Israel's brief detention of Sumud flotilla influencers led to international headlines and state condemnations. 3 weeks ago, ten members of the Sumud Land Convoy were captured & imprisoned in Libya while on their way to Gaza. They're still there. No headlines. Little outrage.

The Court Of Appeal Got This One Right. Palestine Action Is A Proscribed Terrorist Organisation. The Ban Stands. Five senior judges have ruled what should never have been in doubt. The Government's decision to proscribe Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act was lawful. The High Court's February ruling that it was disproportionate has been overturned. The ban stands. It is worth recalling what got Palestine Action proscribed in the first place. In June 2025 activists broke into RAF Brize Norton and damaged military aircraft with spray paint, an act the Government assessed as causing serious harm to national security. That followed a sustained campaign of break-ins, criminal damage and disruption at defence and industrial sites going back to 2020. Even the High Court judges who ruled the ban disproportionate conceded, in their own words, that a very small number of the group's actions had amounted to terrorist action under the legal definition. Shabana Mahmood put it more plainly. The court acknowledged that Palestine Action has carried out acts of terrorism, celebrated those who carried them out, and promoted the use of violence. That was the High Court's own finding, in the same ruling that called the ban disproportionate. The proscription was endorsed by Parliament. It followed what the Home Secretary described as a rigorous and evidence-based process. The High Court's objection was not that the underlying conduct was acceptable. It was that the Home Secretary, in the judges' view, had not properly followed her own departmental policy in reaching the decision. A procedural finding was used to try to unwind a substantive judgement that the conduct itself met the threshold for terrorism. In the months between proscription and this ruling, over 1,600 arrests were made linked to support for the group. Four activists, convicted by a jury of criminal damage, were sentenced as terrorists, a sentencing decision that drew an open letter from more than fifty lawyers and academics objecting to the label. Throughout that period the ban remained legally contested, with protesters outside the Royal Courts of Justice holding placards reading "I'm not a terrorist" while the organisation they supported had already been found, even by the judges who ruled against the Government, to have engaged in terrorist action. This matters beyond Palestine Action itself. The same week this ruling landed, a Shia cleric with an open paper trail of mourning Hezbollah fighters and glorifying the IRGC walked back into Britain unchallenged, his case sitting in a queue marked "under review." Meanwhile a group that broke into an RAF base and damaged military aircraft came within one judgment of having its terrorist designation quashed entirely, on the basis that the Home Secretary's paperwork had not been completed to the court's satisfaction. The Court of Appeal has now corrected that. Breaking into a military airbase and disabling aircraft with the explicit aim of disrupting Britain's defence capability is not protest. It is not civil disobedience in the tradition of the causes its supporters like to invoke. It is, in the law's own words, terrorist action. Five judges have now said so unambiguously, and said that the Home Secretary was entitled to act on it. The law has occasionally been used as a shield for things that plainly should not be shielded. Today it was used correctly. The distinction between a protest movement and a proscribed terrorist organisation is not a technicality, it is the line the Court of Appeal has just redrawn where it always should have been. "In the months between proscription and this ruling, over 1,600 arrests were made linked to support for the group."

With less than 3 weeks to go, please take your time to visit the Nova Exhibition. As Brendan O’Neill states, “A progrom that rivals those in the history books. Don’t let the liars, deniers and the antisemites win…. Go and see what was done to Jews in the 21st Century.” instagram.com/p/DZcrKqPDSzF/…

RT @nicolelampert: @EmilyWeisfeld The synagogue stepped in last minute because the previous venue - a hotel - pulled out because of the thr…

Join us on Saturday, 20 June, for an evening with Maya Regev as part of our From Captivity to Freedom testimony series. Get your tickets here: eventim.co.uk/artist/the-nov…

We are witnessing a pro-terrorist protest outside a synagogue. This hate has been spurred on by disinformation spread by London's mayor @MayorofLondon

The far-left are a serious threat to our country.

Jerry Seinfeld dismissed a request from a live streamer to say “Free Palestine” outside Madison Square Garden, replying with three words — “It doesn’t exist” — before walking away. What a legend.

These are different chapters of the same story. The story of a small group of people blamed for all the world’s troubles. The #jewish people. Come and hear them, in conversation with @marccave, former Director of @HolocaustCentUK. Tickets: novaexhibition.com/

Honestly this is mad. There is going to be a property sale for Israeli homes. People will want to go because they no longer feel safe in the UK. The sale is taking place less than a mile from Golders Green where Jews have been targeted for stabbings and fires. That is why they don’t feel safe. A rumour went around that this would include land on disputed territory. This has been denied. Only property in 1967 lines (regarded internationally as ‘Israel proper’) will be for sale. Yet our own Foreign Secretary, our own mayor and, of course, that twat Zack Polanski have fanned this rumour. It feels to me that they deliberately want to incite hate.

Jerry Seinfeld: 1. Sat court side instead of donating his Tix to Palestinian refugees. 2. Didn’t donate the cost of his tickets to UNRWA to offset his Jewish privilege (like carbon credits for Jews). 3. Then claimed Palestine doesn’t exist.

This is an excellent piece by @nicolelampert. I listened to Gary Lineker's interview with Louis Theroux yesterday and was struck by the way he framed his departure from the BBC. In particular, his description of his public commentary on Israel and Gaza as "humanitarian issues" - and the extent to which he seemed to view his own interventions as somehow beyond the reach of the BBC's impartiality rules. I have more to say about that in a separate post. But I was particularly struck by Nicole's account of meeting him at an event and sharing her perspective as a British Jew. She told him his focus on one side of the conflict was 'dehumanising' - and that he risked being seen as anti-Semitic. But it appears her words didn't really land. Link below (gift link) 👇

Slovenia's new government has lifted the arms embargo on Israel imposed by its predecessor and reversed the "persona non grata" designations for Netanyahu, Ben Gvir, and Smotrich. Imports from Judea and Samaria will also resume.

Following his visit to the Nova Exhibition, Member of Parliament @wesstreeting spoke about the importance of witnessing the reality behind the headlines. Come and experience it for yourself. 📍 London 🎟️ Tickets available now: eventim.co.uk/artist/the-nov…

❓️❓️❓️ AND YOU? ❓️❓️❓️

Excellent from @LordIanAustin on yet ANOTHER debate on the evils of Israel: As he says: ‘Over the last few years, Parliament has discussed Israel more than any other issue, not just any international issue, more than any domestic issue: more than the economy, unemployment, crime, the NHS. ‘The public out there look at Parliament and think this is utterly mad, utterly, utterly mad.’ Lord Ian blames Parliament for helping fuel antisemitism adding: ‘Does Parliament not understand that singling out the world's only Jewish state, holding its standards not applied to anywhere else, falsely accusing Israel of committing these terrible crimes? ‘This is bound to drive hostility towards people who are identified with Israel, which is the vast majority of the Jewish community, and I have to say this is why I believe Parliament is playing a large role in driving the explosion of anti-Semitism that we've seen on the streets of Britain.’

On This Day — June 10, 2007 Hamas turned Gaza into a butcher shop. Two years after Israel unilaterally withdrew every soldier, ‘settler,’ and Jew from Gaza — leaving the greenhouses intact and handing over the keys in the name of peace — Hamas showed the world exactly what they do with power. After winning the 2006 elections, they didn’t build a state. They butchered. On June 10, 2007, during the final phase of the Fatah-Hamas civil war, Hamas gunmen grabbed Mohammed Sweirki, an officer in the elite Palestinian Presidential Guard. They dragged him to the roof of a 15-story apartment building — the tallest in Gaza — and hurled him to his death. His body plummeted through the air and smashed into the concrete below in a public execution designed to send a message: This is what happens to our enemies. Fatah retaliated that same night: they murdered the imam of Gaza’s Great Mosque and opened fire on Hamas leader and newly elected Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh’s home. Then, just before midnight, Fatah’s own terrorists seized a Hamas fighter and threw him screaming off a 12-story building. Rooftop executions. Bodies shattered on pavement. Blood running in the streets of Gaza. This wasn’t politics or ‘resistance.’ The was raw, medieval savagery between two terror factions fighting over who would get to rule the ruins. By June 14, it was over. Hamas completed its bloody coup. They seized total control of Gaza through murder, intimidation, and terror — throwing political rivals from rooftops, executing opponents in the streets, and dragging their bodies through the dirt. This is how Hamas won absolute power. Israel left. Palestinians voted. Hamas murdered its way to dictatorship. And from that river of Arab blood spilled in 2007 flowed the October 7 Massacre in 2023. Never forget how this nightmare actually began: not with ‘occupation,’ but with Hamas choosing barbarism and destruction over peace and building the moment they had the chance.

Beautiful to see such generosity. My father and uncle were brought up in a Jewish orphanage and my aunt was housed by the Jewish Blind and Disabled in the UK. I'll never forget the generosity of a community that looked after its own when my family needed it most. My father and his brother fought in the 311 Czech Squadron in the RAF during WW2. Without the charitable support that helped him and some of my family escape to Britain, he would never have been able to do that. Thank you @Lord_Sugar and all involved in this wonderful effort. Link in comments.

The latest report from Parents Against Antisemitism should serve as a warning. What emerges from its findings is not a collection of isolated incidents or the usual rough edges of school life. It is a picture of antisemitism becoming a familiar part of the experience of too many Jewish pupils in Britain. A society reveals much about itself through the way it treats its children. More specifically, through the way it treats minority children. When Jewish pupils feel compelled to hide symbols of their identity, stay silent about their heritage, or think twice before speaking in class, the problem extends far beyond individual acts of prejudice. It speaks to a growing failure to guarantee something that should be non-negotiable: the right of every child to feel safe, respected, and included at school. Schools are where young people learn what is acceptable and what is not. They are where future citizens absorb the habits, assumptions, and values that will shape the country they inherit. When antisemitism is ignored, minimised, or explained away, a lesson is still being taught. Children notice who is protected. They notice whose concerns are taken seriously. They notice when adults look the other way. For too long, antisemitism has occupied an uncomfortable space in public life. Incidents that would trigger immediate action if directed at other minority groups are too often dismissed as political expression, ignorance, or misunderstanding. The result is a culture of hesitation precisely where clarity is required. That hesitation carries a cost. Every unchallenged slur, every act of intimidation, every failure to intervene sends a message to victims and perpetrators alike. It tells one group that their concerns can wait. It tells another that there are few consequences. The question facing policymakers is no longer whether antisemitism exists in our schools. The evidence is there. The question is why repeated warnings continue to produce such limited action. The Government should treat these findings as a safeguarding issue and a matter of national concern. Schools need clear accountability, better reporting mechanisms, stronger support for affected pupils, and staff equipped to recognise and respond to antisemitism when it occurs. No child should feel compelled to choose between their education and their identity. No parent should have to wonder whether their child's school can keep them safe. The findings in this report concern Jewish children today. The values at stake belong to all of us. A democracy is measured not by the principles it displays on posters and policy documents, but by the willingness to uphold them when doing so becomes uncomfortable. Our children deserve nothing less. @nicolelampert @BobBlackman

I grew up in a Hezbollah stronghold in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. Israel was not a country in my education. It was a crime. A wound kept open on purpose. Every funeral, every slogan, every sermon pointed in the same direction: there, across the border, is the source of your suffering. Believe it. Repeat it. Pass it on. I believed it. I repeated it. For years. Then I moved to France. And I met Jews. Not the abstraction. Not the enemy. People. Neighbors. Colleagues. And the collision between what I had been taught and what I was seeing in front of me was so violent — so intellectually embarrassing — that I had no honest choice but to start over. To read. To ask. To dismantle, brick by brick, everything I had been given as truth. What I found on the other side of that dismantling was not just the absence of hatred. It was something I had not expected: admiration. Let me be precise about what I am defending and what I am not. I am not defending every Israeli policy. I am not defending any government unconditionally. I am not asking anyone to check their critical faculties at the door. I am defending what Israel is. What it represents. What it has built, against every conceivable pressure, in a region that has largely failed its own people. Israel is a democracy in a neighborhood of autocracies. It is a state governed by law in a region where law is routinely weaponized against citizens. It is a country where Arabs sit in parliament, where women lead, where dissent is not a death sentence. It is imperfect — as every democracy is — but it is genuinely, structurally different from everything surrounding it. That difference is not incidental. It is the point. The so-called Palestinian cause, as it is prosecuted today, is not a national liberation movement. I say this not to dismiss Palestinian suffering; suffering is real, and real people pay its price. I say it because the infrastructure of the “cause” — its funders, its ideologues, its loudest champions — has never been interested in Palestinian statehood. It has been interested in Jewish elimination. Look at who built the movement’s international architecture. Look at the 1997 Tehran OIC summit, where the language of “apartheid” was first systematically attached to Israel, not by Palestinians, but by the Iranian regime, for export. Look at Durban. Look at who profits when the conflict continues and who loses when it resolves. The answer is never the Palestinian family in Gaza. The answer is always the regime, the militia, the ideological infrastructure that needs the wound open. The Palestinian cause, as it functions on the world stage today, is a tool of an anti-western civilizational project. Its goal is not a state alongside Israel. Its goal is a world without Israel, and, by extension, a world where the values Israel represents are defeated. Liberal democracy. Jewish self-determination. The idea that a small people can survive, build, and insist on their own dignity against the will of those who would erase them. When western progressives march under that banner, they are not marching for freedom. They are marching for the annihilation of the only thing in the Middle East that resembles what they claim to value. I came to Judaism slowly, the way you come to something true, not in a rush, but in accumulation. It was not the politics that moved me first. It was the texts. The insistence, running through thousands of years of Jewish thought, that the human being is created in the image of G-d, and that this is not a metaphor but an obligation. An obligation to see the other. To argue. To question. To hold power accountable, including your own. I had grown up in a culture where the highest virtue was submission. To the leader, the militia, the narrative. Judaism confronted me with the opposite proposition… Read the rest of the essay on my Facebook page.