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Anthony McIntyre ☠ Israel has closed its investigation into the IDF murders of seven aid workers in 2024. 


The murdered workers, three British citizens, a dual US-Canadian national, a Polish citizen, an Australian, and a Palestinian, belonged to the World Central Kitchen. The reason for their murder - delivery of food aid to Gazan civilians being starved by Israel.

And to rub salt into the wound the Israeli announcement came on World Humanitarian Day. It was a demonstrable flip of the bird by Israeli to international law in which it demonstrated its contempt for the international legal institutions which on paper at any rate exist for the purpose of holding to account those guilty of Nazi-like atrocities.

The governments of the UK, Australia and Canada issued a joint statement in which they said that the IDF announcement 'that it would not pursue criminal investigations into this strike, without further explanation, is shameful."

The World Central Kitchen which employed the murdered aid workers called the Israeli decision "inconsistent with the full truth and deeply offensive."

This move comes in tandem with an acknowledgement by the IDF of something that  everybody else has known since 2024. For the past two years the IDF has lied, claiming to have had no forces in the area of the mass murder that saw the deaths of six year old Hind Rajab who:

was found dead inside a car riddled with hundreds of bullets in Gaza City alongside six members of her family, days after she desperately called for help during an hours-long phone call with the Palestinian Red Crescent.

Hind Rajab's remaining family members have expressed no confidence in the Israeli promise to investigate as has the Hind Rajab Foundation in Brussels which rightly pointed out that:

Investigations into violations committed by Israeli forces overwhelmingly end without meaningful examination, prosecution, or punishment . . . In the small number of cases in which soldiers have been convicted of crimes, the punishments imposed have often been exceptionally lenient or administrative in nature.

It is Israel's Nazi-like belief that it is above and beyond international law and that it can murder at will with no fear of accountability that allows Israeli Security Minister Ben Givr, to invoke the Nazi concept of untermesch to advocate that:

targeted assassinations should be carried out in Gaza, taking down 30 to 40 every night . . . Not just those who pose an immediate threat . . . There are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn't live. They're not even people.

Yet there are those who would not be upset by that statement but would claim to be deeply offended by, and squeal antisemitism at, others for describing the author of such a heinous statement as a Nazi.

This is what makes the decision to fire International Criminal Court prosecutor, Karim Khan an alarming development with Jonathan Cook warning that with his dismissal 'the elimination of the war crimes court is near-complete.'

If Khan is guilty of sexual harassment of a woman named only as Sarah, then there is no appropriate response to his dismissal other than goodbye and good riddance. Yet as Cook points out:

A fact-finding body carried out a lengthy investigation of Sarah’s allegations over more than a year; its thousands of pages of evidence were then evaluated in detail by three senior judges. Though you would not know it from the media coverage, they concluded that there was no evidence to suggest any kind of misconduct by Khan, sexual or otherwise.

He continued that:

an entirely political body called the Assembly of States Parties, comprising diplomatic representatives of the 125 states signed up to the ICC, entirely ignored the legal findings and dismissed Khan. Paradoxically, it was the Assembly of States Parties that appointed the judges who had concluded that there was no evidence of misconduct or breach of duty by Khan. That inconvenient judgment was simply reversed, despite the Assembly members being in no position to weigh the evidence themselves.

Khan was previously told by a British-Israel lawyer with connection to Netanyahu “they will destroy you and they will destroy the court' if the arrest warrants for Israeli leaders were not rescinded. 

The same determination to evade accountability in the ICC was in play when Fatou Bensouda the Ghanian legal figure was ICC prosecutor for nine years. Bensouda reported that she was also the subject of intense pressure from a strategic initiative launched by Mossad. The Mossad aim according to an Israeli official speaking to the Guardian was 'to compromise the prosecutor or enlist her as someone who would cooperate with Israel’s demands.'

We know the truth behind the murder of the aid workers and the Hind Rajab massacre.  It is a truth we assemble at this spot every Saturday as Drogheda Stands With Palestine, to proclaim. The message that rings out from this spot and others each time people of conscience gather in solidarity with the murdered of Gaza and the West Bank is you may have got rid of Khan, but getting rid of the truth - No Khan do. We steadfastly refuse to allow you.

⏩Follow on Bluesky.

No Khan Do

Catherine McGinty ✏ writing in Derry News.

Taken to a secret interrogation centre in the North, the men were subjected by British forces to the ‘five techniques’

On this, the 55th anniversary of Internment (August 9, 1971), the names of 14 internees, out of the 342 people arrested and detained that day, are particularly significant.
Derry's Micky Donnelly One of the 14 'Hooded Men' tortured during Internment - Reporter


Jim Auld, Joe Clarke, Michael Donnelly, Kevin Hannaway, Francie McGuigan, Paddy Joe McLean, Sean McKenna, Gerry McKerr, Patrick McNally, Michael Montgomery, Davy Rodgers, Liam Shannon, Pat Shivers and Brian Turley - known collectively as ‘The Hooded Men’.

Taken to a secret interrogation centre in the North, the men were subjected by British forces to the “five techniques” - a group of interrogation methods developed by Britain during the twentieth century and currently regarded as a form of torture.

The “five techniques” were: hooding, stress positions, continuous white noise, sleep deprivation, and food/water deprivation—alongside severe physical beatings. The 14 were also thrown to the ground from low-flying helicopters.

Speaking to The Derry News about being one of the ‘Hooded Men’ Michael Donnelly, who lived in the William Street area of the city at the time, said he never thought the British Government would introduce Internment. “I thought it would be a big mistake,” he added.

Recalling the morning of Internment, Mr Donnelly, who was 22 and married with one child at the time, said:

I heard a bang and as I was getting out of bed the room filled with soldiers. There must have been six or seven and they were all crammed in.
So I was taken away and there was a corporal, he was very enthusiastic, he started throwing punches at me. I was taken in a landrover down to Victoria Barracks and held there for a while.
I just remember it was dawn. It was quite cold. I was wearing a tee-shirt and trousers.
There was nobody else there, then they brought in Micky McNutt. We were held there for a while. There was a lot of activity - landrovers and saracens going in and out of the barracks.
I had a soldier standing in front of me with a rifle and the sergeant major said, ‘If he moves, shoot him. You have my permission to shoot him.

After what he thought was half an hour, Mr Donnelly was put in the back of an army lorry. Mr Donnelly, who was taken to Sea Eagle at Ebrington Barracks in the Waterside said:

A whole pile of soldiers came in and threw me on the floor and they all cocked their rifles and started jabbing me and Micky McNutt. There were six or seven rifles all pointing at us, stuck into us, jabbing us said 

He added\: 

I remember them saying, ‘You better hope we don’t go over a bump. 
In there there was a whole pile of people and they all stood in a line outside. I remember Barney Gilmore being brought in. He was an elderly man. They held him in the back of a landrover while they drove about raiding and they fired a rubber bullet into his stomach at point-blank range.
Myself and Joe McGlinchey, they threw Barney Gilmore down at our feet, so we went to help him and both of us were hit with rifle butts. Eventually they dragged Barney away and he went to Altnagelvin. Apparently he had a serious operation and his health wasn’t great for then on.
We went into Ebrington Barracks. There was a big, long line. There were Brits all around with batons and rifles. We went down into this portacabin and there were two Special Branch men sitting, and there was an army blanket with a slit in it hanging up.

Mr Donnelly, who finished up in the back of a furniture removal van, with “a dozen or two dozen others” and was driven to Magilligan, said:

We marched in and the Special Branch man spoke to the blanket. ‘What about this one?’ he asked, and whoever was behind the blanket disguised his voice and said ‘Yes’. The Branch man turned to the Brits and said, ‘Take him out. We're keeping him.’

At this stage, Mr Donnelly had still received nothing to eat or drink. He recalled:

They started taking people down and questioning them. You were marched down to another hut, between policemen, and they said, ‘We’ll make you an offer. Tell us what you know. You are going to jail but tell us what you know. If you tell us a little, you’ll be in jail for a long time but if you tell us a lot, you’ll not be too long’. “I said, ‘You’ve the wrong man’ so they marched me back up again but I still think to this day there was somebody giving them information.
Gradually people started going away and the numbers in the huts were getting smaller and I finished up in a hut on my own. At roughly nine o’clock at night, I was taken out and put in another hut with Paddy Joe McLean, Pat Shivers and Mickey Montgomery.
The Brits started battering the hut with their batons and shouting in and telling us what they were going to do to us. As the night went on we didn't get any sleep and we still hadn’t got anything to eat or drink.

Mr Donnelly added: 

Paddy Joe McClean said ‘Boys, I think they’ve separated us for something special, you better prepare yourselves. This went on till three or four in the morning, . . . then we could hear helicopters starting up outside.

Michael Donnelly's wife Martina immortalised in a poster for Derry's annual
radical  bookfair from an old black and white photograph. | Submitted

RUC Chief Inspector Singleton called a Constable Hood and he came down behind me and pulled a hood over my head and started punching me. I was handcuffed behind my back and dragged out and dumped into a helicopter and somebody was dumped on top of me.
I could feel the wind because the door was open. I heard it opening when we were up in the air. Somebody was shouting and getting dragged over to the door. Then they pulled my hood up a bit. I could feel his hand against my ear. They dragged me to the door and said, ‘Are you going to talk?’ and I said, ‘Up the Republic’.
So they held me at the door. There was a hand behind my head. I was spun round and threw out of the helicopter. I’m guessing it was maybe eight or ten feet up in the air. I didn’t know how high up we were. I landed on my back.

“I was then dragged over rough ground into a hut with the hood still over my head,” Mr Donnelly said said who added he saw a doctor and an orderly when his hood was accidentally pulled up a little.

Mr Donnelly was then made to stand facing against a wall in a stress position and subjected to continuous noise, in between Special Branch interrogations. The torture continued for days.

Michael Donnelly was interned from August 9, 1971 until January 1974.

None of the ‘Hooded Men’ were ever convicted of any offence.

In 1976 the European Commission on Human Rights (ECHR) heard an application by the Irish Government on behalf of the Hooded Men and ruled they had been tortured. The Court found the torture ‘showed a clear resemblance to those methods of systematic torture which have been known over the ages…’

According to Mr Donnelly, he named some of the RUC personnel involved in the torture ot the ‘Hooded Men’ when he was told by the PSNI it was unable to locate any records relating to those responsible.

“This information has not been followed up, as far as I am aware,” said Michael Donnelly.

⏩Catherine McGinty is a journalist covering the North West.

'Hooded Men' Still Fighting For Justice For Internment Torture

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Seventy Three

 

Hate Theology @ 13

 

A Morning Thought @ 3245

Gary Robertson ⚽ August 20th, 2026 marks the 45th anniversary of the passing of hunger striker Michael Devine. Thoughts are with his family, friends and comrades. 

European football returned to Celtic Park. Wednesday the 19th of August saw the champions of Scotland face the champions of Austria in the first leg of a Champions League qualifier.

As with most things Celtic I’m usually pretty nervous come kick off time. And so when LASK scored in 29 seconds I feared for the night ahead. Thankfully this goal, a cracker BTW, was flagged offside. The score remained 0-0 and I was able to breathe one very large sigh of relief.
 
Shots from Duran, the first Colombian to play for Scotland's premier club, in the 7th and 9th min showed Celtic were capable of getting behind the LASK defence and causing problems.
 
However at the other end the speedy Nigerian Moses Usor made life difficult for a Celtic defence lacking pace.
 
The breakthrough coming from the boot of Benjamin Nygren in the 26th minute was well worth the wait. A left foot half volley into the top corner of the LASK net sent the stadium into raptures along with the millions watching at home, in bars and other places around the world.
 
A moment of warning for Celtic as a beautiful cross into the box met the head of LASK's big USA striker Samuel Adeniran who fortunately for Celtic fans was rightly judged to be offside. A second LASK celebration cut short.
 
Then the second moment of pure footballing magic: a volley from the 18 yard line thundered from the boot of star man Duran and crashed into the net. The Hoops were 2-0 ahead. The stuff dreams are made of. His first at Celtic Park and one we and he will never forget.
 
Celtic were in the driving seat and in the second half a McGregor shot came crashing back off the post showed the Bhoys were in the mood for more. And so it transpired in the 67th minute when some world class link up play between Nygren and Duran created the opportunity for the South American to fire home his second.
 
On the night Celtic were formidable and probably the best they’ve been for a quite some considerable time.
 
Martin O’Neill's men have one foot in the champions league group stage. It’s all in their hands with the return leg played on Tuesday 25th August.
 
Here’s hoping 🤞
 
Meanwhile the picture is less rosy on the other side of the city. Regular readers will know that despite by obvious preferences I try to remain unbiased. But right now it’s difficult to look at The Rangers as anything other than a very very poor imitation of the great teams of the past that played at that stadium in those shirts.
 
McInnes has spent money, a lot of money and still the threat appears to be missing. One swallow does not make a summer and as pointed out last week beating a poor St Mirren side may have looked good on paper but the football isn’t a great watch.
 
Rangers are floundering in the Conference League, most certainly not where they hoped to be but a situation of their own making.
 
So when they took to the pitch against a team ranked outside the top 150 in UEFA rankings, Rangers themselves ranked 49, I’m sure the home fans expected an easy goal-laden Thursday evening.
What transpired was pitiful to say the least.
 
Don’t get me wrong there are players at the club who can turn on the magic but honestly, and I’m sure Rangers fans would agree, most look well out of their depth.
 
There’s a massive difference playing for a club like Hearts where finishing in the top six and perhaps a trophy every few years will suffice, to turning up at Ibrox where you’re expected to win every game, where fans desperate for success put enormous pressure on the players. It can be all too much for some.
Rangers scrambled over the line in this one. After the half time boos, an all too common phenomenon at “The big hoose” , the second half was only slightly better. Some nice interplay managed to land the ball at the feet of Naderi, and the big German (whom we pointed out as one to watch last season - little self promotion here 🤣 - I need it believe me as you’ll see)) tapped home to give the home side a 1-0 victory. A horror tackle by Cammy Devlin in the 74th minute was originally missed by the referee but having been called over to the monitor the man in the middle saw what we all saw and Devlin walked. All I’ll say about this is if you lunged at someone on the street like this you’d have been arrested for assault and in all honesty the victim of this is incredibly lucky not to have sustained a very serious injury.
 
In other European news Motherwell's disastrous week continued as they lost 3-1 at home to Frieburg. With an away leg to come it’s an uphill task for the Steel men. Hibernian managed a respectable 0-0 against Belgian side Gent.
 
Hearts also gained some credibility with a 2-2 home draw with Rapid Vienna.

Outside of Scotland,Shamrock Rovers drew 1-1 at home with Finnish side KuPS and Larne took care of Lincoln Red Imps with a comfortable 2-0 away victory.
 
Celtic lost away to Lincoln Red Imps on July 12th 2016, so I guess it’s only right I acknowledge Larne doing what Celtic couldn’t.

Anyhow . . . 

With second leg European ties to look forward to the SPL was postponed this weekend with only one game taking place but a mouthwatering prospect (or so it seemed) of a Dundee derby to wrap up your Saturday night.
 
I don’t like to climb down, I’d rather hide than admit I was wrong but I was so wrong about Dundee United.
 
Against Celtic, despite coming out on the wrong side of a 4-0 drubbing, I could see promise in their play. This was however absent completely from their game at home to their rivals. They looked disjointed, disorganised, never looked like a threat to the Dundee defence and got everything they deserved.
 
A 2-0 victory for Dundee was fully deserved and questions must be asked about Goodwin's management of the club. I suspect he’s living very much on borrowed time.
 
Whilst scouring fan forums and reports on this game I was desperately trying to find some words of encouragement for fans of the club once known as Dundee Hibernian. Sadly there’s nothing. United were outdone in every department and the five minute walk back to Dens Park for the away team (tradition has it that teams walk to the opposition's ground in this derby such is the proximity of both grounds) must have filled them with confidence going forward.
 
For fans of United it looks bleak and while it’s early days, losing as well as winning can become a habit and, in the words of the band “Chicago”, a hard habit to break.
 
Scottish Championship news: last weeks giant killers Stenhousemuir remain top of the table after a 2-0 victory over bottom of the table Queen’s Park.
 
Partick and Raith Rovers also share top spot, with Partick having drawn with Inverness on Friday night, dropping two points in the process, and Raith Rovers taking care of business with a 2-0 victory over the men from Somerset Park, Ayr United.

League One and Hamilton remain a point clear at the top after a less than convincing 0-0 draw at The Bayview Stadium, the home of East Fife. Second place Ross County closed the gap to within a point with a comfortable over Airdrie. East Kilbride in third however crashed to an unexpected humiliation at the hands of Montrose, who proved my fears of last week to be unfounded, in a 3-0 victory that lifts Montrose “The Gable endes” as they’re known, off the foot of the table.

Finally last but not least League Two.
 
Clyde continue to head the table with a 3-0 victory over Forfar who now sit third. Second place Elgin fought out a thrilling 3-3 draw with Spartans. Much to keep the 445 in attendance with both sides awarded a penalty and incident galore with the away fans having to endure a 234 mile round trip if not the score they hoped for. As Maximus Decimus Meridius yelled in the 2000 movie Gladiator “were you not entertained”? The answer must be a resounding yes.
 
Keilty Hearts overcame Dumbarton 3-1 to remain within touching distance of the top of the table with three points separating the four clubs.

Premiership action returns on the 29th with Celtic at home to Falkirk, and on Sunday Rangers away to Aberdeen which will be shown on Sky Sports at 12pm.

So that’s a week that belonged to Celtic, to Duran in particular. Onward and upward troops.

Have a great week, whatever you’re doing have fun, stay safe and take care.

Til next time ……

🐼 Gary Robertson is the TPQ Scottish football correspondent.

Duran Duran

Heartlands Tribune ☭ Written by Paul Knaggs. Recommended by Mark Hayes. 

Broken Rules, Silent Leaders: The Institutional Rot Inside UNISON

When UNISON allowed a biological male to stand for a seat reserved for disabled women, it broke trade union law and its own constitution. When seven nurses were harassed in their changing room, it looked the other way. Britain’s largest union has not merely lost its way; it has actively turned on the female members who fund it.

An institution is never truly tested by the glossy rhetoric of its annual conference, nor by the high-sounding platitudes of its press releases. It is tested by its rulebook. We understand instinctively that when a person breaks a solemn promise, that failure becomes the measure of their character. Yet we extend a strange, forgiving leniency to our institutions, whether they are governments, churches, or trade unions. We allow them to wrap themselves in the language of moral righteousness while ignoring the binding contracts they wrote when nobody was striking a pose.

UNISON, a union built on the dues of more than 1.3 million members, three-quarters of whom are women, wrote its constitution with unusual precision. Its drafters knew exactly what they were doing.

Continue @ Heartlands Tribune.

The Ideological Capture Of UNISON 🪶 A Crisis Inside Britain’s Trade Unions

Barry Gilheany ✍ In what has been greeted as a victory for academic freedom and freedom of speech . . . 

. . . or seen as valediction for contemporary antisemitism masquerading as antizionism, depending on one’s opinion or stake in this controversial saga, David Miller, Professor of Political Sociology at the University of Bristol, won his case for unfair dismissal at the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) against his former employer who had dismissed him for his post because of their determination that he had not met the standards of behaviour expected from staff. 

The dismissal related to allegations from students that Professor Miller had engaged in antisemitism during one of his lectures. He was ultimately cleared of any unlawful behaviour and in August 2026, after an appeal by Bristol University authorities against the earlier judgement, the EAT upheld the 2024 employment tribunal findings that Professor Miller’s anti-Zionist beliefs constituted a protected philosophical belief under Section 10 of the Equalities Act 2010.[1]

The finding that Professor’s Miller’s beliefs had statutory protection goes to the heart of the debates surrounding his actions. For his supporters, the EAT ruling upheld the principles of academic freedom and freedom of speech against a concerted campaign by Zionist and Israeli backed lobbies to silence him. For his opponents, Miller was an avatar for the rising antisemitism on and off campus, noting his stigmatisation of Jewish communal organisations like the Community Security Trust (CST) as agents of the Israeli state. Exactly which antizionist beliefs have legal protection and to what extent and precisely what sort of philosophical beliefs enjoy this privilege are also raised by the EAT ruling. At the outset, I wish to state that the bar of academic/scholarly/literary opinion and judgement is a much better forum for the resolution of or judgement on the types on intellectual imbroglios like the Miller case than the blunt instrument of the law. That Professor Miller has been vindicated in law and intends to return to his post should not preclude critical scrutiny of the ideas he promotes and his research methodology.

But first it is necessary to give an outline of how the controversy played out. In 2019, Miller said that Israel was supporting interfaith events involving Muslims and Jews as a trojan horse to increase the acceptance of Zionism in the Muslim community. As an example, he mentioned a gathering of Muslims and Jews at the East London mosque.[2]

Sabrina Miller, Campaigns Officer at Bristol University’s Jewish Students Society (JSoc) and who had campaigned for Miller’s dismissal, wrote a number of articles about him. According to Ms Miller, JSoc had complained about Miller’s “Harms of the Powerful” lecture module. Miller had used a Powerpoint slide during one lecture, which he had created in 2013, aiming to demonstrate the existence of a Zionist network in Britain. Among this presentation was a description of Zionism as one of “The Five Pillars of Islamophobia. The University rejected the complaint on the grounds that Miller’s lectures did not contain any material that was hostile to Jews and therefore could not be considered antisemitic.[3]

On 17 March 2021 Bristol University announced that it had begun an investigation into Miller on the basis of a series of comments Miller had had made in the recent past on Zionism and its influence on British politics and Jewish communal life. The probe focused largely on a nine-minute video he posted on You Tube in which he accused Israel of an “all out onslaught on the left globally” and demanded “the end of Zionism as a functioning ideology”. He further accused the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) of endangering the safety of Muslim students on campus as it “is constitutionally bound to promoting Israel” and the alleged “UJS lobbying for Israel us a threat to the safety of Arab and Muslim students as well as of Jewish students and indeed of all critics of Israel”. He went on to asset:

There is a real question of abuse here – of Jewish students on British campuses being used by a violent foreign regime engaged in ethnic cleansing.

He said that the complaints by Jewish student groups against him were part of “a drive to stop anyone speaking out about Palestine”.[4]


In that video also he condemned the contested IHRA definition of antisemitism as “manufactured controversies around Judeophobia – such as in my case – are being used to silence criticism of Zionism and Israel” which was the purpose of the definition “in practice”. He mused that “If Saudi Arabia was engaged in a similar censorship campaign on British campuses, we would laugh it out of the room.”[5]

In my view, it is appropriate at this juncture to point out that that the surveillance by the Chinese Communist Party of Chinese students and the violent targeting of dissidents on British campuses by tyrannical Middle Eastern regimes like Iraq under Saddam Hussein; Libya under Colonel Gadaffi and the Islamic Republic of Iran would hardly qualify to be laughed out of court as they have actually occurred.

Avon and Somerset Constabulary launched an investigation into possible hate crime but found no evidence with which to pursue it. Battle lines soon formed for and against the main protagonist in this latest cause celebre over free speech, antisemitism and the Israel/Palestine conflict. Marie van der Zyl, then President of the Board of Deputies for British Jews, said in a letter on 19 February 2021 that Miller’s “increasingly hysterical attacks on British Jewish organisations were raising the prospect of real physical harm”. She cited Miller’s “particular obsession” with the Community Security Trust (CST), the body which monitors and collates attacks on British Jews and arranges security for Jewish communal buildings like synagogues and schools, which he had said, “should be under investigation for its ties with the State of Israel.” The then Labour MP Thangam Debbonaire, whose constituency included Bristol University, denounced Miller’s remarks as did the Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees.[6]

On 4 March 2021 historian David Feldman, a critic of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, wrote that Miller’s work on Israel and Zionism was in the tradition of ‘conspiracy theorists [who] have pointed to Jews as the malign force driving the modern world. In April 2021, 550 academics including Simon Schama and Simon Sebag Montefiore signed a letter condemning Professor Miller. Support for Miller came from the Iranian regime backed Press TV network which wrote that there was a concerted campaign against Professor Miller” and “intense activity by the Zionist lobby across the length and breadth of the British political landscape”.[7]

Bristol University terminated Miller’s employment with “immediate effect” on 1 October 2021 as “he did not meet the standards of behaviour we expect from our staff." The precise reasons for the university’s conclusion were confidential but the Guardian reported they were understood not to cover the content of lectures. The university disciplinary hearing involved a third-party investigation by a QC who found Miller’s comments “did not constitute unlawful speech.”[8]

In response to Miller’s sacking, a Change.Org petition was set up which gathered over 40,000 signatures. An open letter to the university was signed by hundreds of public intellectuals and academics including world renowned figures such as Noam Chomsky and Professor Judith Butler as well as several dozen Bristol University academics calling for his reinstatement. This letter stated that 

Professor Miller is an eminent scholar, is known internationally for exposing the role that powerful actors and well-resourced co-ordinated networks play in manipulating and stage-managing public debates including on racism.

A separate letter signed by hundreds of Jewish supporters of Miller, stated that:

Jewish opinion on Zionism has always been diverse and that the attacks on Miller will chill free speech on Israel if left unchallenged.[9]

In 2023, Miller commended employment tribunal proceedings, claiming “unfair dismissal, breach of contract and discrimination on grounds of religion or belief” and was duly vindicated by the tribunal on 5 February 2024. A statement from Miller’s solicitors said that Miller successfully claimed discrimination based on his philosophical belief that Zionism is “inherently racist, imperialist and colonial” was a protected characteristic under equality legislation. The judgement did say that there was a thirty per cent chance he would have been sacked for additional social media comments he made two months after his sacking had he still been employed by Bristol University. In August 2026 the EAT dismissed the university’s appeal, confirming the protection of his philosophical beliefs under the Equality Act. Professor Miller has since stated his intention to return to his former post.

So ran the course of an employment dispute which became a crucible for the discussion of so many issues related as to what exactly are the boundaries of academic inquiry and the integrity of it and free speech generally versus the sensibilities of an ethno-religious community or some constituent parts of it which in turn raises the questions of the plurality of thought and the arbiters of opinion within that community – British Jewry. Writing from a Jewish and Zionist perspective, Gill Levy gives a candid and refreshingly clear analysis of the issues at stake. He starts from the observation that:

a functioning democracy has to protect thought and belief it dislikes, not just thought it likes. Take away the principle that lets any ugly belief be protected and you take away the same principle that protects Jews’ beliefs in Israel’s religious significance or in Jewish self-determination from being treated as a sackable offence.[10]

He goes on to make the point that the tribunal had found David Miller’s philosophical beliefs “to be a qualified protection, not a license.” Miller’s belief “passed the legal test in large part because, cross-examined other oath, he said he was not supportive or open to the use of violence as a means of opposing Zionism” which the tribunal accepted. He states that tweets he posted after 7 October, including #FromtheRivertotheSea “were kept out of the case precisely because they lay outside the narrower belief he had pleaded and defended.”[11]

So, in Levy’s interpretation, the main takeaway in the Miller case, belief is protected not the use of violence (and I would argue the advancement of undemocratic means to pursue it). To take this logic further, Islam is a protected belief, but the outpourings of hate preachers like Abu Hamza are not. Belief in a United Ireland or the maintenance of Northern Ireland’s place in the UK, Scottish, Basque, Catalan independence are protected by the Equality Act; the use of violence or armed struggle in pursuit of these goals are not.[12]

Levy concludes by stating that if Antizionism clears the bar as a protected belief, then Zionism does too. Furthermore, when the Public Sector Equality Duty applies in the very act that protects David Miller every police force, local authority and public body must eliminate discrimination against holders of that belief, advance their equality of opportunity and foster good relations between Zionists and everyone else.[13]

To conclude, no matter how offensive David Miller’s beliefs are to those affected by them, they should be challenged using the weapons of intellect, reason and scholastic evidence not the law. Bearing in mind David Miller’s record in contributing to conspiracy theories over the Syrian White Knights as agents of Al-Queda and Western intelligence services and the denial of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons assault on the town of Douma in 2017 (proved conclusively as regime atrocity by Bellingham Open Source intelligence), it should not be too difficult for competent scholars to bore holes in his conspiracist narratives around Zionism and the antisemitic tropes about Jewish global influence that they echo.

References  

[1] Wikipedia

[2] Wikipedia

[3] Wikipedia

[4] Lee Harpin, 2021. Academic calls Bristol JSoc ‘Israel’s pawn’ Jewish Chronicle.18 February.

[5] Ibid

[6] Wikipedia

[7] Wikipedia

[8] Wikipedia

[9] Wikipedia

[10] Gill Levy, 2026. David Miller’s win is not our loss – it is the law protecting even repugnant beliefs. Jewish Chronicle. Opinion 11 August.

[11] Ibid

[12] Ibid

[13] Ibid

⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.

The Miller’s Tale 🪶The David Miller Case, Academic Freedom, Freedom Of Speech And Contemporary Antisemitism

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Seventy Two

 

A Morning Thought @ 3244

People And Nature ☭ Written by Simon Pirani.. Reposted from the Fare Free London web site.

20-August-2026

The government could make all bus journeys in the UK free, at a cost of about £5.6 billion per year, a report by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) shows.

That £5.6 billion is less than one-eighth of the £50 billion that tax justice campaigners say could be raised each year by taxing wealth more effectively.

Fare Free London joined a picket of the department of energy last month, organised by
Fuel Poverty Action, demanding action on energy bills and the cost of living

The NEF report, Getting Moving on the Cost of Living, shows that bus and rail fares have risen faster than the rate of inflation over the last 25 years, and “a high, and growing, level of car dependency has resulted”.

That leaves households “exposed to the high costs of car ownership, particularly when fuel prices spike”. And so transport is the largest expense, excluding mortgage payments, for rural households, and the second largest for urban households.

“Universal public transport provision can be one of the most foundational and transformative approaches to addressing inequality”, authors Paula Castro Rodriguez and Alex Chapman argue. It is “also key to a fast green transition”.

The report’s authors looked at three policy options aimed at cutting the cost of bus travel: free bus travel for all, a £1 fare cap, and free bus travel for under-25s. They also checked on the cost of a £1 fare cap plus free travel for under-25s.

They argue that a big expansion of bus services would be needed, reversing the drastic cuts of the last few decades.

Their projections assumed that abolishing fares would produce 884 million new journeys in the first year, and more than double that in the long term; that more than 15,000 new buses would be put on the road; and that bus users of all ages would save £110 per year on average; young people’s savings would be greater, at least £150 per year.

Such a scheme would cost the government an estimated £4.3 billion in the first year and £5.6 billion per year after that, the report says.

Among those who would benefit most directly from free bus travel are young people, the NEF report says. They are “particularly exposed to the transport cost of living”, with the high cost of car ownership pushing it out of reach for many.

Young people need mobility to access work and education opportunities.

Schemes in Scotland, and around the world, show that free, or ultra-cheap, public transport can open up opportunities for young people and support them into good work.

We in Fare Free London believe that, if the government was committed to free public transport, it would find the money somehow.

It is not hard to raise it by taxing wealth, for example – and, given the gigantic leap forward that it would be for social justice and climate action, well worth it.

Think about the £5.6 billion a year that NEF reckons free buses would cost. That is less than one-eighth of the £50 billion per year that the government could raise by “closing unfair loopholes and implementing credible, achievable reforms”, identified in a recent report by Tax Justice UK and Patriotic Millionaires.

“The UK’s unequal tax system is stacked in favour of the super-rich”, the report says:

Unfair loopholes and far lower rates of tax on income from wealth than work mean the wealthiest in our society often pay proportionally lower taxes than the average person.

The two groups propose a 2% tax on assets over £10 million (to raise up to £24 billion a year); reforms to the Capital Gains Tax to close loopholes (£11.3 billion a year); extending National Insurance to non-dividend investment income and partnership income (£6.1 billion a year); and other measures.

Other tax campaign groups have come up with similar numbers. The Taxing Wealth Report showed how £90 billion could be raised each year from straightforward reforms to the existing tax system, focused only on those who earn money from investment or rents.

Just putting a charge analogous to national insurance on investment income would close a tax avoidance loophole and raise £18 billion, the report’s author Richard Murphy writes.

The research group Positive Money says £12.5 billion could have been raised this year, just by a windfall tax on the four largest banks.

And all the tax justice campaign groups say that money invested in reducing cross-border tax evasion would bring handsome results. The UK loses about £33.5 billion a year that way, the Tax Justice Network reckons.

🔴 On Tuesday 29 September, at 7.0pm, Fare Free London is holding an event on “How to Make Public Transport Free”, at the Golden Lane community centre, London EC1Y 0SA. We will hear from councillor Julie Frêche of the Montpellier metropolitan area in France, where public transport has been free since 2023, and hold our annual meeting. All welcome! See details and register here.

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Effective Taxes On Wealth Could Fund Abolition Of Bus Fares

Independent Dublin Republicans 🏴 are to commemorate the ten republican hunger strikers who died in the H Blocks resisting British state terrorism.

Date: 30-August-2026.

Time: 1400.

Venue: Garden of Remembrance, Dublin.

Hunger Strike Commemoration 🏴 45th Anniversary

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