RANT: JUST A SHORT RANT

  

THESE DAYS, ONE THING I find particularly despicable are Canadians who go abroad and fight in foreign wars while serving in foreign militaries. I’m thinking specifically of those Canadians who go to Israel and join the IDF in its criminal endeavours in the Levant. I call these warmongers, ‘boutique genocide-enablers’. How else are we to characterize individuals who have no obligation to enlist yet travel to Israel for the express purpose of joining Israel’s wars of aggression in West Asia (Middle East). 

An interesting study by The Maple suggests most are young Jewish males who have attended Jewish schools in Canada, as well as summer camps, synagogues, rallies, promotional events and speaking tours, as well as school trips to Israel, and who come from traditional Jewish households (many from the Toronto region) where the survival of Israel is uppermost in the minds of their parents. These young men (mostly men) join for a temporary service in Israel’s IDF usually with their family’s whole-hearted support. In many cases family dynamics, school and community pressures help influence young Jewish Canadians to consider enlisting in Israel’s armed forces. Israel’s Law of Return stipulates that children born of a Jewish mother have the right to emigrate to Israel and automatically become Israeli citizens. However, this Right stipulates that returnees must serve up to 32 months in the Israeli Defence Force if they are between the ages of 18-25. Of course this comes with an extensive training phase, including Hebrew language classes before the recruit will participate in any active duty. (After 30-years of age, none are required to join Israel’s military.) Should the returnee, some in their teenage years, decide to apply for Israeli citizenship, then after they turn 18 years of age, as Israeli citizens, they are required to serve in the IDF. Israel has conscription for its entire popoulation, with only a few exceptions (religious or health reasons, for example).

 

👉IT SHOULD BE NOTED that Canada has strict laws governing the recruitment of Canadians into foreign militaries (the Foreign Enlistment Act). But that doesn't stop more subtle recruiting practices of Jewish NGOs. There are dozens of Jewish charities in Canada that raise funds for the state of Israel including ones that support Israel’s IDF directly like the Friends of the IDF or Beit Halochem Canada, the later supporting wounded IDF soldiers. There are dozens more. In 2020, a group of pro-Palestinian organizations in Canada accused the Jewish charity, Sar-El Canada, of violating Canadian law by recruiting Canadians to join Israel’s IDF as volunteers. The Courts eventually declined to take up the case because, they claimed, the possibility of a conviction was slim. They said such a charge was in the hands of independent law enforcement agencies like the RCMP, that also dropped its investigation of Sar-El, because it, too, could not make the case against the charity ‘stick’ under the Foreign Enlistment Act.

TODAY, there are approximately 1,500* IDF soldiers holding Canadian-Israeli dual citizenship passports 56 of whom are not Jewish and do not have Israeli passports. The later group are called “Lone Soldiers”. [A romantic name for latent psychopaths who get a buzz killing people. Just sayin’, Ed.] Altogether, there are six or seven thousand Lone Soldiers from around the world currently in the IDF who are non-Jews, or Jews who are orphaned or without Israeli family supports. So, to keep these mercenaries recruits from getting lonely, there are charities like Nefesh B’Nefesh and the Lone Soldier Centre that receive funding from other charities operating in Canada like the Canada Charity Partners (CCP) which funnels millions of dollars to Israeli causes.¹

IT’S SAFE TO SAY that Israel benefits from Canadian volunteers who, at the very least, perform logistical and administrative operations, freeing up IDF service members for other tasks (like bombing Gaza and Lebanon).  All, I might add, support Israel’s wars of aggression and its genocide in Gaza, its ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and now southern Lebanon. Volunteers in Israel’s armed forces—for whatever reason—should know their service and activities as members in the IDF may someday come with charges of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. 

 

Young Persons, either naïve, idealistic supporters of Israel or those who have been cajoled by family and friends, or by local Israel support groups here in Canada, into joining Israel’s “seven-front” war, (as Israeli PM Benjimin Netanyahu calls his country’s terroristic rampage in West Asia) are at risk of ‘drinking the Kool-Aid’² , so to speak, as they succumb to the rhetoric and twisted logic of racist Zionism. Their time with Israel’s army (“the most moral army on earth”, apparently) may, for them, become a dark and dangerous memory that scrapes to the surface like broken glass across bare flesh, resurrecting images forever engrained in their tormented and much embattled consciences.

 

SO, ON MY DESPICABLE LIST  I nail to the top of the board those individuals and organizations that inculcate, in Canadian youth especially, a blind obedience and subsurvience to Israel, a country that today practices genocide and ethnic cleansing upon its captive Palestinian population. It is also the country that has attacked and invaded its neighbours: Lebanon, southern Syria, and most dangerously, it has fomented a near 'hot' war  with Iran, and has, by-hook-or-by-crook, 'Espstein-ized' or not, coerced the United States president and a large swath of the American congress to direct the U.S. military to enter the fray on Israel's side. Most worringly, of course, is the fact that Israel is a nuclear Power, and there is a very good chance it may use its weapons of mass destruction in the near future, especially if things go pear-shaped for our erstwhile 'ally' in West Asia, the genocidal, apartheid settler-colonial state known as Israel. [see the Samson Option and Sy Hersh's book of the same name.] 

FRANKLY, I don't see Israel lasting another 78 years. I don't see it lasting another seven years if things keep going  the way they are.

 

👉WORLD OPINION has shifted in favour of the Palestinian resistence. Recently, several countries, including Canada, have issued embargoes on goods coming from Israeli businesses operating in the occupied West Bank, a small change and a performative act, to be sure, and on par with earlier sanctioning of several Jewish-Israeli settlers in the West Bank for violence against Palestinians living there. Nevertheless, it does lay down a marker of sorts, however tentative. 

👉On the other hand, revoking the "charitable" status of many of these Jewish and Israeli NGOs would be one way to put the kibosh³ on funnelling all that cash  and young Canadian bodies into a country (Israel) that, by its actions since October 7, 2023, and really since its founding in 1948, has  lost its right to be a member of the world community. But our politicians, including the current 'bottoms', like the Liberals, are gutless cupcakes and for the most part they go along to get along. 

👉It seems, our politicians wouldn't know a genocide even if one smacked them on the side of the head and stuffed them into ovens...😄😄😄.  

 

CHEERS, JAKE. ______________________________________  

* In 2220 that number was around 320.

    

1. So much so that critics call the CCP the “Canada-Israel-charity-pipeline”.

 

2. In 1979, in Guyana, Jim Jones, the leader of the People’s Temple movement, concluded the demise of his cult was imminent, so he served members Kool-Aid laced with cyanide. Nearly 900 members (men, women and children) willingly committed mass suicide along with Jones. That’s were the expression “drink the Kool-Aid” comes from.

3. At least in would make donating to problamatic Israeli causes sting a little for rich Zionists here in Canada who currently claim such donations as 'charitable' deductions on their tax returns.  

 

[Interesting couple of articles here and here from the CBC on the flap caused by IDF soldiers going on a speaking tour in Canada called "Triggered: Combat to Campus--The Tour " in November 2025 Ed.] 

 

 

 

RANT: I'LL SEE YOUR DRONE AND RAISE YOU A BABY NUKE.

    

WITH THE COCK-UP in West Asia (Middle East) threatening to ignite into something larger and more dangerous these past few months, we’ve been neglecting that other war, the one in eastern Europe, namely NATO versus Russia. Of course it’s really the collective West—Europe, America and cucks like Canada—who are in the fray supplying weapons and money to Kiev. So, it’s not just Ukraine fighting Russia, though it's Ukrainian soldiers who are the ones doing the dying, saving us the distress of seeing coffins draped with Canadian flags arriving home. So, there’s that.

But after four-plus years of war, the end game is closer than we imagine. To be clear: Russia is winning the war. It will succed in defeating Ukraine and its Western backers. All along the nearly 1300km front line, Russia is advancing at a relentless pace, if a slow one, because its main war aim is to attrit the Ukrainian army until it is a spent force. The capture of territory is secondary to the Kremlin’s goal of destroying Ukraine’s NATO trained, supplied and armed military that, in addition to the possibility of "defensive" nuclear-capable cruise missile installations along its border, it considers the force and its NATO backers as an existential threat to the Russian nation. Naturally, the Americans would feel similarly threatened if China, say, were to build missile installations at Windsor, Ontario aimed at Washington. Of course, the Americans would take action to eliminate such a threat along its border. [see: "radioactive ashtray". Ed.]

IN UKRAINE'S NORTH, the city of Kharkiv may once more be in Russian hands by summer’s end. Next is Sumy, a city of 250,000 and the last metropolitan region standing between Russian forces and Kiev. Russia will probably encircle and lay siege to the city, as it has done to other Ukrainian cities, cutting off supplies and weaponry. But the big question is: Will the Russians move on Kiev? Or will they move south on Odessa where, in recent weeks, it has been bombing port facilities and infrastructure in a bid to cut off weapons shipments and eliminate naval drone launching sites. When Russia finally takes the historic port city, Ukraine will be cut off from the Black Sea, becoming a land-locked rump state.

 

THERE IS SOME TALK about Russia finally taking the gloves off and winding up the war, taking all of what it calls Novo Rossiya (“New Russia”) that includes much of eastern Ukraine where most of the population is ethnically Russian and whose first language is Russian. It’s tragic to think that Ukraine could have saved so much blood and treasure and remained whole [except for Crimea] had it signed off on the “Istanbul Accords” in 2022 during the early months of the conflict. But pressure from the West, notoriously through the efforts of then-British PM Boris Johnson acting as Western point-man, put the kibosh to the peace treaty by guaranteeing NATO’s full support (save for troops) if Zelensky would tear up the deal. He did and here we are today.

OF LATE there has been an increase in Russian drone and missile attacks on Kiev and on energy and weapons manufacturing facilities elsewhere in Ukraine, and these may portend a change in the pace of the war.

 

👉THERE HAS ALSO BEEN A CHANGE in rhetoric as the NATO-Russia conflict grinds on, namely the use (or more accurately the lack of use) of the term “deterrence”. During the Cold War, the word was always present when analyzing the threat levels of proxy conflicts between the world’s two nuclear super-powers, the USSR and America. Each, with vast arrays of nuclear weapons between them, took deterrence very seriously, as they struggled for dominance in proxy wars and regime change operations over the decades. The intensity of these proxy campaigns was tempered by how far they could push the other before a threat became existential, where the survival of the nation was perceived to be at stake, and where the use of nuclear weapons was seen as a last resort. 1962’s “Cuban Missile Crisis” is a case in point, where the USSR, in response to the United States installing Titan nuclear-armed missiles in Türkiye, some months later installed similar weapons in Cuba, in a dangerous game of ‘tit-for-tat’. With both sides seeing the other’s actions as an existential threat, the world came within a hair’s breadth of nuclear war. What ultimately stopped this horrific escalation was the deterrence factor embedded in the M.A.D. principle (“Mutually Assured Destruction”). In this scheme, each side realizes that regardless of who strikes first, that country would be destroyed by a deadly counterstrike, leaving both, along with much of the northern hemisphere, a smoldering, radioactive ash-heap. It also helped that both President Kennedy and the USSR’s Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s served during WWII where they saw first hand (particularly in Kennedy’s experience) how modern, industrialized, conventional warfare could devastate whole regions of the globe, a factor, surely, in their assessments of how apocalyptic—by orders of magnitude greater—the use of nuclear weapons would be. Each calculated the mega-deaths and devastation that would follow if their armies unleashed the deadly force of their nuclear arsenals. Thakfully, in the end, each was deterred from attacking the other.

 

TODAY, WE SEEM TO BE BLITHELY IGNORANT of nuclear weapons and their destructive power or else we foolishly assume we can survive a nuclear war with minimal damage and even emerge victorious.* For decades, Russia has said the expansion of NATO into eastern Europe following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1992 was threatening existentially to it, with Ukraine in NATO being an absolute red line. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Ukraine was a neutral state with a pledge of neutrality written in its constitution. Subsequent pro-Western administrations in Kiev eventually changed this status and NATO came courting with armaments and money, until 2022 when Zelensky prepared to launch an attack into the Donbass region to quell dissent and silence calls for separation from Ukraine by the two oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk whose populations voted to join the Russian Federation. In late February of 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in defence of the ethnically Russian people of the Donbass and to make it clear it would no longer tolerate a pro-Western government in Kiev that was armed and equipped with the latest NATO weapons, tech and training.

 

FOUR YEARS ON and Ukraine has been emboldened, using long-range drones and missiles to attack deep into Russian territory, and while these assaults do not threaten or degrade Russia’s war-making capacity or change the inevitable Russian victory to come, nevertheless they indicate Ukraine and the West, particularly the Europeans, no longer are deterred by Russia’s array of nuclear weapons. Recall the incremental goading of Russia by NATO through its proxy, Ukraine, as the “defensive” military alliance introduced various weapons, weapon systems, munitions, tanks, missiles, drones, etc. into the conflict, gauging Russia’s response to each escalatory move by NATO and the West. Recall in June of last year how Ukraine attacked Russian heavy lift bombers—part of Russia’s strategic (read: nuclear) defence force. On what planet [Apparently, this one. Ed.] is it a good idea to attack bombers tasked with the delivery of nuclear-armed cruise missiles and gravity bombs? Recall also in May of 2024 how Ukraine used drones to attack Russia’s early warning radars used to monitor American ICBM launches, should that fearful day ever come. During the Cold War such provocations would have been unthinkable.

YET TODAY, European leaders issue bellicose statements demonizing Russia as they gin up their respective populations to prepare for war with the Slavic giant by decade’s end.

👉WTF, Charlie Brown! What are these bloodless pricks trying to do?! Instead of diplomacy and crafting a security architecture for Europe that includes Russia in a treaty everyone can (mostly) live with, it’s warwarwar! with most NATO-allied nations singing from the same hymn book. [Canada, America’s brown-nosed rent-boy, is in on this clusterfuck, don’t forget, and balls-deep as they say. Since 2022 the Liberal government in Ottawa has sent war materiel and armaments to Ukraine and committed 25 billion dollars to the notoriously corrupt Ukrainian government under Huckster-in-Chief, Zelensky. [Cha-ching! Ed.]

 

THE POLITICAL ELITES in Europe and the Collective West that have gotten us into this mess have to go the way of the dodo. And soon. There are stirrings in Germany, Spain and Poland, for example, but Europeans need to take these little Napoleans out to the collective woodshed and give them a good hiding! There is hope (and danger as well) as populations in Western nations are increasingly at odds with their governing elites. We all see the emperor has no clothes.

 

👉TODAY, we stand at an inflection point where change and violence walk side by side to that inevitable fork in the road, and which path we’ll be on is yet to be decided.  Let’s hope the drones and long-range cruise missiles we are currently firing into Russia don’t trigger the use of a tactical nuke or two by Moscow. Can’t say we haven’t been warned.😱 Isn’t that enough to deter us to seek a diplomatic solution to the conflict instead? Stay tuned!     

 

 

CHEERS, JAKE. _____________________________________

 

*Hence Trump’s recent musings around creating a “golden dome” over North America (or just the U.S. if Carney refuses to pony up billions of dollars for the scam project).  And, as it was with Regan’s pie-in-the-sky “Star Wars” missile shield of the 1980’s that proved to be unworkable so, too, will Trump’s version of the same boondoggle which will prove even more unworkable in this age of hyper-sonic ballistic missiles armed with multiple nuclear warheads that can travel thousands of miles per hour. It should be noted that if guardian missile arrays could protect the United States, say, from incoming ICBMs (“Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles”), this would be a destabilizing factor in the M.A.D. deterrence architecture. If one side believes it can launch a pre-emptive strike on its foe and not be devastated by a retaliatory response or, more importantly perhaps, if the foe thought such a defensive umbrella would work blunting its own retaliatory attack, then the options to launch before such a system could be put in place becomes all too real.

RECALL that during the Cold War, both Russia and the United States had one or two defensive missile batteries ‘guarding’ their capitals. That’s all. In other words, the installations were symbolic as part of the ABM “Anti-Ballistic Missile”) treaty of 1972 between Russia and the United States that limited each side’s ABM missile arrays to one site each, thus ensuring both sides had a healthy respect for the other side’s nuclear arsenals—i.e., the M.A.D. deterrence formulation that kept in check the establishment of ABM systems on a continental scale. [Regan’s Star Wars ballistic missile shield scheme didn’t get off the drawing board, and Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defence proposal will prove equally unworkable.

 

IN 2002, the ABM treaty was foolishly walked away from by George Bush Jr. during whose tenure additional anti-ballistic missile sites were established in the U.S. That a working ABM defensive shield has not been developed to date speaks to the physical impossibility of stopping an all-out attack with hundreds, even thousands of missiles raining down death and destruction by the mega-tonnage. Same goes for Russia. Any ABM system on the drawing board that’s been ‘gamed-out’ has been assessed as unworkable and a non-starter. [See Professor Ted Postol’s explainer (here.)] Thus, for thirty years both countries were deliberately left vulnerable, with no ABM shield capable of stopping more than a handful of incoming ICBMs, thus ensuring each side would mind their p’s and q’s and respect each other’s “red lines”. Or else. That’s deterrence, folks. Something we need to remember.

 

 

RANT: OILOILOILOILOILOILOILOILOILOILOIOILOILOILOILOILOILOIOILOILOILOILOIL

   

HERE’S SOMETHING TO CONSIDER: Will the closure of the Hormuz Strait by Iran to countries predominately aligned with American interests really cause serious disruptions for the economies of importing nations? Yes, potentially, as this chart from the JP Morgan banking group shows.👇The hashed circles display the chief importing countries in each region. The dates outlined for the various countries within each circle indicates the date when waterborne deliveries of crude oil will stop, i,e., when all the tankers currently at sea arrive at their destination and discharge their cargo. For example, deliveries from the Persian Gulf to the EU will mostly stop by April 10. China, which imports 5.2-million barrels per day (bpd) of oil will see its source of Persian Gulf crude cease around April 1 [That’s no joke! Ed.]

 

After that, the Chinese will have to use their strategic oil reserves to fuel  their economy or else source oil from other producers, and Russia would be the obvious place for it to pick up any shortfall in imports. Either way China is well-placed to deal with disruptions to its supply lines in the Gulf. It has between 80 to 120 days of reserves, with total inventories of over one-billion barrels to be released into the economy as needed.* SOUTH KOREA is prepared for a shutdown of Persian Gulf oil with its strategic reserves of public and private holdings. It has between 200 to 254 days of crude in its stockpiles. On the other hand, the PHILIPPINES has no formal, strategic oil reserves. It gets 95% of its daily fuel from 'just-in-time' imports, and 25% of those imports coming from the Persian Gulf. It's economy is able to last 4-5 weeks before it runs out of petroleum and distillates. If the Gulf remains closed for an indefinite period of time, the Philippines will have to obtain alternate sources of oil, no doubt more expensive and within a shorter timeframe than, say, China or South Korea. Already, nations are talking about rationing, asking their populations to conserve fuel whenever possible, with further restrictions down the road.

IT WILL BE INTERESTING to see how Japan deals without Gulf oil upon which it depends for 95% of its energy imports with 90% coming through the straits of Hormuz. (Japan has zilch oil deposits on its territory). Perhaps it will make nice with the Russians and do some business together.

 

Asia, overall, will be hit hard by any disruption of Persian Gulf oil, importing, as it does, 84% of its fuel that's delivered via the Hormuz Strait and 83% of its LNG (Liquified Natural Gas).¹ EVEN IF the war ended today, there would still be repercussions from closing the Straits, and global supply chains in many sectors will be affected. High gasoline prices in America is one indicator, which is why the Trump administration quietly dropped its illegal tariffs on Iranian and Russian oil shipments, in an bid to keep global stocks topped-up with enough crude to keep prices as low as possible. 

IN MARCH, the U.S. released 172-million barrels of crude. In addition, the IEA (International Energy Agency), a 32-member nation organisation that provides analysis, data, policy recommendations and real-world solutions for energy related problems, released 400-million barrels from its emergency reserves, also in March, for the same purpose—to keep oil prices down. How long this can continue is anyone’s guess.

👉BUT, IF YOU HADN’T STARTED THIS FUCKING, STUPID WAR oil would still be in the price range that modern economies can handle, well below one-hundred-dollars per barrel, with adequate flows keeping everybody well lubed, ready and steady!😟

    

CHEERS, JAKE. _____________________________________

 

* If things go pear-shaped, as they well might, then there will not only be delivery problems with oil from the Persian Gulf but also production problems. If attacks are made to Iran’s oil infrastructure, this would almost certainly trigger a proportionate response from Iran against all Gulf countries it is in conflict with, damaging their oil fields, ports, and storage facilities in kind. Note that approximately 25% of global seaborne traffic in oil originates from the Gulf, most of it destined for Asian markets. An attack on Iran’s Kharg Island, which has extensive oil facilities, would almost certainly precipitate a destabilizing tit-for-tat escalation of the conflict.

 

¹ INTERESTING NOTE: A couple of days ago, a China bound oil tanker the Al Salmi was hit by a drone as it was leaving Dubai waters. It was presumably fired on by Iran. Perhaps it was attacked because it was a Kuwaiti-registered vessel and therefore considered property of a hostile nation and a legitimate target for Iran. Or, perhaps the captain of the vessel refused to pay the new transit fee. Or, maybe it was a "false flag" attack designed to throw shade on Iran and escalate the conflict. Who knows; it's "fog of war" time again. 

Iran has begun charging transit fees for all vessels passing through the Straits, a practice that will net them billions annually. So it goes.

 

  

RANT: THE JURY IS STILL OUT

  

 

A BIT OF GOOD NEWS for a change. On 13 February this year, the British direct-action protest group, Palestine Action (PA) had the designation “terrorist organization” lifted by the High Court in London. The Court ruled the government’s decision last year to “proscribe” (ban) PA as a terrorist group was “disproportionate” and “unlawful” and said the collective should not be put on the same legal footing as real terrorist organizations like Al Queda or ISIS. The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmoud, has said she will appeal the ruling, but Friday-the-thirteenth proved to be a brighter day for freedom of expression, the right to protest and the right to freely assemble in Britain. And the British people should take the win when they have it.

 

HOWEVER, the appeal process could take months or even years to wend its way through the courts, which is a burden on the nearly three-thousand protesters, thus far, who have been arrested for their public support of Palestine Action and who were charged with “terrorism related offences”. And their crime? Carrying placards saying, “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action” in quiet marches across Britain. They faced charges that could come with sentences of up to 14-years imprisonment. The absurd "terrorism-related" charges laid against peaceful protesters should be summarily dismissed.😠Police have said they will continue to monitor protesters, because the ban on Palestine Action and its supporters, is still officially on the books until a final High Court hearing on 20 February when the government will present its arguments against the Court's decision to lift the ban. Until then, police will monitor PA demonstrations but not make any arrests.

 

 👉AS FOR THE TWO DOZEN Palestine Action (PA) members who have been arrested and held in custody pending their court cases, last Friday’s High Court ruling should ease restrictions imposed on them while in prison, such as an excessive number of prison cell searches, limited phone use and visitations, long pre-trial detentions, solitary confinement. Some have been remanded for nearly eighteen months awaiting trial, whereas pre-trial detentions in Britain are typically no more than six months. The state gets away with this because of the terrorism label they've slapped against the activists. PA members were arrested for “aggravated burglary”, trespass and property damage to several Elbit Systems factories beginning in late 2023  in response to Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza. Elbit Systems, an Israeli firm, operates several factories in Britain, supplying Israel’s IDF (Israeli Defence Force) with drones and other war materiel. It is worth noting that trials of PA members before 2025's Brize Norton episode ended in equitals; no jury was willing to find the activists guilty, when daily news coverage of Israel's depredations in Gaza made PA activism against Elbit Systems the morally correct thing to do.

 

RECALL that the government ‘dropped the hammer’ on Palestine Action activities after several activists gained access to the Brize Norton airfield in June of last year, spraying red paint onto the wings and jet engines of two transport planes used to ship munitions and supplies to Israel to use against the people of Gaza. The Home Secretary at the time, Yvette Cooper, passed legislation to “proscribe” Palestine Action as a terrorist group and ban PA from organizing in Britain or for anyone to publicly support the group as I’ve discussed. The “24” were initially arrested and detained under terrorism laws and were subsequently charged with “criminal damage, violent disorder, and aggravated burglary.”

👉On 5 February 2026, five of six Palestine Action activists had their day in court, after nearly eighteen months in prison on remand. They have been found not guilty on all charges by a jury of their peers. This decision (coupled with the High Court ruling) bodes well for future cases of around twenty PA members awaiting trial, also on remand in prison for demonstrations at Elbit Systems and the RAF Base Brize Norton *  

  

 The Jury

👉Here we must give credit to eight Palestine Action activists who went on a hunger strike, protesting their treatment at the hands of the British government. Some lasted as long as 42 days (Forty-five days is reckoned to be a life-threatening stage, with organ failure a near certainty. Several were hospitalized, and their brave efforts focused the public’s attention on the strikers and their cause.

With this first group of PA members being found not guilty in a jury trial, it bodes well for other members as their trial dates approach. It's no wonder that British elites are conspiring to limit the availability of jury trials in England. I’ve said it before; I would be surprised if Palestine Action members or their placard-carrying supporters would be found guilty of not so much as a parking ticket if their cases are held before a jury of their peers. Stay tuned, because this kind of dystopian legal hellscape is coming to a justice system near you.¹  

 

“The Filton 18’s alleged crimes are not terrorism related – criminal damage, aggravated burglary and violent disorder. But police have used counter-terror legislation that enabled them to keep…them in solitary confinement, and subject them to repeated interrogation. “(Bristol Cable)

 

  

CHEERS, JAKE.  _____________________________________

 

* One of the hallmarks of a functioning judiciary is the right of citizens to a speedy trial. That Palestine Action members were imprisoned on remand, some for eighteen months is not a failure of the system; it is a feature. It is the deliberate, heavy hand of government using maximum pressure on individual protesters to send a message—don’t screw with us, because we’ll mess you up! Long delays before trials; conservative judges presiding over the court proceedings; harsh, disproportionate sentences. It's called “lawfare”—using the courts to make the process of going through the so-called justice system as onerous, time-consuming and expensive as possible. Even if you don't get to trial, your life is upended. By being incarcerated for months on end or longer, you may lose your job, friends, even your spouse. But those are the costs you might be forced to pay when you go up against the empire.

 

1. In Britain, perhaps the most famous case of prison hunger strikes was during “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland. In 1981, several IRA (Irish Republican Army) prisoners started a hunger strike, led by Bobby Sands (who was elected to Parliament while on a hunger strike, while he was in prison!) Their demands were that IRA prisoners have the status of “political prisoners”, and to not be required to wear prison uniforms, or do prison work, and to have free association.” As a result of the hunger strike ten IRA members starved to death, including Sands but not until the government of Margret Thatcher backed down and was forced to make concessions.

 

 "Jesus H. Christ! You've gotta be kidding me!"