Massacre
Palestine Action activist remanded to prison after Stock Exchange arrests
Anti-war activist Sean Middleborough
Palestine Action activist Sean Middleborough was remanded to prison yesterday following his arrest on Sunday morning over an alleged plan to disrupt business at the London Stock Exchange (LSE), charged with ‘conspiracy to commit public nuisance’ under the draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, after appearing at Wirral Magistrates Court. Five other activists were released from police custody without charges pending further investigation.
On his way into the custody van, Middlebrough was heard to shout “Free Palestine”. Lawyers will be submitting an application for immediate granting of bail.
Middleborough and five other activists are accused of having planned to blockade the LSE, which through its trading in bonds and shares plays a significant role in facilitating the occupation of Palestine. The LSE has raised over over £4.73 billion in bond sales for the apartheid state of Israel in the past six years. The exchange describes itself as “a key partner to Israeli businesses, by enabling them to raise capital internationally” and trades shares in weapons manufacturers arming Israel’s regime.
A meeting on 8 February 2022 between UK government and Israeli investors, which included representatives from Israeli weapons companies Elbit Systems and Rafael, noted that “The London Stock Exchange has a strong and important relationship with Israel”. This includes the LSE holding capital market conferences in Israel and hosting Israeli business on the exchange with a combined market capital of $14.7 billion.
The arrests came after a Daily Express ‘journalist’ spied on the group in order to report on activities and hand information on alleged plans to the police. Most of the UK press and broadcast media have ignored Israel’s crimes and worked to manufacture consent for its ongoing genocide of Palestinians, which so far has killed almost 32,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the latest Euro-Med Monitor report. If failing to report even the basic facts of Israel’s crimes – including against its own people on 7 October – wasn’t bad enough, ‘reporters’ have now gone as far as acting on behalf of the state to criminalise direct action movement opposing Israel’s war crimes.
The UK state has been taking ever more draconian measures to try to punish and deter activists who stand on the side of humanity and against genocide. Numerous activists seeking an end to bloodshed have found themselves detained by the British state and often charged, with varying levels of state success. Palestine Action has stated repeatedly that it will not be diverted from the struggle for Palestinian liberation and the ending of all UK arms production and shipments to apartheid Israel.
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Independents select Palestinian Leanne Mohamad to stand against Streeting
Mohamad wins democratic vote among Redbridge Community Action Group members
Redbridge Community Action Group (RCAG) has selected local Palestinian woman Leanne Mohamad to stand against arch-Labour right-winger Wes Streeting in Ilford North at the next parliamentary election. Ms Mohamad won selection among three potential candidates, by a vote of RACG members.
One local member, Muhammad Rehan Saeed, said:
We have voted a Palestinian woman to take on Wes Streeting and Labour at the next election in Ilford North. A fitting choice to stand against the genocide supporters.
Labour is in disarray in Redbridge – which covers Ilford North and Ilford South constituencies – with the Independents now the largest opposition group, after two landslide by-election wins and a resignation. Streeting, one of Keir Starmer’s main mouthpieces for his support for Israel’s genocide and other war crimes in Gaza. With neighbouring Tower Hamlets already run by Lutfur Rahman’s Aspire party after a landslide in the last council and mayoral elections and Newham Independents romping home in recent by-elections and scheduled elections, Labour and Streeting, who has been the target of protests and boycotts by outraged locals for his Gaza weaseling, have cause to be worried.
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Cambridge Analytica-linked firm running NHS data signs deal to help Israel against Gaza
CEO signs ‘strategic’ battlefield AI deal, flies board to Israel in ‘show of solidarity’ in middle of genocide
Palantir – the firm linked to Cambridge Analytica’s use of Facebook data and with close ties to Israel but still awarded a £330m contract, in the middle of the Gaza genocide – to process sensitive NHS patient data despite protests from doctors and civil liberties groups – has signed a ‘strategic’ deal to provide ‘battlefield AI’ and other ‘battle tech’ to Israel, according to Bloomberg:
Israel is currently engaged in mass slaughter of Palestinian civilians Gaza that has killed more than 30,000 civilians, mostly women and children, is facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice brought against it by South Africa and has been accused of multiple other war crimes against the people of Gaza, including forcible transfer of the population and the targeting of hospitals, schools, journalists, homes and civilian infrastructure.
Despite this, the firm’s CEO last week flew the company’s board to Israel in a ‘show of solidarity’ with the regime:
The firm seems curiously reticent about its close ties with the Israeli regime, however. It’s press release page, which contains announcements going back to 2018, does not mention Israel.
Palantir’s activities have been so troubling that even the Murdoch Times has asked whether the UK government is “handing our health data to Big Brother”.
The Palantir deal is not the only example of the UK government promoting and rewarding companies with close ties to Israel during the Gaza genocide. Sunak’s crew has also awarded cash to UK universities, as the world clamours for an academic boycott, to promote closer ties with Israeli universities.
The UK Establishment clearly values cash and commerce above the lives of Palestinian civilians, above justice and above peace.
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Video: released Israeli women say Hamas treated them like ‘queens’
Testimony of mother and daughter Hin and Ajam highights dishonesty of Israel’s already-discredited lies to the ICJ
Israel’s statements to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) yesterday were a fabric of already-discredited lies about supposed atrocities that even Israel’s own records make impossible – and completely ignored the many deaths caused by Israeli forces among their own people during the 7 October resistance raid.
At the centre of Israel’s lies was a litany of ‘atrocity porn’ of rapes, mutilations and beheaded babies – again, already debunked and contradicting the evidence – but the testimony of an Israeli mother and daughter, interviewed on TV after they were released by Hamas, undermines even further Israel’s lurid lies. Hin and Ajam told their Israeli TV interviewer that they were treated like ‘malkot’, queens – and that this is how Palestinian men treat women generally:
Unsurprisingly, this has not been shown on UK ‘mainstream’ TV. Hin and Ajam are not unique. Numerous women survivors of Israel’s ‘friendly fire’ and released hostages have told how they were treated courteously and well – and even that their captors put their own bodies between them and IDF bombs to protect them.
By contrast, under Israel’s ‘Hannibal directive’, Israeli forces killed hundreds of their own citizens with missiles and tank shells, a number that the IDF itself described as ‘immense’.
It is to be hoped that the ICJ judges are not as ignorant as the insulting Israeli statements take them to be.
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Parliament to reconvene to approve UK airstrikes on Yemen
As world unites in horror at Israel’s genocide, UK Establishment reaction is to protect Israel and billionaires by attacking country taking action for Palestinians
UDPATE: The UK is bombing Yemen tonight, without bothering to have Parliament approve it – and will recall MPs tomorrow to rubber stamp it. The UK is not at war with Yemen but is acting as a rogue state to protect Israel from the economic impact of the shipping interceptions.
The government is reconvening Parliament to push through a vote to approve airstrikes against Yemen, because of Yemen’s success in intercepting Israel-bound shipping to put pressure on Israel to end its genocide. The disruption to seaborne trade is said to be having a significant impact on the Israeli economy.
Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle has been taken to a Whitehall briefing tonight and is expected to recall MPs from their usual Friday activities away from Westminster to vote through the attacks – of course, ‘opposition’ leader and ‘Zionist without qualification’ Keir Starmer is fully expected to vote with the Tories.
With most of the world united in horror at the ICJ evidence of Israel’s genocide and war crimes against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, the UK Establishment reaction, always ready to side with the oppressor against the oppressed, is to protect Israel and billionaires by attacking a country to help Palestinians, regardless of the likely consequences of igniting a regional war.
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Netanyahu ‘changes tune’ about ethnic cleansing on eve of ICJ genocide hearing
Israeli PM broadcasts ‘clarification’ – but only in English
Far-right Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has suddenly – for the first time – said that he doesn’t want to drive Palestinians out of Gaza. Previously, Netanyahu has described Gazans as ‘Amalek’, a reference to a biblical nation that the Israelites destroyed down to the last person, while his ministers have talked in various ways about the destruction, flattening, ‘voluntary’ transfer and even nuclear bombing of Gaza’s population – and his ambassador to the UK has spoken of the complete destruction of Gaza as the only ‘solution’.
The change comes on the evening before Israel faces South Africa’s genocide accusations in the International Court of Justice:
Netanyahu repeated the ridiculous claim that Israel – which has murdered more than 30,000 civilians, more than two thirds of them women and children, and maimed almost sixty thousand others – is doing all it can to minimise civilian casualties an that its orders driving Palestinians out of northern Gaza to be bombed in the south is somehow humanitarian.
They lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and . . .#NetanyahuIsAwarCriminalhttps://t.co/OPwAC5KyXu
— RonniSalt (@RonniSalt) January 10, 2024
Israel appears to be seriously worried about the outcome of the ICJ case. Netanyahu, who faced corruption charges before again becoming PM, looks personally worried too. But no statement or change of tune can mask Israel’s genocidal intent in its mass murder of women and children and its bombing of schools, hospitals and homes, or hide the direct violence and the deprivation of food, water, fuel and medicines that threaten to kill far more innocent Palestinian civilians than the bombs and bullets.
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Trickett tables motion demanding disclosure of government legal advice on Gaza genocide
Left-wing Labour MP Jon Trickett has tabled a parliamentary ‘Early Day Motion’ (EDM) demanding that the government reveal the advice its legal experts have given it over Israel’s war crimes and South Africa’s powerful and thorough genocide case against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The motion reads:
That this House understands that questions have been raised internationally about the legality of the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza; recognises that in November 2023 UN experts raised the alarm about the risk of genocide in Gaza; highlights the UN General Secretary’s reasons for invoking Article 99 that there is a high risk of total collapse of the humanitarian support system in Gaza, which would have devastating consequences; further highlights his comments to the Security Council that international humanitarian law includes the duty to protect civilians and to comply with the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution and that the laws of war also demand that civilians’ essential needs must be met, including by facilitating the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian relief; notes the Spanish Prime Minister’s comments that he has serious doubts that Israel is complying with international humanitarian law; further notes the letter signed by prominent Israeli public figures to the Attorney General in December 2023 which said there have been explicit calls to commit atrocious crimes against millions of civilians, providing evidence of the discourse of annihilation, expulsion and revenge; acknowledges the case South Africa has brought to the International Court of Justice claiming Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is tantamount to genocidal actions; and calls on the Government to publish in full the legal advice it has received from its law officers regarding the situation in Gaza, particularly in the run up to UN votes, and the legality of the UK export licensing of arms to the Israel.
Tory MPs have spoken in the Commons to try to dismiss South Africa’s case as having ‘no legal merit’ – farcical when the ICJ, by accepting the case, has already decided that Israel has a case to answer. The disclosure of the government’s legal advice would be expected to reveal that the Tories have been told the same by their own lawyers – which means the government will fight to avoid it and broad support among MPs for the motion is vital to increase pressure.
Since it was tabled yesterday, only eighteen MPs have signed. Use theyworkforyou.com to contact your MP and tell them to support the motion.
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Video: former US assistant SecDef agrees kibbutz/rave deaths caused by IDF
In ‘extraordinary’ interview, Chas Freeman blames Israeli forces for ‘massacre’ and says Israel has equated itself with ‘burned buildings and dead babies’
A former US assistant Secretary of Defence has blamed Israeli forces for the mass deaths inflicted on kibbutz residents and rave-goers, either intentionally through Israel’s ‘Hannibal doctrine’ of killing potential hostages rather than let them be taken captive, or through poor training and discipline.
The explosive video was posted by French observer Arnaud Bertrand, who earlier spotted former Israeli ambassador to the UK Mark Regev’s inadvertent admission that Israel had killed the many people found incinerated after the raid:
In a series of posts accompanying the video on Twitter/X, Bertrand noted that:
– [Freeman] agrees that many of the victims of Oct 7th were killed by the Israeli army in the form of “undisciplined fire by helicopters with hellfire missiles or by tanks with incendiary rounds directed at buildings”. In the case of the victims of the music festival he even says they “were largely killed, it appears, by hellfire missiles and by other undisciplined fire by Israeli forces”.
To him this “disgrace in military terms” stems from a “lack of discipline and training necessary to respond” but also from the IDF’s “Hannibal directive”, which “says that rather than get into bargaining over hostage exchange you should just kill the Israeli hostages along with their captors.”
– He says that with Oct 7th “Hamas had 2 objectives”:
1) “Put the Palestinian self-determination issue back on the global agenda”, something he says they’ve “succeeded” in doing since they’re is “widespread recognition outside Israel that only self-determination for Palestine in the form of a 2-state solution can provide security to Israel”. He says that even in “the US, which has a larger Jewish population than Israel, many Jews have come to realize that this is the case. Younger Jews in particular in the U.S. are very disillusioned with Zionism and don’t want to suffer contagion from it in the form of antisemitism, which is actually growing now as a result of Israeli actions”.
2) “Give Hamas enormous popularity among Palestinians because they are seen as having stood up, as having been willing to accept death rather than captivity”. He refers to Norman Finkelstein’s “analogy of slave revolts in the U.S.” and particularly the “1831 revolt by Nat Turner, a well-educated very intelligent enslaved African who led a slave revolt in Southern Virginia which had as its objective the murder of every white person they encountered.” He says it “raises a moral question: ‘Is the violence of the slave-owner morally the same as the violence of the slave trying to end that violence?’. The same moral question arises with Israeli oppression of Palestinians versus Palestinian resistance to oppression.”– All in all he concludes that much like the violence against African-Americans that followed slave revolts in the 19th century, the Israeli vengeance against Palestinians “won’t be remembered fondly by anyone in the future”. In fact he goes as far as saying that “when people think of Israel in the past they thought of it as a refuge for the victims of the Holocaust… now they will think of it as the home of perpetrators of genocide. When they think of Israel, they will think of burned buildings and dead babies. This is an image problem of a fundamental nature and from the point of view of Israel it strips Israel of its protection by charges of antisemitism against anyone who is critical of Israel because to be critical of people who are carrying out genocide cannot be antisemitism, it cannot be considered immoral. Antisemitism is a despicable attitude but to oppose genocide by Israel is not.”
With Israeli families also now awake to the fact of the mass ‘friendly fire’ deaths – which the IDF quietly admitted were ‘immense and complex’ – Israel’s narrative of ‘Hamas savagery’ on the day of the raid is fundamentally discredited.
That does not, of course, cause a moment’s pause for the regime’s apologists, western politicians or western ‘mainstream’ media in repeating it.
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Change.org disables huge petition for expulsion of far-right Israeli ambassador
Petition was over 100,000 signatures when removed ‘for review’
A huge petition by signed by the British people to demand the expulsion from the UK of far-right Israeli ambassador Tsipi Hotovely has been deactivated by petition hosting site change.org.
The petition had been signed by more than 100,000 people – the point at which it should trigger a formal debate on the topic in Parliament:
But anyone attempting to read or sign the petition now is unable to do so – because change.org has removed it for ‘review’:
The petition was started after Hotovely, a far-right figure described by Israeli paper Haaretz as ‘the ugly, extremist face of Israel’, justified Israel’s flattening of Gaza and mass killing of civilians during an interview on LBC last week:
Hotovely went on to claim that the IDF was killing children because Hamas was parading them ‘in front of every place the IDF soldiers were getting’. Israel has killed more than 30,000 people in Gaza so far, more than two thirds of them children and women, and has forcibly displaced almost two million Gazan Palestinians. It now faces charges of genocide at the international Court of Justice brought by South Africa.
Change.org has been contacted for comment on its reasons for removing the petition.
Update: the page was reinstated at some point afterward.
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Israeli families demand investigation as truth about mass ‘friendly fire’ deaths starts to percolate
‘Immense’ Israeli death toll from IDF shells, missiles and bullets is already on record – now Israeli families demand immediate investigation
Furious Israeli families have demanded an immediate investigation into the deaths of their loved ones caused by Israeli military fire during the 7 October Hamas raid.
The fact of ‘immense’ deaths to so-called ‘friendly fire’ has already been very quietly admitted by the IDF and reported by Israeli media, but has been ignored by western ‘mainstream’ media – including the UK’s – and have been slow to percolate into the awareness of ordinary Israelis, but the evidence is overwhelming that many and probably most of those killed during that day were killed by IDF weapons, fired either in panic and incompetence or as part of the military’s ‘Hannibal directive‘ to kill potential captives rather than allow them to be taken.
Ynet’s report of the IDF’s claim it would be wrong to investigate deaths because the number of deaths is ‘immense’
But awareness and outrage appear to be growing. Israeli newspaper Haaretz has reported that:
Family members of Israelis who were killed on October 7 after a standoff between Hamas terrorists and the Israeli army led to the army firing a tank at a house where the civilians were held hostage are demanding that the military probe its actions that day.
According to the paper, the families are insisting that the investigation take place right now and not, as the regime has proposed, after the ‘war’.
As journalist Jonathan Cook noted:
Their concerns have been heightened by the recent admission from an Israeli commander that he ordered a tank to fire a shell into a house where 14 Israelis had been taken hostage by Hamas in Be’eri. Many of those hostages were incinerated by the shell, along with the Hamas fighters. Nonetheless, Israel cited the charred bodies as proof of Hamas’ barbarity, and justification for its subsequent genocidal campaign in Gaza – rather than as evidence of its own scorched-earth policy, one indifferent to the lives of its own civilians.
Similarly, the incinerated bodies of Israelis found in cars at a rave near the kibbutz and near the Gaza border were caused by weapons that Hamas does not have – and released hostages have testified that they were protected and treated well by Hamas fighters but were fired on by Israeli helicopters and plans as their captors took them across the border, killing many.
So intense was this firestorm that for weeks the Israeli regime thought that some two hundred bodies it initially thought were Israelis were in fact Palestinians – and clearly Hamas did not incinerate them. Israeli police have also confirmed that many killed at the rave were in fact shot by Israeli helicopters.
The Israeli mainstream media have in fact been more honest than their UK and US counterparts in reporting these facts. Now that the families are demanding action, will UK papers and broadcasters finally start to cover them? Don’t hold your breath.
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