Freedom of Speech is not Terrorism - Opposition to Genocide is not Terrorism - Supplying Weapons to Enable a Genocide & Ethnic Cleansing is a War Crime

 My Trial at Kingston Crown Court Begins on 5 January 2026 – My Charge? Supporting the Right of the Palestinians to Resist The Occupation

Please Register for the Webinar on December 11^th 6 pm 

'Freedom of Speech and Protests Against Genocide are not Terrorism

https://tinyurl.com/2s3py925

Background to My Arrest

Nearly two years ago I was arrested in a dawn raid by a dozen police officers. My ‘crime’ was posting a tweet a month before. A Zionist had asked me to say 3 words ‘I support Hamas’.  I responded and said ‘I support the Palestinians, that is enough. And I support Hamas against the Israeli army.’

If anyone should have been charged with inviting support for Hamas it is James!

The Prosecution will say that it is a crime to support the resistance of Palestinians to the genocidal Israeli army because Hamas is a terrorist organisation. Using this ‘logic’ it would have been a crime to support the French Resistance, whom the Nazis also termed terrorists. My response at 6.30 a.m. was just 3 words ‘this is Orwellian’.  Perhaps rape and burglary had gone out of fashion? The Police were therefore left with no choice but to go into the business of thought crime.

In fact rape has effectively been decriminalised because the police say they don’t have the resources to deal with it. However they do have dozens of police available at a moment’s notice to go arresting supporters of the Palestinians as ‘terrorists’. Indeed the Metropolitan Police seem to do nothing else these days.

But perhaps, given the Met have a rape and misgyny problem, with officers such as Wayne Couzens, the murderer of Sarah Everard and David Carrick, it is safer to concentrate on ‘terrorism’.

Earlier today we were made aware of plans for a pro-Palestine protest outside St John’s Wood Synagogue this afternoon.

We understand why the group's decision to protest at this location will cause concern to some communities.

There is no legal mechanism to ban the protest from… pic.twitter.com/sg58LqLna9

— Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) November 23, 2025

This begs the question - why would the Met want to ban a demonstration?  The Police have now become the judges of what is an acceptable protest

What the Met are doing is supporting British foreign policy which is giving support to the genocide in Gaza. Having received no less than 9 complaints from Zionists like @Heidi Bachram, they decided to spare no expense in arresting me. Ms Bachram was operating in the best traditions of Jews who had betrayed fellow Jews to the Nazis.

I was arrested initially under s.12(1A) of the Terrorism Act 2000 which makes it an offence to ‘express an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed (i.e. terrorist) organisation.’

My Police interviewers did not understand when I told them that I would have supported the Devil himself against the IDF.  I gave them the example of how, in 1944, over 200 Jews deserted from the Polish Home Army (AK) because they had been told by their officers that they would be shot in the back when they went into action.

A saying common in AK was that ‘‘Every Pole has two bullets—the first for a Jew and the second for a German,'” It caused a major scandal when Tom Driberg MP raised it in the House of Commons, against the wishes of the Board of Deputies. Anti-Semitism was rife in AK so it is unlikely that I would have supported it.

However when AK led the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 against the Nazis then of course I would have supported it. The same with Hamas. I support it against a genocidal army but not against its own people.

Hamas was elected by the Palestinians in free elections in 2006.  What proscription effectively is is a racist definition of all Palestinians as terrorists. Britain has no business defining a group fighting the occupation of their own country as ‘terrorist’ whereas the Israeli state, which is illegally occupying that land and committing genocide is certainly a terrorist state but one acceptable to the British state. 

What is being embedded in British law is its foreign policy. It is political opinion which is cemented into the law, which is a complete abuse of the law which is there to regulate behaviour not opinion.

As John Stuart Mill argued in ‘On Liberty’ [Chapter 1, 2003 ed.] that

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.

In the eyes of the law and prosecution Hamas are ‘terrorists’ when it is abundantly clear that it is the Israeli state which is a terrorist state. By comparison Hamas are akin to virginal choir boys.

As Lord Carrington, Thatcher’s first Foreign Secretary said, ‘one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.’ All resistance organisations are termed ‘terrorists’ by those they oppose. The Czech and Yugoslav resistance were called ‘terrorists’ by the Nazis.

We live in authoritarian times when protest and opposition to Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza is equated with terrorism and dissent is equated with subversion. The latest outrage is a senior government lawyer declaring, at the trial of Natalie Strecker on charges of ‘terrorism’ in Jersey, that international law should be disregarded.

The Genocide Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights, both passed in the wake of the Nazi holocaust, are effectively dead in the water, murdered by the new imperialism of which Trump and Starmer are such excellent representatives.

Starmer's hypocrisy over genocide - he argued there was genocide in Vukovar but no genocide in Gaza

Starmer, the ‘human rights lawyer’ argued that the massacre in Vukovar in November 1991, when 1,200 civilians were murdered, was a genocide but the possibly hundreds of thousands killed in Gaza are not a genocide despite the clear statements of Israeli government ministers of their desire to ethnically cleanse Gaza.

We caught up with former Labour MP Chris Williamson at the Your Party conference

Last week we had the spectacle of the Government’s ‘Justice’ Ministry blatantly trying to fix the outcome of Palestine Action’s Judicial Review by having the judge hearing it, Martin Chamberlain, removed and 3 pro-Israeli, security judges replace him.

The new judges are Dame Victoria Sharp, Dame Karen Steyn and Sir Jonathan Swift.  All right-wing and all pro-Israel. There is an excellent article on Electronic Intifada giving the background to these stooge judges. All are paid up members of the British Establishment.

As part of his authoritarian agenda Starmer is now trying to introduce ID cards, an essential part of the surveillance society that reduces us to mere numbers. And in order that juries don’t continue to acquit defendants whom the Establishment believe are guilty, Starmer and Lammy are proposing to abolish juries for all but the most serious cases of murder and manslaughter.

My Trial On 5 January 2026

The Crown Prosecution Service [CPS] then changed tack and charged me under s.12 of the TA with ‘inviting support for a proscribed organisation’ on the basis of a blog, Full Support for the Gaza Ghetto Uprising and four tweets. Of course I did no such thing and indeed I have long been a critic of Hamas’ conservative politics, see e.g. my condemnation of their use of torture, however I’m not prepared to demonise them either. In resisting genocide I have no hesitation in supporting them against the mass murderers of the IDF.

The CPS had to get the Attorney General, Richard Hermer’s approval for the prosecution to go ahead. Given that Hermer has “dear family members currently serving in the IDF” that was not too difficult.

The police have not once arrested supporters of Israel’s genocide despite aiding and supporting genocide being a criminal offence under the International Criminal Court Act 2001.  The CPS and Attorney General Hermer are selective about which laws they implement.

Although the issue of Palestine-Israel is always posed in the mainstream media in terms of Israel’s ‘right of self-defence’ it is the Palestinians’ rights of self defence which is at the heart of the issue of whether they were entitled to break out of Gaza on October 7.

Palestinians in Gaza had been under siege for 17 years They were subject to the Israeli policy of ‘mowing the lawn’, i.e. periodic massacres and bombing aimed at keeping the population quiet and submissive whilst they got on with their project of ethnically cleansing the West Bank before turning their attention to Gaza.

This was in conjunction with another policy of putting Palestinians in Israel ‘on a diet’. As Dov Weissglass, the lawyer and adviser to then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon explained: ‘The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.’ The figure arrived at was 2279 calories a day, 8% less than previously calculated. It is reminiscent of Nazi calculations as to how much food they would allow into the ghettos. They too made calorific calculations.

How Israel is replicating Nazi starvation tactics | Soumaya Ghannoushi | MEE Opinion

The project Israel is embarked upon is that of a Greater Israel. This involves the occupation of land in all the neighbouring countries, the biblical Greater Israel or Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel) which has always been the Zionist goal. That is why Israel is the only state in the world not to define its borders.

At the present moment Israel is in occupation of parts of Lebanon and Syria, without a squeak of protest from the ‘international community’ or the ‘rules based order.’

October 7 forced changes in the plan.  Gaza became the primary target although violence has increased massively in the West Bank where whole villages have had to be abandoned as a result of violence from settlers and the army. Over one thousand Palestinian civilians in the West Bank have been killed by the Israeli military or settlers since October 7.

October 7 was intended by the Palestinian resistance to be a short operation aimed at capturing Israeli hostages and exchanging them for the thousands of Palestinian hostages who had been convicted of the ‘crime’ of opposing an illegal occupation.  Israel’s military courts have a 99.74% rate of conviction and one-third of Palestinian prisoners, hundreds of whom are children aged 12 and upwards.  They are held in Administrative Detention without any trial. Palestinian prisoners are as much hostages as the Israeli hostages were.

oh my god. One of the three authors of the New York Times' "mass rape" atrocity propaganda hoax is Anat Schwartz. She liked posts calling for Gaza to be turned into a "slaughterhouse". This the person the NYT hired to write about Palestinians and frame them as sub-human monsters pic.twitter.com/vlaKLVxwil

— ☀️👀 (@zei_squirrel) February 24, 2024

Israel used October 7 to create a genocidal narrative. Instead of a well planned military operation it was alleged to be an orgy of atrocities – mass rapes and the wanton killing of babies. The original story of ‘40 beheaded babies’ has been completely discredited but almost a dozen British newspapers — including The Times, Metro, The i, Daily Express, The Scotsman, and Financial Times ran stories on their front pages citing Israel’s i24 claims. None have retracted.

In fact only one baby, Mila Cohen, died on October 7 and that accidentally. This is confirmed by Israel’s own social security statistics.

‘Rape atrocities’ were a well worn racist, colonial narrative in which the indigenous population and Black people were portrayed as savages with the men being portrayed as having uncontrolled sexual appetites and urges. This was not dissimilar to how Jewish men were portrayed in Nazi Germany.

The Israeli government constructed a similar narrative. Israel’s October 7 rape atrocity narrative was given legs by the New York Times in Screams Without Words. Anat Schwartz, an Israeli, was assigned to cover the allegations that Hamas systematically used sexual assault as a weapon of war during the October 7 attack.

The NYT article has long since been discredited. Schwartz was soon discovered to have liked a tweet supporting turning Gaza into a slaughterhouse. The Intercept demolished the NYT’s propaganda piece in “Between the Hammer and the Anvil” The Story Behind the New York Times October 7 Exposé.

The article’s prime example of a woman who had been raped and killed, Gail Abdush, was contradicted by her own family.  Even the NYT’s Daily podcast refused to run the story. Schwartz was dropped but the NYT refuses to admit that Screams Without Words was fiction rather than a serious piece of investigative journalism.

The final nail in the coffin of the rape atrocity story was the admission by Moran Gaz, who was in charge of Israel’s Southern Prosecutor's Office, that she had no rapes to investigate or people to charge. In December 2024 Ynet, the widest circulation Israeli newspaper, published an interview with Gaz, saying that

In the end, we have no complainants. What was presented in the media compared to what will ultimately emerge will be completely different.

But the damage had been done. As the old saying goes, by the time the truth gets its boots on a lie has travelled half-way round the world.

The atrocity propaganda was carried by the mainstream media but when it was proven to be untrue, there was no admission of fault. This is how BBC style propaganda works.

The British first invented atrocity propaganda against the Germans in the first world war. Israel has perfected it to a fine art. The depiction of Hamas as ‘terrorists’ is of a piece with this atrocity propaganda.

The definition of ‘terrorism’ in the Terrorism Act 2000 is wide enough to allow the government to demonise anyone they want to. It gives the government of the day an arbitrary power to classify anyone they dislike as ‘terrorists’ regardless of who they are. Hamas military wing was proscribed in 2001 and Priti Patel, a crook who became Home Secretary, proscribed its political wing in 2021.

This decision was a warrant for genocide. Hamas was the elected government in Gaza and formed an administration. Civilians who were members of its political wing included doctors, teachers, nurses and academics. By branding the political wing a terrorist organisation this gave the green light to Israel to attack hospitals, schools and universities because ‘terrorists’ were working there.

 The ban on commenting on Hamas is a clear breach of Article 10 of the ECHR on freedom of speech, which our judges have done their best to negate.

Hamas is a resistance organisation, which Netanyahu did more than most to create and support in his effort to combat a Palestinian state.

Because my trial is imminent I am organising a webinar around not only my case but the attack on Palestine solidarity activists. Natalie Strecker is awaiting a verdict in a similar trial in Jersey and her charges are similar to those facing me. The trial of the first six of the Filton 24 has already begun. Richard Medhurst who is speaking also faces the prospect of being charged.  Despite being a journalist he is the ‘wrong type’ of journalist.

Please register and join us and also get involved in the campaign against the persecution of Palestine solidarity activists. I am calling for a demonstration outside Kingston Crown Court on January 5^th at 9.30 and for people to attend the trial which is estimated to last a week. It is important that the movement makes its presence felt.

Tony Greenstein

Please donate to 

Stopping the Police Persecuting Palestine Solidarity Activists

‘It was a Scam – A Dirty Fucking Scam’, the ‘Anti-Semitism’ Smear Campaign Was a Genocidal Scam

 Brilliant Song by Glenn Jenkins Sums Up the Zionist Campaign that Corbyn Fell For – ‘Appeasing us was his mistake’ – Let’s Hope That At Last He Now Realises It

It was a scam - a dirty fucking scam - the Labour Antisemitism Smear Campaign by Glenn Jenkins

Two nights ago I first received a copy of a brilliant new song summing up the ‘anti-Semitism’ witch-hunt in the Labour Party. About three different people sent it to me almost at the same time.

My first instinct was search the Internet and see who had composed it but it was nowhere to be found. The song had just materialised. Finally Chris Williamson let me into the secret and then Glenn himself contacted me.

Chris Williamson - the only MP who stood up to the Zionists

I decided to put a graphic on it and turn it into an mp4 before Sarah Wilkinson improved on my amateur efforts.

A lot of people were, at first, taken in by the scam. I remember even in Momentum, the group set up to support Corbyn, people said when I was suspended that there was no smoke without fire. But of course that is not true. Any chemist can tell you that you can have plenty of smoke without fire and so it proved.

The people in the Labour Party who were alleging ‘anti-Semitism’ were the biggest racists of all, starting with Margaret Hodge and Louise Ellman (the MP for North Tel Aviv – a jibe which was used as an excuse to expel me in February 2018).

Labour Fiends of Israel

I am proud to be the first Jewish person to be expelled from the Labour Party as part of this scam but not the last Jewish person by any means. All those who were expelled had one thing in common.  We were anti-racists and that meant anti-Zionists.

Richard Medhurst & Natalie Strecker - victims of the anti-terrorist cops

As we have seen, Keir Starmer, who is a political dead-man walking, promised to root out ‘anti-Semitism’ from the Labour Party whereas in fact what he rooted out was any commitment to socialist and anti-racist values.

Starmer paying homage to his funders

The song highlights Jackie Walker, Ken Livingstone, Chris Williamson, Marc Wadsworth and myself but there were many others who also fell victim, like Anne Mitchell in Hove for doing nothing more than posting anti-Israel/Zionist comments.

Corbyn the Appeaser

Corbyn unfortunately fell for it and despite a letter last year from Chris, Jackie, Anne, Asa Winstanley and myself, shows no signs of understanding the nature of the scam. He still stands by the contrived and malicious EHRC Report compiled by the racist barrister and commissioner Alisdair Henderson.

Let us hope, for the sake of Your Party, that Corbyn comes down from his pedestal and admits that he got it wrong.  That the anti-Semitism scam which resulted in the expulsion of so many members had but one real target and that was him.

Enjoy this song and I hope Glenn releases it as it’s a sure fire Xmas no. 1!

Below are the lyrics.

When they came for Tony Greenstein, with a trumped up charge that he

was a raging antisemite, it was clear for all to see,

That the charge was fucking ludicrous, a dirty low down smear

Of a Jewish anti racist, who’s been standing firm for years

 

The Zionist MPs turned out for Ruth Smeeth at Marc Wadsworth's Hearing

Then the genocidal telescope, turned on to Jackie Walker

They spied and they lied and they tried to hide with a secret tape recorder

Jackie's trumped up charges, just like Tony’s were twisted to deceive

By Labour Fiends of Israel, what a tangled web they weave

Ken Livingstone - Betrayed by Corbyn was a Zionist Scalp

 

Chorus: “It was a scam, a scam, a dirty fucking scam, and everyone now sees it clear as day, the Zionists and mammonists, they pulled their bag of dirty tricks, but now the mask has slipped and fell away”

 

The Zionist hounds were confident now, their tails were in the air

With two Corbyn supporters lynched, they moved it up a gear

Red Ken was in the periscope, Chris Williamson in their sights

Then they opened up the gatling guns and shot with all their might

Jackie Walker - Stabbed in the Back by Jon Lansman

 

Marc Wadsworth on the radar now, they were really on a roll

Taking anti racist warrior scalps, as a message to the proles

“There’s none of you we can’t defame, no scalp we cannot take

And soon we’ll come for Corbyn. Appeasing us was his mistake

 

Chorus: “It was a scam, a scam, a dirty fucking scam, and everyone now sees it clear as day, the Zionists and mammonists, they pulled their bag of dirty tricks, but now the mask has slipped and fell away”

 

“It was a scam, a scam, a dirty fucking scam, and everyone now sees it clear as day, the Zionists and mammonists, they pulled their bag of dirty tricks, but now the mask has slipped and fell away”

 Tony Greenstein

On Thursday I’m Debating with Phil Bevin Who Believes That Mass Protests Against the Proscription of Palestine Action Do the Work of the State

A Tiny Group of Conspiracy Theorists Are Smearing Defend Our Juries & Denigrating the Mass Protests Against Proscription

This is the Link to View the Debate

https://www.youtube.com/@DeepDivePerspective

It's a Scam 

There is a small group who, ever since the protests against the proscription of Palestine Action began, have been doing their best to undermine the protests. Civil Disobedience in their eyes is the wrong strategy but they haven’t proposed an alternative because, of course, they don’t have one.

In reality they despise mass action from a mixture of motives, not least contempt for the masses. They believe the state is all powerful, the repression cannot be resisted and people should accept their lot. So anyone who takes to the streets is branded ‘psy-ops’ or an intelligence cut out or some other phrase taken from the lexicon of conspiracy theorists.

In this case they represent themselves as the Defend the Right to Protest Ltd., Company number 16332885, which has 3 Directors – Ranjeet Brar, Novjot Brar and Eleonore KOFFI, all members of the Communist Party of Great Britain – Marxist Leninist.

Others conspiracists include Phil Bevin @philbevin who was once part of Corbyn’s Leader of the Opposition Office, Dr Alan Williams @alanwilliamz, Dic Penderyn @PenderynDic_ and Jon Harding @_i0n

Williams was formerly of  Ecological Action. He asked Sayeed Farouky, a former PA activist, incriminating questions under a fake name (John Hunter). They believe that mass civil disobedience is state sponsored.

They have been making strenuous efforts in recent weeks to undermine the protests accusing both Defend Our Juries and key people like Tim Crosland of being state operatives. Let us recall the timeline of events surrounding the proscription of Palestine Action as a ‘terrorist’ organisation.

Timeline of the Proscription of Palestine Action

On the evening of July 4 Interim Relief was refused by Justice Chamberlain and then the Court of Appeal. The proscription of Palestine Action went ahead. On the evening of July 5^th, before the banning came into effect Defend Our Juries held a public zoom meeting at which Huda Ammori, from PA spoke. PA itself was wound up at midnight.

At this meeting it was agreed by all, including Palestine Action activists, that a series of rolling protests would be held at which people would hold up placards saying ‘We Oppose Genocide, We Support Palestine Action’. This was to be co-ordinated by DOJ.

Defend Our Juries Protest Tavistock Square Against the Proscription of Palestine Action

On July 30 leave was granted by J Chamberlain to apply for Judicial Review. On 4 September the government was given permission to appeal with Lord Justice Underhill quoted as saying that “I believe that the appeal has a real prospect of success.”

On 17 October the Court of Appeal not only refused a government application to overturn the decision to grant Palestine Action leave to apply for JR, it also added 2 further grounds for appeal.

It is clear to anyone who has actually read the Court of Appeal decision that it was heavily influenced by the fact that over 2,000 people (now 3,000+) had been arrested for defying the proscription of Palestine Action.

It was not clear however to Phil Bevin and his co-conspiracists. In a blog Bevin took exception to my suggestion that the mass arrests might have had something to do with the decision of the Court of Appeal. Bevin argued that

there are actually two points to consider regarding the Court of Appeal decision:

1. whether the level of public support has a bearing on appealing the proscription;

2. whether the processes of appealing the proscription of a group (POAC – Proscribed Organisation Appeal Commission) , which is the route the Government wanted to prioritise over the high court appeal, and challenge to the legality of the Government’s original proscription of Palestine Action via the High Court, are separate.

Naturally for a conspiracy theorist who had attacked the protests, the second alternative won out. Unsurprisingly Bevin echoed the Court of Appeal’s rationale, stating that ‘The Court of Appeal has in fact based its decision on the second point’.

Well as Mandy Rice-Davies said, ‘they would, wouldn’t they’.’ It is highly unlikely that the Court of Appeal would come right out and say that but for the protests they would have upheld the government appeal. The surprising thing though is that they as good as did confess that the protests had had a major impact on their decision.

Justice Chamberlain, who granted leave to apply for a Judicial Review has been removed from hearing the case raising suspicions that the result is being fixed.

If you go to paragraph 59 of Huda Ammori v Secretary of State for the Home Department you will read:

It is blindingly obvious that the Court of Appeal’s decision was indeed due to the mass protests.  However if you have staked everything, including your reputation, on slandering and denigrating the protests as counterproductive, alongside a group of mad Maoists, then it is very difficult to climb down. If your reputation rests on a series of false, conspiratorial lies, backing down and admitting you are wrong is difficult.

Most people find eating humble pie disagreeable and indigestible. Bevin and fellow conspiracists are not the first people to find it so and they won’t be the last. David Aaronovitch promised to gorge lashings of the stuff if he was proven wrong over the Iraq War. Unfortunately he didn’t keep his promise.

However there is no way of reading the above other than accepting that the protests have led to the brink of the proscription of Palestine Action being declared unlawful.  It may turn out that at the last hurdle the High Court will nonetheless uphold Yvette Cooper’s decision to equate a protest group with a terrorist group.

Given that the definition of ‘terrorism’ is so wide in the Terrorism Act 2000 that is still a possibility. See Conor Crummey: The Principle of Legality, the Definition of ‘Terrorism’, and Palestine Action

The presence of the two Brars as company directors suggests that this nonsense originates with the CPGB-Marxist Leninist, a small Stalin worshipping Maoist group. You can read their letter to DOJ, in the name of Right to Protest Ltd., here. The first question is why the Brars haven’t written it in the name of their own organisation. Joti Brar also doubles as the President of the Stalin Society and was Vice-Chair of the Workers Party before George Galloway got rid of her.

Bevin has been much put out by my rebuttal of his nonsense and issued A response to defamatory statements. He can make defamatory statements a plenty but he finds them obnoxious when he is on the receiving end. He didn’t like my accusation that he is a conspiracy nut or anti-Semitic, despite him giving full backing to David Miller own conspiracy theories.

However Bevin has had no hesitation in attacking individuals in DOJ. People such as Clive Dolphin, who worked at Lockheed Martin. It is as if we should condemn forever people who have worked in arms factories. They bear the mark of Cain.

Tim Crosland, who used to be a government lawyer, is a particular target. Tim has been upfront about his decision to resign government service and he has now been charged under s.12(1) of the Terrorism Act, which carries a 14 year sentence.

Even I came under attack for having ‘a family connection to the IDF’. My brother lives in Israel and has for a long time. He will therefore have served in the army although he’s too old to do so now.  However according to the McCarthyite playbook of Bevin and co. I am somehow tarred with the same brush. This is the methodology of our conspiracy theorists.

Phil Bevin ranting

Bevin and co. have never risked anything. They seem to think that once you have taken the government’s shilling that you will never redeem yourself. This argument, I have to confess, leaves me cold. If Tim had hidden his past then it would be a different matter but he has been quite open about it.

Edward Snowden

As a friend remarked, perhaps we should damn Edward Snowden too because he once worked for the CIA even though he betrayed the secrets of how they and other government agencies spied on the public. Chelsea Manning is equally suspect, despite having been prosecuted because she too was an army intelligence analyst.

I contacted former activists in Palestine Action to get their take on this groups activities and their first response was ‘They are nuts mate. And they have been trying to trick people.’

‘These people, never met them, put 2 & 2 together and make 85 – its literally madness.’ And that just about sums it up.

One of the methods of the conspiracy theorists is to take any disagreement in the government or civil service as proof of collusion. The Guardian ran an article about how government advisers told ministers that banning Palestine Action could make it more popular. It is quite normal for the civil service to advise Ministers about proposed legislation. It is for Ministers to either accept or reject that advice. Yvette Cooper, being a rich, thick, white and racist ‘feminist’, chose to ignore that advice. Why?

Probably because of the Zionist campaign against PA. The misnamed Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is a charity despite being funded by the Israeli state, had long been campaigning for the proscription of Palestine Action. When Palestine Action was proscribed, the CAA claimed victory. The CAA were not the only Zionist group to campaign for proscription. We Believe in Israel also urged their supporters to write to their MP demanding action.

This was the backdrop to the proscription of PA. Zionist organisations, Elbit, Lord Walney – the government’s sex pest advisor on ‘extremism’ had all been mounting a campaign calling for PA’s proscription. Bevin and his co-conspiracy theorists knew better.

When the Guardian published an article on 11 November “Advisers told ministers banning Palestine Action could make it more popular” which evaluated the possible consequences of proscribing Palestine Action Cooper decided to steam ahead, not because she disagreed with the advice but because she wanted to make Palestine Action more popular according to Bevin and his co-conspiracists!

If you follow the conspiracy it was because she wanted to use the inevitable protests as an excuse for more repressive legislation. Defend Our Juries according to Bevin’s theory saw its chance to help  Cooper achieve her objectives.

The advice of the civil servants was that PA was a‘small single issue group with lower mainstream media exposure’ than other direct action groups such as Just Stop Oil.’ The Advisors suggested there was a ‘growing frustration with Israeli military methods and actions in Gaza’ and that ‘60% of Britons believed Israel had gone too far in the war in Gaza.’

Bevin’s conclusion?

Ministers intended to raise Palestine Action’s public profile through proscription and that Defend our Juries has played a significant role in serving that agenda via its “Lift the Ban” campaign, leading to the arrest of thousands of activists.

Bevin then had a detour to attack another favourite target, Roger Hallam, who has just served a prison sentence. Hallam is

a psyop and/or security apparatus backed provocation - has links to the US national security apparatus. I won’t bore you with the tedious details of this conspiracy [thank  god! – TG] but it is of a piece with all the other conspiracies.

Bevin lays out two scenarios. One is that ignoring the adviser’s advice was a mistake ‘that Defend our Juries have since sought to exploit.’ The other scenario which Bevin prefers is that

raising Palestine Action’s profile was the purpose of the proscription, which provided the opportunity for Defend our Juries to act as agent provocateurs, driving activists into the net of the police. In my view, the following evidence weighs the case in favour of the second interpretation:

In support of his thesis Bevin cites ‘the curious failure of the police to close down DoJ’s online communications’ but he is wrong. Twice the Police contacted Zoom who closed down the activists’ meetings at their request.’

The actions of DOJ are in a long line of similar protests stretching back to defiance of the Combination Acts by trade unionists resulting in the transportation of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. There have been many similar acts of defiance of unjust laws – Chartists, Suffragettes, Anti-fascists and anti-racists. If Bevin and his myriad conspiracy theorists had their way then no struggle would ever have been successful because when setting out on a campaign people would have been overawed by the strength of the state.

Anyway come and hear the debate on Thursday at 7.15 pm. and decide for yourself whether the conspiracy theorists and loony tunes have got it right or not.

Tony Greenstein