Thursday, September 10, 2026

09/10 Links Pt1: The ethnic cleansers of Whitehall; Shame on Ed Miliband, appeaser of Islamists; Europe Joins the Boycott Israel Crowd; Natasha Hausdorff: The Israeli settlements lie

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The ethnic cleansers of Whitehall
The madness that has engulfed so much of the West since the Oct. 7, 2023 pogrom in Israel has now consumed Britain.

Anxious to reset government policy to turn public outrage at politicians into adoration of the Labour Party, the United Kingdom’s rookie prime minister, Andy Burnham, decided to reset relations with the State of Israel by sending them into the deep freeze.

Declaring that an economic boycott of the Israeli “settlements” would enable Britain to “stand up for its values,” Burnham has instead defined the values of the Labour Party as the promotion of lies, defamation and Jew-hate.

Announcing the boycott to a chilling chorus of cheering members of parliament, the foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, proceeded to misstate international law, defame Israeli Jews living in the disputed “West Bank” territories of Judea and Samaria as committing “rampant settler terrorism” and “ethnic cleansing,” and libel Israel as causing the “totally avoidable humanitarian catastrophe” in the Gaza Strip.

This was a tissue of wicked falsehoods and distortions. Neither the Israeli settlements nor the “occupation” are illegal under international law, whatever the kangaroo court run by the systemically anti-Israel United Nations may say.

It was obviously an outrageous inversion of reality to blame Israel for Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe rather than Hamas, which used civilians as cannon fodder while Israel went to unprecedented lengths to supply them with aid that Hamas then stole.

As for “settler violence,” this is the latest libel to delegitimize Israel as a prelude to its destruction. There is a problem of unprovoked Jewish violence against Arabs in the “West Bank” territories of Judea and Samaria, but this is committed by at most a few hundred delinquent and nihilistic youths who hate both Arabs and the State of Israel.

They are a tiny minority of the half million Jews living in these areas, the vast majority of whom are law-abiding, upstanding people.

Far from being “settler terrorists,” as Miliband claimed, they’re under constant attack by local Arabs. Rocks are thrown at Israelis in their cars; Jewish farmers are having their fields torched and their flocks stolen; Jewish shepherds are finding their goats have been poisoned to death.

In the past few days, a Jewish “settler” was stabbed on a farm and seriously wounded. Over the years, dozens of Israelis in these areas have been murdered.

None of this is reported in Britain. The government’s response to this institutionalized terrorism against Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria is to trash their good name and then subject them all to collective punishment.

The charge that they are perpetrating ethnic cleansing of the Arabs is grotesque. In fact, it’s the Burnham government that’s demanding the ethnic cleansing of every Jew from their own land to create a fantasy state of Palestine that wouldn’t have a single Jew in it.

These sanctions will do no significant damage to Israel’s economy. But they’re certainly not “just symbolic,” as Britain told the Trump administration to head off any possible blowback.
Allister Heath: Shame on Ed Miliband, appeaser of Islamists
Britain's Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband's decision to sanction Israel, the Middle East's only true democracy, the West's praetorian guard against jihad, all to win votes from Islamist sympathizers at next month's by-election, will go down in infamy.

Miliband is engaging in grotesque victim-blaming. He is making British Jews feel even less safe as they head into Rosh Hashanah. As we commemorate the 25th anniversary of 9/11, he is confirming that Britain's answer to Islamism is appeasement. Our Foreign Secretary has sent a clear message to our enemies, to those who seek to destroy our way of life: violence works, threats work, relentless propaganda and blood libels work, delegitimization works, the weaponizing and perversion of international law works.

The double-standards are monstrous: Labour continued to court Qatar this week, a dictatorship that hosts Hamas. Britain remains friends with Turkey, a NATO member which, in addition to occupying northern Cyprus, has seized vast amounts of northern Syria, shifting people into these occupied territories and turning the local Kurds into a minority. Why do so few care about these settlements? Is it because no Jews are involved?

Britain recognizes and effusively supports a Palestinian "state" that fuels hate, operates a pay-for-slay rewards for terror scheme, and bars Jews from buying land (Arabs who sell face a death sentence). Yet it is imperfect but freedom-loving Israel that is being turned into a pariah. Britain's sanctions are being welcomed as a first step towards ultimate victory by the anti-Zionist and boycott movements seeking the destruction of Israel and its replacement by an Arab-dominated state.

Miliband assumes the barrier to peace is Israeli intransigence, while in fact it has always been Palestinian rejectionism: its elites have always chosen war over accepting a Jewish polity and a two-state solution. They define the Palestinian project as thwarting the Jewish one, rather than working towards coexistence. They have rejected every single partition plan since the Peel Commission's in 1937; Israel has accepted many.
Amb. Alan Baker: Britain's Misguided and Ill-Informed Betrayal of Israel
How far does the British government intend to go to damage Britain's traditional interests and its relationship with Israel in order to placate and appease a group of extreme politicians and an increasingly powerful lobby of Islamist influencers intent on taking Britain's government and its policies hostage?

Ed Miliband's rehashing of the "two-state solution" cliche displays amazing ignorance for a foreign secretary. Anyone familiar with the Middle East is fully aware that the term "two-state solution" has never been agreed to in the agreements between the Palestinians and Israel. It was never part of the 1993-5 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians.

To the contrary, the parties agreed that the permanent status of the territories would be determined only by agreement between them in permanent status negotiations. There was certainly no intention that any third party, whether this be the UN, the EU, or even the British government, would prejudge and predetermine the outcome of the negotiations and dictate a political outcome.

Milliband's reference to Israel's tender for construction in the 12-sq.-km. E1 area between Jerusalem and the town of Ma'ale Adumim as an "unacceptable and destructive act" appears to ignore that this tiny piece of land is located in what was agreed between the Palestinians and Israel in the Oslo Accords to be Area C of the West Bank territory, under Israel's complete jurisdiction and control.

According to the Accords, Israel has the right and prerogative to conduct planning, zoning and construction in this area, in the same manner in which the Palestinians, pursuant to the Accords, are entitled to do in the Areas A and B, under their own control and jurisdiction.
Stephen Daisley: Britain's Turn Against Israel Is No Accident
With the British government preparing sanctions against Israel, this is a victory for the pro-Palestinian lobby and their anti-Zionist worldview. The context is a highly effective (and handsomely funded) campaign since Oct. 7 to demonize Israel so thoroughly in the minds of Western populations that many formerly sympathetic to the Jewish state would turned skeptical, if not hostile.

Much of it is the result of a propaganda war funded by Qatar and Iran, Islamic states suspiciously eager to separate Western nations from a country known for its advanced defense technology, unparalleled intelligence, and expertise in identifying and breaking up Islamist terror cells. Ask yourself why Islamic regimes are so keen for you to feel frustration towards Israel.

While the UK government's Palestine pivot is largely motivated by domestic concerns, the campaign to bring it about was orchestrated overseas with the aim of driving a wedge between Israel and the West. Amplify genuine civilian suffering in Gaza, mix in a whole lot of falsehoods, distortions and propaganda, and Britons across the board would soon shed whatever sympathy they felt for Israel after Oct. 7.

Palestine is simply not a big issue for the bulk of British voters. But there was a demographic with insatiable appetites for a diet of Jewish perfidy in Muslim lands, as the results of the 2024 election showed. Labour reckons that Muslim voters would be reassured by the sight of the party distancing itself from the Jewish boogeyman.

It appreciates that taking up a pitchfork against Israel could well exacerbate hostility and violence towards visibly Jewish Britons, their businesses and their places of worship, but it figures it can always bung in an extra few quid to the fund that gives Jewish children self-defense training for their walk to and from school, because Jewish children in Britain need to be trained in self-defense just to go to school.

All this is terrible. Terrible for Britain's trade with a nation that produces cutting-edge technology and life-extending medicines. Terrible for Britain's Jews who will have to watch over their shoulders even more than usual when they go to pray, pick up their children from school, or walk around in Jewish-populated areas. Terrible for any and all Britons who preferred it when the focus of British politics was Britain and elections won based on factors other than ethno-religious kinship.


WSJ Editorial: Europe Joins the Boycott Israel Crowd
Britain has banned imports of Israeli goods from the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, plus sanctions on anyone facilitating new construction. France and Canada plan similar measures.

That's curious. If Israeli communities were the issue, Israel's removal of every community from Gaza in 2005 should have helped. Instead Gazans voted in Hamas. The Palestinians have been destroying the two-state solution by showing Israel that any territory it relinquishes will be used to launch wars and pogroms.

Israel offered the Palestinians a state in the West Bank and Gaza in 2000-01. They turned it down and launched a terrorist intifada, then rejected it again in 2008. What Palestinians keep saying, but the likes of Mr. Miliband refuse to hear, is that they won't live in peace alongside a Jewish state even in Tel Aviv, which they consider a settlement. Yet Britain, Canada and France have only carrots for the Palestinian side. They subsidize the Palestinian Authority, a dictatorship that still awards "pay-for-slay" salaries to terrorists who murder Jews.

The sanctions' impetus is supposedly Israel's plan to build in E1, an area in the Jerusalem suburbs. This is an excuse - E1 stayed Israeli in the 2000 peace proposal negotiated by Bill Clinton.

This is an attack on Israel, its economy and sovereignty, as a whole. Any Israeli bank that finances a mortgage for a Jew in eastern Jerusalem or its suburbs could now face sanctions. It also threatens U.S. firms. Under federal law warding off foreign coercion, U.S. firms are forbidden from cooperating with such a boycott.

It's the European way by now: The Palestinians start wars they lose and won't make peace, but the Europeans punish Israel to pressure it to make land-for-war concessions anyway.
Former MI6 Chief Questions Israel Sanctions
Former head of MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove, responding to the British government's sanctions against Israel, asked: "What does this achieve?"

"I don't see how these sanctions, which make a distinction between stuff which is manufactured in the West Bank [and goods made in Israel], can actually physically be implemented. So, it's a very strange thing to do."

Dearlove also questioned the timing of the announcement so close to the Israeli elections on Oct. 27.

"I would have thought it would have been much wiser just to do nothing at this point in time, and you know, to stand back and allow Israel's traditionally rumbustious politics to take their course, and then you know make decisions afterwards. I'm really puzzled by the logic."
The Hizbullah Cache London Kept Quiet Shows What Israel Brings to Britain
On Sep. 30, 2015, MI5, Britain's domestic security service, and the London police searched five properties in the city and removed more than 20,000 first-aid kits.

The cold packs were filled with ammonium nitrate, about three and a half tons of it, the same compound that leveled the port of Beirut in 2020.

Britain's Daily Telegraph attributed the tip that started MI5's investigation to "a foreign government." The next day, a senior Israeli official told Israel's Channel 11 that the government was Israel and the service was the Mossad.

In July 2025, the Intelligence and Security Committee, the parliamentary body that oversees Britain's spy agencies, published a report on Iran.

On page 59, there is a box headed "Operation CARAWAY: disruption of Lebanese Hizbullah attack planning." It records MI5's assessment that the material was stockpiled as contingency for an attack that Iran or Hizbullah might one day authorize.

In 2017, Israeli operators penetrated an ISIS cell in Syria and found it building explosives disguised as laptop batteries; the U.S. banned laptops from aircraft cabins on certain routes, and Britain followed within days.

Israeli-made Hermes 450 drones flew reconnaissance for the British Army in Afghanistan from 2007, logging 70,000 hours by 2013, much of it searching for roadside bombs ahead of British patrols.

British and Israeli services are working together this year against Iranian operations aimed at Jews and dissidents on British soil.

Britain cannot expect Israeli intelligence as an entitlement while treating Israel as an adversary.
Britain's Futile West Bank Sanctions Will Not Resurrect the Two-State Solution
British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband on Tuesday declared that Israeli communities in the West Bank were designed to "bury the idea of a Palestinian state." But what if a Palestinian state is already dead and buried as a practical possibility and what if Hamas's terrorism was an equally effective undertaker? The cold reality is that the "two-state solution" has slipped beyond the realms of the possible.

Not even the most Left-wing and Miliband-friendly government that Israel might ever elect is going to drag tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes to make way for a Palestinian state, partly because of what happened after the only remotely comparable precedent.

In 2005, Ariel Sharon evicted 8,000 Israelis living in Gaza and demolished their homes. Within two years, Hamas had seized full control and turned Gaza into a giant launchpad for firing rockets at Israel, starting a series of wars that culminated in the atrocity of Oct. 7, 2023, and the brutal conflict that has followed.

Israelis can hardly be blamed for drawing what seems to them to be the obvious conclusion: doing what Miliband and the international community want, and giving up territory and removing Israelis, does not bring peace. On the contrary, many believe that it merely creates more opportunities for terrorism.

As for the sanctions that Britain will now impose, these communities have never depended on exports to the UK. The value of the trade that will now be prevented is probably tiny. No wonder that British diplomats are reported to have privately assured the U.S. administration that the sanctions would be symbolic with minimal practical effect.

After the trauma of Oct. 7, no Israeli government is going to cede control over this territory to what it would regard as a mortal enemy. Not a single serious contender for the prime ministership at Israel's coming election is in favor of Palestinian statehood.


Sanctions against Israel mark a turning point in international political antisemitism
Why is the path of sanctions wrong?
First, those responsible for violent acts should be punished. But contrary to the propagandist image being presented, they constitute a fraction of the roughly 500,000 Israelis living in Judea and Samaria, a population representing a wide variety of cultural and social backgrounds. Most condemn violent extremists and are themselves the targets of thousands of Palestinian terrorist attacks each year.

Israel prosecutes its own criminals. Some are in prison; others are standing trial.

But Judea and Samaria are not territories “illegally occupied” by Israel. The area was occupied by Jordan, whose annexation received almost no international recognition, until Jordan attacked Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War and was defeated.

After repeated Israeli attempts to exchange land for peace, the Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995 divided Judea and Samaria into Area A, under Palestinian control; Area B, under Palestinian civil control and Israeli security control; and Area C, under Israeli control.

Israel has the right under those agreements to build in Area C, which also includes the E1 area between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim. Some of the greatest conflicts arise when Palestinians attempt to expand into Area C.

Expelling Jews from Judea and Samaria would risk producing the same disastrous result as Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip—the creation of the conditions that eventually produced Yahya Sinwar and Oct. 7.

There is another British mistake. It concerns the safety of Britain’s own citizens.

Israel has helped protect Britain from serious terrorist threats. In 2015, for example, British authorities discovered three tons of ammonium nitrate stored by Hezbollah-linked operatives in London after receiving information from Israel.

On the basis of what unfounded prejudices should a relationship encompassing security, science and culture be dismantled?

Associating Israel with “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” is a lie. Forcing Israel to surrender is unthinkable.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, with Israel’s decision to close the British Consulate in eastern Jerusalem, has delivered the first clear response. But the larger answer must be equally clear.

Neither Miliband nor Schlein will draw the borders of a Palestinian state. It is absurd to imagine that they can. Only Israelis and Palestinians can negotiate those borders; they cannot be imposed from London, Rome or anywhere else.

And no sanctions campaign can erase a fundamental historical truth: The Jewish people are not strangers in Judea and Samaria. Their roots there reach back thousands of years. Whatever the future of this land may be, it cannot be decided over the heads of the Jews whose history, identity and destiny are bound to it.
An American Warning Stopped Britain from Broader Sanctions on Israel
Despite the profound anger in Israel over Britain's recently announced sanctions, mounting evidence suggests that London is actively working to de-escalate the diplomatic crisis.

Israel Hayom has learned that significantly broader and harsher sanctions were initially on the table.

However, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham faced intense domestic criticism and stark warnings that severe measures could jeopardize the unique security relationship with Israel.

A senior diplomatic official revealed that American officials worked behind the scenes, explicitly warning the British government against overplaying its hand.

Despite the diplomatic turbulence, the exceptionally close security and intelligence cooperation between the two nations is expected to continue seamlessly.
UK Sanctions on Israel Puts Palestinian Jobs at Risk
Yehuda Cohen, the chief executive of Lipski, which manufactures plastic pipes that may run under the floorboards of houses across the UK, believes the UK's import ban announced on Tuesday will hit the livelihoods of his Israeli and Palestinian workers, who work side-by-side on the assembly line. Cohen's factory is in the Barkan industrial complex in the northern West Bank.

"Who will suffer from this? The simple employee who needs this place to feed his family," Cohen, 66, told The Times, adding that all his employees were paid equally. "Part of the solution for this conflict is co-operation between two peoples, so I am part of the solution. And this is exactly where the British are coming in and causing damage....They're hurting the exact place where this is actually working."

"I hope [Ed] Miliband will compensate Arabs who will lose income or even employment as a result of his ban," said Yisrael Medad, the Israeli spokesman for the West Bank community of Shilo, which produces wines and is known for its ancient sites.

"Palestinians as a whole in the West Bank don't have a lot of workforce places or employment opportunities. The only employment opportunities they have in the West Bank is either working for Israeli companies, working for Hamas or working for the Palestinian Authority (PA), one of the three," said Ella Rosenberg, a senior research fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. "Once you eliminate or you make the Israeli companies less profitable, they won't hire as many Palestinian workers, and the very delicate relationship between the Israelis and the Palestinians will be hindered.
" Natasha Hausdorff: The Israeli settlements lie
The consequences extend far beyond legal disputes. The phrase ‘illegal settlements’ is increasingly being used to mean something much more disturbing: that Jews should not live in certain places because they are Jews. Consider what is being demanded. A future Palestinian state is routinely imagined as requiring the removal of hundreds of thousands of Jews from their homes. The Jewish residence in Hebron, the cradle of Jewish civilisation, is inexplicably presented as an international crime. As is the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem or the Jewish communities re-established after their inhabitants were expelled.

No comparable demand would be tolerated elsewhere. We would immediately recognise the ugliness of saying that peace between two peoples requires territory to be cleansed of one ethnicity. Yet once the proposition is dressed in the language of ‘settlements’ and ‘international law’, politicians repeat it.

The consequences affect Britain. Once Jewish homes are described as inherently illegal, businesses serving Jews become ‘complicit’, charities supporting Jewish communities become suspect, Jews buying property supposedly become participants in an international crime, then vocabulary moves effortlessly from international diplomacy into campaigns of exclusion at home. That is how the weaponisation of international law contributes to Jew-hate. It provides ancient prejudices with a veneer of respectability couched in modern legal terminology. The Jew is no longer accused of simply being somewhere he does not belong. He is an ‘illegal settler’. His home is not merely unwanted; it is a ‘war crime’. Exclusion becomes a virtue.

This weaponisation of the law is also disastrous for peace. Peace will not be achieved by teaching Palestinians that every Jewish home beyond an arbitrary ceasefire line is a crime, any more than it will be achieved by pretending that Jews have no history, rights or legitimate claims in the territory. Negotiations require recognition of claims which must be reconciled.

International law was designed to provide rules by which disputes could be resolved. It was not created to furnish political campaigns with intimidating vocabulary. The starting point should therefore be the law itself, applied consistently: the Mandate, uti possidetis juris, the actual status of the 1949 armistice lines, the wording of the Geneva Convention, subsequent agreements, including the Oslo Accords, and state practice elsewhere.

Do that, and the supposedly simple proposition that ‘Israeli settlements are illegal under international law’ becomes incoherent. Perhaps that is why it is repeated so insistently. It is much easier to make this empty declaration than to confront what the law actually says.


Natasha Hausdorff refutes Miliband misrepresentations
In this interview by Ian Collins on Talk, Natasha Hausdorff refutes misrepresentations of fact and law by UK Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband MP, on which he relied in formulating sanctions targeting Israel. She maintains that they are a continuation of the antisemitic defamation of the Jewish people that has gone on since time immemorial. Reference is also made to the discrimination in the UK's treatment of Israel as compared with various other countries.

Natasha is Legal Director of UKLFI Charitable Trust.


Before, It Came From Empires That Controlled Jerusalem. This Time, It Came From Britain’s Parliament Floor
Yet the underlying proposition is familiar: Jewish communities in parts of Jerusalem are again being treated as an illegitimate presence.

Only now there is an additional inversion. Jews are not merely being told that they cannot live in Jerusalem. They are being portrayed as foreigners who have no legitimate connection to the city in the first place. The implication is that Jews living in Judea, Samaria, and East Jerusalem are outsiders, that their presence is somehow artificial, and that they should “go back home.”

But Jerusalem was the home of the Jewish kingdoms. It was the capital of ancient Israel and the center of Jewish religious life. The First and Second Temples stood there. Jews prayed toward Jerusalem for thousands of years and maintained a continuous connection to the city even when foreign powers expelled them from it.

The person has not changed. The religion has not changed. The city has not changed.

The political boundary has.

The historical inversion becomes even greater when it comes to military power. Previous expulsions occurred when Jews had little or no ability to resist the power controlling Jerusalem. Babylon, Rome, the Crusaders and Jordan possessed the physical power to expel them.

The difference is that this time, Israel has something the ancient kingdoms ultimately lost: a sovereign state capable of defending itself. The question is whether it will use that strength to protect its sovereignty, or allow foreign governments and internal political divisions to determine what sovereignty is permitted to mean.

Israel today is in a radically different position. It is the dominant military power in the region, with overwhelming qualitative advantages in air power, intelligence, precision strike, missile defense and military technology. But Israel is not merely a military power. It is an economic powerhouse as well. Its economy is larger and more productive than those of many European countries, with a globally competitive technology sector, sophisticated financial system and high-income population. Despite repeated wars, terrorism and enormous security costs, Israel’s economy has continued to grow and demonstrate remarkable resilience.

The Jewish state that exists today is therefore almost the opposite of the Jewish communities that faced earlier expulsions from Jerusalem. Israel is not a powerless minority waiting for the permission of an empire. It is a sovereign state with the military and economic capacity to defend itself, determine its own policies and impose consequences of its own.

That makes the modern attempt to dictate where Jews may live all the more remarkable. The power issuing the prohibition is no longer the power controlling Jerusalem. It is a foreign government attempting to use its economic influence to pressure the state that does.

For thousands of years, the question was whether Jews were strong enough to remain in Jerusalem. Today, Israel is strong enough to defend Jerusalem, yet a foreign government thousands of miles away can still declare Jewish communities across a political boundary illegitimate.

And for the first time in this historical pattern, the power attempting to impose that distinction does not control Jerusalem.

Israel does.

The weapons have changed. The empires have disappeared. The Jewish state has returned. But the argument over whether Jews are permitted to live in Jerusalem has somehow survived with it.

Israel’s response was quick, but it was not enough. Closing a consulate and barring a few officials is diplomacy, not deterrence. A meaningful response would be one felt by the British citizens driving these campaigns: shut down Britain’s foreign-development apparatus, ban hostile British NGOs from Israel, and sanction or bar British citizens who finance, facilitate or advocate attacks on Israel’s sovereignty or Jewish communities.

If Britain wants consequences for Israelis, Israel should ensure there are consequences for those making that policy possible.


Margaret Hodge: Ed Miliband ‘refused to get involved’ in Labour antisemitism fight
Baroness Hodge has revealed that she spoiled her general election ballot in 2019 when she was living in Jeremy Corbyn’s constituency, writing “antisemite” all over the ballot paper rather than casting a vote for the then Labour leader – and saying that Ed Miliband “refused to get involved” in the fight against antisemitism in the party.

In her memoir, Battleaxe, which was published today, the veteran Labour Parliamentarian, who served as MP for Barking from 1994-2024, and as leader of Islington Council from 1982-1992, devotes a chapter to describing what she calls “fighting for the soul of the Labour party”.

She described how she had originally rejected the idea that Corbyn was antisemitic, but that “the evidence about Jeremy Corbyn’s own attitude to Jews continued to mount up, citing Corbyn’s defence of an antisemitic mural, his presence at a wreath laying ceremony for Palestinians involved in the 1972 Munich Olympics terror attack, his reluctance to accept the full IHRA definition of antisemitism and his comments about two British Jews, in which he said: “having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don’t understand English irony either.”

She eventually formed a group together with three other Jewish female MPs, all of whom were facing reams of antisemitic and misogynistic abuse – Luciana Berger, Ruth Smeeth and Louise Ellman. In her recounting, other Jewish MPs, were less keen to combat the Jew hate within the party.

“Battling against antisemitism in my party was grim”, she writes.

“Week after week, Jewish friends, colleagues and acquaintances were telling me they were abandoning the party. I felt that I was banging my head against a brick wall, because I simply could not get the leadership to engage. I remember shouting at Ed Miliband as we were both getting into a lift in Portcullis House, admonishing him for refusing to engage with the issue. ‘You’re one of the few people who could get him to change his approach,’ I told him, but this son of immigrant Jews fleeing from Nazism refused to get involved.

“I remember angrily telling another Jewish male MP, Fabian Hamilton, that he should not be giving Corbyn credibility by serving in his shadow government – to which his lame reply was that Corbyn was the only Labour leader who had ever offered him a job.”


Two arrested in London on suspicion of assisting Iran’s intelligence service
A man and a woman have been arrested by counter-terrorism police in London on suspicion of assisting Iran’s foreign intelligence service.

The arrests of the 42-year-old woman and 60-year-old man were made following searches carried out at addresses in north and north-west London on June 24, the Metropolitan Police said.

A third property was also searched in north-west London on September 9 following their arrest under the National Security Act (NSA).

The investigation is not linked to attacks at buildings and venues linked to Jewish and Iranian communities in London, the force added. It is also not thought to be linked to any activity or events linked to the Jewish High Holy Days period.

The man and woman have been released on conditional bail until a date in October.

Commander Helen Flanagan, head of Counter Terrorism Policing London said: “We know that news of these arrests will come as a concern to some members of the public, but I want to stress that we do not believe there to be any imminent threat to the wider public in connection with this matter.

“We’ve seen a marked increase in the tempo of our work linked to national security and state threats over the past year and this investigation is a continuation of that.

“As we’ve shown here, if we suspect any activity could threaten the safety of the UK or the public, then we will not hesitate to take action.

“I would also like to remind the public that the overall terrorism threat level is at severe, so we continue to ask for everyone’s support through being vigilant, and if you see or hear anything that doesn’t look right, then please, trust your instincts, and report it to us.”


Call me Back Podcast: MBZ’s Warning to Netanyahu, Days Before Oct 7 - with Amit Segal and Nadav Eyal
Did Israel have enough warnings to prevent the devastation of the October 7th Hamas attacks?

A new Haaretz investigative report alleges that UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed personally called to warn Benjamin Netanyahu days before October 7 that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was preparing a major operation, a report Netanyahu’s office calls “an absolute lie.” Dan is joined by Amit Segal and Nadav Eyal who debate the credibility and significance of the story, whether another warning could have changed Israel’s response, and if it will impact Israeli elections.

In this episode:
The alleged phone call from Mohammed bin Zayed warning about a Hamas operation
Amit and Nadav debate the report’s credibility
What Israeli intelligence forces knew before October 7
Could another warning have prevented the Hamas attack?
Israel’s failed understanding of the goal and military power of Hamas
Who bears responsibility for the October 7 failures?
Why Israel didn’t eliminate Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar
– Will the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack and response still be key issues in Israel’s election?




IDF rejects Guterres’s criticism of Lebanon campaign
The Israel Defense Forces told JNS on Wednesday night that it “categorically” rejects any claim that it deliberately targets civilians during operations against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization.

The military was responding to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, who on Tuesday condemned reports of civilian deaths in IDF operations in Southern Lebanon.

The IDF said it operates “in accordance with Israeli law and international law, against military targets solely.” It added that it takes “all feasible precautions” to mitigate harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure.

It vowed to keep acting against imminent threats to the Jewish state and its civilians and pledged to prevent Hezbollah terrorists from restoring their capabilities.

Guterres wrote on X on Tuesday that he was “deeply concerned” by the escalation of Israeli military operations in Southern Lebanon. He condemned civilian casualties, displacement caused by evacuation orders and “scenes of massive destruction.”

He said civilians and civilian objects must be protected at all times, writing that “attacks directed against them are unacceptable.”

Guterres called for an “immediate cessation of hostilities” and for Jerusalem to withdraw its forces from Lebanese territory. He also said the Lebanese state “must have the monopoly on the use of force,” and urged “all parties” to respect its sovereignty.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry also responded to Guterres’s statement, pointing out that the post failed to mention the Hezbollah terrorist organization.

“Hezbollah put Lebanese civilians in harm’s way. UNIFIL watched Hezbollah build its terrorist infrastructure for decades. Your silence on who is responsible speaks volumes,” the ministry wrote.


Hugh Hewitt: Why does Iran not dare strike Israel but shoots at American ships?



CPJ’s “Longstanding Policy”: When Did Terror-Linked “Media Workers” Become “Journalists”? The Answer Goes Back to 2001
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has repeatedly defended its inclusion of journalists and media workers affiliated with terrorist organizations by pointing to what it calls a “longstanding policy”: affiliation with a non-state armed group does not automatically exclude someone from its database unless there is evidence they were directly participating in hostilities. Since October 7, extensive evidence has already been published concerning the nearly 200 names (91%) in CPJ’s database with documented terrorist ties. Rather than revisit that evidence, there is a different question to ask: when did this “longstanding policy” begin, and how was it applied before October 7?

In May 2023, CPJ published its report “Deadly Pattern: 20 journalists died by Israeli military fire in 22 years,” presenting 20 cases from 2001 to 2022 as “evidence” of “Israel killing journalists with impunity.” CPJ states it had revisited the cases, did further research, and contacted the Israeli military before publication. Yet a basic review of the 20 names in the report shows how more than half of the names, at least 11, had documented terrorist connections, worked for terrorist-controlled media, and had other documented militant activity, while two of the names were not even killed by Israel. These were not obscure. Much of the relevant evidence was publicly documented long before CPJ conducted its 2023 review. So what, exactly, did CPJ review before publishing Deadly Pattern, and how did that review fail to uncover facts that were already publicly available?

What the report shows, is how CPJ’s practice of including terrorist as “journalists” did not begin on October 7. It has been embedded in its treatment of Israel-related cases for more than two decades, dating back to 2001. This matters because CPJ is now reviewing its database of “journalists” killed since October 7, after Hamas, PIJ, and other terror groups confirmed dozens of names as combatants. The issue is therefore not simply how many questionable names CPJ has included or will remove, but whether its earlier “review” applied any meaningful scrutiny to those classifications. But it also raises a broader question about the selectivity of the so-called “longstanding” policy: CPJ’s database does not include any ISIS “media workers,” there is no Al-Qaeda “cameraman,” or any reporter” working for Boko Haram.

The very first name on CPJ’s 2023 report, Muhammad Abd al-Karim al-Bishawi, is particularly significant because it also provides the earliest example of CPJ classifying a terror-linked “media worker” as a legitimate “journalist.” How the false narrative started, how it can be traces back to 2001, and how that narrative evolved into a narrative of “genocide.” It it also highlights how for Hamas, and other terrorist organizations, the use propaganda presented as “journalism,” is a core component of their strategy against Israel.

CPJ’s narrative is straightforward: Muhammad Abd al-Karim al-Bishawi, killed on July 31, 2001, was a “print reporter” for the Nablus-based Najah Press Office and Qatari IslamOnline. He was killed in an IDF strike while “interviewing” Hamas leader Jamal Mansour. According to CPJ, al-Bishawi was inside the Hamas “Palestinian Center for Studies and Media” to “interview” Jamal Mansour for an article when an Israeli missile struck the building. CPJ classifies his death as that of a journalist killed in an Israeli military attack, in “crossfire.” But the two Hamas leaders Muhammad al-Bishawi was with were not ordinary Hamas members. Jamal Mansour and Jamal Salim were senior Hamas leaders in Nablus who were involved in the organization’s terrorist activity against Israelis.

Jamal Mansour was identified as a key Hamas figure responsible for directing terrorist attacks, including defining targets and methods, as well as sending operatives on bombing missions. He had been arrested repeatedly and spent more than five years in Israeli jails. At the time of his death, Israeli officials attributed 10 bomb attacks to the Hamas leadership in Nablus, including the June 2001 Dolphinarium suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, which killed 21 Israelis.

Jamal Salim was also a senior Hamas leader and a key figure in the organization’s network in Nablus. Local reporting described him as a Hamas leader and, according to Israeli officials, a key member of a Hamas network preparing a major terror campaign against Israeli cities. He had been arrested by Israel seven times, and deported to Lebanon for a year. The two men were therefore not merely “political figures” working on Hamas’ “communications.” They were senior Hamas leaders responsible for bombings and suicide attacks against Israelis

Muhammad Abd al-Karim al-Bishawi was also not simply a “journalist” who happened to be killed in the vicinity of two Hamas leaders while “performing an interview.” And the “Palestinian Center for Studies and Media” wasn’t simply a Hamas-linked “media organization.” Widely available Palestinian reports of the strike refer to Muhammad al-Bishawi as an “activist” and a “companion” of Hamas senior leaders Jamal Salim and Jamal Mansour. Images of his funeral also show him wrapped in a Hamas green flag. All while eulogies by Hamas of the “Jamals” dating back years, systematically include Muhammad al-Bishawi among those memorized as part of the organization.





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Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



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