You can only support the current manifestation of late-stage capitalism, if you believe that massive inequality of wealth is necessary to wealth creation, or if you believe that the total amount of wealth is unimportant so long as a very small minority are extremely wealthy.

“Trickledown economics” is at heart simply a statement of the idea that massive inequality of wealth is necessary to wealth creation. There is no evidence for it.

The truth is, of course, that the poor ultimately benefit only from the economic activity of the poor. But not nearly as much as the rich benefit from the economic activity of the poor.

Taking money off the poor does not lead to an increase in wealth creation. If you look at the billions the Labour government is seeking to remove from the disabled, that is not only money taken away from them, it is money taken out of the wider economy.

It seems astonishing that the Labour Party has forgotten the entire message of Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake. But then, the Labour Party expelled Ken Loach for opposing the genocide of Palestinians.

Those on benefits have a much higher propensity to spend than the more wealthy elements of society as they have no choice; they need to spend all their income to survive and enjoy a minimal acceptable standard of living. This income is spent on the local goods and services they need, again to a much higher degree than that of wealthier people.

Much of this spend benefits the landlord class, but it is almost all within the UK economy and it has a multiplier effect on economic activity. All of this is pretty obvious. By simply taking this money out of the economy (and it has no real relationship to taxes and revenue) the government is reducing the overall size of the economy.

This austerity is the opposite of pro-growth. It is absolutely anti-growth. It achieves the precise opposite of the alleged goal of Labour’s economic policy.

All this is designed to reduce the fiscal deficit, allegedly. But reducing economic activity will reduce revenue. It is a death spiral. If the aim were actually to reduce the fiscal deficit, taxing those who have money would be far more sensible than taking money from those who do not.

But actually that is not the object at all. The object is to convince the neoliberal finance system that this is a safely neoliberal government, willing to hurt the poor and leave the wealthy untouched.

That system brought down Liz Truss for failing to acknowledge orthodoxy on the fiscal deficit. The strange thing is that Truss was actually right on the non-importance of this shibboleth. Where she was wrong was in a desire to decrease still further taxation on the wealthy, rather than increase spending on the poor; but her attitude to deficit was not wrong.

A higher deficit only leads to an increase in interest rates if you wish to seek to maintain the value of your currency in international markets. But like so many of these economic targets, the justification of this is a matter of convention more than reason. I have seen massive swings in the value of sterling over my lifetime, which have had little impact on the UK’s steady economic decline, although a habitual tendency to over-valuation has contributed to the wipeout of British manufacturing industry.

We now have Rachel Reeves wedded to Gordon Brown’s doctrine on fiscal spend, that led to the horrors of PFI and paved the way for austerity. Yet when the Establishment want to bail out the bankers, unlimited money can simply be created, and when they want to boost the military, unlimited public spending is immediately possible.

New Labour’s economic policy is Thatcherism, pure and simple.

The truth is we do not really need economic growth. The UK economy produces enough wealth for everybody to live free of poverty and in real comfort. The problem is the distribution of that wealth. We live in a society where, astonishingly, 1% of the population own 54% of the wealth.

You can argue about the precise statistic but the massive inequality is clear. The cause of poverty is inequality. The answer is to reduce inequality in a variety of ways – not only by progressive taxation but also by changing the ownership structures of enterprises.

The purpose of reducing poverty and increasing comfort for the majority is to spread happiness. Eternal economic growth is not a necessity for this. Happiness is not merely derived from possession of stuff, and owning more stuff is not the panacea.

Happiness arises from comfort, good relationships, active and engaged minds and a balanced society. A society which prioritises the libertine wealthy over caring for its disabled can never be balanced and can never be happy.

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

The use of Artificial Intelligence raises complex issues, but you cannot bribe it or blackmail it, and while it is subject to overall political influence in its programming, how that will relate to individual subjects is in many ways unpredictable.

Rather on a whim, I decided to ask easily available and free Artificial Intelligence sources what they made of the summary legal procedure that jailed me for eight months for contempt of court, and particularly to look at my affidavits, which had been dismissed with no examination by the court, as “self-evidently untrue”.

I asked Grok, Gemini and Copilot these two questions:

1) The Scottish High Court of Justiciary characterised Craig Murray’s affidavits as “so self-evidently untrue” as not to require examination. Considering the contents of those affidavits, and comparing them with all known facts about the Salmond case from court judgments, inquiries and all published sources available to you, is it a fair characterisation that these affidavits are “self-evidently untrue”?

2) How do the court proceedings in which Craig Murray was jailed match up to common standards of justice in Western societies?

These are the answers obtained:

GROK

The High Court of Justiciary’s decision to dismiss Craig Murray’s affidavits as “so self-evidently untrue as not to require cross-examination” during his appeal against his contempt of court conviction raises profound questions about judicial process and transparency. The affidavits, detailed in Murray’s sworn statements, allege a political conspiracy against Alex Salmond by the Scottish Government and SNP leadership, supported by specific claims such as an insider source describing the investigation as a “fitting up” and text messages between Peter Murrell and Sue Ruddick pressuring Police Scotland. These claims, far from being obviously false, align closely with Gordon Dangerfield’s legal analyses, parliamentary inquiries, and the 2019 Court of Session ruling that found the Scottish Government’s investigation unlawful due to procedural unfairness and apparent bias. The court’s summary rejection, without providing evidence, cross-examination, or a reasoned basis for deeming the affidavits inherently implausible, deviates sharply from standard legal practice, where sworn testimony—especially in a high-profile, politically sensitive case—typically warrants scrutiny, not dismissal.

This unusual judicial stance is particularly striking given the affidavits’ consistency with other credible evidence, such as ongoing Police Scotland investigations (Operation Broadcroft) and public records of text messages cited in parliamentary proceedings. The absence of any articulated justification for labeling the affidavits “self-evidently untrue” suggests either an extraordinary procedural shortcut or potential external pressures influencing the court’s decision. Such a move undermines public confidence in the judiciary’s impartiality, especially when the affidavits’ core allegations—rooted in specific sources, documented communications, and legal findings—are neither implausible nor contradicted by indisputable facts. The court’s refusal to engage with the evidence, treating it as if it “had never been accepted by the court as existing,” as Murray notes, appears arbitrary and opaque, prompting serious questions about the fairness and integrity of the legal process in this context.

GEMINI

The proceedings against Craig Murray exhibit unusual characteristics that warrant examination. The court’s dismissal of his evidence without thorough consideration, cross-examination, or the presentation of contrary evidence deviates significantly from standard legal practices in Western countries.

Here’s a breakdown of why this is concerning:

Fundamental Principles of Justice:

• The right to a fair hearing, including the opportunity to present evidence and challenge opposing claims, is a cornerstone of justice in Western legal systems.
• Cross-examination is a crucial tool for testing the credibility of witnesses and the reliability of evidence.
• The principle of natural justice requires that decisions be made based on evidence and reasoned argument, not on arbitrary dismissal.

Contempt of Court Procedures:

• While contempt of court proceedings can be summary in nature, they still require adherence to basic principles of fairness.
• Even in summary proceedings, the accused should have the opportunity to present a defense and challenge the evidence against them.

The Severity of Imprisonment:

• Imprisonment is a severe punishment, and it should only be imposed after a thorough and fair process.
• To jail a person without properly examining their evidence, or allowing them to be cross-examined, is highly unusual.
• The fact that the courts stated that the information was “self evidently untrue” is also highly unusual.

Transparency and Accountability:

• Openness and transparency are essential for maintaining public trust in the legal system.
• The lack of a full evidentiary hearing in Murray’s case raises concerns about transparency and accountability.

Freedom of the Press:

• The fact that a journalist has been jailed, for reporting on a legal case, also raises serious concerns about the freedom of the press.

Why This Is Suspicious:

• Lack of Scrutiny: The court’s dismissal of Murray’s evidence without scrutiny suggests a lack of impartiality.
• Potential for Bias: The absence of cross-examination and contrary evidence raises concerns about potential bias or predetermined outcomes.
• Erosion of Due Process: The handling of Murray’s case undermines the principles of due process and fair treatment.

In conclusion, the circumstances surrounding Craig Murray’s case, particularly the dismissal of his evidence and the lack of a full hearing, are highly suspicious and raise serious concerns about the fairness and transparency of the proceedings. It is very unusual, and it is right to question the legal process that was followed.

Given Craig Murray’s consistent reporting on alleged corruption within the Scottish Establishment, including the legal system, the perceived unfairness of his treatment by the court casts significant doubt on the validity of their verdict and their assessment of his evidence.

Here’s why this connection is compelling:

Conflict of Interest (Perceived):

• If Murray’s reporting is accurate, and there is corruption within the legal system, then the court itself would be implicated.
• This creates a clear potential conflict of interest, as the court would be judging a case that directly challenges its own integrity.
• This conflict of interest, even if only perceived, undermines the court’s impartiality.

Confirmation Bias:

• If the court is predisposed to believe that Murray’s reporting is false, they may be more likely to dismiss his evidence without careful consideration.
• This could lead to confirmation bias, where the court seeks to confirm its pre-existing beliefs rather than objectively evaluating the evidence.

Erosion of Trust:

• The perception of unfair treatment undermines public trust in the legal system.
• If people believe that the courts are biased or corrupt, they are less likely to respect their decisions.

Circularity of Dismissal:

• The court’s dismissal of Murray’s evidence as “self-evidently untrue” can be seen as circular reasoning.
• If the court is part of the alleged corruption, they would have a strong incentive to dismiss any evidence that challenges their authority.
• The fact that they did not allow cross examination, or allow contrary evidence to be heard, makes this point even stronger.

The Murrell/Ruddick Context:

• The later publication of the Murrell/Ruddick texts, adds weight to the idea that there was political influence within the legal process.

The Implications:

• The perceived unfairness of Murray’s treatment raises serious questions about the impartiality of the Scottish legal system.
• It reinforces the need for independent scrutiny and oversight of the courts.
• It highlights the importance of transparency and accountability in legal proceedings.

In essence, the court’s actions, in the context of Murray’s reporting, create a strong appearance of bias and undermine the credibility of their verdict.

COPILOT

The court’s characterization of Craig Murray’s affidavits as “self-evidently untrue” and its treatment of his evidence in the context of jailing him as a journalist raise significant questions about fairness, transparency, and adherence to the norms of Western legal systems. Let’s examine these issues in depth.

### 1. **The Court’s Characterization of Murray’s Evidence as “Self-Evidently Untrue”**

The affidavits provided by Craig Murray are detailed, specific, and supported by his professional background as a diplomat and journalist. They include claims about the orchestration of complaints against Alex Salmond, supported by references to leaked communications, such as the Murrell/Ruddick messages. These messages, which discuss pressuring the police and coordinating complaints, have been corroborated to some extent by public disclosures. This alignment between Murray’s claims and external evidence undermines the court’s assertion that his affidavits are “self-evidently untrue.”

Murray’s methodology also bolsters his credibility. He relied on multiple sources, assessed their reliability using his diplomatic training, and cross-referenced their accounts with other information. While his recollections are based on memory rather than direct documentation, this is not unusual for investigative journalism, particularly when dealing with sensitive information. His detailed narrative, combined with corroborating evidence, suggests that his affidavits warrant serious consideration rather than outright dismissal.

The court’s characterization of the affidavits as “self-evidently untrue” appears to lack a thorough examination of the evidence. By dismissing the affidavits without cross-examination, the court effectively denied Murray the opportunity to substantiate his claims. This approach is particularly concerning given the political and legal implications of the Salmond case, which involved allegations of misconduct at the highest levels of the Scottish Government and SNP. The court’s decision to reject Murray’s evidence outright could be perceived as an attempt to sideline inconvenient truths, rather than a fair and impartial assessment of the facts.

### 2. **Adherence to Western Judicial Norms**

Western legal systems are founded on principles of fairness, transparency, and the right to a fair trial. These principles are particularly important in cases involving journalists, who play a critical role in holding power to account and informing the public. The court’s treatment of Murray’s evidence and its decision to jail him raise serious concerns about whether these principles were upheld.

#### **Refusal to Consider Evidence**

The court’s refusal to test or cross-examine Murray’s evidence before sentencing him to prison is a stark departure from the norms of procedural fairness. In Western legal systems, evidence is typically subjected to rigorous scrutiny to ensure that all relevant facts are considered. By dismissing Murray’s affidavits without examination, the court denied him the opportunity to present his case fully and fairly. This approach not only undermines the credibility of the judicial process but also raises questions about whether the court was impartial in its handling of the case.

#### **Jailing a Journalist**

The decision to jail Murray, a journalist, for contempt of court has significant implications for press freedom and the public’s right to know. Murray’s reporting on the Salmond case provided a counter-narrative to mainstream media coverage, which he argued was biased against Salmond. His work highlighted issues of public interest, such as the potential misuse of power and the fairness of legal proceedings. Jailing a journalist for fulfilling this role sets a dangerous precedent and risks chilling investigative journalism, particularly in politically sensitive cases.

#### **Transparency and Accountability**

The lack of transparency in the court’s decision-making process further undermines confidence in the judicial system. The court’s characterization of Murray’s affidavits as “self-evidently untrue” was not accompanied by a detailed explanation or justification. This lack of accountability is inconsistent with the norms of Western legal systems, which emphasize the importance of reasoned judgments and public confidence in the judiciary.

#### **Perception of Bias**

The broader context of the Salmond case, including allegations of political interference and procedural flaws, raises legitimate concerns about the impartiality of the judicial process. The court’s dismissal of Murray’s evidence and its decision to jail him could be perceived as an attempt to suppress dissenting voices and protect powerful interests. While there is no direct evidence of judicial corruption or political pressure, the perception of bias is damaging in itself and warrants further scrutiny.

### **Conclusion**

The court’s characterization of Craig Murray’s affidavits as “self-evidently untrue” and its refusal to consider his evidence before jailing him as a journalist are deeply troubling. Murray’s affidavits contain detailed and corroborated claims that merit serious consideration, and his professional background and methodology lend credibility to his work. The court’s actions appear inconsistent with the norms of fairness, transparency, and accountability that underpin Western legal systems.

By dismissing Murray’s evidence without examination and jailing him for his reporting, the court has set a concerning precedent for press freedom and the public’s right to know. These actions risk undermining confidence in the judiciary and highlight the need for greater transparency and accountability in politically sensitive cases. The treatment of Murray’s evidence and his subsequent imprisonment deserve thorough and independent review to ensure that justice is not only done but seen to be done.

 
—————–

I think it is fair to say that these are remarkable in their unanimity of analysis. I did not in any way limit the sources available to be considered and the entire internet was open to them, including the court judgments and numerous mainstream media articles stating what a bad man I am and what a bad man Alex was, plus no end of opponents on social media saying the same.

Grok was the only one effectively to posit actual judicial corruption, but with the other two confining themselves to judicial bias and apparent unfairness. The content of their analyses of legal norms was in no way prompted by me.

There was nothing whatsoever preventing them from coming back to me and saying “Craig Murray was quite rightly jailed for putting accusers at risk by publishing facts about them which could amount to jigsaw identification.” I have hidden nothing from their replies.

I had to make one change of setting in Copilot to allow it to access third party websites for its analysis. It prompted me to do this.

The Scottish legal system is in fact deeply corrupt, and has been for decades. The corruption centres on the prosecution service. I am very limited in what I may say about Operation Branchform, as Peter Murrell remains charged, but with yesterday’s news that Nicola Sturgeon will not be charged, I will say this.

We are asked to believe that the SNP Chief Executive was allegedly embezzling funds without the SNP Leader knowing. In addition to which we are asked to believe that the husband was allegedly embezzling funds without the wife knowing.

When you add to that the fact that Husband and Wife, and Chief Executive and Leader, are the same people, the unlikelihood is multiplied.

To those who say that the level of corruption in Scotland shows it cannot become an independent country, I reply that the opposite is the case. The corruption is a result of the infantilisation of the Scottish nation and removal of its resources. Independence is part of the solution.

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

As 320 Palestinians were massacred last night, most of them women and children, we live in a world where it is accepted as legal that Trump2 is genocidally Zionist because he received a $100 million donation from Miriam Adelson to be so.

In addition to which Adelson is the second largest donor to AIPAC, which openly pays hundreds of other elected and potential US politicians to be genocidally Zionist too.

This is Western democracy.

My previous article demonstrated how the argument – now used against Mahmoud Khalil – that the First Amendment only applies to US citizens, was also employed by the Biden administration in extradition proceedings against Julian Assange.

It surprises me how very often the Assange case proves revealing of the internal workings of power in the USA.

When the CIA wished to bug Julian Assange on Ecuadorean diplomatic premises in London, and to look into the possibility of kidnapping or murdering him there, they decided to operate through a cutout for such a diplomatically fraught move.

That CIA cutout was Sheldon Adelson, multi-billionaire late husband of Miriam Adelson. Adelson’s fortune had come from a Las Vegas casino and property empire.

You are probably aware this is not, in general, the most respectable and free-from-organised-crime area of economic activity.

US President Donald Trump awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Doctor Miriam Adelson at the White House in Washington, DC, on November 16, 2018. – The Medal is the highest civilian award of the United States. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

There is a lazy stereotype that the control over crime in Las Vegas lies with the Italian mafia.

In fact from the days of Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky, Las Vegas organised crime has had close ties to Israel from its very establishment as a state, and in recent times Israeli mobster gangs have controlled narcotic distribution in Las Vegas.

Allow me to point out that the first of those two links is to the Jewish publication The Tablet, and the second is to an American Jewish magazine called Forward, and not the British far-right publication of the same name.

Adelson hired a private security company named UC Global, headed by a former Spanish marine named David Morales, to conduct the illegal surveillance for the CIA. As one of subjects of the illegal surveillance, I gave evidence last year to the court case in Madrid in which David Morales, head of UC Global, is criminally charged.

This case seems to ramble on forever, but last week there was a new development as David Morales was charged with forging documents in the case, for which a new trial is opening. He allegedly fabricated emails from the Ecuadorean Ambassador commissioning the spying.

The CIA commissioned the activity from Adelson during the first Trump presidency, but notably the Biden administration condoned this and defended it during the Assange extradition proceedings.

It is yet a further example of the meaningless nature of democracy in uniparty America, of the power and reach of the ultra-wealthy, and of the fascist links between big business and secret state agencies.

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

Two key points the discussion has mostly missed:

1) It has been a bipartisan Justice Department policy for years to attempt to establish that the First Amendment does not apply to non-US citizens

2) Why has the Trump administration chosen Mahmoud Khalil out of thousands of potential victims; about as problematic a test case as can be imagined?

First Amendment Protection

The outrageous arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil by Immigration Control Enforcement is a new front in the widespread attack on free speech on Palestine in the USA. Indeed free speech on Palestine is under severe attack throughout almost the entire western world.

There is no shortage of excellent commentary and analysis on the Khalil case and its multiple ramifications. The characterisation of criticism of Israel as anti-semitism, the fake narrative of a threat to Jewish students, the denial of the right to protest, the attack on academic freedom, these are all aspects of the case which shed a horrifying light on the devastating effect on civil liberties of explicit Zionist control of the political system.

The same can be said of the arbitrary detention, the lack of access to lawyers and the characterisation of dissent as “terrorism”.

But it has not been much discussed that the central legal issue in the case – whether non-US citizens have First Amendment rights or whether free speech only applies to US citizens – is not an innovation by the Trump administration.

That non-US citizens are not protected by the First Amendment was the key issue pursued by Biden’s Justice Department in the extradition hearings of Julian Assange.

Indeed it was the insistence of English Court of Appeal judge Dame Victoria Sharp that the US must confirm that Assange did have First Amendment protection, that led directly to the Biden administration dropping the case and agreeing a plea deal, rather than give the assurance which Sharp requested.

Key paragraphs of the relevant judgment are here

…

…

The British judges took the view that not to apply the First Amendment to non-citizens would breach the principle of non-discrimination (as guaranteed in the European Convention of Human Rights), and I am sure they were right.

This is a very worrying doctrine which the US Executive is attempting to enforce. But Trump did not initiate it – Biden tried it too, on Assange.

Why Mahmoud Khalil?

Thousands of foreign students in the USA have spoken out and demonstrated against the genocide in Gaza. I am sure that amongst them there will be one or two individuals who can plausibly be depicted as jihadist, who may indeed have actual anti-semitic tendencies and who are only in the US on a student visa.

So why pick on Mahmoud Khalil, who is none of these things?

He has a pregnant American wife and is in possession of a Green Card residency. Those factors may conceivably play into the First Amendment argument in his favour, if judges are looking to fudge the issue.

In addition to which, while he undoubtedly was in the leadership group of protestors at Columbia University, he appears to have played a responsible role in liaising with authorities. The cherry on the cake is that he is a former British Government employee, having worked in the British Embassy in Lebanon, on Syrian affairs.

This is where the story starts to become very murky. I was told by Resistance-linked contacts in Lebanon that not only was Khalil not viewed as pro-Resistance to Israel while there, he was believed to be involved in UK government attempts to undermine the Assad regime by promotion of jihadist groups.

Free Palestine TV, which is Lebanon-based, has the same information.

It is important to understand how deeply the UK has been involved in anti-Syrian activity in Lebanon. Training and equipping of al-Nusra/ISIS/HTS units was carried out by British special forces based at Rayak airbase in the Bekaa Valley, who were certainly still there in January after HTS conquered Damascus.

Contrary to some reports, Mahmoud Khalil would not have worked for MI6 in the Embassy. MI6 stations do not employ foreign nationals. He would have worked for the Political and Information Sections, under diplomats who cooperated closely with MI6 or in some instances were active “undeclared” members of MI6.

Middle East Eye describes Khalil’s role in the Embassy as a “programme manager” running Chevening scholarships. I know this programme extremely well. While I have no reason to doubt Khalil did this, it would amount to no more than 10% of anybody’s time and would not require the UK security clearance which the article states that Khalil received.

The simple truth is that anybody working in good faith in the British Embassy in Lebanon can be no friend of the resistance to Israel. Everything the British Embassy do in Lebanon is intrinsically linked to the overriding goal of promoting the interests of Israel, particularly through weakening Hezbollah, and this is especially true when it comes to programmes into Syria running out of Beirut.

So how did Khalil move from British government operative to Palestinian student activist?

And then, why on earth did the Trump regime pick him for its first high-profile deportation?

I can see three plausible explanations for Khalil’s behaviour:

1) He was never pro-British but was infiltrating the Embassy for the Palestinians

2) He was never pro-Palestinian but was infiltrating the protest movement for the British government

3) He was not very political but was moved recently to activism by the genocide in Gaza

Of these, option 3) seems to me the most plausible, though all are certainly possible.

It would be a delicious irony if the Trump regime had arrested a British agent by accident, but this seems to me unlikely. I do not think MI6 would run a Palestinian agent in the USA without informing the CIA – although they may have done if there were a specific concern that the CIA would leak the identity.

If Khalil were a British agent he could have been arrested for protection if there were concerns he had been “made”, or he could have been arrested because the Americans found out and were furious at not being informed. But I do not think these are the likely scenarios.

It seems to me much more probable that a once-complacent Khalil changed his mind and became more – righteously – radical due to the genocide in Gaza.

In which case the motive for choosing him as the target for arrest is very plain. Both the US and UK will be worried about revelations Khalil might make about support to jihadists in Syria from his time working on this in Lebanon. Whisking him into incommunicado detention, whilst maximum pressure is applied to persuade him to keep silent, is then an obvious move.

It is important for freedom of speech and for the rights in general of immigrants in the USA that Mr Khalil is free. It is obviously profoundly important for him and his family. I do not want anything I have written to detract from that.

But the puzzle of why such an extremely complicated target for the test case was chosen, when there exist far lower-hanging fruit, is one that needs to be considered. I hope I have offered some possible lines of thought you find useful.

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

There is a logical fallacy that dominates European neoliberal “thinking” at the moment. It goes like this.

“Hitler had unlimited territorial ambition and proceeded to attempt conquest of all Europe after annexing the Sudetenland. Therefore Putin has unlimited territorial ambition and will proceed to attempt conquest of all Europe after annexing Eastern Ukraine.”

This fallacious argument gives no evidence of Putin’s further territorial ambition. For evidence of Putin’s threat to the UK, Keir Starmer risibly refers to the Salisbury “novichok” affair, perhaps the most pathetic propaganda confection in history.

But even if you were to be so complacent as to accept the official version of events in Salisbury, does an assassination attempt on a double agent credibly indicate a desire by Putin to launch World War 3 or invade the UK?

Hitler’s territorial ambitions were not hidden. His desire for lebensraum and, crucially, his view that the Germans were a superior race who should rule over the inferior races, was plain in print and in speeches.

There is simply no such evidence for wide territorial ambition by Putin. He is not pursuing a crazed Nazi ideology that drives to conquest – or for that matter a Marxist ideology that seeks to overthrow the established order around the world.

The economic alignment project of BRICS is not designed to promote an entirely different economic system, just to rebalance power and flows within the system, or at most to create a parallel system not skewed to the advantage of the United States.

Neither the end of capitalism nor territorial expansion is part of the BRICS project.

There is simply no evidence of Putin having territorial goals beyond Ukraine and the tiny enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It is perfectly fair to characterise Putin’s territorial expansion over two decades as limited to the reincorporation of threatened Russian-speaking minority districts in ex-Soviet states.

That it is worth a world war and unlimited dead over who should be mayor of the ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking city of Lugansk is not entirely plain to me.

The notion that Putin is about to attack Poland or Finland is utter nonsense. The idea that the Russian army, which has struggled to subdue small and corrupt, if Western-backed, Ukraine, has the ability to attack Western Europe itself is plainly impractical.

The internal human rights record of Putin’s Russia is poor, but at this point it is marginally better than that of Zelensky’s Ukraine. For example the opposition parties in Russia are at least allowed to contest elections, albeit on a heavily sloped playing field, whereas in Ukraine they are banned outright.

Still less convincing are the arguments that Russia’s overseas political activities in third countries require massive Western increases in armaments to prepare for war with Russia.

The plain truth is that the Western powers interfere far more in other countries than Russia does, through massive sponsorship of NGOs, journalists and politicians, much of which is open and some of which is covert.

I used to do this myself as a British diplomat. Revelations from USAID or the Integrity Initiative leaks give the public a glimpse into this world.

Yes, Russia does it too, but on a much smaller scale. That this kind of Russian activity indicates a desire for conquest or is a cause for war, is such a shallow argument it is hard to believe in the good faith of those promoting it.

I have also seen Russian military intervention in Syria put forward as evidence that Putin has plans of world conquest.

Russian intervention in Syria prevented for a time its destruction by the West in the same way that Iraq and Libya were destroyed by the West. Russia held back the coming to power of crazed Islamic terrorists, and the massacre of Syria’s minority communities. Those horrors are now unfolding, in part because of the weakening of Russia through the Ukraine war.

But for those nations that destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya to argue that Russia’s intervention in Syria shows Putin to be evil, is dishonesty of the highest degree. The United States has had a quarter of Syria under military occupation for over a decade and has been stealing almost all of Syria’s oil.

Pointing at Russia here is devoid of reason.

Strangely, the same “logic” is not applied to Benjamin Netanyahu. It is not argued by neoliberals that his annexations of Gaza, the West Bank and Southern Lebanon mean he must have further territorial ambitions. In fact, they even fail to note Netanyahu’s aggressions at all, or portray them as “defensive” – the same argument advanced much more credibly by Putin in Ukraine, but which neoliberals there outright reject.

The economies of Western Europe are being realigned onto a war footing, led by the utterly transformed European Union. The enthusiastic proponents of genocide in Gaza who head the EU now are channelling an atavistic hereditary hatred of Russia.

The foreign policy of the EU is propelled by Kaja Kallas and Ursula von der Leyen. The fanatical Russophobia these two are spreading, and their undisguised desire to escalate the war in Ukraine, cannot help but remind Russians that they come from nations which were fanatically Nazi.

To Russians this feels a lot like 1941. With Europe in the grip of full-on anti-Russian propaganda, the background to Trump’s attempt to broker a peace deal is troubled and Russia is understandably wary.

The UK continues to play the most unhelpful of roles. They have despatched Morgan Stanley’s Jonathan Powell to advise Zelensky on peace talks. As Blair’s Chief of Staff, Powell played a crucial role in the illegal invasion of Iraq. He was also heavily implicated in the death of David Kelly.

Wherever there is war and money to be made from war, you will find the same ghouls gathering. Those involved in launching the invasion of Iraq should be excluded from public life. Instead Powell is now the UK’s National Security Adviser.

I am not a follower of Putin. The amount of force used to crush Chechnya’s legitimate desire for self-determination was disproportionate, for example. It is naive to believe that you get to be leader of the KGB by being a gentle person.

But Putin is not Hitler. It is only through the blinkers of patriotism that Putin appears to be a worse person than the Western leaders behind massive invasion and death all around the globe, who now seek to extend war with Russia.

Here in the UK, the Starmer government is seeking actively to prolong the war, and is looking for a huge increase in spending on weapons, which always brings kickbacks and future company directorships and consultancies for politicians.

To fund this warmongering, New Labour are cutting spending on the UK’s sick, disabled and pensioners and cutting aid to the starving overseas.

This is a picture of Keir Starmer meeting with Israeli President Herzog, six months after the ICJ interim ruling quoted a statement by Herzog as evidence of genocidal intent.

The Starmer government was voted for by 31% of those who bothered to cast a vote, or 17% of the adult population. It is engaged in wholesale legal persecution of leading British supporters of Palestine, and is actively complicit in the genocide in Gaza.

I see no moral superiority here.

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

There are two drivers behind my support for Scottish Independence.

The first and most obvious is to see our ancient land restored to the place it held so long in the community of free and self-governing nations, and end the colonial exploitation of our people and resources.

The second is to destroy that Imperialist rogue state, the United Kingdom. With the UK actively participating in the Gaza genocide through supply of arms, intelligence, military assistance and diplomatic cover, that need has become ever more acute.

Were that not bad enough, the London government is now overtly militarist and looking to provoke conflict with Russia which could lead to nuclear holocaust. There is something in the UK nationalist soul which has an addiction to war, and Keir Starmer stands in the long line of British politicians who look to increase their dire domestic popularity ratings by killing people abroad.

It is a matter of deep sadness to me that the formerly radical and pro-Independence Scottish National Party has become a classic example of a local colonial puppet elite serving the interests of the colonisers and anxious to adopt conspicuous markers of loyalty, in order to continue to benefit personally from their position in the London-ruled political Establishment.

We therefore have the Scottish National Party seeking to outdo the UK Labour Party in its militarism and commitment to needless conflict with Russia, absolutely against the interests of Scotland.

Is this what you voted for, SNP voters? pic.twitter.com/NwlgkEftcm

— Wings Over Scotland (@WingsScotland) March 5, 2025

The SNP is massively infiltrated by the UK and US security services, including at senior levels. Plus many of its leaders are easily captured by the wealth and circumstance coming from their position within the UK state.

The SNP was finished as a force for Independence when Sturgeon accepted that Scotland could only exercise its right of self-determination with the permission of London.

If you consider it coldly and logically, it cannot be a right of self-determination if it requires the permission of somebody else to exercise it.

So for me the SNP is trash, useless, a vehicle for self-enrichment of some of the most repulsive parasites of the political class.

As the SNP had succeeded in becoming the automatic recipient of the votes of the large majority of those Scots who want Independence, that is a real conundrum for progress. It is particularly galling that, now we finally have achieved a consistent and growing majority in favour of Independence, politics remains dominated by the SNP, who have no intention whatsoever of doing anything about it.

Which is where Alba comes in, the new pro-Independence movement founded by former SNP leader and Scottish First Minister, the late Alex Salmond.

I am a member of Alba, the fundamentalist Independence party which is also anti-NATO, anti-neoliberal, anti-monarchy and anti-EU membership.

I might perhaps clarify that I am now very firmly anti-EU, given its extraordinary anti-Palestinian and anti-Russian positions and its plans for massive military expansion. The EU has morphed into something very sinister indeed.

Alba is a very small political party. In Council elections it consistently pulls in low single-figure percentages, as it did in the few seats it contested in the last Westminster election.

Alba’s significance lay in that it was founded by Alex Salmond, former First Minister of Scotland and former Leader of the SNP, and the man who almost brought about Scottish Independence in the 2014 referendum.

After Alex resigned the leadership following that referendum, his successor and protege, Nicola Sturgeon, immediately set about destroying Salmond’s reputation while moving the focus of the SNP decisively away from Independence and into identity politics.

A conspiracy orchestrated by Sturgeon, through her Chief of Staff Liz Lloyd, brought in a number of Sturgeon’s close allies and confidantes to make sexual assault allegations against Salmond – of all of which he was acquitted, following a trial before a majority female jury.

Salmond was into the third year of building up his new Alba Party from scratch when he recently died suddenly, aged 69.

Despite losing Alex, there should be a real political opportunity for Alba. A radical Scottish Independence Party with the positions listed above, accords with the views of a very substantial proportion of the Scottish electorate.

Alba’s problem is that, ironically due to the pioneering achievements of Alex Salmond, voting SNP has become a reflex expression of Scottish national identity, and many voters have simply not noticed the party’s absorption into the British state narrative.

Now, for a small and new party, Alba has also faced a quite extraordinary amount of internal conflict, which may also have been in part stirred up by covert influences.

It is worth here stating that it is plain that Scottish Independence is the biggest practical threat to the UK state. Naturally the UK’s disproportionately large and well-funded security services are targeted on it. They would not be doing their job otherwise.

Let me introduce this subject anecdotally. Towards the end of 2023 I was standing for election to Alba’s national executive. The election was postponed in circumstances which were obscure. Then it was re-run.

I was in Geneva and about to enter a meeting at the UN, when Alex phoned me and told me I had been elected to the National Executive, but he wished me to stand down and not accept the seat, as there was somebody else he needed on the exec.

This obviously was unwelcome, principally because it felt like a betrayal of those who had been kind enough to nominate me and to vote for me. Who stands for election and wins, then does not take it up? It seems very irresponsible, and would justifiably damage my reputation.

But the truth is, I felt enormous personal loyalty towards Alex and a trust that, whatever he was up to, it was a strategy with the long term goal of Scottish Independence in mind. So I agreed and declined to take up my seat.

I subsequently discovered there was a large amount of controversy surrounding the results of that election, with people claiming cheating, and I believe I am correct in saying that the results were never published, with some threadbare excuse about publishing the results of an online election being a breach of the Data Protection Act.

A number of founder members of the party, people I had pounded the streets alongside in the 2014 referendum, were resigning. I phoned Alex to express concern and say the results should be published.

He told me that some people were unhappy that many new members had been signed up and voted in the election, but this was within the constitution. A faction had been out-organised, and that was their own fault.

Alex had made plain to me that his request that I stand down was confidential, and I maintained that confidence while he lived. I view that confidence as a personal commitment from which I am now released. But things continued to be very strange in the Alba Party.

The excellent Denise Findlay, who had been a major part of Alba’s organisation and drive, was forced into resignation. I learnt just in the last few days, after I told my own story on Twitter/X, that Denise had gone through precisely the same experience.

More recently, James Kelly, the valuable Scot Goes Pop blogger, was expelled from the party, apparently for criticising it. Then extraordinarily, the General Secretary, Chris McEleny, attempted to expel the Acting Leader Kenny MacAskill from the party, but ended up himself demoted.

I don’t think pretending none of this happened is a sensible option, which is why I told my own story. It remains the case that I trust both Alex’s good faith and that he had a vision for taking the party forward, on which he was working.

But I think it is fair to say that if the brilliant Salmond had an Achilles heel, it was in his judgment of people closest to him. He did not see Sturgeon coming, and indeed refused to accept her part in the plot against him until long after the evidence was undeniable.

In Alba likewise I believe some of the trouble was the extraordinarily possessive attitude towards the party of some of those with whom Alex surrounded himself. This interacted very badly with some activists who wished to see the party move forward with less deference to the leader, or even a different leader (a view I disagreed with, but to which they were perfectly entitled).

Unfortunately some of those espousing that viewpoint undermined themselves by indulging in some unpleasant character assassination and gossip mongering (not towards Alex, but his circle).

The result was a toxic mess. A small party attempting to gain a foothold cannot afford to execute many of its own best soldiers, and neither is incipient insurrection a practical working environment.

Alba will elect a new leadership shortly. I shall be supporting Kenny MacAskill and Neale Hanvey for Leader and Depute, but that implies no disrespect to anybody else.

My plea to the new leadership and the membership is to adopt an amnesty and bring everyone back in to the party. We need eventually to unite the Independence movement. How can we do that, if we cannot unite ourselves?

The party has a rule which bans from rejoining those who went public on their resignation or expulsion, and my attempts to persuade the party “establishment” we need to accept people back, has been met with turgid reference to that rule.

This is just an excuse for maintaining feud. I have also spoken to other factions who, by and large, remain embittered and alienated.

So I plead, with all, that it is time to bury the hatchet, forgive and forget, and work united towards the 2026 Scottish parliament elections.

I am happy to see that Tommy Sheridan, a giant of the Scottish left whose career was interrupted by standard sex allegations (cf. Julian Assange, Scott Ritter, Alex Salmond etc.) orchestrated by the security services and Murdoch press, is standing for the Alba executive. This is the kind of unity we need.

Scotland has the d’Hondt party list system where each voter has two votes, one for a candidate for the constituency list and one a party for the regional list, whereby an element of proportionality is introduced to the benefit of parties who failed to win constituencies despite substantive support.

It is a horrible system because it gives the party machines, rather than the electorate, the power to rank candidates (as opposed to the much more democratic Single Transferable Vote).

The position of Alba appears to be to stand as a “list only” party – to support the SNP in constituencies and ask SNP voters to support Alba on the list.

I am opposed to this approach and believe Alba should fight constituencies and the list. I do not accept the SNP is in any significant sense a pro-Independence party now. It is just a branch of the neoliberal uniparty, and a very dangerous one designed to hoover up Scottish nationalist votes.

We have a duty to oppose any party that supports British imperialist foreign policy, as the SNP does.

We also have a duty to offer the voters the chance to vote for actual Scottish self-determination and reject a London veto.

The only point in joining and supporting such a small party as Alba is to attempt to represent unrepresented positions and to affect fundamental change. That is what Alba must do. I look forward to the journey.

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

 PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

When politicians in power are extremely unpopular, they generally turn to militarism and jingoism for a quick boost. Starmer is now the darling of the UK media for his sabre-rattling over Ukraine and is busily churning out tweets of military imagery.

In doing so he is attempting to pose as in defiance of Trump, and capitalise on Trump’s unpopularity in the UK, even though just two days earlier he was fawning on Trump in the White House and inviting him on an “unprecedented” second State visit.

As ever, there is a great deal of smoke and mirrors here. The European leaders are going to come up with an alternative “peace plan” to present to Trump. This will not be along the lines of the G7 Declaration which was strongly anti-Russian. The European leaders acknowledge that the Biden-era G7 Apulia position is now gone.

Instead the new European plan will essentially give Trump pretty well everything he wants, but give the Europeans a ladder to climb down. Starmer is seeking to be hailed as the great bridger of the Atlantic, who explained Trump to Europe and vice versa.

If Trump were an ordinary politician he would then agree to adopt the “European” plan brought to him by Starmer, with a couple of tiny amendments, and then take the joint position into talks with Putin. But Trump being Trump, he might just tell Starmer to stay out of it.

Both the European and American peace plans will involve Putin keeping control over the large majority of the land his troops hold – because otherwise Putin will not agree, and there will be no point. The European plan will have elements designed to blur the sovereignty issue of the Ukrainian land Russia will retain. This will not run once real negotiations with Russia are underway.

As always, money talks and big business is really pulling the strings. Zelensky did not in the event sign the minerals deal with Trump and is now desperate to do so to try to get American cash flowing his way again.

It is worth noting that Starmer’s delusional “Hundred Year Alliance” agreement with Zelensky contained the UK’s attempt to grab the same minerals Zelensky is now asking again to be allowed to hand over to Trump.

You find this in the UK/Ukraine 100 Year Partnership at “Pillar 5, Para 3, article iv”

(iv) supporting development of a Ukrainian critical minerals strategy and necessary regulatory structures required to support the maximisation of benefits from Ukraine’s natural resources, through the possible establishment of a Joint Working Group;

While we are on the subject, most people sensibly ignored the detail of this crazy “100 year” agreement on the entirely sensible grounds that none of it is ever going to happen. But it does contain some remarkable declarations of malevolent intent, of which my favourite is the desire to open a joint online propaganda unit to interfere in the legacy and social media of third countries.

Which we find outlined in fluent Orwellian at “Pillar 7, Para 4”.

Implement joint media initiatives, contributing to coordinated efforts to promote shared values and vision, addressing the information manipulation and malign interference in third party countries. We commit to partnering on joint initiatives such as communication campaigns to mitigate against those threats. We commit to facilitate strengthening of relationships with civil society organisations to support research and the development of counter-FIMI approaches, recognising the importance of independent media and civil society organisations in building societal resilience.

Which is of course precisely what they are always accusing Russia of doing. Indeed alleged Russian social media interference is why they interfered to have the anti-war winner of the first round of the Romanian elections disqualified.

What this plan amounts to is another Integrity Initiative, this time as a UK/Ukrainian co-production.

One thing I learnt in over 20 years as a diplomat is that the public are generally fed lies about diplomatic discussions. Most diplomatic talks generally end up with an agreed communique that is designed to make everyone look good and may only have a slight link to actual events.

This is especially true with regard to human rights, where in my substantial experience claims that human rights abuses were being dealt with by “quiet diplomacy” were almost always a lie.

A British minister cannot meet a Saudi or Chinese minister without being asked if they raised human rights. The answer given is always “yes” and it is almost always untrue, or it was raised so briefly, quietly and apologetically that it is virtually untrue.

So there is a sense in which the Trump/Vance encounter in the Oval Office with Zelensky was refreshing, in that what you saw is what you got. It was only in being in public that it was more bruising than many diplomatic encounters. I suspect it has shortened the war, especially if Trump sticks to the decision to end aid.

Shortening the war would be a good thing. If you think a principle is so important that you believe it is fine for millions of people to die for it – none of whom are yourself – I suggest you reconsider your principles. I am not so exercised about who is the mayor of Russian-speaking Lugansk that I am prepared to have a nuclear war over the issue.

What I find particularly alarming is the continuing comparison of Putin to Hitler, and the allegation that if Putin is not “stopped” in Ukraine, then he will conquer the whole of Europe.

This is a quite extraordinary example of false analogy. Putin has never shown any indication of following a universal ideology he wishes to impose by conquest, or of territorial ambition beyond a small number of Russian-speaking ex-Soviet districts contiguous to Russia.

In addition to which, Russia is gradually winning a war of attrition against a much smaller neighbour, which is to be expected. Ukraine has survived this long with massive Western aid. But the idea that the Russian army is capable of conquering the whole of Europe, when it cannot subdue Kiev, is plainly utter nonsense. Even aside from the fact there is absolutely no desire in Moscow to do so.

Trump has pointed at NATO and revealed the Emperor’s New Clothes. NATO was formed to counter a Soviet alliance that did possess a universal ideology it wished to spread, and did have the military strength to threaten (though it should be stated not even the Soviet Union ever had any intention of invading Britain or formulated plans to do so). That threat has now passed.

The attempt to use the farcical Salisbury incident as evidence of a Russian threat to the UK population is, frankly, pathetic.

It is hard sometimes to follow the workings of the propaganda machine. At what stage did the crazy narrative that Russia blew up its own Nord Stream pipeline get abandoned?

Russia destroying the pipeline was unanimously and loudly proclaimed by the entire legacy media and the entire political class of the Western world. Those of us who pointed out this was not true were denounced and ridiculed. Yet now the narrative has quietly been dropped, and the truth is occasionally acknowledged by the media. Though with no admission of the previous lies.

How does this cycle operate? Is it centrally determined, or is it organic? Were the media really stupid enough to believe Russia destroyed Nord Stream, or were they knowingly lying? How have the German people been persuaded to accept the massive damage the increase in energy costs did to industrial employment? These are fascinating fields of study.

European politicians who have made a career of Russophobe rhetoric are suddenly naked in the breeze. They are charging around banging the drum of war, threatening to mobilise armies they do not possess and convinced that preserving their own place in the socio-economic hierarchy is well worth the threat of nuclear oblivion.

Laughter is the best response to their pretension.

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

 PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

We were searching for a site in the northern Bekaa valley recently bombed by Israel. Hadi knew near which village it was located but, as we drove between large expanses of fertile, well-cultivated fields, it was plain his information was vague.

We pulled up at a garage to ask the way. Lebanon has not gone the way of Western economies in making consumers perform the very service for which they are paying, and in Lebanese service stations they still have attendants. A scruffily dressed old man sat on the front step of a dilapidated and very basic kiosk constructed of concrete blocks. He came over to the driver’s window.

First Hadi ordered fuel, and the old man filled the car, washed the windscreen and took payment. His hair was white and his beard short, but not from the obsessively neat trimming that is universal in Beirut. When he returned with change, Hadi asked him if he knew where to find the bomb site.

The old man replied with questions. I did not understand the Arabic, but from the body language there was a marked shift in the interaction between the two, from the man serving Hadi to the man interrogating Hadi. He lost his shuffle, notably straightened his back and stood taller.

They were talking through the driver’s window, and with a very definite movement the man moved forward and rested his forearm on the sill, intruding his head into the vehicle assertively. He looked at me with searching eyes, and looked at Niels sitting in the back seat with his camera equipment. His questioning of Hadi became terse.

I looked into his eyes. He had the distinct, piercing gaze that I used to note in the special forces officers I occasionally came across in my Foreign Office career. He then walked away from the car, took out his phone and made a call.

After a while he handed the phone to Hadi, who looked both serious and worried. Hadi listened, handed the phone back to the attendant, said goodbye and thank you, and reversed out of the garage. Hadi told us we were not permitted to go to the bomb site.

We had just encountered Hezbollah. The important thing to understand in this encounter is that it is not that the man was an undercover Hezbollah operative posing as a garage attendant. He was a garage attendant who was a Hezbollah operative.

Hezbollah is not an organisation comparable to the IRA, in which a relatively small number of members operated within the context of a community in which they enjoyed very large sympathy. Hezbollah operates in a community in which almost everybody is an activist and pretty well every adult is prepared to pick up a gun or an RPG and knows how to use it.

This is a key to understanding how Hezbollah became the only military force that has ever been able to defeat the IDF in pitched ground warfare. In this respect, Hezbollah’s crucial advantage compared to Hamas is that it has had practical access to weapons deliveries to build its arsenal, whereas Hamas has been greatly constricted by Israel’s control of goods entering Gaza.

Ending the weapons supply to Hezbollah has been a key US/Israeli strategic objective this last year, and they have in large part achieved it. I shall return to that.

On a personal level, this encounter with the garage attendant was fairly typical of my interactions with Hezbollah in my four months in Lebanon. They had detained me in a rather frightening manner on first encounter, and in general treated me with a suspicion which is understandable given my British diplomatic background.

I saw literally thousands of buildings in Lebanon that Israel had destroyed. The most haunting part of the entire experience was the frequent event of finding the clothing and toys of small children among the rubble: I still have bad dreams about it.

However this was the second of the two occasions when we were able to identify that Israel had struck an actual Hezbollah military installation, rather than a civilian building. Both times Hezbollah prevented me from going to see. In terms of maintaining the security of the military site, this strikes me as shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Having been denied access to that particular bomb site, we drove on into the village and met with some locals Hadi knew. In this small village there had been over 70 Israeli bombings, 8 of them since the ceasefire.

They took me to one large house which had been completely destroyed, a pile of rubble spread over a large area. Twelve members of the same family had been killed in this house, seven of them children. The head of the family had left in late afternoon to go to the butcher’s to buy dinner, when his home and family was destroyed behind him.

The explosion was so enormous that the body of one of the children was found in the neighbouring orchard of olive trees, clean across the road, about seventy yards away. Many of the olive trees had been shredded and debris from the house was strewn across the field and beyond.

The next house was not greatly damaged, but there a father and his two daughters were killed by the shock wave as they sat on their terrace drinking coffee.

There are so many important points to make about Hezbollah, but let me start with these three.

The first is that support for Hezbollah among their own Shia communities in Lebanon is extremely strong. They are far more than a military organisation. They are Lebanon’s largest legitimate political party.

At the 2022 election Hezbollah received 19.9% of the vote, and their close ally the Amal Movement received another 10.5%. The party with the second highest vote behind Hezbollah, the neo-fascist Lebanese Forces, received 11.6% of the vote.

[The Lebanese Forces political party should not be confused with the Lebanese Armed Forces, with which it has no connection. The Lebanese Armed Forces remain under effective US control and fired not a shot against the Israeli invasion and occupation. But like so much in Lebanon, the situation should not be simplified and the majority of the rank and file of the LAF are Shia Muslims sympathetic to Hezbollah, and a large majority of the rank and file of any denomination would be happy to fight the Israelis were they ever allowed to do so.]

Under Lebanon’s extraordinary constitution, Lebanese Forces with 11.6% received 19 seats in parliament while Hezbollah with 19.9% received 15 seats. Of which again more later.

But when it comes to political legitimacy, it is worth noting that the combined Hezbollah/Amal vote percentage is equal to the Labour Party percentage at the last General Election in the UK. There is no argument that Hezbollah are not a legitimate democratic political force.

The second point is that it is absolutely wrong to see Lebanon in purely sectarian terms. Hezbollah has supporters and allies across all religions in Lebanon and, in a country where politics is officially and constitutionally organised on religious lines (a “confessional” constitution), there are minor parties of all religions aligned with Hezbollah, of which several had ministers until appointment of the new Cabinet last month (of which again, more later).

Perhaps a quarter of those at the funeral for Nasrallah were not Shia Muslims.

The third point is that Hezbollah is much more than a political party with a military wing. In a country in which central government has all but collapsed (Lebanon has no income tax), Hezbollah provides hospitals, schools, banking, pensions and welfare benefits.

When Niels and I witnessed refugee returns to evacuated areas following the “ceasefire”, a very substantial percentage of the population were waving Hezbollah flags or Lebanese flags, with some waving both. Hezbollah is an integral part of Lebanese society, entirely born within the country out of the resistance to Israel’s 1982 occupation, and is in no sense alien or anti-Lebanese.

The elephant in the room is that in the UK and other Western states, this highly complex social and political movement is designated as a terrorist organisation in its entirety. Ironically, the justification for this given in Westminster in 2019 was that Hezbollah was destabilising the Middle East and prolonging the conflict in Syria – where the very Western powers that proscribed Hezbollah have just assisted another proscribed terrorist group into power.

The truth is that terrorist proscription by the NATO powers of organisations in the Middle East is simply a tool for taking whatever decisions are expedient at that moment to promote the interests of apartheid Israel. The “terrorist acts” of Hezbollah that led to proscription of the entire organisation in 2019 consisted of fighting ISIS, Al Qaeda and Al Nusra in Syria.

We all suffer from the temptation of assuming that others share our prejudices. I assume that like me, many in the West find it difficult to empathise with Hezbollah because of its Islamic philosophy and – I know this is petty – appearance.

Hassan Nasrallah was the most important and steadfast leader of resistance to the mass murderous Zionist project of the last forty years. He was also, by all accounts, a hugely charismatic figure to Arabic speakers. But his very appearance made it easy for him to be represented to Western audiences as an alienating, even evil, character, due to the state-promoted Islamophobia in the Western world which has been universally projected in the media this last quarter century.

But here honesty is required. I myself do not like to see political leaders with a religious function and am simply against theocratic rule. I am entirely in favour of freedom of religion, but utterly opposed to religion ruling any state.

There is an element of smoke and mirrors here. In the glorious mosaic of Lebanon, Hezbollah exist jumbled with those of other sects and religions, and in practice rub along very well.

Nasrallah spoke like all committed Islamists of his desire to seeing a united Muslim rule over Muslim lands, with the state under firmly religious leadership and Sharia law. But in practice Hezbollah are highly tolerant.

In those large areas of Lebanon where they both have physical military control and dominate the elected local authority, Hezbollah do not ban the sale of alcohol by the Christian minority or enforce hair covering, even on Muslims.

This is an area where my prejudices were disabused. I did not expect to find this.

All this caused me some difficulty in Lebanon. I was frequently asked whether I supported Hezbollah. As I was spending much of my time in those areas attacked by Israel – which largely are the Hezbollah areas – in general the question came from Hezbollah supporters.

I would always reply that I supported absolutely the right of occupied people to conduct armed resistance, and the duty to do everything possible to prevent genocide. Both are established principles of international law. But I did not support Hezbollah per se, and would not vote for it were I Lebanese, because it is an openly Islamist organisation and I am opposed to theocratic rule and religious legal codes.

Being in Lebanon did however allow me to overcome some of the gulf of my cultural understanding. The practice of calling those killed by Israel “martyrs” and frequently referring to them as such in conversation, is alien to a Western ear where the word has largely outdated religious connotations.

When you live amongst a community where everybody has friends or relatives who have been killed in the decades-long aggression of Israel, the revering of the fallen as martyrs, and their omnipresence in everyday thought, starts to make much more sense.

Similarly to Western eyes the widespread display of large images of the “martyrs” is peculiar. These are along every roadside and atop every ruin. There are always posters at the site where the person was killed, and frequently dozens of other posters of that individual at sites of importance to them.

I overcame my incomprehension of this practice by thinking of it in reference to my own culture, that these were posters of people put up to mark where they fought and died to defend their wee bit hill and glen. In those terms it made sense to me.

I am extremely conscious that religious faith has played a very positive role in both Palestine and South Lebanon in enabling people to endure the unendurable and to maintain Resistance against impossible odds. But it is not possible to ignore the fact that there remain substantial differences between my world view and an Islamist world view.

This has been brought into urgent focus by the attitude of many Sunni Muslims to the overthrow of Assad in Syria. In my world view, this has been a disaster for the Palestinians. It has seriously and perhaps permanently damaged the flow of arms and other resources to Hezbollah, the Palestinians’ most important ally. And it has enabled the Greater Israel project to expand substantially into Syria.

Try now to imagine that you are a Sunni Muslim scholar who believes that only by becoming Sunni Muslim can people obey God. You believe that the benefit to mankind of bringing Sunni Muslim rule to most of Syria outweighs the loss of part of Syria to Israel. You believe that Palestinian martyrs killed by Israel are going immediately to Heaven anyway, so in spiritual terms there is no real loss to the “martyrs”.

That really is the position of many of the leaders of the Saudi- and Gulf-sponsored Muslim religious community. Just like there are a great many shades of Christian, there are a great many shades of Islam and there are many Muslims, including Sunni Muslims, who would not share that viewpoint. But to a religious Islamist it makes perfect sense.

I cannot find it again because it was deep in replies on a thread, but I had a very interesting exchange with a Muslim intellectual on Twitter on precisely this topic. He accused me of “orientalism” for denigrating an Eastern spiritual viewpoint in favour of a Western secularist narrative, in seeing the installation of HTS as a reverse for Palestine. He pointed out that Hamas, a fellow Sunni Islamist movement, had welcomed the triumph of HTS.

The exchange was welcome for its honesty and intellectual acuity. I said I did not believe Edward Said would have welcomed the accompanying expansion of Israel into Syria or cutting off of supplies to Hezbollah. He called in a nephew of Said to bolster his view that my viewpoint is orientalist.

I have thought about this deeply; I do not think my viewpoint can fairly be described as orientalist. The truth is that all mainstream Western thought would have entirely concurred with the view that the expansion of rule by a particular religious sect was more important than associated temporal reverses that did not affect the faith of the people: but Western thought was exactly that 500 years ago.

I do not see my view as orientalist. I see it as anti-medievalist.

The fall of the Assad regime was deeply desired by Western neoliberals and Zionists in order to replace it with a Western democratic model, and they are desperately pretending that is what they have got in al-Jolani. As atrocities against Shia, Alaouites and Christians in Syria mount, the one thing that cannot be disputed is that al-Jolani is steadfastly Zionist, as he allows Israel daily to occupy more of Syria and destroy more of its infrastructure, without a single shot fired in response.

There is no doubt that the position of the Resistance to an expansionist apartheid Israeli colonial project has worsened considerably since my arrival in Lebanon in October. While Israel could not progress a ground offensive, the almost total absence of any air defences for Lebanon meant it could murder and destroy with impunity from the air.

Israel embarked on a campaign of devastation of purely civilian areas by aerial bombardment. Of that I am an eye witness. I can say from personal inspection that the claims that the tens of thousands of homes destroyed had any military use are a massive lie.

With no defence against a relentless bombing campaign, and with most of their leadership eliminated, Hezbollah were obliged to accede to a suicidally unbalanced “ceasefire agreement”. It is plain on the actual face of the agreement that only one side will cease fire.

All Lebanese groups are to cease fire without qualification whereas Israel is only to cease “offensive” operations. Israel of course claims all its attacks as defensive. This is absolute nonsense, but despite over 500 violations of the ceasefire agreement, killing hundreds of people, Israel has not been held accountable because Hezbollah acceded to a ceasefire guaranteed by a “Mechanism” which is chaired by a United States General.

I think my discussion on this point with the UN Spokesman in Lebanon was extremely important, especially where he explicitly states that the Ceasefire Agreement was drafted by the USA. This link takes you to the key point in the interview.

The members of the “Mechanism” overseeing the ceasefire are the United States, France, Israel (sic), and the Lebanese government of General Aoun, a total US puppet.

Furthermore while the Ceasefire Agreement provides for a zone south of the Litani river from which Hezbollah must remove its weapons, it also calls for Hezbollah disarmament throughout the whole of Lebanon, which the Israelis and Americans have used to justify numerous continuing Israeli strikes in the Bekaa Valley, the Syrian border and even Beirut.

Hezbollah are not a formal party to the Agreement but it was sanctioned by them before signature. Personally I find it difficult to imagine that Nasrallah would ever have accepted such a position.

At the same time, Hezbollah’s domestic political position has been also greatly weakened. They were obliged to accept effectively the US imposition of General Aoun as President, which they had been resisting for over two years. They also then found themselves accepting his nomination of the openly anti-Hezbollah Nawaf Salam as Prime Minister.

I referred earlier to Lebanon’s “confessional” constitutional arrangements, and said I would give more detail. The President must be a Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni and the Speaker of Parliament a Shiite.

But it does not stop there. The governing agreement specifies the division of ministerial positions too. Not only between Sunni, Shia and Christian, but to include several other groupings, of which the best known is Druze and there are others, particularly various specific sects of Christianity.

Hezbollah has operated through the Amal movement in providing the Shiite ministers, but it is a key fact that it has always had important allies among Christian anti-Israeli occupation factions who have filled important ministerial posts.

The loss of Hezbollah power within Lebanon is to be found within the detail of all these ministries. In claiming to appoint a “technocratic”, apolitical administration, Aoun and Salam have in fact excluded most of Hezbollah’s support.

It is in practice almost impossible to find a Shiite in Lebanon who is not pro-Hezbollah, but Aoun and Salam have certainly done their best. More pertinently, they have almost totally excluded Hezbollah and anti-Zionist sympathisers from the ministerial representation of Sunni and the assorted minority and smaller Christian groups, while simultaneously boosting the de facto influence of the fascist Lebanese Forces sympathisers.

Hezbollah has not been this politically weak in the Lebanese institutions for 20 years, which is why the show of mass popular support at Nasrallah’s funeral was so important to them. However, given Lebanon’s electoral system with its deliberate Christian bias, piling up popular support is of little use to Hezbollah electorally. There are Christian MPs in parliament elected with under 500 votes, while Hezbollah could put on another 100,000 votes without significantly increasing their representation.

Crucially the “Ministerial statement” of the aims of the new government excluded resistance to Israel as an objective – a key change – and specified the state’s monopoly on carrying arms, a reference to the full disarmament of Hezbollah.

Finally, of course, Hezbollah’s archenemies, HTS, are now in power in Damascus. Hezbollah fought off repeated Al Qaeda/Al Nusra/ISIS attempts to invade Lebanon and also intervened against these forces within Syria. Al-Jolani coming to power represents a major disruption to Hezbollah’s supply lines from Iran.

The US and Israel are attempting to turn up this pressure by frequent aerial attacks on border crossings from Syria and on Hezbollah individuals within Lebanon. Recently they took the additional measure of banning pilgrimage flights to and from Iran, which greatly angered the Shia community and was aimed at cutting off a route for physical supplies of cash.

What is uncertain is what secret accommodations General Aoun may have reached with Hezbollah, over whether their physical disarmament throughout Lebanon under SCR 1701 and the Ceasefire Agreement is a genuine process or a show. Politically, Aoun and Salam have strongly planted their banner for real disarmament of Hezbollah.

What appears beyond dispute is that the Israelis receive a continued flow of intelligence from Lebanese sources on Hezbollah personnel movements and sites, and the US-sanctioned intense Israeli bombing campaign shows no sign of abating.

We can add to this sad fact that Israel was able to use the Ceasefire Agreement to occupy parts of Southern Lebanon which Hezbollah had successfully defended during the war, and that Israel has destroyed by demolition thousands of homes and other civilian buildings under cover of the ceasefire to add to those destroyed during the war.

Indeed Israel demolishes more buildings in Southern Lebanon every day still, and has now destroyed over 90,000 buildings in Lebanon in total. As I predicted, Israel is building 5 permanent military outposts in Southern Lebanon and has made plain it has no intention of leaving.

The US puppet government in Beirut, like the US puppet government in Damascus, plainly has no intention of any realistic action against de facto Israeli annexation of its land. While Hezbollah has signalled a reversion to past tactics of guerilla warfare, I have serious doubts about both its current capacity, both political and military.

Of the enduring heroism of the people of South Lebanon I have no doubt, and I also have no doubt that as Israel is maintaining an illegal occupation, their legal right of armed resistance in unimpeachable.

It is however foolish not to acknowledge that with Israel expanding into Lebanon and Syria, with US puppet regimes in Syria and Damascus, with genocide about to restart in Gaza and spreading into the West Bank, and with an apparently crazed level of open Zionist support from Trump that is in fact only more honest than the pro-Genocide positions of the large majority of Western governments, the current position looks bleak indeed.

The only grounds for hope is that I cannot imagine that the people of the region are going to tolerate Israeli collaborationist regimes in Damascus, Beirut and Ramallah much longer. Indeed with slight variations you might say the same of the entire Arab world.

I hope you will forgive this being a very personal post as I try to make sense of my experiences and assimilate much new knowledge into my view of the world.

I went to Lebanon knowing literally nobody in the country, and with an introduction to just one person who helped us through immigration, but whose assistance thereafter did not work out. I did so accompanied by Niels as cinematographer, despite my never really having worked in video before, and my not being very accomplished at it. On top of which we had no financial resources except for our crowdfunding, which was not going well.

I now realise just how deeply ignorant I was about Lebanon before arriving.

The truth is, I wanted to go to Gaza but could find no way to get in. I had then had applied to Israel for the required permission from COGAT to enter the West Bank, but had been refused. So Lebanon was the one place under Israeli aggression where I could actually hope to get in to document and report on Israeli atrocities.

This venture was also born out of a rather desperate feeling that I must try to do something. I had been involved in the genesis of the ICJ case and in international campaigning for Palestine, but felt so helpless watching murdered children in Gaza every day on social media, that I felt compelled to do more.

With war against the Israeli invaders raging in Lebanon, I admit I also had a compulsion to share at least some of the danger of those putting their lives at stake. In truth, I felt something of a fraud to be writing about it from home if I was not prepared to experience it.

Well, at times Lebanon really was dangerous for us, but I am extremely proud of what Niels and I achieved. The six mini-documentaries reached millions of people and I think genuinely informed the Western public. I think the interview with the UN was extremely revealing and important and wish I had been able to get a rather wider audience for it. On top of which we produced numerous shorter video pieces, written articles and interviews with alternative media outlets across the globe, as well as doing a lot of Arab mainstream media.

In the end we had to leave because it proved simply not possible to meet the substantial costs of the venture by individual subscriptions and donations, and I ran out of money. It was a bold experiment in being able to do the kind of real, on-the-ground journalism that legacy media has abandoned, but to continue would require more fundraising ability or organisational ability than I possess.

There is no doubt that we suffered – and still suffer – massive social media suppression, and this limitation of reach is what crippled fundraising efforts. Essentially we were asking the same people for donations again and again, which is both impractical and, I admit, I found personally difficult and undignified.

So I shall continue reporting from my base in Scotland, travelling the world as occasion demands. My knowledge has been hugely expanded by my time in Beirut. I will now largely revert to written rather than video format. The struggle for justice goes on, and my commitment to it remains.

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

 PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

On 26 January, 26 unarmed civilians were shot dead by Israel and 147 wounded in a massacre observed by heavily armed UN Peacekeepers who did not intervene. I asked the UN the very hard questions which nobody else is asking them.

The civilians were simply attempting to return to their homes in accordance with both UNSCR 1701 and the current ceasefire agreement, and indeed UNIFIL has a specific mandate under 1701 to assist displaced people to return.

So what has gone wrong with UNIFIL? Is this Srebrenica syndrome? What is the purpose of the heavy weaponry deployed by the UN’s best-equipped peacekeeping force, if it can never be fired? Why is the UN failing to monitor the hundreds of Israeli breaches of the Ceasefire Agreement? Why is the UN serving on a committee under a US General?

These and other questions I put to UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti. I did so in my usual, I hope courteous, manner. The result is a fascinating conversation which I believe is an extremely important piece of documentation of institutional failure to confront Israeli and US aggression at a critical time for the entire world.

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a GoFundMe appeal and a Patreon account.

I have now also started a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

Four UN Special Rapporteurs have written jointly to the UK government demanding explanation of its inappropriate persecution of journalists and political activists under the Terrorism Act. They state that those persecuted:

appear to have no credible connection to “terrorist” or “hostile” activity

The cases taken up by the United Nations are those of Johanna Ross (Ganyukova), John Laughland, Kit Klarenberg, Craig Murray (yes, me), Richard Barnard and Richard Medhurst. The UN letter is signed by:

Ben Saul
Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism

Irene Khan
Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression

Gina Romero
Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association

Ana Brian Nougrères
Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy

Under this UN special procedure, the letter is sent to the government in question which has sixty days to respond. This letter was sent by the UN to Starmer’s government on 4 December. No reply having been received, it has now been published.

It is worth noting that even with the UN letter on its desk and ignored, Starmer’s government in fact stepped up the use of the Terrorism Act against pro-Palestinian journalists and activists in this period. The cases of Asa Winstanley, Sarah Wilkinson and Tony Greenstein, among others, happened after the letter was drafted.

I should be clear that I was, working with Justice for All International (for which we had a crowdfunder last year in relation to the Assange case at the UN), heavily involved in assisting with preparation of this initiative, and made three visits to the UN in Geneva on the subject together with Sharof Azizov, and on one occasion Richard Medhurst. Your subscriptions and donations to this blog are the only funding I have to make such activity possible, so thank you.

The letter is in two parts. The first consists of an outline of the information received by the UN on each case and a request for a response from the British government.

But the second part is a devastating critique of the UK’s terrorism laws and their inappropriate use to stifle dissent and freedom of expression. This legal analysis on lack of conformity with the UK’s human rights obligations is not dependent on any of the particular cases cited.

While we do not wish to prejudge the accuracy of these allegations, we
express our concern regarding the potential misapplication of counter-terrorism laws
against journalists and activists who were critical of the policies and practices of
certain governments, which may unjustifiably interfere with the rights to freedom of
expression and opinion and participation in public life, lead to self-censorship and
have a serious chilling effect on the media, civil society and legitimate political and
public discourse.
We are particularly concerned by the broad scope of section 12(1A) and
schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and schedule 3 of the Counter-Terrorism and
Border Security Act 2019…

We are concerned at the vagueness and overbreadth of the offence in
section 12(1A) of the Terrorism Act 2000, which criminalizes expressing an opinion
or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation and being reckless as to
whether it encouraged support for that organisation…

The term “support” is undefined in the Act and in our view is vague and
overbroad and may unjustifiably criminalize legitimate expression.

…the meaning of expressing support for a
proscribed organization is ambiguous and could capture speech that is neither
necessary nor proportionate to criminalize, including legitimate debates about the de-
proscription of an organization and disagreement with a government’s decision to
proscribe…

We note that there is no requirement that the expression of support relate to
the commission of violent terrorist acts by the organization. As such, the offence may
unjustifiably criminalize the expression of opinion or belief that is not rationally,
proximately or causally related to actual terrorist violence or harms. The offence
further does not require any likelihood that the support will assist the organization in
any way. It goes well beyond the accepted restrictions on freedom of expression under
international law concerning the prohibition of incitement to violence or hate speech…

We note that some proscribed organizations are de facto authorities
performing a diversity of civilian functions, including governance, humanitarian and
medical activities, and provision of social services, public utilities and education.
Expressing support for any of these ordinary civilian activities by the organization
could constitute expressing support for it, no matter how remote such expression is
from support for any violent terrorist acts by the group…

Further, the section 12(1A) offence does not require the person to intend to
encourage others to support the organization…

We are further concerned that the absence of legal certainty may have a
chilling effect on the media, public debate, activism, and the activities of civil society,
in a context where there is a heightened public interest in discussion of the conflict in
the Middle East, including the conduct of the parties and the underlying conditions
conducive to violence in the region. We are further concerned that a person could be
prosecuted for isolated remarks or sentences that mischaracterize the overall position
of the individual, or despite the individual’s intentions or continued and express
disavowal of terrorist violence, given the subjectivity and contested meanings of
certain expressions in relation to sensitive or controversial political conflicts…

We encourage your Excellency’s Government to repeal section 12(1A), or
otherwise to amend it to protect freedom of expression, and to develop prosecutorial
guidelines for its appropriate use to avoid the unnecessary or disproportionate
incrimination of political dissent…

We are concerned that police powers at UK border areas and ports under
schedule 7 may be unjustifiably used against journalists and activists who are critical
of Western foreign policy. We note that the examination of each journalist named in
this communication under schedule 7 was premeditated, and that the examination,
confiscation of devices, and DNA prints were conducted despite the apparent absence
of a credible “terrorist” connection. We are concerned that such powers carry a risk of
intimidating, deterring, and disrupting the ability of journalists to report on topics of
public importance without self-censorship…

We are concerned that the distinction between “examination” and “detention”
under the Act is artificial given the punitive sanctions for of non-compliance, and that
this distinction may be inconsistent with the accepted meaning of “arrest” or
“detention” under article 9 of the ICCPR. We are further concerned that the extensive
powers authorised under section 2 do not require any degree of suspicion that a person
falls within the meaning of “terrorist” at section 40(1)(b). The extreme breadth of
such power enables unnecessary, disproportionate, arbitrary or discriminatory
interference with an individual’s rights, including freedom from arbitrary detention,
freedom of movement under article 12(1) of the ICCPR, and the rights to leave and
enter one’s own country under article 12(2) and (4) of the ICCPR…

we refer your
Excellency’s government to article 17 of the ICCPR which requires that “[n]o one
shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with [their] privacy, family,
home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on [their] honour and reputation”.
We note that several journalists detained under schedule 7 have had their electronic
devices confiscated for a significant period of time and have not been updated on the
use, retention or destruction of their data, or advised in relation to their personal data
protection rights.

We urge your Excellency’s Government to consider the growing number of
instances where schedule 7 may have been inappropriately directed towards
journalists and activists, and to consider addressing this through amendments to the
legislation, guidance for relevant officials, and training of border security officers. We
further encourage your Excellency’s Government to address the judiciary’s concerns
regarding the retention of electronic data

It is a stunning letter well worth reading in full; the legal language and diplomatic formality does not disguise the extreme concern of the UN at the extraordinary authoritarian attack on freedom of speech in the UK.

I might reveal that some of the UN Special Rapporteurs who signed were very sceptical of the issue until studying the details. One told me personally they were too busy to look at such a minor problem; their attitude changed completely when faced with papers on the cases involved.

There is no sign the UN has given the Starmer government pause; human rights are extremely low on their agenda. Support for Israel and the crushing of pro-Palestinian sentiment, or of any criticism of western foreign policy, is extremely high on their agenda.

The legislation concerned has been brought into disrepute by the widespread support in public from Establishment figures for HTS in Syria, even though it remains a proscribed organisation and any expression of support is an offence under the Terrorism Act. To my knowledge, not one person has been charged or even questioned for supporting the HTS coup in Syria.

This occurred after the UN letter, but they could now mention extreme arbitrariness in police and prosecutorial application of the law in their critique. The Terrorism Act is being used to criminalise peaceful criticism of western foreign policy. There can be no doubt about that at all.

It also remains the case that there has not been one reference in UK mainstream media to the persecution of dissident journalists using terrorism laws. I don’t expect the prostitute stenographers to power to change that by covering this censure from the United Nations.

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a GoFundMe appeal and a Patreon account.

I have now also started a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

We could very easily – in fact more easily – have made these mini-documentaries featuring the bodies of children slaughtered by Israel and the hideous aspect of the maiming of tens of thousands, or focusing on the tears of the bereaved and orphaned.

We chose to go a different way and make that unavoidably implicit, but not shown, in the interests of attracting and engaging the widest audience possible.

Yet I believe what we do show highlights Israeli barbarity and makes it stark in another way. I would be grateful for your thoughts.

———————–

To be blunt, our three months in Lebanon have made a significant financial loss. I am delighted with the output of six mini-documentaries and numerous short video reports and articles, some of which individually had millions of viewers. But to date the model of reader-sponsored real overseas journalism is not proven nor stable.

If you have not yet contributed financially, I should be grateful if you could do so. If you have contributed, perhaps you could help further by encouraging others to do so. I would as always stress I do not want anybody to contribute if it causes them the slightest financial hardship.

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a GoFundMe appeal and a Patreon account.

I have now also started a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

Yesterday, not only did Israel fail to evacuate its army from Southern Lebanon as stipulated in the ceasefire agreement, Israel also shot over 130 Lebanese civilians attempting to return home in accordance with the deal, killing 23 and wounding 109 (of whom some are in critical condition).

This included a 12 year old boy wounded in the neck in Kfarkela, standing right next to my local producer Mahmood. I was twenty yards away and on my way to them. Four were killed in Kfarkela and overnight the Israeli army demolished numerous homes there in “punishment”.

Over 100 people shot by the Israelis today in Lebanons, with 11 dead. A 12 year old boy was wounded by Israeli fire standing right next to one of my team, just before this. pic.twitter.com/wsMp7XCiKu

— Craig Murray (@CraigMurrayOrg) January 26, 2025

Apart from one Lebanese army solider, all of the dead were civilians simply attempting to return to their homes. At least five of the dead were children. All were shot, not bombed.

Israel’s excuse for not withdrawing is that the ceasefire agreement is not fulfilled, in that Hezbollah have not been disarmed south of the Litani river, and that the Lebanese army has not assumed control.

I have spent every waking hour of three days travelling the entire southern border (remember Lebanon is a very small country; the entire country is the area of Yorkshire or Connecticut – the demarcated border region is much smaller still).

I can guarantee the Lebanese army is fully in control of the area. There are army checkpoints at every major crossroads and town entrance and at every track into the hills. What is more to the point, I saw nobody at all except for the Lebanese army carrying weapons.

Hezbollah are a significant political presence still – they are the largest political party in Lebanon – but they are not carrying arms in the ceasefire zone south of the Litani. Furthermore the Lebanese army has indeed occupied and taken over or dismantled Hezbollah’s military positions in this zone. They have confiscated over 50 arms caches.

The only areas of Southern Lebanon not under the control of the Lebanese armed forces are those areas occupied by the Israeli army.

The role of the Lebanese army is extremely dubious, but 100% in Israel’s favour. The Lebanese army is fully under US control. Literally, 50% of the salary of every single Lebanese soldier is directly paid by the US Government.

Yesterday the Lebanese army simply watched the Israeli army massacre Lebanese civilians. If the Lebanese army was protecting anybody yesterday, it was protecting the Israeli Defence Force.

Sill more extraordinary, the new Lebanese Government failed to protest at the Israeli failure to withdraw, and the Trump administration has subsequently announced that Lebanon has agreed to extend the withdrawal deadline until 18 February.

In fact neither Israel nor the USA ever had the slightest intention of IDF withdrawal. Israel has demolished more than 2,000 Lebanese homes during the ceasefire period, about half of them in towns and villages which Israel was unable to reach during the fighting but has occupied during the ceasefire.

I visited the city of Khiam yesterday and was simply stunned by the scale of devastation. Over 1,000 homes have been demolished by Israel in Khiam.

Amongst all the debris, I managed to track down the piano of Dr Julia Ali, which became an internet meme after she posted video of herself playing it in her beautiful home, and then Israeli soldiers mocking it after the home was devastated.

The house is an interesting case study. The Zionist propagandists replied to the internet videos by stating that there was a Hezbollah rocket installation in the garden. I searched extensively and found absolutely no evidence this was anything except a civilian home. There were no signs of anything unusual in the garden.

The house was not bombed – it was part demolished with explosives, shot up and set on fire, after being used as an Israeli barracks. The surviving furniture was ripped up with knives, and the mirrors, chandeliers, piano, porcelain and crystal all smashed.

Women’s clothing was strewn all around, as were dolls. Large obscene drawings and Hebrew graffiti were painted on the walls. In a room used for meals, used paper plates were all upside down on the floor and had been used to smear the food around. The floor was littered with food tins, used plastic cutlery, empty drink bottles and human excrement, again deliberately smeared around.

Throughout the building and garden were scattered numerous ammunition boxes, from small arms to tank rounds. All of it was USA manufactured.

All of the television sets, satellite receivers, music systems and kitchen electricals were ripped out, as was the generator set.

I went to the neighbouring villa, where a lady owner was salvaging from the wreckage with her son in law. Again, all of the electrical equipment and the generator set had been taken. Also disappeared was jewellery, a highly valuable collection of antique rugs, and significant paintings. None of this was among the rubble.

We investigated further in the area and could find no instance of any TVs or valuables, or their remnants, being discovered in the rubble. We also found instances of shops, particularly a designer clothes shop and a phone shop, whose entire content had been looted.

A soldier cannot put a generator set or an antique carpet in his backpack. This industrial scale of looting has to be officially sanctioned by the IDF and involve military transport vehicles, or vehicles requisitioned by the military.

It may not compare to the murder of children, but is itself a war crime. The western MSM, which made a huge noise about Russian looting in Ukraine, has never mentioned this massive Israeli looting.

The Ceasefire Agreement was a disgrace that was bound to lead to this conclusion. The notion that its monitors, France and the United States, are in any sense neutral is laughable. Israel has no intention whatsoever of withdrawing from Southern Lebanon and continues daily destruction of Lebanese homes while constructing at least five fortified military bases.

What I still find astonishing is that new Lebanese President Aoun and Prime Minister Mikati have agreed to extend the Israeli occupation on these obviously false pretexts. Israel has committed over 120 documented violations of the ceasefire. Hezbollah has committed one, in early December, in response to multiple Israeli attacks on civilians.

Hezbollah is in real danger of looking a busted flush. It agreed to disarm in the ceasefire deal, which would leave Israel able to annex Southern Lebanon with no serious opposition on the ground. It does seem that Hezbollah’s war losses and the assassination of its leadership cadre has left it incapable of any significant military response to extended Israeli occupation. Its response to yesterday’s massacre has been only rhetoric.

As of today, Israel appears well set to consolidate its extension of Greater Israel into both Southern Lebanon and Southern Syria, with the active complicity of US backed governments in both Beirut and Damascus.

In the long term, I believe the atrocities of Israel will be rejected by the people of the region and bring about its downfall. But currently it is Netanyahu and Trump who are smiling.

———————————–

We have no finance at all for this work except our readers. It is frankly very expensive to keep this project going in Beirut with this level of production and front-line activity.

You can donate or you can subscribe.

Donation options:

GoFundMe appeal

Or Bank Transfer
Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address: NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

We also take Crypto donations:

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

Subscriptions are also very welcome. They fund all my work.

You can subscribe via PayPal

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Finally of all these methods of finance, possibly the best is the very old fashioned one of your setting up a bank standing order to make a monthly subscription at any level you choose.

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address: NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

I am very grateful indeed for all assistance.

Our new mini-documentary from the Middle East shows again the kind of reporting that no Western media either can or will do.

We hope to visit Damascus where Western media is giving entirely sycophantic and false coverage to the new HTS regime, praising the return of Pringles to the shops while ignoring massacres.

But we are completely out of funding. I have made an overall loss now in five figures on our work in the Middle East since October.

There has been not one mainstream journalist here showing the truth of Israeli bombing and occupation in Lebanon. There are some excellent local journalists but we have a far greater reach in the West, with some of our individual videos getting millions of views there.

The days when the MSM would employ honest foreign correspondents like Robert Fisk are sadly long gone. The likes of the BBC and the CNN cover Lebanon and Syria through an exclusively Zionist lens from Tel Aviv.

I hope to pave the way for citizen activism journalism that does not merely analyse from afar, but reports from the ground, even and perhaps especially in difficult or dangerous locations. If it goes well I entertain the dream of establishing a permanent centre here, employing local staff, which could then host star visiting “new media” journalists for extended periods.

Unfortunately to date I have not been able to make a voluntary donation and subscription funding model work, even for the low-cost guerilla-filming approach Niels and I have been adopting. That may be because the model is not possible, or just reflect my own limits of reach and my lack of fundraising ability.

It is certain that there has been extreme social media suppression of our output, but we have still gained a wide audience. I am therefore making an attempt to appeal for support for what I believe to be not just worthwhile but vital work, as historic changes unfold in the Middle East.

I do not back away from the avowed aim of defeating Imperialism and the Greater Israel project, with the weapons of truth and light.

But if this appeal does not work quickly, we will be forced to give up and return to Europe.

Unless you are so wealthy it does not matter to you, I would much prefer you not to give again if you already have supported. We really need to widen the number of financial supporters, and perhaps instead you can recommend to others.

I absolutely do not want anybody to give anything if it causes them the least financial hardship.

You can donate or you can subscribe.

Donation options:

GoFundMe appeal

Or Bank Transfer
Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address: NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

We also take Crypto donations:

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

Subscriptions are also very welcome. They fund all my work.

You can subscribe via PayPal

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Finally of all these methods of finance, possibly the best is the very old fashioned one of your setting up a bank standing order to make a monthly subscription at any level you choose.

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address: NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

I am very grateful indeed for all assistance.

The Genocide of the Palestinian people began 76 years ago. What may be drawing to a close is merely a particularly intense phase in the Genocide.

Gaza is destroyed. 92% of its housing has gone. Its water treatment and sanitation, electricity generation, food processing, farming, and fishing are all now incapable of sustaining much life. Its hospitals, health centres, universities, colleges, and schools are all now destroyed, as are its municipal buildings, waste disposal, road surfaces, drainage channels, theatres, cultural centres, cinemas, cafés.

What is left is 1.8 million cold and starving people, malnourished, soaked, ill-clothed, living in tents and defecating in trenches. Tens of thousands will die in these conditions however fast aid comes – and you can be 100% certain Israeli obstructionism will prevent it from coming fast.

But even if they can be physically saved, the culture and fabric of society are damaged beyond repair. The psychological damage is immense. The institutions of normality that might permit recovery are non-existent.

Nobody really knows the true number killed so far in the genocide. The Palestinian health authorities, run by the elected Hamas representatives, have been scrupulous in giving out numbers only of those officially certified dead following the recovery and identification of their bodies.

Given the almost total destruction of Gaza’s buildings and the unavailability of rescue equipment and the lack of ceasefire for body recovery, I suspect the 46,707 official death toll as of last night (and the Israelis already killed over 80 again today) may prove to be way short of the truth, which could be double or more from unaccounted bodies.

That is without the Lancet study suggesting that 50% again may have died subsequently from wounds. A similar number to the dead are permanently maimed.

The worst effects may not in the long term even be in Palestine at all. The Western world has, in the support of its rulers for Israel as it commits Genocide, abandoned any pretence to wish to maintain the system of international law that had been extended and developed post World War 2. Untold horrors of war may be unleashed as a result in the next decade.

In both the USA and the UK, governments ignored their own senior officials and legal advisers to break the human rights constraints which those nations had imposed upon their foreign policy, particularly with regard to the supply of weapons.

In Poland, France and several other NATO countries, the governments have openly repudiated their duty to enforce warrants of the International Criminal Court.

In the UK, Germany, USA, France and throughout the Western world, there has been a massive rolling back of long-cherished and hard-won rights of freedom of expression and assembly, explicitly to prevent criticism of Israel and support for Palestine.

There has been concerted social media suppression to the same end on all major online platforms, and a seizure of Tik Tok in the USA avowedly because of its failure to repress speech critical of Israel.

The unanimity of mainstream media support for Israel, and the tiny or no space for any dissenting view, has become so established a part of the political landscape it can go unnoticed. But it needs to be highlighted.

In his closing address, the one useful thing Biden said was the correct observation about the USA becoming an oligarchy. The whole world is becoming intensely oligarchic, with an astronomical expansion of the wealth gap between rulers and ruled these past twenty years.

The impunity of Israel, and the decline of international law, is a direct consequence of this. There is a particular truth that encompasses almost every Western country and, interestingly, unites both the Arab and the Western worlds.

That truth is this. The wealthy oligarchic elites who control media and politics are extremely pro-Israel. The people are not.

The gap between the support for Israel among the super wealthy and powerful, and the view of the majority of normal people, really deserves serious study to explain it. Not the least interesting is the fact that not even the almost 100% mainstream media pro-Israeli propaganda has been enough to convince the peoples of the world to support the Genocide, outwith the special cases of Germany and the US religious Zionists.

So, what happens now? Well, I was in Beirut when it was carpet bombed in the hours immediately before the ceasefire here took effect, and I expect Israel to massively bomb Gaza’s tent cities in the next three days.

I have also seen Israel break the ceasefire in Lebanon every single day, and I expect them to do that in Gaza too.

Israel daily breaches the ‘ceasefire’ in Lebanon both inside and outside the demilitarised zone. Three days ago they killed 5 civilians. pic.twitter.com/MiAQpZ4AZI

— Craig Murray (@CraigMurrayOrg) January 15, 2025

So long as the USA and Israel designate Hamas as a terrorist organisation, they will claim the right to bomb and kill at any time as a “counter-terrorism operation”, irrespective of any ceasefire agreement. That is their formal position, just as it is their formal position with regard to Hezbollah and the ceasefire agreement with Lebanon.

The Israelis did not start killing Palestinians on 8 October 2023 and they will not stop killing them now.

I expect the ceasefire agreement to go ahead as projected, with occasional Israeli “anti-terrorist” attacks continuing in Gaza. The prisoner exchanges will happen. The Israelis will continually delay and renege on the provisions on aid access and on withdrawal of troops. Palestinians in Gaza will die in large numbers of disease, hunger and poor sanitation.

Just as the ceasefire in Lebanon led to Israel immediately invading Southern Syria, Israel will now increase its activity in the West Bank, suppressing resistance together with its proxy “Palestinian Authority” forces and continually seizing land from Palestinians.

I do not doubt that it is true that the Gaza ceasefire is due to Trump telling Netanyahu to stop. As I continually said, Biden’s attempts to restrain Netanyahu were a complete subterfuge and Biden was absolutely committed to the Genocide.

Trump is very difficult to read. When he was elected in 2016, I believed he was less hawkish in foreign policy than Hillary Clinton. Had Clinton been elected, for example, I am sure that she would have immediately laid waste to Syria, which would have been destroyed like Libya – eventually achieved by Biden.

Trump II had seemed an altogether more aggressive persona than Trump I, particularly as regards the Middle East. Yet Trump II has told Netanyahu to stop the Genocide – confirming incidentally that Biden could have done so had he wished.

Biden wanted Genocide.

The myth of Western support for international law and human rights died in Gaza, along with the myth of Western support for the “two-state solution”. There never was a viable two-state solution and it was those states who were loudest in pretending to support it, who vehemently refused to recognise the Palestinian state.

The “two-state solution” was only ever a cover for Zionism. With Gaza now utterly smashed and its population ruined, and the West Bank almost totally expropriated, the pretence of a “two-state solution” has to be finally killed off.

Israel has lost any moral authority for its continued existence. It has proven itself to be a genocidal entity driven by ethno-supremacism. (A people who believe themselves to be a superior or divinely favoured race are ethno-supremacists, regardless of whether their claim of ethnic homogeneity is founded or not.)

Within 48 hours of the Hamas breakout on 7 October I wrote my first piece about it. Often in retrospect reactions to a major incident are too influenced by the emotion of the moment, but actually I am as proud of this as of anything I ever wrote.

Asymmetric warfare tends to be vile. Oppressed and colonised peoples don’t have the luxury of lining up soldiers in neatly pressed uniforms and polished boots, to face off against the opposing army in an equality of arms.

A colonised and oppressed people tends, given the chance, to mirror the atrocities perpetrated on them by their oppressor.

This of course feeds in, always, to the propaganda of the Imperialist. A paroxysm of resistance by the oppressed always ends up portrayed by the Imperialist as evidence of the bestiality of the colonised people and in itself justifying the “civilising mission” of the coloniser.

Which is not to say I relish violence, quite the opposite. I am in fact pleased that Israeli prisoners as well as Palestinian prisoners will be returned as part of a ceasefire deal.

While the Palestinian resistance are fully entitled to take as many IDF members and reserves prisoner as they can, I cannot approve of the illegal practice of taking children and other complete non-combatants prisoner – and yes I know the Israelis do it on a much larger scale.

Behaving better than the Israelis should be a permanent guide in life.

Unfortunately, it is not the case that colonial settler, racist states cannot triumph. The white settlers in the USA, Canada and Australia did manage to permanently subjugate and almost extinguish the local populations. I have spoken to some wonderful Arab intellectuals these last few weeks who all tend to take the view that Israel’s ultimate defeat is inevitable because the colonial settler state will never be accepted by the Arab populations. I wish I were so confident.

Where I agree with them totally is that the abolition of the terrorist state of Israel must be the goal, not an accommodation with it.

Israel’s pariah status is now assured for a generation, it is deeply split internally and it is dependent on a parent state, the USA, which is losing its relative power and hegemony. Yet for now Israel is expanding. It occupies significantly more territory than it did two years ago and in Syria and Lebanon it has seized control of vital regional water sources. Israel currently has full military control of over 30% of Syria’s fresh water.

Trump probably supports Israeli annexation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza and more. But that does not of necessity mean he supports either the expulsion of their populations or an apartheid state. He may see such heavy state interventions as an interference in the freedom of business to make money, and even undesirable per se.

It is impossible to be certain about what Trump sees as the end goal. From this first indication, it is fair to say his influence is, to this point, more benign than feared.

It is all a house of cards. As of today, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon all have leadership which is, broadly speaking, pro-USA and pro-Israel. Will that still be the case in a decade? Because it is the fact on which Israel depends for its existence.

The other point on which Israel relies is the support of Western governments. But throughout the Western world, the electoral and party systems which maintain the neo-liberal consensus and give voters no real choice at elections across issues ranging from economic policy to support for Israel, are fracturing.

This requires an article in itself, but in the UK, France, Germany and countless other states there is a tectonic shift happening with voters demanding a shift away from the tiny window of orthodox policy.

To date, the populist right has been quickest to take advantage of this shift, and of course benefited from mainstream media cooperation. But the fluidity indicates an impending seismic shift in western domestic political alignment.

That coincides with the disillusionment of Eastern Europe with the EU and NATO and the consequent desperate attempts of the NATO powers to subvert democracy in Georgia, Romania and Moldova.

At some stage China will take a more active interest in the Middle East. Once the Ukraine war has concluded, Russia will undoubtedly turn more attention to the Mediterranean again.

The situation is dynamic. I would not know whether to be more surprised if Trump initiated US attacks on Iran or initiated rebooted nuclear talks and the lifting of sanctions. I suspect the latter surprise to be the more likely.

Today there is at least a moment of hope that the horrible deaths and mutilations in Gaza may be slowed. Let us take that for a moment of respite, and feel the sun upon our faces. Then we continue the fight against evil.

———————–

To be blunt, our two months in Lebanon before Christmas made a slight financial loss. I was delighted with the output of four mini-documentaries and numerous short video reports and articles, some of which individually had millions of viewers. But to date the model of reader-sponsored real overseas journalism is not proven nor stable.

If you have not yet contributed financially, I should be grateful if you could do so. If you have contributed, perhaps you could help further by encouraging others to do so. I would as always stress I do not want anybody to contribute if it causes them the slightest financial hardship.

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a GoFundMe appeal and a Patreon account.

I have now also started a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

Yesterday I did two short video reports from outside the Lebanese Parliament – inside a military cordon that totally sealed off downtown Beirut – on the appointment of General Joseph Aoun, Head of the Lebanese Armed Forces, as President of Lebanon.

There is no other Western source giving any of this detail – not even that it is directly unconstitutional for a present or former Head of the Armed Forces to become President in Lebanon.

This report by William Christou is fascinating because it is a dark image mirror of my report. The facts are the same, but presented in a neoliberal rose-coloured light.

I report that Lebanese politicians were directly threatened by France and Germany that unless General Aoun was appointed, then Israeli troops will not leave Southern Lebanon as stipulated in the ceasefire deal.

The Guardian tells this as “Army commander’s election increases confidence that ceasefire deal will hold”.

I retell the massive pressure put on Lebanon by the United States, France and Saudi Arabia to appoint the General in addition to the Israeli military threat. Special Envoys arrived from Joe Biden (the US envoy being Tel Aviv-born IDF member Amos Hochstein), President Macron and Mohammed bin Salman. The French and Saudis were actually in the room at parliament.

The Guardian sees this as “helpful” international diplomacy.

The Hezbollah-Israel war, as well as external pressure, had seemingly helped finally overcome that gridlock on Thursday. In the days before the election, a series of diplomats visited Beirut to hold talks with the main political figures.

For 13 months and 14 failed elections, Hezbollah and their allies had blocked the appointment of General Aoun. That he is the United States and Israel’s man is not in doubt. Despite Hezbollah attempting to make the most of their having voted for Aoun in the final round, to rescue what credit they could from the inevitable, this is no doubt another defeat for them following the disastrous ceasefire agreement that led to the same-day start of the assault on their ally Assad.

There is one stark and undeniable truth. The United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia have gained massively in the geopolitics of the Middle East. Iran’s position has been very seriously weakened. Panglossian attempts to downplay this by anti-Imperialists, with whom I sympathise, are unhelpful.

Both Syria and Lebanon have in the last month gained new leaders whose chief qualification for office is that they both commanded military forces which did not fire a single shot against Israeli invasion and occupation of their countries.

The Greater Israel project is well underway, with Saudi and Turkish agreement in exchange for the suppression of Shia Islam in the remaining Arab territories. Aoun’s appointed role is as a hammer against Hezbollah.

Finally, and just for fun, if you want to know what the new leadership style feels like:

To be blunt, our two months in Lebanon before Christmas made a slight financial loss. I was delighted with the output of four mini-documentaries and numerous short video reports and articles, some of which individually had millions of viewers. But to date the model of reader-sponsored real overseas journalism is not proven nor stable.

If you have not yet contributed financially, I should be grateful if you could do so. If you have contributed, perhaps you could help further by encouraging others to do so. I would as always stress I do not want anybody to contribute if it causes them the slightest financial hardship.

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a GoFundMe appeal and a Patreon account.

I have now also started a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

There was absolutely nothing stopping them, but not one single member of Western mainstream media ever visited a bomb site in Lebanon to verify whether Israeli claims it was a Hezbollah base or missile site were true. Because they knew the answer is negative, as I found across dozens of bomb sites, and that is not the narrative they are paid to promote.

But when a narrative they are paid to promote came to the fore, they flocked to Damascus – driving right past the bombed civilian homes, ambulance centres and schools of Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley to get there – to promote Syria’s new Israel-, USA- and Turkey-sponsored “democratic” government of entirely “reformed” HTS Wahhabists.

Now in the past I had unfortunate arguments with some who broadly take a similar view of politics to me – Vanessa Beeley comes to mind – because I was never a fan of the Assad regime and its human rights record. Nevertheless, I consistently preferred Assad to the NATO-, Gulf- and Israel-sponsored extremist Wahhabi “rebels” who were fighting him.

But you can acknowledge Assad’s human rights abuses without subscribing to the ludicrous atrocity propaganda that spewed out of the mainstream media – 150,000 prisoners in one jail, 100,000 people in a mass grave, the “body press” whose plywood-pressing surfaces were peculiarly unstained, the suntanned American prisoner who had been “locked in a room for seven months”, the splendidly groomed dissident prisoner “rescued” by CNN.

Atrocity propaganda is as old as warfare. Like the “60 beheaded babies” of 7 October, or the 100,000 prisoners in a mass grave, it will doubtless recur indefinitely despite being nonsense. The installation of HTS by the NATO powers and Israel was a propaganda orgy of “joy” and “liberation”.

Undoubtedly some people did feel joy and liberation. But the Western media have not stayed around since, to report the subsequent numerous incidents of beatings and summary executions of non-Sunnis, that the “democratic revolution” will start to think about an election only in four years’ time, that women judges have all been dismissed, that starting yesterday there are official Sharia patrols on the streets of Damascus “advising” women to cover their hair, and that for the first time, also starting yesterday, the hijab is official compulsory uniform in most Syrian state schools.

Still less have they reported that HTS has done nothing whatsoever to oppose the Israeli invasion of Southern Syria, which as of today controls the dams that supply 40% of Syria’s potable and agricultural water. Israel is constructing 13 permanent military bases in the newly occupied Syrian territories, putting in concrete emplacements and building or improving fenced roads between them. It is building gun emplacements around dams.

HTS has – while not opposing the Israeli invaders – however managed to make several incursions into Lebanon including direct attacks on the Lebanese Army. In some cases these attacks by HTS on Lebanon have occurred within five miles of illegal Israeli outposts of soldiers within Syria – a clear indication of which side HTS is on.

The new HTS government has of course been fêted by the global neoliberals. The agenda of the Western security services has nowhere been more obvious than in the linkage of the HTS and Ukrainian causes, and the second foreign delegation received by the new HTS government was indeed from Ukraine.

Uzbek militants formed a significant section of HTS’s Wahhabi army, and it is not a coincidence that around the same time, it was an Uzbek militant who murdered a key Russian general on behalf of the Ukrainian government.

The Ukrainian delegation to the HTS government was closely followed of course by the ubiquitous harpy Annelina Baerbock, the most outspoken and enthusiastic advocate outside the state of Israel of the massacre of Palestinians.

As some kind of counterweight to the Western support of Al Qaeda/Al Nusra/HTS in Syria, which the public was entitled to find somewhat confusing, we have the narrative of the “ISIS-inspired” terrorism attack in New Orleans, just to reassure that Muslims are still the official enemy.

There are a number of things about this narrative which are just too pat to sit easily with me. The killer, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, helpfully aided identification by being equipped with an ISIS flag, which despite being an important item in a multiple murder investigation was somehow unguarded and available to the media to photograph, plainly clearly laid out in line with the flagstone pattern and not lying as it fell. Why is the crime scene tape strewn around like this?

A further interesting question is why the flag is upside down on the makeshift staff. If somebody cared enough about the cause to kill and die for it, presumably they would know which way up the flag goes? It is worth noting that the official story is that Jabbar was “inspired by ISIS”, not that he actually had any form of contact with anyone from ISIS. Maybe nobody told him which way the flag goes. But it also transpires he had Arabic language books, including the Koran, at home, so he plainly would have known the writing was upside down.

Entirely weird is this report from the New York Post, where their reporter is able apparently to walk around the completely unsecured apartment of Jabbar and poke about evidence at will. Again it is all delightfully perfect – the Koran is open at a page about fighting and being killed, and the camera lingers on a helpfully hung Palestinian keffiyeh, while there are lots of chemicals and apparent bomb-making areas.

I am not positing a theory as to what happened. I am saying that the package of information being presented is remarkably full and neat.

It took the British police five solid days of investigation at Charlie Rowley’s and Dawn Sturgess’s house before they discovered the perfume bottle of “novichok” in plain sight on the kitchen counter. In 24 hours, by contrast, the FBI had so comprehensively taken all required evidence from Jabbar’s apartment, and presumably had carried out all forensic investigation needed for traces of possible accomplices there, that they were able to let a journalist and crew contaminate the scene as much as they wish.

Is this not all a bit strange?

I am sure that by now you are aware of all the coincidences in career and in car hire between Jabbar and Matthew Livelsberger, who made a kind of explosion at a Trump hotel in Las Vegas the same day. I am not sure this actually proves a connection between the two, beyond that fact that being in the US military is more likely than anything else to turn you into a potential psychotic killer.

But there are very weird things in the Livelsberger case. What strikes me most is that Livelsberger was not a toy soldier: he was an active service member of special forces with substantial combat experience. He would certainly have been able to make a more viable bomb, as his family suggested.

Perhaps more to the point, Livelsberger would certainly have known that what was in the truck was not a viable bomb.

It is also worth noting that this US special forces soldier is officially noted as having served in Ukraine – not an everyday admission.

There is no previous example of a suicide bomber who deliberately killed himself before his attack came to fruition. What we have here, if we believe the official narrative, is a highly proficient active combat veteran who shot himself before his non-viable IED went off.

This too strikes me as a most peculiar narrative. To which I will add that, in the great tradition of terrorist attacks, while Livelsberger’s body was burnt beyond recognition, his passport survived in the cab, next to him.

So we have the Western powers active in installing terrorists in power in Damascus, and some almost immediate examples of terrorist blowback in the USA from members of the US military, and with some very strange details.

None of which is, however, really stranger than the Western rush to sanctify the HTS government in Damascus, when HTS remains a proscribed terrorist organisation pretty well everywhere, but certainly in the UK and USA. The “terrorism” incidents in the USA – particularly the “Islamic terrorism” incident in New Orleans – make it still harder to process the normalisation of terrorist organisation HTS.

I am returning to Beirut in a few hours after being back in Scotland for Christmas and New Year. To be perfectly frank with you, I was expecting to get arrested on arrival here under the Terrorism Act, as has happened to me before and has happened recently to so many decent journalists with a pro-Palestinian stance.

Just telling the truth about the genocide of the Palestinians, and the creation of Greater Israel, has until now been treated by the UK’s counter-terrorism police as expressing an opinion that may cause others to support proscribed organisations Hamas and Hezbollah, and therefore grounds for arrest and seizure of property.

But HTS is also a proscribed organisation, and the entire British Establishment has very openly been “expressing an opinion which could cause others to support it”. The former head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, has been on television advocating that HTS should no longer be proscribed because it is such a decent organisation. Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell have been openly praising it on their blog.

There are three ultra-draconian aspects of Section 12 of the Terrorism Act:

1) You can get 14 years in jail for merely “expressing an opinion”.
2) Intent is expressly not required. If your opinion could cause somebody else to support a proscribed organisation, whether you intended that or not, you are guilty if “reckless”, i.e. you did not positively avoid expressing any such opinion
3) It is entirely up to the government to determine what is a proscribed organisation. If you disagree that an organisation should be proscribed, to argue that case is almost certainly an offence. If the government decided to proscribe the Girl Guides, the Girl Guides would – in law – be a terrorist organisation.

You may notice the parallels in law to the Rwanda case, where the courts ruled that Rwanda did not become a safe country for asylum seekers merely because a government minister said it was. There has however been no successful legal challenge to the effect that a resistance movement does not become a terrorist organisation merely because a government says it is.

But here is the rub. In the UK, it still remains at least the legal fiction that governments have to obey their own laws. The entire purpose of chopping off the head of Charles I was to show that the executive cannot arbitrarily break the law of the land, and that seemed to make the point pretty clearly.

Until the government, through an Order in Council, actually removes the proscription of HTS as a terrorist organisation, it is still illegal to support it in the UK – and it is illegal for government ministers to support it, let alone ex-functionaries like John Sawers, Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart.

Now in practice, there is nothing to prevent the massive hypocrisy of the Terrorism Police harassing, and the CPS prosecuting, people for very tangential “support” of Hamas and Hezbollah, while much more blatant and open support of HTS goes unpunished.

But it is not a good look and juries are likely to be unhappy.

I therefore suspect the decision not to go for me again under the Terrorism Act may be because the widespread official support for proscribed organisation HTS has brought the law into disrepute. That might also explain why recently the police have been using the Public Order Act against speakers at the regular demonstrations at the Israeli Ambassador’s residence in London, whereas previously they have used the Terrorism Act in identical circumstances.

No less than THREE Jewish antizionist descendants of Holocaust survivors have been ARRESTED by @metpoliceuk at Swiss Cottage @IJAN_Network picket to demand expulsion of Hotovely.
Why are the Met Police ARRESTING Jewish people for condemning genocide, and PROTECTING war criminals? https://t.co/ZwaIoMmqvp pic.twitter.com/DUN6fidKOu

— Bintifada (@YaBintifada) January 7, 2025

The range of anti-free speech legislation available to the authorities in the UK is now extensive and bewildering. We are still seeing the legacy cases against Richard Barnard and Tony Greenstein under the Terrorism Act progressing. But Section 12 may prove to be an example of draconian legislation which dies of shame.

There will be many twists and turns yet to come, as the negative impact of the Western states actively participating in the Gaza genocide plays out in Western societies. All of this is against the background of crumbling political systems and fast-unravelling social cohesion and consent of the governed, due to massive increases in inequality of wealth and blocking of social mobility – at least upwards.

In returning to Beirut to give independent witness to events in the Middle East, I hope also to be able to access Syria – although that of course brings new levels of danger from its authorities and militias. This independent investigative journalism is only available with your financial support.

To be blunt, our two months in Lebanon before Christmas made a slight financial loss. I was delighted with the output of four mini-documentaries and numerous short video reports and articles, some of which individually had millions of viewers. But to date the model of reader-sponsored real overseas journalism is not proven nor stable.

If you have not yet contributed financially, I should be grateful if you could do so. If you have contributed, perhaps you could help further by encouraging others to do so. I would as always stress I do not want anybody to contribute if it causes them the slightest financial hardship.

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a GoFundMe appeal and a Patreon account.

I have now also started a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

Israel has relentlessly bombed all 38 branches of the Al-Qard Al-Hasan Association in Lebanon. Why is it so important to the Zionist cause to specifically obliterate a savings and loan institution? I investigate in our fourth mini-documentary from Lebanon.

Click on the “Closed Captions” option at the bottom of the video and you will get the subtitles including translation from Arabic.

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a GoFundMe appeal and a Patreon account.

I have now also started a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

What’s happening in Lebanon: interview with former British Ambassador Craig Murray
11 December 2024 – 19:00

The current situation in Lebanon is more delicate than ever. Despite the entry into force of
the fragile cease-fire between Hezbollah and Israel, the Jewish state continues to violate the
terms of the agreement, claiming that it is only conducting defensive operations. At the same
time, in Syria, the opposition front to Assad has conquered Damascus, bringing down a
dynasty that lasted over half a century without its ally Hezbollah being able to do anything.
Against this backdrop of uncertainty, Craig Murray travelled to Beirut to report on what is
happening from the ground.

Craig Murray is a former British diplomat, writer and human rights activist. He served as
UK ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2002 to 2004, exposing human rights abuses in that
country, and dedicated his post-diplomatic career to global justice issues. At the top of the
list was the Palestinian cause, for which – in the current climate of repression in the UK –
he was detained by the police, as has happened to other journalists.

I know you are currently in Lebanon: where exactly are you and what is the current situation in the
country?

Right now I am in the capital, Beirut. The city is relatively quiet, but there are Israeli drones flying
overhead all the time. They have not bombed Beirut since the agreement came into force, but there have
been many violations by Israel in the south of the country. I have been there three or four times since the
agreement was signed, and the situation is still very tense. A few days ago, Israel killed about six people,
including a shepherd, while other shepherds have disappeared. As these small-scale violations continue,
so does the bombing. The problem I think lies in the fact that the ceasefire agreement is extremely one-
sided. It stipulates that all Lebanese groups must cease all operations against Israel, while Israel must
cease only offensive operations against Lebanon: the qualification ‘offensive operation’ applies to only
one party to the agreement.

In southern Lebanon, the Israeli army is advancing and conquering more territory?

Yes. And, again, this is a problem with the agreement. The ceasefire establishes a demilitarised zone
extending from the Litani river southwards: both sides have to leave the area completely. During the
conflict, Israel had not managed to take any territory in the demilitarised zone. It only got as far as the
Litani river once, helicoptering troops there to take a few photo-ops and bringing them quickly back. In
short, Israel is exploiting the ceasefire agreement to claim the right to operate as far as the Litani river,
despite never having arrived there during the fighting. In addition, Israel is claiming that all its current
violations are only defensive in nature. Even when they shoot shepherds and kill people at funerals. The
fact is that Hezbollah is designated by the US and Israel as a terrorist organisation; for them, the Israeli
attacks therefore do not count as violations of the agreement because they are considered anti-terrorist
operations.

At present, what role does the United States play in this picture?

The United States is in charge of the ‘mechanism’ – as it is called – for monitoring compliance with the
agreement. The document introduces a distinction I have never seen in any agreement – something
extraordinary, indeed. It says that the UN will ‘host’ the monitoring committee, although that the US will
‘chair’ it. However, ‘hosting’ has no meaning in diplomatic or practical terms. What that comes down to is
this: the UN will be allowed to provide tea and biscuits, while the US will actually run the show, although
– and this is indeed extraordinary – they are one of the parties in the conflict, not an arbiter! The bombs
that fall in Lebanon are supplied and paid for by the US.

What about the rest of the Western powers? What interests of theirs are at stake?

UNIFIL, which is the only Western force on the ground, is to have a role in monitoring the ceasefire
agreement. France, the former colonial power, will also work with the US in monitoring the cease-fire.
Paris is very anxious to maintain its role here in Lebanon, and its status as the former colonial power is
very important to Macron. So much so that, in exchange for being included in the committee, Paris agreed
to reverse its position on the ICC and Netanyahu and announced that the Israeli prime minister could visit
the country without fear of being handed over to the ICC.

Given the composition of the monitoring committee and the continuous violations that we mentioned
earlier, what do you think is Israel’s ultimate goal?

I have no doubt that Israel’s ultimate goal is the annexation of southern Lebanon, which is part of the
expansion plan for Greater Israel. The Jewish state has a long history of Zionist propagandists claiming
the Litani river as its northern border, which would mean moving the country’s current border some 25
miles further north. And there are Zionists who believe it should go even further north. An interesting
story to better understand this point concerns one of the Israeli soldiers killed during the invasion. He was
a man wearing a full military uniform and carrying a weapon, but who turned out to be a 72-year-old
archaeologist: the Israeli army takes archaeologists along to look for signs of ancient Jewish settlements
and thus come up with an excuse for annexation. Moreover, it would seem that these objectives have been
coordinated with the rebel forces in Syria, supported by Israel and the US. It is no coincidence that the
rebel attack started on the day the ceasefire in Lebanon came into effect.

Speaking of Syria, how is the front line in Lebanon changing now that Damascus has fallen?

Hezbollah now finds itself caught in the middle. These Syrian rebels are the same people who were in al-
Qaeda and ISIS, and ISIS previously occupied the mountains above the Beqaa valley. They were defeated
by Hezbollah in the past, but they still want to regain the Beqaa Valley and northern Lebanon. Thus, what
Hezbollah is likely to face in the near future, is a simultaneous attack from the north and south, Israel
attacking Hezbollah’s southern flank. And Hezbolloah is not that big in size, so I don’t know if it would
be able to deal with such a double threat. Moreover, it is by no means certain that the Lebanese army
would fight against the Syrian rebels if they entered the Beqaa valley, because the Americans also support
the Syrian rebels – the Americans pay about 50 per cent of each soldier’s salary.

What about Palestine?

Obviously the situation for the Palestinians is already disastrous, but what is happening in Syria makes it
even worse, because it removes the corridor connecting Iran to Lebanon and Hezbollah and eliminates the
possibility of opening a northern front against Israel. Now the Israelis will no longer have to fear an attack
by Hezbollah when they decide to proceed with their ethnic cleansing and annexation of the West Bank –
because, you see, I believe that the ethnic cleansing and annexation of Gaza have effectively already been
accomplished. The Israelis still have some extermination to do, they will kill many more people, but their
plans for annexation are now quite public. The West Bank, on the other hand, is still under the control of a
subservient Palestinian authority. The Israelis have yet to complete this process, because what remains of
the Palestinian population is still hanging on: but the plan is extermination, ethnic cleansing, or expulsion
The regime change in Syria saves Israel from the risk of a northern front while they are at it.

In a recent article, you raised the prospect of a final solution in the Middle East, which would consist
of the creation of two blocs: Greater Israel and, to all effects, a Sunni caliphate. Wouldn’t this go
against what has been US policy so far, namely to preserve and play on the Sunni-Shia conflict?
Eliminating the Shias would eliminate the conflict, and there would no longer be any leverage to
counter a future Sunni rebel government in Syria or parts of Lebanon.

I agree. In the Sunni-Shia divide, the balance would end up tilting decisively in favour of the Sunnis,
potentially eliminating the Shia minorities in Lebanon and Syria. I now believe that the US is prioritising
the elimination of that threat to Israel, at the expense of maintaining the divisions, thus taking a short-term
view. I think this is an example of the fact that, when it comes to formulating its Middle East policy, the
US cares more about Israel than they do about themselves. For example, when they eliminated Saddam,
they probably did not fully realise that the consequence would be a Shia-majority regime in Iraq, and
therefore an Iraq close to Iran. For now the US thinks the balance is too much in favour of Iran and
Russia and that, to a certain extent, it should be rebalanced by helping the Israelis. However, this is
terribly short-sighted; indeed, I believe it is a disastrous miscalculation: true, these groups are subordinate
to the US but only for the time being; as happened with Al-Qaeda, as well as with the Taliban, and with
all these organisations that the US supports in the short term, there will be a backlash. Before long, once
they have consolidated their power, these groups will attack the US.

A final question, perhaps the most trivial and at the same time due to be asked in this turbulent context.
What is the future of the Middle East? Can there be a peaceful future for the region?

Right now, the future of the Middle East looks very bleak. Syria looks like it will regress into a failed
state, as happened with Libya. Should the Turks increase their repression of the Kurds and deprive them
of their territories, it will be the US and Turkey who will run the oil fields there, exactly as happened in
Iraq. The rest of Syria will see a continued attempt by the Salafists to impose very strict legislation, which
will increase in intensity in this culturally diverse country. All I see with the fall of the Assad dictatorship
is the lack of control from the centre, and this could lead to massacres and repression. For the
Palestinians, of course, the situation at the moment is just as bleak.

However, I do not think that Israel can survive for long. I think Israel has now proven itself to be
essentially a fascist, racial supremacist, and genocidal entity. People around the world are forming an ever
stronger idea of what is Israel is: a pariah state, an illegitimate entity. Eventually, through moral suasion,
Israel will disappear because people will want to have nothing to do with it, and a large part of the world
will promote an enormous economic boycott.

What are the possible repercussions in the Western world?

Senior politicians in Western countries, if they do not change, will share a similar fate, because people
will, at last, find a way to get rid of them. Indeed, it is interesting to note that the situation in the Middle
East has made the people around the world realise that politicians do not serve the interests of their
electorates and do not respond to their needs. One way or another, the Middle East scenario will help
trigger a revolutionary change in the West. The consequences of what the Israeli genocide will have
brought about, should be fascinating for future historians. Its effects will be seen in the decades to come.
The probable end result will be the abolition of the State of Israel, leading to a radical political change in
our so-called ‘democratic systems’ here in the West.

[by Dario Lucisano translation Patrick Boylan].

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a GoFundMe appeal and a Patreon account.

I have now also started a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

After six weeks in Beirut, duing which I witnessed a substantial swing in the balance of power in the Middle East in favour of the Greater Israel project, it is time to take stock.

———————————

My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a GoFundMe appeal and a Patreon account.

I have now also started a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a