FlyDubai or Don’t Buy it?

Palestinians have been fired at by Israeli soldiers and settlers while trying to begin the olive harvest in the occupied West Bank. Farmers and activists arrived to the annual harvest in the town of Beita and were met with tear gas and moved away from the groves. According to the UN, nearly 2,000 Palestinians have been injured and more than 80 killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since the beginning of this year. Israel’s army said it had sent soldiers to the area to disperse a ‘confrontation’ and that no one was injured. Olive season is typically a time of high tension between Palestinian farmers and Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. #Channel4News #News #WestBank #Palestinians #Israel

A mass funeral has been held in Gaza City after at least 100 bodies were recovered from the rubble of a residential building targeted by an Israeli airstrike in 2023. The remains were recovered by Palestinian Civil Defense crews in recent days and authorities say there are still thousands of bodies buried in the destruction. The Israeli Defense Force has repeatedly said Hamas embedded itself in residential areas and rejects allegations of targeting civilians. #Channel4News #C4News #News #Israel #Gaza #Palestine

A former civil servant describes fearing for his job after speaking out against the UK government’s involvement in Gaza and questioning its policy on arms exports. Here, he speaks exclusively to journalist Ramita Navai.

A double lie here from Ed Miliband: 1. He doesn't need to wait for the Supreme Court to rule on Palestine Action's proscription. The Burnham government could overturn the decision tomorrow if it so chose. 2. Miliband says no one's intent was to criminalise "grannies and vicars" for holding up signs. He's right. That's because the Starmer government imagined it could misuse terrorism laws to intimidate the respectable, white middle classes into silence on genocide. The plan was to leave "brown" people isolated and exposed to the full force of the law if they raised their voices in protest. The Labour government hoped to associate in the public's mind opposition to genocide with supposed Islamic extremism. It massively underestimated public revulsion at the genocide and the UK's complicity. Don't expect anyone in the establishment media, including Andrew Marr, to highlight either of these very obvious and salient points.

UNLAWFUL ARREST On Sunday, police forcefully detained and handcuffed a young man under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act. They stripped him of clothing while dragging him across the floor. He had not committed any crime.

Even Yvette Cooper won’t defend the ban on Palestine Action anymore. The former home secretary and foreign secretary deflected questions about the proscription from Novara Media's Michael Walker at Labour party conference in Liverpool on Monday. “It was her policy and she won’t defend that policy,” @michaeljswalker says on Novara Live.

- Palestinian voices themselves are still minimal (and sometimes completely absent) in these spaces. The problem remains that a lot is said about Palestinians without Palestinians, and this is structural across party and civil society dynamics.

Paddy Young provides an update on Benjamin Netanyahu’s UN general assembly address. #SNLUK

SNL UK is absolutely fantastic!👌

Tonight’s UK Update had about seven or more jokes the US show would never, ever do even on their ballsiest day and then still manages to end on a image so beyond the pale, even I was stunned.

It was confirmed to me this morning by a prominent football journalist informed by a former FAI board member that the UK-based player agency Unique Sports Group (@UniqueSG) threatened the Irish players yesterday that they'd never play for US-owned UK clubs if they refused to play

Here's Stephen Morgan chilling out with Isaac Herzog in the Knesset, as part of a Labour Friends of Israel delegation.

Well well. So Darren Jones says Keir Starmer misspoke in his interview with Nick Ferrari when he said Israel had the right to cut off food water and essential supplies to Gaza. He says it was a mistake by his team not to come out immediately and acknowledge that. And yet one week after the interview, I was on Daily Politics with @darrenpjones and I condemned Starmer for his comments. Jones's response was to claim Starmer had never said that Israel had the right to commit thise acts and I should apologise for saying he had. I wonder if @darrenpjones wants to now apologise for being one of those who failed to stand up to genocidal policies.

בגלל העניין והחשיבות הציבורית אני ורחלי החלטנו ביחד עם הגרדיאן שהסרט נז״א יהיה נגיש באינטרנט בחינם, ללא הגבלת זמן, כדי שכל אדם יוכל לצפות בו ובעדויות החיילים. זה יקרה בעוד כמה שבועות, בנובמבר, במועד הכי מוקדם שהצלחנו לקבוע. עד אז פנינו לבתי קולנוע בישראל והצענו להם את הסרט ללא עלות, בתקווה שיוקרן בארץ כבר עכשיו, במקביל להפצתו בבתי קולנוע בעולם. הצגתו תהיה החלטה אמיצה אל מול אלימות גדולה שמכוונת להסתרתו. אני יודע שיש ביקוש אדיר לצפות בסרט ואני מקווה שבאופן הזה כולם בקרוב יוכלו לראות אותו: בין אם בבתי הקולנוע ובין אם באינטרנט בעוד כמה שבועות. הרבה דברים לא נכונים נאמרו עלינו ועל הסרט בשבוע החולף. הסרט מבוסס על תחקיר עיתונאי מקיף של שלוש שנים והפרטים בו מאומתים ומוצלבים. הוא ידבר בעד עצמו והאמת סופה להתבהר. עשינו את הסרט כדי לעורר דיון ציבורי לגבי המעשים של הממשלה בעזה, ההרג של יותר מ73,000 בני אדם, רובם אזרחים, הנרמול של מלחמת השמדה, של התפיסה ש״אין בלתי מעורבים״. עשרים וארבעה חיילים וחיילות עשו צעד ודיברו מול מצלמה על מה שחברה שלמה לא רוצה לדבר עליו. ההכרה בזוועות בעזה לא מפחיתה לרגע מהטבח הנפשע של השבעה באוקטובר, שחמאס אחראי עליו, שחיילים מדברים עליו בסרט, ושאין לו שום הצדקה. להפך. הרי ההתעלמות ממה שקורה בעזה היא מהגורמים שסללו את הדרך לשבת הנוראה ההיא. וההתעלמות הזו נמשכת. עיתונות היא לא בגידה. ביקורת היא לא בגידה. זו חובה של כל אזרח שממשלתו מבצעת פשעים לדעת ושל כל חייל שהיה עד להם לספר. מסתובבים כאן אלפי חיילים כאלה, שיצפו בסרט ויזהו את מה שמתואר בו באופן אישי: את ההרג של אנשים לא חמושים שחוצים קו מדומיין, את אישורי הנז״א במאות, את התקיפות המערכתיות בבתי משפחות, את השריפה וההשמדה הפיזית של עזה, רצח וירי על אנשים רעבים במרכזי מזון ופשעים נוספים שאין להם הצדקה. גם אם זה מפחיד, זו חובתכם למצוא את הדרך להעיד על מה שראיתם. יגידו לכם שכדאי להסתיר את האמת למען הסברה בחו״ל, אבל זה קשקוש. שם יודעים כבר הכל. פשעים לא מסבירים אלא עוצרים. הסתרת האמת קודם כל מרעילה את החברה שלנו ומעל הכל מאפשרת לפגיעה בבני אדם בעזה להימשך. ובנימה אישית: אני כותב על מדיניות האש של הצבא בעזה בעברית ב״שיחה מקומית״ כבר שלוש שנים. התחקירים זכו להתעלמות בישראל. עכשיו בפעם הראשונה משהו נסדק במסך ההתעלמות - וזה דבר חיובי. זה דבר בריא. כן, זה מגיע עם מחיר אישי גדול. היה שבוע קשה. אבל בתוכו גם יש המון תמיכה, והרבה נדיבות. מה שבטוח: האיומים לא יעזרו. זה לא מרתיע אותנו. אני ורחלי נחזור לארץ ונמשיך להיאבק על עתיד המקום הזה ביחד עם שותפים רבים.

California's Attorney General's office has dropped all charges against five Stanford University students arising from a June 2024 Gaza protest. The local prosecutor was removed by a judge when it emerged they were using the prosecution to solicit political contributions.

Last night I made the mistake of listening to the @restisents podcast - in which @MarinaHyde and @RichardOsman gave a painfully ignorant analysis of the Ed Sheeran controversy. Here's what they got wrong: 1. They start by saying "we're not going to cover the political situation"... before going on to make numerous highly political (and partisan) points. 2. Osman says he has "a lot of sympathy" for Sheeran's position of not saying anything political. Yet Sheeran was never asked to say anything political himself; he was just criticised for ditching Macklemore - and it was this decision which was inherently political in itself. Besides, would Osman have sympathy for Sheeran's supposed "neutrality" in other situations? EG, if Sheeran announced gigs in North Korea on the basis that he doesn't take a position on the country's political leadership, would that be ok? 3. The discussion lasts almost half an hour, yet at no point do they mention that Ed Sheeran HAS previously taken political positions, including his active support for Ukraine. 4. Osman repeatedly sets up a straw-man argument, saying that Sheeran is "allowed" to not make political statements. "That's a decision you absolutely are allowed to make and I respect that as a decision." But again, this is not what Sheeran was criticised for. The controversy was the way Macklemore was ditched over HIS support for Palestine. 5. Hyde repeatedly claims that Sheeran's stance on this "doesn't make a difference in the wider political situation". She adds: "I don't believe that artists are making a difference on this or, indeed, any issue in terms of changing the politics." This is a bizarre and ridiculous claim. Does she believe the cultural boycott of South Africa made no difference at all? Earlier this month, Ed Miliband actually credited pro-Palestine campaigners and young people for playing an "important role" in getting the government to sanction illegal settlements. Many of these young people have been mobilised thanks to celebrities and influencers. 6. Hyde does some classic whataboutery: "There are also other places in the world where really terrible things are happening." She claims that a lot of pro-Palestinian artists are therefore not conducting themselves "consistently". But she misses the point entirely. The Ed Sheeran scandal is precisely why artists need to speak out about Palestine - because (unlike the other issues she cites) the genocide is being actively supported by the Western establishment. 7. Hyde appears to have contempt for Ed Sheeran's celebrity critics: "I'm always very suspicious of anyone who has a sense of absolutist moral rectitude," she says. Umm... if you believe what's happening in Gaza is a genocide, isn't it good to have a sense of moral rectitude about it? If not, perhaps Hyde could enlighten us about the moral complexities of a genocide. It was honestly one of the most pathetic and painful things I've listened to in a while and they should apologise. In future, perhaps it's best that they stick to discussing daytime TV trivia instead.

On March 16, 1968, US troops were raping and massacring Vietnamese civilians including children and babies at My Lai. Then an American helicopter pilot named Hugh Thompson Jr. saw what was happening — and decided he could not stand by. Thompson was flying a reconnaissance mission in an OH-23 Raven with his two crewmen, Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn. Their job was to scout ahead of the ground troops and identify enemy positions. But something was terribly wrong. From the air, Thompson noticed bodies everywhere — women, children, infants and elderly people. There was virtually no return fire. He marked wounded civilians with smoke so they could receive medical help. But when he came back, he discovered that some of the people he had marked as wounded had been shot dead. He watched a wounded Vietnamese woman lying on the ground. An American soldier approached her, prodded her with his foot — and shot her in the head. Thompson was horrified. He then saw a group of 12–15 Vietnamese women and children fleeing toward a bunker while American soldiers pursued them. He landed his helicopter between the civilians and the soldiers. Thompson confronted the Americans and ordered his crew to cover the civilians. He told his gunner, Lawrence Colburn, to train his M60 on the American troops and fire if they opened fire on the Vietnamese. Think about that. An American soldier had reached the point where he was willing to risk shooting fellow American soldiers to prevent them from committing more war crimes. Thompson then helped get the civilians out of the bunker and called in other helicopters to evacuate them. His crew helped rescue Vietnamese survivors and wounded children. After returning to base, Thompson immediately reported what he had witnessed to his superiors. Hugh and his men deserve to be remembered, not because they were American soldiers, but because they chose humanity when others had abandoned it. While others were killing innocent people, these three Americans risked their lives to save them. That is courage. That is humanity. This is Thompson Hugh Jr.

For over a year, boxes containing 900 wheelchairs meant for people in Gaza have been sitting in a warehouse because Israel won’t let them in, classifying the wheelchairs as “potential weapons”

The view from there: SNL UK's "Weekend Update" tackles Macklemore's removal from Ed Sheeran's U.S. tour.