Just caught up with this. Springsteen nails it as only Springsteen can.

This is a great piece.

The NYT, leading on the $1bn "fee" for joining Trump's "Board of Peace", understandably airs speculation that it "could even be aimed at creating a U.S.-dominated alternative to the United Nations Security Council." www.nytimes.com/2026/01/18/w...

This reads like a spoof but if it's authentic, and I'm told it is, it's gobsmacking. www.timesofisrael.com/full-text-ch...

This intro to David Frost's Telegraph column sums up so much that is wrong with British politics.

Three days is a long time in geopolitics right now but this from earlier in the week still worth a read. www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-...

This is a devastating film on every level whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/defau...

This, like so much else emerging from Iran, is horrifying. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Jonathan Dimbleby, in his new introduction to his and Don McCullin's 1979 "The Palestinians" observes “a growing tendency to regard what they used to consider a fine nation in peril from multiple enemies as a rogue state under demonic leadership” www.the-tls.com/politics-soc...

Yes! Salutary, this. www.independent.co.uk/voices/iran-...

This seems to explain why HSBC, the biggest British bank and one of the top ten in the world, blocked modest donations to individuals in Gaza who I have known and worked with for 20 years and have absolutely nothing to do with Hamas. www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

An, exemplary, human being, in every way. Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, visits the community of the Holy Family Catholic Parish in Gaza City, ahead of Christmas Mass he will deliver there. lpj.org/en/news/pres...

Marco Rubio Stands by Cuts That Killed Hundreds of Thousands of People

‘A Chilling Assertion’: Trump Officials Falsely Claim Citizens Must Carry Immigration Docs to Prove Their Status “There is no legal requirement that US citizens carry papers or have proof of their citizenship on them,” said an attorney at the ACLU Northern CA. www.commondreams.org/news/bovino-...

The FT notes that delusional claims about London from Trump, Musk and others are having a reputational impact. The paper points out the capital's murder rate is a third of that in Berlin, a quarter of New York's, and 5% of that in Washington DC

Just seen “It was just an accident” Jafar Panahi’s brave and riveting film bringing in the most human of ways to the screen the brutal repressiveness and corruption of the Iranian regime and the courage of "ordinary" Iranians who oppose it at such personal cost. Definitely my movie of 2025.

Maybe someone can explain why it isn't seriously irresponsible for the ICC to let this drag on for so long. www.middleeasteye.net/news/icc-lim...

This is about the best breakdown on the restrictions of foreign reporters into Gaza, and how outlets like NPR report the conflict: with the excellent, tireless work of our Palestinian reporter, Anas Baba. www.npr.org/2025/11/25/n...

🚨🚨🚨 La #LDH dénonce la persistance de frappes israéliennes sur les populations civiles #gazaouïes malgré l’accord de cessez-le-feu. Le #génocide doit cesser et la justice être rendue aux victimes, pour qu’une paix durable puisse enfin se construire.

This is good for no one. European academic boycotts of Israel have intensified despite the Gaza cease-fire, with a new report warning they risk sending Israeli academia into "dangerous isolation www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

the price of populism

Peter Etedgui, a Jewish former classmate of Nigel Farage, says he is angered by Reform leader claiming his recollection of racist bullying is untrue. Two former classmates bsck Etedgui's challenge to Farage's (partial) denial among 20 who recalled Farage's conduct then www.bbc.com/news/article...

Yesterday, millions of voters refused to go along with the cruelty of the Trump regime. They repudiated the formula Trump and his billionaire backers have used to distract and divide us. Democrats must build off of this moment. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-true-test-of-our-progress

I’m sure Matt Goodwin will be along shortly to tell us all whether LNER Customer Service Host Samir Zitouni counts as British or not. news.sky.com/story/train-...

The Taliban have gutted Afghan media since taking control of the country in August 2021. HRW's @fereshtaabbasi.bsky.social details the harsh conditions and growing challenges journalists are facing in Afghanistan ⤵️

Trump gave Amazon a $16 billion tax break to accelerate its investments this year. Now, Amazon will replace 600,000 workers with robots as Jeff Bezos accelerates his plan to automate warehouses. No. Corporate tax breaks do not trickle down to workers. Never have. Never will.

The timing is accidental but this revised edition has just gone on online. www.amazon.co.uk/Gaza-Prepari...

quite right. www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater...

Manchester Council of Mosques have issued this statement in sadness, shock and solidarity with the Jewish community about this attack at the synagogue in Manchester

A thought or two on what might follow the latest multilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood inews.co.uk/news/world/p...

we need a label for UK politicians who endlessly "empathise" with fascist concerns - let's try a US one my latest with @prospectmagazine.co.uk www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/709...

Milshtein warned that Israel’s advance into Gaza City will probably result in more deaths of Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians and a long, grinding insurgency that could become “like the U.S. in Iraq.” www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey takes a welcome and principled stand. www.theguardian.com/politics/202... .

My full statement on the Gaza Famine :

"As Netanyahu starves Gaza, there is a whole new battle to be fought in Israel – against complacency. Here in Tel Aviv, beaches and restaurants are packed." Aluf Benn www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Funerals have taken place in Gaza City for five Al Jazeera journalists killed in what the UN has condemned as a grave breach of international law. In Dublin, members of the National Union of Journalists gathered to condemn the targeting of journalists in Gaza. #VMNews

Tremendous --as ever--reporting from the West Bank by Jeremy Bowen on BBC Today prog--albeit deeply depressing. Get it from one hour 36 mins in. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Prominent Al Jazeera journalist killed in Israeli airstrike on Gaza

Sorry--should of course have said Friday's editorial in Haaretz. Just caught up. www.haaretz.com/opinion/edit...

Yesterday's powerful editorial from Haaretz www.haaretz.com/opinion/edit...

Twice this year, @anneapplebaum.bsky.social visited the front lines of Sudan’s brutal war. No international organizations, diplomats, or Americans are coming to fill the void that years of violence have created, she reports. Read The Atlantic’s September cover story: https://theatln.tc/KmMlZX6H

"The ceasefire condition is tantamount to saying to the Palestinians that to secure UK recognition, they need to go on being killed in Gaza." A bit on the perverse conditionality in Starmer's shift to recognising a Palestinian state inews.co.uk/opinion/star...

A top man in Murdoch's UK operation--and former editor of The Sun--given powerful new job in Starmer government. Cui bono in relation to this startling appointment? www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

Well as a first step anyway............, inews.co.uk/opinion/reco...

Labour MP Rachel Maskell's complaint that these “Dickensian cuts belong to a different era and a different party” summed up a measure by a government applying so little of the expertise it showed in winning a mandate to planning what to do with it. www.independent.co.uk/voices/liz-k...

Xavier Greenwood and me for the Observer Observer.co.uk/news/international/article/israels-strikes-on-iran-ease-pressure-on-netanyahu-in-gaza

Kuttner on Trump's conflicting pressures over Iran "Trump is the dummy, but a dummy who commands the world’s largest military. The two competing ventriloquists are Bannon and Netanyahu." prospect.org/blogs-and-ne...