They Don’t Need To Ban The Canary If They Can Debank It

They Don’t Need To Ban The Canary If They Can Debank It

Right, so The Canary has just been debanked and this is something that should raise immediate alarm bells with all of us. An independent media outlet has just had its banking services withdrawn. A fundraiser is now being launched to help keep it going, and I’m covering this because when an independent media organisation is financially cut off like this, we are looking at something much bigger than one outlet having a bad week with a bank, because we’ve seen too much of this going on, certainly at individual levels, but this is a whole other ball game and as independent media as well, this could literally happen to any of us, hence the importance of those who support us and as such we support each other too. Obviously, facts matter here. The appeal process depends on them being known, but the democratic issue, much easier to talk about at this early stage ought to be obvious already. Debanking means a bank or payment provider withdraws financial services from you. That can mean an account closed. It can mean payments blocked. It can mean access disrupted. It can mean donation routes interrupted. It can mean the basic financial plumbing of an organisation suddenly stops working properly. Think what it would mean to you to find yourself in a position where you had no access to money. What would you do? And for a media outlet, that is the same only amplified. That is survival.

Unaffordable Warfare; Too Many Fronts Have Sent Israel's Defence Budget Broke!

Right, so Israel's war machine has run into a problem. Not more Hamas or Hezbollah tunnels. Not a wave of drones they didn’t see coming. Not the Iranian bogeyman wheeled out for the cameras because Netanyahu needs another week of political oxygen as his actions leave Israel gasping for breath. It’s an invoice. The little bit of paper that turns up after the speeches are over, after the flags are packed away, after the generals have finished pointing at maps, and it says: lovely, very dramatic, but who's actually paying for all of this now? Because this is not a story about Israel suddenly having no army tomorrow morning. It is not "the IDF has gone to the cupboard and found three buttons and a lonely biscuit where the interceptor shells for the Iron Dome used to be." That would be a lovely image, admittedly, but that's not the bill we're talking about. Calcalist is reporting that Israel's budget deadlock could hit new shell production orders from Elbit, and could also disrupt procurement of air-defence interceptors from Rafael and Israel Aerospace Industries. The firms that make the things, the factories, the orders, the payments. The bit of the war machine that doesn't run on speeches and photo ops and Netanyahu in a flak jacket looking like he's wandered out of a cosplay convention for deranged and dangerous men. It runs on money. And apparently, funny thing, when you spend years expanding war like he’s been doing, the money eventually becomes a bit of an issue.

Ben-Gvir’s Hard Man Act Backfires; Consequences Finally Arrive?

Right, so before we even get to this war-crimes complaint heading Itamar Ben-Gvir’s way, let’s just remind ourselves for a moment at what this soulless psychopath apparently thought made him look strong. The minister, the flag, the detainees on the ground with their hands bound with zip ties, the little stroll-through like he's inspecting a prize-winning marrow at a village fair, except the marrow is human humiliation and the fairground is Israeli state violence. Nobody leaked that. Nobody hid it. He wasn't desperate to bury it. It's the image he wanted out there. He looked at it and thought, yes, that's me, that's my brand. But here's his problem now. When you turn abject cruelty into content sooner or later someone, somewhere, is filing it. And they have. The Hind Rajab Foundation says it has now filed a request for prosecution with the US Department of Justice against Itamar Ben-Gvir, ahead of his expected presence in New York on the 7th and 8th of July. They allege war crimes, genocide-related offences and incitement, including in relation to US nationals. To be clear, this is not the DOJ charging him. This is HRF filing a request for prosecution. But Ben-Gvir's US visit is not just running into bad press, or protest, or a few angry people outside a hotel with placards. It is running into a record that even the US cannot ignore here, especially after his recent Visa problems forcing him to cancel a trip to Florida recently, because the US Embassy wanted his fingerprints. Well, he does have a criminal record for terror offences that no amount of crying and antisemitism accusation will make go away. Now some of this case file remains confidential, but a lot of it doesn't and that’s because he performed it, he filmed it, he posted it on social media and Israeli media as a trophy.

Trump’s Iran Bribe Backfires; Costs Him 2 MILLION Barrels Of Crude!

Right, so Donald Trump’s great Iran MoU has reached the stage every American peace deal in West Asia seems to reach sooner or later: somebody starts bombing the peace partner. Beautiful stuff. Tremendous diplomacy. The sort of peace framework where the ink is still drying, the Gulf is already lighting up, Israel is measuring curtains in southern Lebanon, and Nabih Berri, the Lebanese Parliamentary Speaker has to send in a camel because apparently nobody can explain sedition without help from livestock. And no, this is not just "regional tensions rising". I hate that phrase. It is wallpaper for arson. It makes war sound like rising damp. Tensions did not wander in off the street and knock over a table by accident. Somebody did this. Washington did this. Israel is doing this. Trump's sham of a deal did this. Because the trick was never complicated. Iran keeps Hormuz open. Trump gets his oil route back and the markets bounce which is a win for him. Israel gets the right to stay in southern Lebanon. The spineless Aoun government gets used as the stamp on the envelope for that process. And then everyone claps because this shambles gets called peace. But Lebanon was always a red line. That is the bit they have either missed, ignored, or filed away under "awkward things to deal with once the cameras have gone". Iran was never going to watch Israel bedding into southern Lebanon and shrug, and say, well, Aoun signed this thing, so that settles it. You don’t rub out a red line by handing the pen to somebody else.

The Decision That Has The Israel Lobby In Panic Mode

Right, so Britain's doctors have just done something the Israel lobby will absolutely hate. They have taken IHRA, one of Israel's favourite institutional weapons, the one that gets waved around every time someone criticises what Israel is doing to Palestinians, and they've put it straight in the NHS bin. And no, before the usual bad-faith sock puppets start limbering up, this is not doctors saying antisemitism does not matter. Of course antisemitism matters. Racism matters. Patients and staff should not be abused, intimidated or treated like dirt at work. But that’s not the argument is ot? The argument is what happens when a definition that is supposed to tackle racism gets wired into workplace discipline, regulator complaints and professional fear, because then it stops looking like protection. It starts looking like a weapon. Palestine speech became a career risk, and the process itself became the punishment. The process itself is the tool of silencing. Not the verdict. Not the final finding. Not even the suspension in some cases. The process. That letter landing in your inbox. That meeting with management. That referral to the GMC. That little professional stink that starts following you around before anything has actually been proven. A smear. A career threat. And that is how these things work, isn't it? You don't always need to win the case if the complaint has already done enough damage. You just need to make the example visible. You just need every other doctor watching to think, "Right, say too much about Gaza and that could be me next."