Jonathan Cook, Author at ZNetwork
https://znetwork.org/author/jonathancook/
Independent Left News, Analysis, Vision and StrategySat, 14 Mar 2026 14:29:45 +0000en-US
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1 https://znetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/cropped-Z_logo_512-32x32.pngJonathan Cook, Author at ZNetwork
https://znetwork.org/author/jonathancook/
3232BBC Editor’s Libel Case Against Owen Jones Falls At The First Hurdle. Here’s Why
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/bbc-editors-libel-case-against-owen-jones-falls-at-the-first-hurdle-heres-why/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/bbc-editors-libel-case-against-owen-jones-falls-at-the-first-hurdle-heres-why/#respondSat, 14 Mar 2026 14:29:39 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1295769The High Court’s preliminary ruling this week in the libel case brought by the BBC’s online Middle East editor, Raffi Berg, against journalist Owen Jones is highly significant. It doesn’t settle the case – in fact, Berg’s lawyers say they intend to continue to a full hearing – but it does strike a blow against the Israel [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/bbc-editors-libel-case-against-owen-jones-falls-at-the-first-hurdle-heres-why/feed/0Israel Planned This War On Iran For 40 Years. Everything Else Is A Smoke Screen
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/israel-planned-this-war-on-iran-for-40-years-everything-else-is-a-smoke-screen/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/israel-planned-this-war-on-iran-for-40-years-everything-else-is-a-smoke-screen/#respondSat, 07 Mar 2026 12:26:43 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1295524It is near impossible to make sense – at least from the justifications on offer – of what US President Donald Trump really hopes to achieve with his and Israel‘s blatantly illegal war of aggression on Iran. Is it to destroy an Iranian nuclear weapons programme for which there has never been any tangible evidence, and which Trump claimed just a few months ago to [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/israel-planned-this-war-on-iran-for-40-years-everything-else-is-a-smoke-screen/feed/0Rubio Declared a Return to Brutal Western Colonialism – and Europe Applauded
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/rubio-declared-a-return-to-brutal-western-colonialism-and-europe-applauded/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/rubio-declared-a-return-to-brutal-western-colonialism-and-europe-applauded/#respondSat, 21 Feb 2026 18:35:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1295012US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference last weekend was another troubling declaration of intent by the Trump administration. The explicit goal of US foreign policy, according to Rubio, is to resurrect the western colonial order that persisted for some five centuries until the Second World War. Old-school, white-man’s-burden colonialism is unapologetically back. In [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/rubio-declared-a-return-to-brutal-western-colonialism-and-europe-applauded/feed/0Starmer Is Toast. But The Dark Forces That Brought Him To Power Are As Strong As Ever
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/starmer-is-toast-but-the-dark-forces-that-brought-him-to-power-are-as-strong-as-ever/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/starmer-is-toast-but-the-dark-forces-that-brought-him-to-power-are-as-strong-as-ever/#commentsSat, 14 Feb 2026 17:01:26 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1294727Some 30 years ago, British politics became, by design, a black box – an arena for moneyed power brokers to wield political influence hermetically sealed off from the view of voters. Only now, with the release of a portion of the Epstein Files, is a dim light being shone into its recesses, indicating how completely the billionaire class [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/starmer-is-toast-but-the-dark-forces-that-brought-him-to-power-are-as-strong-as-ever/feed/1The Jury Were Right To Acquit The Palestine Action Defendants. Here’s Why
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-jury-were-right-to-acquit-the-palestine-action-defendants-heres-why-2/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-jury-were-right-to-acquit-the-palestine-action-defendants-heres-why-2/#respondSun, 08 Feb 2026 15:48:03 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1294499Even before the trial began, the British government had done its utmost to prejudice the proceedings against six Palestine Action activists. It declared that they belonged to a terrorist organisation and that they were engaged in a terrorist enterprise in breaking into an Israeli weapons factory in Filton, Bristol – one, British officials avoided mentioning, [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-jury-were-right-to-acquit-the-palestine-action-defendants-heres-why-2/feed/0The Guardian joins the cheerleading for a war of aggression against Iran
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-guardian-joins-the-cheerleading-for-a-war-of-aggression-against-iran/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-guardian-joins-the-cheerleading-for-a-war-of-aggression-against-iran/#respondSun, 01 Feb 2026 15:43:07 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1294265International law is absolutely clear. If the US attacks Iran, it would be a war of aggression and the “supreme international crime”. The job of even supposedly liberal media like the Guardian is to persuade you this is not what is at stake. To disbelieve your lying eyes. Look at this astonishingly dishonest headline and [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-guardian-joins-the-cheerleading-for-a-war-of-aggression-against-iran/feed/0The BBC Pushes The Case For An Illegal War On Iran With Even Bigger Lies Than Trump’s
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-bbc-pushes-the-case-for-an-illegal-war-on-iran-with-even-bigger-lies-than-trumps/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-bbc-pushes-the-case-for-an-illegal-war-on-iran-with-even-bigger-lies-than-trumps/#respondSat, 31 Jan 2026 11:58:29 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1294228Here is another example of utterly irresponsible journalism from the BBC on tonight’s News at Ten. Diplomatic correspondent Caroline Hawley starts by credulously amplifying a fantastical death toll of “tens of thousands of dead” from recent protests in Iran – figures provided by regime opponents. Contrast that with the BBC’s constant, two years of caution [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-bbc-pushes-the-case-for-an-illegal-war-on-iran-with-even-bigger-lies-than-trumps/feed/0Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ Is The Nail In Gaza’s Coffin
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trumps-board-of-peace-is-the-nail-in-gazas-coffin/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trumps-board-of-peace-is-the-nail-in-gazas-coffin/#respondSun, 25 Jan 2026 16:12:58 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293958US President Donald Trump has declared the three-month “ceasefire” in Gaza a great success, and now wants to move on to phase two of his so-called “peace plan”. What does success look like? Israeli soldiers have killed more than 460 Palestinians since October, including at least 100 children. Israel has levelled another 2,500 buildings, the last of the few that were still standing. And [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trumps-board-of-peace-is-the-nail-in-gazas-coffin/feed/0Barrister’s Powerful Speech At Filton Trial Reminds Jury Of Its Right To Defy Judge
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/barristers-powerful-speech-at-filton-trial-reminds-jury-of-its-right-to-defy-judge/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/barristers-powerful-speech-at-filton-trial-reminds-jury-of-its-right-to-defy-judge/#respondThu, 15 Jan 2026 16:56:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293510Starmer and the media need convictions to justify Palestine Action’s proscription as a terrorist group. Rajiv Menon KC spells out to the jury why it is a vital last defence against government tyranny. My thanks to Craig Murray, former UK ambassador turned whistleblower, for alerting me to what he rightly calls “one of the greatest legal speeches [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/barristers-powerful-speech-at-filton-trial-reminds-jury-of-its-right-to-defy-judge/feed/0Genocide Isn’t A Mistake. Which Is Why The Media Can’t Tell You The Truth About Gaza
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/genocide-isnt-a-mistake-which-is-why-the-media-cant-tell-you-the-truth-about-gaza/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/genocide-isnt-a-mistake-which-is-why-the-media-cant-tell-you-the-truth-about-gaza/#respondSun, 11 Jan 2026 16:55:05 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293361The Voice of Hind Rajab, a devastating dramatised retelling of Israel’s slow-motion murder of a five-year-old in Gaza, arrives in UK cinemas next week. Please take the opportunity to see it. The vast majority of Americans were denied such an opportunity when it was released there last month. Here’s what happened to the film in [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/genocide-isnt-a-mistake-which-is-why-the-media-cant-tell-you-the-truth-about-gaza/feed/0The Path to Caracas Was Paved in Gaza
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-path-to-caracas-was-paved-in-gaza/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-path-to-caracas-was-paved-in-gaza/#respondWed, 07 Jan 2026 22:31:38 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293198For decades, the United States and Israel have stuck closely to their respective, scripted roles in the Middle East: the job of good cop and bad cop. The charade has continued despite Washington’s active participation in Israel’s 25-month slaughter of Gaza’s people – and a dawning realisation among ever-larger sections of western publics that they [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-path-to-caracas-was-paved-in-gaza/feed/0How Reporting Facts in Britain Can Now Land You in Jail for 14 Years as a Terrorist
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-reporting-facts-in-britain-can-now-land-you-in-jail-for-14-years-as-a-terrorist/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-reporting-facts-in-britain-can-now-land-you-in-jail-for-14-years-as-a-terrorist/#respondWed, 24 Dec 2025 18:35:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292730The moment the British government began proscribing political movements as terrorist organisations, rather than just militant groups, it was inevitable that saying factual things, making truthful statements, would become a crime. And lo behold, here we are. The Terrorism Act 2000 has a series of provisions that make it difficult to voice or show any [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-reporting-facts-in-britain-can-now-land-you-in-jail-for-14-years-as-a-terrorist/feed/0Western Elites Fear A ‘Globalised Intifada’ Because They Are Its Targets, Not Jews
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/western-elites-fear-a-globalised-intifada-because-they-are-its-targets-not-jews/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/western-elites-fear-a-globalised-intifada-because-they-are-its-targets-not-jews/#respondSat, 20 Dec 2025 17:15:56 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292575Western establishments’ fear of the phrase “Globalise the intifada” has little to do with any danger supposedly posed to Jewish populations from its use. The threat is posed by the slogan’s central idea, not by some specific target. “Globalise the intifada!” is the modern equivalent of “Power to the people!” – a slogan long used [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/western-elites-fear-a-globalised-intifada-because-they-are-its-targets-not-jews/feed/0Israel’s Biggest Con Trick: Hiding The True Numbers It Has Killed In Gaza
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/israels-biggest-con-trick-hiding-the-true-numbers-it-has-killed-in-gaza/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/israels-biggest-con-trick-hiding-the-true-numbers-it-has-killed-in-gaza/#respondThu, 11 Dec 2025 16:52:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292250Israel has penned us all into a ‘debate’, one entirely divorced from reality, that relates only to those killed directly by its bombs and gunfire – not the genocide it is waging by other means The biggest con trick Israel has managed to pull off over the past two years is imposing entirely phoney parameters [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/israels-biggest-con-trick-hiding-the-true-numbers-it-has-killed-in-gaza/feed/0A Story Of A 1930s Uprising Against British Colonialism Is Key To Understanding Gaza Today
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-story-of-a-1930s-uprising-against-british-colonialism-is-key-to-understanding-gaza-today/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-story-of-a-1930s-uprising-against-british-colonialism-is-key-to-understanding-gaza-today/#respondSat, 06 Dec 2025 17:55:53 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292094Anyone wondering why the British state and media, despite the latter’s pretension to serve as a watchdog on power, continue to cheerlead Israel’s genocidal slaughter of civilians in Gaza will find the answers in a new film. It recounts not the current period of history, but a story from nearly 90 years ago. Palestine 36, directed by the remarkable Palestinian [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-story-of-a-1930s-uprising-against-british-colonialism-is-key-to-understanding-gaza-today/feed/0Breaking Free Of Media Group-Think Is A Scary, Lonely Journey. I Know. I Was Forced To Do It
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/breaking-free-of-media-group-think-is-a-scary-lonely-journey-i-know-i-was-forced-to-do-it/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/breaking-free-of-media-group-think-is-a-scary-lonely-journey-i-know-i-was-forced-to-do-it/#respondSun, 16 Nov 2025 18:09:03 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291336[This is an adaptation of a talk I presented at an event “Reporting Gaza: Work, Life and Death”, organised by the South Wales National Union of Journalists, held at the Temple of Peace in Cardiff on 10 November 2025.] The past two years have seen a catastrophic failure by western journalists to report properly what [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/breaking-free-of-media-group-think-is-a-scary-lonely-journey-i-know-i-was-forced-to-do-it/feed/0BBC News Has A Long Record Of Disinformation. But This Time It Chose The Wrong Target
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/bbc-news-has-a-long-record-of-disinformation-but-this-time-it-chose-the-wrong-target/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/bbc-news-has-a-long-record-of-disinformation-but-this-time-it-chose-the-wrong-target/#respondThu, 13 Nov 2025 16:50:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291196The BBC’s now in a death loop: it grows ever more craven to the billionaires, shifting the political centre of gravity further rightwards, even as the billionaire-owned media claim it’s too ‘leftwing’ The BBC is in turmoil, its director-general and head of news forced to resign after a memo leaked to the Daily Telegraph highlighted [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/bbc-news-has-a-long-record-of-disinformation-but-this-time-it-chose-the-wrong-target/feed/0Islam Vs The West: The Four Biggest Fallacies About Islam Explained
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/islam-vs-the-west-the-four-biggest-fallacies-about-islam-explained/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/islam-vs-the-west-the-four-biggest-fallacies-about-islam-explained/#commentsThu, 06 Nov 2025 16:45:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1290894Isn’t Islam inherently violent? What stopped the Islamic world having an Enlightenment? Why are some Muslims so into head-chopping? And isn’t Hamas the same as Islamic State? A recent conversation with a friend highlighted to me how little most westerners know about Islam, and how they struggle to distinguish between Islam and Islamism. This lack [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/islam-vs-the-west-the-four-biggest-fallacies-about-islam-explained/feed/1It Was Never A Gaza ‘War’. The ‘Ceasefire’ Is A Lie Cut From The Same Cloth
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/it-was-never-a-gaza-war-the-ceasefire-is-a-lie-cut-from-the-same-cloth/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/it-was-never-a-gaza-war-the-ceasefire-is-a-lie-cut-from-the-same-cloth/#commentsSat, 18 Oct 2025 14:15:15 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1290133Ceasefires stick because the two sides in a war have reached military stalemate – or because the incentives for each side in laying down their arms outweigh those of continuing the bloodshed. None of this applies in Gaza. The past two years in the enclave have been many things. But the one thing they have [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/it-was-never-a-gaza-war-the-ceasefire-is-a-lie-cut-from-the-same-cloth/feed/1It Is The West, Not Gaza, That Needs To Be Deradicalised
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/it-is-the-west-not-gaza-that-needs-to-be-deradicalised/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/it-is-the-west-not-gaza-that-needs-to-be-deradicalised/#respondThu, 09 Oct 2025 15:53:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1289702This brutal war on Palestinians has not just unleashed Israel’s demons. It has unmasked our own regimes, as they crack down on humanitarian activism. Anniversaries are often a cause for celebration. But who could have imagined back in October 2023 that we would now be marking the two-year anniversary of a genocide, documented in the minutest [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/it-is-the-west-not-gaza-that-needs-to-be-deradicalised/feed/0Recognition of Palestine is a Repeat of the West’s Oslo ‘Peace’ Fraud
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/recognition-of-palestine-is-a-repeat-of-the-wests-oslo-peace-fraud/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/recognition-of-palestine-is-a-repeat-of-the-wests-oslo-peace-fraud/#respondSat, 27 Sep 2025 16:32:52 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1289176The reluctant recognition of Palestinian statehood by Britain, France, Australia, Canada this week is a con – it is the same switch and bait that has been blocking the creation of a Palestinian state for three decades now. Imagine that these four leading western countries had recognised Palestine not in late 2025, when Palestine is [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/recognition-of-palestine-is-a-repeat-of-the-wests-oslo-peace-fraud/feed/0The Billionaire Class Want You Thinking Israel Controls The West
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-billionaire-class-want-you-thinking-israel-controls-the-west/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-billionaire-class-want-you-thinking-israel-controls-the-west/#respondThu, 11 Sep 2025 15:52:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1288432Western elites don’t care what you think or say, so long as you don’t notice that they are the ones making money from a genocide, asset-stripping western economies and trashing our planet. Inevitably, the more extreme the West’s actions – by, for example, actively aiding Israel’s genocide in Gaza – the more extreme the assumptions [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-billionaire-class-want-you-thinking-israel-controls-the-west/feed/0Even The Media’s Gaza ‘Investigations’ Hide The Real Story Of Israel’s Atrocities
https://znetwork.org/zvideo/even-the-medias-gaza-investigations-hide-the-real-story-of-israels-atrocities/
https://znetwork.org/zvideo/even-the-medias-gaza-investigations-hide-the-real-story-of-israels-atrocities/#respondSat, 30 Aug 2025 15:37:40 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=video&p=1287943An investigation by CNN into Israel’s strike on the Nasser Hospital this week – an attack that killed more than 20 people, including emergency workers and five journalists – is a case study in how even well-intentioned journalism, ostensibly examining Israeli crimes, ends up concealing more than it reveals. CNN’s detailed examination of footage of Monday’s strike [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/zvideo/even-the-medias-gaza-investigations-hide-the-real-story-of-israels-atrocities/feed/0How Western Media Helped Turn Israel’s Genocide Into ‘Fake News’
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-western-media-helped-turn-israels-genocide-into-fake-news/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-western-media-helped-turn-israels-genocide-into-fake-news/#respondThu, 28 Aug 2025 15:56:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1287883Israel’s justification for the mass slaughter of Gaza’s people and their starvation – now officially confirmed as a famine engineered by Israel – was built on a parade of easily discredited lies from the start: of beheaded infants, of babies in ovens, of mass rape. It should surprise no one that Israel continued advancing similarly outrageous lies [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-western-media-helped-turn-israels-genocide-into-fake-news/feed/0The Police Pulled Over My Car. The Lack Of A Reason Should Worry Us All
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-police-pulled-over-my-car-the-lack-of-a-reason-should-worry-us-all/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-police-pulled-over-my-car-the-lack-of-a-reason-should-worry-us-all/#respondThu, 21 Aug 2025 15:50:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1287582Many thanks to everyone who responded to my recent social media post on my being stopped by Thames Valley police this week in irregular circumstances and in an equally irregular manner. From those responses, I have been able to come up with the most plausible explanation for why police pulled me over at around midday [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-police-pulled-over-my-car-the-lack-of-a-reason-should-worry-us-all/feed/0Our Complicity In Gaza Has Set The Stage For a Second Genocide – In The West Bank
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/our-complicity-in-gaza-has-set-the-stage-for-a-second-genocide-in-the-west-bank/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/our-complicity-in-gaza-has-set-the-stage-for-a-second-genocide-in-the-west-bank/#respondSat, 16 Aug 2025 11:50:32 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1287382There is a revealing back story to Israel’s so-called E1 Plan, a massive settlement project that includes the building of many thousands of new homes. The plan’s goal is to irreversibly sever the illegally annexed eastern, Palestinian side of Jerusalem from the West Bank, and then break the illegally occupied West Bank into two separate [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/our-complicity-in-gaza-has-set-the-stage-for-a-second-genocide-in-the-west-bank/feed/0Israel’s Plan For ‘Full Control’ of Gaza Heralds A New Nakba – So The West Is Panicking
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/israels-plan-for-full-control-of-gaza-heralds-a-new-nakba-so-the-west-is-panicking/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/israels-plan-for-full-control-of-gaza-heralds-a-new-nakba-so-the-west-is-panicking/#respondThu, 14 Aug 2025 15:52:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1287311Netanyahu’s mass ethnic cleansing strategy pulls the rug out from under their cherished pretext for supporting Israeli criminality: the fabled two-state solution. If you thought western capitals were finally losing patience with Israel’s engineering of a famine in Gaza nearly two years into the genocide, you may be disappointed. As ever, events have moved on – even [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/israels-plan-for-full-control-of-gaza-heralds-a-new-nakba-so-the-west-is-panicking/feed/0Israel’s Genocide Is Big Business – And The Face Of The Future
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/israels-genocide-is-big-business-and-the-face-of-the-future/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/israels-genocide-is-big-business-and-the-face-of-the-future/#respondThu, 24 Jul 2025 15:56:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1286555US corporations and military planners welcome the ‘legal maneuver space’ Israel has opened up for them to profit from warfare that slaughters and starves civilians [An audio version of this article is available here] The Financial Times revealed this month that a cabal of Israeli investors, one of the world’s top business consulting groups and [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/israels-genocide-is-big-business-and-the-face-of-the-future/feed/0On Gaza, The Goal is to Confuse Us About Where Rights End And Criminality Begins
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/on-gaza-the-goal-is-to-confuse-us-about-where-rights-end-and-criminality-begins/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/on-gaza-the-goal-is-to-confuse-us-about-where-rights-end-and-criminality-begins/#respondThu, 17 Jul 2025 15:54:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1286286An Israeli Jew is charged over referring to ‘Nazi Israel’. An anti-genocide protester risks arrest as a terrorist for waving a Palestinian flag. Starmer is intentionally stoking a climate of fear A British-Israeli Jew, Yael Kahn, has been charged with causing “alarm or distress” for holding a placard referring to “Nazi Israel” at a London [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/on-gaza-the-goal-is-to-confuse-us-about-where-rights-end-and-criminality-begins/feed/0The Real Crimes Are Taking Place In Gaza, Not At Glastonbury Or Brize Norton
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-real-crimes-are-taking-place-in-gaza-not-at-glastonbury-or-brize-norton/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-real-crimes-are-taking-place-in-gaza-not-at-glastonbury-or-brize-norton/#respondThu, 03 Jul 2025 15:55:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1285744The British government is being rocked by a growing public backlash to Israel’s 21-month slaughter in Gaza and the UK’s active collusion in it. That fallout came to a head over the weekend, when punk group Bob Vylan led Glastonbury’s crowds in chanting: “Death, death to the IDF,” referencing the Israeli army – a performance aired live on the BBC, [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-real-crimes-are-taking-place-in-gaza-not-at-glastonbury-or-brize-norton/feed/0
The High Court’s preliminary ruling this week in the libel case brought by the BBC’s online Middle East editor, Raffi Berg, against journalist Owen Jones is highly significant. It doesn’t settle the case – in fact, Berg’s lawyers say they intend to continue to a full hearing – but it does strike a blow against the Israel [...]]]>
It is near impossible to make sense – at least from the justifications on offer – of what US President Donald Trump really hopes to achieve with his and Israel‘s blatantly illegal war of aggression on Iran. Is it to destroy an Iranian nuclear weapons programme for which there has never been any tangible evidence, and which Trump claimed just a few months ago to [...]]]>
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference last weekend was another troubling declaration of intent by the Trump administration. The explicit goal of US foreign policy, according to Rubio, is to resurrect the western colonial order that persisted for some five centuries until the Second World War. Old-school, white-man’s-burden colonialism is unapologetically back. In [...]]]>
Some 30 years ago, British politics became, by design, a black box – an arena for moneyed power brokers to wield political influence hermetically sealed off from the view of voters. Only now, with the release of a portion of the Epstein Files, is a dim light being shone into its recesses, indicating how completely the billionaire class [...]]]>
Even before the trial began, the British government had done its utmost to prejudice the proceedings against six Palestine Action activists. It declared that they belonged to a terrorist organisation and that they were engaged in a terrorist enterprise in breaking into an Israeli weapons factory in Filton, Bristol – one, British officials avoided mentioning, [...]]]>
International law is absolutely clear. If the US attacks Iran, it would be a war of aggression and the “supreme international crime”. The job of even supposedly liberal media like the Guardian is to persuade you this is not what is at stake. To disbelieve your lying eyes. Look at this astonishingly dishonest headline and [...]]]>
US President Donald Trump has declared the three-month “ceasefire” in Gaza a great success, and now wants to move on to phase two of his so-called “peace plan”. What does success look like? Israeli soldiers have killed more than 460 Palestinians since October, including at least 100 children. Israel has levelled another 2,500 buildings, the last of the few that were still standing. And [...]]]>
Starmer and the media need convictions to justify Palestine Action’s proscription as a terrorist group. Rajiv Menon KC spells out to the jury why it is a vital last defence against government tyranny. My thanks to Craig Murray, former UK ambassador turned whistleblower, for alerting me to what he rightly calls “one of the greatest legal speeches [...]]]>
The Voice of Hind Rajab, a devastating dramatised retelling of Israel’s slow-motion murder of a five-year-old in Gaza, arrives in UK cinemas next week. Please take the opportunity to see it. The vast majority of Americans were denied such an opportunity when it was released there last month. Here’s what happened to the film in [...]]]>
For decades, the United States and Israel have stuck closely to their respective, scripted roles in the Middle East: the job of good cop and bad cop. The charade has continued despite Washington’s active participation in Israel’s 25-month slaughter of Gaza’s people – and a dawning realisation among ever-larger sections of western publics that they [...]]]>
The moment the British government began proscribing political movements as terrorist organisations, rather than just militant groups, it was inevitable that saying factual things, making truthful statements, would become a crime. And lo behold, here we are. The Terrorism Act 2000 has a series of provisions that make it difficult to voice or show any [...]]]>
Western establishments’ fear of the phrase “Globalise the intifada” has little to do with any danger supposedly posed to Jewish populations from its use. The threat is posed by the slogan’s central idea, not by some specific target. “Globalise the intifada!” is the modern equivalent of “Power to the people!” – a slogan long used [...]]]>
Israel has penned us all into a ‘debate’, one entirely divorced from reality, that relates only to those killed directly by its bombs and gunfire – not the genocide it is waging by other means The biggest con trick Israel has managed to pull off over the past two years is imposing entirely phoney parameters [...]]]>
Anyone wondering why the British state and media, despite the latter’s pretension to serve as a watchdog on power, continue to cheerlead Israel’s genocidal slaughter of civilians in Gaza will find the answers in a new film. It recounts not the current period of history, but a story from nearly 90 years ago. Palestine 36, directed by the remarkable Palestinian [...]]]>
[This is an adaptation of a talk I presented at an event “Reporting Gaza: Work, Life and Death”, organised by the South Wales National Union of Journalists, held at the Temple of Peace in Cardiff on 10 November 2025.] The past two years have seen a catastrophic failure by western journalists to report properly what [...]]]>
The BBC’s now in a death loop: it grows ever more craven to the billionaires, shifting the political centre of gravity further rightwards, even as the billionaire-owned media claim it’s too ‘leftwing’ The BBC is in turmoil, its director-general and head of news forced to resign after a memo leaked to the Daily Telegraph highlighted [...]]]>
Isn’t Islam inherently violent? What stopped the Islamic world having an Enlightenment? Why are some Muslims so into head-chopping? And isn’t Hamas the same as Islamic State? A recent conversation with a friend highlighted to me how little most westerners know about Islam, and how they struggle to distinguish between Islam and Islamism. This lack [...]]]>
Ceasefires stick because the two sides in a war have reached military stalemate – or because the incentives for each side in laying down their arms outweigh those of continuing the bloodshed. None of this applies in Gaza. The past two years in the enclave have been many things. But the one thing they have [...]]]>
This brutal war on Palestinians has not just unleashed Israel’s demons. It has unmasked our own regimes, as they crack down on humanitarian activism. Anniversaries are often a cause for celebration. But who could have imagined back in October 2023 that we would now be marking the two-year anniversary of a genocide, documented in the minutest [...]]]>
The reluctant recognition of Palestinian statehood by Britain, France, Australia, Canada this week is a con – it is the same switch and bait that has been blocking the creation of a Palestinian state for three decades now. Imagine that these four leading western countries had recognised Palestine not in late 2025, when Palestine is [...]]]>
Western elites don’t care what you think or say, so long as you don’t notice that they are the ones making money from a genocide, asset-stripping western economies and trashing our planet. Inevitably, the more extreme the West’s actions – by, for example, actively aiding Israel’s genocide in Gaza – the more extreme the assumptions [...]]]>
An investigation by CNN into Israel’s strike on the Nasser Hospital this week – an attack that killed more than 20 people, including emergency workers and five journalists – is a case study in how even well-intentioned journalism, ostensibly examining Israeli crimes, ends up concealing more than it reveals. CNN’s detailed examination of footage of Monday’s strike [...]]]>
Israel’s justification for the mass slaughter of Gaza’s people and their starvation – now officially confirmed as a famine engineered by Israel – was built on a parade of easily discredited lies from the start: of beheaded infants, of babies in ovens, of mass rape. It should surprise no one that Israel continued advancing similarly outrageous lies [...]]]>
Many thanks to everyone who responded to my recent social media post on my being stopped by Thames Valley police this week in irregular circumstances and in an equally irregular manner. From those responses, I have been able to come up with the most plausible explanation for why police pulled me over at around midday [...]]]>
There is a revealing back story to Israel’s so-called E1 Plan, a massive settlement project that includes the building of many thousands of new homes. The plan’s goal is to irreversibly sever the illegally annexed eastern, Palestinian side of Jerusalem from the West Bank, and then break the illegally occupied West Bank into two separate [...]]]>
Netanyahu’s mass ethnic cleansing strategy pulls the rug out from under their cherished pretext for supporting Israeli criminality: the fabled two-state solution. If you thought western capitals were finally losing patience with Israel’s engineering of a famine in Gaza nearly two years into the genocide, you may be disappointed. As ever, events have moved on – even [...]]]>
US corporations and military planners welcome the ‘legal maneuver space’ Israel has opened up for them to profit from warfare that slaughters and starves civilians [An audio version of this article is available here] The Financial Times revealed this month that a cabal of Israeli investors, one of the world’s top business consulting groups and [...]]]>
An Israeli Jew is charged over referring to ‘Nazi Israel’. An anti-genocide protester risks arrest as a terrorist for waving a Palestinian flag. Starmer is intentionally stoking a climate of fear A British-Israeli Jew, Yael Kahn, has been charged with causing “alarm or distress” for holding a placard referring to “Nazi Israel” at a London [...]]]>