Now that everyone is aware of the volatile political game the Prime Minister and others are willing to play in order to support Israel, what do you think anti-genocide, anti-racist, anti-fascist groups within the West Midlands will do to oppose this invasion should the ban be lifted? What do you think will be the response from Britain’s far-right? Tommy Robinson has already said he is organising his supporters for the match day.

Western leaders, including in my own country, have refused to even reply to requests that petitions/insistences be made to the Israelis to save the great Palestinian leader. They have shown more empathy for the remains of deceased Israeli hostages crushed under the rubble of buildings bombed by the Israelis, hypocritically blaming Hamas for not releasing the remains fast enough! Such is the moral calibre of our leaders. 

Much of what we thought we knew about the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023 has turned out to be false or only partially true. We owe it to ourselves and, above all, to the Palestinian people, to understand both what really happened that day and why it happened.  

If we wish to live in a world where international law is applied fairly and is not simply a sham tool deployed by the powerful to bludgeon the weak then we must address the inconsistency of calling Israel (a state committing genocide) our ally whilst banning Hamas.

The world’s most important hostage – must be released. The powerful Western countries have signalled that in the face of the genocide they may recognise the state of Palestine. States need leaders. That’s why Marwan Barghouti – often dubbed the Palestinian Mandela – must be freed.

Israel’s key enablers, the G7, plus Australia and New Zealand, have succeeded in muscling Israel back onto the invite list for the commemorations in Nagasaki on 9 August.  Last year Israel was excluded, triggering a refusal by these countries to attend in 2024.  Does the ‘personal’ invitation that Nagasaki has just sent to Israel represent a triumph of Western diplomacy or a sick joke?

The British government has proscribed the non-violent direct action group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. Do they really bear resemblance to Al Qaeda or ISIS, or Israel’s Stern Gang or the IDF? Or, like the French Resistance, will they eventually be recognized as heroes of our time? Will Hollywood romanticize them in their usual tardy way in 50 years time? 

In conversatoin with Eugene Doyle, the Palestinian writer Yousef Aljamal says: “I see writing as an act of resistance, because in times of oppression and injustice, writing is a means of fighting back and resisting, but also documenting and remembering and healing.“ 

If Iran falls, war in our region – intended or unintended – becomes vastly more likely. Mainstream New Zealanders and Australians suffer from an understandable complacency: war is what happens to other, mainly darker people or Slavs. “Tomorrow”, people in this part of the world naively think, “will always be like yesterday”.

The US-Israeli surprise attack on Iran is literally and figuratively designed to unleash centrifugal forces in the Islamic Republic.  Both Iran’s nuclear programme and its government – in fact, the whole edifice and foundation of the Islamic Republic – is at the beginning of the greatest stress test of its existence.

“JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.” Trump said. The Western media described Trump’s and Netanyahu’s threats after the first wave of attacks on Iran as “warnings”.  They were, in fact, expressions of genocidal intent. 

I won’t mince words: what we are witnessing is the racist, genocidal Israeli regime, armed and encouraged by the US, Germany, UK and other Western regimes, launching a war that has no justification other than the expansion of Israeli power and the advancement of its Greater Israel project. 

It generally ends badly.  An old tyrant embarks on an ill-considered project that involves redrawing maps. They are heedless to wise counsel and indifferent to indigenous interests or experience.  Before they fail, are killed, deposed or otherwise disposed of, these vicious old men can cause immense harm.

Khalida Farrar, a leading Palestinian is finally free from an Israeli hell-hole. The mainstream media has ignored the incredible stories of hostages like her. It’s time to share their stories.

A litmus test of Israel’s commitment to abandon genocide and start down the road towards lasting peace is whether they choose to release the most important of all the hostages, Marwan Barghouti.  During the past 22 years in Israeli prisons he has been beaten, tortured, sexually molested and had limbs broken.  What hasn’t been broken is the spirit of the greatest living Palestinian - a symbol of his people’s ‘legendary steadfastness’ and determination to win freedom from occupation and resist the genocidal forces of the US, Israel and their Western enablers like Australia and New Zealand.

What we are witnessing is not just the end of a regime but quite possibly the destruction of the Syrian state.  We are being told by the Western media that we should join Benjamin Netanyahu, Joe Biden and the Europeans in celebrating what risks being the creation of yet another failed state in the Middle East/West Asia. 

Far from the killing grounds of Gaza, an incredible display of defiance to settler colonialism has broken out in, of all places, New Zealand.  The two projects - Israel and New Zealand’s - are linked more than many would like to think.  Palestinian leaders raise their voices in support of New Zealand’s Māori people at this critical moment. 

Imagine any human being chanting “Why is school out in Gaza?  There are no children left there!” after an entire year of genocide in Gaza, after the deaths of so many thousands of children, after thousands of children have lost limbs due to US-Israeli violence, hundreds of thousands having to sleep in tents, a couple of million people being slowly starved by Israel.  Imagine who is capable of chanting that.  

Looking at what has happened in Gaza over the past year and how – with many noble exceptions – most of the priests, nuns, bishops and rabbis have kept their congregations passive and on the sidelines.  As Paolo Freire said:

“Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.”