u/DaphneVid

“Right this moment, across the Gaza Strip, Hamas’s police, intelligence units, and al‑Qassam Brigade militias are fully deployed to crush the June 26 protests planned by civilians who want to voice their opposition to the group’s authoritarian, fascistic rule. In a new escalation, armed operatives from the Iranian‑funded Palestinian Islamic Jihad have joined Hamas, positioning fighters across Gaza to rapidly arrest, shoot, or disperse any gathering that could turn into a demonstration. Even more alarming, a national security source tells me that four days ago, communications were intercepted from Lebanon and the Islamic Republic of Iran advising Hamas on how to deter Gaza’s population and how to confront protesters with a “low visible footprint” once demonstrations begin.

Hamas has also unleashed hundreds of fake “journalists,” tribal figures, social‑media “influencers,” humanitarian “activists,” and other regime‑aligned voices to denounce the June 26 protests as “suspicious” and “Israeli-backed.” Given the scale of this state‑sanctioned terror apparatus, it would be surprising if large numbers of Gazans manage to demonstrate as originally envisioned. Yet a handful of activists with almost no resources have already rattled Hamas’s entire security infrastructure, and the broader “Axis of Resistance” so loudly celebrated by many in the Western “pro‑Palestine” movement. That alone exposes just how many supposed allies of the Palestinian people are, in truth, nowhere to be found when Gazans stand up to their actual oppressors.”

The coverage of yesterday’s report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), “The essence of childhood has been destroyed: Israel’s deliberate targeting of Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 7 October 2023", has been variations on the same theme: “UN commission of inquiry says Israel committing genocide in Gaza by deliberately targeting children” (BBC); “Israel's deliberate targeting of Gaza children part of genocide: UN inquiry" (Al Jazeera); “Israel continues to commit genocide by targeting children in Gaza, UN inquiry finds” (Guardian). You get the drift.

And on one level, fair enough because that is indeed what the UN inquiry claimed. But not one of the mainstream news organisations has provided any context about either the authors of the report or the body which commissioned it – context which is vital, because it shows how worthless a document it is.

This was not some calm, deliberate and impartial inquiry designed to get at the facts. It was, rather, one of the two annual reports on Israel which have been mandated by the UNHRC, which has passed not a single resolution on any human rights abuses in Algeria, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iraq, or Zimbabwe. But it has a standing order to debate a resolution against Israel at least once per session – the only country subject to such a standing order.

Since the creation of the UNHRC it has held one special session on Libya, one on Iran, three on Myanmar, five on Syria – and nine on Israel. In May 2021 the UNHRC established its Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. After the October 7, 2023 massacre, the Commission focused on Gaza and pushed the accusation of genocide. Not by Hamas, but by Israel.

This latest report, published yesterday, is chaired by Navi Pillay, the former chair of the overall Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Pillay has a long history of supporting extreme – some would say deranged – anti-Israel bias. In 2022 her fellow UNHRC commissioner, Miloon Kothari, gave an interview in which he said: "We are very disheartened by the social media that is controlled largely by, whether it's the Jewish lobby, or it's specific NGOs, a lot of money is being thrown into trying to discredit us.” He also questioned why Israel was even allowed to be a member of the UN. In the face of widespread criticism of his blatantly antisemitic comments, Pillay defended him, claiming his words had been "deliberately misquoted to imply that 'social media' was controlled by the Jewish lobby." The transcript showed there had been no misquotation – those were his exact words.

As UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2009, Pillay set up four separate "fact-finding” missions targeting Israel – four more than for any other country. She also oversaw the Goldstone Report, which even its own lead author, Richard Goldstone, ended up repudiating. She sanctioned the appointment of Richard Falk as UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinians, despite – more likely because – Falk’s long history of antisemitic statements, such as pushing 9/11 conspiracies about the Jews. Pillay also convened the 2009 Durban II conference, which was boycotted by most Western countries, and at which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was handed a platform to deliver an antisemitic speech. When Jewish groups protested, Pillay dismissed them as "lobby groups focused on single issues." Pillay is on record describing Israel as an apartheid state and has signed petitions calling on governments to "sanction apartheid Israel."

As UN Watch points out, this week’s HUNHRC report “appears to be presented under the Commission’s mandate to “collect, consolidate and analyse evidence” in order to “maximise the possibility of its admissibility in legal proceedings,” such as before the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) or the International Court Justice (“ICJ”).

The UN Guidance and Practice for fact-finding missions provides that evidence must be evaluated for its “reliability” and “truthfulness,” that investigations must be conducted with “integrity,” meaning “without any bias,” and that factual findings must be “adequately corroborated” by at least two other “independent and reliable” sources.” This would be a joke were it not to appalling.

The report is entirely one sided, takes its so-called evidence regarding intent, knowledge, and targeting decisions from witnesses whose outlook is prima facie loaded against Israel and whose testimony cannot be verified, and which ignores all facts which paint a different picture from the conclusion the report clearly sets out to reach.

To quote UN Watch again: “These shortcomings would be troubling in any fact-finding exercise. They are particularly concerning here because the Commission’s findings are intended to inform international legal proceedings, including before the ICC and the ICJ. Findings of this nature – particularly those purporting to establish intent and criminal responsibility – would ordinarily require rigorous testing and corroboration before being relied upon in judicial proceedings. Yet international courts have an established practice of relying on UN reports as evidence. This report therefore undermines not only the integrity of international fact-finding, but also the application of international law and confidence in the UN system as a whole.”

I urge you to look at UN Watch’s detailed legal rebuttal – destruction is a more accurate description – of the report, here.

Meanwhile, these are its key points. Most obviously, it exposes how the gravest accusation of all, that Israel deliberately targeted Palestinian children in Gaza, which is an accusation of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, is made without a single verified example. The report simply concludes that because children died in the war – a tragic but unavoidable occurrence in war – this is proof of deliberate targeting.

The report does not consider in any way the role of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as if they were not even present – concluding that the IDF, under orders from Israeli political and military leadership, was engaged in the deliberate killing of children for the sake of killing children. “Across 94 pages, the Report never acknowledges that the IDF was fighting a heavily armed force of tens of thousands of Hamas and PIJ operatives who constructed hundreds of kilometres of tunnels, embedded military infrastructure throughout civilian areas, and routinely operated from homes, schools, hospitals, mosques, and displacement zones. The result is a fictionalised account of the conflict in which there is no armed opposition, no complex urban battlefield, and no armed actors in Gaza other than the IDF. Combined with the erasure of militant activity in the West Bank, this distortion enables the COI to advance the fabricated narrative that Israeli forces were trained, directed, and deployed to deliberately target children as a matter of policy.”

As UN Watch puts it, the report’s extreme length is intended to create the impression of rigorous evidentiary and forensic review, yet it still cannot mask the fundamental absence of reliable proof for its central allegations.

None of this will be reported because it does not fit the now near-universal narrative – that Israel is a uniquely evil rogue state which commits genocide to satisfy its blood lust. But who now cares about the truth?

thejc.com/opinion/starme…

Whatever your view of Sir Keir Starmer, he is clearly sincere in his view that he transformed Labour from a party which, under Jeremy Corbyn, was a magnet for antisemites to one which sought to expel them.

Indeed, that transformation was the very first thing he mentioned in his resignation speech this morning in Downing Street. He referred to how he “changed our party – ripping out the poison of antisemitism, restoring trust on the economy, defence, and national security.”

You might well find the last three of those four claims somewhat difficult to agree with. Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng's September 2022 mini-budget pushed the 30-year gilt yield to around 5 per cent. Under Rachel Reeves, that same 30-year yield passed the Truss-era peak in January 2025, and by March 2026 the 10-year gilt had pushed UK borrowing costs to their highest level since the 2008 financial crisis. And Starmer lost both his Defence Secretary and Armed Forces Minister over his handling of defence and national security.

But the first of his claims is broadly correct. When he took over as Labour leader, he made tackling the party’s welcome for antisemites a priority. It was the first thing he mentioned after his election as leader. And he was largely successful, with many of those who were either expelled or who left because they no longer found Labour so welcoming switching to the Greens, which has now become the political home for Jew hate.

But when it comes to antisemitism, Starmer’s time as leader divides starkly into two periods: in opposition, when he tackled it, and in power – when he unleashed it. Because for all that he did in tackling antisemitism within Labour in opposition, in power he led a government which has given more succour to antisemites than any government since the founding of the state of Israel.

Everything changed after the 2024 election. Suddenly Labour MPs were confronted with a rising force which they had previously not had to worry about: sectarian Muslim politics.

Most attention on this has focused on the four so-called “Gaza Independent” MPs but results in other constituencies were equally concerning for Labour. In Ilford North, Wes Streeting held on by 528 votes; in Bethnal Green Rushanara Ali clung on narrowly; and in Birmingham Yardley Jess Phillips scraped home by 693 votes. Labour’s vote fell by over 14 per cent from 2019 in those constituencies where the Muslim population was above 15 per cent. With 37 constituencies having a Muslim population over 20 per cent and a further 73 having between 10 and 20 per cent Muslims, the threat to Labour MP was and remains real.

Whatever else may lie behind Labour’s attitude to Israel, that political demography explains why Starmer started to deal with the Jewish state not as one of our nation’s most trusted and closest allies, which has been engaged in a battle to defeat Iranian proxies since the October 7, 2023 massacre, but as a de facto enemy state.

Within weeks of taking office the then Foreign Secretary David Lammy had dropped Britain’s opposition to the ICC arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant and had imposed an entirely symbolic ban on the export of certain defence equipment to Israel – symbolic because Israel had no need of them, and because our armed forces rely far more heavily on Israeli technology than the other way round. Last year the Royal College of Defence Studies was instructed no longer to admit Israelis.

Then last September Starmer did the bidding of antizionists and antisemites across the world by recognising a Palestinian state without demanding anything in return – especially and notably not requiring the release of the remaining hostages as a quid pro quo. His action was criticised as, at worst, rewarding Hamas for October 7 or, at best, giving Hamas a PR coup over more moderate Palestinians in showing that their terrorism had forced recognition.

Starmer’s government has relentlessly portrayed Israel as some kind of rogue state, which has added fuel to the antisemitic fire which has taken hold since October 7, 2023. And until very recently, when the explosion in antisemitic incidents turned violent, Starmer had uttered not a word of criticism of the hate marches and demos across Britain which have been a festival of Jew hate since the Hamas massacre.

It is all very well for Starmer to seek to portray himself as some sort of healer, expunging Jew hate from Labour. But he cannot have his cake and eat it. Since becoming PM, Starmer has hugely damaged relations with Israel (even if Israeli intelligence continues to provide vital information to our security services). The last two years will go down as the worst in living memory for relations with Israel – in large measure as a result of Starmer’s deliberate policy to appease the Muslim sectarian vote.

The only question that remains now is how much worse this will get under Burnham.

“He’s merely a symptom of something far darker, a hatred that, left unchecked, may have disastrous consequences.

What is it? Since the story broke, enraged pundits referred to Franco’s attitude as “antisemitism.”

But that, alas, is a misnomer, a distraction that, if we’re not careful, could keep us from identifying, and thereby solving, the real problem.
Because the real problem isn’t that a dim and arrogant college kid somewhere dislikes Jews.
It’s that we now live in an America where being openly, even proudly, antisemitic is a form of social clout.

When given a chance to clarify his statement, Franco doubled down.

So did his supporters: A crowdfunding effort was quickly launched to reward Franco for his bigotry, raising more than $13,000 in just a few days.
And that’s a problem, because antisemitism, as any semi-serious student of history knows, is a virus that has a nasty way of devouring any host society that lets it spread unchecked.

It’s a tricky yet crucial insight to understand: Antisemitism has absolutely nothing to do with actual Jews, which is why it can surge uninterruptedly even in societies, like those in the Arab world, which have long ago expelled or executed all of their Jewish citizens.

Instead, it’s a unique strand of moral and intellectual rot, highly resistant to reason or logic, which metastasizes and completely consumes its host culture.

Just ask the Germans.

That a student in one of America’s most celebrated academic institutions feels it’s not only right but also righteous to publicly hate Jews should tell you everything you need to know about what antisemitism is doing to the American mind.”

Many will have read the is already. If not, you should definitely read it.

United Nations special rapporteurs were “bullied” into not signing a letter documenting allegations arising from the October 7 attacks, the global body’s special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment has claimed.

Dr Alice Edwards said some colleagues sought to water down a January 2024 letter detailing allegations received by her office, with a “concerted effort” to prevent aspects of the massacre being formally recorded by the UN.

In a conversation at UCL in London on Tuesday with barrister Adam Wagner KC, Edwards said only one other rapporteur ultimately signed the letter.

“That letter is a set of allegations of what happened on October 7; it was only signed by the Special Rapporteur on summary extrajudicial killings and me,” she said.

“Some other special rapporteurs and working groups had wanted to sign on, but they also had been bullied by others not to sign on, and there was this concerted effort for this letter not to put on record some allegations that had been received.”
Edwards, whose term ends in July, said the final version was significantly weaker than her original draft.

“There was a campaign to prevent that letter from going out. There were weeks of being bullied and deterred from writing it and telling me that everything in it was false,” she went on.
“All the comments of these individuals had been taken into account so the letter shrank considerably.”

The letter was eventually sent to the Permanent Mission of the State of Palestine in Geneva and "transmitted" to Hamas.

Edwards, an Australian lawyer, scholar and negotiator, was appointed to the unpaid role investigating torture allegations worldwide in 2022.
She is the seventh person in the position, the first woman to undertake the role, and one of 87 active mandate-holders supposed to report and advise on human rights from a thematic or country-specific perspective.

As part of her work, she has one staffer and is able to undertake a single official visit to a country to investigate torture allegations a year. She supplemented this with other self-funded visits and, in December 2024, she undertook a self-funded trip to southern Israel to document October 7.
“When something of that scale occurs and it is occurring in real time... it is important to be present and to investigate,” she said.

She described October 7 as “an atrocious event” and “one of the single largest abductions of individuals in modern history in one go”.
While her decision to investigate the attacks attracted criticism from anti-Israel activists, Edwards' mandate applied to all victims, including Palestinians alleging mistreatment in Israeli detention.

“When you’re the special rapporteur on torture, every victim counts. It is not that these victims are more important than those victims.”

Edwards also visited the kibbutzim that had been attacked, met hostage families, including Mandy Damari, and reviewed footage filmed by the perpetrators during the massacre.
“I understand I’m the only Special Rapporteur who has ever requested to go to the Israeli mission to see the video and the documented evidence,” she revealed.

According to Wagner, who represented hostage families with British links, Edwards was “without a doubt” the UN official who engaged most seriously with their concerns.
“She was the only UN official who they feel ever reached out for them or did anything for them,” he said.

The experience informed Edwards’ landmark report, Hostage Taking as Torture, which examines hostage-taking across conflicts from Colombia and Iraq to Ukraine, Iran and Nigeria.
“What is common among these scenarios? It is the mistreatment of the individuals that is being used as leverage,” she explained.

"It is not only that they have an individual, it is the threat that they are being tortured.
“That initial fear is very grave and then of course through the torment of that, being separated from families, being held in isolation, no proof of life of the individual for months and months on end and, in the case of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, being held in Unrwa schools, in tunnels, in mosques.”

During the conversation, Edwards also said she was concerned about a growing politicisation within the UN.

“The politicisation and the attempted politicisation and instrumentalisation of the special rapporteurs... going forward there are so many of us now.
“In the past we were this agile group forty years ago or thirty years ago of people that were supposed to be able to react actively and quickly to various issues that are going on in the world. Now we are being pushed to coordinate amongst one another.”
And she is similarly troubled by the emergence of some rapporteur mandates seemingly created by “a handful of governments” as a “counter to the stronger human rights angle”.
“Authoritarian and totalitarian governments don’t like the special rapporteurs, so they have created their own special rapporteurs and they fund them,” she explained, citing the Special Rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures – effectively a rapporteur against sanctions.

“Sanctions are one of the only tools we have as a human rights world to really put force on countries to do better and to stop torturing or persecuting their own populations,” she said.
She warned that chronic underfunding made the system vulnerable.
“When the system is so poorly resourced, one can be enticed to taking resources from places where one shouldn't take them,” she said. “And I think perceptions of bias are bad enough because we’re in a world where human rights are under threat,” she added.

Adam Wagner shared some of Edwards concerns.
“It appears these positions have been set up under the auspices of the Human Rights Council but they are working against some of the principles,” he said. “That is an extraordinary system to set up.”

But it is not only the rapporteur system that Edwards spoke candidly of – but the UN itself.
“The Secretary-General’s office and others are just no longer participating in peace negotiations, they are no longer front and centre,” she said.
Edwards worked under UN Secretary-General António Guterres during his time at UNHCR. Yet she believes the organisation has become increasingly sidelined as conflicts proliferate.
“At the moment of the Black Sea Grain Deal, he declared this was his greatest achievement in office. I couldn’t believe it. That is the greatest achievement in office?

“The amount of wars in the world are exponential. We have over 120 different armed conflicts going on at present and the whole raison d'être of the UN is to prevent and stop wars and they are just absent. They get invited last minute.”
“Now the UN is being organised outside the UN. We need the next UN Secretary-General to be honest about this sidelining.”
Edwards said the future of the UN is vital – but if its future cannot be guaranteed, then an alternative must be drawn up.

“We all want the UN to be a robust but also honest and objective body and if it can’t do the job, then maybe we do need to start thinking about what replaces it.

“That is a very worrying scenario,” she concluded.

By Jane Prinsley