No major western leader is ever again going to be able to speak about human rights or ethical values, without attracting howls of derision. They are turning on their own people in order to prevent protest at a genocide they actively support.
Keir Starmer stepped up the pressure on opponents of Zionist genocide on Thursday with the arrest of journalist Sarah Wilkinson and the charging of activist Richard Barnard, both under the draconian Section 12 of the Terrorism Act which carries a sentence of up to 14 years in prison.
The UK MSM has of course ignored these, but is universally carrying outrage at the conviction of two Hong Kong activists for sedition, which carries a maximum sentence of … 2 years.
But they tell us it is China and not the UK which is the authoritarian dictatorship.
(To be plain, I do view the Hong Kong convictions as also an unwarranted interference with free speech. I merely point out the incredible hypocrisy of the British Establishment and far worse laws here).
Richard Barnard has been charged and will face trial, apparently related to public speeches supporting the Palestinian right to armed resistance.
Sarah Wilkinson was released on bail after about 14 hours. Like the recent arrest and bailing of Richard Medhurst, the arrest and bailing is a device to chill her reporting and activism.
The harassment of dissident journalists at ports, using the extensive powers of the Terrorism Act for questioning and confiscation of communications equipment, has become routine. I myself suffered detention, interrogation and confiscation of equipment for “terrorism” last October.
But the Sarah Wilkinson case is an escalation, in that this is a raid on a journalist whose home was invaded by 16 policemen at 7.30am, while she was arrested and taken to the police station as her home was comprehensively turned over, presumably looking for gunmen under the bed.
More details of the raid have come out which are scarcely believable. Armed counter-terrorism police wearing balaclavas were used against a peaceful, female journalist. She was manhandled and physically hurt. The ashes in her mother’s funerary urn were desecrated in a “search”. And Sarah’s bail conditions include that she may not use a computer or mobile telephone.
It is a fascist government that sends 16 police to bust a peaceful journalist at home at 7.30am.
Like the stopping of Richard Medhurst’s plane on the tarmac by police vehicles and his being dragged from the plane (which had just landed and was en route to the gate anyway) this is an authoritarian theatre of intimidation, a Nazi stamping of the violence of the state.
Richard Barnard is a co-founder of the brilliant Palestine Action, which has done so much to disrupt the Israeli arms industry in the UK as it continues to send vital equipment to carry out the mass destruction of civilians in Gaza.
BREAKING: After a targeted campaign by the zionist lobby, Palestine Action's co-founder Richard Barnard is facing three charges for two speeches.
He is accused of supporting a proscribed organisation under the Terrorism Act and encouraging 'criminal activity'. pic.twitter.com/cWq0qwk15v
— Palestine Action (@Pal_action) August 29, 2024
Richard has been charged under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act over two speeches he made supporting the Palestinian resistance.
I have of course said this before, but it bears repeating:
Palestine has the legitimate right of self-defence against the illegal occupation.
The occupying power Israel has no right of self-defence. That is the plain position in international law.
Yet in the UK, it is legal to offer full-throated support to Israel’s genocide and to wish that all Palestinians are exterminated.
IDF participants in genocide happily move between Israel and the UK with no legal consequences.
Yet it is illegal to support certain Palestinian organisations when engaged in legal acts of armed resistance.
The state’s actions against activists have been ramped up – as I predicted – since Starmer came to power.
Five young activists in Glasgow were ten days ago given sentences ranging from 12 months to 24 months in prison for direct action against Thales weapons plant in Govan, which makes parts for Israel’s Watchkeeper drones, widely used against civilians in Gaza.
The sentences from Sheriff Judge McCormick were savage – far higher than would normally be given on the specified charges, which were of breach of the peace, vandalism, disorderly conduct and acting in an abusive manner.
These normally would attract at most a suspended sentence on a first offence. McCormick also ignored the Scottish government guidelines not to give custodial sentences of 24 months or less but to seek alternatives.
More tellingly, McCormick completely ignored the elephant in the room: the genocide in Gaza, which Thales are supplying.
(The fact the action occurred before the genocide should be properly viewed as a commendable act of prescience.)
The Zionist Starmerite Establishment were quick to crow over the jailing – notably Luke Akehurst and John Woodcock (who is laughably called Lord Walney nowadays and is the Government Adviser on political violence) who said “Activists considering breaking the law to get their way need to see there will be consequences”.
This follows similarly harsh sentencing of climate change activists, including those who merely took part in Zoom calls discussing direct action.
The authoritarian reaction of the threatened Zionist ruling class is a worldwide phenomenon. Redoubtable Australian journalist Mary Kostakidis has been ludicrously charged under hate speech laws for retweeting mainstream pro-Palestinian tweets.
American activist Professor Danny Shaw was turned over by the FBI on return to the USA following a trip which included speaking on a panel alongside me at the Palestine International Film Festival.
Also in the United States my friend Scott Ritter has been raided by the FBI and all his electronics and other materials confiscated.
I have spoken to Danny Shaw and to Richard Medhurst. In all of these arrests and detentions, including my own, the emphasis has been on confiscating electronics and on questioning focusing very strongly on contacts, meetings and sources of finance.
The Five Eyes intelligence services are plainly building up Venn diagrams of the democratic opposition to Zionism and the neoliberal project. It is notable that many of those recently arrested over Palestine – including Mary Kostakidis, Richard Medhurst, Scott Ritter and myself – were active in the campaign to free Julian Assange.
I have always maintained that Keir Starmer’s record shows that he will be an even bigger danger to civil liberties than the Tories. It is worth noting that all of the Tory recent draconian legislation – The Public Order Act, The National Security Act and even the Rwanda Act – was not opposed or was supported by Starmer as the pretend “Leader of the Opposition”.
Starmer and Cooper are continuing the Tory policy of challenging a High Court ruling won by Liberty, that Suella Braverman acted illegally in tabling secondary legislation lowering the threshold to ban a demonstration on grounds of inconvenience to the public.
The forthcoming Online Safety Act will be truly chilling, including making it illegal to publish what the government deems misinformation.
Starmer has always been MI5-controlled. The fact that, while a Tory government was in power, the Crown Prosecution Service destroyed all the key documentation revealing Starmer’s involvement in the Assange, Savile and Janner cases (the last being far more important than generally appreciated), shows the extent to which Starmer is a protected Deep State asset.
If we are to survive this descent onto fascism as a society, we need to be prepared to dissent now, and each of us needs to be prepared to go to jail if necessary.
A last word to Craig Mokhiber, the senior UN international lawyer who resigned in protest at UN pusillanimity in face of genocide:
A dark evil has descended over the West. As the genocide in Palestine continues, the US, UK, Germany & other Western governments, instead of cracking down on those committing, aiding and inciting the genocide, are cracking down on those opposing the genocide. Human rights…
— Craig Mokhiber (@CraigMokhiber) August 31, 2024
The blog is in something of a financial crisis. Over half of subscriptions are now “suspended” by PayPal, which normally happens when your registered credit or debit card expires. The large majority of those whose accounts are “suspended” seem to have no idea it has happened. This is different from “cancellation” which is deliberate.
Please check if your subscription is still active. There is in fact no way to reactivate – you have to make a new subscription with a new card if your card expired.
The bank standing order method works very well for those who do not want to use PayPal.
————————————————
Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:
Hello Craig. The recent prosecutions are terrifying me. All best wishes to you, and thank you for all your good work.
I can’t wait for the Empire to be defeated
I can’t wait for the Occupier to be evicted
I can’t wait for the Malware to be deleted
I can’t wait for Liberation to be completed
If all you do is wait for them, they will never happen.
The Trojan Enemy Within in the Harry Lime Spotlight
Seek and ye shall find, JohnnyOh45 and Townsman, for more than is just future needed and presently missing is always readily available to export and import if you know who/what to contact and where to visit.
And it is only a matter of a surprisingly short passage of time in a vast horde of new spaces and array of new places before one is led to witness ….. well, brave new worlds, but not as you were expecting them, nor as they were planned by past and/or current recognised executive bodies to be delivered and administered.
There will of course be. and most definitely so for any and all of those fundamental, radically needed type changes, quite natural but extremely unusual “growing pains”, some of which many may have had previous experience of before.
And here be some latest news and many an appealing comment from readers on what could easily be classed as the official/unofficial opposition well suited and booted to be recognised and designated a pariah and enemy combatant ……. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/icc-informs-mongolia-it-must-arrest-putin-when-he-arrives …… and they are not named Putin.
Johnny you are not alone in your hope but unfortunately the Fascists need to be fought verbally and ultimately physically (as they want us to!) as they deploy their narratives and now SS/Gestapo techniques against those who see them for what they are.
Many avoid the reality, including the various dystopian gaslighting ‘leftists’ and ‘woke’ and green social justice warrior puppets here – who wittingly or worse dumbly dance to the global corporate fascists tunes. They who insisted that a change from Tory to new NuLabourInc was Hope, Change… whatever copium they believed and sold to keep the peoples eyes away from the rising fascism in the Collective Waste.
It was always a fantasy of Mr Smith Going to Washington variety. The only option we had at that was a Corbynite government. But that wasn’t ‘allowed’ by the Deepstate apparatchiks and I don’t doubt it would have been couped if it somehow actually got in. Which it didn’t due to vote manipulations.
How much more money has Herr Starmztrooper ‘found’ to spend already in our warmaking ukraine misadventure inherited from Bozo and co and in supplying armaments and military support to the illegal Apartheid Entity that is bombing into genocide, dozens of new Palestinian Guernicas daily?
There will only be one form of possible effective protest in the short term, in parliament. That is if enough Labour MP’s who aren’t part of the cabal refuse to endorse the party line and protest by not voting for it. By creating the only real Opposition in Parliament , destroying the majority, forcing the uniparty to show its true self, by supporting the Labour policies rejected by Labour MP’s.
They who will lose the Whip and be forced to become Independent Labour.
It is when they start being arrested and jailed will the people finally sense the abyss we are about to be forced into like the the mass graves of the Nazis/Banderists when they were let loose last century. Amongst many such genocides.
A civil war starting in Parliament and massive grassroots protests in the streets , marches, invasion of London … is the only peaceful way forward now.
They wish us to have violent riots , that is how THEY had always planned to impose chains, slavery and poverty upon us the Many for control over all of humanity for the FEW. The shapeshifters long planned quest.
Unfortunately the subdued by the religion of football and Narrative propagandising mass media, the blinkered Masses will happily suffer more, including sending their kids and grandkids to fight and die for fascist wars – only when they return in bodybags will they finally wake up.
In the meantime it is worth requiring and linking to this comment by the hat seems to be a genuine voice :
‘ @KimDotcom
Aug 31
The deep state tyrants justified mass surveillance, facial recognition, total control over mass media, censorship and the criminalization of free speech as necessary to make you safer.
Take a look at the world today.
Do you feel any safer?
Aug 31, 2024 · 1:03 PM UTC’
newsflash the fossil fuel corporations ARE global corporate fascists. the war machine runs on oil. stop shilling for the mega corporations that supply it.
Yes you are right, they are now old parts of the global fascist Anglo European imperialism. The latter day EIC’e, The Seven Sisters and co. They are also the ones stealing other people’s oil and other natural resources. By war as the WoT amongst many previous conflicts were. And who do you suppose funds the limited hangout XR/StopOil/GND agenda 2030 WEF?
They are the dying unipolar empire – the majority of the multipolar are NOT.
Time to update Cardinal Richelieu’s famous quotation : If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which to have him… arrested under Section 12.
A few other prescient quotations:
“All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”
“Free speech is unthinkable. All other kinds of freedom are permitted. You are free to be a drunkard, an idler, a coward, a backbiter, a fornicator; but you are not free to think for yourself.”
“If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face,”
The last quote is clearly applicable to the BBC.
The official line is that the suffering in Gaza is simply too graphic to be shown. But if half the footage being highlighted on X/twitter, was shown, the UK govt would be forced to change its position overnight, by the weight of public opinion, expressed in outrage.
I don’t remember such inhibitions when the BBC showed Syrian, Ghouta victims of chemical weapons, almost on a loop, back when the govt was trying to win public support for Syrian military intervention.
The BBC is little more than a propaganda arm of govt.
Great Post Craig.. And Yet the People Sleep.. Under cover cops took my name at a Palestine protest in Greenock. Sick Evil Establishment..And As Clark Says – Terrifying
Anyone that cares about human rights, social justice and equality, even basic fairness and due process, Starmer’s Labour are your enemy. They have not wasted any time in confirming that.
Don’t forget Herr Starmer worked for the Tories as Chief Prosecutor and head of the Crown Prosecution Service during the initial persecution of Assange and made multiple trips to the USA to discuss the case with the NSA/CIA. And many MPs of all colours have taken paid for trips to the zionist nirvana.
So, this highlights that it is not just labour, it is the uni-party. That includes: Tories, Labour, Lib Dems, Reform, Greens, SNP, etc. A sad, sorry, bunch of mindless lickspittles in the pay of and under the control of TPTB.
The real question is who are TPTB who are ultimately running this shitshow ? USA, Israel, UK, WEF, … !!
Things in the UK are going to get much worse, politically and economically. Will the masses rise ?
Mandelson and Blair must be puppeting him because he is in way over his head. That imo makes him even more dangerous because he is incredibly arrogant, thin skinned and resentful, completely intolerant of criticism except from the hard Right. Kamala Harris is a similarly incapable and dishonest mediocrity, being puppeted by Obama and the Clintons, but I think Starmer is naturally nastier, his warmongering and fascist authoritarianism are instinctual, genuine and fanatical. I think both are capable of pushing us into anything just to demonstrate their toughness.
The warmongering is being conducted in breathtaking ignorance of the realities on the ground and Russia’s responses. Zelensky is busy pushing the West to authorize the use of their long-range missiles to attack targets up to 300km inside Russia under the pretence that the Russians will accept this as a legitimate Ukrainian war effort. It isn’t and they won’t. They will see this as the use of NATO weapons backed by NATO staff, a NATO attack on Russia. The gloves will come off. Western governments and media are repeating the lie that Russia is on its knees. Nothing could be further from the truth. UK politicians believe they can take on Russia and win. They are militarily illiterate and drinking their own Kool aide. Russia has already used one Zircon hypersonic missile to pulverize a Ukrainian weapons storage facility 150 metres underground. The impact speed was 15 times the speed of sound. Western aircraft carriers are defenceless against these. The entire Western political leadership consists of deluded neoliberal morons who believe they can conduct wars with major war powers and control their own people by nothing more than PR bluster. Dangerous, dangerous fools.
https://alexkrainer.substack.com/p/why-hypersonic-weapons-change-everything
– “The real question is who are TPTB who are ultimately running this shitshow ?”
Mammon. Capital itself runs it; that’s why it’s called capitalism. There is no pilot. The so-called ‘elite’ are merely wealth and power addicts, and as with all addicts, their behaviour is determined by their addiction. This becomes easier to believe when you accept accelerating climate catastrophe and biosphere degradation; the final outcome is no better for ‘them’ than for ‘us’. There’s no plot, no plan – because ultimately there is no sanity behind it.
Agreed
– “…accelerating climate catastrophe and biosphere degradation”
Sorry; I left out resource depletion.
The problem is domination itself; the often subconscious urge to dominate. Dominate the Palestinians, dominate Russia, dominate x, y, z… “Do better” than thy neighbour, dominate nature, dominate outer space, colonise Mars…
Domination wasn’t such a problem when humans were just typical, relatively puny animals – farmers long “struggled against nature”, wiping out ‘pests’ – but technology has been changing that faster and faster. Ultimately, humans are dependent upon nature; we’re part of it, and a pretty minor part. We’re sawing off the branch we’re standing on:
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2023/10/context-is-king/
Well Said Clark
..It’s heart breaking when you think one’s young grandchildren. And Now Russia issuing outright warning to the West..Their Patience is Gone
Brianfujisan
What is the warning (to which you refer) by Russia to the West?
Thanks.
Hello Brian, it’s always good to see your comments here. May peace be in your heart in these terrible times.
We tend to interpret as conspiracy what is simply people of the overclass acting in what they perceive as their unenlightened self interest.
There is a concept called enlightened self interest but if it exists it is rare.
Clark what do you make of these two quotes from over a hundred years ago
”Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”
The New Freedom(1913) – Woodrow Wilson
“ Society, is governed by 300 individuals who know one another, an odious oligarchy, arrogant in its wealth, exercising both secret and open influence, which is trailed by a decaying middle-class…[endeavoring] to save itself from being pushed down into the proletariat,” all the while “the real proletariat…, stands silent beneath ; a nation by itself, a dark sea.”
In Days to Come(1916) – Walter Rathenau
Rathenau was the genius who handled resource allocation in WW1 for Germany and is one of the main reasons why Imperial Germany was such a potent foe in that war. He was also the head of AEG, one of the mightiest industrial combines in Europe. His turn to socialism and awareness of the plight of the poor lay behind his assassination several years later, ostensibly because he signed the Treaty of Rapallo with the Soviet Union
It would seem elementary that this “300” or Wilson’s “Organised Power” has metastasized into a close to global phenomenon. If that makes me a “conspiracy theorist” so be it – I stand with Rathenau and Wilson on this one
Isn’t it odd, and perhaps a little disturbing, that in a nation that is supposedly a parliamentary democracy, nearly 70 million people are ruled by a clique for whom one-fifth of the electorate voted? (And then, no doubt, mostly out of habit).
No one likes them, yet they are our masters.
Maybe totalitarian dictatorship would be better…
Actually, some “totalitarian dictatorships” are more democratic than the UK.
In China, for example, there’s only one political party, and it has to approve all candidates for the local “people’s congresses”. But there have to be more candidates than seats, and the voters do get to choose among the approved candidates. It’s almost as though the Tory Party had to propose 2 candidates for a safe seat like Newark, for example, and the voters got to choose between them. What actually happens is that Conservative Campaign Headquarters picks just one candidate for Newark, and the election is a formality. Conservative Campaign Headquarters, not the electorate, picks the MP.
Similarly in most safe Labour seats the people are never, ever going to vote Tory. They’ll vote Labour whether it’s for Michael Foot’s Labour or Tony Blair’s Labour, and the fact that Blair’s politics were diametrically opposed to Foot’s was irrelevant. So the MP isn’t chosen by the electorate, but by the National Executive of the Labour Party.
It’s not quite as stark as that, because constituency parties do have some say. But the voters have none.
Unbelievable. It is like western governments are completely in the hands of the israeli government. Western governments arrest their own citizens for speaking out against Israel, knowing full well these political activists are only using their right to freedom of speech and not being some violent, terrorist type of people! Meanwhile, people are free to publicly call for Gaza to be razed to the ground, people are free to hail, support and give money to IDF for their large scale terrorist killing of civilians but if someone as much as justify, according to law, that Palestinian groups have the actual legal right to attack, kill israeli occupying soldiers, oh no, that is “support for terrorism”, GTFO.
And where is everyone!? Where is civil rights organisations? Freedom of speech organisations? Human rights organisations!? Why are they suddenly silent when crackdown occur, not in Russia, Iran etc but right in the western midst, in their own societies!?
People in the west need the help of the non-western world here, every time someone is arrested in lets say Russia, Hongkong, Iran, Venezuela etc the western media/politicians unite and put the spotlight on these invidivudals/nations, BRICS etc should call out and give support to individuals now being hunted and arrested by the west, if anything to put west to shame and prove how little west care for human rights.
15 parliamentary candidates at the last election accepted funding from pro-Israel lobby groups before they were even elected to Parliament. There’s more information on the Declassified UK website:
https://www.declassifieduk.org/israel-lobby-funded-15-new-mps-before-election/
To be clear, I see no problem at all with the British Jewish community being well represented in Parliament; Brits of all religions should be represented in the House of Commons. But these people aren’t representing British Jews – they’re representing Israel.
It’s getting out of hand isn’t it. I was watching Professor Falk, International law, Princeton summarise liberal democracy as an ideological facade for corporate capitalism on the one hand and a militarised state on the other. Sounds shyte. Europeans must be the biggest hotheads ever, warring for the last 1000 years with hardly a let up and probably the next 1000. I think the Peace of Westphalia after the 30years war was signed because there actually wasnt a single man alive to go to war because they’d all been killed. They are just as nuts now. and if the State had any sense they should round all politicians up and send them off to the funny farm.
He was interviewed here by Schiller Institute, (most of SI on Ukraine’s kill list, mates with Ray Mcgovern etc) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPD-f9O4CgI&t=15s
I’m interested whether House of Lords Bishops have stepped up and challenged. Unlikely I suppose, but I think I’m going to ask them, see if they have. Isnt liberal democracy a 19th century idea? Previous to this time there was a concept for Trinitarian politics, neither outright capitalist nor communist. Slightly churchy view. Any info on this readers would be welcome, however boggy.
Cheers Craig and everybody, you’re a courageous man, thanks for the info.
This is a fucking mess.
How can it be that among the hundreds of mainstream journalists who did once have or still do – somewhere hidden in their inner closet – ideals – do not put this catastrophe onto the daily agenda. Don´t tell me they honestly do not know what all of this truly means. That I don´t believe.
People and lawyers above all should be protesting.
Of course this is true in Germany as much (German police loves to raid peoples´ homes).
On the subject of freedom of art, and how it shall be confined by confirming Israeli policies:
a short interview:
“»A form of mind control«
Under the guise of “protecting Jewish life”: draft resolution aims to link funding for art and science to positive opinions about Israel. A conversation with Andreas Engelmann ”
https://archive.is/wj0as
Andreas Engelmann is a lawyer and federal secretary of the Association of Democratic Lawyers (VDJ)
“Don´t tell me they honestly do not know what all of this truly means. That I don´t believe.”
You’re forgetting you defended Matt Taibbi’s 9-month silence on the genocide when I showed you this back in June:
https://x.com/PostLeftWatch/status/1801130033643413865
Are you no longer excusing him?
fonso
I don´t think I ever exused him.
None of us agrees with Taibbi that there is not enough info out there to damn Israel.
However it´s his decision what he says not ours.
Freedom of speech includes the right to not say anything.
And that I would grant him any time. Even if I were revolting over that.
And there is a huge difference between argueing “I am too unsure to give an opinion” and justifying genocide as the mass media do by spreading racism and lies. None of which he does. He is a sceptic.
I however do think he uses it as an excuse to push the topic aside so he can focus on what he has been doing most of his life, covering domestic US-uniparty politics.
Besides I still think there is a public position he take and one he keeps to himself for various reasons.
And then we have this Chris Hedge issue: what is Hedges teling Taibbi in private? Does Taibbi NOT believe Hedges if he tells him about Gaza mass murder??? Do they not talk about that?
I don´t know.
Of course I don´t know if there are topics where they possibly disagree despite massive evidence in the open public? May be he only believes things he has himself checked.
I do not think Hedges would praise Taibbi´s journalistic integrity were it not genuine.
And I also pointed out that one can learn from one person about one subject even though that same person voices opinions about something different where one completely disagrees – to justify my quoting Taibbi on other topics.
Thanks for the video snippet. I was curious about this issue anyway. Since I´d like to know how that part of the conversation goes on I will try to watch the entire, which I hope is this here:
https://sabbysabs.substack.com/p/matt-taibbi-breaks-his-silence-on
Individual humans have a limited capacity to do things. Matt Taibbi has his priorities maybe he does not intend to spend effort on things that are not high on his list.
Taibbi’s USP is fearless, adversarial journalist. He has said less about the genocide in a year than you could write about it in 20 seconds.
Wow I had missed that clip, that was a weird response by Taibbi, sounds like he is about to cry and/or had a gun to his head. Any clue why Taibbi have taken this odd “position”?
I always thought that Taibbi was an arabic name but…
My father is Filipino and Hawaiian. My mother is Irish. These are heavily Jewish cultures, so I understand your confusion.
https://x.com/mtaibbi/status/635470583883542528
I think it is because he relies on rightwing Zionist Trump supporters for his substack income.
German mainstream politicians are cowards.
They are terrified that if they take a harsher line on Israel, accusations will follow – obviously from Israel, but also the US – that they are at a minimum anti-Semitic, and at worse, secret Nazi sympathisers.
Chief among these cowards is Ursula von der Leyen, and that’s deeply problematic for everyone in Europe. She wants Europe to be inseparable from the US on foreign policy. But in the process, she and Borrell have become akin to US Ambassadors to Europe. Both Jordan and Egypt have recently received hundreds of millions of Euros, no conditions attached, as if the EU is buying their acquiescence for what Israel’s doing while keeping a lid on their own angry, restless populations.
Looking at today’s election results, that view appears to be that of the German public too.
With the AfD the big winners and Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) making an impressive debut.
Maybe we could do with the Jeremy Corbyn Alliance – Reason and Justice.
As Voltaire observed, “Il est dangereux d’avoir raison dans des choses où des hommes accrédités ont tort”. (“It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong”).
John Kenneth Galbraith elucidated further, “In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone”.
Curiously, these sad facts have become even more undeniable since the Enlightenment. Very few humans value truth or honesty highly enough to take the slightest risk for their sakes. And every year it seems that fewer humans recognise any objective standard of morality.
Hopefully they will have a good defence. But better to be careful about making statements that mention banned organisations by name.
No.
Freedom of speech is a vital right that we should fight for.
The total prison capacity of England, Wales, and Scotland is less than 100,000, most of which (about 98%) is already full. If even 0.1% of the British population defied the law on this, the authorities would be unable to do much about it. They can’t put ten thousand more people in prison, there just isn’t room in the prisons.
Freedom of speech is the bedrock of ALL freedoms. And it is indivisible. Allow exceptions – whether “shouting fire in a crowded theatre” or “for the sake of the children” – and you admit the thin end of a wedge so big that it will end up pushing you right out of your life.
The UK, unlike the US, doesn’t have the equivalent of a First Amendment. Freedom of speech in the UK is therefore restricted in comparison with the US, so that people in the UK cannot speak as freely about named banned organisations as they can in the US. Libel laws are also stricter on the Eastern side of the pond.
This may strengthen the case both for a written Constitution in the UK and the role of Citizens’ Assemblies as a tool of government and more equitable power-sharing.
Not to mention moving some activism to other countries, if circumstances permit.
When students in the USA protested about Gaza they were teargassed and clubbed and the President called them anti semites.
That is true but there is a key difference.
In the US, they cannot be successfully prosecuted through the courts for expressing an opinion.
In the UK, you can be successfully prosecuted, and imprisoned, for expressing an opinion. Moreover, which opinions may not be legally expressed is entirely at the whim of Parliament.
In the UK you do not even have to be charged with an offence to be punished by Parliament. “The rule of law” means almost nothing in the UK, because Parliament can change the law in any way it wants. (google for: peter hitchens graham phillips.)
The USA is no model to anybody on freedom of speech if you get beaten and gassed and likened to a Nazi, by the President, merely for objecting to genocide.
Another good article, thank you.
I wonder how long it will be before one of these ‘security’ theatrical performances turns tragic. A bunch of armed goons, doubtless all pumped up with itchy trigger fingers and dying to put their Special Training to good use… and British people who aren’t used to seeing guns being waved around the place, and perhaps not reacting in the correct manner. They – peaceful citizens – haven’t had the Special Training, and might not know what to do when suddenly faced with a group of masked gunmen all shouting incomprehensible orders simultaneously.
What happens when someone dies as a result? A regrettable loss, of couse, but all part of the price of Freedom & Democracy ™. Then agan, it will make others think twice about such dangerous practices as having opinions the government doesn’t like.
Remember “V is for Vendetta”? We watched a bunch of armed goons smash into the home of someone sitting alone, unarmed on her sofa, waving their guns with laser sights around, before hauling her off. I wonder how many of our politicians watched that and thought – oh yes, let’s have some of that! I would love to be running a country like that!
glenn there is a similar scene, or several such in “Brazil”(1985) made by Terry Gilliam, of Monty Python fame. The film shows a totalitarian future where the State uses violence and data processing to rule
The SWAT team come through the ceiling. It is over very quickly, with the suspect immobilised, hooded and maybe gagged in a few seconds, whilst watching TV with his wife
“Arresting Officer: This is your receipt for your husband… and this is my receipt for your receipt.”
Ah yes Will, I remember that – excellent film.
It’s all very well having armed police carry on like that in America, where so many people are crazy and armed to the teeth. Quite another in relatively civilised countries. Particularly when they know with absolute certainty such an invasion is completely unnecessary.
It’s nothing but the state demonstrating its power, and being utterly unashamed of the blatant in-your-face use of it. Remember they had tanks rolling around Heathrow Airport, thinking that would actually impress anyone?
– “The film shows a totalitarian future where the State uses violence and data processing to rule”
Torture. The most prestigious, best paid department that everyone wants to work in is called “Information Retrieval”. That is where the suspect is taken, and tortured to death, for which his wife is sent the bill. No malice involved; everyone is just doing their job. The film is prescient.
Gilliam renounced US citizenship:
– “I became terrified that I was going to be a full-time, bomb-throwing terrorist if I stayed [in the U.S.] because it was the beginning of really bad times in America. […] And I got more and more angry and I just felt, I’ve got to get out of here—I’m a better cartoonist than I am a bomb maker. That’s why so much of the U.S. is still standing.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20191007185528/https://believermag.com/an-interview-with-terry-gilliam/
I guess he’d now best get out of the UK.
As I recall Clark, Michael Palin played the torturer.
His role contains elements of real world antithesis as many of the best roles do in film
He plays himself – an upper class English guy who’s attended a prestigious university, deeply educated but in this world he is a mega-sadist
I have previously contrasted the three images of Palin in my minds eye – the Python Palin, the Brazil Palin and the travelogue Palin -he’s got a good range lol!
Here he is in”Ripping Yarns” turning the last of that old imperial ethos into bathos.
He made this show for BBC2 after Python but before his roles in Gilliam’s films. I think it ran for a couple of series.
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=dtzhTE4T4_8
(I have had some issues with “Brazil” artistically as I have with Gilliam generally) –
However, if I remember correctly, remarkably the entire 3rd Act or so turns out to be a fantasy only by Pryce.
He only makes up the escape while in fact being tortured. So it´s not a happy-ending.
p.s. I don´t want to ruin the movie for you guys but be aware it was produced by Arnon Milchan.
p.p.s. the dominating score piece “Brazil” which gave the movie its name is using the melody of the eponymous song aka “Aquarela do Brasil” from the 1930s I think, which is a funny coincidence with X banned in Brazil now.
WARNING: SPOILER ABOVE
Not new I know, but bears repeating:
https://theintercept.com/2015/08/07/psychologists-work-gchq-deception-unit-inflames-debate-among-peers/
‘JTRIG’s operations have been referred to as “dirty tricks,” and Dhami’s paper notes that the unit’s own staff characterize their work using “terms such as ‘discredit,’ promote ‘distrust,’ ‘dissuade,’ ‘deceive,’ ‘disrupt,’ ‘delay,’ ‘deny,’ ‘denigrate/degrade,’ and ‘deter.’” The unit’s targets go beyond terrorists and foreign militaries and include groups considered “domestic extremist[s],” criminals, online “hacktivists,” and even “entire countries.”…
how JTRIG can improve its approach and attain desired outcomes, for example, by applying theories and research around persuasive communication, compliance, obedience, conformity, and the creation of trust and distrust’
It shows the grip – the Zionists have on the Scottish judicial system, when the current government, the SNP – have let out over 500 prisoners, whose sentences were not completed – due to overcrowding in the prison system – yet these protestors, were sent to prison.
It would appear that prominent bloggers, journalists etc – are being targeted by Western security forces – in individual countries, in order to if not, shut them up, at the very least make it more difficult for them to report information on the genocide, by all but stealing their communications equipment – such as mobile phones – laptops – tablets etc.
The West’s so called freedom and democracy mask has slipped – and underneath, its an ugly sight – as it hassles – and prosecutes anyone – who questions their open support for the genocide in Gaza; as you rightly point out – how can anyone take any Western politician seriously again – on the matter of human rights – knowing the part they’ve played (most keeping quiet on the genocide in Gaza – or supporting the Zionists) in aiding and abetting the Zionists.
Time I think, for prominent voices such as yourself – to move out of harms way, by leaving the UK for awhile at least – to somewhere where you can still actively speak, and report, on the Zionists geocide in Gaza.
I am not sure if “western pluralist democracy” has ever really existed. But the current political situation certainly seems to echo !930s Germany with one political party under the leadership of one man (Hitler an Austrian had only recently assumed actual German citizenship, Starmer elected as MP only 2015 with no Labour Party history) able to seize virtually absolute power on a vote supported by a mere third of the electorate.
We certainly had one heck of a lot more freedom from 1946 to about 2005 than we have today.
A purist can quibble; but I’d gladly settle for the freedom we had when we demonstrated against, for example, apartheid in South Africa, which Nelson Mandela himself later said had some impact.
Even more important than the oppressive legislation (not just the laws mentioned by Craig, but also the abolition of traditional safeguards like the right to remain silent, and freedom from double jeopardy) is the covert sabotage of public discourse (see the post by Sparticus, above).
And when did it become a thing for the prosecution to appeal against a sentence they think is “too lenient”?
To those who are a bit confused by all of this geopolitical mayhem, perhaps I can offer an insight that may help you see some connections.
Masons (Freemasons) and Zionists are the same.
When I came to Spain in 1996 I found an Enciclopedia Universal Illustrada (copyright 1928) which included information about all 33 degrees of the Scottish Rite.
It’s ALL about Solomons Temple.
Zionism is not about Israel. Zionism is about Jerusalem.
And so is the Scottish Rite.
To moderators, can’t we avoid the cliched conspiracy theories on here, and focus on Craig’s post? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judeo-Masonic_conspiracy_theory
few comments would be left
There is a comment above by Will Moon
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/09/the-end-of-western-pluralist-democracy/comment-page-1/#comment-1067274
I wish he had placed that comment here below my own.
This has been going on for a very long time.
As for s.
The world no longer fears your badjacketing as “conspiracy theory”. In fact we welcome that label.
People have started to notice that what first is nominated “conspiracy theory”, then turns out to be factually true.
What you are trying to do here is identical to what western leaders are trying to do to social media.
So thank you for your supporting facts. 🙂
I agree completely with you Craig. I’ve been saying for years that Starmer is the most dangerous man in Britain and if he became MP, be prepared for fascism. You have hit the head in the nail here with:
“If we are to survive this descent onto fascism as a society, we need to be prepared to dissent now, and each of us needs to be prepared to go to jail if necessary.”
We have been forced into sacrifice rather than just empathy. Scary times ahead, but I suppose this is what the last stand looks like:
https://ayauk.substack.com/p/the-uk-wont-stop-arms-sales-to-israel
https://ayauk.substack.com/p/crying-its-a-war-crime-is-the-most
A good Interview from Afshin
WAR ON FREE SPEECH: Matt Taibbi on Telegram Founder Pavel Durov’s Arrest, US Government Censorship
https://rumble.com/v5cykd1-war-on-free-speech-matt-taibbi-on-telegram-founder-pavel-durovs-arrest-us-g.html
that was good, thanks
Here he is in June explaining why he’s said nothing about the zionist genocide.
https://x.com/PostLeftWatch/status/1801130033643413865
In some ways the UK charges & suppression are worse, given that most protesters here are at least mostly genuine.
Whereas “pro-western” ones abroad truly are astroturf sedationists or outright terrorists.
The dissenters that are “anti-regime” without being slavishly on board with Western geopolitical interests etc, just don’t get TV or print time. Regardless of their fate.
Which is a true litmus test, for how genuine their “democratic” or “popular” cause really is.
Herer we go again Craig.
The Scottish National Party (SNP) is reeling from a fresh scandal as police launch a new investigation connected to former First Minister Alex Salmond. It comes just over a year after Nicolaa [sic] Sturgeon was arrested in an ongoing invesitgationi [sic] nto the party’s finances.
The new investigation, dubbed Operation Broadcroft, centres on the handling of sexual misconduct allegations against Alex Salmond, the former First Minister and SNP leader.
An investigation into James Hynd https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c23lz2z38j9o
“Police are investigating whether a senior civil servant gave a false statement under oath to the Alex Salmond inquiry, a court has heard.”
Inconceivable that a senior civil servant would lie!
/s
What’s that famous quote about realising who really is in control by seeing who you cannot criticise..?
it’s a quote from Kevin Alfred Strom, not sure the mods want that sort of stuff posted on here
As I recall the Terrorism Act (or whatever it was called) once upon a time had to be renewed annually by Parliament.
When did it become “standing law”?
I quoted this before:
In the 1971 ruling of SCOTUS in NYT v. USA (i.e. the Pentagon Papers), Justice Black said:
“(…)
The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.
(…)
[W]e are asked to hold that … the Executive Branch, the Congress, and the Judiciary can make laws … abridging the freedom of the press in the name of ‘national security.’ … To find that the President has ‘inherent power’ to halt the publication of news … would wipe out the First Amendment and destroy the fundamental liberty and security of the very people the Government hopes to make ‘secure.’ … The word ‘security’ is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment.
(…)”
The Washington Post principle stat(ed): Print any news which are true and of relevance.
And now Supremce Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s “(…)remarks in Murthy vs. Missouri are some of the most chilling ever to be uttered in the court(…)” on the First Amendment where she states latter is “hamstringing the government” (1min.):
https://x.com/kylenabecker/status/1828674837843210722
The key point of difference is what dissidents in the West are being repressed for: protesting an unending mass slaughter and starvation of civilians, mostly women and children.
Western politicians and journalists and their admirers are even now still waving as a flag the stifling of dissidence in non-subservient countries. But dissidents there are not protesting the complicity of their governments and media in a pitiless genocide.
How can the West’s political-media class and its supporters point the finger at repression in approved enemy countries when their own states are repressing citizens for protesting the most sadistic crimes imaginable?
Craig,
You & your acolytes continually refer to Israel’s pursuit of murdering terrorists as “Genocide”.
If it is, then it is the first genocide in history to be paused to allow the mass vaccination of children against polio.
Please start using the term “Genocide” where it should properly be applied; namely against the many Iranian-backed terror groups whose declared aim is to eliminate Israel and in some cases to “Kill ALL Jews”.
TRUTHSEEKER
Genocide does not mean you have to hunt down every individual of a certain race and kill them. The definition of genocide starts way earlier. Not sure why you would praise a regime that have killed closer to 20000 children. Israel wants a pause and try to cover it by “polio vaccinations”. Stop buying their lies.
There are some 10000 jews inside Iran that have time and time again rejected accusations that they are harassed etc. There also countless of jewish praying centers inside Iran:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_synagogues_in_Iran
Not to mention the iranian parliament have a reserved seat for jewish interests:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Parliament_religious_minority_reserved_seats
Jews are respected religious within religious circles in shia-Islam.
For being a “truthseeker” you have long way to go obviously..
You’re conflating Jews and Israel. A common trick of zionists.
Genocide is the correct term. One could use the term holocaust but that has been trademarked.
The elimination of Israel, in its current form, is inevitable and will be a good thing for humanity.
– “You’re conflating Jews and Israel. A common trick of zionists.”
Are you a Zionist, Stevie Boy? Because you conflate Jews and Israel just down the page; the comment I described as offensive.
Truthseeker
Iranian so-called “terror groups” have not called for “killing all Jews”. That is untrue. There is a Jewish minority in Iran, which lives peacefully and unmolested. That could not be the case, if your claimed genocidal intent existed. It’s only hasbara spin, in order to be able to make fake claims.
Disappearance of the state of Israel is a perfectly legitimate demand, the disappearance of a foreign ethno-colony in the Middle East and its replacement by a single democratic entity.
They only want to vaccinate because they fear polio is going to spread to Tel Aviv.
vaccinations are motivated by concerns that the polio would spread to israel, not consideration for Palestinian children.
Never forget that Starmer, this “protected Deep State asset” was promoted to a senior position in the Labour Party shadow cabinet by the then-leader of the Labour Party, one Jeremy Corbyn, who was seemingly incapable of recognising the class status of a knight of the realm and ex-leader of the DPP, whose ” involvement in the Assange, Savile and Janner cases” was public knowledge. It should be noted that when Corbyn was leader of the Labour Party he never once mentioned Palestine or Assange in parliament, presumably for fear of upsetting his Blairite opponents who eventually organised his demise.
God, you lot are out in force today. I guess the school holidays are over. Oh well, shalom.
Stevie Boy, I find your comment offensive.
That’s your right, we don’t all agree on everything.
I’m certainly not interested in defending, or being nice to zionists or their apologists.
I’m objecting to your bigotry, not asking you to be nice.
100% this, Malcolm.
Corbyn was a traditional old school socialist, leading a nest of Blairite vipers. Members who put their trust in him, begged him to show a fraction of the ruthlessness being deployed against him by his plotting adversaries. And he shunned those pleas for an easier ride from the PLP. He only had to do one thing; namely, introduce ‘open selection’ – akin to primaries in the US. The huge membership, some 580,000, would’ve cleaned out the stables of most of his enemies, cleanly and democratically. As much as I like the man, he majorly fucked up.
The latest rumours are that Stamer wants to remove members’ say in future leadership contests altogether. This, after already raising the threshold of MPs needed to trigger a contest.
Israel – Massive protest and general strike:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/1/israelis-protest-union-calls-strike-after-six-more-captives-killed-in-gaza
But there, as here, the government try to suppress the will of the people:
– “But Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has asked the country’s Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to submit an urgent request to courts to block the planned nationwide strike. In his letter, Smotrich argued that a strike had no legal basis since it aimed to improperly influence significant policy decisions of politicians on issues related to state security.”
The nice zionists opposing big baddy Netanyahu.
And another offensive comment. You have no idea of all the diverse motivations of the individual Israelis opposing Israel’s government. Many of them will have been born there, and presumably have no other citizenship. Nearly all of those will have been forced to do national military service, with all the brutalisation and dehumanisation that entails.
Without more peace in your heart you can only add fuel to the fire.
Anthony, I feel I must qualify my above remark. It is hard to keep peace in our hearts while such horrors escalate. But we must do so, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. It is taking its toll upon me.
i see little opposition in Israel to genocide, just going by public statements, and much enthusiasm for it. so I think it is reasonable to recognize that state of affairs. you didn’t see this from the Israeli public when the IDF was slaughtering uncounted (literally) thousands of Palestinians. I also don’t see any reason to believe the IDF when they say Hamas killed them.
I too see much enthusiasm for genocide, but you’re overlooking the opposition. B’Tselem. Breaking the Silence. The refusals to fly missions. Some very conscientious journalists. Alyson’s comment below: “400,000 in Tel Aviv had marched to say Not in My Name”. There is opposition in Israel, and they will likely be in those protests.
Israel is an apartheid, settler-colonial project, so the opposition is in the minority. But that means the opposition deserves more recognition and support, not less, and certainly not denial. What if you were among a conscientious minority outnumbered by racists? Would you consider it reasonable to be dismissed and denied?
Protests in Israel against their elected Extremist government were initially halted by October 7th events which brought Israelis together as fearful of enemies close at hand. 400,000 in Tel Aviv had marched to say Not in My Name, and had been shocked that their police had been rough with them, on their peaceful protest. Israelis are frightened, and if they knew what their government is doing in Gaza, they would be even more frightened. But they are fed a narrative that makes all their actions justifiable Defence.
The heartbreaking genocide of Palestinian civilians is hidden from them, hence the targeting of bloggers, independent journalists, Jewish writers of truth, and the hostages as well, for fear they may say they were not mistreated, and that they lived with families who shared with them what they had, as one early liberated hostage actually said. The deaths of the hostages are still more victims of this ethnic cleansing of Palestine by the government, with support from the capitalists who want control of resources.
Israelis want the war to stop, for the attacks in the West Bank to stop. But Smotrich has changed laws to remove more rights from Arabs living in Israel, and to authorise violent theft and eviction. A General Election is needed there, as in Ukraine, where Zelensky is holding to the same venture towards Russia, with the same financial backers.
Western Democracy is under threat by the dominating elite and a lot of very advanced weaponry is at their disposal. Detente and agreements not to use the stuff would be a good idea.
Israelis have been bombarded with tiktok videos from their brave soldiers in Gaza performing degenerate acts. There have been no expressions of horror or disgust that you can point to. On the contrary, polls show the vast majority of the Israeli public (65%) are enraged that soldiers who gang rape prisoners may be sanctioned.
exactly. the outrage is all on behalf of the death of the hostages. 6 hostages outweigh well over 100,000 dead Palestinians.
Those protests are not about against the war itself, which a majority of israelis indeed support, rather they criticise Netanyahu for being too weak, feeble, slow. In a way the israeli population is even more extremist than Netanyahu himself.
Back in may some 34% of israelis clamed that the war had “not gone far enough”:
PewResearch May poll 2024:
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/05/30/israeli-views-of-the-israel-hamas-war/
Let’s get behind the march.
LONDON NATIONAL MARCH FOR GAZA SEPT 7TH
Thanks. I intend to be there.
Well, there’s obviously (in the UK) such a thing as Designated Terrorism, of which you are guilty simply because the UK government says you are guilty. In this sense, Hamas are terrorists.
Then there’s obviously real terrorism, which is deliberately and lethally attacking non-combattants to serve your own political or military ends, in which sense the Israeli government and military are terrorists and the UK government are supportive of terrorists.
I have to make a moral choice. Whom do I condemn?
Sir Keir is a deeply humane and moral man. We know this because he says he is shocked to his core by the death of 6 Israeli hostages.
Yeah, thats right enough, no kidding: Sir Keir’s morality and sense of humanity really do plumb the depths. He’s an ethical bottom-feeder.
He should be a highly humane and moral man instead. He probably thinks he is already, but that’s coz his moral compass is upside down.
Starmer is a Corrupt Unethical Neo-Thatcherite.
“Sir Keir is a deeply humane and moral man.”
Anthony.
Good to see you have a sense of humour.
Terms missing from our political vocabulary:-
State terrorism;
State terrorist;
Terror State.
Without the necessary terms one cannot talk let alone think about certain issues.
Starmer is a fascist no doubt about it. I’ve often wondered if his appearance is managed to evoke Oswald Moseley, the greasy short back and sides, for example.
I think that governments do these things out of fear rather than for the protection of the people. Because they work on behalf of the rich and powerful (some know it – some don’t) then the protection of the people they work for is the aim of censorship of any kind.
Liberal Democracy isn’t just dying on its feet it is being deliberately destroyed by alleged Liberals.
I genuinely think that the wiser rich and powerful people know what’s to come – not necessarily revolution but revolt in its different forms in different countries. For some they will yet again work alongside the Fascists in order to keep their ill-gotten gains.
Starmer has no idea what’s going on, but he is not alone in the West.
The trouble for the West is that there is more to the world than just the so called ‘Civilised’ Democracies.
The wiser capitalists know this – the politicians don’t.
Civilised domestically maybe.
But in their indifference to the appalling, uneven, disproportionate monopoly on violence Israel has and is inflicting – made all the worse by western backing – they are showing themselves to be nothing but uncivilised brutes. People who’d sanction mass murder and sleep soundly in their beds.
When you’ve seen what Israel is doing, you can’t unsee it, and it proves humanity hasn’t moved on much from medieval times.
Going further back than that, Netanyahu even talks about how his soldiers need to remember the Amalek – a reference to the Biblical people of Amalek, whom the Israelites viewed as their sworn enemy. Netanyahu’s clear incitements to the IDF to commit genocide were raised at the ICJ; we’re talking about the mass slaughter of women and children – his message was widely interpreted as a call to slay them all.
No Lawyer but if I’ve understood the ICJ report the bit about “whole or in part” vis genocide is interesting.
The “part” has already occurred in Gaza, and is continuing.
Who interprets what the difference is between ‘whole’ and ‘part’, and how much is enough for a full Genocide?
The German government took up that early on as to how many deaths constitutes a genocide, as they historically know how to commit Genocide.
It is obvious that the ‘part’ is done – whether that is post-“Plausible”, I don’t know.