Four UN Special Rapporteurs have written jointly to the UK government demanding explanation of its inappropriate persecution of journalists and political activists under the Terrorism Act. They state that those persecuted:
appear to have no credible connection to “terrorist” or “hostile” activity
The cases taken up by the United Nations are those of Johanna Ross (Ganyukova), John Laughland, Kit Klarenberg, Craig Murray (yes, me), Richard Barnard and Richard Medhurst. The UN letter is signed by:
Ben Saul
Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorismIrene Khan
Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expressionGina Romero
Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of associationAna Brian Nougrères
Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy
Under this UN special procedure, the letter is sent to the government in question which has sixty days to respond. This letter was sent by the UN to Starmer’s government on 4 December. No reply having been received, it has now been published.
It is worth noting that even with the UN letter on its desk and ignored, Starmer’s government in fact stepped up the use of the Terrorism Act against pro-Palestinian journalists and activists in this period. The cases of Asa Winstanley, Sarah Wilkinson and Tony Greenstein, among others, happened after the letter was drafted.
I should be clear that I was, working with Justice for All International (for which we had a crowdfunder last year in relation to the Assange case at the UN), heavily involved in assisting with preparation of this initiative, and made three visits to the UN in Geneva on the subject together with Sharof Azizov, and on one occasion Richard Medhurst. Your subscriptions and donations to this blog are the only funding I have to make such activity possible, so thank you.
The letter is in two parts. The first consists of an outline of the information received by the UN on each case and a request for a response from the British government.
But the second part is a devastating critique of the UK’s terrorism laws and their inappropriate use to stifle dissent and freedom of expression. This legal analysis on lack of conformity with the UK’s human rights obligations is not dependent on any of the particular cases cited.
While we do not wish to prejudge the accuracy of these allegations, we
express our concern regarding the potential misapplication of counter-terrorism laws
against journalists and activists who were critical of the policies and practices of
certain governments, which may unjustifiably interfere with the rights to freedom of
expression and opinion and participation in public life, lead to self-censorship and
have a serious chilling effect on the media, civil society and legitimate political and
public discourse.
We are particularly concerned by the broad scope of section 12(1A) and
schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and schedule 3 of the Counter-Terrorism and
Border Security Act 2019…
We are concerned at the vagueness and overbreadth of the offence in
section 12(1A) of the Terrorism Act 2000, which criminalizes expressing an opinion
or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation and being reckless as to
whether it encouraged support for that organisation…
The term “support” is undefined in the Act and in our view is vague and
overbroad and may unjustifiably criminalize legitimate expression.
…the meaning of expressing support for a
proscribed organization is ambiguous and could capture speech that is neither
necessary nor proportionate to criminalize, including legitimate debates about the de-
proscription of an organization and disagreement with a government’s decision to
proscribe…
We note that there is no requirement that the expression of support relate to
the commission of violent terrorist acts by the organization. As such, the offence may
unjustifiably criminalize the expression of opinion or belief that is not rationally,
proximately or causally related to actual terrorist violence or harms. The offence
further does not require any likelihood that the support will assist the organization in
any way. It goes well beyond the accepted restrictions on freedom of expression under
international law concerning the prohibition of incitement to violence or hate speech…
We note that some proscribed organizations are de facto authorities
performing a diversity of civilian functions, including governance, humanitarian and
medical activities, and provision of social services, public utilities and education.
Expressing support for any of these ordinary civilian activities by the organization
could constitute expressing support for it, no matter how remote such expression is
from support for any violent terrorist acts by the group…
Further, the section 12(1A) offence does not require the person to intend to
encourage others to support the organization…
We are further concerned that the absence of legal certainty may have a
chilling effect on the media, public debate, activism, and the activities of civil society,
in a context where there is a heightened public interest in discussion of the conflict in
the Middle East, including the conduct of the parties and the underlying conditions
conducive to violence in the region. We are further concerned that a person could be
prosecuted for isolated remarks or sentences that mischaracterize the overall position
of the individual, or despite the individual’s intentions or continued and express
disavowal of terrorist violence, given the subjectivity and contested meanings of
certain expressions in relation to sensitive or controversial political conflicts…
We encourage your Excellency’s Government to repeal section 12(1A), or
otherwise to amend it to protect freedom of expression, and to develop prosecutorial
guidelines for its appropriate use to avoid the unnecessary or disproportionate
incrimination of political dissent…
We are concerned that police powers at UK border areas and ports under
schedule 7 may be unjustifiably used against journalists and activists who are critical
of Western foreign policy. We note that the examination of each journalist named in
this communication under schedule 7 was premeditated, and that the examination,
confiscation of devices, and DNA prints were conducted despite the apparent absence
of a credible “terrorist” connection. We are concerned that such powers carry a risk of
intimidating, deterring, and disrupting the ability of journalists to report on topics of
public importance without self-censorship…
We are concerned that the distinction between “examination” and “detention”
under the Act is artificial given the punitive sanctions for of non-compliance, and that
this distinction may be inconsistent with the accepted meaning of “arrest” or
“detention” under article 9 of the ICCPR. We are further concerned that the extensive
powers authorised under section 2 do not require any degree of suspicion that a person
falls within the meaning of “terrorist” at section 40(1)(b). The extreme breadth of
such power enables unnecessary, disproportionate, arbitrary or discriminatory
interference with an individual’s rights, including freedom from arbitrary detention,
freedom of movement under article 12(1) of the ICCPR, and the rights to leave and
enter one’s own country under article 12(2) and (4) of the ICCPR…
we refer your
Excellency’s government to article 17 of the ICCPR which requires that “[n]o one
shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with [their] privacy, family,
home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on [their] honour and reputation”.
We note that several journalists detained under schedule 7 have had their electronic
devices confiscated for a significant period of time and have not been updated on the
use, retention or destruction of their data, or advised in relation to their personal data
protection rights.
We urge your Excellency’s Government to consider the growing number of
instances where schedule 7 may have been inappropriately directed towards
journalists and activists, and to consider addressing this through amendments to the
legislation, guidance for relevant officials, and training of border security officers. We
further encourage your Excellency’s Government to address the judiciary’s concerns
regarding the retention of electronic data
It is a stunning letter well worth reading in full; the legal language and diplomatic formality does not disguise the extreme concern of the UN at the extraordinary authoritarian attack on freedom of speech in the UK.
I might reveal that some of the UN Special Rapporteurs who signed were very sceptical of the issue until studying the details. One told me personally they were too busy to look at such a minor problem; their attitude changed completely when faced with papers on the cases involved.
There is no sign the UN has given the Starmer government pause; human rights are extremely low on their agenda. Support for Israel and the crushing of pro-Palestinian sentiment, or of any criticism of western foreign policy, is extremely high on their agenda.
The legislation concerned has been brought into disrepute by the widespread support in public from Establishment figures for HTS in Syria, even though it remains a proscribed organisation and any expression of support is an offence under the Terrorism Act. To my knowledge, not one person has been charged or even questioned for supporting the HTS coup in Syria.
This occurred after the UN letter, but they could now mention extreme arbitrariness in police and prosecutorial application of the law in their critique. The Terrorism Act is being used to criminalise peaceful criticism of western foreign policy. There can be no doubt about that at all.
It also remains the case that there has not been one reference in UK mainstream media to the persecution of dissident journalists using terrorism laws. I don’t expect the prostitute stenographers to power to change that by covering this censure from the United Nations.
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A persecution ignored not only by ruling-class media, who laud the ‘quintessentially British’ value of free speech, but also by ‘independent’ respectable left gatekeepers like Owen Jones and Novara.
Conversely, the media is this week celebrating the great coup by MI6 Rory and unrepentant Alastair in landing a podcast interview/ hagiography with the Lion of Idlib, ISIS decapitator al-Jolani.
To be fair to Owen Jones, despite his past failures regarding Israel and the antisemitism scam, which myself and many others castigated him for, he has apparently had his eyes opened since the start of the genocide and his reporting on Gaza has been excellent and as such he deserves recognition and praise.
Owen Jones’s heart may well be in the right place, but what has his journalism achieved?
Jones would be of no use if he was no longer accepted as the gatekeeper of the left. He needed to be allowed to worm his way back somehow and the Gaza genocide provided the perfect opportunity. It seems to have worked like a charm, even though his non-personing of Craig, Asa, Richard, etc, shows he hasn’t changed a sod.
Owen also remains very much a zionist. He has not backed down one iota from asserting the “right” of a western settler colony to exist in Palestine. Anybody who asserts otherwise is deemed to be outside the gate of respectability, as were those who questioned the Labour AS ‘crisis’ he suddenly invented when Corbyn became leader.
Novara I have no time for. Fake leftists.
There’s no free speech in Britain for those who want to criticise the regime, as the owner of this blog can well attest given that he was jailed for a piece he posted here.
Dunno whether you live in Britain, but neither the authorities nor the chatterers and scribblers in this country have ever made a big thing here of “free speech” or said that it’s a fundamental national value. There’s nothing like the First Amendment to the US constitution – as made into a theme in numerous Hollywood films – which was passed by slaveowners in 1791, at a time when in many states it was UNLAWFUL for a slave to learn to read and write, and for anyone to teach them. In some states it was unlawful to teach any black person to read and write, even if they were free. Penalties included whipping, and if a slave was caught writing there was a penalty of having their index finger chopped off.
In other words, “free speech” was always a lie.
Everything the ruling class says is sh*t. I doubt Owen Jones will make that point on Substack or Twitter or in one of his books though.
The suppression of free speech in approved enemy nations has always been one of the biggest flags the British media wave in their Wonderfulness of Us agenda.
Free speech, like voting, is just a sop for the masses to maintain the illusion of democratic Britain.
The way western democracy works is: you do as your told, we do as we like. Simples.
There’s plenty of free speech in Britain for people who want to criticise the government, Brian: e.g. The British government is shit – there you go, I’ve just done it, and I very much doubt whether I and/or this blog will face any legal sanctions. Our host was jailed for contempt of court for defying a court order, and then refusing to remove the offending blogposts & tweets, even though, by that time, 99% of people who were ever going to read them would have already done so.
Even a cursory reading of the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution reveals that it doesn’t guarantee free speech for US citizens. Rather, it states that *Congress* is not allowed to pass laws that abridge free speech, the freedom of the press etc; it mentions nothing about state legislatures. The US Supreme Court determined in ‘Gitlow v. NY’ that the 1st Amendment did apply to the states but, as with so much of what that court has ruled on, this was unconstitutional nonsense based on an incorrect reading of the 14th Amendment.
(NOTE TO THE MODS: I take it that, having had my own free speech on this site curtailed for a month for inadvertently ruffling a few of our host’s feathers late last year, I’m now allowed back. A belated Happy New Year to everyone.)
—
[ Mod: Your exile has indeed lapsed, LA. Welcome back. ]
There’s reportedly some provision for free speech in the English 1688 Bill of Rights. This was brought in following the tyrannical behaviour of the previous monarch, James II. However the document’s so old that it devotes space to various anti-Catholic sentiments … clearly a bit out-of-date now (!) although there are still restrictions on the monarch.
The impression is that power trumps law anyway. The UK ‘deep state’ (or ‘establishment’ as Tony Benn called it) has grabbed powers steadily all my lifetime, whether they formerly belonged to local government or to parliament. The judiciary both here and in the USA is deeply political, even if it dare not admit so.
BBC, Al Jazeera, and the Guardian are all referring to Trump as having a “plan” of a “takeover” of Gaza by the USA, and Reuters are even referring to Palestinians’ “departure”. None of them are calling the roundup of 2.2 million people and the expulsion of survivors to camps in foreign countries as what they are.
Such a roundup and expulsion could only be effected by a mixture of large-scale violence and the use of control over food and water, and would constitute an obvious crime against humanity.
I knew there was some f***ing reason NATO had set up shop in Jordan.
If anyone is so foolish as to believe the line that the USA’s NATO allies “reject” the US “plan”, they might like to ask why none of them oppose the said NATO presence.
Those who were so concerned with Hillary’s emails and Hunter’s laptop may like to try to understand why Netanyahu and his backers in New York put the fascist Trump back into office.
Trump is only saying what Netanyahu ordered him to say.
What with Trump’s reference to “1.5 million” people, it seems they’re going by a figure of 0.7m to be slaughtered.
Those who enjoy middle-class discourse may wish to talk about the “envelope” being pushed, or perhaps the “Overton window” being shifted.
All talk of a “plan” that is being “rejected by Arab powers” is a pretence that this is some kind of normal move in the diplomatic world.
If this goes ahead, it will be impossible to have any respect whatsoever for any regime in the world that retains normal diplomatic relations with the USA.
The only respectable reporting by a mainstream national outlet I have seen is by PressTV in Iran:
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/02/06/742277/Iran-strongly-rejects-United-States-plan-ownership-Gaza-Israel-war-genocide
“Iran has unequivocally condemned a so-called “plan” by the US to force Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, calling it an extension of the Israeli regime’s broader scheme to erase the Palestinian identity.
“The plan to cleanse Gaza and forcibly displace the Palestinian people [from there] is an extension of Israel’s calculated agenda to wipe out the Palestinian nation,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Wednesday.“
The reason 19 million of Biden’s 2020 voters stayed home in November wasn’t Hillary’s emails or Hunter’s laptop, now was it? (Only 5 million of them switched to Trump). No, the reason they stayed home was because they couldn’t in good conscience vote for people who had murdered tens of thousands of Palestinians and destroyed 90% of Gaza’s infrastructure. Even if they had known Trump wanted to expel the remaining Palestinians from Gaza, they knew that was also Blinken’s plan!
And Israel doubles down, Palestinians should be expelled and the harshest critics of the genocide should take them.
The GALL of these people.
Israel unveils plans for Gaza deportations (LIVE UPDATES)
The Israeli government has unveiled plans to remove Palestinians from Gaza and force countries in Europe that have been critical of West Jerusalem’s controversial war against Hamas to take in refugees from the enclave.
https://swentr.site/news/612268-israel-gaza-relocation-plans/
This is also another proof how similar zionism and is with nazism: some hundred years ago world talked about the “jewish question”: where to expel the jews and now Israel go on and commit to the same disgraceful practice.
The Madagascar Plan (German: Madagaskarplan) was a plan proposed by the Nazi German government to forcibly relocate the Jewish population of Europe to the island of Madagascar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_Plan
..adding to that, one also wonder if it was Israel/lobby that came up with this grand ethnic cleansing idea but since they knew it was a controverisal move they “tested” the idea to the public “through” Trump. Suddenly the criticism is against Trump, not Israel that is (most likely) the ultimate actor behind this new scheme.
It’s not a new plan or an Israeli one forced on Trump. Blinken was trying to cajol Sisi into taking the Gazans from the moment the genocide started. He dressed it up in humanitarian language but the effect for the Gazans would have been the same.
An inconvenient truth that can’t be whitewashed away.
Yes, a longstanding plan.
‘Trump’s proposal to remove the Arabs from Palestine to Saudi Arabia repeats the scheme of President Franklin Roosevelt of February 1945. ..
Roosevelt had already announced in the US: “Palestine should be for the Jews and no Arabs should be in it.” ‘
https://johnhelmer.net/trump-the-genocidalist-attacks-on-the-northern-front/
“The legislation concerned has been brought into disrepute by the widespread support in public from Establishment figures for HTS in Syria, even though it remains a proscribed organisation and any expression of support is an offence under the Terrorism Act. To my knowledge, not one person has been charged or even questioned for supporting the HTS coup in Syria.”
Yes the above – with regards to the lack of prosecutions is absolutely staggering – a quick search online finds that several EU countries have sent delegates, including the EU to meet with the proscribed terrorist outfit (HTS) in Syria.
The flip side of this coin with the UK in mind, is that expressing any sort of support for say Hamas or Hezbollah – might lead to you being frog marched from your homes, into a police van and then charged for supporting a proscribed body – alternatively, expressing support for the utterly oppressed Palestinian people in Britain via demos – might lead to you being filmed by the police, then, kettled by the police, then arrested – but not before you’ve been roughly manhandled by them.
I’m utterly shocked and disgusted at the Wests (though not all Western countries support it) support of the genocide in Gaza – I know its unlikely to happen,, but the likes of Scholz, von der Leyen, Starmer, Biden and many more leaders and military-men/women – should one day, be standing in the dock at the Hague for aiding and abetting in genocide.
The world has gone mad – or should I say the West, has gone mad.
I think it was Chomsky who said, or something to that effect, that if the Nuremberg trail standards were applied post-WWII (and they should be) every POTUS, since WWI – would’ve been standing in the dock at the Hague – as would most of the USA’s allied leaders.
Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart were hailed this week for a celebratory interview with al-Jolani on their podcast.
I’ve written to my MP. This won’t do. The international reputation of the head of the Commonwealth with its values is at stake!
Joel/MJ
I think Craig outed Stewart as Mi6 – Stewart was a governor general of a region of Iraq, after the illegal invasion of it – Stewart even penned a book – on his time as the overlord of the occupied region, the book is called – Prince of the Marshes.
If the British imperial state fails to achieve its objectives through deploying terrorism legislation against journalists and locking up peaceful protesters, what is their next move? Should we expect an ongoing multi-spectrum escalation in the Establishment’s Forever War against Nature and the General Public? Are there parts of the British Empire where journalists are already being persecuted by means beyond these UK cases?
I watched part of the White House press conference by Netanyahu and his lap dog Trump. The thing that struck me most strongly was the Netanyahu Smirk. I have never before seen one registering such a level of sneering contempt.
One wonders if one could get an AI enabled assassination drone to use the the SMIRK to home in on this noxious individual. It has to be the most identifiable contemptuous facial expression of any member of species homo sapiens ever. Yahoo is not just a run of the mill serial killer, he is a Hitler Level mass murderer given that the population of Gaza used to be 2.3 million but now only 1.8 million need to be expelled. Anyone who takes up the offer of temporary relocation will knows that it is a Nakba event, there will be no right of return.
Carlyle Moulton.
Netanyahu presented Trump, with a gold pager on his jaunt to the USA – Trump said to Netanyahu that that operation was brilliantly carried out or words to that effect – the pager gift was, if you don’t know, a nod to blowing up of pagers, by Mossad, that people were carrying around – in which people later died of their injuries – due the pagers which had explosives added to them, exploding – when detonated by the Zionists.
How many Palestinians expelled from their homes by Zionist terror have ever been allowed to return?
Netanyahu smirks as his pet does a prepared trick. And to think, just a small while ago there were those bullsh*t reports that Steve Witkoff had told Netanyahu (who BTW doesn’t keep kosher) that he was the one calling the shots and he didn’t care whether it was the Sabbath or not. That was an obvious lie at the time.
No US government person has ever told Israel what to do.[1] No US government person would ever dare. They’d be out of office within hours, and quite possibly under arrest or dead – and I wouldn’t fancy the chances of their spouse, parents, and children either.
Can we please hold a funeral for the idiotic belief that Israel is a tool of the USA. No doubt some of its adherents were sincere. Everyone gets some stuff wrong. But now, sorry, there’s no excuse for keeping to a belief that is being shown ever more clearly to be false.
Note
1) Although it may possibly be that JFK flirted with the idea of forcing Zionist organisations to abide seriously by the Foreign Agents Registration Act – and look what happened to him.
The more I think about this, the more I think the crime against humanity committed by Zionist-armed Azerbaijan against the population of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023 – about 100,000 Christian Armenians were expelled – may have been preparation for the coming nakba in Gaza.
It also makes a complete nonsense of analyses of the region that are based on Sunni versus Shia.
Where TF are Russia and China, the only grownups and non-NATO permanent members of the UNSC.
“Evidence disclosed at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal last year showed that over a four-month period in 2011, more than 4,000 phone calls and text messages were monitored by the Met for the PSNI”, Birney told the committee.
“Basically, a UK police force was spying on the state broadcaster, the BBC, and its journalists, and sharing that unlawful surveillance data with at least two other UK police forces,” he added.”
Journalists Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey told MPs on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee that the PSNI had unlawfully captured data from McCaffrey’s phone on multiple occasions.
PSNI officers also unlawfully seized computer equipment and phones from the journalists’ homes and office.
Birney and McCaffrey were unlawfully arrested in 2018 after they produced a documentary film, “No stone Unturned”, exposing police collusion in the paramilitary murder of six innocent Catholics.
https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366618778/Met-Police-spied-on-BBC-journalists-phone-data-for-PSNI-MPs-told
More hot air from the, compromised, UN. They have no power. Israel has gotten away with murder for nearly eighty years. Assange was locked up for 13 years. Guantanamo Bay still operates. The UK and USA governments treat the UN like their court jester, they have no morals or shame. Sorry, Mr Murray but I don’t think this letter will make any f***g difference.
Stevie Boy
Its a step in the right direction – but much more needs to be done.
“In a major breakthrough in the fight for justice for Palestinian people, the Brussels Parliament has passed a resolution to formally recognize the acts committed by the Israeli military in Gaza as genocide and call for sanctions against the occupying regime.
The March 30 Movement, which has long advocated for the Palestinian cause, stated that the historic step was adopted on February 3.
This comes as the movement’s electoral initiative during the 2024 campaign, Viva Palestina, focused on one key demand: for the Brussels Parliament to officially recognize the genocide in Gaza and take concrete action.
Throughout the campaign, Viva Palestina engaged extensively in debates with political parties, applied pressure to push them to take a stance, and mobilized public opinion.
With the resolution adopted at the commission level, the March 30 Movement urged all Belgian parties to vote in its favor in the plenary session, ensuring that Brussels continues to lead by example in the fight for justice and human rights.
It noted that “recognition of Gaza genocide is not only a moral and political victory, but also a powerful statement from the capital of Europe — one that will hopefully inspire other legislative bodies to follow suit.””
This as well Stevie Boy.
This is a good idea, however if its left solely up to von der Leyen to decide on it, then I’m afraid she’ll strike it down – for we all know she’s a US/Israeli puppet.
“More than 160 human rights organizations, trade unions and civil society groups have called on the European Union to ban trade and business with illegal Israeli settlements built in the occupied Palestinian territories.
In a letter addressed to President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday, the groups stated that it is “essential” for the EU and its member states to comply with their obligations under international law, and halt Europe’s support for the illegal colonial settlements and their underlying abuses.
Among the NGOs, trade unions and civil society organizations are ActionAid, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, al-Haq, Caritas Europa, Child Rights International Network (CRIN), Defense for Children International, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Olof Palmes Internationella Center, Oxfam and Pax Christi.
They pointed to last year’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion on Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, stressing that all states have “the obligation … to abstain from entering into economic or trade dealings with Israel concerning the [OPT] or parts thereof which may entrench its unlawful presence in the territory.”
“The EU’s current policy of distinguishing between goods produced in Israel and those produced in settlements falls short of these obligations. While this differentiation denies preferential trade terms for settlement goods, it still allows such goods to enter the EU market,” the letter read.”
An example, of von der Leyen acting alone and without consent.
“EU member states are growing frustrated with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen over her unilateral approach to foreign policy, Politico reported on Wednesday, citing diplomats. The latest criticism reportedly comes after von der Leyen announced a partnership agreement with Jordan.
The deal was inked last week following talks between von der Leyen and King Abdullah II. It aims to assist Jordan in facing the socio-economic impact of the Syrian crisis and broaden avenues for investments and business opportunities in the Arab country. The deal will be complemented by €3 billion ($3.1 billion) in financial resources, comprising grants, investments, and macro-financial assistance.
However, according to two sources who spoke to Politico, von der Leyen made the decision to allocate the funds to Jordan without consulting EU member nations.””
Small steps maybe RoS but, Whilst these bastards in suits talk, talk, talk, people are dying in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen. This is ‘the reality on the ground’ that Israel openly talks about.
The terrorists’ so-called “defence” minister, Israel Katz, has been reported by British government media as follows:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjexp347yxlo
“Israel’s defence minister has told its military to prepare a plan to ‘allow any resident of Gaza who wishes to leave to do so’, in line with President Donald Trump’s proposal for the US to take over the territory and resettle its 2.1 million Palestinians elsewhere.
Israel Katz said Gazans should have ‘freedom of movement and migration’ and countries critical of Israel’s war with Hamas were ‘obligated’ to take them in.”
Read that again for full effect. The head of the Zionist terrorists’ war ministry has said that people whom the British state calls “Gazans” should have “freedom of movement” – as he tells the army to prepare for … something.
So…it’s about “freedom”, right? This is surely one of the most lyingly-described genocides of all time.
You can just feel it that to make sure everyone licks Israeli army boots, Netanyahu will within not too long a space of time visit London, Paris, and Berlin.
As reported in today’s Irish Times:
https://archive.is/IiBvS/again?url=https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2025/02/06/palestinians-must-be-allowed-return-home-and-israeli-comments-about-ireland-a-distraction-harris/
Mr Katz said countries who have opposed Israel’s military operations in Gaza should take in the Palestinians.
“Countries like Spain, Ireland, Norway, and others, which have levelled accusations and false claims against Israel over its actions in Gaza, are legally obligated to allow any Gaza resident to enter their territories,” he said.
Legally obligated, huh? Please explain.
Dear Mr.Katz, go f*** yourself.
“In response to the comments of Israel’s Defence Minister, a spokesperson for the Tánaiste said: “The priority for Ireland and the international community must remain on ensuring the sustainability of the ceasefire, the release of the hostages, a significant surge in humanitarian aid, the rebuilding of Gaza, and a political process that delivers a two-state solution. The objective must be that the people of Palestine return safely to their home and any comments to the contrary are unhelpful and a source of distraction.”
Another Irish TD (MP) who isn’t part of government said:
“We should very clearly now be working with European partners to remove Israel from the trade agreement they have with the EU. It is only through consequence that these tyrannical regimes will step back.”
Other such sentiments expressed in the archived link above.
In my opinion Ireland isn’t doing enough and is trying to be too diplomatic (because US multi-nationals in Ireland). Long past time to shout out condemnation.
The last two weeks have been filled with lunacy across the Atlantic. But the latest news, that Trump plans to get rid of half the CIA plus half the FBI (or something like that) makes me wonder: is Trump not merely losing his marbles (which is possible) but also a traitor, deliberately destroying his country and leaving it vulnerable, so that looking after “America first” or MAGA is precisely what he is _not_ doing.
Question 1: Who would benefit?
Question 2: What, if anything, can be done to prevent the destruction of American democracy?
It’s good to get a summary of concerns from potentially neutral UN professionals. It’s really concerning if ‘support’ is so loosely and indirectly defined. So if I were to say that I met some Kurdish people in the mountains in Turkey who were armed with rifles and wore Ocalan badges, and they seemed like good people ready to protect local communities, I’d risk being prosecuted?
They’re very diplomatic , crouching their accusations in terms of these legislative powers “… carry a risk of intimidating, deterring, ….” etc., as if that were not the entire aim of them, and the government were caught unaware of same!
We now have governments in the West that are little different to those I have heard criticised my entire life.
Despite the fact that the Palestinian people ought to be in charge of Gaza, the fact is that the trillions of dollars of gas underneath the enclave, will never be allowed to belong to them. Emperor Trump may be intent on bequeathing the beachfront prime real estate to his daughter for her kingdom, and the weapons embargo has been lifted with the delivery of massive JCB bulldozers, but if the IDF is in charge of persuading the Palestinians to leave, when there is nowhere safe or free for them to go to, then I am saying again:
We need an international coalition of kind and welcoming diaspora communities willing and able to offer choice and safe passage for the refugees to survive and start afresh
The kindertransport was an international cooperative venture to save Jewish children from the Nazis and settle them in free countries. International cooperation is needed now. Right now. Before it is on all our consciences that we didn’t make it happen in time