Mass arrest of anti-Genocide protesters
Starmer must expel Israeli ambassador, say Scottish Greens
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmer-must-expel-israeli-ambassador-say-scottish-greens
Israeli ambassador to Britain Tzipi Hotovely arrives at BBC Broadcasting House in London, to appear on the BBC One current affairs programme, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, June 15, 2025SCOTTISH Greens have called for Sir Keir Starmer to expel Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely as they renew their calls for an end to political and military support for the “genocidal assault on Gaza.”
The party’s co-leader Lorna Slater made the remarks after the Prime Minister urged the Netanyahu regime to “reconsider” the escalation of its attack on Gaza, despite his government supplying the Israelis with the military intelligence and armaments necessary to continue an operation which has so far cost tens of thousands of lives.
She said: “The UK government has not been a detached observer in the genocide against Gaza, it has been an active participant.
“Urging restraint is not enough, the hypocrisy must end. The arms sales must stop and so must the military collaboration and political support that has gone with them.
“That must mean backing sanctions against Israeli forces and expelling the Israeli ambassador who has served as a mouthpiece for genocide.
“This has been a disgraceful chapter in UK foreign policy and has made the Prime Minister and his colleagues complicit in some of the worst war crimes of this century.”
International Poll Shows Strong Support for Arms, Energy Embargo on Israel
Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
(Photo: Albert Llop/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“The people have spoken and they refuse to be complicit,” said one campaigner. “Across continents, ordinary citizens demand an end to the fuel that powers settler colonialism, apartheid, and genocide.”
Large percentages of people in five nations want arms, fuel, and machinery embargoes on Israel in response to its obliteration and starvation of Gaza, a poll published Thursday revealed.
The survey—which was conducted last month by Pollfish for the Global Energy Embargo for Palestine and endorsed by Progressive International—queried people in Brazil, Colombia, Greece, South Africa, and Spain about whether their governments, fuel companies, weapons makers, and heavy machinery manufacturers should stop, reduce, continue, or increase business with Israel.
Nearly two-thirds of Spanish respondents said they strongly support or support their government taking action “to reduce trade in weapons, fuel, and other relevant goods to pressure Israel to end its military actions in Gaza.” In Greece, 63% back an embargo, while 35% oppose it. Sixty percent of Colombians, 58% of South Africans, and 48% of Brazilians strongly or somewhat support punitive sanctions on Israel.
Conversely, 27% of Brazilians said they do not support or strongly oppose an embargo on Israel, while 20% of South Africans, 14% of Colombians and Greeks, and 12% of Spaniards feel the same.
Support for ending or reducing weapons transfers was strong in all five nations, with 76% of Colombian respondents, 75% of Spaniards and Greeks, 66% of South Africans, and 59% of Brazilians favoring such action.
A majority of respondents in all five countries also said that companies providing arms, fuel, or heavy machinery to Israel “should be held responsible for how those products are used in Gaza.”
“The people have spoken and they refuse to be complicit,” Global Energy Embargo for Palestine campaigner Ana Sánchez said in a statement.
“Across continents, ordinary citizens demand an end to the fuel that powers settler colonialism, apartheid, and genocide,” Sánchez added. “No state that claims to uphold democracy can justify maintaining energy, military, or economic ties with Israel while it commits a genocide in Palestine. This is not just about trade; it’s about people’s power to cut the supply lines of oppression.”
The poll was published 670 days into Israel’s U.S.-backed assault and siege on Gaza, which has left at least 226,600 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and hundreds of thousands more starving amid increasingly deadly famine as Israel blocks aid from entering the embattled enclave.
The far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—a fugitive from the International Criminal Court wanted for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza—is moving ahead with plans for the “full conquest,” reoccupation, and ethnic cleansing of the strip, which U.S. President Donald Trump wants to transform into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
Israel’s conduct in the war is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case brought by South Africa and supported by around two dozen nations. Among the countries in the survey, Colombia—which severed diplomatic ties with Israel in May 2024—Spain, and Brazil have formally joined or signaled their intent to join South Africa’s case.
The ICJ also found last year that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is an illegal form of apartheid.
“What the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinian people is not war, it is genocide,” Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in February 2024 shortly after recalling his ambassador to Tel Aviv. “If this isn’t genocide, I don’t know what is.”
On Thursday, European Commission Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera—who is Spanish—told Politico, “If it is not genocide, it looks very much like the definition used to express its meaning.”
“What we are seeing is a concrete population being targeted, killed, and condemned to starve to death,” Ribera said. “A concrete population is confined, with no homes—being destroyed—no food, water, or medicines—being forbidden to access—and subject to bombing and shooting even when they are trying to get humanitarian aid. Any humanity is absent, and no witness[es] are allowed.”
Of the surveyed nations, all but Greece support an arms embargo on Israel. The other four countries took part in last month’s Hague Group emergency ministerial conference in Colombia, which was organized by Progressive International and ended with the publication of a joint action plan for “coordinated diplomatic, legal, and economic measures to restrain Israel’s assault on the occupied Palestinian territories and defend international law at large.”
“The message from the peoples of the world is loud and clear: They want action to end the assault on Gaza—not just words,” Progressive International co-general coordinator David Adler said in a statement accompanying the new survey’s publication.
“Across continents, majorities are calling for their governments to halt arms sales and restrain Israel’s occupation,” Adler added. “That’s why states are coming together through the Hague Group to take concrete measures toward accountability. It’s time for others to follow their lead.”
Meanwhile, a survey published Tuesday by the Israel Democracy Institute revealed that 8 in 10 Israeli Jews “are not so troubled or not at all troubled personally” by “the reports of famine and suffering among the Palestinian population in Gaza.”
Eight people, including a child, starved to death in Gaza that day, on which local officials said that more than 80 Palestinians were killed by Israel’s bombs, bullets, and blockade.
Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
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Britain is an ‘active participant’ in Gaza genocide, say leading British Jews
British Jews protest against the Gaza genocide and Britain’s role in it, Whitehall, London, August 5, 2025BRITAIN is “not just complicit, but an active participant” in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, activists said today during a rally by British Jews against the crackdown on Palestine solidarity protests.
Dozens of activists, Holocaust descendants and campaigners gathered outside Downing Street to condemn the government’s proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation and the restrictions on protests imposed under the guise of protecting the rights of Jewish people.
Speeches were delivered, songs sung and poems read out — including some written by Palestinian children.
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Speaking at the rally, former South African MP and anti-arms campaigner Andrew Feinstein called his constituent MP, the Prime Minister’s actions “shameful.”
“The reality is that Britain, under Keir Starmer’s government, is not just complicit in a genocide — it is an active participant in that genocide,” he said.
“The RAF now, through an American leasing company, is flying more spy flights over Gaza than the Israeli Air Force itself.
“That is not complicity, that is active participation, and this is being done in our names, using our tax pounds.”
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See the original article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/britain-active-participant-gaza-genocide-say-leading-british-jews
Israeli attacks on Gaza hospitals ‘similar to Russia’, internal British army report says
‘Common’ to find ‘deep unease’ among British troops over Israel’s conduct in Gaza, military insider tells Declassified
An internal British army media report has acknowledged that Israel is “bombing hospitals and ambulances”, claiming its troops are breaching the Geneva Convention in ways not done by Germany in World War Two.
The comments are contained in an interview between a senior army doctor and a presenter from the UK military’s own communications department, who draw parallels with Israeli conduct in Gaza and Russian atrocities in Ukraine.
Their comments indicate that within Britain’s armed forces, personnel are speaking more frankly about Israeli war crimes than ministers.
A member of the UK military, who asked to remain anonymous, told Declassified: “This video casually contradicts the government’s public position – that Israel is not systematically committing war crimes, so we can continue to arm and train their forces – because everyone in its intended audience knows that to be untrue.
“The comments in the video reflect common sentiments I have heard expressed within the armed forces, and for many personnel that recognition is a source of deep unease.”
Military co-operation between London and Tel Aviv has not been suspended. An Israeli colonel graduated from a UK military academy just last month, while the head of Israel’s air force was able to visit a Royal Air Force (RAF) base in Oxfordshire.
Arms exports for the F-35, Israel’s most advanced fighter jet, have been allowed to continue via third countries. Hundreds of RAF surveillance flights have flown over Gaza since 2023.
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