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Israeli agricultural export collapse amid Gaza genocide boycott

Al Mayadeen | January 20, 2026

Israeli agricultural exports are collapsing under the weight of an expanding international boycott of “Israel”, driven largely by backlash over its war on Gaza, Jonathan Ofir writes for Mondoweiss. Reports aired by Kan 11 reveal a sharp decline in demand for Israeli mangos and citrus fruits, with settlers warning of imminent financial “collapse.”

In interviews, exporters say that Israeli fruit exports are being rejected by European buyers who now only consider purchasing Israeli produce when no alternatives are available. One farmer stated plainly, “They don’t want our mangos.”

Compounding the crisis was Ansar Allah’s Red Sea blockade, which disrupted shipping routes to Asian markets, pushing logistics costs up and delaying deliveries by months. Settlers say the new routes compromise fruit quality and profitability.

European markets withdraw as genocide condemnation grows

While no single factor has caused the breakdown of “Israel’s” fruit export market, the most consistent thread cited in Kan 11’s reporting is global outrage over the Gaza genocide. A widespread perception of Israeli impunity, underscored by public polling showing most Israelis believe there are “no innocents in Gaza,” has intensified calls to avoid Israeli products.

The economic consequences are already being felt in key agricultural hubs like Kibbutz Givat Haim Ichud and Kibbutz Ein Hahoresh, where settlers describe export losses as unsustainable. “Israeli fruit, despite its high quality, is currently less desired in Europe,” one settler admits.

Even Russia, a state under sanctions itself, is for now one of “Israel’s” few remaining markets. “We are now in the alliance of the boycotted,” says one settler.

Citrus and mango growers warn of industry collapse

The mango and citrus crisis has taken a visible toll. Settlers report rotting fruit, empty warehouses, and significant financial losses. Mango grower and retired general Moti Almoz says he’s left 25% of his crop unharvested, “I couldn’t do anything with them… people can’t just eat mango.”

In the north, out of 1,200 tons of mangoes, 700 are expected to rot on the ground. Smaller farms are attempting direct-to-customer sales, but say it won’t be enough to remain viable. “It’s a crisis the likes of which we haven’t ever experienced,” says another farmer.

The situation has escalated to the point that settlers are calling for state intervention. Without it, many warn that “Israel” may soon lose its entire export agriculture sector.

Hatred, denial, and the price of genocide

Despite the mounting crisis, some farmers refuse to sell to Palestinians, even if it would ease their losses. Almoz, whose produce once reached Gaza, says bluntly, “I’m done with them… If there’s a chance that I lose money because this [mango] turns into a Hamas interest, then I need to lose money.”

Such positions reflect how Israeli nationalism and denial of wrongdoing intersect with the economic consequences of genocide. Even as tears are shed over rotting fruit, there is little acknowledgment of the reason behind the boycott, the destruction of Gaza and its people.

January 20, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | | 1 Comment

We must act before Palestinian hostages are executed in the world’s worst prisons

Demonstration held in Gaza in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. [photo by AA]
By Adnan Hmidan | MEMO | January 14, 2026

Warnings are no longer enough. Condemnation alone no longer carries any weight. We are standing at a moment that will be remembered, not for what was said, but for what was done. Today, in Israeli prisons, Palestinians are not simply being detained. They are being pushed, step by step, towards a reality where death itself is written into law, where execution is no longer a crime but a procedure, no longer an exception but a policy.

This is no longer just about harsh detention conditions or even about the routine violation of prisoners’ rights. The danger now runs deeper. What is unfolding is a systematic attempt to reshape justice to fit the needs of occupation, to turn trials into formalities before punishment and to reduce the law to a tool of retaliation rather than protection. New legislation, exceptional legal routes and an openly hostile political discourse now speak of execution not with embarrassment but with confidence, pride even. In such a climate, every legal fig leaf has fallen away and every moral mask has been removed.

Human rights organisations across the world have issued clear warnings about this direction, especially the push to establish “special” courts for Palestinians alone. These courts do not merely breach the principle of equality before the law; they destroy the very idea of justice. They operate outside internationally recognised standards and function in a space dominated by security priorities rather than judicial independence. When a person stands before a court designed especially and exclusively for him or her, not to offer fairness, but to ensure conviction, justice ceases to exist. It is a performance where the ending is known before the first word is spoken.

The threat does not end in the courtroom. It extends into a growing policy of denying release altogether, cutting off any realistic hope of freedom through exchange, parole, or genuine judicial review. What we are witnessing is a dangerous shift from punishment with limits to punishment without end, from imprisonment as a legal measure to imprisonment as a permanent political sentence. This approach deepens arbitrary detention, entrenches isolation and strips detainees of the most basic forms of human connection, turning prisons into spaces beyond accountability and beyond compassion.

Most disturbing of all is the open preparation for the death penalty, particularly when it is framed in a way that is mandatory, discriminatory, and aimed squarely at Palestinians. This represents a grave assault on the right to life and raises the terrifying possibility of executions carried out after trials shaped more by politics than by justice. Any attempt to apply such punishment retroactively, or to enforce it selectively, shatters the principle of legality and transforms the law into an instrument of elimination rather than protection. This is not a distant fear. It is a path already being cleared, step by step, in front of a world that seems increasingly willing to look away.

It is from this sense of urgency that the Red Ribbons Campaign was born, not as a slogan, nor as a gesture, but as a human alarm. A warning sounded before prison cells become execution chambers, and before silence becomes complicity. The colour red was chosen for a reason beyond the aesthetic; it signifies danger, the colour of blood and the colour of the final signal when words are no longer enough. It is the colour of freedom when it is taken by force and of injustice when it is endured in silence.

The campaign calls for a coordinated digital action beginning on the evening of Thursday 15th of January, under two clear hashtags: #الحرية_للأسرى and #FreePalHostages. The aim is to restore the human face of those held in Israeli prisons, not as statistics and certainly not as abstract political figures, but as doctors who once healed others, women whose lives were interrupted and children who should have been in classrooms, not in prison cells. This is about breaking a narrative that allows the suffering of one side to be visible while the pain of the other is deliberately and forcefully made invisible.

The action then moves from screens to streets on Saturday the 31st of January, with posters carrying the faces of Palestinian hostages placed in public spaces. This is not meant as theatre, but rather to remember while people are still alive, refusing to await their death to set a memorial. It is a way of saying: these lives matter now, not later.

But this movement will only have meaning if it belongs to people on the street and not just to organisations, movements or campaigns. It will only succeed if it becomes personal. No special permit is required to demonstrate care. No official mandate is needed to act. A photo can be placed in your local neighbourhood, with red ribbons tied around it; a picture taken, and then shared. In doing so, you become part of something larger, not a campaign of noise, but a community of conscience.

This is not a political disagreement that can be postponed. It is a moral test that demands an answer now. Will we act before executions take place, or will we limit ourselves to words of sorrow afterwards? Will we raise our voices while there is still time, or will we save them for statements that come too late?

The Red Ribbons Campaign may not be the final chapter in this struggle, but it could be one of the last chances to prevent a darker one from being written. History is not kind to those who watch from a distance. Blood, once spilled cannot be taken up. And justice, when abandoned at the moment of danger, becomes nothing more than a story we tell ourselves later.

We must act now, not because we seek attention, but because we refuse to be silent witnesses to the execution of Palestinian hostages in the world’s worst prisons.

January 14, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

Maduro’s story is the latest chapter in Latin America’s struggle against empire

Through centuries, the region has seen leaders who stood for independence, but also traitors willing to sell out to colonial powers

By Nadezhda Romanenko | RT | January 5, 2026

Latin America’s history is not simply a chronicle of poverty or instability, as it is so often portrayed in Western discourse. It is, more fundamentally, a record of resistance – resistance to colonial domination, to foreign exploitation, and to local elites willing to trade their nations’ futures for personal power and external approval.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, kidnapped by US forces and about to be put on trial on nebulous and transparently politically-motivated charges, joins a very particular lineup of Latin American leaders. Across different centuries, ideologies, and political systems, the region has produced leaders who, despite their flaws, shared one defining trait: they placed national sovereignty and popular interests above obedience to empire.

From the very beginning, the first Latin American heroes emerged in open defiance of colonial rule. Figures such as Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla and José María Morelos in Mexico did not merely seek independence as an abstract ideal; they tied it to social justice – abolishing slavery, dismantling racial hierarchies, returning land to Indigenous communities. Simón Bolívar (in whose honor the country of Bolivia is named) and José de San Martín, a national hero in Argentina, Chile and Peru, carried this struggle across an entire continent, breaking the grip of Spanish imperial power and imagining a united Latin America strong enough to resist future domination. Their unfinished dream still haunts the region.

Yet independence from Spain did not mean freedom from imperial pressure. By the late 19th century, the US had openly declared Latin America its “sphere of influence,” treating it not as a collection of sovereign nations but as a strategic backyard. From that point forward, the central political question facing Latin American leaders became starkly clear: resist external domination, or accommodate it.

Those who resisted often paid a heavy price. Augusto César Sandino’s guerrilla war forced US troops out of Nicaragua – only for him to be murdered by US-backed strongman Anastasio Somoza, whose family would rule the country for decades. Salvador Allende attempted a democratic and peaceful path to socialism in Chile, nationalizing strategic industries and asserting economic independence, only to be overthrown in a violent coup backed from abroad. Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara turned Cuba into a symbol – admired by some, despised by others – of what open defiance of US hegemony looked like in practice: economic strangulation, sabotage, isolation, and permanent hostility.

Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez, working in a different era and through elections rather than armed struggle, revived this tradition in the twenty-first century. By reclaiming control over Venezuela’s oil wealth, expanding social programs, and pushing for Latin American integration independent of Washington, he directly challenged the neoliberal order imposed across the region in the 1990s. Whatever one thinks of the outcomes, the principle was unmistakable: national resources should serve the nation, not foreign shareholders.

Opposed to these figures stands a darker gallery – leaders whose rule depended on surrendering sovereignty piece by piece. Anastasio Somoza, Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, the Duvaliers in Haiti, Manuel Estrada Cabrera and Jorge Ubico in Guatemala, and others like them governed through repression at home and obedience abroad. Their countries became laboratories for foreign corporations, especially US interests, while their populations endured poverty, terror, and extreme inequality. The infamous “banana republic” was not an accident of geography; it was the logical result of policies that subordinated national development to external profit.

Even when repression softened and elections replaced open dictatorship, collaboration persisted. Neoliberal reformers such as Fernando Belaúnde Terry and Alberto Fujimori in Peru dismantled state control over strategic sectors, privatized national assets, and aligned their countries ever more tightly with US-led economic models. The promised prosperity rarely arrived. What did arrive were weakened institutions, social devastation, and, in Fujimori’s case, mass human rights abuses carried out under the banner of “stability” and “security.”

In very recent history, the figure of Juan Guaidó in Venezuela illustrates a modern version of the same pattern: political legitimacy sought not from the population, but from foreign capitals. By openly inviting external pressure and intervention against his own country, he embodied a long-standing elite fantasy – that power can be imported, even if sovereignty is the price.

Latin America’s lesson is brutally consistent. Imperial powers may change their rhetoric, but their logic remains the same. They reward obedience temporarily, discard collaborators when convenient, and punish defiance relentlessly. Meanwhile, those leaders who insist on autonomy – whether priests, revolutionaries, presidents, or guerrilla fighters – are demonized, sanctioned, overthrown, or killed.

To defend sovereignty in Latin America has never meant perfection. It has meant choosing dignity over dependency, development over plunder, and popular legitimacy over foreign approval. That is why these figures endure in popular memory – as symbols of a region that has never stopped fighting to belong to itself.

January 5, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

How reporting facts can now land you in jail for 14 years as a terrorist

By Jonathan Cook – December 22, 2025

Starmer’s government has set the most dangerous of precedents: it can now outlaw any political group it chooses as a terrorist organisation – and thereby make it impossible to defend it.

The moment the British government began proscribing political movements as terrorist organisations, rather than just militant groups, it was inevitable that saying factual things, making truthful statements, would become a crime.

And lo behold, here we are.

The Terrorism Act 2000 has a series of provisions that make it difficult to voice or show any kind of support for an organisation proscribed under the legislation, whether it is writing an article or wearing a T-shirt.

Recent attention has focused on Section 13, which is being used to hound thousands of mostly elderly people who have held signs saying: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.” They now face a terrorism conviction and up to six months in jail.

But an amendment introduced in 2019 to Section 12 of the Act has been largely overlooked, even though it is even more repressive. It makes it a terrorism offence for a person to express “an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation” and in doing so be “reckless” about whether anyone else might be “encouraged to support” the organisation.

It is hard to believe this clause was not inserted specifically to target the watchdog professions: journalists, human rights groups and lawyers. They now face up to 14 years in jail for contravening this provision.

When it was introduced, six years ago, Section 12 made it impossible to write or speak in ways that might encourage support for groups whose central aim was using violence against people to achieve their aims.

The law effectively required journalists and others to adopt a blanket condemnatory approach to proscribed militant groups. That had its own drawbacks. It made it difficult, and possibly a terrorist offence, to discuss or analyse these organisations and their goals in relation to international law, which, for example, allows armed resistance – violence – against an occupying army.

But these problems have grown exponentially since the Conservatives proscribed Hamas’ political wing in 2021 and the government of Keir Starmer proscribed Palestine Action in 2025, the first time in British history a direction-action group targeting property had been declared a terrorist group.

Now journalists, human rights activists and lawyers face a legal minefield every time they try to talk about the Gaza genocide, the trials of people accused of belonging to Palestine Action, or the hunger strikes of those on remand over attacks on weapons factories supplying killer drones to Israel.

Why? Because saying truthful things about any of these matters – if they could lead a reader or listener to take a more favourable view of Palestine Action or the political wing of Hamas – are now a terrorist offence. Any journalist, human rights activist or lawyer making factual observations risks 14 years behind bars.

Few seem to have understood quite what impact this is having on public coverage of these major issues.

A month and a half into the hunger strike by eight members of Palestine Action – the point at which people are likely to start dying – the BBC News at Ten finally broke its silence on the matter. That was despite the hunger strike being the largest in UK history in nearly half a century.

There are clear political reasons why the BBC had avoided this topic for so long. It prefers not to deal with matters that directly confront the legitimacy of the government, which funds it. The BBC is effectively the British state broadcaster.

But in a naturally spineless organisation like the BBC, the legal consequences have clearly weighed heavily too. In a recent short segment on the hunger strike, BBC correspondent Dominic Casciani carefully hedged his words and admitted to facing legal difficulties reporting on the strike.

In these circumstances, news organisations make one of two choices. They simply ignore factual things because it is legally too dangerous to speak truthfully about them. Or they lie about factual things because it is legally safe – and politically opportune – to speak untruthfully about them.

The so-called “liberal” parts of the media, including the BBC, tend to opt for the former; the red-tops usually opt for the latter.

The government itself is taking full advantage of this lacuna in reporting, injecting its own self-serving deceptions into the coverage, knowing that there will be – can be – no meaningful pushback.

Take just one example. The government has proscribed Palestine Action on the grounds that it is a terrorist organisation. It has justified its decision by implying, without producing a shred of evidence, that the group is funded by Iran, and that its real agenda is not just criminal damage against arms factories but against individuals.

Any effort to counter this government disinformation, by definition, violates Section 12 of the Terrorism Act and risks 14 years’ imprisonment.

Were I to conduct an investigation, for example, definitively showing that Palestine Action was not funded by Iran – proving that the government was lying – it would be a terror offence to publish that truthful information. Why? Because it would almost certainly “encourage support” for Palestine Action. There is no fact or truth exemption in the legislation.

Similarly, the government has suggested that the current “Filton Trial” – which includes discussions of events in which a police officer was injured during a struggle over the sledgehammers being used to destroy the Elbit factory’s weapons-producing machinery – demonstrates that Palestine Action was not just targeting property but individuals too.

Were I to try to make the case that the alleged actions of one individual – only one person is charged with assault – prove nothing about the aims of the organisation as a whole, I would be risking a terrorism conviction and 14 years’ imprisonment. Which is one, very strong reason not to make such an argument.

But in the absence of such arguments, the reality is that social media is awash with posts from people echoing outrageous official disinformation. This spreads unchallenged because to challenge it is now cast as a terrorism offence.

In truth, since proscription, any statements about the political aims of a deeply political organisation like Palestine Action occupy a grey area of the law.

Is it a terrorism offence to point out the fact, as I have done above, that Palestine Action targeted Elbit factories that send killer drones to Israel for use in Gaza. In doing so, may I have “recklessly” encouraged you to support Palestine Action?

Can I express any kind of positive view about the hunger strikers or their actions without violating the law?

The truth is that the law’s greyness is its very point. It maximises the chilling effect on those who are supposed to serve as the public’s watchdogs on power: journalists, human rights groups, lawyers.

It allows the government – through compliant police forces – to selectively pick off those dissenting individuals it doesn’t like, those without institutional backing, to make examples of them. This is not conjecture. It is already happening.

The abuse of the Terrorism Act discourages research, analysis and critical thinking. It forces all journalists, human rights activists and lawyers to become lapdogs of the government. It creates a void into which the government can spin events to its own advantage, in which it can avoid accountability and in which it can punish those who dissent. It is the very antithesis of democratic behaviour.

This ought to appall anyone who cares about the truth, about public debate, about scrutiny. Because they have all been thrown out of the window.

And in proscribing Palestine Action, the government has set the most dangerous of precedents: it can outlaw any political group it chooses as a terrorist organisation and thereby make it impossible to defend that group.

That is what authoritarian governments do. That is exactly where Britain is now.

December 24, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | 1 Comment

Global movement to Gaza to stage pro-Palestine protests in 13 cities

Al Mayadeen | November 28, 2025

The Global Movement to Gaza announced coordinated protests across 13 major cities on November 29 to mark the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The rallies aim to denounce Western support for “Israel’s” ongoing genocide in Gaza, now entering its third year.

Protests will take place in Berlin, Rome, Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Oslo, Vienna, Warsaw, Luxembourg, Cape Town, Washington, DC, Mexico City, and São Paulo.

Organizers say the coordinated actions are designed to expose the complicity of European and North American governments in “Israel’s” war on Gaza. The movement accuses these states of enabling the genocide through arms exports, political backing, and economic ties.

In a statement, the movement issued a list of demands for European Union and national leaders:

  • Immediate suspension of the EU-“Israel” Association Agreement;
  • An arms embargo and an end to military cooperation with “Israel”;
  • Targeted sanctions on “Israeli” officials responsible for war crimes and genocide;
  • A halt to all academic, cultural, and sporting institutional ties;
  • Alignment of EU foreign policy with international human rights and humanitarian law.

November 28, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Europe’s financial sector ‘directly funding’ firms complicit in Gaza genocide: Report

Press TV – November 26, 2025

A new report published by a coalition of 24 European and Palestinian organizations and trade unions has exposed financial relationships between top European institutions and 104 companies complicit in Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged Gaza Strip.

Under the title of “The Private Actors behind the Economy of Occupation and Genocide,” the report by the Don’t Buy Into Occupation Coalition (DBIO) lists 104 global companies that are active in one or more of the identified complicity categories in the Gaza war.

The list includes companies involved in the military-security sector, technology, resource extraction, construction and demolition, financial services, and other enterprises that sustain Israel’s unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East al-Quds.

Among them, the report includes priority BDS divestment targets such as major weapons manufacturers and tech companies that played a crucial role in providing Israel with key military components and technology to carry out its ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Among these 104 companies are numerous BDS campaign targets, including but not limited to Airbnb, Amazon, AXA, Booking.com, CAF, Carrefour, Chevron, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Caterpillar, CISCO, Coca-Cola, DELL, Expedia, Google, HPE, Intel, Microsoft, and RE/MAX.

The report showed that 1,115 European financial institutions (including banks, asset managers, insurance companies, pension funds, and the European Investment Bank) have massive financial relationships with such complicit businesses.

Among the top creditor banks financing the Israeli genocide are BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and Barclays.

According to the report, European financial institutions provided over $310 billion in the form of loans and underwritings to these companies between January 2023 and August 2025. European investors also held over $1.5 trillion in shares and bonds in these businesses as of August 31, 2025.

“This report leaves no doubt, European financial institutions and investors have been funding dozens of corporations that are directly enabling Israel’s illegal occupation, apartheid and genocide against Indigenous Palestinians,” DBIO said.

“Without this, Israel wouldn’t be able to sustain its regime of oppression. These European institutions are in breach of both their international human rights responsibilities and their legal obligation to respect international law.”

Palestinian resistance movement Hamas and Israel agreed last month to a US-brokered Gaza ceasefire, aimed at ending the latter’s two-year-long genocidal war against Palestinians in the besieged territory.

The truce took effect on October 10, but Israel has continued to violate it by carrying out airstrikes, incursions, shootings, and arrests.

The deal marks the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza ceasefire plan, with further stages to be negotiated at a later date.

Israel has killed at least 69,000 Palestinians since it waged the US-backed genocide in Gaza on October 7, 2023.

Palestinian children have borne the brunt of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. UNICEF estimated last month that at least 64,000 children have been killed or injured in Israeli attacks since October 2023.

November 26, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A historic decline in sympathy for Israel in Britain, and an unprecedented rise in solidarity with Palestine in 2025

By Adnan Hmidan | MEMO | November 24, 2025

Public sentiment in Britain today is markedly different from what it was two years ago. A society that once observed developments in the Middle East from a comfortable distance is now expressing a clearer and more confident moral position on the genocide in Gaza. The scale of this shift can be considered one of the most significant transformations in British public attitudes towards Palestine in recent decades.

Figures published in the autumn of 2025 indicate that sympathy for Israel has fallen to approximately 12 percent, the lowest level recorded, while sympathy for Palestinians has risen to around 38 percent in some national polling. A majority of respondents also state that Israel’s actions in Gaza cannot be justified on either moral or legal grounds. However, these figures represent only the surface of a deeper transition taking place within British society.

The primary catalyst for this shift has not been political realignment, diplomatic pressure or changes within party leaderships, but rather the scale and visibility of the atrocities committed in Gaza. As the genocide expanded to include the targeting of hospitals, schools and refugee camps, alongside collective punishment and reports of widespread abuse in detention, traditional claims about self-defence lost credibility.

Unfiltered images circulated widely across British media and social platforms. Families killed in their homes, children pulled from the rubble and patients evacuated after power cuts became daily realities rather than distant headlines. For many, Palestine was no longer viewed as a remote political issue but as a profound human tragedy unfolding in real time. The collapse of official narratives in the face of visible evidence contributed further to this reassessment, reinforcing the understanding that what is taking place is not a symmetrical conflict but the systematic destruction of a besieged population.

Over the past two years, Britain has also witnessed an unprecedented wave of public mobilisation. London and other major cities saw some of the largest demonstrations in Western Europe, continuing week after week without subsiding. Solidarity evolved from street marches to university encampments, from civic spaces to trade unions and professional bodies, and eventually to parliamentary scrutiny concerning arms exports and the UK’s legal responsibilities.

Notably, this movement was not driven solely by Palestinians, Arabs or Muslims. Large numbers of students, academics, health workers, legal professionals, artists and members of the clergy took part. British Jewish groups opposing the genocide played an important role in challenging attempts to delegitimise or isolate the solidarity movement. Two years on, public mobilisation remains active despite increasingly restrictive protest regulations, indicating that this is not a temporary emotional response but a deeper shift in public conscience.

This evolving landscape has also reshaped how many Britons, particularly younger generations, understand the question of resistance. Public debate is no longer confined to simplistic binaries. There is growing recognition that resistance emerges from dispossession, blockade and the absence of any viable path to justice, rather than from ideological motivations alone.

Policy-makers in Britain are aware of these developments, even if official positions have not shifted dramatically. Pressure is visible in calls to suspend arms exports to Israel, demands for independent investigations into potential complicity and a noticeable shift in political language, especially within the Labour Party. The driving force behind this pressure has not been a change of government but the continuing reality of the genocide itself, which has made unconditional support for Israeli policies increasingly difficult to justify publicly.

The genocide in Gaza has reshaped how many people understand their place in the world. In Britain, solidarity with Palestine has become a reflection of moral responsibility rather than a peripheral political stance. Although the path ahead remains complex, the transformation witnessed over the past two years demonstrates that sustained exposure to reality can alter public attitudes in ways that once seemed unlikely.

The decline in sympathy for Israel marks not the conclusion of this shift, but its beginning. Palestine is no longer perceived as a distant or marginal issue, but as a central concern within British public consciousness — one that is unlikely to fade in the foreseeable future.

November 24, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Red ribbons in London: A silent uprising bringing Palestinian hostages back into view

By Adnan Hmidan | MEMO | November 16, 2025 

Walking through Westminster, in the quiet rush of central London, flashes of red caught my attention — ribbons tied to lampposts, railings, and street fixtures. They were not adverts or campaign posters, but dense, symbolic gestures: spontaneous in form, unmistakable in meaning. They returned to public sight faces that have long been hidden behind prison walls — Palestinian hostages abducted by the occupation from homes and hospitals, held without trial under a system that resembles nothing but the law of the jungle.

These ribbons seemed like individual efforts, small and uncoordinated, yet unified in what they were trying to say: that the Palestinian hostage file remains locked in darkness, despite being one of the most devastating human crises. Thousands have been torn from their lives with no charges, no legal process, no daylight.

Of the nearly 9,100 Palestinians currently detained, it is estimated that almost a third are effectively treated as hostages; abducted and denied even the bare minimum of legal rights or guarantees.

A language that must reclaim its meaning

For years, the word “prisoner” has been used broadly. But what the occupation practises is not detention — it is abduction. People are taken from their beds or hospital rooms and disappear for indefinite periods, without charges, court hearings, or the most basic procedural rights.

The figures alone reveal the scale of the crisis:

3,544 held under administrative detention without trial

400 children

53 women

16 doctors

117 Palestinian hostages killed in the past two years alone during the genocide in Gaza

These individuals cannot honestly be called “prisoners.” They are hostages in every legal and moral sense — seized outside any legitimate framework by a state whose own foundations rest on dispossession and violation.

Red… a colour that bears witness, not beauty

The choice of red is self-explanatory. It is the colour of spilled blood, of injustice endured, of wounds that never fully heal.

These ribbons may hang quietly across London, but the question they raise is anything but quiet:

How can thousands of people be abducted in this way, while the world remains unable — or unwilling — to see them?

No one is asked to lead a campaign or become an activist. What is needed is recognition, a wider awakening to a file packed with human lives, daily suffering, families searching, and children growing up in absence.

Stories hanging from lampposts… so memory does not fade

Seeing the ribbons brought back the painful stories that fill this file:

The child pulled from his bed because soldiers deemed him a “threat,”

The woman taken from her home in front of her children,

The doctor who vanished from an operating room and never returned,

Those subjected to torture and enforced disappearance,

And the testimonies of rape and sexual abuse recently documented by international organisations.

These stories need no embellishment; their truth is weight enough. They also echo Steve Biko’s famous line:

“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”

These red ribbons feel like a modest attempt to unsettle that weapon.

Catherine Connolly’s victory: Europe’s moral rebellion against the Israeli occupation

When execution becomes a celebration

It is difficult to grasp that the occupation’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, celebrated inside the Knesset after passing a law permitting the execution of Palestinian detainees.

More troubling still is how easily such a moment can pass as a routine political step — as though it were merely another debate rather than a descent into deeper, institutionalised brutality.

When a state legalises killing those it has abducted without trial, imprisonment ceases to resemble detention. It becomes just one point on a chain that runs from abduction to torture to death.

The rising number of Palestinians dying inside Israeli prisons is not an exaggeration — it is an expanding reality.

Preserving memory before preserving the body

Red ribbons do not claim to liberate anyone, nor do they replace political or legal work. But they accomplish something essential: they return faces to public view and stop stories from being buried in darkness.

The Palestinian hostage file needs wider adoption and genuine engagement. It is a file overflowing with pain and heavy with violations, yet among the least addressed internationally.

Ribbons cannot break iron bars.

But they can remind the world that behind every statistic is a human being waiting to be rescued from disappearance.

Justice begins when we choose to see.

And sometimes, the first step toward that justice is nothing more than a small red thread tied to a lamppost in a distant city.

November 16, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Airbnb sued in France for rentals in occupied West Bank

MEMO | November 4, 2025

The Association of Jurists for the Respect of International Law (JURDI) has sued Airbnb in France for listing properties in Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in the West Bank, the BFMTV broadcaster said Tuesday, Anadolu reports.

JURDI, a non-profit group in France that advocates for international law regarding the Israeli-Palestine conflict, accuses Airbnb of supporting war crimes by listing the properties in occupied territories in the West Bank. It is asking the court to order the company to remove listings in Israeli settlements.

“By offering these accommodations, Airbnb contributes to the normalization and perpetuation of the colonial regime, by providing financial resources to settlers and legitimizing their presence,” JURDI said in its lawsuit, excerpts of which were seen by BFMTV.

Attorney Helene Massin-Trachez, who is leading the case, said French law prohibits offering contracts that violate public order, arguing that Airbnb was doing exactly that by promoting unlawful rental agreements to clients based in France.

A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for Jan. 13, and if the court rules in JURDI’s favor, Airbnb will have eight days to comply before facing a €5,000 ($5,740) fine for each day of delay.

The company defended its actions when contacted by BFMTV, denying it profits from the international situation and vowed to remain committed to addressing each of the situations “with the greatest care.”

The French Human Rights League (LDH) filed a complaint against Airbnb and Booking.com last month for listing properties in Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories.

The complaint accuses those companies of complicity and aggravated concealment of war crimes, underlining that the platforms promote “occupation tourism” by offering listings in Israeli settlements.

November 4, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Report: UK smears Iran to justify ban on Palestine Action

Press TV – November 4, 2025

A leading British “PR consultancy” working for the Israeli regime’s top arms producer has been found culpable of fabricating and planting a false media narrative linking Palestine Action to Iran, in what appears to be a coordinated effort to justify the group’s eventual proscription.

According to British news magazine Private Eye, a “trusted witness” said Georgia Pickering, head of the London-based PR firm CMS Strategic, which represents Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems, boasted about planting a story in The Times alleging that the Islamic Republic was bankrolling the direct-action network.

The story appeared just days before the UK government moved to outlaw Palestine Action under its “terrorism” legislation in July.

The fabricated report, which claimed that the Home Office was probing Tehran’s alleged financial ties to the group, was later recycled by The Daily Mail and the GB News channel, amplifying suspicions and pressure against the movement.

However, when Private Eye reached out to the Home Office, officials said they did not recognize the claims, effectively disowning the narrative that had dominated headlines.

A spokesperson for Palestine Action dismissed the entire affair as “baseless” and “ridiculous”, while CMS Strategic publicly denied involvement in the article, despite Pickering’s private admission.

Further revelations highlighted that the smear campaign did not emerge in isolation.

Just two days before the story broke, the pro-Israeli lobby group We Believe in Israel claimed on social media that Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) was the “darker puppeteer” behind Palestine Action, despite offering no proof beyond vague references to “similar slogans.”

In the months leading up to the group’s ban, the same lobby orchestrated a “multi-front” campaign pushing for Palestine Action’s proscription, issuing two reports whose language was later echoed almost verbatim by Yvette Cooper, the then–home secretary, in her official statement outlawing the movement.

For years, Palestine Action has led a relentless grassroots campaign against Elbit Systems, targeting its factories and offices for producing weapons used by the Israeli regime in its assaults on Palestinians, including its war of genocide on the Gaza Strip that began in October 2023.

November 4, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

West weaponizing laws to silence pro-Palestine activism: Study

Al Mayadeen | October 14, 2025

The right to protest is facing increasing restrictions across the West, The Guardian reported on Monday, citing a new study by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), which accuses governments of criminalizing pro-Palestine activism and using counter-terrorism and antisemitism laws to stifle dissent.

The report focuses on the UK, US, France, and Germany, accusing authorities in these countries of “weaponizing” national security and anti-hate legislation to silence criticism of “Israel” and suppress demonstrations supporting Palestinian rights in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

“This trend reflects a worrying shift towards the normalization of exceptional measures in dealing with dissenting voices,” Yosra Frawes, head of FIDH’s Maghreb and Middle East desk, told The Guardian.

Compiled from open-source data, witness accounts, and institutional reports gathered between October 2023 and September 2025, the study was released just one day after a US-brokered Gaza ceasefire that secured the release of all living Israeli captives and around 2,000 Palestinian detainees.

According to FIDH, restrictions on speech and assembly have extended beyond protests, impacting journalists, academics, and public officials who express solidarity with Palestinians.

In the United Kingdom, the organization found that protest rights have eroded under both Conservative and Labour administrations. The report points to the 2024 anti-protest law introduced by the Conservatives, later deemed unlawful, and to what it calls the Labour government’s continuation of “official narratives” justifying support for “Israel”.

It highlights former Home Secretary Suella Braverman‘s branding of pro-Palestine rallies as “hate marches”, arguing that this rhetoric “stigmatized support for Palestine and Palestinian resistance movements” and “worked to discriminate against Muslims and other racialized groups in the UK.”

FIDH says the change in government in July 2024 “did little to change official government narratives,” claiming Labour has linked criticism of “Israel” with “violent antisemitism” while continuing to target Muslim and racialized communities.

The tensions have been further inflamed by the Labour government’s ban on the activist network Palestine Action and its proposal to expand police powers at protests.

FIDH draws parallels across the Atlantic, where US authorities have detained demonstrators and pursued legal actions against individuals expressing solidarity with Palestine. In France, the government has faced criticism for banning pro-Palestine demonstrations in several cities and for dissolving the rights group Urgence Palestine.

Meanwhile, in Germany, protests have drawn thousands, but police tactics and restrictions on slogans deemed antisemitic, for the mere criticism of “Israel”, have been widely condemned as excessive. The report argues that Germany’s actions reflect a “collective discomfort” in balancing free expression with its postwar responsibility to combat what it classifies as “antisemitism”.

Freedom crisis

The federation recommends that the UK establish an independent oversight body for policing demonstrations and amend key legislation, Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and Section 11 of the Public Order Act 2023, to protect political speech and prevent arbitrary searches.

“Ultimately, the crackdown on solidarity with Palestinians reveals a profound crisis, not only of human rights in the occupied territories but of freedom itself, in societies that claim to be democratic,” the report concludes.

FIDH says that while legal frameworks vary among the UK, US, France, and Germany, the trend toward restricting Palestinian solidarity movements represents a global pattern of shrinking civic space, one that calls into question the credibility of Western nations as defenders of democratic freedoms.

October 14, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

World cities rise in solidarity with Gaza: Marches and calls to hold Israel accountable

Palestinian Information Center – October 12, 2025

Demonstrations and solidarity rallies with the Palestinian people continued across various capitals and cities around the world, in a scene that reflects the growing global awareness of the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe caused by the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, along with mounting calls to hold Israel accountable and end the ongoing genocide that has lasted for two years.

In Australia, the group Palestine Action said that demonstrations took place on Sunday in 27 cities and towns in support of the Palestinians, most notably in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Protesters demanded that the government impose sanctions on Israel and halt all arms exports to it, stressing that continued cooperation with a state committing war crimes constitutes political and moral complicity.

In Indonesia, thousands gathered at Independence Square in central Jakarta to celebrate the ceasefire in Gaza, chanting slogans rejecting all forms of normalization with Israel, political, commercial, and sporting alike. They also expressed solidarity with Palestinians in the West Bank, who continue to face escalating assaults and raids by Israeli forces.

In Seoul, the South Korean capital, a solidarity protest was held calling for the rapid entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza and the lifting of the siege imposed for more than two years. Participants raised Palestinian flags and chanted for an end to the suffering of civilians.

Massive marches were held in London, where organizers said around half a million people took part in a demonstration that filled the streets of the British capital and headed toward the government headquarters on Downing Street. Protesters demanded an end to arms sales to Israel and accountability for those responsible for war crimes.

Participants stressed the need to achieve justice based on international law and to end occupation and apartheid.

In Berlin, thousands of demonstrators marched from the Brandenburg Gate to the city center, calling for a halt to Israeli arms shipments and an end to official support for the war on Gaza. Protesters denounced restrictions on pro-Palestine activism in Germany and chanted slogans such as “Freedom for Palestine” and “No peace on stolen land.” Limited clashes later broke out with police, who used force and arrested several demonstrators.

In Paris, a large protest took place that included activists and healthcare workers, some of whom had served in Gaza’s hospitals during the war. They called for the release of imprisoned doctors, foremost among them Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, and for guarantees to uphold the ceasefire and deliver urgent medical aid.

In Milan, hundreds of Italians joined a solidarity march where demonstrators demanded the reconstruction of Gaza and an end to the blockade imposed on it.

In Oslo, protests were held outside the parliament building, where participants called for the closure of the Israeli embassy and the severing of diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv.

In the Netherlands, the Plant an Olive Tree foundation organized a memorial event in Maastricht to honor the victims of the aggression, dedicated especially to Palestinian children and journalists killed in Israeli bombardments. Participants lined up in front of the historic St. Servatius Church, where photos and names of the martyrs were displayed, and thousands of children’s shoes were placed in the square in tribute to the young victims.

In Stockholm, hundreds joined a demonstration condemning the Israeli army’s attack on the Global Solidarity Flotilla, calling for a comprehensive embargo on Israel due to its repeated crimes against civilians. Protesters carried banners reading “Total blockade on Israel for a free Palestine,” before marching toward the Swedish parliament.

This global wave of protests, spanning more than thirty cities in just two days, reaffirmed that the Palestinian cause is no longer a local or regional issue, but rather a matter of global conscience calling for justice and an end to decades of occupation and collective punishment against civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.

October 12, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

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