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Workers, trade unionists mobilise to block arms supply sites in the UK

MEMO | May 1, 2024

Workers and trade unionists shut down major UK sites involved in arms supplies to Israel this morning in response to a call to mobilise from Palestinian trade unions for workers to take action.

United under the banner “Workers for a Free Palestine” (WFFP), over 1,000 staffers and trade unionists blockaded the UK Department for Business and Trade in London and three BAE Systems’ arms factories in Wales, Scotland and North-West England to mark International Workers’ Day.

Today marks the 208th day of Israel’s ongoing bombing campaign in Gaza, which has seen over 35,000 Palestinians killed. The British Government has not implemented an arms embargo on Israel, in contrast to actions taken by its allies, including Canada, the Netherlands, Japan, Spain and Belgium. In response, British workers are engaging in direct action by initiating their own embargo against arms supplies to Israel.

A trade unionist and organiser for WFFP taking part in the London blockade, Tania, said: “If arms company bosses and Britain’s political elite won’t impose an arms embargo, we, the workers, will enforce it from below.”

“In our most disruptive action yet, a wave of People’s Arms Embargoes is sweeping across England, Scotland and Wales on May Day, as workers and trade unionists shut down arms factories and a government which enables this genocide profiteering and makes the UK directly complicit in these crimes against humanity.”

The blockade at the Department for Business and Trade was organised in support of civil servants who have urged the government to “cease work immediately” on arms export licences to Israel, citing concerns that the administration is complicit in war crimes being committed in Gaza. Their union, the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), is considering legal measures to protect its members from being compelled to engage in unlawful acts.

The establishment of these “People’s Arms Embargoes” across the UK coincides with a recent decision by a High Court judge to allow a legal challenge against UK arms exports to Israel to proceed, with a hearing scheduled for later this year.

This surge of activism also comes in the wake of a letter signed by 600 lawyers, academics,and retired senior judges, including former Supreme Court justices, which cautions that the UK government’s ongoing arms sales to Israel may violate international law, referencing the International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s finding that Israel’s actions in Gaza could constitute genocide.

“When Israel massacres entire families and razes cities to the ground, companies like Elbit Systems, BAE, Leonardo, Thales and Raytheon make vast profits. When we see hospitals turned into mass graves of over 300 people and many of those killed having been stripped of their clothes and had their hands and feet tied, the knowledge that British-made weapons which enable such atrocities are being manufactured on my doorstep makes me feel complicit,” said Aisha, a community worker blockading the arms factory in the north of England.

Aisha added: “I’m taking this action because I simply can’t stomach arms to Israel’s murderous regime being supplied in our name by companies which are subsidised by our taxes – if the company bosses and the government continue to refuse to listen to us, we will keep shutting them down and impose our own arms embargoes.”

Three British aid workers were killed in early April in an Israeli drone strike, parts of which were manufactured in the UK, highlighting the significant impact of UK-made arms in the attacks on Gaza. Since 2015, the UK has authorised arms sales to Israel totalling £487 million ($608 million), a figure that excludes weapons exported under open licences. Additionally, a considerable amount of US military aid is funnelled to Israel via a British air force base in Cyprus, while British military forces have conducted surveillance flights over Gaza to assist Israel’s ongoing military offensive.

May 1, 2024 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The US and the UK are pushing for total war on all fronts

By Timur Fomenko | RT | April 29, 2024

The events of recent weeks have produced a sudden jolt in Western politics. From a lethargy that was starting to creep into US and western discourse over the Ukraine war, Iran’s attack on Israel suddenly seemed to have had the effect of awakening Ronald Reagan from his grave and leading to a surge of neo-conservativism on steroids, on both sides of the Atlantic.

US House Speaker Mike Johnson did a complete 180-degree U-turn and proclaimed himself a “Reagan Republican” passing a series of aid bills for astronomical overseas spending that he had otherwise blocked for months, as he denounced an “axis of evil.” Along with that, a proposed TikTok ban bill came out of nowhere too and was quickly signed into law.

Then the UK decided to devote its largest ever aid package to Ukraine, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak warning of an “axis of authoritarian states” and amplifying ideologically combative rhetoric. At the same time, it was then revealed Biden had sent 300km long range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine despite having pledged not to do so for years, fearing escalation. Finally, EU President Ursula von der Leyen has suddenly dramatically increased economic warfare on China, pushing the European Commission to open probes on scores of Chinese exports. Where exactly did all this come from?

It’s almost as if the US and its allies seized upon the tensions between Iran and Israel in order to “whitewash” their slate and double down on a series of objectives they are otherwise losing public support for, including the war in Ukraine, but also Israel’s invasion of Gaza. One has to wonder if the Israeli attack on the Iranian compound in Damascus, which provoked Tehran’s response, was deliberately staged, coordinated and planned for this purpose. It served the mutually convenient goal of letting both Prime Minister Netanyahu and Western governments off the hook for whatever opposition they had otherwise faced.

It should be abundantly clear now that the current powers that be, in London and Washington, have absolutely no intent of letting up on the wars they have provoked, while also pushing for a potential third one with China, and seem indifferent to the consequences, even if for example, the Israel-Gaza war is shattering the West’s claims of moral superiority. In each case, the stakes are very high, Western foreign policy at large has taken on a very zero-sum and ideological character which bemoans the loss of hegemony, and seeks to uphold it at all costs. It is reactionary to the extent it does not have a vision for improving the world, but wants to take back the world to the way it was. It is a sense of entitlement and privilege that wants to suppress an emerging multipolarity.

Because of this, it has become impossible for Western leaders to ever consider the concept of compromise in these respective theaters, and they refuse under any circumstances to make concessions which could be deemed strategic. This has produced a position where the only outcome they are willing to accept in Ukraine is what they deem “the defeat of Putin,” and have been subtly escalating ever since, edging ever closer to the point where a “proxy war” becomes a direct one for all intents and purposes. NATO military advisors are already on the ground, and Ukrainian attacks are being guided by NATO intelligence or even coordinated by British admirals.

The media in the West, especially in Britain (there is more dissent in the US) are effectively in war mode. The BBC amplifies non-stop Ukraine propaganda, pushing any claim that will help Kiev irrespective of its empirical worth or evidence, and all voices of dissent have been shut down. It seems evident that the decision may have been made to risk a full-on war with Russia, rather than to consider any negotiation scenario. Thus, the shockwaves from the Iran-Israel saga have been used to pursue a new and sudden round of escalation on every front, which can have only been bolstered by the prospective elections looming in both the US and UK.

Because of this, it is fair to say that the world faces a more dangerous and uncertain outlook than at any point since the end of World War II. This current crop of Western leaders are not pursuing a more restrained and calculated mindset, as seen for most of the Cold War, but an aggressive and evangelistic one that does not prefer stability but affirms hegemony as an absolute right, thus more resembling a pre-1914 world. Because of this, we should draw the conclusion that Western leaders are not truly seeking to avoid war, but are prepared to embrace it if necessary. The British military establishment and the media have long been making noises about conscription. In the US, if Joe Biden wins re-election, we can assume that he will unapologetically escalate on every single front. World War III is no longer a dramatized specter of farfetched panic, but an actual possibility that should not be ruled out.

April 28, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Yemen downs third US MQ-9 Reaper drone since November

The Cradle | April 27, 2024

The spokesman for the Yemeni armed forces, Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, announced on 27 April that Sanaa downed another MQ-9 Reaper drone and that its troops successfully targeted the British-owned MV Andromeda Star crude oil tanker.

According to the US Central Command (CENTCOM), the Yemeni armed forces launched three anti-ship ballistic missiles into the Red Sea, causing minor damage to the Andromeda Star.

One of the missiles landed near a second vessel, the MV Maisha, but it was not damaged, CENTCOM said.

On Saturday, an unnamed US military official confirmed to CBS News that an MQ-9 Reaper drone “crashed” inside Yemen early on Friday and said an investigation is underway.

According to Saree, the $30 million drone was shot down by Yemeni air defenses in Sadaa province.

Yemen has downed three MQ-9 Reaper drones since the start of its operations in support of Palestine last November, costing the US government at least $90 million.

Despite launching an illegal war on the Arab world’s poorest country, the US has failed to deter attacks on the Red Sea and Indian Ocean by Sanaa.

The Yemeni armed forces initially targeted only Israeli-linked ships passing through the Bab al-Mandab Strait but expanded the operation to include US and UK ships after Washington and London began bombing the country.

An EU naval mission to “protect navigation” in the Red Sea has also failed to deter the attacks, as officials from Germany and France have said that the situation “remains the same.”

In the face of its failure, Washington recently offered Yemeni officials “an acknowledgment of its legitimacy” in exchange for its neutrality in the war on Gaza.

“[Washington] pledged to repair the damages, remove foreign forces from all occupied Yemeni lands and islands, and remove Ansarallah from the State Department’s ‘terrorism list’ – as soon as they stop their attacks in support of Gaza,” according to Yemeni sources who spoke exclusively with The Cradle.

The offer also included “severely reducing” the role of the Saudi-appointed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) and “accelerating the signing of a roadmap” with the Saudi-led coalition to end the nine-year war that has decimated Yemen.

Nevertheless, Yemeni officials have maintained that their operations in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean will continue until Israel stops the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

On 22 April, the Yemeni armed forces announced that they would expand military operations against Israeli-linked ships in the Red and Arabian Seas and the Indian Ocean following the discovery of mass graves around several of Gaza’s hospitals.

April 28, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas calls on 18 countries signing hostage release initiative to expose Israel’s crimes

MEMO | April 27, 2024

The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas expressed its regret over the statement issued by the White House, signed by 18 countries, calling for the release of the hostages in the Gaza Strip.

The movement conveyed on Friday that the statement: “Did not address basic issues for our people who are suffering under the burden of a comprehensive genocidal war and did not stress the need for a permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of the occupation army from the Gaza Strip. This is in addition to the ambiguity surrounding other issues.”

Hamas stressed that it is: “Open to any ideas or proposals that take into account the just needs and rights of our people, represented by a complete cessation of the aggression against them, the withdrawal of the occupation forces from the Gaza Strip, the unconditional and unrestricted return of the displaced, reconstruction, lifting the siege, and moving forward with reaching a serious prisoner exchange deal through the Palestinian people receiving their full legitimate national rights by self-determination, and establishing their independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”

Hamas called on the US administration, the countries that signed the statement and the international community: “To lift the lid on the crime of genocide committed by the Zionist enemy against children and defenceless civilians in the Gaza Strip, and to put pressure to end it, as an urgent priority.”

On Thursday, 18 countries called for an end to the crisis in the Gaza Strip and the establishment of peace and stability in the region.

This came in a joint statement on behalf of the leaders of the US, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Thailand and the UK, published on the White House website.

The statement demanded: “The immediate release of all hostages held by Hamas in Gaza for over 200 days. They include our own citizens. The fate of the hostages and the civilian population in Gaza, who are protected under international law, is of international concern.”

The countries’ leaders who signed the statement emphasised that: “The deal on the table to release the hostages would bring an immediate and prolonged ceasefire in Gaza,” without mentioning the deal’s details.

April 27, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Supporters of the racist ideology of Zionism operating inside the UK civil service

By David Miller | Al Mayadeen | April 27, 2024

The witch hunt against Muslims in the UK civil service is well underway, with the suspension of the Civil Service Muslim Network, in the aftermath of the UK government’s new supposed definition of ‘extremism’. But there are some ‘extremists’ and supporters of genocide in the civil service who are not being targeted by the government: Zionists.

Zionists appear to run, or at least to be very well represented, in the leadership of the Jewish equivalent of the Civil Service Muslim Network.

The Civil Service Jewish Network (JNet) is “a cross-government network of over 300 Jewish civil servants and other civil servants interested in Jewish culture.” According to official data, this amounts to around a quarter of all Jews in the civil service. Their Facebook group has 329 members, though on their X account they claim “over” 400 members, which would be around one third of Jewish civil servants as revealed in government statistics.

It may be the case that there are non-Zionists or anti-Zionists involved in the leadership of the network, but if so there is precious little public sign of this, as we shall see. One view expressed by Matthew Gould the first Jewish British Ambassador to “Israel” was that “I have never come across any anti-Zionism” in the Foreign Office.

Mathew Gould has been a senior sponsor of the Civil Service Jewish Network. Until 2015 Gould was the British Ambassador to “Israel”, where he set up the UK-“Israel” Tech Hub, a unit inside the British embassy which promotes Israeli tech start-ups invariably stuffed with former Israeli intelligence officers. He had previously served in Tehran and in Washington as the UK representative of the Joint Intelligence Committee. He thus has intelligence connections himself. He says he is a “passionate Zionist”.

Another former senior sponsor was Melinda Simmons, the British Ambassador to Ukraine between 2019 and 2023. She previously worked at the National Security Secretariat, part of the British intelligence apparatus. She had been recruited to the Foreign Office prior to this in 2013, so she likely joined MI6 then. Simmons is a member of the Finchley Reform Synagogue, part of the Movement for Reform Judaism, which says it is “unequivocally Zionist”. It is also, unsurprisingly affiliated to the World Zionist Organisation.

The current senior sponsor is Tamara Finkelstein, who became Permanent Secretary at the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in April 2019. She has been referred to as the most senior “Jewish British civil servant”. Finkelstein hails from a Zionist family with connections to B’nai B’rith and to Reform Judaism which is formally Zionist, attended Haberdashers Girls’ school, something of a hothouse for young Zionists, and then studied Engineering at Balliol College Oxford. After studying economics at LSE, she became a civil servant when she joined the Treasury and later “was a private secretary and speechwriter to Gordon Brown in the early days of his time as Chancellor”.

She also “set up and lead a programme in building safety in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire”. Finkelstein is a member and former Chair of New North London Synagogue, part of the Zionist Masorti Judaism movement. She is also a trustee of Norwood, the Jewish children and families charity, which is affiliated to the pro-“Israel” Jewish Leadership Council. On her appointment as Permanent Secretary the Environment Secretary and hardline Zionist Michael Gove said: “She is an outstanding public servant I have very much enjoyed working with.” Tamara Finkelstein’s brother is militant Zionist Daniel Finkelstein, former chair of the Islamophobic think tank Policy Exchange from 2011-2014.

In addition to one or two senior sponsors, the network has a number of more junior civil servants who run the network. The leaders of the network include (or have included):

Joel Salmon

Joel Salmon at the Department for Levelling Up, where he states he “leads” on “international race and equalities policy.” He is one of two admins for the J-Net Facebook group. He is also a fully radicalised Zionist. His radicalisation appears to have started young, having attended a Zionist secondary School, JFS (2005-12) where he was Head Boy. Having been a member, he then became a “Youth Leader” with the Zionist youth group RSY-Netzer, in 2011, a role he still holds. He belongs to Finchley Reform Synagogue, part of the Movement for Reform Judaism, which is affiliated to the World Zionist Organisation. He states he “went on trips with Aish and lived on a religious kibbutz for three months”.

Aish Hatorah is a Zionist organisation that has been implicated in working in illegal settlements especially south of Nablus. It is not clear if the Kibbutz that Salmon lived on was in the illegally occupied West Bank. Salmon interned at BICOM, the pro-“Israel” PR group in London in January 2013, and also at the hardline Neocon Hudson Institute in Washington DC in July and August 2013 while still at university.

While attending St Andrews University Salmon was the president of St Andrews Jewish Society, a Zionist affiliated group. In 2015, he was a candidate for the presidency of the Union of Jewish Students, the umbrella group for all university Jewish Societies, which is also formally Zionist. After university, he went straight into a job as a lobbyist at the Board of Deputies of British Jews (2016-2019). After that, Salmon was a lobbyist for ADS, an arms industry trade association. Amongst its members are the Israeli arms firm Elbit Systems. From there he joined the civil service. It beggars belief that someone with such a long history with racist Zionist organisations can be put in charge of any element of “race and equalities” policy in the Department for Levelling Up.

Joshua Nagli

Joshua Nagli who works at the Department for Transport, and has been a civil servant since 2017. He was previously an Intern at the Portland Trust (Jun 2016) run by the Zionist financier Sir Ronald Cohen. Later he worked for the Union of Jewish Students, rising to the position of Campaigns Director (2015-16). In that capacity he was part of the witch hunt against the Labour left adding his voice to the campaign against Oxford University Labour Club an entirely confected row. He was quoted in the JC as saying, “The events in Oxford, despite them being extremely bad, made people within the Labour Students group realise we need to deal with this issue.” Nagli is also a trustee and director of the London Jewish forum (since 2020) a group that is a member of the pro-Israel Jewish Leadership Council and which is funded by Zionist extremists such as via the family foundations of convicted fraudster Gerald Ronson and the Lewis family who control the clothing chain River Island. It’s not clear how this Zionist activity is compatible with his status as a civil servant.

In addition to this preponderance of Zionists as leaders and sponsors of the network, there has been a pattern of Zionist involvement in the events of the Network. In 2015 and after (such as in 2018) the network was involved with Mitzvah Day, a Zionist-led campaign to infiltrate and subvert Muslim communities, as I have shown elsewhere. Also, from 2015, the Board of Deputies of British Jews has been involved in the network’s Chanukah celebrations inside Whitehall. These have been repeated in  2017 and 2018. The Board has also sponsored Sukkah in the Treasury and Foreign Office, for example in 2018 and 2019, and a networking event in DEFRA in 2019. The Board is a strong supporter of the genocide in Gaza, and has been signed up to the racist ideology of Zionism since the 1940s. It is notable that no Jewish organisation critical of Zionism appears to have had any presence in the network.

If the government is serious about tackling extremism, then it should suspend the Jewish Network and take urgent steps to de-radicalize and de-zionise it.

David Miller is an investigative researcher, broadcaster, and academic. He is the founder and co-director of the lobbying watchdog Spinwatch and editor of Powerbase.info.

April 27, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

UK blocked Ukraine peace deal – Moscow

RT | April 27, 2024

Ukraine abandoned a draft peace treaty with Russia in 2022 under British pressure, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

The deal, which could have ended the Ukraine conflict weeks after it started, was approved by negotiators in Istanbul, but Kiev later pulled out of the talks.

The German newspaper Welt reported on Friday that Moscow had issued additional demands after a deal had already been outlined, such as making Russian the second official language in Ukraine, implying that this had ended any hopes of an agreement.

Peskov denied those claims on Saturday, citing remarks made by Ukrainian MP David Arakhamia, who led Kiev’s delegation at the talks.

In an interview to domestic media last November, Arakhamia said then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had intervened in the peace process and had urged the Ukrainians to “just fight” Russia.

Kiev effectively discarded the deal under “direct pressure by London,” Peskov stressed. “The rest is speculation. I suggest we learn from the source.”

Asked whether the draft treaty could serve as a basis for further peace talks, Peskov said Kiev’s public position was to reject talks with Russia. The idea of reviving the failed agreement was floated by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko when he met Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin earlier this month.

Johnson has denied derailing the peace talks, but has also bragged on multiple occasions about his policy of nudging Kiev into continuing hostilities with Russia, which the British politician claims to be a fight for global democracy.

“There could be no more effective way of investing in Western security than investing in Ukraine, because those guys without a single pair of American boots on the ground are fighting for the West,” Johnson told students at Georgetown University during a visit to the US this month. The Ukrainians “are effectively fighting our own fight, fighting for our own interests,” he added.

Russian officials have described the Ukraine conflict as a Western proxy war against Moscow, which the US and its allies allegedly intend to wage “to the last Ukrainian.” Their goal, according to Moscow, is to contain Russia and stall its development, rather than protect the interests of the Ukrainian people.

April 27, 2024 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

US & UK Reduced Naval Presence in Red Sea – Houthi Leader

Sputnik – 26.04.2024

The United States and the United Kingdom have scaled down their naval presence in the Red Sea despite lack of abatement in the intensity of attacks carried out by Yemen’s Houthis rebels on Israeli-linked ships, the rebel movement’s leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, said on Thursday.

“Our operations have not decreased, as the Americans claim, presenting this as their achievement, but rather the movement of their warships has decreased. There has been an 80% reduction in the movement of US Navy ships, not our operations,” al-Houthi was quoted by Iranian broadcaster Almasirah as saying on the occasion of 200 days of hostilities in the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, al-Houthi said that since the beginning of hostilities in Gaza, they have attacked 102 Israeli-affiliated ships, an equivalent of one ship every two days.

“The American and British enemies have failed to ensure the movement of Israel-bound ships despite constant and intensive monitoring. As long as the blockade and aggression against the Gaza Strip continues, operations in the southern Red Sea will continue,” al-Houthi said.

Moreover, the leader of the movement also known as Ansar Allah said that there was an ongoing effort to expand and strengthen operations in the Indian Ocean in ways that “the Americans, the British, the Israelis, and perhaps the rest of the world cannot envision.”

His statements came a day after the movement announced attacks on a US ship and a destroyer in the Gulf of Aden and an Israeli ship MSC Veracruz in the Indian Ocean after a week-long standoff.

Houthis have been launching attacks on commercial and military vessels in the region for months, in response to Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip. The attacks prompted the US to form a multinational coalition to protect shipping in the area, as well as to strike Houthi targets on the ground.

April 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

UK APPROVED ARMS FOR ISRAEL DAYS AFTER IT KILLED BRITISH AID WORKERS

BY JOHN MCEVOY | DECLASSIFIED UK | APRIL 23, 2024

On 1 April, Israeli forces launched a series of airstrikes on a convoy of aid workers in Gaza, killing three Britons, a Polish national, a Palestinian, an American-Canadian dual citizen, and an Australian.

The Israeli Air Force carried out the bombing with a Hermes 450 drone. According to Campaign Against the Arms Trade, this drone may be powered by a R902(W) Wankel engine produced in Britain by UAV Engines Limited (UEL).

New court documents show that the UK government decided to continue arms exports to Israel on 8 April, one week after the strike on the aid workers who were employed by the charity World Central Kitchen (WCK).

The revelation will put additional pressure on the Foreign Office to justify its decision not to suspend arms sales to Israel.

‘Killed with British weapons’

Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq challenged the UK government today in court over arms sales to Israel.

Documents provided to the court show that the UK government has conducted five legal assessments of the situation in Gaza since 18 December.

One of those assessments, which covered the period 18 December to 29 February, was delivered to UK foreign secretary David Cameron on 28 March.

On 3 April, two days after the Israeli airstrike on the aid workers, Cameron used this assessment to recommend that the UK continue arms sales to Israel.

Five days later, UK trade secretary Kemi Badenoch authorised the continuation of extant licences and new licences to Israel, according to GLAN’s press statement.

The court documents further show that the UK government is capable of making “out of cycle assessments… where circumstances require” on Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law.

However, such an assessment was apparently not conducted following Israel’s attack on the WCK staff.

Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe, a lawyer at GLAN, said: “The world has watched as 34,000 people have been killed, and more are being killed every day… Has the Government no regard for the immense loss of human life thus far, some of whom will have been killed with British weapons?”

Hermes 450 drone

The UK government is also refusing to rule out whether British machinery was used in the killing of the aid workers.

On 12 April, Kenny MacAskill MP asked in parliament whether the government had made an assessment of whether UEL engines or engine parts had been used in the strike. Trade minister Alan Mak said his department could not comment “on specific licences”.

On 17 April, Andy McDonald MP also asked whether the three British aid workers “were killed by weapons manufactured in Britain”. Foreign Office minister David Rutley responded simply that “we have strong export controls”.

UEL designs and manufactures engines for drones, specialising in Wankel technology which delivers an “outstanding power-to-size and weight ratio… ideal for tactical unmanned aircrafts”.

The company was established in Staffordshire in 1992, before being acquired by Israeli arms firm Elbit Systems.

Over recent decades, concerns have been raised that UEL produces engines and engine parts for Israel’s drone fleet, which is frequently used to support bombing campaigns over Gaza.

Made in Britain

In 2009, it was reported that the engines for Israel’s Hermes 450 drone had been manufactured by UEL. These claims were supported by information on Elbit’s own website.

British arms control officials subsequently admitted that they had licensed engines to Israel for onward export, but could not confirm that the engines had not instead been fitted to the Hermes 450 drone.

Since then, the UK government has continued to issue licences to UEL for exports to Israel. The most recent licence was seemingly granted in 2021, allowing UEL to export parts for military engines to Israel.

Campaign Against the Arms Trade’s Sam Perlo Freeman told Middle East Eye: “The evidence seems to stack up that it is a UK engine and, if it’s not, then Elbit need to clarify that… Definitely it seems to be based on a UK design at the very least”.

An Elbit Systems spokesperson told Declassified: “Elbit Systems UK, its subsidiaries and joint ventures, including UAV Engines Limited and U-Tacs, are not involved in the Hermes 450 programme”.

The company’s spokesperson, however, would not respond to a further question on whether Israel’s Hermes 450 drones use engines or engine parts produced by UEL in the UK. They said: “We have nothing further to add to the [previous] statement”.

A UK-based subsidiary of Elbit Systems and Thales also produces the Watchkeeper drone, which is modelled on Elbit’s Hermes 450 and used by the British army.

“The British government is, in effect, buying technology that has been ‘field tested’ on Palestinians”, noted campaign group War on Want.

‘A full, transparent explanation’

The day after the Israeli airstrikes on the aid convoy, UK foreign secretary David Cameron announced that he had “called on Israel to immediately investigate and provide a full, transparent explanation of what happened”.

On 5 April, the IDF published the conclusions of its investigation, claiming that Israeli forces had identified gunmen near the trucks and “mistakenly assumed that the gunmen were located inside the accompanying vehicles and that these were Hamas terrorists”.

The report continued: “Those who approved the strike were convinced that they were targeting armed Hamas operatives and not WCK employees”. The IDF chief of the general staff subsequently dismissed the Israeli brigade’s commander and chief of staff.

Israel’s self-exonerating investigation was led by Yoav Har-Even, the former head of the IDF operations directorate, and now the president and CEO of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.

Rafael is one of Israel’s biggest arms firms. It is owned and controlled by the Israeli state, and its largest client is the IDF. The investigation into the killing of the aid workers was therefore led by the CEO of a company which supplies many of the bombs that Israel is using to destroy Gaza.

The UK government has not commented on whether this satisfies its demand for a “full, transparent explanation”, and the extent to which the Foreign Office is pressing Israel on the matter remains unclear.

Mak recently told parliament: “We are carefully reviewing initial findings of Israel’s investigations into the killing”. He continued: “The findings of the inquiry must be published in full and followed up with a wholly independent review to ensure the utmost transparency and accountability”.

Prior to the attack on the WCK staff, at least 357 humanitarian-run sites in Gaza had reportedly been attacked.

John McEvoy is an independent journalist who has written for International History Review, The Canary, Tribune Magazine, Jacobin and Brasil Wire.

April 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Liberal world order must be destroyed – Orban

RT | April 25, 2024

Western liberal hegemony has failed and must be destroyed, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban stated on Thursday, suggesting it could end as soon as this year.

Addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC Hungary) in Budapest, Orban criticized the existing “world order based on progressive liberal hegemony,” saying it has spawned numerous figureheads who are “not fit to be leaders,” with even “beauty pageants” knowing more about peace then they do.

He accused liberal politicians of building “hegemonic ideological control to which everyone must submit” instead of actual governing, while turning “state bodies into tools of oppression.” Such forces are a dangerous enemy whose time is coming to an end, Orban claimed.

“The progressive liberals sense the danger, the end of this era also means their end,” the prime minister argued. Their dominance could be overcome as soon as this year, Orban predicted, citing the upcoming EU Parliament and US presidential elections.

“The proponents of the old world are sitting in Brussels, and although it is not my business to interfere in American politics, I fear that they are also sitting in Washington. This is what we are doing this year. This year, we will try to drive them out,” the Hungarian prime minister said.

“This year, God willing, we can end the inglorious era of the Western civilization. We can end the world order built on progressive liberal hegemony. The progressive liberal world spirit has failed. It gave the world war, chaos, unrest and destroyed economies.”

The emerging world order will be based on true sovereignty, with countries driven by their actual national interests rather than a global ideology, according to Orban.

“Let the era of sovereignty come, let’s get back towards peace and security. Let’s make America great again, let’s make Europe great again,” he concluded.

April 25, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Andrew Bridgen – UK Parliament Speech On Excess Deaths – April 18, 2024

You can watch the entire debate here.

Mr Bridgen’s speech in full

Thank you, Mr Speaker,

We are witnesses to the greatest medical scandal in this country in living memory and possibly ever.

The excess deaths in 2022 and 2023 is that scandal.

Its causes are complex but the novel and untested medical treatment described as a “covid vaccine” is a large part of the problem.

I have been called an anti-vaxxer as if I have rejected these vaccines based on an ideology.

I want to state clearly and unequivocally that I have not. I am, in fact, double vaccinated.

Intelligent people must be able to distinguish between being anti-vax and pro-vax but against a product that a) doesn’t work and b) causes enormous harm to a small percentage of people.

I am proud to be one of the few members of parliament with a science degree. It is a great shame there is not more intellectual diversity here. Maybe if there was, there would be less reliance on the Whips Office’s briefings, more independent research and less groupthink.

I am used to raising issues in this House that no one cares about and no one wants to know about.

Nothing has been learned from the Post Office scandal.

Only two of the five MPs in the room when the Second Sight team were appointed, on my recommendation, to investigate the post office are still in the House of Commons. I am one of them. Michael Rudkin, the national sub-postmaster Federation Chairman who famously saw the live Horizon terminals in the basement of Fujitsu HQ was my constituent.

I have been fighting his corner in this House for many many years. Long before that scandal became national news. Long long before. I was mostly ignored.

I am being ignored again, this time on the issue of excess deaths.

Yet again, the official narrative is to deny, obfuscate, ridicule and silence dissenting voices.

I say to the House, and I say it with seriousness, this debate – and others like it proposed by me and others – are going to be pored over by future generations.

They will be genuinely agog that the evidence was ignored, that genuine concerns were disregarded and that those raising it were gaslit, smeared and vilified.

The excess deaths scandal bears an uncanny resemblance to the Post Office catastrophe

Both involve:

  • Complacent public bodies
  • Ministers unable to understand the technicalities and mouthing platitudes
  • Malevolent corporations with a vested interest in silencing questions
  • Lives ruined by greed, lies and corruption
  • Most damaging of all is a culture of denial, obfuscation, secrecy and denigration
  • Much of the harm was avoidable

You don’t need to have any scientific training to be horrified by officials deliberately hiding key data in this scandal.

The Covid-19 experimental ‘vaccine’ is a scandal that is happening right now, today, and it must end.

The Office of National Statistics used to release weekly data on deaths per 100,000 in vaccinated and unvaccinated populations.

Now it doesn’t. No one will explain why.

The public has a right to that data.

There have been calls – from serious experts whose requests I have amplified repeatedly in this House – for what is called “record-level data” to be anonymised and disclosed.

This data will allow meaningful analysis of deaths after vaccination and settle the issue of whether these experimental treatments are responsible for the increase in excess deaths.

Far more extensive and detailed data has been released to the pharma companies from publicly funded bodies. Jenny Harries, head of the UKHSA, said this anonymised aggregate death by vaccination status is “commercially sensitive” and shouldn’t be published.

The public is being denied this same data.

Yet again data is hidden with impunity. Just like the Post Office.

You may remember Professor Dame Jenny Harries, who in July 2022, said that masking was a good idea – and I quote, “If I’ve got any respiratory infection it’s a good thing to do, and I think it’s a new lesson for the country.”

She earlier gave the following totally contradictory advice: “The virus will not survive very long outside. Many outdoor events, particularly, are relatively safe.”

On 11th March 2020 on the issue of masks, she said, “It’s really not a good idea and doesn’t help,” and “in some ways, you may actually risk catching the disease rather than preventing it.”

She was right then. What made her do a U-turn on all these critical points?

Professor Harries has also endorsed a recent massive change in the calculation of the baseline population level used by the ONS to calculate ‘excess deaths’. It is incredibly complex and opaque and by sheer coincidence, it now appears to show a massive excess in deaths in 2020 and 2021 and minimal excess deaths in 2023.

Under the old calculation method, tried and tested for decades, the excess death rate in 2023 was an astonishing 5%, long after the pandemic was over and when you would expect a deficit in deaths because so many people died early in previous years.

20,000 premature deaths are now being airbrushed away in 2023 alone with the “new normal” baseline.

Fear

What is even more shocking is the sheer number of mistakes and scandals in this ongoing horror story.

For example, in March 2020, the government conducted a consultation exercise on whether people over a certain age or with disabilities should have Do Not Resuscitate orders imposed on them, known as DNRs.

A document summarising the proposals was circulated to doctors and hospitals. This was mistakenly treated as formal policy by a number of care homes and GPs up and down the country who enacted it.

At the same time, multiple hospitals introduced a policy that they would not admit patients with Do Not Resuscitate orders because they thought they would be overwhelmed.

Many people died as a result who did not need to, as nurses did TikTok videos while their hospitals lay empty.

Another example:

Fear kills. It kills because people don’t seek needed medical care for fear of the virus, a virus which has a 99.8% survival rate.

It kills because it has been proven that increased stress can suppress the immune system or even be fatal in vulnerable people.

It kills because people who were trying to get care were told to isolate.

It kills because frightened staff were too eager to ventilate to reduce aerosols in the ward.

It kills because isolated, vulnerable and elderly people are abandoned by family and friends.

It’s not just patients who are frightened. Doctors are frightened too. Frightened for their careers. Frightened for their reputation. Frightened of the GMC. Frightened to do anything not prescribed by the authorities who set the protocols.

There have been many doctors and scientists who have bravely spoken out on this, risking their careers and livelihoods, people like Dr Aseem Malhotra, Professor Norman Fenton, Dr David Cartland and Professor Angus Dalgleish to name but a few. Not to forget all of the team at the Hart Group including Dr Clare Craig, who has been so instrumental in helping me put together this speech today.

Another example is that during Covid, doctors failed to call out a dangerous change in protocol. The average time to death from covid symptoms starting was 18 days.

It is a little-known fact that the body clears all the virus within around 7 days.

What kills people is that some people, especially the vulnerable, have an excessive immune response.

Doctors have been treating this for decades with steroids, antibiotics for secondary pneumonia infections and other standard protocols.

But, not this time.

Even though the virus was long gone, doctors abandoned the standard clinical protocols because covid was a new virus.

They sent people home and told them to take paracetamol until their lips turned blue.

Then they sedated them, put them on ventilators and watched them die.

It gets worse, the protocol was a binary choice between two treatment tracks. Once admitted, ill patients were either to be ventilated in intensive care or, if they were not fit for that level of care, they were to be given end-of-life medication including Midazolam and Morphine.

The body responsible for this protocol – NG163 which was published on 3rd April 2020 – is called the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence – NICE.

Giving Midazolam and Morphine to people dying of cancer is reasonable but they have a side effect. The side effect is that these drugs have a respiratory depressant effect.

It is hard to imagine a more stupid idea than to give people struggling to breathe, drugs that do that. Yet that’s what they did.

Why was the warning letter regarding the use of Midazolam in NICE guideline NG163 to the British Medical Journal on 19th May 2020 signed by two Professors and nine Doctors ignored? Especially as it would seem it’s a replica of Abolished Liverpool Care Pathway in dosages and combined use of Midazolam plus an opioid.

NG163 stated that a blanket start dose of 2.5 mg of Midazolam should be injected regardless of age, body weight and comorbidities, how can this be medically acceptable as results show titration was not possible at such a dose for many elderly and who authorised it?

Why was Midazolam then removed from the same updated guideline NG191 on 30th November 2023? (As it was removed is it now considered and admitted it was a mistake to ignore the warning of the inclusion of that specific drug in NG163)?

It’s now been confirmed by subsequent letters from Ministers to families that doctors and nurses should have treated the individual patient with their own knowledge rather than strictly follow NICE guideline NG163 (as suggested by Quince and Stephenson) so if the warning letter from 11 experts to the BMJ was correct is the blame with NICE, NHS England or individual doctors and nurses, should legal action find verdicts of unlawful killing?

I would like to pay tribute to the Scottish Covid Inquiry which is hearing extensive, heartbreaking evidence of the effect of this alternative protocol on real people, real lives and sadly real and unnecessary deaths. People scared. People angry. People dying. People gasping for their lives away who might have been saved.

I very much hope that the eventual Scottish Inquiry Report addresses in detail the NICE  decision making on the alternative protocols for those with Covid.

All these deaths were ascribed by the government to covid as if no other factors needed to be investigated.

But this is one example of a scandal that if it wasn’t for the Scottish Inquiry would never be investigated and never learned from.

Anyone who raised this problem during the pandemic was smeared as a covid denier.

Even worse

NICE has now removed these alternative protocols from its website. All other old protocols are still there for historical reference.

Why have NICE removed this protocol from their website? Are they ashamed of the harm they caused?

They certainly should be.

What can we learn from this? Doctors don’t challenge what they are told. Protocols with no authors are distributed and doctors fall in line.

We need doctors who are prepared to put their necks on the line for the sake of their patients, but we don’t have them and the whole system is broken as a result.

Here is another example.

Not a single death certificate was written saying that death was due to the rare brain clots caused by AstraZeneca until the MHRA said there was a link. Then the death certificates started to trickle in.

That’s not the scandal.

The scandal is that doctors wait for authorities to tell them they could label a death as vaccine-linked before they will do it. They are afraid of being smeared or reported to the GMC.

In the meantime, the MHRA relies on the evidence from death certificates in order to identify a problem.

That’s the scandal.

It wasn’t until other countries and public and political pressure FORCED the MHRA to admit the link between vaccines and blood clots causing death that they finally admitted it. And THEN doctors started putting it on death certificates.

There is a stark contrast in how deaths and illnesses after vaccination have been recorded compared to Covid. After a positive test, any illness and any death was attributed to the virus. After the experimental and emergency-use vaccine, no illness and no death occurred. Both are totally unscientific approaches. That is why we have to look to other data sources – excess deaths to determine if there is an issue.

Safe and Effective

The fear deliberately stoked by the government promoted the idea of being rescued by a saviour vaccine. The chanting of the safe and effective narrative began. The phrase seems to have hypnotised the nation.

“Safe and Effective” was the slogan used to market Thalidomide.

After that scandal rules were put in place to prevent such marketing in future. Pharma companies are prohibited from saying “safe and effective” without significant caveats.

That didn’t matter this time because the media, the government and authorities turned into the pharma marketing department.

It is hard to now hear the word safe without the echo of “and effective”.

But they are not safe and effective. In March 2021, when the majority of UK citizens had already received these novel products, Pfizer signed a contract with Brazil  and South Africa in which they said, “the long-term effects and efficacy of the Vaccine are not currently known and … adverse effects of the Vaccine… are not currently known.”

These so-called vaccines were the least effective vaccines ever. Is there anyone left under the illusion that they prevented any infections?

Yet, even the Prime Minister now has one eye on history.

When he was at the dispatch box on 31st January at PMQs, following my question, he could not bring himself to add “and effective” to his “safe” mantra that the vaccines were safe.

Why is the Prime Minister gaslighting the 163 successful claims made to the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme totalling an incredible £19.5m in compensation for harm caused by the Covid vaccines? Haven’t they suffered enough already? Those 163 are the tip of the iceberg by the way.

It should be noted that the maximum payment is £120,000. So each of those 163 got the maximum possible award, which tells you something perhaps.

That same compensation scheme paid out a total of £3.5m between 1997-2005 with an average of 8 claims per year. That’s for ALL other claims in the entire country for all vaccines.

So much for ‘safe’.

How about effective?

Even by 25th October 2021, the former Prime Minister and Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip even admitted that, and again, I quote, “It doesn’t protect you against catching the disease, and it doesn’t protect you against passing it on.”

Looking at the levels of the virus in sewage shows that the post-vaccine wave was in the same order of magnitude and duration as the previous waves.

Vaccines changed nothing. They were not safe. And they were not effective.

Those who imposed these vaccines knew full well they could never prevent infections in this kind of disease.

An injection in the arm cannot do that. Only immunity on the surface of the airway and lungs can prevent viral infection. Antibodies in the blood cannot.

In Dr Anthony Fauci’s own words, “It is not surprising that none of the predominantly mucosal respiratory viruses has ever been effectively controlled by vaccines”

He continued, “This observation raises a question of fundamental importance: if natural mucosal respiratory virus infections do not elicit complete and long-term protective immunity against reinfection, how can we expect vaccines, especially systemically administered non-replicating vaccines to do so”

The mantra of “safe and effective” has so brainwashed some people that we now have the outrageous situation where the loving mother of a 24 year old man, who had the mental age of an 18 month old has been threatened in court with jail time, by a lawyer charged with representing her son’s best interests, because she does not want him vaccinated.

He has had covid meaning he has the optimum possible protection against a subsequent infection already.

The judge has used the argument that Tom would choose to be vaccinated for altruistic reasons but the court has a duty to act in his best interests not the interests of society.

Altruism means taking vaccinations to help others. But, these vaccines do not protect others! They do not prevent infection. Why is our system persecuting this mother? What are they hoping to achieve?

Only a few days ago, the ABPI, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry rapped Pfizer on the knuckles for the sixth time and said their marketing practices had brought the industry into disrepute. They were asked to pay £30,000 in administrative expenses with no fine on top. The person heading the ABPI at the moment is also the head of Pfizer UK. The MHRA have a statutory duty to carry out this work and has handed the responsibility over to the industry itself. This is an outrageous conflict of interest.

Another drug produced by Pfizer was Paxlovid designed to supposedly treat Covid. It was approved in December 2021.

Pfizer this week revealed the trial results for Paxlovid that had been hidden for two years.

The study showed that Paxlovid did not work to reduce illness.

Worse still, it caused rebound infections in 25% of those treated.

Worse still it causes serious drug interactions and other side effects.

Will Pfizer be held accountable for this? I am not holding my breath.

Australia

But let’s return to excess deaths. The Australian government has launched an Inquiry into their excess death problem.

Australia is almost unique as a case study for excess deaths. They had the vaccine before they had Covid.

Their excess deaths are not so easily blamed on the long-term effects of a virus. Like us, they saw a rise in deaths that began in May 2021 and has not let up since. The impact was evident on the ambulance service first.

South Australia saw a 67% increase in cardiac presentations of 15-44 year olds which peaked in November 2021 before covid hit.

We saw a similar deeply worrying effect here too:

Calls for life-threatening emergencies in the UK rose from 2000 per day to 2500 per day in May 2021 and it has not returned to normal.

Queensland doctors called the problem a “ticking time bomb” in April 2021 and described a “flood of patients.” 69

By October 2021, despite it being springtime in Australia headlines reported on ambulances unable to drop off patients in hospitals that were at full capacity.67

Mark McGowan, Premier of Western Australia, said he could not explain the overwhelmed hospitals, “Our hospitals are under enormous pressure. This has been something no one has ever seen before. Why it is, is hard to know.”68

By April 2022, Yvette D’ath Queensland health minister said about the most urgent ambulance calls (“code ones”), QUOTE: “I don’t think anyone can explain why we saw a  40% jump in code ones… We just had a lot of heart attacks and chest pains and trouble breathing, respiratory issues. Sometimes you can’t explain why those things happen but unfortunately, they do.”70

Omicron caused excess deaths in Australia from 2022 onwards, however, there is a huge chunk of excess deaths which doctors have not been able to blame on the virus.

Could these deaths be caused by the vaccine? Very few dare ask, Mr Speaker.

Remember the warning from Kate Bingham, head of the covid vaccine task force, who said in October 2020 that vaccinating healthy people who have little risk from covid “could cause them some freak harm.”

Has there been some freak harm? The data on disability claimants would suggest the answer is yes! Both here and in the USA there was a rocket in the number of working-aged people unable to work because of long-term sickness. The increase began in May 2021. Thankfully these figures have stopped climbing here and in the USA in 2023.

The timing, or temporal link, suggests vaccines as the cause rather than the virus.

A rise in sickness and a rise in deaths that both occurred from May 2021 in Australia and in the UK despite their seasonal differences and despite their different covid trajectories is highly suggestive that vaccines are the underlying problem here.

It is important to remember how these vaccines were made. Traditionally the key to making a vaccine is to ensure that the pathological parts of the virus or bacteria are inactivated so the recipient can develop an immune response without the dangers of the disease.

In stark contrast, these so-called covid vaccines used the most pathological part of the virus in its entirety.

The harm is systemic because, contrary to what everyone was told, the lipid nanoparticles spread throughout the whole body after injection, potentially affecting all organs. At the time everyone was being reassured that the injection was broken down within the arm at the injection site, regulators knew or ought to have known of these problems.

Furthermore, there is now plentiful evidence that the drug results in continued protein production for many months, even years, in some people. The deaths, thus far have been predominantly cardiac. but there may be more deaths to come.

Cancer

Dr Robert Tindle is the retired director of the Clinical Medical Virology Centre in Brisbane and Emeritus Professor in Immunology.

This month Dr Tindle published a paper highlighting the multiple potential harms from the vaccines including harm to the immune system which – as with anything which disrupts the immune system – can potentially increase the risk of cancer.

There are other reasons to be concerned about cancer being induced by these vaccines.

Cancer is a genetic disease that arises from errors in DNA allowing cells to grow uncontrollably.

Moderna has multiple patents describing methods for reducing the risk of cancer induction from their mRNA products.

This risk comes from material interrupting the patient’s DNA.

It turns out that what we were told was an mRNA injection actually had very high quantities of DNA in it. This massively increases the risk of disturbing a patient’s own DNA.

Worse still the DNA that was injected contained sequences that were hidden from the regulator. This was no accident. Yet again crucial information was hidden with impunity.

Conclusion

The evidence is clear that these vaccines have caused deaths.

Despite this, they have been described as safe and effective.

But, for a small proportion of people, the vaccines have caused serious harm including death.

Neither are they effective. The vaccine does not prevent infection or transmission and when the data is looked at objectively, it does not prevent serious illness and death.

These are hard truths to face.

We must face them if we want to learn the lessons from the last few years.

I’ve been right before.

At some point that will be evident. Let’s not wait as long as the post office scandal before we admit it.

It is time to take the politics out of science and put some actual science back into politics.

So, Mr Speaker, I offer Members of this House the same opportunity which I offered the Prime Minister: ‘To be on the right side of history, the right side of science and on the side of the people.’

Sadly, given the PM’s compromised position regarding his investments in big pharma, he only dug himself an even bigger hole!

I wish I was wrong about the experimental vaccines but the evidence was overwhelming 18 months ago it is absolutely unequivocal now.

I call on this House to do the right thing and protect our constituents, even if it means standing up to the most powerful vested interest in the world.

April 25, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | , , | Leave a comment

UK suspends legal assessments on Israel’s compliance with international law

MEMO | April 24, 2024

In a shocking revelation during a hearing at the High Court, it has come to light that the UK government has suspended legal assessments over whether Israel is breaching International Humanitarian Law (IHL). The hearing was part of legal proceedings initiated in December by Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq and UK-based Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) against the UK after repeated written requests to suspend arms sales to Israel due to grave breaches of international law and UK rules.

According to the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), Trade Government lawyer James Eadie admitted to a “hiatus” in legal assessments of Israel’s compliance with IHL for reasons he “couldn’t go into,” stating that “decisions of some importance have been delayed for some time.” Eadie also mentioned that these delayed decisions were due “imminently” – likely in mid to late May.

The hearing also disclosed that the Secretary of State for Business and Trade last reviewed and approved arms sales to Israel on 8 April, three months after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) opened an instigation into possible genocide carried out by the apartheid state. However, according to information provided in court, this review only covered IHL violations committed up to 28 January, as the judge stated that the legal case into this review would only cover violations up to this date.

Notably, a determination that Israel is in violation of International Humanitarian Law would require the UK to suspend any arms sales to Israel. Details revealed during the hearing indicate that the UK government has sold weapons to Israel without a thorough review of the many breaches of international law documented by rights groups.

CAAT has strongly criticised the government’s actions. “This government likes to claim we have a robust arms export licensing system. This claim is now in tatters,” CAAT’s Media Coordinator, Emily Apple, said. “Israel is committing horrific war crimes with the aid of UK weapons and yet our government has suspended legal assessments of its compliance with international law, and delayed vital decisions.”

“It is outrageous that it has taken a court case for these revelations to come to light. David Cameron and other foreign office ministers have repeatedly avoided scrutiny on this issue. They are making a mockery of international law and a mockery of parliamentary scrutiny.”

While the case brought by GLAN and Al-Haq has been given permission to proceed, with a full hearing scheduled for October, CAAT emphasises the urgency of the situation. “We cannot wait until October for an arms embargo. Our government and the UK arms trade is complicit in genocide and they know it. We all need to keep up the pressure and demand that they stop prioritising the profits of arms dealers over Palestinian lives,” stated Apple.

The revelations from the High Court hearing have raised serious questions about the UK government’s commitment to upholding international law and its role in enabling the ongoing violence in Israel and Palestine through the continued sale of arms to Israel.

British Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, has repeatedly dodged questions about the legality of UK arms sales to Israel. Leaked reports show that the British government has received advice from its own lawyers stating that Israel has breached international humanitarian law in Gaza but has failed to make it public.

The comments, made by the Conservative Chair of the House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, Alicia Kearns, at a Tory fundraising event on 13 March are at odds with repeated ministerial denials and evasion on the issue.

“I remain convinced the government has completed its updated assessment on whether Israel is demonstrating a commitment to international humanitarian law, and that it has concluded that Israel is not demonstrating this commitment, which is the legal determination it has to make,” Kearns said in March. “Transparency at this point is paramount, not least to uphold the international rules-based order.”

April 24, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Conformity Colleges: the Occupation and Destruction of the Academy by the Radical Left

UK Column | April 11, 2024

Ben Rubin speaks with Professor David Barnhizer about the ideological capture of American universities, and its implications for the future of higher education and Western civilisation itself.

The UK Column is an independent multimedia news website supported by its members.

April 24, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

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