See footnote 1
Yvette Cooper has continually lied about Palestine Action in a panicked attempt to defend the proscription of a direct action protest group which is opposing a Genocide in which Cooper’s government is deeply complicit.
Craig Murray, below
Just over a week ago I described Craig Murray as:
… Britain’s Ambassador for Uzbekistan until Blair fired him for going public with the fact its leader was a nepotistic kleptocrat who boiled political opponents alive. This irked Teflon Tone since the crook in question, the late and unlamented Islam Karimov, was permitting the Coalition of the Willing to use his fiefdom’s former Soviet air bases to launch bombing raids on Iraq.
You may further recall Craig’s six month stint as a guest of HM the Q, after his conviction for the “jigsaw” identification of protected witnesses in the witch hunt collapsed trial of Scotland’s former SNP leader/First Minister, Alex Salmond. Or my posting his court reports at the Julian Assange appeals against his extradition to the USA. These were rather good …
That was in the context of UK home secretary Yvette Cooper having bribed, threatened, scared and slyly corralled 2 both houses of parliament into assenting to proscribe a non violent direct activist group, Palestine Action, as a terrorist organisation. 3
Which meant that when 800 of us sat with our placards in Parliament Square on Saturday, we were breaking the law:
The first three words are lawful. The last four became criminal a month ago under Britain’s Terrorism Act 2004
Over the years since Craig Murray joined the burgeoning ranks of gamekeepers turned poacher, he’s been no slouch as an investigative journalist. Take his piece yesterday, its lawfare-inviting title reproduced verbatim for this post. It’s long and very detailed, so I’ll confine myself to the opening and closing paragraphs while providing links at top, bottom and in between to the full piece.
Yvette Cooper is Lying
Yvette Cooper has continually lied about Palestine Action in a panicked attempt to defend the proscription of a direct action protest group which is opposing a Genocide in which Cooper’s government is deeply complicit.
Cooper and other government ministers have repeatedly claimed:
- Palestine Action attacks people, not just weapons-making equipment
- Palestine Action is funded by Iran or another hostile power
- Palestine Action attacks Jewish-owned businesses based on racism
- Palestine Action has plans for future unspecified appalling terrorist acts
In fact none of this is backed up by the assessment of the government’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre which forms the basis of the proscription of Palestine Action.
The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) is not a committee which meets occasionally, but a permanently staffed organisation with premises inside MI5 HQ in Millbank. The JTAC consists of representatives of:
MI5 – the Security Service
MI6 – the Special Intelligence Service
GCHQ – electronic and communications surveillance
DIS – the Defence Intelligence Service
Customs & Excise Special Operations
The Border Force
Metropolitan Police Counter-Terrorism Command
The Home Office
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Ministry of Defence
The Department of Transport
Ten other ministries are included on an ad hoc basis.
All reports of the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre must be approved by consensus of all involved.
It is of course vitally important that all of these bodies are under ministerial control. The object of the exercise is to produce the result desired by ministers, i.e. proscription, justified only on available true facts and a legally tenable argument under the current legislation …
Here’s where Craig begins his deep dive into the detailed workings of JTAC, using both his own experience as a UK ambassador and his muck-raking acumen. I recommend studying at least some of it.
And here are his concluding remarks:
- If Palestine Action deliberately attacked people …
- If Palestine Action had foreign funding …
- If Palestine Action attacked random Jewish businesses …
- If Palestine Action planned a big terrorist act …
… the JTAC report would say so. It says nothing of the sort.
Palestine Action is what it says it is: a non-violent direct action group which targets the Israeli weapons industry and its support and supply line.
It states that its actions are not terrorism but direct action to prevent Genocide – and when given the chance, juries have usually sided with Palestine Action against the government.
The reason Yvette Cooper has proscribed Palestine Action is that she is a member of Labour Friends of Israel and has received £215,000 from the Zionist lobby – which is £215,000 more than Palestine Action ever received on behalf of a foreign power.
I’d say “one of the reasons” – see here and here and here (with the last two taken together)– rather than “the reason”, but let’s not quibble. Like husband and partner in venality Ed Balls …
… she’s compromised by Lobby largesse.
Ministers are lying to you. I have provided a little antiseptic daylight.
Here for the third time is the link to the piece on Craig Murray’s website.
* * *
- In that short Novara Media clip, Michael Walker mocks Yvette Cooper’s “if you knew what I knew” with a phrase – “she goes to another school” – I hadn’t encountered before. Says Know Your Meme:
You Wouldn’t Know Her, She Goes to Another School is used to avoid admitting to not having a girlfriend.
So MW has simply extended the phrase’s scope. Great: can’t wait to use it myself.
- By bundling Palestine Action with two truly murderous outfits in the proscription package presented for parliamentary endorsement, the home secretary ensured that MPs could only vote against listing Palestine Action as terrorists by also voting against the same for Maniacs Murder Cult.
- Here’s Middle East Eye, yesterday:
On Wednesday, former cabinet minister Peter Hain warned that the ban would “end in tears for the government”, adding that his fellow Labour peers and MPs were regretting voting for the group’s proscription.