IMO this Israeli Government is no better than Putin, and many Israelis know that which is why there has been so many demonstrations against it long before October 7th. The corrupt Netanyahu would sup with the Devil.
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The French sending a ship to support hospitals in Gaza via a sea entry seems a good idea
Let us hope the ship arrives quickly (very) and remains safe from errant missiles.
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I just don’t understand why the west stands by and does not protest as this revenge blood letting by Israel. They are killing women, children, aid workers and journalists family’s in the Gaza ghetto and no one say very loudly Stop this is a war crime.
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With a Jewish wife, and children being brought up in the Jewish faith, Starmer is somewhat between a rock and a hard place.
We saw on the list of companies with links to Israel that Siemens provides the link for the electricity into Israel.
Why not threaten to pull the plug if they carry on with their denial of aid to the civilian population of Gaza?
Because any criticism of Israeli government will be called antisemitism and latter-day nazism and nobody is risking that, specious as it is. I feel terrible for the left-leaning Israelis I know who are now effectively gagged, branded Hamas supporters which obv they are not, because they don’t agree with Netanyahu and his cronies. And it’s their children in the army, not Netanyahu and his cronies’, seeing the cronies’ children are generally exempt from military service on religious grounds. Absolutely shameful.
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Amazing that such things should be happening to God’s ‘chosen’ people.
I suppose that depends on what Mr Biden orders IDF to do !
Not that I’m cynical or anything ….
Sadly Jan it’s not just the current dilemma, I think he sits on the fence on every issue.
Anyway, I hope his wife would, as many other jewish people in the UK and elsewhere have, agree that an urgent stop to the killing is imperative.
He’s not sitting on the fence on this one.
Oh I think he is. Sunak threw one, Paul Bristow, under the bus for calling for a ceasefire earlier. So Starmer had to even the score.
If we do get our votes back in time for the GE I won’t be voting Labour (or Tory).
Whether we wish it or not, the EU will be dragged into the Isreali-Palestine issue and must be aware of a larger perspective.
A NYT report from its France desk indicates the involvement of Russia in current antisemitic acts in France. Russia is a declared supporter if Hamas and may well be interested in inciting agression within France’s large Muslim population and Palestine supporters further to a long game of dividing the EU house against itself
France Links Conversation in Russian to Star of David Graffiti
After more than 200 blue stars were stenciled on buildings in and around Paris, prosecutors say they are investigating whether a foreign intermediary paid a couple to spray paint them.
More than 60 blue stars were found in the 14th arrondissement of Paris on the morning of Oct. 31, while others have appeared in two suburbs of the capital.
French prosecutors are investigating whether a foreign intermediary was behind the painting of more than 200 blue Stars of David on buildings in and around Paris last month amid a surge of antisemitic actsin Europe since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
Investigators suspect that a man and a woman caught on surveillance footage painting some of the graffiti had communicated in Russian with a person who offered them money to spray the stars on buildings, Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor, said in a statement on Tuesday.
The discovery of the stars — more than 60 were found in the 14th arrondissement of Paris on the morning of Oct. 31, while others have appeared in two suburbs of the capital — shocked many in France, where antisemitism is a longstanding concern. French Jews have also been targeted by terrorist attacks in recent years.
The man and the woman stenciled the stars in one sweep overnight and were accompanied by a third person who took photographs of the graffiti, Ms. Beccuau said, adding that the man and woman subsequently left France on Oct. 31.
Ms. Beccuau did not name those two suspects but said that investigators had connected them to another couple, a 33-year-old man and a 28-year-old woman from Moldova, who had been arrested in Paris on Oct. 27 for painting a blue Star of David on a building. The Moldovan pair told investigators that they had acted on the orders of a third party in exchange for payment “as evidenced by a conversation in Russian on their phone,” Ms. Beccuau said. Telephone data led investigators to believe that both couples “were in contact with the same third party,” Ms. Beccuau added.
“It therefore cannot be ruled out that the tagging of the blue Stars of David in the Paris region was carried out at the explicit request of a person living abroad,” she said.
Ms. Beccuau noted that the stars had been stenciled on random buildings and did not appear to have targeted any location specifically, saying that further investigations were needed to determine the “antisemitic intent” of the graffiti in light of the “geopolitical context.”
The statement from the prosecutor did not identify the Russian-speaking intermediary. Olivier Véran, spokesman for the French government, and a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry both declined to comment on Wednesday on possible Russian involvement, citing the continuing investigation.
But at least one other official has suggested that the graffiti might have been a way to sow discord in French society, where tensions are running high after Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 assault and Israel’s retaliatory strikes against the group in Gaza. France has reported over 1,100 antisemitic acts since Oct. 7. In response, French parliamentary leaders have called for a march in Paris on Sunday against antisemitism.
Laurent Nuñez, the Paris police prefect, told the news channel BFMTV last week that the graffiti case was “atypical” and that it stood out from other antisemitic acts over the past few weeks because it was more widespread and appeared “coordinated.” Mr. Nuñez declined to comment directly on possible Russian involvement but suggested that interference from a foreign actor trying to undermine French social cohesion was possible.
“Do they want to divide us even more, try to shatter national unity even more?” he said. “That isn’t completely ruled out.”
Dimitri Minic, a research fellow specializing in Russia at the French Institute of International Relations, a research organization in Paris, said that Russian involvement in the graffiti was “credible,” if not yet proven.
“Russia has a wealth of experience in trying to undermine Western countries,” Mr. Minic said, including by manipulating antisemitism, which still permeates Russia’s political and military elites. In the late 1950s and early ’60s, for instance, the K.G.B. orchestrated the painting of swastikas and antisemitic slogans in West Germany to spark anti-Jewish sentiment and tarnish the country as neo-Nazi, he said.
Psychological and informational warfare through covert actions is still a central part of Russian military methods, he added, including by manipulating themes that are sensitive in France because of its large Muslim and Jewish populations and because of existing antisemitism on the French far left and far right.
Actions like the graffiti could help Russia distract attention from Ukraine and feed rifts in Western societies by heightening tensions around the Israel-Hamas war, Mr. Minic said, as part of “a longer-term strategy of subversion designed to radically alter the political course of certain Western countries deemed key by Moscow.”
Antibot4navalny, the username of a leader of anonymous volunteers who monitor pro-Russian social media campaigns, said that pro-Kremlin bots and online trolls had used images of the stars painted in Paris to try to inflame tensions in Europe, noting nonetheless that the images did not necessarily mean that Moscow-supporting entities were behind the graffiti.
“There is a campaign to scare the Europeans and Ukrainians with the bitter cold, problems with pensions, inflation,” Antibot4navalny said in response to written questions on the Telegram messaging app. “Stars of David are part of it, too.”
Make of that report what you will but please don’t shoot the messenger.
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Good detective work and totally plausable IMO.
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That Jewish citizens of France are afraid right now, in their home here, is terrible. I wish they could know that it is not acts by the people of France, or anti-Isreal bombardment of Gaza protesters that they fear, but an orchestrated campaign by Russia to pit us all against one another.
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The same is reported on the BBC, and I came in here to post a link just now.
Couple this with the training of Hamas forces for the Oct 7th atrocity by Wagner (previously reported - can’t remember which of the many threads I posted in) and I rather think we can see one of the key drivers behind this specific attack. It also makes sense of what happened oct 7th - it was never about Hamas succeeding against Israel, but about creating such a storm that all attention would HAVE to be drawn away from Ukraine.
Also worth pointing out that the coups in Africa earlier this year appear to have had some Russian encouragement, but were clearly not effective enough to refocus the attention of the west from Ukraine.
And this is also interesting - possibly a common enemy?
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There’s a good little 7 minute video in this article on the topic.
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IIRC it’s if you have donated to the upkeep of the site, John isn’t the only one 
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Fine, but I’m not giving you 50 quid for doing it 