Elbit has an MoD contract to provide a simulation trainer for Challenger 3 tanks (Photo: Stephen Bardens / Alamy)
Ed Miliband’s decision to leave the military relationship with Israel intact raises serious concerns about Britain’s compliance with international law.
…
Genocide scholar Martin Shaw told Declassified: “The government’s acceptance that the occupation is illegal means that it should act against Israel itself, not just the settlers it has installed.
“The ICJ was clear that states must do nothing that provides ‘aid or assistance’ to Israel in maintaining the occupation, and must ‘ensure that any impediment’ that the occupation causes to the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination ‘is brought to an end’.
“Through the UK’s military alliance with Israel and its comprehensive military-industrial cooperation, Labour still appears to be failing in these legal duties, despite Miliband’s announcements”.
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Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights, told Declassified: “This important investigation exposes precisely why the UK government’s recent measures are largely performative and designed to whitewash the multifaceted, shameless complicity of the UK with Israel’s regime of settler-colonialism, illegal occupation, apartheid and genocide.
“The UK has failed to end the economic relationships, trade agreements and academic relations with Israel that may contribute to its unlawful presence and apartheid regime in the occupied Palestinian territory, as it is obliged to do in order to comply with the ICJ ruling.
“It is absurd for the UK to sanction settlements while simultaneously purchasing and integrating Israeli surveillance and weapon systems that are field-tested on Palestinians into its own armed forces.
“Comparing these largely symbolic measures with the far-reaching sanctions imposed by the UK on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine affirms the UK’s colonial hypocrisy and loss of credibility on the international stage”.
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In addition to military collaboration, Britain’s intelligence relationship with Israel will be untouched, according to Miliband, and there are no signs that either the 2020 UK-Israel military cooperation agreement, nor the 2023 Road Map for UK-Israel bilateral relations will be suspended.
In response to Britain’s sanctions, Israel has said it will close the British consulate in East Jerusalem, remove UK representatives from the International Gaza Support Centre in Kiryat Gat, and terminate Britain’s role in training Palestinian Authority forces in the West Bank.
Omar Barghouti added: “The UK has very clear obligations under international law, as triggered by the ICJ decisions of 2024 about Israel’s plausible genocide and its illegal occupation and apartheid.
“The UK must end all military, intelligence, trade, financial, academic and other relations with Israel that enable its illegal occupation, apartheid or genocide, as the ICJ has called for”.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel. New Labour UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues Labour party policy of active support and complicity in Israel’s genocide.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
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Kaja Kallas, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy speaks during a press conference on September 02, 2026. [Mostafa Darwish – Anadolu Agency]
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has backed a bloc-wide ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, calling it a justified “principled stance,” Anadolu reports.
In an interview with The Irish Times on Thursday, Kallas said there was broad agreement among EU foreign ministers that expanding Israeli settlements violated international law.
“When Crimea was occupied, then it was very clear — it’s illegal, we don’t recognize this,” she said. “We should have the same principled stance — you know this is illegal, everybody agrees, so we should stop trading with Occupied (Palestinian) Territories.”
Kallas said an EU ban on imports from Israeli settlements would not require the unanimous backing of all 27 member states.
As the proposed ban could be introduced as a trade measure rather than a foreign policy decision, it would require a qualified majority of at least 15 member states representing roughly two-thirds of the bloc’s population.
The EU has previously struggled to approve sanctions against Israel because foreign policy measures require unanimity.
Kallas said the European Commission was under “very clear” pressure from national governments to propose a settlement trade ban and that EU foreign ministers were waiting for the bloc’s executive body to act.
Although the volume of trade originating from Israeli settlements was limited, a ban would deliver an important symbolic message, she added.
Kallas acknowledged that member states had differing positions on relations with Israel and said there were “pros and cons” to acting before Israel’s parliamentary elections in late October.
She added that EU members agreed on supporting a two-state solution and ensuring that humanitarian aid reached Palestinians without being politicized.
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Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Strait of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him Up
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Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide gives a speech in Brussels, Belgium on December 3, 2025. [Dursun Aydemir – Anadolu Agency]]
Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide warned that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken Israel to a “very dangerous place,” Anadolu reports.
In remarks to Euronews in Riga, Latvia published on Friday, Eide described the current Israeli government as “the most far-right government in Israel’s history” and expressed hope that the country would eventually recognize it had been on a “very dangerous track,” regardless of the outcome of elections scheduled for October.
Eide also criticized Western countries’ response to conflicts in the Middle East, arguing that they “undermined” their credibility through what he called a “wobbly, unclear and unprincipled” approach.
“The problem has been that too many countries have been careful in criticizing Israel because you were so easily attacked for being anti-Semitic,” he said, adding that this pushed the international community toward “less daring positions.”
His remarks came days after Norway joined 11 other countries in announcing plans to introduce restrictions on trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Norway recognized Palestine in 2024.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Strait of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him UpUK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception .
A panel from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled against the Department of Energy’s use of emergency powers to keep Consumers Energy’s JH Campbell Generating Plant running in Michigan on September 11, 2026. (Photo by Consumers Energy)
“Preventing the market-driven retirements of coal plants to advance a coal-friendly agenda is not a proper use of emergency powers,” said one lawyer.
Climate defenders celebrated on Friday after a federal appellate court rejected the US Department of Energy’s abuse of emergency powers to keep a Michigan coal plant open, part of President Donald Trump’s broader push to boost the climate-wrecking industry.
“The court rejected the Trump administration’s nationwide push forcing unreliable, aging coal plants that are bleeding money and polluting communities to stay online,” said Ted Kelly, director and lead counsel for US clean energy at the Environmental Defense Fund—which was among the advocacy groups that joined Michigan, Minnesota, and Illinois in challenging the DOE’s abuse of Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act to keep the JH Campbell Generating Plant running.
“The Department of Energy’s unlawful actions attempted to make families and businesses in the Midwest wastefully pay hundreds of millions of dollars for a coal plant that should have been shut down over a year ago,” said Kelly. “That’s why these aging coal plants are scheduled to retire in the first place—they are incredibly expensive, dangerous to our health, and break down frequently.”
The Campbell plant was scheduled to retire on May 31, 2025, after over six decades of operation. As the opinion from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia notes, Consumers Energy “worked for several years to develop plans and secure regulatory approval to retire the old Campbell plant and replace it with a mix of expanded and new electricity-generation sources.”
While Michigan officials approved the company’s retirement plan for the facility, Trump’s DOE intervened, forcing not only that plant but six others across the country to remain open—collectively costing Americans over $547 million, according to a live tracker from the Sierra Club, which has challenged all of the department’s coal plant orders.
The three-judge appellate panel unanimously vacated the department’s order on Friday, writing that “our reading of the text, structure, and history leaves us unpersuaded by DOE’s sweeping conception of its ‘emergency’ authority under Section 202(c).”
The Associated Press reported that while the DOE didn’t respond to a request for comment, Consumers Energy spokesperson Brian Wheeler said the plant operator was reviewing the court ruling and, in the meantime, will keep the facility operating through mid-November.
In a statement to Bridge Michigan, DOE spokesperson Emily Mathews claimed the emergency orders prevented blackouts and “likely saved hundreds of lives,” without offering evidence. She did not confirm plans for an appeal but did say that the department “will continue to protect and defend energy security for all Americans.”
Consumers Energy spokesperson Katie Carey told the outlet that the company “is reviewing today’s court ruling,” and “while that happens, we are continuing to comply with the current 90-day Department of Energy order.” Still, those who fought against the administration’s policy welcomed their legal victory.
“By forcing its continued operation, DOE tried a never-before-used tactic to illegally prop up the aging JH Campbell coal plant that nobody asked to keep, sticking ratepayers with a bill for a facility that should have been retired more than a year ago,” said Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel in a statement.
“I am relieved that the court saw through this facade and threw out DOE’s order that had zero basis in reality,” she continued. “My office has been fighting this unlawful political stunt at every turn, and this ruling proves what we have been saying all along: This administration does not get to invent fake emergencies to bypass the rule of law against the best interests of Michigan residents. We remain committed to fighting these nonsensical orders and protecting our ratepayers.”
A HUGE win for AG Dana Nessel and the rule of law.
The Trump administration illegally forced a Michigan coal plant to stay open more than a year past its planned retirement. Today, a three-judge panel unanimously ruled DOE overstepped its authority. https://t.co/KlaybPVv2z
Derrell Slaughter, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Michigan policy director for climate and energy, declared that “Michiganders shouldn’t have been saddled with artificially high energy bills or forced to deal with toxic air pollution over a fabricated ‘emergency.’ The Campbell coal plant is out of date, costs more to operate than other electricity generation options, and is one of the worst polluters in the state.”
While applauding the decision as “a victory for families across the Midwest who are tired of paying to keep this old, expensive, and dirty power plant online,” Sierra Club chief appellate counsel Sanjay Narayan stressed that “instead of working to lower costs and clean up our air and water, the Trump administration has been pulling out all the stops to try to bolster dirty and expensive fossil fuels—at public expense.”
“This reckless agenda will not succeed,” the attorney pledged. “We will continue to hold the Department of Energy accountable to the law, and ensure that the JH Campbell plant finally retires as it was scheduled to, and we will continue to fight back against the other illegal extensions across the country.”
A win for Michigan ratepayers!
A federal appeals court just struck down the Trump administration's "emergency" order forcing the Campbell coal plant to stay open — an order costing $640,000 a day. We commend Dana Nessel (@MIAttyGen) for working to challenge Trump's illegal…
Earthjustice attorney Michael Lenoff also cheered the court’s rebuke of the “Trump administration’s abuse of emergency powers” and vowed to “continue to challenge unlawful orders if DOE persists in issuing them.”
“The DOE needs to stay in its lane and use its emergency powers only in actual emergencies,” he said. “Preventing the market-driven retirements of coal plants to advance a coal-friendly agenda is not a proper use of emergency powers.”
Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, noted that two years ago, his consumer advocacy organization “predicted Trump would try to force household consumers to pay higher utility bills to prop up uneconomic coal power plants, and we proudly joined with other public interest groups in June 2025 to challenge his bogus emergency declaration for the Campbell coal power plant.”
“But Americans have already been forced to shell out half a billion dollars for Trump’s obscene coal bailout vanity project,” he emphasized, pledging to “explore all options to force” the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission “to refund consumers for this Trump boondoggle.”
The appellate court’s ruling came on the heels of data released this week showing that 2026 had the warmest August and meteorological summer on record in the contiguous United States, and globally, last month was the hottest ever recorded, tied with July 2023.
Despite such records, and scientists’ persistent warnings, Trump has repeatedly delivered on his campaign promises to serve the fossil fuel industry, from declaring a national energy emergency and waging a war on renewable power projects to ditching the Paris Agreement, again, and signing executive orders on coal denounced as “reckless” and “breathlessly stupid.”
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him Up
A person holds signs during a nationwide protest against AI data center expansion outside Peace Hall in New Port Richey, Florida on July 18, 2026. (Photo by Thomas Simonetti / AFP via Getty Images)
One critic said the Trump administration was “bending knee to the tech oligarchs and letting them do whatever they need to do.”
President Donald Trump’s administration is making an aggressive push to find public lands to use for building artificial intelligence data centers, according to a Friday report in The Washington Sun.
The US Department of the Interior, under the leadership of Secretary Doug Burgum, has pushed the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to “identify public land ripe for data center development,” and provide lists to department leadership, reported the Sun.
Leaders at the Interior Department gave state BLM leaders just three days to compile their lists, emphasizing this was a “top priority,” the Sun’s sources said.
Additionally, reported the Sun, Burgum has been meeting regularly with Big Tech executives to discuss ways to accelerate data center development.
The department’s aggressive push stems from a Trump executive order signed in July 2025 that tasked the government with identifying federal lands that could be used to build data centers.
Mary Jo Rugwell, president of the Public Lands Foundation and former BLM state director, told the Sun that she’s concerned that the Trump administration is “bending knee to the tech oligarchs and letting them do whatever they need to do” without asking the right questions about data centers’ impact on public lands.
Rugwell added that the BLM during Trump’s second term has shed nearly half of its staff, leaving few experts available to evaluate the environmental impact of data centers.
“Where are they going to get people to do the analysis especially when you have a technology that’s relatively new and not well defined?” Rugwell asked. “It’s a headache BLM doesn’t need.”
Olivia Tanager, director of the Sierra Club’s Nevada chapter, told the Sun that the nationwide backlash to data center construction has gotten so intense that the tech industry might see using public lands as their best option for building out capacity.
“A lot of elected officials in Nevada on both sides of the aisle are really hesitant to approve data centers in their local jurisdiction,” said Tanager. “I would imagine in some cases, despite the environmental review being heightened in a lot of instances being sited on federal public land, there’s more political will to move those projects forward.”
Jayson O’Neill, spokesperson for Save Our Parks, accused Burgum of trying to “exploit our parks and public lands” for the benefit of wealthy tech donors.
“Data Center Doug Burgum is actively shopping America’s public lands to data center developers, the AI industry, and big energy companies lining up to power them,” O’Neill said. “And he’s keeping communities in the dark, hiding the details from Congress and the public.”
