25 May 2026

Is There A More Vile War Criminal & War Monger Than Dan Jarvis, British Security Minister & Ben Gvir's Accomplice?

Israel is a Jewish Supremacist State Where Torture, Lynching, Ethnic Cleansing & Genocide are State Policy –  Jarvis Calls This a 'Robust Democracy'



Dan Jarvis is the MP for Barnsley North and Britain's Security Minister. An MP since 2011 he is in a long line of colonial securocrats.

Not surprisingly Jarvis served as an officer in the Parachute Regiment from 1997 to 2011. The Paras murdered 14 Catholics in Derry in what became known as Bloody Sunday. 

It is natural that Jarvis sees an affinity between Unionism and Zionism, Ireland and Palestine. Ronald Storrs, the first Military Governor of Jerusalem from 1920-25 wrote in his autobiography, Orientations.

the enterprise was one that blessed him that gave [Britain] as well as him that took [Zionism] by forming for England a little loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism.

On 20 May at the Israeli Embassy’s celebration of 78 years of   Hitler's Bastard Offspring, Jarvis spoke of a “deep rooted” relationship with Israel and how the Labour Party ‘has long been an advocate of the Jewish state.” Jarvis went on

Together we share a commitment to robust democratic governance, rule of law, and judicial independence… and an unwavering dedication to defending our open societies against security threats.”

See UK minister praises Israel's 'commitment to robust democratic governance' after flotilla row

The next day video emerged of Dan Jarvis' Israeli counterpart, Itamar ben Gvir presiding over the torture and humiliation of the activists of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.

The Sanitised Torture Video that Ben Gvir Distributed to the Media

Israeli politicians rushed to condemn Ben Gvir. Not for the torture of the Flotilla members but the damage Gvir had done to Israel’s image in the world.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Yechiel (Michael) Leiter complained, not about the abuse of the detainees but

Ben Gvir’s antics take a sledgehammer to our diplomatic efforts while Israel’s enemies gleefully jump on every unfortunate nonsense to discredit and demonize.

Leiter couldn’t help but take a swipe at the Gaza flotilla members as ‘provocateurs’. Being a good Zionist he had to lie. His statement that the flotilla members ‘were properly detained in accordance with international law’ is nonsense. The flotilla members were kidnapped in international waters. They were going to Gaza, which is not Israeli sovereign territory and that is compatible with the very international law that Israel flouts on a daily basis.


Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar had nothing to say about the ill-treatment but solely about the damage to Israel:

You knowingly caused harm to our State in this disgraceful display - and not for the first time. You have undone tremendous, professional, and successful efforts made by so many people - from IDF soldiers to Foreign Ministry staff and many others. No, you are not the face of Israel.

Neither Leiter nor Saar said anything about the ill-treatment of the Flotilla members because that doesn’t concern them.

The Zionist Board of Deputies, which in the 1930s opposed the Jewish Boycott of Nazi Germany because they preferred to trade with Hitler, since it was profitable, and which in the 1940s refused to support a demonstration by the Czech Federation of Jews against the first deportations of Jews to the death camps from Slovakia, also felt it had to criticise Ben Gvir. 

This is the same Board which has unstintingly supported Israel's genocide in Gaza and which has said nothing about the torture of Palestinians. The Board recently held a demonstration against 'antisemitism' with the far-right in attendance. 

They refused to invite the only Jewish leader of a political party, Zack Polanski, but they were happy to invite Nigel Farage who according to  fellow Jewish class mate, Peter Ettedgui, said Farage had repeatedly told him "Hitler was right" and "gas them" when they were teenagers at Dulwich College, in London.

“The Disappearance of Dr. Abu Safiya”: Al Jazeera Film on Israel’s Abduction, Torture of Gaza Doctor

Torture of Palestinian prisoners is the official policy of the Israeli state. Neo-Nazi Ben Gvir has been given carte blanche to preside over the torture of Palestinian prisoners. Rapists at Sde Teiman had all criminal proceedings dropped against them and they were readmitted into the Israeli army in order that they could continue to rape and torture Palestinians who are captured and imprisoned. This includes its most famous detained prisoner, the Palestinian doctor and Director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya who has been severely tortured by the monsters that Dan Jarvis, Britain’s Criminal Security Minister supports.

The torture of Dr Safiya is with the complicity of the Israeli Judiciary who agreed to a further 6 months administrative detention. Israeli judges almost never detain without trial Israeli Jews but this is what Dan Jarvis calls democratic governance and an independent judiciary.

A mob of 200 invades an army base to free 9 soldiers arrested for raping a prisoner -  2/3 of the Israeli public agreed that rapists of Palestinian prisoners should not be criminally prosecuted

Israel has lied throughout. Israel's prison service claimed that all detainees were "held in accordance with the law" which is proof that torture is the law in Israel. The Israeli military also rejected allegations of abuse, telling the BBC that its orders "require respectful and appropriate treatment of flotilla participants". The Flotilla Activists told a different story.

The Second Video that Israel's neo-Nazi Police Minister Itamar ben Gvir distributed

In its story Gaza flotilla activists allege abuse by Israeli forces while detained the BBC said that it had not been able to independently verify the allegations. Perhaps if they had reporters at the various airports where detainees landed they would have been able to verify the allegations for themselves.


If Ukrainian prisoners had alleged torture in Russia you can be sure the BBC would rush to ‘verify’ the allegations.  

The BBC reported that on May 21 422 people from 41 countries were deported by Israel and that Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand said that she had

received information from my officials which details the appalling abuse of Canadians who were detained in Israel”.

She added: "Those responsible for this egregious abuse must be held accountable." Canada which is amongst those countries supplying arms to Israel must know that Israeli torturers and murderers are never prosecuted.

The article went on to say that

a spokesperson for Germany's foreign ministry said its consular officials had met German activists on arrival in Istanbul on Thursday and reported that a number were injured. We naturally expect a full explanation, as some of the allegations that have been made are serious.

I suspect hell will freeze over first. Unprovoked attacks on prisoners is Dan Jarvis idea of ‘democracy’.

The BBC reported that Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares told reporters that four of the 44 Spanish activists had received medical treatment for injuries and that organisers of the Global Sumud Flotilla said that:

At least 15 cases of sexual assaults, including rape. Shot with rubber bullets at close range. Tens of people's bones broken.’

No doubt Israel’s independent judiciary will order an inquiry.

The response of Israel's prison service was that the allegations were "false and entirely without factual basis". Presumably broken bones broke by themselves and women were raped by a phantom.

It’s a wonder that they didn’t say that the allegations were anti-Semitic. Perhaps this was not the right occasion. They went on to say that

All prisoners and detainees are held in accordance with the law, with full regard for their basic rights and under the supervision of professional and trained prison staff. Medical care is provided according to professional medical judgment and in accordance with ministry of health guidelines.

So if we take these statements at face value then torture and severely beating up detainees is in accordance with Israeli law. I look forward to Dan Jarvis explaining  how this equates with Israel’s robust democracy. The terrorist IDF said:

IDF orders require respectful and appropriate treatment of flotilla participants on the intercepted vessels, and there are clear and established procedures in this regard. No specific incidents of deviation from these binding procedures are known within the IDF. Any concrete complaints submitted to the IDF on the matter will be examined thoroughly.

And if you believe this I have a number of bridges I can sell you. So a question that Jarvis might answer. If IDF orders require respectful and appropriate treatment of flotilla members, then how do they account for Ben Gvir’s videos and the subsequent reports of torture.

CNN was less reticent than the BBC:  Freed Gaza flotilla activists accuse Israeli forces of sexual violence and abuse while in custody CNN described how

Activists on board a humanitarian flotilla intercepted by Israeli forces on their way to Gaza say they were subjected to beatings, torture and sexual violence while in detention.

Adalah, the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, told CNN that its lawyers documented testimonies from participants who said they were attacked with tasers and rubber bullets and had been subjected to beatings that left them with suspected broken bones. A statement from the Global Sumud Flotilla added that activists had been subjected to sexual violence, including “multiple accounts of rape,” and “forcible penetration by a handgun.”

No doubt this too is part of what Dan Jarvis called Israel’s “commitment to robust democratic governance, rule of law”. Despite Israeli denials, Adalah’s Miriam Azem stood by the allegations. She told CNN that

In the past 10 years of Adalah representing activists on flotillas, this is by far the most severe violence and assaults that we’ve encountered,”

Adalah said they would let the activists who had experienced sexual violence speak for themselves. This was because some survivors did not want to go into detail about their assaults. Azem said that others were still in Israeli detention at the time they spoke with Adalah, and feared repercussions.

Australian film maker and activist Juliet Lamont told CNN that she was beaten and sexually assaulted by five men in a shipping container on board an Israeli “prison boat.”

Speaking Thursday to reporters at Istanbul Airport while still wearing the grey prison tracksuit of the Israel Prison Service Lamont said she believes activists were targeted in a “relentless” and “planned campaign of violence” that was intended to ensure activists do not return. You know they’ve broken our bones, but they haven’t broken our soul,”


Lamont told reporters in Turkey that Israeli soldiers had sexually assaulted and beaten her. She says soldiers had beaten 180 people on her prison boat, leaving at least 40 with broken bones, while others were Tasered and sedated.

“We were tortured,” Lamont said. She travelled on another flotilla in October 2025 and claimed she was sexually assaulted then. The soldiers’ violence was far worse this time,


In other words a conspiracy to commit violence by Israel’s Police and Security Minister. In any functioning democracy Ben Gvir would have been arrested long ago.

What makes this worse is that at Bilbao Airport there was a further assault on the Flotilla Survivors. The Police who carried this out had been trained by Israel’s Police.


Israel’s VILEST Crime Yet - The Evidence Is Overwhelming

The LA Times reported that South African Gaza flotilla activists endured electric shock torture in Israeli custody.

An article in the Guardian described how Australians were abused after the IDF intercepted the Gaza flotilla and Itamar Ben-Gvir taunted them

Australian Zack Schofield watched, powerless, as Israeli soldiers beat his fellow flotilla activist, an Irish woman, to the ground after she was filmed shouting “free Palestine” at Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir.

“Her hands [and] feet were zip-tied together, and then she was dragged around the rest of the processing centre, before she was taken into a prison bus,” Schofield says from Istanbul, after the activists were deported from Israel.

Schofield said that many of the Global Sumud flotilla’s 428 members were treated brutally after the IDF intercepted their boats sailing from Turkey to deliver food and aid to Gaza.

“Many people received similar or worse treatment for much less. There’s no consistency to the violence. It was really at the whim of whichever guard was in front of you.”

Eleven Australians were among those detained by the IDF. The detainees endured torture, sexual assault, beatings and non-lethal shooting.

Rally in Reading to Welcome Jubair Khan

Israel’s ambassador to Australia, Hillel Newman, claimed that the detained flotilla members were handled with “great sensitivity”. “Out of the 400-plus people that were on the flotilla, no one was harmed,” he told the ABC on Thursday. Which is strange as

All of the Australian activists needed first aid after their detention, and three were taken to hospital in Turkey, flotilla coordinators say. Other members of the global campaign were photographed with bruises and torn skin.

Schofield insists he would willingly sail towards Gaza again.

“Every activist on the flotilla, whether they choose to come back or not, has only had their heart more emboldened by witnessing and experiencing the brutality of the Israeli state,”

‘No Food, No Water, Beatings’: Flotilla Activists Detail Alleged Israeli Prison Abuse

Schofield said that the violence began when IDF ships intercepted their boats on Monday and forced the crews on to prison ships. Armed guards threatened detainees with stun guns, shot them with non-lethal “beanbag rounds” for the slightest “supposed provocations”, and left some bleeding.


Abducted at Sea — Inside Israel’s Detainment of Gaza Flotilla Activists

They were left to sleep in light grey prison tracksuits on the cold, wet floors for two days, with no blankets or mattresses, “cheek by jowl,” Schofield says. He estimates that each exposed container had four people per square metre.

Taken to the port of Ashdod for immigration processing, Schofield says detainees complied with soldiers’ instructions until one soldier took a man of Arab appearance from the crowd to a shipping container.

We heard his screams for about a minute, not the screams of being punched or beaten, but of a constant pressure being applied. When our people rose up, in protest of this shouting, they used that as an excuse to shoot beanbag rounds into a crowd.

“This Was 24/7 Torture” – Gaza Flotilla Activists Describe Alleged Israeli Abuse After Release

They were taken to Ktzi’ot prison and spent two days there, where Schofield says he had his hands handcuffed behind his back for hours at a time. Detainees were made to lift their arms over their heads “to the point of dislocation”.

'No Innocent Children': Israeli Lawmaker Defends Killing of Palestinian Family

Schofield says prison guards restricted detainees’ access to water and forced them to sit in painful stress positions on the ground or pushed them to crowd into each other. He never saw the face of an IDF soldier or prison guard: all of them were masked.

Ben-Gvir avoided meeting his gaze during his tour of the detainees’ prison, Schofield said.

“He was doing his tour in front of us and always looking past our ears, never in our eye. I tried to catch his eye, but no … the veneer of courage is pretty thin.”

Ben-Gvir faced condemnation in Australia and around the world after sharing footage of himself verbally abusing the kneeling and bound detainees. He was criticised within Israel, with Netanyahu, defending the flotilla’s interception but condemning his minister, stating: “The way that minister Ben-Gvir dealt with the flotilla activists is not in line with Israel’s values and norms.”

No doubt Dan Jarvis, the Minister for Defence of Democratic Torture would approve. Schofield said:

He [Ben-Gvir] is a wonderful example of the policies of the Israeli state … It’s very, very good that he has been so public in displaying his attitudes towards humanitarian volunteers.

Melbourne student Neve O’Connor alleges soldiers kneed her in the face and stomach, slammed her head into a table and pulled at her earrings with pliers. She was subjected to degrading comments while being strip-searched, she said in filmed testimony.

O’Connor says guards forced detainees to swap cells almost every hour, playing “mind games”, where prisoners saw drawings on cell walls left by former Palestinian prisoners.

“It was a physical reminder of the fact that we may have been brutalised, but it was nothing in comparison to what Palestinians go through,” she says.

Jewish Australian Anny Mokotow, 71, joined the flotilla after growing frustrated with the federal government’s refusal to support Palestinian voices. She says she wanted a new way to raise awareness of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Gaza is being decimated, people are dying every day. I felt … only with my body can I make a difference now, because it seems as if nobody is really able to listen.

It was the same story when the torture victims arrived in Turkey. Multiple claims of abuse, beatings, sexual assaults and torture. True to form Israel denied everything. What would be a surprise was if Israel admitted anything. As multiple flotilla participants said, what they experienced is a fraction of what the Palestinians experience. And Israeli torture, although too well known to be disputed, is something that human trash like Dan Jarvis turn a blind eye to.

Gaza Flotilla Torture victims arrive in Turkey – The Victims of Dan Jarvis ‘Robust Democracy’

Dr Margaret Connolly, the sister of Ireland’s socialist President Katherine Connolly gave a heartbreaking account of her experiences at the hands of Israel’s savages. Connolly described how ashamed she was with the Irish government of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael which voted down a motion supporting BDS.

Dr Margaret Connolly on her experience on the intercepted flotilla | Drivetime - RTÉ Radio

Global Sumud Activists described the IDF as ‘Worse Than Animals’. Let us not forget that this is the ‘Jewish’ state.

See  Flotilla video: Ben-Gvir’s template of televised abuse was honed on Palestinians

But let us also forget for one moment the torture and humiliation meted out by the filth that they call the ‘most moral army in the world’. Zionist morality is entirely different to most peoples' understanding of the word.

Israel has just introduced a law allowing for judicial lynching of Palestinians.  A death penalty unique in that it reserves the death penalty for one ethnic group only.  A law that even Nazi Germany did not think of introducing. This is Jarvis’ idea of democracy.

Israel rules over 5 million Palestinians who have neither civil nor political rights. They experience a military dictatorship which has exterminated 680,000 people in Gaza, destroyed virtually every hospital, school, university and home. To Dan Jarvis, who is nothing but human faeces in a suit, this is democracy.

Israel is a state of its Jewish citizens, not all of its citizens. In other words it is officially an apartheid state.

Israel is a state where it is permissible to chant ‘death to the Arabs’ in a march of settlers through Arab East Jerusalem without any penalty, guarded by the Israeli Police.

But if Israeli Palestinians chant “With soul and blood, we redeem you, Oh Gaza!” or “There is no solution except uprooting the occupier” or “Gaza shall not submit to the tank or cannon” then they will be convicted of “indirect incitement to terrorism” and “identification with a terrorist organization.”

Fascist Filth Jarvis

If Dan Jarvis thinks this is an example of a democratic state then people should be aware that this Labour Nazi will not hesitate to do the same in Britain.

It is a mark of how low Starmer and his  political cronies have sunk that human detreitus such as Dan Jarvis can serve in a 'Labour' government.

Israel is to the 21st century what Nazi Germany was to the 20th century.  Israel claims to inherit the memory of the millions of Jews who died in the Nazi holocaust. In fact they inherit the memory of those who killed them as Moshe Feiglin, a former Member of the Knesset freely admitted on Israel’s Channel 12 News:

'Hitler said, 'I can't live if one Jew is left,' we can't live here if one 'Islamo-Nazi' remains in Gaza'

A state permanently at war, which seeks to impose its will on the Middle East in alliance with Arab dictatorships such as the UAE.

Today socialists should treat the Labour Party as no different from the Conservative Party. It has lost any connection with working class or socialist politics.

There is an urgent need to build a genuine Left or Socialist Party that can pose an alternative not only to Reform but the rotten, decaying and war-like capitalist system we live in.

The tragedy is that Jeremy Corbyn decided to destroy the greatest opportunity we had to build such a party by placing his own ego above the needs of the movement.

Tony Greenstein

Posted by at 1 comment:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

20 May 2026

In the Past Two Weeks I’ve Been Arrested Twice - Once in Germany & Once in London – Freedom of Speech is Under Threat From Zionism

According to Mark Rowley Saying ‘Globalise the Intifada’ is anti-Semitic Whereas Saying 'Fuck Islam' is Not A Problem


'I HOPE THEY CHARGE ME FOR THE SIGN' - Greenstein defiant after arrest

I went to the Ulm 5 Demonstration outside Stammheim Prison in Germany on May 11. There is a remarkable similarity between the repression that the Filton 24 faced and the situation of the Ulm 5. 

In both cases they entered the factories of Elbit and decommissioned weapons used to murder children and civilians. The defendants in the Ulm 5 case have been held in custody since September and face an equally hostile judge to Jeremy Johnson, who rigged the Elbit trial.

Ulm 5 Demonstration at Stannheim Court

I spoke at the demonstration on behalf of Greens for Palestine and Jewish Network for Palestine. I concluded my speech by saying that ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free’. 

In Germany calling for a free Palestine is illegal. German Police approached me and I was detained for about one and a half hours whilst they took my details. I do not know whether any charges will follow but if they do I will be more than happy to meet my Nazi accusers. German Nazis now profess their love for Jews when they mean Zionists.

UK activists criminalized for trying to stop war crimes

The attack on Palestine solidarity and Jewish anti-Zionists in Germany is indicative of the fact that Germany never deNazified. The Judges who served under the Nazis continued in post in West Germany and received their pensions.

The closest advisor to Germany's first Chancellor Konrad Adenaeur was Hans Globke, who was charged with implementing the  Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935 which Gerard Reitlinger described as ‘the most murderous legislative instrument known to European history’.

It was Globke who proposed that Jewish men be given the name Israel and Jewish women Sarah. As Derek Scally wrote:

Globke drafted the legal commentary on the 1935 Nuremberg laws, legalising the exclusion of Jews from public life, the theft of their assets... It was Globke’s idea to put a “J” in every Jewish citizen’s identity papers,.... After the war, Globke confessed that he knew all about the... industrialised murder of European Jews.

Globke interpreted the Nuremberg Laws to criminalise sexual relations between ‘Aryans’ and ‘non-Aryans’ even outside Germany. As part of their post-war deal for reparations and arms shipments, David Ben-Gurion, Israeli Prime Minister ensured that his name was kept out of the Eichmann trial.

The Nazi state had a consistent pro-Zionist policy up till 1939 and even beyond. In August 1933 the Nazis and the German Zionist Federation signed the Ha’avara trade agreement which broke the Jewish Boycott of Nazi Germany. On 28 January 1935 Reinhard Heydrich, the Chief of the Security Police and deputy to Himmler issued a directive stating that:

The activity of the Zionist-oriented youth organisations that are engaged in the occupational restructuring of the Jews … lies in the interest of the National Socialist state’s leadership. (These organizations) are not to be treated with that strictness that it is necessary to apply to the members of the so-called German-Jewish organizations (assimilationists).

 

The result was that the Zionist groups were treated with ‘more benevolence’ than non-Zionist Jewish groups. The Gestapo and the SD ‘place(d) no restrictions on Zionist organisations.’

In May 1935 Schwarze Korps, paper of the SS, wrote that:

the Zionists adhere to a strict racial position and by emigrating to Palestine they are helping to build their own Jewish state.... The assimilation-minded Jews deny their race and insist on their loyalty to Germany or claim to be Christians because they have been baptized, in order to subvert National Socialist principles.

Why has the German State been so supportive of the Israeli state? Because, as Angela Merkl explained, Israel was Germany’s Staatsräson (reason of state). The alliance with Israel eased the incorporation of Germany into the Western Alliance and NATO.

Germany is the second largest supplier of the weapons used by Israel to commit genocide. By associating itself with Israel’s genocide Germany has come to terms with its own genocides. Germany has an invidious record – the Maji Maji genocide (1905-7) in East Africa, the Herero/Nama Genocide  (1904-8), Turkey’s Armenian Genocide at which German officers were present and integrally involved, the Nazi holocaust and now the Israeli holocaust in Gaza.

The Armenian Genocide

It is not guilt but the German state’s interest in demonstrating that the Nazi Holocaust was not exceptional that leads them to support Israel. If the ‘Jewish’ State has embarked on a program of extermination perhaps the Nazi holocaust too was understandable.


As Moshe Feiglin, a former Likud MK, observed on Israel’s Channel 12 News:

'Hitler said, 'I can't live if one Jew is left,' we can't live here if one 'Islamo-Nazi' remains in Gaza'

This is the main reason why Germany is virulently hostile to the Palestinians.

In a 1982 interview with Il Manifesto, Primo Levi stated, "Everyone is somebody’s Jew." As his interviewer Filippo Gentiloni quipped: "And today the Palestinians are the Jews of the Israelis".

The Cop Who Arrested Me


My Globalise the Intifada Placard That the Metropolitan Police Took Objection To

Last Saturday at the Nakba demonstration in London I held a placard ‘Globalise the Intifada’. I did this because Mark Rowley declared that he would arrest anyone who displayed a placard or uttered the words ‘Globalise the Intifada’.

I wanted to make it clear that the job of the Police is to implement the law not make the law. It is no business of London’s racist anti-Palestinian Police Commissioner to declare that certain slogans are illegal. When the Police start deciding what you can and cannot say we are on the road to a Police State.

Rowley also disingenuously said that

‘it is possible to protest in support of Palestinian people without intimidating Jewish communities or breaking the law.’

Of course the demonstrations have never been intimidating to Jews. They have included thousands of Jews and a Jewish Bloc but by framing Palestinian demonstrations in this way Rowley was implying that all Jews support the Gaza genocide and that the marches were intimidating or threatening to Jewish communities. In the process anti-Zionist Jews were made invisible.

It was interesting what the cops who took me to Hounslow police station, where I was interviewed and bailed, believed Intifada meant. One told me that it meant ‘kill all the Jews’. That is the depth of ignorance in the Metropolitan Police.

These were the same police who stood by as Islamophobic comments poured from the platform in Trafalgar Square. This is the racism that Mark Rowley protects under the guise of  fighting 'anti-Semitism'.

Rowley also blatantly lied by suggesting that the demonstrations deliberately passed synagogues. Rowley combines anti-Semitism with anti-Palestinian racism.

The anti-Semitism he purported to deplore is caused, overwhelmingly, by the association of Jews with Israel’s genocide. Rowley knows what he is doing. He is using Jews as colonial pawns in the State’s war against Palestine solidarity. This is not the first time Jews have played this role and as in Algeria they have not come off well.

Rowley and the Met are the last people to define who is and who is not anti-Semitic. The Met have twice been declared institutionally racist first by the MacPherson Inquiry and then Baroness Casey’s Report in March 2023. In the 1930s they were riddled with members and sympathisers with Oswald Moseley’s anti-Semitic British Union of Fascists.

I was arrested under s.5 of the Public Order Act which governs the use of threatening or abusive words/signs. It applies if the conduct is committed within the sight or hearing of someone likely to be caused harassment, alarm, or distress.

I hope that the Crown Prosecution Service doesn’t bottle out as they did with Peter Tatchell who was arrested in January. Charges were later dropped. I look forward to confronting these charges in a court however I fear they will be dropped as any semi-literate lawyer, even of the Starmer variety, will see that there is little chance of a prosecution succeeding.

I was arrested in October 2023 for comparing Israel to the Nazis and using the phrase, Israel is Hitler’s Bastard Offspring. I am currently bring legal action against the Met. In due course I hope to do so again.

Three White Girls Mock Muslim Women in a Hate Fest The Police Had No Problems With

Contrast the Attitude of the Police Towards the Palestine   Demonstration with that of the Fascist Unite the Kingdom

The decision of the Police to allow Tommy Robinsons festival of hate to command the centre of London demonstrated where their sympathies lay. They had no problem with this virulently Islamophobic demonstration. Overt anti-Muslim racism was smiled upon by London’s police.


Badenoch Has No Objection to Tommy Robinson's Islamic Hate March But Wants Bans on Palestine Marches

Not one person was arrested for racism. British Establishment, creatures like Badenoch are perfectly happy with Islamophobia whereas ‘anti-Semitism’ upsets her. Bad Enoch seems to be a perfect name for this Coconut Extraordinaire.

We had one woman with a ‘Fuck Islam’ poster. Imagine someone had had ‘Fuck Judaism’ on a poster. Their feet wouldn’t have touched the ground. We had 3 White Trollopes dress up in a Burkas before revealing themselves as true Aryans after chanting something like ‘Jihad’.

Posie Parker - From Transphobia to Anti-Muslim Racism - Wants Islam Out Of 'Our Country'

Posie Parker, the transphobic bigot or, as she is now known, Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, ranted that we ‘have to get Islam out of every place of authority’. This was not the religion she was talking about. It is Muslims. Kemi Badenoch is a liar. She knows this full well. Imagine Parker had said that about Judaism or Jews. Tommy Robinson made similar remarks but the Police under Rowley did absolutely nothing.

Mark Rowley - Racist Head of the Metropolitan Police Snake

Despite this the fascist march was significantly smaller than last year, about 40,000 at most. It barely filled Parliament Square. The Palestine solidarity march was in contrast about 250,000 strong.

Tony Greenstein

Please Support My Crowdfunder

See  Jewish activist arrested for ‘Intifada’ placard while right’s hate unpunished

‘Extraordinarily far-reaching’ Palestine Action trial gets underway in Germany

The ‘Ulm 5’ are facing prison time over a break-in at an Israeli weapons firm, in a case experts warn could set a precedent for criminalizing direct action.

By Hanno Hauenstein, +972 Magazine April 28, 2026

Leandra Rollo seen behind a glass screen at the trial of the Palestine Action 'Ulm 5,' charged with breaking into Elbit's offices in southern Germany, at the Stammheim prison complex near Stuttgart, April 27, 2026. (Ignacio Rosaslanda)

In the early hours of Sept. 8, 2025, a group of activists wearing black hoodies that bore the red and white logo of Palestine Action broke into the offices of Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems in Ulm, southern Germany. 

Once inside the compound, according to prosecutors, they damaged and partly destroyed furniture, windows, and technical equipment with axes; sprayed slogans on the walls; lit pyrotechnics; and chanted “Free, free Palestine” and “Germany finances, Israel bombs.” As visible from the activists’ own filming of the break-in, no one was harmed during the action. They remained on site and called the police, who later detained them.

Since their arrest, the five activists — Daniel Tatlow-Devally (an Irish citizen), Leandra Rollo (a Spanish citizen), Crow Tricks and Zo Hailu (British citizens), and Vi Kovarbasic (a German citizen) — have been held in pre-trial detention in separate prisons across southern Germany. 

Relatives and lawyers have raised concerns about the “highly problematic” conditions in which the activists have been held, including strict monitoring of phone calls, visits, and correspondence with the outside world. Four of the five are held in their cells for up to 23 hours a day. Access to books, exercise, and communal activities is severely restricted. 

After nearly eight months in these conditions, the highly anticipated trial against the activists who have come to be known as the “Ulm 5” began this Monday. It is taking place in Stammheim, the high-security prison complex outside Stuttgart that has become synonymous in Germany with the 1970s trials of the so-called Red Army Faction (RAF). 

Stammheim is a highly symbolic choice of venue, not least because in the crackdown on pro-Palestine speech and activism of recent years, many Germans see echoes of the repressive climate surrounding the so-called Radikalenerlass (Radicals Decree) of the RAF era — a West German policy targeting the left, in which public sector applicants and employees were screened for constitutional loyalty and often lost the right to practice their jobs.

In a joint statement earlier this month, lawyers representing the activists argued that holding the trial in Stammheim amounts to “a pre-judgement of the defendants” and gives little confidence for a fair trial. Benjamin Düsberg, who represents the Irish activist Tatlow-Devally, points to what he sees as a broader ideological layer shaping the case, tied to what is known in Germany as Staatsräson, its doctrine of near-unconditional support for Israel.

“This is about sending a signal: that direct action — especially when it targets the military-industrial complex — will be met with the full force of the state,” Düsberg told +972. “In a normal case, you wouldn’t see months of pre-trial detention for property damage and trespassing.”

Attacks on Elbit facilities have occurred in several countries, with some linked to Palestine Action organizations in the UK or other parts of Europe. The British government proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organization last July, a decision later ruled unlawful by British courts....

None of the five defendants has a prior conviction. But now they face charges of trespassing and property damage estimated at more than €1 million and using the symbols of unconstitutional organizations — including “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which was classified by the German Interior Ministry as a Hamas symbol and banned.

Central to the case is a fourth charge: membership in a criminal organization, prosecuted under Section 129 of the German Criminal Code. Although Palestine Action has not been outlawed in Germany, the use of Section 129 allows the state to deny bail and justify extended pre-trial detention on the grounds that the accused pose a threat to society. If found guilty, the invocation of Section 129 could pose prison sentences of five years for the accused. 

A protester holds a sign criticizing Germany’s complicity in the Gaza genocide, Berlin, Germany, September 27, 2025. (Oren Ziv/ActiveStills)

Paula Zimmermann, an expert on freedom of expression and assembly at Amnesty International Germany, told +972 there were “serious human rights and rule-of-law concerns” about the use of this section of the criminal code in this trial. 

“What is being prosecuted here is not just property damage and trespassing, but political dissent colliding with a state doctrine,” Düsberg said. “These are people seen as incompatible with this society. They are constructed as enemies, as antisemites, as ‘Hamas supporters’ — which makes it easier to treat them not as legal subjects, but as adversaries.” 

A verdict against the five activists is expected by late July.

‘Authoritarian methods’

After the five defendants entered the courtroom in handcuffs, the trial started Monday with a tense standoff between the 11-member defense team and presiding judge Kathrin Lauchstädt over courtroom conditions and due process. Members of the legal team argued the trial’s setup — including a thick glass barrier separating the defendants from their lawyers — made communication impossible and was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.

“The court is using authoritarian methods to prevent the defense from exercising fundamental rights,” defense lawyer Matthias Schuster told +972 after the hearing, arguing that the state seeks to portray the defendants as a threat to justify both the severity of the proceedings and their continued detention.

Judge Lauchstädt repeatedly curtailed the defense’s ability to speak, at one point stating she would no longer accept any of the motions raised at the outset of the trial. “The defense was effectively deprived of its most important right and silenced,” Schuster said. 

The judge also asserted her sole authority over the trial record: “You do not decide what goes into the protocol — only I do,” she told defense lawyer Anna Busl, setting a dynamic the defense team later said “undermined the core principles of a fair trial.” The legal team collectively left the courtroom and has since filed a recusal motion against the presiding judge.

When the trial continued after a two-hour-break, the defense lawyers took seats where their clients’had been sitting behind thick security glass in an act of protest against the separation. Schuster called this an attempt to push back against a trial setup that “needlessly obstructs the defense” and carries a “stigmatizing effect.” Lauchstädt gave them five minutes to move to their assigned seats, threatening to remove them from the case entirely. When they didn’t, the court adjourned the session.

The defense team sits in protest behind the glass intended to separate them from their clients, April 27, 2026. (Hanno Hauenstein)

Zimmermann, of Amnesty International Germany, described the trial’s influence as “extraordinarily far-reaching,” telling +972 that its precedent “risks placing legitimate civil society engagement in proximity to organized crime.” She added that the trial could have “significant chilling effects” within German society, potentially deterring people from exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly out of fear of these new prosecution norms.

The stated goal of the action against Elbit’s German subsidiary was to disrupt arms supplies sustaining Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Elbit is one of Israel’s largest defense contractors and counts the Israeli military among its primary clients, describing itself as the “backbone” of Israel’s drone fleet. Its products include systems widely used by Israel in Gaza, including Hermes surveillance and strike drones, quadcopters, and the SkyStriker suicide drone. In 2024, Elbit recorded revenues of $6.8bn.

The Ulm site itself used to be owned by the German radio and television producer Telefunken, which was acquired in 2004 by Tadiran, an Israeli defense electronics firm that was later integrated into Elbit — a lineage that reflects the long-standing integration of German electronics companies into Israeli military technology. 

Shir Hever, an independent researcher specializing in the Israeli occupation, emphasized that two pieces of technology produced in Ulm — the software-defined radio (SDR) and laser targeting system — are particularly essential to Israel. The SDR forms the backbone of an internal communication network referred to as “blue force tracking” that updates military units about the whereabouts of others in real-time. 

“It effectively turns the battlefield into a video game,” Hever told +972. Millions of hours of video, audio, and electromagnetic data feed into what is known as the “Alchemist” database — a central repository underpinning the Israeli military’s AI systems like Lavender and Gospel — which enables large-scale target generation in Gaza.

The laser targeting system, used by both the Israeli military and the German Bundeswehr, has dual uses. Offensively, it allows real-time target designation: “This gives soldiers the power to look around and with their eyes decide who they want to kill or what they want to destroy,” Hever explained. It is also used defensively to intercept threats, including from the CH-53 “Yas’ur” helicopter, which both countries use despite reports of their failure in combat.

Uncovered records further indicate that Elbit’s Ulm facility shipped military goods, including laser and radio systems, to Israel at least seven times in 2025 — both before and after the Palestine Action break-in. These shipments included components for systems used for “acquiring targets and engaging fire from long ranges,” as well as laser warning systems and military communications equipment. 

Israeli soldiers operate a drone manufactured by Elbit Systems during a training exercise, August 5, 2013. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

‘Everything about this case is political’

From detention, the defendants have called for an investigation into Elbit Germany’s alleged complicity in war crimes and genocide in Gaza. Their lawyers assert that the activists acted with a legitimate goal: to prevent the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. Whether — and how — this motivation will be considered is likely to be a central point of contention at the trial.

Germany is Israel’s second-largest arms supplier after the United States and is itself in a phase of massive re-armament that further tightened its alignment with Israel. In 2023, Berlin agreed to purchase Israel’s Arrow 3 missile defense system for €3.6 billion, later expanded by an additional €3.1 billion — the largest arms deal in Israel’s history. 

“Israel is Germany’s most important partner outside of NATO and the EU,” the Interior Ministry stated on the occasion of a new cybersecurity agreement between the two countries earlier this year. All of this comes despite mounting international condemnations — from courts, legal scholars, and human rights organizations — of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, the West Bank, and the wider region.

Unsurprisingly, German officials have united against the action on Elbit. Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor, strongly condemned it, arguing on X: “These attacks are terrorist acts – they must be clearly named and severely punished.” He added: “Antisemitism and terror must have no place in Germany.” 

Several German politicians and media outlets echoed this line. Germany’s biggest newspaper, Bild, dubbed the group the “terrible five.” Martin Rivoir, a Social Democratic politician in Ulm, said during a solidarity visit to Elbit that the activists’ “violent actions are reminiscent of the worst antisemitic atrocities in German history.”

The indictment against the five — spanning 100 pages — barely engages with the political motivation of the action, namely, Israel’s German-backed destruction of Gaza. Instead, in addition to property damage and trespassing, it casts the defendants as belonging to a criminal organization driven by the aim of opposing Israel’s “alleged ‘genocide’” and denying its “right to exist.”


Vi Kovarbasic seen behind a glass screen at the trial of the Palestine Action ‘Ulm 5,’ charged with breaking into Elbit’s offices in southern Germany, at the Stammheim prison complex near Stuttgart, April 27, 2026. (Ignacio Rosaslanda)

The term “existenzrecht,” meaning Israel’s right to exist, appears five times and is described as “clearly antisemitic” if rejected. Meanwhile, the word “genocide,” when used for Israel’s conduct, appears exclusively in scare quotes, framing it as an outlandish or unfounded claim.

Such framing runs throughout the indictment. It claims the defendants promote anti-Zionist views that “portray the aspirations of Jews (i.e. for their own state or its defense) as a colonialist project” and thereby “equate” the State of Israel with Judaism. How exactly such an equation is meant to occur is not further explained throughout the remaining pages, leaving the impression that the indictment itself performs this equation, rather than the activists.

“I honestly have no idea how a court, without hearing evidence from the defence, can make statements about the nature of an action and the motivation for it,” Mimi Tatlow-Golden, mother of Daniel Tatlow-Devally, told +972. “This seems absolutely bizarre and raises fundamental questions about the principle of innocence until proven guilty.” 

The indictment also relies on assessments by the state-funded antisemitism watchdog group RIAS, whose methodology has faced sustained criticism in recent years for opaque research methods and a tendency to collapse the distinction between criticism of Israel and antisemitism. In fact, it even classified a speech by Jewish-Israeli historian Moshe Zimmermann as an antisemitic incident.

Further, the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is classified as a Hamas symbol and, by extension, as antisemitic. The indictment also labels graffiti reading “baby killer” and the term “intifada,” which were sprayed on a wall and chanted during the action, respectively, as antisemitic. 

For Düsberg, the indictment’s repeated emphasis on Hamas, antisemitism, and slogans like “From the river to the sea” serves to delegitimize the defendants’ motives as such. “It’s about constructing a narrative in which their motivations can be dismissed entirely — where you no longer have to engage with questions of arms deliveries or political responsibilities.”

Finally, the indictment describes “Palestine Action Germany” as a group modeled on its UK counterpart, repeatedly invoking the UK ban despite it being declared unlawful by the British courts. “The underlying state classification does not constitute a reliable basis for assessments or conclusions in German criminal proceedings,” Zimmermann stated.

Michael O’Flaherty, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, also explicitly warned against such blanket classifications in a recent report. In it, he urges German authorities to refrain from broad bans on slogans, symbols, or other expressions of solidarity with Palestine, and instead to clearly distinguish between protected political speech and actual antisemitism.

“Everything about this case is political,” Tatlow-Golden said.

‘The wrong people are in the dock’

Tatlow-Golden is concerned about the conditions under which Daniel — who uses they/them pronouns — is held. According to her, they are locked in a cell with frosted windows for 23 hours a day, limited to two 30-minute visits a month (in which they are not permitted to discuss the case), and the rest of the time have almost no human contact. 

“I am unable to speak, write, or talk with Daniel about their motivations,” Tatlow-Golden said, describing them as “an incredibly principled person, whose work has focused on ecological and decolonial questions, and profoundly motivated by human rights.”

For the first months, visits had to take place behind a floor-to-ceiling glass partition — which she described as “effectively a glass box.” Only after sustained pressure, including from Irish parliamentarians Richard Boyd Barrett, Barry Ward, and Duncan Smith, was this restriction lifted. “Just to be able to put your arms around your child — I can’t tell you the difference it makes.” 

Josey, Vi Kovarbasic’s partner whose full name has been omitted to protect her privacy, told +972 that the past few months have been “very destabilizing.” 

“You spend hours on the phone just to book a visit and then travel 15 hours for a half-hour visit once a month,” she said. The prison services also confiscated letters written to them in languages other than German. “One time, they showed Vi 20 letters and said: ‘18 are partly in English, so you can’t have them.’ To show Vi that there are people who care for them, and then to withhold that — it’s just psychological torture.”

The defense’s strategy relies on what Düsberg describes as a “nothilfe” (emergency) argument, referring to a doctrine in German criminal law under which otherwise illegal acts may be justified to prevent greater harm. “Our aim is to show that the wrong people are in the dock here,” Düsberg said. “Not those supplying weapons during an ongoing genocide — but those who tried to stop it.”

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar hold a joint press conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem, March 10, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The argument rests on a causality the defense aims to establish in court: that Israel’s conduct in Gaza amounts to genocide, that Germany, through its continued arms exports, is complicit in genocide, and that Elbit Systems Germany, as a supplier to the Israeli military, plays a concrete role in enabling it.

Düsberg insists the Ulm case is an uncommonly straightforward application of the “nothilfe” argument, which is commonly invoked by climate activists. “I have never seen a case that lends itself so clearly to this kind of argument,” he said.

The prosecution’s reliance on the charge of forming a criminal organization under Section 129 allows the case to be tried collectively. By framing the defendants as members of a criminal organization, prosecutors can seek sentences of up to five years, and justify the extension of pre-trial detention. “Without the Section 129 charge, none of this would be possible,” Düsberg reflected.

In other words, the ongoing trial reaches far beyond Ulm, testing whether acts of direct action — particularly those targeting Germany’s military-industrial complex — can be framed as legitimate intervention in the face of genocide, or are instead prosecuted as organized extremism.

Elbit Systems Germany did not respond to multiple requests for comment.




Posted by at 3 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)