Category: israel

  • Police have arrested at least three people at a completely peaceful march supporting six anti-genocide protesters imprisoned for more than a year without trial.

    The protesters are in their fourth week of a hunger strike, demanding an end to their detention beyond the legal 180-day limit, with up to two years still to serve.

    An eyewitness told Skwawkbox that:

    The march from Pentonville Prison to the Ministry of Defence tonight was very peaceful. Unfortunately it was only peaceful until the police decided otherwise and three arrests were made at the SOAS encampment.

    An elderly lady with crutches was knocked to the ground. Only a few people managed to get over to the MOJ as some were intimidated and went home. Some went as a group to Euston Station and police followed them onto the tube. Disgusting behaviour!

    Debbie McFadyen captured on film the arrest of one man. Police refused to disclose the location where those arrested were being taken.

    Jewish Israeli anti-genocide activist Yael Kahn, frequently hounded by the police  — like many other Jewish critics of Israel — also went on hunger strike in protest.

    She gave a speech to the protesters who reached the Ministry of Justice, captured on film by Ms. McFadyen.

    The condition of the elderly lady knocked to the ground, as well as the whereabouts of those arrested, remain unclear.

    By Skwawkbox

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Police have arrested at least three people at a completely peaceful march supporting six anti-genocide protesters imprisoned for more than a year without trial.

    The protesters are in their fourth week of a hunger strike, demanding an end to their detention beyond the legal 180-day limit, with up to two years still to serve.

    An eyewitness told Skwawkbox that:

    The march from Pentonville Prison to the Ministry of Defence tonight was very peaceful. Unfortunately it was only peaceful until the police decided otherwise and three arrests were made at the SOAS encampment.

    An elderly lady with crutches was knocked to the ground. Only a few people managed to get over to the MOJ as some were intimidated and went home. Some went as a group to Euston Station and police followed them onto the tube. Disgusting behaviour!

    Debbie McFadyen captured on film the arrest of one man. Police refused to disclose the location where those arrested were being taken.

    Jewish Israeli anti-genocide activist Yael Kahn, frequently hounded by the police  — like many other Jewish critics of Israel — also went on hunger strike in protest.

    She gave a speech to the protesters who reached the Ministry of Justice, captured on film by Ms. McFadyen.

    The condition of the elderly lady knocked to the ground, as well as the whereabouts of those arrested, remain unclear.

    By Skwawkbox

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • On 23 November 2025, Israel carried out a deadly airstrike on Haret Hreik, a densely populated neighbourhood in Beirut’s southern suburb (Dahieh). The attack killed Hezbollah’s acting chief of staff, Haytham Ali Tabtabai, and five others.

    Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said that the strike injured 28 people and ravaged surrounding buildings.

    Families described scenes of panic as plumes of dust and debris suffocated streets, while neighbours rushed to rescue the injured from the rubble.

    Civilian casualties …. who cares?

    The strike represents one of the most serious violations of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire signed in November 2024. The deal requires Israel to refrain from deep strikes on civilian-populated areas. This is not an isolated incident. Israel struck Dahieh on 28 March, 1 April, 27 April, and again on 5 June 2025 — in a clear display of belligerence and disregard for civilian lives, and, lest we forget, its obligations under international law.

    Human rights organisations have condemned the pattern of Israeli attacks across Lebanon.

    Amnesty International says these repeated strikes “a clear violation of the laws of war,” highlighting the disproportionate harm inflicted on civilians. The law requires Israel to direct its operations strictly against military objectives — otherwise known as the principle of distinction — no longer worth the paper it’s written on.

    The civilian impact is severe.

    Over the past 12-months, families in Dahieh have been living under constant fear, not knowing when the next indiscriminate bombings will cost them their lives. The 23 November strike ravaged homes, schools, and medical facilities. Hospitals reported being overwhelmed after the 23 November strike caused countless civilian casualties, and left many children in critical condition.

    These attacks, as psychologists warn, deepen the cycle of trauma that has gripped Lebanon since Israel invaded in 1982.

    Israel’s friends in crime

    These attacks are enabled by Israel’s powerful allies. By supplying the weaponry, these friends of Israel, namely America, illustrate their wanton disregard towards disproportionate harm caused to civilians. And so the senseless violence continues.

    Human Rights Watch documented instances in which US-made JDAM guidance kits were used by Israel to attack aid workers. Most precision-guided munitions originate from US and European shipments. These military alliances and the steady flow of arms to Israel, raise serious questions about accountability under international arms-transfer laws. America’s complicity is particularly striking since it brokered the very ceasefire Israel continues to violate.

    By supplying weapons, fighter jets, drones, and political support, civilian areas continue unabated. These governments — Israel’s friends in crime — facilitate violations and undermine their stated commitment to human life. This very point has been a rallying call for anti-genocide protesters across Europe, the US, and Australia.

    Israeli violations of the ceasefire, brokered after a 66-day full-scale war in November 2024, have become routine — if the genocide in Gaza wasn’t enough to quench Israel’s thirst for blood.

    Information International recorded over 2,950 violations in Lebanon, 140 deaths, and 400 injuries.

    Lebanon has upheld its end of the deal, while Israel remains emboldened in its belligerence.

    Lebanon’s government: too weak to act

    The Lebanese government, headed by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, has responded tepidly. While condemning the strikes as a “flagrant violation” of UNSC resolution 1701, Salam is not offering concrete diplomatic or legal solutions. Critics argue that his muted response reflects political fragmentation in the country. Even if true, this inertia leaves civilians without a strong national voice amid escalating attacks.

    Salam’s reluctance to confront Israel or mobilize international pressure deepens public frustration and reinforces a long-standing perception, especially among southerners and residents of Dahieh, that the government prioritizes abiding by U.S. directives over defending Lebanese sovereignty.

    Observers argue that the government’s hands are tied. Lebanon is beset by its own economic crisis, factionalism, and the absence of a conventional military. A forceful response, when measured against these facts, is a distant possibility. So much for the veneration of sovereignty.

    Against this backdrop, the question arises: is the ceasefire merely a facade, enabling Israel to strike civilian areas with near total impunity? As backers look the other way, civilians, tragically, pay the price. Trigger-happy Israel isn’t punishing the government or Hezbollah, as it claims, it’s decimating Lebanon’s southern community.

    As the conflict continues, residents of Dahieh face a stark reality.

    The people of Dahieh endure the consequences while the international community turns its back. The message is clear: unless decisive action enforces the law, civilian suffering will continue, and the ceasefire’s promise rings empty.

    Featured image via Mohamed Kleit

    By Mohamad Kleit

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • In a conversation with Jeffrey Sachs, Piers Morgan got a brutally honest response on the consequences Russia will face for invading Ukraine:

    Morgan wasn’t wrong to speak out against Russia’s actions. However, his criticism masks the double standards of the Western establishment, which conveniently glosses over its own imperial misadventures.

    The grim truth

    Morgan was speaking to the American economist and analyst Sachs when he asked:

    What happens to a country like Russia, which by common consent has committed myriad war crimes in the last three years?

    It’s targeted and killed civilians. I think that’s inarguable. It’s kidnapped a reported 20,000 Ukrainian children. There was the massacre at places like Bucha. I’ve been there. Absolutely horrific what went on down there. There have been the sexual assaults and rapes of Ukrainian women and so on. So it seems inarguable. There’s been a number of war crimes committed.

    Is it fair and just that at the end of this, assuming you’re right and this is the beginning of the end of this, that Russia emerges unpunished for any of this?

    It’s not an unfair question.

    The people who order and commit these inhumanities should be held accountable, but this seldom happens, as Sachs explained:

    Well, if the United States were punished for all its war crimes, the world would be a better place. And if all countries were punished for their war crimes; if Israel was punished for its genocide before our eyes; if the United States was punished for overthrowing so many regimes and causing so many wars; if the United States were punished for the Iraq war; if the United States were punished for the coup in Iraq, Maidan in February 2014, I’d agree with you.

    It would be great if governments were accountable. But what we like to do is say the other side is the wrong one and not to acknowledge our own sins.

    For this, Jesus had it right. Why do you always point to the moat in the other eye when you have the plank or the beam in your own eye? To my mind, this is the basic point.

    I would love to follow your line, Piers. I agree with it. We should have accountability for all the crimes that are committed. And the United States’ list is so long.

    I have been tracking it for more than 40 years professionally. It’s just one war crime after another, including complicity in a genocide in Gaza during the last two years.

    War crimes

    After WWII, it was possible to hold the Nazis accountable. Germany was completely defeated — ignoring the Nazis who went to work for the Americans, obviously.

    Nations like America, Russia, Israel, and the UK, have not been defeated. Therefore, it’s not possible to hold foreign politicians accountable in the same way.

    Of course, this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t push for accountability or demand an international response to war criminals. Our politics would be in a much better state if Blair and New Labour had been punished for invading Iraq on unfounded claims. And it goes without saying, that everyone should support the International Criminal Court’s attempts to hold Israel responsible for the genocide.

    The problem is that the mechanisms for justice and accountability are limited to waging war — which rarely works out … or sanctions — both of which make things worse.

    Morgan isn’t wrong about Russia’s crimes. The issue is that he’s selectively correct. You won’t hear mainstream journalists like him arguing that Western nations should face accountability, and that’s a massive problem.

    Featured image via Piers Morgan Uncensored

    By Willem Moore

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Israel’s genocide has destroyed nearly 90 percent of Gaza’s economy, causing the worst economic collapse ever recorded, according to the UN. In 2024 alone, Israel caused Gaza’s GDP to decline by 83 percent, according to data reported Tuesday by the UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) agency. Now, Gaza’s economy stands at just 13 percent of its 2022 levels, UN experts say.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Having witnessed relentless horrors over two years of genocidal war in Gaza, former Israeli and Palestinian combatants are coming together in nonviolent co-resistance and shared struggle. In this episode of the Marc Steiner Show, Palestinian educator and healer Nimala Karoufeh and former Israeli soldier Noa Harrell of Combatants for Peace explain how their binational movement has held together since Oct. 7, 2023, and what real peace-building from the ground up would require.

    Guests:

    • Noa Harrell joined Combatants for Peace in 2016 and directly witnessed the power of nonviolent resistance to Israel’s occupation in the West Bank. This life-changing experience led her to participate in binational activities across Israel and Palestine, including dialogues, educational programs, demonstrations, protective presence, joint grief ceremonies, and rehabilitation of demolished West Bank communities. In October 2023, shortly after the Hamas attacks on Israel, Harrell was elected Israeli General Coordinator of Combatants for Peace, coordinating actions between Israeli and Palestinian members, supervising programs, and serving as Israeli chair.
    • Nimala Karoufeh is a Palestinian Christian from Beit Jala, now living in Jerusalem. She holds a master’s degree in European Studies from the University of Düsseldorf and a bachelor’s in Social Work and Psychology from Bethlehem University. For more than 15 years, she has led transformative programs with local and international NGOs focused on women’s and youth empowerment, leadership, community development, and peacebuilding. Karoufeh joined Combatants for Peace in 2022 as educational expert and director of the Palestinian Freedom School Program, where she empowers young Palestinians through nonviolent education and activism.

    Credits:

    • Producer: Rosette Sewali
    • Studio Production: Cameron Granadino
    • Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank
    Transcript

    The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. An updated version will be made available as soon as possible.

    Marc Steiner:
    Welcome to the Marc Steiner Show here on The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. It’s great to have you all with us today. We’re talking with two women who are activists in Combatants for Peace. It’s an organization of Israelis and Palestinians who left the battlefield, who work for peace to find a way for Palestinians and Israelis to live together in that place. They believe in nonviolence as a tactic, as a way of life. There are binational movement, resisting oppression. They believe in collective liberation and a world of peace built out of conflict. There are brave warriors for peace and a tour in the United States to tell their story and what it means to resist despair and separation, and instead choose repair and solidarity. Our guests today are Nimala Karoufeh. She’s a Palestinian Christian from Jerusalem and Beit Jala. She’s a social worker and a Palestinian healer and educator.
    And Noa Harrell is a former Israeli soldier and now Israeli coordinator for Combatants for Peace. And shortly after Hamas attacked the Israeli settlements, she worked to keep dialogue alive during the most difficult times. Both have lived through war and rising violence, and now Bo stand at the forefront of a joint movement for nonviolent co resistance and co-creation. So Namal and Noah Harrell, welcome. It’s good to have you both. I appreciate you taking the time. I’d like to start by really describing for people what Combatants for Peace is all about, how it started, who you are, because I think most people in America don’t know about it. They know about the Palestinian Israeli conflict and the pain and the war, but not about people who’ve been through it and come together to create a movement for peace. And so I really would like to explore that with the two of you first and Nimala, lemme just start with you and then Noa, jump in. Please give us a little sense of the history of Combatants for Peace and how you got there.

    Nimala Karoufeh:
    Yeah, actually I would give this question for Noa.

    Marc Steiner:
    That’s fine.

    Noa Harrell:
    Okay. So Combatants for Peace is a movement that was started in 2006, and it did obviously arise from the Israeli and Palestinian conflict. And it was started by two groups of Israelis and Palestinians. The Israelis and the Palestinians were former combatants who were involved in the cycle of violence, and if they had met each other in different circumstances than the ones that they did eventually they may have killed each other. So it’s very lucky that they met when they decided to speak to each other and not point their guns at each other. So this happened in 2006. These groups of mainly men met together and started to look into the possibility of having a dialogue together. And this evolved into a movement that is now reaching its 20th year. We’ve done a lot of evolution over these years. It started by dialogues, by protests, by freedom marches by the two groups, and also speaking abroad and telling people about the movement, which is committed to co resistance by nonviolent means to the Israeli occupation in the West Bank.
    And in Gaza we’re mainly involved in activities in the West Bank, but obviously in the past two years we’ve been involved around things in Gaza as well. So over the years, more and more women joined the movement. So you don’t have to be a combatant or a mixed combatant to join the movement. Anyone can join if you align with our nonviolent actions and communication. And we have educational programs which mnemonic can tell you about. We have protests together, we have joint activities like rebuilding places that have been demolished by the army or by the settlers in the West Bank. And we have two main events annually. One that was started in the beginning in 2006, which is the joint Israeli and Palestinian Memorial service, which I think many people are aware of because since COVID, we started broadcasting it because it was impossible to bring people together in masses for the ceremony. It’s a ceremony that’s held on the same night that the Israeli memorial services are held every year.
    But as opposed to the regular Israeli services, it’s a ceremony that is joined for Israelis and Palestinians grieving together their losses over the years in violent cycles. And it’s actually the only one that openly brings hope to the people participating in it. So this has been going on for almost 20 years and for the past five years we’ve had this event for the Nakba ceremony, which involves the happenings of the Nakba in 1948 and commemorating the people who lost their lives, their families, their houses, their homes in 1948 and grieving together about these losses. Our movement obviously had to deal with some changes in the past two years when the October 7th
    Attack by Hamas broke out and the immediate retaliation of the Israelis. And we found ourselves dealing with internal conflicts as well because on the first day of the attack of October 7th, Israelis were receiving very different news from the Palestinians and we were living in completely different universes and we were receiving certain news and the Palestinians were receiving completely different news and we had to start talking together to get our information aligned and grounded. And it was very difficult in the beginning because we were all grieving, we were all very angry, we were frustrated, we were they spared and shocked and it took time for us to gather our feelings together, starting to share them. And actually among many Israeli and Palestinian movements that were active before they 7th of October, we are among the very, very few that held together since then for the past two years.

    Marc Steiner:
    So I want to pick up on the last point here. Given the devastation taking place in Gaza, how do people respond to you in this movement in the Palestinian world as well, given all that’s gone on? I mean I think this is, the Gaza Award has kind of changed things in a way that’s very dramatic, probably more dramatic than I’ve seen in all the years I’ve been involved since the sixties. So could you talk a bit about that?

    Nimala Karoufeh:
    Yeah, I can say that in the first, at least few months, it was hard for us to work outside of the organization because what Noah just said, she described the situation that period of time
    And we needed to work with the team members and then with the inside the organization and then the activists, the members of Competence for Peace, we call it the first circle of activists. So this is what we focused at least the first three, four months after the 7th of October. And also some of them, they left the organization Palestinians and Israelis. And we had that time like a decision, people who were recommitted or committed back to the violence, they are not welcome in the organization. So it took us time to how to say, hold ourselves speaking just on the feelings, how do we feel? What is it for you? And then after that we collect our strength and we start to do something on the ground. And I do remember that in February we did February, 2024, we did the first joint demonstration, which took place in junction between Jericho and Jerusalem. And we had a big number of mainly Israelis activists who joined. That was in the beginning, but it was not easy to reconnect again between each other as a team first.

    Marc Steiner:
    That’s really interesting because the fact that what you both described just now of the tensions inside combatants for peace in the peace movement itself on both sides kind of lends itself to the reality of how horrendous this war is and how deeply personal it’s become on both the Palestinian side and the Israeli side. And having known people in the Israeli Peace movement and Palestinians for decades. And my conversations, I find this may be the most difficult period that people have gone through emotionally.

    Nimala Karoufeh:
    Yes.

    Marc Steiner:
    How do you hold that together? Lemme take that back. How do you see the possibility of peace of people living together coming out of this, given the depths this has sunk to at this moment? How do you see that happening?

    Nimala Karoufeh:
    Yeah, I just want to say something that we as organization, we call it the genocide war, like we call it genocide, not only war. And this is something I just want to clarify.

    Speaker 4:
    It’s important.

    Nimala Karoufeh:
    Yes. And it was the statement that we released few months ago after the report of actually my way. This is how I see it personally. And this is also one of the pillars that competence for peace working on is through education. Because if you come today to the street and ask people what is peace? They told you nothing. Peace is nothing. What is peace really? Are we working on peace just by trend or it is like the value that we both need, not only Israel, it is not only Palestinian, but we all need, and not only for Palestinian Israel, but also generally in the Middle East. So one way that I’m working on, and it’s a main program in combatants for peace, is education. Education. It’s building peace. But before that, there are some values that we need to be there to be understood, to be activated in our communities like justice for odds, freedom, liberation, freedom of movement, raise the awareness about each other, different narratives and identities. So this is important to create a new understanding with a new consciousness about each other. And before that, before we reaching, that we need to have a spaces to heal
    And to bring our grief, our sadness, our loss, because we lost thousands of people there back home. So it’s not just easy to come and sit and yell, let’s have peace. Plus we want brave leaders that they are willing to walk this path of peace, acknowledging the rights of each other, acknowledging the rights to exist in this land for all of us, not only for one group of people. So I don’t know the peace concept or a word to be honest. It’s not relevant. So let’s talk about justice, the injustice and justice,

    Speaker 4:
    Noah.

    Noa Harrell:
    So I would like to answer your question in two parts. The first part being where are we coming from? And the second part being where are we headed? So the place that we’re coming from, our starting point has been the personal connections that we have with each other. The fact that we are not only partners, but we’re friends that we meet, that we physically do things together and we’re not theoretical to each other. And the fact that over the years we have been able to come as close to equality as is possible within the power dynamics between Israelis and Palestinians. We’re making decisions together, we’re making the plans together, and none of us is dictating to the other side what to do, which was very helpful in overcoming this crisis. Also take into account the fact that we decided when we started speaking to each other after October 7th, we made it a rule to listen to each other when the other was talking, not to judge, to understand, to accept for a fact that what the other was saying is really how they felt.
    And it’s not any type of manipulation or trying to trick the other. And so it took a while, but we were able to come together and stay together as a movement. And when you ask how we as a movement, see how is peace building possible in this horrible time of polarization and pain and grief, I must say that each community needs to feel that their needs are being met in the process of peace building, in the process of any political resolution so that they have something to look for, that they have a future to look forward to. If you ask the Palestinians, it would be, we need freedom, we need recognition, we need dignity. And if you ask the Israelis, it would be, we need security. We need to know that we’re not going to be attacked. We need to know that we are safe. And obviously that’s just not just military security, but also security in all aspects of life. So that that’s a starting point for peace building. I think that many Israelis think of peace as rainbows and birds and singing and things like that that are No, I’m serious.

    Marc Steiner:
    Funny, serious. I know you’re serious. I know

    Noa Harrell:
    You’re serious. And they don’t realize that peace is a state where people are able to live next to each other without killing each other. Let’s start by that.

    Marc Steiner:
    So I just very quickly like to know for the two of you how you came to this place where you are now. I mean, I know from Palestinians I’ve been interviewing for the last 40 years or whatever, that’s been my own family in Israel. I’m Jewish, my family in Israel that the divide is very deep. So you came as an organization that is probably not popular with many people, especially on the Israeli side, maybe on both sides. So I’d like to know more about your journey getting to this place where you are, how you came to this place. Do you want to start?

    Nimala Karoufeh:
    Yeah. I was born to a Christian Palestinian family. And our home, like my family even it’s normal Palestinian open family. I grew up in Beja all my life. And during my childhood it was normal to see Jewish Israelis in the area of Bethlehem. And I’m talking about the eighties I can say.
    And that time, all the land from the river refer to the sea, but especially the West Bank was under the Israeli military administration. So it was normal to see Israelis, Jewish civilians walking around, buying some stuff from Beja Bethlehem. I was familiar with the language, like some people they used to speak, even members of my family, they were speaking some Hebrews. So I was really familiar with the language and although when I really opened my eyes, it was the first Intifada, I knew that there is something wrong here, that there is something not normal. And there were like civilians, people coming and buy some stuff. And then there were the army soldiers in the Jeeps throwing gas bombs everywhere. So I knew that there is something, but I was not aware, what is it? My first encounter with the occupation system, this racism system was when I become 16 and I didn’t get my ID card.
    My mom from Jerusalem, my father from the West Bank, from Bethlehem. And the year that I was born, they registered me with my mother identity, which is Jerusalem, my identity. And the year after they changed that law, so the baby related to the father, especially for Palestinians. And we never felt it until after agreement. And after that I become 16 and then I have to move with my mom to Jerusalem and to keep our house in Beja for my father and my siblings. And in the Israeli system, as I said, based on racism, they categorize the Palestinian in four categories. The first category, which is me, which is Jerusalem, Palestinians who have Jerusalem, my ID based on the 67 borders who have Jerusalem, my id, Israeli travel document, but not citizenship. They don’t have Israeli citizenship and they are not allowed to vote for the kines.
    This is the first category. The second category, Palestinians of 48 who are Palestinians living and remain in their land in the 48, which is after Danah, the catastrophe that happened to the Palestinian 48 who remain there, they have Israeli passport, Israeli id, and they are allowed to vote for the ED and participate. And the third category are the Palestinians in the West Bank who are living in the West Bank having Palestinian id, Palestinian passport, but they are not allowed to go to Israel or Jerusalem unless if they have permission and who are lost or lost most of their land in the favor of illegal settlement and settlers in the West Bank. And today we are facing this issue dramatically very difficult, very violent way, and very violent actions from the settlers and the last category who are Palestinians from Gaza, Palestinian, having Palestinian id, Palestinian passport.
    But they are not allowed to go out of Gaza except if they have permission. I personally never been to Gaza. I was not allowed to be in Gaza unless if I have permission and it should be very go through security, and if I’m working with the international organization, I might go, but I’m not allowed to go to Gaza and they are not allowed to go out Gaza. So those are the four categories of the Palestinians under this occupation system. When I become to this position, or related to your question, how I become to this position coming from this circumstances, from this separation family, and we are one family I was introduced to in 2005 to organization called Holy and Trust, where I took a nonviolent resistance training. And that was for me, the transformative moment in my life. To see another way to end my suffer first and to use other tools that to spread out my personal suffering and struggle to be as one family, as Palestinian family, normal Palestinian family. That was the moment that I said, this is my path. This is who I am, this is my values. And since then I’m completely committed for in this nonviolent path
    In the land.

    Marc Steiner:
    That’s a journey.

    Nimala Karoufeh:
    It was a journey.

    Marc Steiner:
    It’s a journey.

    Nimala Karoufeh:
    It was a journey because when I was still young and I was believing in violence, I was thinking that violence is the way. I was also anger of this situation. And immediately when I become 16, also 17, the second father started and it was very armed and violent one. So all that was very, very heavy to me as a young, young person.

    Marc Steiner:
    And Noah,

    Noa Harrell:
    Yes, my story is really different from this obviously,

    Marc Steiner:
    I’m sure. Yeah,

    Noa Harrell:
    Yeah. I come from a family of peace activists actually. But as I was growing up, I wasn’t a peace activist myself. I consider myself to have been a very average Israeli. I went through high school and then I went into the military, but I wasn’t involved in any direct combat or direct violence in the military. I was a sail instructor in the Navy and

    Marc Steiner:
    A singing instructor

    Noa Harrell:
    Sailing,

    Marc Steiner:
    I thought you said singing, sailing, sailing, sailing, right. Got you. Yeah,

    Noa Harrell:
    Sailing instructor for Naval Cadets. So it just struck me yesterday that we were doing our sailing experiences from along the coast of Israel. We actually ended it in Gaza. So Nimal, I have been in Gaza many, many years ago, but when we went there, we didn’t meet any Palestinians. There were no people there on the beach where we landed. So Palestinians were sort of theoretical to me. They were there, I knew they were there, but I had no contact with them. And actually until I became an activist in the Ants for Peace, I’d never met Palestinians face to face.
    So it was all like a theoretical thing. I knew there was a problem, I knew that it had to be solved, but it didn’t touch me personally. And one day in 2016, my aunt called me up and she said, we’re in Tel Aviv and we’re going to see this movie. How would you like to join us? So I went in and we saw the movie, and the movie is called Disturbing the Piece by Steve Epcon. It was the first movie Full feature, done on for peace in 2016. And if anybody has not seen it, I really urge you to look it up. And for me it was a jaw dropping experience. I came out of that film transformed.

    Marc Steiner:
    How old were you?

    Noa Harrell:
    It was like, this was nine years ago.

    Marc Steiner:
    Okay,

    Noa Harrell:
    I’m not going to tell you my age.

    Marc Steiner:
    Fine, that’s fine. That’s fine. That’s fine. That’s fine.

    Noa Harrell:
    And so I came out of that film Transformed, and I said, where do I sign up Israelis who can talk to Palestinians? Palestinians who are willing to talk to Israelis? I’m in, get me in. So I became an activist and I wasn’t fully committed and dedicated. I mean, I did participate in the activities whenever I could, but I had another transformation just over two years ago because as our former general Israeli coordinator was stepping down from his position, I was offered to submit my application to be general Israeli coordinator. And of course I said, no, I’m too busy. I’m a vet by profession. I’m too busy being a vet. I’m not going to do that.

    Marc Steiner:
    By a vet you mean a veterinarian?

    Noa Harrell:
    Yes.

    Marc Steiner:
    Okay. Yeah, I was just checking. Yeah, right, right, right.

    Noa Harrell:
    And this was in September, 2023. And then I thought it over it. I said, well, maybe it’s a chance to be more active and make some more impact. And on September 29th, I said to the committee, okay, I’ll submit my application. And October 4th, 2023, they said, okay, you’re in. You’ve been elected. And that was October 4th. So these past two years have been really turmoil. They’ve been really significant for me and personally, it has given me a chance to be proactive, to have agency in doing things for my country and to do things for both people in the land. And I’m really grateful for that. So now as I’m stepping down, and I will remain active in Commands for Peace of course, and I’ll follow up on some projects that I’ve started during these two years, but I’m, I’m fully committed to the process.

    Marc Steiner:
    So I’m curious all that you’ve been through and with this war in Gaza, how you see it in the long term, how you see peace evolving? I tell you a story. In 1968, I went to Cuba and I came home with this poster that I still have. And the poster is a map of all of the holy land with a Palestinian flag on one side and an Israeli flag on the other side. And down over the map it says one state, two people, three faiths. Now that may never happen, but how do you see peace evolving given what’s happening now and the intensity of what’s going on now, where your hope come from out of the despair, that peace can actually happen and Israelis and Palestinians can live together?

    Noa Harrell:
    There are several angles that you can look at it from. The first one for us is there are 14 million people living between the river and the sea. No one is going anywhere. We need to stop killing each other. There is another way other than war. We have to have a political resolution and a political program for this to be able to come true. Now, there are several programs on the table, whether it is a one state solution, two state solution, Confederation Federation, I mean you name it, there’s more than one

    Speaker 4:
    Option.

    Noa Harrell:
    That’s one thing. The other thing is the process needs to be not only top down, but bottom up for both societies to be able to build some trust in each other. And now with the trust, there’s a huge gap between the two societies. It’s going to be very, very, very difficult to bridge. But that’s one thing that needs to be done, is some kind of bridging process to build any kind of basic trust between the people. I mean, it’s been done in Northern Ireland, it’s been done in Yugoslavia, it’s been done in places. So we need to learn from these people how they did it and apply it to our region. So that’s one thing that needs to be done.

    Marc Steiner:
    What are your thoughts?

    Nimala Karoufeh:
    First, I don’t promise you that we will bring peace, but we are working to build peace in this land. And I just want to tell you a story

    Speaker 4:
    Of

    Nimala Karoufeh:
    My grandfather. When I was a child, also my mom, memories that she shared recently with us, my grandfather from my mother’s side, he was living in Jerusalem, from Jerusalem. And he was telling me once that he used to have a breakfast in Jerusalem, lunch in Amman, Jordan, and dinner in Lebanon, Beirut, Lebanon. And he lived those moments. He lived what he told me, my mom as well, she have memories that she was in Lebanon with their car. And this vision is there for me. And I want to live this vision. I want to really have my own car driving from Jerusalem to Aman and then Beirut, maybe the mosque later, Iraq. I don’t know. But this is a dream that I want to live it. So this is one thing, but until we reach there, we need to have a lot of things. There is a lot of effort that need to be done there.
    So as you said, it’s peace building. It need effort and energy to do that. And for me, education is one way to acknowledge each other life. That our life is matter. To learn how to live next to each other as neighbors, something else that really to be human for me, acknowledgement and responsibility is something so important. And I saw that a model is giving results, especially in the case of Germany and the second World War. And something so important here in the land is we need to stop this ideologist and extreme right wing to spread out and expand because we will never end it. And to stop this religious thoughts about each other, especially when it comes like we are the chosen people. We are the right people. This land for us, this land for us. This will not reach us to anywhere because if God promised that so God can solve it.
    So really to put this conflict, not a religious conflict, because that will, if it’s a religious conflict, only God can solve it. And we will lose our agency to solve it and to think as a human being that we can solve it. And one last thing, which is that I also see it needed, and especially the last years, we saw it vivid to have brave leaders to have a decision not only locally, but also internationally, to see sanctions on the settler’s, violence to see supporting the right wing, especially in Israel, to have also global decision or support to relieve, to solve this conflict. So there is a lot of things that we all need to do. It’s all our responsibility, not only Palestinian, not only Israelis, but globally.

    Marc Steiner:
    Those are important things. You’ve both said, just watching what both of you and your people around you are going through. First, it makes me think about my time many years back as a civil rights worker in Mississippi, where every day we thought we might die, where it was just intense to end segregation. So I am curious how you all live through the despair and find the hope that peace, the place you were just talking about can come to and how you both do that. And how do you think we there given the moment that we face right now? I mean, I think that what you’re doing, what you both are doing is really incredibly brave

    Noa Harrell:
    For me. Once you have seen that there is another way, you can’t unsee it. So there’s just one path that I can see possible for people to stop killing each other. And that’s the only path I can walk right now. And I do despair and I do have these days when I catch my head and my hands and I say, it’s not going to work. And I’m not even sure that this, I will see the fruit of our efforts within my lifetime, but I am committed to it also because I care for my children’s future and I care for every child’s future in this area. So I have to keep working at it. It’s like I’m committed to it. I can’t see any other way to go about life. And when I get tired, I try to take care to do other things so they can pick me up like sports, seeing my family, seeing friends, doing things that remind me that there is a normal life somewhere. And then I go back to activities.

    Marc Steiner:
    I understand that completely. Yes. Define the normality and the madness so you don’t lose your mind.

    Noa Harrell:
    And we actually don’t really know how to be normal. Israelis have never lived in a state where we’re not feeling endangered, we’re not feeling attacked or at risk. So we’re going to have to learn to be normal. Which is, I mean, maybe you think it’s a given, maybe you think it’s trivial, but it’s not.

    Marc Steiner:
    No,

    Noa Harrell:
    It It’s like changing a whole state of mind.

    Marc Steiner:
    Go ahead, please.

    Nimala Karoufeh:
    Yeah. I have a dream to have a better future and I don’t want other generation to suffer like I did. I have been witnessing all the war that happened to Gaza and the genocide, the first father in Father. So it’s enough. I want to be a normal human being. Having a dream for a better future and working with youth, it always give me hope to continue what I am doing today because it is important. It is important not only for me, but for all the people in the land to create really different consciousness. Like we are sharing the same land, the same environment, the same water, the same sources. So why we cannot share the same future?

    Marc Steiner:
    I really do appreciate the time you’ve taken that. And I know that in these struggles it’s very difficult at times, really difficult, especially with the two of you are experiencing every day. Lemme say this, just one question. Do you see your movement growing among Israelis and Palestinians? Do you see the movement for peace and bringing something together, actually growing and building? How do you see the effect of your work and on the people of Israel and Palestine?

    Nimala Karoufeh:
    I think, yeah, I will say that I think I will see it in the near future. It’ll grow all those who are working in core resistance. I see this movement is growing because we don’t have other option because what we saw in Gaza, this scenario, the genocide, it might be in the West Bank and we need to prevent that. So we need each other today more than any time before. This is something that I see it’ll happen.

    Noa Harrell:
    Part of the goal of our visit to the US this week is for us to raise awareness within the communities that we’re meeting. So growing the movement can also mean people supporting us from outside, even if they don’t join the movement itself, which is really important to us for people to carry the message. And also there are peace building organizations in Israel and peace building organizations in Palestine. And part of our growth means also collaborating more and more with the other movements which are doing the same thing. That’s part of our growth as well.

    Marc Steiner:
    I think it’s really important, the idea here, what you all have created in combatants for Peace coming together to really try to build a different future. And I think people need to know more about that. And people don’t know about that enough. We see the violence, we see the killing, we see the destruction of Gaza, we see what happened with the kidnapping of Israelis, but we don’t see this enough that there are people combatants with peace, people coming together from both sides saying, enough we’re going to build a place for peace. I think that’s really critical. Do you have a final thought for folks across the country and across the world that are listening right now about what you want to leave them with?

    Noa Harrell:
    I would like to, oh, we both have, go ahead. Yes, go ahead Noah. Okay. I would like for people to bear in mind this one message that please do not stand with Israel and do not stand with Palestine. Please stand with all of us. Please stand with peace. And remember that if you stand with just one side, you’re sabotaging the peace process. We need people to support all of us together. Please do that and please share the message.

    Nimala Karoufeh:
    Yeah, I like that. And I just would like to end with the cause of all pain and suffering is ignorance. So I encourage you to go out from this comfortable zone of you and open your eyes, educate yourself, do your own homework and research and find us, find this model that we are holding, not only for us, but for all the world. So this is what, this is my message.

    Marc Steiner:
    Well, Al and Noah, I want to thank you so much for being here today. And also thank you for the work you’re doing and the bravery you’re showing. Bystanding up for peace in the middle of war is not easy, especially when you’re in the war. And so I want to thank you both for the courage that you show and the work you’re doing. And we will connect to Combatants for Peace, let people know how to be in touch, and we will continue our dialogue together. We have to

    Noa Harrell:
    Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for having us here.

    Marc Steiner:
    Thank you. Thank you.
    I want to once again thank our guests and Noah Harrell for joining us today. Their full bios and stories are attached to us online as well as how to find more about Combatants for Peace. And thanks to Cameron Grino for running the program today. Audio editor Seman Frank for working his magic producer. So for all her work and research that makes our program sound good and the titles Keller Avara for making it all Work behind the scenes. And everyone here through our news, we’re making this show possible. Please let me know what you thought about, what you heard today, what you’d like us to cover. Just write to me at m ss@therealnews.com and I promise I’ll get right back to you. Once again, thank you to Nafe and Noah Harrell for the brave and important work they’re doing and for joining us today. And we’re link here to Combatants for Peace. So for the crew here at The Real News, I’m Mark Steiner. Stay involved, keep listening and take care.

    This post was originally published on The Real News Network.

  • Every week 1,000 tons of military aid for Israel passes through a New Jersey warehouse. That’s according to a report by Progressive International and the Palestinian Youth Movement.

    They say that the facility processes vast amounts of cargo before they are shipped to the genocidal settler state. As the report notes:

    The vast majority of all U.S. military sea cargo sold to the Israeli Ministry of Defense (IMOD) passes through a single warehouse in Jersey City, NJ. Located at 1A Colony Road and owned by Interglobal Forwarding Services (IFS), this facility handles over 1,000 tons of IDF-bound military cargo every week.

    The sheer volume of consignments reaching the occupying Israeli government is in itself startling, as the report alludes:

    According to public bill of lading data, everything that enters and exits this warehouse is bound for the Israeli Military. IFS has handled at least 878 tons of sea cargo per week in 2025, as well as handling an estimated 263-525 tons per week of air cargo.

    Describing the purpose it serves, the report likens the facility to “an overseas logistics department” supporting the Israeli Ministry of Defense, and coordinating with the U.S. military to transport substantial ammunition.

    But that’s not all.

    Deadly cargo passes through Tangiers

    Using public record research, the report identifies clear shipping patterns and even uncovers the nature of the consignments. It states that:

    On weekly Maersk vessels, heavy cargo, like steel armored plates, boots, helmets, Merkava tank parts, and armored and unarmored cars, travel from the IFS warehouse to Port Newark–Elizabeth Marine Terminal.

    Once there, the equipment is loaded onto a Maersk vessel, transported to Tangier, Morocco, then transferred to another Maersk vessel. The final pitstop is the Israeli Port of Haifa.

    The report carefully notes that the facility does not “handle” all military air cargo destined for Israel. Still, the evidence unequivocally shows that “it handles a significant share”.

    A former employee at the facility said:

    The warehouse handled “5–10 pallets of air cargo a day” in 2015 for IMOD. Assuming the pallets are loaded to max capacity, this comes out to 263 to 525 tons per week.

    Destructive duo

    The State Department reaffirmed its commitment to supporting Israel in July — and presents this as a badge of honour.

    Commenting on the special relationship between the two, the report reminds readers that

    Since its founding in 1948, the United States has provided Israel with over $130 billion in bilateral assistance focused on addressing new and complex security threats, bridging Israel’s capability gaps through security assistance and cooperation, increasing interoperability through joint exercises, and helping Israel maintain its Qualitative Military Edge (QME).

    Since Israel’s genocide in Gaza began in 20203, the US had given Israel over $21bn in war aid. And Israel has no intention of letting go of Uncle Sam’s hand. A further 20-year deal for military support is currently under negotiation.

    At the time, the Times of Israel said:

    Israel proposed a 20-year deal that would end on the country’s centennial in 2048.

    US support for Israel is no secret. Yet now we can begin to understand the scale of aid being placed in the hands of a pariah state hellbent on the destruction of a people. If one day the architects of the slaughter are held accountable, it must include those who enabled mountains of arms to shipped into Israel.

    Featured image via Progressive International 

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Britain is a founding member of the United Nations and pledged to uphold international law and ensure UN resolutions are implemented – many of which (in relation to Israel-Palestine) have been waiting decades to be actioned. So why did Britain vote for Trump’s Gaza plan at the UN Security Council meeting when it was clearly not aligned with international or humanitarian law and the UN’s team of experts had already listed 15 serious objections to it? And why didn’t you, the Opposition, hold our Government to account over this? Warnings issued in good time by the experts included the following:

    •   Any peace plan must respect the ground rules of international law. The future of Palestine must be in the hands of the Palestinian people, not imposed under duress by outsiders.
    •   The ICJ has ruled that fulfilling the right of self-determination cannot be conditional on negotiations
    •   Who governs is a matter for the Palestinians only, without foreign interference.
    •   The ICJ has been crystal clear: Conditions cannot be placed on the Palestinian right of self-determination. The Israeli occupation must end immediately, totally and unconditionally, with due reparation made to the Palestinians.
    •   The United Nations – not Israel or the US – has been identified by the ICJ as the legitimate authority to oversee the end of the occupation and the transition towards a political solution in which the Palestinians’ right of self-determination is fully realised.
    •   The Trump plan does not guarantee the Palestinian right of self-determination as international law requires; and vague pre-conditions put Palestine’s future at the mercy of decisions by outsiders, not in the hands of the Palestinians themselves as international law commands.
    •   The “temporary transitional government” is not representative of Palestinians and even excludes the Palestinian Authority, which further violates self-determination and lacks legitimacy.

    Ignorance was no excuse. So can anyone explain why the UN community allowed a ‘peace’ resolution which so obviously violates international and humanitarian law, and betrays the Palestinians (whose land this is), to come before their most senior and influential committee in the first place – especially after the UN’s own experts had condemned it?

    Perhaps the answer lies in a new UN report, ‘Situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967’ requested by the Human Rights Council. This concludes that “the ongoing genocide in Gaza is a collective crime, sustained by the complicity of influential Third States” and is “facilitated through Third States’ direct support, material aid, diplomatic protection and, in some cases, active participation”?

    The worst of these Third State facilitators of course is the US. But are you not ashamed that the UK has also played a key role in military collaboration with Israel? From its bases in Cyprus, the UK has enabled a crucial US supply line to Tel Aviv and flown over 600 surveillance missions over Gaza throughout the genocide, sharing intelligence with Israel. Flight numbers and durations, often coinciding with major Israeli operations, suggest detailed knowledge and co-operation in the destruction of Gaza, extending beyond “hostage rescue”. Furthermore, Israeli soldiers are trained at the UK Royal College of Defence Studies.

    Thousands of citizens from the United States, Russia, France, Ukraine and the United Kingdom, among others, have served in the Israeli military since October 2023. Few have been investigated, and none prosecuted for crimes in Gaza.

    The UN report recommends that States must now recognise Palestinian self-determination as essential to lasting peace and security, and therefore:

    (a) Suspend all military, trade and diplomatic relations with Israel;

    (b) Investigate and prosecute all officials, corporates and individuals involved in or facilitating genocide, incitement, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other grave breaches of international humanitarian law;

    (c) Secure reparations, including full reconstruction and return;

    (d) Co-operate fully with the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice;

    (e) Reaffirm and strengthen support to UNRWA and the UN system as a whole;

    (f) Suspend Israel from the United Nations under Article 6 of the UN Charter;

    (g) Act under “Uniting for Peace”, in line with General Assembly resolution 377(V), to ensure that Israel dismantles its occupation.

    One of the points I put to you previously was this: Starmer et al insist that Hamas shall play no part in governance without explaining how they can legally interfere and dictate who may (and may not) rule the Palestinian state. You reply that “the 20-point US plan makes important points that could help bring peace about, including on ramping up aid delivery to innocent civilians in Gaza, and stating that Gaza must be terror-free and redeveloped, with no involvement from Hamas.” But the legal position, repeatedly made clear by the UN and other respected sources, is that it’s a matter entirely for the Palestinians.

    You also say that “peace in the Middle East will never be secured by rewarding terrorism”. True, if you add “or by denying justice”. Indeed, by rewarding Israeli terrorism for the last 77 years and denying the Palestinians justice successive UK governments have helped ensure that no peace was possible.

    And please note how the European powers including UK, in criticising Trump’s plan for Ukraine, insist that Ukraine’s borders must not be changed by force and its armed forces must not be limited so as to leave Ukraine vulnerable to future attack by Russia. But they aren’t in the least concerned about Trump’s appalling plan for Gaza which aims to de-militarise and disarm the Palestinians, gives Israel a green light to continue its illegal presence in both Gaza and the West Bank, and exposes Palestinians to never-ending attack and subjugation by a permanently hostile Israel. That plan puts the joint perpetrators in charge, who continue their genocidal slaughter even during ceasefire. Did you ever see such a gross display of double standards?

    The post Gaza: Trump’s Fake Peace Plan Approved by UK first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • While the story has made little impact in the mainstream media, it’s been known for a few weeks that the UK embassy in Israel employed a settler. This is problematic, as the Israeli ‘settlements’ in the West Bank are illegal – not that the Foreign Office seems concerned:


    Now, the Foreign Office has stonewalled the Guardian.

    Foreign Office employs an Israeli settler

    On 8 November, the National reported that a “long-time employee” at the Tel Aviv embassy owned a property in an illegal West Bank settlement. Gila Ben-Yakov Phillips is the employee in question, with 16 years experience at the embassy. Phillips bought her settlement property in 2022, with the UK government sanctioning the organisation which built it in 2024.

    While Phillips bought the property before the sanctions, the settlements were obviously controversial way before 2022, and were considered illegal under international law. In 2019, Amnesty summarised the conventions which the settlements break:

    As the occupier, Israel is therefore forbidden from using state land and natural resources for purposes other than military or security needs or for the benefit of the local population. The unlawful appropriation of property by an occupying power amounts to “pillage”, which is prohibited by both the Hague Regulations and Fourth Geneva Convention and is a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and many national laws.

    Israel’s building of settlements in the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem, does not respect any of these rules and exceptions. Transferring the occupying power’s civilians into the occupied territory is prohibited without exception. Furthermore, as explained earlier, the settlements and associated infrastructure are not temporary, do not benefit Palestinians and do not serve the legitimate security needs of the occupying power. Settlements entirely depend on the large-scale appropriation and/or destruction of Palestinian private and state property which are not militarily necessary. They are created with the sole purpose of permanently establishing Jewish Israelis on occupied land.

    The settlement linked to Phillips was built by Amana. In a press release announcing the sanctions, the UK government said that Amana:

    has overseen the establishment of illegal outposts and provides funding and other economic resources for Israeli settlers involved in threatening and perpetrating acts of aggression and violence against Palestinian communities in the West Bank

    The image in the following tweet shows an Amana settlement:

    While Phillips is Israeli, all embassy workers must obey UK sanctions for the purpose of security clearances. This has raised questions about the security vetting which takes place at the embassy.

    Sanctions

    As reported by the Guardian, Phillips must be paying Amana a monthly fee. This means the UK is sending money to a sanctioned organisation via Phillips.

    Sanctions law specialist Sara Segneri said:

    If I have a company and I am paying an employee knowing that that employee is then sending money to Vladimir Putin, that’s potentially a sanctions violation,” said Segneri. “If she is making payments to one of the settlements that is sanctioned then I think there could potentially be a violation [by the embassy].

    I hope the embassy has [investigated], or is in the process of investigating, the moneys that they’re paying to this employee and whether she has funds that are then going to the settlements.

    It goes against the meaning and intent of the sanctions programmes if UK government employees around the world are allowed to disregard sanctions or potentially utilise their personal income from the UK government to pay sanctioned entities.

    It’s unclear what the government is doing to rectify this situation, as the Foreign Office refused to answer any of the Guardian’s questions.

    Smotrich, meanwhile…

    The story highlights the issue with having any embassy in Israel right now. The Israeli government encompasses figures like Bezalel Smotrich, as Charlie Jaay reported for the Canary in September this year:

    Illegal settler Bezalel Smotrich, who is also Israel’s far-right Finance Minister and leader of the Religious Zionism Party, is a prominent figure advocating for expanding Israeli settlements and opposing Palestinian statehood.

    On Wednesday 3 September, he held a press conference in occupied Jerusalem in which he outlined a highly controversial plan to illegally annex and occupy 82% of the occupied West Bank, which he referred to by the Jewish nationalist name of ‘Judea and Samaria’ in an attempt to historically and religiously legitimize annexation

    While it may be possible to weed the settlers out of the embassy, we have no power to do the same thing for the Israeli government. As such, there is an argument to be made that we can’t have a normal relationship with Israel while it continues to expand its territories in violation of international law.

    Featured image via UK Home Office

    By Willem Moore

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The BBC has launched the application portal for its new Director-General, using a firm which has previously advised Israeli businesses.

    BBC Director-General recruitment: managed by Zionists?

    The firm it has chosen to oversee recruitment is Egon Zehnder – which previously guided Israeli startups on ‘unlocking leadership at scale’. 

    Additionally, one of their consultants is heading to what can only be described as a genocide conference next week. ‘Defense Tech Week’ is taking place in Tel Aviv, from December 2-5.

    Simon Kantor, a British Consultant at Egon Zehnder, is one of the speakers at this year’s event.

    His bio states:

    he leads Defense Technology work for Egon Zehnder, the Global Leadership Advisory firm. He works with Governments, Corporations, Investors and Start-Ups to build and develop their leadership teams. In his earlier career, Simon led international teams at Google and Twitter (now X), as well as working for the UK Government and the Boston Consulting Group.

    So not only is he in the weapons manufacturers’ pockets, but he appears to be in the UK government’s pants, too.

    Importantly, the events webpage lists its main sponsors. It includes Elbit Systems, Palantir, Lockheed Martin, along with a whole list of other defense, tech and weapons companies which are swimming in the blood of Palestinians.

    Lockheed Martin supplies Israel with F-35 warplanes. Whilst Palantir is responsible for the intense surveillance of Palestinians, and Elbit is the main supplier of weapons to the criminals of the Israeli Genocide Forces (IGF).

    Speakers at the conference include executives from Elbit and Palantir, the Director General of Israel’s Ministry of Defense, IDF soldiers, and even Trump’s assistant secretary of war.

    ‘Impartiality’

    The BBC claims it is an impartial public broadcaster. Yet here it is employing a company that is actively choosing to mix and do business with Zionist terrorists. And the BBC is using it to recruit its new Director-General.

    How are we supposed to trust that it will pick an impartial candidate when the company is already so clearly in the pants of murderers?

    Previously, 111 BBC journalists revolted over the company’s pro-Israel bias.

    As the Canary previously reported, the signatories said:

    All too often it has felt that the BBC has been performing PR for the Israeli government and military. This should be a cause of great shame and concern for everyone at the BBC.

    The Centre for Media Monitoring also released a report on BBC bias during Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It revealed the stark decisions to place significantly more value on Israeli lives than on Palestinian lives.

    It noted that Israeli occupation forces have killed at least 34 times more Palestinians. However, Israelis who died got 33 times more coverage. The BBC also interviewed more than twice as many Israelis as Palestinians.

    The Canary previously reported that:

    The BBC also regularly tried to push guests to condemn the resistance of Hamas, while never asking any to condemn Israel’s genocidal war crimes. This is despite Israel not having the right to “self-defence against a threat that emanates from a territory it occupies” and international law protecting the right of Palestinian people to resist Israeli occupation.

    At the same time, the public broadcaster seemed to do its best to ignore the decades-long historical context of illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the apartheid system Israel has set up, and the ongoing ethnic cleansing via illegal settlements. It managed to mention the word ‘occupation’ a small handful of times, but the other issues were “all missing from the story”.

    Additionally, another study showed many facets of the BBC’s conservative leanings and pro-big-business stance. It showed how the BBC laid the foundations for Brexit by scapegoating the EU as a major cause of people’s woes. Again, anything but impartial.

    Anti-left bias

    A great example of the BBC’s extreme bias is Question Time. Right-wing panelists are massively over represented. The standard is one genuinely critical voice, if any, and four others who all broadly support neoliberalism (the status quo).

    But already this year, the BBC was caught rigging Question Time to turn away pro-Palestine audience members at the door.

    A great example is the representation of Reform on Question Time. Of the 27 episodes so far this year, Reform UK has appeared on 12 panels. It only has five MPs.

    In comparison, the Lib Dems, who have 72 MPs, have only appeared on 10 panels. How is that balanced?

    It is well known that silence benefits the oppressor – and that would be bad enough. But the BBC has been anything but silent when it comes to Israeli voices, Hamas, and the views of the right-wing.

    By employing a company which appears to have several ties to the terrorist state of Israel to oversee Director-General recruitment – the BBC is showing us that once again, it does not care about impartiality. It cares about upholding the status quo, and enabling genocide.

    Feature image via HG

    By HG

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • General Lord Sir Richard Dannatt (really his title) has just been suspended from the House of Lords for four months. Nothing says ‘functioning democracy’ like a former head of the army and unelected peer lobbying ministers to crack down on anti-genocide activists. The only thing that stands out is that the ex-general in questions has got a mild slap on the wrist.

    Dannatt was called before the ‘conduct committee’ on two counts. All in all, these two counts contained 4 alleged breaches of the conduct code. One count involved Dannatt telling an undercover Guardian journalist he could set up ministerial contactsBut another concerned Palestine Action (PA). It was alleged that in 2023, Dannatt contacted then home secretary Suella Braverman to urge a crackdown. In 2024, he tried the same with Labour security minister Dan Jarvis.

    Why, you may ask?

    Well because Dannatt, like so many ex-generals, has become an arms firm lobbyist. He was acting as a paid advisor on behalf of Teledyne UK, a genocide-linked arms firm.  He’ll be out of the Lords for four months – unable to pick up his cushty £300 quid a day for sitting around in a fancy robe.

    Patriotism or self interest via Israeli arms firms?

    Patriotism, as they say, is the last refuge of scoundrel. Naturally, Dannatt maintained he was acting in the national interest:

    I also understand that acting in the national interest in good faith, which was my motivation in the three matters, is not an excuse or justification for breaching the Code of Conduct.

    It’s hard to know what part Dannatt played in the overall repression of PA, if any. But repression certainly did come about. The British state has been cracking down in earnest – in clear defence of Israel’s right to commit genocide against Palestinians.

    Six members of the now-proscribed direct action group are currently awaiting trial. Thousands more are also waiting for a trial. Our own Hannah Sharland recently mapped the scale and intensity of the state assault on anti-genocide campaigners here.

    For some, patriotism manifests itself in a paycheck. In this case, for defending and advancing the interests of genocide-linked death firms. For others, there is a bigger picture – thank God. And in that picture not even the threat of years in jail is enough to abandon the fight for Palestinian life and dignity.

    As ever, it’s unelected peers swanning about the country with a moral impunity nobody else would be allowed to get away with.

    Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Historic Royal Palaces

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Israeli security forces have stormed the Hakawati Theatre in occupied Jerusalem, terrifying the audience of Palestinian kids gathered for a performance of the children’s musical play “Dreams Under the Olive Tree”.

    The raid was ordered by Israel’s fascist security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who claimed the event was connected to the Palestinian Authority and did not have the permit he considered it needed. Quite why not having a permit would require security forces to storm a theatre is unclear.

    Zionists storm Jerusalem theatre

    For their part, the Palestinian Authority condemned the raid as a “blatant violation of international law” and a “systematic policy aimed at silencing the Palestinian narrative and erasing the city’s Arab identity”, with Palestinian culture minister Imad Hamdan adding that:

    El-Hakawati Theater is a historic and national space embodying the collective memory of Jerusalem and reflecting the resilience of Palestinian artists in the face of Judaisation attempts and land expropriation.

    The theatre has operated in East Jerusalem since the 1970s, independent of any authorities and with no funding except what it raises itself. It has been under legislative assault from the occupation regime for the past sixteen years, suffering repeated forced closures.

    Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Mosab Abu Toha, who posted video of the raid and its aftermath, declared it:

    an act of terrorism.

    Abu Toha summarised the footage content as follows:

    Video 1: “Did you hear what I’m saying? 5 minutes, there’s no one here!” The police dispersed a children’s performance at the Al-Hakawati Theater in East Jerusalem. The police see no need to explain or respond (the response: “Israel Police operates according to the law”):

    Video 2: the children, still in their performance costumes, in a panic after the violent dispersal.

    Not satisfied with slaughtering Palestinian children in Gaza and the West Bank, Israel is terrorising them in East Jerusalem.

    Featured image via X/Mosab Abu Toha

    By Skwawkbox

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Last Friday, MintPress News (MPN) reported that Israel was facilitating what locals have called a ‘flood‘ of smartphones into Gaza, while still blocking the entry of food, medicines, shelters, and building materials. MPN reported that the flood of phones was raising fears the phones would be used to spy on Palestinians:

    A recent report has indicated a “bizarre decision” by Israel to permit the entry of a large number of smartphones into Gaza, even as it continues to restrict other essential aid like food and shelter supplies, raising concerns among residents about potential surveillance.

    But it seems the Israelis have another plan in mind – one similar to their terrorist attacks on Lebanon in September 2024 – because at least two of the handsets have blown up in the hands of Palestinians attempting to use them, as the Canary’s Ani.Says has noted:

     

    View this post on Instagram

     

    A post shared by Ani Says (@ani.says2)

    Regional media source The Cradle has also reported the explosions:

    Israel is a terrorist state

    Unsurprisingly, however, Western ‘mainstream’ media continue to ignore the reports – no doubt (correctly) considering (and incorrectly caring) that it will further expose Israel’s reality as a terrorist state.

    The latest victim was a woman in the al-Shati refugee camp, with the phone reportedly a Samsung A17 mid-range handset – of the same class identified by a North African human rights group to be infected with ‘unremovable’ Israeli spyware.

    Israel’s terror attacks on Lebanon last year using exploding pagers and walkie-talkies killed and maimed thousands, including children and were rightly condemned by the United Nations and human rights organisations. But, they were ignored or underplayed by most Western governments, including Keir Starmer’s. A senior Israeli intelligence officer later bragged that he and his colleagues had planted “manipulated equipment” devices in every country in the world.

    If more devices explode in Gaza – during a supposed ‘ceasefire’ in which Israel has already murdered more than three hundred people through bombing and shelling – Western corporate and state media will either report on the terror campaign or be guilty (yet again) of collaborating in Israel’s crimes.

    Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Al Jazeera English

    By Skwawkbox

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • This article contains extremely graphic depictions of death and injury.

    Israel’s mass murder has continued, during the supposed ‘ceasefire’ in Gaza. Once again, the Zionist entity bombed a building that was sheltering displaced Palestinians. They slaughtered a number of families as they slept.

    Palestinian journalist Wadih Abou Saoud reported on the carnage of yet another blatant Israeli terror bombing during the supposed ‘ceasefire’:

    In the translated caption, Saoud reported:

    Houses inhabited by women and children turn in an instant into heavy silence and the smell of dust.

    The night is here not our resident, the occupation is returning it to a fear arena, so we are just trying to document the truth and protect what remains of the lives.

    Israel’s supporters find the mass murder of Palestinian children to be a terrible ‘inconvenience’ for their attempts to whitewash its crimes – but the terror state just won’t stop murdering them.

    Featured image via

    By Skwawkbox

    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.


  • This content originally appeared on The Grayzone and was authored by The Grayzone.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • If you’re from the North East of England, there’s a chance you know Mick. A local legend, clued up on everything left leaning, with a total disregard for authority.

    He’s had a colourful life, defined by his activism. Upon retiring he announced he’d be walking to Palestine. No one was surprised.

    In 2013, Mick, being a union man, heard a Palestinian speaker and it changed his life. The truth hit him hard. In that moment he realised that sitting behind a picket line wasn’t enough — he had to bear witness himself.

    Since then, Mick has made three trips to the West Bank — the last defined them all. He walked 1,800 miles from the UK to Istanbul, then crossed into Palestine via Jordan — refusing to pay the Israeli regime for entry.

    His journey was nothing short of raw solidarity.

    A middle finger to Israeli gatekeepers

    You could tell how much Mick despised the occupation. His eyes, usually full of laughter, grew dark and angry as he recounted his journey. He told me how the occupation starts at the border, how Israel controls everything.

    Crossing Jordan Allenby Bridge — a land border crossing — Mick faced the Israeli security complex designed to be oppressive and intimidating. The route is one that thousands of Palestinians tread daily.

    You turn up at this huge Israeli security complex and it’s absolutely horrendous… for Palestinians coming in through the West Bank it is a deeply troubling experience. At any stage they can be stopped or detained.’

    Humiliation is Israel’s weapon of choice, even for foreigners. Mick described how you have to lie through your back teeth to cross the border. At no point could Mick tell them he was going to Palestine. As far as they were concerned, he was on a holy trip to Jerusalem. He described guns and an arrogance and distain for non-Israelis.

    It’s deeply unpleasant. You go through body scanners and they scream at you if you have to go back. Sometimes the security are little more than kids, they’ve all got big guns, and it’s ingrained into them to hate Palestinians.

    Passport control was hell. Armed with a burner phone scrubbed of all traces of his activism. The security personnel, consulting their database, saw he had been Palestine before. They didn’t buy his pilgrimage story and questioned him for hours as the soldier spat out racist bullshit.

    Life under the boot

    They initially refused him entry, but he blagged his way in by playing the meek Christian. As harsh as his experience was, it pales in comparison to daily life for Palestinians.

    Checkpoints marked every corner. Some are permanent, other pop out of the ground like fucking daisies. Massive steel gates can shut down a city and armed soldiers uphold this oppression with disgusting grins. At these checkpoints, Israeli forces snatch thousands of innocent people. The fear of detention looms over them.

    Because you’re a foreigner with a passport, you know they’re not going to take you to one side and beat you up. You’re not going to disappear into their prison system. You’ll just be told to fuck off.

    The chains tightened after October 7.

    Mick described Israeli forces destroying 90 percent of local roads in and around the South Hebron hills, where he spent much of his time. This deliberate attempt to isolate Palestinian villages stops children going to school, denies access to medical care and keeps people perpetually hungry.

    There are some who are motivated by crazy ideological beliefs which they say are rooted in the bible… they call it the ‘Greater Israel Project,’ or ERETZ Israel. They think it gives them a God-given right to do whatever they want to Palestinians, kill them, enslave them, whatever.

    Mick saw settlers act with impunity, describing them as religious fanatics misusing Judaism to justify racist behaviour. Every settler he encountered believed deeply that they had a ‘God-given right’ to steal Palestinian land. They’re backed by the government. He saw it clearly, the army and armed settlers working together to protect this land theft.

    Sumud & the power of standing fast

    Whilst in the West Bank, Mick’s beliefs weren’t just confirmed; they were forged into steel. In the hills of Hebron, he met a resolute Palestinian community whose beliefs were simple:

    The most powerful resistance is simply existence.

    This is the meaning of Sumud, the Palestinian’s refusal to let up.

    Working alongside the COMET project, Mick helped build phone masts to give isolated families access to the internet and mobile coverage. No matter how much these rabid settlers attacked these small beacons of defiance, they would be back up and functional in a week.

    They just walk into their properties, they steal, walk around arrogantly. The personal abuse they would hurl at ‘arabs,’ saying that they have no right to be here, they’re all Hamas supporters. The profound level of racism permeates all levels of Israeli society, not just settlers.

    Mick planted olive trees shoulder to shoulder with the oppressed, watching Israelis burn their crops time and time again. The Palestinian spirit enduring, breathing life into new seedlings, standing proud as the army hurdled tear gas at them.

    The community doesn’t hate Israelis because they’re Jewish. Religion isn’t the issue — it’s colonialism.

    People deal with it with great fortitude and humour. They have such a strong connection to the land, they’ve been there for centuries.

    Their hatred is against a system, not against a people.

    The personal cost of seeing it all

    Mick’s eyes glazed over as he described the more harrowing shit he witnessed. At a protest, he came face to face with Israel’s disgusting tactics; detained, beaten, pepper-sprayed and battered to the point he lost a tooth.

    Yet that isn’t what haunts him the most.

    At a funeral procession in Kuzra, Mick faced death. In the midst of their grief, the IOF mercilessly gunned down six people.

    Bullets have a weird sound when they’re fired. It’s not like a big sound. You just saw people fall down, clutching their legs. We saw six get shot in the leg and one in the neck. He went down, clutching his neck, and he didn’t get up.

    Mick was left with a profound awareness of his own white privilege, knowing the bullets were never meant for him. He told me how hard it was to come to terms with coming back to the UK. He couldn’t stop thinking about the Palestinians who didn’t share the same luxury, trapped in a system of murder and oppression.

    This gave Mick his moral mandate, and he will not stop.

    His 1,800 mile walk was just the beginning.

    Featured image via Tim Mossholder/Unsplash

    By Antifabot

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Despite Hamas and Israel agreeing on a ceasefire on October 10, the genocide in the Gaza Strip has only slowed down.

    United States President Donald Trump’s “peace plan” does not address the Israeli structural violence that still exists against Palestinians, and there has been no real movement or action from governments to hold the architects of the genocide accountable for their crimes. Although the daily massacres – averaging about 100 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip – have lessened, the mechanisms of oppression are still firmly in place: the territory remains blockaded, and Israeli aerial and artillery attacks persist with minimal resistance from world governments.

    The post After The Ceasefire: What Next For Global Solidarity With Palestine? appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Following the passage of a UN resolution authorizing the US plan for post-war Gaza, President Donald Trump’s so-called “Board of Peace” is considering ‘expropriating” land from Palestinian owners displaced from the Israeli-controlled half of the strip, Haaretz reported on 23 November.

    Citing US officials and diplomats, the Israeli newspaper said the Board of Peace, headed by Trump, would be a “cornerstone” of the US plan for Gaza.

    “As outlined in the United Nations Security Council resolution adopted this week, the Board of Peace will coordinate the delivery of humanitarian assistance and facilitate Gaza’s development,” one US official said.

    The post Report: Trump-Led ‘Board Of Peace’ Considers ‘Expropriating’ Gaza Land appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • “I think those are bullet holes.”

    Those were the first words I muttered to my classmate on the bus into Sarajevo, Bosnia, during a brief visit in 2019. We had flown in from Frankfurt, Germany, as part of a study abroad program researching the interactions between the European Union (EU) and the post-Yugoslav and post-Soviet spheres. The program, as we quickly learned, amounted more to a lesson in how the German-dominated EU exploited the people of former communist projects for its own economic gain. Still, in the moment, all we could think of was how beautiful and, at the same time, damaged the city we were entering truly was.

    The post International Israeli Occupying Forces Volunteers: Today’s ‘Sniper Tourists’ appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • New figures published by the Israeli body overseeing food delivery expose a deliberate policy of mass starvation against 2.4 million Gazans

    This tactic of genocidal coercion is intended to crush their spirit and force their submission.

    Dr. Ismail Al-Thawabta, the Director General of the Government Media Office in Gaza, confirmed the figures published by the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), criticising them as morally indefensible.

    Upholding a farcical image of itself as a benevolent humanitarian agency, COGAT is restricting and seizing critical food supplies.

    A population on the brink

    COGAT claims to be delivering 1.4 million meals to the Strip daily. However, compared with Gaza’s population size, only 58.3 percent receive a daily meal — leaving the remainder without. The single meal provided weighs between 300 and 500 grams, with an average of just 400 grams. This means that only 560 tonnes of food enters the Strip each day.

    The people of Gaza need between 2,400 and 2,600 tonnes of food per day, while only 560 tonnes has been getting through. That’s less than 25 percent of the required amount. Let that sink in.

    COGAT reported that 3.5 million loaves of bread are delivered daily, amounting to 1.46 loaves per person.

    Surviving on these rations is laughable especially for families enduring prolonged displacement without access to potable water.

    Children bear the additional hardship of needing a diverse, ample diet in support of their developmental needs.

    Starvation as a method of warfare

    The occupation claims it had delivered 270,000 parcels in November, which it uncritically deemed ‘sufficient’ for one million people. In reality, a single food parcel barely covers the needs of a family of five.

    Supplies that are supposed to last a month barely last a week.

    This is a deliberate strategy the callous occupation repeatedly resorts to — warfare by alternative means.

    For many observers, these latest figures serve as an official acknowledgement that the occupation deliberately imposes restrictions on food aid to achieve its political ambitions in Gaza — ultimately to empty the city of its indigenous population.

    Al-Thawabta points to the occupation’s continued failure to comply with the terms of the humanitarian truce. The ceasefire stipulates that sufficient and regular aid must be allowed to enter. Allowing only a quarter of the required amount is a clear violation. It punishes the local population and compounds the  humanitarian crisis families endure, particularly southern and northern Gaza.

    Starvation is a war crime

    He views the latest figures issued by the occupation as explicit evidence of the policy of starvation to force the population into capitulation. It is not the result of emergency circumstances. The risk of famine is manmade, deliberate, morally reprehensible, and intended to break the will of the people of Gaza.

    He points out that one million people aren’t receiving a single daily meal. Only one and a half loaves of bread are provided for each person, and families receive one measly food parcel per month. These figures reveal the scale of the crisis and show that the occupation is directly responsible for orchestrating this man-made disaster.

    Featured image via Reuters

    By Alaa Shamali

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Israel killed at least two children a day in Gaza in the first six weeks of the current ceasefire deal, the UN reports. Last week, UNICEF reported that Israeli forces have killed 67 children since October 11, when the deal went into effect. Gaza health officials have said that Israel has killed 342 Palestinians total amid the ceasefire and injured over 700 others. “Yesterday morning…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Organizers, human rights advocates, and legal experts from around the world convened in Barcelona in November 2025 for the International People’s Tribunal on Palestine. Over the course of a weekend on November 22 and 23, jurors and attendees heard from more than a dozen witnesses who testified to Israel’s calculated destruction of not only Gaza’s population but also its natural environment.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts made a surprising announcement last month: The moderate Democrat said he would no longer accept donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Spurning AIPAC was not, on its face, shocking. In the more than two years since Israel’s onslaught in Gaza began, numerous members of Congress have pledged not to accept money from the lobby…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Jewish activists and their allies targeted London’s ‘Aliyah Day’ gathering yesterday evening, protesting its role in advancing the colonisation of Palestine.

    The event — organised with support from the Israeli occupying government — encourages British Jews to partake in Palestine’s ongoing colonisation. Practical information was given around living in ‘Israel’, such as the job market, education, and tax benefits for Jewish immigrants.

    Aliyah is central to Zionism, and is the practice of Jews moving to occupied Palestine. The aim is to reclaim and settle in their so-called ‘homeland’ to build up an ethnoreligous state.

    Jewish Anti-Zonist Action (JAZA), in collaboration with Palestine Pulse, protested against the event. They projected the slogans “stolen land sold here” and “Jews for Palestine” onto the side of St John’s Wood Synagogue, where the event was held. They also held evening prayers outside the synagogue.

    Palestine Pulse: The Aliyah event “supports dispossession of Palestine”

    A Palestine Pulse spokesperson said:

    We are deeply disgusted to witness an event that supports the ongoing dispossession of Palestine and the unbelievable suffering of the Palestinian people. As a British/Palestinian community, we cannot stay silent when actions or celebrations contribute to normalising injustice.

    Those demonstrating against Aliyah Day say they were met with heavy and forceful policing from the MET police. They were also mocked by Zionist counter-protesters from Stop the Hate, and the Campaign Against Antisemitism. They shouted anti-semitic abuse at the Anti-Zionist Jewish protesters, calling them “fake Jews”.

    Before the protest, the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BoD) took to X arguing:

    The government is in the process of changing the law to protect synagogues and other places of worship from this sort of hateful action…

    Board of Deputies weaponising antisemitism to muzzle activists

    The BoD is a long-established and extremely influential Zionist lobby group.

    It opposes an independent Palestinian state, actively seeks to restrict freedom of speech and expression when it comes to Palestine. It has significant financial resources and political connections in the UK, and huge power in shaping government policies and media narratives. The BoD constantly calls for stricter public order laws and policing measures against those speaking out about genocide and apartheid. It also believes that any criticism of Israel’s criminal regime is antisemitic.

    Though the BoD claims to be “the voice of the Jewish community” this is not the case.

    Activists felt it was important to take action and speak up at the Aliyah event. They say the BoD calling their action “hateful” is far from the truth.  They only wanted to speak out against the illegal Israeli occupation and its human rights abuses against Palestinians.

    “We cannot stand by while our places of worship are used for such abhorrent means”

    Talia Woodin is a member of Jewish Anti-Zionist Action (JAZA), a UK-based Anti-Zionist Jewish group which uses direct action to dismantle zionism.

    She explained to the Canary what compels her to speak-up and confront Zionist lobbying.

    As Jews, we do not want to have a protest outside a synagogue. It is heartbreaking for us. But we cannot stand by while our places of worship are used for such abhorrent means. Speaking up against a genocide is always going to be the priority above policing ourselves for the sake of saying the wrong thing. We will also never back down in the face of fascists accusing us of being Jew haters. Our Jewish Anti-Zionism and solidarity with Palestine is rooted in so much love, they couldn’t even comprehend it.

    The sole intention of yesterday’s event was to recruit British Jews to colonise stolen Palestinian land. It was organised by the UK branch of the World Zionist Organisation (WZO), and the Israeli government’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration (MAI).

    Zionism’s twin-goals of ethnic cleansing and Jewish supremacy

    The Zionist goal is for ‘Israel’ to become the “national home for the Jewish people” in occupied Palestine. The methods used include government lobbying, using education for “strengthening of the Jewish national sentiment”, and “promoting the settlement” of Jews in Palestine. According to Zionism, the right to national self-determination is unique to Jews. This formalises the existing system of apartheid and Jewish supremacy.

    The MAI provides many incentives to encourage new immigrants to ‘Israel’, and funds the new “Zionist economic plan”. Benefits include financial grants, tax breaks for up to 10 years, rental subsidies, health insurance, discounted public transport and mortgage assistance.

    For Jewish people, making Aliyah is said to be the ultimate commitment to the Jewish state. But events such as yesterday’s, rely on fear and exploitation of antisemitism, so Jews are indoctrinated to believe that ‘Israel’ is the only place they can be safe.

    Zionism could not exist without this fear and distrust. Yet the truth is that ‘Israel’ is the most dangerous place in the world to be a Jew.

    Weaponising antisemitism serves ‘state of Israel’

    According to Woodin, the weaponisation of antisemitism is “the greatest tool that Zionism has in its artillery”.

    She says

    Right now, fear mongering and stoking up the idea that Jews aren’t safe, is really working in the Israeli state’s favour.

    Since October 2023, Israel has received over 53,000 new Jewish immigrants, with large numbers coming from Ukraine, Russia, France, North America, South Africa, and  Ethiopia. Many of these new immigrants, supported by the occupational government, have been settled in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. They benefit from financial incentives and programmes designed to change the demographics, and Judaise occupied regions.

    Aliyah promotes occupation of Palestine, ruled illegal by the ICJ

    The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation violates international law. So we should not treat events such as Aliyah Day as benign cultural gatherings, because they are not. Instead, they function as recruitment drives to settle in territories the ICJ has deemed unlawfully controlled, and should raise serious legal and moral questions. At a time when the Israeli regime is committing crimes against humanity in Gaza and the West Bank, celebrating any programmes facilitating further dispossession is outrageous. Not only is this morally and ethically wrong, but is more than likely illegal.

    Protesting against Aliyah is not an attack on Jewish life.

    It is a stand against policies further entrenching systematic apartheid against Palestinians, and deepening the illegal occupation. Genuine safety and justice, for both Jews and Palestinians, cannot be built on practices condemned under international law.

    Featured image via the author

    By Charlie Jaay

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Elizabeth Morley, an eighty-year-old child of Holocaust survivors, has travelled almost five hours from before dawn this morning. She is fully anticipating that what will ensue will be her fifth arrest since August for protesting against the Starmer regime’s ‘proscription.’ The latter is a ban on supporting a designated-as-terrorist organisation, namely non-violent protest group Palestine Action (PA).

    Hungarian-born Morley, who arrived in the UK as what she calls a “very shy, so shy” child with no English, worked for years for the BBC Monitoring Service. There she listened in on Soviet-bloc transmissions until she took early retirement thirty years ago and moved to Aberystwyth, where she still lives.

    Her train set off just after five this morning for the long journey to London, where she will participate in a protest by anti-Zionist Jewish people and others against the PA ban and the state assault on freedom of speech that it represents. Well over two thousand people have been arrested simply for expressing opposition to Starmer’s decision to proscribe PA.

    Holocaust survivor Elizabeth Morley takes a stand

    Elizabeth, who provided a video showing police arresting her and others with a soundtrack of anti-genocide rapper Macklemore’s iconic and hard-hitting Hind’s Hall, says that she was “a very late bloomer, politically”, who first became politically aware because of Blair’s illegal Iraq war:

    I arrived here not speaking any English and my parents were not well off or well educated, but it was Iraq that really made me aware of what the world is like and what some people do.

    And she says that she keeps travelling and protesting because she is determined to show that Israel and its genocide-advocates do not speak for or act for her or many other Jews, contrary to the narrative of the UK government and media:

    There are so many of us who oppose what Israel does and stands for. It is doing to the Palestinians what the Nazi’s did to us, but we’re airbrushed out because we’re inconvenient.

    Condemnation

    She says she has been arrested four times since August, three in London and one in Aberystwyth, all for protesting the PA ban and that she has been handled with kid gloves by police each time:

    I look old and I suffer from osteo-arthritis, so I can’t move fast. I think because I look like I’m at death’s door they feel they have to be very careful, but I’m aware that many old and disabled people have been dragged or carried off, so I’ve been very lucky.

    Keir Starmer’s mass arrests of mostly older and disabled people for protesting against the proscription of Palestine Action has been condemned by human rights groups and the United Nations. It forms part of his wider ‘lawfare’ war on pro-Palestine speech to protect Israel, in which protesters and even journalists have been arrested, with many prosecuted or waiting to find out whether they will be.

    Twenty-four Palestine Action activists, who were arrested before the ‘terror’ ban, have been in prison for well over a year without trial and face waits of another 6 to 24 months before their trial dates arrive. That’s in spite of the fact that UK law mandates a maximum ‘remand’ of 180 days. Six of them have been on hunger strike for up to three weeks in protest at their unlawful treatment.

    Featured image via author

    By Skwawkbox

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Pro-Palestine campaigners have turned up in their hundreds to a Tesco branch in the small County Down seaside town of Newcastle, protesting disciplinary action being taken against a worker who refused to assist in the sale of items from so-called ‘Israel’. The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, objected on the basis that the proceeds from such items go to fund the Zionist entity’s genocidal onslaught against the Palestinian people.

    The action from Tesco management had first been highlighted in a post on the social media page of local activist group Mourne for Palestine, whose name is a play on words using the name of a notable nearby mountain range. Alongside the statement can be found more wordplay, with Tesco’s slogan remixed to say “Every little helps genocide”. The group said:

    To be forced to take money for goods funding genocide, which is in part by starvation, under the threat of disciplinary action, is unconscionable. This pressure would affect the mental health and wellbeing of any moral-minded person. All retail workers have the right to decline to handle these tainted items.

    Unions turn out in force to back Tesco worker’s refusal to sell Israeli products

    Today’s protest was organised by direct action group BDS Belfast, with activists pouring in from across Ireland, recognising the significance of a worker taking such a stand. A strong union presence was visible, with representatives from Unison, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and union-linked solidarity group Trade Union Friends of Palestine among those in attendance. The action from the worker represents the most noteworthy instance of this form of defiance in the North of Ireland since the Zionist settler-colony began its campaign of mass murder over two years ago.

    In a statement read by IWW member Julia Rojo, the persecuted employee said:

    Tesco says, and I quote, that “customers still expect us to serve them well.

    However, they also recognise that we are part of society and can make a positive difference! Contributing to their wider world too.

    We champion what matters to our colleagues and customers. Caring about the communities where they live and our planet. I’m a colleague, I’m a member of the community, I’m a customer and I care about our planet!

    That is why I decided to act on my conscience. I call upon Tesco to do the same. Stop handling Israeli goods!

    Rojo also read a statement on behalf of the IWW in which she said:

    We would like to extend our love and solidarity at this time with our fellow worker suspended for taking action, for speaking out NOT remaining silent at a time when the genocide is still continuing in Palestine.

    She continued:

    Without question, the trade union movement must not remain silent at this time. They must act now to extend its full support and solidarity for this fellow worker and endorse calls that they are immediately reinstated back to their post without restrictions or ramifications.

    Today we have activists from throughout the country. From Derry to Dublin. We say to you to go back to your campaign groups and your trade union groups and echo the calls from here today. Let everyone know that An Injury To One Is Still An Injury To All!

    Workers who opposed South African apartheid once again inspire

    All speakers raised the example of the Dunnes Stores workers, who went on strike in 1984 after being instructed by their union IDATU not to handle items from apartheid South Africa. Their actions were instrumental in Ireland’s ultimate banning of imports from the racist state, which happened in 1987. Declan Owens from the Socialist Lawyers Association of Ireland also raised the origins of the term ‘boycott‘:

    It was in Ireland that the word “boycott” was born—when tenant farmers in Mayo, refusing to accept exploitation any longer, collectively shunned the landlord’s agent, Captain Charles Boycott. Their action inspired a global strategy for justice: refusing complicity, withdrawing cooperation, and reclaiming collective power.

    That same spirit lived again in 1984, when eleven young Dunnes Stores workers refused to handle goods from apartheid South Africa. For three long years they stood on Henry Street with only £21 a week, but with a moral clarity that eventually compelled the Irish government to ban apartheid goods. They helped turn the tide of international solidarity. They taught us that workers, not governments, often take the first and bravest steps toward justice.

    Much of the crowd that had gathered outside for the speeches then proceeded to enter the Tesco superstore itself, walking through the aisles to chants of:

    Tesco, Tesco you can’t hide! You’re supporting genocide!

    BDS Belfast member Damian Quinn told shoppers:

    It is absolutely horrendous what we are witnessing every single day [in Palestine], and what we can do as people is follow the BDS movement. We can understand where our money is going. We can understand how the genocide is occurring. It is occurring because of companies supporting Israel. Companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Teva [and] stores like this selling Israeli products.

    What we can do as human beings is make sure we boycott all of those companies. We take our money out of all of those companies, and what you will find when you do that is that you start spending more locally. You start spending more locally on Irish and British farmers rather than Israeli farmers.

    Shoppers cheer on protest action

    Leaflets were distributed informing customers of the punitive action being taken against the long-serving employee at the shop, and a petition was also available for customers to sign in support. Its online version has attracted nearly 1,400 signatures in just over a week. Many shopping in the Tesco branch expressed support for the campaign, pumping their fist and shouting “Free Palestine”.

    A date for the disciplinary hearing is yet to be arranged. The worker is a member of USDAW, who will provide representation on the day of proceedings.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Robert Freeman

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Israel’s attack on Beirut on Sunday murdered and maimed dozens of civilians in a blatant breach of its supposed year-old ceasefire with Lebanon, bombing a whole apartment block to kill a single Hezbollah official – a ceasefire that it has breached constantly throughout its duration, including murdering thirteen civilians in its bombing of a Palestinian refugee camp inside Lebanon last week.

    The occupation has also seized territory in southern Lebanon in a clear demonstration of its intent to occupy territory despite its ceasefire obligations.

    But as historian and author Assal Rad spotted, readers of ‘mainstream’ media would have no clue about any of this context:

    As Rad commented:

    Look at how they frame this without any mention of a CEASEFIRE. They make it sound like a targeted strike without saying Israel bombed a residential building with civilians all around, or questioning it under international law.

    They’re not reporting it, they’re justifying it.

    Israel has used the same tactics repeatedly, in Gaza and then in Lebanon – where it murdered more than six hundred people to kill Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, a fact also grossly under-reported by the ‘MSM’. It has never honoured a ceasefire, just as it is now murdering innocents daily in Gaza, and starving and freezing all those who survive except the criminal gangs it has long funded.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Skwawkbox

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • This year, on the eve of International Workers’ Day, General Federation of Trade Unions in Gaza, published a call to the U.S. labor movement.

    “This war would not have been possible without the unlimited U.S. support for the occupation, whether through military funding, political and diplomatic backing, or arms deals that kill our children, women, and elderly every day,” it read. “The U.S. administration under Trump has continued what the previous administration started, becoming a direct accomplice in genocide, ignoring the voices of millions inside and outside of the United States, and an overwhelming majority of the nation, who reject this brutal aggression.”

    The post The Ongoing Battle Over Israel Within The US Labor Movement appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Since April 2024, Germany has been on trial before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. Nicaragua had filed a case against the Federal Republic, accusing it of complicity in the genocide in Gaza. As has now become known, German representatives may have made false statements in their very first testimony before the ICJ in April 2024, concerning the arms exports delivered to Israel.

    As Drop Site News (DSN) and the liberal German magazine Stern reported in a joint article, there are now serious doubts about Germany’s statements. They cite comments from the German Defense Ministry, obtained through a press law procedure before a German administrative court.

    The post Did Germany Mislead The World Court? appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.