Yair, on behalf of The Villages Group, writes:
On Wednesday [25 Oct '23], D. recorded some WhatsApp messages for Erella. Soldiers came, entered the cave. Taftish - that's the magic word – a search.
D. lives in a cave somewhat distant from the houses of Tuba village, just she and her widowed mother and another younger brother. This distance from the village makes it easy for settlers and soldiers to…
Felicity Laurence writes: The Villages Group is a small but totally dedicated Israeli-Palestinian peace group who have worked year in and year out to show friendship and support to people under occupation in Palestine. I visited many times, to sing and do music with children in the villages, including in the very places right now being destroyed. Things are desperate as never before. I am receiving their letters every day. Here are some…
With the UK government offering “unequivocal” support for Israel - and Labour's leadership not far behind it – nonviolent protest could play a critical role in protecting Gaza's civilians.
By taking to the streets in our hundreds of thousands, flooding MPs' inboxes with letters and emails and staging savvy nonviolent direct actions, there's the possibility of setting limits on or even terminating British support for Israeli war crimes and apartheid.
But many people are…
On her Tuesday 10 October show Breakfast, Sky presenter Kay Burley repeatedly misrepresented comments by UK Palestinian Ambassador Husam Zomlot concerning recent atrocities in Israel-Palestine.
Specifically, in interviews with three separate guests she asserted that Zomlot:
On a scraggy patch of land we stake our claim -
this country's ours, not terrain of the owners -
and string up banners, raise placards that name
a wrong so grievous it has shown us
that the courts of justice are courts of disgrace
with judges so corrupt they take their cue
from whispered briefings designed to erase
all sense of fairness - take a bow, yes you,
Emma Arbuthnot, Vanessa Baraitser,
bewigged and wooden, reeling off…
On 4 October, British prime minister Rishi Sunak made a series of policy announcements at the Conservative party conference in Manchester.
One of these was a year-on-year smoking ban. Sunak said: 'I propose that in future we raise the smoking age by one year every year. That means a 14-year-old today will never legally be sold a cigarette and that they and their generation can grow up smoke free.'
Currently, the legal age to buy tobacco or cigarettes is 18, throughout the UK.…
The prosecution did not show up for the hearing today (Wednesday 20 September) in Kyiv to pursue the filing of charges against [Ukrainian pacifist] Yurii Sheliazhenko, who is being charged by the Ukrainian government with the crime of justifying Russian aggression. The evidence is this statement which explicitly condemns Russian aggression.
Here is a…
[Lying on the Red Sea coast in North East Africa,] Eritrea is a former Italian colony, and it was federated to Ethiopia after Italy lost the Second World War to allied forces. Haile Selassie [emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 – 1974] broke the agreement by forcing Eritrea to be annexed. Therefore, in 1961, the 30-year war for independence broke out, this became the longest conflict in Africa.
Eritrea and Eritreans were isolated during the war of independence and the outlook of Eritreans…
Benjamin Lay is having a renaissance – thanks largely to American professor and writer Marcus Rediker. His biography The fearless Benjamin Lay was first published in 2017 and more recently he has collaborated with David Lester to produce a graphic novel, Prophet against slavery.
Now he has collaborated with playwright Naomi Wallace on the…
TJ, Kai and Zara, are school friends who have been inseparable since childhood. Their relationship changes as they struggle with parental expectations at the same time as their own desires.
The two boys are involved in a fight, caught on cctv. Zara is physically hurt when trying to break it up.
The headmistress, instead of supporting them, divides them and disbands their friendship group. In chance meetings - in the street, in the playground - we hear from the characters two at…
When Nicola Sturgeon resigned from her position as first minister (FM) of Scotland, many people from in Scotland – and from outside – were aware of her unwavering support for Scotland's commitment and action for nuclear disarmament, her rock-solid commitment to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (which is supported by an overwhelming majority of UN member states), her actions in sending messages to the TPNW negotiating conference in 2017, and exchanging very public letters…
It’s been 20 years since the lies and obfuscation that led to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. I’m about to turn 37 and it hit me: those events 20 years ago were how I began my political journey, though I didn't know it at the time. As a progressive activist, one doesn't easily lead with: 'As a teenager, I joined the Marines'... but I did.
At the intersection of my life as a high school kid living just outside NYC during 9/11 and the…
Twenty years ago, in Baghdad, I shared quarters with Iraqis and internationals in a small hotel, the Al-Fanar, which had been home base for numerous Voices in the Wilderness delegations acting in open defiance of the economic sanctions against Iraq. US government officials charged us as criminals for delivering medicines to Iraqi hospitals. In response, we told them we understood the penalties they threatened us with (12 years in prison and a $1mn fine), but we couldn’t be governed by unjust…
On the first anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, 24 February, the Chinese foreign ministry released a 12-point position paper on resolving the Ukraine crisis.
Is the Chinese peace plan helpful? Yes, but only in the most general sense of raising the profile of the need for peace talks (Point 4) – and a ceasefire (Point 3…
The death in January of Neil Collins has left a gap in my own and many other people’s lives.
Neil Collins was one of those individuals who, though involved in many campaigning groups and organisations over the years, was not someone who wrote all that much.
He was very knowledgeable about many aspects of the early history of the anarchist movement and the peace movement. I learnt a lot about this history and honed much of my radical political thinking while having long chats…
