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Phase two of Trump’s peace plan: A charade is being enacted before our eyes
It is important not to be misled by what we might call the surface activity that Trump’s plan for Gaza has prompted. Surface activity: a charade Beneath the flurry of international activity directed at taking Trump’s plan for Gaza into its second phase, lies another reality. The reality that Israel has not deviated from its Continue reading
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Brief account of my (and others) court hearing under Terrorism Act 2000
Yesterday, I was one of a number of people who had their plea hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court – that is, to formally plead either ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’ – in respect of charges brought under Section13 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Statement denied I aimed to make a statement to the court before entering Continue reading
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Have you noticed? The assault on democratic space
Not as part of a grand conspiratorial plan, notwithstanding what some might wish, but incrementally, step by separate step, the architecture of a repressive, authoritarian state is slowly being erected before our eyes. A multi-dimensional pincer movement comprising laws, processes, procedures, and rights-denying rhetoric, thematically laced together by the extraordinary growth in the concentration of Continue reading
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When a peace plan leads to no peace at all
On the 17 November 2025, the Security Council passed – thirteen in favour, zero dissenting, with China and Russia abstaining – Resolution 2803 endorsing Trump’s twenty-point plan for Gaza. The Security Council-endorsed plan is notable for the comprehensive way it marginalises potential Palestinian agency in contrast to Israel being treated as pretty well near an Continue reading
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Self-induced antisemitism
The words and deeds of the self-proclaimed Jewish state -Israel – are prime progenitors of antisemitism. International civil society, as distinct from so many governments, look on in horror, and perhaps in disbelief, as the Israeli state – via the words and deeds of its leaders, its officials, its military, its deranged, Old Testament-wielding, Settler Continue reading
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Football anyone? Travels in irony
It’s an odd sight, PM Starmer falling over himself to seek additional resources to enable Birmingham police to cope with the ‘high risk’ possibility that were Maccabi football fans allowed to attend their November Europa League game against Aston Villa, violent disorder emanating from the Maccabi fans was a realistic possibility. The ‘high risk’ designation Continue reading
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Trump’s peace plan. Really?
It’s over one hundred years since the then League of Nations, in 1922, bestowed upon Britain a mandate over Palestine. Much has come to pass in the intervening years, yet the spirit of the Mandate, and its anchor point, the 1917 Balfour Declaration, is with us still, finding expression in Trump’s so-called Gaza peace plan. Continue reading
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They know what they do
I’ve said it myself: ‘there is one person who can stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and the West Bank too, simply by picking up the phone to Netanyahu.’ That is President Trump. But that statement is not entirely correct, for there is another potential force that were it to be so minded has the capacity Continue reading
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No hindrance placed in their way
Victory is near. So at least must the West Bank Israeli-Jewish settlers’ assess as they consume by fire, bullet and bulldozer Palestinian land, livelihoods – and lives. No hindrance placed in their way. In Gaza, too, the death knell sounds as Israel busies itself with the dirty – but it must be done! – business Continue reading
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Two-states: solution or chimera?
This seems to me to be axiomatic: It is not possible to construct a viable, and just – note ‘and just’ – independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. The so-called ‘two-state solution’ is no solution at all. I have rehearsed the arguments supporting the propositions above, here and here and here and here, and therefore will Continue reading
About Me
This is Bernard Spiegal’s blog.
I write mainly about Palestine/Israel and related issues; sometimes other stuff too
Bernard Spiegal 