clip. (Archive)
X user Abhijit Iyer-Mitra (@Iyervval) also posted the same video on June 22, claiming that the visual depicted an explosion in Ahvaz. (Archive)
Several other users on X, such as @mog_russEN, @World_At_War_6, @thecsrjournal, and news outlet EurAsia Daily, used the viral clip claiming it showed footage of an explosion in Iran amid the ongoing Iran-Israel conflict.
Click to view slideshow.After breaking down the clip into multiple keyframes, we ran a reverse image search on a few of them. This led us to an Instagram carousel post by an account @qatarday from April 26, 2025. The fourth slide in the carousel, has the now-viral clip.
The caption of the post reads, “Four dead, over 500 injured as ‘massive’ explosion hits Iran’s Bandar Abbas”. Bandar Abbas is a port city on the southern coast of Iran.
View this post on Instagram
We also found the video shared by X account, @JasonMBrodsky, on April 26, which also said the explosion was from Iran’s Bandar Abbas.
The more I read about this explosion today in Bandar Abbas, the more I think about the reports about those #Iran cargo ships docking in Bandar Abbas after departing #China with missile components. pic.twitter.com/X0Rxrx51Na
— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) April 26, 2025
Taking a cue from the above posts, we checked for news reports with relevant keywords from that time and found that several outlets had covered it.
According to an April 27 report by the BBC, nearly 28 individuals were killed and 800 injured in the explosion in Shahid Rajaee in the Iranian city of Bandar Abbas. The report carried a video captured by an individual who recorded it from his car when the explosion took place. It has the same smoke pattern as is seen in the viral clip.
Al Jazeera also used a clip from the same location, recorded at a different angle. Here, too, the smoke pattern is the same.
Below is a comparison of the visuals aired by BBC and Al Jazeera with the viral clip. As can be seen, in all three screenshots, the smoke pattern is similar.
Thus it was clear that the viral clip of the explosion is neither from Ahvaz nor from Bushehr but an explosion that happened in Shahid Rajaee port in Bandar Abbas city in Iran two months before the June conflict.
However, it should be noted that Iranian cities Ahvaz and Bushehr did suffer from Israeli strikes.
The post News18, social media users share 2-month old visuals of blast in Iranian city as footage from June conflict with Israel appeared first on Alt News.
This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
It is my opinion that Palestine Action has the moral right to protest against genocide using non-violent direct action.
That simple sentence will soon make me criminally culpable for supporting a terrorist organisation.
Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000 makes it criminal offence to “expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation.” I could go to jail for fourteen years. So could you if you ‘like’ this on social media.
Of course, no one in the current government would consider a ‘like’ as support for a proscribed organisation. Would they? That would be as ridiculous as barring an elected politician from running for office for talking to a film maker about films at an event about films.
No one was hurt by Palestine Action’s red paint. The fact is that no one in the RAF even knew the action took place until afterwards. Palestine Action had to take videos of themselves on electric scooters. They are not a threat to life and limb. They are opposed to war, war crimes, and war mongering.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper’s statement justified the proscription on grounds on national security, saying Palestine Action “put that security at risk.” Yet the RAF said that no planned flights or operations were affected.
Which is it, then?
Terrorism is defined by the government as:
The use or threat of serious violence against a person or serious damage to property where that action is:
- designed to influence the government or an international governmental organisation or to intimidate the public or a section of the public; and
- for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.
The Israeli Defence Force is certainly using serious violence against non-combatants to achieve political and ideological aims. They have killed at least 62,000 civilians. How are they not terrorists?
In the UK, the 1989 Prevention of Terrorism Act defined terrorism as “the use of violence for political ends.” It was the Blair government that changed it in 2000, to include “serious damage to property” and creating “a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public.” By that final definition, this Labour government’s plans to plunge 250,000 disabled people into poverty through stripping Personal Independence Payments (PIP) makes Keir Starmer a terrorist. And, the water companies pumping sewage into our rivers and beaches are terrorists too.
That might sound like a satirical argument. It’s not. I’m making a serious point. We have legislation that is so vague that a Home Secretary can criminalise anyone who says non-violent protesters might have a point. We are not functioning as a democratic state protected by universal human rights.
Cooper says Palestine Action have a “long history” of criminal damage. She claims that since 2024 “its activity has increased in frequency and severity”. But we already have laws for dealing with criminal damage. If they’ve trespassed on an RAF base, charge them with that if you must.
In fact last year, members of Palestine Action were tried for disrupting the operation of Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit. Their six day rooftop protest injured no one at the drone making plant near Leicester. They mostly sprayed red paint. The jury acquitted them on the grounds that their actions were necessary to save lives. Most reasonable people would conclude that engaging in actions necessary to save lives sounds like the opposite of terrorism.
We find ourselves sliding towards an Orwellian world. Keir Starmer has said that “there is a clear moral case” for cutting welfare payments for disabled people. But, it’s his own government’s own analysis shows 250,000 people will be plunged into poverty, including 50,000 children.
This is the weapons of mass destruction debacle all over again. In the novel 1984, George Orwell introduced Newspeak. This was the deliberate simplification and corruption of words. Iraq never had nuclear weapons. It never had biological weapons. The chemical weapons it had were destroyed years before the 2003 invasion. However, the phrase “weapons of mass destruction” was used to manufacture consent for the invasion of Iraq.
We have found ourselves in a country where those using non-violence to prevent killing are now proscribed terrorists, while those arming and defending genocide claim to uphold the “rules based order”.
Some context, here. I’m not a pacifist. I never have been. I’m a black belt in jiu jitsu. I paid my way through university working as a night club bouncer. My Dad was a tank driver. My brother was in the Royal Navy when the Falklands war took place. I have no moral difficulty using force in an emergency if it will prevent greater suffering. I do object to authoritarian governments and war mongering. That includes the Iranian government and Hamas. But killing civilians in the name of regime change is terrorism.
It’s all connected. The truth is Palestine Action caused embarrassment. We’re being bombarded by messages that we are at war with Russia. That Iranians are a threat. That China is…, hmm, well they’re okay this week because we might have a trade deal in the pipeline. But if that falls flat, they’re a threat too. Yet, the aircraft at RAF Brize Norton were protected by nothing but a six foot high wire fence.
NATO General Secretary Mark Rutter has said unless we spend 5% of GDP on the military, “British people had better learn to speak Russian” is just one example. He’s wrong. Russia will not invade Britain by sailing a nuclear submarine up the River Tyne. Our freedom is imperilled by dodgy money influencing politics. The allies of warmongers are funding authoritarian political parties in Britain.
The government says it will spend 1.5% of GDP on “resilience and security”. Well, let’s spend that £39 billion a year insulating homes and generating clean energy then. Let’s end the need for food banks too.
It’s just as president Dwight D. Eisenhower warned in 1961:
we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence by the military industrial complex… Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This post was originally published on Canary.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper has controversially decided to proscribe anti-genocide group Palestine Action. And this is hardly surprising when you look at her cosy relationship with pro-Israel lobbyists.
The British government has not only failed to challenge Israel in any meaningful way as it has killed at least one child every hour in Gaza since October 2023. The UK has also participated in that genocide, in part via RAF Akrotiri.
And that’s because Britain’s influential pro-Israel lobby has a loyal, docile friend in Keir Starmer’s government. Indeed, it has funded half his cabinet. A tax-haven hedge fund ‘standing to profit’ from Israel’s war crimes, meanwhile, sent the Labour Party £4m before the 2024 election, and pro-Israel millionaire Gary Lubner gave it £4.5m in 2023 alone.
Yvette Cooper is very much part of this sickeningly cosy relationship. Because she registered in June 2023 that Lubner had given Labour £210,000 “to pay for three additional members of staff for my office over the next eighteen months”.
She also received tens of thousands of pounds from Labour Together, the shady think tank linked with millionaire pro-Israel lobbyist Trevor Chinn, who has donated around £200,000 to Starmer and his cronies in recent years. Labour Together played a prominent role in undermining the left during and following the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. It aimed “to defeat Corbynism” by using “soft branding that made them seem warm and cuddly”. And it once rallied supporters to “destroy the Canary or the Canary destroys us”.
In short, Cooper seems thoroughly comfortable with lobbyists who approve of genocide and oppose the struggle for peace. So comfortable, in fact, she even takes selfies with genocide-apologists:
Labour Home Secretary @YvetteCooperMP is here grinning happily with Israeli and pro-Israeli genocidal fascists.
Tzipi Hotovely in particular has threatened to kill 600,000 civilians in Gaza, and is a proponent of the Greater Israel plan to occupy Jordan, Syria and vast swathes… https://t.co/LPOblcHHsT
— Asa Winstanley (@AsaWinstanley) December 24, 2024
Banning Palestine Action. But happy to pose for photos with the ambassador of a genocidal Apartheid state.
Does Yvette Cooper have any idea how this photo will look in 30 years time? pic.twitter.com/IuQ0P2iUkW
— Richard Sanders (@PulaRJS) June 23, 2025
Cooper was one of many “parliamentary supporters” of the Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) lobby group, before it hid its list during the ongoing genocide in Gaza. LFI has refused to disclose where it gets its money from, but claims it “does not receive any money from the Israeli government or the Israeli Embassy”. Undercover reporting previously showed former LFI chair Joan Ryan, however, talking about a £1m payment with an Israeli diplomat. The investigative work from Al Jazeera also exposed another LFI figure admitting they’d been working a lot “behind the scenes” with the same diplomat, who had been plotting against British MPs.
Back in 2015, meanwhile, Cooper got another donation. This came from Red Capital Private, a company of former LFI chair Jonathan Mendelsohn. It gave Cooper £5,000 “to support my campaign for leadership of the Labour Party”. She lost that election miserably. But during her campaign, she had argued it was “hugely important that Labour continues to be a friend of Israel”, despite the apartheid state’s massacre of 1,492 civilians in Gaza (including 551 children) the previous year. She had also criticised boycott efforts against Israel and praised Britain’s disastrous Balfour Declaration, which boosted settler-colonial efforts in Palestine in the early 20th century.
Cooper also received donations from numerous figures who opposed Corbyn or would go on to join the smear campaign against him. And she has attended several events of business tycoon Gerald Ronson‘s Community Security Trust, a group which has consistently sought to smear critics of Israel.
Cooper was previously very coy about whether she would arrest war criminal Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he came to the UK. But at the same time, she has clearly promised to use the “full force of the law” against supporters of groups resisting the Israeli settler-colonial project. And she’s no newcomer to demanding the proscription of organisations that could threaten Israel’s ongoing impunity.
Meanwhile, it seems Cooper has little or nothing to say about Israel killing or injuring at least 50,000 children since 2023. But she has spoken repeatedly about Ukraine, where Russia’s assault has killed or injured 2,733 children since 2022. And she can also find the words to condemn Palestine Action as “disgraceful” for trying to stop the machinery of war that contributes to Israel’s mass murder of children.
Countless human rights and other high-profile groups have condemned her efforts to proscribe Palestine Action. And Amnesty International’s Agnes Callamard is one figure who has rightly called out her disgusting double standards:
Dear Ms. Yvette Cooper,
what is disgraceful is Israel's genocide against Palestinians in Gaza for the last 20 months;
what is disgraceful is the UK's continued support of the genocide including through weapons transfers;
what is disgraceful is starvation as a weapon of war;…— Agnes Callamard (@AgnesCallamard) June 23, 2025
A lot of lobbying has been going on behind the scenes against Palestine Action, especially since Israel’s genocide in Gaza intensified in 2023. Some of that has come from We Believe in Israel. This is “a side-project” of BICOM – “Britain’s most active pro-Israeli lobbying organisation”. And its longstanding director was awful Labour right-winger and self-proclaimed “Zionist shitlord” Luke Akehurst (who isn’t Jewish, by the way).
Ahead of its recent push for Palestine Action’s proscription, We Believe in Israel apparently received “access to classified documents“. And Cooper’s words, the Guardian noted, were “similar” to those the lobby group had used.
Palestine Action itself has called the government’s efforts “unhinged”, saying:
The real crime here is not red paint being sprayed on these war planes, but the war crimes that have been enabled with those planes because of the UK Government’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.
The government has clarified that the protest “did not affect RAF operational output”. It additionally said the target, RAF Brize Norton, already required more funding for security. This is possibly a partial result of the RAF wasting money renting planes from a hedge fund.
In its defence, Palestine Action also highlighted that Keir Starmer himself once:
rightly defended protesters who broke into an RAF base in 2003 to stop US bombers heading to Iraq, with Starmer asserting that this protest was lawful because their intention was to prevent war crimes.
But it lamented that:
He is now bowing down to the pro-Israel groups and the private arms companies who have been lobbying government to stop Palestine Action because we have successfully hit the profits of these blood-soaked companies and disrupted Israel’s war machine.
It added that the proscription attempt:
is a shocking and unacceptable escalation of the Government’s crackdown on the right to protest in our country. Future generations will look at the people who stood up [to] the UK Government’s complicity in this genocide as being on the right side history. We have a long, proud history of direct action, from the suffragettes to Nelson Mandela and others, who were called ‘terrorists’ at the time.
Finally, it called on all people who oppose Israel’s genocide to show their solidarity:
to show how unworkable this absurd, unacceptable attack on free speech is.
People showing support for the group in the streets have already faced police violence. But there is also online solidarity. And a crowdfunder has already raised enough funds for the group’s legal challenge:
In 24 hours, we smashed our fundraising target.
Thanks to all of you who were able to donate, we can fight the attempt to proscribe us in the courts.
Who needs foreign influence when you're a part of an unbreakable movement? pic.twitter.com/gkJU8ZmTS7
— Palestine Action (@Pal_action) June 25, 2025
It also seems likely that the government’s absurd crackdown, and the mass publicity it is creating, will only add to Palestine Action’s popularity.
Great work from Zoe Gardner cutting through the barrage of nonsense from Berger over PA pic.twitter.com/zmCVHhx0l0
— NJ (@NoJusticeMTG) June 24, 2025
To find out more about the group’s efforts to end British complicity in Israel’s crimes, see the film To Kill A War Machine, which is now available online.
By Ed Sykes
This post was originally published on Canary.
By Richard Larsen, RNZ News producer — 30′ with Guyon Espiner
The former head of Human Rights Watch — and son of a Holocaust survivor — says Israel’s military campaign in Gaza will likely meet the legal definition of genocide, citing large-scale killings, the targeting of civilians, and the words of senior Israeli officials.
Speaking on 30′ with Guyon Espiner, Ken Roth agreed Hamas committed “blatant war crimes” in its attack on Israel on October 7 last year, which included the abduction and murder of civilians.
But he said it was a “basic rule” that war crimes by one side do not justify war crimes by the other.
There was indisputable evidence Israel had committed war crimes in Gaza and might also be pursuing tactics that fit the international legal standard for genocide, Roth said.
30′ with Guyon Espiner Kenneth Roth Video: RNZ
“The acts are there — mass killing, destruction of life-sustaining conditions. And there are statements from senior officials that point clearly to intent,” Roth said.
He cited comments immediately after the October 7 attack by Hamas from Israel’s former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who referred to Gazans as “human animals”.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog also said “an entire nation” was responsible for the attack and the notion of “unaware, uninvolved civilians is not true,” referring to the Palestinean people. Herzog subsequently said his words were taken out of context during a case at the International Court of Justice.
The accusation of genocide is hotly contested. Israel says it is fighting a war of self-defence against Hamas after it killed 1200 people, mostly civilians. It claims it adheres to international law and does its best to protect civilians.
It blames Hamas for embedding itself in civilian areas.
But Roth believes a ruling may ultimately come from the International Court of Justice, especially if a forthcoming judgment on Myanmar sets a precedent.
“It’s very similar to what Myanmar did with the Rohingya,” he said. “Kill about 30,000 to send 730,000 fleeing. It’s not just about mass death. It’s about creating conditions where life becomes impossible.”
‘Apartheid’ alleged in Israel’s West Bank
Roth has been described as the ‘Godfather of Human Rights’, and is credited with vastly expanding the influence of the Human Rights Watch group during a 29-year tenure in charge of the organisation.
In the full interview with Guyon Espiner, Roth defended the group’s 2021 report that accused Israel of enforcing a system of apartheid in the occupied West Bank.
“This was not a historical analogy,” he said, implying it was a mistake to compare it with South Africa’s former apartheid regime.
“It was a legal analysis. We used the UN Convention against Apartheid and the Rome Statute, and laid out over 200 pages of evidence.”
He said the Israeli government was unable to offer a factual rebuttal.
“They called us biased, antisemitic — the usual. But they didn’t contest the facts.”
The ‘cheapening’ of antisemitism charges
Roth, who is Jewish and the son of a Holocaust refugee, said it was disturbing to be accused of antisemitism for criticising a government.
“There is a real rise in antisemitism around the world. But when the term is used to suppress legitimate criticism of Israel, it cheapens the concept, and that ultimately harms Jews everywhere.”
Roth said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had long opposed a two-state solution and was now pursuing a status quo that amounted to permanent subjugation of Palestinians, a situation human rights groups say is illegal.
“The only acceptable outcome is two states, living side by side. Anything else is apartheid, or worse,” Roth said.
While the international legal process around charges of genocide may take years, Roth is convinced the current actions in Gaza will not be forgotten.
“This is not just about war,” he said. “It’s about the deliberate use of starvation, displacement and mass killing to achieve political goals. And the law is very clear — that’s a crime.”
Roth’s criticism of Israel saw him initially denied a fellowship at Harvard University in 2023. The decision was widely seen as politically motivated, and was later reversed after public and academic backlash.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.