It would be over now. This Holocaust would be over now if all of you who privately claim to care publicly chose to do something – anything. If you could bring yourself to march and chant. If you could fly a flag. If you could wear a badge. If you could post a poster or stick a sticker. If you could just turn up.
The polls say that most of you are on our side. Why do you leave us feeling alone? Why do you let the people who hate and murder feel so normal and accepted?
You came out of the woodwork to tell me I was brave for going to the other side of the world for the Global March to Gaza. I wasn’t brave, I was privileged. Millions would have joined if they could. They would have joined because we are all desperate to find ways of breaking through. Millions of people pour their hearts and souls and time and money beyond measure into this – this desperate screaming attempt to raise the alarm over things that can never be undone. The dead will never not be dead. Each day the number grows and these indelible violent acts will live in memory for generations of sorrow and generations of guilt. We are all sick of banging our heads against the brick wall of public immobility.
Oceans of tears are shed by a those brave enough to open their eyes and hearts to the sorrow. Many feel that they must bear witness to the graphic horrors even if it rips them to shreds. And you wont even click on a post, like a post, or share a post, let alone make a comment. Some force themselves to face nightmares, and you literally will not raise a finger for what you claim to believe in.
It has been so long and so lonely. The argument was won over a year ago, but the cruelty, the killing, the maiming, the starving, the destruction goes on. The polls show that most people know this is wrong, you just don’t care enough to do anything.
I was asked what I did over the summer for the work newsletter. I told them that I did Palestine solidarity activism. They told me it couldn’t be included in the newsletter because they didn’t want to be political. You asked what I did and I told you. Do you think censoring that is not political? Do you think your silence is not political? Do you think your inaction is not political? Do you think avoiding learning more because it might make you sad and angry isn’t a fucking political choice? Do you think history will look kindly on this generation of Western genocide enablers? It will not.
If everyone who tells pollsters that they are against the killing in Gaza took that tiny step further and said that they support Palestinian freedom because Palestinians are humans with human rights; and if every one of those people just wore that on a badge or put that on a bumper sticker it would change everything. It is such a small thing for each individual, but together the visual signal of where people stand would radically change the crucial presumptions of journalism and politics.
A ceasefire in Gaza will not end the genocide, it will merely lead to slow killing through deprivation and broken aid promises peppered with the violent ceasefire violations that Israel always practices. If Palestine is not liberated then in a few years another pretext will be found for another major massacre. This issue is not going away. It is time to choose to stand with what you believe, or to continue being a traitor to yourself.
Taking action is not hard. Facing reality is hard. Finding out that everything is worse than you thought. Finding out that the news media has to censor most of the newsworthy stories so they can maintain “balance”. Finding out that your leaders aren’t merely selfish and myopic, they are actively working to make the world safe for mass murder. Taking action ends the horrible tension of guilt, but it must be real action.
Don’t give money to seek some facile absolution. Money to people in Gaza does not make one morsel of food enter. Money fuels inflation, and inequality. Money pays bandits and profiteers. Real action means becoming active. Real action means taking on an identity and owning it.
No one can ever do enough. The small enjoyments and large privileges we have in life will always create dissonance and discomfort, but a clear conscience doesn’t require perfection, it requires earnest and vulnerable commitment. It requires that you make it part of who you are and deal with the social consequences as best you can. Once you do a burden will fall from you.
And for those who already are taking a stand it is time we stop making excuses for others. Our low expectations are not kindness nor humility, they are a type of arrogance. We are letting our society fall into an evil that demeans the individual and increases the tyranny of the state. Their choice to be silent now will lead to the end of choice for all of us in the future.
Surprisingly, it all comes down to Oscar Romero for Dan who voted for or supported Ronald Ray-Gun the first terrorist go-around:
Coming of age, he stated, at age 19 when he traveled to Nicaragua, and he’s been on that socialist and communist path since, now at age 57 with kiddos living the life in Pittsburgh.
He’s written books that will get anyone in trouble if they showed up at a mixed company event , or No Kings rally staffing a table with his books piled up high.
We talked about the Syria book, for sure, but then the case of regime change, well, Vietnam, anyone? El Salvador, folks?
Reagan’s legacy: President Ronald Reagan in 1982; Archbishop Oscar Romero, assassinated in March 1980, and the four American Catholic missionaries murdered in the same year by the Salvadoran National Guard: Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, Ita Ford, and Dorothy Kazel. (Reagan: Michael Evans / The White House / Getty Images; Romero: Bettmann; bottom: courtesy of the Maryknoll Sisters.)
Dan told me he has a lifesized statue of Saint Oscar Romero in his house, and the Catholic kid from Pittsburgh transformed into a Columbia University graduate of law and running into the Belly of the Beast of one of Many Proxy Chaos countries of the Monroe Doctrine variety — Colombia.
From the CIA pages of Wikipedia: He/Kovalik worked on the Alien Tort Claims Act cases against The Coca-Cola Company, Drummond Company and Occidental Petroleum over human rights abuses in Colombia.[3] Kovalik accused the United States of intervention in Colombia, saying it has threatened peaceful actors there so it may “make Colombian land secure for massive appropriation and exploitation”.[6] He also accused the Colombian and United States governments of overseeing mass killings in Colombia between 2002 and 2009.[7]
Oh, remember those days, no, when I was young teaching college at age 25: Oh yeah, BDS CocaCola? Right brothers, right sisters:
“If we lose this fight against Coke,
First we will lose our union,
Next we will lose our jobs,
And then we will all lose our lives!”
“If it weren’t for international solidarity,
We would have been eliminated long ago. That is the truth.”
We are the world’s supreme terrorists, Dan and I agree. And, while we have BDS for Israel, think about it = BDS for UnUnited Snake$ of AmeriKKKa? How’s that Coke doing for you? Boycotting Walmart, Starbucks, Exxon, BP, Coke, etc. Ain’t going to have a revolution boycotting plastic bottles of water.
Ahh, one company, and it’s all about killer sweetened soft drinks, and the outsized influence on politics locally and nationally and internationally.
Almost Thirty Years ago, this book, School of Assassins, was published: The atrocities perpetrated on hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans by graduates of the US Army’s School of the Americas will not come as a surprise to many. For the uninitiated, however, this book is sure to be an eye-opener. How many of us remember, every time we read of plunder, torture, and murder by corrupt military regimes in Central and South America, that almost all of them employ officers trained in these “arts” at Fort Benning’s SOA, and that their clandestine education is funded by our tax dollars? In School of Assassins — vital reading for anyone who still harbors delusions about America’s role abroad — the author records the history of the school and its graduates. More important, he shows how the school’s very existence is a hidden consequence of the imperialistic foreign policy shamelessly pursued by our government for decades, all with the express purpose of maintaining world dominance. Nelson-Pallmeyer offers ideas for ways to work toward closing the school, but he suggests that the true task ahead of us is continual, active opposition to the death-bringing hunger for power and control — not only in the public arena, but in our personal lives.
*****
Moving back into Dan’s new book, with coauthor Jeremy Kuzmarov.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Oliver Stone
Introduction
Chapter 1: The First U.S. Regime Change in Syria—The Early Cold War
Chapter 2: Back to the Future: Long-Term U.S. Regime-Change Strategy
Chapter 3: The Arab Spring and U.S. Interference in Syria
Chapter 4: Voices from Syria
Chapter 5: Charlie Wilson’s War Redux? Operation Timber Sycamore and Other Covert Operations in Syria
Chapter 6: Strange Bedfellows: The Multi-National Alliance Against Syria
Chapter 7: Shades of the Gulf of Tonkin: Chemical Weapons False Flag
Chapter 8: A War by Other Means: Sanctions and the U.S. Regime-Change Operation
Chapter 9: The White Helmets: Al Qaeda’s Partner in Crime
Chapter 10: The Liberal Intelligentsia Plays Its Role
Chapter 11: Syria After the Western-backed Al Qaeda Triumph—As Witnessed by Dan Kovalik
Epilogue
Here’s the first paragraphs of Oliver Stone’s forward:
Foreword by Oliver Stone
Another nation has fallen to the predations of Western interventionism. This time, it is Syria, a once beautiful and prosperous country, which has been home to peoples of different religions and ethnicities who lived together peacefully for centuries. That peaceful coexistence was purposefully destroyed by the U.S. and its allies who decided to effectuate regime change by inciting sectarian violence and supporting terrorist groups whose explicit plan was to set up an extremist religious Caliphate intolerant of all other religions.
Quite tragically, the terrorist group Al Qaeda, now named HTS, has taken over Syria and is now in the process of setting up such a Caliphate. Part of this process entails the mass slaughter of religious minorities, such as Alawites and Christians, and the kidnapping of young women from these groups who are raped and enslaved.
It would be shocking to know that this is all happening with the full connivance of modern, Western nations, except for the fact that we have seen this all before—most notably, in Afghanistan where the U.S. supported religious extremists to overthrow a secular, socialist government and to lure the USSR into the “Afghan trap,” in the words of Zbigniew Brzezinski. Years later, the Soviet Union is gone, Afghanistan is now being ruled by the Taliban, and the offspring of the terrorist groups the U.S. supported in Afghanistan—namely, Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda—is now flourishing more than ever as the ruling group of a major country.
Oil oil oil, and anti-USSR and anti-socialist fervor, man: Here, those 9 steps toward regime change deployed in Syria — bloody sanctions kill more than physical bombs.
From Dan and Jeremy’s first chapter:
Direct Quoting: The U.S. State Department actually took credit for Assad’s overthrow. Spokesman Matthew Miller stated on December 9, 2024 that U.S. policy had “led to the situation we’re in today.” It “developed during the latter stages of the Obama administration” and “has largely carried through to this day.”[1] The regime-change operation in Syria was openly advertised even earlier, when General Wesley Clark was told during a visit at the Pentagon after 9/11 that “we’re going to attack and destroy the governments in seven countries in five years—we’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.”[2]
The methods that were utilized to oust Assad fit a long-standing regime-change playbook that had been applied in many of the countries listed by Clark. This playbook involves:
a) a protracted demonization campaign that spotlights the dastardly human rights abuses allegedly committed by the target of U.S. regime change. This demonization campaign enlists journalists and academics and highlights the viewpoint of pro-Western dissidents while maligning politicians, journalists or academics who voice criticism of U.S. foreign policy or who are against the regime-change operation (the latter being derided as “dictator lovers” or “apologists”).[3]
b) National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and United States Agency of international Development (USAID) funding of civil society and opposition groups and opposition media with the aim of mobilizing support of students and young people against the government.
c) a program of economic warfare designed to weaken the economy and facilitate hardship for the population that will push them to turn against their leader.
d) CIA financing of rebel groups and fomenting of protests or an uprising that aims to elicit a heavy-handed government response that can be used to further turn domestic and world opinion against the government.
e) a false flag is often necessary in which paid snipers dressed up in army or police uniforms fire on protesters. Blame is cast on the targeted government when it urges restraint. Chemical or biological warfare attacks are also staged in order to rally Western opinion in support of “humanitarian” military intervention.
f) drone warfare, bombing, and clandestine Special Forces operations using Navy Seals and private mercenaries. The light U.S. footprint approach will avert antiwar dissent at home.
g) enlisting third country nationals and proxy forces to carry out a lot of the heavy lifting and many of the military or bombing operations to ensure plausible deniability.
g) enlistment of disaffected minority groups who are paid to fight against government forces.
h) whitewashing of the background of rebel forces who are presented in the media as “freedom fighters” or “moderate rebels” and not the terrorists and Islamic extremists or fascists that they usually are.
i) accusing the government of enlisting foreigners to put down the rebellion when the rebellion itself has been triggered by foreign mercenaries financed by MI6/CIA/Mossad.
The targets for U.S. regime change are inevitably leaders who are independent nationalists intent on resisting U.S. corporate penetration of their countries and challenging U.S. global hegemony. Bashar al-Assad fit the bill for the latter because he backed Palestinian resistance groups and stood up to Israel, aligned closely with Iran and Russia, and adopted nationalistic economic policies.[4] Assad was also growing economic relations with China and refused to construct the Trans-Arabian Qatari pipeline through Syria, endorsing instead a Russian approved “Islamic” pipeline running from Iran’s side of the gas field through Syria and to the ports of Lebanon. According to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., this latter pipeline would make “Shiite Iran, not Sunni Qatar, the principal supplier to the European energy market” and “dramatically increase Iran’s influence in the Middle East and world”—which the U.S. and Israel would not allow.[5]
Oh, that dude who pushed cancer sticks onto women:
Edward Bernays and the Guatemalan Coup:
In the early 1950s, the UFC, facing land reform policies in Guatemala that threatened their interests, hired Bernays to counter the government’s actions.
Bernays led a “fact-finding” trip to Guatemala, cherry-picking information to portray the Guatemalan government as communist and a threat to American interests.
He launched a misinformation campaign to discredit the Guatemalan government, framing the UFC as the victim of a “communist” regime.
This campaign helped to create a climate of fear and suspicion about communism in Guatemala, which was used to justify the CIA-orchestrated coup.
The coup, known as Operation PBSuccess, involved the CIA, the UFC, and the dictator of Nicaragua, Anastasio Somoza, according to Wikipedia.
President Árbenz was overthrown and replaced by a military regime led by Carlos Castillo Armas, backed by the US.
On March 10, 2014, Chiquita Brands International announced that it was merging with the Irish fruit company, Fyffes. After the merger, Chiquita-Fyffes would control over 29% of the banana market; more than any one company in the world today. However, this is not the first time in history these companies have been under the same name. Chiquita Brands and Fyffes were both owned by United Fruit Company until 1986. The modern merger marks their reunion and continued takeover of the banana market [1]. United Fruit Company was known for its cruelty in the workplace and the racist social order they perpetuated. Though Chiquita and Fyffes are more subtle in their autocratic tendencies, they continue many of the same practices of political and social manipulation as their parent company once did [2].
Advertising has been one of the most prominent forms of manipulation conducted by both the two modern companies and United Fruit. In the mid-twentieth century, United Fruit Company embarked on a series of advertising campaigns designed to exploit the emotions and sense of adventure of a growing American middle class and furthered the racial polarization and political tension between the U.S. and Central America, all for the sake of selling their bananas.
United Fruit initiated its first advertising campaign in 1917. By this time the company had well establish plantations in various countries in Central and South America. All they needed now was to interest the American people in trying new, exotic things in order to sell the bananas they were producing. At this time in American history, it was thought that advertisements should target consumers’ rationale, not their emotions, so United Fruit hired scientists to author positive reviews about bananas whether they were true or not. One of these publications, Food Value of the Banana: Opinions of Leading Medical and Scientific Authorities, offered a collection of articles by prominent scientists that promoted the nutrition value, health benefits, and even taste of the banana [3]. Today we know that bananas are good for us, but in the early 1900s, there was no way for these scientists to determine the nutrition value and other properties they claimed to have researched. However, Americans appear to have believed the scientists, for United Fruit’s banana sales began to soar.
Beginning in the 1920s, everything began to change. A successful young propagandist named Edward Bernays changed American advertising forever [4]. Bernays discovered that targeting people’s emotions instead of their logic caused people to flock to a product. His first experiment in this type of advertising was for the American Tobacco Company. Bernays thought that cigarette sales would sky rocket if it was socially acceptable for women to smoke, so at an important women’s rights march in New York City, Bernays had a woman light a cigarette in front of reporters and call it a “Torch of Freedom” [5]. Soon, women all over the United States were smoking cigarettes. After this initial public relations stunt, companies all over America began using emotionally-loaded advertising. United Fruit was no different. They launched an advertising campaign revolving around their new cruise liner called “The Great White Fleet” [6]. This cruise liner sailed civilians to the United Fruit-controlled countries in Central and South America to appeal to Americans’ sense of adventure and foster a good corporate reputation with the American people. When the cruise liner docked in a country, cruisers often toured one of United Fruit’s plantations. During this tour, the tourists would only be shown small areas of the banana plantations, theatrically set up to present the plantation as a harmonious place to work, when, in reality, it was a place of harsh conditions and corruption [7]. Their advertisements were key in swaying the American people to set out on an exotic adventure with the Great White Fleet. The flyer to the right (Fig. 1) describes Central America as a land of pirates and romance. The advertisement even portrays it as the place where “Pirates hid their Gold.” By giving the American tourists a false sense of the romanticism of Central America, they sold more cruise tickets, and through association, more bananas.
United Fruit’s unethical practices extended far beyond their manipulative advertising. They were also well known for their extremely racial politics in the workplace. They had employees from many different racial groups, and they would pit them against one another to control revolts that would otherwise be aimed at the company [8]. American whites would get the most prestigious jobs, like managers and financial advisers, while people of color got the hard labor. The company made a rigid distinction between Hispanics and West Indian workers. They administered different privileges and punishments to each ethnic group , and if one group were rewarded, the managers told them it was because they worked harder than the other group. If a punishment was administered, management would say it was the other group’s fault [9]. This gave the two groups something to focus their anger on, so they didn’t revolt against the company due to poor working conditions. United Fruit used the Great White Fleet to further these racial tensions. If the name was not obvious enough, all the ships were painted bright white and all the crew members wore pristine white uniforms [10]. The Fleet went so far as to encourage the passengers to wear white. The advertisement to the left (Fig. 2) further embodies the racial tensions experienced by the Americans and the United Fruit laborers. The large, white, American ship dwarfed the small, run-down, brown ship, symbolizing the power and prestige the whites had over the locals. The Central Americans in the corner of the picture are looking in awe of the massive ship, and are dressed in tropical garb to satisfy the need to appeal to the American people’s idealized version of the tropics. This is not only an advertisement, but a work of propaganda.
The United Fruit Company continued to advertise throughout the mid twentieth century until they found a new use for their public relations skills. A politician named Jacobo Arbenz was elected president in Guatemala, one of the Central American countries occupied by United Fruit [11]. Arbenz was a strict nationalist, and all he wanted was for his people to stop suffering in poverty. One of the most prominent issues in Guatemala, at the time, was scarcity of land. When United Fruit invaded Guatemala, they bought out many of the local farmers to acquire land for their plantations. This did not leave room for the peasants, who relied on farming as the sole source of their income. Arbenz created an agrarian reform that took land from the company and gave it back to the poor farmers that needed it [12]. United Fruit was outraged by this reform. They immediately launched a propaganda campaign led by Edward Bernays to convince the United States government and its people that Arbenz was a communist dictator [13]. In a 1953 article by the New York Times, Guatemala was described as “operating under increasingly severe Communist-inspired pressure to rid the country of United States companies” [14]. United Fruit was manipulating the media to make it sound like the agrarian reform was only created because Arbenz was being influenced by the Soviet government to sabotage America’s economic imperialism in Central America. Since it was during the Cold War, association with communists was a serious accusation. The United States’ aggressive stance toward communism encouraged them to take immediate action. The CIA hired civilian militias from Honduras to come into Guatemala and start a war against Arbenz and his followers. United Fruit also convinced U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower to threaten Arbenz because Eisenhower and many other prominent American government officials had stock in United Fruit [15]. With these pressures, Arbenz feared for his life and submitted his resignation.
However, this did not satisfy United Fruit. They wished to make an example of Guatamala, so their other host nations wouldn’t dare oppose them. They had the CIA pay off the Guatemalan military so they would let the Honduras militia win [16]. After the victory, the leader of the Honduran militia, Castillo Armas, was appointed as president of Guatemala and Armas was a puppet of United Fruit Company for the rest of his term [17]. He returned all of United Fruit’s confiscated land, and gave them preferential treatment in all Guatemalan ports and railways. The company continued to influence the media of North and Central America to justify what they had done. They called Armas the “Liberator” and told the inspiring tale of how he freed Guatemala from its communist ties. They also destroyed what was left of Arbez’s reputation by calling him “Red Jacobo,” further tying him to the Soviets [18]. A New York Times article written in 1954 states that, “President Castillo Armas is continuing to act with moderation and common sense,” and “Jacobo Arbenz, anyway, is a deflated balloon, hardly likely to cause any more trouble” [19]. The media praised Armas for his good policy making, yet most of his policies were proposed by United Fruit or the American government. United Fruit and American controlled media also made Armas into a war hero to increase his acceptance and popularity with the Guatemalan people. Arbenz was made to look like an easy defeat to give the American people confidence in the ability of their government to eliminate communist threats.
*****
Back on track with Dan and Haeder. And so we discussed the genocide, the mass murder, the shifting baseline of acceptance, and how Israel and their Jewish Project for a Greater Tyrannical Israel has set down a new set of abnormalities in the aspect of guys like Dan and Jeremy having to bear witness, research the roots of these tyrannical empire building plots, and then write about it and publish books, which for all intents and purposes might be read by the choir.
Again, Dan lost his faculty job at the University of Pittsburg, why?
Russia. Putin Stoogery.
Dan and I talked off the mic about adjunct faculty organizing: He was interviewed 13 years ago on that accord: Interview with an Adjunct Organizer: “People Are Tired of the Hypocrisy”
The debate over the working conditions for adjunct faculty was recently reignited by the death of Margaret Mary Vojtko, a longtime adjunct professor at Duquesne University who was fired in the last year of her life and died penniless. Moshe Marvit talks to Dan Kovalik, a labor lawyer who knew Votjko and has helped to publicize her story.
The debate over working conditions for adjunct faculty was recently reignited by the death of Margaret Mary Vojtko on September 1. Vojtko, who had a long career as an adjunct professor at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, died penniless after being fired from the university in the last year of her life. Her story served as a reminder of what has become a massive underclass of underpaid contingent labor in academia.
Dan Kovalik, senior associate general counsel of the United Steelworkers, wrote an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that brought news of Votjko’s death to a wider audience. Kovalik has been working with Duquesne adjunct faculty for several years, helping them organize a union and fight for better working conditions. At the time of Votjko’s death, he was assisting her in a legal fight to keep her job and her independence. I spoke with Kovalik in his office in the United Steelworkers building in Pittsburgh. The interview has been edited for clarity.
Moshe Marvit: Can you describe the working conditions of adjunct faculty?
Dan Kovalik:As I’ve come to learn, and I didn’t realize it until about a year and a half ago when adjuncts approached us to organize, the conditions are just abysmal. The folks that came to me at that time were making $3,000 for a three-credit course. So say you teach a load of two courses a semester, and you have two semesters a year, then that’s $12,000 right there. No benefits. Maybe you get a summer course in there, so maybe you make $15,000 per year. That’s barely enough to live on, especially if you have a family. I know a guy who teaches seven courses per semester to make ends meet at three different universities. They call it a “milk run.”
It had always been my perception that going into the academy would be a great life. You would get a good salary; you would get benefits; you would get the benefit where your kids could go to school for free there or at a reduced rate. Adjuncts don’t get that. I’ve come to learn that 75 percent of all faculty around the country are adjuncts. It’s this kind of dirty secret of the academy.
Meanwhile there are just a few at the top who are doing well. It looks a lot more like the corporate world than like nonprofit education. — DK
I knew about Mary before her firing and her death, and alas, Dan and I are brothers in arms when it comes to freeway fliers, just-in-time adjunct faculty, precarious teachers, 11th hour appointed non-tenure track and non-contracted instructors.
I will use one chapter from their book, about a person Dan met in Syria, who is a journalist and is emblematic of the power of being Syrian, and in fact, Dan stated that the best and friendliest folk in the world are Syrians, and Lebanese and Palestinian. My experience that the Diaspora of those same folk for me absolutely resonates the same over my 6.6 decades. He dedicated the book to Yara:
In 2021, I twice visited both Lebanon and Syria. What I learned there was quite at variance with what we were being told in the mainstream press. One of the first people I met in Damascus, Syria, was Yara Saleh, a lovely and affable woman who was serving as a reporter and anchor for the Syrian News Channel, an official state news agency.
Yara, while working for this channel back in 2012, was kidnapped by the Free Syria Army (FSA) just outside Damascus, and held for six days until rescued in a daring mission by the Syrian Arab Armed Forces (SAA). Yara’s kidnapping and rescue became the subject of a movie which the delegation I was with were invited to watch for its premier. I contacted Yara afterwards to hear her story in her words.
Yara still seemed shaken by her abduction years before. She was thin, almost to the point of emaciation, ate nothing, but chain smoked as she told her story. As Yara explained, she was traveling with a driver (Hussam Imad), a camera man (Abdullah Tabreh) and an assistant (Hatem Abu Yehya) to do a report on the clashes between the SAA and forces which she described as “armed terrorist groups.” She specifically wanted to report on the impact of the burgeoning war and terrorist threats upon the civilian population.
However, while traveling on the road to their destination (a Damascus suburb known as al-Tell), they were stopped by armed men. These armed men detained them, took their possessions, including their phones and money, and beat all of them, including Yara. Yara, a quite small woman, explains that the beatings upon her were quite hurtful. Yara said they decided to kidnap them after discovering that they were with the Syrian News Channel.
They were driven into town and to a location with hundreds of other armed militants. While en route, one of the armed captors held Yara’s head down between her legs.
One of the first questions Yara and her colleagues were asked was about their religious background. All of them were of “mixed” traditions in Yara’s words, and Yara stood out because she wore makeup and did not wear any head covering. I just found out recently that Yara is an Alawite. Yara, like many of her fellow Syrians, sees herself as a Syrian first and that is more important to her identity than being an Alawite. Before the sectarian violence brought to Syria from the outside, Syrians did not wear their religions on their sleeve and didn’t go around asking others what their religion is; that would be considered rude.
The sheikh told them that they all were to be executed because they worked with the Syrian government and because of their mixed religious affiliations. In response to the sheikh’s words, two of Yara’s colleagues, Hussam and Hatem, were taken away to a nearby location. Yara then heard the sound of gun fire. She believed that both of her associates were killed at that time. However, Hussam was shortly brought back, and he told Yara, with tears in his eyes, that he witnessed Hatem murdered in a spray of bullets.
Notably, Yara explained that the fighters who held them openly told them that they were taking orders from someone in Turkey and that they had been told to move them to Turkey. The fighters explained that the plan was to negotiate their freedom with the Syrian Arab Army, and that if the SAA did not give in to their demands, they would kill them. However, when Yara asked one of the fighters if they would be released if the SAA gave them what they wanted, he answered in the negative, saying that they would continue to hold them for leverage to gain more concessions.
In addition, according to Yara, a significant number of the fighters were not Syrian. They were not certain where they all were from, but they could tell by their accents that some were from Saudi Arabia and Libya. (from the unpublished manuscript, Syria: An Anatomy of Regime Change.)
*****
Listen to the interview I had with Dan. He fielded my more unconventional questions, with an open mind and grace and in the end this radio interview is an organic discussion, or in Dan the Lawyer’s words, “I have no problem with stream of consciousness.”
In this miserable country love stories end too soon and families fall apart in the blink of an eye.
This is how Marah Kamal begins her life story and if you know anyone from Gaza, you know how much they love the land they live on. They literally ‘worship the ground they walk upon.’ Only God is loved more than the land. So, for Marah to call her country miserable, is to admit that after a year and a half of war, there is nothing left. Even pregnancy is a curse.
Here, in Gaza, a woman becomes pregnant and rejoices, endures the pain of labor and gives birth, then breastfeeds, cares for her baby and loses sleep. She pours her life into raising her children, all so she can watch them grow up. Then the Occupation decides to bomb a house and it’s as if a mother’s son never even existed. There isn’t even a body left for burial. This country is not fit for marriage, pregnancy or childbirth. Ditto education and work. It’s a land of orphans and widows, of the dead and the wounded, of tarps and tents and shattered streets.
These are the dilemmas we will never have to face. How long does it take you to recall all the names of loved ones who have been murdered? How many of us have watched our children die? Or our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, husbands or wives? This is how Israel practices birth control on Palestinians. All we worry about is Roe vs. Wade.
I want the world to hear my story and stand by me however it can. I want to find a glimmer of hope for a simple, peaceful life filled with the warmth of family and friends. I want to live like the simplest of people. I want my children to be able to do what they wish, eat what they crave and play whenever they like. I just want to live a life free from death and destruction. Am I asking for too much?
Simple requests from a widowed young woman who studied genetic engineering and IVF fertilization in college. Now, she raises her orphaned children, three-year-old Sana and baby Adam, as they play games of dodging bullets from the sky. No one needs fertility help in Gaza anymore. They’re all waiting to die instead.
Marah’s Husband Bahaa
This war has devastated my life. It stole my name, my life, my hope—everything. First and foremost, I lost my husband Bahaa. Just a week before the war started, on October 1st, Bahaa bought a car. He had recently gotten a degree in accounting but finding work is hard in Gaza, so he decided to become a taxi-driver. Even after October 7th, after we fled our home, he kept working, driving anyone who needed to be evacuated from northern Gaza to the south. There were infants, the elderly, people with disabilities, the wounded and the sick. He helped many people evacuate to safer areas without charging them a single shekel. He said to me, “This is all I can offer to people… how could I withhold it?” I remember him once saying, “A man once rode with me all the way from the far north to the far south. He had no money for the fare and was ashamed. He had a bag of lemons, and I told him, ‘Give me a lemon, so you don’t feel embarrassed.’”
Have you grown tired of my story, or shall I go on? Marah asks me.
To me, Bahaa was a hero who stood by his people until the very last moment with everything he had. He didn’t lock himself away in fear. He lived his life with courage, and to this day, I feel pride every time someone tells me how kind and humane Bahaa was. Now, I have to be everything for my two small children. I have to bury this heavy sorrow deep in my heart and keep on living, even with a knife pressed against it…for the sake of these two little hopes, to secure a life for them.
Marah’s tragedy is not unique. As you probably already know, it is commonplace in Gaza. With every good turn comes bad news. After nearly three months of blockading humanitarian aid, the embargo was lifted, only for the Occupation to massacre hundreds of people waiting to be fed. Marah thinks of her children when she feels like giving up.
I remember one time, my daughter Sana told me after waking up at dawn that she had dreamt of her father. He came to her and gave her red jelly with sugar. Sugar has become so expensive in Gaza, and she refuses to drink milk without it. I’m sorry, my love, on behalf of this entire world. And my baby Adam, who lost his father before he ever got to hear him say “Baba” has now started saying it to his grandfather instead.
As I finish Marah’s story on July 1st, 2025 I hear, yet again, there is talk of another cease-fire deal. Will it ever be over? Or is this the new way of war? Designed to string us along because the people in power don’t want it to end?
In a scene that transcends the limits of humanitarian disaster, Gaza has issued a heartbreaking appeal, not for medicine or food, but for the world to provide it with enough graves to bury its martyrs who fall every day under the Israeli bombardment that has been ongoing for nearly two years.
“No more graves in Gaza”
“There are no more graves in Gaza,” the Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs said in its latest statement, confirming that the cemeteries are full, the land is running out, and there is no place left to bury the bodies that are piling up in hospitals, on the streets, and in the arms of mothers.
The Israeli aggression that began in October 2023 has left nothing but destruction in its wake: people, trees, stones, and even cemeteries. More than 40 cemeteries have been completely or partially destroyed, while the occupation forces prevent access to other cemeteries located within what they call “security zones,” leaving almost no burial options and forcing residents to resort to schoolyards, homes, and even the outskirts of camps to bury their loved ones.
Gaza: dignity violated even in death
Everywhere in the Gaza Strip today, there are endless stories of pain, but the most cruel story is that of a person who dies and cannot find a grave. The family of a martyr searches for a grave to lay him to rest, but finds none. The body is wrapped in a rough cloth shroud and buried in the rubble of a house or behind a school wall, simply because “there are no more graves.”
The Ministry of Awqaf spoke about the cost of burying a martyr, which now exceeds 1,000 shekels (equivalent to $250), given the scarcity of basic materials and the high prices of alternatives, such as stones extracted from destroyed buildings and mud as a substitute for cement. But even these solutions are no longer sufficient.
Multiple campaigns
In light of this disaster, the ministry launched the “Ikram” campaign, which aims to build free graves worthy of the victims of this long war. It is a sincere appeal to the Arab and Islamic world, to countries, charitable institutions, and to those with compassionate hearts: help Gaza bury its martyrs.
As the battle intensifies and the sky lights up with shelling, Gaza has become a city fighting for the right to a grave. A city that does not ask for life, but asks for what preserves the dignity of its dead.
Voices from under the rubble
In the midst of this crisis, some initiatives have emerged that offer a glimmer of hope, such as the “Algerian Waqf Cemetery” built by the Algerian Al-Baraka Association, which contains more than a thousand free graves in Khan Yunis, in addition to local donations from generous men who have provided graves for those in need. However, despite their greatness, these efforts are not enough in the face of the magnitude of the tragedy.
In Gaza today, life is no longer the only hope. The simple dream has become for the martyr to be buried with dignity, and for his body not to remain in the open or on a cold bed in a besieged hospital.
Protesters against the Israeli genocide in Gaza and occupied West Bank targeted three business sites accused of being “complicit” in Aotearoa New Zealand today.
The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa’s “End Rocket Lab Genocide Complicity” themed protest picketed Rocket Lab’s New Zealand head office in Mt Wellington.
Simultaneously, protesters also picketed a site in Warkworth where Rocket Lab equipment is built and Mahia peninsula where satellites are launched.
In a statement on the PSNA website, it was revealed this week that the advocacy group’s lawyers have prepared a 103-page “indictment” against two business leaders, including the head of Rocket Lab, along with four politicians, including Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.
They have been referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for investigation on an accusation of complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Rocket Lab chief executive Sir Peter Beck is one of the six people named in the legal brief.
“Rocket Lab has recently launched geospatial intelligence satellites for BlackSky Technology,” said PSNA co-chair John Minto in a statement.
High resolution images
“These satellites provide high resolution images to Israel which are very likely used to assist with striking civilians in Gaza. Sir Peter has proceeded with these launches in full knowledge of these circumstances”
A “Genocide Lab” protest against Rocket Lab in Mt Wellington today. Image: PSNA
“When governments and business leaders can’t even condemn a genocide then civil society groups must act.”
The other business leader named is Rakon Limited chief executive officer Dr Sinan Altug.
“Despite vast weapons transfers from the United States to Israel since the beginning of its war on Gaza, Rakon has continued with its longstanding supply of crystal oscillators to US arms manufacturers for use in guided missiles which are then available to Israel for the bombing of Gaza, as well as Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran with consequential massive loss of life,” Minto said.
“Rakon’s claims that it has no responsibility over how these ‘dual-use’ technologies are used are not credible.”
Rocket Lab and Rakon have in the past rejected claims over their responsibility.
Speakers at Mount Wellington included the Green Party spokesperson for foreign affairs Teanau Tuiono; Dr Arama Rata, a researcher and lecturer from Victoria University; and Sam Vincent, the legal team leader for the ICC referral.
Law academic Professor Jane Kelsey spoke at the Warkworth picket.
MPs proudly posed for photos with suffragette-style sashes on exactly the same day most of them voted to approve a shameful attack on direct action group Palestine Action. Apparently, it’s a lot cheaper and easier to cosplay as direct-actionists from the past than it is to oppose state repression of direct-actionists in the present.
GET A LOAD OF THIS
MPs cosplayed as infamous direct actionists for women’s suffrage ON THE SAME DAY that they voted to proscribe anti-genocide direct action group @Pal_action for spraying paint…
— Defend our Juries (@DefendourJuries) July 2, 2025
Centenary Action – which a member of the Pankhurst family founded – helped to organise the handcrafting of white sashes for female MPs. The politicians received them on 2 July, the same day that most of them voted to ban direct-action group Palestine Action.
The most famous Pankhursts, Sylvia and Emmeline, were (in the words of the BBC) “trailblazing women who founded the suffragettes and campaigned for women’s right to vote”. Even the British parliament’s website honours them, saying:
The Pankhurst family is closely associated with the militant campaign for the vote. In 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst and others, frustrated by the lack of progress, decided more direct action was required and founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) with the motto ‘Deeds not words’… Under her leadership the WSPU was a highly organised group and like other members she was imprisoned and went on hunger strike protests.
It adds:
the lack of Government action led the WSPU to undertake… attacks on property and law-breaking, which resulted in imprisonment and hunger strikes… These tactics attracted a great deal of attention to the campaign for votes for women.
So it’s ok to cosplay as direct actionists from the past, but we shouldn’t dare to use direct action today? Gotcha.
The British establishment has clearly felt uncomfortable about heroising the suffragettes. Because they represent a rich national tradition of active resistance to injustice – usually at the hands of the state. While trying to share the glory of the suffragettes in public by wearing their colours, politicians have long continued to treat them as extremists behind the scenes. They know full well the dangers of normalising direct action too much, because it could – and does – inspire others in the present day to resist injustice in similar ways.
Most of Britain’s MPs are not Jeremy Corbyn, though, unfortunately. They seem happy to cosplay as direct-actionists from the past, because it costs them nothing. But when it comes to actually defending the public’s brave resistance to injustice, they run and hide. Or more accurately, they vote to set the whole repressive power of the state against direct-actionists by labelling them as terrorists.
Before Israel’s genocide in Gaza, many people in Britain perhaps believed that we live in a democratic country with civil rights. But with Tory-Labour governments’ open participation in that genocide, the state has forced ordinary people to test how true that idea is. And as journalist Matt Kennard, it turns out it was just a facade:
The whole facade of our supposed civil rights in Britain is predicated on us never using them
As soon as you start taking them too seriously, they evaporate
The struggle against injustice is just as alive and necessary as it was in the time of the suffragettes. And just as it was morally right to support their cause in the past, it is morally right to support Palestine Action’s today.
It makes for stark and dark reading. The report for the UN Human Rights Council titled From economy of occupation to economy of genocide makes mention of “corporate entities” who have been enriched by “the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid and now genocide.” Authored by the relentless Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, it is unflinching in its assessments and warnings to companies doing business with Israel.
What makes the investigative undertaking by Albanese useful is its examination of the corporate world and its links to the colonial, settler program of removing and displacing a pre-existing population. The machinery of conquest of any state necessarily involves not only the desk job occupants in civilian bureaucracies and high-ranking military commanders, but those in the corporate sector, eager to make a profit. “Colonial endeavours and associated genocides,” writes Albanese, “have historically been driven and enabled by the corporate sector. Commercial interests have contributed to the dispossession of Indigenous peoples of their lands – a mode of domination known as ‘colonial racial capitalism’.”
Eight private sectors come in for scrutiny: arms manufacturers, tech firms, building and construction entities, those industries concerned with extraction and services, banks, pension funds, insurers, universities and charities. “These entities enable the denial of self-determination and other structural violations in the occupied Palestinian territory, including occupation, annexation and crimes of apartheid and genocide, as well as a long list of ancillary crimes and human rights violations, from discrimination, wanton destruction, forced displacement and pillage to extrajudicial killing and starvation.”
Central to the multifaceted economy of genocide, the report charges, is the military-industrial complex that forms “the economic backbone of the State.” Albanese cites a stellar example: the F-35 fighter jet, developed by US-based Lockheed Martin, in collaboration with hundreds of other companies “including Italian manufacturer Leonardo S.p.A, and eight States.”
Since October 2023, the process of colonisation and displacement has assumed an air of urgency, aided by the private sector. In 2024, US$200 million was advanced for “colony construction”. Between November 2023 and October 2024, 57 new colonies and outposts were established “with Israeli and international companies supplying machinery, raw materials and logistical support.” Examples include the maintenance and expansion of the Jerusalem Light Rail Red Line, the construction of the new Green Line, encompassing 27 kilometres of new tracks and 50 stations in the West Bank. The infrastructure has proven to be invaluable in linking the colonial project to West Jerusalem. Despite some companies withdrawing from the project “owing to international pressure”, an entity such as the Spanish/Basque Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles has been a keen participant, along with suppliers of excavating machinery (South Korea’s Doosan and Sweden’s Volvo Group), and providers of materials for the light-rail bridge (Germany’s Heidelberg Materials AG).
Beyond the structural and physical program of construction and displacement, all designed to extinguish any semblance of self-determination on the part of the Palestinians, come other features of the colonial project. A prominent feature of this, Albanese notes, is that of “surveillance and carcerality”. Repressing Palestinians has become a “progressively automated” affair, with tech companies feeding Israel’s voracious security appetite with “unparalleled developments in carceral and surveillance devices”, some of which include closed-circuit television networks, biometric surveillance, advanced tech checkpoint networks, drone surveillance and cloud computing.
Palantir Technologies Inc., a specialist in software platforms, comes in for a special mention. “There are reasonable grounds to believe Palantir has provided automatic predictive policing technology, core defence infrastructure for rapid and scale-up construction and deployment of military software, and its Artificial Intelligence Platform, which allows real-time battlefield data integration for automated decision making.”
With the report released, the dance of dissimulation began. Lockheed Martin told the Middle East Eye that foreign military sales were not their preserve as far as accountability or cause of concern was, a lofty, business-like attitude unshackled from a moral compass. Such sales took place between governments, meaning that the US government would be best placed to answer any questions. Hand washing and deferrals of guilt is a private sector speciality after all.
In a more direct fashion, both Israel and the United States have continued their “Hate Albanese” campaign, boringly reiterating old accusations while adopting novel interpretations of international law. Given the obvious loathing of international human rights conventions by Israeli officials and their US backers, this is decidedly rich, even more so given such jurisprudence as that of the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion of July 2024, and the International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (These developments figure prominently in Albanese’s assessment.)
According to the ICJ, all States were under an obligation to “cooperate with the United Nations” on ensuring “an end to Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Territory and the full realization of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination”. Israel’s continued presence in the OPT was illegal. “It is a wrongful act of a continuing character which has been brought about by Israel’s violations, through its policies and practices, of the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force and the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people.”
From Israel came the view that the report was “legally groundless, defamatory and a flagrant abuse of [Albanese’s] office.” A June 20 letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres from the Trump administration obtained by The Washington Free Beacon took issue with Albanese’s supposed record of “virulent antisemitism and support for terrorism”, bitchily sniping at her legal qualifications. Little is actually mentioned of international law in the bilious missive by US Ambassador Dorothy C. Shea, acting representative to the UN, other than a snotty dismissal of UN General Assembly resolutions and advisory opinions by the International Court of Justice as lacking any binding force “on either States or private actors”.
Shea claims Albanese “misrepresented her qualifications for the role by claiming to be an international lawyer despite admitting publicly that she has not passed a legal bar examination or been licensed to practice law.” A fabulous accusation, given the surfeit of allegedly qualified legal members working in the Israeli Defense Forces and other offices executing their program of displacement, starvation and killing.
The accusations against various corporate entities, notably over 20 US entities, were “riddled with inflammatory rhetoric and false accusations”, making such daring claims of “gross human rights violations”, “apartheid” and “genocide”. These charges, ventured through letters of accusation, constituted “an unacceptable campaign of political and economic warfare against the American and worldwide economy.”
It comes as little surprise that the security rationale – one that says nothing of the Palestinian right to self-determination, let alone rights to life and necessaries – marks the entire complaint against Albanese’s apparent lack of impartiality. “Business activities specifically targeted by Ms. Albanese contribute to and help strengthen national security, economic prosperity, and human welfare across the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe.” Just don’t mention the Palestinians.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, has called on countries to cut off all trade and financial ties with Israel — including a full arms embargo — and withdraw international support for what she termed an “economy of genocide”, reports Al Jazeera.
Albanese made the comments in a speech to the Human Rights Council in Geneva yesterday as she presented her latest report, which named dozens of companies she said were involved in supporting Israeli repression and violence towards Palestinians.
“The situation in the occupied Palestinian territory is apocalyptic,” she said. “Israel is responsible for one of the cruellest genocides in modern history.”
Nearly 57,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since the war — now in its 22nd month — began, hundreds of thousands have been displaced multiple times, cities and towns have been razed, hospitals and schools targeted, and 85 percent of the besieged and bombarded enclave is now under Israeli military control, according to the UN.
Al Jazeera’s Federica Marsi reports that Albanese’s latest document names 48 corporate actors, including United States tech giants Microsoft, Alphabet Inc. — Google’s parent company — and Amazon.
“[Israel’s] forever-occupation has become the ideal testing ground for arms manufacturers and Big Tech — providing significant supply and demand, little oversight, and zero accountability — while investors and private and public institutions profit freely,” the report said.
“Companies are no longer merely implicated in occupation — they may be embedded in an economy of genocide,” it said, in a reference to Israel’s ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip.
In an expert opinion last year, Albanese said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel was committing genocide in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
The report stated that its findings illustrate “why Israel’s genocide continues”.
“Because it is lucrative for many,” it said.
Francesca Albanese v Israel’s lobby. Video: Al Jazeera
Military procurements Israel’s procurement of F-35 fighter jets is part of the world’s largest arms procurement programme, relying on at least 1600 companies across eight nations. It is led by US-based Lockheed Martin, but F-35 components are constructed globally.
Italian manufacturer Leonardo S.p.A is listed as a main contributor in the military sector, while Japan’s FANUC Corporation provides robotic machinery for weapons production lines.
The tech sector, meanwhile, has enabled the collection, storage and governmental use of biometric data on Palestinians, “supporting Israel’s discriminatory permit regime”, the report said.
Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon grant Israel “virtually government-wide access to their cloud and AI technologies”, enhancing its data processing and surveillance capacities.
The US tech company IBM has also been responsible for training military and intelligence personnel, as well as managing the central database of Israel’s Population, Immigration and Borders Authority (PIBA) that stores the biometric data of Palestinians, the report said.
It found US software platform Palantir Technologies expanded its support to the Israeli military since the start of the war on Gaza in October 2023.
The report said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe the company provided automatic predictive policing technology used for automated decision-making in the battlefield, to process data and generate lists of targets including through artificial intelligence systems like “Lavender”, “Gospel” and “Where’s Daddy?”
Companies supporting Israel. Graphic: Al Jazeera/Creative CommonsOther companies identified in the report
The report also lists several companies developing civilian technologies that serve as “dual-use tools” for Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.These include Caterpillar, Leonardo-owned Rada Electronic Industries, South Korea’s HD Hyundai and Sweden’s Volvo Group, which provide heavy machinery for home demolitions and the development of illegal settlements in the West Bank.Rental platforms Booking and Airbnb also aid illegal settlements by listing properties and hotel rooms in Israeli-occupied territory.
The report named the US’s Drummond Company and Switzerland’s Glencore as the primary suppliers of coal for electricity to Israel, originating primarily from Colombia.
In the agriculture sector, Chinese Bright Dairy & Food is a majority owner of Tnuva, Israel’s largest food conglomerate, which benefits from land seized from Palestinians in Israel’s illegal outposts.
Netafim, a company providing drip irrigation technology that is 80-percent owned by Mexico’s Orbia Advance Corporation, provides infrastructure to exploit water resources in the occupied West Bank.
Treasury bonds have also played a critical role in funding the ongoing war on Gaza, according to the report, with some of the world’s largest banks, including France’s BNP Paribas and the UK’s Barclays, listed as having stepped in to allow Israel to contain the interest rate premium despite a credit downgrade.
Which are the main investors behind these companies? The report identified US multinational investment companies BlackRock and Vanguard as the main investors behind several listed companies.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, is listed as the second largest institutional investor in Palantir (8.6 percent), Microsoft (7.8 percent), Amazon (6.6 percent), Alphabet (6.6 percent) and IBM (8.6 per cent), and the third largest in Lockheed Martin (7.2 percent) and Caterpillar (7.5 percent).
Vanguard, the world’s second-largest asset manager, is the largest institutional investor in Caterpillar (9.8 percent), Chevron (8.9 percent) and Palantir (9.1 percent), and the second largest in Lockheed Martin (9.2 percent) and Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems (2 percent).
New Zealand referrals to the International Criminal Court
Meanwhile, the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa yesterday released a report saying that it was referring two New Zealand businessmen along with four politicians, including Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, to the International Criminal Court for investigation over alleged policies relating to Gaza.
The PSNA accused the six individuals of complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by “assisting Israel’s mass killing and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza”.
In a statement, PSNA co-chairs John Minto and Maher Nazzal said the referral “carefully outlines a case that these six individuals should be investigated” by the Office of the Prosecutor for their knowing contribution to Israel’s crimes in Gaza.
“The 103-page referral document was prepared by a legal team which has been working on the case for many months,” said Minto and Nazzal.
“It is legally robust and will provide the prosecutor of the ICC more than sufficient documentation to begin their investigation.”
Which NZ politicians and business leaders have been referred by the PSNA to the ICC? Image: NZH screenshot APR
Yesterday, Defending Rights & Dissent filed two Freedom of Information Act requests to uncover details about the U.S. government’s relationship with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the shadowy private aid group that has been mired in controversy since announcing efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza in early May. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) published a statement which declared that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution effort “is a slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid.” The first FOIA request seeks internal State Department reports and communications about the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, as well as the U.S. government’s communications with Israel about the organization.
The British parliament passed a vote on 2 July proscribing the Palestine Action activist group as a terrorist organization, a move strongly condemned by various groups and individuals as “grotesque,” “chilling,” and an “unprecedented legal overreach.”
In parliament, 385 voted in favor of the proscription, while 26 voted against it.
UK Security Minister Dan Jarvis said in parliament that Palestine Action is not “a legitimate protest group.”
“People engaged in lawful protest do not need weapons. People engaged in lawful protest do not throw smoke bombs and fire pyrotechnics around innocent members of the public.
By the time DHS agents showed up at Mahmoud Khalil’s door, a full-spectrum campaign had already marked him as a target. Columbia professor Shai Davidai had posted Khalil’s name and image online, called him a terrorist, and urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to deport him. The smear was picked up by a network of doxxing accounts like “Documenting Jew Hatred on Campus,” which publicly lobbied for the revocation of Khalil’s visa. Rubio repeated the call, Khalil received death threats, and the university stayed silent. Then, federal agents arrived. A professor’s tweet had become a trigger for federal enforcement. A tweet, a tag, a dossier — these were the new informant files. This time, professors, NGOs, and anonymous social media accounts were the new operators.
The number of dead and wounded in Palestine is staggering. Many look away. Why bother, you may ask? Because, unlike other conflicts, we can do something about it. It is the U.S., Canada and most of Europe that enable the genocide by supplying Israel with weapons. In Israel, there is mounting opposition. Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said, “What we are doing in Gaza is a war of extermination: indiscriminate, unrestrained, brutal, and criminal killing of civilians. We are committing war crimes.” Then he added, “Netanyahu and his government have done great damage to the moral integrity of Israel and the Israeli people.” Palestine is the moral issue of our time. Recorded at the New York Society for Ethical Culture.
This content originally appeared on AlternativeRadio and was authored by info@alternativeradio.org.
Dear Anita Anand, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada:
Prime Minister Carney’s statement that the solution to Mideast peace was a “Zionist Gaza” made me ill. It demonstrated his support for Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and showed total contempt for international law.
Canada’s official foreign policy supports international law and Canada
is a signatory to the Fourth Geneva Convention. The ICJ has repeatedly called Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and the UN GA even demanded last year that Israel vacate the Palestinian territories by this year. A Zionist Gaza means either the outright Israeli theft of the Palestinian territory or continued illegal occupation: probably the Israeli imposition of the collaborationist Palestinian Authority, which virtually no Palestinian respects.
That our government would support Israel’s control over Gaza as a result of this genocide makes me ashamed of our country.
What value does an independent Canada have if it has no integrity and
displays no respectable sovereignty? We understand that Canada must
tread carefully to avoid giving the US excuses to invade, but we would
like to see some signs of integrity in our government. Something that
makes us care about preserving our independence (such as it is).
International law experts are describing Israel’s Monday attack on a Gaza café as a potential war crime after an investigation in The Guardian revealed that the attack was carried out using a 500-lb bomb supplied by the U.S. government. Reporters photographed fragments of the bomb left behind in the wreckage of the al-Baqa Café. Weapons experts identified them as parts of an MK-82 general…
During the parliamentary debate about proscribing Palestine Action, independent Zarah Sultana tore into Labour’s Jon Pearce, who is currently chair of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI).
Zarah Sultana: exposing LFI
After Pearce had smeared the direct-action group, Zarah Sultana pointed out that he had spoken:
without declaring that he is chair of Labour Friends of Israel and has accepted hospitality and overseas trips funded by pro-Israel lobby organisations.
The house was discussing a non-violent direct-action group that directly challenges the Israeli state, which is on trial for genocide against the Palestinian people.
Can you advise, madam deputy speaker, on what mechanisms are available so the British public are truly aware of what interests are being represented on this floor?
Today Labour MP Jon Pearce spoke in favour of banning @Pal_action as a terrorist group & he smeared them as antisemitic
As @zarahsultana subsequently pointed out, he forgot to declare hes chair of Labour Friends of Israel & accepts gifts funded by pro Israeli lobby organisations pic.twitter.com/9oKGmz3FC3
Just a month ago, he visited Israel again, meeting with Israeli president Isaac Herzog and others. Herzog has previously incited genocide, claiming “there are no innocent civilians in Gaza” and saying “it’s an entire nation out there that is responsible”.
Earlier in the year, Pearce did some vile pro-Israel propaganda. He boasted about the Labour government: blocking progress at the UN and dropping its commitment to recognise a Palestinian state; continuing RAF support for Israel’s genocide; prioritising Israeli lives over Palestinian lives and international law; and mobilising police to limit the movement of anti-genocide protests. And at the same time, he apologised to Israel for the UK: dropping its objection to the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Israeli war criminals Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant; restricting some arms sales to them; and supporting humanitarian aid for millions of Palestinian refugees via UNRWA. Unsurprisingly, he essentially advocated giving the genocidal apartheid state everything it wants, while fearmongering about Iran and Russia.
Pearce has also received £5,000 from Labour Together, the shady think tank linked with millionaire pro-Israel lobbyist Trevor Chinn, who has donated around £200,000 to Keir Starmer and his cronies in recent years. Labour Together played a prominent role in undermining the left during and following the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. It aimed “to defeat Corbynism” by using “soft branding that made them seem warm and cuddly”. And it once rallied supporters to “destroy the Canary or the Canary destroys us”.
All power to @zarahsultana for calling out Jon Pearce
The same Jon Pearce who just a few weeks ago – in the middle of a genocide – proudly posed for photos with a man who has personally said there are no innocent civilians in Gaza https://t.co/sSOst9KK3Wpic.twitter.com/zUvQyeTaV3
— North Herts Palestine Solidarity Campaign (@NHertsPsc) July 2, 2025
LFI’s toxic influence in Labour
Zarah Sultana was right to call the group, and Pearce, out.
LFI has invested a lot of money in getting British MPs on side for genocide. And its supporters dominate the top team of the current Labour government under genocide apologist Keir Starmer, who has happily embraced the pro-Israel lobby. And why wouldn’t he? Because as journalist Alan MacLeod wrote previously, LFI (which has very close ties to the Israeli state) “was crucial in smearing and defeating the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn”.
In 2024, Declassified UK revealed that half of Starmer’s cabinet had received money from the pro-Israel lobby. Then, openDemocracyrevealed that the “tax haven-based hedge fund with shares in oil and arms” that had donated £4m to Starmer’s Labour also “stood to profit” from Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Starmer’s ongoing participation in that genocide seems to be the result. As does his government’s shameful attempt to suppress direct action against that genocide by proscribing Palestine Action.
In his first live broadcast interview since being released from ICE detention, Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil tells Democracy Now! about his experience behind bars, the ongoing threat of deportation that hangs over him and why he continues to speak out against the U.S.-backed Israeli war on Gaza. The Columbia University graduate was the first pro-Palestinian campus protester to be jailed by…
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.
A familiar violence is brewing in the heart of Europe. The numbers reveal only what has surfaced so far. A quarter of the voting population now openly support the AfD, a party classified by the security services as ‘right-wing extremist’ due to their Islamophobic rhetoric and white-supremacist affiliations. Boosted by the mainstream press and the endorsement from the Nazi-saluting billionaire, the xenophobic message is broadcast across Germany once more.
Traditional conservative parties, the CDU and CSU, while reluctantly distancing themselves from the AfD, have adopted the same Islamophobic stance wrapped in a more ‘respectable’ language. In complete disregard for the lessons etched into their own Grundgesetz, the CSU have declared that Islam has no place in Germany. The CDU, having finally shed their liberal skin, publicly declared any calls for a ‘Free Palestine’ as terrorist sympathies. Their violence is sanitised and bureaucratic as they push legislation to strip dual nationals of citizenship based on their political views. So effortless is their rejection of civil rights that it would send their oligarch friends in the White-house into a jealous frenzy.
A more unexpected xenophobic turn came from the centre-left alliance under former chancellor Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD). After a stabbing incident in Solingen, afraid to lose votes to the anti-immigrant wave sweeping the country, Scholz promised Germany mass deportations. This concession gave the racists all the proof they needed for the otherwiseunfounded narrative of ‘the violent immigrant’. Riding this wave into right-wing populism, he promised to strengthen the borders of the fortress Europe – borders which already claim the lives of 8 000 migrants every year. And as if reading from the Trump script, the SPD oversaw the deportation orders for several EU citizens for participating in peaceful demonstrations – no charges, no trial and no global outrage.
Across the German political spectrum, in a mixture of performative Holocaust guilt and opportunism, parties have embraced the settler colonial hierarchy on which Israel was founded, with Arabs and Muslims at the bottom of their order. With revisionist logic and wishful thinking, the Bundestag passed a resolution that frames anti-Semitism as an imported middle-eastern issue. By adopting the fictional IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, which includes all criticism of the state of Israel, they got the outcome they were looking for. The resolution was sharply criticised by human rights monitors as antagonistic to Arabs and Muslims and simultaneously anti-Semitic for conflating Judaism with the state of Israel. The resolution was passed with over 95% of votes.
In Germany, to wear a keffiyeh is to risk arrest and deportation. To publicly mourn the Nakba is illegal and yet when the AfD march through immigrant neighbourhoods to intimidate they call it freedom of speech. The message to the Arabs and Muslims of Germany is clear – you are at the bottom of our racial order, our human rights do not apply to you. Germany now records 5 Islamophobic incidents every day.
This perfect storm of Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment has thrown Europes largest economy back on a path of institutional racism. The wider fallout from alienating 5 million Muslims in Germany from their civil rights will undoubtedly be felt in the coming decades.
But the selective repentance, this weaponisation of Holocaust memory, serves not only to justify the suspension of civil liberties at home. It conveniently forms a theatre of morality to mask ongoing imperialist projects and to evade historical responsibilities. True atonement for the horrors of the Holocaust would include taking responsibility for the over 300 000 Europeans that moved to Palestine after World War Two and the Nakba that followed, displacing 750 000 Palestinians from their land. The victims of German genocides in Africa know not to hold their breath waiting for justice.
Colonial Amnesia
In Namibia, the German legacy of genocide is not forgotten. In a blueprint for the Gaza genocide, the pretext for this genocide was an anti-colonial uprising that killed 100 German settlers. The mass murder that followed wiped out 80% of the Herero and 50% of the Nama people, over 70 000 killed, for daring to resist colonial rule. Germany’s recognition of these atrocities, more than a century later, was embarrassingly absent of any formal reparations or land redistribution. To this day, Namibia remains in an apartheid-like inequality with 48% of Namibia’s land in the hands of just 5000 white settlers – 0.3% of the population.
The suppression of the Maji Maji rebellion in Tanzania reeks of a similar stench. Deliberate starvation was weaponised against the Muslim communities that rebelled against the colonisers. Captain Wangenheim’s words—“Only hunger and want can bring about final submission”—echo in the blockade of Gaza and in Germany’s vetoes in contempt of international law. 300 000 murdered, no reparations on the horizon, no memorial in Berlin.
When Elon Musk, the settler son of apartheid capital, fans the flames of European fascism and demands that Germany “move beyond its past guilt”, what he means is this: that Germany must stop pretending, and embrace its role in the white empire once again. And the disenfranchised Germans are listening.
In defence of genocide
In April 2025, the ICJ announced an extension of Israel’s deadline to submit a defence against the allegations of genocide brought by South Africa and supported by the majority of the world’s countries. Germany as one of the passionate defenders of Israel has been proudly diluting, stalling and vetoing calls for immediate ceasefire and sanctions on Israel. While the ruling is inevitably not going to be in Israels favour, with German sponsorship the killing can continue for another year.
At home, repression became policy and civil rights monitors took note. Palestinian flags are banned, solidarity groups outlawed, Jewish activists arrested, Arab youth surveilled. These tactics are not new to us in the Kurdish liberation struggle. The banning of Kurdish resistance symbols and closing of book publishers, what should have triggered a constitutional crisis, was casually gifted by the German state to their friend in Türkiye. Add it to the list of ethnic cleansing campaigns sponsored by Germany.
Germany’s Islamophobic turn cannot be divorced from its colonial past or its present-day imperial commitments. The AfD’s rise, the CDU’s xenophobic mimicry, and the SPD’s repressive populism are symptoms of a deeper pathology: a state apparatus that has never abandoned the hierarchies of race and empire. While the world’s gaze is fixed on the Trump administration, it is time to recognise Germany once again as a powerful xenophobic and authoritarian force in Europe.
In an unprecedented legal move in Aotearoa New Zealand, a national Palestine solidarity advocacy group has filed a referral against the prime minister, three other ministers in the coalition government and two business leaders, alleging complicity with Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza.
The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has accused the six individuals of complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by “assisting Israel’s mass killing and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza”.
The PSNA movement has led 90 consecutive weeks of protest at multiple locations across New Zealand in the country’s biggest humn rights campaign since the war began in October 2023.
In a statement, PSNA co-chairs John Minto and Maher Nazzal said the referral “carefully outlines a case that these six individuals should be investigated” by the Office of the Prosecutor for their knowing contribution to Israel’s crimes in Gaza.
“The 103-page referral document was prepared by a legal team which has been working on the case for many months,” said Minto and Nazzal.
“It is legally robust and will provide the prosecutor of the ICC more than sufficient documentation to begin their investigation.”
The six people named in the referral documentation are Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters, Minister for Defence and Space Judith Collins, Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour, and businessmen Rocket Lab chief executive Sir Peter Beck and Rakon Limited chief executive Dr Sinan Altug.
Spy satellites
According to PSNA, Rocket Lab launches spy satellites from Māhia, which PSNA claims Israel uses go target civilians in Gaza, while Rakon exports military-grade crystal oscillators to the US “to be put in missiles which Israel can deploy in Gaza and elsewhere”.
“This is a grave step which we have not taken lightly,” Minto and Nazzal said.
PSNA co-chair John Minto … “This is a grave step which we have not taken lightly.” Image: PMC
“The government’s ongoing and meaningful support for Israel, despite its horrendous war crimes, is not only egregious to most New Zealanders, but is also criminal conduct under international law.”
The PSNA referral follows an open letter by one of the country’s largest environmental organisations two days ago that called on the government to impose sanctions on Israel amid mounting criticism in New Zealand over war crimes allegations against the state over its 20-month war.
Greenpeace’s sanctions open letter to NZ Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. Image: Greenpeace screeshot APR
Greenpeace Aotearoa’s executive director Dr Russel Norman, a former Green Party co-leader, said in an open letter addressed to Prime Minister Luxon and Foreign Minister Peters that he was expressing grave concerns about the “ongoing genocide in Gaza being carried out by Israeli forces, and the ongoing failure of the New Zealand government to impose meaningful sanctions on Israel.”
Norman cited a statement by the UN Human Rights Office last week that “at least 410 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military while trying to fetch from controversial new aid hubs in Gaza”.
The office said this was “a likely war crime”.
‘Killing field’
He also cited Ha’aretz, a respected Israeli newspaper, quoting an Israeli soldier describing the Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHC) aid hubs as a “killing field”.
PSNA co-chair Maher Nazzal . . . “This has brought shame on the whole country.” Image: APR
In March last year, Sydney law firm Birchgrove Legal referred a case to ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan consisting of 92 pages of documented evidence, alleging that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and several other high level local politicians were complicit in the Gaza genocide.
‘Letter of demand’
The New Zealand referral to the ICC followed a “letter of demand” issued to the government last year actions that a “reasonable government” would take to prevent and punish the crime of genocide, and the actions a government should take to avoid criminal complicity with Israel.
The ICC referral document from PSNA against the New Zealand coalition government individuals. Image: PSNA screenshot APR
“For 20 months these political and business leaders have supported Israel to commit crimes which have shocked the human conscience,” Minto and Nazzal said.
“This has brought shame on the whole country.”
It is understood that this is the first time that New Zealand political or business leaders have been referred to the ICC for investigation.
There were no immediate responses. However, a growing number of such cases are being filed around the world.
In July 2024, the UN’s highest global court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion declaring that Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including Gaza and East Jerusalem, was illegal.
It called on Israel to halt all settlements and withdraw settlers from the territory. The court is also investigating Israel over a case brought by South Africa alleging genocide.
A student from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) is set for a court hearing in just a matter of days after she was arrested for a speech she delivered at a pro-Palestine protest. CAGE, an advocacy group, said:
Sarah was arrested for a speech she delivered at a university pro Palestine protest.
Zionist Twitter accounts doxxed her and filed complaints against her with the Police. Three months later, she was raided at dawn, arrested, and charged under Islamophobic and now pro-Genocide Terrorism Act.
Sarah is one of the SOAS 2, after she was arrested alongside another student. In a petition expressing support for Sarah, campaigners said:
Their supposed crime is to have made speeches on behalf of the SOAS Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! society in October 2023 supporting the Palestinian right to self-determination.
Specifically, Sarah is accused of inviting support for a proscribed organisation, Hamas.
SOAS blow to student Palestine politics
Sarah told CAGE:
My name is Sarah and I’m facing up to 14 years of prison time for a speech in which I supported the Palestinian people’s right to resist occupation and genocide.
The charges Sarah is facing are precisely why CAGE have applied to the home secretary to have Hamas’ proscription overturned. Whilst Hamas were proscribed under counter-terror laws, this has implications for Palestinian resistance as a whole. Whether the British government likes it or not, Hamas are the governing administration for huge parts of Palestine. And, it’s hardly the purview of the government to dictate how a besieged population suffering genocide at the hands of a belligerent Israeli government resists said genocide.
And, Sarah is evidently the victim of the Zionist lobby:
On the 9th of October at my university, SOAS, I delivered a speech Gnasher Jew on Twitter had reposted me and posted my full name and basically tagged the Met Police saying ‘you need to do something about this, she’s a terrorist, she’s dangerous to British society.’
It was also taken up by UKLFI – UK Lawyers for Israel – which is a known Zionist group here in the UK and they actually made a formal complaint to the Met Police.
The [Lancet] letter also ignored factors that may increase average life expectancy in Gaza, bearing in mind that one of the biggest health issues in Gaza prior to the current war was obesity.
Turner’s comments typify the callousness with which UKFLI operate. To see Palestinians being displaced multiple times over as Israel commits war crime after war crime, to see Israel’s forced starvation of people across Gaza, and to still make a crass comment about obesity? Depraved doesn’t cover it. Turner’s objection to the death toll also speaks to classic genocide denial.
But, why stop there? In CAGE’s report, Britain’s Apartheid Apologists, the group found that, along with Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), UKFLI:
represent a threat to the very foundations of democratic debate in Britain.
The opposition Sarah faces is hardly from a good-faith interpretation of already problematic counter-terror laws. It’s an attack from the Zionist lobby that will go to any lengths to stifle defence and resistance for Palestine. Students across this country have been braver and more principled than elected officials in their support for Palestine. Clearly, the Zionist lobby is threatened by people like Sarah who speak truth to power, rather than propping up genocidaires.
Far-reaching implications of the case
When Sarah was first charged, the Canary’s Hannah Sharland reported:
Everyone who stands on the side of and in solidarity with oppressed communities, here and in Palestine, should support them.
As the breathless furore over Kneecap and Bob Vylan’s comments spirals, we need to make sure that people like Sarah – who don’t have a platform like Glastonbury – are not forgotten amongst the news cycle. Both music acts have made their support for Palestine clear, and it’s got the establishment running scared. But, both those acts are relatively more shielded than Sarah is. Counter-terror laws and the process of proscription are draconian measures that – whether it’s intended or not – stifle free speech.
Sarah has asked for people to show up at her hearing in support:
I’ll be back in court on the 4th of July for a case management hearing. I urge you all to be there to support me. We need to make sure that our voices are being heard loud and clear. That’s why I’m being public with this defence campaign. That’s why I want you to join me.
Join the protest outside the Old Bailey on Friday 4th July from 9:30. Follow the SOAS 2 for updates here.
Britain’s pro-Israel government is cracking down on non-violent direct action, in order to protect its genocidal ally. But as complicit MPs overwhelmingly voted to ban Palestine Action, another similar group has sprung up. Using the name ‘Yvette Cooper’, actionists have shown solidarity with Palestine Action’s efforts to shut down Israel’s economy of genocide.
Yvette Cooper: respect existence, or expect resistance!
As parliament shamefully moved to proscribe Palestine Action, the ‘Yvette Cooper’ group targeted Time Logistics near Birmingham, which “transport weaponry for Israel’s biggest weapons firm”.
As Palestine Action has explained previously, Time Logistics is:
One of various haulage and logistics companies used by Elbit Systems and specifically UAV Tactical Systems Leicester.
In UN expert Francesca Albanese’s new report highlighting Western capitalism’s enabling of the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza, she highlighted that Israeli arms company Elbit Systems is a key genocide profiteer. “The military-industrial complex has become the economic backbone” of the apartheid state, she says, and:
For Israeli companies such as Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries, the ongoing genocide has been a profitable venture
Elbit has been the primary target of Palestine Action’s non-violent direct action.
This week, the UN called on the British government not to proscribe Palestine Action, insisting:
According to international standards, acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism…
These offences would criminalise legitimate activities by innocent members of the group that do not contribute in any way to property damage by other members, let alone ‘terrorism’ which, if properly defined, the group has not committed
Days before their most recent action, the Yvette Cooper group took action against investment firm BNY Mellon, “shareholders in Israel’s biggest weapons producer”. It added:
Yvette Cooper may try to ban Palestine Action, but will she ban herself?
BREAKING: Inspired by Palestine Action, new direct action 'Yvette Cooper' takes action against BNY Mellon's investment firm, shareholders in Israel's biggest weapons producer.
Palestine Action pointed out previously that BNY Mellon “invest in excess of 12 million dollars in Elbit Systems”.
They tried to bury us, but didn’t know we were seeds
The genocide in Gaza has brought unimaginable suffering to the Palestinian people. But it is also, Albanese said, an:
ideal testing ground for arms manufacturers and big tech
Israel’s racist war crimes in Palestine have helped to ‘automate’ repression, with the active support of “United States tech giants”, leading to “unparalleled developments in carceral and surveillance services”.
Albanese listed the powerful companies complicit in Israel’s economy of genocide, and it reads like a who’s who of Western capitalism. Profit and death are going hand in hand more clearly than ever before. It is ever more apparent that big-business profiteering has no interest in ethical behaviour. And the war criminal-capitalist alliance is actively modelling a dystopian future that could spread throughout the world if we don’t hold those responsible to account.
The merciless misanthropes dominating the Western economic and political order want to silence anti-genocide voices because that would make it so much easier for their dystopian vision to flourish. That’s why Palestine Action is about so much more than spray paint. If we want to avoid sleepwalking further into dystopia, we need 10, 100, and 1,000 more Palestine Actions – and Yvette Coopers. And we need them urgently.
Over 400 media workers, including 111 BBC journalists, have slammed the organisation’s bias in favour of Israel. Releasing an open letter on the same day Channel 4broadcast a Gaza documentary the BBC had refused to show, they insisted that it was “untenable” for pro-Israel right-winger Robbie Gibb to continue in his role on the board and editorial standards committee.
All too often it has felt that the BBC has been performing PR for the Israeli government and military. This should be a cause of great shame and concern for everyone at the BBC.
In their opinion:
The BBC’s editorial decisions seem increasingly out of step with reality. We have been forced to conclude that decisions are made to fit a political agenda
And regarding the BBC‘s “political decision” to reject the Gaza documentary, they added:
We believe the refusal to broadcast the documentary ‘Gaza: Medics Under Fire’ is just one in a long line of agenda driven decisions.
They also stressed that the public’s access to a wide range of sources makes the BBC‘s bias all the more apparent:
There is a gulf between the BBC’s coverage of what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank and what our audiences can see is happening via multiple credible sources including human rights organisations, staff at the UN and journalists on the ground.
The people at commissioner level who are experienced journalists and take these decisions on an almost daily basis are being overruled by people who are pretending to be journalists. There’s open revolt [at the BBC].
“Much of the BBC’s coverage in this area is defined by anti-Palestinian racism”
The letter lamented that:
As an organisation we have not offered any significant analysis of the UK government’s involvement in the war on Palestinians. We have failed to report on weapons sales or their legal implications.
And its not just arms transfers for war crimes. Because in January, we reported on a Declassified UK analysis of the BBC‘s woeful lack of context regarding Britain’s involvement in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It highlighted the absence of coverage of: an Israeli military chief’s visit to the UK; British intelligence or military presence in Israel; the use of British airspace for supplying weapons to Israel; the 2023 ‘Roadmap’ agreement regarding UK-Israeli military collaboration, a secret 2020 military agreement, and ongoing free-trade negotiations; the arrest and intimidation of pro-Palestinian journalists and campaigners in the UK; and the influence of the pro-Israel lobby in parliament. It also emphasised the minimal mentions of RAF Akrotiri‘s participation in the genocide.
The BBC, the letter said, has a huge “fear of being perceived as critical of the Israeli government”. And it added:
This hasn’t happened by accident, rather by design. Much of the BBC’s coverage in this area is defined by anti-Palestinian racism.
Robbie Gibb’s links to the Conservative Party and pro-Israel propaganda outlet the Jewish Chronicle are a particular focus. As the letter stressed:
We are concerned that an individual with close ties to the Jewish Chronicle, an outlet that has repeatedly published anti-Palestinian and often racist content, has a say in the BBC’s editorial decisions in any capacity, including the decision not to broadcast ‘Gaza: Medics Under Fire’.
Despite his clear “conflict of interest”, it asserted, he continues in his positions while reporters have “experienced censorship in the name of ‘impartiality’”:
Gibb remains in an influential post with little transparency regarding his decisions despite his ideological leanings being well known. We can no longer ask licence fee payers to overlook Gibbs’s ideological allegiances.
“Opaque editorial decisions and censorship”
The BBC has ‘fallen short’ of the standards it claims to uphold. And the letter lamented that:
news in particular has failed to report the reality and the context of the war on Palestinians.
Referring to Israel’s recent unprovoked attack on Iran and the ensuing escalations, it said:
Again, BBC coverage has appeared to downplay Israel’s role, reinforcing an ‘Israel first’ framing that compromises our credibility.
It added that “opaque editorial decisions and censorship” have meant the organisation is “not reporting ‘without fear or favour’ when it comes to Israel”. And it stressed:
For many of us, our efforts have been frustrated by opaque decisions made at senior levels of the BBC without discussion or explanation.
The journalists aren’t asking for much. As they emphasised:
We are asking to be allowed to do our jobs in delivering facts transparently and with due context.
And they clearly think the pro-Israel bias of high-level figures like Gibb is what’s stopping them from doing so.
War is a business. So is genocide. The latest report submitted by Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, lists 48 corporations and institutions, including Palantir Technologies Inc., Lockheed Martin, Alphabet Inc., Amazon, International Business Machine Corporation (IBM), Caterpillar Inc., Microsoft Corporation and Massachusetts Institue of Technology (MIT), along with banks and financial firms such as Blackrock, insurers, real estate firms and charities, which in violation of international law are making billions from the occupation and the genocide of Palestinians.
Washington, DC – More than one hundred Buddhists, Christians, and Jews shut down Dirksen and Rayburn Congressional Cafeterias in prayer and song to expose far-right hate group, Christians United for Israel
100+ faith leaders and activists shut down Dirksen and Raburn Cafeterias in protest to the far-right hate group “Christians United for Israel’ and its role in promoting the forced starvation of Palestinians in Gaza. The multifaith, multiracial, queer and trans-affirming coalition joined in prayer for an end to the genocide in Gaza and demanded that Congress send “Food, Not Bombs.”
For the second year in a row, Palestinian diaspora and solidarity activists are set to convene in Detroit, Michigan, for the second edition of the People’s Conference for Palestine.
Last year in late May, 3,000 pro-Palestine activists met in Detroit for a three-day conference. The conference took place at a historic juncture for the Palestine movement in North America, weeks after the height of the global student movement of “Gaza Solidarity Encampments” and eight months into Israel’s genocide of the Gaza Strip. In this political moment, when global consciousness in solidarity with Palestine reached new heights, leaders in the pro-Palestine movement throughout North America met to review strategy and plan for the future.
Faramarz Farbod speaks with Yves Engler, a Canadian activist and author of 13 books, including most recently Canada’s Long Fight Against Democracy and Stand on Guard for Whom? (A People’s History of Canadian Military). The conversation explores Canada’s role in the world, its relationship with US capitalism and imperialism, Canada’s policies toward Iran and Cuba, misperceptions of Canada in the US, and the concept of Canadianism.
The government media office in the Gaza Strip has announced a shocking incident involving the discovery of narcotic pills – Oxycodone – inside bags of flour distributed to citizens through relief centers in the Strip. Hamas has directly blamed Israel for what it describes as a “heinous crime”.
According to an official statement, the office received reports from citizens who found Oxycodone pills inside bags of flour they received from aid distribution centers, describing these centers as “death traps” operating under the guise of “US-Israeli aid.”
‘Death traps’
Snopes reported that the official statement read:
*Drug pills found inside flour bags from the so-called “American-Israeli aid centers” is a heinous crime targeting the health of civilians and the social fabric*
We express our deep concern and condemnation over the discovery of narcotic pills of the type “Oxycodone” inside flour bags that reached citizens from the so-called “American-Israeli aid centers,” known as “death traps.” We have so far documented four testimonies from citizens who found these pills inside flour bags. More serious is the possibility that some of these narcotic substances were deliberately ground or dissolved in the flour itself, which increases the scope of the crime and transforms it into a serious attack directly targeting public health.
We hold the “Israeli” occupation fully responsible for this heinous crime of spreading addiction and destroying the Palestinian social fabric from within, as part of a systematic policy that constitutes an extension of the crime of genocide carried out by the occupation against our Palestinian people. The Israeli occupation’s use of drugs as a soft weapon in a dirty war against civilians, and its exploitation of the blockade to smuggle these substances as “aid and assistance,” constitutes a war crime and a serious violation of international humanitarian law.
Oxycodone in flour for Gaza: a direct threat to public health
The statement pointed to the serious possibility that these pills had been deliberately ground or dissolved into the flour itself, posing a direct and serious threat to public health in the Gaza Strip.
The office described the incident as a “heinous crime” that directly targets Palestinian civilians and undermines the social fabric and safety of the community, given the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Strip.
Footage showing the discovery of “Oxycodone 80mg” tablets bearing the code “G 80”, hidden inside tin foil, during the inspection of bags of flour that were later stolen and sold in Gaza markets, spread on social media.
Dr. Khalil Mazen Abu Nada and pharmacist Omar Hamad from Gaza also confirmed the discovery of this type of drug in aid shipments, noting that the flour was sometimes mixed with oxycodone.
What is oxycodone?
Oxycodone is a highly effective opioid analgesic used to treat acute and chronic pain, such as that caused by cancer or major surgery, according to drugs.com.
This drug is considered a highly dangerous narcotic, as it gives a feeling of euphoria and satisfaction that can lead to severe addiction and affects the central nervous system, causing impaired cognition, slow heartbeat, and life-threatening respiratory depression.
Oxycodone is subject to strict international regulations and is only available with a valid prescription. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicate that this drug was the leading cause of drug-related deaths in the United States in 2011.
Possibly trying to manufacture public support for a government crackdown, British establishment media outlets suggested that direct-action group Palestine Action had irreparably damaged planes which are complicit in the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza. But Declassified UK has exposed their BS, showing one of the planes is already back in the air (just under two weeks later).
Palestine Action noted that it had targeted “two military planes at RAF Brize Norton” because of their flights to RAF Akrotiri – “a foundational asset” for the war criminals obliterating Gaza. criminal assault on the occupied Palestinian territory. The Airbus Voyager planes in question, it said, “can carry military cargo and are used to refuel Israeli/US/UK military aircrafts and fighter jets”. It added:
By putting the planes out of service, activists have interrupted Britain’s direct participation in the commission of genocide and war crimes across the Middle East.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper responded to this direct action by announcing plans to proscribe Palestine Action. The group subsequently received solidarity from countless human rights and other high-profilegroups, while raising well over £200,000 for its legal fightback. And even the UN has got involved, called on the British government not to proscribe the group.
Back in the air already? So much for Palestine Action leaving it “beyond repair”!
As journalist John McEvoy highlighted:
The Times subsequently reported that there was a “fear an RAF aircraft engine sabotaged at Brize Norton is beyond repair”.
LBC went further, noting that “the damage caused to the engine of one plane may render the aircraft unsafe to be used again and could cost £25 million to replace”.
However, flight tracking data shows one of the planes was flying again.
The British media claimed that Palestine Action may have damaged the planes at RAF Brize Norton "beyond repair", potentially costing the UK over £30mn.
Flight tracking data now shows the ZZ338 aircraft, one of the two targeted by Palestine Action, is already back in the air. pic.twitter.com/f4eqHnuA34
The revelation raises concerns that the damage to the RAF planes may have been exaggerated in order to build a case for banning Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.
The Ministry of Defence has not yet revealed the cost of repairing the damage.
Today, parliament will debate and vote on Palestine Action’s proscription. The government has controversially included white supremacist groups in the same draft proscription order.
The order to proscribe us is published.
The Home Secretary will ask for MPs to decide in one vote to ban Palestine Action and neo-Nazi groups 'Maniac Murder Cult' and 'Russian Imperialist Movement'.
She's done this deliberately to try and ensure the vote is successful.
On Friday, June 13, after Israeli airstrikes struck Iran, Iran launched a retaliatory barrage of missiles at Israel, hitting targets in Tel Aviv. Palestinians watched Iran’s bombs fall on Israel from across the militarized border separating the Gaza Strip from Israel. The Real News Network spoke with Palestinians on the ground in Gaza, who continue to endure genocidal violence and forced starvation at the hands of Israel, about their reactions to Iran’s airstrikes.
Credits: Producers: Belal Awad, Leo Erhardt Videographers: Ruwaida Amer, Mahmoud Al Mashharawi Video Editor: Leo Erhardt
Transcript
TEXT SLIDE:
On Friday, June 13, after Israeli airstrikes struck Iran, Iran launched a retaliatory barrage of missiles at Israel, hitting targets in Tel Aviv.
Palestinians watched Iran’s bombs fall on Israel from across the militarized border separating the Gaza Strip from Israel. The Real News spoke with Gazans, who continue to endure genocidal violence and forced starvation at the hands of Israel, about their reactions to Iran’s airstrikes.
RADIO REPORT:
It has been en route for one hour and will land in a few moments, and emotions are high, not just in support but because of Israel’s actions.
RAJA NADA ABU HAJAR:
May God bless them. First and foremost. Iran. Because they have stood with the Palestinians. May God stand with all of us and end the war on us both. I saw them. What did you see? I saw the missiles going across, here. What did you feel? I saw them! What did you feel? We felt joy! May God give them victory over all who fight them! Everyone felt happy. People were shouting with joy, that someone is defending Palestine. That there’s someone who stands with us.
IMAD HARB DAWAS:
The war between Israel and Iran is a private war between Israel and Iran. Nuclear reactors, uranium enrichment… Whoever thinks that Iran is going to war for the people of Palestine is confused. This war has other military dimensions, a war between Israel and Iran. Of course, we saw the missiles, and we and all the people were hopeful, that the military pressure— of course, our poor people are confused, they hope for an end to the war. The missiles represented hope: that maybe the war on Gaza might finally end.
JALIL MUSTAFA REZG FIRDAWS:
Honestly I felt, please God, just push Israel back a bit. That they might leave us alone, a little. My one and only hope is to go and sit on top of the ruins of my house, nothing more. I want nothing. Just to sit on the ruins of my house. That’s it. Killing, death, hunger and displacement. Evacuated from here to there. They’ve gone to war with Iran and forgotten about us. We don’t know our fate, what’s going to happen to us?
RAJA NADA ABU HAJAR:
You leave your home not knowing if you will find the rest of your family alive or dead. You leave thinking maybe there will be a strike on the street and you’ll die. This war is not normal: It’s total destruction, not war. War is not like this. We experienced many wars, but we never saw anything like this.
IMAD HARB DAWAS:
The Israelis are deliberately starving us. They cut off the internet, so we couldn’t communicate to the rest of the world about the starvation, it’s a war on journalists and on journalism everywhere. Air traffic over Iran and Israel in the wake of escalation is now almost non-existent.
JALIL MUSTAFA REZG FIRDAWS:
Honestly the lack of internet has had a big impact on us. We want the world to hear our voices, to see us. We want the world to see us in reality, not just on the news. No: We want
those outside to see how we’re living. We don’t want them to see fabricated news reports. We need the internet to also hear the news from outside. Just like the world should hear us, we want to hear what’s happening in the world: Who is standing with us, who isn’t? Who’s defending us, who isn’t? Where is the Arab world?
![[AL Jazeera]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/INTERACTIVE-UN-ISRAEL-COMPANIES-1-1751388779.png?w=770&resize=770%2C962&quality=80)
The British media claimed that Palestine Action may have damaged the planes at RAF Brize Norton "beyond repair", potentially costing the UK over £30mn.