Kernow Damo

Right, so Donald Trump decided the best way to make the Strait of Hormuz 'safer' was to lob a few bombs at an Iranian island because nothing screams 'secure shipping lane' quite like a handful of American explosives raining down from the sky.A few hours later, Iran fired missiles and drones against American positions in Jordan and the UAE. Jordan reported that eight missiles had crossed into its airspace; the UAE responded to an unmanned attack. Ships were avoiding the Strait of Hormuz, and oil prices have exceeded the ninety-dollar mark.Trump strikes, Iran returns, and the apparently "secured" shipping lane is once again about as free as a nightclub at four o'clock in the morning during a raid.But as usual with all things Strait of Hormuz adjacent, the truth was somewhere Little Donnie wasn’t and retaliation is a b*tch. Anyway, let’s start this story properly with this:"Almost total control," he says. Trump claims the mines are all gone, and oil prices will soon be falling, all in response presumably to his enormous ego because he’s got bu**er all else to be going on. Somebody should let the tanker crews, the underwriters, Jordan, the UAE, and the oil traders know about this edict that now been issued, because Trump's fantasy press office must have forgotten to send them all the necessary memo.The picture Trump was drawing is of course very simple, because so is he. America has taken out the launchers, America has eliminated the threat, and now America is running the Strait.

Right, so Finland and Israel had already signed a military-technical co-operation agreement. So far, so bad enough. The contract was to be renewed every five years and covered development, research and procurement.But when the old agreement was due for renewal in early 2024, Finland didn't just sign on for another five years. No, the Defence Ministry quietly wrote a brand-new ten-year memorandum that continued the military friendship until 2034.Now this also included the usual military R&D and procurement sort of stuff, and the Defence Ministry didn't bother to inform the public because when do Defence Ministries ever cite transparency as their driving interest after all.But now that people have found out, Finland's president, Alexander Stubb, beautiful Finnish name, has already been asked if Finland should continue to purchase Israeli weapons.And this was his rather unfortunate reply.Stubb is a perfect example of how to dodge a question so hard that you end up leaving a vapour trail.He suddenly discovered that whatever was waiting at the end of that pavement was far more urgent than explaining Finland’s arms trade with Israel.

Right, so a British military aircraft flying from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus to Tel Aviv.You can see it before you right there, so not exactly subject to supposition is it?The only thing we can’t see is what was stuffed inside it, though thankfully we have independent media helpfully providing what it could be carry in the form of journalist Matt Kennard, who has picked up that it was an Airbus A400M Atlas, which according to him can carry a payload of 81,600 lbs or 116 fully equipped soldiers.So what was in it? Why did it go? Why was an aircraft of that size required to carry whatever was inside? Of course we don’t know do we, yet aircraft taking off from RAF Akrotiri and going to Israel isn’t exactly new, it’s just the first time its been seen happening under Andy Burnham, so again, is this another case of no change from Starmer?The plane flew to Israel, circled there for about an hour and then scuttled back to Akrotiri. Beyond that, the cargo and the mission have basically been filed under 'none of our business.'But this flight is just one more reason why Burnham's carefully contrived bedtime story about Britain only ever giving defensive help is now being challenged.And for all his promises of change and renewal, and of not being Keir Starmer with a northern accent, Burnham has already been caught in one of Starmer’s old tricks it would seem.

Right, so Ratko Mladić is dead.And Israel has a problem it cannot put away with him as a result.The files. No, not those files, another set of files. The files which gather dust like a guilty conscience, or would do if I thought Zionism had one.Israeli records of arms-export licences and the Defence Ministry's decisions concerning the former Yugoslavia between 1990 and 1996 remain closed. Even the Israeli Supreme Court upheld the state's refusal to publish them under freedom-of-information law, considering their release might harm national security or damage foreign relations. Well it’s not as if your current genocide has done that much good either, but was Israel involved in this one as well?Well, all the ruling tells us is that the state is still withholding these files. It does not tell us what is in them. So we cannot claim, as established fact, that Israel delivered weapons to Bosnian Serb forces, authorised any transfer, provided training, knew where weapons ended up, or that any Israeli-supplied material was used in Mladić’s crimes.And yet Israel is not suspected of involvement here merely because it sealed some files. It is suspected because multiple wartime leads pointed towards Israeli weapons, training or intermediaries, and then the state refused to release the records most capable of confirming or knocking down those leads. Now why might they do that then?

Right, so Donald Trump's Iran war is eating away at the American Navy from the inside out, even more than we already knew about in fact. Not enough that sailors have tried throwing themselves overboard and have been wading through, their own effluence in the corridors, it seems that for the Trump administration they haven’t paid quite a high enough price yet, and I do mean pay.You see the Navy is playing musical chairs with the payroll to offset war costs. A war tax. The music itself coming from a closed cash register that isn’t stumping up cash for anything else these troops need either. Military training? Only if cancelling the preparation for the next war counts as preparing for it. Maintenance? Maybe when hell freezes over. The USS Abraham Lincoln has been deployed for 279 days, over 200 in a combat zone, and nine months without a real port call. The crews work hours that would make a Victorian factory owner blush, and supplies of food and water have dwindled; getting post from home basically ceased and sailors have been pushed past the point of exhaustion. Mental health is going down the drain or even overboard, the sea more attractive than working another day on Trump's floating sweatshop. This much of course isn’t new, the vessel is now being relieved.But the military magazine Stars and Stripes had dared to report the conditions in which life aboard the Lincoln had become and in retaliation for that, Pentagon officials have sent senior journalists packing. How dare you tell the truth!Trump’s war now seemingly being paid with their wages now.His big, strong fleet, but their cancelled training.His photographic opportunity. Their nervous breakdown.You would think, with one-point-five trillion dollars that have been so readily given to the military, that they would have been able to keep the war going without having to beg the sailors for their wages too? Beg not really the operative word of course – as if they asked!

Right, so Benjamin Netanyahu has been playing Donald Trump again and again.Trump has handed Netanyahu exactly what he wanted: Israel gets to stay put in Gaza until Hamas has surrendered every single weapon.And what has Trump got back for that concession?No withdrawal. Not a deal. Not even a promise that Netanyahu will stop adding more conditions, because he’s always got another one hasn’t he?Just another chance to stand next to him and pretend this is going brilliantly.We are of course talking about Trump’s Gaza Board of Peace here. The body sold as the bridge between a ceasefire and Gaza actually being rebuilt.Its job, in theory, was to oversee the handover from war to something resembling normal life again, which of course is what we all want to see: weapons dealt with under international supervision, Israeli forces withdrawing in stages, and a Palestinian administration taking over.The Yellow Line is the Israeli military line inside Gaza. The point beyond which Israel was supposedly meant to begin pulling back.Now, the Board did not throw every part of that plan in the bin. It only tore up the bit that made it an actual exchange.Its own representative described a neat little dance: weapons decommissioned in stages, Israeli withdrawal in stages. One side performs, the other side has to move too.But then the Board met Benjamin Netanyahu and then it announced that Israel would not leave beyond the Yellow Line until Hamas had completed full disarmament.So Israel gets to remain on the line it already holds, actually having taken more than that and moving up to an orange line. Netanyahu had bragged on camera that they had control of 70% of the strip and would go for more, all while Hamas is expected to hand over the last rifle, pistol, slingshot and, presumably, every remaining scrap of dignity before Israel has to give up a single inch.The Board took a phased, reciprocal arrangement and moved the risk almost entirely onto Gaza. What an absolute shocker, with people like the orange dunce and Tony Blair involved, I can’t imagine how this panned out.

Right, so Palestine Action, having undertaken their brisk tour of the airbase at Brize Norton last year, did of course give two RAF Voyager aircraft a makeover in that well-known colour, “international incident red.”Keir Starmer, as he never misses an opportunity to overreact, responded by hurriedly slapping a terrorism ban on the movement. All of that we already know of course.Now, you can think breaking into an RAF base and spraying military planes is irresponsible, reckless, criminal, all of the above. Fine. It was always going to attract attention, that was the point. This was not somebody glueing themselves to a council chamber door here.But there is quite a leap, isn’t there, between prosecuting the people who got into the base and declaring the entire movement a terrorist organisation?That was Starmer’s leap.The man looked at a very obvious security failure by the RAF, saw two aircraft covered in red paint, and decided the problem was not the security at the base. It was the existence of people prepared to protest British military involvement in Gaza.So he reached for terrorism law.And when a government starts treating political protest as a national-security problem, it rarely stops at the first overreach. It gets ideas. It starts asking what else could be done. What new powers might help. What new systems could be built. How much further the definition of “security” can be stretched before it finally snaps.

Right, so, the orange menace currently passing himself off as the US President, and in his signature style, has now launched something called Operation Economic Outcast.Nearly 60 sanctions targets across five sectors. Anyone still doing business with Iran is now facing threats that amount to the financial equivalent of being shoved into school locker after having your head flushed down a loo.Unfortunately for the thuggish Trump, the Treasury avoided targeting the major Chinese banks it would need to confront if it truly intended to choke off Iran's oil trade.And when Treasury sycophant Scott Bessent was asked why they had not simply imposed the harshest sanctions immediately, he came out with this. "Well, we are allowing everyone to remedy bad behaviour. Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?" Lovely. Wall Street can rest easy.Apparently, Economic D-Day now comes with a risk assessment, a waiver form, and maybe even a particularly robust stress ball.Trump's Treasury is going to cut every economic lifeline to Iran, at least until it looks like it might end up hurting itself in the process.Before turning to China, though, it is worth listening to what Bessent actually promised, because this was not just a matter of adding a bit more pressure, another sanction, and a strongly worded letter.This was presented as total isolation. "Today, in that same spirit, we are launching an economic onslaught against Iran's financial connections around the globe. Our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone." That is quite a promise. About as credible as a Trump University diploma, and just as likely to end in disappointment.

Right, so Israel's UN ambassador Danny Danon appeared on Sky News to state that the West Bank is "not occupied land", but "our land". Apparently international law now comes with a biblical opt-out clause. Then Israeli forces took over the UNRWA centre in Qalandia, a Palestinian village in the West Bank, removed all of the staff, and Ben Gvir sat in the director's chair to declare: "On my shift, there is no UNRWA", like a scene from the Capital on January 6th.Not exactly a great moment for Danny to make his point land though is it?Especially when you notice what his government is quietly preparing next.But before we get to Ben Gvir strutting around someone else's office as if he owns it, let's listen to Danny Danon present his argument. So that's his position, as stated in his Arnold Schwartzenegger knock-off voice, all very Middle Eastern.The West Bank isn't occupied. It's Israel's land. Jewish people have historical rights, biblical rights, and so Israelis living there cannot be considered settlers.Well, that seems to settle international law then, someone please call The Hague and let them know, Danny Danon has spoken.All those lawyers, courts, UN resolutions, and decades of diplomacy can apparently go home, since Danny Danon has found a religious text and decided it works as a property deed with extra commandments that Moses must’ve dropped.

Right, so Benjamin Netanyahu has a problem. Yes, another one, absolute rotten shame really isn’t it?Donald Trump has just pulled Syria off America’s terror-state list, handing it a golden ticket back into trade and diplomacy that Israel now cannot destroy, no matter how many jets they send or how many times Netanyahu tries to order an airstrike as if he’s calling for pizza.Washington has taken Syria off America’s terror-state list. It has removed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, HTS, the unelected Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s bunch of Al-Qaeda castoffs from a separate sanctions blocklist. Yet on the very same day, Israeli troops were still entering southern Syria and Israeli aircraft were still circling overhead.So Israel can keep sending in the troops and it can keep making big holes in the road courtesy of an explosion or two, but one of the biggest weapons in Netanyahu’s Syria squeeze has just been taken away from him and it’s the same thing he’s failed at with regards to Iran as well.Isolation.Now, I know. US Treasury sanctions. Nobody has ever burst into a pub shouting, 'Drop your pints, lads, the Office of Foreign Assets Control just dropped an administrative update!' The only thing less exciting would be a live reading of the US tax code.But this one counts for a bit more than just being yawned over.The State Department formally removed Syria’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism.It also revoked the Specially Designated Global Terrorist listing covering HTS and al-Nusrah, the Syrian arm of Al-Qaeda as that basically was and removed HTS from the Treasury sanctions blocklist.That means Americans no longer require specific Treasury permission to transact with HTS, provided no other sanctioned person or prohibited activity is involved. Yes, I’m sure these fine and upstanding Syrian citizens will definitely all be on the level now and there won’t be anything to see here honest guv.

Right, so here we are.Israel cannot stop actual fibre-optic killer drones. These are not ordinary drones; they are guided by a cable instead of radio, so all the jamming in the world is about as useful as a chocolate teapot and it is Hezbollah in Lebanon that have shown this to be the case over and over. They skim close to the ground, avoid detection, and can be directed straight into troops or equipment. Israelis have died, and the IDF has admitted it does not have a solution. That is a real threat. Which makes the sudden military panic over four harmless paper kites seem like a toddler screaming the place down because a butterfly has landed on it.But kites? Israel's elite kite patrol is apparently on the case. Nothing escapes the blue and white state’s string-and-paper elite.Their stated reason was that kites, balloons, now belong in the same category as drones coming from Gaza could threaten Israeli border communities. Netanyahu has called them a "lethal weapon" and said Israel would not return to the pre-7 October reality, which apparently now includes kids getting to fly kites. Deranged defence minister Israel Katz said a kite should be treated like a drone, explosives or not. You great big whopper of a snowflake you. The problem for them is that the four kites their own army inspected had no suspicious material and posed no public risk. This is literally punching down on one of the only ways a kid in Gaza right now can be a kid, can play a game, can have any semblance of what it means to have a childhood, growing up in a state of daily trauma.And of course, given the lethal measures the IDF will carry out, even against small children, parents in Gaza are stopping their children from flying these kites, knowing what Israel might do if they spot a bit of coloured paper in the sky.

Right, so Benjamin Netanyahu has managed to torch through what regional reporting is saying is the equivalent of thirty years’ of normal ammunition use in less than three. Thirty years. That’s Bibi’s idea of portion control apparently: empty the buffet, burn the kitchen down, then ask America if it does refills. You need Slimming World sunshine.His army is holding fifty-three thousand reservists in service every day. Its tanks and armoured vehicles are needing engines by the thousand. Its air force has crammed roughly nine years of ordinary operations into less than three.And now he wants more.More American weapons, that even America itself doesn’t have, because America has been firing its own high-end missiles in Iran, all for Israel’s sake of course, and has been told in no uncertain terms that some of them take years to replace.Trump promised Israel unlimited weapons.Netanyahu has found the limit.That thirty-year figure has come from investigation from Maariv, its also been carried by Anadolu as well. But it’s worth pointing out that this is not a public IDF inventory audit. No one has produced a ledger showing every shell, bomb and missile used in either period.It is a comparison of use. A claim about the rate Israel has been consuming ammunition since October 2023 compared with the previous three decades.

Right, so tiny violins at the ready folks, because things seem to be going all wrong again for Benjamin Netanyahu.All of this war against Iran was meant to leave Tehran battered, isolated, and standing outside the Middle East's version of a nightclub as if they’d just turned up wearing Crocs.Instead, Saudi Arabia has signed a new defence pact with Türkiye and Pakistan, Iranian officials have been strutting around as if they’d just won some sort of a diplomatic jackpot over it, and Saudi Arabia's clever workaround for Hormuz to get away from Iran, has just ended up with a problem that could put them in a Great Dane level of diplomatic doggie doo doo in terms of the scale.That workaround is their East-West pipeline. Their plan B to get the oil out. It allows the Saudis to move oil across the kingdom to Yanbu, load it onto tankers in the Red Sea, and avoid Hormuz like it's an ex turning up at your wedding. Brilliant in theory, until commercial shipping starts getting hit near Yanbu as well. The little matter of you’re your Yemeni government allies starting beef with the Houthis again and them taking it directly to your doorstep.So if Netanyahu's main strategy was to sideline Iran, he may have just handed Tehran the biggest regional opportunity ever offered on a silver platter, complete with a bow and a card saying, “Love from, Bibi.”Well now it might just be about to get so much worse for him.Mehdi Rahimi, the head of Iran's parliamentary news agency Khaneh Mellat, told Al Mayadeen that Iran had received an invitation to join the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement and that the proposal was under consideration.That's quite something, given that the whole point of Netanyahu and Trump's war was to lock Tehran up in diplomatic isolation and throw away the key. But don't break out the confetti and party hats just yet.

Right, so you can tell your gold-plated security plan is going well when the big idea is to put the oil tanks inside a giant hamster cage. Because that is exactly what you are looking at here. Huge steel-and-mesh structures have been built around fuel-storage tanks in the United Arab Emirates, including near Dubai International Airport. Cages. Around the fuel. The UAE has spent years selling itself as the safe part of the Gulf. Dubai is where you change planes, move your money, buy the apartment, host the conference and pretend the rest of the region exploding is happening at a comfortable distance away. Why else would you get great British patriots like Reform UK’s Richard Tice setting up home there to serve the people of Skegness from?Abu Dhabi has the oil, the sovereign wealth, the American military relationship, the Israel normalisation and all the imported weapons money can buy. It hosts American forces at Al Dhafra, has advanced air defences, and its relationship with Israel has deepened since this war began.It has also paid a political price for choosing that side. Iran has treated the UAE’s hosting of US forces and Israeli-linked assets as part of the regional war, and it’s not like the Emirates have exactly sat out of that confrontation.

Right, so Britain has just spent almost three years and a mountain of public money trying to transform three tweets from Tony Greenstein, a 72-year-old Jewish anti-Zionist from Brighton, into the Philosopher's Stone of terrorism convictions and all they produced for themselves was an even bigger mountain of embarrassment.Greenstein's supposed crime? He was accused of inviting support for Hamas, because of a few posts he made on 7 October 2023.His defence? He supported Palestinian resistance, not Hamas itself, though it is hard to expect the CPS to see the difference after three years spent poring over his blog.Apparently, national security in 2026 involves chasing after bloggers in their seventies while anyone truly dangerous is left to enjoy their scones and jam in peace. Especially those ones who don’t put the jam on first. Proper wrong’uns.But it failed. Oh how did it fail! Not just failed, this was failed on a scale that would get you booed off Britain's Got Talent, making a complete arse of itself in public, with absolutely nothing to show for it.Tony Greenstein was facing the possibility of 14 years in prison over it though. The CPS spent years polishing this turd of a case, trying to make it shiny, presumably hoping to dazzle the jury into blindly coming up with that sought after guilty verdict. The jury however, left distinctly unimpressed, took two hours and eleven minutes to toss the whole thing into the nearest skip.That is Tony Greenstein outside Kingston Crown Court after being unanimously found not guilty of inviting support for a proscribed organisation.That organisation being Hamas of course. The case focused on three posts Greenstein published on 7 October 2023. The prosecution argued they crossed the line from political speech into inviting others to support Hamas.Greenstein said they did not.The jury agreed the CPS had not proved its charge.Three years of investigation, prosecution, and legal theatrics, all for a verdict that landed faster than a Cabinet minister scrabbling around to avoid the truth on a Sunday-morning politics show.

Right, so Benjamin Netanyahu made Iran the defining mission of the man he personally installed at the top of Mossad.He even said it out loud at this chap Roman Gofman’s appointment.“This is your mission, Roman.”Barely nine weeks later, two of the most senior people working on that mission had reportedly been removed from their posts though. One headed Mossad’s Intelligence Directorate. The other ran its Iran Division.And what had they reportedly been working on?A written plan to help bring down Iran’s government of course. Another attempt because the riots of last year, of which Mossad was apparently a part of, failed so miserably didn’t they?Well, guess what? Iran’s government is still standing, isn’t it?Netanyahu wanted upheaval in Tehran and got it on Mossad’s top floor instead.But this gets far grubber than just a couple of intelligence chiefs being blamed for a plan that went nowhere. Because, this is Israel of course. The reported scheme involved trying to turn Iranian protests, ethnic minorities and Kurdish armed groups into the moving parts of an Israeli regime-change operation. There was allegedly foreign air power in the plan too. There was even a former Iranian president being lined up for the aftermath.

Right, so Britain would have us believe it is furious about the lack of justice in Gaza.Furious enough to call Israel's decision not to prosecute anyone over the killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers back in 2024 as "shameful". Three of those workers were of course British.But apparently Britain's anger fades as soon as someone suggests opening the filing cabinet of course, because when the families of those 3 British aid workers went to court to seek the British surveillance footage of Gaza - providing it to Israel as we blatantly were from RAF Akrotiri - from the MoD to help with their case for justice for their loved ones, Britain of course said no. Israel can have it but British families seeking justice can’t.Meanwhile, Israel is busy pinning another gold star on its own chest for a job well done investigating itself and finding itself completely innocent of any wrongdoing over that World Central Kitchen attack hence it backfiring once more on the British state right now, but even worse than that is the timing, because as all of this is coming out, the British tax system is quietly still sprinkling Gift Aid like confetti on donations to treat Israeli soldiers just back from following their genocidal orders in Gaza, because nothing says 'justice' quite like a congratulatory handshake and a little tax sweetener courtesy of the British government for those poor, poor IDF soldiers. Why are we paying to help the mental health of IDF soldiers returning from Gaza, when we can’t even enable British people to seek justice for the loved ones, who lost their lives at the hands of this same IDF?Why is Britain sitting on its evidence like Smaug on a pile of gold? And how many times does Israel get to mark its own homework in another sham of an investigation that is obviously anything but independent, before we all admit this 'accountability' charade is pure pantomime?

Right, so Labour's crackdown on Palestine Action has just run into a jury-shaped obstacle at the Old Bailey.Eight weeks in court. Thirty-seven hours of deliberation. One conviction, but no verdicts against seven supposed organisers.And this has happened while Labour’s broader ban on Palestine Action has led to a prosecution backlog so large that 1,579 section 13 cases had to be managed through a single Westminster court review.And Labour, somehow without a trace of irony, claims they had to do this, because the courts simply cannot cope with the workload.So apparently what we now have is a situation where, once Palestine Action was proscribed, publicly supporting it became a criminal offence, so police and prosecutors say they are just enforcing the law Parliament passed. Yet separately, Labour argues jury reform is needed because the current backlog is leaving victims and defendants waiting too long for justice.Fine. But maybe someone should ask why Labour keeps filling the courts with terrorism cases featuring protesters, pensioners, and the occasional threatening placard, as if the real danger to Britain is a grandmother with a marker pen, filling courts of up with too many cases they can’t cope with and at the same time making juries the problem, when juries are the ones refusing to convict the supposed terrorists. Anyone would think they’ve an ulterior motive here, don’t you think?

Right, so Israel’s main airport has just gone to pieces on its busiest day. Check-in shut, landings were halted and passengers filled the terminal and Benjamin Netanyahu’s answer was to threaten to fire the workers.The problem for him? Twenty-four hours earlier, he’d turned up at the same airport for a visit about how those workers were keeping everything going, Israel was ticking over because of their hard work. Anyone would think Bibi turning up in your workplace might be bad for business off the back of this and yet Netanyahu being Netanyahu only he could manage to actually make a poor situation that he has presided over, get even worse by having turned up in person, pressed the flesh and then threatened to fire people for going on strike the next day. Go back to work, you’re making me look bad – I don’t think there is a single way on Earth after Gaza, after Lebanon, after the West Bank and Syria and Iran and Yemen that you can ever again possibly look good, but then it is not we who are the audience here and not the rest of us who are still in possession of compassion or a pulse. Threatening to sack people a day after praising them hardly screams strong and stable leadership though does it?So what happened between Bibi’s photo op and Bibi’s threats inside a day?Well, Benjamin Netanyahu and his Transport Minister Miri Regev showed up at Ben Gurion airport for a photo op on the 19th August, walking around as if they had just discovered airports, shaking hands, nodding at conveyor belts, and all the rest of the political inanity in the run up to an election.And as you are now aware, within a day, the whole spectacle unravelled.Check-in stopped. Landings were halted. Passengers filled the terminal.And Netanyahu’s response was not to clarify what had gone wrong.It was to fire the only people keeping the place from turning into a real-life version of Lord of the Flies, because people were getting pretty aggro and is it just me or does Ben-Gvir pop into your head now when you think of Piggy?

Right, so Israel has decided to lob a few bombs at a Syrian airbase, just a stone’s throw from the Turkish border.Turkey, ever the picture of calm, insists it had no troops there, wasn’t given a heads-up, and just watched Israeli jets cruise by like it was an airshow, while America’s envoy helpfully points out that Ankara could have, you know, started World War Three over this if it had felt like it.And just to spice things up that little bit more, Turkey had of course signed a mutual-defence pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan less than a fortnight before this little fireworks display, courtesy of Benjamin Netanyahu.So Israel, in its infinite wisdom, has managed to try blocking Turkey’s Syrian ambitions, nearly spark a direct punch-up with Ankara, and drag Turkey’s new best friends into the mess for good measure, one of which Israel is desperate to normalise ties with, not make an enemy out of.The mutual-defence pact hasn’t been triggered-yet. Israel hit Syria, not Turkey. But if Turkish boots are on the tarmac next time, Netanyahu might discover he’s turned a tiny Syrian airstrip into the trigger of a war that for once, would be the last thing he wanted.So what was Israel's official justification then Damo? Well, Syria was allegedly on the verge of disrupting a so-called security 'status quo' by allowing Turkish troops to establish a presence at Abu al-Duhur. Supposedly, even the possibility of Turkish military forces-perhaps with some air-defence systems-would complicate Israel’s ability to carry out unannounced operations, which, from Tel Aviv’s perspective, is considered a direct threat to – well, you’ll never guess what? Yep, Israeli security again.There were no Turkish troops present. No deployment occurred. Not even a hint of Turkish presence-no evidence, not even something as trivial as a food wrapper marked with a crescent moon. There had been no attack on Israel from the base. Still, facts did not prevent an airstrike.Netanyahu ordered the bombing anyway, suggesting that sometimes an imagined threat is treated as seriously as a real one and you can imagine he imagines a lot of imaginary threats I imagine.

Right, so around 100,000 people are now calling for a media inquiry into what happened to Jason Arday.At the same time, Andy Burnham's Government is considering whether the solution to the internet being a dumping ground for fake news is to give the largest newspaper groups and television news channels special access to the top of your feed, because they are oh so trustworthy. Keir Starmer’s last gasp policy drive as this was of course, but which Burnham has now inherited, seen by them as though the fix for those pesky kids and their independent and alternative media, is to let the mainstream players pile even more of their dross in front of you, the very reason I daresay, so many of you turned to the internet for your news content to begin with.So on one hand, we have demands for an inquiry into appalling press behaviour being demanded by thousands and on the other, a government-backed round of algorithmic favours for the very press owners who need to answer some serious questions about a witch-hunt about destroying a man’s life, who was not even in the public eye to speak of, that they have passed off as journalism, because it’s anything but journalism. Journalism is about holding power to account; what this was, was a lynching and the so called mainstream press followed one after the other like a bunch of sheep who have discovered a sudden fondness for bloodsports.The press is being asked to account for itself after 249 articles about a single Black professor, while the Government is weighing whether parts of that very industry should get a boost from online platforms such as YouTube.Even the best of satirists would look at the timing of this and say nah, this one can’t be played for laughs.Jason Arday has become the test case this trusted-news plan should frankly get binned off over immediately.

Right, so Itamar Ben-Gvir appeared on former Israeli hostage Rom Braslavski's podcast to complain that Netanyahu had reduced strikes in Gaza under the ceasefire.He of course wanted the strikes ramped up again, to no surprise whatsoever, but while explaining his reasoning, he managed to undermine his own security justification in a single sentence, leaving Netanyahu holding the burnt remains of what he was trying to promote by way of another Israel led Gaza deal to the world.The word to pay attention to here is "targeted".Because that word lasts about as long as a snowball in the Sahara. Thirty or forty every night.You may have heard that call elsewhere in independent media, but just keep that number in mind for a moment, because what follows takes hold of his argument, stuffs it in a cannon, and fires it straight into the Sun.According to the legal framework set by Israel's own High Court, that is supposed to mean an individually identified person, based on solid and verifiable information, who is directly taking part in hostilities. Less harmful options should be used if possible, and each strike must meet necessity and proportionality on its own facts.At least, that's the official story.Ben-Gvir starts with a nightly number, then says those killed do not even have to pose an immediate danger. What he is doing is swapping an individual, case-by-case test for a quota and his own judgment about who should live and who should die instead.

Right, so Saudi Arabia has spent years backing the government-aligned side in Yemen. Part of the promise was that its side could rebuild things, run things and offer people something other than permanent war, that of course the Saudi’s themselves in no small part have caused. Mocha port was supposed to be part of that. And then along came the Houthis.Saudi Arabia channels much of this rebuilding work through the Saudi Development and Reconstruction Program for Yemen, which was established in 2018. It collaborates with the recognised Yemeni government and local authorities to fund roads, ports, power stations, hospitals, schools and water projects, while also aiming to strengthen government institutions. The political idea is fairly clear: make the Yemen controlled by Riyadh's allies appear stable, governable and economically productive. Make them the good guys because they are Saudi aligned. Mocha was supposed to be part of that demonstration.Except now, the evidence is, quite literally, now burning.Mocha port. Smoke rising. Boats damaged. Expansion machinery hit.The port director reports that commercial and maritime operations have been suspended after repeated Houthi attacks. Seven people killed, he says. Around sixteen million dollars in losses. Some 1,300 workers are now without their income.It was meant to be expanding, not auditioning for the lead in Yemen's version of the Towering Inferno.Instead, it is now not even operational.Back to square one, then.

Right, so Israel's propaganda operation told everyone to check their facts about Gaza, and, unsurprisingly, checking those facts leads you right back to Israel's own state-funded propaganda. It’s like handing the burglar the keys to the evidence room, then acting surprised when the trail ends at his own front door. Bibi the Burglar apparently.Because when investigators actually did what Bibi suggested, check those receipts, demand truth, they found themselves in a digital network of websites made not for people, but for search engines, web crawlers, and AI bots. Fill them with search-optimised nonsense, get them indexed, and when someone asks a chatbot about Gaza, one of those pages might show up as a 'source.' No secret back door into ChatGPT is needed. Just stock the shelves and hope the robot librarian picks your book of propaganda first. The trail led through Brad Parscale’s Clock Tower X, the US political-media outfit hired to do the work, then through Havas Media Germany, the intermediary named in the foreign-agent filing, and back to the State of Israel on whose behalf the campaign was being run. That matters because these were not random websites with a suspiciously familiar line. They were part of a documented state-backed operation.They said to follow the source. So people did.Bad advice, Bibi.

Right, so behold, Trump's Lebanon framework, presented in all its real-world mess. It’s turned out to be less art of the deal and more like finger painting whilst blindfolded.It's a US-brokered plan that ties Israeli withdrawal to Lebanese army deployment and some supposed 'verified disarmament,' but there's no deadline anywhere. Israel even gets a say in when it's time to leave, which is a bit like letting the fox decide when the henhouse is safe.Damaged buildings, smoke drifting over southern Lebanon, and Israeli attacks continue while Israeli ministers rehearse their squatters' rights routine as if they're about to teach a class on the subjectAnd Benjamin Netanyahu, the escape artist of politics, has somehow managed to lock himself inside his own box of tricks here and swallow the key. A typical Israeli Houdini act from all blame and responsibility hasn’t quite been pulled off this time, if this was Chinese water torture, he’d currently be going blue in the face.This mistake he’s made is making staying in Lebanon part of his I’m the indispensable one, Israel cannot be safe without me routine. Therefore if he leaves, he looks weak before the upcoming election in October. If he stays, he tramples all over Trump's so-called diplomatic achievement, live on camera, like a toddler smashing a sandcastle. Which is awkward, since the man who has built his whole image on keeping the USA good flowing, being the man who can control all Presidents and can defy Washington if it steps out of line, now needs Washington to bail him out of his own mess. And Trump, always the master of dangling carrots, still hasn't given Bibi the one thing he's desperate for.

Right, so Israel decided it was time for another round of warfare inside Syria. Apparently, it is not a proper week unless something explodes across yet another border for them it seems. Nothing unusual here, though sadly is there? Israel bombing someone, be it Gaza or Lebanon or the West Bank has become so routine it barely gets a mention on the news, so maybe Syria will liven things up a bit. Except this time, Channel 13 have added a bit of a twist by describing the targets as Turkish. Why stick to the usual when you can bring a NATO member into the mix, that’s bound to get the media excited. But then, another twist: Donald Trump has apparently told Netanyahu to pack it in and put his missiles away. It’s gone down about as well with some of his ministers as you might have expected it to. That was Israel's deranged defence minister, Israel Katz, sounding like a bouncer at a Tel Aviv nightclub, warning Turkish President Erdoğan not to mess with Israel. So much chest-thumping you might think Katz was auditioning for a protein powder advert. But this was Trump's response when Netanyahu mentioned Turkey when last he visited not so long ago. Not exactly the answer Netanyahu had scribbled at the top of his Hannukah wish list, is it? Because according to this report, Israel's strike was denied. Turkish interests in Syria were effectively made off-limits, and the thing stopping Israel was not a Syrian missile battery. It was Turkey's importance to the man in the White House. And hat might now be the strongest guardrail Syria has got against further Israeli attacks and incursions, because it is not something Netanyahu can send a fighter jet to destroy. Now, before half of YouTube starts shouting that Trump has stopped Israel from bombing Turkey, let's slow down, because the original report does not give us enough detail to say that. What Channel 13 revealed is that the White House rejected an Israeli request, made several weeks earlier, to attack what the channel called Turkish targets inside Syria. We do not now for sure what "Turkish targets" means, but we can certainly have an educated guess.

Right, so Benjamin Netanyahu has spent the last several months strutting around like a peacock with a megaphone, insisting Iran’s missile program was toast for years. Meanwhile, Pete Kegsbreath, who is never one to let a good exaggeration go to waste, said the US had definitely, most certainly and almost assuredly set Iran’s missile machinations back for decades. Decades! Which is a hell of a long time, especially when US intelligence was already quietly muttering to itself ‘It’ll months if we’re lucky’.They at least had some semblance of contact with reality it seems, because by that point Iranian bulldozers and dump trucks were already clearing access to the underground missile sites, undoing a lot of the damage far sooner than not only Whiskey Pete was musing, but also in the Israeli military as well.It has left Benjamin Netanyahu now contemplating whether he actually needs to bomb Iran all over again at this point, just to keep up the charade that he’d actually achieved anything the first time around, it’s just a case of convincing an increasingly embittered Trump to pay for it all for him, and keep on supplying those dwindling offensive and defensive capabilities.Iran is rebuilding its military far faster than expected and already churning out new drones, which does put a rather large, missile-shaped dent in all those declarations of victory, doesn’t it?

Right, so Donald Trump's conflict with Iran was meant to show that America still dominates the region.He is of course also still deluding himself that the US controls the Strait of Hormuz. He says it's complete control.And yet as seemingly sure as night follows day, something else comes out to remind us as if we need it, that his grip on reality is a slippery one. American embassies are now getting ready to work with reduced staff, as more Americans say enough is enough and pack their bags. Diplomats who left may not finish their terms, and families who thought their absence from the region would be short may now have to accept they might never come back.Same war. Two quite different ideas of victory then.So much for the big, beautiful victory Trump keeps promising. Turns out, you cannot tweet your way out of a diplomatic evacuation. Trump has managed to create a mess here that he cannot bomb his way out of, since the people now fleeing are the only ones who might actually know how to end this farce should the Iran war ever end up officially ending and when the time comes. And yet the Cheeto-dusted Commander-in-Chief is, of course, very proud of his Hormuz performance. America owns it. Iran doesn't. Trump does. Presumably, he is having the deeds framed and hung somewhere at Mar-A-Lago He has ships. He has aircraft. He has what he calls a wall of steel. And if Iran tries anything, he says, they'll be blown away. That is Trump's entire idea of power, really isn’t it? Can I blow something up? Yes? Then I must be winning.

Right, so Donald Trump's major campaign against the International Criminal Court has hit a rather big snag. The American people themselves. Well, some of them at least anyway.Four American organisations now say Trump's ICC sanctions have affected them as well.Not because Donald has personally marched into Human Rights Watch headquarters with his little book of sanctions, all written out in gold sharpie or sent the Treasury in to rob them of their lunch money, but because the sanctions are making it more difficult, and sometimes impossible, for them to continue doing things like legal representation, ICC submissions, human-rights research, advocacy, working with sanctioned Palestinian groups, and even just the bare minimum of the actual humanitarian work.And now they're taking him to court over it.That's Human Rights Watch, the Centre for Constitutional Rights, American Friends Service Committee, and the Open Society Institute.Four American organisations.And they're not just saying Trump is being unfriendly to the ICC. They argue his sanctions are interfering with real work. Legal work. Human-rights work. Advocacy. Cooperation with people and organisations caught up in this sanctions regime. For example, some report they've had to stop legal representation connected to ICC cases and hold back submissions they would otherwise have made to the court.So no, these groups haven't officially been put on some sort of a Trump blocklist.But if you can no longer do something because someone else has been sanctioned, and because interacting with them, working with them, or even dealing with them could bring a whole set of legal and financial troubles down on you, then honestly, the difference starts to seem pretty theoretical.Especially when you're the one forced to stop.And this is where Marco Rubio's late-night pitch for American virtue starts to unravel faster than a cheap sweater in a tumble dryer.Because the Trump administration hasn't described any of this as an attack on human-rights organisations or lawyers in America.Actually, quite the opposite. America, according to Rubio, is the innocent party here.The ICC is the dangerous one.

Right, so Israel has already faced criticism over Tommy Robinson, but it seems the fallout has not gone away and if anything, Israel’s problems off the back of this have only gotten bigger.In October 2025, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, AKA Robinson AKA Tommy Ten-Names travelled to Israel at the personal invitation of Amichai Chikli, Israel’s Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism. And even for Israel and it’s Zionist fan club, this was a tough pill to swallow. He is as we know a British far-right, anti-Islam activist whose politics had already made him toxic to many of the very British Jewish organisations Chikli’s ministry was supposedly there to engage with, literally Chikli’s remit as that is. The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council, infamous bodies as they are, publicly rejected the invitation, describing Robinson as representing the worst of Britain, while the chair of the Knesset’s own Diaspora Affairs Committee called bringing him to Israel a “slap in the face” to British and Diaspora Jews.The Knesset later confirmed that Robinson had indeed come at Chikli’s invitation, and the controversy became serious enough to trigger a parliamentary committee hearing. A Foreign Ministry official told that hearing that, to the best of his knowledge, the visit had not even been brought before the ministry, while the Jewish Agency’s Yigal Palmor said it had caused “great diplomatic harm” and gained Israel nothing.So this was hardly Chikli inviting some mildly controversial British conservative over for coffee. He had deliberately embraced a figure whom prominent British Jewish bodies, most of the bloody country I would like to think, themselves had publicly rejected, and then managed to provoke criticism from inside Israel’s own institutions for doing it.

Right, so there it is.Even Benjamin Netanyahu now admits Israel is losing ground with Americans.He just has a rather convenient explanation for why.It’s social media. It’s propaganda. It’s what young Americans are being shown. It’s Israel supposedly losing the information war.What it apparently isn’t is anything Benjamin Netanyahu or his government might actually have done.Funny that.And while Netanyahu has been diagnosing the problem as one of messaging, his government has been shovelling cash into fixing that messaging problem at a rate that would make a Qatari sheikh blush.Because as Israel’s standing in America deteriorated and the old pro-Israel political machinery struggled to contain the damage, Netanyahu’s government didn’t just sit there complaining about TikTok.It built an enormous influence operation of its own.And the bill for that little rescue mission has now gone past a billion dollars.More than a billion dollars. Yes, with a B. Not Monopoly money, either. A billion. You could buy a small country for that, or at least a Premier League football club.

Right, so nearly three-quarters of England is now officially in drought, it is definitely boiling down here in Cornwall plus 30 degrees is not much fun when you’ve got no air con and the fan is merely fanning the flames of the furnace you’re trapped in.Forty-five million people are now part of the great English drought drama, with over 27 million of us cast as 'thirsty extras' under some water restriction. And of course, the water companies would really like it if you kept doing your part. Millions already are, after all. Odd how responsibility always seems to be ours whilst they just keep on coining it in. Put the hose away. Let your car build up a crust of dirt. Forget the paddling pool. Take showers so short you barely get wet, because every drop matters. Except there's a big, water-guzzling elephant in the room, and somehow we're all supposed to act like that isn't the obvious problem sitting right in front of us. Because while they're busy telling us to save water, nearly one in every five litres is quietly disappearing into the ground, thanks to their own leaking pipes. And to really top off this mess, the longer it stays dry, the more likely their precious pipes are to melt down and burst. So the drought arrives, water becomes more scarce, you're told to use less of it and the ground cracking and drying out ends up helping to break the very network carrying it. Go on, water industry, take a bow. Maybe even a standing ovation, because privatisation was supposed to mean lower bills and less of this happening wasn’t it? How much longer are we going to live with this con-artistry? Nobody living through this right now needs a graph to know it's dry. Just look out the window. This isn't some distant, theoretical warning of the weather impact coming in 2050 now, it’s here.

Right, so it seems America has now come up with a fresh answer to the Strait of Hormuz.Greenland.Yes, Greenland again. Trump’s other fever dream obsession.Why try to untangle a massive Middle Eastern situation you in no small part helped create when you can just point to another spot on the globe and declare there’s plenty of oil there instead?Trump’s representative in Greenland, Louisiana governor Jeff Landry, whom Trump named as his special envoy to Greenland to push US interests there, has been mentioning two million barrels a day. Enough, it seems, to ease some of the strain on Hormuz.Of course, there’s a small catch.No one has actually discovered, let alone established, a commercial oilfield there. Just a minor oversight, though I’m sure.You might assume that would at least be step one, wouldn’t you? At least you’d think it’d come before everyone starts divvying up the barrels in their heads and deciding which global crisis they think they’re going to solve with them.

Right, so that was Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan there, saying Iranians are no strangers to the region’s politics. Iran’s involvement is needed now. This is not exactly the outcome Benjamin Netanyahu had in mind for the Middle East is it?That’s a rotten turn of events, please do get your tiny violins out to play him a jaunty tune. Perhaps someone might want to hand Bibi a stress ball before he starts chewing the furniture. Well let’s slap some context on all this first. Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan have of course just signed a collective defence pact in Mecca, and that in itself was not a sudden development. Riyadh and Islamabad already had a mutual defence agreement in place as of September of last year, agreeing that an attack on one would be treated as an attack on both, so broadly echoing Article 5 of NATO. Türkiye, always eager to join such initiatives, had been signalling its interest in joining and expanding that group for some time and now that’s come to fruition.So now that Türkiye is officially included, the attack-one-attack-all principle covers three countries. And it may grow from there, Fidan there, one of the architects of this Mecca pact is already suggesting that Iran might eventually have a place at that same regional decision-making table.I doubt very much that this is how Benjamin Netanyahu expected his investment in a major war with Iran to pay off. The returns are now looking rather disappointing aren’t they?

Right, so it seems the Strait of Hormuz might not matter anymore.Well there’s a twist after 5 months of war basically closed the bloody thing to most shipping, closed one of the most important energy transport routes in the world for the likes of oil and gas; presumably the orange wombat in the White House just blockaded it for s**ts and giggles then? Who knew?Yet after months of war, blockades, and everyone panicking about keeping it open, Trump's own Treasury Secretary is now suggesting Hormuz might as well be a puddle in the desert.Who needs Hormuz, really?It's remarkable how the world's most important energy chokepoint can go from DEFCON 1 to 'meh' the moment you realise you can't actually control it, after all the time spent proving how much it matters.Because of course that was Scott Bessent, Trump's Treasury Secretary, saying the Strait is never going back to the way it was and could eventually become irrelevant.Honestly, it’s a plot twist worthy of a daytime soap, just with more oil and fewer attractive people.Donald Trump went to war with Iran, blockaded the place, spent months insisting America had the situation under control, and now someone in his own administration is basically saying: maybe the answer is to make the Strait unnecessary.Meanwhile, Iran has its own list of conditions for fully reopening it, surely that would be easier? And one of those is Trump ending his own blockade.So, mission accomplished, if the mission was to turn the whole thing into a diplomatic episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway.

Right, so now it seems Donald Trump is in charge of the Strait of Hormuz.Good to know.Maybe someone should mention that to the people actually trying to get ships through in which case.Some unlucky corporate executive just paid twenty-three to twenty-five million dollars to rent a supertanker for a quick trip into the Gulf to pick up Iraqi crude. Bargain of the century, if your idea of a good time is burning through cash and calling it relaxation.But why do that? Because nobody in their right mind wants to send a tanker into Hormuz right now without checking with Iran first. Ships are still getting hit, insurers are piling on war risk premiums like ornaments on a Christmas tree, and shipowners willing to take the risk are about as rare as unicorns at this point. Fewer ships, huge risk, oil demand not budging. So the price climbs.And so we have twenty-five million being charged just to rent the ship.Before Trump's war with Iran, a similar trip would have cost closer to two million.So whatever alternate reality Trump is living in, it is definitely not the one where he controls the price and therefore it clearly is not him controlling the Strait.And this comes just as he’s started telling everyone that Hormuz is open.Well...sort of anyway.

Right, so Saudi Arabia now seems to be preparing for more Houthi attacks, chiefly they’re worried about their energy infrastructure, ports and airports.All the parts you only start to notice when someone begins connecting the dots with cruise missiles.And this comes just as Saudi-backed forces in Yemen have suffered heavy losses, at least 30 killed and more than 50 wounded.But strangely enough, I don't think the explosions are even the most important part of this story anymore, because while everyone is focused on the missiles and the attacks and the tit for tat, we should be looking at what’s happening with more and more tankers.Six Saudi-flagged supertankers change their routes. Not risking it. Not worth it.And if that’s the thinking, then the Houthis no longer have to sink a single tanker anymore, do they?If you can make the shipowner decide, "No, not going there today," you’ve already achieved something.The cargo gets delayed.The route shifts.The insurance shifts.The costs shift.The customer waits.Nobody needs to stand on the shore waving a giant Houthi-operated STOP sign. The ship has already decided for you.

Right, so there’s Netanyahu, actually standing inside Lebanon, telling Israeli soldiers that as long as Hezbollah is a threat, Israel will stay right there.“We will stay here.”Well, that boast has soured faster than milk left out in a Tel Aviv August.Now, two Israeli reservists are dead, and four more have been seriously wounded inside the very part of Lebanon that Netanyahu and his government keep insisting is needed to make Israelis safer.So the patch of Lebanon Israel insists on occupying for ‘safety’ has now cost two Israeli lives and left four more wounded. Some security policy then. It’s about as useful as a chocolate teapot.But of course there will be those chiming in at this point, who will say stuff like, “Hezbollah attacked, Israel responded”. Well, there’s a pretty big problem with that too and it relates directly to the explosive that went off in question.You see, the Israeli military itself has not determined whether the explosive involved had just been planted or if it might have been there for some time. In which case, it might also be a question of who even left it there. Sure it could’ve been Hezbollah, but it could have been an earlier Israeli incursion too for all we know.But, this being Israel, and as you might have expected, they have responded by doing their best Miley Cyrus impression, swinging a wrecking ball through southern Lebanon. Don’t ask us awkward questions, we’re busy making things safe again.

Right, so Donald Trump is out there claiming America has enough ammunition to make Rambo blush. Not just a lot, either. More than the US could ever actually use, unless the idea is to shoot at the moon for target practice and frankly Elon Musk hitting it with his leftovers last night was bad enough, so we don’t need that.It’s a bold claim actually, given that in Operation Desert Storm the US fired 288 Tomahawks, and in 2003, over 800. Trump's Iran war? Over 850 in just the opening weeks, because restraint is for losers. Then, only eight days after Trump's big boast, Reuters reports that nearly all the US ATACMS and PrSMs – the US military does love a good acronym - have been sent to Ukraine, too.For reference, ATACMS stands for Army Tactical Missile System. It is the older US Army long-range surface-to-surface missile. It can strike targets roughly 300km away, with one missile carried in each launch pod.PrSM stands for Precision Strike Missile and it’s the newer replacement for ATACMS. The current version reaches beyond 400km and fits two missiles into the same-sized pod. It is designed to hit air defences, missile launchers, radar, command centres, other high-value targets from a safer distance.Basically ATACMS are the older long-range Army strike missile. PrSMs are the newer, longer-range replacement.So what we’ve got here is two Iraq wars' worth of missiles spent, then straight into the newest stockpile of toys straight afterwards, before a proper stockpile of them had even been possible to build up. Nothing ages quite like a Trump boast confronted by the inventory eight days later does it? Distance was always America's big advantage in this war. Hit Iran from farther away. Keep US pilots out of the worst danger. Then use Patriot and THAAD to shield American bases when Iran fires back. Except Trump has been burning through both sides of that setup.

Right, so Bristol University has spent the past few years insisting that firing David Miller over his anti-Zionism beliefs was entirely justified.And it lost. Spectacularly. The original case collapsed faster than a university press release after a scandal.So Bristol appealed, hoping that if it dragged the stink they were creating into a higher court, things would turn out differently.Well, tough luck guys. Their legal stench did not come out smelling of roses. They got handed their a*ses again.The protection Miller secured for his anti-Zionist belief remains and by trying to appeal, that position has now been solidified, strengthened in a way it never has been before. The findings that Bristol discriminated against him and dismissed him both unfairly and wrongfully still stand.That alone ought to have been enough to make Bristol’s legal team wish they had signed up for a six-week macramé course instead of law school.But what makes this even more difficult for Israel’s defenders specifically now, is that all this has happened just weeks ahead of the Green Party motion declaring Zionism is Racism returns to party Conference.You might recall this came up at Green Party Spring Conference and if you do, you might also remember that is was never voted down, it ran out of time to be heard and as such, its back again. It returns for Autumn Conference in October, and the organisers behind it, Greens 4 Palestine, now say it has more than 700 co-proposers, more than double the number it achieved in the spring, a record then as that was.So the situation Zionists now face is that their main excuse for blocking this motion has just suffered a defeat in court, while the motion itself has come back even stronger than ever before.

Right, so NewsNation asked Republican Congressman and Zionism’s biggest fan Randy Fine how much longer Americans were expected to carry the cost of Donald Trump's Iran war. A war we all know is being waged in the interests of Israel of course. A fair question, really. Petrol costs more, transport costs more, anything that even moves across state lines costs more, and in the end the whole country gets handed a bill with extra zeros and a cheery 'thanks for playing.' So how long? Until we win. Which, roughly translated from Israel leg-humping politician-speak, means 'until the sun burns out, I get bored, or in this case more like until Benjamin Netanyahu says so.' It’s the kind of answer you'd expect from a Magic 8 Ball after too many Stella’s and a GB News binge. No date. No limit. Not even a seasonal 'we'll review it after Christmas' dodge. Just keep paying until Trump decides he can slap a 'Mission Accomplished' sticker on whatever's still smouldering and call it a day. Win what, exactly though? Iran's surrender? Its nuclear programme dismantled? Hormuz fully reopened? A signed peace deal? Or just Trump announcing victory before any of those things have actually happened, hell having a higher chance of significant flurries quite frankly than the orange oaf securing a deal?

Right, so Donald Trump is out here insisting Israel is absolutely thrilled with his latest Gaza masterstroke. The pitch, at least in theory, was a classic Trump-style swap: Hamas gives up its weapons under the watchful eyes of international clipboard-carriers, a group of technocrats is dropped in to run Gaza, and Israeli troops quietly withdraw, sector by sector, as long as everyone follows the rules and he gets a gold star. That was the sales pitch, at least. Oh, but the Israeli hard right didn’t like it. Ben-Gvir said throw it out. Smotrich said victory means bringing Israeli settlers back into Gaza. Meanwhile, as Trump is busy selling his withdrawal vision, Israel is pouring concrete and constructing a new military fort on the ruins of a Palestinian fishing village very much in Gaza. Nothing says 'we're leaving' quite like a brand-new bunker in the place you’re supposed to be getting out of. This was supposed to be the plan that forced Hamas to surrender though. Instead, Netanyahu has Trump already softening his own terms, the settler ministers such as Ben Gvir and Smotrich are demanding the exact opposite of withdrawal, and Palestinians are still being killed and forced from their homes while the self-proclaimed dealmaker stands there insisting everyone is just delighted. Trump got played, and Netanyahu, between Trump and his settler coalition handlers has boxed himself in with all the finesse of a man trying to assemble IKEA furniture blindfolded and missing half the screws. And Hamas, for once, gets to watch Trump’s deal wave the white flag long before they ever would. Best breakthrough anyone has ever achieved. Never mind whether Netanyahu has endorsed the actual terms. Never mind whether the ministers keeping Netanyahu in power are openly threatening to reject them. Never mind the small matter of Israel continuing to attack the territory it is supposedly preparing to leave. Those pesky, tedious little details that only matter if you are in contact with reality.But the Donald, as always, had an announcement to make.

Right, so Donald Trump claims America is prepared to strike Iran again whenever he feels like it. Anytime he wants. Because Trump approaches regional security like a man shaking a petrol can beside an open flame. But there's just one small snag in this latest display of dementia-addled orange bravado. The American families who were forced out after Iranian missiles and drones struck Bahrain last time are still in exile, waiting for someone to declare it safe again, so they can actually go back to Fifth Fleet HQ. The ships are there. The admirals are there. The missiles are there. But the families and the school kids are not. Bahrain has just revealed the other side of Trump's bravado. America may still be able to attack from the Gulf, but it can’t rebuild the supposedly safe, permanent American community around the US command centre for those attacks. When your family has been forced to evacuate, you’re no longer ordinarily resident, are you? You’re no longer living; you're simply serving on a given call-up. And of course this all comes on top of the recent news, which I covered the other day regarding Kuwait, that showed the Pentagon cutting the number of Americans left exposed there. Jordan showed the rising anger at being used as an American launchpad and then handed to Iran as a target. Many in that country right now want the Americans out now as a result. Bahrain, meanwhile, has taken the story into something of a surreal detour, complete with missing families and a base that's actually only permanent these days, if you're a warship. Bahrain was supposed to be home for many Americans. Permanently resident there. Now it's just another address on the Pentagon's growing list of places you wouldn't send your children unless you didn’t like them. No lasting peace. No end to the danger around the Gulf bases. No sign that the countries asked to host America's war have stopped paying the price. But anytime we want, he says. As if Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan were just a string of gas stations lined up around Trump's personal bombing range. His idea of 'readiness' is about as dependable as his reading comprehension: selective, self-serving, and disconnected from reality.

Right, so what has happened in the last few days in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta has been well covered in the media, but not necessarily in full, and certainly not the latest events, as the story actually continues to unfold and not to the benefit of those who thought this was something smart and clever either.This was not some sudden invasion that came out of nowhere.This was orchestrated, not a random group trip to the Spanish border.A fake route into Europe was advertised online. Large groups were moved toward the border. Moroccan security staff were caught on camera opening the back of an official truck filled with young men and letting them out onto the road. Guards were seen standing aside and, in some cases, pointing people directly toward Ceuta.Tens of thousands were then allowed to flood one of Europe's most closely monitored borders.And waiting on the other side were Donald Trump and Israel's political allies, ready to label the outcome an invasion, blame Spain, and turn those caught in the middle into campaign material.Trump got his midterm commercial.Netanyahu got his diversion from Palestine.Morocco, with its political leadership leaning hard towards Trump and Israel too, got leverage over the Spanish territory it has wanted for decades.The migrants were used as the ammunition.Then the entire sordid operation collapsed dramatically, because Trump's so-called permanent invasion packed up and left in less than two days, Spain remained in Ceuta, and evidence of the manufactured crisis started to appear: the fake online offers, the coordinated transport north, the truck video, the missing border enforcement, and the political campaign already set to exploit it.Somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000 people joined this mass movement, but about 48,000 of them turned around and went home almost as soon as they’d arrived. The whole episode was driven by online misinformation, planned routes, official vehicles, and Moroccan border guards who seemed to confuse their duties with those of a tour guide.

Right, so Donald Trump entered this war demanding Iran's unconditional surrender, as if he were at a drive-thru shouting for a cheeseburger and expecting Tehran to include a free milkshake. Back in February, he assumed the whole conflict would be finished in four weeks, maybe even sooner if he skipped dessert. Five months of bombing, threats, and increasingly tense victory laps later, Iran still has not surrendered, and now Trump is out here giving them a gold star for refusing to break.Five months on, Iran is still refusing to hand over the white flag, no matter how many times Trump waves his own like he is trying to hail a taxi in a hurricane. Is it TACO Tuesday again already?Trump admitted at Camp David that Iran "hasn't" given up. Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman reportedly warned Trump that another major US attack could bring Iranian retaliation down on Saudi and other Gulf energy infrastructure. And Netanyahu told Fox that what happens next is, "in many ways, [Trump's] decision." So Trump is conceding Iran has not broken, Riyadh is warning him not to make the Gulf pay for another escalation, and Netanyahu suddenly sounds less like the Trump whisperer and more like a man waiting in the corridor, wondering what's for dinner.Quite the magical mystery tour, isn't it? From demanding unconditional surrender to regional allies quietly trying to stop him from lighting a match in the petrol station that they're all locked inside of.And that is what this story is really about. Not whether Iran has been damaged. It clearly has. Not whether Trump can order more bombs dropped. Of course he can.It is whether all that destruction actually delivered the political result he promised, because Trump did not promise to damage Iran.He promised to break it.

Right, so Benjamin Netanyahu believed Washington had just handed him a lifeline.He had spoken with America's secretary of state, received promises of strong action against the institution threatening him, and felt confident enough to announce it to his Cabinet as if the outcome was already decided. A very positive development for Netanyahu, certainly.He faced an active arrest warrant, and the most powerful government in the world was now vowing to make things very difficult for those behind it.That seems like a win, at least while the applause is still ringing out and no one has looked at the details.Because Washington couldn't just say, "We're doing this for Bibi." That would sound a bit unseemly, wouldn’t it? So Marco Rubio wrapped the whole move in the Stars and Stripes and cast America as the victim.American sovereignty. American troops. American officials supposedly under threat from foreign judges thousands of miles away.It’s not Netanyahu being shielded. Honest guv.Certainly not. How crude to even suggest it.Except Donald Trump then stepped in and did what he does best: the lobotomised orange fruitcake said out loud the part everyone else had spent weeks carefully sidestepping, because he’s far too stupid not to. And so the cover story falls apart.Netanyahu had welcomed the promise. Rubio had provided the patriotic rationale. Trump then tore off the wrapping paper and told everyone whose gift it really was.That is the point where Netanyahu's supposed victory starts to look much less certain, isn’t it? Because Trump didn't just embarrass Rubio. He tied the American president's own words directly to the protection Netanyahu had been celebrating five days earlier.Netanyahu thought he had been handed a lifeline.Trump may have just turned it into a burning fuse.

Right, so it turns out Donald Trump has finally stumbled across a problem that refuses to be solved by lobbing another bomb at it. Tragic, really. Iran is striking American military facilities throughout the region. The Pentagon is reportedly scaling back its large presence in Kuwait. In Jordan, hundreds of prominent individuals are calling for the complete removal of the American presence. And now, on top of all of that, CENTCOM is concerned that its own troops are recording enough of the aftermath to help Iran figure out what was effective. Essentially making the same mistake so many IDF troops have made, by being stupid enough to upload what amounts to free intel for the enemy. A real achievement for American statecraft, if your definition of statecraft is 'how to turn your own bases into a live-fire demonstration for the enemy.' Trump started this war with his usual boasts about control and deterrence, delivered with all the subtlety of a McDonald's menu and the standard photo op of him pointing at something, as if his finger alone can frighten Iran into surrender. Well, it is rather small and suspiciously orange, and you do tend to wonder where it’s been. What he has actually managed, though, is to turn America's bases into a row of high-value targets, conveniently spread across countries whose citizens never agreed to be extras in Trump's Middle Eastern ego trip. He can bomb Iran again. No doubt with Netanyahu on yet another visit, that’ll be his line to Trump. Odds are, he is already looking over the map for which bit to strike next. But what he cannot bomb is the argument now breaking out within the countries that are still hosting his troops. They have been doing so for some time. They have been targets themselves as a result for months now, on and off. It turns out, you cannot airstrike your way out of that kind of political backlash. He cannot bomb Kuwait back into feeling comfortable with this arrangement. Strangely, dropping explosives does not seem to lift morale. He cannot bomb Jordanians into believing that being attacked somehow proves the Americans are protecting them. And he cannot bomb every phone in every soldier's pocket into forgetting what it has already been recording. The iPhone seems quite resistant to shock and awe.

Right, so Trump and Epstein lawyer, the odiously Zionist Alan Dershowitz appeared on Piers Morgan's show and, within about five minutes, managed to accuse Professor Mohammad Marandi of being a Nazi propagandist, a supporter of genocide, and someone who hates Jews.He was about as subtle as a marching band in a library.Dershowitz arrived with the guilty verdict already printed, laminated, and probably colour-coded for the cameras. He compared Marandi to Goebbels. Nazis. October 7. Fifty thousand dead Iranians at the hands of the Iranian state, he opined.Just throw every accusation into a blender, hit the purée button, and hope the resulting grey slop can be served up as 'evidence.'But the problem appeared when Dershowitz finally asked Marandi what he wanted for Israelis and Palestinians.Marandi said equal citizenship.Equal votes. Jews, Muslims, and Christians living with the same rights. Nobody forced out. Nobody placed above anyone else by law.Dershowitz listened, changed it into something else entirely, and then began arguing with the version he had then invented.Well, you can imagine how much fun Marandi finally had with this, can’t you? That was Dershowitz building a bonfire out of every frightening word he could find.Marandi is Goebbels. Iran is Nazi Germany. Fifty thousand innocent protesters have been murdered. Israel is defending itself because October 7 happened.Case closed, everyone-time to turn off your brains and go home.Except that the fifty-thousand figure is not the result of any careful investigation. It's just a number thrown out with the enthusiasm of someone who thinks volume can replace evidence.

Right, so Donald Trump says America has plenty of missiles. Plenty. Loads. More missiles than America could ever possibly use, or so says the man bombing Iran, threatening fresh strikes, exposing US bases across the Gulf and promising Patriots elsewhere, all while burning through the world's most expensive air-defence equipment like a toddler let loose in a fireworks warehouse and piling on fresh escalation like it’s the last tray of roast potatoes at an all-you-can-eat carvery.And yet, here comes the US Army, rolling out a seven-year Patriot contract worth up to $58.6bn, as if they're buying missiles in bulk from the closest cash and carry. Lockheed Martin is being told to ramp up Patriots at three times the pace and THAADs at four times the pace, and Ukraine is now so frustrated with waiting for the American missile delivery van that it's asking for the keys to the factory. That is a suspicious amount of factories, money, and panic-buying for a country that claims to be drowning in missiles, isn’t it? It almost feels like the cupboard is less 'overflowing with disposable arsenal' and more 'bare shelves with a single lonely tin of beans.' This is less of another episode of 'America's Got No Missiles Left.' This is more the part where the bill to replace them as fast as possible, which is never going to be fast enough, lands with a thud.

Right, so Pete Hegseth went on television a couple of months ago now and announced that Iran's military was destroyed. Combat ineffective he said at the time. Devastated. Finished. Toast. Iran, apparently, exists now only as a cautionary tale for aspiring militaries everywhere. And then, as usual when it comes to the bloviating orange one’s administration, reality gate-crashed the party and wrecked his scripted load of nonsense, aww, poor Petey. That was after all an Iranian missile reaching Muwaffaq al-Salti Air Base in Jordan, where American personnel were stationed. US soldiers were killed. And Donald Trump is now threatening to bomb Pickaxe Mountain, a facility buried under more rock than a Led Zeppelin reunion, because this 'destroyed' and 'combat ineffective' Iran apparently still has enough equipment underground to keep the Pentagon's demolition fetish alive. Again. So Hegseth's victory speech has dissolved faster than a sugar cube in a hot cup of tea, American bases are taking fire again, because defending them is a lot harder when you’re running short of defensive capabilities at the same time your Iran arsenal bulls**t is getting rumbled, and Iran's toughest military toys remain tucked away inside mountains, stubbornly refusing to get the memo that they were apparently 'destroyed.' That isn't total victory. That's an air-war lesson: air power can smash what it sees, block what it reaches, and still fail to destroy what lies deepest underground or force the surrender it was meant to deliver.But listen to how absolute this was. Hegseth wasn't claiming Iran had merely taken a battering. Nobody would dispute that. The bombing was enormous, the damage extensive, and Iran lost people, equipment and infrastructure on a vast scale. But that wasn't what he sold. He sold an ending. Destroyed. Combat ineffective. Devastated. You can almost hear the Pentagon gift shop starting up the mug press: 'I survived the destruction of Iran's military and all I got was this lousy talking point.' Iran could no longer operate as a meaningful military force. That was the claim. Not weakened. Not degraded. Not badly damaged and likely to recover. Destroyed. Which makes those missiles still coming out of Iran all the more inconvenient. You have to wonder what Hegseth thinks 'combat ineffective' means. Being pi**ed as a mattress would count, I suppose.