In recent weeks swarms of Ukrainian drones have traversed the Baltic states on missions to take the war to Russian cities like St Petersburg. It is the latest in a string of “incremental escalations” that military and geopolitical analysts I follow fear may be some of the opening shots in transitioning the “Russo-Ukrainian War” (with massive Western backing) into an open “Russo-European War”. God help us all. 

There was only one moment when I was interviewing him last week that Mousa Taher broke down and cried. It was a surprising, pivotal moment in the interview. He had just made it back to New Zealand from Israeli detention. Of course, we covered the ordeal – the beatings, the death threats, the scare tactics with dogs, etc – that he and 430 other Global Sumud activists from 60 countries had been subjected to over four days from their interception in international waters to their release and flight to safety in Tűrkiye.  

I interviewed several of the New Zealanders who, as members of the Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza, were taken hostage by the Israelis in international waters near Cyprus last week and moved to Israel. The sadism and savagery of their mistreatment – clearly designed to intimidate and stop further attempts to open a humanitarian corridor –  gave them a small taste of the network of torture camps that hold thousands of Palestinians in captivity suggestive of Dante’s Inferno.