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TSSA union staff strike to go ahead this week after reps accuse Eslamdoust of bad faith
The first planned strike day by staff working for the TSSA union will go ahead on Tuesday after mediation talks turned to farce, with the staff’s GMB union reps accusing TSSA general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust of approaching the talks without good faith and of failing to engage with staff’s concerns.
Staff are striking over what they say is renewed abuse and bullying – Eslamdoust’s predecessor as general secretary was sacked after a huge scandal of bullying and sexual harassment by senior management, and workers say the situation, which Eslamdoust was supposed to fix, has deteriorated again. Now an update from the workers’ union reps updates them of the failure of the talks:
Eslamdoust, who was recommended to members by the union’s executive despite what appears to be a complete lack of relevant experience, wrote a bizarre article for the Guardian in which she accused the GMB union of attempting to bully her so it could take over the TSSA and distract from its own renewed sexual harassment scandal, and tried to blame others for her failure to take meaningful action to implement the Kennedy Report’s recommendations.
She then followed up her attack on the GMB by emailing all TSSA member branches with an astonishing assault branding the union’s workers as greedy and lazy, and treating the GMB union as if it, and not the unhappiness of TSSA staff, was the driver of the impending strike action for which more than 93% of staff voted last week.
Such is the anger among members at the situation that earlier this month the TSSA’s branch for members working in Network Rail in South London passed a unanimous motion of no confidence in Eslamdoust and the union’s president Melissa Heywood.
GMB reps among TSSA staff have accused Eslamdoust and her team of not informing them that they had approached ACAS, and of bypassing them to try to negotiate the dispute with GMB general secretary Gary Smith instead of engaging with workers and their representatives.
The workers’ first strikes will take place this week on Tuesday 30 April and then on 4 June, including pickets of TSSA offices.
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Exclusive: Eslamdoust continues to lash out as TSSA staff pass unanimous no-confidence vote
Union general secretary keeps blaming GMB as union employees say she keeps exposing lack of understanding of union mechanics
A union in flames? TSSA staff appear to think so
Maryam Eslamdoust and the TSSA rail union she is running – into the ground in the eyes of many – continues to lash out at the GMB union for TSSA staff’s complete dissatisfaction with her management and her team – despite a unanimous motion of no-confidence passed at an ‘all-staff meeting’ last week.
Ms Eslamdoust was recommended to members, despite what appears to be a complete lack of relevant experience, by the TSSA executive after former general secretary Manuel Cortes was sacked over sexual harassment and bullying exposed in the Kennedy Report, and was supposedly going to clean up the union after the scandal. However, the union has been rocked by fresh allegations of abuse and deep resentment against the new general secretary for the treatment of staff, particularly women.
The staff, who are members of the GMB union – union employees are usually represented by a different union in case they need to enter a dispute with their employer – and recently voted overwhelmingly for strike action in response to the abuse they say they are experiencing, held the ‘all-staff meeting’ a week ago. The following motion was passed unanimously:
TSSA Staff Motion of No Confidence in the GS, AGS, and President
Following the recent all-staff meeting on Thursday 11 April, where the AGS announced that the Trainee Organiser’s contracts would not be extended without any prior notice to the Trainee Organisers themselves, the TSSA staff unreservedly condemn this as a further example of an unacceptable and grotesque management style that has no place in a respectful and civilised
workplace.The further revelation by the AGS [assistant general secretary] that a significant sum of HS2 compensation monies has not yet been invested, losing us around £25,000 per month in interest at a conservative estimate, gives the TSSA staff considerable concern that the union is not being managed effectively to ensure its long-term survival as an independent trade union.
The TSSA staff reconfirms our commitment to the policy of remaining an independent union, and believes that with the right management, sufficient resources, meaningful progress on culture change, and an environment in which staff feel valued and respected, this remains a realistic prospect.
However, the many contradictions between stated objectives and the decisions being taken, whether in respect of resourcing priorities, progressing culture change, or managing the union’s finances, only leads us to conclude this is far from being the case.
The TSSA staff therefore instructs the GMB staff reps to convey the decision of this meeting that the staff have no confidence in the GS [general secretary], AGS, and President of the union.
The TSSA executive member for Scotland also resigned last week, saying he could no longer work with Eslamdoust or the executive supporting her.
Ms Eslamdoust attacked Skwawkbox during the general secretary election for scrutinising her and her supporters’ campaign claims that she had ‘high level trade union experience’. She also recently wrote a bizarre article for the Guardian in which she accused the GMB union of attempting to bully her so it could take over the TSSA and distract from its own renewed sexual harassment scandal, and tried to blame others for her failure to take meaningful action to implement the Kennedy Report’s recommendations, outraging staff members who have pointed out that their dispute pre-dates the new GMB revelations.
However, when asked for comment the union doubled down on its blaming of the GMB, compounding the impression of a lack of understanding or recognition that the issues are with the unhappiness of people working for the union and not with the management of the union they are instructing to coordinate the strike on their behalf. A spokesperson told Skwawkbox:
We would encourage GMB to start talking with TSSA to focus on resolving the workplace issues they say they have. It is genuinely extraordinary that GMB are so blatantly seeking to interfere in (and misrepresent) the internal administration of a sister union. TSSA EC took the decision that the last tranche of HS2 compensation would be reserved for strategic objectives to grow and strengthen our union. That is what is happening.
TSSA staff have said that their approaches to the union’s management have been ignored or rebuffed and that Eslamdoust and her team even opened talks with ACAS without bothering to inform them. The union’s latest comment will do little or nothing to change the publicly-expressed view of staff, reps and members, including a former TSSA assistant general secretary, that Ms Eslamdoust has ‘lost the plot’.
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Assange: justice denied again as court declines to admit new evidence of US murder plots
Wikileaks founder will remain in Belmarsh prison while judges seek further meaningless ‘assurances’ from US
The High Court has this morning again denied justice to persecuted Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Despite admitting that the US is denying Assange’s rights to free speech and is pursuing him in a way that it would not pursue one of its own citizens, judges have decided to keep Assange in Belmarsh prison while it asks for further ‘assurances’ that the US will not kill him – even though there has been longstanding evidence of US plans to murder him outside the US.
Shamefully, the court has also declined to admit fresh evidence of US plots to assassinate him, claiming that the evidence is irrelevant because the US’s incentive to murder Assange would not apply if it had him in custody, as Declassified UK has pointed out:
Incredibly, the High Court has refused to admit fresh evidence of CIA plots to kidnap or kill Julian Assange.
The judges say the rationale for kidnapping or killing Assange would be removed if he is extradited, and the evidence is thus not worth consideration.
Read that again. pic.twitter.com/PqwJIg4yAn— Declassified UK (@declassifiedUK) March 26, 2024
The extradition case should have been laughed out of court three years ago, when the main US witness admitted he had been lying all along in his claim that Assange induced him to hack US systems. Instead, Assange has been submitted to what former UN Special Rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer described as sustained psychological torture – and still faces the likelihood of imprisonment for more than a century in US retaliation for Wikileaks exposing its war crimes in Iraq and as a deterrent to other journalists who might expose its crimes in future.
Shame on the UK and its travesty of justice and democracy. Free Julian Assange. Protect real journalism.
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Exclusive: Unite membership ‘falls by 210,000+’ under Graham
Huge membership fall since last official figure in late 2020, say insiders – but management hasn’t reported official membership despite requirement to do so every year – and continues to donate millions to anti-worker Labour party
Yesterday, Skwawkbox reported the collapse in the Unite union’s strike fund – the fund members rely on to pay their bills and feed their families when they are on strike – from £35m when current general secretary Sharon Graham took office to just £11m now. Some insiders say the fund was increased to £50m just before previous general secretary Len McCluskey retired, though Skwawkbox has not yet been able to confirm this.
£11m is only enough for about eight months, based on spending in each of the last two years.
Senior union figures have also complained that the union management is not being transparent about the union’s membership and has not signed off financial accounts since Ms Graham took over in 2021 Unions are required to report membership annually, but Unite has not done so – and risks severe sanction from the Certification Officer. One senior official of another union told Skwawkbox:
Unions have to declare membership every year to the Certification Officer. Unite doesn’t appear to have done so for several years and the CO could effectively decide to shut them down if she chooses.
But well-placed Unite insiders have now told Skwawkbox that the latest internal estimates show a catastrophic fall. Unite’s membership in late 2020, the last official figure, was 1.081m:
- Automotive Industries 72,453
- Aerospace & Shipbuilding 63,238
- Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals, Process and Textiles 43,134
- Civil Air Transport 65,892
- Community Youth workers and not for profit 42,985
- Docks, Rail, Ferries & Waterways 17,228
- Education 17,335
- Energy and Utilities 32,485
- Engineering, Manufacturing and Steel 57,753
- Finance and Legal 61,559
- Food Drink and Agriculture63,589
- Government, Defence, Prisons & Contractors 10,751
- Graphical Paper and Media & Information Technology 36,810
- Health 88,770 Local Authorities 61,783
- Passenger Transport 76,861
- Road Transport Commercial, Logistics and Retail Distribution 62,619
- Service Industries 50,564
- Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians 68,083
- Community 14,971
- Unknown 6,668
- Retired 65,503
Total 1,081,034
According to internal estimates, it is now around 870,000 – a fall of a fifth (19.5%) from the 2020 figure Graham inherited – and is still falling. By a different measurement, sources say that the 2020 figure was 1.28m, which would mean a fall of almost 400,000 in two and a half years.
Against that backdrop, according to the Electoral Commission the union under Graham has donated around £4m since the winter of 2021 to Keir Starmer’s Labour, despite Starmer’s assault on democracy, betrayal of and contempt for striking workers, blocking of union candidates in parliamentary seats and his support for ‘spycops’ and anti-protest laws.
Sharon Graham’s failure to speak out on Gaza and behind the scenes attempts to quell free speech on the issue since Israel’s genocide there began last October has outraged many members and others. She
Graham has been publicly silent about the slaughter, but has:
- been criticised for banning Unite officials and national banners from pro-Gaza protests
- banned and smeared films and books exposing the ‘Labour antisemitism’ scam, placed an official under investigation who refused to cancel a Palestine solidarity fringe event at Labour’s 2023 annual conference
- allegedly told her chief of staff to threaten a soon-to-retire official with the loss of a pension bonus if he did not soften his support for Palestinians
Her supporters also prevented debate and votes on Gaza at last week’s meeting of the union’s elected executive.
Ms Graham’s tenure as Unite boss has also been marked by a string of other allegations – which neither she nor the union has denied – including alleged destruction of evidence against her husband in threat, misogyny and bullying complaints brought by union employees. She is also embroiled in both an employment tribunal for discrimination and a defamation lawsuit brought by Irish union legend Brendan Ogle for the union’s treatment of him and comments made about him by Graham and her close ally Tony Woodhouse – a situation that has caused outrage among Unite members and politicians in Ireland.
Unite has been contacted for comment.
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Exclusive: Unite strike fund ‘collapses’ by over two thirds amid fall in membership
Graham and team not providing official member numbers – and no finances signed off since 2021
Birmingham bin lorries stand idle during a strike under the previous Unite leadership
Unite’s strike fund has ‘collapsed’ by more than two thirds from the level current general secretary Sharon Graham inherited from the McCluskey administration – a level that allowed strike payments of £70 a day that Graham tried to claim credit for when she took over the job. The collapse appears to be driven by fall in Unite’s membership.
At the start of Graham’s tenure, Unite had built a strike fund of £35m, able to pay striking members enough to maintain large, lengthy disputes. However, as of last week the fund had fallen to just £11m in less than three years and Unite’s recent announcement of increased membership fees is explicitly linked to the collapse.
Skwawkbox understands that there have been ‘significant’ falls in membership numbers and dues, but the union management is not disclosing an exact figure – and insiders say that no finances have been ‘signed off’ since 2021. However, the latest working figures show that Unite’s cash account has also fallen by £13m, more than ten percent.
Unite has paid out more in strike support in the last two years, but the falling member numbers and an apparent lack of planning for the replenishment of funds have left the union looking ill-prepared for future battles, with only around eight months’ worth of funds in its reserve based on the last two years’ spending.
The planned subs rise, from 1 April, of a maximum of 22p a week with many paying much less, is apparently well0 short of what would be required to maintain the strike pay outgoings of the last two years, let alone rebuild the reserve.
One senior insider told Skwawkbox that the lack of transparency and the ‘collapse’ of the fund were a serious concern and that morale is ‘rock bottom’ among union officials because of the management’s conduct, including the lack of opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Ms Graham allegedly told elected officers that ‘Palestine is not a service Unite offers members’.
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Video: protests for Assange as British justice goes on trial in extradition case
Up to 2,000 gather for ‘last chance’ to stop disgraced US case allowed so far by courts – but system seems stacked against Wikileaks founder, press freedom and public’s right to know
Protestors outside the court on Tuesday
Up to two thousand protesters gathered to demonstrate outside the Royal Courts of Justice today in London, where Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and his legal team are fighting in what may be their last chance to avoid his extradition to the US, where the Biden administration wants to lock him in a high-security prison for the rest of his life for the ‘crime’ of exposing the actions of the US military.
Wikileaks embarrassed the US by revealing the wanton slaughter of Iraqi civilians – and the US wants its vengeance. To the UK’s shame, successive UK governments and courts have been all too eager to let the Americans have their way, despite the US case collapsing in disgrace when its main witness to Assange’s supposed ‘hacking’ of US systems admitted he had been lying the whole time – and plots by senior US officials to assassinate him. The admission should have seen the US laughed out of court, but UK judges granted its request anyway.
Protesters massed to show their solidarity with the Australian journalist, who has been imprisoned in Belmarsh prison since 2019 after a long effective incarceration in the Ecuadorian embassy while the UK and US governments conspired against him and even bugged supposedly sacrosanct meetings with his lawyers:
Wikileaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson gave the protest crowd a lunchtime update on the ‘absurd’ proceedings, which kept observers down to a handful despite the importance of the case, preventing even human rights groups from attending:
As with all the hearings so far, the case against Julian Assange appears to be stacked. After the farce of the collapsed US case being granted anyway, Assange’s appeal was denied by a judge with deep security service connections.
In the current case, one of the two judges was a lawyer for the Secret Intelligence Service and the Ministry of Defence, with clearance for access to ‘top secret’ information – and the other judge is the twin sister of right-wing former BBC chair Richard Sharpe, who resigned after an inquiry into his arrangement of an £800,000 loan for Boris Johnson before his appointment.
Activist Steve Price, who represented Skwawkbox at the demo, summarised the day:
On a cold day thousands gathered to lobby the court and raise public awareness of this situation. This morning at the RCJ, the chant of the day was “There’s only one decision – no extradition!” The demo was noisy, very colourful, with a visible but low-key police presence and many passing drivers honking horns in solidarity.
Speakers included three Labour MPs – Richard Burgon, Zara Sultana and Apsana Begum, alongside Chris Hedges, Andrew Feinstein, Stella Assange and Julian’s brother and father, as well as lawyers, Reporters without Borders (RwB) and Wikileaks’ editor-in-chief. John Pilger, the great Australian journalist, was remembered with great affection.
Julian’s brother said the Australian Parliament voted by two thirds criticising the UK and USA and demanding he be released and returned to his home country. Two of the lawyers, as well as RwB noted that this case has enormous implications for freedom of the press globally and there are obvious parallels with how journalists have been deliberately targeted by Israel in Gaza.
The magistrate back in January 2021 decided Julian should be released solely on the grounds that he might kill himself, but this was overturned by the Home Secretary. There are a number of legal grounds his team will advocate for refusing the extradition. He has been detained in Belmarsh (in solitary confinement) for nearly 5 years, spent 7 years before that confined in the Ecuadorian Embassy. His health has deteriorated, it’s a form of torture, they’re slowly killing him. He is believed to be too ill to attend court today?
They want to extradite him for the crime of journalism, for exposing their hypocrisy, their dirty secrets, their war crimes.
Keir Starmer, the ‘human rights lawyer’, as he never tires of reminding everyone, has never spoken in Assange’s defence. As Director of Public Prosecutions, his actions are murky – because the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) destroyed its records of them and destroyed notes of what it destroyed. However, it is known that in the case of another extradition the US wanted – that of autistic hacker Gary McKinnon – Starmer flew in a rage to the US to apologise to his US government contacts as soon as then-PM Theresa May quashed the extradition on humanitarian grounds. The CPS and Sweden also destroyed records of their communications when the CPS was pressuring Sweden to continue to pursue Assange’s extradition there – no doubt a stepping stone to getting him to the US – on discredited rape allegations. Despite the destruction of evidence, it is known that the CPS told Swedish counterparts not to ‘dare’ drop its request and refused Sweden’s offer to come and interview Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy.
Assange’s family and team have asked everyone who can make it to the court to continue demonstrating throughout the duration of the hearing to try to keep up pressure on the authorities. The Establishment’s relentless assault on Julian Assange is a war not just against him, but against press freedom and the right of the public to know what its supposed representatives are doing and to hold them to account.
The UK justice system has a last chance to show it is fit for purpose. If it happens, it looks as though justice will have to be wrung out of it. Absolute solidarity with Julian Assange and all persecuted journalists everywhere.
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Labour group passes motion demanding Starmer stop supporting Israel’s crimes
Vote comes after THREE unanimous CLP votes demanding party calls for ceasefire
A protest outside Labour’s HQ demanding the party stop siding with the occupiers
The Abbey Wood Labour party in Thamesmead and Erith has passed a motion condemning Keir Starmer’s support for Israel’s war crimes – and demanding that the party respect the International Court of Justice’s ruling against Israel.
The motion reads:
ABBEY WOOD BRANCH MOTION
This branch/constituency notes the interim report of the the International Court of Justice, that there is plausible evidence that Israel is committing genocidal acts.
Considering this countries like the U.S and the UK, are complicit by virtue of the fact that they are supplying Israel with the weapons and military intelligence, that makes this possible.
It is blatantly obvious that the Tory government is guilty of supporting, and continues to support, despite the ICJ interim decision, Israel’s heinous crimes.
The leadership of the Labour Party has adopted an unacceptable position in relation to this issue, supporting the government and therefore Israel.
In view of the ICJ interim decision, and the fact that Labour are likely to form a new government later this year, we call on the leadership of the Labour Party:
- To recognize the implications of the ICJ’s interim report, condemn Israel’s war crimes and support the call for an immediate ceasefire.
- If elected, to commit to halting all UK weapons sales to Israel .
(If this motion is passed to be conveyed to the all NEC members)
The latest motion comes hot on the heels of a meeting by the constituency-wide party that voted unanimously to support three separate motions demanding that the party support a ceasefire in Gaza.
Labour is losing ground rapidly in nearby East London because of Starmer’s enthusiasm for Israel’s genocide and the regime’s anti-democratic manoeuvres.
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Labour loses half its support among Muslims who voted Labour in 2019
Support for Greens surges
Support for Labour has collapsed among Muslim voters according to a new poll commissioned by the Labour Muslim Network (LMN), with a huge majority citing Keir Starmer’s support for Israeli genocide as a decisive factor.
In the 2019 general election, 86% of Muslims voted Labour – but that has now dropped to 43%. 85% of those surveyed said that Palestine was either very important (70%) or somewhat important (15%) in deciding how they will vote at the next general election. The poll showed support among Muslims for the Greens, who have made clear calls for an end to the slaughter in Gaza, has rocketed by 900%.
LMN has repeatedly identified huge issues with the rampant Islamophobia in the party under Starmer and reported in 2022, long before Israel’s genocidal assault in Gaza, that more than two thirds of Muslims don’t trust Labour to sort out its anti-Muslim bigotry. The group said of the latest survey results:
For decades the Muslim community has been amongst the most loyal Labour supporters anywhere in the United Kingdom. The findings of this new opinion poll shows a startling collapse of this electoral and communal relationship.
This is a crisis point for the future of the relationship between the British Muslim community and the Labour Party.
These findings come in the context of over 100 days of Israel’s continuous assault on Gaza. Over 25,000 Palestinians have been killed, more than 10,000 of whom are children, and the Labour Party’s response has been unacceptable and deeply offensive to Muslims across Britain. Muslim voters have been watching and are now sending a clear message – they will not support any political party that does not fervently oppose the crimes committed against the people of Gaza.
The Labour leadership must change paths now or risk losing the support of the Muslim community for a generation.
There is no sign of anything but token attempts to camouflage the contempt of Starmer and his faction for Muslims, while their support for Israel’s war crimes appears absolute.
The most astonishing thing in the survey is that Labour voting intention among Muslims has not disappeared entirely. It would surely do so if Muslims had a clear alternative, instead of the two main parties being one group with two rosette colours.
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Labour loses London seat of mostly Jewish and Muslim voters
Seat Corbyn won from LibDems in 2018 rejects Starmer
Keir Starmer’s Labour has thrown away a seat in the London borough of Hackney that Labour won overwhelmingly under Corbyn. The Cazenove by-election was won by the Tories, who managed only single digits in the last election:
Cazenove’s population is around 40% Charedi Jewish and 40% Muslim. Locals say that the Labour vote collapsed among Muslims and some Charedis – who, unlike the prevailing right-wing narrative that Israel is central to Jewish identity, generally do not support the modern state of Israel – because of Starmer’s complicity in the Gaza genocide.
But the catastrophic loss is also a microcosm of Labour’s anti-democratic, visionless and frankly incompetent approach to politics, as former Labour speechwriter Alex Nunns pointed out:
The Prole Star page added a screenshot from a local London site:
Labour is also said to have blocked a union-backed prospective candidate from standing in the seat.
The result again exposes the nonsense of Starmer’s claim to have ‘professionalised’ the party and to have made it appealing to ‘Jewish voters’ – apparently Charedis are considered ‘the wrong type of Jew’ for the Labour right. It also highlights – again – the cynical and anti-democratic manoeuvrings that have characterised Labour’s selections and campaigns since the Starmer regime began.
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Israel and media ‘Hamas rape’ claims collapse under scrutiny
‘Eye-witness’ accounts contradict evidence – and earlier claims of the eye-witnesses – as yet another atrocity propaganda campaign falls apart. Warning: potential triggering or distressing content
The outraged reaction of the family of an alleged ‘Hamas rape’ victim to a newspaper’s con is just one of the ways in which the ‘Hamas rape’ narrative now being pushed hard by the Israeli regime and its apologists has fallen apart hard – like every other piece of atrocity propaganda Israel has tried to use so far to justify its genocide in Gaza.
The New York Times has published an article claiming to have evidence of the weaponisation of rape by Hamas during the 7 October raid, but the centrepiece of its claims was supposed ‘evidence’ that Israeli woman Gal Abdush was raped and murdered by Hamas fighters, quoting extensively from an interview with her family.
But her family has furiously insisted that there is no evidence that Ms Abdush was raped – and slammed the paper for misleading and manipulating them by telling them the interview was for a memorial about her and her husband and not mentioning anything about rape.
Speak Up, which fights violence against women, condemned the NYT investigation as ‘disgraceful’ ‘weaponisation’ of sexual violence for propaganda
The family – who appear to be hardline right-wingers perfectly prepared to propagate the already-discredited Israeli lines about beheadings and dismemberments, and therefore not inclined to discredit the rape report out of support for Palestinians – responded after the article was published. They pointed out, among other things, that there were only a few minutes passed between one message from their sister’s husband that they were at the Gaza border and another saying she had been shot – no time for the rape claimed by Israeli authorities and the NYT:
Gal Abdush’s family’s statement (translation by David Sheen and Electronic Intifada)
In fact, the family’s comment – though they don’t seem to have joined the dots – suggests that Ms Abdush and her husband were killed by Israeli forces determined, under the ‘Hannibal directive‘ of killing potential hostages rather than allowing them to be taken, since ‘at the border’ the Hamas fighters would only have been interested in getting them into captivity – and Hamas had no weapons capable of leaving bodies ‘totally burned’, while Israeli planes and helicopter gunships armed with missiles did and it is now well known in Israel, if ignored by UK and US media, that IDF forces killed Israelis in their determination to eliminate Hamas fighters holding them.
Another element of the atrocity propaganda to collapse are the lurid tales from supposed eye-witnesses who claimed that Hamas fighters – while trying to flee with their captives or fight Israeli troops – stopped to rape and dismember a woman and play catch with her body parts.
The ‘eyewitnesses’ have changed their stories. One was interviewed earlier and neglected to mention the claims of beheadings and games; another – coincidentally an Israeli ‘security consultant’ – had earlier admitted that he saw nothing because he was hiding with his head down the whole time, yet now claims he saw the same as the other witness.
Haaretz, 8 Nov 2023
Not only that, but Israeli lists of victims and their means of death do not claim to have found people at the site in question who had been beheaded or mutilated.
Another ‘eyewitness’ to a different supposed rape, Raz Cohen, happens to have recently been in the Democratic Republic of Congo, training DRC soldiers. While he claims to have seen the rape and to be haunted by the victim’s ‘screams without words’, shortly after the Hamas raid he filmed himself talking about the incident and published it on TikTok – where he seems upbeat and doesn’t mention any of the claims now attributed to him. Journalist Max Blumenthal analysed the changes in Cohen’s testimony:
While much of the NYT “mass Hamas rape” report relies on innuendo, it also purports to contain several credible eyewitness testimonies. One was delivered by a survivor of the Nova electronic music festival named Raz Cohen, who also happens to be an Israeli special forces vet who trains Congolese soldiers. Since his first interview on October 9, Cohen has altered his testimony several times.
Cohen told the NYT he personally witnessed a white van filled with Hamas militants pull up a mile from the Nova music festival, gather over a woman, and gang rape her: “I saw the men standing in a half circle around her. One penetrates her. She screams. I still remember her voice, screams without words.” He said they then butchered the woman with knives.
When Cohen was interviewed on October 9 about the attack on the music festival, however, he did not mention any act of sexual assault committed by Hamas militants. See here: https://twitter.com/i24NEWS_EN/sta… And here: http://tiktok.com/@lior.shapira9…
A day later, Cohen began to introduce vague suggestions of sexual assault into his testimony, but did not indicate that he witnessed any such acts taking place. “The terrorists captured women and hurt them in any way possible, and when they were done with them, they started butchering them in front of their friends,” Cohen told an Israeli publication: http://ashkelnayes.co.il/%D7%97%D7%A8%D…
Cohen was also interviewed by Canada’s CBC on October 10, but was not quoted about witnessing any rape: http://ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news/20…
The same day, Cohen offered lurid new details to PBS, claiming that “the terrorists” not only slaughtered women after raping them on October 7, but engaged in necrophilia as well: “The terrorists, people from Gaza, raped girls. And after they raped them, they killed them, murdered them with knives, or the opposite, killed — and after they raped, they — they did that.” http://pbs.org/newshour/show/…
Testimony he provided to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on October 11 differed slightly, and remained vague: “We see from there a lot of people and girls screaming and murdered by knives. And the girls, the terrorists rape them,” he stated abruptly and without apparent emotion. http://tiktok.com/@abcnewsaus/vi…
By this point, no Israeli media had reported that any rapes occurred on October 7. Cohen quickly fell off the media’s radar. He would not be heard from for over two months, when the Israeli government launched an international propaganda campaign accusing Hamas of mass rape in a transparent bid to maintain international support for its genocidal military assault on Gaza.
At this point, when the NY Times’ Jeffrey @gettleman interviewed Cohen, likely reaching him with assistance from the Israeli government, the “IDF” special forces soldier summoned for the first time a vivid account of a shocking gang rape on October 7.
How and why did Cohen’s story transform so dramatically over time, providing explosive new details at a moment of political urgency for the army in which he served? Was it plausible that a group of hardened Hamas commandoes suddenly paused their surprise attack, which was focused on taking as many captives as quickly as possible, stood in a circle and gang raped a woman, one after another, while Israeli forces mobilized to attack them?
Why did Hamas militants use knives to kill their victims, as Cohen alleged, when they carried rifles and grenades? Why did he drop his earlier allegation of necrophilia when speaking to the Times? And why did he mention seeing “a lot of people and girls” being raped to the ABC on October 11, but alter his testimony to refer specifically to a single female victim when interviewed by the Times?
Perhaps most importantly, why did Cohen’s friend, Shoam Gueta, who took shelter with him on October 7, not describe witnessing a gang rape when interviewed by the Times?
In his very first interview, with a US news station only two days after the Hamas raid, Cohen appeared mostly relaxed – and didn’t mention anyone being raped, as this clip aired recently on Grayzone shows:
Other Israeli mouthpieces have tried to bypass the eyewitnesses altogether, claiming it would be wrong to expect eyewitnesses to come forward and that ‘the corpses tell the story’. But they don’t, because the bodies were buried without evidence being taken, using Jewish burial practices to justify the failure to collect evidence – just as the huge number of cars incinerated by weapons Hamas does not possess were scrapped and buried without collecting evidence. Not one piece of actual evidence appears to have been put forward by Israel, yet the atrocity propaganda continues to be repeated by the so-called ‘mainstream’.
Yet again, Israel’s attempts to demonise Palestinian resistance to justify genocide have fallen apart under scrutiny – scrutiny that the so-called ‘mainstream’ press and broadcasters are simply not doing, or even reporting facts that media in Israel have already acknowledged, such as the mass killing of Israelis during the raid by Israeli media.
For full analysis and more video highlighting the collapse of yet another Israeli atrocity propaganda narrative, watch this video by Electronic Intifada and this by Grayzone.
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