#UK: – Starmer’s Dictatorship?

Robert Williams

• Britain’s new leader, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in the tried-and-true way of Communist dictators, has begun his first term by initiating a great purge of British dissidents.
• British protesters, denounced as “far right thugs,” are being put behind bars faster than the prison services can absorb…. The youngest child arrested and charged is just 11 years old.
• Because the prisons, already overflowing, cannot handle the sudden influx of mass-sentenced wrongthinkers, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced that to make room for the dissidents, it will be freeing early roughly 5,500 criminals… who “will include criminals convicted of violence…”
• The mass arrests and trials are occurring at the same time as “Police are increasingly letting knife and sex offenders escape prosecution if they say sorry,” according to an August 26 report by The Telegraph.
• Peter Lynch, 61, a grandfather in Rotherham, a place where children have for decades been experiencing rape, other sexual abuse, and torture at the hands of mainly Muslim grooming gangs while police and the city council looked the other way, shouted at police, “you are protecting people who are killing our kids and raping them” and “scum”. Judge Richardson told Lynch: “You did not yourself attack any police officer, as far as can be detected, but what you did was encourage by your conduct others to behave violently and you were part of this mob. What a disgraceful example you are as a grandfather”… [and] sentenced him to two years and eight months.
• Lynch was simply telling the truth: In cities such as Rotherham, Telford, Rochdale, Oxford, Peterborough, Keighley, Newcastle and Birmingham local police and councils knowingly allowed mostly Muslim grooming gangs to rape, abuse, torture and even murder thousands of little children and teenagers for decades because they said that if they stopped the crimes, they might appear “racist”.
• Does the Starmer government really have so much contempt for the British? They are not even allowed to protest the rape of their children.
• “At least one murder, sex assault or crime of violence is committed every two days by convicted criminals under supervision of the probation service after being released from jail, research has revealed.” — The Telegraph, July 1, 2024.
• “Ideas are more powerful even than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas,” said Josef Stalin. Those words appear to have become Starmer’s motto…
• Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle recently made it clear that he thinks everything with which the government disagrees should be banned on social media. There seems to be no awareness of the essential problem: who chooses what is misinformation?
• Starmer’s methods were once exclusively reserved for dictatorships such as China, Russia and North Korea; Western democracies did not used to sentence people to long prison sentences for speech crimes.

Britain’s new leader, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in the tried-and-true way of Communist dictators, has begun his first term by initiating a great purge of British dissidents. British protesters, denounced as “far right thugs,” are being put behind bars faster than the prison services can absorb… The youngest child arrested and charged is just 11 years old. Pictured: His Majesty’s Prison Wandsworth, in London, England, photographed on July 12, 2024. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Britain’s new leader, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in the tried-and-true way of Communist dictators, has begun his first term by initiating a great purge of British dissidents.

British protesters, denounced as “far right thugs,” are being put behind bars faster than the prison services can absorb. More than 1,000 people who have been arrested and more than 500 charged, are waiting for their court appearances in police holding cells: prisons have run out of space. As in the most expert dictatorship, even children and grandfathers have been arrested by the police for “rioting”. The youngest child arrested and charged is just 11 years old.

Because the prisons, already overflowing, cannot handle the sudden influx of mass-sentenced wrongthinkers, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced that to make room for the dissidents, it will be freeing early roughly 5,500 criminals from prison this month. The released prisoners “will include criminals convicted of violence who have been jailed for less than four years but exclude those serving longer sentences for more serious violence,” according to The Telegraph.

The mass arrests and trials are occurring at the same time as “Police are increasingly letting knife and sex offenders escape prosecution if they say sorry,” according to an August 26 report by The Telegraph, which continued:

“More than 147,000 people accused of offences including sex crimes, violence and weapons possession were given community resolutions in the year to March instead of being prosecuted. Such resolutions do not result in a criminal record. Police guidance says community resolutions should be restricted to low-level crimes, with offenders required to apologise to the victim, accept ‘responsibility’ for their crime and offer some form of recompense. But the resolutions, which are issued at the discretion of individual officers, have increased by 40 per cent since 2019 – when 102,574 were recorded – and are now nearly twice as likely as a criminal charge, according to an analysis of Ministry of Justice data.”

British wrongthinkers guilty of expressing their anger on the internet or hurling obscenities at police officers are held to a completely different standard, as the following selected list of Britons recently sentenced at record speed shows:

Julie Sweeney, a 53-year-old grandmother and caretaker of her husband from a village in Cheshire posted angry words on the internet after the murder of the three little girls in Southport by Axel Rudakubana, the teenage son of Rwandan migrants. “Don’t protect the mosques. Blow the mosques up with the adults in it,” she wrote in a local online community group. Calling Sweeney a “keyboard warrior”, Judge Steven Everett Branding told her that “even people like you need to go to prison”.

In 2022, the same judge, in a case of a 76-year old pedophile who had downloaded child porn, ruled that “It would be unconscionable to send him to prison.”

Sweeney’s husband described how numerous police had arrived in three police cars just to arrest his wife, who had never before had anything to do with the law and lived a “sheltered and quiet life.” Sweeney told the police that she had posted the comment in anger following the murder of the three little girls and had “no intention to put people in fear.” She also apologized, telling police her comment had been unacceptable and that she would be deleting her Facebook account. The British justice system had no mercy: She was sentenced to 15 months in prison.

Unlike Sweeney, Rudakubana, charged with the murder of the three girls and attempted murder of ten people, mainly children, will only go on trial in January 2025.

A spokesman for Cheshire police thoughtfully notified the public that the grandmother had been thrown in jail to serve as a stark warning to other wrongthinkers:

“As this case demonstrates, there is nowhere to hide. If you choose to engage in this behaviour, whether in person or online, we will find you and you will be held responsible.”

Jordan Parlour, 28, was also sentenced for writing on a Facebook post: “Every man and their dog should be smashing fuck out Britannia Hotel”, a hotel in Leeds housing migrants that was reportedly being pelted with stones at the time by protesters. Parlour’s post received just six likes with one Facebook user asking “why?” Parlour replied:

“They are over here given a life of Riley off the tax of us hard-working people earn when it could be put to better use… come here with no work visa, no trade to their name and sit and doss and then there’s more people being put out homeless each year, they get top band priority on housing and many more other reasons.”

Judge Guy Kearl said in his sentencing remarks:

“You were arrested in the early hours of 5th August and interviewed by the police. Your motivation became clear when you informed the police that you had promoted the idea of attacking the Britannia Hotel as a result of anger and frustration at immigration problems in the country. You went on to say that you did not want your money going to immigrants who ‘rape our kids and get priority’.

“Although you said that you had no intention of carrying out any act of violence, there can be no doubt that you were inciting others to do so, otherwise, why post the comment? You expressed remorse but by that time it was too late….

“[T]his offence is so serious that an immediate custodial sentence is unavoidable. The sentence that I pass has been reduced by 1/3 to reflect your guilty plea. The sentence is 20 months imprisonment.”

In 2021, Judge Guy Kearl ruled that a pedophile, who was found guilty of downloading “hundreds of vile child sex abuse images” on his computer, did not have to serve any time in jail.

Pensioner David Spring, 61, recently retired, was sentenced to 18 months in prison, “as a deterrent to others” for making threatening and hostile gestures towards police. He had called officers “c*nts” and joined in chants of “you’re not English any more” and “who the f*** is Allah.”

Judge Benedict Kelleher was asked to consider Spring’s caring duties for his sick wife. Instead, he told Spring that “severe” sentences were needed to deter others. So the pensioner was sent straight to prison. The judge said:

“At that point you did that [the shouting and swearing at police] you must have been well aware it was a particularly volatile situation and police were doing their best to keep order. Your actions showed a complete contempt for the police at that time… What you were doing could and, it appears, did encourage others to threaten the police and add to the disorder.”

Gary Harkness, 51, was handed a 12-month prison sentence even though the judge did not appear to quite think that he had committed any crime. What his “crime” was is still not clear. Apparently, he admitted to being “part of” a disorder, but seems to have done nothing criminal, apart from being extremely drunk, which is not a crime. Handing out his sentence, Judge Linford said:

“Of the people I have thus far sentenced you are the person who provides me with the most difficulty because it cannot be levelled at you that you hit anyone, neither have you thrown anything, neither is it said that you spat at anybody.

“But it is accepted by you that you were a party to this disorder and I have to sentence you on the basis, and you also know that anyone party to it has to receive a custodial sentence.”

Harkness, had apparently drunk quite a bit on the day of the “disorder” and “was seen making lewd gestures and swearing during the evening and at another point pushes or is pushed by a police officer.” He was sentenced anyway.

William Nelson Morgan, 69, a grandfather, was sentenced to 32 months in prison after he was arrested for refusing to move as police pushed back a crowd of rioters where he was present. The court was shown body-worn-camera footage of Morgan being arrested with him saying: “I’m English, I’m 70, all right – leave me alone!” He can also be seen to shout: “Get off me, I’m fucking 70, you pricks.” He was carrying a small wooden truncheon, which the judge called a “serious aggravating factor.”

Peter Lynch, 61, a grandfather in Rotherham, a place where children have for decades been experiencing rape, other sexual abuse, and torture at the hands of mainly Muslim grooming gangs while police and the city council looked the other way, shouted at police, “you are protecting people who are killing our kids and raping them” and “scum”. Lynch was charged with violent disorder, an offence under section 2 of the Public Order Act 1986 which requires that 3 or more persons are present together, that unlawful violence is used or threatened, and that the conduct of the persons would “cause a person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for his personal safety”.

Judge Jeremy Richardson told Lynch:

“You did not yourself attack any police officer, as far as can be detected, but what you did was encourage by your conduct others to behave violently and you were part of this mob… What a disgraceful example you are as a grandfather.”

Lynch suffers from diabetes, thyroid issues, angina and has recently had a heart attack, but none of this evidently was of concern to the judge who sentenced him to prison for two years and eight months for the “crime” of disagreeing with the Starmer regime.

Lynch was simply telling the truth: In cities such as Rotherham, Telford, Rochdale, Oxford, Peterborough, Keighley, Newcastle and Birmingham local police and councils knowingly allowed mostly Muslim grooming gangs to rape, abuse, torture and even murder thousands of little children and teenagers for decades because they said that if they stopped the crimes, they might appear “racist”. These crimes not only continue to this day, but Starmer’s new government is knowingly facilitating more of them. Even before the protests began, Starmer set out to make room in the overcrowded prisons by freeing, among other criminals, members of the grooming gangs. GB News reported in early July

“A vile ringleader of a Rotherham child sex abuse gang will be freed after serving just seven years of a thirteen-year sentence. Pedophile Matloob Hussain was jailed in February 2017 but now he’s been referred for release by the Parole Board, meaning he is likely to be back out on the streets in a matter of days.”

The early release of rapists, pedophiles and violent criminals is especially concerning because the Starmer government doubtless knows that this policy will lead to a spike in those crimes. The Telegraph reported in July:

“At least one murder, sex assault or crime of violence is committed every two days by convicted criminals under supervision of the probation service after being released from jail, research has revealed. An analysis of Ministry of Justice data shows that 3,540 serious further offences (SFOs) – which include murder, kidnap, rape, arson and other sexual or violent crimes – were carried out by criminals released from between 2010 and 2022 and placed under the supervision of the probation service. They included 762 murders, 220 attempted murders and more than 1,000 serious sexual crimes including rape, sexual assault, and rape of children under 13 since 2010. It equated to one offence every 30 hours over the 12-year period.”

Does the Starmer government really have so much contempt for the British? They are not even allowed to protest the rape of their children.

An additional injustice is that the law on “racial incitement” is not applied equally to everyone in Britain. For more than ten months, weekly incitement across the UK in support of the terrorist group Hamas has had no legal consequences whatsoever for those involved. These groups, orchestrated by Hamas-affiliated organizations, wave jihadist and Al Qaeda flags; call for “Jihad!” and for Israel to be cleansed of its Jews “from the river to the sea,” celebrate terrorists who murder, rape, mutilate and burn innocent people alive. They are allowed to continue their incitement, even though, in the UK, both Hamas and Al Qaeda are proscribed terrorist organizations and supporting them can carry a prison sentence up to 14 years.

This encumbrance does not appear to be the last liability that Starmer has in store for the British, whom, it seems, he aims to silence completely. Government advisor John Woodcock, to crack down on the protests, actually called for “Covid-style lockdowns”:

“New ministers in office will understand that the British public will back them in whatever measures they feel are necessary to get this situation under control. We should cast our minds back to the days of Covid where the public accepted an emergency situation that we prepared to back and lawmakers were prepared to support….

“In Covid the [British public was] able to back measures that were needed in that situation. They would take a similar approach to keep rioters off the streets to see the scale of damage being done to communities.”

The government is preparing even more censorship. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, according to the Guardian, has been vowing “to crack down on promotion of ‘hateful beliefs'” to address “gaps in the current system” that “leave the country exposed to hateful or harmful activity that promotes violence or undermines democracy.”

The government is reportedly also considering a proposal by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate to grant government regulator Ofcom “emergency powers that would momentarily allow it to demand action taken by online platforms” against unwanted speech or information.

In addition, Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle recently made it clear that he thinks everything with which the government disagrees should be banned on social media. There seems to be no awareness of the essential problem: who chooses what is misinformation? Hoyle said:

“Misinformation is dangerous. Social media is good, but it is also bad when people are using it in a way that could cause a riot, threats, intimidation, actually suggesting that we should attack somebody – you know, it’s not acceptable. What we’ve got to is make sure it’s factual, correct, what’s up there. If not, I think the government have really got to think long and hard about what they’re going to do with social media and what are they going to put through parliament as a bill to act….

It doesn’t matter what country you’re in, the fact is that misinformation is dangerous. And no misinformation or threat or intimidation should be allowed to be carried out on social media platform. This should be for good, not for bad.”

“Ideas are more powerful even than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas,” said Soviet dictator and mass murderer Josef Stalin. Those words appear to have become Starmer’s motto, as he ruthlessly purges the British population of those who disagree with him, having the courts hand them all massive prison sentences in overcrowded jails to “deter” anyone who might even think of dissenting in the future. Starmer’s methods were once exclusively reserved for dictatorships such as China, Russia and North Korea. Western democracies did not used to sentence people to long prison sentences for speech crimes.

Judging by the silence of Western political and media elites in the face of this Orwellian crackdown in the country that gave the world the magna carta, we would be wise to remember that this chilling reality could soon be ours.

Robert Williams is a researcher based in the United States.

Featuring unseen footage: ‘Bibi Files’ premiers at Toronto Film Festival

JERUSALEM POST STAFF

The idea for the film began with a source leaking the footage to Gibney and suggesting that a film be made from it, Gibeny recounted.
.

PRIME MINISTER Benjamin Netanyahu has demonstrated repeatedly that he will take every opportunity to refute any blame thrown at him for October 7. (photo credit: Craig Hudson/Reuters) 

Bibi Files, the documentary featuring unseen footage of the criminal investigation conducted in advance of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trials, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival (TIFF) on Monday night.

The film, which is still in development and seeking funding, was produced by Alex Gibney and directed by Alexis Bloom.

The footage, which includes interviews with Netanyahu, his wife Sara, and his son Yair, among others, dates back to 2016-2018.

In the footage, viewers reported that Netanyahu could be seen claiming he did not remember the events presented before him.

Following the Monday screening, KAN reported that among the figures who were interviewed for the documentary were state witness Nir Hefetz, former Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) head Ami Ayalon, and Avi Alkalay, former editor of Walla who was a witness in case 4000.

The idea for the film began with a source leaking the footage to Gibney and suggesting that a film be made from it, Gibeny recounted at a question and answer session following the screening, KAN reported.

Thom Powers, Alexis Bloom and Alex Gibney at the premiere of ”The Bibli Files” during the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. September 09, 2024. (credit: Kayla Oaddams/Getty Image)

The film cannot be officially screened in Israel

Regarding the participation of Israeli Channel 13 reporter Raviv Drucker, one of the film’s producers, Gibney, explained, according to KAN, that the production needed someone in Israel with ample knowledge and experience in criminal cases.

He added that to protect the source as the basis of the film, there was an agreement with the source not to screen the film in Israel. However, Gibney noted that the film would probably make its way to Israel one way or another.

On Monday, Netanyahu requested the court to ban the publication of the documentary.

The motion was directed at the State and Drucker, with Netanyahu’s lawyer, Adv. Amit Hadad argued that publishing the interrogations was illegal under Israeli law. 

The court rejected Netanyahu’s request and ordered the State and Drucker to reply by Wednesday. 

In 2019, Netanyahu was indicted in cases 4000, 2000, and 1000 on fraud, breach of trust, and accepting bribery.

Eliav Breuer contributed to this report. 

Źródło: MEMRI: https://www.memri.org/tv/lebanese-filmmaker-youssef-el-khoury-destroyed-lebanon-fake-cause-palestine-nasrallah-shut-up

Libański filmowiec: „Sprawa palestyńska jest fałszywa, nigdy nie istniało państwo palestyńskie”

Z materiałów MEMRI
Tłumaczenie: Małgorzata Koraszewska

Iran’s Gaza War: Unfortunately, A Ceasefire Deal Will Not Bring the Hostages Back

John Richardson

• The Biden-Harris administration apparently sees no problem with a Palestinian state being yet another terrorist state, committed to annihilating Israel — as both Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force commander General Esmail Qaani (“Israel is a cancer that must be eliminated”), and senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad have straightforwardly vowed.
• A ceasefire might sound as if it is a “good thing” that benefits everyone — understandably if a friend or family member is a hostage. The problem seems to be the Hamas demand that Israel should leave the “Philadelphi corridor” on the border between Gaza and Egypt, so that Hamas, backed by its patrons Qatar and Iran, can resume smuggling weapons and ammunition into Gaza, rearm, rebuild and attack again.
• It is probably more convenient, for all those trying to overthrow Netanyahu, to look at him rather than at the real perpetrators: Hamas, Iran and Qatar.
• Qatar, “the Trojan Horse in Washington D.C.,” has long been financing Islamic terrorist organizations, as well as bestowing more than $6 billion on US universities to teach American youths whatever Qatar’s leaders decide. Nevertheless, the Biden-Harris administration decided that these qualifications made Qatar perfect to negotiate the Gaza war on America’s behalf, the same way the administration unfathomably decided to have Russia negotiate on America’s behalf with Iran over restarting the nuclear deal.
• The Biden-Harris administration seems to want Netanyahu gone to be able to work with “their” prime minister: one who presumably would be delighted not only to have a terrorist Palestinian state on his borders — a state sworn to Israel’s destruction — and who would also be delighted if Iran — also sworn to Israel’s destruction — had nuclear weapons. It is the policy embraced by Obama, so long as Iran did not acquire nuclear weapons “on his watch.” Down the road, however, would be an altogether different story.
• What many Israelis seem unwilling or unable to see is, sadly, that even with a ceasefire, the hostages will not be released. Hamas will hold on to as many of them as they can for as long as they can, to keep them in play as a weapon.
• With a ceasefire, Israel unfortunately will not get peace and will not get the hostages. The Israelis might see a few hostages at a time dribbled out, the living ones first, they hope, each one exchanged for hundreds, if not more, of convicted Palestinian terrorists released from Israeli prisons, whose first job would be to go right back to terrorizing.
• Meanwhile, the negotiations over every hostage would allow plenty of time for Iran and Hamas to bring more weapons in through the unguarded border from Egypt into Gaza, in order to rearm. The current leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, is himself a convicted terrorist who confessed to murdering four people with his own hands. Sinwar was serving four life sentences in an Israeli prison when he was released, among more than 1,000 terrorists, in exchange for one Israeli hostage, Gilad Shalit, in 2011.
• There is at least one way to get the hostages back quickly…. “Many Americans believe that they owe Qatar for its hosting of the U.S. CENTCOM base. The truth is precisely the opposite: It is Qatar that owes the U.S., for locating this base there. Without this base’s presence in the country, Qatar would disappear within less than a week – its neighbors would eat it up.” — Yigal Carmon, MEMRI, June 10, 2024.
• Instead of saying, as the propagandists no doubt like, “Bring them Home,” meant to sound as if Netanyahu is hiding the hostages under the Knesset, Israelis would be better off saying, “Release the Hostages” — directed at Hamas, Qatar and Iran.
• A ceasefire deal unfortunately will not bring back the hostages any time soon. Hamas will drag out each negotiation, continue attacking Israel and try to make Israelis miserable enough to give up the fight, as many seem to be doing even now.
  

  ---

A ceasefire might sound as if it is a “good thing” that benefits everyone — understandably if a friend or family member is a hostage. The problem seems to be the Hamas demand that Israel should leave the “Philadelphi corridor” on the border between Gaza and Egypt, so that Hamas, backed by its patrons Qatar and Iran, can resume smuggling weapons and ammunition into Gaza, rearm, rebuild and attack again. Pictured: A large Hamas tunnel between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, beneath the Philadelphi Corridor, discovered by the Israeli military on August 4, 2024. (Photo source: IDF)

The murder of six more Israeli hostages — Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino — captured by the terrorist group Hamas appears to be leading many Israelis, along with most of their ever-gullible media (remember the Oslo Accords?) to think that if only their government would agree to a ceasefire, they would get their hostages back. Most people, at least in the West, would desperately like that — not just the American ones — all 120 of them, especially before Hamas finishes murdering them. If the Israelis really want their hostages back, however, they had better think again.

For a start, the recent demonstrations demanding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire, look suspiciously like a “new, improved” version of the demonstrations of 2023, against the government’s attempts to bring much needed accountability back to Israel’s Supreme Court. Those demonstrations were reportedly funded by the US State Department to the tune of “tens of thousands of dollars” of US taxpayer money, funneled to an Israel not-for-profit organization, the Movement for Quality Government.

If the Biden-Harris administration is not behind the current demonstrations, it would be a pleasant surprise. The US, even before the Obama administration, has been unable to resist interfering in Israel’s internal affairs — such as trying to prevent Netanyahu from being elected and then trying to push him out. In 2015, Netanyahu’s address to the US Congress about Iran’s nuclear weapons program was apparently organized without consulting President Barack Obama, and, except during the Trump administration, the same US policy appears to have continued unchecked. During Netanyahu’s visit to the US in July 2024, not one senior administration official greeted Netanyahu upon his arrival in Washington or attended his address to Congress.

The Biden-Harris administration has even tried to direct Israels war efforts. Vice-President Kamala announced in March that she had “studied the maps” and that it would be a “mistake” for Israel to enter Rafah — which it did soon after, with breathtaking success.

What is all this really about? Even though the Biden-Harris administration would certainly appreciate all those the anti-Israeli votes they hope will be coming their way on November 5^th, above all — should Harris win the presidency — she, like President Joe Biden, appears eager to present the world with a Palestinian State.

Biden stated in November 2023, that “the only ultimate answer here is a two-state solution that’s real” Harris openly, if codedly, admitted as much in her acceptance speech for the presidential nomination:

“President Biden and I are working to end this war such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity. Security. Freedom. And self-determination.”

She repeated the same view in her pre-taped CNN interview on August 29:

“I remain committed, since I’ve been on October 8, to what we must do to work toward a two-state solution, where Israel is secure and in equal measure the Palestinians have security and self-determination and dignity.”

The Biden-Harris administration apparently sees no problem with a Palestinian state being yet another terrorist state, committed to annihilating Israel — as both Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force commander General Esmail Qaani (“Israel is a cancer that must be eliminated”), and senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad have straightforwardly vowed:

Hamad: “Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must remove that country….We are not ashamed to say this, with full force….

News anchor: Does that mean the annihilation of Israel?

Hamad: “Yes, of course.

The Biden-Harris administration doubtless sees Prime Minister Netanyahu, called “the Churchill of the Middle East,” as standing in their way.

A ceasefire might sound as if it is a “good thing” that benefits everyone — understandably if a friend or family member is a hostage. The problem seems to be the Hamas demand that Israel should leave the “Philadelphi corridor” on the border between Gaza and Egypt, so that Hamas, backed by its patrons Qatar and Iran, can resume smuggling weapons and ammunition into Gaza, rearm, rebuild and attack again.

The Israelis who are demonstrating are sadly misdirecting their outrage at just about everything: who is responsible, who is deceiving them and what the solution should be. As the journalist Caroline Glick points out, they are playing into the hands of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar:

“… Sinwar views them [the hostages] as a tool. The texts of nearly every single video have been nearly identical. The hostages blame Netanyahu for their suffering and demand that the government bow to Hamas’s demands or else Hamas will kill them.

“All the agency is on Israel. Hamas merely responds to the actions of the government. Whether the hostages live or die is Israel’s decision, not Hamas’s. In other words, the sole purpose of the videos is to destabilize the government by inducing the public to believe that it is the government—not Hamas—that is effectively holding the hostages captive….

“Since May, and with greater determination and urgency in recent weeks, Netanyahu has stated repeatedly that although he is willing to make massive, painful concessions to free even a small number of hostages, he is not willing to remove IDF units from the Gaza-Egypt border. In light of the U.S. position, his stance makes sense. The only way for Israel not to lose is to keep Hamas cut off from its outside supporters. A JNS/Direct Polls survey from July showed that some 60% of Israelis support that position….

“The generals’ position is supported by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Gallant fully abandoned his voters in Likud and began serving as a mouthpiece for the left and the Biden-Harris administration in the Security Cabinet immediately after returning from his weeklong visit to Washington in June.

“The discourse in Israel isn’t simply removed from reality because it is based on a false presentation of the U.S. position by the security brass. The entire domestic debate is taking place while Hamas isn’t even participating in the negotiations. For the generals, for Gallant and their comrades in the Knesset, the media and on the streets, the only one responsible for anything is Netanyahu.

“In other words, Gallant, the generals, the left’s political leaders and the rioters in the streets are all playing the roles Sinwar assigned them.”

It is probably more convenient, for all those trying to overthrow Netanyahu, to look at him rather than at the real perpetrators: Hamas, Iran and Qatar.

Qatar, “the Trojan Horse in Washington D.C.,” has long been financing Islamic terrorist organizations, as well as bestowing more than $6 billion on US universities to teach American youths whatever Qatar’s leaders decide. Nevertheless, the Biden-Harris administration decided that these qualifications made Qatar perfect to negotiate the Gaza war on America’s behalf, the same way the administration unfathomably decided to have Russia negotiate on America’s behalf with Iran over restarting the nuclear deal.

Clearly, Qatar and Iran are not just godfathers of Hamas; they are also seemingly close friends of the Biden-Harris administration. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on January 1, “quietly” renewed Qatar’s agreement to host the immense US Central Command at its Al-Udeid Air Base for another ten years. Iran was rescued by the Biden-Harris administration, from a sanctions-imposed poverty that could threaten its regime, to a wealth of billions of dollars that has funded all this mayhem. Iran, along with its proxies and militias, is also behind “over 150 attacks” on US troops in the Middle East, just since October 7, 2023, wounding many American troops, as well effectively blocking most commercial shipping through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.

What the US has been doing, ever since Netanyahu was last elected in 2022, is trying to get him removed. He would then be replaced — in the original plan by Benny Ganz (minister without portfolio in the war cabinet), who resigned after it was disclosed that he met with senior U.S. officials in Washington against the wishes of the prime minister — in the current plan by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

The Biden-Harris administration seems to want Netanyahu gone to be able to work with “their” prime minister: one who presumably would be delighted not only to have a terrorist Palestinian state on his borders — a state sworn to Israel’s destruction — and who would also be delighted if Iran — also sworn to Israel’s destruction — had nuclear weapons. It is the policy embraced by Obama, so long as Iran did not acquire nuclear weapons “on his watch.” Down the road, however, would be an altogether different story:

“Iran could be able to obtain a nuclear weapon much more quickly after the first 13 years of the emerging nuclear deal, President Barack Obama acknowledged…”

What many Israelis seem unwilling or unable to see is, sadly, that even with a ceasefire, the hostages will not be released. Hamas will hold on to as many of them as they can for as long as they can, to keep them in play as a weapon.

With a ceasefire, Israel unfortunately will not get peace and will not get the hostages. The Israelis might see a few hostages at a time dribbled out, the living ones first, they hope, each one exchanged for hundreds, if not more, of convicted Palestinian terrorists released from Israeli prisons, whose first job would be to go right back to terrorizing.

Meanwhile, the negotiations over every hostage would allow plenty of time for Iran and Hamas to bring more weapons in through the unguarded border from Egypt into Gaza, in order to rearm. The current leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, is himself a convicted terrorist who confessed to murdering four people with his own hands. Sinwar was serving four life sentences in an Israeli prison, when he was released, among more than 1,000 terrorists, in exchange for one Israeli hostage, Gilad Shalit, in 2011.

There is at least one way to get the hostages back quickly, according to Yigal Carmon, a retired colonel in the IDF Intelligence Corps and president of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI):

“Hamas lives off economic and political support from Qatar. Hence, Hamas’s life depends on Qatar. Only if it feels threatened will Qatar truly help. Only if Qatar’s very existence is put in question by using political, economic, legal, and security pressure will it move to help the U.S. and Israel to release the hostages. Right now, Qatar is cheating them both while trying with all its might to help Hamas.

“Qatar will not, however, commit suicide for Hamas, and when it sees that it must choose between Hamas and ceasing to exist, it will choose existence, and Hamas will comply with its demands because Qatar is its lifeline without which Hamas will not exist – especially during and after a war…

“Many Americans believe that they owe Qatar for its hosting of the U.S. CENTCOM base. The truth is precisely the opposite: It is Qatar that owes the U.S., for locating this base there. Without this base’s presence in the country, Qatar would disappear within less than a week – its neighbors would eat it up.”

The Israeli demonstrators demanding that Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire are being duped. They are being used by the Biden-Harris administration and the gullible Israeli media to produce, in all probability, a prime minister who will smilingly accept a nuclear-armed Iran along with a terrorist Palestinian state.

Instead of saying, as the propagandists no doubt like, “Bring them Home,” meant to sound as if Netanyahu is hiding the hostages under the Knesset, Israelis would be better off saying, “Release the Hostages” — directed at Hamas, Qatar and Iran.

A ceasefire deal unfortunately will not bring back the hostages any time soon. Hamas will drag out each negotiation, continue attacking Israel and try to make Israelis miserable enough to give up the fight, as many seem to be doing even now.

John Richardson is based in the United States.

Universities Distribute Student Club Funds Frozen by Anti-Zionist Led Student Governments

Dion J. Pierre

Illustrative A statue of George Washington tied with a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh inside a pro-Hamas encampment is pictured at George Washington University in Washington, DC, US, May 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Craig Hudson

The University of Michigan (UM) and The New School in New York City have restored funding to student clubs, following a spending freeze enacted by anti-Zionist factions who seized control of their student governments and vowed to cripple school operations until their demands for a boycott of Israel were met.

As The Algemeiner previously reported, a slew of anti-Zionist candidates at UM secured their election to Central Student Government (CSG) last semester by running as the Shut It Down (SID) party, whose platform promised to sever the university’s ties, both financial and academic, to Israel, according to The Detroit News. Since assuming power, its members have shredded the budget for the summer term approved by the previous administration and vowed to block funding for student clubs during the upcoming fall semester.

Anti-Zionists holding office in The New School’s University Student Senate made similar moves, voting to “halt all external funding until the IC votes in favor of divestment.” The move jeopardized the plans of over 150 registered student clubs.

Both schools have effectively vetoed the decisions and taken charge of financial appropriations, temporarily stripping the student governments of the power of the purse.

“The University of Michigan will make funding available to registered student organizations who apply for funding for the fall semester,” Colleen Mastony, University of Michigan assistant vice president of public affairs, told The Algemeiner on Tuesday. “UM’s vice president for student life and dean of students notified the Central Student Government on August 19 of the decision to immediately institute a temporary funding process. This step was taken at the request of senior leaders within the CSG assembly, after the CSG president in June vetoed a budget resolution that had been passed unanimously by the assembly. The veto impacted the summer budget only. University funding will remain in place until a budget is passed.”

On Monday, The New School announced that it was taking a similar measure.

“To ensure continued access and support for all students on campus, we will temporarily transfer the responsibility of managing this university fee to the Division of Student Success,” a letter to the campus community signed by three high-level officials said. “This decision was made with careful consideration …While we respect any student or student organizations that choose to stand in solidarity with the Student Senate’s decision, it is essential for the university to be able to distribute these resources to our students so that we may enhance campus life and the student experience.”

Anti-Zionist activists on college campuses are already testing university administrations, pushing the boundaries of their conduct and daring a response.

On Monday, anti-Zionists at Cornell University vandalized an administrative building, a provocation which marked an early test of the resolve of its interim president, Michael Kotlikoff, who announced new policies on “institutional neutrality,” discipline, and encampments around the time of incident.

According to the Cornell Daily Sun, the anti-Zionist agitators graffitied “Israel Bombs, Cornell pays” and “Blood is on your hands” on Day Hall. They also shattered the glazing of its front doors.

“We had to accept that the only way to make ourselves heard is by targeting the only thing the university administration really cares about: property,” the students told the Cornell Daily Sun, which agreed to conceal their identities. “With the start of this new academic year, the Cornell administration is trying desperately to upkeep a facade of normalcy knowing that, since last semester, they have been working tirelessly to uphold Cornell’s function as a fascist, classist, imperial machine.”

Kotlikoff’s administration, which said it is “appalled” by the crime, has pledged to hold the culprits responsible.

Earlier this month, two US congressional committees asked 10 of America’s most prestigious universities to disclose their plans for preventing the kind of incident that just occurred at Cornell. Coming amid a congressional investigation of how elite colleges responded to an explosion of antisemitism on college campuses after Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, the inquiry demanded an accounting of any new policies that schools such as Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley have enacted to preclude the possibility that students will, as they did last academic year across the country, illegally occupy or destroy school property and flout rules which proscribe hate speech and racial abuse.

“Last year, many colleges and universities appeared caught off-guard by the protests, disruptions, threats, and encampments that flooded campus, often to the detriment of Jewish students,” Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC), as well as House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO), wrote to the schools in a letter. “While that is no excuse for the failures we saw last year, colleges and universities are now acutely aware of the consequences across their campuses that stem from insufficient leadership. Refusals to impose basic discipline, hold bad actors accountable, and restore order on campus in the face of disruptions, violence, and hate will make life worse for all students, including Jewish students.”