How can a union jack dress, worn by a child, manage to conjure up countless column inches, a Prime Ministerial response, and a fucking GoFundMe, launched by a convicted fraudster?
You can just imagine the crushed scrotum of a father, seeing a letter from the school and immediately projecting his own narrow-minded right-wing politics on his child before you can scream “social services intervention required”.
I expect most sensible parents — or at least the ones that don’t use their child to highlight their own bigotry — sorted their kids out with something that actually represents our cultural diversity, rather than their wife’s 1995 Geri ‘Ginger Spice’ Haliwell karaoke costume.
The poor child, who I don’t wish to embarrass any further, looked incredibly saddened in the photos circulating online. And who can blame her? I’d be mighty pissed off if I was forced to wear something that looked like it was acquired by collecting five different-numbered tokens from the S*n, plus P&P, thirty fucking years ago.
Just to be clear, I don’t think the young lady did anything wrong, if everything that I have read is to be believed. What I do find particularly troubling is how something as irrelevant as a dress can be so easily manipulated by the right for the sole purpose of political gain.
That pathetic little weasel Starmer weighed in
Starmer, being the pathetic weasel that he is, will have your children singing ‘Land of hope and glory’ in class assembly soon enough. And don’t be surprised if we start seeing annual days of Britishness where we get to gloss over our barbaric colonialist past with stories of winning the football World Cup in 1966, Beatlemania, the dead Queen, and how we beat the Nazis.
But we won’t mention anything about Britain’s unashamed support for 21st century Nazism because you’re supposed to believe that Ukraine and Israel are the good guys. My lips are sealed.
I have to admit, Keir Starmer does tend to get under my loose skin considerably more than most other politicians. His wretchedness is only equaled by his arrogance and incompetence.
I’m not sure if it’s Starmer’s lust for genocidal complicity, his visceral hatred for sick and disabled people, his obsession with pocketing more corporate freebies than every other Labour leader in history, combined, his dogmatic commitment to perpetual austerity, or even his nauseating attempt at playing Mr Populist, á la Farage that gets to me the most.
Take your fucking pick, folks.
Starmer always comes across as a bit dead behind the eyes – like he knows where the establishment bodies are buried. This reflects in his lack of charisma, indeed you are better off trying to have an enlightening chat with a tumble dryer than listening to the monotonous utterances of a crisis-ridden Prime Minister.
The suspension of four Labour MPs came as no shock to anyone that understands how the broader purge of the left works.
The Purge continues
The S*n, undoubtedly the most vile, loathsome tabloid in Britain’s long printed press history, openly celebrated Starmer’s ill-judged attack on the democratic principles of the Labour Party.
I can’t and won’t link that utter fucking bilge to any opinion piece of mine, and I’m pretty sure the Canary editor would hunt me down and truss me up like a freshly plucked chicken if I did.
But, I will tell you a bit of what their political correspondent, Martina Bet, had to say:
Sir Keir Starmer has finally shown he is not afraid to flex his muscles…
LOL. Have a word with yourself, love:
The PM has spent years trying to detox Labour after the chaos of the Corbyn era…
What has Martina been smoking? Ludicrous individual.
It is a clear sign the PM is done tolerating backbench rebels…
Careful now Martina, you’re getting a little too close to masturbatory glee for my liking.
To be honest with you all, I hope that absolute spanner of a Prime Minister sends them packing from the Labour Party, for good.
Starmer doesn’t allow for dissent in the way Tony Blair did. Ask Jeremy Corbyn.
One of the dissenters, Neil Duncan-Jordan, explicitly stated he couldn’t support “making disabled people poorer”.
Neil. It’s time to leave the Labour Party, because the Labour Party has left you.
Starmer, Reeves and that malignant vulture in charge of the DWP have only just begun their five-year-long ideological assault on sick and disabled people.
Another of the rebel MPs, Rachael Maskell, described her role as “speaking truth to power” and representing her constituents, not blindly following party orders to the detriment of poor, sick, disabled, and vulnerable people.
It’s time to leave the Labour Party, Rachael, because the Labour Party has left you.
Staying in a Labour party that disciplines MPs for principled stands only risks further disempowerment and compromises their ability to advocate for socialist policies.
Leave means leave.
Leave means leave (not that Starmer has ever known this)
I did see one of those Action Network petitions floating around online. Leading left-wing figures, who themselves have felt the wrath of the Prime Minister, are asking you to sign a petition to get the whip restored to the four dissenters.
Don’t do it.
Don’t even consider it.
We want a new left-wing party that offers a viable alternative to challenge the political establishment. A two-party system that offers managed decline is insufficient for addressing systemic issues such as poverty, climate change, and global injustice.
Staying in the Labour Party only risks further legitimising a detestable, anti-socialist leader that buried any prospect of progressive change the moment he became leader of the Labour Party, five years ago.
Any Labour MP with just a shred of decency doesn’t have to compromise their own principles through fear of facing further disciplinary action from a weak, isolated Prime Minister.
Grow a spine, comrades, and get the hell out of the Labour Party whilst your dignity remains intact.
What is British culture? In case you missed it, a 12-year-old girl was told she couldn’t take part in her school’s cultural diversity day. The pupils had been asked to come dressed to “reflect your nationality or family heritage” in clothing “appropriate for a school setting”. Football kits had been explicitly excluded. She wore a Spice Girls-style union flag dress. A child dressed with a Wales flag was also stopped from participating. That seems equally unjust to me. These are just kids – cut them some slack.
The girl was sent home, and asked to wait in reception until her Dad came to collect her. She had prepared a speech, which her Dad published on social media. It’s well written, and mentions the British talking about the weather and drinking tea. Maybe she got support from her parents. That’s no bad thing – parents taking an interest in their kids’ education should be encouraged.
It’s not clear why the schoolteacher took that course, but the school has unreservedly apologised, and offered her the chance to make the speech at a charity event. In any other context, that would be the end of it.
But of course, anything to do with culture is fuel for the culture wars.
Union Jack dress school incident: fuel for the culture wars
Predictably, the Daily Mail and GB News waded in. A convicted fraudster, previously banned on YouTube for far-right hate content, set up a GoFundMe claiming the money would go to the girl’s father. Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson, is now championing her.
Moving on from the grim predictability of right-wing propagandists – who wail at the exploitation of children – exploiting a child for propaganda and money, there is an issue here.
There will be all kinds of false claims that grow up around this. It’s been an urban myth since the 1980’s that ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ was banned in schools. It was never banned by any school or council anywhere. But that hasn’t stopped it being used a straw man argument. Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer recently reinforced this vague unsubstantiated racial division with his “island of strangers” speech. But how should progressives respond?
We should reclaim patriotism.
Reclaim patriotism through active participation in civic life
In my election acceptance speech I said:
The highest patriotism is the active participation in civic life and working to defend our fellow citizens from the chaos and oppression of poverty, insecurity and hatred.
I was talking to a young doctor recently about British values. She said:
I’m immensely proud of the NHS.
This is the same NHS that Nigel Farage wants to privatise and dismantle. This is the same Farage who took £40,075 to promote Nomad Capitalist’s tax avoidance strategies. Instead of attending Parliament last September, which he is paid to do, he was in Kuala Lumpur selling schemes so millionaires can avoid UK tax. Some patriot.
Compare that with the Patriotic Millionaires, who campaign for a wealth tax for those with assets over £10m, including themselves.
What is British culture?
The great Scottish and British wit Samuel Johnson said:
patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Which raises another question. What exactly is British culture? Most people only know Samuel Johnson, inventor of the dictionary, from the Robbie Coltrane portrayal in Blackadder.
Culture changes. It always has, it always will. Culture is not uniform. I like Viz magazine and know the words to the Blaydon Races. I doubt whether the royal family share my taste. Chicken Tikka Masala, our national dish, was invented by Bangladeshi immigrants in Glasgow. Fish and chips was introduced by Jewish immigrants from Iberia.
And what about Christmas traditions? Do you open your presents first thing, or after Christmas dinner? Religious wars have been started for less!
Who exactly is British anyway? The direct descendants of King Arthur? Hardly, since if he ever did exist, he was an immigrant with the Roman army. We’re all descended from immigrants. As Stewart Lee put it, bloody Anglo-Saxons:
coming over here to the UK, laying down the basis of our entire future language and culture!
Let’s not forget that much of Britain’s wealth and power came from colonial exploitation. The slave trade. The Amritsar massacre. Gunboat diplomacy forcing China to buy British opium causing widespread drug addiction. And it’s hardly as if this was done to enrich the working people of Britain. Poverty and oppression was rife. That the Victorians put children in workhouses is cruel. That Dickens and others campaigned against it is inspiring. Pretty much every nation has its heroes and villains.
So when we talk about British culture, let’s avoid the balance sheet approach. Let’s instead celebrate the good, and learn never to repeat the bad.
British culture is standing on the shoulders of giants
I’m inspired by the poetry and plays of Shakespeare. The music of the Beatles. The genius of Darwin and Newton. The innovation of England’s Brunel and Scotland’s James Watt. British culture gave the world football and cricket. Steam engines and railways. Antibiotics and the World Wide Web.
I’m proud of my North Eastern heritage. The electric light invented in Gateshead by Joseph Swan. Stephenson’s railways and Armstrong’s hydro-electricity. Our famous warmth and friendliness and gallows humour.
These are not my achievements. Like a supporter in the crowd cheering a goal, I can enjoy them. But it doesn’t make me a better person than the other team’s supporters. We didn’t build our culture. We inherited it.
As Isaac Newton said:
If I have seen further than others, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants.
Nobody has a bad word to say about the French Resistance in the Second World War, right? Who would criticise a group confronting fascism, right?
Yet this month the UK group Palestine Action has been proscribed as a “terrorist” organisation by their government for their non-violent direct action against UK-based industries supplying technology to fuel Israel’s destruction of the Palestinian people.
Are they terrorists or the very best of us in the West?
Stéphane Hessel, a leading member of the French Resistance, survived time in Nazi concentration camps, including Buchenwald. After the war he was one of the co-authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), a pillar of international law to this day.
The Declaration affirms the inherent dignity and equal rights of all humans. In later years Hessel (d. 2013), who was Jewish, saw the treatment of the Palestinians as an affront to this and repeatedly called Israel out for crimes against humanity.
Hessel argued people needed to be outraged just as he and his fellow fighters had been during the war.
In 2010, he said: “Today, my strongest feeling of indignation is over Palestine, both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The starting point of my outrage was the appeal launched by courageous Israelis to the Diaspora: you, our older siblings, come and see where our leaders are taking this country and how they are forgetting the fundamental human values of Judaism.”
In his book Indignez-vous (Time for Outrage!) he called for a “peaceful insurrection” and pointed to some of the non-violent forms of protests Palestinians had used over the years.
In Kendal, UK, this fellow wasn’t arrested. In Cardiff, this woman was. Perhaps the “terrorism” isn’t saying you support Palestine Action – it’s saying you oppose genocide?! Image: Private Eye/X/@DefendourJuries
“The Israeli authorities have described these marches as ‘nonviolent terrorism’. Not bad . . . One would have to be Israeli to describe nonviolence as terrorism.”
How wrong Stéphane Hessel was on this point. The British Parliament has just proscribed Palestine Action as “terrorists” despite them having never attacked anyone, never used weapons, but only undertaken destruction of property linked to the arms industry.
Does Palestine Action really bear resemblance to Al Qaeda or ISIS, or Israel’s Stern Gang or the IDF? Or, like the French Resistance, will they eventually be recognised as heroes of our time? Will Hollywood romanticise them in their usual tardy way in 50 years time?
In respect to the Palestinians, Hessel was clear that resistance could take many forms: “We must recognise that when a country is occupied by infinitely superior military means, the popular reaction cannot be only nonviolent,” he said.
In his time, he lived by those words.
Resistance – a precious band of brothers and sisters Here’s a statistic that should make you think. In the Second World War less than 2 percent of French people played any active role in the Resistance. Most people just sat back and got on with their lives whether they liked the Germans or didn’t.
The Jews and others were dealt to, stamped on and shipped out, while most of the French could trundle on unharassed. The heavy lifting of resistance was done by a small band of brothers and sisters who took it to the enemy.
History salutes them, as we now salute the Suffragettes, the anti-Apartheid activists, the American civil rights groups and Irish liberation fighters. We’re living through something similar now — and our governments are the bad guys.
I first learned that shocking fact about the composition of the Resistance from my history teacher at l’Université de Franche-Comté, in France in the 1980s. He was the distinguished historian Antoine Casanova, a specialist on Napoleon, Corsica and the Resistance.
Perhaps the low level of resistance is not surprising. Most of the people who put their bodies on the line in Occupied France during the Second World War were either communists or Jews. Good on them. Jewish people made up as much as 20 percent of the French Resistance despite numbering only about 1 percent of the population. This massive over-representation can, understandably, be explained as recognition of the existential threat they faced — but many were also passionate communists or socialists, the ideological enemies of the racist, fascist ideology of their occupiers.
Looking at the Israeli State today, many of those same Jewish Resistance fighters would instantly recognise the racism and fascism that they opposed in the 1940s. We should remember our leaders tell us we share values with Israel.
For anyone not in the United Kingdom (where it is illegal to show any support for Palestine Action) I highly recommend the recently released documentary To Kill A War Machine which gives an absolutely riveting account of both the direct action the group has undertaken and the moral and ideological underpinnings of their actions.
Having seen the documentary I can see why the British Labour government is doing everything in its power to silence and censor them. They really do expose who the true terrorists are. Stéphane Hessel would be proud of Palestine Action.
This week a former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made clear what is going on in Gaza.
The “humanitarian city” Israel is planning to build on the ruins of Rafah would be, in his words, a concentration camp. Others have described it as a Warsaw-ghetto or a “death camp”. Olmert says Israel is clearly committing war crimes in both Gaza and the West Bank and that the concentration camp for the Gazan population would mark a further escalation.
It would go beyond ethnic cleansing and take the Jewish State of Israel shoulder-to-shoulder with other regimes that built such camps. Israel, we should never forget, is our close ally.
Millions of people have hit the streets in Western countries. A majority clearly repudiate what the US and Israel are doing. But the political leadership of the big Western countries continues to enable the racist, fascist genocidal state of Israel to do its evil work. Lesser powers of the white-dominated broederbond, like Australia and New Zealand, also provide valuable support.
Until our populations in the West mobilise in sufficient numbers to force change on our increasingly criminal ruling elites, the heavy-lifting done by groups like Palestine Action will remain powerful forms of the resistance.
I grew up in the Catholic faith. One of the lines indelibly printed on my consciousness was: “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Palestine Action is doing that. Francesca Albanese is doing that. Justice for Palestine and Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa are doing this.
The real question, the burning question each of us must answer is — given there is no middle ground, there is no fence to sit on when it comes to genocide — whose side are you on? And what are you going to do about it? Vive la Resistance! Vive the defenders of the Palestinian cause!
Rest in Peace Stéphane Hessel. Le temps passe, le souvenir reste.
Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz
Occupied West Bank-based New Zealand journalist Cole Martin asks who are the peacemakers?
BEARING WITNESS:By Cole Martin
As a Kiwi journalist living in the occupied West Bank, I can list endless reasons why there is no peace in the “Holy Land”.
I live in a refugee camp, alongside families who were expelled from their homes by Israel’s violent establishment in 1948 — never allowed to return and repeatedly targeted by Israeli military incursions.
Daily I witness suffocating checkpoints, settler attacks against rural towns, arbitrary imprisonment with no charge or trial, a crippled economy, expansion of illegal settlements, demolition of entire communities, genocidal rhetoric, and continued expulsion.
No form of peace can exist within an active system of domination. To talk about peace without liberation and dignity is to suggest submission to a system of displacement, imprisonment, violence and erasure.
I often find myself alongside a variety of peacemakers, putting themselves on the line to end these horrific systems — let me outline the key groups:
Palestinian civil society and individuals have spent decades committed to creative non-violence in the face of these atrocities — from court battles to academia, education, art, co-ordinating demonstrations, general strikes, hīkoi (marches), sit-ins, civil disobedience. Google “Iqrit village”, “The Great March of Return”, “Tent of Nations farm”. These are the overlooked stories that don’t make catchy headlines.
Protective Presence activists are a mix of about 150 Israeli and international civilians who volunteer their days and nights physically accompanying Palestinian communities. They aim to prevent Israeli settler violence, state-sanctioned home demolitions, and military/police incursions. They document the injustice and often face violence and arrest themselves. Foreigners face deportation and blacklisting — as a journalist I was arrested and barred from the West Bank short-term and my passport was withheld for more than a month.
Reconciliation organisations have been working for decades to bridge the disconnect between political narratives and human realities. The effective groups don’t seek “co-existence” but “co-resistance” because they recognise there can be no peace within an active system of apartheid. They reiterate that dialogue alone achieves nothing while the Israeli regime continues to murder, displace and steal. Yes there are “opposing narratives”, but they do not have equal legitimacy when tested against the reality on the ground.
Journalists continue to document and report key developments, chilling statistics and the human cost. They ensure people are seen. Over 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza. High-profile Palestinian Christian journalist Shireen Abu-Akleh was killed by Israeli forces in 2022. They continue reporting despite the risk, and without their courage world leaders wouldn’t know which undeniable facts to brazenly ignore.
Humanitarians serve and protect the most vulnerable, treating and rescuing people selflessly. More than 400 aid workers and 1000 healthcare workers have been killed in Gaza. All 38 hospitals have been destroyed or damaged, with just a small number left partially functioning. NGOs have been crippled by USAID cuts and targeted Israeli policies, marked by a mass exodus of expats who have spent years committed to this region — severing a critical lifeline for Palestinian communities.
All these groups emphasise change will not come from within. Protective Presence barely stems the flow.
Reconciliation means nothing while the system continues to displace, imprison and slaughter Palestinians en masse. Journalism, non-violence and humanitarian efforts are only as effective as the willingness of states to uphold international law.
Those on the frontlines of peacebuilding express the urgent need for global accountability across all sectors; economic, cultural and political sanctions. Systems of apartheid do not stem from corrupt leadership or several extremists, but from widespread attitudes of supremacy and nationalism across civil society.
Boycotts increase the economic cost of maintaining such systems. Divestment sends a strong financial message that business as usual is unacceptable.
Many other groups across the world are picketing weapons manufacturers, writing to elected leaders, educating friends and family, challenging harmful narratives, fundraising aid to keep people alive.
Where are the peacemakers? They’re out on the streets. They’re people just like you and me.
Cole Martin is an independent New Zealand photojournalist based in the occupied West Bank and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report. This article was first published by the Otago Daily Times and is republished with permission.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.
Keir Starmer has already gifted Reform UK the opportunity to become the largest party following the next general election, but whoever thought there would be an sudden thunderbolt from the left, threatening to confine the Labour Party to history’s dustbin?
A year of Keir Starmer
Isn’t it fantastic? We have suffered a year of Keir, and what a ghastly, but entirely predictable year it has been, but a new poll suggests a newly-formed left-wing alliance could pick up 18%, including one in three Labour voters.
This is without a launch, without policies, without a confirmed party, and without a confirmed leader. For what it’s worth, I would expect a new left-wing alliance to be exactly that, with little emphasis on a figurehead and more of a focus on groups of leaders
Did I ever mention the time in 2017 when we came together to deliver a message of equal opportunities, public ownership, free lifelong learning, a National Care Service and real change that had foundations built upon hope?
I might’ve done, once or twice.
We had a political leader that actually offered a genuine alternative to this perpetual cycle of capitalism governance, and it went down particularly well with the people of Britain.
Curse you, Brexit.
But now, the appetite is growing.
The winds of change are blowing again
Fourteen years of Tory rule and a year of Keir will force the politically homeless left to come together and thrash out a way forward, because we cannot go on like this.
The left has got to get its shit together.
Some might say the Noel and Liam style of relationship is entertaining to watch from a safe distance, but we have to focus on the bigger picture, because the chance will slide away before we know it.
Okay, no more daft puns, you can stand by me on that one.
Think about that bigger picture for a moment. Look at the diabolical state we find ourselves in right now. Are your personal differences with so-and-so from blah-dee-blah of greater importance than ensuring our poor and disabled people aren’t killed off by the state and whatever hellish nightmare is to come in a few short years from now?
Inward looking factions win absolutely nothing. Arguing over ideological purities does precisely fuck all to help the hard-pressed working classes relying on Food Banks or the disabled people forced into poverty by this abhorrent and cruel Labour government.
The change that was promised by the Prime Minister isn’t the sort of change that millions of Labour voters supported, just over a year ago. I think we’re all sick of saying it now.
Starmer: a mess of his own making
A number of leftists held their noses and voted for Starmer’s Labour, just to remove the Tories from power. They will come home to the left if the left has a place to call home. Believe me, there is only so much guilt and regret that a person can live with.
It’s been a year, and Keir Starmer’s government has achieved very little of note in that time. His administration was riddled with tales of extravagant freebies from the first day, and it’s only gone downhill ever since.
You have seen Israel first Starmer’s genocidal complicity with your very own eyes. You have watched his “island of strangers” government go full Reform UK on immigration and prime Iain Duncan Smith on disabled people.
It’s been a year, and Keir Starmer’s government has lurched from one devastating crisis to the next. Ministers routinely brief against each other and factional warfare is well and truly alive at the top of the Labour hierarchy.
All of the time the Labour Party itself had some undeserved good will from the electorate, the deeply unpopular leader could get away with a few minor indiscretions.
But we have moved on very quickly. There was no honeymoon period, and I’ll stick my slightly sunburnt neck out and say that Keir Starmer’s government blundered through the worst start of any British government in living memory.
Call Corbyn and quick
The Labour Party is despised, across the political spectrum.
The left don’t want a fiscally conservative, business friendly, reactionary machine that has been co-opted by global elites.
The right don’t want a ‘woke Remainer’ that has ‘lost control of our borders’, incapable of delivering economic deregulation, and a little bit too progressive on certain social issues.
And the centre ground? They don’t really know what to think at the best of times. Just leave them to worry about their poster boy, Zelenskyy.
If you have followed events surrounding the Labour Party for a few years, you will know that Keir Starmer is particularly fond of a relaunch, so you will be pleased to hear that this is set to continue as we head into the summer recess, which gets underway on 22 July.
It’s been a year of internal rebellions, policy reversals, declining public approval, and self-inflicted economic pressures. Labour is trailing in most, if not all of the opinion polls, public discontent is growing and for me, above almost anything else, it has been a wasted year of opportunity to deliver the bold, progressive reforms that are needed to make Britain a better, greater place to live.
Another day, another unhinged racist screed from Republicans in Congress that results in virtually no mainstream media coverage because the target is a Muslim-American.
Fine’s latest rant—in concert with the killing of Minnesota progressives last month—appears to have been a bridge too far, even for the normally silent and cynical Democratic leadership.
Tuesday night, in response to a post on X/Twitter from Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) that echoed the International Criminal Court’s designation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a war criminal, Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) posted on X/Twitter. “I’m sure it is difficult to see us welcome the killer of so many of your fellow Muslim terrorists,” he wrote. “The only shame is that you serve in Congress.”
The statement follows a long pattern of targeted racist harassment and incitement from Reps. Fine and Nancy Mace (R-SC). And, just like all previous racist attacks, it did not merit coverage in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NBC, ABC, or CBS network news, or on-air coverage at CNN. The only coverage Fine’s bigoted rant solicited were short write-ups in Politico, Reuters, and CNN.com, and NBC News web only, and the only substantive coverage was from MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, who did an 8 minute, 41 second segment detailing Fine’s long history of incitement.
Adding urgency to the violent rhetoric is the fact that Omar was among the Minnesota officials who appeared on target lists compiled by accused murderer Vance Boelter, who allegedly assassinated Democrats in a shooting spree last month.
Unlike Fine’s previous racist screeds, this one at least resulted in condemnation from Democratic leadership in the House. Previous racist social media posts merited no such response. But Fine’s latest rant—in concert with the killing of Minnesota progressives last month—appears to have been a bridge too far, even for the normally silent and cynical Democratic leadership.
Our statement in connection with Randy Fine’s Islamophobic attack on Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. pic.twitter.com/Wxnlzv1elh
In the past, Fine has called Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) “a terrorist” who “shouldn’t be American.” (Tlaib was born in Detroit, Michigan). He said Tlaib and Omar “might consider leaving before I get [to Congress]. #BombsAway.” He has advocated running over and killing pro-Palestine protesters, called Palestinians “animals,” referred to Muslims as “rapists,” and openly cheered starving civilians in Gaza. In May, Fine attacked Tlaib on X/Twitter, writing in response to her condemnation of Israel’s starvation campaign in Gaza, “Tell your fellow Muslim terrorists to release the hostages and surrender. Until then, #StarveAway.” In June, Fine’s colleague Mace told the PBD Podcast she wanted to “send Ilhan Omar Back To Somalia,” in response to Omar’s criticisms of Trump’s immigration crackdowns. She later doubled down on X/Twitter: “Omar clearly has more loyalty to the corrupt hellhole she came from than to the country she was elected to serve.”
None of these attacks merited any mainstream media coverage—much less any sustained outrage or condemnation. The only reason the latest round of incitement got a handful of blurbs in Politico and CNN.com and (belatedly) a segment on MSNBC is likely because Democrats finally condemned them. And that’s all. Crickets from the New York Times, Washington Post network news, and CNN.
This raises the question: What would Fine or Mace have to say to justify actual media outrage? Actual sustained coverage? These attacks are not subtle or reliant on dog whistles. They’re out in the open, proudly hateful, and an invitation for their proudly bigoted social media followers to double down.
Contrast this media silence after months of sustained racist incitement against Reps. Omar and Tlaib with the week-long media meltdown last September when Tlaib suggested that Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed charges against pro-Palestinian activists at the University of Michigan because she was potentially biased against pro-Palestine protesters. “We’ve [protested for] climate, the immigrant rights movement, for Black lives, and even around issues of injustice among water shutoffs,” Tlaib told the Detroit Metro Times. “But it seems that the attorney general decided if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently, and that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs.”
“Antisemitism” scandals in our media are almost never about combating the very real dangers of antisemitism. They’re about disciplining critics of Israel.
Tapper, who hosts two influential cable news shows—his daily weekday show The Lead, and the Sunday morning agenda-setting news program State of the Union—is the most nakedly hypocritical commentator in all of media. He effectively manufactured the “antisemitism” scandal targeting Tlaib last September out of whole cloth, outright lying about her in an interview with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. “Congresswoman Tlaib is suggesting,” Tapper somberly said on air, “that [AG Nessel] shouldn’t be prosecuting these individuals that Nessel says broke the law and that she’s only doing it because she’s Jewish”—which is not at all what Tlaib said. A smear neither Bash nor Tapper ever apologized for or retracted, only opaquely saying they “misspoke” in a throwaway line days later.
Since this shameful, false smear of Tlaib, there’s been a half-dozen racist attacks on Tlaib and her Muslim colleague in Congress by Fine and others, and has Tapper done a single segment on it? He has not. He did, however, find time last night to platform the head of pro-Israel pressure group ADL Jonathan Greenblatt so he could (again) defend Musk’s neo-Nazi gesture from Trump’s inauguration and accuse the largest union in the country, the National Education Association, of “antisemitism” for cutting ties with the ADL over its promotion of anti-Palestinian racism and Israeli foreign policy. Tapper also conspicuously failed to ask Greenblatt about a recent high profile rebuke of Greenblatt by Yehuda Cohen, father of Israeli captive Nimrod Cohen, who accused Greenblatt of fabricating a story about his family to promote “cheap patriotism” and “endless war in Gaza.”
Defending the expression “from the River to the Sea” and noting allegations—entirely correct, it turns out—of anti-Palestinian bias from a state prosecutor results in weeks-long media scandal, meltdowns, cable news mentions, pundit commentary, and congressional censures. Yet out-in-the-open anti-Muslim bigtory and calls for violence against sitting members of Congress are barely mentioned at all. The double standard—which, as Zeteo’s Prem Thakker notes, isn’t really a double standard since only one side is actually being bigoted—could not be more obvious. The question is, why?
The reason is that “antisemitism” scandals in our media are almost never about combating the very real dangers of antisemitism. They’re about disciplining critics of Israel. They’re about using the language of liberalism against liberalism, protecting US and Israeli regional hegemony by attacking anyone undermining its ideological underpinnings. Meanwhile, actual racism, actual incitement, and actual defamation of Muslim-Americans solicits a yawn because it poses no challenge to US and Israeli national security interests and, in key ways, assists them by stoking the anti-Muslim racism essential for its maintenance. It’s an inconsistency that has always been present, but with the latest crop of cartoonishly racist MAGA trolls in Congress, the glaring double standard has grown wider and more obvious. The question is whether anyone in mainstream media, beyond a one-off segment on MSNBC, will note it, much less gin up a scandal over it.
Tomorrow marks 40 years since the bombing and sinking of the Rainbow Warrior — a moment that changed the course of New Zealand’s history and reshaped how we saw ourselves on the world stage.
Two French agents planted two explosives on the ship, then just before midnight, explosions ripped through the hull killing photographer, Fernando Pereira and sinking the 47m ex-fishing trawler.
The attack sparked outrage across the country and the world, straining diplomatic ties between New Zealand and France and cementing the country’s anti-nuclear stance.
Few people are more closely linked to the ship than author and journalist Dr David Robie, who spent eleven weeks on board during its final voyage through the Pacific, and wrote the book, Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, which is being published tomorrow. He joins Emile Donovan.
How Pacific live media communications have changed in the past 21 years.
In May 2004, the live broadcast of Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara’s funeral from Lau required a complex and resource-intensive setup.
Fiji TV relied on assistance from TVNZ, deploying a portable satellite installation to transmit signals from Lau to a satellite up in the sky, then to Auckland, back to another satellite, and finally down to Suva.
This intricate process underscored the technological limitations of the time, where live coverage from remote Fiji areas demanded significant logistical coordination and international support.
Fast forward to 2025, 21 years later, and the communication and media landscape in Fiji has undergone a remarkable transformation.
Today, I see video production houses, TV stations, radio stations, and newspaper media outlets delivering live coverage directly from Lau.
This shows how high-speed internet, mobile networks, and portable streaming devices like Starlink has eliminated the need for cumbersome satellite relays. No approval from any authority.
Where once international partnerships were essential, today’s media teams in Fiji can operate independently, delivering seamless live coverage of cultural, political, and social events from even the most isolated areas.
Republished from Fiji Times managing digital editor Anish Chand’s social media post with permission. He is a former Fiji TV news operations manager.
I’ve noticed over the last couple of years younger progressive/revolutionary organizers using the word, “comrade,” to refer to other organizers. Is this a good idea?
During the days of McCarthyism in the 1950s, and probably before then, self-righteous conservatives used this word as a smear against people on the political Left. “Comrade” was a word used before and after the Russian Revolution in 1917 by members of the Bolshevik Party which led that revolution and dominated the USSR government for decades afterwards. I suspect, without knowing for sure, that members of the Communist Party in the USA from the 1920s on, at least until McCarthyite repression in the 50s, used that term also, given the CPUSA’s very close connection to the Soviet CP during that time.
George Orwell’s Animal Farm, published in 1945, had a lot to do with the comrade word becoming much more widely discredited. Animal Farm is the story of a revolution gone bad, corruption of once-revolutionary and brave leadership upon gaining power, and even as those bad things happen and demoralization sets in among many of the animals, use of the word comrade is continued by those in power.
As a young person growing up in the 1950s and 60s, I absorbed much of the dominant conservative ideology of those days and as a result never used, and still don’t use, the comrade word in any way. To me, it has been seen as a problematic word.
But there are other-than-leftist groups in the USA that use the word. Doing some google searching I learned that it is in use in both the US military and among veterans groups, which is surprising. Why would that be the case?
In a Random House dictionary published in 1966, they give three definitions for the word: “1) a person who shares closely in one’s activities, occupation, interests, etc: intimate companion, associate, or friend. 2) a fellow member of a fraternal group, political party, etc. 3) a member of the Communist Party or someone with strongly leftist views.”
I think it’s telling that the US military and veterans groups apparently use the word. Clearly, their doing so would fall under definitions 1 and 2, not 3. There is something about the word, something about the idea of comradeship, that connects people who are working “closely” together in a shared task, shared “interests.”
Many of us today, literally millions, are standing up and taking action against the Trumpfascists. 5 million or more took part in 2,200 local actions in all 50 states on June 14, No Kings! Day. Probably millions are going to take part in local “Good Trouble Lives On” actions on July 17, the 5th anniversary of the death of longtime freedom fighter John Lewis; there are already over 1,000 planned. And I feel a sense of comradeship, progressive comradeship, with this so-very-important mass political force, this popular resistance movement.
“Progressive comradeship:” that’s a phrase I’m comfortable with. It fits with definitions 1 and 2 above. It clarifies that this movement is broadly-based, representing tens of millions of people, going from “strong leftists,” including communists, on one pole to decent, concerned people on the other who believe in “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
During Hakeem Jeffries’ record-breaking, 8 hour and 44 minutes, impressive speech right before the Big Ugly Bill was narrowly passed in the House of Representatives on July 3rd, he quoted more than once a passage from the Bible that clearly resonated with the many Democratic Congresspeople sitting, and sometimes standing in loud applause, behind him. That passage? Matthew 25: 35-40. It’s one that should undergird all that we do as we keep building and strengthening the Resistance.
“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
We must do all we can as long as we are alive to try to bring into existence a world motivated by these words in Matthew. It’s a certainty that the warped and twisted, pro-oligarch, obscene policies of the current federal government, combined with the day-to-day organizing of the millions of us, is going to lead to many more millions joining with us in this profoundly important task history has placed before us.
Our mass democracy movement is now and must continue to be characterized by progressive comradeship in the way we interact and a deep, abiding love for others and the natural world. Nothing can defeat that kind of movement, nothing. We really can change the world.
I’ve noticed over the last couple of years younger progressive/revolutionary organizers using the word, “comrade,” to refer to other organizers. Is this a good idea?
During the days of McCarthyism in the 1950s, and probably before then, self-righteous conservatives used this word as a smear against people on the political Left. “Comrade” was a word used before and after the Russian Revolution in 1917 by members of the Bolshevik Party which led that revolution and dominated the USSR government for decades afterwards. I suspect, without knowing for sure, that members of the Communist Party in the USA from the 1920s on, at least until McCarthyite repression in the 50s, used that term also, given the CPUSA’s very close connection to the Soviet CP during that time.
George Orwell’s Animal Farm, published in 1945, had a lot to do with the comrade word becoming much more widely discredited. Animal Farm is the story of a revolution gone bad, corruption of once-revolutionary and brave leadership upon gaining power, and even as those bad things happen and demoralization sets in among many of the animals, use of the word comrade is continued by those in power.
As a young person growing up in the 1950s and 60s, I absorbed much of the dominant conservative ideology of those days and as a result never used, and still don’t use, the comrade word in any way. To me, it has been seen as a problematic word.
But there are other-than-leftist groups in the USA that use the word. Doing some google searching I learned that it is in use in both the US military and among veterans groups, which is surprising. Why would that be the case?
In a Random House dictionary published in 1966, they give three definitions for the word: “1) a person who shares closely in one’s activities, occupation, interests, etc: intimate companion, associate, or friend. 2) a fellow member of a fraternal group, political party, etc. 3) a member of the Communist Party or someone with strongly leftist views.”
I think it’s telling that the US military and veterans groups apparently use the word. Clearly, their doing so would fall under definitions 1 and 2, not 3. There is something about the word, something about the idea of comradeship, that connects people who are working “closely” together in a shared task, shared “interests.”
Many of us today, literally millions, are standing up and taking action against the Trumpfascists. 5 million or more took part in 2,200 local actions in all 50 states on June 14, No Kings! Day. Probably millions are going to take part in local “Good Trouble Lives On” actions on July 17, the 5th anniversary of the death of longtime freedom fighter John Lewis; there are already over 1,000 planned. And I feel a sense of comradeship, progressive comradeship, with this so-very-important mass political force, this popular resistance movement.
“Progressive comradeship:” that’s a phrase I’m comfortable with. It fits with definitions 1 and 2 above. It clarifies that this movement is broadly-based, representing tens of millions of people, going from “strong leftists,” including communists, on one pole to decent, concerned people on the other who believe in “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
During Hakeem Jeffries’ record-breaking, 8 hour and 44 minutes, impressive speech right before the Big Ugly Bill was narrowly passed in the House of Representatives on July 3rd, he quoted more than once a passage from the Bible that clearly resonated with the many Democratic Congresspeople sitting, and sometimes standing in loud applause, behind him. That passage? Matthew 25: 35-40. It’s one that should undergird all that we do as we keep building and strengthening the Resistance.
“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
We must do all we can as long as we are alive to try to bring into existence a world motivated by these words in Matthew. It’s a certainty that the warped and twisted, pro-oligarch, obscene policies of the current federal government, combined with the day-to-day organizing of the millions of us, is going to lead to many more millions joining with us in this profoundly important task history has placed before us.
Our mass democracy movement is now and must continue to be characterized by progressive comradeship in the way we interact and a deep, abiding love for others and the natural world. Nothing can defeat that kind of movement, nothing. We really can change the world.
Call me cynical, but I think Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, and their gaggle of featherweight co-defendants would’ve been absolutely delighted if the OTT furore surrounding Glastonbury punk act Bob Vylanmanaged to stretch out beyond his government’s diabolical assault on the sick, disabled, poor, and vulnerable people of the UK.
But what of Vylan? Ditched by their agents, banned from entering the US, and their career lying in tatters – quite a heavy price to pay for denouncing a state-sponsored terrorist entity, don’t you think?
Bob Vylan: a fuss over nothing
Vylan’s choice of words were unsavoury, I think most people would agree. But there’s something seriously wrong when a controversial punk act faces considerably heavier criticism from the political and media class than the perpetrators of genocide.
Has Vylan’s outburst done anything to aid the victims of Israeli atrocities? Some, but very few pro-Palestinian voices claim the move was counterproductive, but it certainly isn’t going to make the ongoing humanitarian crisis facing the Palestinian people any worse, is it?
Perhaps the whole point of the “death, death to the IDF” chant was to cause enough controversy for the see-no-evil world to sit up and pay attention? If that was the point, it was a resounding success. I would also argue that Vylan’s form of protest was entirely in keeping with the punk ethos.
But what must be said is Vylan’s anti-military chant wasn’t an antisemitic attack on the Jewish faith, and anyone claiming otherwise is being grotesquely deceitful.
This was a huge cry of outrage, directly aimed at a murderous, barbaric military superpower. This was a legitimate use of free speech to highlight the greatest injustice of our times.
You might not approve of the method, or the brutality of the message, but there is no argument that the actions of a genocidal child-killing military cannot be compared to the slightly-controversial words of an artist on stage amidst a colourful sea of Palestinian flags.
We are not for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people. We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine.
If you think that simple statement is controversial in any way, I don’t think we would get on particularly well.
A Middle East that is free from death and destruction may seem like an impossible dream, but I believe that peace will only have the opportunity to bloom when justice takes root and vengeance and division is replaced by compassion and tolerance.
Hark at me, going all Mandela.
Rachel from Accounts: save me the crocodile tears
I’m afraid I also won’t be joining in with the liberal media’s mass outpouring of sympathy for a tearful Rachel from accounts.
One hack went as far as to suggest our hearts should go out to Reeves because she is a woman. Unless I’m mistaken, so was Margaret Thatcher and so is Suella Braverman. Save that “girl power” nonsense for someone else.
If the last line of defence for these metropolitan clowns is to plead with us to feel sorry for Rachel Reeves because of her gender, this Labour government is well and truly dead and buried within a year of it fluking its way into power.
Perhaps they are hoping a focus on Reeves’ tearful episode is exactly what is needed to distract from substantive critique of her actions?
Reeves hasn’t ever shown any compassion towards the victims of her political choices, has she? Policy decisions come with impact.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has supported policies that disproportionately harm vulnerable groups. These “difficult decisions” have exasperated poverty and inequality, particularly for disabled people and low-income households.
You want me to feel sorry for a woman that didn’t have an issue with freezing thousands of pensioners to death?
Really?
Ruthless
Starmer and Reeves have ruthlessly dragged the Labour Party away from its traditional left-wing roots. It’s been a genuinely painful ordeal to witness. We changed so much in such a short time, but that Labour Party has undoubtedly gone forever.
Political choices such as not reintroducing a cap on bankers’ bonuses and halving Labour’s £28 billion climate investment plan, are the sort of concessions to corporate interests that became synonymous with fourteen years of Tory failure.
Labour’s tragic departure from socialist principles and alignment with establishment interests has never been so apparent as it is today, and that is why I would wholeheartedly support a new unashamedly left-wing political party at the drop of a hat.
And it doesn’t look like we will have to wait very long for one to come along.
In the heart of Gaza, that city upon which the shadows of war have fallen like a cloak of ashes, the hospital morgue stands as a silent witness, but one that screams. There, where the walls bear the scars of absence, and where the smells mix blood and holy water, another chapter is being written in the story of death, which can no longer find room to embrace.
In that narrow corner, the mortuary is no longer just the final stop for the departed, but has become a temporary shelter for bodies exhausted by bombing and faces that left life without saying goodbye. Rows of martyrs stretch out in silence, and names accumulate in notebooks damp with sadness, without date, without age.
The martyrs are homeless in Gaza
The land was once fertile enough to bloom, but now it is weighed down by the weight of those who have departed, and there is no room to bury them. The cemeteries are now nothing but ruins, some of them bulldozed, some destroyed, and some besieged until they became graves built on top of the rubble of hospitals, as in the courtyard of Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, which held more than forty bodies when the horizon narrowed.
Today, the morgue looks like a small theater for a great tragedy. There is a child who has fallen into an eternal sleep, a woman clutching her shawl as if to protect herself from the cold of the grave, and an old man lying as if he has finally rested from the fatigue of life. Every body here carries the story of a homeland, pain compressed in its shroud, and a silence heavier than any wailing.
Gaza, which is accustomed to resisting life, now resists a faceless death. Mass burials, temporary graves, and bodies waiting their turn in a final ritual performed hastily, because there is not enough time and the place is not welcoming.
In Khan Yunis, death is not the end, but another battle, a battle fought by Palestinians as they search for a grave for their son, for a patch of earth that preserves the dignity of farewell, for a moment of burial that does not end with bombing.
In this besieged city, martyrdom is no longer just a reflection of the struggle; burial itself has become another struggle, a struggle for one last right: to be buried as befits a human being.
Immediately after killing Fernando Pereira and blowing up Greenpeace’s flagship the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour, several of the French agents went on a ski holiday in New Zealand’s South Island to celebrate.
Such was the contempt the French had for the Kiwis and the abilities of our police to pursue them. How wrong they were.
A new prologue by former prime minister Helen Clark and a preface by Greenpeace’s Bunny McDiarmid, along with an extensive postscript which bring us up to the present day, underline why the past is not dead; it’s with us right now.
Written by David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report, who spent 11 weeks on the final voyage of the Warrior, the book is the most remarkable piece of history I have read this year and one of those rare books that has the power to expand your mind and make your blood boil at the same time. I thought I knew a fair bit about the momentous events surrounding the attack — until I read Eyes of Fire.
Heroes of our age The book covers the history of Greenpeace action — from fighting the dumping of nuclear and other toxic waste in European waters, the Arctic and the Pacific, voyages to link besieged communities across the oceans, through to their epic struggles to halt whaling and save endangered marine colonies from predators.
The Rainbow Warrior’s very last voyage before the bombing was to evacuate the entire population of Rongelap atoll (about 320 people) in the Marshall Islands who had been exposed to US nuclear radiation for decades.
This article is the first of two in which I will explore themes that the book triggered for me.
Neither secret nor intelligent – the French secret intelligence service
Jean-Luc Kister was the DGSE (Direction-générale de la Sécurité extérieure) agent who placed the two bombs that ripped a massive hole in the hull of the Warrior on 10 July 1985. The ship quickly sank, trapping Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira inside.
Former colonel Kister was a member of a large team of elite agents sent to New Zealand. One had also infiltrated Greenpeace months before, some travelled through the country prior to the attack, drinking, rooting New Zealand women and leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that led all the way to the Palais de l’Élysée where François Mitterrand, Socialist President of France, had personally given the order to bomb the famous peace vessel.
Robie aptly calls the French mission “Blundergate”. The stupidity, howling incompetence and moronic lack of a sound strategic rationale behind the attack were only matched by the mendacity, the imperial hauteur and the racist contempt that lies at the heart of French policy in the Pacific to this very day.
Thinking the Kiwi police would be no match for their élan, their savoir-faire and their panache, some of the killers hit the ski slopes to celebrate “Mission Accompli”. Others fled to Norfolk Island aboard a yacht, the Ouvéa.
Tracked there by the New Zealand police it was only with the assistance of our friends and allies, the Australians, that the agents were able to escape. Within days they sank their yacht at sea during a rendezvous with a French nuclear submarine and were evenually able to return to France for medals and promotions.
Two of the agents, however, were not so lucky. As everyone my age will recall, Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart, were nabbed after a lightning fast operation by New Zealand police.
With friends and allies like these, who needs enemies? We should recall that the French were our allies at the time. They decided, however, to stop the Rainbow Warrior from leading a flotilla of ships up to Moruroa Atoll in French Polynesia where yet another round of nuclear tests were scheduled. In other words: they bombed a peace ship to keep testing bombs.
By 1995, France had detonated 193 nuclear bombs in the South Pacific.
David Robie sees the bombing as “a desperate attempt by one of the last colonial powers in the Pacific to hang on to the vestiges of empire by blowing up a peace ship so it could continue despoiling Pacific islands for the sake of an independent nuclear force”.
The US, UK and Australia cold-shouldered New Zealand through this period and uttered not a word of condemnation against the French. Within two years we were frog-marched out of the ANZUS alliance with Australia and the US because of our ground-breaking nuclear-free legislation.
It was a blessing and the dawn of a period in which New Zealanders had an intense sense of national pride — a far cry from today when New Zealand politicians are being referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for war crimes associated with the Gaza genocide.
The French State invented the term ‘terrorism’ I studied French History at university in France and did a paper called “La France à la veille de révolution” (France on the eve of revolution). One of the chilling cultural memories is of the period from September 1793 to July 1794, which was known as La Terreur.
At the time the French state literally coined the term “terrorisme” — with the blade of the guillotine dropping on neck after neck as the state tried to consolidate power through terror. But, as Robie points out, quoting law professor Roger S. Clark, we tend to use the term today to refer almost exclusively to non-state actors.
With the US and Israel gunning down starving civilians in Gaza every day, with wave after wave of terror attacks being committed inside Iran and across the Middle East by Mossad, the CIA and MI6, we should amend this erroneous habit.
The DGSE team who attached limpet mines to the Rainbow Warrior did so as psychopathic servants of the French State. Eyes of Fire: “At the time, Prime Minister David Lange described the Rainbow Warrior attack as ‘nothing more than a sordid act of international state-backed terrorism’.”
Don’t get me wrong. I am not “anti-French”. I lived for years in France, had a French girlfriend, studied French history, language and literature. I even had friends in Wellington who worked at the French Embassy.
Curiously when I lived next to Premier House, the official residence of the prime minister, my other next door neighbour was a French agent who specialised in surveillance. Our houses backed onto Premier House. Quelle coïncidence. To his mild consternation I’d greet him with “Salut, mon espion favori.” (Hello, my favourite spy).
What I despise is French colonialism, French racism, and what the French call magouillage. I don’t know a good English word for it . . . it is a mix of shenanigans, duplicity, artful deception to achieve unscrupulous outcomes that can’t be publicly avowed. In brief: what the French attempted in Auckland in 1985.
Robie recounts in detail the lying, smokescreens and roadblocks that everyone from President Mitterrand through to junior officials put in the way of the New Zealand investigators. Mitterrand gave Prime Minister David Lange assurances that the culprits would be brought to justice. The French Embassy in Wellington claimed at the time: “In no way is France involved. The French government doesn’t deal with its opponents in such ways.”
It took years for the bombshell to explode that none other than Mitterrand himself had ordered the terrorist attack on New Zealand and Greenpeace!
We the people of the Pacific We, the people of the Pacific, owe a debt to Greenpeace and all those who were part of the Rainbow Warrior, including author David Robie. We must remember the crime and call it by its name: state terrorism.
The French attempted to escape justice, deny involvement and then welched on the terms of the agreement negotiated with the help of the United Nations secretary-general.
A great way to honour the sacrifice of those who stood up for justice, who stood for peace and a nuclear-free Pacific, and who honoured our own national identity would be to buy David Robie’s excellent book.
I’ll give the last word to former Prime Minister Helen Clark:
“This is the time for New Zealand to link with the many small and middle powers across regions who have a vision for a world characterised by solidarity and peace and which can rise to the occasion to combat the existential challenges it faces — including of nuclear weapons, climate change, and artificial intelligence. If our independent foreign policy is to mean anything in the mid-2020s, it must be based on concerted diplomacy for peace and sustainable development.”
You cannot sink a rainbow.
Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz
On Tuesday 1 July I sat watching a live feed from the House of Commons, whilst caring for my disabled daughter who has a life-threatening condition alongside Down’s Syndrome. I am, sadly, very well versed in the cruel and cold treatment that the Department For Work and Pensions (DWP) bestows on disabled citizens like myself and my daughter.
I know because I’ve been on the receiving end of it. A procedure that decimated my mental health and left me without any financial support for over two years, until a member of my myalgic encephalomyelitis healthcare team stepped in to advocate for me.
So, knowing how difficult and traumatic our UK government and the DWP already makes it for disabled people to get even a scrap of support, I have struggled to understand why Keir Starmer’s Labour government would seek to make the lives of disabled people even harder.
The DWP debate was heartbreaking
I watched some impassioned speeches from some excellent MPs, clearly stating why the Welfare Bill needed to be withdrawn. In particular, Ian Lavery (MP for Ashington and Blyth) who clearly stated the bill was ‘outrageous’. And then I watched as a Welfare Bill designed to push disabled and sick people into abject poverty was voted through.
I felt physically sick.
I know how damaging the DWP system already is. I know what it is like to live in poverty. I know what it is like to be disabled and I know what it is like to be the parent of a disabled child. What I don’t know is how any decent human being can work towards punishing vulnerable people whose lives are already very hard indeed.
I am aware I sound heartbroken.
I am.
You see, I have been a Labour voter all my life. I voted for my current MP David Smith, for North Northumberland, based on the election promises made by the Labour Party in 2024. In their election manifesto they pledged to champion the rights of disabled people. They promised that our views and voices would be at the heart of all they do.
On election night, David Smith was door knocking in my area. He stopped to have a conversation at my house, where we discussed the community group I run that supports disabled children in Northumberland. I expressed the serious concerns facing the disabled community and he asked if he could meet with us to hear them. All of these promised, combined with what I thought was a solid manifesto, led me to vote for Labour.
I voted as a disabled woman, based on Labour’s manifesto pledges to disabled people like me. Sadly, it seems they were all lies.
Lie after lie after lie
My MP, David Smith, voted for the Welfare Bill. A bill that has been openly condemned by every single disability and human rights organisation. A bill that openly ignored the voices, pleas, and experiences of the millions of disabled people in this country. A bill that will cause hundreds of thousands of disabled people and children (yes, us disabled women do have children) into abject poverty.
Every MP who voted for this outrageous violation of human rights has betrayed their most vulnerable constituents and reneged on the election promises their party made towards disabled people.
You got us to vote for you and then you stabbed us in the back and swept our human rights away without even a second thought.
Furthermore, the lengths that the Labour Party has gone to, to push this catastrophic DWP legislation through, has been utterly shocking. Suddenly deciding that actually, it will only be new PIP claims that will be assessed under the new discriminatory criteria. Then in an outstanding manoeuvre, aimed at manipulating those MPs who were rightly challenging the front bench, into voting for it, verbally suggesting that the entire section on PIP will be scrapped.
It must have worked.
MPs voted for a bill that still had, in writing, that disabled people must score 4 points in any one category to qualify for PIP. That means people who need help to dress, wash and prepare food will not qualify for any support.
What happens then? If you can’t pay a support worker to help you then you don’t dress, wash or prepare food. It’s that simple. People will suffer. People may well die.
No trust left
There is no trust left. None. No confidence. Labour lied in its election pledges about listening to disabled people. We have been categorically cut out of the debate on this. Frozen out. Liz Kendall has silenced us and by doing so has breached the human rights of every disabled UK citizen.
So when Stephen Timms tries to offer reassurances, nobody believes him. I know I don’t believe anything they say anymore. It’s devastating from a party that once stood for the working classes, because lets face it, it’s working-class disabled people that will be affected the most by these reforms.
One day you are able to work your job, the next you’ve become disabled by a stroke, or a heart attack, or an accident. In my case it was Covid. In what world could you even have imagined that the Labour Party would choose to punish working class people for becoming disabled? This new world.
It’s not just the shocking reforms that aim to remove DWP PIP, a benefit that assists disabled people to work, that are devastating. It’s the punishment of young disabled people that makes me sick to my stomach.
My daughter, when she turns 16 will not be able to claim the health element of Universal Credit until she turns 22. I am not saying she wont be able to do any work, but as a parent-carer, you have to be realistic about your child’s condition.
Without going into too much detail, my daughter is medically complex and she will require a lot of support throughout her entire life. It’s almost like Keir Starmer’s party has no concept of what it is like to live with a debilitating condition. Or, if they do, they choose to ignore that people like me and my daughter exist.
That’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it. It’s easier to stonewall our voices. To ignore the facts. To gloss over the lives of people whose bodies simply do not work properly. To deny the fact we exist.
But we do.
It’s not too late to stop the DWP changes
We live our lives as best we can, often fighting just to get through each day. My daughter literally fights for her life on a regular basis. We already suffer with pain, barriers to pretty much every aspect of life, and poverty. The majority of food bank users are disabled people.
I have more respect and admiration for every single disabled child and adult I know than any of the MPs who have just voted to make our lives even more hard. You don’t know what courage is.
Perhaps though, if you spent some time talking to and actually listening to disabled people you would learn what it is. If only you could have been courageous enough to put the lives of your vulnerable constituents first.
It’s not too late. Call on Keir Starmer to withdraw the DWP Welfare Bill. Demand Liz Kendall’s resignation. Hold Stephen Timms to account. Learn from people like my daughter. My 7 year old who fights to live another day, every day, how to be brave.
Israel’s weaponisation of starvation is how genocides always end.
I covered the insidious effects of orchestrated starvation in the Guatemalan Highlands during the genocidal campaign of General Efraín Ríos Montt, the famine in southern Sudan that left a quarter of a million dead — I walked past the frail and skeletal corpses of families lining roadsides — and later during the war in Bosnia when Serbs cut off food supplies to enclaves such as Srebrencia and Goražde.
Starvation was weaponised by the Ottoman Empire to decimate the Armenians. It was used to kill millions of Ukrainians in the Holodomor in 1932 and 1933.
It was employed by the Nazis against the Jews in the ghettos in the Second World War. German soldiers used food, as Israel does, like bait. They offered three kilograms of bread and one kilogram of marmalade to lure desperate families in the Warsaw Ghetto onto transports to the death camps.
“There were times when hundreds of people had to wait in line for several days to be ‘deported,’” Marek Edelman writes in The Ghetto Fights. “The number of people anxious to obtain the three kilograms of bread was such that the transports, now leaving twice daily with 12,000 people, could not accommodate them all.”
And when crowds became unruly, as in Gaza, the German troops fired deadly volleys that ripped through emaciated husks of women, children and the elderly.
This tactic is as old as warfare itself.
Ordered to shoot
The report in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz that Israeli soldiers are ordered to shoot into crowds of Palestinians at aid hubs, with 580 killed and 4,216 wounded, is not a surprise. It is the predictable denouement of the genocide, the inevitable conclusion to a campaign of mass extermination.
Israel, with its targeted assassinations of at least 1400 health care workers, hundreds of United Nations (UN) workers, journalists, police and even poets and academics, its obliteration of multi-story apartment blocks wiping out dozens of families, its shelling of designated “humanitarian zones” where Palestinians huddle under tents, tarps or in the open air, its systematic targeting of UN food distribution centers, bakeries and aid convoys or its sadistic sniper fire that guns down children, long ago illustrated that Palestinians are regarded as vermin worthy only of annihilation.
The blockade of food and humanitarian aid, imposed on Gaza since March 2, is reducing Palestinians to abject dependence. To eat, they must crawl towards their killers and beg. Humiliated, terrified, desperate for a few scraps of food, they are stripped of dignity, autonomy and agency. This is by intent.
Yousef al-Ajouri, 40, explained to Middle East Eye his nightmarish journey to one of four aid hubs set up by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The hubs are not designed to meet the needs of the Palestinians, who once relied on 400 aid distribution sites, but to lure them from northern Gaza to the south.
Israel, which on Sunday again ordered Palestinians to leave northern Gaza, is steadily expanding its annexation of the coastal strip. Palestinians are corralled like livestock into narrow metal chutes at distribution points which are overseen by heavily armed mercenaries. They receive, if they are one of the fortunate few, a small box of food.
Al-Ajouri, who before the genocide was a taxi driver, lives with his wife, seven children and his mother and father in a tent in al-Saraya, near the middle of Gaza City. He set out to an aid hub at Salah al-Din Road near the Netzarim corridor, to find some food for his children, who he said cry constantly “because of how hungry they are.”
On the advice of his neighbour in the tent next to him, he dressed in loose clothing “so that I could run and be agile.” He carried a bag for canned and packaged goods because the crush of the crowds meant “no one was able to carry the boxes the aid came in.”
Massive crowds
He left at about 9 pm with five other men “including an engineer and a teacher,” and “children aged 10 and 12.” They did not take the official route designated by the Israeli army. The massive crowds converging on the aid point along the official route ensure that most never get close enough to receive food.
Instead, they walked in the darkness in areas exposed to Israeli gunfire, often having to crawl to avoid being seen.
“As I crawled, I looked over, and to my surprise, saw several women and elderly people taking the same treacherous route as us,” he explained. “At one point, there was a barrage of live gunfire all around me. We hid behind a destroyed building. Anyone who moved or made a noticeable motion was immediately shot by snipers.
“Next to me was a tall, light-haired young man using the flashlight on his phone to guide him. The others yelled at him to turn it off. Seconds later, he was shot. He collapsed to the ground and lay there bleeding, but no one could help or move him. He died within minutes.”
He passed six bodies along the route who had been shot dead by Israeli soldiers.
Al-Ajouri reached the hub at 2 am, the designated time for aid distribution. He saw a green light turned on ahead of him which signaled that aid was about to be distributed. Thousands began to run towards the light, pushing, shoving and trampling each other. He fought his way through the crowd until he reached the aid.
“I started feeling around for the aid boxes and grabbed a bag that felt like rice,” he said. “But just as I did, someone else snatched it from my hands. I tried to hold on, but he threatened to stab me with his knife. Most people there were carrying knives, either to defend themselves or to steal from others.
Boxes were emptied
“Eventually, I managed to grab four cans of beans, a kilogram of bulgur, and half a kilogram of pasta. Within moments, the boxes were empty. Most of the people there, including women, children and the elderly, got nothing. Some begged others to share. But no one could afford to give up what they managed to get.”
The US contractors and Israeli soldiers overseeing the mayhem laughed and pointed their weapons at the crowd. Some filmed with their phones.
“Minutes later, red smoke grenades were thrown into the air,” he remembered. “Someone told me that it was the signal to evacuate the area. After that, heavy gunfire began. Me, Khalil and a few others headed to al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat because our friend Wael had injured his hand during the journey.
“I was shocked by what I saw at the hospital. There were at least 35 martyrs lying dead on the ground in one of the rooms. A doctor told me they had all been brought in that same day. They were each shot in the head or chest while queuing near the aid center. Their families were waiting for them to come home with food and ingredients. Now, they were corpses.”
The organisation has also contracted anti-Hamas drug-smuggling gangs to provide security at aid sites.
As Chris Gunness, a former spokesperson for the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) told Al Jazeera, GHF is “aid washing,” a way to mask the reality that “people are being starved into submission.”
Disregarded ICC ruling
Israel, along with the US and European countries that provide weapons to sustain the genocide, have chosen to disregard the January 2024 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which demanded immediate protection for civilians in Gaza and widespread provision of humanitarian assistance.
“It’s a killing field” says a headline in the Ha’aretz newspaper. Image: Ha’aretz screenshot APR
“The distribution centers typically open for just one hour each morning,” Haaretz writes. “According to officers and soldiers who served in their areas, the IDF fires at people who arrive before opening hours to prevent them from approaching, or again after the centers close, to disperse them. Since some of the shooting incidents occurred at night — ahead of the opening — it’s possible that some civilians couldn’t see the boundaries of the designated area.”
“It’s a killing field,” one soldier told Ha’aretz. “Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day. They’re treated like a hostile force — no crowd-control measures, no tear gas — just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. Then, once the center opens, the shooting stops, and they know they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire.”
“We open fire early in the morning if someone tries to get in line from a few hundred meters away, and sometimes we just charge at them from close range. But there’s no danger to the forces,” the soldier explained, “I’m not aware of a single instance of return fire. There’s no enemy, no weapons.”
He said the deployment at the aid sites is known as “Operation Salted Fish,” a reference to the Israeli name for the children’s game “Red light, green light.” The game was featured in the first episode of the South Korean dystopian thriller Squid Game, in which financially desperate people are killed as they battle each other for money.
Civilian infrastructure obliterated
Israel has obliterated the civilian and humanitarian infrastructure in Gaza. It has reduced Palestinians, half a million of whom face starvation, into desperate herds. The goal is to break Palestinians, to make them malleable and entice them to leave Gaza, never to return.
There is talk from the Trump White House about a ceasefire. But don’t be fooled. Israel has nothing left to destroy. Its saturation bombing over 20 months has reduced Gaza to a moonscape. Gaza is uninhabitable, a toxic wilderness where Palestinians, living amid broken slabs of concrete and pools of raw sewage, lack food and clean water, fuel, shelter, electricity, medicine and an infrastructure to survive.
The final impediment to the annexation of Gaza are the Palestinians themselves. They are the primary target. Starvation is the weapon of choice.
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. He is the host of show “The Chris Hedges Report”. This article is republished from his X account.
Israel is a paper tiger. What was it? Three days of Iran going through first gear before Tel Aviv was pleading for a ‘coalition of the willing’ to step in and join in with their targeting of Tehran?
How revolting.
But let’s go back to the playground for a moment.
Benjamin Netanyahu: the playground bully
The feared school bully, a thuggish kid named Benjamin, — known for targeting small and often weak pupils — picked a very public, middle-of-the-playground fight with a kid that was actually capable of defending themselves.
This is where the phrase a “schoolboy error” must come from.
Benjamin, somewhat shocked by the other kids’ resistance, took no more than a few swift-but-decisive uppercuts before screaming for back up from his gang. Donny came rushing to Benjamin’s aid, Keith scratched his head and called for calm, and Manny is still looking under the stairs for his white flag.
Benjamin’s friends were shocked by just how easy it was to land a hefty blow on their leader’s chin, particularly with his reputation for an impenetrable defence.
Benjamin the bully’s reputation as the toughest kid in the school was shattered, made worse by the undeniable fact that he actually started this fight in the first place.
A well-deserved kicking
But what lots of onlookers never realised was while everyone was watching Benjamin get a bit of a well deserved kicking, the rest of his thugs were still picking on the poor, starving and defenceless kids gathered elsewhere.
You see, while global mainstream media had all of us looking towards Tehran and Tel Aviv, genocidal Israel has stepped up its killing spree of the Palestinian people, in Gaza.
Hundreds and hundreds of innocent civilians — suffering from starvation and patiently waiting for food rations for their families — have been callously slaughtered by Israel, in just the last few days.
While the tit-for-tat exchange between Israel and Iran, and the bizarre intervention from the (barely) human cheesy Cheeto in Washington may well have provided something for the world’s media to fixate upon, it also provided a perfect distraction for Benjamin, butcher of Gaza.
Israel will fight tooth and nail to ensure the Middle East is riddled with instability because without it, Israel cannot claim victimhood, and without victimhood, Israel is nothing.
Starmer: callous at home and abroad
Keir the capitulator, a gormlessly loyal servant of Zionist Israel, has had a shocker of a week.
Labour has made no secret of their utter contempt for disabled people. If you think that is a controversial statement, why the hell are you even reading this?
When they’re not snooping through your bank account, stripping away your support, slashing your pitiful benefits, they’re looking for new and imaginative methods to kill off the disabled people of Britain in ways that not even Iain Duncan Smith dared to dream.
I am absolutely sick to death of hearing about “concessions”, “rebels”, and “significant revisions”, because it’s entirely fucking meaningless media speak designed to convince you into believing that we have a functioning democracy where the powerful are held to account by elected representatives.
They’re not. Not under this government, the one before, the one before that, or any government stretching back throughout my lifetime.
There are no “concessions” to be made. A two-tier benefits system for disabled people to match the two-tier policing and the two-tier healthcare provision just doesn’t sit well with me an nor should it with any person with a single shred of moral fibre.
There are very few “rebels” because the “concessions” they have made for weak Keir Starmer will still see millions of disabled people being unfairly punished by a callous and inhumane government, hellbent on satisfying its shadowy string-pullers and appealing to enough knuckle draggers to see them over the line at the next general election.
The Welfare Bill
Labour’s Welfare Bill is set to sully the party’s already-battered public image even further. There are no positive optics when you’re shafting poor, disabled, and vulnerable people in broad daylight.
Labour’s Welfare Bill is a stunning masterclass in miscalculation, self-sabotage and moral failure. The bastards are robbing billions of pounds from disabled people and dressing it up as ‘pragmatic reform’, while claiming that they are magically fixing a broken system.
Can you believe the brass neck of this remorseless, red Tory scum?
Labour’s Welfare Bill is a deliberate choice to target the most vulnerable to plug an apparent budget hole. Nobody really believes it is fiscally responsible to push 400,000 disabled households in the direction of Food Banks, do they?
Before I go and hide somewhere cold for the next few days, can I make a radical suggestion?
And a heatwave, just to finish us off. Thanks, Starmer.
The weather forecast for the next few days will undoubtedly be enjoyable for some people. Personally, I cannot stand it, and I know lots of Fibromyalgia sufferers struggle to keep cool, particularly when they’re stuffed to the eyeballs with anti-depressants like Pregablin.
These extremely rare weather events are no longer rare, but undoubtedly extreme.
If we think it is a good idea to help people to heat their homes during cold weather spells in the winter, why aren’t we talking about warm weather payments for people, young and old, that need additional financial support to help them keep their homes cool during the summer months?
Perhaps a Freedom of Information Act request would tell us how many MPs have public-subsidised air conditioning in their offices, both in Westminster and their constituencies?
I’m sure they, the pampered elite, wouldn’t expect you to work in extreme heat on a building site, or in a kitchen, or a hospital, or a call centre, while they’re sat in their offices with their private bits slowly turning to ice, would they?
That night, US President Donald Trump, flanked by his vice-president and two state secretaries, told the world: “Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace”.
There is something chilling about how bombs are baptised with the language of diplomacy and how destruction is dressed in the garments of stability. To call that peace is not merely a misnomer; it is a criminal distortion.
But what is peace in this world, if not submission to the West? And what is diplomacy, if not the insistence that the attacked plead with their attackers?
In the 12 days that Israel’s illegal assault on Iran lasted, images of Iranian children pulled from the wreckage remained absent from the front pages of Western media. In their place were lengthy features about Israelis hiding in fortified bunkers.
Victimhood serving narrative
Western media, fluent in the language of erasure, broadcasts only the victimhood that serves the war narrative.
And that is not just in its coverage of Iran. For 20 months now, the people of Gaza have been starved and incinerated. By the official count, more than 55,000 lives have been taken; realistic estimates put the number at hundreds of thousands.
Every hospital in Gaza has been bombed. Most schools have been attacked and destroyed.
Leading human rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have already declared that Israel is committing genocide, and yet, most Western media would not utter that word and would add elaborate caveats when someone does dare say it live on TV.
Presenters and editors would do anything but recognise Israel’s unending violence in an active voice.
Despite detailed evidence of war crimes, the Israeli military has faced no media censure, no criticism or scrutiny. Its generals hold war meetings near civilian buildings, and yet, there are no media cries of Israelis being used as “human shields”.
Israeli army and government officials are regularly caught lying or making genocidal statements, and yet, their words are still reported as “the truth”.
Bias over Palestinian deaths
A recent study found that on the BBC, Israeli deaths received 33 times more coverage per fatality than Palestinian deaths, despite Palestinians dying at a rate of 34 to 1 compared with Israelis. Such bias is no exception, it is the rule for Western media.
Like Palestine, Iran is described in carefully chosen language. Iran is never framed as a nation, only as a regime. Iran is not a government, but a threat — not a people, but a problem.
The word “Islamic” is affixed to it like a slur in every report. This is instrumental in quietly signalling that Muslim resistance to Western domination must be extinguished.
Iran does not possess nuclear weapons; Israel and the United States do. And yet only Iran is cast as an existential threat to world order.
Because the problem is not what Iran holds, but what it refuses to surrender. It has survived coups, sanctions, assassinations, and sabotage. It has outlived every attempt to starve, coerce, or isolate it into submission.
It is a state that, despite the violence hurled at it, has not yet been broken.
And so the myth of the threat of weapons of mass destruction becomes indispensable. It is the same myth that was used to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq. For three decades, American headlines have whispered that Iran is just “weeks away” from the bomb, three decades of deadlines that never arrive, of predictions that never materialise.
Fear over false ‘nuclear threat’
But fear, even when unfounded, is useful. If you can keep people afraid, you can keep them quiet. Say “nuclear threat” often enough, and no one will think to ask about the children killed in the name of “keeping the world safe”.
This is the modus operandi of Western media: a media architecture not built to illuminate truth, but to manufacture permission for violence, to dress state aggression in technical language and animated graphics, to anaesthetise the public with euphemisms.
Time Magazine does not write about the crushed bones of innocents under the rubble in Tehran or Rafah, it writes about “The New Middle East” with a cover strikingly similar to the one it used to propagandise regime change in Iraq 22 years ago.
But this is not 2003. After decades of war, and livestreamed genocide, most Americans no longer buy into the old slogans and distortions. When Israel attacked Iran, a poll showed that only 16 percent of US respondents supported the US joining the war.
After Trump ordered the air strikes, another poll confirmed this resistance to manufactured consent: only 36 percent of respondents supported the move, and only 32 percent supported continuing the bombardment
The failure to manufacture consent for war with Iran reveals a profound shift in the American consciousness. Americans remember the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq that left hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis dead and an entire region in flames. They remember the lies about weapons of mass destruction and democracy and the result: the thousands of American soldiers dead and the tens of thousands maimed.
They remember the humiliating retreat from Afghanistan after 20 years of war and the never-ending bloody entanglement in Iraq.
Low social justice spending
At home, Americans are told there is no money for housing, healthcare, or education, but there is always money for bombs, for foreign occupations, for further militarisation. More than 700,000 Americans are homeless, more than 40 million live under the official poverty line and more than 27 million have no health insurance.
And yet, the US government maintains by far the highest defence budget in the world.
Americans know the precarity they face at home, but they are also increasingly aware of the impact US imperial adventurism has abroad. For 20 months now, they have watched a US-sponsored genocide broadcast live.
They have seen countless times on their phones bloodied Palestinian children pulled from rubble while mainstream media insists, this is Israeli “self-defence”.
The old alchemy of dehumanising victims to excuse their murder has lost its power. The digital age has shattered the monopoly on narrative that once made distant wars feel abstract and necessary. Americans are now increasingly refusing to be moved by the familiar war drumbeat.
The growing fractures in public consent have not gone unnoticed in Washington. Trump, ever the opportunist, understands that the American public has no appetite for another war.
‘Don’t drop bombs’
And so, on June 24, he took to social media to announce, “the ceasefire is in effect”, telling Israel to “DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS,” after the Israeli army continued to attack Iran.
Trump, like so many in the US and Israeli political elites, wants to call himself a peacemaker while waging war. To leaders like him, peace has come to mean something altogether different: the unimpeded freedom to commit genocide and other atrocities while the world watches on.
But they have failed to manufacture our consent. We know what peace is, and it does not come dressed in war. It is not dropped from the sky.
Peace can only be achieved where there is freedom. And no matter how many times they strike, the people remain, from Palestine to Iran — unbroken, unbought, and unwilling to kneel to terror.
Ahmad Ibsais is a first-generation Palestinian American and law student who writes the newsletter State of Siege.
Science is under attack throughout the world. Meanwhile, there’s substantial scientific evidence that the planetary system is turning unstable. This may not strike most people as a big problem because ‘life goes on,’ an attitude that’s more, and more, prevalent and one of the factors behind anti-science attitudes. But, if in fact the planetary system is becoming unstable, if it is true, life will be hell.
Johan Rockström, joint director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research/Germany, internationally recognized for his work on global sustainability, recently gave a 30-minute speech that specifically addresses stability of the Earth system. This is a synopsis of his remarks, including some editorial comment.
“We are facing, undoubtably, in all forms of risk assessment, a decisive moment for humanity’s future on planet Earth… I’m talking about for the first time in human history on planet Earth that we are forced to seriously consider the risks we are destabilizing the stability of the entire planet.” (Johan Rockström, Potsdam Institute speech Publica 25: Decisive Decade: From Global Promises to Planetary Action)
“We are hitting the ceiling of the biophysical processes, the hardwired process that regulates the very functioning of the Earth’s system,” Ibid.
All parameters of planetary health for human well-being have similar trajectories, sharply upwards. Until the 1950s we had a linear system (relatively stable and predictable but unsustainable exploitation) and starting in 1955 with 3.5 billion people, and going forward, an exponential rise suddenly took off with overexploitation of biodiversity, and acid rain, and massive deforestation. All forms of pressure on the planet took off to the point where today we are in an entirely new geological epoch, and it’s happening within only one generation, remarkably, in the context of a stable planetary system ever since humans first huddled together around fires. It’s potentially the most momentous happening in all of human history, period!
Civilization is exiting the Holocene, entering the Anthropocene. Humans are now the dominating “force of change.” This is too new, too quick for a 4.5-billion-year-old planet system accustomed to old-fashioned ways. In fact, we’re already hitting the ceiling of stable planetary processes and starting to push through. For example. for the first time, last year was a full year to exceed 1.5°C pre-industrial, the warmest temperature on Earth over the last 100,000 years. We’re starting to feel it, see it, smell it, and taste it, record wildfires, record floods, record hurricanes, record tornados, record coral bleaching, record glacial melt, record droughts, record sea level rise, record dry riverbeds, record heat deaths, record ocean acidification, record insect loss, and record marine loss. Humans are the only gainers.
The 2023 Watershed Year
According to Rockström: “We are already outside of the Holocene range of variability… let me bring you to why we are so nervous today. Why we have over the past 12 months heard scientific language that I’ve never experienced in my whole career, mind-boggling, shocking data, observations that we never thought was possible, that we would never be able to predict in our models… it’s the observation of air temperature and sea surface temperatures”:
“We have a global climate crisis.”
“We are in a situation of dire need of change.”
In 2023, a 0.3° C jump in global temperature occurred. The planet experienced a sudden 10-times increase in only 12 months; it’s unheard of.
Under normal circumstances, with the 2023 watershed year, when global temperature suddenly spikes up, it stabilizes for a period of time, but it demonstrated an alarming change in behavior and serious cause for concern because El Niño (natural warming phase) and La Niña (natural cooling phase) cycles that always influence the climate system are not having any impact, none!. This has never happened before.
Rockström: “There is something wrong. What is happening?” Honest answer: “We do not know yet.”
The rapid escalation of planetary instability has sparked unprecedented concern as the interplay of human activity with natural systems has created a volatile environment, thunderstorms become more severe, rainstorms more powerfully destructive as atmospheric rivers suddenly bring flash floods, and droughts longer, hotter.
Increasingly, feedback mechanisms include the accelerated release of methane from thawing permafrost, which is a potent greenhouse gas, and the retreat of polar ice, which diminishes the planet’s reflection of solar radiation and further intensifies warming. The urgency of the situation has led to calls for systemic change, not only in reducing greenhouse gas emissions but also in restructuring economies and societies to prioritize sustainability over short-term gains. Yet, global emissions continue, and international agreements fall short of binding commitments or fail altogether in implementation.
The risks are glaring, for example, the latest data on the Brazilian Amazon rainforest tells the story, as Earth’s richest ecosystem, the Brazilian portion of the rainforest, which is the largest part, has already tipped. It’s no longer a carbon sink. It’s a carbon source. This has ominous warning signs written all over it. For the first time, we are seeing signs of the planet losing its resilience, losing its buffering capacity, which the science community refers to as “climate sensitivity.”
We now have the evidence of what occurs as certain limits are exceeded. For example, coincident with 1.5°C, “we’ve never before seen the frequency, amplitude, and strength of droughts, fires, floods, heat waves… There’s been a 60% increase in droughts.” The signs are everywhere. The planet is leaving the all-important “corridor of life.” The planet, for over one million years, never exceeded +2°C during warm interglacial and never below -5°C deep ice age. It’s the biogeochemical system that we depend on. It is threatened.
It’s already approaching the high end of that range. There are 16 tipping elements that regulate the Earth system. Six of those are in the Arctic, which is ground zero for Earth: 1) Greenland ice sheet 2) boreal forest 3) Arctic winter ice 4) permafrost system 5) connected by North Atlantic and AMOC. Also impacting, the Amazon rainforest, all three big systems, Antarctica, and tropical coral reef systems. These regulate the stability of the climate system.
Risk of Domino Effect
Temperatures at which a system tips from a state that helps us survive to a state of self-amplified warming include threats to the Greenland Ice Sheet, West Antarctica Ice Sheet, abrupt permafrost thawing, tropical coral systems, collapse of Labrador Sea ice and collapse of Barren Sea ice. These are all at risk. There is strong evidence that these systems interact with each other, meaning, there’s a risk of cascading impacts. Where one system triggers several others. These six systems are already outside the boundary of safe space. This is an extremely significant development for the first time in human history.
We’re at a point where we need to buckle up for a challenging journey. The probability of not exceeding 1.5°C on a sustained 10-yr basis is no longer possible. No matter what course is taken going forward, “it will get worse before it gets better.” And every tenth of a degree warming has big impact going forward. Along those lines, science has identified big costs to the global economy based upon current economics with up to 20% costs over the next decades as a result of loss of planetary stability.
The amount of time remaining to take mitigation measures is running short. Based upon analyses by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we only have 200 Gt CO2 remaining in the global carbon budget to achieve a 50/50 chance of holding to 1.5°C, after an expected upcoming overshoot to 1.7°C. That’s five years of global emissions. Five years to accomplish “decades of work” to hopefully hold the line.
Positive Signs Within a Narrow Window of Opportunity
Efforts are being made to harness innovative technologies and traditional ecological knowledge to mitigate. From reforestation projects aimed at sequestering carbon to advancements in renewable energy, the pathways for resilience are there. However, time is running out; incremental progress will no longer suffice to prevent catastrophic outcomes. A lot needs to squeeze into the next five years, or all bets are off.
There are some favorable signs, for example, renewables are on a strong pathway in parts of the world economy, 90% of vehicle sales in Norway today are fully electric. In Denmark the EV market share is almost 60%.
Rockström: “As of today, we are in a danger zone. But we still have an opportunity to turn this around.”
Or does the strong anti-science political movement, emanating throughout the world from the United States, throw a wet blanket on the crucial five years ahead?
Setting aside any thoughts I may have about theocratic rulers (whether they be in Tel Aviv or Tehran), I am personally glad that Iran was able to hold out against the US-Israeli attacks this month.
The ceasefire, however, will only be a pause in the long-running campaign to destabilise, weaken and isolate Iran. Regime change or pariah status are both acceptable outcomes for the US-Israeli dyad.
The good news for my region is that Iran’s resilience pushes back what could be a looming calamity: the US pivot to Asia and a heightened risk of a war on China.
There are three major pillars to the Eurasian order that is going through a slow, painful and violent birth. Iran is the weakest. If Iran falls, war in our region — intended or unintended – becomes vastly more likely.
Mainstream New Zealanders and Australians suffer from an understandable complacency: war is what happens to other, mainly darker people or Slavs.
“Tomorrow”, people in this part of the world naively think, “will always be like yesterday”.
That could change, particularly for the Australians, in the kind of unfamiliar flash-boom Israelis experienced this month following their attack on Iran. And here’s why.
US chooses war to re-shape Middle East Back in 2001, as many will recall, retired General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of NATO forces in Europe, was visiting buddies in the Pentagon. He learnt something he wasn’t supposed to: the Bush administration had made plans in the febrile post 9/11 environment to attack seven Muslim countries.
In the firing line were: Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon, Gaddafi’s Libya, Somalia, Sudan and the biggest prize of all — the Islamic Republic of Iran.
One would have to say that the project, pursued by successive presidents, both Democrat and Republican, has been a great success — if you discount the fact that a couple of million human beings, most of them civilians, many of them women and children, nearly all of them innocents, were slaughtered, starved to death or otherwise disposed of.
With the exception of Iran, those countries have endured chaos and civil strife for long painful years. A triumph of American bomb-based statecraft.
Now — with Muammar Gaddafi raped and murdered (“We came, we saw, he died”, Hillary Clinton chuckled on camera the same day), Saddam Hussein hanged, Hezbollah decapitated, Assad in Moscow, the genocide in full swing in Palestine — the US and Israel were finally able to turn their guns — or, rather, bombs — on the great prize: Iran.
Iran’s missiles have checked US-Israel for time being Things did not go to plan. Former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman pointed out this week that for the first time Israel got a taste of the medicine it likes to dispense to its neighbours.
Iran’s missiles successfully turned the much-vaunted Iron Dome into an Iron Sieve and, perhaps momentarily, has achieved deterrence. If Iran falls, the US will be able to do what Barack Obama and Joe Biden only salivated over — a serious pivot to Asia.
Could great power rivalry turn Asia-Pacific into powderkeg? For us in Asia-Pacific a major US pivot to Asia will mean soaring defence budgets to support militarisation, aggressive containment of China, provocative naval deployments, more sanctions, muscling smaller states, increased numbers of bases, new missile systems, info wars, threats and the ratcheting up rhetoric — all of which will bring us ever-closer to the powderkeg.
Sounds utterly mad? Sounds devoid of rationality? Lacking commonsense? Welcome to our world — bellum Americanum — as we gormlessly march flame in hand towards the tinderbox. War is not written in the stars, we can change tack and rediscover diplomacy, restraint, and peaceful coexistence. Or is that too much to ask?
Back in the days of George W Bush, radical American thinkers like Robert Kagan, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld created the Project for a New American Century and developed the policy, adopted by succeeding presidents, that promotes “the belief that America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the preeminence of US military forces”.
It reconfirmed the neoconservative American dogma that no power should be allowed to rise in any region to become a regional hegemon; anything and everything necessary should be done to ensure continued American primacy, including the resort to war.
What has changed since those days are two crucial, epoch-making events: the re-emergence of Russia as a great power, albeit the weakest of the three, and the emergence of China as a genuine peer competitor to the USA. Professor John Mearsheimer’s insights are well worth studying on this topic.
The three pillars of multipolarity A new world order really is being born. As geopolitical thinkers like Professor Glenn Diesen point out, it will, if it is not killed in the cradle, replace the US unipolar world order that has existed since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Many countries are involved in its birthing, including major players like India and Brazil and all the countries that are part of BRICS. Three countries, however, are central to the project: Iran, Russia and, most importantly, China. All three are in the crosshairs of the Western empire.
If Iran, Russia and China survive as independent entities, they will partially fulfill Halford MacKinder’s early 20th century heartland theory that whoever dominates Eurasia will rule the world. I don’t think MacKinder, however, foresaw cooperative multipolarity on the Eurasian landmass — which is one of the goals of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) – as an option.
That, increasingly, appears to be the most likely trajectory with multiple powerful states that will not accept domination, be that from China or the US. That alone should give us cause for hope.
Drunk on power since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has launched war after war and brought us to the current abandonment of economic sanity (the sanctions-and-tariff global pandemic) and diplomatic normalcy (kill any peace negotiators you see) — and an anything-goes foreign policy (including massive crimes against humanity).
We have also reached — thanks in large part to these same policies — what a former US national security advisor warned must be avoided at all costs. Back in the 1990s, Zbigniew Brzezinski said, “The most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran.”
Belligerent and devoid of sound strategy, the Biden and Trump administrations have achieved just that.
Can Asia-Pacific avoid being dragged into an American war on China? Turning to our region, New Zealand and Australia’s governments cleave to yesterday: a white-dominated world led by the USA. We have shown ourselves indifferent to massacres, ethnic cleansing and wars of aggression launched by our team.
To avoid war — or a permanent fear of looming war — in our own backyards, we need to encourage sanity and diplomacy; we need to stay close to the US but step away from the military alliances they are forming, such as AUKUS which is aimed squarely at China.
Above all, our defence and foreign affairs elites need to grow new neural pathways and start to think with vision and not place ourselves on the losing side of history. Independent foreign policy settings based around peace, defence not aggression, diplomacy not militarisation, would take us in the right direction.
Personally I look forward to the day the US and its increasingly belligerent vassals are pushed back into the ranks of ordinary humanity. I fear the US far more than I do China.
Despite the reflexive adherence to the US that our leaders are stuck on, we should not, if we value our lives and our cultures, allow ourselves to be part of this mad, doomed project.
The US empire is heading into a blood-drenched sunset; their project will fail and the 500-year empire of the White West will end — starting and finishing with genocide.
Every day I atheistically pray that leaders or a movement will emerge to guide our antipodean countries out of the clutches of a violent and increasingly incoherent USA.
America is not our friend. China is not our enemy. Tomorrow gives birth to a world that we should look forward to and do the little we can to help shape.
Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
It’s been three years since Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, an odious Supreme Court ruling that has unleashed a veritable crisis of rights, health, and safety for people who can become pregnant.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and sent abortion’s legality back to the states, abortion bans have spread widely across much of the U.S. As of June 2025, 16 states have enacted a total or near-total abortion ban, rendering the entire Southeast a legal abortion desert. Other states, like North Carolina, Nebraska, and Utah, have banned abortion at 12 or 18 weeks, which would have been unconstitutional under Roe just a few short years ago. In 2023 alone, the first full year after Dobbs, 171,000 people were forced to travel out of state to access abortion care in the U.S.
Traveling, especially out of state, isn’t just a logistical burden; it also means added cost. Plane tickets, lodging, gas money, child care, food — so much is needed to make abortion accessible when someone is forced to travel for care. The Brigid Alliance, which provides financial and logistical assistance to people forced to travel for abortion care, estimates that the average cost per abortion travel itinerary now exceeds $2,300, despite the fact that a first trimester procedure costs only a quarter of that.
Dobbs doesn’t just hurt people seeking abortion care. If a pregnant person in a state with an abortion ban has a different outcome other than a live birth, including a miscarriage or stillbirth, they can face serious prison time. People like Serena Maria Chandler-Scott of Georgia, who miscarried at 19 weeks, and Brittany Watts of Ohio, who miscarried at 22 weeks, have been charged under their respective states’ restrictive anti-abortion laws. And the net of criminalization also extends beyond pregnant people to providers and doctors, creating a network of fear for pregnant people, their families, and the health care providers they entrust to care for them.
That’s bad enough and a crisis in its own right. But the ramifications of Dobbs are far broader than hindering abortion access.
Dobbs is, quite literally, killing people.
Doctors are afraid to provide basic care to pregnant folks in states where abortion bans are in effect, unsure if they will be charged with murder.
At least two Black women in Georgia, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, died because of the ramifications of Dobbs. Georgia has a strict, six-week abortion ban. Thurman died after being denied basic care because she was pregnant and past the six-week point in her pregnancy in 2022: she had an infection related to fetal tissue that hadn’t been fully expelled from her body, but the hospital delayed performing a routine dilation and curettage due to Georgia’s restrictive laws. Miller, afraid of possible prosecution, refused to go to the hospital after complications from a self-managed abortion in the fall of 2022. Thurman and Miller were, essentially, killed by the state instead of receiving the basic, life-saving care to which they were constitutionally entitled just a few months before.
And then there’s the abhorrent case of Adriana Smith, a Black woman diagnosed with brain death who has been forcibly kept alive by the State of Georgia — against her family’s wishes — because she was nine weeks pregnant. She was taken off life support on June 17 this year after her fetus was delivered via C-section. That the state can force a Black woman’s body to be used as a literal incubator is a direct result of the Dobbs decision.
Because of Dobbs, to be pregnant in a state with an abortion ban, even if it isn’t an outright total abortion ban, is to risk your life.
But Dobbs has also wrought a different shift, one unexpected to just about everyone: It made abortion rights politically popular.
Abortion has won in nearly every election in which it’s been on the ballot since the Dobbs decision came down in June 2022, including conservative states like Ohio, Montana, and Kansas. Even when the ballot initiative failed, like in Florida, it was only because the state required a 60 percent threshold. (The initiative was approved by 57 percent of voters.) Support for abortion rights is a winning issue, and it is currently more politically popular than it has been since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.
Unfortunately, that popularity doesn’t automatically translate into legality, and legality doesn’t translate into access. For example, in November 2023, Missouri voted to enshrine the right to reproductive freedom into the state constitution, which should override the state’s total abortion ban and make abortion legal to Missourians once again. However, the Missouri Supreme Court has, so far, refused to allow the change to take effect. Before Dobbs, Missouri only had a single clinic left, and it’s been shuttered for three years. If the state ever does allow abortion to become legal, reopening a clinic will require a significant expense and effort.
One of the most important lessons that the tragedy of Dobbs can teach us is that a right is hard to retrieve once it’s lost. It’s not impossible, and we cannot afford to stop this fight because it isn’t just about abortion. Trans rights, immigrant justice, freedom for Palestinians — all of these are about our most sacred and fundamental rights.
Bodily autonomy isn’t an empty catch phrase; it’s a worldview, one predicated on everyone’s shared humanity. Dobbs, like many egregious Supreme Court rulings that came before it, is a great injustice, done by the state to the people. To undo that injustice, we cannot simply wait for the state to change hands. Instead, we must do it ourselves.
This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.
Over the past few years, the Europeans’ confidence in the current governments of the EU countries has been plunging. This trend is foremost caused by the unpopular policy of the ruling circles. They have made it clear to the population that total militarization requiring unprecedented $800 billion from the already shaky budget of the EU, as well as enhancing military and financial aid to Ukraine at the expense of the European taxpayers are now their top priorities. Earlier this year, the Netherlands and Sweden announced their aid packages of $400 million and $501 million, respectively, in addition to the billions of dollars already sent to Kyiv for the years of the conflict.
This policy raises many questions as the economic situation in Europe is on the verge of a disaster. All countries of the EU are suffering from migration crisis, inflation rate there has hit record highs, unemployment keeps growing, and the economy as a whole is in a gradual recession. It is most acute in Germany, where the world-famous factories that for many years have been a source of national pride, are forced to curtail production. Nevertheless, despite numerous appeals of the population to change the policy and focus on the internal problems of the Union, the current governments keep pushing their agenda, totally ignoring those, who brought them to power several years ago.
That is why the rise of the far-Right, that put the interests of their states first and promote isolationism unlike liberal globalists, is quite natural and predictable. Thus, in 2022 the party of far-Right Giorgia Meloni, which the centrists tried to serve up as a fascist and never considered to be a worthy opponent, won the general elections in Italy. In 2023, the party of anti-centrist Robert Fico, who strongly opposed Ukraine funding, came to power in Slovakia. Fico’s autonomous policy interfered with the European elites so much, that they launched a large information campaign against the Slovak leader, which among others resulted in the assassination attempt. However, it was just the very beginning of the imminent far-Right tilt in the European society. In 2025, the world witnessed the unprecedented victory of the far-Right party “Alternative for Germany” that gained the record number of votes in the eastern part of the country, thus, taking the historic second place in German elections losing only 8,5% to the CDU/CSU.
This course of events, that has become a bombshell for the liberals, reluctant to drop the reins of government, make them fuss and take any measures, including those verging on illegitimacy. Thus, in 2024, after the victory of far-Right Calin Georgescu in Romania, the results of the elections were simply annulled under the pretext of foreign interference and vote rigging without any compelling proofs. Moreover, Georgescu was later arrested for attempted “incitement to actions against the constitutional order” that made his participation in new elections impossible. Marine Le Pen suffered the similar fate as she was deprived of the right to take part in any election campaigns. Left-liberal ruling circles don’t hesitate to use all available instruments from discrediting information campaigns to alteration of laws that interfere with implementing their ideas.
However, despite all efforts, they are unlikely to stay in power for a long time. Today the far-Right Eurosceptics are not just the parties opposing the current liberal governments, they are the force aimed at solving internal problems of the state, ready to serve the interests of the people and act on their behalf.
It’s high time for Europe to admit that the far-fight is the voice of the people, whose numerous attempts to get through to the acting governments by ordinary means proved to be unsuccessful. Anti-centrists are the only force able to save the Europeans and Europe itself from the imminent direct participation in war in Ukraine, promoted by the current ruling circles, as it will bring nothing but woes, destructions and even more sufferings.
It is my opinion that Palestine Action has the moral right to protest against genocide using non-violent direct action.
That simple sentence will soon make me criminally culpable for supporting a terrorist organisation.
Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000 makes it criminal offence to “expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation.”I could go to jail for fourteen years.So could you if you ‘like’ this on social media.
Of course, no one in the current government would consider a ‘like’ as support for a proscribed organisation.Would they? That would be as ridiculous as barring an elected politician from running for office for talking to a film maker about films at an event about films.
Palestine Action strike
No one was hurt by Palestine Action’s red paint. The fact is that no one in the RAF even knew the action took place until afterwards. Palestine Action had to take videos of themselves on electric scooters. They are not a threat to life and limb. They are opposed to war, war crimes, and war mongering.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper’s statement justified the proscription on grounds on national security, saying Palestine Action “put that security at risk.”Yet the RAF said that no planned flights or operations were affected.
The use or threat of serious violence against a person or serious damage to property where that action is:
designed to influence the government or an international governmental organisation or to intimidate the public or a section of the public; and
for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.
The Israeli Defence Force is certainly using serious violence against non-combatants to achieve political and ideological aims. They have killed at least 62,000 civilians. How are they not terrorists?
Starmer the terrorist
In the UK, the 1989 Prevention of Terrorism Act defined terrorism as “the use of violence for political ends.” It was the Blair government that changed it in 2000, to include “serious damage to property” and creating “a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public.” By that final definition, this Labour government’s plans to plunge 250,000 disabled people into poverty through stripping Personal Independence Payments (PIP) makes Keir Starmer a terrorist. And, the water companies pumping sewage into our rivers and beaches are terrorists too.
That might sound like a satirical argument. It’s not. I’m making a serious point. We have legislation that is so vague that a Home Secretary can criminalise anyone who says non-violent protesters might have a point. We are not functioning as a democratic state protected by universal human rights.
Cooper says Palestine Action have a “long history” of criminal damage.She claims that since 2024 “its activity has increased in frequency and severity”. But we already have laws for dealing with criminal damage.If they’ve trespassed on an RAF base, charge them with that if you must.
‘Clear moral case’
In fact last year, members of Palestine Action were tried for disrupting the operation of Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit. Their six day rooftop protest injured no one at the drone making plant near Leicester.They mostly sprayed red paint.The jury acquitted them on the grounds that their actions were necessary to save lives.Most reasonable people would conclude that engaging in actions necessary to save lives sounds like the opposite of terrorism.
We find ourselves sliding towards an Orwellian world. Keir Starmer has said that “there is a clear moral case” for cutting welfare payments for disabled people. But, it’s his own government’s own analysis shows 250,000 people will be plunged into poverty, including 50,000 children.
This is the weapons of mass destruction debacle all over again. In the novel 1984, George Orwell introduced Newspeak. This was the deliberate simplification and corruption of words. Iraq never had nuclear weapons. It never had biological weapons. The chemical weapons it had were destroyed years before the 2003 invasion.However, the phrase “weapons of mass destruction” was used to manufacture consent for the invasion of Iraq.
We have found ourselves in a country where those using non-violence to prevent killing are now proscribed terrorists, while those arming and defending genocide claim to uphold the “rules based order”.
Embarrassment
Some context, here. I’m not a pacifist. I never have been. I’m a black belt in jiu jitsu. I paid my way through university working as a night club bouncer. My Dad was a tank driver. My brother was in the Royal Navy when the Falklands war took place. I have no moral difficulty using force in an emergency if it will prevent greater suffering. I do object to authoritarian governments and war mongering. That includes the Iranian government and Hamas. But killing civilians in the name of regime change is terrorism.
It’s all connected. The truth is Palestine Action caused embarrassment. We’re being bombarded by messages that we are at war with Russia. That Iranians are a threat. That China is…, hmm, well they’re okay this week because we might have a trade deal in the pipeline. But if that falls flat, they’re a threat too. Yet, the aircraft at RAF Brize Norton were protected by nothing but a six foot high wire fence.
NATO General Secretary Mark Rutter has said unless we spend 5% of GDP on the military, “British people had better learn to speak Russian” is just one example. He’s wrong. Russia will not invade Britain by sailing a nuclear submarine up the River Tyne. Our freedom is imperilled by dodgy money influencing politics. The allies of warmongers are funding authoritarian political parties in Britain.
The government says it will spend 1.5% of GDP on “resilience and security”. Well, let’s spend that £39 billion a year insulating homes and generating clean energy then. Let’s end the need for food banks too.
It’s just as president Dwight D. Eisenhower warned in 1961:
we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence by the military industrial complex… Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
The conflict between Israel and Iran over the past 12 days has redefined the regional chessboard. Here is a look at their key takeaways:
Israel: Pulled in the US: Israel successfully drew the United States into a direct military confrontation with Iran, setting a significant precedent for future direct (not just indirect) intervention.
Boosted political capital: This move generated substantial political leverage, allowing Israel to frame US intervention as a major strategic success.
Iran: Forged a new deterrence: Iran has firmly established a new equation of deterrence, emerging as a powerful regional force capable of directly challenging Israel, the US, and their Western allies.
Demonstrated independence: Crucially, Iran achieved this without relying on its traditional regional allies, showcasing its self-reliance and strategic depth.
Defeated regime change efforts: This confrontation effectively thwarted any perceived Israeli strategy aimed at regime change, solidifying the current Iranian government’s position.
Achieved national unity: In the face of external pressure, Iran saw a notable surge in domestic unity, bridging the gap between reformers and conservatives in a new social and political contract.
Asserted direct regional role: Iran has definitively cemented its status as a direct and undeniable player in the ongoing regional struggle against Israeli hegemony.
Sent a global message: It delivered a strong message to non-Western global powers like China and Russia, proving itself a reliable regional force capable of challenging and reshaping the existing balance of power.
Exposed regional dynamics: The events sharply exposed Arab and Muslim countries that openly or tacitly support the US-Israeli regional project of dominance, highlighting underlying regional alignments.
Dr Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, London). He has a PhD in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter (2015) and was a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California Santa Barbara. This commentary is republished from his Facebook page.
In the final strike before the ceasefire, Iranian missiles caused extensive destruction, killing and injuring several Israelis in the city of Beersheba. pic.twitter.com/b25fHPw2yD
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) June 24, 2025
This story originally appeared in Mondoweiss on June 21, 2025. It is shared here with permission.
Violence has a paralyzing power. What is the power of the word in the face of the planes that sow destruction and death, and the flying ballistic missiles? When I see people around me paralyzed or going crazy with fear in the face of the destruction that the Iranian missiles have sown, I cannot help but think of the resilience of the residents of Gaza, who go through seven circles of hell every day with no relief in sight.
But the missiles and planes are the continuation of politics by other means. Many words have been spoken, and many agreements have been concluded to create and set in motion the instruments of destruction and death. As far removed from reality as it may seem now, it is important to speak out today in order to understand the roots of the war and how we can resist and stop the looming disasters.
In Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran—it’s the same war
During the first year of the “war,” the Israeli public overwhelmingly supported the genocide in Gaza, with no significant reservations. But in recent months, we have seen doubts and disillusionment on the part of large sections. Now, when we stand in protest vigils demanding an end to the killing, the feeling is that most of the public on the streets of Haifa supports us. More and more Israelis, including established media outlets, former senior politicians, and generals, have begun to speak out about the war crimes that Israel is committing. An Israeli and international consensus has begun to form that the Israeli government deliberately avoids striving to end the war, and is working to expand and perpetuate it, for reasons of narrow political and personal interests or out of messianic extremism.
But suddenly, when Israel initiated the expansion of the war into an all-out attack on Iran, which will inevitably bring further death and destruction in both Iran and Israel, we began to see again the power of violence to take over the human psyche and paralyze thought. Suddenly, the automatic Israeli consensus stiffened again, with the media and the public celebrating the spilled Iranian blood. Even a sinking Europe, which had begun to show remorse in its support of the genocide in Gaza, became enthusiastic again, with Germany, France, and Britain literally begging for their share of the pound of flesh and blood.
The root of the evil here, and the source of all the current wars, is the role that Zionism has assumed as the crushing force of imperialist control in the Middle East. This is the declared strategy of the United States: to ensure Israel’s military superiority over any regional coalition. To secure Israel’s place as a military power that can strike at anyone who threatens American hegemony, the United States must keep Israel in a state of constant conflict and constant danger.
This strategy paid off on a colossal scale for the United States in the wake of the Six-Day War in 1967, when the crushing Israeli victory over three Arab states led, within a few years, to the collapse of the dreams of independence and Arab socialism of the Nasserists and the left wing of the Ba’ath Party, and the establishment of reactionary and submissive dictatorships.
Since then, much water has flowed through the region’s rivers, hundreds of millions of residents have been added, there has been progress in education and the economy, and the equation that relies on the fortress of Jewish Sparta to maintain imperialist supremacy in the region is becoming less and less sustainable. The United States itself paid a heavy price for its military adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq and emerged from them without any real achievement. Israel failed twice in its wars over Lebanon, in the Eighteen Years’ War (1982-2000) and in its brief adventure in the summer of 2006.
Meanwhile, the wider regional picture has also changed. Instead of pro-Western dictatorships in Turkey and Iran, populist Islamist governments have risen in the two regional powers, which are more responsive to public opinion in their countries and tend to identify with Palestinian suffering and resistance and to denounce Israel’s aggression.
For a long time, imperialist politics in the region were based on the principle of “divide and rule.” The main axis of nurtured conflict among the Muslim population was between Sunnis and Shiites. The grand idea was, within the framework of the “Abraham Accords,” to establish a defense alliance under Israeli-American auspices that would protect the oil kings and emirs of the Arabian Peninsula from the “Iranian threat” (and from their own people), in exchange for continued effective American control over the region’s natural resources and economy.
Even as the Palestinians did not receive massive support that would allow them to exercise their human and national rights, the Palestinian struggle was and remains a central axis that challenges the system of imperialist control in the region. The identification with the Palestinians by both Sunnis and Shiites, and, more recently, the shock of the unbridled violence perpetrated by Israel since October 7, and the exposure of the racist Pavlovian instinct of all Western powers in supporting the genocide in Gaza, all of which have changed and are still changing the map of the region for the long term.
Meanwhile, Israel has become embroiled in war on many fronts, struggling to achieve a decisive victory and reap the fruits of its military superiority. In Six Days in 1967, Israel militarily defeated three Arab countries and occupied vast areas. Now, for more than 600 days, it has been unable to defeat Palestinian resistance to the occupation of the Gaza Strip, which had been under a suffocating siege for many years before the current genocidal war.
The only arena in which Israel has achieved a military and political victory is its struggle against Hezbollah in Lebanon, due to a combination of tactical failures on the part of Hezbollah and the fact that, as a representative of the oppressed Shiite minority, it had no full Lebanese legitimacy to intervene in the war. However, in Lebanon too, Israel’s insistence on continuing to hold occupied territory within Lebanon, with constant offensive military activity all over the country, keeps this front in the context of a violent conflict that has not ended and with no end in sight.
In Yemen, the government that came to power in Sanaa on the waves of the Arab Spring, and survived an all-out war by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Emirates, continues to try and pressure an end to the attack on Gaza through a naval blockade and repeated attacks. Even before the conflict with Israel, Yemen was the poorest country in the region and is still torn by civil war. Despite its limited capabilities, repeated attacks by a coalition of Western countries led by the United States and Israeli attacks on economic infrastructure have failed to change Yemen’s position.
The expansion of the war into Syria after the fall of the Assad regime adds another layer to the logic of the conflict. The new Syrian regime, which emerged after 14 years of revolution and civil war at the cost of about a million lives and immense destruction, declared from the moment it was established that it was committed to the 1974 armistice agreements and that it did not want conflicts with any neighboring country. Despite this, and despite the military erosion of the multi-front war, Israel decided to open another front against Syria, conquering additional territories (in addition to the Syrian Golan Heights captured in 1967), bombing all over Syria, and threatening the new regime. This completely exposed the logic of the “villa in the jungle”: in order for the villa to remain a villa, it must ensure that the jungle remains a jungle, and any attempt to build a normal society and state in the region is an existential threat to it.
The attack on Iran took this logic a step further. Israeli strategic superiority must be guaranteed not only against four hundred million Arabs but also against all other countries of the region. The Israeli method of killing Iranian scientists, which did not begin with the latest attack, brutally presents the concept of how the colonialist “local branch of Western culture” will be able to maintain its technological superiority.
On the nuclear question
As a university student, I took a course on “International Relations After World War II,” that is, the Cold War between the Western powers and the Soviet Union. The lecturer always talked about how Western leaders planned to confront “The Soviet Threat.” In “Operation Unthinkable,” which was to begin as early as July 1945, Churchill planned to mobilize the surrendered Wehrmacht troops to attack the Soviet Union and drop (American) atomic bombs on Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kiev. In 1949, the US planned a larger operation (“Operation Dropshot“) that involved the use of 300 atomic bombs and the destruction of 100 cities and towns in the Soviet Union.
In 1949, the Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear weapons test, which cooled America’s enthusiasm for a direct confrontation with it. Following the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, after the Soviet Union had proven that it could create a real nuclear threat to the U.S., talks began between the parties, and the Cold War gradually moved into the “détente” phase.
In my naivete, I asked the lecturer: According to what you taught us, as long as nuclear weapons were only in the hands of the West, we were on the verge of a nuclear war. Only when a “balance of terror” was created did the tension subside. How does this fit in with saying that the problem was “The Soviet Threat”? It seems the opposite is true…
He replied that from the perspective of the sequence of events, what I said made sense, but “no one in political science would agree” with my conclusion…
As far as is known (“according to foreign sources”), Israel possesses a large number of nuclear weapons, which the Western powers helped it develop. To this day, they defend Israel’s “right” to violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in all international forums. Israeli politicians and various experts have said that Israel has already considered using nuclear weapons against Arab countries several times, in moments of crisis. The climax came during the latest attack on Gaza, when lunatic extremist politicians fantasized about using an atomic bomb to annihilate Gaza as “revenge.” And, please, don’t tell me that the lunatic extremist right is far from the center of decision-making in Israel. As long as nuclear weapons are in the hands of one side in the region, there is a temptation to use them, thus creating an existential threat to the residents of the entire region. Clearly, the best situation is to have the entire region free of nuclear weapons. But history has proven that a nuclear balance of terror can also guarantee that nobody uses these weapons.
The West’s position on the Iranian nuclear issue is, on a regional scale, a repetition of its position on the denial of legitimacy of the Palestinian resistance. No matter how much Israel occupies and oppresses Palestinians, robs their land, destroys their homes, and kills them. Israel always “has the right to self-defense” and the Palestinian who defends his rights is always the “terrorist”. The ultimate way to ensure Israel’s “strategic superiority” in the region is to allow it, in a “time of need,” to wipe out millions of the inhabitants of the region using atomic weapons. This is the essence of the “Western Values” that they claim to stand for.
The Gulf states, which grovel to the rulers of the United States and Europe, thought they were buying their favor, so that they would stop the massacre in Gaza. They also hoped to prevent the war with Iran, which endangers the security of all the countries in the region. Instead, surprise, surprise, it turns out that the money they gave to the U.S. continues to fund the genocide against Palestinians and the bombings of Lebanon and Syria. Furthermore, they are effectively paying the United States for the privilege of being on the receiving end of a future nuclear annihilation.
Where are we going from here?
As the saying goes: It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.
It is difficult to know what will happen, but there are many things that are unlikely not to happen. At the beginning of the current “war” in Gaza, the American administration’s emissaries used to ask Netanyahu what were his plans for “the day after.” What is your end game?
To this day, they have not received an answer, and this is not by chance. Israel lives from war to war and is unable to imagine a different reality, let alone take action to create it. The historical logic was that Israel attacks in order to impose the American “day after” on the Arabs. For this equation to hold, there should be an American administration that is capable and willing to stop Israel’s aggression and force concessions on it. In the meantime, the Americans have fallen in love with Israel’s aggression. Even more importantly, the United States really has nothing to offer the region these days.
We are living at the end of “the American era.” Today, China is the main economic partner for trade and development for the countries of the region, as well as elsewhere. The United States still retains its military superiority, at the price of huge military investment. To benefit from this superiority, it is inclined to militarize international politics, as is evident in Ukraine and East Asia, just like in our region. Israel’s military and political power is a reflection of American superiority.
The U.S. military advantage is eroding as it loses its economic and technological leadership. When it uses military force to try to preserve or restore its world hegemony, it is not advancing itself but trying to push others backward. Humanity is paying an awful cost, but the U.S. decline is also accelerating.
The current war in the Middle East is part of a desperate effort to preserve the remnants of colonialism and Western superiority over the peoples of the Third World. The Palestinian people are paying a terrible, unbearable price for this. But the future will not be determined by the politicians of the West or the corrupt rulers of the region who grovel to them, but by the peoples who will stand up for their right to determine their own destiny.
Israel whingeing about war crimes – give us a break
These whingeing Israeli hypocrites are even bleating about war crimes. Can you believe the nerve of the genocidal junkies?
Israel wants you to weep for its dead. It wants you to denounce Iran for using Tel Aviv for target practice. It wants you to believe it didn’t start this.
In the simplest of terms, the bully got a black eye, and the bully wants your pity.
I don’t want anyone to die – Israelis, Iranians, or Palestinians – and I don’t want anyone to lose their home under the weight of a ballistic missile. Be in no doubt of that. The only winners in war are the manufacturers of weapons.
But if you want me to feel overwhelming sympathy for a state that is bang-to-rights on the charge of genocide and people that callously mocked Palestinian children while they were slain in their thousands by a government that is hell bent on clearing the way for Greater Israel, you will be waiting a long time.
Never forget, most Israeli people supported and endorsed the genocide of Gaza, even more so when it became apparent that the rest of the family could move over from the United States.
Never forget, some Israeli people would take to the hilltops with a glass of wine to enjoy the mass murder of fellow human beings. This is a societal illness. Who in their right mind would take pleasure from watching men, women, and children being vaporised in front of their eyes?
Never forget, it was Israeli people who closed down numerous checkpoints to stop vital humanitarian aid reaching the people of Gaza. Food, clean water, hygiene products, and medical supplies — all heading to the besieged enclave — stopped by hateful, radicalised Israelis for no other reason than the spiteful extremism that they have been spoon-fed since birth.
We do not forget, Israel. The receipts are real. Your army kill, maim, and rape the innocent. Children are assassinated, tortured, and evaporated. Starving humans, waiting for some flour, remorselessly gunned down by trigger-happy Israelis whose only previous military experience was playing Call of Duty on their PlayStation back home, in New York.
You want *us* to mourn for a blown up Mossad building, but you have displaced two fucking million people and slaughtered more than 50,000 humans and left children eating sand to survive.
So you, Israel, can get fucked.
Israel only has itself to blame for the bombs now raining down
The only thing we can thank Zionism for is the spectacular downfall of the colonial superpower that is ‘the West’.
I hear so much talk of ‘regime change’, but has anyone ever considered regime change in Israel?
Netanyahu has been warning of Iran’s nuclear ambitions since 1995 while Israel builds up its own stockpile and refuses to let anyone inspect it.
This is entirely consistent with the way Israel conducts itself. It considers itself above international law and only believes international law should apply when it is its own pariah state that is under attack.
Tough shit. That’s not how it works.
The often-expressed sentiment ‘fuck Israel’ no longer has the meaning that it once did because the state of Israel has fucked itself.
My sorrow is spared for the countless victims of Israel’s relentless aggression. You may argue that Israeli people are victims of their own government’s criminality and violence, but they are not forced into supporting some of the most heinous crimes against humanity in our lifetimes, are they? (Kudos, of course, to the small minority that has been resisting.)
False antisemitism smears are not going to wash
The ultra-aggressive online Zionists confuse disdain for Israel with support for Iran. Don’t be silenced by their lies, and do not stand for their false antisemitism smears.
The entire world has witnessed Israel parading its immorality across the Middle East with zero accountability for way too long.
We had the same nonsense argument in Britain. How many times were you labelled a ‘Tory enabler’ for criticising Keir Starmer’s then-opposition? I couldn’t scroll through my mentions without being called ‘Boris Johnson’s biggest supporter’, or something equally unimaginative.
Again, if you voice your disapproval of the Zelensky regime in Ukraine, you must be a Kremlin asset. The comedy guy with just the one T-shirt might float your boat, but I’m not a fan of anyone that teams up with neo-Nazis.
If you are wondering when Britain will get involved in Israel’s reign of terror and death, don’t. We have been entirely complicit in Israel’s extreme violence since 1948, and that isn’t going to come to an end any time soon.
As the U.S. moves huge amounts of military assets within striking distance of Iran, preparing to create another conflagration and initiate World War III, let’s contemplate the slaughterfest which resulted from World War II. Look at this chart.
Like so many of the recent military conflicts, most of them instigated by the U.S. in its pursuit of world domination, the coming war on Iran is unnecessary, illegal, and totally unjustified.
Anyone who is paying attention knows where all this is going. The drums of war beat out a very simple rhythm that even a child can understand.
Anyone who is paying attention also knows why this is taking place.
Anyone who is paying attention knows that yet again, we citizens are the helpless pawns of pointless power games, and will be required to make the ultimate sacrifice of our precious lives, in the name of imperial plunder and greater riches for the corporate plutocrats.
The problem is very few are paying attention.
No, there’s not much time to worry about all that stuff happening over there, or sufficient calm to think clearly and consider productive alternative plans, with all the hysterical cries of the warmongers relentlessly poisoning the airwaves and opeds, shouting down the few voices of sanity who attempt a balanced, coherent analysis and constructive conversation.
I still have to wonder …
In terms of the few isolated individuals who might actually be paying attention, yet still go along with this march to madness, and the neocon psychopaths themselves who can’t wait to chase their self-sabotaging and bankrupt delusions of world conquest and American imperial rule, what are they thinking?
Didn’t we learn anything from Vietnam?
Didn’t we learn anything from Afghanistan?
Didn’t we learn anything from Iraq?
Aren’t we learning from our humiliation in Ukraine?
I never hear a timidly tendered, “Oops.”
Not a chagrin-tinged, “Sorry about that.”
Not even a mildly rueful, “Hmm.”
Evidently reflection and apologies are for girly-boys or the zombies of the liberal class.
Many of our most respected think tanks now appear to be staffed with students of history equipped with no memory and no conscience.
Jingoistic cheer leading driven by testosterone-fueled delusions of empire spews simplistic black-hat/white-hat bumper stickers. The public swoons in Orwellian silence.
Russia bad … America good … Russia bad …
China bad … America good … China bad …
Iran bad … America good … Iran bad …
What’s another 87,000,000 bodies?
How about a 1,000,000,000 bodies?
Or if this thing goes nuclear … 8,000,000,000 bodies?
YEAH! Now we’re talking
Actually it’s kind of the perfect ending.
With horror on this scale, there is no one left to feel any shame.
Rooted in nostalgia, fried eggs, and meat-laden menus, breakfast chains like Denny’s have remained stubbornly traditional. But Denny’s recently rolled out its first-ever, fully plant-based breakfast entrée to more than 1,300 US locations—no customization needed, no side-eye from the server, just a stack of multigrain pancakes served with hash browns and fruit.
The Plant-Based Pancake Slam is a nationwide move from a legacy brand at a time when many fast-food giants are retreating from plant-based investments. Panda Express ghosted its Beyond Orange Chicken. Dunkin’ all but erased its Beyond Breakfast Sandwich. Carl’s Jr. quietly dropped its Beyond Burger. And yet, in a reversal that no one quite expected, Denny’s doubled down on its 2021 commitment to plant-based progress—and actually followed through.
A surge in health‑ and eco‑aware consumers is behind this momentum, and breakfast is emerging as the next frontier. Between 2020 and 2024, plant‑based claims on breakfast cereals grew 22 percent, outpacing other categories. What makes this move particularly strategic is its timing. While retail plant‑based sales in the US reached $8.1 billion in 2024, the category experienced a four percent decline in dollar sales—signaling a potential plateau in grocery aisles. Meanwhile, vegan fast‑food is on the upswing: projected to balloon from $24.1 billion in 2023 to more than $70 billion by 2033. “As more people become aware of the many health benefits associated with a plant-based diet, there is a growing preference for vegan fast-food options,” reports market research firm Spherical Insights.
Last year, nearly half of Americans indicated intentions to increase plant-based consumption, with 34 percent actively reducing their meat intake. That’s not the fringe: it represents a critical mass of mainstream diners. Importantly, breakfast has become the fastest-growing meal occasion for plant-based experimentation. A 2020 survey found more than 80 percent of respondents were open to trying a vegan breakfast once a week, with over 60 percent frequently purchasing plant-based grocery items—even preferring them to animal-based counterparts.
Denny’s
Complementing this, consumer segmentation data shows that flexitarians—a group comprising around 25 percent of US consumers—are the most frequent users of plant-based meat alternatives. Additionally, 65 percent of Americans consumed plant-based meat alternatives in the past year, with 40 percent doing so weekly or daily . Public appetite is growing, and it points to a breakfast market primed for more diverse plant-based offerings. Against this backdrop, it makes strategic sense for a legacy breakfast chain like Denny’s to stake a claim. This isn’t a fad, it’s a booming vertical.
So, of course, I had some thoughts when I heard the news.
Wait—Denny’s? Like actual Denny’s? The same Denny’s that once served bacon as a condiment?
I’m trying to picture the executive meeting where someone said, “Let’s go all in on vegan pancakes. And call out the flaxseeds.”
I’m also trying to picture the last time I ate anything at Denny’s. I think it was a plate of parsley. 2004. Road trip.
Seriously, though, why are they promoting the flaxseed like it’s a flavor? 2025 is so weird.
Pancakes AND hash browns? GLP-1s be damned.
Is Denny’s now utopia or dystopia?
Did I manifest this while crying into a plate of Just Egg scramble last year?
Fast-food pancakes without eggs? We do live in a society!
Especially when you consider this is the same chain that once leaned hard into bacon milkshakes.
Wait, did I miss a 3am “woke pancakes” Truth Social rant from Donald Trump?
The most self-care thing I’ve done this year is emotionally process the phrase “Multigrain Pancake Slam.”
Honestly, the bar for fast-food innovation has gotten so low that this rollout kind of feels like a Michelin moment.
Denny’s serving fully vegan breakfast while Starbucks still can’t make a vegan breakfast sandwich work? That’s not shade, that’s just math.
The pancake apparently debuted in March without fanfare. Quiet excellence.
Other fast-food executives should be taking notes. Especially *cough* Dunkin’ and Krispy Kreme *cough.*
The fact that this doesn’t require modifications is everything.
But is this a novel “breakfast” or really just “late-stage capitalism having a gentle nervous breakdown with a side of hash browns?” Asking for a friend.
If you told me in 2010 that Denny’s would go flaxseed before Congress went electric, I wouldn’t have believed you.
Pancakes now, tofu scrambles next?
Also, not to be too high-touch, but is that maple syrup pure?
But if we’re grading on a diner curve, this is an A-minus with bonus points for effort.
2025 be like: Tom Cruise defies death one last time, Denny’s defies dairy. Both iconic.
I wouldn’t call Denny’s the face of vegan innovation, but it might be the most surprising player of 2025.
Plant-based breakfast in a red booth under fluorescent lighting? Waiting for Morpheus.
I’m not saying these pancakes are a love language, but … they’re soft, warm, and make me feel safe.
Long live the Slam.
This post was originally published on VegNews.com.
The surprise US-Israeli attack on Iran is literally and figuratively designed to unleash centrifugal forces in the Islamic Republic.
Two nuclear powers are currently involved in the bombing of the nuclear facilities of a third state. One of them, the US has — for the moment — limited itself to handling mid-air refuelling, bombs and an array of intelligence.
If successful they will destroy or, more likely, destabilise the uranium enrichment centrifuges at Natanz and possibly the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, causing them to vibrate and spin uncontrollably, generating centrifugal forces that could rupture containment systems.
Spinning at more than 50,000 rpm it wouldn’t take much of a shockwave from a blast or some other act of sabotage to do this.
There may be about half a tonne of enriched uranium and several tonnes of lower-grade material underground.
If a cascade of bunker-busting bombs like the US GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators got through, the heat generated would be in the hundreds, even thousands, of degrees Celsius. This would destroy the centrifuges, converting the uranium hexafluoride gas into a toxic aerosol, leading to serious radiological contamination over a wide area.
The head of the IAEA, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, warned repeatedly of the dangers over the past few days. How many people would be killed, contaminated or forced to evacuate should not have to be calculated — it should be avoided at all cost.
Divided opinions Some people think this attack is a very good idea; some think this is an act of madness by two rogue states.
On June 18, Israeli media were reporting that the US had rushed an aerial armada loaded with bunker busters to Israel while the US continued its sham denials of involvement in the war.
Analysts Professor Jeffrey Sachs and Sybil Fares warned this week of “Israel bringing the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon in pursuit of its illegal and extremist aims”. They point out that for some decades now Netanyahu has warned that Iran is weeks or even days away from having the bomb, begging successive presidents for permission to wage Judeo-Christian jihad.
In Donald Trump — the MAGA Peace Candidate — he finally got his green light.
The centrifugal forces destabilising the Iranian state The other — and possibly more significant — centrifugal force that has been unleashed is a hybrid attack on the Iranian state itself. The Americans, Israelis and their European allies hope to trigger regime change.
There are many Iranians inside and outside the country who would welcome such a development. Other Iranians suggest they should be careful of what they wish for, pointing to the human misery that follows, as night follows day, wherever post 9/11 America’s project to bring “democracy, goodness and niceness” leads. If you can’t quickly think of half a dozen examples, this must be your first visit to Planet Earth.
Iranian news presenter Sahar Emami during the Israeli attack on state television which killed three media workers . . . Killing journalists is both an Israeli speciality and a war crime. Image: AJ screenshot APR
Is regime change in Iran possible? So, are the Americans and Israelis on to something or not? This week prominent anti-regime writer Sohrab Ahmari added a caveat to his long-standing call for an end to the regime. Ahmari, an Iranian, who is the US editor of the geopolitical analysis platform UnHerd said: “The potential nightmare scenarios are as numerous as they are appalling: regime collapse that leads not to the restoration of the Pahlavi dynasty and the ascent to the Peacock Throne of its chubby dauphin, Reza, but warlordism and ethno-sectarian warfare that drives millions of refugees into Europe.
“Or a Chinese intervention in favour of a crucial energy partner and anchor of the new Eurasian bloc led by Beijing . . . A blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and attacks on the Persian Gulf monarchies.”
Despite these risks, there are indeed Iranians who are cheering for Uncle Bibi (Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu). Some have little sympathy for the Palestinians because their government poured millions into supporting Hamas and Hezbollah — money that could have eased hardship inside Iran, caused, it must be added, by both the US-imposed sanctions and the regime’s own mismanagement, some say corruption.
As I pointed out in an article The West’s War on Iran shortly after the Israelis launched the war: the regime appears to have a core support base of around 20 percent. This was true in 2018 when I last visited Iran and was still the case in the most recent polling I could find.
I quoted an Iranian contact who shortly after the attack told me they had scanned reactions inside Iran and found people were upset, angry and overwhelmingly supportive of the government at this critical moment. Like many, I suggested Iranians would — as typically happens when countries are attacked — rally round the flag. Shortly after the article was published this statement was challenged by other Iranians who dispute that there will be any “rallying to the flag” — as that is the flag of the Islamic Republic and a great many Iranians are sick to the back teeth of it.
Some others demur:
“The killing of at least 224 Iranians has once again significantly damaged Israel’s claim that it avoids targeting civilians,” Dr Shirin Saeidi, author of Women and the Islamic Republic, an associate professor of political science at the University of Arkansas, told The New Arab on June 16. “Israel’s illegal attack on the Iranian people will definitely not result in a popular uprising against the Iranian state. On the contrary, Iranians are coming together behind the Islamic Republic.”
To be honest, I can’t discern who is correct. In the last few of days I have also had contact with people inside Iran (all these contacts must, for obvious reasons, be anonymous). One of them welcomed the attack on the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps). I also got this message relayed to me from someone else in Iran as a response to my article:
“Some Iranians are pro-regime and have condemned Israeli attacks and want the government to respond strongly. Some Iranians are pro-Israel and happy that Israel has attacked and killed some of their murderers and want regime change, [but the] majority of Iranians dislike both sides.
They dislike the regime in Iran, and they are patriotic so they don’t want a foreign country like Israel invading them and killing people. They feel hopeless and defenceless as they know both sides have failed or will fail them.”
Calculating the incalculable: regime survival or collapse? Only a little over half of Iran is Persian. Minorities include Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Arabs, Balochis, Turkmen, Armenians and one of the region’s few post-Nakba Jewish congregations outside of Israel today.
Mossad, MI6 and various branches of the US state have poured billions into opposition groups, including various monarchist factions, but from a distance they appear fragmented. The Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) armed opposition group has been an irritant but so far not a major disruptor.
The most effective terrorist attacks inside Iran have been launched by Israel, the US and the British — including the assassination of a string of Iranian peace negotiators, the leader of the political wing of Hamas, nuclear scientists and their families, and various regime figures.
How numerous the active strands of anti-regime elements are is hard to estimate. Equally hard to calculate is how many will move into open confrontation with the regime. Conversely, how unified, durable — or brittle — is the regime? How cohesive is the leadership of the IRGC and the Basij militias? Will they work effectively together in the trying times ahead? In particular, how successful has the CIA, MI6 and Mossad been at penetrating their structures and buying generals?
Both Iran’s nuclear programme and its government — in fact, the whole edifice and foundation of the Islamic Republic — is at the beginning of the greatest stress test of its existence. If the centrifugal forces prove too great, I can’t help but think of the words of William Butler Yeats:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Peace and prosperity to all the people of Iran. And let’s never forget the people of Palestine as they endure genocide.
Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz
If the headline didn’t give it away, please note that the following article is a piece of satire written by Glenn Liddle from Majority – ed.
There’s been an unexpected surge in backbone production over the past week. Early reports suggest up to 170 Labour MPs have placed last-minute orders. Happily, their spines are set to arrive just in time for the upcoming debate on Personal Independence Payments. UK suppliers, Spines R Us, say they’re working around the clock to fulfil demand.
However, rumours abound that some MPs have requested removable models, with one of them telling us that it’s, “just in case Keir changes his mind again.” But in response to such concerns, the supplier has issued a stark warning:
It’s moral integrity or moral bankruptcy—take your pick.
Labour revelations
Interestingly, a new WhatsApp group, Vertebrae for Victory, has been set up by wavering backbenchers. One recent message reads
We’re all done bending over for austerity. It’s high time we stood tall.
Another MP announced:
I’d forgotten what it felt like to stand up for something.
Of course, these procedures aren’t always straightforward. One of the installation surgeons admitted that the most difficult part is often locating where the spine should have been in the first place, such is the jelly-like demeanour of many MPs.
Spines R Us has also warned that some MPs may experience temporary clarity of thought, and even sudden urges to oppose unjust policy. One backbencher allegedly burst into tears after voting against something for the very first time since joining the Starmer leadership, whispering:
I felt… whole.
But, satire aside, the reality is far more alarming. Labour’s proposed overhaul of Personal Independence Payments—which completely ignores compassion and moral clarity—is a total disgrace. If passed, it could wipe out life-saving support for over a million people. That’s not to mention the undoubtedly increased anxiety, distress and the worsening of existing mental health conditions.
So, what do we do?
If only there were a solution—like, say, taxing extreme wealth.
Charities including Scope, Mind, and the Disability Benefits Consortium have described the proposals as “devastating“, warning that these changes will deepen inequality and push already vulnerable people into even greater hardship. DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts) has been raising the alarm for months, predicting a fresh wave of poverty and social exclusion if these changes go ahead.
Maybe it’s time Labour started listening to them. When fairness is used as a codename for cuts, and sustainability becomes a shield for the wealthy, something is seriously amiss.
At Majority, we believe fairness and dignity must sit at the heart of employment rights and social welfare. Because there is no dignity in asking disabled people to pay the price of ‘fiscal rules.’ And, there is nothing fair about ‘balancing the books’ on the backs of the most vulnerable.
Britain should be run in the interests of the people who do the work; including those in unpaid work, those unable to work, or those retired from a lifetime of work.
Denny’s