{"id":6286,"date":"2025-07-16T17:23:32","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T15:23:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/?p=6286"},"modified":"2025-07-16T19:06:34","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T17:06:34","slug":"gaza-rights-end-criminality-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2025-07-16\/gaza-rights-end-criminality-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"On Gaza, the goal is to confuse us about where rights end and criminality begins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"subtitle\"><em><strong>An Israeli Jew is charged over referring to &#8216;Nazi Israel&#8217;. An anti-genocide protester risks arrest as a terrorist for waving a Palestinian flag. Starmer is intentionally stoking a climate of fear<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>A British-Israeli Jew, Yael Kahn, has been charged with causing &#8220;alarm or distress&#8221; for holding a placard referring to &#8220;Nazi Israel&#8221; at a London protest that opposed the <a href=\"https:\/\/jonathancook.substack.com\/p\/why-is-the-uk-sheltering-israels\" rel=\"\">continuing presence<\/a> of Tzipi Hotovely, Israel\u2019s genocide-justifying Israeli ambassador, in the UK. Kahn will appear in court tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FdMv_YBh07U?si=qhhKg5VWAM94I-th\" width=\"520\" height=\"300\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>There is a long tradition of Israeli and Jewish intellectuals, politicians and activists making just this sort of comparison between Israel and the Nazis. Many of these Jews were from the generation that lived through the Holocaust, and were presumably well-positioned to draw such a conclusion.<\/p>\n<p>Many decades ago the renowned Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz, nominated for the Israel Prize, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/archives\/la-xpm-1994-08-19-mn-28803-story.html\" rel=\"\">warned<\/a> that, after Israel began occupying the Palestinian territories in 1967, its soldiers had turned into &#8220;Judeo-Nazis&#8221;. Their behaviour has since got far, far worse than anything Liebowitz witnessed.<\/p>\n<p>In the early 1950s, Menachem Begin, who would later be elected prime minister of Israel, <a href=\"https:\/\/icahd.org\/2019\/05\/24\/atavastic-revenge-the-punitive-demolitions-of-palestinian-homes\/\" rel=\"\">declared<\/a> that &#8220;emergency regulations&#8221; adopted by the Israeli parliament \u2013 and used against Palestinians to this day \u2013 were &#8220;Nazi laws&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>In 2010, Hajo Meyer, an Auschwitz survivor who went on to become a noted physicist, spoke at an event at the House of Commons in which he repeatedly compared Israel&#8217;s behaviour to that of the Nazis \u2013 a comparison that was used by the Israeli lobby and British media to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-politics-45027582\" rel=\"\">smear<\/a> Jeremy Corbyn, his friend, as an antisemite by association.<\/p>\n<p>What we have been seeing ever since is the gradual expansion of this twin-pronged demonisation campaign: both to oust a political leader that threatened the establishment with a mildly democratic socialist programme; and to silence critics of Israel, including critics who are Jewish and Israeli.<\/p>\n<p>Corbyn, the establishment may hope, has mostly been neutered by the smears \u2013 though the first poll since he teamed up with Zarah Sultana to form a so-far unnamed new party suggests he may be more of a nuisance than they expected. It shows the pair currently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenational.scot\/news\/25314273.explosive-new-poll-puts-corbyn-sultana-party-level-labour\/\" rel=\"\">level-pegging<\/a> with Labour at about 15 per cent of votes.<\/p>\n<p>But more pressing for the establishment has been extinguishing growing popular anger at Britain\u2019s continuing complicity in Israel&#8217;s slaughter in Gaza, even as its genocidal nature becomes impossible to hide. Genocide and Holocaust scholars \u2013 including Israeli ones \u2013 are increasingly explicit on this point.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">You know how bad the Gaza genocide has got when even the New York Times is ready to publish a noted (Israeli) Holocaust scholar explaining why this is one.<\/p>\n<p>Omer Bartov: &#8220;Israel is literally trying to wipe out Palestinian existence in Gaza.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>More here: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/M6Rmhgpmiw\">https:\/\/t.co\/M6Rmhgpmiw<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ZhesA62c7p\">pic.twitter.com\/ZhesA62c7p<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1945057068714500106?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 15, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The campaign to crush dissent began before the genocide. It was the establishment\u2019s reaction to Corbyn becoming the first leader of one of the two main UK parties to give voice to widespread disquiet at Israel\u2019s increasingly blatant violence towards the Palestinian people and its refusal to concede any kind of Palestinian state.<\/p>\n<p>The British establishment\u2019s response was to impose a new <a href=\"https:\/\/holocaustremembrance.com\/resources\/working-definition-antisemitism\" rel=\"\">definition of antisemitism<\/a> \u2013 produced by an Israel lobby group, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) \u2013 that intentionally conflated criticism of Israel with hatred of Jews. One of the definition\u2019s many Israel-related examples of antisemitism is \u201cdrawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The IHRA definition, or rather mis-definition, of antisemitism has been widely adopted \u2013 either formally or informally \u2013 by British institutions, from the government and local councils to universities and the media.<\/p>\n<p>Though obscured, it is the implicit basis of the BBC&#8217;s refusal to allow its reporters \u2013 and guests \u2013 to make any allusion to Israel&#8217;s slaughter in Gaza as a genocide. The BBC behaves as if the Nazis had a monopoly on mass extermination \u2013 and so any reference to a genocide in Gaza equates it to the Holocaust and is therefore equivalent to antisemitism under the IHRA definition.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-media-max-width=\"560\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Reminder: Whistleblower reveals that the BBC has DIRECT instructions to safeguard Israel\u2019s image.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/2si0p8K7Or\">pic.twitter.com\/2si0p8K7Or<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Matt Aldarab (@mattybach1) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mattybach1\/status\/1945448953324929220?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 16, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The Starmer government is wielding other British institutions against the public: most significantly, the police and the courts. The legal sphere is being used to crush any meaningful criticism of Israel \u2013 and the British government\u2019s complicity in the Gaza genocide.<\/p>\n<p>In charging Kahn, the police are behaving as if the thoroughly discredited IHRA definition has actual legal standing. It doesn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>But the government\u2019s proscription this month of the direct action group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation \u2013 making it now equivalent to al-Qaeda or Islamic State \u2013 does.<\/p>\n<p>The implication is that any tangible form of action \u2013 or support for such action \u2013 to stop either arms firms in the UK or the British state arming the genocide amounts to terrorism. Activists and their supporters could spend 14 years in jail as a result.<\/p>\n<p>The government\u2019s response is shocking \u2013 and is meant to be. It sends a chilling message that any opposition to Israel\u2019s genocide is a highly risky endeavour that could leave one deprived of freedom and permanently tainted with a terrorism conviction.<\/p>\n<p>The government\u2019s goal has been precisely to muddy the waters about where basic rights end and criminality begins. It is to make the public frightened to protest in any meaningful way against Israel\u2019s oppression of Palestinians, whether it be its system of apartheid, its prolonged siege of Palestinian territory, its intensification of a long-standing ethnic cleansing programme, or now its genocide.<\/p>\n<p>The direction of travel is clear, as two Kent police officers showed by threatening this week to arrest an anti-genocide protester under the Terrorism Act for waving a Palestinian flag and holding a banner saying \u201cFree Palestine\u201d.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-media-max-width=\"560\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">This video shows Kent police threatening to arrest a protester under the Terrorism Act \u2013 leaving them facing up to 14 years in jail \u2013 simply for waving a Palestinian flag and calling Israel&#8217;s actions in Gaza a genocide.<\/p>\n<p>The direction of travel under Starmer is now clear. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/qKz23CCtPq\">pic.twitter.com\/qKz23CCtPq<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1945277768217874464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 16, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Whether the police officers\u2019 threats are backed by the law or not is largely beside the point. This is about creating a climate of fear.<\/p>\n<p>Hard-won democratic rights are evaporating \u2013 as the West digs in to support its most important surviving, militarised colonial outpost, created nearly 80 years ago to secure the Middle East\u2019s oil wealth.<\/p>\n<p>The lengths western capitals are willing to go to prop up Israel, even as it shreds international law, tells us everything we need to know about where their real priorities lie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An Israeli Jew is charged over referring to &#8216;Nazi Israel&#8217;. An anti-genocide protester risks arrest as a terrorist for waving a Palestinian flag. Starmer is intentionally stoking a climate of fear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6287,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[33,7],"class_list":{"0":"post-6286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-gaza","9":"tag-israel-lobby"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6286"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6291,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6286\/revisions\/6291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}