Starmer Builds An Israel Trap; Then It Gets Awkward

Lebanon’s Parliament Does What Its Government Won’t; Israel’s Dodgy Deal Dead?

Right, so Israel has got itself a shiny new Lebanon deal. A ceasefire deal. A de-escalation deal. A Washington-backed framework, which means they don’t need to cease firing at all. Very serious people have apparently been very seriously working on this, which is always comforting, isn't it? Nothing says peace quite like a conference table full of people who won't be anywhere near the blast radius. But then of course this is what south Lebanon actually gets out of this isn’t it? Diplomatic breakthrough? Don't make me laugh. That is what a peace framework looks like when it hits the ground face-first. So before anyone starts wafting the word "calm" around like air freshener in a burning kitchen, let's be clear what this story actually is. Israel has a deal it wants to sell as security. Washington has a framework it wants to sell as diplomacy. Lebanon has smoke in the sky and explosions on the ground and too much of people’s everyday lives are in flames, a Parliament Speaker doing his best Ian McKellen impression and saying to this deal “you shall not pass!” And an annex full of terms and conditions and exceptions in the background. But the first thing that really matters after the explosions isn't another Israeli spokesman telling us how responsible they are and how moral their ceasefire busting army is. That particular circus horse has been doing that lap for years, it’s spent. What matters is what happens when this deal hits Lebanese politics, or more specifically when it comes to be debated, because it’s all well and good Joseph Aoun’s government signing southern Lebanon away in effect, Lebanon is a democracy, and that still has to get through their parliament.

Starmer Builds An Israel Trap; Then It Gets Awkward

Right, so this is one of those stories where the danger isn't wearing a helmet, waving a flag, or kicking someone's door in at six in the morning. It's sitting in a Bill. Nice and quiet. Grey paper, serious title, national security sprayed all over it, but not in a nice way, more like a skunk. Starmer seems to be thinking just how much authoritarian borderline fascist policy can I ram through before handing over to Andy Burnham, and so his government is pushing a State Threats Bill, and the sales pitch is exactly what you'd expect: Russia, China, Iran, hostile powers, urgent threats, but don't worry your little heads about the wording. Yeah you, let me decide what I’ll worry about thank you very much Keith. And it’s in the House of Lords that the nasty bit of this has been pointed out. Information. Not money. Not weapons. Not formal support. Information. The thing journalists ask for, the thing aid workers need, the thing war reporting is actually built out of. And then it gets even more awkward, because the government says this whole proscription-style state-threats machine comes from Jonathan Hall's recommendation, Jonathan Hall KC and for those of us familiar with Johnathan Hall KC, the alarm bells are very much ringing. His public record on Israel, protest and terrorism law is not exactly what I’d call neutral.

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.