Nesrine Malik noted this in the Guardian yesterday:
This is the end. I don't see myself surviving. They brought me here to kill me.” These were the words of Dr Hussam Abu Safiya to his lawyer earlier this month. Abu Safiya was the director of the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza. Eighteen months ago he was seized by Israeli forces and has since been held without charge or trial. He reports being struck with hammers and batons, daily beatings and loss of consciousness. The latest images of him show a much gaunter man than the one who had been the voice of besieged healthcare workers in Gaza, doing their jobs in impossible circumstances.
Please read the rest of the article. What she reports is horrendous, and it is happening in plain sight: Israel is breaking every convention on human rights by torturing, abusing and killing Palestinian prisoners.
Now, before I am accused of bias, I know Hamas has also abused and killed prisoners. So stop the cries of antisemitism now.
And I did not note this piece just to highlight the Israeli atrocities, and nothing Hamas might ever have done can ever justify them, so please also end the tit-for-tat justifications now, too.
Instead, I highlight this article because if the government (soon to be Andy Burnham's government) proscribes Hamas under the new National Security (State Threats) Act, which I discussed here on Sunday, reporting such as this will not be permitted. Nesrine Malik would be at risk of 14 years in prison for writing this article, and so would I be for drawing on it. Why? Because the source will be deemed Hamas-affiliated.
What will the consequence be? No one would be able to report the abuse of the Israeli regime. We would not know that a supposed ally is abusing and killing people in the most horrendous fashion.
How convenient would that be for the mainstream agenda?
Do not doubt that this Act exists for a reason. It is to support a powerful lobby, heavily supported by the British political hierarchy, who would very much rather that we did not know about such things. And soon they will get their way.
Welcome to the neo-fascist New Labour UK, everyone. Because that is where we are, and unless he instructs that this Act not be used, that is what our new smiley prime minister from Manchester is going to deliver for us. And we will certainly find out his plans from his choice of Home Secretary. If he reappoints Shabana Mahmood, fascist control of the media is what we will get.
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Starmer has announced that the Iran Revolutionary Guard (IRG) will be banned from the UK and formally designated as a threat to national security.
From now on if you want a balanced view of the Trump War, people in the UK will need to use a VPN to carefully search the internet for reliable news reporting sites.
Truth is always the first casualty.
Yes, VPN the way forward. There are plenty of them & competition has driven prices down. The problem for GCHQ is that short of deep-packet inspection they will not know what a given person is looking at or down loading.
As for Bunrt-ham – he is a Zionist ditto the totality of the UK cabinet & most of LINO. A UK gov operating for the benefit of Israel and ensuring that UK serfs don’t hear about torture.
Christ on a bike – has it come to this?
The National Security (State Threats) Act is an alarming move by our authoritarian government. It truly sickens me to see such an awful piece of legislation even being considered by a democratic government. However, one intention of the Act is to prevent interference of a foreign state in the politics of the UK. Does such interference not already come from both Israel and the USA? Surely funding from these countries of both politicians and lobbyists in our country must be a clear breach of this Act?
Yes, but the government has to deem it so. How likely is that?
What appals me is collusion over the whole history of the Zionist movement and particularly the 1970s onwards. It’s as if the massacres, detailed even on Wikipedia, never happened, and October 7th was out of the blue. The Greater Israel doctrine is a century old, and everyone pretends it doesn’t exist even as the most prominent of the current regime speak it out loud. When will it become an offence to speak or write history?
1984….metaphorically
100% agree. Neofascist, repressive authoritarian legislation with tame judges to enforce it. I’ve told my MP I am SCARED of my gov’t for first time in my life.
I’ve read pro-Israel comment recently, on some of the detainee stories and they always ignore the gross illegality of Israel’s actions (as if there was ever justification for torture or years of detention without access to justice) – and cite the detainees’ links to “terrorists”. Hamas WAS the government of Gaza, following an election (which was what Israel wanted). It RAN the place. Armed resistance to occupation is LEGAL. The occupation has lasted for over two generations in some areas, for nearly 50 yrs in most of the OTs. If you worked in a Gaza hospital you would work for the Hamas health ministry – so Israel can call you a terrorist. Similarly with the PA.
The Labour government have prepared the ground for making reporting on or writing about human rights abuses by Israel, effectively illegal, and they are already silencing the the victims.
We are going to need to build a lot of new jails. Perhaps we can convert RAF bases into concentration camps? If Shabana Mahmood wants ideas, then Dachau in the 1930’s should provide her with inspiration.
We now know Burnham is to be our next PM. Is he going to lead us into authoritarian neofascist rule or is he going to repeal this legislation?
Never mind Farage or Lowe, we don’t need them, Labour can do fascism just fine, all on its own.
This has been a long time coming (UK detention without trial? 90 or 28 days remember? The Snowden case, and the enforced destruction of those Guardian hard drives?).
Sorry, got angry there. Thank-you for your clarity.
Anger is a reasonable reponse.
We have no illusions about how other states in the Middle East behave so why do we look the other way with Israel?
Oh and in case anyone complains I suggest that Israel is signing its own death warrant by behaving the way it is, one perhaps of the potential consequences of this legislation is that by allowing Israel some privacy for its barbarism it could create the very situation that might result in it being overthrown.
Yes Richard and BBC inadequate of reporting on the National Security Act means no one understands its implications<p>
It seems to further muddy the waters – widening the definition of a ‘terror group’ so that merely opposing government policy makes you a potential terror threat<p>
Apparently the govt haven’t actually proscribed IRGC as a terr or group – but they have banned anyone ‘supporting’ IRGC with penalties of up to 14 years jail<p>
And ‘supporting’ may simply include simply quoting them, or mentioning them – who knows?<p>
Presumably under this new act they could have locked up pensioners carrying placards without having to go to the bother of actually proscribing Palestine Action?<p>
Thank you Richard for this timely piece.
What are the chances of Burnham’s camp reading it? He has started making tentative noises, that the ceasefire should have been called sooner in Gaza. But that doesn’t get to the heart of the issues now.
AoC Sarah Mullally is leading the way for Christians (reduced to 1% of the population in Palestine) by supporting the Sabeel Kairos motion at the recent CoE Synod – but oh, so cautiously.
“And soon they will get their way.” It’s a slender hope that Andy B will risk the ire of the establishment with bold statements of intent, followed up with serious actions that will have implications for all of us.
I would be interested know just how many of the parameters applied to the Iran Revolutionary Guard to make it a ‘national security threat’ map directly onto the IDF.
🙂
I wrote about my fears in respect of this bill on the previous article, and feel my point remains valid: what happens should an increasingly desperate Westminster decide to designate political parties supporting Scottish or Welsh independence, or Irish reunification, as “state threats”?
As they will….
As they have done before
This is very sinister indeed. It can only mean – in all seriousness – that some sort of endgame is afoot in the middle east. That matters will only get worse. Therefore the need to close down visibility.
So Europe, the U.K. and the U.S. are anti-Semitic and encouraged the Jews to live in a land of their own after not really helping them against the Nazis………….except that Jews were supposed to share those lands with other ‘sons of Abraham’ (so much for the ‘Book’). The Zionists must be laughing themselves silly. All the West has got out of this is increased oil prices and Neo-liberal political stasis. Boy have we been short-changed.
And I went back to university, had children, worked hard, kept myself employed………….for this?!
As Robin Williams once said – ‘Payback’s a bitch – YEAH!’
Am I being melodramatic when I say that as a woman of almost 80 with a husband of 84 who has Lewybodys Dementia, 4 sons and 6 grandchildren I am now very frightened for what lies ahead of us in this country and in the world?
No
Why not be frightened?
Publishing at 19:00 on a Monday tends to work almost as well as Friday’s “taking the bins out” for hiding stuff. Especially when England’s playing footie…
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/06/hamas-offers-hand-over-authority-gaza-us-backed-administration
Hamas have attempted to restart the stalled peace process but most outside commentators don’t seem confident of any movement. Then again, I don’t expect any from the Israeli government who will not cede any control whatsoever over Gaza or the Occupied Territories. They have always wanted the two-states solution to mean no weapons in Gaza, Israeli permission and control to import *any* goods into the Strip, and control of the air-space. The talk of concentration camps chills me to the core.
Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote, “Those who would give up Essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” comes to mind. Is it a symptom of a government of ministers, with no grasp of their brief, trying to look strong and in control? Easy targets with no analysis?
It was a long struggle to arrive this far – how long will it take before the citizenry wake enough to fight again for what we once had but are losing right now?
Whilst we are still allowed to say such things, I find it interesting that the election slogan of Hamas was ‘Change and Reform’.
Where have we heard these two words used as political slogans more recently and closer to home? I just can’t remember.
🙂