Jonathan Cook
Jonathan Cook Blog

Britain’s authoritarian new prime minister is expanding the scope of already draconian laws to redefine his critics as ‘supporters’ of terrorism

The arrest yesterday of Palestine solidarity activist Sarah Wilkinson, following the arrest of journalist Richard Medhurst last week – both based on an improbable claim they have violated Section 12 of the Terrorism Act – is definitive proof that Keir Starmer’s authoritarian purges of the Labour left are being rolled out against critics on a nationwide basis.

Now safely ensconced in No 10, Starmer can crush the basic rights of British citizens with as much relish as he earlier pummelled the remnants of democracy inside the Labour party – and for much the same reason.

The British prime minister is determined to terrorise into silence critics highlighting his, and now his government’s, complicity with Israel and its genocide in Gaza.

Starmer would rather dramatically expand the scope of already draconian “counter-terrorism” laws than act against the wishes of the United States, either by stopping arms sales to a fascist Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu or by joining South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

There, judges have already ruled that the slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinians over the past 11 months is a “plausible genocide”. The next step is for South Africa and the many states backing it to persuade the World Court that the genocide is proven beyond doubt.

The usual Israel lobby ghouls, such as David Collier, have been salivating over Wilkinson’s arrest. She faces up to 14 years in jail for supposedly “supporting” a proscribed organisation – namely, Hamas.

Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic

Zionism — The term Zionism is derived from the word Zion that in the Hebrew language and cultural-historical tradition of the Jews refers to the citadel (acropolis) of the city of Jerusalem as well as to the Kingdom of Heaven. From the matter of politics, Zionism refers to the political-national movement of the European Jews in the very late 19th century for the very purpose to re-create a Jewish homeland in the form of a nation-state in the Middle East – Israel.[i]

This Zionist movement was to a great extent expressed as a consequence of the European (mostly West European) anti-Semitic (better to say anti-Judaic) sentiments and politics that the (West) European Jews were experiencing for centuries.[ii] Zionism as a political-national movement was formally initiated by Theodor Herzl (1860−1904) at the World’s Zionist Conference in Basle (Switzerland) or the First World’s Zionist Congress held from August 29 to 31st, 1897 attended by 208 delegates and 26 representatives of the press.[iii]

Th. Herzl was born in Budapest. He was an assimilated Jew who became a journalist in Vienna and was the Paris correspondent of the newspaper Neue Freie Presse in 1891−1895. The Dreyfus Affair which started in December 1894 found his interest in anti-Semitism and how to solve the Jewish Question. He published the book in German Der Judenstaat in 1896 in which he claimed that the creation of the Jewish nation-state in Palestine can be the only effective response to centuries of European anti-Semitism. He devoted the rest of his life to the propagation and realization of this idea and for that purpose, he established the World’s Zionist Organization (the WZO), which was convened at the First World’s Zionist Congress in Switzerland in 1897.

From the end of the 19th century onward, (basically after 1897) there have been organized attempts to persuade the European Jews to emigrate to the Land of Israel or known as Palestine. However, it was not at first unquestioned that the Jewish nation-state had to be in Palestine exactly.

Yanis Varoufakis

Defenders of Israel’s bombing and invasion of Gaza have challenged me to offer a ‘chapter-and-verse’ list of war crimes that Israel has committed since the Hamas Offensive of 7th October.

Here is an indicative, but not exhaustive, list. There is no doubt: Israel is investing in war crimes to effect its recapture and ethnic cleansing of Gaza while, at the same time, practising similar tactics in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court – Genocide

Article 6(c): Deliberately inflicting on a group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

   ● Imposition of a complete siege of the Gaza Strip, totally depriving Gazans of electricity, food and fuel, and tightening even more the existing 16-year-old blockade thereof.[1]

Article 25(3)(c): For the purpose of facilitating the commission of such a crime, aids, abets or otherwise assists in its commission or its attempted commission, including providing the means for its commission

   ● Israel purchases 10,000 riffles for Israeli settlers[2]

Article 25(3)(e): Directly and publicly Incites others to commit genocide

   ● “We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly” (Israel’s Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant)[3]

War crimes – Grave breaches of the Wilful killings of the 1949 Geneva Conventions

PCHR.org

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) warns against the rapid deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, especially after Israeli officials’ statements to broaden the scope of attacks and their calls upon thousands of residents across the Gaza Strip to evacuate their houses amid airstrikes targeting residential towers and civilian houses.

UNRWA has declared receipt of 20,000 persons in 44 of its schools across the Gaza Strip, except Khan Yunis. According to UNRWA, only 28 schools have been equipped to be used as shelters in emergencies while the rest 16 have not. Meanwhile, three UNRWA schools sustained partial damage due to the Israeli airstrike. As a result of the ongoing aggression, UNRWA has announced that the distribution of foodstuffs is on hold until further notice.

PCHR condemns the Israeli collective punishment policy and inhumane and illegal reprisals against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip following the decision of the Israeli Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, Yisrael Katz, to stop electricity supplies to the Gaza Strip. Moreover, the Israeli companies halted water supplies to the Gaza Strip, depriving the population of 50% of their water needs. This policy has inflicted catastrophic repercussions on all service and health sectors, which already suffer from continuous and serious deterioration due to 17 years of closure. Therefore, this violates all international conventions, particularly Article (33) of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Stephen Lendman

Licensed to practice law in Germany and the US, trial lawyer for 26 years Reiner Fuellmich is one of four German Corona Investigative Committee members involved in documenting damages from what he calls the invented US/Western “corona crisis.” Based on what’s already known, he renamed it the "Corona Scandal," stressing:

[Responsible parties] must be criminally prosecuted and sued for civil damages.

Along with over 1,000 lawyers and more than 10,000 medical and scientific experts, he and his team began legal proceedings against the Pharma-controlled CDC and WEF dark forces for all things related to flu/covid crimes against humanity.

Besides masks that don’t protect and risk respiratory harm, PCR tests nearly always wrong when positive, and destructive to normal interactions social distancing, Fuellmich called flu/covid jabs designed to harm health, not protect and preserve it as falsely claimed, in breach of the Geneva Conventions, the Nuremberg Code and other human rights laws.

Explaining his mission, he said he and other Corona Investigative Committee members began listening to [evidence presented by] a large number of international scientists and experts…to find answers to questions about” what’s gone on since early last year. Major cases of corporate “corruption and fraud…pale in comparison [to] the extent of the damage that the corona crisis has caused and continues to cause,” he stressed, adding:

On a political level, everything must be done to make sure that no one will ever again be in a position of such power as to be able to defraud humanity or to attempt to manipulate us with their corrupt agendas — [especially on what relates to health and well-being].

Stephen Lendman

Longstanding US policy reflects business as usual. Ruthless and then some. With bipartisan support. Democrats and Republicans largely in lockstep. Rhetoric alone separating them. Supporting permanent wars of aggression. State terror at home and abroad. Abrogation of fundamental democratic principles. Systematic breaches of international, constitutional and US statute laws. Supporting wealth, power and privilege exclusively. Letting popular needs go begging. Burying hard truths. Substituting Big Lies. Including about torture remaining official US policy. At home and abroad. In US prisons. Federal, state and local ones. Global black sites. In dozens of countries. Authorized by Bush and Obama.

Guantanamo the tip of the iceberg. Unknown thousands brutalized worldwide. Some murdered. Others traumatized into zombies. Coverup and denial buries the worst of what remains ongoing. Sadism writ large.

The Senate Intelligence Committee torture report excluded what most needs explaining. Stopped short of demanding accountability. Punishing wrongdoers to the full extent of the law. Including CIA, Pentagon and administration officials. Congressional members supporting wrong over right. Federal courts approving indefinite detentions and torture. Official Obama administration policy.

Stephen Lendman

Repeated administration/Pentagon Big Lies claim otherwise. Saying only non-lethal aid supplied. Including communications equipment. Body armor. Night vision goggles. Humvees. Radar. Counter-mortar detection units. Binoculars. Small boats. Various other gear.

Kiev is infested with CIA, FBI, US special forces and various other so-called Washington advisors. Directly involved in aiding, abetting and directing Donbass fighting.

Pentagon spokesman Admiral John Kirby lied saying: "Nothing has changed about the non-lethal assistance that we continue to flow to Ukrainian armed forces and security forces." Washington "continue(s) to focus on non-lethal assistance…" - False! More on this below.

Stephen Lendman

Killer Darren Wilson attends a city council meeting in Ferguson...

Monday's grand jury exoneration of Ferguson, MO police officer Darren Wilson didn't surprise. Injustice triumphed.

A previous article called justice in America a four-letter word. Killer cops mock it. Nearly always with impunity. A badge lets them brutalize and kill. Blacks, Latinos, ethnic minorities and Muslims suffer most. They're targets of choice.

Police violence occurs multiple times daily across America. In big cities. Small ones. Urban areas. Rural ones. Militarized police make their own rules. Operating extrajudicially. Killing with impunity.

On August 9, officer Darren Wilson murdered 18-year-old Michael Brown. In cold blood. Without probable cause. Brown was unarmed. Posed no threat. Had no criminal record. An independent autopsy showed he was shot six times.

Ferguson police lied. Claiming Brown's shooting followed an altercation he initiated. Saying he tried to grab officer Wilson's gun. He wasn't close enough to do it. No powder burns on his hands, arms or body proved it. Forensic evidence showed Brown was either walking away from officer Wilson or had his hands raised in a "don't shoot" position. Eyewitnesses confirmed the same thing.

At the time, ACLU staff attorney Nusrat Choudhury said killing Brown raised disturbing questions about how often police brutalize unarmed black and Latino men in America. "(F)ar too often," she stressed. Rarely ever are cops held accountable. More on this below.

Obama failed to express outrage. Ignored systemic police violence and brutality in America. Nearly always with impunity. Saying "we are a nation built on the rule of law. (W)e need to accept that this decision was the grand jury’s to make." "There are Americans who agree with it, and there are Americans who are deeply disappointed…"

Stephen Lendman

Washington operates extrajudicially. Threatening world peace. The world's global outlaw. Russia its moral leader. Vilified for doing the right thing. For defying America's hegemonic ambitions. Forthrightly. Courageously. Honorably. Responsibly. Supporting nation-state sovereign independence inviolability. Holding firm against America's rage to dominate. Especially over Russia. Never, according to Vladimir Putin. Not now. Earlier. Or ever. For sure not with him in charge.

On Tuesday, he spoke at the all-Russia People's Front. Responding to film director Yuri Kara. Asking if America wants to humiliate Russia.

"(N)ot so," said Putin. "The United States is not trying to humiliate us. It wants to subdue us, to settle its own problems at our expense." "To make us succumb to its influence. No one has ever managed to achieve this aim in relations with Russia or ever will," he stressed.

At the same time, Washington dominates other states. Bullying and pressuring them to go along. At the expense of their own self-interest.

"Try(ing) to defend (what benefits America). (F)or obscure reasons and with very hazy prospects." "I sometimes feel utter confusion,"Putin said. Protection of the so-called pan-European, Western influence to the detriment of one’s own national interests as a rule is fraught with several problems."

Universally defined common interests don't exist, Putin believes. Geopolitical ones vary from country to country.

Stephen Lendman

Just when you think things can't get worse, they do. Israel finds new ways to surprise. Couched in Big Lies. A daily litany burying hard truths. Many too outrageous too ignore. Wrongdoing writ large. Terrorism is what they do, not us.

On November 11, the Silwan, East Jerusalem-based Wadi Hilweh Information Center (WHIC) reported an IDF arrest warrant for two-year-old Hamza. Saying he's wanted for questioning. Confirming it when showing up to detain him. Raiding the family home. An Israeli intelligence officer demanding to see the boy. Told he lived next door. Leaving without comment. According to WHIC, "Israeli forces seized three computers from the Zidani family's home after arresting their 16-year-old son Mohammed."

Earlier, soldiers kidnapped four Silwan Palestinians. After ransacking their home. On Monday, Israeli security forces attacked Deir Abu Mashaal female Palestinian students. Dozens suffered temporary asphyxiation. Needing medical treatment for injuries sustained. West Bank communities and East Jerusalem remain on the boil.

Israeli live fire wounded two Nablus teenagers. Military forces invaded. Clashes with local youths followed. Ali Najeh Hanani and Moayyad Khatatba required hospitalization. Many residents suffered from tear gas inhalation.

On Monday, Israeli police kidnapped five dozen Palestinians. Including 10 children. In Kafr an Tur'an. During overnight clashes. For protesting Israeli ruthlessness. Unjustly accused of "causing violence." Peaceful protests called rioting. Numerous other clashes occurred in other West Bank cities, towns and villages.