Bernard Spiegal

You don’t have to succumb to conspiracy theories to assess that Israel, and its founding Zionist doctrine, is at the centre of a protective governmental, media, and judicial ring of mafia-like protection: a protection racket designed to eliminate any and all criticism of the rogue, eliminatory state of Israel.  Those interests, thus far, are in the ascendency.

That ascendancy is marked by our inability to translate concerted and sustained Pro-Palestine civil protest into governmental actions of censure, sanctions and the boycott of Israel. This is compounded by our most dreadful failure to curb Israel’s wanton acts of dispossession, cruelty and, crime of crimes, the perpetration of genocide against Palestinians within their own usurped homeland.

Under the familiar guise of securing law and order, and in conjuring external threats to the nation, good people and true are hounded, charged with offences under draconian, disproportionate and repressive anti-protest laws. Thus, paradoxically, the rule of law has become, at one and the same time, an instrument of law-based internal repression; and its extravagant, shameless flouting – in particular of international law – as the state – our state – effectively enables geocide in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.

In an earlier post – April 2026 – I suggested we are being ‘kettled’ by a raft of repressive measures, pointing to no less than five pieces of legislation[1] that in effect hem in free speech and justified protest.

Not content with this, Government (admittedly under the previous Starmer regime) has formulated new legislative delicacies: the worryingly titled National Security (State Threats) Act 2026 and the Courts and Tribunal Bill[2].

The National Security (State Threats) Act’s vocabulary has an authoritarian ring to it, deploying words – ’Security’, ‘Threats’, ‘Nation’, ‘State’ – conventionally deployed by fascist regimes to suggest that the nation is under threat from external forces, aided by malign internal entities such as, in the current iteration, the proscribed Palestine Action. A proscription, it must be said, that in saner times will be seen as an example of farcical over-reach were it not for the penalties imposed on direct-actionists seeking to save Palestinian lives.

The Act grants the Home Secretary powers to designate foreign state-linked proxy bodies, criminalizes support or assistance, and carries maximum prison sentences of up to 14 years.

The Act potentially places in peril, for example, journalists’ ability to report freely. Further:

• there are concerns that broad wording could accidentally penalize aid groups negotiating access in complex conflict zones[3];
• legal commentators and researchers are concerned that the laxity of language used could potentially affect journalists, academics, or bloggers interacting with or obtaining information from designated entities, thereby risking prosecution[4];  
• Critics note that instead of explicit statutory carve-outs for public interest reporting or humanitarian relief, the law leaves individuals heavily dependent on prosecutorial discretion.

The Courts and Tribunal’s Bill – note, not yet law; it must be actively opposed – will curtail jury trials. Jury trials are rightly considered the backstop and bastion guarding our freedoms. Precisely because a jury comprises twelve ‘ordinary’ men and woman they form an organic nexus point, connecting commonly understood notions of justice as antidote to the sometimes-purblind rigidities of law. Thus, a jury is able, within the seclusion of its deliberations, to consider the motivations that underpin the actions of an accused, for example direct actionists destroying military equipment bound for Israel, and make a judgment as to where justice lies.

Could this be?

Earlier in this piece, I noticed a potential paradox in that, on the one hand, the British state is developing UK law towards increasingly repressive measures, doubtless to fall, nevertheless, under the rubric of bolstering the Rule of Law.  Yet, at the same time, the British State seems unembarrassed in ignoring or marginalising the rule of law when it comes to matters connected to Israel.

Thus the government has barely exerted itself when the Israeli Real Estate show came to town, that outfit flouting law by marketing property located in the illegal settlements of the Occupied Palestinian Territories[5].  In the same vein, the British state in practice, seems untroubled, or at least insufficiently troubled, by Israel’s genocidal actions in those Occupied Territories.

A paradoxical turn

While writing this piece, it occurred to me to wonder whether, paradoxically, the National Security (State Threats) Act may have application in respect of either or both the Campaign Against Antisemitism and UK Lawyers for Israel, and perhaps other bodies, on the grounds that they have close, possibly financial, links with Israel, and its embassy here.

The question is, has the Home Secretary, in the light of the Act, the power to designate such bodies  as foreign state-linked proxy entities, should there be evidence to underpin such a move?

Of course, I do not say that this is the case.  But like a pig hunting truffles, guided as they are by scent, someone with a nose for paradox and the malign may sniff-out questionable connections.  

[1] https://www.bond.org.uk/about-us/ tps://bernardspiegal.com/2026/04/21/kettled-the-control-and-shrinking-of-democratic-space/

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3qjv945g7o

[3] https://www.bond.org.uk/about-us/

[4] https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2026/07/12/are-we-heading-for-censorship/#gsc.tab=0

[5] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/6/17/unacceptable-london-property-fair