Palestinians
Israel running fake ‘Hamas’ website to hack Palestine Solidarity activists
‘Hamas [dot] com’ full of viruses and hacks to compromise system security of visitors – caution: do not attempt to visit the site
The Israeli regime’s spy agency has set up a fake ‘Hamas’ website at hamas [dot] com in an attempt to entrap and hack Palestine solidarity activists and anyone interested in Palestinian resistance. Skwawkbox has broken the link in the text above for readers’ security.
The site is registered with Israeli web company Wix – which a genuine Hamas site would never use – and a scan of the site by virus checkers shows it is riddled with viruses and malware:
Even more sinisterly, the official ‘@israel’ Twitter published the site link as if it was the genuine Hamas website in an attempt to drive traffic to the site, where visitors machines were likely to end up hacked:
Israel’s propaganda machine has flopped catastrophically since the start of its genocide in Gaza, with every piece of attempted atrocity propaganda and misdirection of blame exposed almost as soon as it was put out – and in many cases Israel simply lies, as when it claimed that the UN had validated its false rape claims when in fact the UN spokespeople admitted they had found no evidence whatever to support the claims. Its attempt to hack the global base of people who stand against genocide was exposed just as quickly.
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Excl: new Unite chief of staff ‘threatens London sec with loss of pension bonus’ for Gaza support
No denial from new official appointed by Graham without exec interview
Unite’s new ‘chief of staff’ has been accused by party insiders in London of threatening the union’s London regional secretary with the loss of a discretionary pension bonus if he did not pull back from his support for Palestinians in Gaza against Israel’s genocide.
Sarah Carpenter – who sources say was appointed by general secretary Sharon Graham without the position being advertised and without the approval of Unite’s elected executive, to their and members’ fury – has been accused of making the threat to regional secretary Peter Kavanagh.
Ms Carpenter,
According to Unite sources, you threatened Pete Kavanagh with the loss of his pension bonus if he didn’t back off from his support of Gaza… The sources say that you did this at the behest of Sharon Graham.
If you have any comment or denial to make in respect of this, please provide it no later than 2pm, Weds 6 March. They also say that the position you now hold was not advertised for applications. Is this correct?
Twenty-two hours after the press deadline, no response has been received.
Sarah Carpenter was accused last year – as Southern regional secretary – by members of banning showings of the film ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn/The Big Lie’, which exposes the sabotage of Corbyn’s Labour by the party’s hard right and the use of antisemitism smears as part of the sabotage campaign. Pro-Israel lobby group CAA claimed credit for her decision and Sharon Graham’s wider move to ban showings of the film and readings of Asa Winstanley’s book ‘Weaponising Antisemitism/How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn’.
As well as the ban of the book and film from all Unite buildings, Graham was accused of trying to force the cancellation of a pro-Palestine fringe meeting at Labour’s conference last October. The bid failed when the event’s organiser, international director Simon Dubbins, told Graham’s proxies that she’d have to come and tell him herself if she wanted the event off. Unite has now placed Dubbins under investigation.
Graham has also been condemned by Unite members for her public silence over the Gaza slaughter. Members are planning to picket the union executive’s next meeting, which takes place next week.
One Unite source told Skwawkbox of the anger of elected executive members over the latest move:
Pete Kavanagh the Regional Secretary was called up and threatened by Sharon’s new hatchet woman Sarah Carpenter that he backs off supporting Palestine or they would take away his retirement bonus. Pete is due to retire and apparently there is some leavers bonus that is discretionary.
The chief of staff post was not advertised nor was the job interviewed by Executive council. Members are furious.
Unite operates ‘discretionary enhanced pension’ scheme that allows staff to retire five years early without losing pension entitlement they would have had if they worked until full retirement age. A proposal was floated by Graham in 2022 to end this scheme and force staff to work until sixty-five for their full pension and consulted on the change in early 2023, but this does not appear to have been enacted, at least yet, and entitlement under this scheme seems to be what was referred to in the alleged threat.
Kavanagh retired last month.
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South Africa calls on ICJ to take ‘additional emergency measures’ against Israel for Gaza
World court asked to rule immediately, without the delay of a hearing
South Africa has called on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to take extra ‘urgent’ measures against Israel and its genocide in Gaza – including ordering an immediate halt to military action and to any actions by Israel that may prejudice the right of the people of Gaza not to be subjected to genocide.
The request also asks the ICJ to order Israel to act immediately to ensure the provision of humanitarian assistance and the restoration of essential services by ceasing all military operations and ending its blockade of the Gaza Strip, to ensure Palestinians can access food and water.
Because of the urgency of the situation – with hundreds more civilians slaughtered daily and hunger and disease now becoming the biggest killers in Gaza – South Africa has asked the court to issue an emergency ruling without a hearing:
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Genocide apologist deletes ‘Jew-hater’ smear after legal threat from Galloway
Pro-Israel hardliner gets the Galloway treatment
Hardline Israel apologist Ben Freeman has deleted a tweet smearing new Rochdale MP George Galloway, shortly after Galloway responded to the smear with a legal threat.
Freeman – whose Twitter feed is full of rants against peaceful anti-apartheid activism and smearing marches against Israel’s genocide in Gaza as ‘hate’ and ‘racist’ and who has defended Israel’s blockade of Gaza and described antizionism as ‘post-Holocaust Jew hatred ‘propagated by the USSR’ – smeared Galloway as a ‘virulent Jew-hater’ and the votes that gave him his landslide election victory as a ‘dark day for British democracy.
And Galloway responded promptly to tell him to ‘remove this immediately or face the legal consequences’:
Sure enough, the tweet promptly disappeared:
Galloway has a consistent record of taking no nonsense from those who attempt to smear him and has already terrorised a number of journalists who tried to trap him with government lines and bias. And he has a long track record of successfully suing, for large amounts of money, people and organisations who smear him, for example the Daily Mirror group in 1992, the Telegraph in 2004, winning £150,000 in damages plus £2m in legal costs, radio station Jcom in 2008, pro-Israel Guardian hack Hadley Freeman in 2015, who deleted rather than fight, and Twitter – after which its designation of his account as ‘Russian-affiliated state media’ was removed.
As one commenter put it of his interaction with Ben Freeman, Freeman got ‘the Galloway treatment’. Other politicians could learn much from his approach:
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Tweet quoting Webbe on Gaza goes viral
Tens of thousands of shares on post quoting one of UK’s most consistent MPs on Israel’s Gaza genocide
A tweet quoting Leicester East MP Claudia Webbe’s pithy analysis of Gaza has gone viral after it was shared by UK-based, pro-Gaza investigative journalist Sulaiman Ahmed.
Webbe tweeted on 7 Feb:
Israel does not want peace. They want Gaza.
They want to slaughter Palestinians, drive them into the Sinai Egyptian desert and eradicate Palestine.
Yet, our political leaders still refuse to call for an immediate ceasefire.— Claudia Webbe MP (@ClaudiaWebbe) February 7, 2024
Ahmed’s post a couple of weeks later quoting her first sentence was shared thirty-six thousand times and ‘liked’ eighty-two thousand times:
Claudia Webbe is one of the UK’s most consistently solid and outspoken MPs in solidarity with Palestinians and against Israel’s war crimes – at a time when most MPs are either silent or actively endorsing the war criminals – and is routinely foully abused by racists and supporters of genocide for it. She sits as an independent MP and shames the leadership of both main political parties, both of whom are eagerly complicit in Israel’s genocide, refuse to condemn the Israeli regime’s contempt for humanity international law and have avidly propagated discredited Israeli atrocity propaganda used to justify Israel’s slaughter.
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Video: Merseyside Metro Mayor Rotheram refuses to say Israel is committing genocide
Rotheram says he’s come to ‘speak to the community’ – but apparently not to the member of the community asking him to give a simple yes or no answer
Merseyside ‘metro mayor’ Steve Rotheram has been confronted by a local woman who asked for a yes or no answer whether Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian civilians is genocide.
Rotheram squirmed, he obfuscated – but he wouldn’t even give a multi-worded answer, let alone a yes or no one. Nor would he ask the local woman whether she thought it’s genocide, so she can show how simple it is to say.
Instead, he wittered about ‘part of the problem’ and wanting to ‘speak to the community’ while having ‘a private conversation’ (which is it, Steve?):
Video used by courtesy of The Art of Resistance
Keir Starmer’s corrupting influence on the Labour party is seen all too clearly in the actions of many local ‘Labour’ politicians – and Starmer’s war on anyone within the party who dares speak out against the actions of Israel has many party representatives too terrified to do so, in spite of the overwhelming moral need for solidarity with Palestinians and condemnation of Israel’s genocide – yes, genocide. Sadly, it seems like Mayor Rotheram is one of them, despite the massive solidarity among the people of Merseyside with the oppressed and murdered in Gaza and the West Bank.
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BBC CEO signs letter demanding Israel stop murdering journalists in Gaza
36 top mainstream media journalists demand protection for journalists and accountability for their murderers
The CEO of the BBC is among thirty-six leading ‘MSM’ journalists demanding protection for journalists in Gaza and accountability for those who
The belated call comes after five months of Israel’s war crimes against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, including the deliberate targeting of journalists, which have continued despite the International Court of Justice’s orders to Israel to prevent their murder. It also comes as more than fifty journalists have signed a demand for access to Gaza for foreign journalists.
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150 British Jews tell Met top cop: you’re racist assuming we all support Israel
Letter from anti-racist Jews denounces Establishment’s treatment of anti-genocide marches as antisemitic
One hundred and fifty British Jews have written to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley denouncing the police (and government) treatment of marches against Israel’s genocide in Gaza as if they are antisemitic. The letter reads:
We Reject Your Insinuation That The Marches Against Genocide in Gaza Represent a Threat to Jews or the Jewish Community and Suggest that It Is Not the Business of the Police to Intervene in Ongoing Political Debates
We the undersigned, being Jewish, wish to support and join a complaint against the Metropolitan Police, for their racist and anti-Semitic assumption that all Britain’s Jews support Israel’s genocidal attacks on Gaza.
We further believe that the decision of the Metropolitan, Police to delay the starting time of the March Against Genocide in Gaza on 17 Feb. 24 from 12.00 to 1.30 pm ‘to accommodate an event at a synagogue along the route’ is lslamophobic, based as it is on the assumption that the large numbers of Muslims taking part pose a threat to Jews worshipping in congregations nearby.
Your decision to delay the start of the march rested u~on the assumption that there is something inherently anti-Semitic about supporting the Palestinians and that anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism.
The Met’s decision ignores the fact that many thousands of British Jews have already taken part in such marches without feeling threatened in any way. Indeed the march has started from Marble Arch on at least two previous occasions recently without any anti-Semitic incidents.
We are tired of the Police’s racist and anti-Semitic assumption that to be Jewish is to support Zionism and Israel’s racist and genocidal treatment of the Palestinians. There are many thousands of Jews who are active in the Palestine solidarity movement and we resent your assumptions to the contrary.
The letter is signed by:
The letter’s publication comes amid a flurry of racist and Islamophobic comments by government and opposition politicians, with the help of their media allies, aimed at smearing those who object to mass murder as racist – and the arrest of three left-wing protesters in Newham on the nonsensical basis that booing and hissing a supporter of Israel is antisemitic.
The Establishment is determined to suppress free speech against Israel and its war crimes, and to ignore the blatant racism involved in the assumptions it uses to try to justify those attacks. Anti-racist Jews in the UK and the US know better.
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Even BBC admits Israel lied about slaughter of starving Palestinians gathered for aid
Broadcaster’s ‘Verify’ analysis concludes the obvious
Even the BBC – usually the epitome of ‘both-sidesing’ and the minimisation of Palestinian deaths and suffering – has had to conclude that Israel lied when it claimed that it did not slaughter well over a hundred desperate Palestinians and wound as many as a thousand more who were gathered in a street waiting for an aid delivery.
BBC Verify says it “examined social media videos, satellite imagery and IDF drone footage to piece together what we know… about what happened” – and it concluded:
We have examined exclusive Al Jazeera video filmed close to that second location at the rear of the convoy, about half a kilometre south of the roundabout.
Volleys of gunfire can be heard and people are seen scrambling over lorries and ducking behind the vehicles. Red tracer rounds can be seen in the sky.
Mahmoud Awadeyah said the Israeli vehicles had started firing at people when the aid arrived.
“Israelis purposefully fired at the men… they were trying to get near the trucks that had the flour,” he said. “They were fired at directly and prevented people to come near those killed.”
…There have been reports of casualties being taken to several hospitals.
Dr Mohamed Salha, interim hospital manager at al-Awda hospital, where many of the dead and injured were taken, told the BBC: “Al-Awda hospital received around 176 injured people…142 of these cases are bullet injuries and the rest are from the stampede and broken limbs in the upper and lower body parts.
Israel has claimed that a ‘mob’ – otherwise known as desperate civilians starving because of Israel’s blockade of food, water, fuel and medical supplies – stampeded and attacked the aid convoy, but Israel’s own drone footage shows that this did not happen and any ‘stampede’ was caused by the Israeli gun and tank fire, despite the IDF editing out at least three sections of the video that can be taken to show the Israeli troops’ attacks.
A still from the IDF’s drone footage, which shows people gathered but not attacking or stampeding until troops started firing
Israel also contradicted itself, with various spokespeople saying the Israeli soldiers did not fire at all, that they fired ‘warning shots’ and that they ‘only’ shot at the legs of the crowd.
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Video: pensioner among 3 peaceful anti-genocide protesters arrested in Hastings
State repression of civic rights and protection of weapons manufacturers continues to escalate
A pensioner and two other protestors were arrested by police on Thursday 29 February during a peaceful demonstration outside the General Dynamics arms factory in Hastings, East Sussex. The local people were among a broad coalition of community groups that came together to protest against Britain’s role in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The three were arrested and taken to Hastings police station where they were held for nearly fourteen hours before being charged with aggravated trespass and then released on bail. They will appear before magistrates on April 3.
Laurie Holden, 71, a retired train driver from Burwash, was one of those arrested at the demonstration. He said:
It is outrageous that the police are treating us as criminals. We are not the criminals here – we are highlighting the criminal complicity of our government and arms companies in continuing to supply arms to Israel which is in the dock for genocide in Gaza. We will always stand on the side of the people of Palestine.
The Hastings & District Palestine Solidarity Campaign [HDPSC] united with representatives of Jewish groups, trade union bodies, Quakers, climate justice groups, parent groups and political parties to draw attention to the part Hastings is playing in arming Israel.
HDPSC Chair Katy Colley said:
Our brave and principled friends have shown enormous courage in the face of disproportionate and heavy-handed policing of a peaceful, community-led protest.
In January, the International Court of Justice put Israel on trial for genocide in Gaza but since then the slaughter and starvation have worsened. Over 30,000 are dead and thousands more will die if this continues. Yesterday Israeli troops gunned down starving civilians in the north of Gaza as they waited for food – over 100 were killed and 700 injured in the ‘the Flour Massacre’. This latest horror underscores the urgency of stopping all arms sales to Israel. UN experts have warned that any arms transfers to Israel will breach international law and ordered all countries to stop all arms sales immediately.
Our government has refused to halt export licenses to Israel so it is our duty as citizens to stand up for peace, international law and human rights.
We will not stand by as the UK continues to arm this genocide of the Palestinian people. It must end now.’
The protest started at 7am at the Sidney Little Road factory, one of the two General Dynamics sites in Hastings, timed to coincide with workers as they arrived for work. Demonstrators held placards, sung songs for ‘Ceaefire Now’ and handed out leaflets which informed workers of their right to refuse to take part in handling components used in breach of international law.
Israel’s brutal campaign in Gaza has run for five months so far, killing almost 40,000 people and wounding and maiming double that number. The UN is now warning that a quarter of the population is at risk of death from famine and the World Health Organisation has said that more than a million are starving. Protests have been mounted outside arms factories all over the country, including in Kent, Leicester, Bristol, Bournemouth, Glasgow, Cambridge, Brighton, London, Lancashire, Belfast and Monmouthshire, to demand an end to UK’s ongoing complicity and enabling of genocide. This is HDPSC’s fourth protest at General Dynamics’ sites in Hastings since the campaign began.
According to the organisers, almost all of the ‘MK80’ bombs being dropped on Gaza are made by General Dynamics, which is the 5th biggest arms company in the world. The Hastings facilities provide avionic systems for fighter planes and tactical communications equipment for ground vehicles.
At the demo, Leah Levane of Jewish Voice for Labour said that Israel could no longer ‘act with impunity’.
It is shocking that the UK government is granting arms licences to Israel,’ she said. ‘This makes the UK partners in the occupation and the genocide in Gaza. As a Jewish organisation, we are one of several Jewish groups in the UK and the many more across the world who are protesting loud and clear – NOT IN OUR NAME.
Jen Rouse, representing Parents for Future Hastings & St Leonards, said:
We’re here today because as parents we cannot stand by and watch as our government supports a genocide of children.
The thought of our own kids having to live through even a fraction of the terror and trauma that Israel inflicts on Gazan children every day is unbearable. So the only right thing for all UK parents to do is to be here today, demanding an immediate end to the bloodshed. We will never give up until we see a free Palestine.
Simon Hester, Chair of Hastings & District Trades Union Council, added:
Hastings & District Trades Union Council supports the calls for end to all arms sales to Israel and for an immediate ceasefire to end the genocide in Gaza.
We demand that General Dynamics UK stop supplying equipment to the Israeli army or to get out of Hastings. We stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine.
Olivia Cavanagh of Hastings Community of Sanctuary and Hastings Supports Refugees said:
We continue to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the West Bank.
We support an embargo on arms sales from the UK to Israel and stand with the Hastings community to call on the local General Dynamics factories to stop supplying arms to Israel and to act to end the unprecedented killing of Palestinian civilians.’
Yunis Smith from Hastings Green Party said:
Years from now the children of the world will ask what did you do to stop this calamity? I for one hope I will have a good enough answer!
And Chris Goodchild of Hastings Quakers said:
The poor tell us who we are, the prophets who we can be. Yet we kill the poor and kill the prophets. We are all Palestinian and civil disobedience is divine obedience. Stop arming Genocide.
The arrest form part of an escalating campaign of repression and demonisation of peaceful protesters demonstrating against genocide. PM Rishi Sunak, who like ‘opposition’ leader Keir Starmer has constantly backed Israel’s murderous actions, has today smeared demonstrators as divisive and hateful and has threatened to deport those who fall foul of what he considers the limits of acceptable protest.
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