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Have you noticed? The assault on democratic space
Not as part of a grand conspiratorial plan, notwithstanding what some might wish, but incrementally, step by separate step, the architecture of a repressive, authoritarian state is slowly being erected before our eyes. A multi-dimensional pincer movement comprising laws, processes, procedures, and rights-denying rhetoric, thematically laced together by the extraordinary growth in the concentration of Continue reading
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When a peace plan leads to no peace at all
On the 17 November 2025, the Security Council passed – thirteen in favour, zero dissenting, with China and Russia abstaining – Resolution 2803 endorsing Trump’s twenty-point plan for Gaza. The Security Council-endorsed plan is notable for the comprehensive way it marginalises potential Palestinian agency in contrast to Israel being treated as pretty well near an Continue reading
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Self-induced antisemitism
The words and deeds of the self-proclaimed Jewish state -Israel – are prime progenitors of antisemitism. International civil society, as distinct from so many governments, look on in horror, and perhaps in disbelief, as the Israeli state – via the words and deeds of its leaders, its officials, its military, its deranged, Old Testament-wielding, Settler Continue reading
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Palestine and the strategic indifference of the West
We are witnessing a process of strategic indifference to the fate of the Palestinians, in Gaza, of course, but also not to be forgotten in the escalation of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. By strategic indifference, I mean that the USA, the UK and the West in general, have demonstrated, only Continue reading
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Before 7th October
Zone of Interest is a depressing, fascinating British film, performed entirely in German. It charts the life of Rudolf Höss, Auschwitz’s Nazi commandant who, along with his family – wife, five children – lived in the family home. That home, along with its extensive, walled and well-tended garden, abutted Auschwitz concentration camp such that it Continue reading
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Israel and the West: A joint enterprise in genocide/ethnic cleansing
Do they, Biden and Sunak, turn away their faces, avert their eyes, block-up their ears, against the images and sounds of Gaza so desperately pleading for their attention? Paying the cries no heed, committed only to perverse, bloodless political calculation, the USA, the UK, the West in general, now are Israel’s collaborators in an Continue reading
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Chief Rabbi Mirvis and the distorting mirrors
Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, in his Sunday Telegraph article, sought to give the impression that he was taking a dispassionate look as to the merits of the charge of genocide against the state of Israel, brought before the International Court of Justice by the South African government. In so doing, he pointed to the definition Continue reading
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Israeli demonstrations. Democracy: What democracy?
Israeli air force pilots, soar through the sky unhindered, unopposed, their lethal, precision-guided ordnance primed to be unleashed against Gazan targets far below. The child, the mother, the brother, sister could not be so precise. They were at home unaware that precision was so precisely to strike them down. But that’s OK, they were not Continue reading
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A restrictive, hostile environment for protest.
The Government was in a hurry, it needed its latest legislation curtailing fundamental freedoms to be on the statute book in time for King Charles 111 Coronation on the 6th May. The Government achieved its aim, the Public Order Act 2023 became law on the 2nd May. Despite Government denials that the legislation was rushed Continue reading
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The Alternative: Building a Movement of Liberation Against a Colonial Regime, Not Demonstrating to Defend “Jewish Democracy”
Originally posted on Free Haifa: Statement of the One Democratic State Campaign February 21, 2023 (The following declaration was published on the ODSC site. It was originally published in Arabic.) Since Israel’s Minister of Justice, Yariv Levin, announced sweeping “reforms” in Israel’s judicial system, intended to nullify the power of the Supreme Court to declare… Continue reading
About Me
This is Bernard Spiegal’s blog.
I write mainly about Palestine/Israel and related issues; sometimes other stuff too
Bernard Spiegal 