Debunking the First Piece of Nonsense in Skripal 2.0
By Rob Slane | The Blog Mire | July 5, 2018
Elizabeth Gardens in Salisbury is a rather lovely park. Situated next to the river, and overlooking the Water Meadows, it is a wonderful place to take an early morning stroll, and then to walk along the town path, where you get a wonderful view of the towering 13th Century gothic cathedral from the very spot where Constable painted his famous Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows.
Yet, like the centre of the City, it is now apparently a place synonymous with poisoning. According to latest reports, it is apparently the place at which Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley became poisoned on Friday 29th June. This from The Mail :
“Police are hunting for the deadly syringe or vial laced with Novichok that poisoned a couple in Salisbury as they finally evacuated homes five days after they fell catastrophically ill. Dawn Sturgess, 44, and her boyfriend Charles Rowley, 45, became critically ill within hours of visiting Salisbury on Saturday – the site of the murder attempt on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. The authorities are still searching for the container carrying the nerve agent, which could kill anyone who found it, and the homeless shelter where Dawn lived in Salisbury and Charlie’s home in Amesbury have now been screened-off and residents evacuated.
A security source told the Evening Standard : ‘It could have been picked up by anyone, including a child. There’s no doubt it will be contaminated still’, adding the poison could be deadly ‘for decades’ if kept dry.
Salisbury Hospital chief executive Cara Charles-Barks has revealed the victims remain in a critical condition in intensive care and are ‘acutely unwell’ but added that nobody else has been poisoned.
One friend of the couple, who were known to be drug users, believes they may have found a syringe believing it contained heroin rather than the deadly poison used by assassins Britain claims were sent by Russia.
‘It was definitely an accident. I think they found a package and it looked like drugs’, she said.
Dawn and Charlie collapsed after a visit to the Queen Elizabeth Gardens on Friday, an area not searched or decontaminated after the Skripals were poisoned in March, raising serious questions about the quality of the clear-up operation four months ago.”
Okay, so this one is pretty easy to debunk, and I think I can save the media the trouble of going on about this for days on end, only to have to shift their explanation away from the vial/syringe in Queen Elizabeth Gardens to another door handle perhaps, or a car, cemetery, restaurant, bench, or even porridge.
The article points your attention to the apparent expert, who is able to assure us that the substance A-234, which prior to March 2018 was reckoned to be highly volatile, is able to survive in a syringe/vial for donkeys years. Here’s my advice: Don’t pay any attention to what he’s saying! Why? Because it’s a complete and utter red-herring, which – either wittingly or unwittingly – turns your attention away from a rather obvious reason why this is complete nonsense. And what is that?
It is this: Queen Elizabeth Gardens is nowhere near Christie Miller Road. Even if you had accepted the Government narrative that the Skripals were poisoned by a military grade nerve agent (of a type 5-8 times more toxic than VX), which was poured (or now presumably squirted from the syringe) onto the door handle of Mr Skripal’s front door, by professional assassins not wearing HazMats – all of which requires much cognitive dissonance – what are you now being asked to believe? That the professional unHazMatted Russian assassins, after leaving Chez Skripal, decided not to leg it to Heathrow or Gatwick pronto, but to drive to Elizabeth Gardens.
As I say, it’s a beautiful park, and one which I would encourage people to visit, although you may find that quite tricky just at the moment. But here’s the thing: How likely do you suppose it to be that the alleged professional Russian hitmen, after undertaking their dangerous and potentially deadly assignment, decided to drive from Christie Miller Road to Elizabeth Gardens, which is out of the way, and certainly not the way you’d drive if you wanted to get to an airport quickly, where they parked their car, got out and then went for a walk to drop their deadly (but non-lethal) Novichok-laced syringe in the gardens, where it lay undetected for four months. I’d put the chances of that at zero, and not a smidgen more.
But that’s apparently what we’re being asked to believe. Until of course they change the narrative tomorrow.
‘Russophobia British Gov’t Encouraged is Beginning to Boomerang’ – Ex-UK Envoy
Sputnik – July 6, 2018
British Prime Minister Theresa May has said it is deeply disturbing to see two British citizens, who remain in critical condition in hospital, poisoned by the Novichok nerve agent. While the UK’s Security Minister has stated that the Amesbury poisoning was not a targeted attack but a contamination by Novichok and not linked to the Skripal case.
Sputnik has discussed this with Peter Ford, former British Ambassador to Syria.
Sputnik: The British media has already accused Russia of the poisoning despite there being no proof, what do you think are the main reasons for that?
Peter Ford: Well, it’s certainly embarrassing for the British government on more than one level. First of all it seems as such an amazing coincidence, again it’s a man and a woman, again it was within a few miles from the Porton Down chemical research facility. You go on social media and you find many, many British people are deeply skeptical about anything the government says in the entire matter, not just about this latest incident, but about the earlier incident with the Skripal pair. In fact, this whole Skripal saga appears to be backfiring on the British government. It’s become an embarrassment, even the BBC were putting ministers into uncomfortable positions trying to defend the government’s apparent failure to keep people safe. Really, it’s becoming a bit of midsummer madness. It’s not helping the British government at all, they may be beginning to regret that they pointed the finger at Russia in the first place.
Sputnik: Do you think that they could actually revoke their previous accusations or make an official apology?
Peter Ford: No, they’ve gone too far out on a limb. They’re in a hole, and they are digging themselves deeper and deeper into the hole and another coincidence as well — it is happening just as Russia is having good press because of the World Cup. Again, this contributes to the skepticism of many people. It looks to many people like it might be an attempt by somebody who wishes Russia ill, to spoil the football party with the World Cup.
Sputnik: We never got the complete results and the evidence to link Russia to the first Skripal poisoning and now we have the second one, do you think that there’s going to be an attempt to connect this with Russia this time around as well?
Peter Ford: Well, the government are saying that the police investigations must take their course and this could take weeks or months. So it looks like they’re trying to push the ball into the long grass and hoping that the whole subject will go away and be quietly forgotten, given the apparent impossibility of finding conclusive evidence establishing the guilt of Russia. Of course, the government are being careful not to pursue other lines of inquiry, all the evidence that I have seen in the public domain is consistent with an attempt on some third-party to frame Russia, very similar to what we witnessed in Syria with repeated fabrications of evidence to show that Syria has been using chemical weapons.
Sputnik: It’s very strange that in both cases, the Skripal case and the second case. Okay, the Skripals at least had some kind of Russian link and there was reason to believe that there might be something else going on because he was a person who was returned by the government for being a double agent, but in this case there’s no links to Russia. There is no reason to believe that these people could’ve had any reason to be targeted. Also in both cases they were not fatal and if we’re talking about a military grade nerve agent, shouldn’t contact with that be fatal?
Peter Ford: So many inconsistencies in the government’s story, it’s hard to know where to begin. They tried to scare people by saying that it was this deadly, contaminating agent that could be fatal to entire populations, and they’re left with the embarrassing fact that originally two people were hurt, they had bad stomach attacks but have recovered. So on every level it’s embarrassing for the government. Now this time, they may be right, that what’s happened is whoever carried out the Skripal attack threw away the syringe, and these two unfortunate people in Amesbury happened to pick it up. There are other theories which are also consistent with the evidence such as the fact that this could be another deliberate attempt to incriminate Russia. It is just impossible to say, this is not preventing the British government from going on record and pointing yet again the finger at Russia.
Sputnik: Has anybody officially pointed the finger at Russia in this case?
Peter Ford: The government is being a bit cautious. They are saying that Russia must have done the Skripal poisoning; this latest incident is linked to that. So even if the latest poisoning was not deliberate, not targeted, nevertheless Russia is responsible, because of the fallout from the first incident. Even the government has woken up to the fact that public opinion just will not buy anymore straightforward empty accusations.
Sputnik: How damaging is this for Theresa May?
Peter Ford: I think there is a mounting theme, particularly in the media to blame May. May is extremely vulnerable. She has been completely obsessed with Brexit in the recent months and appears to have no time for anything else. She exudes an aura of incompetence all around. Now she’s going to be blamed for the absence of British football fans, which was very much noticed in the Colombia match because the Colombians far outnumbered the British. The British government had discouraged them from going to Russia because of hooliganism. This is all beginning to boomerang on the government now and they must be regretting the Russophobia which they have encouraged and I thought that President Putin’s suggestion that May might attend the next match was really just turning the knife in the wound.
Read More:
‘Being Russian is Enough’ to Be Suspected to Wrongdoing in UK — Activist
UK Recklessly Linking Moscow to Amesbury Without Proof – Ex-Intelligence Agents
Amesbury poisoning incident fuels another wave of anti-Russian hysteria
RT | July 5, 2018
A new poisoning incident on UK soil has given British politicians a perfect reason for launching another McCarthian witch hunt on dissent. One MP already targeted RT and was called out for limiting free speech.
“Could … members of this house on all sides not appear on Putin’s propaganda television channel?” Mike Gapes, a Labor MP for Ilford South, said during his speech in the House of Commons in an apparent attempt to discourage his fellow parliamentarians from providing any commentaries to RT.
He also accused RT, as well as some perceived “St. Petersburg troll factories,” of “gearing up to spread misinformation.” He spoke just a day after the reports about a Wiltshire couple being poisoned with what was later described as the same strand of ‘Novichok’ nerve agent that was used against the former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in March.
It goes without saying that Gapes did not bother to provide a single piece of evidence to support his claims. Nevertheless, his words apparently resonated with the British Interior Minister Sajid Javid, who praised the MP for raising the issue and then complained that “there have been far too many incidents where members of the [House of Commons] have sadly supported the Russian propaganda machine” by apparently appearing on RT.
Javid then took the liberty to speak for all the British people in what appeared to be another blatant attempt to exert pressure on lawmakers. The minister said that “the British public will not support any” of those MPs that “support” Russian President Vladimir Putin. The implication here is that anyone who appears on RT automatically supports Putin.
This alleged fight against “insidious Russian propaganda” perfectly plays into London’s broader political narrative, in which Russophobia has become one of the leading trends. The UK has so far failed to provide any solid evidence to prove that Russia had anything to do with the Skripals’ poisoning, as the official investigation has not yet provided any clear results. However, London has already presumed that Moscow might be implicated in another poisoning incident at a time when the investigation of the new case has only just started.
It is far from the first time that British officials have involved RT in their political games, as they apparently desperately seek to silence the channel that is not perfectly in line with their narrative. In March, when the Skripals case hit the news and the British government was falling all over itself to convince the world that Moscow was behind the attack on the ex-spy and his daughter, some British MPs already took advantage of the situation and called for RT UK to have its license revoked on some contrived pretext that it was allegedly “broadcasting propaganda.”
In their overzealous attempts to “protect the freedom of speech” by trying to shut down an alternative opinion, the MPs fell out of touch with their own constituents, who turned to social media to enlighten the people’s chosen ones that their suggestions actually amount to censorship.
Gapes already admitted that he had been confronted by angry people on social media over his remarks in parliament. Unsurprisingly, he just discarded all those who disagreed with his stance on the issue as “squawking Putin apologists.”
Even though it has not yet come to calls for banning RT altogether, one cannot rule out such possibility, taking into account the British politicians’ previous attempts to deal with the channel. The calls for the MPs to stay away from RT might well indicate that London would very much like to see public figures confined to appearing only in the media that so conveniently peddles the government narrative.
After all, apart from ostracizing RT, such moves show a much more worrying trend that some British officials are quite willing to limit the freedom of speech of their own fellow citizens by telling them who they may or may not speak to.
UK Recklessly Linking Moscow to Amesbury Without Proof – Ex-Intelligence Agents
Sputnik – July 5, 2018
Former UK intelligence officers told Sputnik that it was reckless for UK authorities to point at Russia as a link between the Amesbury poisoning incident and the nerve agent attack on Russia’s ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury in March, without any concrete proof of Russian involvement.
Late on July 4, the UK authorities said that the two victims of the Amesbury incident — who were hospitalized over the weekend — had been exposed to the same nerve agent as the Skripals.
UK Minister of State for Security Ben Wallace suggested that Russia “fill in the gaps” of what happened in the incident to allow the UK authorities to pursue their investigation and keep people safe. Wallace added that it was not a targeted attack but “a contamination by a Novichok.”
At a parliament session later on June 5, UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid said that the United Kingdom would take “further action” should Russia’s involvement in the incident confirmed. He noted, however, that “we don’t want to jump to conclusions.”
“Again [Wallace is] making connections when even in the Skripal case there had been no official connection made, only assertions of high probability that Russia was behind the Skripal attack. So to conflate that with the Amesbury attack I think is highly reckless for a public official,” Annie Machon, a former MI5 intelligence officer, said.
Former MI6 intelligence officer Nicholas Anderson added that Wallace was unqualified to make any statements about the case.
“Please understand that many in the armed forces and intelligence services believe that Ben Wallace, even though he is a former officer in the British Army’s Scots Guards, is not sufficiently experienced nor qualified to make official statements at this level. He has only been in place a few months and is a long-term ally of Boris Johnson, and toes the officially-set agenda,” Anderson said.
Deteriorating Relations
Russia has repeatedly denied its involvement in the Skripal case and offered to assist the United Kingdom in its investigation.
Machon stated that it was misleading for Wallace to now ask for Russia’s help with the Amesbury nerve agent attack when the United Kingdom had previously turned down Russia’s assistance.
“Certainly we also have a case where Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, of course, has repeatedly asked to be shown the evidence around the Skripal case so Russia could contribute to the investigation at that time and they have been repeatedly rebuffed. So for [Wallace] now to say that Russia could now help in securing the safety of British people is disingenuous,” Machon said.
Machon stated that since the Skripal case emerged in March, relations between Russia and the United Kingdom had been in a deep freeze, but the recent handling of the Amesbury case by UK authorities was likely only to worsen bilateral ties.
On June 4, the head of the UK Metropolitan Police’s anti-terrorism unit said the priority for the investigative team was to establish how contact with the nerve agent had been made, and that any baseless assumptions should be avoided.
Anderson stated that the UK authorities, by providing a lack of clarity about the attack, were only arousing suspicion among the population.
“It’s early days yet as so much is unexplained as to what has happened in Amesbury. Many of this country’s citizens before and now again are suspicious of our own government’s motives. Events that occurred before were not properly explained to the public,” Anderson said.
Anderson added that relations between Russia and the United Kingdom continued to be poor “at the choosing of the British government.”
Drawing Parallels to Skripal Case
Wallace stated Thursday that although those affected by a nerve agent in Amesbury were not linked to the Skripals, the cause of the incident in Amesbury was nerve agent contamination.
Machon stressed that it would be wrong to draw such conclusions when at the time of the Skripal attack, experts held the belief that the A234 nerve agent could not remain effective in the open for a long time.
“But I think it was initially said that it would take months to investigate all these possible leads, all these possible theories and still not know what the outcome of what it was then. So for British ministers to be drawing analogies to the recent attack in the Skripal case, I think is dangerous,” Machon said.
Commenting on the possibility that the United Kingdom was unduly passing the blame onto a state actor, Anderson stated that London should focus on foreign criminal elements instead, that had long established profitable operation in the country and the existence of which continues to be officially denied by the country’s government.
Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on March 4 in Salisbury, located several miles away from Amesbury. The United Kingdom promptly accused Russia of orchestrating the attack with what UK experts claimed was the Novichok nerve agent.
Moscow has repeatedly refuted all the allegations and offered its assistance in the investigation. The incident led to a diplomatic standoff between London and Moscow. Both Skripals have since been discharged from the hospital.
READ MORE:
2 Hospitalized After Exposure to ‘Unknown Substance’ in UK’s Amesbury — Police
UK Health Secretary: Amesbury Looks Like ‘After-Effect’ of Salisbury Case
UK Counter-Terrorism Chief: 2 People in Amesbury Exposed to Novichok
Salisbury to Host 2019 UK Army Day as Tribute to Skripal Poisoning Response – May
The Amesbury Mystery
By Craig Murray | July 4, 2018
We are continually presented with experts by the mainstream media who will validate whatever miraculous property of “novichok” is needed to fit in with the government’s latest wild anti-Russian story. Tonight Newsnight wheeled out a chemical weapons expert to tell us that “novichok” is “extremely persistent” and therefore that used to attack the Skripals could still be lurking potent on a bush in a park.
Yet only three months ago we had this example of scores from the MSM giving the same message which was the government line at that time:
“Professor Robert Stockman, of the University of Nottingham, said traces of nerve agents did not linger. He added: ‘These agents react with water to degrade, including moisture in the air, and so in the UK they would have a very limited lifetime. This is presumably why the street in Salisbury was being hosed down as a precaution – it would effectively destroy the agent.’”
In fact, rain affecting the “novichok” on the door handle was given as the reason that the Skripals were not killed. But now the properties of the agent have to fit a new narrative, so they transmute again.
It keeps happening. Do you remember when Novichok was the most deadly of substances, many times more powerful than VX or Sarin, and causing death in seconds? But then, when that needed to be altered to fit the government’s Skripal story, they found scientists to explain that actually no, it was pretty slow acting, absorbed gradually through the skin, and not all that deadly.
Scientists are an interesting bunch. More than willing to ascribe whatever properties fit the government’s ever more implausible stories, in exchange for an MSM appearance fee, 5 minutes of fame and the fond hope of a research grant.
According to the Daily Telegraph today, the unfortunate Charlie Rowley is a registered heroin addict, and if true Occam’s Razor would indicate that is a rather more likely reason for his present state than an inexplicably persistent weaponised nerve agent.
If it is however true that two separate attacks have been carried out with “novichok” a few miles either side of Porton Down, where “novichok” is synthesised and stored for “testing purposes”, what does Occam’s razor suggest is the source of the nerve agent? A question not one MSM journalist seems to have asked themselves tonight.
I am slightly puzzled by the picture the media are trying to paint of Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess as homeless, unemployed addicts. The Guardian and Sky News both state that they were unemployed, yet Charlie was living in a very new house in Muggleton Road, Amesbury, which is pretty expensive. According to Zoopla homes range up to £430,000 and the cheapest ones are £270,000. They are all new build, on a new estate, which is still under construction.
Both Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess still have active facebook pages and one of Charlie’s handful of “Likes” is a mortgage broker, which is consistent with his brand new house. They don’t give mortgages to unemployed heroin addicts, and not many of those live in smart new “executive housing” estates. Both Charlie and Dawn appear from their facebook pages to be very well socialised, with Dawn having many friends in the teaching profession. Even if she has been homeless for a period as reported, she is plainly very much part of the community.
Naturally, there is no mention in all the reports today of MI6’s Pablo Miller, who remains the subject of a D notice. I wonder if he knows Rowley and Sturgess, living in the same community? It should be recalled that Salisbury may be a city, but its population is only 45,000.
The most important thing is of course that Charlie and Dawn recover. But tonight, even at this early stage, as with the entire Skripal saga, the message the security services are seeking to give out does not add up. Mark Urban’s piece for Newsnight tonight was simply disgusting; it did not even pretend to be more than a propaganda piece on behalf of the security services, who had told Urban (as he said) that Yulia Skripal’s phone “could have been” tapped by the Russians and they “might even” have listened to her conversations through the microphone in her telephone. That was the “new evidence” that the Russians were behind everything.
As a former British Ambassador I can tell you with certainty that indeed the Russians might have tapped Yulia, but GCHQ most definitely would have. It is, after all, their job, and billions of our taxes go into it. If tapping of phones is seriously presented as evidence of intent to murder, the British government must be very murderous indeed.
Pro-Israel group loses ‘anti-Semitism’ case against Leicester council

Jewish colonists stealing Palestinian olives in the West Bank
MEMO | July 4, 2018
Leicester City Council has “won its long-running legal battle” against a pro-Israel advocacy group over a motion backing a boycott of Israeli settlement produce, reported the Leicester Mercury.
In a ruling issued Tuesday, the Court of Appeal rejected the arguments brought by Jewish Human Rights Watch (JHRW), who had taken legal action against the 2014 council motion.
As reported by the local paper, “JHRW challenged a High Court judge’s previous decision to reject the pressure group’s attempt to force the council to rescind the boycott”, arguing that “the council had breached its own equalities rules and had acted in a discriminatory manner”.
The council, however, won yesterday’s case, and “JHRW has indicated it will not pursue the matter further”. In addition, “JHRW is now likely to have to pay the council’s legal costs.”
The council’s barrister, Kamal Adatia, said after the case: “The High Court originally dismissed the claims of discrimination made by this group back in June 2016, and now the Court of Appeal has emphatically thrown out their appeal.”
“The ruling totally endorses Leicester’s approach to handling this motion, and has made no change whatsoever to the way in which councils can pass such motions in future.”
“The judgement is a landmark – not for organisations like JHRW, but for all local councils. It recognises their fundamental right to pass motions of this nature and makes it clear that they can, like Leicester, fully comply with their equality duties when doing so.”
City Mayor Sir Peter Soulsby said: “Their argument has been trounced in the judge’s decision.”
“I strongly resent the implication it is not possible to criticise the Israeli government without being anti-Semitic.”
The motion backing a boycott of goods made in internationally-condemned Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory was, Soulsby said, “never anticipated to have a major impact (on our purchasing)”, but rather “was a powerful gesture to show support for the plight of the Palestinians”.
In a bizarre press release, Jewish Human Rights Watch spun defeat as victory, claiming that despite their appeal being rejected, the ruling “made a number of very important changes to the law”.
Wheel Out the Skripal Story Again
By Craig Murray | July 4, 2018
Just as the World Cup had forced the British media to grudgingly acknowledge the obvious truth that Russia is an extremely interesting country inhabited, like everywhere else, by mostly pleasant and attractive people, we have a screaming reprise of the “Salisbury incident” dominating the British media. Two people have been taken ill in Amesbury from an unknown substance, which might yet be a contaminated recreational drug, but could conceivably be from contact with the substance allegedly used on the Skripals, presumably some of which was somewhere indoors all this time as we were told it could be washed away and neutralised by water.
Amesbury is not Salisbury – it is 10 miles away. Interestingly enough Porton Down is between Amesbury and Salisbury. Just three miles away from Muggleton Road, Amesbury. The news reports are not mentioning that much.

“I am all out of ideas Inspector. What can possibly be the source of these mysterious poisonings?”
Neither Porton Down nor the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has any idea where the substance to which the Skripals were allegedly exposed was made. Boris Johnson’s great “coup” of obtaining a majority vote at the OPCW to expand its powers to place blame for chemical attacks, has proven rather otiose as the OPCW has no evidence on which to base any blame for Salisbury. In fact, four months on, May and Johnson’s shrill blaming of Russia remains entirely, 100% evidence free.
I do however wish to congratulate the neo-con warmongers of the Guardian newspaper for verbal dexterity. They have come up with a new formulation to replace the hackneyed “Of a type developed by Russia”, to point the finger for a substance that could have been made by dozens of state or non state parties. The Guardian today came up with “Russian-created novichok”. This cleverly employs a word that can encompass “developed” while also appearing to say “made”. It also again makes out that novichok is a specific substance rather than a very broad class of substances. The Guardian’s Steven Morris, by this brilliant attempt deliberately to mislead his readers, runs away with this week’s award for lying neo-con media whore of the week. His achievement is particularly good as the rest of his report is largely a simple copy and paste from the Press Association.
I most certainly hope that the couple in Salisbury hospital recover from whatever is afflicting them. The media is, by making this the lead story on all broadcast news after last night’s football, inviting us to make the connection to the Skripals. In which case I assume the couple were perfectly well for five hours after contact, able to be very active and even to eat and drink heavily, before being mysteriously instantly disabled at the same time despite different ages, sexes, weights, and metabolisms and random uncontrolled dosages.
Replicating that would be quite a feat.
Falter vs. Atzmon: Update
Gilad Atzmon | July 02, 2018
Dear friends and supporters,
As you know, three months ago I was sued in the High Court of England by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism’s Chairman Gideon Falter regarding a paper that I published on my website. I asked for your support and was thrilled to find out how vast and kind your support was.
Before the trial could begin, the court held a preliminary hearing to do with the meaning of the words of my article. There was a dispute between the sides about how far my words went, and what the allegations I made were. This dispute had to be resolved by the court before the actual trial could take place.
The judge in the case, Mr Justice Nicklin, applied his own meaning to my article at the preliminary hearing, which included a ruling from him that my article claimed that the funds collected by Mr. Falter and the CAA were obtained by “fraud” on Mr. Falter’s part.
I did not (and do not) believe that Mr. Falter was motivated by fraud and I do not think that there is anything I said that suggested it. However, I have to accept the ruling that the court made.
Even taking the case to this point had been costly on both a financial and personal level, and after this ruling it was clear to me that I had no option but to apologise and settle the case.
The overall battle for free speech has been very expensive and it is probably far from over.
The case has re-confirmed to me the crucial importance of freedom of expression and the restrictions imposed on it by the libel courts in this country.
Despite what has been suggested earlier today by Mr Falter in a press release, the court didn’t make any finding that I myself am an anti-Semite.
Thank you again for your support.
Gilad
In case you want to support my legal fees
UK Warplanes Bomb Pro-Government Forces in Syria After Attack by ‘Unidentified Force’
Sputnik – July 1, 2018
The Royal Air Force strike on Syrian troops is the first of its kind since April, when the US, UK and France launched missile strikes against multiple targets in the Arab republic after an alleged chemical attack in Douma.
A Ministry of Defense spokesman confirmed that the RAF attack had taken place, and said that a group of anti-Damascus Maghawir al-Thowra opposition militia and coalition “advisers” were attacked by an “unidentified force” outside the al-Tanf base on June 21, prompting the RAF response.
“As an act of collective self-defense, RAF Typhoons dropped a single Paveway IV on the position, which successfully removed the threat to our coalition partners,” the spokesman said. “There was no need to inform Parliament of this action… only in the event that civilian casualties have resulted from a RAF strike would the [defense secretary] inform parliament of events,” he added.
The MOD refused to comment on the identity of the force attacked, but called the bombing a “wholly proportionate response.” According to the Sunday Times, the airstrike killed one Syrian Army officer and wounded seven others. Damascus has yet to comment on the reported casualties.
British and US Special Forces troops and trainers deployed in southern Syria in 2016 and have been engaged in the training of anti-government militia. Damascus has repeatedly demanded that the coalition end its “illegal presence” in the country. Damascus and Moscow have also accused the coalition of “spewing Daesh mobile groups” from the region.
The US-led coalition has carried out a campaign of airstrikes ostensibly aimed against Daesh since 2014. The coalition has no UN mandate or authorization from Damascus, and the Syrian government has called its activities a violation of its sovereignty. The US and its allies have repeatedly targeted Syrian government troops, most recently in April, where in response to an alleged chemical attack in Douma, they launched over 100 cruise missiles at government-controlled cities and facilities. Syria and its Russian and Iranian partners called the Douma ‘attack’ a false-flag operation designed to justify new attacks on Syria.



Part One, The Record, treats the history of garlic as evidence. From the clay garlic bulb placed in an Egyptian grave nearly six thousand years ago, through the Ebers Papyrus, through Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Pliny and Galen, the Arab physicians under Avicenna, the medieval herbals, Culpeper, and the plague years, to the last era in which Western physicians prescribed garlic as a matter of course, which ran from 1850 to 1945. It closes with the living traditions that never stopped using it, and with the folklore of charms, vampires and the evil eye.